Samuel Chamberlain's My Confession is a classic, ribald tale of nineteenth-century life. Perhaps the best written account of a soldier's adventures and misadventures in the Mexican War and its aftermath, this unexpurgated edition is now available for the first time, complete with over 150 of Chamberlain's wonderful textual illustrations reproduced in full color.

My Confession is the story of Samuel Chamberlain, a Boston boy who hoped to be a theological student but could not control his amorous and pugilistic inclinations and so left for the West. According to his "Confession," he seduced countless women in the U.S. and Mexico, never missed a fandango, fought gallantly against Mexican guerrillas, and rode with the 1st Dragoons into the Battle of Buena Vista.

His remarkable story is pure melodrama; but Goetzmann has proven by his painstaking research that much of it is true. In extensive annotation, the editor has been able to separate what is truth from fiction in an account that virtually every historian of the Mexican War has used as a source.