Excerpt from The Life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston: Embracing His Services in the Armies of the United States, the Republic of Texas, and the Confederate States A biography of Albert Sidney Johnston will need no apology with a large class of his countrymen. Many discreet men have urged upon the writer that his duty, both as son and citizen, required him to do this work. They believed that the omission of a picture of this heroic life would leave unfilled an important panel in the gallery of American history, in which the Civil War occupies so large a space. In response to such demand this memoir has been written. The writer would gladly have devolved his task on some more competent and disinterested hand. He has felt keenly the restrictions and obligations imposed by the filial relation. Hostile criticism can always begin its argument with the charge that it is impossible for a son to be fair; and the writer's own heart teaches him how difficult it is to be always and perfectly just. A writer who strives to delineate a dear, dead father will not mar the picture by a portrait below his own ideal, though it may well fall short of the heroic proportions of the original. But it is not necessary to be impartial, in order to be truthful; and, without love, there can be no correct interpretation of character. Knowing that he has made an honest effort to find out and relate the truth in every particular in this volume, the writer trusts that much will be pardoned to him. If a friend could have been found fitted by preparation, leisure, and literary enthusiasm, for so heavy a charge, it would have been consigned to him with a feeling of immeasurable relief. But this was not to be. The labor promised and proved to be very great. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.