20 General Scott had felt compelled to wait at Jalapa for a heavy
train, from which he expected much more than he received. Two days
later Twiggs set out, and on the twenty-eighth Scott--after leaving a
garrison at Jalapa and a smaller one at Perote--reached Puebla with
four troops of horse one day in advance of the division.[24.18] As at
Plan del Río his arrival brought confidence and tranquillity. Needless
alarms ended. Rumors of hostile forces were investigated promptly by
his Mexican Spy Company[24.19] or other trustworthy persons, and the
General fixed his mind on greater work than trying to hunt down every
party of irregulars that raised a dust in the vicinity. The troops were
drilled each morning and, if the weather permitted, later each day, and
after about six weeks of this made a brilliant showing, when reviewed
by divisions. The engineer soldiers received special training for the
work supposed to lie before them; careful maps of the district between
Puebla and the capital were prepared; and Scott frequently gathered
the engineers and the heads of the army at his quarters of an evening,
discussing military affairs or monologuing inimitably on the many
interesting persons and events familiar to him.[24.22]
The Mexican government ordered that nothing marketable should be taken
into the city, but the Pueblans replied unanswerably: There is no
power to enforce that policy; and if there were, the result would be
to starve us, not the Americans, for they could supply their needs by
the sword and we could not. The markets offered, therefore, all sorts
of articles and at moderate prices. Indeed they were too abundant, for
the soldiers gormandized on fruits and sugar-cane brandy, and these
indulgences, added to the want of salt meat, the change of climate and
water, the rare atmosphere, the chilling winds and the lack of suitable
clothing, caused a great amount of sickness--principally dysentery
and ague. On the fourth of June more than 1000 Americans were on the
invalid list, and that number largely increased.[24.22]
Sickness of mind prevailed no less. It depressed one to hear the dead
march almost every evening. Rumors of wholesale plots to assassinate
the officers and poison the men tried their nerves. Renewed efforts to
cause desertion excited alarm. Whig speeches condemning the war and
suggesting that bloody hands and hospitable graves ought rightfully
to be the welcome of our soldiers in Mexico undermined confidence and
courage. Poverty chilled their marrow. Men had served eight months
and been paid for two. At the time when shoes and other indispensable
clothing had to be obtained at an exorbitant cost, the army was already
in debt and credit was flickering.[24.20] Through an intercepted letter
the Mexicans knew of Scott's financial difficulties, and the Americans
knew that they knew. The expected revolution against Santa Anna did
not break out, and a pacific President was not elected on June 15, as
General Scott had almost expected.[24.22]
To crown all other discouragements, we had a ridiculously small army,
while news came repeatedly that Santa Anna's forces were growing
rapidly. With less than 5800 privates--not over 4000 of them available
for an advance--the General had to face, not only the Mexican army,
but a nation of seven million inflammable persons, who might at any
time be roused to fury by some untoward event. Even the 960 recruits
that had been counted upon did not arrive. June 3, therefore, deciding
to throw away the scabbard and meet all odds with the naked sword, he
reluctantly ordered up to Puebla the garrison of Jalapa[24.21] and a
part of the men left at Perote, cutting himself off in the heart of the
enemy's country.[24.22]
Pillow, the great captain, wrote censures on this course to Polk, and
Polk, the consummate strategist, agreed with his agent; but Scott
understood that necessity is a supreme law and courage the soldier's
first axiom. A farther advance was, however, impossible. To leave
Puebla without a garrison, allowing that strong city, reoccupied by
the enemy, to menace the rear and stand like a wall of stone across
the path of reinforcements and supplies, was out of the question; and
troops were also needed to protect helpers and overawe enemies among
the civil population. If reduced by these deductions the army would not
have constituted a striking force. Nothing could be done but stand at
