The Training Ground (36 page)

SELECTED NOTES AND BIOGRAPHIES

The bulk of this text came from the personal journals, letters, and memoirs of the officers who fought in the Mexican War and from various biographies about these men. Of that second category, I leaned most heavily on Jean Edward Smith’s
Grant,
Douglas Southall Freeman’s
Lee,
and William J. Cooper Jr.’s
Jefferson Davis, Amer-ican.
Grant’s
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant,
in addition to being extremely well-written (it helped to have Twain as his editor), is a detailed and analytical look back at his life. Grant’s personal papers, particularly his correspondence with Julia (and her correspondence, too), gave me an even more intimate look at the budding soldier. All quotes by Grant in this volume were taken either from the
Memoirs
or from
The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant.
Julia’s comments are all taken from
The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant.

Also, George Gordon Meade’s letters and memoirs were exceptionally detailed, as befits a topographical engineer. Meade’s direct quotes and comments are all from that work. Another standout memoir was that of William Tecumseh Sherman, who is candid and almost poetic in his descriptions of the natural beauty he encountered during the Mexican War. Again, I relied on this volume for all of Sherman’s quotes and descriptions.

A third category of memoir that proved especially helpful was memoirs written by less famous men. The letters of Napoleon Dana, William French, and other officers from West Point and the volunteer corps are remarkable in their descriptiveness and honesty. Enlisted soldiers such as Joshua Chamberlain, George Ballentine, and Samuel Chester Reid were, if anything, even more forthright. In describing battle scenes, I found that the best accounts came from these men, who, lacking the burden of celebrity and the incumbent need for diplomacy, often wrote about warfare with vividness, passion, and a blunt sort of honesty that detailed their fear and horror without diminishing their own heroism or that of their fellow soldiers. I interjected their descriptions wherever possible, and it is with some sadness that I couldn’t use even more. Thanks to the current phenomenon of digitizing books, many of these works (some written within months of returning from Mexico), which were long forgotten and unavailable owing to their age and lack of circulation, are now easily obtained through online download. I would encourage the inquisitive reader to take advantage of this opportunity.

Finally, officials at West Point have been very helpful in my research, in particular Major Michael Bonura. The U.S. Army’s Center of Military History’s publications on the Mexican War, the actual after-action reports filed by Taylor and Scott, newspaper reports from battlefield correspondents, Robert W. Johannsen’s
To the Halls of Montezumas,
and K. Jack Bauer’s
The Mexican War
all proved to be indispensable road maps, providing me with detailed overviews of the war and specific statistics on troop size, regimental position, and casualties, the international reaction, and the mood of the American public.

APPOMATTOX

Many histories have been written about the Confederate surrender, but the best descriptions come from those who were in the room. Colonel Charles Marshall observed the proceedings as one of the few officers of Lee’s who were present, and three decades later he published the most elaborate and thoughtful narrative of the goings-on at McLean’s home. Grant’s own memoirs tell the story with grace and dignity, not seeking to offend or grandstand in any way. In fact, Grant insisted that his memoirs be entirely accurate when he wrote, uncluttered by historical bias. Twain, as his editor, marveled that Grant painstakingly researched each point in that book, checking his version of events against the historical record.

PROLOGUE

Lee:
On September 22, 1779, Congress voted to award Light-Horse Harry Lee a medal for his gallant bravery at the Battle of Paulus Hook. The medal would be struck in Paris and was to be made of gold. However, through an oversight, Lee’s medal was never ordered. Ten years later, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson attempted to correct that error by having the Philadelphia Mint strike a replacement, but the die broke before the medal was cast. Lee eventually received a silver medal with the words to henry lee for valour and patriotism on the front and washington and independence 1775–1783 on the back. It was confiscated to meet his debts in 1810 and disappeared until 1935, when it was sold at auction for one hundred dollars. Today it is housed in the library at Princeton University, Lee’s alma mater.

