"This book written around my papers is in no sense a conventional apologia such as, despite my best intentions, I should probably have written had I attempted to describe the stirring and controversial events in which it was my fortune to play a part. The reader must bear in mind that it treats only of such matters as came within the orbit of my own activities. The President and his Cabinet dealt with many questions which could not enter into this narrative. My chief desire has been to let the papers tell their own story, and for this reason I have preferred to leave their arrangement in the hands of an historian." --Prefatory note by Colonel House, Volume 1.