and several magazines.  One of his stories, A Dance with Death, considered by his contemporaries “one of the most thrilling narratives,” was based on true experiences which earned him the reputation of being a “stranger to danger and absolutely fearless.”  His Kershaw’s Brigade ... was written, as he announced, at the request of the local chapter of the United Confederate Veterans and published by Aull “without one dollar in sight—­a recompense for time, material, and labor being one of the remotest possibilities.”

Dickert was married twice.  By his first wife, Katie Cromer of Fairfield County, he had four children, Roland, Claude, Alma, and Gussie; and by his second, Mrs. Alice Coleman, also of Fairfield, one child, Lucile, now Mrs. A.C.  Mobley of Denmark, S.C.

Dickert died suddenly at his home of a heart attack on October 4, 1917, aged seventy-three, and was buried in Newberry’s Rosemont Cemetery.

University of Alabama

W. Stanley Hoole

* * * * *

In preparing this preface I have enjoyed the assistance of Mrs. Lucile Dickert Mobley, Dickert’s only surviving child; Mrs. A.S.  Wells, a niece, of 1120 West 46 St., Minneapolis, Minn.; Mrs. Kathleen S. Fesperman, librarian of Newberry College; Inabinett, librarian, South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina, and his student aide, Miss Laura Rickenbacker; and Robert J. and Mary E. Younger, owners of the Morningside Bookshop, Dayton, Ohio.  Besides the letter (which I own) and the books mentioned in the text I have also used The Dictionary of American Biography, X, 359-360 (New York, 1933); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, ed. by Robert U. Johnson and Clarence C. Buell, III, 331-338 (New York, 1884-1888); James Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox ... (Philadelphia, 1896); The Photographic History of the Civil War, ed. by Francis T. Miller, II, III, X, passim (New York, 1911); W.A.  Brunson, Glimpses of Old Darlington (Columbia, 1910); and Elbert H. Aull, “D.  Augustus Dickert” in the Newberry Herald and News, Oct. 5, 1917.

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION.

More than thirty-four years have passed away since the soldiers who composed the Second South Carolina Regiment of Infantry, the Third South Carolina Regiment of Infantry, the Eighth South Carolina Regiment of Infantry, the Fifteenth South Carolina Regiment of Infantry, the Twentieth South Carolina Regiment of Infantry, and the Third South Carolina Battalion of Infantry, which commands made up Kershaw’s Brigade, laid down their arms; and yet, until a short time ago, no hand has been raised to perpetuate its history.  This is singular, when it is remembered how largely the soldiers of this historic brigade contributed to win for the State of South Carolina the glory rightfully hers, by reason of the splendid heroism of her sons in the war between the States, from the year 1861 to that of 1865.  If another generation had been allowed to pass, it is greatly feared that the power to supply the historian with the information requisite to this work would have passed away forever.