cl«^^ * /. ^°^*, ^^-n^. ^ o ^^ .0-.. ^. ./;;v^>:.v^-:/- °o , -t ^^o^ / THE ¥All \yiTH MEXICO REVIEWED. THE WAR WITH MEXICO REVIEWED. BY y ABIEL ABBOT LIYERMORE BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY. 1850. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by JOHN FIELD, Treas. Am. Peack Soc, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. A N D V E R : J. D. FLAGG AND W. H. WARDWELL, STEREOTTPERS AND PRINTERS. NOTE. The Committe of Award, consisting of the Hon. Simon Green- leaf, LL. D., the Eev. William Jenks, T>. D., and the Rev. Baron Stow, D. D., adjudged to the following work the Premium of Five Hundred Dollars offered by the American Peace Society for " the best Review of the Mexican War on the principles of Christianity, and an enlightened statesmanship." GEORGE C. BECKWITH, Cor. Sec. Am. Peace Society. PREFACE. The delay in publishing tMs Review demands a word of apology or explanation. The author was absent in the West Indies for the benefit of his health when the award was made by the judges, and he did not return home until June. Since that date the leisure which could be snatched from numerous professional duties has been devoted to a careful revision of the work, and the incorporating of some new materials, procured at the seat of government by personal research and the kindness of friends. For a session of Congress has intervened since the essay was written, which has con- firmed and developed some important points. Hence the attempt is made to bring its conclusions down to the present time. The conflict with Mexico was short, and, measured on the scale of European warfare, comparatively insignifi- cant, but in its lessons it is instructive, and in its effects on a forming national character powerful. To draw good out of its evils, is the aim of the American Peace Society, and of the work which now goes forth under Viii PREFACE. its auspices. War, the great social AYrong, like idolatry, the great spiritual injury, must fall in due time before the progress of the Gospel. To doubt this result, seems to presume that the Prince of Peace has come in vain, and that finite creatures can eventualy frustrate the plan of the Infinite Creator. Meanwhile, for the justi- fication of the humble labors of any individual or socfety in so stupendous a regeneration, it is enough to say, that God works by means and by men. When was the lowest whisper of prayer unheeded, or the faintest effort unblessed, that ran parallel with his benevolent purposes and his eternal laws ? The highest ambition of the writer will be amply satisfied, if these pages shall contribute to swell in a small degree the rising tide of public opinion in favor of Peace, and awaken a deeper abhorrence for the bloody and needless arbitration of the sword. A. A. LIVERMORE. Keene, N. H., September 11, 1849. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Pages. INTEODUCTION 1-5 CHAPTER n. CIRCUMSTANCES PKEDISPOSINO TO THE WAB WITH MEXICO 5-13 CHAPTER in. THE CHIEF MOTIVE OF THE "WAR 13-32 CHAPTiiii IV. PBETEXTS FOR WAR 32-39 CHAPTER V. PREPARATION OF WAR 40-50 CHAPTER VL THE BEGINNING AND ENDING OF THE WAR, ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE . 51-66 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED 66-81 CHAPTER Vni. THE EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR 82-102 CHAPTER IX. THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE .... 102-114 CHAPTER X. THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD .... 115-122 CHAPTER XI. LEGITIMATE BARBAEITIES OF THE WAR . . . 122-139 CHAPTER Xn. ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES 137-156 CHAPTER Xm. MILITARY EXECUTIONS 156-161 CHAPTER XIV. ILLEGALITIES 162-167 CHAPTER XV. POLITICAL EVILS OF THE ^yXB, AT HOME . . . 168-179 CHAPTER XVI. POLITICAL EVILS OF THE WAR ABROAD . . . 179-187 CONTENTS. Xi CHAPTER XVII. THE NEW TERRITORIES 187-199 CHAPTER XYin. NE-W SCHEMES OF INVASION AND ANNEXATION . . 200-203 CHAPTER XIX. MILITARY GLORY 204-208 CHAPTER XX. THE TRUE DESTINY OP THE UNITED STATES . . 208-212 CHAPTER XXI. THE statesman's RETRIBUTION 213-219 CHAPTER XXn. WAR MAXIMS 219-227 CHAPTER XXHL MARTIAL LITERATURE 227-230 CHAPTER XXIV. WAR AND THE FIRE-SIDE 231 - 240 CHAPTER XXV. THE VICES OF THE CAMP 240-245 CHAPTER XXVI. THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST . • 245-254 XU CONTENTS. CHAPTER xxyn. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED ...,'. 245-258 CHAPTER XXVin. LESSONS OF THE WAR 259-269 CHAPTER XXIX. SUBSTITUTES FOB 'WAB 269-277 CmVPTER XXX. PACIFICATION OP THE WORLD 277-281 CHAPTER XXXI. CONCLUSION 281-287 APPENDIX THE HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAB .... 287 $eq. THE WAR WITH MEXICO REVIEWED, CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. " The principles of true politics are merely those of morality en- larged." — Burke. History has assumed, under the light of the Gospel, a new value. It is no longer regarded as owing its chief in- terest to its royal genealogies, or its bloody record of battles. It is beginning to be understood, that the Providence of God is manifested through the rise and fall of nations. The ac- tors in the scenes of the past have been the agents of a high- er power than they themselves recognized. "The hoary registers of time" are the map of the grand march of human- ity. To draw the moral of history, therefore, becomes of equal importance to the office of narrating its events. If it be " philosophy teaching by example," it becomes a question of the first importance to learn what the examples teach ; what warning of evil, what encouragement to hope ; what lessons for rulers, or for the people. And since the light has shone down out of Heaven upon the dark confusion of hu- 1 2 INTRODUCTION. man aftairs, we can discern a meaning in the most perplex- ing passages, and trace a guiding clew thi'ough labyrinths more intricate than that of Crete. In harmony with the comprehensive use, thus briefly in- dicated, of civil and political history, the American Peace Society wished to subject the late war between the United States and Mexico to the crucible of a philosophical and Christian analysis. The friends of peace have often drawn their arguments and illustrations in vindication of their holy cause from Herodotus and Thucydides, or Hume and Rob- ertson ; but unhappily they have now been provided with a fearful strife nearer home, whose fields of blood are hardly yet dry, and whose wounds are still ghastly, from which they may teach the evils of international war. And now the thun- der of artillery and the shrieks of the wounded having died away, they wish to repeat again in mournful recitative, though it be but with a jarring human tongue, the angel's sweet hymn, " on earth peace, good will toward men." The language of the schedule, issued by the Society in February, 1847, was as follows : " The Review should be written without reference to political parties, and present such a view of the subject as will commend itself, when the hour of sober and candid reflection shall come, to the good sense of fair-minded men in every party and in all sections of the country. The war, in its origin, its progress, and the whole sweep of its evils to all concerned, should be reviewed on the principles of Christianity and of enlightened states- manship ; showing especially its waste of treasure and hu- man life; — its influence upon the interests of morality and religion, — its inconsistency with the genius of our republi- can institutions, as well as with the precepts of our re- ligion, and the spirit of the age, — its bearings immediate and remote, on free, popular governments here and through the world ; — how its evils might have been avoided with better re- sults to both parties ; — and ivhat means may and should be INTRODUCTION. 3 adopted hy nations to preveMt similar evils in future. Our sole aim is to promote the cause of permanent peace, by turning this war into eiFectual warnings against resorts to the sword hereafter." Here, then, is a distinct purpose, avowed at the outset, to use the Mexican War as an argument for the cause of peace ; to " beat its swords into ploughshares, and its spears into pruning hooks," for the culture of humane and Christian sen- timents. Without following the above-mentioned order of topics, with rigid accuracy, it will then be the aim, both of our logic and our rhetoric, in this. Essay, to draw the moral of this event in the nineteenth century, and to employ it as a powerful instrument, furnished by our opponents them- selves, — if peace have any opponents, — to scatter the illu- sions of military glory, and to reveal the incalculable evils of international war. We have great advantages for the ac- complishment of this purpose, in the very recent occurrence of the contest ; the voluminous public documents, correspon- dence, and speeches ; the numerous memoirs, sketches, and letters, written by eye and ear-witnesses and actors in the field and the camp ; and in able and eloquent essays, for and against the war, which have been laid before the public dur- ing its progress. Much of the history of the blood-stained past has been written and sung by the advocates of war, the bards and historians of the world's boisterous childhood, who have showered the richest gifts of their genius upon those fierce heroes, who were ready to " Wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind." But the time has now come to examine the subject of war in .ill its aspects and all its issues ; to decompose its glittering fabric of glory into its constituent elements ; and while it is '■ fresh and gory," to arrest the fugitive attention of the pub- lic, and confine it to the solemn lessons of Providence and 4 INTRODUCTION. Revelation. And lie, whose pen is moved by pulses from a Christian heart, will not fear to question any customs, usages, or laws pertaining to this relic of barbarism, according to the plain and positive precepts of Christ, and the whole spirit of his religion. Such is the subject, plan and promise of the following pages ; the fulfilment must rest with Him, who deigns to be a co-worker with the humblest of his crea- tures for good. In the investigation of this war, we would rise, as suggest- ed in the circular of the Society, far above the tempestuous region of partisan politics, and the extravagances of zealous, but injudicious reformers. We would speak, as men bound by the laws of natural justice, and as Christians bowing to the benevolent precepts of Christ, as the ultimate authority in every question of public, not less than of private morals. One of the vices of the times is headlong ultraism ; — the ul- traism of conservatism, as well as that of radicalism. Impa- tient of halves, men " go the whole," to use the national phrase. It is not a day of qualification, or moderation. Par- ties tolerate none in their ranks, that will not ride the pen- dulum of their peculiar notions to the utmost point of its swing. The very nature and form of social progress, devel- oped in our country, predisposes us to this fierce intolerance. The rush and eagerness of our daily life, the earnest enter- prise that is busy all over the land, that plies every tool and machine, spins along the lines of city intercourse, pours forth into forests and prairies, skims every river and lake, and ca- reers over every ocean, in the pursuit of wealth, naturally incUne our people to adopt very decided opinions upon eveiy subject. They act under a momentum that easily throws them into extremes. We would guard against this weakness. We would speak " the words of truth and soberness." How- ever severe may be our judgment of the late contest between the United States and Mexico, it shall be a censure within the bounds of reason and religion, and therefore commending CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. 5 itself to whatever there may be of reason and religion in the minds of our readers ; and all the more severe because springing not from wholesale and indiscriminate abuse, but from the simple and eternal principles of right. It requires no far-fetched proofs or strained positions ; no fanatic ap- peals or ultra doctrines, to brand the war in question with an adequate seal of infamy. For its own history is its suf- ficient exposure. Its origin, causes, purposes, and results are truth-telling witnesses against it. To be abhorred and condemned, it needs but to be recorded and reviewed. CHAPTER II. CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR WITH MEXICO. " If that the Heavens do not their visible spirits Send quickly down to tame these vile offences, 'T \^•ill come. :* # # Humanity must, perforce, prey on itself, Like moDSters of the deep." — Shakspeare. No event in history has an independent and solitary exist- ence. All its facts may be said, in one sense, to be the effect of all that precedes, and the cause of all that follows, For history is not so much a chain, as a network. Its trans- actions do not obey a law of simple succession, but of intri- cate combination. The working out of the great designs of Providence is furthered by a diversity of agencies, — some in conflict, and otliers in alliance. We can, therefore, under- stand historically nothing by itself. To know even one 1* 6 CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. nation truly and thoroughly, we need to know all nations. Viewed according to this judgment, the history of mankind is a unity, and its truest designation is universal. This general principle holds true, in its application to the important matter under review. To comprehend it aright, we need to have been diligent students of the past as well as the present. It involves, especially, the great questions of European colonization in America, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, under the English, or Protestant, and Continental, or Catholic forms, and their respective issues down to this moment. In truth, far back even beyond the third and fourth gene- ration, the causes have been in process to predispose us to this Mexican crisis, and, if prudence and wisdom did not govern both the aggrieved and the aggressor, to plunge us in a brute strife. This is no sudden leap. This is no mine sprung T\'ithout warning. On both sides, the elements have been silently brewing, through many years, for the issues of to-day. As the cannons that have mowed down ranks of living men, and the deadly bombs that have crashed through homes of affection, have in many cases been lying rusty and ancient, the relics of days gone by ; so have the causes that set these horrid engines in operation been long accumulat- ing in the arsenal, so to speak, and lying unused, until the fatal imprudence or passion of one or both parties has sum- moned them into action. To specify a leading cause, we would advert to what Sir Robert Peel has called, in the British Parhament, " a devel- opment of military ambition in the United States ; " in one sense, both cause and effect of the war with Mexico. The attentive student of lii story will be at no loss to trace the origin and growth of this fearful passion. For the time we have existed as a people, we have been no sluggards in the use of the sword. The old French and Indian wars occu- pied our great grandfathers ; the Revolution our grand- CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. 7 fathers; the war of 1812 our fathers, and Creek and Che- rokee expatriations, and Black Hawk, Patriot, Seminole, and Mormon skirmishes their sons. The martial spirit is always a tiger, and we have given the tiger too much room and freedom. In fact, the Temple of Peace has not remained long shut during our national existence. Though most of our wars have been small ones, that circumstance has not prevented their imbuing a large portion of our citizens with the ambition of arms. It is one of our maxims, that " in time of peace we should prepare for war." The whole population are armed ; there is not, probably, a house in the country, unless it belong to a Quaker or a Non-resistant, without its sword, pistol, musket, or rifle. The expenses of our army and navy, even in time of peace, have always ex- ceeded, by many milUons, the maximum of the civil list. Hence there is always existing a large profession of men, whose seeming interest it is to have their country engaged in war ; for then every expenditure in this direction is enor- mously increased ; active service creates vacancies and accel- erates promotions ; and the prize money of war is better than the earnings of industry. But other causes, besides those above noted, have contri- buted to awaken in "Young America" the aspiration for military renown. General hterature, whether in the form of poetry, oratory, or history, and whether imported or domestic, has always thrown the decisive preponderance of its influence into the war scale. Repubhcans have wished to show that they were equal to the performance of any feat that king or kaiser ever dared, or that minstrel ever sung. It has been openly avowed on the floor of Congress, by the most distinguished men of the country, that the time had arrived for us to do " some great thing," to let the Old World know that we were not the cowards or sluggards they miglit otherwise suppose us to be. As if it were not well known in every land, from north to south, that the 8 CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. United States was rising to be a leading power in the eartli ; as if two wars with the British monarchy, in which we cer- tainly were not worsted, were not sufficient witnesses to our valor, without seeking a quarrel with a rent and distracted nation to show our republican manhood; as if the good opinion of the crumbhng, bankrupt, starving, war-taxed, and groaning kingdoms of Europe were to be purchased at the fearful price of one di'op of human blood unrighteously shed. In the recent tremendous agitations, that have swept like a resistless tide over that continent, the example of republican America has been loudly and cheeringly quoted ; — would that we were more worthy of the title of the ban- ner republic ! — but what has been quoted for imitation, for inspiration, for justification, by the masses struggling for their inalienable rights, has not been our wars, our slave- ries, our inconsistencies, but our equal rights, our bread enough and to spare, our wise institutions, our world-re- nowned enterprise and industiy, and our unrivalled pros- perity. Again ; the pride of race has swollen to still greater in- solence the pride of country, always quite active enough for the due observance of the claims of universal brother- hood. The Anglo-Saxons have been apparently persuaded to tliiiik themselves the chosen people, the anointed race of the Lord, commissioned to drive out the heathen, and plant their religion and institutions in every Canaan they could subjugate. The idea of a "destiny," connected with this race, has gone far to justify, if not to sanctify, many an act on either side of the Atlantic ; for which both England and the United States, if nations can be personified, ought to hang their heads in shame, and weep scalding tears of re- pentance. When they can produce any Mosaic commission from the Almighty King of kings, to diffuse the gospel of peace at the point of the bayonet, or the benign arts and sciences of a civilized age by the brute force of an earlier CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. d period, it will be quite time enough to consider their author- ity. Meanwhile, the inquiry presses powerfully, are these same destined Anglo-Saxon missionaries so immaculate in their character, so wise in their great national ideas, and so unbendingly true in their realization of them, that they have earned a title or authenticated " a divine right " to conquer and colonize the rest of God's earth ? And when on one shore we have taken the guage of L-eland's woes and wrongs, and the oppressions of the factories, collieries, ships, and colonies of England ; and, on the other shore, recalled the repudiation of State debts, the slavery of three millions of immortal beings, and the endless wrongs of the natives of the soil, which we so proudly tread, to enumerate no other crimes ; — we shall admit, with gi'eat reluctance, that either of the gigantic progenies of the Anglo-Saxon race has established by past wisdom, fidelity, or consistency, a presumptive title to be appointed guardian over the decrepid races of the Eastern or Western hemisphere. They may, doubtless, plead the right of might; but that is far from being the might of right. They may use the old appeal, ultima ratio regum, the ultimate resort of kings, and alas ! we now see, of republics too ; but so long as they have no more divine method than that, of civilizing the savage, and Christianizing the heathen, they are held down by an eter- nal gravitation to the vulgar level of " Macedonia's madman and the Swede." True, they possess arts and arms, but there are even more potent agents than these in the progress of humanity. Have we read the history of sixty centuries, and failed to leam even the alphabet of the sublime lessons she would teach, — • that truth, love, righteousness, great and heavenly piinciples only, can worthily and successfully preside over the pro- cesses of human improvement? It is still an unsettled 10 CIRCUMSTANCES PREDISPOSING TO THE WAR. question, whether the Crusades, the Norman conquest, or the wars of the old French Revolution, did more evil or good. But there is not the glimmer of a doubt that the mariner's compass, the art of printing, the steamboat, the railroad, and the telegraph, have been ministers of good to mankind. We must be dull scholars in the Christian lore, and the veriest laggards in the work of the present age, if we still cherish the old folly of ambition and vainglory that has demonized the nations of the dead. But not to dwell longer upon considerations that will come up again in another con- nection, none can be blind to the pride of race as one of the causes that has prompted the hostihties in Mexico. European emigration, too, has had its effect. Hundreds of thousands, with all their old-world ideas, unbaptized into the spirit of liberty, except it be as license, have been trans- planted into the vast regions of the IMiddle States, the West and South- West. They have been accustomed to the bloody dramas of Europe, and o. 52, p. 78. $ 25,000,000 were to be offered for California, and $20,000,000 for that province, provided the line of boundary should not include Monterey on the Pacific, p. 79. t 29th Congress, 1st Session, Appendix to Cong. Globe. 72 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. There Mexico begins. Thence, beyond the Bravo, begin the Moorish people and their Indian associates, to whom Mexico properly belongs, who should not cross that desert if they could, as on our side we ought to stop there ; because interminable conflicts must ensue from either our going Bouth, or their coming north of that gigantic boundary. While peace is cherished, that boundary will be sacred. Not till the spirit of conquest rages, will the people on either side molest or mix with each other ; and whenever they do, one or the other race must be conquered or extin- guished." Mr. Calhoun, too, in a letter dated Aug. 12, 1844, to Mr. King, the American minister to France, says, " Nature her- self has clearly marked the boundary between her (Mexico) and Texas, by natural limits too strong to be mistaken." * "We come then, first, to an incidental and unconscious testi- mony of the commander of the American troops himself. When he met on the river Colorado on his march, the Mexican officer, who forbade his crossing that river, and declared that the act would be regarded as an unwarranted aggression on Mexico, how did Gen. Taylor conduct the matter ? Did he act and speak as if the Mexican troops, by advancing some thirty miles east of the Rio Grande, had violated the territory of the United States ? Did he charge them with invasion, and order them to retire into their own country on the right bank of the Rio Grande ? Not at all. He manifests no zeal to repel invasion. He kindles with no indignation that they should threaten to shed " American blood on American soil." His whole mien and behavior wear the most indubitable and natural semblance to that of an invader. He does not order ofi" the opposing troops, as if they had no right there, but he manifests, a deter- * 28th Congress, 2nd Session, Appendix to Congressional Globe, p. 5. ARGUMENTS FOK PEACE. 73 mined spirit to go whither he was ordered, right or wrong, and no matter through what opposition. He had none of the passion with which he would have met a British force advancing in hostile array into New York or Illinois. His whole bearing says in words that could not lie, " My march is an aggression on Mexico, or at least an advance upon dis- puted territory. If the Mexicans are invaders, so much more am I. But a soldier must obey orders." If these things were not so, why did not the brave commander fire on these presumptuous aggressors, who had penetrated so far into an American State under the protection of the Union ? Once at least Gen. Taylor so far forgot himself as to write thus, "It was my earnest desire to execute my instructions in a pacific manner, to observe the utmost re- gard for the personal rights of all citizens residing on the left hank of the river, and to take care that the religion and customs of the people should suffer no violation."* Truly a very worthy spirit. But why this exceeding care, if these were citizens, not of Mexico, but of the United States, as the pretended boundary claim made them ? A similar undesigned, and therefore altogether more pow- erful, evidence that Gen. Taylor had advanced upon Mexican, or at least disputed, soil, is afforded by his officers and men, writing home to their friends, or by letter-writers, who were in favor of the Mexican war, and who did not see the bearing of their own statements. "We quote high Executive author- ity to the same effect. In his annual message of Dec, 1846, the President says, '' by rapid movements the province of New Mexico, with Santa Fe, its capital, has been captured without bloodshed," Again, he says in the same message, " in less than seven months after Mexico commenced hostilities, at a time select- ed by herself, we have taken possession of many of her * oOth Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. No. 60. p. 145. 7 74 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. principal posts, driven back and pursued her invading army, and acquired military possession of the Mexican provinces of New Mexico, New Leon, Coahuila, Tamaulipas," * etc. But all these provinces extended east of the Rio Grande, except New Leon. T. B. Thorpe, author of " Our Army on the Rio Grande," and other works, in describing the approach of Gen. Tay- lor's army to that river, says, " Large droves of splendid horned cattle were now frequently seen ; and occasionally a small cotton field, hedged in by thorn bushes, strengthened by trunks of trees set in the ground, gave welcome evidence of a settled country. Scattered 3Iexican huts next ap- peared." Could this have been a part of Texas proper ? The author of " the Life of General Zachary Taylor, and a History of the War in Mexico," published in the " Brother Jonathan, Battle Sheet, 1847," an advocate of the war, uses the following language : " The administration at Washington, on the 13th of January, 1846, ordered Gen. Taylor to move forward, and occupy the east bank of the Rio Grande, oppo- site Matamoras, but not disturb any of the Mexican settle- ments, or any military posts that might be on this side of the Rio Grande, and to purchase every thing needed for the army at the highest price." Again, " on setting out on this march, he (Gen. Taylor) embodied the above instructions in one of his general orders, which he caused to be circulated among the Mexicans on the east side of the Rio Grande.'* Again, " on the 24th, Gen. Taylor, leaving the main com- mand with Gen. Worth, and taking with him Col. Twiggs, and his dragoons, approached Frontone, a small Mexican village at Point Isabel, in the department of Tamaulipas, * The Legislature of Tamaulipas lias demanded two millions of dol- lars of the Federal Government, as indemnity for the territory North of the Rio Grande, ceded to tlie United States by the treaty of Gaud- al upc. — Neivspaper, 1843. ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 75 where Gen. Garcia was stationed with two Imndred and fifty men." And once more ; " but three or four inojffensive Mexicans were found in the place (Frontone)." * We ask how could all these things have been, if this were American, Texan, or United States soil ? Capt, W. S. Henry, of the U. S. Armj, wrote a work, en- titled " Campaign Sketches of the "War with Mexico," in which the following passages, unconscious witnesses of the truth, are found : "Friday, August 1, 1845. After enjoying the delightful view from the bluff, a party of us strolled over the beautiful plain, on the borders of which many Mexican families reside." Observe that this was in the immediate vicinity of Corpus Christi. " March 19, 1846. Passed many pens in which the Mexicans confine their droves of cattle and horses." " March 23d. " This part of the country is really beauti- ful, and I am not surprised that the Mexicans are loath to part with it." "March 28th. As we approached the bank we passed through a long line of Mexican huts." " Two hours after our arrival a flag-staff was erected, un- der the superintendence of Colonel Belknap, and soon the * A law was passed by the Congress of the United States, after the annexation of Texas, Dec. 29, 1845, "That the State of Texas shall be one collection district, and the city of Galveston the only port of entry, to which shall be annexed Sabine, Velasco, Matagorda, Cavello, La Vaca, and Corpus Christi, as ports of delivery only." No port routes were established beyond the valley of the Nueces until after the Commencement of the war. By an additional act of Congress, passed March 3, 1847, Saluzia was made the only port of entry, and Matagorda, Aranzas, Capano, and Corpus Christi, the only ports of delivery in that collection district of Texas. Why were Brazos, Santiago, and Point Isabel left out, if they be- longed at that time to Texas ? 76 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. flag of our countiy, a virgin one, was seen floating upon the banks of the Rio Grande, proclaiming in a silent but impres- sive manner that the ' area of freedom ' was again extended. As it was hoisted, the band of the 8th Lifantrj played the <• Star-spangled Banner,' and the field music ' Yankee Doo- dle.' There was not ceremony enough in raising it. The troops should have been paraded under arms, the banner of our countiy should have been hoisted with patriotic strains of music, and a national salute should have proclaimed, in tones of thunder, that ' Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable,' had advanced to the banks of the Rio Grande." Then it is certain that they had not reached that river before Gen. Taylor pitched his camp there, by this writer's own testimony.* The same author says, under date of March 30th, " our situation is truly extraordinary : right in the enemy's country (to all appearance,) actually occupying their com and cotton fields, the people of the soil leaving their homes,t and we, with a small handful of men, marching with colors flying and drums beating, right under the very guns of one of their principal cities, displaying the star-spangled banner, as if in defiance under their very nose ; and they, with an army twice our size at least, sit quietly down and make no resistance, not the fii^t effort to di-ive us off*." In a " Life of Major-General Zachary Taylor, with an account of his brilliant achievements on the Rio Grande," etc., etc., by C. Frank Powell, is the following passage ; | "we * The Italics are ours. t " Tlie population fled at the approach of your army. I wish to know if it has come to this, that when an American army goes to pro- tect American citizens on American territory, they flee from it as from the most harbarous enemy ? Yet such is the assumption of those who pretend that on the east bank of the Rio Gi-ande, where your arras took possession, there were Texas population, Texas power, Texas laws, and American United States power and law." — Corwiris Speech, in ih» Senate, Fek\\,\%Al. J p. 13. ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 77 shall not make it our province to question the policy of taking forcible possession of a territory known to be held in dispute by two free and independent republics ; but nothing is clear- er than that the commander of the American forces but com- plied with implicit instructions of the Department, which were his guaranty and justification." "We cannot say, that neutrality would have been pre- served had possession not been taken; and it would seem that the acquisition of the republic, — but in equal part interested in the dispute, — by a third power, did not change the position of affairs, or authorize such power to invest the territory. Be this as it may, however, on the 28 th of March, 1846, the United States' army took up its quarters opposite Matamoras, and planted the United States' flag in the ancient department of Tamaulipas" Gen. Taylor wix)te to the Adjutant General,* April 6, 1846 : " On our side, a battery for four 18 pounders will be completed, and the gmis placed in battery to-day. These guns bear directly upon the public square of Matamoras, and within good range for demolishing the town. Their object cannot be mistaken by the enemy." The force of these quotations from active agents or advo- cates of the war, is to prove that acts of invasion and hos- tility, if committed by either party up to the date of these extracts, were chargeable on the Ameiican authorities. They had pushed their troops into a debatable region. They had penetrated among Mexican villages and fields, and planted their cannon in hostile array, commanding a Mexican city. If these were not acts of war, (casus belli,) they were acts provocative of war; and, if not designed, yet, assuredly, they were perfectly adapted, to plunge the two countries into a sanguinary conflict. Had pacific coun- sels prevailed in both governments, we can now see how * 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. No. 60, p. 133.' 7* 78 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. easily and honorablj those occasions and steps might have been shunned, which resuhed at last in such terrific evils, both to the victor and the victim. Far be it from us to exempt either Mexico or the United States from deep guilt, in bringing on the contest ; but which government was chiefly instrumental in springing the mine at last, has been made sufficiently clear by the preceding remarks. In this connection it will be proper, as a part of the his- tory of the war, to state, that it had actually begun, and two principal battles, those of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, had been fought, before the Congress of the United States, the war-making power, was apprized of what was going for- ward, and the steps which had been taken to bring matters to a crisis ; or had been favored with an opportunity to pro- nounce on the merits or causes of a war with Mexico. Their vote, therefore, was but a foregone conclusion. They but registered the decision that had gone forth from another branch of the government. While, accordingly, the House of Representatives of the 29th Congress, on May 13, 1846, voted, by a majority of 173 to 14, that, "by the act of the republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that government and the United States;" on Jan. 3, 1848, the — newly chosen House of Representatives of the 30th Congress voted, in a Joint Resolution of thanks to Gen. Taylor, his officers, and men, by a majority of 85 to 81, that the war was " unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States ; " and this vote was sub- sequently sustained against reconsideration, on Feb. 14th, by a majority of 115 to 94. Having thus far discussed the beginning of the war, as an argument for peace, as a precedent, illustrating the saying of the Wise Man, that it is better to " leave off contention before it be meddled with ; " we now proceed to make a few remarks on the termination of the contest, as also bearing witness in behalf of the cause of peace. ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 79 Various proposals were made to the Mexican Govern- ment, during the prosecution of the war, to enter into nego- tiations of peace. Offers were addressed, at different periods, by the superior commanders, acting under directions from home, to treat of matters in dispute between the two coun- tries ; but Mexico, feeling herself deeply wronged and aggrieved, and clinging to the principle of the integrity of the national domains, rejected with scorn all pacific counsels. It was with this view, that an armistice of eight weeks formed one of the articles of the capitulation of Monterey. And, after the battle of Buena Vista, Gen. Taylor sent an officer to Gen. Santa Anna, " to express to him the desire still cherished by the American Government, for the re- establishment of peace." " Say to Gen. Taylor," was the reply, " that we sustain the most sacred of causes, — the defence of our territory, and the preservation of our nation- ality and rights." After the battle of Cerro Gordo, Gen. Scott addressed a letter to the Mexican people, to persuade them to entertain propositions of peace, and to understand their true interests. But the effort was fruitless. Finally, the sword, drunk as it was with human blood, proving an ineffectual instrument of pacification, a more hopeful plan suggested itself to the American Government. N. P. Trist, Esq., as before stated, was appointed, on the 15th of April, 1847, an agent, by the President, unconfirmed and unauthorized by the Senate, the confirming and treaty- making power ; and his commission stated that he was in- vested, " in the fullest and most complete manner, with ample power and authority, in the name of the United States, to meet and confer with any person or persons, who shall have similar authority from the republic of Mexico, and between them to negotiate and conclude an arrangement of the differences which exist between the two countries — a treaty of peace, amity, and lasting boundaries. Mr. Trist 80 ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. carried with him to Mexico, from the department of State, " a project of a treaty." Its principal features were, the cession to the United States of the disputed territory be- tween the Nueces and the Rio Grande, with the adoption of the latter river as the boundary line ; the cession of New Mexico, and both Upper and Lower California; and the free right of way forever across the isthmus of Tehuantepec. Three millions of dollars had been placed, by Congress, at the disposal of the President of the United States, by which the provisions of a treaty of peace might be concluded, and its objects fulfilled, Mr. Trist accompanied Gen. Scott and his army to the Valley of Mexico ; and, after the battles of Contreras and Churubusco, he met Mexican commissioners, specially appointed to negotiate a treaty. From the 27th of August, 1847, to the 7th of September, the commission thus jointly constituted was in session, at a small village in the immediate vicinity of the capital. Mr. Trist laid his pro- ject before the Mexican commissioners, who also proposed conditions of peace, that rested essentially on these points : the adoption of the Nueces as the boundary ; thence west to the eastern boundary of New Mexico; thence north with that boundary to the thirty-seventh degree of latitude ; thence west with that parallel to the Pacific ; and that the country between the Nueces and the Rio Grande should be left as an uninhabited country. But the commission could not agree ; the failure turning wholly on the claim of the south part of New Mexico, which neither party would yield; while Mr. Trist was willing to concede Lower California, and to refer the question of the Nueces territory to the cabinet at Washington. On the 7th of September the dis- cussions closed, and on the 8th Gen. Scott opened his cannons on Mollno del Rey. Mr. Trist was subsequently recalled, by the President of the United States, and his authority as a peace commissioner declared to be at an end. But he remained in Mexico, with ARGUMENTS FOR PEACE. 81 the army ; and, on the 2d of February, 1848,* he negotiated, with commissioners appointed by the Mexican Government, the treaty of peace, which has akeady in the preceding chapter been mentioned, as receiving finally the ratification of the lawful powers of both governments. The articles of pacification are too well known, to be repeated at length. It is sufficient to staie, that the troops of the United States were to withdraw from Mexico ; the blockaded ports to be opened ; the Rio Grande to be the boundary line on the Gulf of Mexico, and on the Pacific the line between Upper and Lower California; the payment of fifteen millions of dollars to Mexico, in consideration of the territory thus acquired ; and the exoneration of Mexico from all claims of citizens of the United States for spoliations, to the amount of several millions more. The conclusion of the war thus demonstrates the superior power and blessings of peace. Both parties were tired of the contest; the one of being defeated and ravaged, the other of losing thousands of lives, and millions of money. So far as the peace was a measure forced by the sword, it is as dishonorable in the light of humanity and Christianity to the victorious, as it is humiliating to the vanquished nation. For Fenelon, noble champion for • his day of the humane spirit in international intercourse, says, in his " Directions for the Conscience of a King," that "a treaty of peace, that is made from necessity, because one party is the stronger, is like that which is made with a robber, who has a pistol at your head." And so far as the power of money prevailed, where the power of the bayonet had failed, so far as the negotiation, though unauthorized at the time, succeeded, where the bravest general had been frustrated in " conquering a peace," the treaty might as well have been negotiated in February, 1846, as in February, 1848. * 30th Congress, 2d Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc, No. 50, on the Treaty of Peace. Also, Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 52. 82 EXPENDITURES OP THE WAR. CHAPTER VII. THE EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. " I said one day in Venice, in a company which was very clamorous for a war, I wish that each of the great men and great women present was ordered by the emperor to contribute, at the rate of four thousand ducats a head, to the charges of the war ; and that the other fine gen- tlemen among us were made to take the field forthwith, in person." — Prince Eugene, \ We devote this chapter to " the waste of treasure," pro- duced by the Mexican War, to both the nations concerned. There ai-e men of reputed wisdom and high standing, who scorn the consideration of the cost of a war. They deem it a sordid act to put money into one scale, to weigh against national glory in the other. We confess that money is not the chief good of life, and that wasting it by millions is not the d.ief evil of war. We confess that there are things which a nation should hold infinitely dearer than an over- flowing exchequer, and for which it should pour out its gold and silver with the bountifulness of the rains of heaven. Such are the maintenance of its just rights by Christian means, the diffusion of education and religion among its people, and the contribution of food and clothing for the famished and naked abroad, as well as to build up every good institution, asylum, and public work, that will insure the physical, domestic, and moral improvement of its masses. But we do not recognize this war as among these objects ; it be^oiiji? to a very different category. When we look, too, on one hand, at the horrid destitution and consequent degradation and wretchedness of extensive EXPE^-DlTrI^Eb uf nit war. 83 strata of society in the old world, and then witness, on the other, the fruitful cause, direct or indirect, of this incalcula- ble woe, in the war-debts which hang like Alps and Andes around the necks of the European powers, we would utter a cry that should pierce the hearts of our countrymen, and warn them from the ambition of copying into their unwritten history so dark a chapter. Vice and misery need be no rid- dle or wonder in England or France, after w^e have read the history of their battles. Doubtless, many other causes be- sides war have contributed to dry up the sources of public prosperity, to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer, and multiply pauperism and ciime to an almost boundless extent. We, as citizens of a republican government, think we can identify these causes in some measure with the old feudal, monarchical, and ecclesiastical institutions that yet have a foot- ing beyond the Atlantic. But it is still our conviction that these causes, bad as they may be in themselves, have derived tenfold virulence of evil from the omnipresent and overshad- owing institutions and customs of War. For war, not only in a time of war, Avith its ruinous drain, near or remote, upon every branch of production and industry in the state ; but war, contradictory as the terms may be, in a time of peace, has swallowed up many millions more than the civil list. The treasury of the richest country on the earth, thus be- comes, like the sieve of the Danaides, always filling and always empty. And the fortune of the state is repeated in miniature in the fortune of the humblest citizen. For the waste of war is not half enumerated when we have summed up the huge public expenditures, which are as much beyond our imagination adequately to conceive, as the distance to one of the fixed stars, but we must gather up a countless heap of items, each minute in itself, but constituting a mountain of aggregate loss, — the poor man's garden trampled by the hoofs of the war-troop, the corn-fields cut up for forage, the little improvements on his acre ravaged, the one " ewe- lamb " ta- 84 ExrtM)nrREs of the war. ken, the widow's cow driven away, or the widow's son wrest- ed from her side to bleed and languish in foreign parts. These, — and the catalogue might be run to any length, — constitute " a waste of treasure " and of human comfort in their lowlier aspects, which are never registered in the na- tional legers of the contending powers, but which are all re- corded with a pen of iron in the book of human life and of God, where every leaf is a broken heart. There need be some great cause, " known and read of all men," to justify the infliction at home and abroad of such manifold woes, else they accumulate and darken into a crime, before which all or- dinary guilt is but a breath of air. But the expenses of this war, great as they are, will not be too great a price to pay, if they shall serve to awaken any considerable portion of the people to the wrongs and barbar- ities of this old-world institution. We may rejoice, in one sense, in the heavy burdens men bring upon themselves for their sins. It is of a piece with the great retributive Provi- dence of God, as good as it is just. Fearful indeed would it be, if we could carry on such a contest with a powerful na- tion, and not have a mete recompense of reward following after it, to the pecuniary, as well as other interests of the country. We cannot act in this world under an exhausted receiver, in which we are cut off from the great vital atmos- phere of humanity, nor disconnect ourselves from the com- pound system of life, in which mutual action and reaction throughout are reigning principles. Thus viewed, the cost of our Wars, our Slaveries, our Intemperance and other vices and vicious customs, is a wise and kind punishment, inflicted upon us to remind us how far we have strayed from the ways of our God, and how hard and harder, the farther he walks in it, becomes the way of the transgressor. Property is one of the trusts of God to man, and though it is, of and by itself, one of the inferior blessings of life, yet the spirit in which the trust is discharged, and the uses to EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 85 which money is applied, are matters of the first importance. As we use or abuse its magic power, we can kill or make alive, raise or sink, bless or curse, ourselves, our family, our town, our state. Property is one of the momentous trusts of government, and it may be transformed into camps or schools, bullets or books, destructive armies, or pacific explor- ing expeditions. It may be cast into the scale of civilization or barbarism. It may be employed to convert the goodly earth into a Pandemonium, or to hasten the Millennial ages. When, accordingly, the revenues of a people are expended in war, and a debt of fearful magnitude is saddled upon pos- terity, it is right to demand that a strong and sufficient rea- son be made out to justify such extraordinary measures. Much as men may be enamored of mihtary glory, and pas- sionately as they may resent any infringement upon their rights, yet war is a ruinous game to the winner as well as the loser. Every battle is as truly the destruction, by its imme- diate and its ramified influences and effects, of millions of the earnings of the laboring and producing classes, as if the balls were of silver, and the wadding Treasury notes. And some- where and upon somebody the loss will fall, and fall with the certainty of gravitation. Far away it may be ; and mixed up and mystified with endless details of currency, and tariffs and income-taxes, it probably will be; but upon the rich man's property, upon the poor man's sinews even more sure- ly, the reckoning will come, and the money, the mines and mints of money that were absorbed into mighty fleets and armies, and that went down at Trafalgar, or were blown into the canopy of smoke that shrouded Cerro Gordo, must all be paid, cent for cent, and dollar for dollar. Such is the waste and profligacy of war. Such is the tremendous responsibili- ty of those who set in motion its destroying agencies of fire and sword, famine and pestilence. The figures used in calculating the expenses of wars in general, are so vast that they are blunted in their force by 8 86 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. their very magnitude. For when we say, as is said on good authority, that the American Revolution cost Great Britain $680,000,000, that the French Revolutionary war of nine years from 1793, cost $2,320,000,000 ; that the contest with Napoleon, from 1803 to 1815," cost $5,795,000,000, or an average of $1,323,082 every day, or more than a million of it for war-purposes alone every day ; that Europe spent $15,000,000,000 for the wars that raged from 1793 to 1815 ; and that we of the United States expended in a period of forty-one years, from 1791 to 1832, during which time we had only two years and a half of actual war, the sum of $842,250,891, of which sum only $37,158,047 belonged to the civil list, the rest used for war purposes ; when we have read a few statistics of this appaUing kind, we seem to lose in the indefiniteness of such inconceivable sums of money the vivid impression which even the loss visibly of a single dol- lai- out of our own pocket would occasion. And it is perhaps somewhat to this mtellectual incapacity of comprehending the billions of the war-tax, as well as to moral apathy, that we may fairly attribute the ease with which every government satisfies the mass of its subjects in its outrageous expendi- tures for forts, and ships, and armies. And the marvel is, after we have surveyed the devastations of war upon man's prosperity, not that he starves, rebels, or speculates wildly about his condition on earth, not that multitudes sufler and perish in pauperism, famine, ignorance, and sin, but that so- ciety has any life left at all, that every vein of circulation is» not stagnant, and every nerve of motion palsied. Though much of the property thus expended by a na- tion is not actually annihilated, but only passes from one hand to another in purchasing the articles of war, yet when we have added to the qualified public account the innumerable private losses that go unrecorded, the sum total would exceed rather than fkll short of the above statements. And here observe, that nothing of all that man does under EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 87 the sun, is so purely, so prodigally wasteful as war. It is killing, burning, exploding, consuming, wasting, cheating, in all its processes. It has no producing power. If called, in company with other trades and guilds to show the results of his labors, the warrior can only point to the smoking battle-field, to the shattered city, to the tramp- led fields, to dead and dying men and horses, to broken weapons and dismounted batteries, as the most consummate material trophies of his skill. His implements till no soil but "the dark and bloody ground," and his arm gathers no harvest but the harvest of death. His mes- sengers are missiles of destruction, and his arm rests when he has done his weary day's work on a pyramid of human skulls. " Thrifty, unwearied Nature, ever out of our great waste educing some little profit of her own, " may " shroud- in the gore and carnage, " and " next year the Marchfeld will be green, nay greener ;" but for every ear of wheat that waves over the unnatural field, some tear was shed, some heart was broken, some life was lost. The produc- tiveness of war would furnish a new chapter for Smith or Say on the wealth of nations and the laws of political economy. From the enormous outgoes of other wars we readily draw the expectation, that our frugal republican habits have suddenly launched out into the most spendthrift ways in our recent contest. The Florida war of six years with a handful of naked Seminoles cost $42,000,000. The French war with Algiers has for sixteen years cost $20,000,000, annually, making a grand total of $320,000,000. The Aff- ghan war, short as it was, cost Great Britain $65,000,000. For with all their inventions men have not yet disco- vered how to wage a cheap war. They invent labor-saving and ingenious machinery for every other work, but the horrid work of battle requires to be done by the practised hand and the steady eye of an intelligent agent. Hence 88 EXPENDITURES OF WAR. with all the increased means of destruction, man has still in a great measure to do' the bloody drudgery himself, and work his own hellish engines ; he cannot drag the reluctant steam or electricity into his service to tend his cannon, or propel the serried array of his lances. General Taylor is thought to have given a heroic command to his troops in his General Orders on the day preceding the battle of Palo Alto in saying, " he wishes to enjoin upon the bat- tahons of Infantry that their main dependence must be in the bayonet ;" but it shows the manual labor, so to speak, of a battle, and the impossibility, as in the arts of peace, of shifting off a large amount of the toil upon the sponta- neous forces of nature. It requires men to kill men by the hundreds and thousands. The business cannot be done by machinery. The time of reckoning the cost of the Mexican war has not yet come. The most that can be done now is to make some general estimates from what is known and authenti- cated to what is unknown, and to what never will be known. But from documentary statements we learn that this war has not proved an exception to the general rule. It has consumed millions upon millions of American, and what to the philanthropist and Christian will be deeply, if not equally deplorable, millions upon millions of Mexican pro- perty. The capital that the two chief young republics of the earth could ill afford to lose, has been squan- dered. Heavy debts that will require years for their disbursement have been contracted. The energies of many thousand men in both countries have been diverted from industrial and productive occupations. Many have taken up the profession of arms, and will not return again to the pursuits of peace, but will seek to find, in some " Buffalo Hunt on the Rio Grande," or some "Fox Hunt in Canada," the chosen theatre of their adventures. The cost of the war to Mexico has probably on the whole EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 89 been as great as it lias been to the United States.* For though her troops did not leave their own soil, nor require to be transported thousands of miles by land and water, yet she had three or four times as many in the field, and the killed and wounded men, cut off in the prime of life from all occupations, were far more numerous. The United States in most cases honorably paid the inhabitants where the country was conquered for all the articles consumed by the troops, but Mexico lost an immense sum by the blockade of every port in the Gulf and on the Pacific, the diversion of her maritime revenues into the coffers of her enemy, and the heavy military contributions that were levied upon the respective provinces, invaded both by Gen- eral Taylor and General Scott, and by the commodores on the several naval stations. She also lost an incalculable amount of public stores, and the material of war of every descrijDtion. So far as conquest was concerned and the fruits of conquest, all the gain was on the part of the United States, and all the loss on the part of her helpless victim, t * Three causes have been mentioned by some periodical wi-iter, why the United States have suffered Itss pecuniary loss in this war, than nations ordinarily do in such contests; 1. The distance of the active warfare from our own soil. 2. The perfect security and free- dom of our commerce. 3. The influx for a time of foreign specie, owing to the famine in Europe. — Advocate of Peace^ March and April, 1848, pp. 176—178. t The Quarter Master General reports, Nov. 24, 1 847, the receipt of $46,960,82 captured in Mexico, or accruing from customs. The Secretary of the Navy reports, Nov. 17, 1847, the collection by olhcers of the United States of $530,810,46 in the four cities of Vera Cruz, Tampico, Matamoras, and Saltillo, as military contributions levied upon them. The General Orders of Scott, dated Mexico, Dec. 31, 1847, as- sessed $3,046,568. on the several States of Mexico, according to their ability, being '• quadruple of the direct taxes paid by the several States to their Federal Government in the year 1843 or 1844." It was not, however, nearly all collected. 8* 90 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. The actual destruction of private and public property must necessarily have been immense in the path of the invad- ing armies, and at the sieges of Monterey, Vera Cruz, Puebla, Atlixco, and Mexico, to say nothing of the bom- bardment of other places, Tuspan, Tobasco, and Huamantla. It will let us into the secrets of war-making a little to read such as the following items of intelligence taken at hazard. Edwards, in his sketch, entitled " Doniphan's Campaign, " pp. 153, 154, writes, " at this same Ceralvo we arrived on the twenty-ninth. It is one of the few places which Taylor did not destroy along the road: — he had been compelled to lay waste most of the ranchos and small towns, on account of their affording concealment to parties of guerillas who would occasionally rob the waggon trains." General Taylor in a letter to the War Department, dated Monterey, Sept. 28, 184G, says, " The command left by Colonel Harney at the Presidio crossing, having been fired upon by the Mexicans with the loss of one killed and two wounded, set fire to the puhlic stores they were left to protect, and retreated to San Antonio." The bombard- ment of Vera Cruz was computed to have destroyed between one and two millions of property.* These facts may serve to show the losses which probably ensued to a Tlic Secretary of War reports, Dec 1, 1848, that the amount of " contributions, and avails of captured property" cannot at that time be fully and accurately ascertained, but $3,844,373,77 were reported as received, and more was expected from New Mexico and California. — 30th Congress, 2nd Session, House of Representatives. Ex. Doc. 1, p. 80. An officer, on board the United States' man-of-war Independence, wrote under date of April 15^ 1848, Mazatlan, that "we have col- lected or secured at the Custom House here duties to the amount of SI 50,000." * It was computed by some that the bombardment of Vera Cruz destroyed property to the amount of $3,000,000 ; and Mexican au- thorities asserted an equal loss at the capital, but it was no doubt exaggerated. EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 91 greater or less extent at every point, touched or occupied by the American arms. When to these considerations we add the loss of part of her provinces of Tamauhpas, Coahuila, Chihuahua, and the whole of New Mexico, and Upper CaHfornia, we shall stand justified in the opinion that not- withstanding what she has received in indemnity, viz. the relinquishment of the claims, and the payment of $15,000,000, as a make-peace, the loss to Mexico has been fully equal to that of the United States. We proceed to state what that is, according to the most reliable documents and estimates; premising, however, that many years must pass, before any one can say what the expenses are in full ; since all the incidentals, — as pensions, bounties, and private claims, — of neither the Florida war, nor that of 1812, nor even that of the American Revolution, have as yet been ascertained and paid. The details, too, in official documents, are so difficult to analyze and understand, that none but an accomplished financier can do the subject full justice. Even Mr. Gallatin himself, one of the ablest and most experienced of living men in his day, in this de- partment of affairs, in his Treatise of 1848, entitled " War Expenses," is obhged, sometimes, to confess himself at fault. War was declared by the President of the United States, May 13, 1846, and peace was ratified by the Mexican Con- gress, May 25, 1848. The two nations were, therefore, embroiled with each other about two years. The fiscal year of the United States ends June 30th, and the two years of the war may be regarded as covering, in some measure, two fiscal years. The expenses of the war extended, however, materially into the fiscal year beginning June 30, 1848, and ending June 30, 1849. 92 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. The whole expenditures * of the Government of the United States, for the year ending June 30th, '1847, were . . / $59,451,000 Whole expenditures of the year ending June 30th, 1848 58,241,000 Estimated expenditures of the year ending June 30th, 1849 54,195,000 $171,887,000 The expenditures of the thi-ee previous years, how- ever, viz., 1844, 1845, and 1846, were only . . 90,957,000 Leaving the round sum of $80,930,000 which may chiefly be attributed to the war with Mexico. If to this sum we add the money to be paid to Mex- ico for new territories 15,000,000 Extra pay for three months, allowed by Congress, July 19, 1848, to all soldiers, computed by the Se- cretary of War at from 80 to 100.000, engaged in the war, say . . , 2,000,000 Claims, for which the Government is liable . . 3,250,000 We have the sum of $101,180,000 as the direct expenditure of the war. If we take another,! more specific method, we arrive at nearly the same result. Expenditures of 1845 - 6 over those of 1844 - 5, at tributable to Gen. Taylor's movements . Expenditures of army and navy proper. 1846-7, over those of previous years ..... Ditto, 1846-8 Other increased expenditures of the War Depart ment over those of previous years Expenditures after June 30thJ! 1848, for return of troops, etc. etc For new territories Extra pay Claims .... .... By which we have as the sum of the positive expenditures, independ ently of the endless array of bounties, pensions and claims, Avhich will now pour like the Gulf Stream into Congress. $4,299,000 30,777,000 31,715,000 15,217,000 4,000,000 15,000.000 2.000.000 3,250,000 $106,258,000 * See Official Documents. t See Official Documents. EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 93 When to this sum, which has been a direct cost, we add the long array of indirect expenditures, that will stretch through the next half centurj, to reward the officers and soldiers engaged in this war ; the injury to the business of the country, by withdrawing so many millions of capital, and scattering it over a foreign land ; the destruction of so many thousand Hves, the loss of health to so many thousand more, thus sinking a large amount of the productive labor of the country ; the employment of multitudes in the barren and unproductive work of equipping the warrior, the war- horse, and the war-ship, with their enginery of death, be- sides the using of military stores and arms in arsenals ; and the interruption of business, consequent upon a state of war with one of our trading neighbors ; then we shall not think it extravagant to say, that the indirect cost of the war, were it ferretted out in all its particulars, would equal the direct expenditure, and amount to $100,000,000 more ; thus swell- ing the grand total to $200,000,000. To fortify these results, we will adduce some other con- siderations, relative to the finances of the war. Thus the mihtary and naval appropriations for the year ending June, 1847, were $40,863,155.96 ; for the year ending June, 1848, $31,377,679.92 ; and, for the year ending June, 1849, $42, 224,000 ; amounting, in all, to $114,466,835.88. A part of this sum goes for other expenditures than those of the Mex- ican hostilities ; but this sum does not include the price paid for California and New Mexico, the claims which the United States have obligated themselves to pay, and the bounty of 160 acres of land* to every volunteer, making, as has been * " The Mexican War land-warrants will greatly outnumber those of the Revolution, or the war of 1812, as there are many more sol- diers. They are worth more, also, as there is a wider field allowed for selections. All the soldiers, who volunteered for twelve months, are entitled to one hundred and sixty acres of land, and the six months' volunteers are entitled to eighty acres. The wife, children, father, or 94 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. computed, for 60,000 men 9,600,000 acres, or S6,000,000 in Treasury scrip, if the soldiers or their lieirs prefer to take the equivalent ; to say nothing of the large sums which were voted by State Legislatures, or contributed by individuals, to equip and furnish the volunteer regiments and their officers, and the thousands and the tens of thousands expended in welcoming back, in a festive manner, the survivors, on their return home. One Senator stated, in his official place, that the war was costing, at one period, at the rate of $500,000 per diem. Another said : " I am satisfied, that one year of this war will cost us about $100,000,000." He then cited the appro- priations, to justify such an inference. For the army alone : By the Act of the 13th Mav, 1846 .... $10,000,000 Bv the Act of the 20th June ... . 12,000,000 BV the Act of the 8th August 2,200,000 $24,200,000 Raised by loans, to meet war expenses By the Act of the 20th of July $10,000,000 By the Act passed \vinter session, 1846-7 , . . 23,000,000 Surplus in the treasury when the war began, consumed, 12,000,000 The necessary appropriations, to be passed the same session 50,000,000 Total,* $119,200,000 Such were the expenditures made, or estimated, up to mother, of soldiers who died in the serA-ice, are allowed the same quan- tity of land." — Newhuryport Herald. * The Secretary of War says, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, 30th Congress, 2d Session, p. 22 : " More than 60,000 claims have been presented under the Act of 11th Eeb. 1847, for bounty land and trea- sury scrip About 40,000 have been acted on and allowed ; 20,000 are now pending ; and it is estimated that there are 40,000 yet to be pre- sented." See, also, 30th Congress, 2d Session, Ex. Doc. No. 1, p. 369. 90,000 claims had been presented, May, 1849, as we learnt by personal inquiry at the War Department. EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 95 March 3, 1847, according to the uncontradicted statements of a United States Senator, made in his seat. A distinguished Governor of Tennessee, an advocate of the war, declared, in a public address, that the expenses would be ^8,000,000 per month. Colonel Doniphan's regiment of mounted dragoons con- sisted of 1,000 men. They volunteered for one year. When they returned home, each of them received ^560 for his pay, his horse, etc., and his land scrip in addition ; making, in all, the sum of $750,000. The claims of citizens of California against the United States, for money and supplies furnished by them during the war, amounted to $500,000 or $800,000.* The President, in a Message to Congress, dated July 6, 1848, stated that the debt of the United States, before the war began, was $17,788,799.62; and that, in consequence of the war, it had been increased to $65,778,450.41 ; thus making the actual war debt $47,989,650.79. He then says, that $12,000,000 were to be paid to Mexico; and that the unliquidated claims, assumed by the United States, were $1,519,604.76, and the interest thereon; all which, added to the above sum, make the total of a direct debt of $61,509, 255.55, in July, 1848, according to the admission of the President of the United States. From these and a variety of other facts of a similar char- acter, we draw the conclusion that this war cost the United States, directly and indirectly, at a moderate computation, $200,000,000, and that it cost Mexico, directly and indi- rectly, an equal sum. Suppose this sum were allotted to be paid by the people of this country at so much a poll, and reckon the population at 20,000,000, then each man, woman, and child, would * 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, Rep. Com. No. 75, pp. 2, 7, 15, 50. 96 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. be laid under a direct tax of $10, or say, on an average, each famil J, of $ 50. Or, if we suppose the actual expen- ses to come within the exceedingly moderate estimate of $100,000,000, we should then have a direct tax of $5 a head. And if the levy were made not according to heads, but purses, the burden would fall on men in proportion to their ability to pa} , and every man of substance would ask with an increased interest. What is the Mexican war ? "Why was it fought ? And what are its pleas and benefits ? As the war was ostensibly prosecuted, in part, for the ends of a suit at law, to recover a bad debt of an unwilling debtor, the result has taught the old lesson of the folly of going to law for a redress of grievances. The report of the commission that sat nearly two years on the United States' claims for Mexican spoliatioiis upon her commerce, states that The whole amount claimed was .... $11,850,578.49 The two Mexican Commissioners agreed in allow- ance of only . - 630,406.76 The two American Commissionei-s allowed . . 3,846,311.00 Awarded by the Prussian umpire, Baron Keoune $1,586,745.00 Agreed by all the Commissioners . . 