Excerpt from The Young Franc-Tireurs and Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War

My Dear Lads: The present story was written and published a few months only after the termination of the Franco-German war. At that time the plan which I have since carried out in "The Young Buglers," "Cornet of Horse," and "In Times of Peril," and which I hope to continue in farther volumes, of giving under the guise of historical tales full and accurate accounts of all the leading events of great wars, had not occurred to me. My object was only to represent one phase of the struggle, the action of the bodies of volunteer troops known as franc-tireurs. The story is laid in France, and is therefore written from the French point of view. The names, places, and dates have been changed, but circumstances and facts are true. There were a good many English among the franc-tireurs, and boys of from fifteen to sixteen were by no means uncommon in their ranks. Having been abroad during the whole of the war, I saw a good deal of these irregulars, and had several intimate friends among them. Upon the whole, these corps did much less service to the cause of France than might have been reasonably expected. They were too often badly led, and were sometimes absolutely worse than useless.

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