Note 2 — PREFACE

A second reason for preparing this history was that a number of important topics—such as the conditions existing in the two countries just before the war, the war in American politics, our conduct and methods in occupied territory, the finances of the war, its foreign relations, etc.—had been treated most superficially or not at all. In the third place it was hoped to handle more carefully the material previously used. The bound volumes entitled “Archivo de Guerra” in the Archivo General y Público at Mexico occupy some 200 feet of shelf room, and the papers examined in the Archivo de Guerra y Marina, which had to be examined one by one, would probably, if placed one on another, make a pile sixty feet high.