t^HNHAM BISHOP

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

After the drawing by C. Nebel.

The Battle of Palo Alto.

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO

After the drazvmg by C. Nebel.

General Scott's Entrance into Mexico.

OUR
FIRST WAR IN MEXICO

BY
FARNHAM BISHOP
AUTHOR OP
"PANAMA PAST AND PRESENT" AND "THE STORY OP THE SUBMARINE"

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1916

COPmiGHT, 1916, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published August, 1916

C^

PREFACE
First Motor Battery, N. G. N. Y.
state camp, peekskill, n. y.
July, 1916.
The sentry on Number Three Post
passes as I write this. The collar of his
O. D. shirt is turned up like an old-fash
ioned stock; the lean, brown profile under
the bell-crowned forage-cap is that of an
old-time Yankee. A voice somewhere be
hind me demands: "When are we going
to Mexico.?" It is '46 come back again.
But across the parade-ground rolls the
monstrous gray bulk of Battlecar B-i,
a gray steel fortress on armored wheels,
and up the slope from the Peekskill road
comes a dashing, sputtering detachment
of motor-cycle men. It is a far cry from
the flintlocks and three-dollar horses —
see Grant's "Memoirs" — of seventy years
ago. When we left our armory, some three

PREFACE
weeks ago, none doubted that our second
war in Mexico was at hand. Some, com
paring the massacre of the troopers of the
Tenth Cavalry at Carrizal with the cap
ture of Thornton's dragoons, believed that
it had already begun. Now it seems to
have been averted, at least temporarily,
perhaps forever. It is no use trying to
guess what is going to happen next in
Mexico. It was the expectation of a second war,
two years ago, that revived my own in
terest in the war of 1846-48. Most of its
histories can be divided into two classes.
First come those written immediately after
the conclusion of peace. The authors of
these painted everything red, white, and
blue, and chanted songs of glory. Then
come the histories written under what may
be called Abolition influence. The authors
of these painted everjrthing coal black and
passed by on the other side.
Following in the footsteps of Mr. George
L. Rives, who, in his splendid work, "The
Relations Between the United States and
Mexico, 1821-1848," was the first to ap
proach the subject with scientific impar-
vi

PREFACE
tiality, I have tried to give a fair account
of the causes and events of our first war
in Mexico. God grant there may never
be a second ! Farnham Bishop.

VU

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGB
I. Texas and the Kingdom of New
Spain  i
II. The Mexican War of Independ
ence  lO
III. Migration of Americans to Texas 22
IV. "Remember THE Alamo!" ... 35
V. Mediation and Annexation . . S3
VI. Causes of the War  65
VII. Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma 80
VIII. The Conquest of California . . 98
IX. Monterey and Buena Vista . . 114
X. New Mexico and Chihuahua . . 138
XI. Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo . . 150
XII. From Puebla to Churubusco . . 167
XIII. The Fall of the City of Mexico . 184
XIV. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hi
dalgo  200
XV. The Results of the War . . . 210
Index  219

ILLUSTRATIONS
General Scott's Entrance into Mexico . . Frontispiece FACING PAGE
The Defence of the Alamo  46
The Battle of Palo Alto  90
The Battle of Buena Vista  132
The Bombardment of Vera Cruz  15a
The Battle of Cerro Gordo  164
The Battle of Churubusco  174
The Storming of Chapultepec — Pillow's Attack . . 192
MAPS
FACING PAGE
The Kingdom of New Spain  6
Mexico in 1845  62

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
CHAPTER I
TEXAS AND THE KINGDOM OF NEW
SPAIN
OUR first war in Mexico began in
Texas and because of our annexation
of Texas. And to fully understand the
causes of that war we must turn back to
the very beginning of Texan history, when
Alvarez de Piiieda discovered the land of
the Tejas Indians and explored its coast in
1519- Other Spaniards followed Piiieda, and
in 1535 Nuiiez Cabeza de Vaca and his
three companions performed the incredible
feat of crossing not only Texas but the en
tire continent, from where they had been
shipwrecked on the coast of Florida to a
Spanish settlement on the Pacific. During
the rest of the sixteenth century and most
of the seventeenth the Spaniards confined
themselves to sending various exploring

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
expeditions through Texas without making
any attempt to settle there, for it was not
the sort of country they chose to colonize.
What the Spaniards wanted was a coun
try where there was plenty of gold, silver,
or precious stones to enrich the royal trea
sury, and plenty of easily subdued Indians
to be converted to Christianity and turned
into slaves for their Spanish masters; in
short, such a country as Cortez conquered
in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. Where there
was no easily portable wealth and the In
dians were too few to labor and too fierce
to tame, the Spanish conquest stopped.
There was no gold in Texas, and the sav
age Comanches that roamed and hunted on
its prairies were no meek and lowly Mexican
Indians. So Texas and all North America
above Florida and New Mexico were left
empty of Spaniards, who nevertheless as
serted their King's title to all the New
World except Brazil, which had been given
to Portugal as the rest of the three Amer
icas had been given to Spain by the Papal
Bull of Alexander VI, in 1493.
But as the power of Spain declined,
various other nations pushed defiantly into

TEXAS AND KINGDOM OF NEW SPAIN
the vacant spaces of North America; the
English in Virginia and New England, the
Dutch in New Amsterdam, the Swedes in
Delaware, and the French in Canada. Fol
lowing the natural pathway of the St. Law
rence, the French explorers soon came to
the Great Lakes, whence it is an easy port
age to the tributaries of the Mississippi.
The banner of France was planted at the
mouth of that river in 1682 by Robert
Cavelier de La Salle, the first white man
to descend it to the Gulf of Mexico. Two
years later La Salle set sail from France
with a small fleet for the mouth of the Mis
sissippi, having persuaded Louis XIV of
the ease and value of founding a colony
there. But contrary winds and faulty
navigation carried the French past their
destination to Matagorda Bay, where they
built a stockade and called it Fort St.
Louis. This was the first European settle
ment in Texas.
But starvation, disease, and hostile In
dians killed three-fourths of the garrison of
Fort St. Louis, and when La Salle tried to
return overland to Canada he was mur
dered by his own men in Texas in 1688.
3

