IT becomes my duty and privilege to undertake the publication of General Early's narrative of the war left in manuscript form at the time of his death, March 2, 1894. Its preparation covered the term of years beginning immediately after the close of the war and continuing to the end of his life. Impressed with the belief that "truth crushed to earth will rise again," he labored conscientiously at his task, the motive of his writing being the wish that a detailed history, accurate as far as lay within his compassing, might be handed down to posterity. He was well equipped for the work undertaken and his efforts met with the encouragement of his former comrades. In submitting to the public the result of his long labor, I feel confident of its being accorded the just consideration for which he strove.