"on the blockade" is the third of "the blue and the gray series." like the first and second volumes, its incidents are dated back to the war of the rebellion, and located in the midst of its most stirring scenes on the southern coast, where the naval operations of the united states contributed their full share to the final result.
the writer begs to remind his readers again that he has not felt called upon to invest his story with the dignity of history, or in all cases to mingle fiction with actual historic occurrences. he believes that all the scenes of the story are not only possible, but probable, and that just such events as he has narrated really and frequently occurred in the days of the rebellion.
the historian is forbidden to make his work more palatable or more interesting by the intermixture of fiction with fact, while the story-writer, though required to be reasonably consistent with the spirit 8 and the truth of history, may wander from veritable details, and use his imagination in the creation of incidents upon which the grand result is reached. it would not be allowable to make the rebellion a success, if the writer so desired, even on the pages of romance; and it would not be fair or just to ignore the bravery, the self-sacrifice, and the heroic endurance of the southern people in a cause they believed to be holy and patriotic, as almost universally admitted at the present time, any more than it would be to lose sight of the magnificent spirit, the heroism, the courage, and the persistence, of the northern people in accomplishing what they believed then, and still believe, was a holy and patriotic duty in the preservation of the union.
incidents not inconsistent with the final result, or with the spirit of the people on either side in the great conflict are of comparatively little consequence. that general lee or general grant turned this or that corner in reaching appomattox may be important, but the grand historical tableau is the christian hero, noble in the midst of defeat, disaster, and ruin, formally rendering his sword to the impassible but magnanimous conqueror 9 as the crowning event of a long and bloody war. the details are historically important, though overshadowed by the mighty result of the great conflict.
many of the personages of the preceding volumes have been introduced in the present one, and the central figure remains the same. the writer is willing to admit that his hero is an ideal character, though his lofty tone and patriotic spirit were fully paralleled by veritable individuals during the war; and he is not prepared to apologize for the abundant success which attended the career of christy passford. those who really struggled as earnestly and faithfully deserved his good fortune, though they did not always obtain it.
dorchester, mass., april 24, 1890.