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Fort St. Louis was destroyed the following
year, and the miserable survivors of the
unfortunate French colonists were yielded
up by their Indian captors to a Spanish
expedition that carried them as prisoners
to Mexico City.
This attempt to found a French colony
on Spanish soil was greatly resented both
in Mexico and Madrid, for the corner
stone of the Spanish colonial system was
the absolute exclusion of foreigners. Even
Spaniards were not allowed to go to Amer
ica or Spanish-Americans from one colony
to another without elaborate passports,
most difficult to obtain. Trade was for
bidden between the different colonies or
with any European country except Spain.
We must remember that the Kingdom of
New Spain, as the Spaniards called Mexico,
was not a colony of European settlers and
traders inhabiting a space cleared of hos
tile Indians, like Jamestown or Plymouth
or New Amsterdam; it was a nation of
semicivilized Indians, with only enough
Spanish soldiers, priests, and government
officials to keep them subjugated to the
King of Spain and instruct them in the
4

TEXAS AND KINGDOM OF NEW SPAIN
Catholic faith. Instead of being extermi
nated by flintlock and fire-water to make
room for a new race, the millions of Mexican
Indians simply exchanged the tyranny of
the Montezumas for the tyranny of Spain,
and that in turn for the tyranny of the mili
tary chiefs and the landowning oligarchy of
modern Mexico — a tyranny that has come
down essentially unbroken till our own time.
To keep the French out of Texas the
Spaniards attempted to found missions
there. Each of these missions was a per
fect miniature of the whole Spanish colo
nial system. A few courageous friars, some
times with, oftener without, a guard of
soldiers, would go out among a tribe of
pagan Indians to convert them to Chris
tianity. As the converts increased in num
ber, they would build, under the direction
of the friars and priests (many of whom
were skilled architects and engineers), a
chapel and a presidio for the garrison, round
which would cluster the adobe huts of the
converts, who no longer lived by hunting,
but tilled and irrigated their own and their
masters' fields. Presently the mission would
become a pueblo, or village, and the chapel
S

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
a parish church, or in some cases the cathe
dral of a new city on the broad map of the
Kingdom of New Spain.
But the Comanches were not "Indios de
paz," peaceful Indians fit to labor in the
Lord's vineyard and the friars' fieljd, but
"Indios bravos," who swept down on and
destroyed the last trace of these earliest
Texan missions before the end of the seven
teenth century.
In the meanwhile the French had colon
ized Louisiana and founded New Orleans.
Aware that any attempt to open a coast
wise trade with Mexico would only result
in the capture and confiscation of the first
French ship to venture into Vera Cruz,
Governor Cadillac of Louisiana sent some
French-Canadians across Texas to the
nearest Spanish post on the Rio Grande in
1 7 14 to see if it would be possible to start
an overland cattle trade between the two
colonies. But the Spaniards threw the
French emissaries into prison and founded
new missions in Texas, some of them close
to the French frontier settlement of Natch
itoches on the Red River.
No further attempts were made by the
6

Dui'ango
'^ Mazalla'., ^ ,y<>.
San7ila,7-^ t ^

7 A^TuM^ni r _^.

The Kingdom of New Spain.

TEXAS AND KINGDOM OF NEW SPAIN
French to dispute the Spanish possession
of Texas beyond a few futile raids during
the brief Franco-Spanish War of 1719. A
neighborly understanding grew up between
the border settlements of the two colonies.
The irksome prohibition of foreign trade
bore lightly on these distant colonists of
Spain. Indeed, as Bancroft declares: "Con
traband trade with the French seems to
have been the occupation of all classes on
the frontier, including the governor and
perhaps even the friars."
In 1762 the Seven Years' War and the
empire of France in North America came
to an end together. England had con
quered Canada and now received Florida
from Spain, and from France all Louisiana
east of the Mississippi except the "Island
of New Orleans." That and Louisiana
west of the river went to Spain.
In 1800, by the Treaty of San Ildefonso,
Spain returned Louisiana to France. Three
years later France sold Louisiana to the
United States. Immediately the question
arose. Was Texas included in the Louisiana
Purchase ?
Napoleon's government assured our com-
7

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
missioners to Paris that such was the case;
that the western boundary of French Louisi
ana had been not the Red River but the
Rio Grande del Norte. But this claim was
based solely on La Salle's brief occupation
of Fort St. Louis, one hundred and nineteen
years before, which was more than counter
balanced by the previous exploration and
subsequent occupation of Texas by Spain.
But because of these French pretensions
and because they had heard much of La
Salle but little of Alvarez de Piiieda or the
missions founded by the Franciscan friars,
very many Americans, including Henry
Clay and other leaders of public opinion,
thought that Texas had been part of French
Louisiana and so belonged to us. A gen
eration later this mistaken belief did much
to bring about our annexation of Texas and
first war with Mexico.
President Monroe, who had been one of
the American commissioners sent to Paris
to arrange the Louisiana Purchase, had the
matter thoroughly investigated when he
negotiated the Florida Treaty with Spain
in 1819. By this treaty the United States
agreed to assume ^5,000,000 worth of un-
8

TEXAS AND KINGDOM OF NEW SPAIN
collectible claims of American citizens
against the Spanish crown in exchange for
Florida, which Spain had taken from Great
Britain during our Revolutionary War.
And the United States renounced forever
all "rights, claims, and pretensions" to
Texas based on the Louisiana Purchase.
The Florida Treaty was ratified by our
Senate after a debate of two days; by the
Spanish Government after a delay of two
years. On February 22, 1821, the treaty
was signed in Washington. The southern
boundary of the United States was fixed
at the Sabine River and thence westward
to the Pacific, as shown by the map facing
p. 6. The vexatious Texas question was
declared to be finally settled and a lasting
boundary established between the United
States and the Kingdom of New Spain.
Forty-eight hours later General Iturbide
proclaimed the independence of Mexico
and the end of the Kingdom of New Spain.

