Active Service
By Jno. B. Castleman
Although the writer's endeavors have been varied and experiences unusual, they have in no way justified belief in his fitness to write a book. Many friends have, from time to time in more than thirty years, admonished me that my inditing, in permanent record, incidents which had come within my personal experience and knowledge, was a duty I owed to them, to the public, and to the correct presentation of certain historic data of importance.
Henry Watterson, my comrade and life-long and loyal friend, has demanded of me that I "go along and write."
My dear old comrades, Thomas W. Bullitt and David W. Sanders, some years ago had an interview with Mrs. Castleman and me, and insisted that, if I failed to "write the book," I should make them my literary legatees, and they would for me fulfill this obligation. Now these able lawyers and gallant men have both gone where good soldiers go, and I am animated by a wish to do what they thought I ought to do.
So, with all these combined influences which induced action for which I realized my lack of fitness, I did, in 1908, essay to "write a book."
Having produced the result of an earnest effort, I called into service a competent committee of critics, and asked of this committee to consider if, in its judgment, my production was as inadequate as it seemed to me. The committee consisted of my wife and daughters and my son Breckinridge.
To these critics I read more than one hundred pages of manuscript, relative to my boyhood and to my observations of that period, and the candor of the committee was so severe and so thoroughly in harmony with my own opinion that I destroyed what I had written, and allowed two years to pass before again undertaking a task which seemed altogether hopeless.
The critics were largely directed by the thought that my boyhood life and that of the neighborhood wherein I was brought up would enlist little interest beyond that of my own family and that of my friends.
I afterwards set about recasting my work along lines which would avoid the admitted errors of my first result. This was no easy task, for the modest inspiration which stimulated my primary work was not again at my command.
It did not seem possible to "come back," yet I did try; but I found that the unfolded memories of more than sixty years of the past seemed to be closed to my vivid recollection, and Life's picture gallery was not easily lighted again, along the walls where boyhood scenes had given pleasure.
My friend, Young E. Allison, called one morning at my office, and carried away with him some of the manuscript of the rewritten narrative which then lay on my desk. He returned the following day, and left...
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