In this book is written the marvelous and inspiring life-story of a man of the Negro race who rose up from the most abject condition of birth and environment to dignity and honor, power and authority, before the snows of the winter age had whitened his head. The descendant of ancestors who had been dragged from the jungles of Africa into the slavery of the American cotton field, himself born in slavery and sold as a human chattel on the block of the slave market of Henderson, Kentucky, this man fought his way with a dogged persistence and a sublime courage to a place of peerage in the affairs of the nation that had shackled himself and his fathers. Withal, he preserved throughout his life a nobility of character and a gentleness of soul which saved him to blithe and serene living, and which leaves him now, in the twilight of his days, at peace with the world, honored by the community where he lives, distinguished in the service he rendered the nation which had enslaved him, loved by all who know him without regard to race or creed--a man of deeds and Christian charity. Colonel Allen Allensworth is my friend, and I am proud to call him such. All men would be the better for knowing him, and every man and woman, boy and girl, white or black, will receive both inspiration and a deep sense of pleasure for reading this his "Battles and Victories."