CHAPTER II
THE MEXICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
EVERY year on the i6th of Septem
ber the President of Mexico appears
on the balcony in front of the National
Palace and, while the great crowd that
throngs the Cathedral Plaza keep perfect
silence that all may hear, the chief magis
trate of the republic tolls an ancient church-
bell — the liberty bell of Mexico. By that
bell, when it hung in the belfry of the
parish church of the little village of Dolores
not far from the city of Guanajuato, the
priest Hidalgo called his people together
on Sunday, September i6, 1810, and urged
them to revolt with the famous "Grito
de Dolores," or "Cry of Dolores": "Down
with the wicked government ! Down with
tyranny!" Mexico and the other Spanish colonies
had already refused two years before to
recognize Joseph Bonaparte, who had been
forcibly placed on the throne of Spain by
10

MEXICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
his brother Napoleon. Ferdinand VII, the
rightful but worthless King of Spain, was
in a French prison, and to him the heads
of the army and church in Mexico swore
allegiance, choosing in the meanwhile a
viceroy from among their own number.
But this separation from the mother coun
try, formal and temporary as it was meant
to be, stirred the deep-rooted hatred of
Spain and Spaniards in the hearts of the
Indians, mixed-bloods, and even the Creoles
— persons of pure Spanish descent who, be
cause they were colonial-born, were forbid
den to hold office and were in every way
discriminated against in favor of the penin
sular-born Spaniard.
The Cry of Dolores met with a wide
spread and prompt response. A rapidly in
creasing army assembled under the leader
ship of Hidalgo and the banner of Our
Lady of Guadalupe.* The cities of Guana
juato, Guadalajara, San Bias, Zacatecas,
San Luis Potosi, and many smaller places
were captured by the insurgents, whose
number swelled at one time to as many as
* A shrine, much reverenced throughout Mexico, near Mexico
City. II

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO.
eighty thousand men, mostly ignorant and
untrained Indian laborers. Hidalgo and
his peasant army were ultimately defeated
and dispersed by one-tenth their number
of well-drilled and well-handled Spanish
troops at the Bridge of Calderon, June 17,
18 II. Hidalgo and his principal officers
were soon captured and promptly shot.
For ten terrible years thereafter the
War of Independence dragged on, no longer
fought in the open field but by bands of
guerillas, who too often degenerated into
brigands. The Spanish troops held only
the large cities and as much ground as
their regiments covered on the march.
The country was burned and pillaged by
both sides, farms and villages depopulated,
live stock slaughtered or driven off, the
mines shut down while the flooded shafts
caved in and the miners starved or went
a-soldiering. Conditions in Mexico then
were almost exactly like those in Cuba
immediately before the Spanish-American
War or in Mexico itself a hundred years
later, after the downfall of Porfirio Diaz.
The restoration of Ferdinand VII after
the overthrow of Napoleon led to a deter-
12

MEXICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
mined effort on the part of the Spanish
Government to put down the revolts not
only in Mexico but throughout Central and
South America. But the expeditionary
army that was assembled at Cadiz to be
sent to the colonies suddenly mutinied
under the leadership of Riego, and though
their first leader was defeated and shot, the
mutineers were soon joined by the greater
part of the country. Much against his will,
the reactionary Ferdinand VII was forced
to restore and swear to uphold the liberal
Constitution of 1812, which had been es
tablished by the provisional government
during his captivity and promptly abolished
after his restoration.
The Spanish Cortes, or Parliament, was
convened, and, according to the re-estab
lished Constitution, Mexico would have
been entitled to thirty-seven representa
tives. But none were ever chosen.
Almost the first action of the Spanish
Cortes of 1820 was to reduce the oppres
sively heavy taxes paid by the people and
make up the deficit by confiscating part of
the enormous wealth of the church. The
news of this and the danger to their own
13

OUR .FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
church property so alarmed the Mexican
prelates that they promptly plotted with
General Iturbide for the separation of New
from Old Spain. The result of this clerico-
military conspiracy was the proclamation
of the independence of Mexico in the
"Plan of Iguala," February 24, 1821.
The church and the army between them
had been the real rulers of Mexico from
the beginning, and without them the royal
authority had not a leg left to stand on.
Though the King's flag still flew from the
Castle of San Juan de UUoa at Vera Cruz,
the latest and last of the viceroys of Mex
ico, the Celto-Iberian O'Donoju, was un
able to set foot in the city itself when he
arrived from Spain. Going inland under a
safe-conduct, O'Donoju met Iturbide and
the two signed the so-called Treaty of Cor
dova, August 21, 1821. By this treaty,
which the Spanish Government refused to
ratify, the Kingdom of New Spain was
recognized as an independent constitutional
monarchy to be called "The Mexican Em
pire." The new imperial crown was to be
offered to each male member of the Spanish
royal family in succession, and if they all
14

MEXICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
refused it the Mexican Cortes was to choose
the Emperor.
This programme was duly followed out,
and, with the aid of a prearranged military
uprising near the Cortes at the psycholog
ical moment, Iturbide was elected and
crowned as Augustin I, Emperor of Mexico.
His reign was shorter in point of time but
no less tragic in termination than either
that of his predecessor, Montezuma, or his
successor, Maximilian. The army had no
use for Iturbide, and after ten months of
his harsh but feeble reign his own soldiers
forced his abdication on March 19, 1822.
He was allowed to go to Europe, with the
understanding that he was never to re
turn. But less than two years afterward
the outbreak of fresh revolutions tempted
Iturbide back to Mexico. Landing at Tam-
pico with a few followers, the ex-Emperor
was promptly arrested, court-martialled,
and shot. His great-grandson. General
Eduardo Iturbide, was for a few weeks in
1914 the governor of the federal district
about Mexico City, before he was forced
to become an exile in the United States.
A constituent congress was assembled to
IS

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
devise a republican form of government
for Mexico, and the result of its some
what hasty labors was the Constitution of
1824, an instrument "curiously compounded
of the Constitution of the United States
— omitting the first ten amendments —
and the Spanish (Cadiz) Constitution of
1812."* The executive and legislative branches
of the new government were closely pat
terned after those of the "Anglo-Americans
of the North." There was to be a Presi
dent, elected every four years and with a
suspensive power of veto; a Senate, with
two members from each state, and a House
of Deputies, with one member for every
eighty thousand inhabitants. But the third
branch of the government, the judiciary,
was much weaker than with us ; for, instead
of leaving to the Supreme Court the inter
pretation of the Constitution (the corner-
istone on which Chief Justice Marshall and
his successors were to build up the mighty
power of our Federal courts), the Mexicans
decided that their Congress alone had the
right to "resolve doubts which may occur
* Rives, I, 42.
16

MEXICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
about the meaning of the articles of this
Constitution." The most striking difference between
ours and the Mexican Constitution of 1824
was the establishment by the latter of a
state religion and the spirit of religious in
tolerance. The very first article, trans
lated, reads as follows:
"The religion of the Mexican nation is
and shall be the Catholic, apostolic, Roman
(faith). The nation is to protect it by wise
and just laws, and prohibit the exercise of
any other."
This clause, moreover, so it was declared,
was never to be amended.
Nothing was said about negro slavery,
but the slave-trade had been abolished by
statute a few months before. Negroes were
very rare in Mexico, enslaved or free, be
cause of the abundance of cheap Indian
labor. Though Indian slavery had been
abolished in early colonial times, a great
part of the poor people of Mexico were
peons — ^workmen who had become indebted
to their masters for money advanced on
exorbitant interest and who spent the rest
of their lives working for their creditors,
17

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
who found it both easy and profitable to
keep the ignorant, pleasure-loving peons in
perpetual debt. This peonage was prac
tically slavery, but nothing was said about
it in the Constitution of 1824.
The most obvious weakness of the new
republic was its artificial federalism. Like
every other Spanish-American country at
the time, Mexico enthusiastically copied
many features of the government of the
United States of America. But, unlike the
thirteen British colonies, the Kingdom of
New Spain had always been a single ad
ministrative unit, with a strong centralized
government in a great capital city that
dominated the rest of Mexico as Paris
dominates France. The logical develop
ment after the War of Independence would
have been a centralized republic, which
many Mexicans desired. But the majority
of the constituent congress, admiring the
form of the American Union but ignoring
the fact of Mexican unity, carved their
country up into states, none of which had
had any previous separate existence. Texas
and Coahuila together made one huge,
sparsely populated state. 18

MEXICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
Hundreds of Americans, eager for ad
venture, had fought in Texas during the
War of Independence on the side of the
insurgents against Spain. These American
filibusters played an important part in the
capture of the two principal Texas towns.
La Bahia (Goliad) and San Antonio de
Bexar. They protested vehemently against
the proposed execution in cold blood of two
captured Spanish governors and twelve of
their officers, and many of the Americans
left in disgust when their Mexican aUies,
after promising to have these prisoners sent
safely home to Spain, had the Spaniards'
throats cut by their own escort. Yet no
less than eight hundred and fifty Americans
fought on the Mexican side in the disas
trous defeat near San Antonio that led to
the recapture of all the towns, followed by
savage reprisals on the part of the Spanish
troops. Guerilla warfare was waged in Texas not
only by land but by sea. Jean Lafitte, the
famous "Pirate of the Gulf," whose men
had served Andrew Jackson's field-guns at
the battle of New Orleans, seized the island
of Galveston as a headquarters for his fleet
19

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
of privateers, sailing under the Mexican
and various South American flags. Because
it captured too many ships of neutral
nations and was indeed little better than a
nest of pirates, Lafitte's colony was broken
up in 1 82 1 by the United States brig Enter
prise.
Another picturesque and premature at
tempt to found an American colony in
Texas was made by James Long, who had
been a surgeon in the United States Army.
With three hundred of his countrymen
Long actually set up and proclaimed an
independent "Republic of Texas," with a
complete civil government and even a
newspaper. But within four months after
its foundation, in 1821, Long's republic
was broken up and dispersed by a detach
ment of Spanish troops. When the last
Spanish soldier withdrew from Texas the
country was almost as devoid of white in
habitants as it had been at the beginning
of the sixteenth or end of the seventeenth
century. " By the time that Mexican independence
was fairly achieved," says Mr. Rives,
"Texas was almost depopulated. The
20

MEXICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
Spanish troops and the horse Indians be
tween them had very nearly succeeded in
destroying every semblance of cultivated
and civilized life. A few destitute people
still lingered about Bexar (San Antonio)
and La Bahia (Goliad) and some few in
and near what had once been Nacog
doches. Otherwise the country was de
serted. Its wide and fertile expanse lay in
the sight of all men, a huge and tempting
prize for whosoever, Mexican or foreigner,
was skilful enough or bold enough to take
it."

21

CHAPTER III
MIGRATION OF AMERICANS TO TEXAS
MOSES AUSTIN was a Connecticut
Yankee with a roving foot that
carried him across even the sacred border
of the Kingdom of New Spain. But in
Louisiana, where Austin first settled in
1798, the exclusion of foreigners had never
been as absolute as in the other Spanish
colonies, for Louisiana had originally been
French and many Frenchmen remained
there after 1762. Besides, the whole east
bank of the Mississippi above New Orleans
was British territory. English ships had
the right to navigate the river even to its
source, and soon after the Revolution
Yankee flatboatmen floated down-stream
and Yankee trappers and traders drifted
overland in constantly increasing numbers.
Though these intruders were not always
welcome, the Spanish authorities in Louisi
ana could not keep them out, and toward
the end actually granted tracts of land to
22

MIGRATION OF AMERICANS TO TEXAS
settlers from the United States, such as
Moses Austin. And when, after twenty
years' residence in what is now the State of
Missouri, Austin found himself back in the
Union and in need of money, he naturally
migrated again, this time to Texas.
Riding across the empty prairies to San
Antonio de Bexar, Austin asked Governor
Martinez for a tract of land on which to
settle three hundred families from Louisi
ana. Martinez, who at first angrily ordered
Austin out of the country, joined with the
ayuntamiento, or town council, in a petition
to the authorities at Mexico City to grant
Austin's request. With this grant in his
pocket and his life-work done, Austin re
turned to Missouri and died there June
ID, 1821, in the fifty-seventh year of his
age. The city of Austin, the capital of
Texas, commemorates his name and that
of his son, Stephen Fuller Austin, who
carried on his work.
"The glorious news of the independence
of Mexico" greeted young Austin as he
rode into Bexar, and sent him post-haste to
Mexico City. Scarcely had the Emperor
Iturbide affirmed the viceroy's grant to the
23

