Excerpt from Eleazar Wheelock Ripley, of the War of 1812: Major General in the United States Army, Member of Congress, Etc In writing the life of General Ripley and for a more just understanding of his character, the author has taken the liberty to go into the details of history, the delineation of contemporaries, the results of the measures which engaged his at tention, and the efforts he made to shape public Opinion in regard to them. To such results we properly look in judging of the patriotism, the sagacity and courage of Public Men and in deciding what amount of praise or censure, they merit whether in military or civil life. The people of the United States, prior to 1815, were divided into two political parties, known as federal and republican. General Ripley, in early life, joined the latter and as conducive to a better understanding of the aims and principles which controlled him, and the respective parties, we give in an appendix, a concise history of the ex citing questions which, growing out of the action of the general government, agitated New Eng land during that period. 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.