MEXICAN WAR: DONIPHAN'S EXPEDITION: MR. BENTON'S SALUTATORY ADDRESS,
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.
COLONEL DONIPHAN AND OFFICERS AND MEN:--I have been appointed
to an honorable and a pleasant duty--that of making you the
congratulations of your fellow-citizens of St. Louis, on your happy
return from your long, and almost fabulous expedition. You have,
indeed, marched far, and done much, and suffered much, and well
entitled yourselves to the applauses of your fellow-citizens, as
well as to the rewards and thanks of your government. A year ago
you left home. Going out from the western border of your State, you
re-enter it on the east, having made a circuit equal to the fourth
of the circumference of the globe, providing for yourselves as you
went, and returning with trophies taken from fields, the names of
which were unknown to yourselves and your country, until revealed
by your enterprise, illustrated by your valor, and immortalized by
your deeds. History has but few such expeditions to record; and when
they occur, it is as honorable and useful as it is just and wise, to
celebrate and commemorate the events which entitle them to renown.
Your march and exploits have been among the most wonderful of the
age. At the call of your country you marched a thousand miles to the
conquest of New Mexico, as part of the force under General Kearney,
and achieved that conquest, without the loss of a man, or the fire
of a gun. That work finished, and New Mexico, itself so distant,
and so lately the ultima thule--the outside boundary of speculation
and enterprise--so lately a distant point to be attained, becomes
itself a point of departure--a beginning point, for new and far more
extended expeditions. You look across the long and lofty chain--the
Cordilleras of North America--which divide the Atlantic from the
Pacific waters; and you see beyond that ridge, a savage tribe
which had been long in the habit of depredations upon the province
which had just become an American conquest. You, a part only of
the subsequent Chihuahua column, under Jackson and Gilpin, march
upon them--bring them to terms--and they sign a treaty with Colonel
Doniphan, in which they bind themselves to cease their depredations
on the Mexicans, and to become the friends of the United States. A
novel treaty, that! signed on the western confines of New Mexico,
between parties who had hardly ever heard each other's names before,
and to give peace and protection to Mexicans who were hostile to
both. This was the meeting, and this the parting of the Missouri
volunteers, with the numerous and savage tribe of the Navaho
Indians living on the waters of the Gulf of California, and so long
the terror and scourge of Sonora, Sinaloa, and New Mexico.
This object accomplished, and impatient of inactivity, and without
orders (General Kearney having departed for California), you cast
about to carve out some new work for yourselves. Chihuahua, a
rich and populous city of near thirty thousand souls, the seat of
government of the State of that name, and formerly the residence
of the captains-general of the Internal Provinces under the
vice-regal government of New Spain, was the captivating object
which fixed your attention. It was a far distant city--about as
far from St. Louis as Moscow is from Paris; and towns and enemies,
and a large river, and defiles and mountains, and the desert whose
ominous name, portending death to travellers--_el jornada de los
muertos_--the journey of the dead--all lay between you. It was a
perilous enterprise, and a discouraging one, for a thousand men,
badly equipped, to contemplate. No matter. Danger and hardship
lent it a charm, and the adventurous march was resolved on, and
the execution commenced. First, the ominous desert was passed, its
character vindicating its title to its mournful appellation--an
arid plain of ninety miles, strewed with the bones of animals
perished of hunger and thirst--little hillocks of stone, and the
solitary cross, erected by pious hands, marking the spot where some
Christian had fallen, victim of the savage, of the robber, or of
the desert itself--no water--no animal life--no sign of habitation.
There the Texian prisoners, driven by the cruel Salazar, had met
their direst sufferings, unrelieved, as in other parts of their
march in the settled parts of the country, by the compassionate
ministrations (for where is it that _woman_ is not compassionate?)
of the pitying women. The desert was passed, and the place for
crossing the river approached. A little arm of the river, Bracito
(in Spanish), made out from its side. There the enemy, in superior
numbers, and confident in cavalry and artillery, undertook to bar
the way. Vain pretension! Their discovery, attack, and rout, were
about simultaneous operations. A few minutes did the work! And in
this way our Missouri volunteers of the Chihuahua column spent their
Christmas day of the year 1846.
