Fighting for the Right

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  THE BLUE AND THE GRAY--AFLOAT

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  TAKEN BY THE ENEMY WITHIN THE ENEMY'S LINES ON THE BLOCKADE STAND BY THE UNION FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT A VICTORIOUS UNION

  THE BLUE AND THE GRAY--ON LAND

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  BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER IN THE SADDLE A LIEUTENANT AT EIGHTEEN ON THE STAFF AT THE FRONT AN UNDIVIDED UNION

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  Lee and Shepard Publishers Boston

  "Christy seized him by the collar with both hands." Page 75.]

  The

  BLUE AND THE GRAY

  Series

 

  By Oliver Optic

  FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT

  _The Blue and the Gray Series_

  FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT

  by

  OLIVER OPTIC

  Author of"The Army and Navy Series" "Young America Abroad""The Great Western Series" "The Woodville Stories""The Starry Flag Series" "The Boat-Club Series""The Onward and Upward Series" "The Yacht-Club Series""The Lake Shore Series" "The Riverdale Stories""The Boat-Builder Series" "Taken by the Enemy""Within the Enemy's Lines" "On the Blockade""Stand by the Union" "A Missing Million""A Millionaire at Sixteen" etc., etc., etc.

  BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD Publishers

  Copyright, 1892 by Lee and Shepard _All Rights Reserved_

  Fighting for the Right

  Type-Setting and Electrotyping by C. J. Peters & Son, Boston

  To

  My Grand Nephew

  RICHARD LABAN ADAMS

  This Book

  Is Affectionately Dedicated

  PREFACE

  "FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT" is the fifth and last but one of "The Blue andthe Gray Series." The character of the operations in connection with thewar of the Rebellion, and the incidents in which the interest of theyoung reader will be concentrated, are somewhat different from most ofthose detailed in the preceding volumes of the series, though they allhave the same patriotic tendency, and are carried out with the samedevotion to the welfare of the nation as those which deal almost solelyin deeds of arms.

  Although the soldiers and sailors of the army and navy of the Union wonall the honors gained in the field of battle or on the decks of thenational ships, and deserved all the laurels they gathered by theirskill and bravery in the trying days when the republic was in peril,they were not the only actors in the greatest strife of the nineteenthcentury. Not all the labor of "saving the Union" was done in thetrenches, on the march, on the gun deck of a man-of-war, or in othermilitary and naval operations, though without these the efforts of allothers would have been in vain. Thousands of men and women who never"smelled gunpowder," who never heard the booming cannon, or the rattlingmusketry, who never witnessed a battle on sea or land, but who kepttheir minds and hearts in touch with the holy cause, labored diligentlyand faithfully to support and sustain the soldiers and sailors at thefront.

  If all those who fought no battles are not honored like the leaders andcommanders in the loyal cause, if they wear no laurels on their brows,if no monuments are erected to transmit their memory to posterity, iftheir names and deeds are not recorded in the Valhalla of the redeemednation, they ought not to be disregarded and ignored. It was not on thefield of strife alone in the South that the battle was fought and won.The army and the navy needed a moral, as well as a material support,which was cheerfully rendered by the great army of the people who neverbuckled on a sword, or shouldered a musket. Their work can not be summedup in deeds, for there was little or nothing that was brilliant anddazzling in their career. They need no monuments; but their work wasnecessary to the final and glorious result of the most terrible war ofmodern times.

  No apology is necessary for placing the hero of the story and hisskilful associate in a position at a distance from the actual field ofbattle. They were working for the salvation of the Union as effectivelyas they could have done in the din of the strife. They were "Fightingfor the Right," as they understood it, though it is not treason to say,thirty years later, that the people of the South were as sincere asthose of the North; and they could hardly have fought and suffered tothe extent they did if it had been otherwise.

  The incidents of the volume are more various than in the precedingstories, which were so largely a repetition of battle scenes; but thehero is still as earnest as ever in the cause he loves. He attains ahigh position without any ambition to win it; for, like millions ofothers who gave the best years of their lives to sustain the Union, whosuffered the most terrible hardships and privations, so many hundreds ofthousands giving their lives to their country, Christy fought andlabored for the cause, and not from any personal ambition. It is theyoung man's high character, his devotion to duty, rather than theincidents and adventures in which he is engaged, that render him worthyof respect, and deserving of the honors that were bestowed upon him. Theyounger participants in the war of the Rebellion, Christy Passford amongthe number, are beginning to be grizzled with the snows of fiftywinters; but they are still rejoicing in "A Victorious Union."

  William T. Adams.

  Dorchester, April 18, 1892.