439,393.00 Total finally allowed . . $2,026,138.00 This was the original legal and conceded debt of Mexico to the United States. Her finances were embarrassed, and she did not meet her engagements. Nations, hke individ- uals, find it hard to pay old debts ; and the older the harder. Witness France, witness the United States, witness Spain, witness every nation. But in 1843 a new treaty was en- tered into, and Mexico agreed to pay promptly and in regular instalments, principal and interest. But she was poor and revolutionary, and the Texan difficulties, and her jealousy of the United States, increased the embarrassment, and perhaps, as was natural, the indisposition to pay. So is it explicitly declared by Mr. Yoss, the American agent, in EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 97 an official letter. Some of the instalments were prompt- ly paid, all were declared good, but procrastination prevailed in the Mexican councils, and the United States naturally became indignant and impatient. This is one of the final and alleged causes of the war, that Mexico would not pay her honest debts. But even if she did not, it was a costly method to collect the dues, to send Generals Taylor and Scott, and Commodores Conner, Perry, Sloat, and Stockton, as sheriffs, with such an expensive posse comitatus to levy on the Mexican estate and pay the debt by such an execution. " It was," to use the homely phrase of the American philo- sopher, "paying too dear for the whistle." Then, too, it was not for us, who have av aited long decades of years for the old European monarchies to pay up for the spoliations they committed on our commerce ; and who, even when they did pay, delayed promptly to disburse to the private claim- ants ; it was not for us, who have in too many States repu- diated our debts ; it was not for us, the stronger republic, to force to sharp practice and summary punishment, our younger, weaker sister republic. It was not a just or a magnanimous act, and, — what is mainly relevant to the object of this paragraph, — it was not a profitable business transaction ; for we now pay for the war, pay for the new territory, and pay the claimants. The master-evil of war-expenditures, however, is not, as before hinted, so much in the money that is lost, as the spirit that is left beliind. This point has been so ably set forth by the Democratic Review of February, 1847, that we need not apologize for quoting its language. " It is not alone the war, and the expense, great though it be, that is to be dreaded. We are rich and industrious, and having plenty of resources, can pay any sums. A protracted war is, however, building up a great military interest heretofore unknown to our institutions. The great peril which destroyed Mexico we are about to encounter. The long Spanish war 9 98 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. of independence stifled her industry and smothered her commerce. No interest flourished but the military, and her liberties ultimately perished in its giant gripe. This in- terest, having no sympathy with industrial pursuits, in its nature aristocratic, is already rapidly growing among us. A few years only will consolidate its strength, and spread its influence through all the ramifications of contractors and employees, dependent upon war expenditures. Such an in- terest is one to be dreaded, perhaps, more than any other, when we reflect upon the materials of strife within us, the rancor of party spirit, and the recklessness of fanaticism." A furtlier consideration which Avill impress upon us more vividly the wickedness of "the waste of treasure" in war, is the various beneficial uses to which such mighty sums of money might be devoted. If " moneys,*^ as the old Roman said, "are the sinews of war," so are they also the sinews of peace. K the "dollar" be not "almighty," and the god of this world, it is at least an essential instrument in pro- moting every good word and work among mankind. Money builds the city, and beautifies the country. Money fills the sails and turns the water-wheel. Money tunnels the moun- tains, and barricades the rivers. Money speeds the loom, and propels the cars, and operates the telegraph. Money gives food to the well and medicine to the sick. Money clothes our bodies and raises our houses. Money erects the schoolhouse and the sanctuary, and puts a teacher in one and a preacher in the other. Money multiplies the Scriptures, and heralds the blessed news of salvation from clime to clime. It is money that is needed at this moment, as the great cooperator, to send civilization and Chris- tianity to those who are now sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, as well as to re-civilize civilization itself, and to re-Christianize Christendom. Money, money, is the call of the educator, the reformer, the philanthropist, the missionaiy ; and it is not a selfish call ; for by this power EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 99 the printing, and teacliing, and speaking, and exploring, and travelling, are physically sustained, and " seed is given to the sower, and bread to the eater." In this light, consider that the $200,000,000 of money squandered in this unjust, unnecessary, and unconstitutional war, would found a library in each of the ten largest cities of the United States, namely. New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Brooklyn, Albany, and Washington, which should contain as many volumes as the largest library on the continent of Europe, and endow it with a princely fund sufficient to keep it in repair, and enrich it with the accessions of all living Uter- ature from every nation, thus opening inexhaustible foun- tains of knowledge for all future generations, and placing the interests of learning on a foundation worthy of the first republic on earth. Or, suppose this sum devoted to the endowment of com- mon schools, academies, and colleges, of agricultural, reform- atory, scientific, normal, and professional seminaries of in- struction; and to the establishment of Lyceums, Lowell Institutes, Adult Schools, Teacher's Institutes, and then a magnificent apparatus of means and agencies of every de- scription would be provided to cultivate what the poet has called " Acres of untilled brains," to develope the mighty mind and the great heart of our America, and to prevent the hourly repetition of that pa- thetic " tragedy," of which the prose-poet speaks, " that there should one man die ignorant who had the capacity for knowledge." Imagine such a sum employed in the industrial and ma- terial improvements of a country, to give security to its navigation and commerce ; to facilitate domestic and foreign intercourse; to bind city to city, and State to State, and nation to nation, in harmonious cooperation ; to develope the 100 EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. physical and mineral resources of the earth, and make her not the step-mother, but the own mother, of her children ; and how many millions of naked would be clothed, and how many millions of the hungry would be fed, and how much time would be redeemed from inexorable toil to devote to the higher culture of our nature, and to the making not of money, but of m6n, worthy to be called men ! Or, were it expended in the fine and the useful arts, to join everywhere in eternal union, beauty and utility; to stimulate and reward invention; to carry all the sciences, and, consequently, all the arts depending upon them, to a higher state of perfection; to multiply in the cities and habitations of a free people the rarest productions of archi- tecture, painting, sculpture, — the works of genius baptized into the name of Christ; how ample would be the in- strumentalities for developing such a national character as the world has never before seen, except in the dream of some rapt sage, or the vision of some inspired prophet ! Let it be consecrated on the altar of philanthropy, and what chain would not be broken, what prisoner not vis- ited, what sick untended, what beggar unrelieved, what in- sane given over, what idiot abandoned, what blind, or deaf, or dumb, or maimed uncared for, what inebriate unreformed, what licentious not purified, and what criminal uninstructed and unrecovered ! Or, propose the sublimest of the works done, or to be done in this world, and the one in a manner comprehending aU the other enterprises referred to, we mean the Christianizing of the whole world, the sanctification of the five human races ; and in the interest alone of this gigantic war-bill we should find abundant means, so far as pecuniary resources are con- cerned, to set in operation forty-eight majestic missionary and Bible societies, as large as the American Board, and the British and Foreign Bible Society, to work with omnipres- ent and almost omnipotent power in every land, and shed the EXPENDITURES OF THE WAR. 101 light of divine truth and mercy in every benighted heart and habitation, and plant the churches of the Redeemer on every hill-top and in every valley from pole to pole. Call it not folly or fanaticism to imagine such a Millennium. It was once the hope of prophecy ; it was later the vision of Christ ; and it shall one day be the Kingdom of God on earth. If this be our strength and glory to raise money, and ex- pend it in wicked and wasteful wars, tormenting our neigh- bors and ourselves, then is our strength weakness, and our glory shame. If a whole nation will expend without reluct- ance their kingly treasures, (that might constitute the moral lever to raise the earth,) in the arts of human butchery and misery, in conquest and invasion, what title has it to be called a Christian nation ? It has none. It is a heathen people with a Christian cloak ; heathen in spirit, and heathen in practice. We may cry, " Lord, Lord," but the use of holy words cannot save the workers of iniquity from the condem- nation of the Judge of all. In concluding this chapter, a practical question suggests itself ; how shall the masses of a nation be made to feel the abomination of spending hundreds of millions in war ? and how shall the future be exempted from the grinding injustice of having its labor and property mortgaged in advance, and forever crippled by the war-debts of the past ? In one way, and we believe in one way only. Let these untold millions be paid at once by a direct tax. Pay as you go, should be the rule of nations as well as of individuals. We have no liglit to make our children settle with their toil and tears the debts of our folly. Now the war-expenses are not felt, be- CMMse they come obliquely and stealthily, and are so mixed up with tariffs and indirect taxes, and the consumption of the proceeds of the public lands, that few understand their ope- ration. l>ut apply the principle of a direct tax, and every man in the community would inquire into the merits and de- merits of a war, and would not fail to clamor loudly and 9* tOS THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. effectually against all wars of aggression, invasion, conquest, and slavery. We are happy to strengthen our position by the opinion of one of the ablest Judges on the Bench of the Supreme Court of the United States.* " All wars should be accomplished by a system of direct and internal taxation. Nothing short of this can show, in addition to sacrifice of life, what we pay for miUtary glory. This was the poHcy in the better days of the Republic." CHAPTER IX. THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. ♦' Seek, — burn, — fire, — kill, — slay." " Food for powder, food for powder." — Shakspeare. Physicians are accustomed to make an examination, af- ter the disease has proved fatal, in order to ascertain more clearly its seat, causes, and diagnosis. It is not a grateful task to enter into the bloody chambers, where life was mys- teriously hidden ; but they do it for the sake of the living, and to prevent the repetition of like effects. The moralist and Christian, too, are sometimes obliged to make, so to speak, post mortem examinations, for however painful it may be, to live over again scenes of violence and wrong, and to follow the track of armies, yet they feel it to be a duty if they can by this means obtain powerful evidences in behalf of the cause they advocate. They wish thus to call the surgeon, as well as the financier, to testify to the evils of war, and to invoke * Judge McLean. THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 103 the hospital no less than the exchange, to pronounce its con- demning sentence. But here, as in the matter of war-expenditures, the very immensity of the suffering wounds, maiming, sickness, death, caused by war, — staggers our conception, and paralyzes our imagination. When we read that a thousand men died in battle, that two thousand were sick in the hospital, we no more realize that infinite sum of misery than we do the length of eternity. But let only one image of personal agony rise vividly before us, — the active, hopeful, widely-endeared young man, reeling headlong from his horse, crushed and bleeding by the terrible cannon ball, — or the father on whom a whole family depends, languishing month after month in a foreign clime, anxious, weak, pained, dying by inches, with no hand of wife or child to bathe the fevered temples, or min- ister the healing cup ; and we have a deeper impression of the unutterable miseries of war than solid pages of statistics could give us. And if we could then multiply one by many, and consider what a single hostile meeting of armies is, and does, could be in it, and yet not o/"it, could view it as a self- possessed spectator, could see all the cruel machines of death in " awful activity," the earth trembling with the thunder of artillery, the air rent with shrieks and shouts, the light of the sun shut out by sulphurous clouds, the waters running crim- son with the heart's blood of thousands, every shot carrying away a limb or a hfe, every charge sweeping to the dust hun- dreds of poor wounded, dying creatures, we should pronounce a battle the very incarnation of hell on earth. But men do not know what war is, how much of all that is most fearful in pain, and terror, and suffering, and death, is as surely drawn in its train, as any cause leads to any effect. Men at home who make war, do not know what they are doing, Avhat mountains of misery and sin they are heaping upon their fellow men ; for if they did know and had not liearts of flints, they would say, sooner than do this thing, this infinite evil. " perish our right arm from its socket, palsied be our 104 THE DESTRUCTION OF HU3IAN LIFE. tongue in our mouth !" Men in camp and field become mail- ed and triple-mailed in their sensibilities by their dreadful familiarity with exhibitions of suffering ; and whereas they would once have fainted at -R-itnessing the slightest surgical operation, they can at last look unmoved on the cai-nage of Waterloo. So that the history of war never has been written, and from the necessity of the case, never can be. We may get a ghmpse here and there, where its thunder-clouds are parted, and we look upon the ground strewed with the dead and dying ; or where we walk through its long range of hos- pital wards, and hundi'eds of ghastly faces start up at the sound of our steps ; but its physical, like its other evils, are too vast to be comprehended by a finite mind. We are accustomed to speak of the late war between Mex- ico and the United States, as if it were the conflict of two soulless generalizations, two historical or geographical bodies, that pitched their camp and arrayed their battle, one against the other. The terms are corporate, pohtical, and insensible. Happy indeed were it, if it were the meeting of names on on paper, and not of living men in the bloody field. Happy were it, even if the old custom of more chiv- alrous days were revived, and they, the historical personages who make the war, should themselves do the fighting, king meeting king, or president, president, either in their own per- sons, or in the representatives, and substitutes of their res- pective choice and country. Rivers of blood would thus be spared, and the question subjected to an equally fair mode of arbitrament and decision. But the nature of war, as it is now carried on, is far different. It is the personal conflict of thousands of Mexican men against thousands of United States' men. It is the raising of hand against hand, and the baring of hundreds of human bosoms to the awful hail of balls, and sabre strokes, and lance and bayonet thrusts. It is upon bodies keenly sensitive to the least wound, in every vein, and nerve, and fibre of which the Almighty has set the seal of his crea- tive wisdom and goodness, and which he has made capable THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 105 of vast enjoyment, and suiFering ; it is upon head and heart, upon life and limb, that the braises and lacerations come, smiting, crushing, snapping the bones as if they were worth no more than pipe-stems, rending open the flesh as if it were the meat of the shambles, and battering to pieces the image of God as if it were the common clay of the potter. It is not Mexico that suffers by the war ; it is some thousands of her people, many of them innocent men, women, and children, who happened to come within the reach of the destroying ball and bomb, in the battle and siege. It is not the United States, that has been visited by pain, grief, loss of life, of health, friends, morals, through the instrumentality of this conflict ; but it is certain men, families, living hearts, suffering bodies, agonized souls. In looking then at the tremendous devasta- tions of war, let us remember that they all fall on individual human beings, and not on soulless corporations, insensible nations, or geographical names. This destruction of human life in any aspect in which we can view it, is a complex evil. It has branches of mischief shooting in all directions. Existence is the free gift of God, and not lightly or unnecessarily to be trifled with or squan- dered. Every man born in a civilized community, reared to manhood, and armed and equiped with the requisite training, experience, and principle to act well his part in society, is to be considered as so much capital, invested for the best good of the land he lives in, and paying the rich percentage of usefulness and reciprocity to a large circle of fellow creatures. When prematurely taken away, before he has lived out half his days, by accident or sickness, we feel that it is an inscru- table Providence. But when by suicide he cuts short his probation, or when by the exposures and dangers of war, another species of suicide in one sense, he dies before his time, there is a great and positive loss to every interest of the community. Here is a world of work of every kind to do, the season is pressing, time does not halt, the harvest is 106 THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. white unto the sickle, but the laborers that should enter into this rich and varied field, and reap fruit unto eternal life, are taken from their families, and far away are made " food for powder," or mowed down by disease, as if they were so many worthless animals. Little calculation is made to save their lives, except as constituting one of the prime materials for war. In making good a battle or forcing a siege, the aim is not to save the men but to gain the victory. Napoleon never he^tated to sacrifice any number of Hves, provided he could thereby carry his point. Every general, m order to be successful, must adoj^t more or less the same principle. But every man that is offered upon the bloody i)lain to the god of battles, is one heart, one head, one life less, to do the great work for which men were placed temporarily on the earth, — to glorify their Maker, and benefit one another. So much has been subtracted out of the most valuable capital of a country, which no money can replace. A nation's hfe has been abridged ; a nation's heart has bled some great drops of blood. Human life is the basis and condition to all other good, and in proportion as any considerable amount of it is violently abstracted from the community, do all the great in- terests of humanity receive a sensible shock. In immediate connection with the above considerations up- on the evils resultmg from the loss of life in war, it should be added that it has especially a barbarizing influence upon the humane and moral sentiments of a people. This is true even of the wholesale mortality produced by the plague, cholera, famine, earthquake, or volcano. The heart of a community is apparently stunned by the frequent presence of death. De- foe, in his history of the plague in London, records with graph- ic simplicity the dreadful brutality and wickedness of the survivors, even while they were admonished every instant that death was at the door, if not rioting in the house. Much more does the w^aste of human life by agencies of man's o^vn choosing and operating, harden the heart, and paralyze the THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 107 conscience. War is the most formidable of these agencies. It is " Death on the pale horse," seen by the Revelator,* " and hell followed with him." " And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and wdth hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." In proportion as a Christian civilization has made its benefi- cent way among men, it has raised the value of man, shown his worth, and dignity, and set a higher price upon his life. Gross and savage customs have been ameliorated, or done away. All that relates to human comfort, and welfare, has been invested with a new and sublime interest, because of the nature and destiny of the being in whom it centres. But war, waged under the most favorable circumstances, and with all possible palliations and neutralizing influences, arrests these humane movements, revives the barbarian estimate of life, and all that appertains to it, and strides on to its infernal revelry of blood and glory, though it send the voice of lamen- tation and woe through the homes of a whole people. The oft-repeated spectacle of death under every shocking mode of agony, mutilation, carnage, and disease, steels the heart of the spectator. The news of it, also, sent far and wide on the wings of a war-literature and a martial press, produces a de- moralizing influence upon a w^hole nation. Human life be- comes cheap in view of these immense butcheries, and then human virtue too is undervalued. Men care less what they say, or do, or how they live. A spirit of recklessness is en- gendered. Crimes increase in number and in turpitude. Of- fences against person and life are multiplied by the contagion of the camp, and the brilliant examples of the battle-field. Many are ready to dispute the maxim, that one murder does make a villain, if millions make a hero. They emulate the daring spirit, and the summary Indian justice of war, that de- mands eye for eye, and tooth for tooth, and life for life. A whole Christian people may thus be sensibly degraded by the * Rev. 6: 8. 108 THE DESTRUCTION OP HUJVIAN LIFE. waste of human life, and the means by which it is effected, and fall to a lower standard of morals and public order. This is not one of the least evils of war. It is quite as difficult to ascertain accurately the mortality, as it is the cost of the Mexican war. Persons of different views and temperaments will give different estimates. All that we can accomplish in either of these matters, is an approximation to the reality. National governments do not feel it to be a duty to render such an account of their doings, that the people at lai'ge can see how much is the cost in life, limb, and dollars of their ''glory." No open and intelligible debt-and-credit account is kept. Besides, the books cannot be " posted up," till many years after the war. We have to glean therefore, the census of death from many unsatisfactory sources, but we shall endeavor to avoid the common sin of exaggeration, and to justify all inferences by well-authenticated facts. There were some causes which rendered the late con- flict peculiarly fatal to life. The scene of strife was not, as in the Revolutionary war, that of 1812, or the Florida war, within our own borders. We were invaders of a foreign land. We dai-ed the burning Line. A long march by land, or a voyage by sea, transported the combatants to the scene of action. Their food, climate, habits were changed. If sick or wounded, they were too far from home for wife or sister to visit them, too far to be easily restored to their friends. The process of accli- mation had to be encountered under the most unfavorable circumstances. Fever, vomito, dysentery, erysipelas, and other disorders raged among the troops with terrible viru- lence. Far more perished in the hospitals than in the field. The deaths at the city of Mexico among the Ameri- can soldiery averaged a thousand a month for a considerable time after they occupied " the halls of the Montezumas, " and three or four hundi'ed a month afterwards. The THE DESTRUCTION OP HUMAN LIFE. 109 wounded very generally died by the effects of the climate, and the access of sickness. The fact, too, that so large a portion of the troops were raw volunteers, wholly unused to a soldier's life, and often unwilling to submit to the necessary sanitary regulations of the army, accounts in part for the almost incredible expenditure of life. Many, also, that escaped death brought home broken constitu- tions, and hacked and shattered frames, and will linger out a species of living death the rest of their days. The dissipation of the camp, too, prostrated hundreds, and re- turned many a once athletic young man to his friends decrepit in mind and body. Wliile on the side of the Mexicans, (whose woes and losses now at least, if not before, we may consider and regret, since we are at peace, and friends again,) the loss in battle was very great from the precision and rapidity of the American fire, and the greater number of troops they had in the field. They were also ill provided with the necessary supplies of food and clothing, and camp equipments. The army of Santa Anna was in great des- titution before the battle of Buena Vista; and after its retreat, the road-side was encumbered for sixty leagues with those who were dying of hunger and thirst. We have no accurate statements of the number of soldiers on the side of Mexico engaged in the war; but we should set the estimate no doubt within very moderate bounds, if we should say, that three times the number compared with our troops were in the field, and that the loss in battle averaged three times as much ; and that the loss in battle and sickness together was as much or more than that of the Americans. The Northern States, according to one statement, fur- nished 22,136 volunteers, and the Southern States 43,213, in all, 65,340. The Northerners generally enlisted for the war ; the Southerners for one year or a less term. The Report of the Adjutant General, April 5, 1848, 10 XIO THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. to the Secretary of war * " makes the whole number of the regular army employed everywhere in the prosecution of the war, inclusive of December 1847, about 26,690, besides a battalion of marines, (350.) " " Twenty-nine thousand men have been recruited since the 13 th of May, 1846." The whole number of volunteers mustered in the service, from May, 1846 was 71,309, of which 56,926 were finally accepted. The naval force was 8,000 at least. When to these numbers we add at least 5,000 teamsters, and " the large number of recruits, " which Gen. Jones says, "arrived at Vera Cruz and other places in Mexico," and were never reported or accounted for, we deem it a yery moderate statement to make, that 100,000 Americans were first and last in Mexico during the war. f Suppose that only one man in five of the 100,000 men, who, first and last have been in the war, has perished, and the very moderate computation gives us 20,000 dead. It has often been stated in Congressional speeches, that the American loss could not be less than that number, and we believe it to have been even far more. The hospital often proved more destructive even than the battle-field. On Sept. 3, 1846, Gen. Taylor wrote from Camargo, " there has been great sickness and mortality in some of the volunteer regiments. " He writes on June 30, 1847, at the camp near Monterey, " it is confidently hoped that the troops in that camp (near Mier) will escape, in a gi-eat measure, such excessive sick- ness as prevailed last year at Camargo, and which is now beginning to be felt there. " From the same place he says, on July 27, 1847, " great * 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, Ex. Doc. No. 36. t In August, 1 846, Congress authorized an increase of the Navy, from 7,500 to 10,000, but owing to various circumstances it was not inci-easod to more than 8,000. THE DESTRUCTION OF HITMAN LIFE. Ill sickness and mortality have prevailed among the volunteer troops in front of Saltillo. " He adds the following, in a letter dated Camp, near Mon- terey, Aug. 10, 1847 : " There continues to be much sickness among the new troops, both at JNIier and Buena Vista, ac- companied by an unusual share of mortality. Nearly twenty- five per cent, of the force present is disabled, at this moment, by disease." We see, by these declarations, that the great warrior dreaded the sweeping scythe of disease, far more than he did the sword of the enemy. Indeed he declared, in a speech made at Port Hudson, La., on occasion of the return of the volunteers, reported in the newspapers, 1848, that, " of those who have died in active service in Mexico, the proportion of those cut down by disease to those who fell on the battle-field, is about Jive to one ! " Besides the losses on the field and in the hospital, on Gen. Taylor's line of operations, many perished by the hand of violence, — either in private, or by armed parties of gue- rillas. The sickness on the Vera Cruz line was even more for- midable than on that of the Rio Grande. It was a more southern latitude. The tierra caliente, or hot region, of the sea-coast, and the tierra templada, or table land, of the inte- rior, and the valley of Mexico, were all found to be fatal to the American soldier. Gen. Scott writes from Puebla, June 4, 1847, as follows : " The effective strength of this army has been surprisingly reduced. Besides the discharge of seven regiments, and two independent companies, of old volunteers, we had to leave in hospital about 1,000 men at Vera Cruz, as many sick and wounded at Jalapa, and 200 sick at Perote. Here we have on the sick report 1,017. Not a corps has made a forced march, except in the pursuit after the battle of Cerro Gordo, and every possible attention has been given to the health of the troops. The general 112 THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. sickness may be attributed to several causes: 1. Tlie great contrast in climates, above and below Cerro Gordo ; 2. The insufficiency of clothing, but little having arrived when the army marched from Vera Cruz ; and 3. The want of salt meats, the troops not having had any oftener than one day in nine, since we reached the elevated country ; as our insuf- ficient means of transportation allowed us to bring up only small quantities of bacon and no mess pork. The prevailing diseases have been chills and fevers, and diarrhoea." On July 25th, Gen. Scott reported the sick at Puebla at 87 officers and 2,215 men ; in all, 2,302. !RIansfield, in his History of the Mexican War, states that Gen. Scott left Puebla, on Aug. 7-10, with 10,738 men, and that 3,261 were left in garrison and in hospitals. Of the last, the largest part were in hospital, where there were, at one time, no less than 1,900 sick ! Of these, 700 found their graves at Puebla ! With 3,217 sick in the hospitals at Vera Cruz, Jalapa, Perote, and Puebla, early in June, at the very beginning of the sickly season, and 2,302 at Puebla alone, the last of July, and 1,900 in August, we can imagine what must have been the later scenes of the same summer, as the army fought its way, through quadruple its own numbers, to the capital of the country. The accounts of the mortality there, before referred to, thus become perfectly credible. The names have been published of no less than 700 men, who died at Perote in a few months. Even on Dec. 4, 1847, Gen. Scott stated officially, that there were 2,041 sick, exclu- sive of officers, in the city of Mexico. Let us now consider what have been the losses of indivi- dual regiments and companies, and how they sustain the above estimate. Of 80 Sappers and Miners, who left West Point for the battle-fields of Mexico, only 24 returned home ; all the rest having found graves in that distant land. THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 113 Of the 730 in the Ninth Regiment of Infantry, that left Fort Adams, in 1847, there were but 105 or 106 that re- turned home, in 1848 : 14 died on the voyage from Vera Cruz home, between July 11th and August 14th. The South Carohna Regiment, of 1,100, had, at the end of nine months, only 80 or 90 remaining, to enter with Scott the city of Mexico. " The destruction of life in Napoleon's march to Moscow did not equal this." Col. William B. Campbell's First Regiment of Tennessee volunteers, returned only 350 of the 1,000 it carried into Mexico. The average loss was 50 men a month. " The North Carolina Regiment," says an officer writing from Buena Vista, in Sept. 1847, " was paid off the last of August on muster-rolls made two months previous ; and almost every fiffh man had died since muster. The Missis- sippi Regiment had suffered still more. Companies, that came into the field 85 and 90 strong, now number scarce 30 men on parade." Another oificer writes from the city of Mexico : " Of nearly 400 men, who left Columbus (Georgia) in the five companies, we have not more than 40 fit for duty. About 35 are in hospital at Jalapa, and the remainder in that of Perote." Of 648 men, in the regiment commanded by Gen. Pierce, only 120 remained fit for service in the city of Mexico. Col. Baker, Member of Congress from Illinois, declared in the House of Representatives, that his regiment of volunr teers of 820, lost 100 in six months, in the Rio Grande Val- ley ; dismissed 200 more, to die by the way, or find their way home, with constitutions broken down. He also said, that the bones of nearly 2,000 young men, in whose veins flowed some of the best blood of the country, who had never seen the face of an enemy, were now resting in the mould on the banks of that river. The Adjutant General, in answer to a resolution of Con-, 10* 114 THE DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. gi'ess, reported, Feb. 1847, that of the volunteers who had joined the army up to that time, there had, in a period of from sixty to ninety days, 331 deserted; 76 been killed in battle ; died of disease, 637 ; and discharged, in consequence of sickness or disability, between 2,000 and 3,000 men ; or, as stated by Mr. Hudson, in a speech in the House, Feb. 15, 1847, a loss of 20 per cent, in about two months and a half, or about eighty per cent, a year. But it is needless to accumulate such reports. The con- clusion is obvious. Many put the loss at 20,000, on the part of the United States ; others raise it to 30,000 ; we are safe in saying it was between 20,000 and 25,000. And, as we have already seen, if we turn to the other side, we can have no doubt that Mexico suffered an equal mor- tality. For if the sickness, which was great even among the natives, was less, the destruction in battle was treble or quadruple, if the American bulletins speak the truth. Owing to the limited medical and surgical appointments of the Mexican armies, and their poverty of means, great mul- titudes of the wounded perished. When we have added to the above list the deaths by disease, we can have no doubt that 20,000 is a very moderate estimate for the Mexican waste of life. Gen. Scott computed that 7,000 Mexican offi- cers and men were killed and wounded in the several battles in the vicinity of the capital alone. We conclude, from these various considerations, that the mortality on both sides, during the two years of the exist- ence of the war, reached no less than 40,000 ; or 20,000 a year, or 10,000 annually on each side. The reports of the generals, the climate, the great number of the battles, sieges, skirmishes, being about twenty-eight, the proportion lost in single regiments and companies, and the great proportion that died by sickness, assure us that this immense loss of human life, with aU its attendant e\dls, and woes, and pains, is chargeable upon the authors and abettors of this stupen- dous system of legalized murder. THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 115 CHAPTER X. THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. " Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood ; Over thy wounds now do I prophesy, — Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips, To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue ; — A curse shall liji^ht upon the limbs of men." — Shakspeare. But besides the catalogue of the dead, there is the great army of the wounded and the broken down, whose lot is often more pitiable than death. We find either reported, or moderately computed, Americans wounded 3,968 Mexicans 7,210 Total 11,178 Add as many more sick and otherwise disabled . . . 