Major General Smedley Darlington Butler was a maverick Marine, the emblem of the old corps, and one of the most controversial figures in Marine history.

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler was a maverick marine, the emblem of "the old corps," and one of the most controversial figures in Marine history. He was a high school dropout who became a major general; a Quaker and a devout family man who was one of the toughest of the Marines; an aristocrat who championed the common man; a leader who thought of himself as striving to help the oppressed of the countries he occupied as the commander of an imperial fighting force. This work is an annotated edition of his letters covering the period from Butler's commissioning as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps to his retirement as a Major General.