EDITED BY WILLIAM STARR MYERS, Ph.D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND POLITICS PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1917 Copyright, 1917, by Princeton University Press Published April, 1917...

During the past four or five years I have been preparing a life of General McClellan in which I plan especially to stress the political influences behind the military operations of the first two years of the Civil War. The main source for my study has been the large collection of “McClellan Papers” in the Library of Congress at Washington, most of which hitherto never has been published. In this collection is the manuscript Mexican War diary and by the courteous permission and kind cooperation o

George Brinton McClellan was born in Philadelphia, Pa., on December 3, 1826. He died in Orange, N. J., on October 29, 1885. His life covered barely fifty-nine years, his services of national prominence only eighteen months, but during this time he experienced such extremes of good and ill fortune, of success and of failure, as seldom have fallen to the lot of one man. While still a small boy McClellan entered a school in Philadelphia which was conducted by Mr. Sears Cook Walker, a graduate of Ha

We left West Point on the 24th of September 1846 for General Taylor’s army in Mexico—Company “A” Engineers [1] consisted of Captain [A. J.] Swift, Lieutenant G. W. Smith, [2] myself and 71 rank and file. On Saturday the 26th we sailed from the Narrows bound to Brazos de Santiago [Texas] where we were so fortunate as to arrive in 14 days. We had a very pleasant passage, on the whole. Felt very much the want of ice , and claret . At one time could only eat raw tomatoes. The result of my experience