University of Virginia Library

THE SCENE OF THE ROMANCE.

The incidents of the battle of the fourth of October,
1777, the evolutions of the opposing armies, the
characteristics of the American partizan chief compared
with the British officer, the manner of the fight
of Germantown, the scene, the people, and the
actors, the self-devotion of Washington, the daring
feats of his compatriots—furnish the foundation, if
not the superstructure of this Romance of Revolutionary
History.

To those who know nothing about the matter, it
may seem a very easy task, to mould a correct and
graphic history of a battle-field of the Revolution,
from the rough block of history, marred by paradoxes
and disfigured by contradictions. Yet those who
have trodden the path of revolutionary romance,
which is now essayed by the author, will emphatically
corroborate one important fact, which the reader
will do well to remember—that the history of all our
battle-fields is shadowed by mystery and darkened
by doubt; that there are innumerable contradictory
narratives of a single event, that even the actors in
the scenes of the American Revolution, have told

varying stories of the great battles of the “eight
years' war,” described them in a conflicting manner,
and in some instances covered the whole subject
with darkness and obscurity.

With all these difficulties to encounter, the author
has constructed the work now presented to the public.
It is important for the reader to bear one prominent
fact in remembrance. This work is not offered
for perusal merely as an idle romance, but as a dramatic
and legendary history of the battle, prepared
from the details of various accredited written histories,
the narratives of survivors of the field, as well
as the thousand wild legends of the fight of Germantown,
current in the vicinity of the battle-field.

It may not be impertinent to remark in this place,
that the first edition of this romance, was received
when published in six periodical numbers, in a standard
journal, with popular favor as signal as it was
unexpected. Extensively copied, it was returned to
the author from all quarters of the Union, transferred
into the columns of some of the most noted journals
of the land. This mark of popular favor induced the
present publisher to offer the book to the public in a
more substantial form. It will be succeeded by a
much more voluminous romance (the scene of which
is laid on the field of a battle no less celebrated than
Germantown) entitled—

BLANCHE OF BRANDYWINE.