11,178 Total 22,356 No one who read the newspapers during the progress of the war, can doubt that we set the number very much within bounds when we estimate the wounded and the ruined in health on both sides, at 22,000. For scarcely a public print came to hand that did not record the ghastly return of the once robust young man, the horrid apparition of gaunt, and maimed, and cadaverous forms, that were once called fathers, or brothers, or sons. A returned volunteer at Brighton, Mass., could not make for a long time his own mother know him, as his appearance was so much changed, and he had lost his voice. He came home but to rest his anguished head on her bosom, and die. The reasons have already been given why such ravages were made by disease ; but the number of Americans 116 THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. wounded in the battles, who survived to return home, was less than in most wars ; first, because the barbarity of the Mexican troops instigated them often to kill the prostrate foe when opportunity offered ; then, because the slightly wounded in that hot climate, were often snatched away by the intervention of some disease ; and, finally, because the distance was so great home, both by land and sea, that many perished in the act of removal. The forces of the United States had not time to be acclimated; and at the very period when that process was in its most critical stage, they were hurried on with all the daring impetuosity of the American character, from march to march, and from battle to battle, travelling in some instances on foot forty miles in a day. Col. Baker, of the Illinois volunteers, and also a member of Congress, stated in his place in the House, during the session of 1846-7, that "of 2,400 Ohioans who left Cincinnati in June, 1846, 900 are no longer in their regi- ments, — dead, or with ruined constitutions. The number of dead, dying, or lost, will make about the proportion of forty per cent in one year. Out of 18,000 volunteers of June and July, 1846, 7,000 are already dead or gone." There were at one time in a single hospital in New Orleans, 680 of the returned volunteers sick. In attempting to form any adequate idea of the sufferings of the sick and wounded in hospitals, we must consider that they are away from home, and often home-sick ; that they are in general nursed, if nursed at all, not by the natural kindred of home and neighborhood, or by the tender hand of woman, but by strangers and men, and, perhaps, foreign- ers, Avho were often indeed more kind than their own people ; that medicines are often wanting ; delicacies that win a sick appetite are unknown ; ill-conditioned and unven- tilated rooms, poor furniture, bedding, and changes of gar- ments, and the lack of the indescribable atmosphere of home; uneducated and inexperienced physicians and surgeons, ac- THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 117 cording to the testimony of high official authority ; the as- semblage together of large numbers of the sick and wound- ed, with all their groans, insanity, loathsomeness, contagion, and scenes of death, in large apartments ; the morbid imagin- ation generated and aggravated by such environments of discomfort and danger. When we have summoned up these and similar circumstances of the war-hospital, we wonder not that death resorts thither as to the chosen hall of his revelry, and the inscription seen by Dante, in his awful vision, might well be supposed to be written over the door, " No hope to those that enter here." A writer, speaking of a large number of discharged volun- teers sent home by the ship "Virginia," and dating his letter Nov. 13, 1846, Balize, La., says, " Half these were wounded or sick, some having lost their legs, others their arms, others being wounded in their arms and legs. WiU you believe me when I tell you that with all these sick and wounded, and dying men, not a surgeon or nurse was sent along to attend upon them, not a particle of medicine fur- nished, not a patch of linen for dressing wounds ? Such is the truth, and such, I understand, is the usual manner in which the men who have been out to fight our battles, but who are unfortunate enough to get wounded or become sick, are sent home, like old horses turned out to die." The testimony of another eye-witness is as follows, — and we should bear it in mind that most American writers and correspondents who went into Mexico, were advocates, de- fenders, or at least paUiators of the war: — "I left our sick at Matamoras yesterday. It makes one's heart bleed to witness the sufferings of these poor fellows. In camp, you must know, few of the conveniences considered necessary to the ill at home, can be had. A man gets sick, and he is carried to the hospital with his blanket and his knapsack. 11$ THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. Bed and bedding there are none, and as the country is destitute of kimber, bedsteads are not to be had. A blanket and the ground is, therefore, the couch upon which the volunteer lies sick, and dies, if he does not recover. If he dies, the same blanket forms his winding-sheet and cofl&n, — plank is not to be had." A shell from one of Gen. Scott's batteries struck the Charity Hospital at Vera Cruz, in the siege of that city, penetrated the roof, bursting in the room where the sick inmates were lying, and killed twenty-three. At the siege of Puebla, the less severely sick and wound- ed of the hospital were obliged to take an active part in protecting the American quarters ; and the list of the phy- sician and surgeon numbered, according to the report of Col. Childs, 1,800. A young soldier writes to The Philadelphia Inquirer, from Perote, in November, 1847, "Oh, the misery of this hos- pital life, who would believe it ! * * * " Imagination cannot picture to you a military hospital. It cannot be given to you on paper. Tall, bony skeletons, torn and racked by disease, struggling to make a step, totter- ing along like Hamlet's ghost! A year ago they were among friends smiling upon them. Here they are sick and dying in this Lazar-house of slaves, once freemen! See there! keep back, and let that once manly, now decrepit form pass between the arch. His assistants can hardly sup- port him. That arch he is passing for the last time. To- morrow sees him borne along on the barrow. He looks around, the tear glistening in his eye, but, his manly spirit yet unsubdued, brushes it away. That deep sigh proclaims all hope fled. His shattered mind dwells on by-gone days. He raises his sunken eyes to heaven, and mutters all his earthly joys, — Home, — Father, — Mother ! Others, in idiocy or raving lunacy, sink into the slumbers of death. Others, with the loss of a leg or an arm, or perhaps both, THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 119 are still thankful that they have life. Aiid there are no charms or enjoyment to make them feel their loss. Fame, glory, ambition, have brought many here, but I assure you that bane of society, rum, has had a large share in the business ; many, many have told me so. " These few disconnected lines may serve to give you some idea of the state of things here, but my powers of descrij^tion are not sufficient to show up the realities of every-day Hfe. Were I an Irving, I could picture scenes that would distress you, but which I hope none will ever see again. — It is a noted fact, that many who die here, have their fate hastened, if not caused, by thinking and griev- ing about home. And all this for Fame. I think she will break her trumpet ere she can honestly sound the glories of the Hospital r A soldier from Maine stated that he was allowed by the Govei-nment twenty cents per day for his support from New Orleans home. The Volunteers from Massachusetts were subsisted home from the same place at about the rate of one cent per mile, — many sick and suffering ! Said a Western editor, "we spent some hours in conversation with those poor fellows, endeavoring to understand the meaning of such overwhelming squalor, want and misery ; for we do not exaggerate when we say, that we never beheld its parallel except at the Irish emigrant sheds in Canada last summer. The condition of these poor creatures was out- rageously offensive to every human sense, as well physical as moral." Said another editor, " Private Avery died yesterday ; and the sick receive no attention, except those who are so fortunate as to have friends who visit them. All are broken; many are destitute; and individual charity and friendship constitute the only succor which has yet been bestowed upon those who have found relief." But not to make these details of wretchedness tedious, let us pause a moment before we conclude, and contemplate 120 THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. tliis tremendous spectacle of death, sudden or lingering, in war. What but the voice, at which the dead themselves shall live, has potency enough, or can plead trumpet- tongued against the deep damnation of such a taking off of thousands of our fellow-men ? Life, as well as property, is a great trust from the Creator, to be held, preserved and employed, according to the will of the principal. We have no right to lay violent hands on it ourselves, nor to suffer, if we can prevent it, and keep a clear conscience, any other man to do it harm or hazard. Moses proclaimed from Mount Sinai, Jesus from Mount Zion, " Thou shalt not kill." It is the law of the moral and social world, and it can- not he openly, frequently, and flagrantly broken, as is done in war without involving one or both the parties concerned in a most solemn responsibihty, both to God and man. We are pained even at the sight of an animal killed ; what should be our horrof then at the contemplation of a battle where men meet in vast numbers with all the skilful enginery of destruction, for the express aim of setting this law of God at the utmost defiance, and imbruing one another's hands in the blood of children of the same Heavenly Father, and disciples of the same Saviour ! The following is from an actor in the battle of Buena Vista : '' The morn- ing of the 23d came. The fight was renewed, and soon the battle became general. The hissing shot swept like a hurricane through the serried ranks, opening huge gaps, instantly to be closed by fresh victims ; the shell, with its fearful surging noise, flew over the plain, leaving a blue streak behind, and after cutting down several, would burst, its fragments disemboweling and tearing off heads and arms alike ; the flesh would be rent from a soldier's body and hurled in a milhon shreds, into the face of his comrade, who would shrink as if struck by the ball itself. Brains, and bones, and blood flew in the air over a fighting line like drops of water lashed from its current by a falling tree. THE HOSPITAL AND THE BATTLE-FIELD. 121 ■''^llere the opposing forces stood in speaking distance, and piteously poured a wasting fire into one another's breasts ; there the work was hotter and deadlier, and as the cohnnn surged forward and back, the thrust of the bayonet was to decide the victory. Li a few instances, men threw down their guns, and grappling the hair or throat, plunged their long knives into their enemy, and maybe, while the reeking blade was raised for a second bloAv, the strong and blood-dyed arm fell lifeless. A man would rise from the close embrace of the death-struggle, and, ere he was erect, a sabre stroke had cleaved his skull and crushed through his face. In the rear and on the flanks, heavy squadrons of cavalry hung, and flew in thundering gallop, eager to detect some assaila- ble point, that they might trample to death a broken line. Oil ! it was a cruel and heart-sickening sight to look upon that dense impassioned mass of men rioting in blood and carnage like demons." It is the unspeakable aggravation of the loss of life in war, as compared with the mortality of a famine, or a dis- ease, that it is man killing man, brother lifting up sword against brother, and repeating the example of Cain, in each one of a hundred or a thousand legalized murders. The chief evil of war is its sinfulness, its unholy motives, its fiendish passions, its repeal of every thing good, and its encouragement of all the worst feelings and desires of the carnal man. Its battles, fought on the shores of time, send their hellish influences through eternity. Ac- cording to the ingenious mathematical demonstration of a great Natural Philosopher of the present day, whatever sound is made, goes on and on resounding and rever- berating in never-ending echoes ; — the shriek of the murdered, " the confused noise of the warriors," rolling for- ever through the universe, and repeated to the last syllable of time. This is a faint image of the everlasting evils that will follow on cartli and in futurity, the convulsions of war. 11 122 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. The loss of life in this manner is attended, also, with the two-fold painful feeling, that many who perish are not can- didates for this change in the ordinary course of nature, but that they are often the young, the vigorous, and the enterprising ; fathers, sons, brothers, who can ill be spared from the sphere of active life. War feeds on some of the most active of our race. But a yet more affecting idea to the Christian and moralist associated with this mode of death, is that it takes place oftentimes not only in the ab- sence of all suitable preparation, but in a state of the most extreme disqualification and violent unfitness ; — the soul agitated with the most tumultuous, if not the most diabolical passions; the weapons of death clenched in the grasp of a dreadful resolution, " the human face divine" lighted up with the fires of ambition or revenge, the eye kindling with exultation at seeing a brother fall, and the word of impiety and undying hate still trembling on the lips. What a state in which to bid adieu to this solemn hfe of earth, and to enter on the more solemn scenes of an eternal world ! CHAPTER XI LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. " Were not the mercies of God infinite, it were in vain for those of the military profession to hope for any portion of them, seeing the cruelties by them permitted and perpetrated are also infinite." — MouLuc, Mars^hal of Ekance. War, ill its nature, is a barbarism. It implies a return to the brute force, that governs men in the savage state. LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE TTAR. 12.'> It is a substitution of might for right. The parties do not rest the strength of their cause upon the weight of their arguments, but the calibre of their cannon. Since the whole system combines physical violence, in all its varieties and most shocking displays, we must expect to find, in each separate act and scene, the marks of its atrocities and cruel- ties. Every battle, from the necessity of the case, must be a reign of the Furies. Every camp must be a school of abominations. Every march, though " the land is as the garden of Eden before," must leave " behind it a desolate wilderness." * These are natural and necessary results. We cannot wound and kill men without hurting them. War is th6 god of cruelty. It is the embodiment of inhumanity. It cannot be carried on, for a single day, upon Christian principles. It militates against every social precept of the Gospel. Its aim is not to love, but to hate our enemies ; to do them evil, not good ; to destroy men's lives, not to save them ; to re- turn not good for evil, but evil for evil, a greater evil for a less evil, or even evil for good ; to curse, not bless our ene- mies ; to see how far it can make mankind, not the children of " the Highest, who is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil," but the children of " him who was a murderer from the beginning." In bringing, therefore, the Mexican War before the bar of public opinion and the religion of Christ, we shall expect ta find it, like all other wars, a system of barbarities, — a reversal of civilization and Christianity. Though carried on between two nominally Christian nations, and with loud professions, at its outset, of humanity, we shall soon discover, by the testimony of unimpeachable witnesses, that it is the same old " trade of barbarism," as Napoleon called war ; and that, while it was a contest not particularly embittered * Joel 2 : 3. 124 LEGITIMATE BAKBAEITIES OF THE WAR. by religious animosities, though fouglit between a Catholic and a Protestant power, and while its period Avas the nine- teenth century of the era of the Prince of Peace, the boasted age of intelligence, science, refinement, and phihmthropy, yet that its outrages and horrors are equal to those of any war, of any age, in proportion to its duration and the num- ber of its combatants. Its evils, in other respects, have fitly corresponded to its amazing waste of treasure and Hfe. There are, in the first place, what may be called the legitimate and inevitable horrors of the battle, the siege, the camp, and the hospital. These we have already adverted to ; but they deserve a more emphatic consideration, that our readers may realize, in some measure, what a war is, and for what kind of a thing they vote or speak, when they advocate a war. Then there are what may be called the illegitimate barbarities ; those which military men themselves condemn, and which, even they feel, dim the beauty of their great idol, the glory of arms, and wither the laurels of the victor. To the examination of the evidence, on both these points, we will now direct our attention ; and, if testimony summoned from these fields of blood possess any credibility, — if language convey any meaning, — and if the human heart be ahve to human pains and sins, — we must feel that we stand in the presence of calamities that ought not to be allowed to drop into obUvion, without giving us their most solemn lessons of peace, and admonitions against war. Here, also, let it be remarked, that we have, in these accounts, a more unbiassed description of war, as it is, than can often be obtained, from the fact, that those who went into it were, for the most part, not hardened and professional soldiers, but men fresh from peaceful pursuits, and, in not a few cases, ardent patriots and worthy citizens, though they might not, to use the Western phrase, stop " to see whether they were right," before they " went ahead." The letter LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 125 writers, too, were generally spectators, rather than actors, in the scenes they portray. The two leading generals, whose reports we shall quote, were also humane and kindly-hearted men, so far as the profession of arms will allow. We have, therefore, a fair chance to know something of the real char- acter of war, from the declarations of those whose bosoms had not become wholly steeled to its miseries. Palo Alto and Besaca de la Palma. A correspondent of the Boston Courier, says : " That night was to me a terrible one, which I shall never, never forget. The screams and groans of the wounded and dying on both sides, mangled and torn as they all were, with the grape and six-pounder shots — the conflagration of the battle-ground, fit emblem of the awful work of death which had so long been going on, — the moans of the poor oxen and horses, so terribly mangled, — and the dreadful uncertainty of the extent of our loss, and how many of our friends, who were alive at dinner, were then asleep forever, — the night-work of our surgeons, with their horrible instruments all besmeared with human blood, — were sights, and sounds, and thoughts, I pray God, in his mercy, may never visit me again." An officer of the army writes from Matamoras, May 23, 1846 : " I went over the field, after the battle of Resaca de la Palma ; and the sight which met my eye there was one which imagination can scarcely depict. Bodies of Mexican soldiers were lying about in every direction ; some with their heads entirely or partly shot off, others without legs or arms, others with their entrails torn out. One man, a fine- looking fellow, was lying on the ground, with a cartridge in his fingers ; having evidently been killed while in the act of priming his musket. I crept about on my hands and knees through the chapparal, and at every few paces I would come across dead bodies ; and, at one spot, I discovered the body of a beautiful Mexican girl, staked through the heart." 11* 126 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. " Go where jou would," says T. B. Thorpe, in " Our Army on the Rio Grande," " and there were evidences of the artillery. Ringgold had written the strength of 'his arm' with terrible distinctiveness. Ai-ms and legs gone, shattered bodies, ghastly wounds, all too hideous for the musket, were everywhere to be seen. It was surprising that men could live, thus torn to pieces. And yet the great- est suffering, apparently, was from a musket ball. Had it been grape, or of heavier material, it would have done its work effectually, and left its victim painless in death. As it was, it had gone through the breast, tearing the fine machinery of the lungs to pieces, and yet left vitality enough to have them move on in their ruins, poisoning the whole frame with impure blood, and leaving the patient to sufier beyond the power of imagination to conceive. Poor sol- dier ! His breath rattled and tore away at his vitals ; his sufferings were, indeed, a dark spot on the bloody page of war." He also describes the awful scenes at the Rio Grande, during the retreat and crossing of the Mexicans, and the confusion at the city of Matamoras : " The water was cov- ered with the miserable beings, who, confused and despe- rate, plunged about in the waves, calling on God to help them, or venting their impotent maledictions upon those who had forced them to a watery grave. They sunk by scores, clutching each other in the agonies of death ; and the " mad river " fairly boiled, with the expiring breath of those who had sunken under its dark waves ! " In the midst of the panic. Father Leary arrived at the bank, and by his presence restored order, in a certain de- gree, among the fugitives. He took his place on the flat, already crowded with troops. It was about shoving off, when down tlie bank SAvept a flying column of cavalry. Goaded by tlieir I'iders, the steeds madly leaped into the boats ; crushinir to death scores of their victims, and driving LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 127 the remainder into the river. The holy father raised his crucifix above his head, muttered an ejacuhitory prayer, and disappeared, with the mass of his fellow-beings, under the waves. " Nothing could exceed the consternation that reigned in Matamoras, on the night of the 9th. Between 4,000 and 5,000 lawless soldiers were wandering, panic-struck, about the streets. * * * " The night was made hideous, by the constant arrival of the wounded, in sacks ; many yelled like fiends, as the rough carriage and contracted form started afresh their bleeding wounds ; others were found dead in their sacks, having been drowned while crossing the river on swimming mules. * * * '' The more substantial citizens hurriedly gathered to- gether their effects, and fled into the country; many of these fell by the hands of unorganized troops, and their property was divided among the murderers. Hundreds of soldiers were scattered over the country, who pillaged all within their reach, and attacked the defenceless that came in their way. Social, civil, and military order was scattered to the winds ; dark crime and unbridled passion rioted in the terrible confusion that followed this terrible defeat. Monterey. The attack on this place had the character of a battle, a siege, and an assault, and combined the horrors of all. Let us call the witnesses, remembering that they are war-men, and observing that their stories have internal marks of genuineness and authenticity. Young Wynkoop, of Zanesville, Ohio, writes, "During the fight of the second day, a flag of cessation was sent to the Mexicans, requesting a few hours to bury the dead which were strewed in frightful piles over the field. This was refused, and the wounded and dead lay where they fell, beneath the rays of a scorcliing sun till the battle was' ended. It was then almost impossible for our men to endure the 128 LEGITI5IATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. stench, while they heaped dirt over the poor fellows where they lay. The bodies of the dead were as black as coals. Many of them were stripped of their clothing by the Mex- icans during the night. Several of those who were wounded during the first day's fight, crawled into ditches and holes to avoid the balls which were rolling like hailstones over the field, whence, exhausted by the loss of blood, they were unable to crawl, or give signs of distress. As a consequence, many perished, though some who were found in this con- dition were removed, and are recovering. " I am satisfied with glory, if it is to be obtained only by butchering my fellow-men ; and I wish some of our valorous friends at the North could see a little more of the realities of war, and they would not be so anxious to rush into one on every trivial occasion. It makes me sick now, when I think of the scenes I witnessed. They were perfectly horrid. On the night of the 23d, as our shells exploded in the city, they were followed by the most terrific cries, per- haps from uwmen and children, which did not cease till morning. Thank God ! I only threw two shells that night, on account of being told the Texans were on the roofs of the houses immediately in my line of fire, and as I was about to open in the morning upon the principal plaza, which was filled with four thousand troops, I was stopped by the appearance of a flag of truce, and the result was the capitu- lation of the city, and a suspension of arms for two months, which I hope may terminate in a general peace, and that we may be permitted again to see our families." But what heart, though it be of stone, is not pierced and thrilled with the following tragedy of real life ! To think that an humble, disinterested heroine like this woman should perish in her work of humanity ! Hers was the true glory. The warrior's fame is a sham and a cheat. She shall live in the eternal memory of history. We may say, without ir- reverence, of lier, as was said of the woman of the new Tes- LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 1:79 tament, that wheresoever this battle shall be spoken of " in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her." The following is an extract of a letter addressed to the ^^ Louisville Courier" dated Monterey, Oct. 17, 1847: — " While I was stationed with our left wing in one of the forts, on the evening of the 21st, I saw a Mexican woman busily engaged in carrying bread and water to the wounded men of both armies. I saw the ministering angel raise the head of a wounded man, give him water and food, and then bind up his ghastly wound with a handkerchief she took from her own head. After having exhausted her supplies, she went back to her house to get more bread and water for others. As she was returning on her mission of mercy, to comfort other wounded persons, I heard the report of a gun, and saw the poor innocent creature fall dead ! I think it was an accidental shot that struck her. I would not be willing to believe otherwise. It made me sick at heart, and, turning from the scene, I involuntarily raised my eyes to- ward heaven, and thought. Great God ! is this war ? Pass- ing the spot the next day, I saw her body still lying there, with the bread by her side, and the broken gourd, with a few drops of water still in it, — emblems of her errand. We buried her, and while we were digging her grave, cannon balls flew around us like hail." Buena Vista. " At one time during the fight," says an eye-witness, writing from Saltillo, "we returned over the ground on wliich we made our first charge. We there saw the mangled bodies of our fallen comrades, and, although animated by the excitement of the fierce contest which was just then renewed, yet I think there was not a heart among us which did not for a moment cease to beat on beholding that horrible scene. But for his straw hat, and a few other articles of clothing which the rufiians had left on him, I should have failed to recognize the body of young Eggleston. 130 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. He was shot, stabbed, and otherwise abused. This was, indeed, the fate of all whom I saw. Lieut. Moore, and a man named Couch, of our company, were the onlj persons whose bodies I easily recognized. "After the battle, I rode over the whole field. Parties were engaged in burying the dead ; but still there were hundi-eds of bodies lying stiff and cold, with no covering save the scanty remnant of clothing which the robbers of the dead found too valueless to take from them. I saw the human body pierced in every place. I saw expressed in the faces of the dead almost every expression and feeling. Some |eemed to have died defending their lives bravely to the last. Some seemed to have died execrating their enemies, and cursing them with their last breath ; others had the most placid and resigned expression and feeling ; while others evidently used their last words in supplicating for mercy. Here lay youth and matui-e age calmly reposing m untimely death. "Among the hundreds of the dead whom I saw there, I was much touched by the appearance of the corpse of a Mexican boy, whose age, I should think, could not have exceeded fifteen years. A bullet had struck him full through the breast, and must have occasioned almost in- stant death. He was lying on liis back, his face slightly incHned to one side, and although cold, yet beaming with a bright and sunny smile, which eloquently told the specta- tor that he had fallen with his face to his country's foe. " Saltillo is one vast hospital. Besides our own wounded (four or five hundred in number), Gen. Taylor has collected all the wounded Mexicans who were left by their army, and put them in hospital. It is most disgusting to visit one of these places. All the Mexicans are badly wounded ; for those who were shghtly wounded went off. They are dying every hour in the day." Says Capt. Carlton, in his work called " The Battle of LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 131 Buena Vista," — "We imagined that during the battle, and upon the field when the conflict was ended, and afterwards upon the road over which the enemy had retreated, we had witnessed human suffering in its most distressing forms. But such was not the case. The scene presented to our eyes on entering within the walls of Encarnacion, was so filled with extreme and utter agony, that we at once ceased to shudder at the remembrance of any misery we had ever before looked upon. There were 300 men crowded together in that wretched place, 222 of whom had been wounded at Buena Vista, and brought thus far. There were five officers amongst them. As they had received but little surgical attention, and had been harassed and worn doAvn by tra- velling so far while debilitated with pain and loss of blood, their wounds were nearly all either gangrened or highly inflamed. Many of them Avere enduring the most excru- ciating torments ; many were delirious from excess of an- guish ; while others, whose wounds had become mortified, were perfectly composed, and yet were even more piteous to behold, as their very quietness was but a more certain indication of speedy dissolution. In fine, the whole hacienda presented at one glance a picture of death, embracing all the degrees, from the strong man bearing up with fortitude against the sure and speedy fate which awaited him, down to the poor mortal struggling in the last throe of existence. And all intermixed with them, were the bodies of those who had just commenced the long journey, yet warm, and lying in the various positions they were severally in when life departed. Poor fellows ! No beloved eye had beamed tearfully upon them in their last moments. No voice of affection had murmured in their ear little gentle words of hope, or that touching comfort, " we shall meet againr And there was no kind hand to honor their remains by straight- ening them for the grave." Such is war, Christian war, or war carried on by one 132 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. Christian nation against another, as described bj its colonels, captains, and soldiers ! It is not perhaps in good taste to call up such horrid and loathsome images ; but better, in- finitely better it is, that we should have our sensibilities even painfully aroused to feel the unutterable horrors of war, than that we should ever by our guilty indifference or uuremonstrating silence allow or encourage those causes to go into operation, by which all these miseries are produced, or should exert a direct and interested part in bringing them to pass. What indeed must be the magnitude and terror of those evils in their reality, when the mere description of them on paper is so abhorrent and disgusting ! Let us be willing to encounter a horrid image of distress in our read- ing, if it shall move us to seek by all means in our power to arrest some father, son, brother, fellow-man, from falling into that distress in actual life, or to stay a nation's myriad- handed power from embarking in the business of human butchery. It was in reference to the action at Buena Yista in par- ticular, and other battles in general, that the highest mili- tary, executive, and legislative authorities in the nation used the phrases, — " the grateful task of congratulating the troops upon the brilliant success which attended their arms," — "a great and glorious victory," — " a success which com- mands universal admiration," — "a glorious triumph," — " brilliant successes," — " gallant army," — " brilliant series," " glorious actions," and many other terms of a like import. But would it not be more in harmony with the dictates of humanity and the Gospel, and with the proper feelings in a free and prosperous nation, that this " exultation of success," to use the language of the American commander-in-chief, should be " checked by the heavy sacrifice of life which it has cost ;" and that even if wars are necessary things, which we are not yet prepared to concede, the heart-rending scenes which are exhibited on its fields of death, and in its hospitals LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 133 of anguish, should have no such epithets as " great," " glo- rious," "gallant," "brilliant," appended to them? Far be it from us to undervalue courage, patriotism, and many of the qualities which the soldier may manifest in the hour of danger, but the spirit of glorification is not in good taste, either intellectual or moral, in these awful scenes. Fiends in the regions of woe may exult over the fallen and the lost, the sorrowing and the despairing ; but it is not for man, frail, suffering, dependent man, needing mercy himself, be he king or president, general or senator, to glory in war and the exploits of war ; but if necessity requires such in- conceivable atrocities and agonies, to veil his face and bow his head, and pray for mercy on the victims, as he would at the foot of the gallows supplicate for the malefactor. Vei'a Cruz (True Cross!). According to the statements of official authority, Gen. Scott gave permission for the foreign consuls and their families to retire to neutral ships in the harbor, or other places of safety, and allotted time before he opened his cannon and completed his investment, for all women and children, and non-combatants, who de- sired to do so, to depart from danger into the country. But all chose to take their chance in the besieged and bombarded city. The scenes which followed, — behold them! The General-in-chief writes to the War Department, March 25, 1847, "All the batteries, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, are in awful activity this morning. The effect is no doubt very great, and I tliink the city cannot hold out beyond to- day." The British, French, Spanish, and Prussian Consuls, in a letter to Gen. Scott, March 24th, speak of " the frightful results of the bombardment of Vera Cruz during yesterday and the day before." The following is an extract from the JVeiu Torh Herald: — " The bombardment of four days placed the town in ruins, 12 134 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. under which great numbers of non-combatants, men, women, and children, were buried. " The bombardment is represented to have been terrific, and to its thunders succeeded the moans of the dying in every part of the town for several days afterwards." The N^ew Orleans Commercial Times says, " A shell from one of our mortars passed thi'ough the dome of one of the churches, and exploded on the altar, killing ten or fifteen women who had gathered there for protection." A correspondent of the Alton Telegraph, writing from Vera Cruz, says, " The French families in the city were the greatest sufferers. I heard a great many heart-rending tales which were told by the survivors with breaking hearts ; but I have neither the inclination nor the time now to repeat them. One, however, I will name. A French family were quietly seated in their parlor the evening previous to the hoisting of the white flag, when a shell from one of the mor- tars penetrated the building, and exploded in the room, kill- ing the mother and four children, and wounding the residue. ■ Another shell struck the charity hospital, penetrated the roof, bursting in the room where the sick inmates were lying, and killed twenty-three. Thus rushed into eternity, in the twinkling of an eye, not only the invalid, but the innocent and unoiFending. Such are a few of the horrors and fearful calamities that have marked the progress of this siege and capture." Sketches still more graphic and heart-rending are given in the Advertiser, Auburn, N. Y., from E. C. Hine. " After penetrating some distance," he says, "I paused and looked around me. Save our little party, not an American was to be seen. We were literally alone in an enemy's city. We were the first of our countrymen who had entered Vera Cruz. " Never had I beheld such destruction of property. Scarcely a house did I pass that did not show some great LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. 