Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE. In committing the subjoined pages to the tide of popular favor, the author disavows any claim to literary merit. He issues them as a diary of events now blended with the history of his country. They have been jotted down principally for his own amusement, .or to beguile away the otherwise long and weary hours of camp life. They are now brought forth as the means of introducing into the family circle a concise, and perhaps instructive, narrative of events, a description of the country, its scenery, the people, their manners and customs, which have been subjected to his own observation. The journal commences with the first movement of the
Army of Observation. The author’s personal knowledge extends to the time when General Taylor was deprived of his regulars at Victoria, prior to his return to Monterey, and to his own departure from the .army, subsequent to the fall of Vera Cruz. The remaining incidents of the campaign of General Taylor are compiled from his official dispatches, and from graphic letters written by gentlemen associated with the army. He must not forget to acknowledge his obligations to Lieutenant A. Sully, of the army, for his spiritedembellishments; and to Major J. H. Eaton, to whom he is indebted for a few designs. From the nature of the forces employed during the war, it is a natural supposition that there are few persons who have not had some friend or relative engaged in the stirring scenes herein described. They may be assured the writer has endeavored to give a faithful history of the events connected with the war. To the casual reader, it is hoped the subject will be of sufficient interest to fix his attention for a brief period. And if, to his brother officers, he has succeeded in recalling scenes upon which memory must fondly dwell, …