Charles Mason,
who bested Lee as the top graduate in the class of 1829, served just two years in the army. Both those years were spent teaching engineering at West Point. He left to study law, later served as the editor of the
Saturday Evening Post,
and eventually moved to Iowa. Whatever potential he might have had as a soldier was never fulfilled.

Grant:
Sherman’s comments about Grant were from an interview in the
New York Herald
that ran on July 24, 1885, the day after his old friend died. Grant’s comments about his early antipathy toward West Point were taken from his
Memoirs.
Dabney Herndon Maury’s memoirs tell of Grant’s prowess on horseback, and D. M. Frost’s quote about Grant’s discomfort with the fair sex is taken from Jean Edward Smith’s
Grant.
Longstreet’s warm words about their friendship comes from his own memoir. Julia Dent’s personal letters recount her version of the courtship with Grant, while Grant’s
Memoirs
tell his.

An interesting footnote to West Point’s role in the use of class rings came in 1879, when that year’s class chose cuff links instead.

Richard “Dick” Ewell
was promoted to captain for bravery at Contreras and Churubusco. He remained in the army after the war and saw duty in the West, where he was wounded during a battle with the Apache Indians in 1859. Though pro-Union, he opted to join the Confederate cause because of his allegiance to Virginia, his home state. Ewell was injured again, early in the war, at the Battle of Fairfax Court House, but quickly recovered. He went on to fight at Bull Run and served under Thomas Jackson during the lengthy Valley Campaign. Ewell fought at the Second Battle of Bull Run but was injured yet again at Groveton. This injury was quite severe and resulted in the amputation of his left leg, just below the knee. Ewell returned to service and, upon Jackson’s death, took over Jackson’s command. His stellar reputation took a beating, however, when he failed to attack the pivotal Cemetery Hill at the Battle of Gettysburg. Many later felt that this inability to capture the high ground early on cost the Confederates the battle. Lee later relieved him of command. Placed in charge of the garrison at Richmond, Ewell was captured by Union forces at Sayler’s Creek, just days before Lee’s surrender. However, Ewell would be held as a prisoner of war until July 1865, confined to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. He became a farmer after the war and died of pneumonia in 1872, at the age of fifty-four.

John L. O’Sullivan,
who coined the term “Manifest Destiny,” unsuccessfully urged President Polk to include Cuba in that mandate. He later backed the Confederacy during the Civil War, exiled himself to Europe when the war ended, and became a great believer in spiritualism and contacting the dead through mediums upon his return. O’Sullivan died from the flu in a New York residential hotel at the age of eighty-one.

CHAPTER ONE

Captain George McCall
was promoted to brevet major shortly after the Battle of Resaca de la Palma. He served throughout the war with Mexico and remained in the army until 1853, when he resigned his commission and became a farmer. McCall was named a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania Volunteers when the Civil War broke out, then promoted to major general soon after. He commanded forces at the battles of Dranesville, Mechanicsville, Gaines’s Mill, and New Market Cross Roads, where he was captured by the Confederate army. McCall was held as a prisoner of war at Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia, then released owing to illness. He died on February 25, 1868.

CHAPTER TWO

The descriptive comment about wildflowers was that of Captain Kirby Smith, writing to his wife. He was a passionate man, with a strong chin and long muttonchop sideburns that stretched to the corners of his mouth, and had once been dismissed from the army for two years for “inflicting corporal punishment on mutinous soldiers.” Smith’s letters in
To Mexico with Scott
are notable for their emotion, their detail, and the disheartening fact that he died just days before the war ended.

During the long march from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande, all that soot coating soldiers’ uniforms led the mounted dragoons to refer to the men on foot as
adobes
, in reference to the dun-colored Mexican building material. Legend has it that
adobes
was later shortened to
dobies
and then to
doughboys
— the tag that would become synonymous with American troops during World War I.

CHAPTER THREE

The comments of Longstreet and Smith are from their memoirs. Ewell’s comment about Missouri women was taken from Sanger and Hay’s
James Longstreet.