135 rent by the bursting of our bomb-shells. At almost every house at which I paused to examine the destruction occa- sioned by these di-eadful messengers of death, some of the family, if the house did not happen to be deserted, would come to the door, and, inviting me to enter, point out their property destroyed, and, with a pitiful sigh, exclaim. La homba! la homha! (the bomb ! the bomb !) My heart ached for the poor creatures. " During my peregrinations, I came to a lofty and noble mansion, in which a terrible bomb-shell had exploded, and laid the whole front of the house in ruins. While I was examining the awful havoc created, a beautiful girl of some seventeen came to the door and invited me into the house. She pointed to the furniture of the mansion torn into frag- ments, and the piles of rubbish lying around, and informed me, with her beautiful eyes full of tears, that the bomb had destroyed her father, mother, brother, and two little sisters, and that she was now left in the world alone. war! war! who can tell thy horrors ! " During the afternoon I visited the hospital. Here lay, upon truckle beds, the mangled creatures who had been wounded during the bombardment. In one comer was a poor, decrepit, bed-ridden woman, her head white with the sorrows of seventy years. One of her withered arms had been blown off with the fragment of a shell. In another place might be seen mangled creatures of both sexes, bruised and disfigured by the falling of their houses and bursting of the shells. On the stone floor lay a Httle child, in a com- plete state of nudity, with one of its poor legs cut off just above the knee ! The apartment was filled with flies, that seemed to delight in the agonies of the miserable creatures over whom they hovered ; and the moans were heart- rending." "We are yet ignorant," says a Mexican paper, "of the exact number of the killed and wounded ; but, by the best 136 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. data we have obtained, estimate both at not less than 1,000 persons. The damage done to dwellings and edifices is Jive or six million dollars, — which cannot be repaired for man J years." The same authority says : "In a short time the hospitals were crowded with the wounded, the dead being simulta- neously buried. The bombs entered the walls of the church of Santo Domingo, killing the unfortunate wounded, fright- ening away the nurses and doctors, who, after arriving with haste and risk at the church of San Francisco, and the chapel of the third order, encountered the same dismal fate, as well as at the hospitals of Belen and Loretto, where, it is well ascertained, one bomb assassinated nineteen innocent persons. In all quarters perished unfortunate persons, seeking a shelter from this frightful desolation ; while the wounded retaining strength enough to raise themselves, fled as cripples, and sprinkled the streets with their blood. Most of the families, whose houses had been destroyed, had lost everything; all the property remaining to them being the clothes on their backs, because what the flames did not consume was buried under the ruins. Hundreds of persons, as weU as fathers of numerous families of children, heretofore relying upon certain incomes, to-day find them- selves without a bed to lie upon, without covering or cloth- ing to shelter them, and without any victuals. Having been a target, during five entire days, for 6,000 or more projec- tiles, which separated when they exploded, forming, with- out counting the stones and rubbish thrown up, other ele- ments of destruction to the amount of 2,500,000 shots, — after sustaining this attack, we remain reduced to the most frightful misery, without any one knowing how, to-morrow, to feed his family." Tohasco. " In view of this scene. Commodore Perry or- dered the vessels again to be cast loose from the steamers, to retake their position for raking the town, and now gave LEGITIMATE BARBAKITIES OF THE WAR. lo7 the order to open it, in vengeance and retaliation. Two hours were spent in throwing shot, round canister, and grape, and musket balls, into the place, demolishing parts of those houses from which Mexicans were seen to fire ; and, at random, but ahvays with certain accuracy, on some part of the town, the balls and shells fell ; and wo was borne with them, even to the sickening of the hearts of those who sent them. Signals, at length, were, made by the commodore, to unite the tow of the different schooners to the steamers, — the steamers taking a schooner under each wins. The anchors of the steamers were then weiorhed and they stood near in to the town, as they passed up the stream, and raked the buildings as they went by. Winding ship, they came down again, discharging their other battery continually, and, in a naval point of view, beautifully, ' as they glided by the town, and now left it in its injuries, blood, and sorrow.' " Mexico. One of the surgeons of the army, (who has since been dangerously wounded,) writing to a friend after the battles of Contreras and Churubusco, says : " After operating, with my assistants, till three o'clock in the morn- ing, I left the building of w^hich I had made a temporary hospital, to take an hour's rest in the open air. / turned round, to look at my amputation table ; under it was a perfect heap of arms and legs ; and, looking at myself, I was covered with blood from head to foot." " We are permitted," says the " Syracuse Daily Journal^'* " to make the following extracts from a letter, written by one of the most distinguished officers of the army, to his wife : " The sight of one battle-field cures one of a desire for military life. If he could see the literal piles of mangled corpses of the slain, — some without heads, some without legs or arms, some with their bowels torn open, the ground 12* 138 LEGITIMATE BARBARITIES OF THE WAR. strewn with the wounded, dead, and dying, — he would be content with his lot. "The most heart-sickening spectacle I "ever beheld was the arch-episcopal palace at Tacabaya, converted into a hos- pital on the day of Mohno del Rey. The floors of the spa- cious apartments were covered with wounded officers and men, to the extent of many hundreds, who were suffering horrid agonies, while the corps of surgeons were actively engaged in amputating limbs ; some of the victims screamed with agony, while others sustained themselves with heroic fortitude. I had occasion to go through the spacious build- ing twice that day, and witnessed many operations. I saw the amputated Hmbs quivering with life, while the gutters of the court were fiUed with streams of human blood. It was heart-sickening, and enough to cure any man of a taste for war." A Mexican writes as follows, of the taking of the Capital : " On the morning of the 14th, before day-hght, the enemy, with a part of his force, commenced his march upon the city. Our soldiers, posted behind the arches of the aque- ducts, and several breast-works which had been hastily thrown up, annoyed him so severely, together with the trenches which he had to bridge over, that he did not arrive at the gates until late in the afternoon. Here he halted and attempted to bombard the city, which he did during the balance of the day and the day following, doing immense damage. In some cases, whole blocks were destroyed, and a great number of men, women, and children killed and wounded. ••' The picture w^as awful. One deafening roar filled our ears, one cloud of smoke met our eyes, now and then mixed with flame ; and, amid it all, we could hear the various shrieks of the wounded and dying. " Many were killed by the blowing up of the houses ; many by the bombardment ; but more by the confusion ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 139 which prevailed in the city; and altogether we cannot eoimt our killed, wounded, and missing, since the actions commenced yesterday, at less than 4,000, — among whom are many women and childi-en. The enemy confesses a loss of over 1,000 ; it is, no doubt, much greater." CHAPTER XII. ILLEGITiaiATE BARBARITIES. " War is also the fruitful parent of crimes. It reverses, with respect to its objects, all the rules of morality. It is nothing less than a tem- porary repeal of the principles of virtue. It is a system out of which almost all the virtues are excluded, and in which nearly all the vices are included." — Robert Hall. But there is another picture, — not of fierce and cruel passions, clothing themselves in the garb of the laws of war, or riding on the whirlwind of battle, but bursting forth, without any law, restraint, or sanction, unless vengeance have a law. Here, too, we see the natural fruits of war, — the natural accompaniments, more or less, of every war. For, when the passions are aroused to their maximum, they cannot be checked at any particular point of propriety, morality, or even mihtary subordination ; but are ready to break over all bounds, and rush into the most ungovernable extremes of cruelty and lust. In oi\ler to substantiate the facts under this branch of the subject, we shall quote the testimony of the soldiers and letter-writers, and confirm their statements by the authentic reports of the commanding generals on both sides. We shall thus see that the Mexican War, waged in the nine- iW ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. teenth century, between two professedly free and Christian nations, was in most respects no better, and probably no worse, than the wars of past times. We have said all that can be said, when we call it war. In relation to the march of a body of troops from the Rio Grande towards Monterey, a correspondent of the Louisville Journal writes as follows, in vindication of severe language used by Gen. Taylor, respecting the volunteers : " The march of the regiment, from the lawless character of some of those composing it, was everywhere marked by deeds of wanton violence and cruelty. Along the whole extent of the march, ranchos were burned, cattle were shot, hogs and poultry were killed, and even pet pigs were slaughtered at the very feet of the women and children that owned them. The shooting of cattle was often done in utter wantonness ; the marauders either suffering them to lie just as they fell, or merely cutting out their tongues and leaving their carcases to rot ; thus showing that it was not the want of food that incited them to outrage. These out- rages were all reported to Gen. Taylor, before his arrival at Marin, and can be substantiated by Col. Fauntleroy, of the 2d Dragoons ; Col. Randolph, of the Virginia Volunteers ; Col. Belknap, Inspector General of the U. S. Army ; Lieut. Patterson, of the JMississippi Regiment, and many others, if necessary. "At Marin itself, where the severe language of Gen. Taylor is said to have been used, the conduct of the ad- vanced guard of Col. Curtis's regiment was marked by sim- ilar atrocities. The night before the arrival of the Ohio Regiment there. Gen. Taylor had slept in the town and seen the Alcalde, had been the guest of some of the princi- pal citizens, had broken bread with them, and had promised them protection. But the advanced guard of Curtis's regi- ment entered the town ; and instantly the work of pillage, robbery, and devastation was begun. At least four houses were set on fire by them." ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 141 The Monterey cori-espondent of the Charleston Mercury^ after the capitulation of the city, says : " As at Matamoras, murder, robbery, and i^pe, were committed in broad light of day ; and, as if desirous to signalize themselves, at Mon- terey, by some new act of atrocity, they burned many of the thatched huts of the poor peasants. It is thought that more than one hundred of the inhabitants were murdered in cold blood; and one Mexican soldier, with Gen. Worth's pass- port in his pocket, was shot dead at noon-day, in the main street of the city, by a ruffian from Texas. But for the moral influence, and the finally exerted physical force of the hirelings of government, the dark deeds of Badajoz would have been repeated at Monterey. Guards of ' mercenaries ' are now placed in every street, and over every building, in the city ; to prevent depredations being committed by those who come here from devotion to ' the land of the free and the home of the brave.' " The Mexicans themselves admit, that before the arrival of the volunteers upon the Rio Grande, all Eastern Mexico was ripe for revolt, and annexation to the United States. Now there is no portion of the country so bitterly hostile to us and our institutions." The army correspondent of the New Orleans Picayune, Mr. Haile, writing from near Mier, Jan. 4, 1847, says : " Below Mier we met the 2d regiment of Indiana troops, commanded, I believe, by CoL Drake. They encamped near our camp; and a portion of them were exceedingly irre- gular in their behavior; firing away their cartridges, and persecuting the Mexican families at a rancho near by." " On arriving at ISIier we learned, from indisputable au- thority, that this same regiment had committed, the day before, outrages against the citizens of the most disgraceful character ; stealing, or rather robbing, insulting the women, breaking into houses, and other feats of a similar character ! We have heard of them at almost every rancho up to this place. 142 ILLEGITIMATE BAFtBARITIES. " Gen. Taylor has issued proclamations, assuring tlie in- habitants of the towns in the conquered territory that thej should be protected and Avell treated by our troops. Since this place has been garrisoned by volunteers, the families have been subjected to all kinds of outrages. At Punta Aguda it has been the same ; most of those who could go, have left their houses. Some have fallen into the hands of the Camanches, wliile flying from the persecutions of our volunteer troops. Recently, the troops have received treatment from men stationed here, (I do not know who commands them,) that negi'oes in a state of insurrection would hardly be guilty of. The women have been repeat- edly violated, (almost an every day affair,) houses are broken open, and insults of every kind have been offered to those whom we are bound by honor to protect. This is nothing more than a statement of facts. I have no time to make comments ; but I desire to have this published, and I have written it under the approval of Capt. Thornton, Major Dix, (who has in charge $250,000 of the United States* money,) Capt. De Hart, Col. Bohlen, Lieut. Thorn, Mr. Blanchard, and my own sense of duty ; and I am deter- mined, hereafter, to notice every serious offence of the above mentioned nature." In confirmation of these anonymous and other statements, we cite, from the Reports and Orders of Gen. Taylor, as follows. He writes from Monterey, Oct. 6, 1846, to the department at Washington : * " I have respectfully to report, that the entire force of Texas volunteers has been mustered out of service, and is now returning home by companies. With their departure we may look for a restoration of quiet and order in Monterey ; for, I regret to report, that some shameful atrocities have been perpetrated by them, since the capitulation of the town," * 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex, Doc. 60. pp. 430, 512, 513, 521. ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 143 Again ; he issues orders, from the same place, Nov. 27, 1846, that " The many outrages, that have been recently committed in the city of Monterey, and elsewhere, upon the persons and property of Mexican citizens., render it neces- sary to restrict the extensive use of riding animals among the rank and file of the army." So it appears that the Tex- ans were not the only peccant soldiers in the camp. On Dec. 2, 1846, orders are again sent out, to the follow- ing effect ; " Grave complaints have come to the command- ing general, touching depredations alleged to have been committed near Marin and Ramos, by troops and armed parties passing on the road. The general is therefore under the necessity of calling the attention of all ofiicers, command- ing escorts or other bodies of troops, and of all discharged men or others who may travel armed, between this point and Camargo, to the great importance of respecting the rights of all Mexican citizens. The good faith of the coun- try and the army has been pledged to this course ; and it is the interest of all to see that the reputation of neither be disgraced, by scenes of plunder and marauding. The troops are well supplied with the subsistence and forage allowed by law, and nothing can justify the wanton destruction of pri- vate property." On Oct. 5th a Mexican lancer was shot in open daylight in the streets of Monterey, according to the report of the commander in chief. The Special Orders of Dec. 7, 1846, relate to a " court of inquiry, convened at the request of Captain C. W. Bul- lin, 1st Kentucky regiment, to investigate the imputations against Company D, as connected with the violent death of a Mexican." A published letter from Monterey, dated Nov. 30, 1846, says, " The tables have been turned on the Mexicans, and for those who have been assassinated of the volunteers, a double number of the enemy have suffered within a day or 144 ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. two. It is reported tliis morning, that Gen. Taylor lias ordered the 1st Kentuckians to Ceralvo, to prevent this killing." "The war," says the same writer, Dec. 1, 1846, "between the Kentuckians and Mexicans, as it is familiarly termed, has created no little excitement both in town and the camp. It is thought that not less than forty Mexicans have been killed within the last five days, fifteen of whom, it is said, were killed in one day, and within the scope of one mile. From this, you will see that the boys are detennined to have and to take revenge for the assassination of their comrades. " Ever since the occupation of Matamoras by our troops, the Mexicans have been cutting off our men, whenever they could be found in convenient places for the job; and the compliment has been invariably returned, generally two for one." A letter from Camargo, Jan. 8, 1847, says, "assassina- tions, riots, robberies, etc., are so frequent that they do not excite much attention. Nine-tenths of the Americans here thhik it a meritorious act to kill or rob a Mexican ; and as large or larger proportion of the latter think it is doing * God service ' to retaliate in kind. Sometimes one side, and then the other are the aggressors. Intense and bitter hatred exists on both sides ; and the impunity with wliich crimes are committed operates as a license. There exists a kind of mihtary authority and a species of civil power, neither well defined, nor of much efficiency. " To enumerate the various acts of violence committed, would fill a column or two of your paper, and probably not do much good. In the newspaper published here, they are occasionally briefly stated. Two days since, a Mexican, well known here, was found in the public road about two miles from town, mortally wounded. He lived long enough to state that he had been met by two young men with muskets and bayonets. They demanded his blanket ; he gave it up. ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 145 and as he was riding off, one of the men deliberately shot him through the body. He leaves a widow and five or six young children. Murders equally cruel, have been perpe- trated on our people, and no one can be discovered as the guilty person." The horrid tale below is from a letter published in the St. Louis Republican, " Camp of the Army at Agua Nueva ) Mexico, February 13, 1847. j "Some most unfortunate events have transpired in our column lately, which will arouse the vengeance of the ' pai- sanos' (peasants) in this country against our troops, and will furnish the disaffected at home with new food for vitupera- tion against the war. Occasional murders of our men have been perpetrated ever since we have been in this country, — all killed by the lasso. The Arkansas regiment of horse, from their having been employed as scouts, and occupying the outposts, have been particularly exposed to this guerilla warfare, and have lost four or five of their men. The day before yesterday, it was reported that one of their number had been killed by the Mexicans, as he had been missing from camp since the day before, when he went out to look for his horse. " Search was made for the body, and it was found about a thousand yards from our camp, with a lasso * around the neck, and tied to a prickly pear, having been dragged some hundred yards upon the face through the chapparal. It pre- sented a horrible sight: the name of the young man was Colquitt, a nephew of the senator. The Arkansas men vowed vengeance, deep and sure. Yesterday morning, a number of them, some thirty perhaps, went out to the foot of the mountain, two miles off, to an 'arroyo' which is washed in the side of the mountain, to which the ' paisanos ' of Agua * The " lasso" was in use among some of the wild troops in Xerxes' army in his invasion of Greece. Herodotus, 7. 85. 13 146 ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. Nueva had fled upon our approach, and soon commenced an indiscriminate and bloody massacre of the poor creatures, who had thus fled to the mountains and fastnesses for security. A number of our regiment being out of camp, I proposed to Col. Bissel to mount our horses and ride to the scene of car- nage, where I knew, from the dark insinuations of the night before, that blood was running freely. We hastened out as hastily as possible, but owing to the thick chapparals, the work of death was over before we reached the horrible scene, and the perpetrators were returning to camp glutted with revenge. " Let us no longer complain of Mexican barbarity, — poor, degraded, ' priest ridden ' as she is. No act of inhuman cruelty, perpetrated by her most desperate robbers, can excel the work of yesterday, committed by our soldiery. God knows how many of the unanned peasantry have been sac- rificed to atone for the blood of poor Colquitt. The Arkan- sas regiment say not less than thirty have been killed. I think, however, at least twenty of them have been sent to their eternal rest. I rode through the chapparals, and found a number of their dead bodies not yet cold. The features, in every instance, were composed and tranquil, — lying upon their backs, eyes closed, and feet crossed. — You would have supposed them sleeping, but for the gory stream which be- dewed the turf around them. In some instances, after the vital spark had fled, in the overflow of demoniac vengeance the carbine ball dashed out the brains of its clayey victim." The following is an extract from one of the Orders of Gen. Taylor in relation to this barbarity. " The Commanding General regrets most deeply that circumstances again impose upon him the duty of issuing orders upon the subject of marauding and maltreating the Mexicans. Such deeds as have been recently perpetrated by a portion of the Arkansas cavalry, cast indelible disgrace upon our arais, and the repu- tation of our countiy. The General had hoped that he ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 147 might be able in a short time to resume offensive operations, but if orders, discipline, and all the dictates of humanity are set at defiance, it is vain to expect any thing but disaster and defeat. The men who cowardly put to death unoffend- ing Mexicans, are not those who will sustain the honor of our arms in the day of trial." Gen. Taylor showed his sagacity in this prediction, for it was precisely those troops that a few days afterwards were the first to fly from the field of Buena Vista. It was in reference to these and similar barbarities that Santa Anna said to Gen. Taylor's messenger at Agua Nueva on the day after that battle ; " the Americans wage against us a war of Vandalism, whose excesses outrage those senti- ments of humanity which one civilized nation ought to evince toward another. In proof of this assertion, you have but to go outside of this apartment to see still smoking the dwellings of this recently flourishing village ; you passed the same vestiges of desolation at La Encantada on your route hither ; and if you will go a little farther on, there, to Catana, you will hear the moans of the widows and orphans of innocent victims who have been sacrificed without necessity." "We gather the following from the Boston Daily Times of May 11, 1847: — " By a letter from Gen. Taylor of the 4th April, it appears that a party of Americans, under Col. Mitchell's command, the 1st Ohio U. S. Dragoons, and Texas Rangers, made prisoners of twenty-four Mexicans at Guellapea, gave them a mock trial by night, and then shot them through the head ! " The above narrative will lead us to believe, that the Mex- ican accounts of the war are not wholly exaggerations. They refer to "the thousand and ten thousand assassinations com- mitted by our troops ; " " multitudes of Mexicans wandering in the woods, and pursued like wild beasts in their own country, robbed of their property, and driven from their families ; the multitude of peaceable and honorable men, 148 ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. who have been insulted, seized and beaten in presence even of a beloved daughter, or idolized wife ; the proud barbarity, the shameless cruelty required to burn the village, to slay the simple rustic, the feeble woman and the innocent child, as we beheld at Agua Nueva, Hidalgo, and other towns of the North." So outrageous was the conduct of the United States troops, that General Mora y Villamil, commander at San Luis Potosi, wrote a spirited remonstrance to Gen. Taylor, dated May 10, 1847, in which he says;* "that the treacherous assas- sinations of Agua Nueva, Catana, and Marin have not been the only ones ; " and that the " ruin, devastation, and confla- gration of towns mark every where the march of the in- vading army." In his reply of May 19, 1847, Gen. Taylor acknowledges the facts referred to, and says that " they were in truth unfortunate exceptions, (to the mode in which the war was generally conducted in that part of Mexico) caused by circumstances beyond my control." He also states the violent pix)vocations which led to the above mentioned bar- barities, and says also, " Mexican troops have given to the world the example of killing wounded men upon the field of battle." In a letter to the War Department at Washing- ton, dated May 23, 1847, he discusses the unpleasant sub- ject, confesses the facts, attributes them to the volunteer trooj)s, and says, " while no one can regret their occurrence more than I do, yet I have not to reproach myself with the omission of any precaution to prevent them. Without a sufficient regular force even to guard our magazines and depots, I have found it entirely impossible to enforce, in all cases, the repeated orders which have been given against marauding and other irregularities." Still later, Jmie 16, 1847, Ave have the following some- what " rough and ready " f sentences from the same pen ; '• I * 30th Cong. 1st Sess. Ex. Doc. 60. House of Rep. pp. 1139—1142. t '' Routrh and Ready : " tliis phrase occurs in Carlyle's edition of '•the Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell," First Parliament, Speech Second. 1845. ILLEGITIMATE BARBARITIES. 149 deeply regret to report that many of the twelve months' vol- unteers in their route hence of (to) the lower Rio Grande, have committed extensive depredations and outrages upon the peaceful inhabitants. There is scarcely a form of crime that has not been reported to me as committed by them ; but they have passed beyond my reach, and even were they here, it would be found next to impossible to detect the individuals who thus disgrace their colors and their country. Were it possible to rouse the jNIexican people to resistance, no more effectual plan could be devised than the very one pursued by some of our volnnteer regimentii noAv about to be dis- charged. " The volunteers for the war, so far, give an earnest of better conduct, with the exception of the companies of Texas horse. Of the infantry I have had little or no complaint ; but the mounted men from Texas have scarcely made one expedition without unwarrantably kilhng a Mexican. I have, in consequence, ordered Major Chevallies' command to Saltillo, where it can do less mischief than here, and where its services moreover are wanted. The constant recurrence of such atrocities, which I have been i-eluetant to report to the department, is my motive for requesting t?(at no more troops may he sent to this column from the state of Texas^ * A few items respecting the invading " Army of the West " will give a like melancholy picture of unbridled passions and cruel and disgraceful excesses, at which every feeling of common justice and humanity cries out with horror. But we record these things not to heap opprobrium upon indi- viduals, but to demonstrate the abominableness of a system ; vre do it not, because we love our country loss, but because we love peace and right more. F. S. Edwards in his work, "A Campaign in New Mex- ico," says, when at Ceralvo, " I have been credibly informed that when these rangers are sent out on scouting parties, a * 30tli C\ n j;. 1 .>t ^'e'^liam Ladd. Many of the battles of the Mexican war were fought wholly or partly on the Sabbath. At Monterey, Sacrar THE VICES OF THE CAMP. 241 mento, Cerro Gordo, Cliapultepec, and Mexico, more or less of the fighting was done on the Lord's daj. While the assemblies of Christians, all over the earth, were met to- gether to hear the word of God, confess their sins, and seek the mercj of heaven through that name which is far "above every name that is named," then, in those hours of sacred rest, devotion, and brotherly love, the death-shots were fall- ing thick and fast, the storm of battle was sweeping with resistless fury over hundreds of the wounded and dying, and many souls cut off unprepared and in the midst of their days, appeared at the bar of a righteous God, to bear wit- ness against the w^ar-system of two professedly Christian nations. Could there be a more shocking contre-temps than a desperate, bloody battle, or siege, ou the holy day, Avhen God has said, "• Thou shalt not do any work," and all the noises of the earth should be hushed, and man should " be still and know that I am God ? " The only conceivable case is a fight on Christmas. The battle of Bracito Avas fought on the generally-received anniversary of that greatest era in the world's history, wdien angels from heaven sang the birth- anthem of the Saviour of men, " Glory to God in the high- est, and on earth peace, good will tow^ard men." But battles are not the only violations of the law of the Sabbath. Marchings, drills, all kinds of work, preparations for battle, or burying the dead, and all the bustle, din, and dissipation of a camp life, go on comparatively unchecked. In one word, there is no Sabbath to the wari'ior. Pie must work, or march, or fight on the day of rest just as much as on any other day, if his commander and circumstances re- quire it. Many of the greatest battles have been fought on that day, though historians have not cared to state the fact. Waterloo and Plattsburg occur to mind now among others. In a very few instances, generals have refused battle on the Sabbath, but the cases are rare. When men commit themselves to this murderous business, they gen- 21 242 THE VICES OP THE CAMP. erallj shut out God, and the thought of his laws, and their accountableness to him, from their mind, and know no re- ligion, no Sabbath, no mercy. The motto is, kill, kill ; plunder, plunder; burn, burn. Suppose two hostile ships meet on the sea on Sunday, what do the chaplains pray for ? Is it for love to God and love to man ? No ! but for death to destroy as many as possible of the other party ; for the fire, and powder, and bomb-shells, and sabres, that they do as much execution as possible in marring the image pf God, and hurrying mortals before their time to the bar of an eternal Judge. No single extensive cause has worked more efficiently to abolish the Sabbath, and bring it into dese- cration than war. All history unites in casting this sin at its door, and God will hold war-makers to account as so far Sabbath-breakers. We need not waste many words on the point that the vices of intemperance, profaneness, and licentiousness have a rank growth in war. The single key of explanation is, that the whole animal nature is called into action. The passions and appetites are supplied with unusual means of excitement. The moral restraints of home and surrounding society are taken off. The refuse of society congregate in the camp, and he must be a moral hero who is not soon laughed out of his virtuous scruples at any vice. The army has in it many good men, as the world goes, but their in- fluence is comparatively overpowered by the daring spirits of wickedness. Something has been done during the last twenty years to stay the ravages of intemperance^ but this war engenders habits of excess, and tends to reopen the flood-gates of deso- lation. For the recruiting and enlisting rendezvous has not unfrequently been a grog-shop. Rum has been the pre- siding genius of the mess-room and the camp. Rum has been the spirit of battle. Sutlers and retailers have throng- ed the encampments, and, in spite of the strictest commands THE VICES OF THE CAMP. 243 of the officers, they have found way to appropriate the last cent of the poor soldier for a glass of rum. The disbanded soldiers will scatter anew through the length and breadth of the land the prolific seeds of intemperance. The violent passions and the reckless feelings enraged by war naturally find their vent in the most horrible profane- ness. This vice is as congenial to fleets and armies, as birds to the air, or fishes to the sea. It is spoken of in history as a wonderful^ triumph that Cromwell was able to banish it from his Puritan troops. But most generals have taken no pains, and had no desire to have the third commandment observed by their men ; indeed, as an almost universal rule, they have been themselves grossly addicted to this practice, which is neither "brave, polite, nor wise." From the camp, from the man-of-war, more curses than blessings, more oaths than prayers go up before high heaven. If you wish to initiate a young man in a short time into this soul-destroying habit, you could not do better than to send him to the battle- field, where human nature is wrought up to the highest pitch of maddened, defiant, ferocious, blood-thirsty passion (and must be so in order to do the awful work which is to be done there), and pours out volleys of profaneness against heaven while discharging volleys of death at heaven's chil- dren. He who wishes to see the doom of a profane and God-insulting people averted from his country, will hold up both hands to vote against war. Licentiousness is another vice which is diffused by war. The habits of the camp in this particular are too well known to need description. Indeed, multitudes flock to the stand- ard of war because they know that they shall thus find means to gratify their passions. A chaste army would be as novel a thing in the world as a sober one. The camp is the resort of hordes of abandoned females. When a besieged city is taken, it is sometimes the premium on the bravery of the soldiers to deliver it up to lust and plunder. 244 THE VICES OF THE CAMP. Such is the licentiousness of war. The friend of purity will be the friend of peace. Indeed, when we consider the morals of war, — and the late war, as we have demonstrated in the preceding pages, has been not an exception, but the fulfilment of the general rule, — we would " wreak " our thoughts on some such words as these, O war, what shall we say of thee, thou dark spirit, thou fearful minister of wrath, thou flaming angel of swift destruction? When thou art let loose, there is a shudder in heaven, and the angels veil their faces in horror. The sound of thy trumpet strikes terror to the mother's heart, and makes the sister turn pale with fear and fore- boding. Wives shrink from the sound of thy coming, and children flee from the thunder and havoc of thy train as from the whii-lwind. Is there purity? Thou dishonorest it. Is there temperance? Thou debauchest it. Is there mercy ? Thou turnest it to stone. Is there love ? Thou curdlest the milk of human kindness to hatred. Is there prosperity ? Thou cuttest off" its resources, thou multipliest taxes. Is there home ? Thou layest it waste with fire and sword. Is there religion? Thou repealest every law of the decalogue, every precept of Christ. Is there patriot- ism ? Thou puttest in place of the true a vile substitute, current neither among gods nor men. Is there honor? Thou cheatest the world with a base compound, that bears the same relation to true honor that pewter coin does to pure silver. Is there freedom ? Thou draggest her a bound captive at thy chariot wheels. Is there commerce ? Thou chasest her from the seas. Is there agriculture? Thou tramplest her harvests under the hoofs of thy coursers, and riotest in her j^lenty. Is there art, practical or ideal ? Thou burnest her workshops, thou plunderest her galleries. Is there any good thing on earth, which heaven has given, or which man has made ? Thou art the curse and destruction of all. Where thou movest, a garden is before thee, and a THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OP CHRIST. 