with Napoleon, twenty campaigns, and more than half a century of experience,” has given us, in his “Esprit des Institutions Militaires,” a condensed view of his own military life, as complete, if not as pleasantly diffuse, as his large volumes of “Memoires.”  Jomini, from an extended experience, and a study of the genius of Napoleon, which his Russian position could never induce him to undervalue, has produced those standard works which must always remain the treasure-houses of military knowledge.  We admire veracity, but let no soldier confess that he has not read the “Vie Politique et Militaire,” and the “Precis de l’Art de la Guerre.”  But, in all these cases, the litera scripta has been but the closing act,—­the signing of the name to History’s bead-roll of passing greatness,—­the testamentum of the old soldier whose personalty is worth bequeathing to the 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