Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

INTROD UCTION.
IF the time has not yet come for the grave and impartial summing up by the historian, of that interesting event-the Jtfexican
war-it is believed that a sufficiently remote period has arrived
for the publication of those Notes and Memoirs which have been
prepared, and are designed, not so much to gratify any existing
popular interest, as to " serve the cause of History." The writer
of the following pages is aware that his subject lacks the charm of
novelty. A strong and experienced corps of intelligent officers and
literary camp-followers, armed cap-a-pie for the campaign, have
taken the field before him. Still, as the same landscape or picture,
when. observed from different points of view, will not unseldom
present new and attractive features; the reader may perhaps discover in these Sketches, some lights and shadows to which his
attention has not heretofore been directed. The history of the First
Regiment of Ohio volunteers (incorporated with the narrative)
may be interesting to many of his fellow-citizens; and his account
of some of the leading events of the war, he trusts, will not be
altogether valueless.
An untrained volunteer in authorship as in arms, the writerthough not indifferent to, nor ungrateful for the approbation of
others,-has been more intent upon the performance of his duty,
than solicitous for the favorable opinion of his readers. Prompted
by a just State pride, and the desire to discharge a merited tribute to
the constancy and courage of the gallant men to whom the volume is
inscribed, he has endeavored to recite plainly and briefly those inter