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Austins by the Imperial Colonization Act
of 1823 than the Mexican Empire ended its
short life, and the work had to be done over
again with the republican authorities. But
by the National Colonization Act of 1824
Austin finally obtained the fuUest powers.
As an empresario, or contractor, with the
government who undertook to settle two
hundred or more families in Texas, Austin
was to receive a certain amount of public
land for himself. Every settler was to be
given either a 177-acre farm or a cattle
range of over 4,000 acres. All colonists
were to be exempt for six years, not only
from ordinary taxation but from the Mex
ican tariff, which prohibited the importa
tion of many necessities and placed a very
high duty on most of the rest — an unin
telligent relic of the Spanish colonial sys
tem. Except for this exemption, it would
have been impossible for the Texan colo
nists to have procured ploughs, clothing, or
provisions without wholesale smuggling, for
almost nothing was then manufactured in
Mexico and the lack of roads made food
stuffs scarce and dear.
Another important exemption was the
24

MIGRATION OF AMERICANS TO TEXAS
suspension, as far as concerned Texas, of
the law abolishing negro slavery. Austin
insisted on this because, though he himself
was opposed to slavery on principle, he fore
saw that most of his colonists would be
Southerners; also, he believed that the fu
ture wealth of Texas lay in the cultivation
of cotton, then thought impossible without
forced negro labor. Immigrants were there
fore permitted to bring their own slaves
with them, but these negroes were not to
be resold and their children were to be born
free. The only things required of white im
migrants into Texas were: first, that they
should be Roman Catholics; second, that
they should show a certificate of good char
acter from their home authorities; and,
finally, that they take the oath of allegi
ance to Mexico. No provision was made
for stopping undesirable immigrants at the
frontier or for the trial and deportation of
any unlawful residents. The Federal Gov
ernment of Mexico simply left it all to
Austin and washed its hands of Texas for
the next six years.
The Mexicans seem to have thought that
25

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
because the Austins had come from Louisi
ana the settlers they proposed to bring
into Texas would be from there also, of
Latin blood and the Catholic faith. But
those who came were typical American
frontiersmen of the period, who knew little
of any church and least of all the Roman
Catholic. Otherwise, they were ideal colo
nists from Austin's point of view, and he
naturally let down the bars.
"I wish the settlers to remember," he
declared in a pubHc address, "that the
Roman Catholic is the religion of this na
tion. . . . We must all be particular and
respect the Catholic religion." But noth
ing was said about its being obligatory.
The religious qualification being ignored
so calmly, the other two were very easily
met. The certificate of good character the
settler was supposed to bring with him from
his home authorities was usually obtained
after his arrival in Texas from the nearest
alcalde or petty magistrate, "on the testi
mony of two bystanders and the payment
of a dollar and a half."* As for the oath of
allegiance, it was easy to take but difficult
* Kennedy's "Texas," I, 339.
26

MIGRATION OF AMERICANS TO TEXAS
for a feeble government in far-away Mexico
City to enforce.
Settlers poured in rapidly. Eight new
empresarios were given contracts by the
State of Coahuila, to whom the public
lands had been turned over by the federal
authorities, and these contractors are said
to have brought in some three thousand
families. Two of these colonies were Irish
and there were many Germans, but these
elements soon amalgamated with the na
tive-born Americans, exactly as in the
United States. Thousands of other im
migrants came over the border of their own
accord, and squatted on the first vacant
site that struck their fancy. Their "right
there was none to dispute."
Entirely neglected by the Mexican Gov
ernment, the American settlers In -Texas
shifted for themselves and flourished ex
ceedingly. They laid out the rough trails
over which men brought their families and
chattels, at first on horse and mule back,
later in wagons, overland from Natchi
toches in Louisiana, or up from Galveston
Bay and the other ports where the sailing-
vessels came from New Orleans or New
27

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
York. These Anglo-Saxon colonists needed
no friar architects to design their log cabins
for them or troops to defend them again-st
the Comanches. They paid no taxes and
received nothing in return. The earlier
mission schools having greatly decayed, the
Texans established rude ones of their own
wherever a few children could be gathered
together and an itinerant teacher found to
instruct them. Towns and villages arose,
with American officials bearing Spanish
titles, American general stores well stocked
with goods from the United States, Amer
ican lawyers, doctors, and. of course, Amer
ican newspapers.
While the Mexican population of Texas
remained nearly stationary, the number of
Americans doubled every few years. In
1825 there were about 7,000 people In Texas,
almost equally divided between the two
races; two years later the population had
risen to 10,000 and the Americans outnum
bered the Mexicans by 5 to 3. By 1830
there were something like 20,000 Americans
in Texas, including 1,000 negro slaves.
That these were not more numerous was
because Texas had become a country of
28

MIGRATION OF AMERICANS TO TEXAS
small farms and ranches Instead of large
cotton plantations as Austin had expected.
A Coahuila state statute forbidding slavery
had been avoided by bringing negroes in
as peons, and when President Guerrero's
government passed a national emancipa
tion act in 1829 the resentment of the
Texans was so great that ,Texas, which had
the only slaves in Mexico, was specially
exempted. This defiance of the national authority
and the menace to Mexico of the strong
foreign colony that had grown up within its
borders were keenly felt by the new secre
tary of foreign affairs who now took office
under President Bustamante, Don Lucas
Ignacio Alaman. A well-educated man and
author of a valuable history of his own
country, Alaman had a strangely distorted
idea of the government and history of the
United States. Disregarding the limited
powers of our Federal Government and the
varying policies of different parties and ad
ministrations, Alaman believed that from
the foundation of our Republic the Amer
ican people had systematically conspired to
make themselves masters of the entire
29

