the entire army of the United States, consisted of 7,244 men; the naval
force of about 7,500. We presented the gratifying spectacle of a nation
20,000,000 strong, with a sea-coast of 3,000 or 4,000 miles, and only
7,000 or 8,000 soldiers, and as many armed men on the sea, or less than
15,000 in all! Few things were more grateful to an American than this
thought, that his country was so nearly free from the terrible curse of
a standing army. At that time, the standing army of France was about
480,000 men; that of Russia nearly 800,000 it is said. Most of the
officers in the American army and navy, and most of the rank and file,
had probably entered the service with no expectation of ever shedding
the blood of men. The navy and army were looked on as instruments of
peace; as much so as the police of a city.
The first of last January, there was, in Mexico, an American army of
23,695 regular soldiers, and a little more than 50,000 volunteers, the
number cannot now be exactly determined, making an army of invasion of
about 75,000 men. The naval forces, also, had been increased to 10,000.
Estimating all the men engaged in the service of the army and navy; in
making weapons of war and ammunition; in preparing food and clothing; in
transporting those things and the soldiers from place to place, by land
or sea, and in performing the various other works incident to military
operations, it is within bounds to say that there were 80,000 or 90,000
men engaged indirectly in the works of war. But not to exaggerate, it is
safe to say that 150,000 men were directly or indirectly engaged in the
Mexican war. This estimate will seem moderate, when you remember that
there were about 5,000 teamsters connected with the army in Mexico.
Here, then, were 150,000 men whose attention and toil were diverted from
the great business of productive industry to merely military operations,
or preparations for them. Of course, all the labor of these men was of
no direct value to the human race. The food and clothing and labor of a
man who earns nothing by productive work of hand or head, is food,
clothing, and labor thrown away; labor in vain. There is nothing to show
for the things he has consumed. So all the work spent in preparing
ammunition and weapons of war is labor thrown away, an absolute loss, as
much as if it had been spent in making earthen pitchers and then in
dashing them to pieces. A country is the richer for every serviceable
plough and spade made in it, and the world the richer; they are to be
used in productive work, and when worn out, there is the improved soil
and the crops that have been gathered, to show for the wear and tear of
the tools. So a country is the richer for every industrious shoemaker
and blacksmith it contains; for his time and toil go to increase the sum
of human comfort, creating actual wealth. The world also is better off,
and becomes better through their influence. But a country is the poorer
for every soldier it maintains, and the world poorer, as he adds nothing
to the actual wealth of mankind; so is it the poorer for each sword and
cannon made within its borders, and the world poorer, for these
instruments cannot be used in any productive work, only for works of
destruction.
So much for the labor of these 150,000 men; labor wasted in vain. Let us
now look at the cost of life. It is not possible to ascertain the exact
loss suffered up to this time, in killed, deceased by ordinary diseases,
and in wounded; for some die before they are mustered into the service
of the United States, and parts of the army are so far distant from the
seat of Government that their recent losses are still unknown. I rely
for information on the last report of the Secretary of War, read before
the Senate, April 10, 1848, and recently printed. That gives the losses
of parts of the army up to December last; other accounts are made up
only till October, or till August. Recent losses will of course swell
the amount of destruction. According to that report, on the American
side there had been killed in battle, or died of wounds received
therein, 1,689 persons; there had died of diseases and accidents, 6,173;
3,743 have been wounded in battle, who were not known to be dead at the
date of the report.
This does not include the deaths in the navy, nor the destruction of
men connected with the army in various ways, as furnishing supplies and
the like. Considering the sickness and accidents that have happened in
the present year, and others which may be expected before the troops
reach home, I may set down the total number of deaths on the American
side, caused by the war, at 15,000, and the number of wounded men at
4,000. Suppose the army on the average to have consisted of 50,000 men
for two years, this gives a mortality of fifteen per cent. each year,
which is an enormous loss even for times of war, and one seldom equalled
in modern warfare.
