IN presenting to the Public the Second Volume of "A Constitutional View of the Late War between the States," it is proper to say, in the first place, that I have greatly regretted the delay which has attended its publication. This has been occasioned by a long serious bodily affliction, from which I have been in an almost helpless condition for more than twelve months. I have been enabled to complete the Work at last, only through the slow process attending the reliance upon. others entirely in the manual execution.
The readers of the First Volume will recollect, that the actual conversations, of which the Colloquies are but an elaborate reproduction, took place between the parties in 1867. They therefore do not embrace any public events which have occurred subsequently to that period.
Since the Publication of the First Volume, several attacks have been made upon positions therein assumed. The most important of these which has come to my notice, was the one by Mr. Greeley, in the New York Tribune, during the last summer. As it is important in matters of this sort as well as others, that positions in the rear be made perfectly secure before further advances in front, it is also deemed quite proper that that attack shall be here noticed before the reader's attention is invited to the Colloquies which follow.
This attack of Mr. Greeley was answered at the time—17th of August, 1869-through the Constitutionalist newspaper of Augusta, Ga. But as many readers of the Tribune, who may be readers of this Work, have doubtless never seen the answer, and might not otherwise ever see it, it is deemed altogether