OR, A MIXED DISH FROM MEXICO, EMBRACING GENERAL SCOTT'S CAMPAIGN, WITH Sketches of Military Life, IN FIELD AND CAMP, OF THE CHARACTER OF THE COUNTRY, MANNERS AND WAYS BY RICHARD M'SHERRY, M.D., U.S. N., LATE ACTING SURGEON OF REGIMENT OF MARINES. PHILADELPHIA: LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO & CO. SUCCESSORS TO GRIGG, ELLIOTT & CO. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, By LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO & Co., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PHILADELPHIA: C. SHERMAN, PRINTER. PREFACE. * WHEN the author of the following letters was taking his rough and hurried notes in the confusion of the march, and sometimes during the din of battle, he had little thought of giving them to the world. The friend, however, to whom the letters were addressed, a distinguished lawyer and a man of eminent literary taste, recommended their publication, to which the author assented on condition of that gentleman's making the campaign complete by giving, from official documents, the battles of Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo. This he was kind enough to undertake, and from his pen came the spirited sketches at the end of this volume. He did more;—he wrote a highly finished essay on the political history of the War, which, however, he withdrew, because it was supposed to give the book itself a political bias foreign to its general design. The name, EL PUCHERO, was assumed on account of the discursive and mixed character of the work, which is composed, without much regard to order, of various elements of war and * David Holmes Conrad, Esq., of Virginia. |