guard, and await new troops.[24.22]
[THE PROBLEM OF REINFORCEMENTS]
These, for a number of reasons, were delayed. Marcy's report of
December 5, 1846, presented to Congress at the opening of the session,
admitted that the regular army stood nearly 7000 below full strength,
and it also recommended the addition of ten regiments; but the
administration, feeling at sea about its war policy, and not realizing
how far the men on the firing-line came short of their estimated
numbers or how much time would be required to place new troops there,
took no decided stand in the matter. On the twenty-ninth, however, a
bill authorizing the new regiments was presented in the House by the
military committee, and the President followed this up some days later
with a Message. A law offering a bounty of twelve dollars to encourage
enlisting, upon which the war department acted promptly, was the next
move; and on January 11, 1847, the House, excited by news that Worth
stood in great peril at Saltillo, voted the new regiments. The Senate,
on the other hand, procrastinated until Marcy was in despair, and Polk
twice decided to address the country. Without much doubt partisan
scheming and personal aims were chiefly responsible for the delay; but
differences of opinion, more or less honest, regarding the comparative
utility of regulars and volunteers, the expediency and proper terms of
a land bounty, and the rights of the Senate in regard to the choice
of officers caused much discussion, in which every issue touching the
inception and conduct of the war had to run the gantlet of passionate
vociferation.[24.25]
Progress was also hindered in another way. Although Polk had found it
necessary to appoint Scott and had given that officer to understand
that bygones were to be bygones, he liked him no better than
before, did not wish the Whigs and their possible candidate for the
Presidency to win more glory in the war, and realized the political
wisdom--particularly in view of Calhoun's unfriendliness--of pleasing
the Van Buren Democrats. There were also objections to the existing
arrangement that could be stated publicly. The number of troops to be
employed in Mexico was said to require a chief of higher grade than a
major general, and Polk took the ground that the commander--especially
since he might be desired to handle the question of a treaty--should be
in full agreement and sympathy with the Executive.[24.25]
For these combined reasons he offered to Benton the post of lieutenant
general, provided it could be established, before Scott left
Washington, and about the first of January requested Congress to
authorize the appointment of such an officer.[24.23] This precipitated
a commotion. The Senator's harsh, domineering ways had made him
unpopular, and grave doubts regarding his technical and temperamental
fitness for the place existed not only in Congress but in the Cabinet.
Calhoun and his friends detested the idea of letting Benton gain so
much prestige and with it very likely the Presidency; the partisans
of Taylor and Scott resented such treatment of their favorites; all
the Whigs, besides suspecting Polk of scheming to evade responsibility
and make Benton his grateful successor, rallied to the support of
their two most prominent men; and, after serving for some time as an
embarrassment, the plan was rejected.[24.25]
Finally, then, after a conference committee had adjusted the
differences between the two Houses, the Ten Regiment Bill, though
defeated once in the Senate, passed that body on February the tenth,
and received Polk's approval the next day; and as a loan bill had
been worried through Congress at the end of January, something was
apparently to be done.[24.24] Since, however, the officers were liable
to be discharged on the conclusion of peace, it was not believed that
many already in the service could be induced by a slight advance in
rank to enter the new establishment, and for this and probably other
reasons few of the more than five hundred places were offered to the
army. The field was therefore clear for civilian warriors, and their
campaign opened at once. Not limiting their operations to Capitol Hill,
applicants for commissions besieged and assaulted the White House.
"I have pushed them off and fought them with both hands like a man
fighting fire," wrote Polk in his diary, but "it has all been in vain."
