![]() He would neither exaggerate the objects in his picture, nor add a coloring beyond the hues of nature. ![]() These facts the writer has undertaken to compose in a clear method, an easy narrative, and, as far as he has the ability, an agreeable style. The records of the country happily furnish the foundation for most of his statements the testimony of eminent and honorable gentlemen, themselves actors in some of the scenes described, furnishes other materials and, finally, the papers and narratives of private persons, make up an aggregate of fact and evidence, amply sufficient to satisfy the demands of Truth, Justice, and History. This duty, the writer has undertaken to perform with strict fidelity. Of a public character on record, where they may be seen by all observers, and left undisfigured to the final judgement of posterity. His duty, like that of the true painter, is to place the lineaments What opinions of these historical acts an individual, party, or sect may have formed, is not the business of the historian to inquire. In all these scenes, whether of war or peace, the acts of Winfield Scott cannot be separated from history and he, like Aeneas, (though with better fortune,) was an observed and important actor in the drama of his country. ![]() In the recent conquest of Mexico, the campaign commencing with the siege of Vera Cruz, and terminating in the surrender of the capital, has few, if any, parallels in military history. They made part in the dramatic and deeply-interesting scenes at Charleston, in the year of nullification in the removal of the Cherokees beyond the Mississippi and in the pacification of the Maine boundary. They moved on from the peace of 1815 to the Indian war of 1832, on our western frontier. They were brilliant points on the battle-fields of Niagara, the most glowing and exciting scenes of that war. They commenced in the agitations which (excited by European aggressions) preceded the war of 1812. Those acts were no trifling parts, nor performed in an unimportant period of American progress. Him, or the acts in which he was engaged, they please but some view they must take. It cannot be separated from the great American action. The life of General Winfield Scott is such an element in the recent History of the American people. We must see the heads of the actors, as well as the great moral of the actions, which together compose the drama of human society. Such lives are essential elements in the great picture of Humanity in action, of which the historian is the painter, and whose canvass must contain the portraits of men, as well as the pictured story of events, the memorials, and the movement of nations. It is a leaf, also, in which minute facts and particular causes and personal transactions are brought out in such strong relief, as to have the effect of a picture, taken from the Great World, but viewed, as we view small portions of the firmament, through telescopic glasses. THE life of a public man is a leaf of History. Winfield ScottĮntrance of the Army into the Grand Plaza at Mexico iii Preface. ![]() Scott addressing the Cherokees in Councilīattlegrounds, Taken by Permission from Disturnell's Map of Mexico Passage of the Barcelona up the Niagara River Medal Presented to Major-General Scott by the United States, back Medal Presented to Major-General Scott by the United States, front Plan of the Battle of Lundy's Lane, or Niagara, Just Before the British Battery Was Carried. Scott Showing Towson the Position of the Enemy Scott Addressing the Prisoners on the Transportįort George - Scott Tearing Down the British Flag ![]()
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