The victory of the Bracito opened the way to the crossing of the
river Del Norte, and to admission into the beautiful little town of
the Paso del Norte, where a neat cultivation, a comfortable people,
fields, orchards, and vineyards, and a hospitable reception, offered
the rest and refreshment which toils and dangers, and victory had
won. You rested there till artillery was brought down from Sante Fé;
but the pretty town of the Paso del Norte, with all its enjoyments,
and they were many, and the greater for the place in which they were
found, was not a Capua to the men of Missouri. You moved forward
in February, and the battle of the Sacramento, one of the military
marvels of the age, cleared the road to Chihuahua; which was
entered without further resistance. It had been entered once before
by a detachment of American troops; but under circumstances how
different! In the year 1807, Lieutenant Pike and his thirty brave
men, taken prisoners on the head of the Rio del Norte, had been
marched captives into Chihuahua: in the year 1847, Doniphan and his
men enter it as conquerors. The paltry triumph of a captain-general
over a lieutenant, was effaced in the triumphal entrance of a
thousand Missourians into the grand and ancient capital of all the
Internal Provinces! and old men, still alive, could remark the
grandeur of the American spirit under both events--the proud and
lofty bearing of the captive thirty--the mildness and moderation of
the conquering thousand.
Chihuahua was taken, and responsible duties, more delicate than
those of arms, were to be performed. Many American citizens were
there, engaged in trade; much American property was there. All
this was to be protected, both life and property, and by peaceful
arrangement; for the command was too small to admit of division, and
of leaving a garrison. Conciliation, and negotiation were resorted
to, and successfully. Every American interest was provided for,
and placed under the safeguard, first, of good will, and next, of
guarantees not to be violated with impunity.
Chihuahua gained, it became, like Santa Fé, not the terminating
point of a long expedition, but the beginning point of a new one.
General Taylor was somewhere--no one knew where--but some seven or
eight hundred miles towards the other side of Mexico. You had heard
that he had been defeated, that Buena Vista had not been a _good
prospect_ to him. Like good Americans, you did not believe a word
of it; but, like good soldiers, you thought it best to go and see.
A volunteer party of fourteen, headed by Collins, of Boonville,
undertake to penetrate to Saltillo, and to bring you information
of his condition. They set out. Amidst innumerable dangers they
accomplish their purpose, and return. Taylor is conqueror; but will
be glad to see you. You march. A vanguard of one hundred men, led by
Lieutenant-colonel Mitchell, led the way. Then came the main body
(if the name is not a burlesque on such a handful), commanded by
Colonel Doniphan himself.
The whole table land of Mexico, in all its breadth, from west to
east, was to be traversed. A numerous and hostile population in
towns--treacherous Camanches in the mountains--were to be passed.
Every thing was to be self-provided--provisions, transportation,
fresh horses for remounts, and even the means of victory--and all
without a military chest, or even an empty box, in which government
gold had ever reposed. All was accomplished. Mexican towns were
passed, in order and quiet: plundering Camanches were punished:
means were obtained from traders to liquidate indispensable
contributions: and the wants that could not be supplied, were
endured like soldiers of veteran service.
The long march from Chihuahua to Monterey, was made more in the
character of protection and deliverance than of conquest and
invasion. Armed enemies were not met, and peaceful people were not
disturbed. You arrived in the month of May in General Taylor's camp,
and about in a condition to vindicate, each of you for himself,
your lawful title to the double _sobriquet_ of the general, with
the addition to it which the colonel commanding the expedition has
supplied--ragged--as well as rough and ready. No doubt you all
showed title, at that time, to that third _sobriquet_; but to see
you now, so gayly attired, so sprucely equipped, one might suppose
that you had never, for a day, been strangers to the virtues of
soap and water, or the magic ministrations of the _blanchisseuse_,
and the elegant transformations of the fashionable tailor. Thanks
perhaps to the difference between pay in the lump at the end of the
service, and driblets along in the course of it.
You arrived in General Taylor's camp ragged and rough, as we can
well conceive, and ready, as I can quickly show. You arrived: you
reported for duty: you asked for service--such as a march upon San
Luis de Potosi, Zacatecas, or the "halls of the Montezumas;" or any
thing in that way that the general should have a mind to. If he was
going upon any excursion of that kind, all right. No matter about
fatigues that were passed, or expirations of service that might
accrue: you came to go, and only asked the privilege. That is what
I call ready. Unhappily the conqueror of Palo Alto, Resaca de la
Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista, was not exactly in the condition
that the lieutenant-general, that might have been, intended him
to be. He was not at the head of twenty thousand men! he was not
at the head of any thousands that would enable him to march! and
had to decline the proffered service. Thus the long-marched and
well-fought volunteers--the rough, the ready, and the ragged--had
to turn their faces towards home, still more than two thousand
miles distant. But this being mostly by water, you hardly count it
in the recital of your march. But this is an unjust omission, and
against the precedents as well as unjust. "The ten thousand" counted
the voyage on the Black Sea as well as the march from Babylon; and
twenty centuries admit the validity of the count. The present age,
and posterity, will include in "the going out and coming in" of the
Missouri-Chihuahua volunteers, the water voyage as well as the land
march; and then the expedition of the one thousand will exceed that
of the ten by some two thousand miles.