"Loafers without merit" came, and equally meritorious Congressmen
supported them. Not one in ten of the appointees was known to the
President, and their degree of unfitness was precisely what might have
been expected. A considerable number of them had actually been run out
of the service--in some cases for bad conduct before the enemy--and
many were found less teachable than privates.[24.25]
During February this beautiful exhibition continued, and such were the
only immediate fruits of the much debated law, for it empowered no one
to organize the new troops into brigades and divisions or to appoint
general officers, and the military appropriations had not yet been
made. Further Congressional exertions, therefore, had to be put forth;
but at last on the second and third of March, after a loss of almost
three months at this crisis of the war, the deficiencies were supplied,
and enlistment shortly began. Vigorous efforts were made by the
administration to set the new regulars in motion, company by company,
and even squad by squad; and finally on the nineteenth of April, since
little more could be expected from the November calls, requisitions
for six and a half new regiments of volunteer infantry and twelve
companies of horse--all to serve until the conclusion of peace--were
issued.[24.25]
On the fourth of June, then, about six hundred new troops, commanded
by Brevet Colonel McIntosh, left Vera Cruz for the interior, escorting
a long train of loaded mules and wagons and two or three hundred
thousand dollars in specie. Mexican irregulars, who knew the value
of the convoy, soon attacked and stopped it. Cadwalader, then waiting
for a part of his brigade, reinforced McIntosh on the eleventh with
about five hundred men and took command. Fighting his way along he
incorporated the garrison of Jalapa commanded by Colonel Childs, and on
the twenty-first reached Perote.[24.27]
Meanwhile Pillow, now a major general by the grace of his former law
partner, arriving at Vera Cruz and finding there some 2000 of his men,
had advanced with most of them on June 18; and although Scott was in
the most urgent need of money, Pillow ordered Cadwalader to await his
arrival at Perote. Eventually, on July 3, the combined forces were in
motion, and five days later all of them--including the recruits long
since expected--passed the brown gate of Puebla. Of the rank and file
Scott now had 8061 effectives and 2215 sick. Next Brigadier General
Pierce with some 2500 men got away from the coast about the fifteenth
of July,[24.26] and after similar fighting appeared at headquarters on
the sixth of August with a heavy siege battery, a long train of wagons
and $85,000 in unsalable drafts, but with none of the specie that had
been expected and regarded as indispensable.[24.27]
[THE AMERICAN ARMY]
Scott now had about 14,000 men, some 2500 of whom lay, however, in
the hospitals, while about six hundred were convalescents too feeble
for an ordinary day's march. The cavalry, led by Colonel Harney,
included portions of the three dragoon regiments under Captain Kearny,
Major Sumner and Major McReynolds. For artillery, besides the siege
train, there were the field batteries of Duncan, Taylor, Steptoe
and others,[24.28] and the howitzer and rocket battery of Talcott.
Brevet Major General Worth's division of infantry, known as the First,
consisted of Brevet Colonel Garland's brigade (Second and Third
Artillery, Fourth Infantry and a light battalion) and the brigade of
Colonel Clarke, which included the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Infantry.
The Second Division, commanded by Brigadier General Twiggs, was
composed of the regiments under Brevet Brigadier General Persifor F.
Smith (Mounted Riflemen, First Artillery and Third Infantry) and Brevet
Colonel Riley (Fourth Artillery, Second and Seventh Infantry). Major
General Pillow, higher in rank than the brave, able and experienced
Worth, a professional soldier, had the Eleventh and Fourteenth
Infantry and the Voltigeur regiment under Brigadier General Cadwalader,
a polished veteran of Chestnut Street parades, Philadelphia, and the
Ninth, Twelfth and Fifteenth Infantry under the gentlemanly Franklin
Pierce, a social and political hero of Concord, New Hampshire; while
General Shields's brigade (New York and South Carolina volunteers) and
Lieutenant Colonel Watson's, consisting of three hundred marines and a
detachment of the Second Pennsylvania, made up the division of Quitman,
an excellent person and politician, who had now reached the highest
military grade.[24.29]
The troops that had been waiting at Puebla were by this time in fine
training; and the new men, besides receiving the soldier's baptism on
the way up, had learned at least the value of discipline and skill.
The former had become to a large extent acclimated, and they felt an
entire confidence in their commander, which, fully accredited by his
victories, extended promptly to the reinforcements. The essential
clothing had been purchased or manufactured. Thanks to indefatigable
exertions a large stock of provisions had been accumulated, and at a
cost of 15 per cent funds for the march to the capital had been raised.
