A campaign in Mexico

BATTLE OF BUENA VISTA
BY “ONE WHO WAS THAR.”
“Variety is the spice of life.”
PHILADELPHIA: JAMES GIHON. AND FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS AND COUNTRY MERCHANTS SOUTH AND WEST. 1850.
In thus bringing myself before the public as an author, I offer no apology. I make no pretensions to literary merit. The following pages were written in the confusion and inconvenience of camp, with limited sources of information, and without any expectation of future publication. I offer nothing but a faithful description of my own feelings, and of incidents in the life of a volunteer. To such as may be interested in an unvarnished relation of facts, connected with the duties, fatigues and perils of a soldier’s life, I respectfully submit this volume.
B. F. SCRIBNER.
New Albany, Indiana .
To the interest of a simple personal narrative, this volume adds the value of a faithful description of that part of a soldier’s duty in the camp and field, which is necessarily excluded from official accounts or general histories. It attracted in manuscript the attention of the publishers, as a work similar in spirit and purpose to Dana’s “Two Years before the Mast,” although necessarily less varied in incident, and less comprehensive in information than that very popular production.
The map of the field of Buena Vista by Lieutenant Green, of the 15th infantry, is presented as the most accurate yet published, having been approved by many distinguished officers as a true representation of the ground, and of the relative positions of the corps of the American and Mexican armies, on the day of the battle. A careful examination of the map and references, will afford a clearer idea of the movements of both, and of the progress of the action, than any of the descriptions which have yet appeared.
July. —We left the New Albany wharf, July 11th, 1846, at one o’clock A.M., and are now winding our way to New Orleans, on the noble steamer Uncle Sam, en route to the wars in Mexico. I am wholly unable to describe my thoughts and emotions, at leaving my native home, with its endearing associations, and embarking upon a venturesome career of fatigue, privation, and danger. I stood upon the hurricane deck, and could see by the moonlight crowds of my fellow townsmen upon the bank, and in the intervals of the cannon’s roar, returned their encouraging cheers. As we glided down, the last objects that met my lingering gaze, were the white dresses and floating handkerchiefs of our fair friends. How few of us may return to receive their welcome!