By David W. Stafford....

Now in the commencement of this narrative and tale of my early life, I must say that a good part of my life has been somewhat gloomy. At the time of my entering the service of my country I was seventeen years of age. It was just after the first and second engagements at Bull Run. My father was a poor man, the father of some nine children, and a shoemaker by trade. I had left home early in my youth, when about fourteen or fifteen years old, and at this time, just before the war, a boy’s chances f