Excerpt from The Fifth Regiment: Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in Its Three Tours of Duty 1861, 1862-'63, 1864 In telling the several stories, care is taken to keep close to the regiment; only as much is told of other bodies and events as may be necessary to make clear the services of those who called themselves The Fifth. As a rule, the nearer we keep to the individual the more entertaining is found the narrative. The Roster becomes a series of brief biographies of all those who constituted the rank and file of the regiment, thus assuming somewhat the form and character of a roll of honor. Probably less than a fifth part of all the men belonging can ever see their names in these lists, but the same may be a source of satisfac tion to descendants and friends as well as to the general public that will ever revert to this period of the nation's life as one of its exhibition of true chivalry. 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.