Excerpt from History of the War Department of the United States: With Biographical Sketches of the Secretaries HE main scope and design of the following work are set forth in the introductory paragraphs of the history itself. I beg only to add, in general terms, that a full and candid history of the War Department would be fairly entitled to a permanent place in American literature because of the long and successful labors of that Department in the spread of commerce and civili zation. Herein, as will be seen in this history, no other agency has been so potent. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.