POLITICAL INTRIGUE--BUENA VISTA--MOVEMENT AGAINST VERA CRUZ--SIEGE AND
CAPTURE OF VERA CRUZ.
The Mexican war was a political war, and the administration conducting
it desired to make party capital out of it. General Scott was at the
head of the army, and, being a soldier of acknowledged professional
capacity, his claim to the command of the forces in the field was almost
indisputable and does not seem to have been denied by President Polk, or
Marcy, his Secretary of War. Scott was a Whig and the administration
was democratic. General Scott was also known to have political
aspirations, and nothing so popularizes a candidate for high civil
positions as military victories. It would not do therefore to give him
command of the "army of conquest." The plans submitted by Scott for a
campaign in Mexico were disapproved by the administration, and he
replied, in a tone possibly a little disrespectful, to the effect that,
if a soldier's plans were not to be supported by the administration,
success could not be expected. This was on the 27th of May, 1846. Four
days later General Scott was notified that he need not go to Mexico.
General Gaines was next in rank, but he was too old and feeble to take
the field. Colonel Zachary Taylor--a brigadier-general by brevet--was
therefore left in command. He, too, was a Whig, but was not supposed to
entertain any political ambitions; nor did he; but after the fall of
Monterey, his third battle and third complete victory, the Whig papers
at home began to speak of him as the candidate of their party for the
Presidency. Something had to be done to neutralize his growing
popularity. He could not be relieved from duty in the field where all
his battles had been victories: the design would have been too
transparent. It was finally decided to send General Scott to Mexico in
chief command, and to authorize him to carry out his own original plan:
that is, capture Vera Cruz and march upon the capital of the country.
It was no doubt supposed that Scott's ambition would lead him to
slaughter Taylor or destroy his chances for the Presidency, and yet it
was hoped that he would not make sufficient capital himself to secure
the prize.
The administration had indeed a most embarrassing problem to solve. It
was engaged in a war of conquest which must be carried to a successful
issue, or the political object would be unattained. Yet all the capable
officers of the requisite rank belonged to the opposition, and the man
selected for his lack of political ambition had himself become a
prominent candidate for the Presidency. It was necessary to destroy his
chances promptly. The problem was to do this without the loss of
conquest and without permitting another general of the same political
party to acquire like popularity. The fact is, the administration of
Mr. Polk made every preparation to disgrace Scott, or, to speak more
correctly, to drive him to such desperation that he would disgrace
himself.
General Scott had opposed conquest by the way of the Rio Grande,
Matamoras and Saltillo from the first. Now that he was in command of
all the forces in Mexico, he withdrew from Taylor most of his regular
troops and left him only enough volunteers, as he thought, to hold the
line then in possession of the invading army. Indeed Scott did not deem
it important to hold anything beyond the Rio Grande, and authorized
Taylor to fall back to that line if he chose. General Taylor protested
against the depletion of his army, and his subsequent movement upon
Buena Vista would indicate that he did not share the views of his chief
in regard to the unimportance of conquest beyond the Rio Grande.
Scott had estimated the men and material that would be required to
capture Vera Cruz and to march on the capital of the country, two
hundred and sixty miles in the interior. He was promised all he asked
and seemed to have not only the confidence of the President, but his
sincere good wishes. The promises were all broken. Only about half the
troops were furnished that had been pledged, other war material was
withheld and Scott had scarcely started for Mexico before the President
undertook to supersede him by the appointment of Senator Thomas H.
Benton as lieutenant-general. This being refused by Congress, the
President asked legislative authority to place a junior over a senior of
the same grade, with the view of appointing Benton to the rank of
major-general and then placing him in command of the army, but Congress
failed to accede to this proposition as well, and Scott remained in
command: but every general appointed to serve under him was politically
opposed to the chief, and several were personally hostile.
General Scott reached Brazos Santiago or Point Isabel, at the mouth of
the Rio Grande, late in December, 1846, and proceeded at once up the
river to Camargo, where he had written General Taylor to meet him.
Taylor, however, had gone to, or towards Tampico, for the purpose of
establishing a post there. He had started on this march before he was
aware of General Scott being in the country. Under these circumstances
Scott had to issue his orders designating the troops to be withdrawn
from Taylor, without the personal consultation he had expected to hold
with his subordinate.
General Taylor's victory at Buena Vista, February 22d, 23d, and 24th,
1847, with an army composed almost entirely of volunteers who had not
been in battle before, and over a vastly superior force numerically,
made his nomination for the Presidency by the Whigs a foregone
conclusion. He was nominated and elected in 1848. I believe that he
sincerely regretted this turn in his fortunes, preferring the peace
afforded by a quiet life free from abuse to the honor of filling the
highest office in the gift of any people, the Presidency of the United
States.
