Note 4 — PREFACE

Particular reasons why a civilian could venture to prepare the history of this war were that (1) owing largely to the smallness of the numbers engaged, the operations were simple; (2) the reports were written for non-military readers; and (3) a large amount of good criticism was written at the time or soon afterwards—mostly in a private way—by competent officers who were personally familiar with the circumstances. As a matter of fact military men’s technical knowledge does not necessarily enable them to reach correct historical conclusions. This is proved by their radical differences of opinion (e.g. compare the articles on Wilcox’s History of the Mexican War, Journal of U.S. Artillery, July and Oct., 1892) and their manifest errors of judgment. Gen. U. S. Grant pronounced Scott’s strategy on Aug. 20, 1847, faultless as a result of the perfect work of his engineer officers (Pers. Mems., i, 145); but the engineer from whose report Scott’s essential orders regarding the battle of Churubusco resulted admitted privately that he blundered (xxvi, notes, remarks on Churubusco). The dicta of military authorities are not often quoted by the author, because war cannot be made by rule and it would be necessary to consider in each case whether the dictum was applicable.