Now, most of the men who have thus died or been maimed were in the prime
of life, able-bodied and hearty men. Had they remained at home in the
works of peace, it is not likely that more than 500 of the number would
have died. So then 14,500 lives may be set down at once to the account
of the war. The wounded men are of course to thank the war, and that
alone, for their smart and the life-long agony which they are called on
to endure.
Such is the American loss. The loss of the Mexicans we cannot now
determine. But they have been many times more numerous than the
Americans; have been badly armed, badly commanded, badly trained, and
besides have been beaten in every battle; their number seemed often the
cause of their ruin, making them confident before battle and hindering
their retreat after they were beaten. Still more, they have been ill
provided with surgeons and nurses to care for the wounded, and were
destitute of medicines. They must have lost in battle five or six times
more than we have done, and have had a proportionate number of wounded.
To "lie like a military bulletin" is a European proverb; and it is not
necessary to trust reports which tell of 600 or 900 Mexicans left dead
on the ground, while the Americans lost but five or six. But when we
remember that only twelve Americans were killed during the bombardment
of Vera Cruz, which lasted five days; that the citadel contained more
than 5,000 soldiers and over 400 pieces of cannon, we may easily believe
the Mexican losses on the whole have been 10,000 men killed and perished
of their wounds. Their loss by sickness would probably be smaller than
our own, for the Mexicans were in their native climate, though often ill
furnished with clothes, with shelter and provisions: so I will put down
their loss by ordinary diseases at only 5,000, making a total of 15,000
deaths. Suppose their number of wounded was four times as great as our
own, or 20,000. I should not be surprised if this were only half the
number.
Put all together and we have in total, Americans and Mexicans, 24,000
men wounded, more or less, and the greater part maimed for life; and we
have 30,000 men killed on the field of battle, or perished by the slow
torture of their wounds, or deceased of diseases caused by
extraordinary exposures; 24,000 men maimed; 30,000 dead!
* * * * *
You all remember the bill which so hastily passed Congress in May, 1846,
and authorized the war previously begun. You perhaps have not forgot the
preamble, "Whereas war exists by the act of Mexico." Well, that bill
authorized the waste of $200,000,000 of American treasure, money enough
to have built a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama, and another to
connect the Mississippi and the Pacific ocean; it demanded the
disturbance of industry and commerce all over the land, caused by
withdrawing $100,000,000 from peaceful investments, and diverting
150,000 Americans from their productive and peaceful works; it demanded
a loss yet greater of the treasure of Mexicans; it commanded the maiming
of 24,000 men for life, and the death of 30,000 men in the prime and
vigor of manhood. Yet such was the state of feeling, I will not say of
thought, in the Congress, that out of both houses only sixteen men voted
against it. If a prophet had stood there he might have said to the
representative of Boston, "You have just voted for the wasting of
200,000,000 of the very dollars you were sent there to represent; for
the maiming of 24,000 men and the killing of 30,000 more--part by
disease, part by the sword, part by the slow and awful lingerings of a
wounded frame! Sir, that is the English of your vote." Suppose the
prophet, before the vote was taken, could have gone round and told each
member of Congress, "If there comes a war, you will perish in it;"
perhaps the vote would have been a little different. It is easy to vote
away blood, if it is not your own!
