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 of General McClellan’s son, Professor George B. McClellan of Princeton University, I have been able to make the following copy. I desire to thank Professor McClellan for other valuable help, including the use of the daguerreotype from which the accompanying frontispiece was made. My thanks also are due Professor Dana C. Munro for his timely advice and valued assistance in the preparation of the manuscript for the press. The map is reproduced from the “Life and Letters of General George Gordon Meade,” with the kind permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner’s Sons.
It has seemed to me that this diary should prove to be of special value at the present time, for it throws additional light upon the failure of our time honored “volunteer system” and forecasts its utter futility as an adequate defense in a time of national crisis or danger.
WM. STARR MYERS.
Princeton, N. J.
January 3, 1917.