



Produced by Graeme Mackreth and The Online Distributed
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[Illustration: LUTHER W. HOPKINS.

Taken from an old daguerreotype in 1861, before entering the army.]




 FROM BULL RUN
 TO APPOMATTOX

 A BOY'S VIEW

 BY
 L.W. HOPKINS
 OF GENL. J.E.B. STUART'S CAVALRY
 6TH VIRGINIA REGIMENT, C.S.A.


 PRESS OF
 FLEET-MCGINLEY CO.
 BALTIMORE




 Copyright, 1908
 By L.W. HOPKINS
 Baltimore




PREFACE

   "Life is the mirror of the king and slave,
     'Tis just what you are and do.
   Then give to the world the best you have,
     And the best will come back to you."


I never thought that I should be guilty of writing a book. I did not,
however, do this with malice aforethought. My son is responsible for
whatever sin I may have committed in presenting this to the public. He
and I have been good friends ever since we became acquainted, and he has
always insisted upon my telling him all that I know. When he was about
three years old he discovered that I had been a soldier in Lee's army
from 1861 to 1865, and, although he is of Quaker descent and a loyal
member of the Society of Friends, and I am half Quaker, yet he loved war
stories and I loved to tell them. This accounts for the production of
the book. After I had told him these stories over and over, again and
again, when he was grown he insisted upon my starting at the beginning
and giving him the whole of my experience in the Confederate army. Then
he wanted it published. I yielded to his request, and here is the book.
This is not, however, an exact copy of the typewritten manuscript which
he has. The original manuscript is more personal. I thought the change
would make it more acceptable to the general reader.

We all believe in peace; universal peace, but when war does come, and
such a costly war as the one from which this story is taken, we ought
to get all the good out of it we can. The long marches along dusty
roads, under hot suns, the long marches through sleet and snows, the
long dreary nights without shelter, the march of the picket to and fro
on his beat, the constant drilling and training, the struggle on the
battlefields, all these are part of the material that the world has
always used in constructing a nation. While there are some things about
war that we should forget, there are many things that ought never to