245 desert behind thee. Thou art hell let loose upon the world ; and when we see thy banner in the sky, all the good angels of heaven seem to have taken flight, and left us to ourselves and to our own worst passions. Thine attendant spirits are pain, and woe, and despair, and sickness, and licentiousness, and intemperance, and profaneness, and Sabbath-breaking^ and murder, and robbery, and cruelty. Thy victories are the defeats of humanity. Thy conquests are the losses of liberty. Thy rejoicings are the wailings of the poor and suffering. Thy glories are the shame of immortals, and the trophies of tigers and hyenas. Thy laurels are red with blood, and thy hosannas are the shrieks of the wounded, the yells of the dying, the sobs of widows, the cries of orphans, and the lamentations of nations. CHAPTER XXVI. THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. " The depravity occasioned by war is not confined to the army. Every species of vice gains ground in a nation during war. And when a war is brought to a close, seldom perhaps does a community return to its former standard of morals." — Noah Worcester. " "What distinguishes Avar is, not that man is slain, but that he is slain, spoiled, crushed by the cruelty, the injustice, the treachery, the murderous hand of man. The evil is moral evil. War is the concen- tration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed brand. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, perfidy, rapacity, and lust."- - Channixg. We devote this chapter to what we regard as the chief evils of the Mexican war. The moral and spiritual facul- 21* 246 THE "WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. ties are at the head of the human constitution, and the in- terests resulting from them and involving their development and welfare, are the leading interests of human society. Whatever reverses this order, and puts last what should be first, and first what should be last, destroys the true per- spective of human life. War, perhaps more than any other single cause, works this stupendous wrong. It discredits and dwarfs the moral man. It supplies undue excitements and gratifications to all the animal passions. It obscures the true end of our existence, and substitutes, in place of the honor and dignity of serving God and man, the gorgeous mockery of military glory. Had the war now in question been instrumental of the loss of not one dollar or one life, and yet had it laid waste the great moral and religious interests of the United States and Mexico, and left a deep wound upon the cause of Christ, we should assign it a foremost place among the foes of our laws, our liberties, and every social, material, and political interest. For every part of our complicated life is con- nected with every other part, as joint with joint, and limb with limb in the body. If one suffer, all the others suffer wdth it. When the moral interests of society are thrown into disorder, the evil extends through every department of thought and action. We have by an enumeration of separate evils demonstrated that, if every other argument failed, the immoralities of this invasion stamp it with the darkest colors of guilt, and cover it with the deepest abhorrence of the feeling heart and the tender conscience. We have examined its leger, and looked into its hospitals, and recited its hor- rors, but we will now consider its spirit. Space will compel us to be brief, where a volume only could do full justice to the subject. It is sometimes alleged, that those vv^ho fight have no enmity, one tov.ards another, and that it is not that they hate their enemies, or wish them evil ; but they contend at THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 247 the call of their country, and are just as good friends when they stop firing as any men in the world. Witness, it is said, the kind acts they do each other, and the relief they give to the wounded and dying foeman. So be it. Let all possible palliations relieve the horrid picture of the field of blood. It does us good to think that what is best in man sometimes appears even amid such scenes. But we propose to record some indications of the war-spirit, and to show that where there is such a spirit, the spirit of revenge, liard- heartedness, cruelty, delight in the sufferings of others, or cold-blooded indifference to them, there cannot be the spirit of him, who said, " Love your enemies." And certainly we are not allowed to repeal his laws of love, mutual good will, intercessory prayers for our enemies, and returning them good for evil ; no, not even for an hour, though that hour be the period of battle. How then can war and Chris- tianity agree together? If it be possible to love our enemies at the moment we are pouring voUies of grape into their dense ranks, and to pray for them at the time we are medi- tating a chai'ge with naked bayonets, then we can conceive of a war conducted on Christian principles and sentiments, but not otherwise. " War must be," as Robert Hall says, " a temporary repeal of the principles of virtue." The truth is, that men cannot be brought up to tlie point of fighting except by the stress of most powerful motives, and those motives in general are drawn from the animal passions. Generals have usually deprecated a strong religious influ- ence in the camp.* Some have gone so far as to declare, the worse man, the better soldier. There is a species of morality in war, but it is of a very abject nature. Far are we from denying that there are many good men engaged in * The examining committee of the Military Academy at West Point state the significant fact in their report, 1849, that the chapter or sec- tion on War in Wayland's Moral Scienc;e, a text book in the institution, is not admitted in the course of studies ! 248 THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. the army and navy, but if there are such, it is in spite of the spirit of war, not in obedience to it. The better men, and the more comprehensive Christians they become, the more thoroughly will they abhor their calling, and say, with a British officer of high rank in the army to his associates, " ours is a damnable profession." The war-spirit of the press has given expression to senti- ments during the conflict like the following. We do not give the names of the papers and reviews, because our object is to illustrate a principle, not to attack persons. But we quote from highly-respected and widely-circulated jour- nals. These are the words of one : " Nothing but a complete subjugation of Mexico seems to answer the present emer- gency. Foraging on the enemy, and levying contributions were at last agreed upon. The anxiety in every man's countenance to-day is strongly depicted, and the universal cry is, war in earnest — war ; not for peace, but for conquest and subjugation, — a real bona jide war, which supports itself and seizes on the enemy's treasure. Unless we distress the Mexicans, carry destruction and loss of life to every fireside, and make them feel a rod of iron, they will not respect us." Another journal speaks thus ; " Under these circumstances, and in view of the perfidious conduct of the Mexican Gov- ernment, our Government is bound by every consideration of honor, duty and justice, to chastise them most effectually, and to beat them into a disposition to ask for peace, and to accept it on such terms as we may be disposed to grant them. " No more offers of peace, — no more paying for supplies, — no more confidence in the professions and promises of the enemy ; but stern, vigorous, relentless war, until our just de- mands are fully complied with. Such must and will be our policy now." Another gives utterance to the following ; " Our work of THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 249 subjugation and conquest must go on rapidly with augmented forces, and, as far as possible, at the expense of Mexico herself. From Mexican contributions, levied and seized, if need be, bv the strong hand, our armies must now be sub- sisted and supported in the field. The policy of forbearance and conciliation, however magnanimously adopted by us, and in however generous an attitude it may have hitherto presented us before the world, is now exhausted. It has met with no response, but new rancor and contumely from our vanquished foe. Henceforth we must seek peace, and compel it, by inflicting upon our enemy all the evils of war." Another expatiates thus ; " With a nation like Mexico, with whom no accommodation can be hoped for, and as sad experience has shown, no faith in treaties, even when made, can be entertained, there can be no end to the war short of her annihilation as a nation. The matter should be taken in hand, in the spirit of Bonaparte's bulletins, in commencing the Prussian war: " The House of Brandenburgh has ceased to reign in Europe." His vigorous strokes ceased not until that edict was apparently accomplished, and a few weeks sufficed for the purpose. Of the same nature should be our proceedings. " The Spaniards have ceased to rule in Mexico," should be the motto, and corps after corps poured in at all quarters, until it is enacted." Another speculates after this wise ; " if Santa Anna still holds out, then we must take it for granted that the Mexican people want war to the knife ; and it will be time for our government to resort to the severest measures in order to make the war tell upon the population. It is to be hoped that our army will then forage on the enemy, lay every town and hamlet through which it passes under heavy con- tribution, and instead of suffering the wealthy citizens to depart and withdraw to the interior, retain them as hostages for keeping the peace." Still another exhorts to a military colonization ; " Let our 2.">0 THE WAR-SPIRTT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. armies begin immediately to radiate from the city of Mexico into all the Mexican States. And then, as a finishing stroke, our Government should give freely of the Mexican domain to as many of our citizens as would emigrate. This would soon fill up the country with armed Americans, who would complete not only the subjugation, but the civilization of Mexico." * " A manifest-destiny" editor holds forth thus ; " The glorious sierras and valleys of Mexico are fated to be linked to the mountains and prairies of the United States.* * * Politicians may connive, or quake and tremble as they will ; Wilmot Pi-ovisas, Abohtion, and Disruption of the Union are lost in the tremendous shout of the American people, Mexico must not, — shall not be abandoned ! * * Shall we resist Providence, that guides the course of nations ? * * A continent for freedom ; its boundary the icebergs on the north, the oceans east and west, and Central America, (until we need it,) on the south, and short of that boundary, no human power can stop the irresistible current of the Anglo Saxon i*ace." But the following atrocious sentences are almost too bad to copy, did they not illustrate a feeling but too prevalent, though sometimes expressed in more refined words. " We go for giving the Mexicans hell, whether Christ be our guide or not. We go for whipping them thoroughly, any way ; and we must do it, or stand disgraced in the eyes of the civilized world. None of your sentimentalism, — none of your " weary, wounded and worn" tales. If we had lis- tened to them in by-gone times, the star-spangled banner would not, as it now does, float in proud triumph over every sea." One more ; " We trust now that we shall hear no more of armistices or suspension of hostihties, at least from our side. War, vigorous, devastating, unrelenting war, is the only resource, and it is to be hoped that the Mexicans will be made to experience it." THE "WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OP CHRIST. 251 A member of Congress said in his official seat ; " He trusted it would be a war of conquest ; he was not one of those who would have a mild war, who were afraid of strik- ing heavy blows. He would show no mercy till the war was ended. If he would have his own way, one blow should follow another without mercy." Says a Governor of a State, in my judgment, the motto, to ' conquer a peace/ is now made indispensable — there is no alternative. Then let the nation's power be summoned to a mighty effort, and let it break upon that devoted country, peal after peal, in one unceasing note of thunder. Let the public right arm be made bare, and the sword remain un- sheathed until peace is extorted." Let these suffice to exhibit the war-mania that seized upon a portion of the American press, and politicians. Must not such sentiments demoralize the public mind wherever circulated ? But we proceed to another point. Let us see what is the war-spirit of warriors, and how far it accords with the pre- cepts, spirit, and example of our beloved Redeemer in his sojourn on earth. Here, too, we avoid the invidiousness of giving names for an obvious reason. We attack a system, a custop, not individuals. Our aim is piinciples, not men. What are the most prominent ideas, which some men attach to such words as grand, brilliant, splendid, beautiful, glorious, etc., will appear in these extracts. We copy from official reports chiefly. The italics are ours. Says Lieut. , " Whilst this was being done, I galloped to the top of the hill above Arispa's mills, where a grand sight burst upon my view. The whole column (of the ene- my) was winding its way along the foot of the mountain and through the ravines, more than half the column being in range of my gun. I galloped back to bring it up, placed it in position and fired rapidly into their crowded ranks, pro- ducing considerable confusion, and much execution." 252 THE WAK-SFIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. This is the description of another at tlie terrible siege of Vera Cruz ; " In a few moments the steamers, Spitfire and Vixen, and five gunboats, the whole mider command of Captain of the navy, ran in close to the lime-kiln, and opened a beautiful fire with large Paixhan guns upon the town and castle. Nothing could have been done more handsomely.'' " Soon after our batteries opened, Captain with Major , stepped out to a rather exposed position to witness the effect of our shells. " Major," remarked Captain v., with enthusiasm, " as you pass the mortars, please tell the officers that the shell are doing their duty accurately'' Another officer writes as follows ; " The storming of Cerro Gordo was a magnificent spectacle, as well as one of the most hriUiant, if not the most brilliant feat ever accom- plished by American arms. IVhat a glorious feeling of ela- tion took possession of my soul at that, moment I I cannot describe it. Of the wounded, dead, and dying, we will not speak. I have seen Death robed in all his ghastly terrors, and feel that I am becoming indifferent to the sufferings of my fellows ; my profession demands it." Of an American Lieutenant, aged 72, a correspondent of the New York Post says, " he had left a home of afflu- ence and ease, with the expressed wish to die in the service of his country, and, if need be, on the field of battle. ' They cannot cheat me out of many more years,' said he. Wlien ordered with a battalion, like 2l forlorn ho^De, to the trying contest in the mountains, he exclaimed with a look of joy, as he drew his sword : ' Now, boys, this looks like doing some- thing.'" " I remained with him," says tlie surgeon attendant on the dying Maj. " all night. He had but little pain, and at intervals had some sleep. During the night he gave me many incidents of the battle, and spoke with much pride of the execution of his shot. He had but one thing to regret, THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 253 and tliat was the small number of men at liis command." His only regret that he could not kill more Mexicans ! " The condition of the brave and esteemed Capt. " says an eye-Avitness, " is melancholy indeed. The whole of his lower jaw, with a part of his tongue and palate, is shot away by a grape-shot. He, however, survives, though entirely incapable of speech. He communicates liis thoughts by writing on a slate, and receives the necessary nutriment for the support of hfe with much difficulty. He does not desire to Uve, but converses with cheerfulness and exultation upon the success of our arms, and concluded an answer to some queries con- cerning the battle of the 9th, by writing, ' We gave the Mexi- cans hell!^^^ " When Lieut. , during the battle of Buena Vista, was sent by Gen. Taylor," says the New Orleans Bulletin, "with a flag to a detached body of 1000 to 1500 Mexicans, that were being cut to pieces by our fire. Col. was on the eve of charging them with his dragoons ; but as Lieut. was passing with his white flag displayed, rode out and crossed his path to inquire the object of his mission. 'I am going to tell those fellows to surrender, in order to save their lives.' — ' Wait till I have charged them.' — * Im- possible ; the old man has sent me, and I must go.' — * But, my good fellow,' said entreatingly, 'for God's sake just rein up for five minutes, and give us a chance at them.' — < Would do any thing to oblige you. Colonel ; but I have the old man's orders, and there is no help for it.' And he gave rein to his horse, while the Colonel returned to the head of his regiment in the worst of all possible humors against the things called flags of truce." The diabohcal passion of fighting for the love of fighting is illustrated by this report of an American General, in the bombardment of a Mexican town, in which 219 were killed, and 300 wounded. "As we approached, several shots were fired at us, and, 22 254 THE "WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. deeming it unsafe to risk a street fight in an unknown town at night, I ordered the artillery to be posted on a hill near the town and overlooking it, and open its fire. — Now ensued one of the most beautiful sights conceivable. Every gun was served with the utmost rapidity; and the crash of the walls and the roofs of the houses when struck by our shot and shell, was mingled with the roar of artillery. The bright light of the moon enabled us to direct our shots to the most thickly 2)opulated parts of the town^ At another action, in his report says another officer, now promoted to a generalship, " I camiot speak too highly of Capt. K. and his management of his batteries. His shells and shot fell beautifully upon houses and churches where the enemy were in great numbers. Whenever his shot took effect, the firing soon ceased." Such is the spirit of war and warriors,^ and such, from the necessity of the case, it ever must be. How totally in- consistent with the spirit of the New Testament ! Is it not a hidden art, even in this inventive age, to wage war upon Christian principles and sentiments ? Killing men, women, and children can hardly be done on the basis of loving our neighbors, or forgiving our enemies. The single question is, whether Christ be our supreme Master or not. AVhen that is settled, it will be comparatively easy to dispose of the ques- tion of war. * The many controversies and quarrels among the authors and advo- cates of this war and the officers of the army and navy strikingly illus- trate the combustible natm-e of the materials on which the war-system is built. Perhaps we ask too much of men, who cannot keep the peace among their own counti'ymen, that they should keep the peace with the rest of mankind. Witness the quasi wars of Scott vs. Trist, Pillow vs. Scott, Scott vs. Marcy, Kearney vs. Premont, Fremont vs. Mason, Benton vs Kearney, to say nothing of other controversies and duels. THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OP CHRIST. 255 CHAPTER XXVII. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. " War is in itself a mighty evil, an incongruity in a scheme of social harmony, a canker at the heart of improvement, a living lie in a Chris- tian land, a cm-se at all times." — London Times. It has already been shown by a detailed examination of separate items, that the late war has been totally inconsistent with the commands and spirit of the Gospel. But we treat now of its general spirit. It has been an appeal to might, and there is no evidence that the success of a battle is any proof of the justice of the cause of the victors. Napoleon once remarked, that he had always taken notice that Provi- dence favored the heavy battalions! Victory perches on the banner of might, not always on that of right. We have seen that even the usual laws of war, and laws of nations, have been rudely broken by the barbarities per- petrated on both sides; how much more then that perfect law of love, revealed by Jesus Chi-ist ! If the doctrines of Grotius and Vattel have been set at nought, how much more have those of Paul and John ? The inconsistency of our invasion of Mexico with the Christian faith has been brought into a stronger contrast, ^from the fact, that at the very moment we were loading down a vessel of war to the very edge with bread-stuffs for the famishing Ii'ish, and despatching them on this mission of mercy, we were sending bomb-ships, laden with the most destructive imiDlements of war, to lay waste the cities of Mexico, and bury men, women, and children in the ruins of 256 THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. their dwellings and clinrclies. It is a serious inquiry for every Christian, whether, while we have thus been aiming fatal blows at the physical life of a sister republic, v/e may not have placed ourselves in the way of receiving the fruits of spiritual death in ourselves. "We can conceive of no line of antitheses more directly pitched, one against the other, than the qualities called into the most lusty life and growth by such a war, and those recommended and enforced in the instructions of our blessed Lord, and shining with a holy and beautiful light in his char- acter, " as the brightness of the firmament." It is ambition fronting meekness ; pride, lowliness of mind ; revenge, for- giveness ; retaliation, forbearance; cruelty, mercy; wrong, justice ; hate, love. " They," said Erasmus, " who defend war, must defend the dispositions which lead to it ; and these dispositions are absolutely forbidden by the Gospel." Mexico was weak, we were strong. Common magnanim- ity, much more that holy law that bids us " support the weak, and be patient towards all men," condemns the Onslaught of war. In private life, our blood boils with indignation to see the feeble beset and maltreated by the robust. Does the magnitude of scale alter the nature of the rule ? Speaking of those most immediately responsible for the war, Mr. Gal- latin says, in his widely-circulated pamphlet, "there is not one of them, who would not spurn with indignation the most remote hint that, on similar pretences to those alleged for dismembering Mexico, he might be capable of attempting to appropriate to liimself his neighbor's farm." But can the law of Clmstian honesty be so palpably violated in the smaller instance supposed, and does it receive no wound in the larger one ? It has been comj)lained of by the advocates of this war that the pulpit has generally been arrayed against it. The fact is probably true. The great mass of the clergy of every denomination have uttered their condemnation of the war. THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. 257 They have preached and prayed against it. Indeed they have felt that no prayer or song could be made out of the subject, except in distinct and decided opposition to carrying our arms beyond the boundaries of our enormous territory into those of a weak and distracted neighbor. The eccle- siastical bodies of this country, with scarcely an exception in the free States, have come out in votes and resolutions of the most stringent condemnation of the war.* These facts may show how utterly they have deemed it to be opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and may by some be regarded as an intimation, though by no means a proof, that such was the reality. But, in marked contrast with the above, we record as exemplifications of the fatal, corrupting influence of the war- miasma, the cases of some even of the ministers of Christ, who entered the army, and who preached and prayed in favor of the war. A private letter from a Lieutenant in the service, says ; " We have here among the volunteers a preacher who is a captain, his officers and non-commissioned officers are deacons of his church ; and the privates mem- bers. He is called the fighting Preacher. He and his com- pany are from ." We have already mentioned that a preacher was killed in the ranks in the battle of Buena Vista. Sermons, which are now before us, were preached both on the Rio Grande, and at the city of Mexico before the troops, justifying the war, talking largely of the "Anglo Saxon destiny," comparing the progress of the American arms with the entrance of the children of Israel into the land of Canaan, and giving the sanctions and benedictions of Chris- tianity to the awful wrongs and barbarities of one of the most cruel, sanguinary, and demoralizing wars on record. * Advocate of Peace, Nov. and Dec. 1847, pp. 134 — 137. Feb. 1848, pp. 166, 167. Oct. 184S. pp. 274 — 276. * 22* 258 THE WAR-SPIRIT AND THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. But we need not say that this surely is no period of the world for true Christians to justify war, and especially wars of aggrandizement, retaliation, and slavery. When could the Mexican invasion assume a more hideous aspect in the eyes of good men, than at a time when the missionaries of the cross are penetrating to the remotest parts of the earth on their glorious errand of evangelizing the heathen ; * and when even Mohammedan powers, the Sultan of Turkey, the Shah of Persia, the Imaum of Muscat, and the Arabian chiefs — have either abolished slavery, or very much re- stricted it ; and when there seems to be a universal move- ment in the world towards a happier age of Freedom, Peace, and Philanthrof)y. Thus the spirit of the age rebukes and condemns our war. For into that spirit has entered, we believe, some faint portion of '• the mind that was in Christ." Surely this of all periods, since the world began, is not the day to exact " the pound of flesh next the heart " with a Shylock greediness, nor to resent injuries with a hasty revenge, nor to fight for glory, territory, or opjDression. Let us hope that our countrymen will yet come to their senses, and frown upon a spirit and a career so utterly at variance with the holy religion we profess, and check any symptoms of a renewal of wars of invasion, conquest, and slavery. * A Chinese emperor once said : " Wherever Christians go they whiten the soil with human bones ; and I will not have Christianity in my empire." A Turk at Jerusalem once said to Wolff, the missionary, "Why do you come to us ? " The missionary replied, " to bring you peace." " Peace ! " replied the Turk, leading him to a window, and pointing to Mount Calvary, " there ! upon the very spot where your Lord poured out his blood, the Mohammedan is obliged to interfere to prevent Chris- tians from shedding the blood of each other ! " — Calumet, of Peace. LESSONS OP THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 259 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. " Our sole aim being to promote the cause of permanent peace by- turning tliis war into effectual warnings against resorts to the sword hereafter." — Proposals for a Review of the War by the American Peace Society. A BRIEF survey of some of the more prominent lessons, taught us by the events of the last two years, is all that can be given now, though the future will no doubt teach us far more upon this subject than the past. The friends of peace had fondly cherished the hope that 'pure republics, the governments of the many as contradis- tinguished from monarchies and aristocracies, the govern- ments of the one, or the few, would be pacific. War has been charged upon rulers, though it has been confessed it " Is a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at." But we are disappointed. We see that republics can wage as fierce, brutal, and unjust wars, as feudal and despotic powers.* The mania of conquest may riot in the veins of a democracy as furiously as in those of a kingdom or empire. * Witness republican France, waging a cruel war against republican Eome to restore the Pope ! The example of our wickedness will find in future history but too many imitators. Such cases need not in the least shake our faith in republicanism ; but they should convince us of the necessity, if we would have a true republicanism, of compounding with it large admixtures of sound education, pure religion, and the spirit of nniversfil brotberhoorl. 260 LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. In this respect we witness the non-fulfihnent of many wise predictions and cherished hopes. The very independence and self-reliance taught by free institutions make the repub- lican the most formidable soldier on earth, when he cuts loose from the scruples of a religious education. The state- rivalry and panting for distinction by the members of differ- ent sections of the Union have also blown up the war-passion to a hotter flame, and made the battle-field an arena for the most intense competition. The Mexican war has accordingly taught us not to trust to political institutions alone, however free and admirable, for the maintenance of pacific relations among mankind. We must strike a higher key. "SYe must aj^peal to deeper motives. Men may know their rights in a republic, and still be igno- rant of their duties. They may know their duties, and not discharge them. They may have a morbid jealousy of tyranny over themselves, and yet play the tyrant over others. We would bring no railing accusation against our o^vn, our native land. Heaven bless it, every acre and rood ! But because we love it, and would ever rejoice in its unsullied honor and Christian fame, we deeply, deploringly remonstrate against the spirit of political propagandism. If we have so far lost sight of the nature of free institutions, and the true mis- sion of the United States, as to propose to offer. Mohammed- like, the alternative of freedom in one hand, and the sword in the other, to the other nations of the earth, the sooner our days are numbered and finished, the happier for the peace of the world. We say thus much, not to give " aid or com- fort" to any enemy of liberty and the institutions in which liberty is organized, but to " point the moral " of the late war. It is not that we love our country less, but mankind more. It is not that we would be any the less devoted patriots, but that we would sanctify and dignify that charac- ter by being the more devoted philanthropists and disciples of Christ. LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 261 And, in general, we have been taught by this war how broken a reed we lean upon, when we propose to accomplish the magnificent result of a general, permanent peace by any temporal expedients, any carnal weapons, any industrial, social, political, commercial, or selfish arrangements. Satan cannot cast out Satan, nor can even selfishness itself exorcise the demoniac spirit of wai\ Men will hardly give up the grati- fication of their lusts, though they could turn a penny by it. Yea, we see that they will, under the instigation of the strong and animal passions, fling every consideration of interest, honest reputation, consistency, and safety to the winds, and embark in a crusade against which their pockets, their love of life, and every apparent interest cry out. But wars and fightings come from a different part of the human constitution than the calculating faculties. A whole boiling cauldi'on of ambition, excitement, pleasure, revenge, sympathetic ardor, is in the breast of the volunteer. He cannot be controlled except by principles and sentiments mightier than those that have usurped the dominion over his reason and conscience. But " where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty ; " liberty from those unsanctified lusts and passions of the human heart, out of which all the terrible deeds of war come, as streams of burning lava from the volcano. The motives that are to emancipate even the freest and most refined nations from enacting the appalling tragedy of the battle-field, must descend from a higher plane than the leger, the statute-book, and the laws and interests of conventional life. God must thunder and lighten out of heaven. Jesus must spread out his arms in the agony of the cross, as if to draw all men to their spiritual unity and head. Man's rela- tion to man, as a brother, owning equal rights, and bound by equal duties, must be revealed in its full solemnity and ten- derness. Then, and not till then, can we hope to see this foul spirit cast out, from the hearts even of good men, much less out of the sensual mind. We welcome with delight 262 LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. every new tie uniting distant lands in the intercourse of com- merce, science, and a material civilization. All hail to the press, the steamboat, the railroad, and the telegraph, as connecting men together more and more, not by links of iron only, but by cords of love. But the causes of war are too inveterate to be cured by any thing short of the miraculous touch of the Son of God. He is the Prince of Peace. He, and he only, can say to a warring world, as he once said to the raging deep, " Peace, be still," and the winds and waves obeyed him. Thanks be accorded to all who are laboring for human improvement in every direction, and by every instrument, for they are co-laborers with the advocates of the uninterrupted brotherhood of nations. But chiefly as Christianity pervades the mass of mankind in its life-giving spirit and efficacy, will men awake to the unutterable wickedness of war, and learn its horrid arts no more. Civilization itself is no adequate remedy; but civili- zation, after the Christian type, and uplifted and empowered with Christian ideas, will outgrow war. It has outgrown many barbarous notions and customs, — the ordeal, torture, persecution, superstition, — of earlier ages ; and it is only a question of time and faithful effort, when this great embodi- ment of barbarism shall drop off from the expanding limbs of Freedom, on which it has so long hung as a hideous and monstrous excrescence. Another lesson from these hostilities is, that what are called the improvements of warfare are poor pretexts to justify its continuance. Commend us not to war as a thing which is very susceptible of improvement. The devil cannot be dis- guised, though he be clothed in a suit of broadcloth, and have a musket and canteen, instead of a bow and arrows. He is still the devil. He was a murderer from the begin- ning, and he will be a murderer to the end. He will make children orphans, and wives widows, and parents childless. He may use different tools, the bomb instead of the batter- LESSOI^S OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 263 ing-ram, the rifle instead of the cross-bow, and the cannon instead of the scythed chariot ; but the devil is the devil yet, and war is war. It cannot be smoothed, civilized, or evangelized. Much assurance indeed was given, that the late contest should be conducted on humane and just princi- ples, so far as such a hellish work could be thus carried on. But the fulfilment of these fine promises must be looked for among the legitimate and illegitimate barbarities perpetrated. If large masses of men are trained to kill in the most dex- terous and scientific modes at the behest of their superiors, it cannot be thought very strange if they sometimes do a Uttle murdering on their own private account. If they are led forth to conquest with their passions stimulated to the utmost with the visions of national glory and aggrandizement, it were natural and pardonable, perhaps, that they should pilfer a trifle on their own hook, in view of the sj^lendid example held up perpetually to view. Such has been the fact. Plun- dering, massacres, cruelties, the killing of the wounded on the field of battle, and even in some cases burning aUve at the stake, have been recorded on the highest official author- ity, as a part of the history of the Mexican war. Two free Christian nations, in the nineteenth century, going to war with one another, and in that war witnessing and perpetrat- ing barbarities that would disgrace New Zealand ! Away with the idle pretence, that war can ever be any thing else than barbarous, sanguinary, cruel, and full of all manner of evil ! Let not those who uphold it as the true method of settling international disputes, encourage the idea that it ever can be, from the very nature of the case, any thing else but violence, fraud, murder, and a temporary repeal of every commandment of the King of kings. If we are to have war, let us call it war, nor seek to baptize it in any other Chris- tian title or surname. " Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light for dark- ness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter !" 