* * * * *
Such is the cost of the war in money and in men. Yet it has not been a
very cruel war. It has been conducted with as much gentleness as a war
of invasion can be. There is no agreeable way of butchering men. You
cannot make it a pastime. The Americans have always been a brave people;
they were never cruel. They always treated their prisoners kindly--in
the Revolutionary war, in the late war with England. True, they have
seized the Mexican ports, taken military possession of the
custom-houses, and collected such duties as they saw fit; true, they
sometimes made the army of invasion self-subsisting, and to that end
have levied contributions on the towns they have taken; true, they have
seized provisions which were private property, snatching them out of the
hands of men who needed them; true, they have robbed the rich and the
poor; true, they have burned and bombarded towns, have murdered men and
violated women. All this must of course take place in any war. There
will be the general murder and robbery committed on account of the
nation, and the particular murder and robbery on account of the special
individual. This also is to be expected. You cannot set a town on fire
and burn down just half of it, making the flames stop exactly where you
will. You cannot take the most idle, ignorant, drunken, and vicious men
out of the low population in our cities and large towns, get them drunk
enough or foolish enough to enlist, train them to violence, theft,
robbery, murder, and then stop the man from exercising his rage or lust
on his own private account. If it is hard to make a dog understand that
he must kill a hare for his master, but never for himself, it is not
much easier to teach a volunteer that it is a duty, a distinction, and a
glory to rob and murder the Mexican people for the nation's sake, but a
wrong, a shame, and a crime to rob or murder a single Mexican for his
own sake. There have been instances of wanton cruelty, occasioned by
private licentiousness and individual barbarity. Of these I shall take
no further notice, but come to such as have been commanded by the
American authorities, and which were the official acts of the nation.
One was the capture of Tabasco. Tabasco is a small town several hundred
miles from the theatre of war, situated on a river about eighty miles
from the sea, in the midst of a fertile province. The army did not need
it, nor the navy. It did not lie in the way of the American operations;
its possession would be wholly useless. But one Sunday afternoon, while
the streets were full of men, women, and children, engaged in their
Sunday business, a part of the naval force of America swept by; the
streets running at right angles with the river, were enfiladed by the
hostile cannon, and men, women, and children, unarmed and unresisting,
were mowed down by the merciless shot. The city was taken, but soon
abandoned, for its possession was of no use. The killing of those men,
women, and children was as much a piece of murder, as it would be to
come and shoot us to-day, and in this house. No valid excuse has been
given for this cold-blooded massacre; none can be given. It was not
battle, but wanton butchery. None but a Pequod Indian could excuse it.
The theological newspapers in New England thought it a wicked thing in
Dr. Palfrey to write a letter on Sunday, though he hoped thereby to help
end the war. How many of them had any fault to find with this national
butchery on the Lord's day? Fighting is bad enough any day; fighting for
mere pay, or glory, or the love of fighting, is a wicked thing; but to
fight on that day when the whole Christian world kneels to pray in the
name of the Peacemaker; to butcher men and women and children, when they
are coming home from church, with prayer-books in their hands, seems an
aggravation even of murder; a cowardly murder, which a Hessian would
have been ashamed of. "But 'twas a famous victory."
One other instance, of at least apparent wantonness, took place at the
bombardment of Vera Cruz. After the siege had gone on for a while, the
foreign consuls in the town, "moved," as they say, "by the feeling of
humanity excited in their hearts by the frightful results of the
bombardment of the city," requested that the women and children might be
allowed to leave the city, and not stay to be shot. The American General
refused; they must stay and be shot.
Perhaps you have not an adequate conception of the effect produced by
bombarding a town. Let me interest you a little in the details thereof.
Vera Cruz is about as large as Boston was in 1810; it contains about
30,000 inhabitants. In addition it is protected by a castle, the
celebrated fortress of St. Juan d' Ulloa, furnished with more than 5,000
soldiers and over 400 cannons. Imagine to yourself Boston as it was
forty years ago, invested with a fleet on one side, and an army of
15,000 men on the land, both raining cannon-balls and bomb-shells upon
your houses; shattering them to fragments, exploding in your streets,
churches, houses, cellars, mingling men, women, and children in one
promiscuous murder. Suppose this to continue five days and nights;
imagine the condition of the city; the ruins, the flames; the dead, the
wounded, the widows, the orphans; think of the fears of the men
anticipating the city would be sacked by a merciless soldiery; think of
the women! Thus you will have a faint notion of the picture of Vera
Cruz at the end of March, 1847. Do you know the meaning of the name of
the city? Vera Cruz is the True Cross. "See how these Christians love
one another." The Americans are followers of the Prince of Peace; they
have more missionaries amongst the "heathen" than any other nation, and
the President, in his last message, says, "No country has been so much
favored, or should acknowledge with deeper reverence the manifestations
of the Divine protection." The Americans were fighting Mexico to
dismember her territory, to plunder her soil, and plant thereon the
institution of slavery, "the necessary back-ground of freedom."
