PREFATORY NOTE.
Reading edition
In writing this biographical sketch I have performed not a task, but a labor of love, for I was, during many years, both in times of peace and of war, intimately associated with the distinguished sailor whose career I have attempted to trace.
The appendix was added in consequence of letters I received asking for information in regard to the navigation of the upper Amazon river and its tributaries, a highway for commerce destined to be much better known in the near future than it is at present.
J.H.R.
Courtland, Virginia, July 1, 1888.