Although time had permitted the friendly sentiments and reasonable
arguments of Scott's proclamation to leaven the people, and association
with the Americans had refuted the calumnies previously effective
against them, our officers and men expected hard fighting. Thoughts of
distant homes and of near perils were silvering many a fine head. There
were no good laughers in the army now. But in an equal degree hearts
were nerved. Mentally the cost of success, figured without discount,
was already paid. All felt eager to advance. And when, anticipating
Pierce's arrival by one day, Scott gave the order, a soldier's joy
lighted up their bronzed features.[24.30]
XXV
ON TO THE CAPITAL
April-August, 1847
Almost immediately after Santa Anna left the seat of government for the
Cerro Gordo campaign, more than twenty generals and several members of
Congress were called together at the palace by Anaya to consider the
defence of the capital.[25.1] Apparently the problem could be solved
without much difficulty. Mexico lies in a rather shallow basin--said
to be the crater of an ancient volcano--about thirty-two by forty-six
miles in diameter. In the time of Cortez the site had consisted of
islands barely rising above the water, but the spaces between these
had gradually been filled, and the water had subsided. Six lakes could
still be counted, however; almost everywhere else in the environs
there were marshes traversed by elevated roads or causeways; and the
rim of the basin, as well as the routes beyond it, seemed to offer
advantageous points for defence.[25.2]
The sentiment of this council and of the city, though concealed under a
cloak of bellicose ardor, opposed resisting the Americans in earnest,
or at all events opposed inviting bombardment; and it was therefore
decided merely to take precautions against a raid, fortify certain
points on the roads, and bring out a host of irregulars to hang upon
the rear and flanks of the enemy. All men capable of bearing arms were
summoned to the colors. The states were called upon for aid. Hopes of
borrowing twenty millions imparted a sunny look to the situation; and
ecclesiastics, naturally passive in view of the agreement with Beach
to let Scott have the city, were deliberately forced into the streets
by the civil authorities to preach fanaticism and rouse the public
from their apathy. Except perhaps by this last method, however, little
was accomplished. "Let us unite, let us unite, and do you go and fight
against the French," some of the Spanish priests had said when their
country was invaded by Napoleon. So things went now in Mexico, and
every one assigned to himself the duty of exhorting. Fine ideas beamed
forth, but everything of practical utility was conspicuously wanting.
Still, as the American volunteers were considered "banditti, without
the slightest knowledge of military tactics, without any sort of
training, without confidence, and in general easily terrified," no keen
sense of alarm was felt.[25.2]
[Illustration: VALLEY OF MEXICO]
[POLITICAL CHAOS AT MEXICO]
The disaster of Cerro Gordo cast new and fearful shadows upon the
scene. That defeat, said Anaya, "simply means complete ruin for
the whole republic," and even his gratification that Santa Anna's
"interesting person" had not gone down in the wreck seemed rather
of an iridescent kind. Military confidence, which had revived after
earlier shocks, gave way entirely. The prestige derived by Santa
Anna from his alleged success at Buena Vista was now torn to shreds
by panting fugitives from the south. About a thousand pamphlets, for
which no language was too savage or too true, poured light upon his
character and achievements, and the military men as a class met with
similar treatment.[25.3] To be sure, the government promised boldly
to continue the war. April 20 Congress invested the Executive with
autocratic powers, and prohibited all steps toward peace.[25.4] The
Federal District, in which lay the capital, was placed under martial
law. Urgent demands for troops were sent wherever soldiers could be
supposed to lurk. Once more the authorities called upon every citizen
of the proper age to take up arms. Quotas aggregating 32,000 men were
formally assigned to the states. Light fortifications, intended to
delay and perhaps block the Americans, were ordered to be thrown up
along the route; and the heads of the Church issued an appeal for
concord and morality.[25.5]
But all of these proceedings displayed more alarm than courage, more
desperation than intelligence. Many of the defensive points were
found valueless. Tools, funds, engineers and laborers fell short. The
meagre donations for continuing hostilities evinced a total want of
enthusiasm. The problem of obtaining enough troops, provisions and
artillery to defend the town seemed more and more insoluble, and the
danger not only of bombardment but of sack more and more terrible.