Few of us have ever seen a battle, and without that none can have a
complete notion of the ferocious passions which it excites. Let me help
your fancy a little by relating an anecdote which seems to be very well
authenticated, and requires but little external testimony to render it
credible. At any rate, it was abundantly believed a year ago; but times
change, and what was then believed all round may now be "the most
improbable thing in the world." At the battle of Buena Vista, a Kentucky
regiment began to stagger under the heavy charge of the Mexicans. The
American commander-in-chief turned to one who stood near him, and
exclaimed, "By God, this will not do. This is not the way for
Kentuckians to behave when called on to make good a battle. It will not
answer, sir." So the General clenched his fist, knit his brows, and set
his teeth hard together. However, the Kentuckians presently formed in
good order and gave a deadly fire, which altered the battle. Then the
old General broke out with a loud hurrah. "Hurrah for old Kentuck," he
exclaimed, rising in his stirrups; "that's the way to do it. Give 'em
hell, damn 'em," and tears of exultation rolled down his cheeks as he
said it. You find the name of this General at the head of most of the
whig newspapers in the United States. He is one of the most popular
candidates for the Presidency. Cannons were fired for him, a hundred
guns on Boston Common, not long ago, in honor of his nomination for the
highest office in the gift of a free and Christian people. Soon we shall
probably have clerical certificates, setting forth, to the people of the
North, that he is an exemplary Christian. You know how Faneuil Hall, the
old "Cradle of Liberty," rang with "Hurrah for Taylor," but a few days
ago. The seven wise men of Greece were famous in their day; but now
nothing is known of them except a single pungent aphorism from each,
"Know thyself," and the like. The time may come when our great men shall
have suffered this same reduction descending, all their robes of glory
having vanished save a single thread. Then shall Franklin be known only
as having said, "Don't give too much for the Whistle;" Patrick Henry for
his "Give me Liberty or give me Death;" Washington for his "In Peace
prepare for War;" Jefferson for his "All men are created equal;" and
General Taylor shall be known only by his attributes rough and ready,
and for his aphorism, "Give 'em hell, damn 'em." Yet he does not seem to
be a ferocious man, but generous and kindly, it is said, and strongly
opposed to this particular war, whose "natural justice" it seems he
looked at, and which he thought was wicked at the beginning, though, on
that account, he was none the less ready to fight it.
One thing more I must mention in speaking of the cost of men. According
to the Report quoted just now, 4,966 American soldiers had deserted in
Mexico. Some of them had joined the Mexican army. When the American
commissioners, who were sent to secure the ratification of the treaty,
went to Queretaro, they found there a body of 200 American soldiers, and
800 more were at no great distance, mustered into the Mexican service.
These men, it seems, had served out their time in the American camp, and
notwithstanding they had, as the President says in his message, "covered
themselves with imperishable honors," by fighting men who never injured
them, they were willing to go and seek a yet thicker mantle of this
imperishable honor, by fighting against their own country! Why should
they not? If it were right to kill Mexicans for a few dollars a month,
why was it not also right to kill Americans, especially when it pays the
most? Perhaps it is not an American habit to inquire into the justice
of a war, only into the profit which it may bring. If the Mexicans pay
best, in money, these 1,000 soldiers made a good speculation. No doubt
in Mexico military glory is at a premium, though it could hardly command
a greater price just now than in America, where, however, the supply
seems equal to the demand.
