Excerpt from The Life of Lieutenant General ChaffeeGeneral Chaffee was one of two million young men and boys who during the fratricidal con¿ict volun teered with only one thought - to save the Union. The vast majority of them have gone to their tombs, and the Grim Reaper, from whom none escapes, is rapidly gathering the survivors to their last bivouac. The world goes on, and the kaleidoscopic course of modern events seems to leave no time for re¿ection upon the deeds of those young patriots, yet their fame and glory are secure in the hearts of the nation, and the story of their achievements will survive when all the bronze and marble monuments now standing to mark their conquering pathway in war have crumbled to dust and passed back to Mother Earth.We are coming more and more to recognize that truthful history of the great forward movements which have characterized the nation's rise and progress is best deduced from the journals, diaries, and reports of the men who have rendered the state some service. General Chaffee's life was an open book to his comrades, but now that he and they have passed over the great divide it is no easy matter to uncover the earlier trail of half a century and to do justice to his modest, fear less, and successful career.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.