The last nine hundred miles of your land march, from Chihuahua to
Matamoros, you made in forty-five days, bringing seventeen pieces
of artillery, eleven of which were taken from the Sacramento and
Bracito. Your horses, travelling the whole distance without United
States provender, were astonished to find themselves regaled, on
their arrival on the Rio Grande frontier, with hay, corn, and oats
from the States. You marched further than the farthest, fought as
well as the best, left order and quiet in your train; and cost less
money than any.
You arrive here to-day, absent one year, marching and fighting all
the time, bringing trophies of cannon and standards from fields
whose names were unknown to you before you set out, and only
grieving that you could not have gone further. Ten pieces of cannon,
rolled out of Chihuahua to arrest your march, now roll through
the streets of St. Louis, to grace your triumphal return. Many
standards, all pierced with bullets while waving over the heads of
the enemy at the Sacramento, now wave at the head of your column.
The black flag, brought to the Bracito, to indicate the refusal of
that quarter which its bearers so soon needed and received, now
takes its place among your trophies, and hangs drooping in their
nobler presence. To crown the whole--to make public and private
happiness go together--to spare the cypress where the laurel hangs
in clusters--this long, perilous march, with all its accidents of
field and camp, presents an incredibly small list of comrades lost.
Almost all return: and the joy of families resounds, intermingled
with the applause of the State.
I have said that you made your long expedition without government
orders: and so, indeed, you did. You received no orders from your
government, but, without knowing it, you were fulfilling its
orders--orders which, though issued for you, never reached you.
Happy the soldier who executes the command of his government:
happier still he who anticipates command, and does what is wanted
before he is bid. This is your case. You did the right thing, at
the right time, and what your government intended you to do, and
without knowing its intentions. The facts are these: Early in the
month of November last, the President asked my opinion on the manner
of conducting the war. I submitted a plan to him, which, in addition
to other things, required all the disposable troops in New Mexico,
and all the American citizens in that quarter who could be engaged
for a dashing expedition, to move down through Chihuahua, and the
State of Durango, and, if necessary, to Zacatecas, and get into
communication with General Taylor's right as early as possible in
the month of March. In fact, the disposable forces in New Mexico
were to form one of three columns destined for a combined movement
on the city of Mexico, all to be on the table-land and ready for
a combined movement in the month of March. The President approved
the plan, and the Missourians being most distant, orders were
despatched to New Mexico to put them in motion. Mr. Solomon Sublette
carried the order, and delivered it to the commanding officer at
Santa Fé, General Price, on the 22d day of February--just five
days before you fought the marvellous action of Sacramento. I well
remember what passed between the President and myself at the time
he resolved to give this order. It awakened his solicitude for
your safety. It was to send a small body of men a great distance,
into the heart of a hostile country, and upon the contingency of
uniting in a combined movement, the means for which had not yet
been obtained from Congress. The President made it a question, and
very properly, whether it was safe or prudent to start the small
Missouri column, before the movement of the left and the centre
was assured: I answered that my own rule in public affairs was to
do what I thought was right, and leave it to others to do what
they thought was right; and that I believed it the proper course
for him to follow on the present occasion. On this view he acted.
He gave the order to go, without waiting to see whether Congress
would supply the means of executing the combined plan; and for his
consolation I undertook to guarantee your safety. Let the worst come
to the worst, I promised him that you would take care of yourselves.
Though the other parts of the plan should fail--though you should
become far involved in the advance, and deeply compromised in
the enemy's country, and without support--still I relied on your
courage, skill, and enterprise to extricate yourselves from every
danger--to make daylight through all the Mexicans that should stand
before you--cut your way out--and make good your retreat to Taylor's
camp. This is what I promised the President in November last; and
what I promised him you have done. Nobly and manfully you have made
one of the most remarkable expeditions in history, worthy to be
studied by statesmen, and showing what citizen volunteers can do;
for the crowning characteristic is that you were all citizens--all
volunteers--not a regular bred officer among you: and if there had
been, with power to control you, you could never have done what you
did.