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Western hemisphere. With this end in
view, he declared the authorities at Wash
ington had secretly promoted the coloni
zation of Texas with Americans who, when
they were strong enough, would declare
their independence as a preliminary to
being taken into the Union.
But we know that Moses Austin left
Louisiana for Texas not to extend the
boundaries of the United States but to get
outside them. He received no more aid
from the Federal Government than would
Ichabod Crane have received from the se
lectmen of Sleepy Hollow had he realized
his vision of "the blooming Katrina, with
a whole family of children, mounted on
the top of a wagon loaded with household
trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling
beneath and . . . himself bestriding a pac
ing mare with a colt at her heels, setting
out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord
knows where." The lure of "immense
tracts of wild land and shingle palaces in
the wilderness" set the laziest Anglo-Saxon
a-roving without help or hinderance from
the authorities he left behind him. But
such initiative on the part of the individual
^30

MIGRATION OF AMERICANS TO TEXAS
and indifference on the part of his govern
ment were totally incomprehensible to the
Spanish-American of the early nineteenth
century, bred in the paternal colonial sys
tem of Spain. The measures that Alaman
now took for curbing the Americans IiJ
Texas were typical of that system.
Troops were to be sent Into Texas to
overawe the colonists and enforce respect
for the authority of Mexico. No more
slaves were to enter the country, nor any
more foreigners without proper passports.
The Colonization Act of 1824 was repealed,
the Federal Government took charge of the
public lands again and made every effort
to create settlements of native Mexicans
thereon. But free Mexican citizens re
fused to go to Texas on any terms, and the
wretched convicts who were sent there In
chains and at great expense soon ran away
or were killed by the Indians. In spite of
everything, Texas became more American
and less Mexican every day.
The privilege of free trade that the colo
nists had enjoyed since 1823 was now de
clared at an end, and the Mexican tariff,
which absolutely prohibited the importa-
31

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
tion of many necessary articles and placed
a very high duty on almost everything else,
was now, with certain exceptions, to be ap
plied to Texas. This impossible combina
tion of a protective tariff with an almost
utter lack of home industries was a direct
legacy from colonial Spain, and a scholar
and statesman like Seiior Alaman might
well have paused before reviving it. He
should have remembered how the dearth of
Spanish goods had forced the Spanish colo
nists from Texas to Peru either to do with
out or to trade with foreign smugglers (see
page 4). He should have remembered the
tragic results of the spasmodic attempts of
the Spanish authorities to stop this smug
gling by savage attacks on the free-traders
— the blazing cities and sunken galleons
that paid for the treacherous destruction of
Francis Drake's and John Hawkins's trad
ing fleet in the harbor of Vera Cruz; the
sack of Panama by the buccaneers after
they had been forbidden by the Spaniards
to hunt the wild cattle of the West Indian
islands and so turned to Spaniard-hunting;
and the War of Jenkins's Ear. He should
have realized that the American-born Tex-
32

MIGRATION OF AMERICANS TO TEXAS
ans and the coastwise skippers who sup
plied their wants were of the same fighting
stock as Drake and the buccaneefs, and that
when the Texans needed new ploughs, which
they could not buy in Mexico and were for
bidden to import from the United States,
it would take more than a few hundred
half-breed Mexican conscripts scattered
along the coast to suspend the law of sup
ply and demand.
The climax came when Colonel Brad-
burn, the Kentucky-born commander of the
Mexican post at Anahuac on Galveston
Bay lost his temper after two years of con
stant bickerings, and in May, 1832, ar
rested and imprisoned without warrant
seven prominent Texans to overawe the
smugglers and their sympathizers. Instead,
the neighborhood rose, besieged the fort,
and sent to Brazoria for two cannon with
which the trading schooner Sabine had been
bidding equal defiance to custom-house
officers and soldiers. The only way to bring
the guns from Brazoria to Anahuac was by
sea, and this the commander of the little
Mexican post at Velasco, at the mouth of
the Sabine, very properly refused to per-
33

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
mit. So the Texans turned the two guns
on Velasco and bombarded and captured the
fort, with a loss of several lives on both
sides. This affair was regarded as a pre
liminary to an assault on Anahuac and
civil war seemed unavoidable.
Then suddenly the Anahuac prisoners
were released without a fight. Colonel Brad-
burn went home to Kentucky, and the
Mexican garrisons were withdrawn from
every post in Texas except Bexar. A new
revolution had broken out in Mexico; Bus
tamante was no longer President nor Seiior
Alaman Secretary of Foreign Affairs. There
was a new President in Mexico City, the
victorious and popular young General
Santa Anna.

34

CHAPTER IV
"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!"
ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA
jr\. was born in the city of Jalapa on
February 21, 1795, of sufficiently gentle
blood to be given a cadetship In the royal
army at the age of fifteen. The outbreak
of the War of Independence found him
fighting in the royalist ranks, where he re
mained to the end, by which time he was a
lieutenant-colonel. He was a "Tory" of
the deepest dye, and it was no love of na
tional liberty but a shrewd desire to keep
on the side of the army and the church that
made him hasten to join Iturbide after the
proclamation of the Plan of Iguala.
Santa Anna's first chance to distinguish
himself came in 1829 when Ferdinand VII
of Spain, still stubbornly refusing to recog
nize the Independence of Mexico, made a
ridiculous attempt to reconquer that coun
try of 7,000,000 inhabitants with an army
of 3,000 men. Deserted by its fleet and rav-
35

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
aged by yellow fever, the Spanish expedi
tionary force was easily cooped up in Tam-
pico and forced to surrender by a much
larger Mexican army under General Santa
Anna. Hailed as the hero and savior of his
country, Santa Anna soon made himself
President by heading what was in name a
revolution but in fact nothing but a sordid
mutiny of military oflSce-seekers. After he
was in power the difficulty of finding enough
jobs for his followers and other Internal af
fairs of Mexico gave Santa Anna no time
to attend to Texas for the next three years.
In the meanwhile a general convention
of Texans met at San Felipe, in the fall of
1832, to consider the best course of action
to follow after the bloodshed at Velasco
and the departure of the Mexican troops.
Some voted for war and a declaration of
independence, but the majority of the dele
gates decided that Texas should stand on
her rights under the Mexican Constitution
of 1824, the upholding and enforcement of
which had been the ostensible cause of
Santa Anna's revolution. It would be
enough, they decided, if Texas were sepa
rated from Coahuila and erected into a
36