264 LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. We see another proof in this contest of the essential injus- tice of all icar. As a mode of redressing injuries, it is per- fectly absurd, for it creates a thousand injuries and wrongs where it redresses one. It runs posterity into debt without their consent, and mortgages the industry and capital of future ages. Instead of punishing the guilty, it often visits the innocent with its heaviest calamities. The battle-field is not entitled in any sense to be regarded as a solemn tri- bunal of justice. The very notion of a battle is, that men temporarily lay aside all that they had gained by thou- sands of years of civilizing and Christian processes, re- solve themselves into savages, and appeal from right, from reason, from the exercise of all those nobler faculties of our constitution, that had been predominant in peace, to the coarse, rude, and vindictive passions. The greatest of the poets di'ew it all to the life ; — " In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility ; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger ; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage 5 Then lend the eye a terrible aspect ; Let it pry through the portage of the head, Like the brass cannon ; let the brow o'erwhclni it, As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded ba^ic. Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean ; Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostrils wide , Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit To his full height." Our actions will, of course, partake of the nature of those passions or feelings which are uppermost at the time we act. If then the deeds of war are performed under the powerful stress of the animal nature, they must of necessity be of like color and character, " earthly, sensual, devilish." LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 265 And by what alembic a long career, a campaign, or several campaigns of such actions are to be sublimated into justice, and wrong to be righted, and evils to be cured, and injuries to be placated, is more than we have been yet able to discover. Such temporary returns to the brutal age of the world inflict deep wounds upon a Christian state of society ; for they are a virtual renouncement for the time being of the reign of truth and justice, and they cast discredit and dis- couragement upon all the moral and religious instrumen- talities by which society is drawn up from the slough of sen- sual customs and habits into the light and life of civilization. The Mexican war was, as we have seen, a signal example of this resorting to might instead of right, and employing the strong arm of force to compel the surrender of a part of another country. It was a compound of the crime of the highway-man, who puts his pistol at your head, and cries, " Deliver, or die," and the truckling of the pedlar who trades in small wares, and chuckles over his hard-driven bargain after it is made. Never was there a finer opportunity for what might be called national magnanimity, than for the stronger power in this case to bear and forbear with the weaker one, and aid, not thwart it, in carrying out the ex- periment of republican institutions. A score of names, perhaps, in the whole range of history, have been accounted, called great. But who are they ? How poor are all the results they left on earth compared with his who repressed the ignoble strife of his followers, who should be greatest. They were from below, he was from above. Some good men have attained the title, an Alfred, a Peter, a Charlemagne ; but most have been great in crime and blood ; an Alexander, a Pompey, a C^Esar, a Herod, a Louis, a Henry, a Frederic, a Charles, a Buona- parte. They were great in many things ; great, perhaps, in ability, great in resolution of will, great in means of influ- ence, and striking in their results ; but little in the elements 23 266 LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. of a truiY great cliaracter ; little in honesty, in truth, in love, mean, seftish, crafty, cruel, and implacable. They have been willing to sacrifice any amount of human life or happiness, to secure their end, and be accounted the greatest. But how poor the honor, how blood-stained the glory ! How many death-pangs it has taken to refine their thrill of plea- sure, how many tears to water their garlands of victoiy, how much human gore to dye their purple robes of royalty ! Wliat curses have loaded their names on earth, what awful memories must haunt them in the world of spirits ! We want no more such great ones. "We have had enough of them. We want the truly great, the truly good. And if we would have such from among our youth, we must fill their heads and hearts not with pagan, or Mohammedan, but with Christian ideas and sentiments. We must baptize our children not only into the name of Christ, but also into his spirit. We must show them how much greater in reality Jesus, the well-beloved of the Father, was in washing his disciples' feet, than Xerxes riding forth at the head of his army to lay waste the fairest countries with fire and sword ; Jesus dying in ignominy on the cross, than Caesar making his triumphal procession into Rome with the spoils and captives of vanquished kingdoms. This strife has repeated, in fresh and distinct tones, this lesson of the perverted standard of judgment created by war. We see how poor a thing is mere animal courage, and mar- tial fame. We see that the most brilliant deeds of the soldier, (sold-ier, the man v^ho is sold), are of such a charac- ter that, were they done by any other profession, the actors would be convicted and punished as the highest offenders against the peace, and order, and rights of men. What right can man claim thus to invent a system of war-morality, war- honor, war-reputation, which conflicts at every point with the government of the Most High ? The truq. nature of much that passes current in society as LESSONS OP THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 267 heroism of the highest kind, when *exhibited in war, is so well exposed by a modern writer, Dr. Bushnell, that we need not apologize for repeating his distinction between " bravery " and " courage." * " No, the true hero is the great, wise man of duty, — he whose soul is armed by truth and supported by the smile of God, — he who meets life's perils with a cautious but tran- quil spirit, gathers strength by facing its storms, and dies, if he is called to die, as a Christian victor, at the post of duty. And if we must have heroes, and wars wherein to make them, there is no so brilliant war as a war with wrong, no hero so fit to be sung as he who has gained the bloodless victory of truth and mercy. " But if bravery be not the same as courage, still it is a very imposing and plausible counterfeit. The man himself is told, after the occasion is past, how heroically he bore him- self, and when once his nerves have become tranquillized, he begins even to believe it. And since we cannot stay con- tent in the dull, uninspired world of economy and work, we are as ready to see a hero as he to be one. Nay, we must have our heroes, as I just said, and we are ready to harness ourselves, by the million, to any man who will let us fight him out the name. Thus we find out occasions for war, — wrongs to be redressed, revenges to be taken, such as we may feign inspiration and play the great heart under. We collect armies, and dress up leaders in gold and high colors, meaning, by the brave look, to inspire some notion of a hero beforehand. Then we set the men in phalanxes and squad- rons, where the personality itself is taken away, and a vast impersonal person, called an army, a magnanimous and brave monster, is all that remains. The masses of fierce color, the ghtter of steel, the dancing plumes, the waving flags, the deep throb of the music hfting every foot, — under * Phi Beta Oration at Cambridge, 1848, pp. 21, 22. 268 LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO. these the living acres of men, possessed bj the one thought of playing brave to-dav, are rolled on to battle. Thunder, fire, dust, blood, groans, — what of these ? — nobody thinks of these, for nobody dares to think till the day is over, and then the world rejoices to behold a new batch of heroes ! " And this is the Devil's play that we call war." And, finally, w^e have been startled by this wild crusade into a new conviction of the vast latent tvar-spint of our country and of the world, and the necessity of more untiring and devoted labors, and more comprehensive plans to carry the peace enterprize to a triumphant conclusion. We be- lieve in the true mission or destiny of our nation to illustrate the idea of Freedom and a Christian State. But if we dis- own the glorious career, God is not so poor that he has not other nations and races which he can employ for purposes equally grand and beneficent. We may hug the delusive phantom that we are a species of Israel among other people, but let us not forget that Israel did not escape the fiery furnace of punishment and retribution for all their trans- gressions and backslidings. And, as we refiect upon the work to be done to guide this giant republic on a safe and peaceful career, we ask who is sufficient for these things ? Oh, for parents of peace, who will make their well-ordered families so many living peace societies ! Oh, for Christian teachers, who will early train the tender minds under their care to govern those passions whence wars and fightings come ! Oh, for Christian histo- rians, who will write the dark register of crime and cruelty Avith a melting heart, and a righteous, wholesome indig- nation, and warn w hile they instruct ! Oh, for statesmen of peace, who will feel that they are amenable to God more than man, to Christ than to country, and that every war is a stab at the very existence of civil society, a reversal of civil- ization, a suicide of the republic ! Oh, for Gospel ministers, who will proclaim the whole counsel of God on this subject, SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 269 and from the commanding station of the pulpit, with the meek wisdom of their master, win all men to " study the things that make for peace ! " CHAPTER XXIX. SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. " In thirty-one days the natural results of this system of peace and fraternity have been more valuable to the cause of France and of hberty and of Poland herself, than ten battles with torrents of blood." Lamartine. " Por wliat can war but endless war still breed "?" Milton. We have already argued at length on the beginning and ending of the war, as instructive and striking lessons of peace. In continuation and expansion of the same idea, in a little different direction, we would take up the means of preventing war by negotiation, arbitration, congress of na- tions, or some other metliod. Surely such an infernal system ought not to go on without the wisest counsels, and the most strenuous efforts of all Christians, patriots, and philanthro- pists to arrest it. " Shall the sword devour forever ?" We believe not. We have full faith, that there is latent abhor- rence enough against v/ar in Christendom to sheathe the sword, were it given utterance, and positive, practical appli- cation. There is an amount of sleeping indignation and opposition, so to say, in the minds of the Christian men and women in America, were it called forth, organized, and put into execution, to sweep the accursed institution among our- selves into eternal oblivion. But hitherto there have not 23* ^70 SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. been sufficient decision and action on the subject. We have tampered and played and compromised with the evil. We have perhaps unconsciously and unintentionally, but actually, nursed the war-passion in the tender minds of our children and youth. Our great institutions of army, navy, militia, arsenals, naval and military schools, have done much to "educate the heart of the people for war." We have gloried in the past wars of our young republic, and promoted their heroes to the most brilliant posts of honor and emolument at home and abroad. The subject of Peace and War, therefore, comes as surely under the law of cause and effect, as that of any other in the material or moral world. The causes and means of Peace, if properly and faithfully employed, would eventually result in peace, just as tlie causes and means of War have resulted in war. With a peace-education, a peace-literature, a true, and not a counterfeit " peace-estab- lishment," a peace-administration of the general government, and shall we not say in view of some facts which have been stated in this essay, a peace-religion, the relations of the United States with every other government would be con- solidated on a pacific basis, which nothing would be able to shake. And to the furtherance and ultimate carrying out of these peaceful influences on the part of society at large, two or three additional ideas should be incorporated into the per- manent law of nations. 1. Mediation and ArUtration. These instruments of avert- ing war, settling international questions, or putting an end to hostilities, have been often employed of late, and oftener as the relations of nations to one another have been seen more in a Christian light, and as falling, hke the relations of in- dividuals one to another, under all the solemn and binding sanctions of the law of God. Thus, in the very matter of these difficulties between Mexico and Texas and the United States, we have no less SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 271 than three instances of the friendly offices of other govern- ments, and in two of them the result was partially or wholly successful, and promoting a good understanding. In adjusting the claims for Mexican spoliations, 1840- — 1842, a Prussian umpire was employed to decide between the Mexican and American commissioners. In 1845, through the intervention of Great Britain and France, Mexico consented to acknowledge the independence of Texas, " provided she would stipulate not to annex her- self or become subject to any country whatever." That provision was not however fulfilled. In 1846, Great Britain ojffered her mediation both to Mexico and the United States, to effect a treaty of peace, but by both powers it was either declined, or neglected. But were there a proper spirit prevailing among the high officers of Cliristian governments, and were they sustained by the good sense and forbearance of the people, it would be held to be no more derogatory for two nations to accept the intervention of a third power to effect a peace, or to prevent war, or to submit their disputes to a friendly arbi- tration, than it is for individuals to do the same or simi- lar things in their private transactions. Unfortunately however, the sensitivness of national honor is such, that it often refuses, after the duelist's example, to be satisfied with any thing short of human blood. Were the great mass of the population in any civiUzed country brought to see and un- derstand the miseries, losses, and sins of war, they would sustain their rulers by the omnipotence of public opinion in any honest measures that would avert such an inundation of evils. How much more truly honorable in the sight of God and the nations would it have been, to submit our questions with Mexico to a board of impartial referees, or to accept the mediatorial offices of friendly powers to stay the rivers of blood ! He who in private life is bent upon going to law with his neighbor, and rejects the proffers of conciliation, 272 SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. is thought to be governed by sinister motives of revenge, apprehension of the badness of his cause, or of the results of an unbiassed examination. May not a like unfavorable construction be put upon the conduct of the nation that scorns pacific measures, and strides on to its work of blood, deaf to the entreaties, and amicable remonstrances of other powers ? The best method to insure arbitration in all cases of diffi- culty, is to insert in every treaty an article binding both parties to adopt that mode of adjusting boundaries, claims, and all questions. JNIr. Roberts, first President of the RepubUc of Liberia, stated at the Peace Congress in Brussels, Sept. 1848, that " he had caused to be inserted in treaties, made with many of the African tribes, a clause, binding the parties to refer their difficulties to arbitration, and had thus suc- ceeded in preventing war from breaking out between those savage tribes for ten years. If the measure were practica- ble among such populations, whose ruling passion was war, what might it not do for peace, if adopted by civilized and Christian nations ? '* There are many reasons why nations should settle their disputes by legal forms, rather than by the uncertain chances of the battle-field. It is done by individuals and in corpora- tions, and in our Union by the several States, and were it done by nations the change from barbarism to law would be completed. Then the chances of justice being fulfilled would be multiplied. The innocent would not be involved with the guilty in the horrid sufferings of war. Vast sums of money would be saved. The unspeakable disgrace and wickedness of nominally Christian nations engaged in cut- ting one another's throats on some punctilio of claim or ceremony, would be averted. It is to be hoped that every future treaty contracted by the United States and the Euro- pean nations will contain a specific provision for arbitration, like the follovv'ing one in the Treaty with Mexico. *Advof.ate of reaee, vol. viii.. p. --97. SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 273 ARTICLE XXI. " If unhappily any disagreement should hereafter arise be- tween the governments of the two repubhcs, whether with respect to the interpretation of any stipulation in this treaty, or with respect to any other particular concerning the pohti- cal or commercial relations of the two nations, the said governments in the name of those nations, do promise to each other that they will endeavor, in the most sincere and earnest manner, to settle the difference so arising, and to pre- serve the state of peace and friendship in which the two countries are now placing themselves ; using, for this end, mutual representations, and pacific negotiations. And if, by these means, they should not be enabled to come to an agreement, a resort shall not, on this account, be had to re- prisals, aggression, or hostility of any kind, by the one repubhc against the other, until the government of that which deems itself aggrieved shall have maturely considered, in the spirit of peace and good neighborship, whether it would not be better that such difference should be settled by the arbitration of conmiissioners appointed on each side, or by that of a friendly nation. And should such course be proposed by either party, it shall be acceded to by the other, unless deemed by it altogether incompatible with the nature of the difference, or the circumstances of the case." The next Article in the Treaty is an attempt, as has been said, to bind the parties, if they should again fight, (" which is not to be expected, and which God forbid !") to make war on Christian principles ! And let it not be here said, that nations must be left to manage their own concerns for themselves, and that it is the business of no third party to say how they shall settle their quarrels. On the contrary, it does very much concern every nation that every other nation be at peace. It is the busi- 274 SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. ness, very properly and necessarily the business of every nation, that its neighbors be not embroiled in sanguinary conflicts on shore, spoliations ujDon one another's commerce on the sea, nor that they should in any way interrupt the great channels of human intercourse, trade, and improve- ment. There may at particular periods be partial benefits, arising from war among their neighbors, to neutral powers ; but in general it is the deranger of commerce, the embroiler of international connections beyond the parties directly in- volved, the signal to confusion and every evil work through the world. The war-trumpet blows discord into the ear of listening nations. A slight contest between inconsiderable powers has sometimes in history brought on that awful era in human events, called " a general war." Much responsi- bility rests upon those who first break the peace in the family of nations. And from such considerations it is plainly the interest and duty of neutral nations to use their good ofl&ces to restore peace between the belligerents. On every ground, too, of humanity and Christianity, it is imperative that democracies of all governments should cordially wel- come the amiable intervention of others to heal their discords ; for war is the enemy of the people, the enemy of liberty, the certain subverter of most of the benefits pro- posed by free institutions. History is full of warnings upon this subject, and if we are not deaf as adders, we shall hearken to the solemn voice that issues from the grave of departed republics. 2. Congress of Nations. But mediation or arbitration, val- uable as it may be and has been, is not sufficiently systematic and general, to contribute very effectually to extinguish the firebrands of war. We have just had mournful evidence that some more efficacious instrument is demanded for the pacifi- cation even of Christian republics and near neighbors. The most' satisfactory plan which has yet been suggested is that of a Congress of Nations ; or a Congress and a SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. 275 Court of Nations, one as the preliminary and legislative body, and the other as the judicial and executive one ; the one to enact rules, and the other to judge eases, and carry its decisions into 'effect. Many objections have been raised against this, and every other project of perpetual pacification among the nations, but they are in general founded either on a misconception of the plan proposed, or on the old no- tion, that what has been, must be. If an august body should meet, of the wisest and best men, venerable for age and ser- vices, experienced in all matters of a legal, judicial, political and moral character, elevated far above the aims of a selfish ambition, consulting with a large vision not for any narrow sectional interest of one or a few, but for the welfare of the world, it would be a spectacle in itself to command the uni- versal admiration, homage and obedience of mankind. This object would be as sublime as it would be beneficent, to pacificate a warring world, to staunch the bleeding wounds of kingdoms, to actualize the prophetic and millennial age, and establish in steadfast loyalty the undisputed reign of the Prince of Peace. The details of such a world-Congress, or Court, one or both, would of course require more discussion than can be given to them in this review. They will be found, however, at length in the Prize Essays on a Congress of nations, pub- lished by the American Peace Society, and in a compiled Essay on the same subject by the late distinguished philan- thropist, William Ladd. We only insert the subject here in connection with another frightful chapter in our history, that speaks in thunder-tones of the need of such an institu- tion, or some one like it, to avert these wholesale murders. When a new idea is first broken to the mind, there is apt to be some revulsion from it as being novel, extravagant, and aggressive upon our previous views. But the longer it is entertained, if it be true and valuable, the more fully do we become convinced that all truth is harmonious, safe, and pro- 276 SUBSTITUTES FOR WAR. fitable ; and that precisely what the nations are perishing for, is lack of knowledge ; that what the " whole creation groaneth and travaileth" for, is the faithful application of the truths of Christ to the wants of human society, in all public affairs as well as in private conduct and to the in- dividual heart. The word of God is no mere fine theory, but the eternal verity, deeper than the sea, higher than the heavens, of these momentous interests of man living with man, and nation with nation ; " neither is there salvation in any other." But most thoroughly are we persuaded that there is nothing in the plan in question more wild or Quixotic than the institution of civil society itself, especially than the leagues and alliances recorded in history, and the Federal Union of thirty independent States in our own government. What is needed is, that the idea of a great pacific tribunal to settle the disputes of the world, should be broached, familiarized to the people, sent abroad on the wings of the press, hammered by dint of heavy and oft-repeated argu- ments into the mass of admitted and accredited truths, and then the work is done. We have trained mankind to war, we must now train them to peace. When the spirit of peace is largely developed in the public sentiment of Europe and America, this institution will be bom in a day. The tendency of these remarks is to show that the agitation of the subject is what is now most exigent. By books and pamphlets, by the living voice and the inspired pen, this theme must be brought home to the minds and hearts of men, and they must be made to feel that every individual, be he high or low, rich or poor, is vitally concerned in hav- ing the great quarrels of kingdoms justly and amicably settled, as he is that justice should be done between man and man, and peace and order prevail in his hamlet or village. For in the earthquake shocks of war a thousand homes are overturned, and the mark of blood is left behind rACIFICATlON OF THE WORLD. 277 on ten thousand spheres of life once usefully and happily lilled by fathers, sons, husbands, brothers. Let us hope, and labor, and pray, that the day may not be far distant when civilized and Clmstian men will see the madness of war, its bald inconsistency with the theory of a republican govern- ment, its hostility to the spirit of the present age, and its nullification of every law, and promise, and prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. CHAPTER XXX. PACIFICATION OF THE WORLD. I " When the drums shall throb no longer, And the battle-flags be furled In the Parliament of man, The Federation of the world." — Tennyson. " Neither shall they learn war any more." — Isaiah. Since war has so many evils, and peace so many bless- ings, may we not labor with hope for the fulfilment of the prophet's vision ? Since the expenditures of military ex- peditions, the destruction of multitudes of lives, the barbari- ties, executions, illegalities, personal, domestic, and political evils, the vices of the camp, the creation of a species of martial literature, the introduction of false maxims of con- duct, and the counteraction of the Gospel by the war-spirit, chargeable upon our conflict with Mexico, are virtually the same in all wars, may we not hope that the good sense of mankind, and their feelings of human brotherhood, will 24 278 PACIFICATION OF THF WORLD. finally gain such a predominance as to effect the pacification of the whole world? And, especially, is not this expectation encouraged by the well known fact that many other evil customs and habits have disappeared and are disappearing before the more Christian civilization of the present day ? What now is witchcraft ? An obsolete superstition. Where are torture, and the appeal to fire, or water ? Laid away among exploded ideas. Where are the Inquisition and per- secution for heresy? Gone beyond all power of recall. Where are privateering, and piracy, and the slave trade ? All entered in the " Index Expurgatorius " of international law. Where are slavery, intemperance, and war ? Grad- ually falling under the same ban, and no longer acquiesced in as necessary evils, but recognized as mutable and capable ' of eradication with the other corrupt usages specified, if efficient and Christian means be applied, with faith and per- severance, for their removal. The day is gone for any man, with the Bible in his hand, and God and heaven above him, to say that war must be eternal. We do not presume to date the year or century of the laying aside by the nations of their cumbrous coats of mail, and the disarma- ment of their numerous troops and squadrons, and the estab- lishment of those modes of adjusting international difficulties detailed in the last chapter. But we see already symptoms of returning health in the body politic, though joined with some other prognostics less favorable. Cases of mediation, arbitration, and peaceable intervention, are multiplying. Treaties are constructed with more reference to perma- nency. It has become fashionable even for kings and states- men, out of deference to a certain rising public sentiment of mankind, to speak well of peace. War has been summoned to ansAver for itself before the judgment-seat of civilization and of Christianity, and it is found to make but a poor jus- tification. The friends oT peace are in earnest and increas- ing. The solitary protestations of a Penn or Worcester PACIFICATION OP THE WORLD. 279 have multiplied into the deep-toned remonstrances of a Lon- don, a Brussels, and a Paiis World's Convention of Peace. The press and the pulpit are enlisted. The power of asso- ciation is invoked. "Olive leaves" are flying far and near. While, therefore, the drum-beat still heralds the morning sun round the globe, we will not so far distrust God, or despair of our race, as to believe that, when daily triumphs are achieved over the brute elements of nature ; and fire, and water, and steam, and magnetism, and electricity are bowed to the service and control of man, he is never to acquire any better government over those brutal passions of his own nature, whose outbreaks are far more disastrous to life and happiness than the volcano, the earthquake, or the hurricane. When we consider how little has been done to prevent war, and how much to cultivate its spirit, and to invest it?. feats with a factitious glory ; how hterature and the fine arts, and politics, and, sad to confess, even professed Christians have encouraged, applauded, and diffused the passion for arms, we wonder not at the frequency of battles, and the human blood that has stained half the land and sea of the whole earth. Indeed the martial spirit has been so prevalent, mankind have drunk it so greedily as if it were as innocent as water, that we are prone to forget what a thorough educa- tion we give our children for war, and how little we do for the pacification of the world. For when we inquire how this vast underlying passion for war has been educated and ripened in the heart of society, we shall be constrained to answer: It is by the war-songs of child- hood, and the studies of the classics. It is by the wooden sword, and the tin drum of boyhood. It is by the trainings and the annual muster. It is by the red uniform and the white plume, and the prancing steed. It is by the cannon's thun- der, and the gleam of the bayonet. It is by ballads of Robin Hood, and histories of Napoleon, and " Tales of the Cru- saders." It is by the presentation of flags by the hands of 280 PACIFICATION OF THE WORLD. the fair, and the huzzas for a victory. It is by the example of the father and the consent of the mother. It is by the fear of cowardice, and the laugh of the scorner. It is by the blood of youth, and the pride of manhood, and stories of revolutionary sires. It is by standing armies, and majestic men-of-war. It is by the maxims of self defence, and the cheapness of human life, and the love of excitement. It is by novels of love, and the " Pirate's Own Book." It is by the jars of home, and the squabbles of party, and the con- troversies of sects. It is by the misconception of the Bible, and ignorance of God. It is by the bubble of glory, and the emulation of schools, and the graspings of money-making. By one and by all, the heart of the community is educated for war, from the cradle to the coffin. When we sow the seed so copiously, we must not complain that the harvest is abundant. And if we would inquire, how the heart of the world can be calmed, and enlarged, and inspired with the life-breath of peace ; we can only say that such a heart comes from the nurture of home, and the solemnity of the church, and the tomb of the loved and gone. It comes by the closet of prayer, and the communion of nature, and the table of the Lord. It comes by a sister's love and a brother's example, and the memory of " the good old place." It comes in the distilling dew of Christian instruction and the infinite sanc- tions of death, judgment, and eternity. It comes by the sweetness of Fenelon, and the love of Scougal ; by the maj- esty of Luther, and the humanity of Penn. It comes by the horror of blood, and the courage to be a coward in the wrong. It comes by the testimonies of the wise, and the heroism of the good. It comes by the Beatitudes of the New Testament, and the Lord's Prayer, and Paul's master- piece of Charity, and John's epistle of Love. It comes by him who was born in a manger and died on a cross, the Son of Grod, the Prince of Peace, the Saviour of sinners. CONCLUSION. 281 By these means the weaker spirit of war may be made to yield to the mightier spirit of peace. " And," in the words of an English divine,* suggestive of some of the foregoing remarks, " it must appear to what most awful obligation and duty we hold all those from whom this heart takes its nature and shape, our king, our princes, our nobles, all who wear the badge of office, or honor; all priests, judges, senators, pleaders, interpreters of law, all instructors of youth, all seminaries of education, all parents, all learned men, all pro- fessors of science and art, all teachers of manners. Upon them depends the fashion of the nation's heart. By them it is to be chastised, refined, and purified. By them is the state to lose the character and title of the beast of prey. By them are the iron scales to fall off, and a skin of youth, beauty, freshness, and polish, to come upon it. By them it is to be made so tame and gentle as that a child may lead it." CHAPTER XXXI. CONCLUSION. " I have been apt to think there never has been, nor ever will be, any such thing as a good war, or a bad peace." — Franklin. " Then, at least shall it be seen, that there can he no peace that is not honorable^ and there can he no war that is not dishonorable" — Charles Sumner. An able writer of the present day has said, that "the philosophical study of facts may be undertaken for three different purposes ; the simple description of the facts ; their * Rev. Dr. Ramsden. 24* 282 CONCLUSION. explanation ; or prediction, meaning by prediction, the deter- mination of the conditions under which similar facts may be expected again to occur." The Mexican war is now num- bered among the things of the past. What has been done, is done ; and what has been written, is written. Its conse- quences, however, mil long remain, and will mingle with future events and influences materially to affect our national prospects. A treaty may stop the war, though some symp- toms are unfavorable, but it cannot stop the war-results. The question then is, how can this great evil be turned to the best account. After narrating and explaining its events, so as to get a clear idea of its origin, causes, losses of hfe and treasure, and its social, political, and moral evils, the next step is to state the conditions on which we may predicate the recurrence of similar mischiefs ; or draw such lessons of warning and encouragement, as will tend to prevent them. This end the American Peace Society propose to accomplish by publisliing a Review of the War, and pointing out clearly and impressively to the citizens of our land, what measures should be taken to save us from pkmging again into like calamities. Thus reviewed, and exposed, this darkest of all the passages in our country's history, and most ominous of evil to come, in the judgment of wise statesmen, and sage moralists, may be converted into an unexpected blessing. The wars, consequent upon the French Revolution, aroused the friends of Peace on both sides of the ocean to more positive and combined action in behalf of this cause, and induced the formation of associations to work for the grand object of a universal and perpetual pacification of the world. Much has thus been effected to enlighten both rulers and people, and to impress upon both their solemn duties. Much has been done by the devoted and untiring laborers in this department of Christian philanthropy, over which angels must rejoice, and the King of kings extend his benediction. But the great work has but just been commenced. We CONCLUSION. 