Storieta
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About this book

The War with Mexico, Volume 2 is a scholarly historical work by Justin Harvey Smith, a former professor of modern history at Dartmouth College. Published in 1919 by the Macmillan Company, the volume continues the author’s exhaustive treatment of the Mexican‑American War (1846‑1848) and is organized into a detailed sequence of chapters covering campaigns, negotiations, naval operations, and the political and financial ramifications of the conflict. The opening pages explain a complex system of footnotes, map captions, and topic headers that guide the reader through a richly documented narrative, while the initial chapter “Behind the Scenes at Mexico” sets the tone with a nuanced analysis of the Mexican political turmoil that preceded the United States’ advance.

Smith’s prose reflects the academic style of early‑20th‑century historiography, combining precise military descriptions with extensive primary‑source citations and occasional linguistic notes, such as a brief guide to Spanish pronunciation. Readers who appreciate meticulous research, original maps, and a measured, analytical voice, particularly students of American or Mexican history and enthusiasts of detailed war studies, will find this volume a rewarding companion to its first volume.

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There are three types of notes in the text. The lettered notes (originally asterisks) were printed as standard footnotes on each page. References to these notes now appear in brackets as [A], [B] and so on. The notes themselves have been moved to directly follow the paragraph within which they are referenced. Occasionally, an asterisk is used for some other purpose, usually preceding rather than following a word or phrase, and remain asterisks.

Numeric references referring to the extensive Notes section of the text appear as bracketed numbers. Unlike standard footnotes, the references to those notes in the text are themselves not necessarily consecutive, nor are they unique. To assist in consulting those notes using search features, the chapter number has been prefixed to each, using Arabic numerals, as [21.1], [25.2], [30.3], etc. Any internal references directing attention to another note have also been changed.

Within the Notes, there are =bold= numbers prefixed to key words (e.g., '=123=keyword') which serve as references to sources. These numbered sources are found in the final section of the text. There may be multiple references to the same source.

The logic behind this system is explained by the author in his Preface, and in more detail in the fifth note [P.5] of the Notes to that Preface.

The notes themselves have several footnotes, using numbers and asterisks. These footnotes have been re-numbered sequentially as [1], [2], [3], etc.

Right-side page headers contained descriptions of the current topic covered by the two open pages. These were retained and are placed on separate lines prior to the paragraph where the topic is introduced, and enclosed in brackets, as [Topic headers]. The choice of that position is not always obvious and should be regarded as approximate. Should the topic persist over multiple pages, any redundant headers have been removed.

Illustrations are denoted with square brackets as [Illustration: <caption>] at approximately the point where they were printed. The captions are usually printed on the maps themselves. Where there is no title to the map, the caption has been provided from the table of illustrations, in mixed case.

References to chapters I through XX, as well as their respective notes, refer to the Volume I of this work.

See https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44437

Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations.

See 44438-h.htm or 44438-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/44438/pg44438-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44438/44438-h.zip)

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