e world.

The work before us, although of great value and present importance, is
of a very different character; as a glance at the circumstances
which produced it will show. It has, however, we would fondly hope,
anticipated for its youthful author a greater success.

In 1855, Mr. Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, sent a military
commission to Europe, composed of Major Delafield of the Engineers,
Major Mordecai of the Ordnance, and Captain McClellan, just promoted
from a Lieutenancy of Engineers to a Captaincy in the Cavalry. Major
Delafield was charged with the special subject of Engineering; Major
Mordecai with Ordnance and Gunnery; and to Captain McClellan was
assigned the duty of a general report upon the Organization of Armies,
with a special hearing upon the formation of Infantry and Cavalry. Each
of these gentlemen has written a book, and that of McClellan, originally
published as a Report to the Secretary of War,--in unmanageable quarto,
and at a more unmanageable price,--is now issued, in the volume before
us, with the very appropriate title, "The Armies of Europe," and in a
convenient form for the eye and the purse.

Whatever of technical value the other reports may have,--and they
are, we doubt not, excellent,--McClellan's is the only one of popular
interest, the only one of rounded proportions and general importance;
and if it also contain much addressed to the professional soldier, it
must be remembered that the country is now being educated up to the
intelligent perusal of such books.

Travelling in all the principal countries of Europe,--Montesquieu's
assertion is now verified, that "only great nations can have large
armies,"--the commission met everywhere proper facilities for
observation. McClellan made full notes upon the spot, procured all the
books of Tactics, Regulations, Military Laws, etc., and provided himself
with such models of arms, equipments, saddles, bridles, tents, etc.,
as were easily transported. Operations of a difficult and laborious
character, such as carrying horses on shipboard, are fully demonstrated
with diagrams. Marches, manoeuvres, detachments, battles, are fully
disclosed. Such investigations, when the French, Italian, or German
language was the medium, were comparatively easy; but in order to give a
proper comparative view, he was obliged also to study Russian, which he
did successfully; by this means he has given us a masterly summary
of the Russian system, with it