Excerpt from Washington and His Generals: Or Legends of the Revolution

Allow me, sir, to inscribe with your name, this book of Washington and his Generals, as illustrated in the Legends of the Revolution.

To you, as Editor and Proprietor of the first literary journal in the country - a journal which numbering its readers by hundreds of thousands, has hitherto stood alone in its proud devotion to the American Past - do I with sincere feelings of respect for your heart and intellect, dedicate these Legends of the camp, the council, and the field.

I am induced to make this Dedication, by a feeling of simple justice to myself and you. Your paper has always been, not only the family paper of the Union, but the Journal of Revolutionary Romance and History. As the Editor, you have ever been untiring in your efforts, to preserve in its columns, the legends of our battle fields, the chronicles of our early struggles for freedom, the memories of our illus trions dead.

Your name therefore, by a Sincere impulse of justice, I inscribe at the head of these traditions, trusting that you will excuse the liberty I have taken, on account of the feeling by which it is dictated.

There are other reasons which enter into the Spirit of this Dedication. Last summer, when my good name as a citizen, my honor as an author, was attacked in the most licentious manner, by a band of obscene libellers - some of whom have since made their humble and fawning apologies to me - you did not count the cost, nor falter for a moment, but came out for me like a Man, and in the columns of your paper, whipped the whole pack into their native obscurity.

This is strong language. The occasion demands it. The men who have made me the object of their slander, ever since I published a line, are no less merciless in their dealings with the unfortunate, than they are servile and truckling to the rich and powerful. They would stab you in the back to-day, and lick the dust from your shoes to-morrow.

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