have a salutary influence on the mind and heart. Should the records of female courage and virtue herein presented to the daughters of the land, encourage, even in the slight. est degree, a laudable spirit of emulation, our humble labors will not have been put forth in vain.

Facts are more sublime than fictions; and American women have actually performed all the good, and grand, and glorious deeds which the honest and judicious novelist dares ascribe to the female sex; hence we have found no occasion, in striving to make this work interesting, to deviate from the path of historical truth.

The sources whence our materials have been derived, are largely indicated in the body of the work. Possibly, however, we may have failed, in some instances, to indicate our indebtedness to historians and biographers where such reference was justly demanded; suffice it to say, therefore, once for all, that, although something like two hundred of these pages are in our own language, we deserve but little credit for originality, and would prefer to be regarded as an unpre tending compiler, rather than as an aspirant to the title of author. J. C. April, 1851.

NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION.

The fact that eight thousand copies of this work have been published in less than a year after its appearance, indicates a degree of popularity which was not anticipated. In this edition we have thrown out a few pages of the old matter, and substituted, in most instances, fresher anecdotes; and this revision, with the illustrations which the liberal-minded publishers have added, will, it is hoped, render the work still more acceptable.

BUFFALO, March, 1952.

J. a.