offensive operations might be advantageously carried on, are actions
not less valuable in themselves, nor do they require less capacity in
the chief who performs them, than a continued succession of battles.
But they spread less splendour over the page which recounts them, and
excite weaker emotions in the bosom of the reader.

There is also another source from which some degree of disappointment
has been anticipated. It is the impossibility of giving to the public
in the first part of this work many facts not already in their
possession.

The American war was a subject of too much importance to have remained
thus long unnoticed by the literary world. Almost every event worthy
of attention, which occurred during its progress, has been gleaned up
and detailed. Not only the public, but much of the private
correspondence of the commander in chief has been inspected, and
permission given to extract from it whatever might properly be
communicated. In the military part of this history, therefore, the
author can promise not much that is new. He can only engage for the
correctness with which facts are stated, and for the diligence with
which his researches have been made.

The letters to and from the commander in chief during the war, were
very numerous and have been carefully preserved. The whole of this
immensely voluminous correspondence has, with infinite labour, been
examined; and the work now offered to the public is, principally,
compiled from it. The facts which occurred on the continent are,
generally, supported by these letters, and it has therefore been
deemed unnecessary to multiply references to them. But there are many
facts so connected with those events, in which the general performed a