A general history containing a detailed account of the services rendered by each individual regiment engaged in the Civil War would be impracticable if not impossible. Regiments are merged into larger organizations, and in a war of such magnitude as our Civil War, the historian must, as a rule, confine himself to the important movements in which the army in its larger subdivision was engaged. Thus it will be seen that in the general history of any great war regimental organizations must lose their identity, and after a few years, except those who performed some very notable deeds of valor, even the names of regiments and the officers and men who composed them will have passed into oblivion.

History tells us of the heroism of our ancestors in subduing the savages, opening up the New World to civilization and the introduction of civil and religious liberty. We read of the heroes of the American Revolution and their long struggle for independence. How they suffered at Valley Forge; how their unexampled courage and fortitude, through seven long years of war, under the guidance of Divine Providence, finally led to the winning of their liberty, and the building up of a great Republic in the Western World.

We read of the second war with Great Britain in which the young Republic again measured arms with the mother country, then as now, the leading nation of the world. How our gallant soldiers and sailors were again victorious, achieving what was termed "our second independence."

Again we read of our war with Mexico in which our gallant army under Gen. Winfield Scott, and Gen. Zachary Taylor, after a series of unbroken victories, dictated terms of peace in the ancient capitol of the Aztecs and acquired a vast extent of territory now formed into great and prosperous States of the Union.

Of the many thousands of heroic officers and men who achieved these victories and placed our country in the front rank of the nations of the world, but few of their names could be found now outside the musty records of the War Department.

It would be interesting reading to the descendants of these heroes if they could turn to some ancient regimental history and read the names of their progenitors ; the company to which they belonged, the marches they made, the battles they fought, in short, the honorable part they took in the great dramas that have been enacted upon this. Continent since the beginning of our history.

It is the design of this work to rescue from that oblivion into which so much of the past that should have been preserved, has fallen, the names and services of the officers and men who composed the Thirteenth Tenn. Cavalry, U. S. A., to which we belonged, and to whom we were attached by the strongest ties of affection, made sacred by sharing with them the common dangers, hardships and toils incident to the volunteer soldier's life. We hope to leave on record, to be read by our children and grandchildren the honorable part our gallant Regiment with other East Tennessee regiments, equally brave and loyal, took in fighting for the Union and the old flag. We hope also to leave on record some glimpses of sunshine and mirth that were mingled with the sadder and sterner scenes that memory brings back to us.

We desire to pay a just tribute to that large class of loyal men in Johnson and Carter counties, who through physical infirmities, age, and other causes, were unable to join the Federal army, but, in the absence of the soldiers, were the guardians and protectors of their families; sharing in the common dangers, hopes and fears through which the Unionists of East Tennessee passed during this unhappy period.

Many of these men contributed their all in caring for the suffering families whose fathers, husbands and brothers were in the army, or driven from home; and in supplying the wants of refugees and "Scouters" who were in hiding from conscript officers. No men did a nobler part than these and none deserve greater praise.

To the noble and patriotic women in these counties, whose untold suffering would fill a volume in itself, we offer our highest praise. Most of them have passed beyond the reach of praise or adulation to "that bourne from whence no traveler returns," but we hope to give their names and record their deeds, as far as possible, so that generations yet to come may honor them and revere their memory. No night was too dark, no danger too imminent, and no labor too arduous for these self-sacrificing heroines to perform, when the opportunity was presented to lend a helping hand to the hunted and starving Unionists.

The story of their trials, persecutions, hardships and dangers; their suffering and anxiety, can never be told. Their hearts though brave and true, were tender and loving and ever open to the appeals of distress; their willing hands ever ready to give aid and comfort to the sick and suffering, the helpless and needy.

0, brave, loving mothers and maidens of Carter and Johnson counties, who faced the tempest of hatred and persecution, during the Civil War; whose willing hands were always ready to minister to the suffering and distressed; who carried food to the hunted and famishing Union men; who wore the home-spun fabrics wrought by your own hands; who, through weary years of watching and waiting, never faltered in love and faith and duty to home, friends, or country, we would weave about your memory a chaplet of love, honor and lasting remembrance! Your heroic devotion, your unparalleled suffering and uncomplaining toil should furnish a theme for poets, more thrilling than the Iliad of Homer or the Epics of Virgil that have enshrined the names of Grecian and Roman matrons and maidens in immortal verse.

The deeds of the loyal men of Johnson and Carter counties, could they be told in all their thrilling details, would rival in patriotic interest the stories of Robert Bruce, William Wallace, or the brave Leonidas, who with his three hundred Spartans held the pass at Thermopylae against the hosts of Persian aggressors.