Grandees got out their old travelling coaches, and even plain citizens
began to emigrate. The government itself decided that against an army
represented by American deserters as more than 16,000 strong, fully
equipped, shortly to be reinforced, and soon to advance, the city could
not possibly be held; and the favorite plan of the administration,
the most promising that could be devised, was to buy up Scott's
Irish soldiers through the priest McNamara, recently conspicuous in
California, and facilitate their desertion by having Santa Anna attack
Puebla. Should this fail, submission and peace appear to have been
deemed inevitable.[25.5]
With some exceptions rulers and people alike, wearied by decades of
dissensions, oppression, scheming, robbery and illusory promises,
discouraged by the passive opposition of the clergy and the wealthy
classes, overwhelmed by a series of military disasters, convinced
that incompetent and perhaps traitorous generals led the armies, and
powerless to discern any happy omens for the country, felt neither
hope nor spirit; and the kindness of the Americans, added to their
invincibility, had now overcome even the instinct of race.[25.5]
To heighten the confusion, a state of governmental chaos reigned.
Anaya had at most but little prestige or influence, and friends of
Santa Anna, angry because excluded from office, created a friction
between the two that weakened both. The ministers could not coöperate
harmoniously. General Bravo was given command of all the troops in
the Federal District and the state of México, and Santa Anna did not
want him in that important position. Congress devoted itself, when not
harassing the administration, to wrangling over a new constitution,
substantially that of 1824, which finally was voted on the eighteenth
of May. In conscious impotence the Puros writhed and snarled; and their
enemies, the Moderados, after having triumphed and brought Santa Anna
to their side, now boldly paraded their dislike of him, and, by showing
no concern except about retaining their power, excited hostility and
contempt. Common sense was no less wanting than patriotism; and when
these two parties finally agreed to save the country, their plan
was--to supplement the constitution with two more articles.[25.5]
Of all the discontent, resentments and ambitions the now despised
Santa Anna became naturally the target. Almonte still plotted to be
President. Arista and Ampudia, joined now in disgrace as formerly in
misfortune, felt thoroughly dissatisfied. Gómez Farías could not forget
his betrayal, and Olaguíbel, governor of the most important state,
México, loyally supported him. Bravo reciprocated Santa Anna's dislike.
Valencia aspired to the chief military command. All in favor of ending
the war--who now had an organ, _El Razonador_--considered Santa Anna
a bar to peace and even to the faithful observance of a preliminary
armistice; and some of them, arguing that his extraordinary powers were
cancelled automatically by the adoption of a new organic law, advocated
placing him in the interior somewhere, ostensibly to wait for new
troops, and negotiating a treaty without his knowledge. The Puros were
expected to explode a revolution against him about the twentieth of
May, and for all sorts of personal or patriotic reasons a host of minor
individuals made ready to coöperate with it.[25.5]
[SANTA ANNA AT THE CAPITAL]
But all these busy folks were only mice, reckoning without the cat. On
leaving Puebla Santa Anna proceeded to San Martín, which lay on the
direct road to Mexico where it began to ascend the rim of the Valley.
Works had been erected near, but it was found they could easily be
turned and not easily be provisioned; and a council of war decided to
occupy the capital, since only there could large resources be counted
upon. May 18, therefore, the wretched army of 3000 or 3500 men arrived
at Ayotla, fifteen miles from their destination. Learning of this
unexpected and undesired event, the hostile elements undertook to
"pronounce" at once, but could not set the movement off. Three leading
statesmen of the dominant party then hurried to meet the General, and
after arguing all day persuaded him to write that Anaya might remain in
office and even decide whether Mexico City should be defended, while
he himself would retain his military command, or, if dissatisfied with
Anaya's decision, would resign.[25.6]
But presently cunning Tornel and one or two others convinced Santa
Anna that a mere handful of enemies had spread this net in order to
drag him from power, and eliminate his influence on the vital question
of peace. Jealousy and fears inspired by the favor that Valencia and
Bravo were apparently enjoying, added to the urgency of his officers,
did the rest; and on the nineteenth, in spite of the understanding just
agreed upon--indeed, only about an hour after his letter reached the
palace--his troops entered the city. Anaya's rather sour and curdled
face flushed hot and bitter. He did not care to retain the Presidency,
for he believed a revolution would soon break out; but forcible
ejection, in disregard of a written promise, was another affair. He
found himself powerless, however; and the next day, after inducing
a council of generals to decide upon holding Mexico, Santa Anna
announced that he would sacrifice his wishes, and resume the executive
power.[25.6]