University of Virginia Library

THE READER is respectfully requested to remember, that the volume before him contains ten thousand names
and over a hundred thousand statements of facts. Errors must needs occur in a compilation of this nature. The compilers
are willing to take their share of the responsibility, but not more than their share. A few mistakes may be credited
to the printer, who has always to bear his burden. But the majority of errors will be found upon investigation not real
errors, but misapprehensions, that can be retraced to the persons who furnished the information here presented. Many wrote
of kinsmen and friends, unconscious of the bias that changed a Colonel into a General or an Assistant Surgeon into a
Surgeon. Others relied too much on frail memory, and especially in questions relating to the early years of the University,
mistook dates and forgot first names, or confounded brothers and namesakes with each other. Even where former students
gave an account of themselves, memory did not always serve faithfully, and many a letter contained the strange statement,
"I was at the University, I believe, in 1835 or 36." Nor must the fact be overlooked that not a few letters have appeared,
written by men who claim to have won honors at the University and to be most warmly attached to the Institution
and their old teachers—but who, upon inquiry, are found never to have been entered on the University Record.

Even the names of students offered an occasion for apparent errors. Some have changed their family name in after-life,
others dropped or adopted Christian names—an eminent Western statesman, anxious to be correctly recorded, wrote that he
had thus changed his first name three times in his life. The Matriculation-Book constantly shows certain names to assume
new shapes in subsequent years; e. g., the Field of one year becomes a Feild in the second, the Thomson a Thompson,
and the Sampson a Samson. Where there are such countless sources of possible error, great indulgence will, it is hoped, be
practised and much allowance be made for apparent mistakes.

Finally the compilers beg to state that no statement in this volume is made upon their own responsibility. When no
voucher could be obtained, either from the owner of a name or a trustworthy friend, a blank has appeared preferable to a
doubtful statement.