PREFACE. * "That elegant force in history, which characterized TACITUS and PLUTARCH, seems to have disappeared in our time; certainly in biographies. When I compare the present Sketch with the Ideal which I had conceived, it is with actual timidity that I venture to publish it. A perfect biography I cannot indeed prepare, since the Count (SCHAUMBURG-LIPPE) carefully kept secret the majority of his greatest deeds. * It was my simple intention to portray even his character as a commander and a ruler (organizer) from the stand-point of his magnanimity, and establish every trait of this picture with anecdotes. Yet even such a sketch, at least with my powers, can be nothing more than a fragment. Perhaps I may claim that no one at a previous time could have produced comparatively as complete a history of the Count's career as this one. Lest any one should find fault, or occasion for it should appear, I did not embody much information which I actually possessed. I do not urge this as a satisfactory excuse for the faults of my work, but simply as a reason why they merit pardon, and on that account I pray the indulgence of the public." THEODOR SCHMALZ's "Denkwürdigkeiten des Grafen. THE preparation of this Biography, or rather Biographical Sketch of the Military Career of Major-General PHILIP KEARNY has been looked forward to for six years, not only as a sincere pleasure, but as a solemn duty. Almost all the notices of this distinguished General, which have appeared in the different papers and periodi cals, were little more than the amplifications of the sketch of him prepared by the writer for the New York Times in 1861. This sketch grew into one more worthy of the subject in the columns of the New York Citizen of January 25th, 1867, and February 1st and 8th, 1868. On the 17th of January, 1868, CORTLANDT PARKER, Esq., counsel, and intimate friend of the deceased General, delivered an Address before the New Jersey Historical Society. This noble tribute of friendship was afterwards furnished to the editors of the Northern Monthly Magazine, and appeared in the three numbers of that periodical for November and December, 1867, and February, 1868. It was subsequently published, by request, as a pamphlet of forty-nine pages. Mr. PARKER had free access to all the papers in the possession of the immediate family of the General, and the results of his labors are equally interesting as a charming composition and as a valuable contribution to history. To it the writer of the present work is indebted for much connected with the last year of the hero's life, especially extracts from letters, etc. Otherwise the facts herein presented are altogether new, and the views of General KEARNY are derived from personal and confidential intercourse from boyhood to middle-age. The writer hesitated for a long time before resuming the pen, feeling that nothing could be done which deserved the name of a biography until certain letters, documents, and books could be obtained and examined. Manuscripts, etc., etc., are known to have existed which have eluded the anxious search of the historian. The kind. ness of friends, and an examination of correspondence, has filled some of the minor gaps, but others still exist, one of which is General KEARNY'S Algerian experience, as glorious to himself as interesting to the public. On his return to the United States he wrote an account of his African campaign, which was "privately printed." Not a copy of this, however, is to be found, although diligent search has been made in every quarter, where an exemplar ought to have been preserved. Most of his correspondence was, doubtless, among the papers of an aged relative, his mother's sister, one of the most loyal, noble, and generous of women, deceased in June, 1866. This was either committed to the flames by her, or burned after her decease as a sacred trust not to be violated when the grave had closed over both, the one who wrote as a son to a mother, and the other to whom the confidential letters were addressed. A valuable letter, which was in hand last fall, has likewise disappeared, whether destroyed or stolen for the autograph, since it possessed a signature in full, a very rare thing with KEARNY'S letters, who generally signed "PHIL," or “K.” The author of these pages was the only cousin of General KEARNY, on his mother's side, brought up with him in the house of their maternal grandfather, Hon. JOHN WATTS. This excellent man, General KEARNY'S grandfather, was ennobled by his benevolence. His best memorial is a grand charitable institution which he endowed in the city of New York. Mr. WATTS was a monument of affliction, in that he had seen his wife, six handsome, gifted, and gallant sons, and four daughters precede him to the grave. One childless daughter survived him and three grandchildren, General KEARNY, his sister, Mrs. MACOMB, who died in Europe 30th April, 1852, and the writer. Peculiar associations intensified the ties which united the survivors, sole representatives of a race which had occupied so prominent a position in the annals of their native State for nearly a century "in troublous, times." In youth the pursuits of General KEARNY and the writer of these pages were identical, and it was to the house of the latter that the former returned from time to time to talk over the strange adventures experienced in a remarkably checkered career. Together in 1834 they visited Europe, and the majority of the opinions expressed herein are founded on personal recollections. If affection, admiration, studies, in common, interchange of thoughts, intercourse without reserve, and a memory remarkable for its tenacity can enable any one to produce a reliable biography, the following may be considered authentic. As a patriot, as a public officer, and as a soldier, PHILIP KEARNY was a grand example, worthy of study, imitation, and commemoration. As an officer in the service of our country, his glory belongs, particularly, to his native State, from which he was appointed to the United States Army. As a General, unsurpassed, wherever and whenever he was tried for courage, fidelity, self-sacrificing, energy, and ability, his glory is equally the property of the whole country. As West Point had nothing to do with his achievements, as he owed nothing to its training, to its cast influence, to its academic line of thought, or to its terrible prejudices, he may be considered a magnificent type of a Volunteer soldier, for from private life was he appointed to his first commission ; from private life it might be said he again sprang into the saddle in 1846 since he recalled his resignation to partake in the glories of the Mexican war-and from private life abroad he returned home to reassume his uniform and assist in saving his country. As a Volunteer, he participated in the dangers and fatigues of a campaign in Africa which carried the tricolor through the "Gates of Iron" and over the Atlas into the strongholds of Abd-el-Kader. He partook in the operations of that campaign which laid the basis of the present Kingdom of Italy, and a Major-General of American volunteers, he died on the field of battle. Therefore to the Volunteer Armies of the United States, and more particularly to the officers and soldiers of his immediate commands-especially that nonpareil New Jersey Brigade which he created, and that glorious First Division of the Third Corps of the Army of the Potomac at whose head he fell— are these pages dedicated, with the deepest and warmest gratitude of the author. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. Truth is to History what Eyes are to animals; if their eyes are torn out, they become useless. Just so deprive History of Truth, and it is no longer of any value or utility."POLYBIUS. "STA VIATOR, HEROEM CALCAS !" Field-Marshal MERCY's epitaph on the battle-field of Nordlingen, where he fell, 1645. A WONDERFUL epoch has closed. This generation stands like spectators around the upheaved ruins-not yet settled-of an unparalleled moral as well as physical' earthquake. Even as at the period of the great French Revolution of 1789 (1793), humanity has made one of its gigantic strides, in advance, which compensate for the inaction of ages. Not that human progress ever stands still, but at times it almost seems to. do so, groping its way along like one still half asleep, or like one just awakened from a lethargic or drugged slumber. Happy he who has enjoyed the advantages of occupying a stand-point whence to observe, with a philosophic view, the phases and the marvels of the convulsions; more fortunate he who has associated with the heroes, the martyrs, or the victims of the catastrophe, and has the ability and leisure to collect and prepare for grander histories the details of the tempest he has witnessed, and the words, the gestures, the deeds of those who towered, like peaks irradiated with the sun of glory, amid the colliding stormclouds, freighted with thunder and devastation. In a retired quarter of the metropolis of the "Babylonish Captivity of the Papacy" stood an old building, once the convent of St. Marcel, since the first Empire transmuted into a "Succursale" of the "Grand Hotel" at Paris, devoted to the reception of the invalids of that army which had borne the tricolor, the emblem of popu |