283 cannot suppose that so " splendid " a sin as war can at once be stripped of its false and fascinating garb, that the deeplj- rooted and long-revered customs of nations can be torn up in a day, martial passions and habits be checked, and a pub- lic opinion, and a public conscience and heart too be formed on the subject, of sufficient potency to sheathe the sword for- ever. But the slowness of progress, the discouragements of efforts, the violent opposition with which a good cause and its advocates meet, do not release us from our duty to that cause, or furnish in reality a solitary reason why we should fold our arms in despair. The cause of Peace only suffers a like fate from opposition, misconstruction and misrepresentation, as the other glorious causes of philanthropy, and as that parent religion of which these causes are the legitimate and hopeful offspring. We may be sure that nothing is lost, that is done in a true spirit and a high aim for the furtherance of human good, and the divine glory. God forbid that we should ever fear that " His ear is heavy that it cannot hear, or His hand shortened, that it cannot save ! " In this faith, the Mexican war is a new weapon, put into the hands of peace, wherewith to win her bloodless victories. It teaches us, were lessons wanting, the folly of all war, its sin against God, and its subversion of His great plan. It teaches us by its gory fields of carnage, and the screaming hells of its hospitals, that a retributive God sits in the heaV' ens, and that those " who take the sword, shall perish by the sword." K rightly interpreted and faithfully laid to heart, it is capable of showing us the emptiness of military glory, the contentious and unchristian spirit which it cherishes among the officers and soldiers of the same side, the torrent of vices that is let loose in the path of armies, and the pro- fuse waste that is made of all that men hold dear, or labor most industriously to attain. It is a lesson at home, a repub- lican, an American lesson. It has been brought nigh to many a heart, alas, and many a home, and burnt as with a '2S4: CONCLUSION. red-hot branding-iron upon the memory of thousands, by- bereavements and pains, such as God only can know, and eternity measure. And we beheve that all the warnings and forebodings of the opponents to the annexation of Texas now stand vindicated in the light of a fearful and guilty his- tory. Their prophecy is now fact. They predicted a war with Mexico, the extension of slavery and the slave-power, and infuriate lust of territory, the hatching of new schemes of war and plunder, and a headlong course of conquest and aggrandizement. We are deep in these evils and their results, or waver on the brink, apparently about to plunge in deeper than ever. If these things be so, then let the pre- dictions and warnings of the friends of peace at this time not fall, Cassandra-like, on cold hearts and insensible con- sciences. But let every patriot and Christian, every lover of liberty and man, study what he can do to help stay the hour of his country's danger, and, perhaps, ruin. It profits little to sit stdl and croak, like the ill-boding raven, of iUs to come ; but we must forth into the field of duty, action, and influence, and by voice and vote, by pen and purse, by example and precept, by a living and by a dying testimony, whether ours be the widow's mite or the rich man's offering, the influence of the high, or the word of the humble, strive, as for life, to arrest the downward tendency of things, recall the promise of our young republic, relight the torch of free- dom, shame modern degeneracy with the early doctrines of our history, and set in vivid contrast the heathen nation we are in danger of becoming, with the glory of a true Chris- tian commonwealth. Let, therefore, these awful lapses in national virtue only serve to arouse to a more comprehensive and resolute course of action the disciples of the Prince of Peace. Let them thank God and take courage, that if they cannot wholly extinguish the Avide-spread conflagration of war, they can yet rescue many victims from its fiery passions and its cor- CONCLUSION. 285 rupting moral code. Let them bear their testimony against evils, still too powerful to be subdued at once. Let them see the hope and beauty of a brighter to-morrow symbolized in the rainbow that spans the departing thunder-cloud. War is but one section of the kingdom of Satan that is doomed to be overthrown by the kingdom of God. There is as much encouragement in laboring to remove this sin as any other of the gigantic evils that prey upon humanity. Faith, there- fore, faith is the word ; faith vivified and illuminated by hope ; faith made strong, and gentle, and patient by charity ; faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord, the spiritual Governor of men, in whose kingdom of liberty, righteousness, and love, all nations, races, colors, clans, and sects, will at last be har- monized, and God shall be all in all. Yea, despite the late war, despite the belligerent symp- toms of the day at home, despite the warlike aspect of Chris- tendom abroad, though all Europe seems to be turned into barracks and camps, and every country to be resounding with the march of armies hastening to the combat, our just and reasonable confidence in the ultimate triumph of the Gospel of peace is not in the least shaken. The last thirty years of comparative pacification have not passed in vain. Darker clouds than now overhang our horizon, have in former times shut out the light of heaven and hope. If in the solid midnight of sin and superstition, when the whole world lay bound at the chariot wheels of a military despot- ism, Jesus and his apostles knew that a better day was com- ing, how undying should be our faith amid the breaking of the morning hght ! For the truth is great, and it will pre- vail. God is faithful, and his promise will be redeemed. The Gospel is from the Almighty, and it must prevail over man. It is hght from heaven, and the darkness of earth must flee before it. Its power is infinite, and its obstacles only finite. Though for a season then, or for ages its victory may be 286 CONCLUSION. delayed, the final result is none the less certain, for it is guaranteed by Him who alone is True. Verily, though the world should again plunge into that gulf of horrors, called a general war; though Christian nations should apostatize, and the churches sink into corruption; though the mighty impulses of philanthroj^y should fail, and the missionaries of the cross should return home, and renounce the sublime hope of evangelizing the world ; though our holy faith should retire from the city and the assembly of men, and hide itself from the gaze of the world, we would yet follow her in fear and darkness to her last holy retreat on earth, to the spot, where a mother was kneeling over her ncAv-bom infant, and offering up to the Father of spirits her thanks and supplica- tions, and even there catch a new inspiration of faith and hope for the revival of Christianity. For we should remem- ber the sacred scene, eighteen hundred years ago, when the mother of Bethlehem prayed over the babe in the manger, and blessed her Saviour-child ; and angels from heaven sang the anthem of his birth ; " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." APPENDIX THE HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAB. " Lastly, stood War, in glittering arms yclad, "With visage grim, stern look, and blackly hued ; In his right hand a naked sword he had, That to the hUt was aU with blood imbrued ; And in his left (that kings and kingdoms rued) Famine and fire he held, and therewithal He razed towers, and threw down towers and all. " Cities he sacked, and realms (that whilom flowered In honor, glory, and rule above the rest) He overwhelmed, and aU their fame devoured, Consumed, destroyed, wasted ; and never ceased Till he their wealth, their name and all oppressed. His face forehewed with wounds ; and by his side There hung his targe, with gashes deep and wide." Thomas Saoeyille. All honor to the hearty old English Poet, who dared thus, in a warlike age, to unveil the hideous idol men worshipped, under the self-contradictory terras of military glory. He represents the god as no young and knightly cavalier, riding forth, splendidly arrayed, at the sound of martial music, to do the feats of chivalry, and redress the wrongs of the injured. Far truer is his personification. The figure of his brain, moulded in a feeling heart, Avas that of a grim and ghastly giant, bringing up the rear of the procession of Remorse, Dread, Revenge, Misery, Care, Malady, Famine, and Death ; his face dark and stern, and scarred with woundfT ; his hands filled with the awful besoms of destruction, fire, and hunger, and the sword ; his rent and battered shield hanging at his side ; and his path marked with burning cities, desolated countries, falling realms, haggard want, and ruin and 288 APPENDIX. oblivion. He thus wrote, in the words of Poetry, the solemn tinith of History. Would to heaven that all his brethren of the immortal art had been equally faithful ! In recording a brief sketch of the events of the Mexican War, for the purpose of reference, we shall paint no battle-scenes, and utter no eulogies. Enough of them may be found in other quarters, to satisfy the most morbid appetite. The letter-wi-iter, the biographer, the poli- tician, the historian, and the rhymster, have vied with one another, in giving illuminated editions of its fearful tales. The artist has painted the features of its heroes, and the panoramas of its marches and bat- tles. The engraver has ti-aced on wood, and stone, and steel, the deadly charge, the smoke of musketry and artillery, and the dead and dying stretched upon the bloody earth, with the Star-spangled Banner leading on its hosts to victory. Dazzled with the false show, and excited with the intoxication of a momentary triumph, men thus fail to see war as it is, in all its heart-rending realities and its lasting re- sults. It is a mere gorgeous vision, a passing di-eam of glory to them. They do not look down into its abysses of pains and agonies ; its awful Aceldama of groans, and tears, and death. We desire, by no word of ours, to invest these scenes -with aught but their own proper charac- ter. We would simply narrate coldly, and it may be tamely, the bare facts. The Mexican War dates virtually, though not actually, from the 3d of March, 1 845, when, by a Joint Resolution, which was passed by both branches of Congress — in the House of Representatives, by a vote of 120 to 98 ; and in the Senate, of 27 to 25 — and which was on that day, the last of his administration, signed by the President, John Tyler, Texas was annexed to the American Union. The Mexican Minister, Almonte, immediately demanded his pass- ports, and left the country ; declaring the act of annexation to be an act of hostility to Mexico. Distinguished statesmen of the United States also took the same view of the subject. But Mexico was poor, distracted, and revolutionary, and she had no means to vindicate what she regarded as her violated honor. The act of war did not follow. She contented herself with protesting. The United States, however, were not idle. In August, 1845,* Gren, Taylor was despatched, with a regular body of troops, dra-wn from, different posts, — first as an army of " Observation," then of " Occupa- tion," — to the town of Corpus Christi. ♦ 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. 60, p. 101. HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAR. 289 But on the 13tli of Januaiy, 1846, Mr. Marcy, Secretary of War of the United States, ^\Tote to Gen. Taylor, as follows : * " I am directed, by the President, to instruct you to advance and occupy, -with the troops under your command, positions on or near the east bank of the Rio del Norte, as soon as it can be conveniently done It is not designed, in our present relations with Mexico, that you. should treat her as an enemy ; but should she assume that character, by a declaration of war, or any open act of hostility towards us, you will not act merely on the defensive^ Gen. Taylor obeyed orders. He received the letter early in February, and, on the 11th of March, he commenced his march from Corpus Christi for the Rio Grande, one hundred and fifty miles distant, across a desert, or rolling prairie. On the 20th of the same month he was met, at the river Colorado, by the Mexicans, whose commanding ofiicer. Gen. Mejia, announced, that if the American forces should cross that river, it would be considered as a declaration of war, and actual hostilities would ensue.t But the warning was disregarded, and the troops pursued their way, and arrived on the banks of the Rio Grande without any serious molesta- tion. Repeated remonstrances were made by the authoi'ities, both civil and military, to the American commander, against the occu- pation of what they regarded as a part of the Mexican province of Tamaulipas. They declared the alternative of his withdrawal to the Nueces or war. But Taylor remained, and erected Fort Brown, on the left bank of the Rio Grande, commanding the city of Matamoras on the other side. Several skirmishes took place between parties of the two nations, in which lives were lost. Fort Brown, and a small force left to keep possession of it, were bombarded, during the absence of the commander-in-chief and his main army, to obtain his mili- tary stores, which had been landed at Point Isabel ; but the Americans maintained their position, though summoned to surrender. On his return from Point Isabel, Gen. Taylor was met by the Mex- ican army, under the command of Gen. Arista, at a point on the prai- ries, a few miles from the Rio Grande, called Palo Alto, which is dis- tinguished, as giving a name to the first battle of the war. The con- test occurred on the 8th of May, 1846, commencing at about two o'clock, P. M. ; and was sustained during five hours, when the Mex- icans were defeated, with great loss in killed and wounded. The * 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Eepresentatives, Ex. Doc. 60, pp. 90, 91. Also, for the war-despatches in general, see 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Re- presentatives, Ex. Doc. 60. Senate, Ex. Doc. 1. 30th Congress, 2d Session, House of Eepresentatives, Ex. Doc. 1. t 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Eepresentatives, Ex. Doc. 60, pp. 145, 146. 25 290 APPENDIX. Americans numbered 2,300, according to the report of their general ; while he says " the strength of the enemy is believed to have been about 6,000 men." On the following day, May 9th, Gen. Taylor advanced two or three miles along the road through the chapparal, towards the Rio Grande, when he found the enemy in position for battle, at a ravine called Resaca de la Palma. The action commenced about four o'clock in the afternoon, and lasted one hour and a half; when the Mexicans, under the command of Aiista, were entirely routed and pursued to the river, in which multitudes wei-e di'owned, in attempting to cross to Mata- moras. The immediate result of these victories was the capture, without resistance, of the city of Matamoras, and the opening of the whole Valley of the Eio Grande to the American arms. The forces of the enemy were disj^ersed, and, to use the military phrase, demoralized. The reverses of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma had sent dismay through the country. In the course of the summer Gen. Taylor occu- pied, without any difficulty, the towns of Reynosa, Camargo, Mier, and Ceralvo, and advanced upon Monterey. In the meantime, advices had been received at Washington of the critical situation af Gen. Taylor, about the 1st of May; and the Presi- dent, in a Message to Congress, dated the 1 1 th of that month, used the following language : * " But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our terri- tory, and shed American blood upon American soil. She has pro- claimed that hostilities have commenced, and that the two nations are now at war." " As war exists, and, notwithstanding our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself, we are called upon, by every considera- tion of duty and patriotism, to vindicate, with decision, the honor, the rights and the interests of our country." On the same day, a bill passed the House of Representatives, 174 to 14, and, on the subsequent one, was enacted by the Senate, 42 to 2, declaring, that, " by the acts of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between the United States and that republic ; " placing ten mil- lions of dollars at the disposal of the President ; and authorizing him to employ the land and naval forces of the United States, and to ac- cept the services of volunteers, to a number not exceeding 50,000, in * 30th Congress, 1st Session, House of Representatives, Ex. Doc. 60, pp. 8, 9. HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAR. 291 prosecuting the war. On the 13th of May, 1846, a Proclamation of War was issued by the highest executive authority. A warlike enthusiasm ran, like wild-fire, over the Western, South- western, and Southern sections of the country, and, in many in- stances, the number of volunteers, said to be 3€0,000 in all, was far greater than could be mustered into service, according to the gene- ral appropriation of the respective States.* The Great Valley re- sounded with the din of preparation. Fathers and sons enlisted. Some of more than the allotted age of man, seized the musket. More than one of the ministers of the Prince of Peace caught the dangerous contagion. The latent passions of the heart took fire, like tinder, at the cry of war. In such popular excitements men do not reason, they only feel, and, feeling, act. Thus impelled, they may do the noblest deeds ; they may also perpetrate the most wicked crimes, and set in motion the most irretrievable calamities. The call to arms is the occasion, of all others, when human beings seem to lay aside the more manly and Christian attributes of character, and put on those of the beast of prey, or worse. But it is necessary also to admit, that a leaven of well-inten- tioned, though often mistaken patriotism, mingles with the dark mass of animal and demoniac passions. A wild love of adventure, without reference to the innocence or guilt of the objects to which it is directed, also carries away the settlers in a new state of society, as with a flood. Add some anticipations of booty ; some old grudges of Santa Fe, and other border traders ; some Texan vengeance, for the massacres of Goliad and the Alamo ; some ideas of Anglo-Saxon destiny ; some hope of distinction, and desire of bettering perhaps desperate fortunes ; and we haA^e glimpses of the more prominent elements that moulded thousands to one purpose, and precipitated them upon a second " con- quest of Mexico." The means, however, of transporting the troops to the theatre of action, were not sufficient to enable the American commander to advance rapidly into the enemy's country. About 9,000 men only were under the command of Gen. Taylor, in the beginning of June ; and he assaulted Monterey, the capital of Nuevo Leon, about three hundred and forty miles from Matamoras, with less than 7,000. On the 19th of September, 1846, he appeared before that city, and invested it. Active operations were carried on during Sunday, the 20th, 21st, 22d, and 23d ; and on the 24th, the Mexican commander, Gen. Am- pudia, sun-endered. * Young's History of Mexico, p. 380. dd2 APPENDIX. Santa Anta returned from the West Indies to Vera Cruz * and on the 15th of September, 1846, he reentered the capital, from which he had been driven into exile, and was placed at the head of the Mexican armies. He infused new resolution into his countrymen, after all their reverses, and assembled an army of more than 20,000 men, called the " Liberating Army of the North," to oppose Gen. Taylor. He contri- buted largely, of his own private property, to furnish supplies to hia troops, and was engaged for months in equipping, drilling, and organ- izing the different corps of his forces, at San Luis Potosi. In the autumn, Gen. Taylor advanced bodies of troops to Saltillo, sixty-five miles from Monterey ; while Gen. Wool marched an army of 2,400 over the Rio Grande, at the Presidio del Norte, and occupied Monclova, and subsequently Parras. Gen. Quitman captured the town of Victoria. In fact, the northern frontier of Mexico, upon the Rio Grande, was in the complete possession of the Americans. But the Mexican commander-in-chief determined to strike a deci- sive blow against the invaders of his country ; and, on the 22d and 23d of February, 1847, he met Gen. Taylor in the valley of Buena Vista, (beautiful sight,) six miles south of Saltillo, with troops, as he stated in his challenge to surrender, amounting to 20,000 men. After a ten-ible and sanguinary battle, fought two days, the Americans again won a complete victory, at a fearful cost of life. The Mexicans retreated in great disoi'der, during the night after the battle, and the late formidable army was wholly disorganized and scattered. The route, by which they retired, was strewed with the dead and dying. Santa Anna returned to the city of Mexico, and Gen. Taylor reoccupied his former positions, and advanced as far as to Encarnacion. No victory could be more decisive in its results. With the exception of guerilla skirmishes, no other battles were fought by Gen. Taylor except the four successful ones of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista. He urged upon the Mexican Government from time to time the question of peace, but they persisted in declaring that as long as a single invader had his foot upon their soil, they scorned the proposal. " Say to General Taylor," said Santa Anna, when the subject was communicated to him after the * The foUowiug pass gave him admission into Mexico : " U. S. Navy Department^ May 13, 1846. " CosfMODORE — If Santa Anna endeavors to enter the Mexican ports, you mil allow him to pass freely. " Respectfully yours, George Banckopt. " Commodore David Connor, Commanding Home Squadron.''^ HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAR. 293 battle of Buena Vista, " that we sustain the most sacred of causes, — the defence of our territory, and the preservation of our nationality and rights ; that we are not the aggressors ; and that our Government has never offended that of the United States. We can say nothing of peace while the Americans are on this side of the Rio Bravo del Norte, or occupy any part of the Mexican territory, or blockade our ports. We are resolved to perish or vindicate our rights." After this necessarily brief and imperfect sketch of the operations of what was at first called " the Army of Observation," then " the Ai-my of Occupation," and what finally became, with a significant title, the Army of " Invasion,"* let us turn to view another part of the field of Avar. It had been proposed soon after the war broke out, to invade Mexico at three different points, and thus divide and distract her forces. The main army, under Gen. Taylor, was to advance from the Rio Grande towards San Luis Potosi ; a second smaller division, called " the Army of the Centre," under Gen. Wool, was to march from Bexar, in Texas, upon Chihuahua, the results of both of which movements have already been given. But a third expedition, to be called " the Ai-my of the West," was to proceed from Missouri, cross the plains, occupy New Mexico, hold its capital, Santa Fe, and after that was achieved, a por- tion of the same troops was to occupy California. On the 30th of June, 1846, Gen. Samuel W. Kearaey led the Army of the West from Fort Leavenworth, situated on the river Missouri, and after a march of 890 miles, took possession of Santa Fe, without re- sistance, on the 18th of August, 1846. On the 25th of September, after making provision for a temporary government of New Mexico, he took 300 dragoons, and marched on the route to California. Learning on the way that that territory had been brought under the flag of the United States by Commodore Stockton and Lieut.- Colonel Fremont, after some severe skirmishes with the enemy, he left 200 of his troops in New Mexico, and with the remainder he marched 1,050 miles to San Diego, near the Pacific Ocean. Several conflicts occurred with the enemy, in which a considerable number were killed and wounded on both sides. But victory attended the American arms in most in- stances, and the territory was hopelessly subdued. Of the troops left behind in New Mexico, and augmented by rein- forcements from the States, one portion was under the command of Col. S. Price, and the remainder under that of Col. A. W= Doniphan. * See Appendix to Hon. J. H. Crozier's speech, delivered in the House of Repre- sentatives, Jan. 21, 1847. 25* 294 APPENDIX. On the 19th of January, 1847, the Mexicans and Indians revolted against Gov, Bent of this territory, and put him and his followers, to the number of fifteen, to death. Col. Price, with a body of 353 men, met the enemy at the town of Canada, on Sunday, Jan. 24, 1847, and dispersed them. A detachment of the same troops, under Capt. Burg- win, engaged and conquered the enemy on Jan. 29th, at the pass of Embudo. On Feb. 3d and 4th, Col. Price besieged a stronghold of the insurgents, called Pueblo de Taos, defended by 600 or 700 men, and took it after a severe contest. The other section of Gen. Kearney's army, 856 mounted riflemen, ^ under the command of Col. Doniphan, left Santa Fe on the 26th of October, 1846, and traversed New Mexico, Chihuahua, Durango, and New Leon. At Bracito, in New Mexico, on Dec. 25, 1846, on Christ- mas Day, the Colonel, with about 500 of his troops, met and defeated 1,220 Mexicans. The battle of Sacramento, in Chihuahua, was fought on Sunday, Feb. 28, 1847. After a bloody encounter of three hours and a half, the Mexicans fled. The following is a short summary of the naval operations carried on in the meantime against Mexico. On the 1 8th of May, 1846, the Amer- ican squadron under the flag of Commodore Conner, consisting of five ships of war, blockaded Vera Cruz, and one sloop of war was stationed off Tampico. On the 14th of November, Commodore Conner took pos- session of the latter port without firing a gun. Previously to this, Com- modore Perry ascended the river Tobasco seventy-four miles with seve- ral vessels, and on Sunday, Oct. 25th, he anchored opposite the town of the same name, and summoned it to surrender. On the succeeding day the town was severely cannonaded, and nearly demolished. Several other ports on the eastern coast of Mexico, Tuspan, Alva- rado, Panuco, were occupied by the Americans, and many vessels were captured. In fact, the naval power of the enemy was anniliilated. On the Pacific, Commodore Sloat occupied Monterey, the capital of Upper California, on the 7th of July, 1846, and announced by pro- clamation to the inhabitants that " henceforward California will be a portion of the United States, and promised that all the peaceable in- habitants should enjoy the same rights, privileges, and protection, as the other citizens of the republic." But in the course of the following win- ter, 1846-7, the Califoraians rose and offered resistance to their in- vaders, which was suppressed by Col. Fremont with a handful of sol- diers, and by Commodore Stockton with a detachment from his fleet, and subsequently by Gen. Kearney, as before related. The principal operations of the naval force in the war had thus far HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAR. 295 been on land, or against ports and towns capable of being reached by vessels at anchor, with the exception of the service of transporting troops from the United States to the scene of action. But a new the- atre of greater importance, though of similar character was opened by the siege of Vera Cmz. Mexico had been repeatedly solicited, after the various successful movements which have been described, to enter into negotiations of peace, but she would hearken to no terms whatever while her soil was covered with hostile forces. Her noble motto was, " The integrity of the national territory." The next step accordingly was, to carry the war more into " the vitals " of the country, and to " conquer a peace " by conquering the capital of the republic. A campaign was therefore entered upon by Gen. Winfield Scott, senior officer of the regular army of the United States, in the early part of 1847. The plan was to capture Vera Cruz, the principal sea-port, make that the base of operations, advance into the interior by the great line of com- munication, and take the city of Mexico, situated in the heart of the country, about 350 miles from the gulf of the same name. Vera Cruz and the Castle of San Juan d'Ulloa were invested by land and sea with the American forces under the direction of Gen. Scott and Commodore Perry, in March, 1847 ; and on Monday the 22nd of that month, after a sammons to surrender had been offered and rejected, the batteries were opened upon the city. The inhabitants were in num- ber about 4,000 or 5,000, besides the families of the foreign consuls, who had not taken advantage of the permission granted them by Gen. Scott to retire from the scene of danger. A terrible carnage ensued among the people from the heavy metal and the fotal accuracy of the Amer- ican gunners. It was computed that 6,700. shot and shell were thrown, weighing 4G.3,600 i)ounds, in four days. On the 26th, Gen. Landero, commanding officer of the place, made overtures for a capitulation. The aAvful desolation that reigned over the devoted city counselled submission. The terms of capitulation were signed on the 27th, exe- cuted on the 29th, and possession given of both the town and the al- most impregnable castle. The next principal engagement took place on the heights of Cerrp Gordo, fifty miles from Vera Cruz, on Saturday and Sunday, April 17th and 18th, between Gen. Scott aad Gen. Santa Anna, in which the latter was entirely defeated, and narrovv-ly escaped being taken prison- er as he fled from the field. On the 15th of May, the city of Puebla, eighty miles from Perote, on the route to Mexico, was taken without opposition. During the 296 APPENDIX. summer, reinforcements of men and arms were accumulated by Gen. Scott at Pucbla, at which phice, leaving- a competent garrison, he began his march toward the capital, the ITtli of August, 1847, a distance of from 100 to 120 miles. On the 19th and 20th of August, the successive actions of Contreras, San Antonio, and Chni-ubusco, were fought in tlie Valley of Mexico, and in the immediate neighborhood of the capital. In all these battles the usual rule held good, and the victory was won by the Americans. After these engagements an armistice was agreed upon, and nego- tiations for peace were entered into by N. P. Trist, Commissioner on the part of the Executive of the United States, and Commissioners on the part of Mexico. But they were ineffectual, and the law of force was again resorted to instead of the law of reason. The ultimatum of boundaries was understood to be the rock on which this new attempt at peace was wrecked. The armistice was thrown up, and the battle of El INIolino del Eey, or King's Mill, was fought on Sept. 8, 1847. On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, Sept. 12th, 13th, and 14th, the strong fortress of Chapultepec, outside of the city, was cannonaded, stormed, and carried, the defences at the gates assaulted and captured, and early on the morning of the 14th, the city surrendered to Gen. Scott. The operations consisted of a succession of assaults and en- gagements from point to point, and from one battery to another, until, bv the skill and the fierce bravery of tlie American troops, the object of their ambition was attained, and they entered " the halls of Monte- zuma." But victory was bought at a costly saci'ifice. A scattering fire by leperos, — criminals set free from prison, and disbanded soldiers, from the streets and houses, was kept up on the ti'oops after the city- was surrendered, in which many lives were lost, but Avhich was finally suppressed by severe measures. The destruction of limb and life during these fatal days on the part of the Mexicans never was pre- cisely known, but it must have been immense. The accuracy of the American aim, both of infantry and artillery, always told upon the crowded masses of the enemy with terrible effect. Meanwhile, there were other engagements which form a part of the historical survey of the war. Major Lally, conducting about 1,000 men from Vera Cruz to Jalapa, was beset at different points in his march by numerous guerilla forces, on Aug. 10th, 12th, Sunday 15th, and 19th, but reached his destination, and retook possession of Jalapa, which had been vacated by G«n. Scott in his advance to the capital. The Mexican loss in killed and wounded was very great. HISTORICAL EVENTS OF THE WAR. 297 A garrison had been left at Puebla, with 1 ,800 sick in the Hospitals, under the command of Col. Childs. A close investment and assault were maintained by the Mexicans during twenty-eight days, from Sept- 13th until the American troops were relieved by the arrival of Gen. Lane with 2,000 troops from Vera Cruz. Santa Anna, flying from the conquerors of the capital, conducted operations with large reinforce- ments during the latter part of the siege, but was unable to force capitulation. On Oct. 9th, Gen Lane had an engagement with Gen. Santa Anna at Huamantla. The town of Alixco, a resort of guerillas, was bombarded and taken by Gen. Lane on Oct 19th. On the 16th of March, 1848, Gen. Price fought a battle in the town of Santa Cruz de Rozales, belonging to the province of Chihuahua, and about sixty miles south of the capital of the same name, against Gen. Angel Trias, defeated him, and took him and his troops prisoners. Other inconsiderable affairs with bands of the Mexicans occurred in various quarters of the country, but not of suflScient moment to be recorded in tliis dark calendar of misery and death. In another con- nection a statement will be made of the mortality of the war. During the autumn of 1847, Gen. Scott was largely reinforced by troops from other garrisons in Mexico, and by regulars and volunteers from home, until his army exceeded 20,000 men. He retained pos- session of the capital until negotiations of peace were concluded be- tween N. P. Trist, late Commissioner on the side of the United States, but not at that time authorized to act in that capacity, and Commis- sioners on the part of Mexico. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was finally signed by the parties, Feb. 2, 1848, and ratified witli amend- ments by the American Senate, and signed by the President, March 10th. It was then returned to the Congress, and finally accepted by that body on May 25th, and ratified at Queretaro, by Ambrose H. Sevier and Nathan Clifford, Commissioners on the part of the United States, and Luis de la Rosa, Minister of Relations of the Mexican Republic, on the pai-t of that Government. During the month of June, the capital and country of Mexico were generally evacuated by the American troops, and the blockade of the Mexican ports raised. In concluding this imperfect historical sketch, it is only necessary to state that the facts have been mainly derived from the official docu- ments relating to the wai-. published under the authority of the Con- gress of the United States. The inferences and uses to be drawn from these facts have occupied preceding pages of this, review. But we can 310 APPENDIX. Dnly pause here a moment to remark, how awful is the simplest record of war ! How much of all that is most horrible in pain, and sickness, and loss of character, and ruin of " body, mind, or estate," is compre- hended under the bald and dry statistics of marchings, fightings, sieges, and conquests ! If all this operation be glory, then, in the name of heaven and humanity, we ask what is shame 1 If this be a work for which we should applaud, honor, and rewai-d the actors, then for what deeds, in the range of possibility, should we condemn and execrate them? " First, Envy, eldest bom of hell, imbrued Her hands in blood, and taught the sons of men To make a death which nature neyer made, And God abhorred. * * * One murder made a villain. Millions a hero. Princes assumed a right To kill ; did nvunbers sanctify the crime ?"* * Bishop Porteus's Poem on " Death." H91 80 ' '^ '■^^ o. ♦.To' .0-' *^ ^^ ... .. -«. *A0« \/ 4°«v ^-./ '■^-.^ v^ "o. (P ,- <■' A \ o « o A) ^ %.^' ' Jte: ^o/ .*^, ^-. ^^B 80 W^ N. MANCHESTER fc^^