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!"
state. Petitions to the Federal Govern
ment for the granting of statehood and the
repeal of Alaman's laws of 1830 were ac
cordingly drafted. A second convention,
called for by the first, met in March, 1833,
adopted a tentative constitution and sent
Stephen Fuller Austin to press the claims
of Texas at Mexico City.
But the utmost that Austin could accom
plish there was the removal of the ban on
immigration from the United States, which
only kept out peaceful settlers and attracted
the adventurous. And when Austin at
tempted to return home he was arrested on
the road, taken back to Mexico City, and
locked up in the old prison of the Inquisition
on no definite charge but a general suspicion
of treasonable conspiracy. The proceedings
in Texas, though perfectly regular and un
derstandable from an American point of
view and in accord with the spirit of popu
lar government that theoretically prevailed
in Mexico, were totally incomprehensible
to the mediaeval-minded soldier-politicians
of the capital. They were particularly
alarmed and mystified by the name and
purpose of a "convention," regarding it
37

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
as a new and dangerous kind of conspiracy
against authority. The political knowl
edge of Santa Anna and his gallant col
leagues seems to have been on a par with
that of their contemporaries, the mutinous
Royal Guard of Spain, who, when asked by
Queen Isabella to define the constitution
they were shouting for, scratched their
heads and replied:
"Carramba ! We don't know. They say
it is a good thing and will raise our pay
and make salt cheaper."*
An offer on the part of President Andrew
Jackson for the purchase of Texas by the
United States for ^5,000,000 made at this
time, with no ulterior purpose, was so grossly
mismanaged by the incompetent and un
scrupulous American minister to Mexico as
to confirm the Mexicans' belief in Alaman's
theory of an "American conspiracy" (see
page 29) and strengthen their resolve to
take strong measures with the Texans.
' Anahuac was regarrlsoned and its custom
house re-established in 1835. William B.
Travis, a daredevil Texan, with a party of
kindred spirits swooped down on the place
* John Hay, "CastiHan Days," p. 171.
38

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!"
and took it without a fight, the captured
garrison amicably joining in a Fourth-of-
July frolic with their captors and neigh
bors before being shipped back to Mexico.
When Santa Anna demanded that Travis
and four other ringleaders in the affair be
yielded up, together with a native Mexican
called Zavala, who was a personal enemy of
Santa Anna's and a warm friend of Austin's,
the colonists refused to surrender these
men to certain death. Austin himself was
now released from prison and came home
on an American schooner, that not only
beat off the attack of a Mexican revenue
cutter just before reaching port but put
out with reinforcements and captured the
cutter next day. Then on top of these
petty scuffiings fell a mighty political thun
derbolt. By a simple act of a subservient congress
Santa Anna set aside the constitution he
had sworn to uphold, abolished the federal
system and the governments of the different
states, and made Mexico a centralized re
public. Texas was separated from Coahuila
and made a mere administrative depart
ment, subservient to an all-powerful con-
39

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!"
provised volunteer army that marched
against Bexar, where General Cos, who had
been sent by Santa Anna to subdue the
Texans, had arrived just in time to learn
of the affair at Gonzales. Austin's force
encamped a little distance outside Bexar;
Cos sallied forth, attacked the camp, and
was driven back into the town with heavy
loss. But when Austin ordered an assault
upon Bexar, his men politely but firmly re
fused. Except that they were well armed
— the Tex&ns' rifles were vastly superior to
the muskets of the Mexican conscripts —
Austin would have been justified in saying
of his army before Bexar what Washington
had said of the American army at Cam
bridge sixty years before: "A hardy militia,
brave and patriotic, but illy armed, undis
ciplined, unorganized, and wanting in al
most everything necessary for successful
war." Much to his relief, Austin was sent to
the United States with two others as agents
of the provisional government established
by the "consultation." After hesitating
for five weeks to attack regular troops in
such a strong position, volunteers sprang
41

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
gress and President in Mexico City. This
destruction of states' rights might mean lit
tle to most native Mexicans to whom state
hood was an artificial creation of the last
decade, but it was different with the Tex
ans, most of whom came from the Southern
States of the American Union — common
wealths strong in their belief In states' rights
and local patriotism. A third general con
vention was assembled, and to spare the
Mexicans' feelings It was called a "consul
tation." But before this consultation met,
on October 15, hostilities had begun in
earnest. A detachment of Mexican troops sent
by the commander of the garrison at Bexar
to seize a brass six-pounder belonging to
the Texans at the village of Gonzales was
met and defeated by the "embattled farm
ers" and ranchmen there assembled for its
defense. Another body of colonists cap
tured the well-stored but unguarded Mex
ican arsenal In the old mission at Goliad,
even as Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain
boys had surprised Ticonderoga. War was
now inevitable. Even the peace-loving
Austin took the field at the head of an im-
40

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
forward In the Texan camp on the night
of December 3, when a grizzled veteran of
the Mexican War of Independence cried:
"Who will go with old Ben Milam into
San Antonio ?"
San Antonio de Bexar was a typical
Spanish-American town, with streets run
ning at right angles from its two plazas,
which were surrounded with thick-walled
stone buildings, whose flat roofs, with their
breast-high parapets, were well adapted for
defense. Barricades, on many of which
were mounted cannon, closed the ends of
the streets and the entrances to the plazas,
musketeers thronged the roofs and the
loopholed walls, and It would have been
no easy task for undrilled men without
bayonets to charge down the streets and
make a frontal attack on the barricades.
Very wisely the Texans did nothing of the
kind, but tunnelled through the buildings,
battering their way through the flimsy par
tition walls with heavy logs, driving the
defenders before them from room to room,
house to house, street to street, for five
days and nights, beginning at the adobe
huts on the outskirts and ending on the
42

