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Introduction
Soon after the close of the
Civil War,
Major J. Henry Sleeper, for his own information and enjoyment, obtained permission from the
Adjutant General of the
U. S. A., to have an exact copy of the
Morning Report Book of the Tenth Massachusetts Battery made.
For various reasons the historian of the company in preparing its history some years since made but slight use of this book.
The lapse of time has shown the survivors of the
Battery that this omission on the part of their historian was a mistake; that many of them could have been materially aided in establishing their claims for a pension had these records been available, and that other historical material omitted should have found place in the volume.
Acting on this idea at the last meeting of the
Battery Association a committee was chosen, consisting of
John D. Billings,
Maj. Milbrey Green and
Lieut. Charles E. Pierce and given full power to print the contents of the
Morning Report Book with such other valuable historical material as seemed desirable.
That committee, after careful deliberation, decided it to be the part of wisdom to publish these Morning Reports, adding to them the history written many years ago carefully revised and corrected with its roster made accurate and complete.
The committee also voted to include in the volume such portraits of members as can now be obtained and as many camp and battlefield sketches as are available, with a mortuary list to date, thus embracing compactly the
Battery's story as full and complete as it can now ever be told and more complete than most of the stories that have been written.
No attempt has been made to correct orthography or supply omissions in the records of the
Morning Reports.
They are reproduced as written (save the daily reports of the number of men and horses present which are omitted.) A few hiatuses in the narrative are due to the breaking off of pieces of the leaves in using, the book having been reduced to tinder in the safe of
Major Sleeper during the great
Boston fire of 1871.
The work of compilation, composition, and correction, though approved by the whole committee, was devolved on one who hereby assumes all responsibility for whatever faults the volume shall be found to have.
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