These sketches, taken from letters hastily written in the few leisure moments of a very busy life, make no pretension to literary merit, but are simply a brief record of one person's hospital experience. As such, they are republished, with their many faults but partially amended, lest in retouching they should lose whatever force or freshness the inspiration of the time may have given them. To those who have objected to a "tone of levity" in some portions of the sketches, I desire to say that the wish to make the best of every thing, and send home cheerful reports even from that saddest of scenes, an army hospital, probably prduced the impression of levity upon those who have never knows the sharp contrasts of the tragic and comic in such a life. The unexpected favor with which the little book was greeted, and the desire for new edition, increase the author's regret that it is not more worthy of such a kind reception.--L.M.A., Concord, March 1869