When General Scott assumed command of the army of invasion, I was in the
division of General David Twiggs, in Taylor's command; but under the new
orders my regiment was transferred to the division of General William
Worth, in which I served to the close of the war. The troops withdrawn
from Taylor to form part of the forces to operate against Vera Cruz,
were assembled at the mouth of the Rio Grande preparatory to embarkation
for their destination. I found General Worth a different man from any I
had before served directly under. He was nervous, impatient and
restless on the march, or when important or responsible duty confronted
him. There was not the least reason for haste on the march, for it was
known that it would take weeks to assemble shipping enough at the point
of our embarkation to carry the army, but General Worth moved his
division with a rapidity that would have been commendable had he been
going to the relief of a beleaguered garrison. The length of the
marches was regulated by the distances between places affording a supply
of water for the troops, and these distances were sometimes long and
sometimes short. General Worth on one occasion at least, after having
made the full distance intended for the day, and after the troops were
in camp and preparing their food, ordered tents struck and made the
march that night which had been intended for the next day. Some
commanders can move troops so as to get the maximum distance out of them
without fatigue, while others can wear them out in a few days without
accomplishing so much. General Worth belonged to this latter class. He
enjoyed, however, a fine reputation for his fighting qualities, and thus
attached his officers and men to him.
The army lay in camp upon the sand-beach in the neighborhood of the
mouth of the Rio Grande for several weeks, awaiting the arrival of
transports to carry it to its new field of operations. The transports
were all sailing vessels. The passage was a tedious one, and many of
the troops were on shipboard over thirty days from the embarkation at
the mouth of the Rio Grande to the time of debarkation south of Vera
Cruz. The trip was a comfortless one for officers and men. The
transports used were built for carrying freight and possessed but
limited accommodations for passengers, and the climate added to the
discomfort of all.
The transports with troops were assembled in the harbor of Anton
Lizardo, some sixteen miles south of Vera Cruz, as they arrived, and
there awaited the remainder of the fleet, bringing artillery, ammunition
and supplies of all kinds from the North. With the fleet there was a
little steam propeller dispatch-boat--the first vessel of the kind I had
ever seen, and probably the first of its kind ever seen by any one then
with the army. At that day ocean steamers were rare, and what there
were were sidewheelers. This little vessel, going through the fleet so
fast, so noiselessly and with its propeller under water out of view,
attracted a great deal of attention. I recollect that Lieutenant Sidney
Smith, of the 4th infantry, by whom I happened to be standing on the
deck of a vessel when this propeller was passing, exclaimed, "Why, the
thing looks as if it was propelled by the force of circumstances."
Finally on the 7th of March, 1847, the little army of ten or twelve
thousand men, given Scott to invade a country with a population of seven
or eight millions, a mountainous country affording the greatest possible
natural advantages for defence, was all assembled and ready to commence
the perilous task of landing from vessels lying in the open sea.
The debarkation took place inside of the little island of Sacrificios,
some three miles south of Vera Cruz. The vessels could not get anywhere
near shore, so that everything had to be landed in lighters or
surf-boats; General Scott had provided these before leaving the North.
The breakers were sometimes high, so that the landing was tedious. The
men were got ashore rapidly, because they could wade when they came to
shallow water; but the camp and garrison equipage, provisions,
ammunition and all stores had to be protected from the salt water, and
therefore their landing took several days. The Mexicans were very kind
to us, however, and threw no obstacles in the way of our landing except
an occasional shot from their nearest fort. During the debarkation one
shot took off the head of Major Albertis. No other, I believe, reached
anywhere near the same distance. On the 9th of March the troops were
landed and the investment of Vera Cruz, from the Gulf of Mexico south of
the city to the Gulf again on the north, was soon and easily effected.
The landing of stores was continued until everything was got ashore.
Vera Cruz, at the time of which I write and up to 1880, was a walled
city. The wall extended from the water's edge south of the town to the
water again on the north. There were fortifications at intervals along
the line and at the angles. In front of the city, and on an island half
a mile out in the Gulf, stands San Juan de Ulloa, an enclosed
fortification of large dimensions and great strength for that period.
Against artillery of the present day the land forts and walls would
prove elements of weakness rather than strength. After the invading
army had established their camps out of range of the fire from the city,
batteries were established, under cover of night, far to the front of
the line where the troops lay. These batteries were intrenched and the
approaches sufficiently protected. If a sortie had been made at any
time by the Mexicans, the men serving the batteries could have been
quickly reinforced without great exposure to the fire from the enemy's
main line. No serious attempt was made to capture the batteries or to
drive our troops away.
The siege continued with brisk firing on our side till the 27th of
March, by which time a considerable breach had been made in the wall
surrounding the city. Upon this General Morales, who was Governor of
both the city and of San Juan de Ulloa, commenced a correspondence with
General Scott looking to the surrender of the town, forts and garrison.
On the 29th Vera Cruz and San Juan de Ulloa were occupied by Scott's
army. About five thousand prisoners and four hundred pieces of
artillery, besides large amounts of small arms and ammunition, fell into
the hands of the victorious force. The casualties on our side during
the siege amounted to sixty-four officers and men, killed and wounded.