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!"
roofs of the buildings on the two plazas.
From these vantage-points Milam's men,
who had lost their leader but won the town,
could fire down on the rear of the now use
less barricades. General Cos and what was
left of his army fled across the river and
sought refuge in the ruined mission of San
Antonio, which, from the Spanish name of
the Cottonwood grove in which it stood, was
called the Alamo. There General Cos sur
rendered and he and his soldiers were al
lowed to return to Mexico on parole, having
given their word of honor not to fight again
against Texas.
Even after the Mexican troops had been
driven across the Rio Grande the Texans
still hesitated to declare their independence,
hoping that the native "federal party of
the interior" might now overthrow Santa
Anna and restore the Constitution of 1824.
But as the winter passed It became Increas
ingly clear that Santa Anna had put down
all his foes in Mexico, and was assembling
the largest possible army for the invasion
and reconquest of Texas. To resist him
there were only the weak garrisons at
Goliad and Bexar, and at Gonzales a little
43

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
army with a constantly changing person
nel under General Houston.
Big Sam Houston, who as a Tennessee
militiaman had charged with Andrew Jack
son over the Creek Indians' log ramparts at
Horseshoe Bend, where he had been se
verely wounded and earned a commission
in the regular army for his gallantry, was a
strange and picturesque figure. He had
been governor of Tennessee, he had lived
for years as a drunken outcast among the
Cherokee Indians; he was six feet four
inches in height, and "rejoiced in a cata
mount-skin waistcoat." But for all his ec
centricities the new commander-in-chief of
the Texan forces was a born fighter and a
trained soldier. General Houston fully
realized the necessity of concentrating his
scattered detachments before Santa Anna
could strike and destroy them separately,
and message after message was sent order
ing Travis and Bowie at the Alamo and
Fannin at Goliad to fall back on the main
body. But discipline was scarcer than
courage in the Texan ranks, and with a
folly as splendid as that of Sir Richard
Grenville at the battle of the "Revenge,"
44

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!"
Travis stuck to his post, declaring that he
was "determined to sustain himself as long
as possible and die like a soldier who never
forgets what Is due to his own honor or
that of his country."
Santa Anna invaded Texas with 6,000
men, Including General Cos and his fol
lowers, who made no bones about breaking
their parole. The advance-guard crossed
the Rio Grande on February 12, 1836, and
a fortnight later they were in Bexar.
Travis and Bowie made no attempt to
hold the town, for their force, less than 200
all told, was not strong enough even to line
the walls of the mission courtyard, one end
of which was formed by the sturdy, roofless
ruin of the little chapel of St. Anthony,
that we call the Alamo. The little band of
Texans having refused to surrender, on
Sunday, March 6, 2,000 Mexican infantry,
under the eyes of the President of the Re
public, stormed the Alamo. The outer en
closure was quickly carried through the
breaches in its walls, but the chapel had to
be conquered Inch by inch, by bayonet
against rifle butt and hunting-knife, till the
last of the garrison lay dead in the last
45

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
blood-stained corner. Travis fell among
the first in the open courtyard; Bowie, sick
with pneumonia, was butchered with the
other patients in the hospital. No man sur
rendered, no man escaped. It Is from the
Mexicans themselves we have this story of
nineteenth-century Americans who, bound
by no Spartan law but the pride of race,
died like Leonidas and his three hundred.
"Thermopylae had Its messengers of de
feat; the Alamo had none."
Colonel Fannin, commanding the Texan
garrison at Goliad, disregarding Houston's
repeated orders and the terrible warning
of the fall of the Alamo, delayed his re
treat until the 19th of March. Impeded
with ox-carts, clumsy artillery, and a long
train of non-combatants, Fannin's men were
overtaken in a few hours by the Mexican
cavalry and forced to intrench themselves
on the open prairie five miles from the near
est water-supply. Resistance was hope
less, and Fannin surrendered next day, after
the Mexican officers had promised that the
Americans' lives should be spared, and that
the greater number of Fannin's men, who
had recently come from the United States,
46

The Defence of the Alamo.

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!"
should be allowed to return there. Taken
back to Goliad, the captured Americans
were Imprisoned there for a week, at the
end of which time all the able-bodied men
among them were led out, with their knap
sacks on their backs, under a strong escort
of Mexican infantry and marched away,
as they supposed, toward the seacoast and
home. But when they had gone a few miles
out on the open prairie the escort stepped
back, raised their muskets, and deliberately
shot down every prisoner, except a few who
escaped by running away or by hiding
among the dead. Returning to Goliad, the
same soldiers dragged out and massacred
the American sick and wounded, including
Colonel Fannin, who is said to have been
the last man executed. This cold-blooded
butchery took place on Palm Sunday, three
weeks after the fall of the Alamo, and by
the direct orders of President Santa Anna.
"In this war," he had written one of his
officers, "there are no prisoners."
In justice to Santa Anna we must re
member that the custom of shooting pris
oners of war had long been followed by the
Spaniards in America, that it was almost
47

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
universal on both sides during the Mexican
War of Independence, when 14 Spanish
officers had been killed in Texas by their
own escort, under precisely similar circum
stances to the slaughter of Fannin's men
(see page 19), and that it still prevails In
Mexico to-day. With certain rare excep
tions, honorably distinctive but shamefully
few, every victorious general of Mexico
from Cortez to Pancho Villa has stained his
hands as red as Santa Anna's with his pris
oners' blood.
Houston's army had already evacuated
Gonzales on March 14, and was in full re
treat to the northeast. Panic-stricken by
the savagery of the invaders, the greater
part of the people of Texas left their homes,
burning all that they could not carry or
drive away with them, and fled before
Santa Anna's advancing columns to the
Louisiana frontier and the protection of
the United States. The new-born govern
ment of the Republic of Texas, that had
declared its independence on the ist of
March, abandoned its capital at Harris-
burg, which was occupied on April 16 by
Santa Anna with only 750 men. Incau-
48

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!"
tlous haste, lack of provisions, bad roads,
and faulty equipment had scattered the rest
of his 6,000 far and wide over the broad
surface of Texas. Realizing this, Houston
stopped his retreat and led his Impatient
little army back to strike a decisive blow.
After a good deal of marching and counter
marching the two forces came face to face
by the banks of the San Jacinto River,
not far from where it flows into Galveston
Bay. