Don Jose de San Martin

The history of General Jose de San Martin has been amply and authoritatively recorded by General Bartolome Mitre in three exhaustive volumes.

In writing this work he has consulted all the books, pamphlets, newspapers, and fly-sheets which had ever been printed concerning San Martin. In his Preface he says:

«The most important of these sources of information has been the archive of General San Martin himself, which was placed at my disposal by his son-in-law, the late Don Mariano Balcarce. I have also consulted the archives of this city, from the year 1812 to the year 1824, without which it would have been impossible to compile a complete history. The archives of the Director Pueyrredon placed at my disposal by his son, have also been of great service to me, as also were those of General O'Higgins, Don Tomas Godoy Cruz, General Las Heras, and others. Too I have acquired much verbal information from conversations held with many of the contemporaries of San Martin and with some of his companions in arms.

“In addition to consulting all available maps and plans relating to the campaigns of San Martin, I have inspected in person the routes followed by the army of the Andes and have personally made sketches of the scene of memorable events when plans were not forthcoming.”

From Dr. Mitre's works translated and untranslated I have almost entirely taken the material contained in this small volume, often quoting pages verbatum.

To Dr. Jorge Mitre, the distinguished son of a famous father, owner and publisher of the great Argentine daily, La Nacion, I wish to extend my deepest thanks for generously putting at my disposal much invaluable information.

Dr. Mitre's son has affectionately kept his father's room exactly as it was left when death cut short his activities. The last books he touched remain a mute but eloquent testimony to his industry and to his wide range of knowledge and interest. His completed translation of Dante's Inferno had been gone over; fatigued by his work he had picked up one of his favorite books … Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer! Those two books visualize for us much of the man. General Mitre was a poet, a historian, a tactician, and a great and good man.