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Regarding the reputation for intrepidity gained by Federal and Confederate sailors and soldiers during our civil war as the common heritage of the American people, I determined, last year, at the instance of The Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, to write the story of Mobile Bay: This, when completed, I read before the Society, (december 10th, and the favorable reception it met with has induced me to give it to the public, the more especially as it is accompa nied with a number of official reports, never before published, which cannot fail to interest the general reader and be Of value to the historian.
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