not wholly correct review of Ripley, So. Qtrly. Rev., Jan., 1851, 149-60). Pillow 185wrote in reference to Ripley's book, He has torn Scott "the man and the officer all to pieces." The recent work by Rives contains much that is sound as well as dignified; but his investigations came far short of the requirements. The present author has frequently taken pains to write in such a way as to correct errors without mentioning them, and the reader may feel sure that he has carefully considered all statements not in agreement with his own.
4. 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.
A very difficult matter was to decide how many military details to introduce. There is hardly any limit to the names of officers and commands and the minutæ of movements that might have been presented. The principle adopted was to draw the line between historical value and antiquarian value, to include what was needed to show how the important results were brought about and allow the curious reader to ascertain the rest of the details by looking up the references.
The reader who has given no study to the subject may perhaps welcome a few informal and obviously incomplete remarks on the principles of war. One proper aim is the occupation of territory, and this may possibly be accomplished without fighting; but essentially combat is presupposed, and the purpose is then to destroy or in some other way eliminate the enemy's military strength, so that he will feel compelled to accept our terms. Therefore the general should (1) make all possible preparations; (2) take the initiative and lose no time; (3) secure unity in plan and in action; (4) obtain as much information as possible regarding the enemy and beware of despising him; (5) embarrass him and break down his morale, while building up your own, through rapidity of movement, surprises, feints, threats against his communications, etc.; (6) select for objective a point combining, as far as may be, weakness and decisiveness — qualities often incompatible, of course; (7) running no avoidable risk of inadequacy, concentrate near and move upon this an overpowering force, while diverting the enemy's forces from it; (8) strike with energy and decision; and (9) if successful, pursue to the limit of endurance and safety. In a general way it may be said that an "indirect" or "oblique" (i.e. flank) attack is preferable, but obviously the actual conditions must decide whether to adopt that method. In view of these principles, strategy