The numerous desertions and the readiness with which the soldiers joined
the "foe," show plainly the moral character of the men, and the degree
of "patriotism" and "humanity" which animated them in going to war. You
know the severity of military discipline; the terrible beatings men are
subjected to before they can become perfect in the soldier's art; the
horrible and revolting punishments imposed on them for drunkenness,
though little pains were taken to keep the temptation from their eyes,
and for disobedience of general orders. You have read enough of this in
the newspapers. The officers of the volunteers, I am told, have
generally been men of little education, men of strong passions and bad
habits; many of them abandoned men, who belonged to the refuse of
society. Such men run into an army as the wash of the street runs into
the sewers. When such a man gets clothed with a little authority, in
time of peace, you know what use he makes of it; but when he covers
himself with the "imperishable honors" of his official coat, gets an
epaulette on his shoulder, a sword by his side, a commission in his
pocket, and visions of "glory" in his head, you may easily judge how he
will use his authority, or may read in the newspapers how he has used
it. When there are brutal soldiers, commanded by brutal captains, it is
to be supposed that much brutality is to be suffered.
Now desertion is a great offence in a soldier; in this army it is one of
the most common; for nearly ten per cent of the American army has
deserted in Mexico, not to mention the desertions before the army
reached that country. It is related that forty-eight men were hanged at
once for desertion; not hanged as you judicially murder men in time of
peace, privately, as if ashamed of the deed, in the corner of a jail,
and by a contrivance which shortens the agony, and makes death humane as
possible. These forty-eight men were hanged slowly; put to death with
painful procrastinations, their agony wilfully prolonged, and death
embittered by needless ferocity. But that is not all: it is related,
that these men were doomed to be thus murdered on the day when the
battle of Churubusco took place. These men, awaiting their death, were
told they should not suffer till the American flag should wave its
stripes over the hostile walls. So they were kept in suspense an hour,
and then slowly hanged one by one. You know the name of the officer on
whom this barbarity rests: it was Colonel Harney, a man whose
reputation was black enough and base enough before. His previous deeds,
however, require no mention here. But this man is now a General, and so
on the high road to the Presidency, whenever it shall please our
Southern masters to say the word. Some accounts say there were more than
forty-eight who thus were hanged. I only give the number of those whose
names lie printed before me as I write. Perhaps the number was less; it
is impossible to obtain exact information in respect to the matter, for
the Government has not yet published an account of the punishments
inflicted in this war. The information can only be obtained by a
"Resolution" of either house of Congress, and so is not likely to be had
before the election. But at the same time with the execution, other
deserters were scourged with fifty lashes each, branded with a letter D,
a perpetual mark of infamy on their cheek, compelled to wear an iron
yoke, weighing eight pounds, about their neck. Six men were made to dig
the grave of their companions, and were then flogged with two hundred
lashes each.
I wish this hanging of forty-eight men could have taken place in State
street, and the respectable citizens of Boston, who like this war, had
been made to look on and see it all; that they had seen those poor
culprits bid farewell to father, mother, wife, or child, looking
wistfully for the hour which was to end their torment, and then, one by
one, have seen them slowly hanged to death; that your representative,
ye men of Boston, had put on all the halters! He did help put them on;
that infamous vote, I speak not of the motive, it may have been as
honorable as the vote itself was infamous, doomed these eight and forty
men to be thus murdered.
Yes, I wish all this killing of the 2,000 Americans on the field of
battle, and the 10,000 Mexicans; all this slashing of the bodies of
24,000 wounded men; all the agony of the other 18,000 that have died of
disease, could have taken place in some spot where the President of the
United States and his Cabinet, where all the Congress who voted for the
war, with the Baltimore conventions of '44 and '48, and the Whig
convention of Philadelphia, and the controlling men of both political
parties, who care nothing for this bloodshed and misery they have idly
caused, could have stood and seen it all; and then that the voice of the
whole nation had come up to them and said, "This is your work, not ours.
Certainly we will not shed our blood, nor our brothers' blood, to get
never so much slave territory. It was bad enough to fight in the cause
of freedom. In the cause of slavery--God forgive us for that! We have
trusted you thus far, but please God we never will trust you again."
* * * * *