Captain Charles Ferguson Smith,
commander of the red-legged infantry, served as judge advocate in the impromptu military court that heard the Whistler case. Though
Colonel William Whistler
was convicted of all charges of drunkenness and sentenced to be cashiered from the army, President Polk granted him a pardon. Thus protected, Whistler did not retire from military service until October 9, 1861. He died on December 4, 1863, at the age of eighty-three. Whistler’s nephew James McNeill Whistler would go on to become one of America’s best-known artists.

Smith served with distinction throughout the Mexican War and was promoted several times for bravery. By war’s end, he was a lieutenant colonel. Smith served in the American West during the 1850s and was on active duty when the Civil War began. He would go on to serve under Grant, who had once been his student at West Point. At Savannah, Tennessee, Smith inadvertently suffered a wound while leaping into a rowboat. He died of the subsequent infection and a bout of chronic dysentery on May 25, 1862.

CHAPTER FOUR

William Hardee
’s comments are taken from his official report. Taylor’s words denoting the start of the war come from his official message to Washington.

When
Captain Seth Thornton
was charged with cowardice for his role in the battle at Carricitos, soon after having been returned to the American side in a prisoner swap, Hardee, fearful that his good name as an officer would be tainted, requested a court of inquiry to clear him. Both men were cleared of all charges.

Hardee went on to serve with distinction in the Mexican War and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel by its conclusion. In 1855 he wrote a seminal book on tactical warfare titled
Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics for the Exercise and Manoeuvres of Troops When Acting as Light Infantry or Riflemen
(often shortened to
Hardee’s Tactics
).

From 1856 to 1860, Hardee served as commandant of cadets at West Point. He resigned his commission on January 31, 1861, when Georgia left the Union, and accepted a new commission in the Confederate army. Lieutenant General Hardee led troops at the battles of Shiloh, Chattanooga, Perryville, Stones River, and Murfreesboro and during the fall of Atlanta. Hardee commanded his men with such distinction that he was nicknamed Old Reliable. Somewhat ironically,
Hardee’s Tactics
was the standard tactical manual for both the Union and the Confederacy.

Hardee’s last engagement was in March 1865, at the Battle of Bentonville, in which his only son was killed in a cavalry charge. One month later, Hardee surrendered his depleted forces to Union general William Tecumseh Sherman. He died in Wytheville, Virginia, on November 6, 1873.

As for Thornton, the man who inadvertently started the Mexican War with his tactical blunder, he was shot in the chest at the village of San Augustin, just outside Mexico City. He died instantly.

CHAPTER SIX

Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana
’s poignant, hilarious, and often extremely bawdy letters home are easily some of the most entertaining wartime correspondence ever written. All comments attributed to him come from those letters, now published. Dana recovered from his wartime injuries and remained in the army until 1855, then moved to Minnesota with Sue and began a successful banking career. He was appointed a brigadier general when the Civil War broke out, and he served with distinction at Antietam and Second Bull Run. He was wounded once again at Antietam during the thick of the fighting. Dana recovered from those wounds, too, and resigned his commission once again in May 1865. He went on to another successful business venture, this one in the railroad industry. He died in 1905.

The account of Major Jacob Brown’s surgery is from the official battle report, written by Captain Hawkins, and from Dana’s own eyewitness accounts. Brownsville, the town that grew up around Fort Brown, still bears the major’s name.

Captain Edgar S. Hawkins
was promoted to brevet major for his heroism. Later in the war, he was placed on indefinite sick leave for injuries and illness suffered in the line of duty. Though technically still an active-duty major when the Civil War began, he was declared unfit for service and retired. He died shortly after that war ended, at the age of sixty-four.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Longstreet’s quotes are taken from his memoirs. Curiously, though Longstreet fought in the Mexican War until the fall of Chapultepec, his personal story ends rather abruptly after Resaca de la Palma. Either he got tired of trying to remember those years of his life (his memoirs were published in 1895), or he was being modest about his wartime accomplishments.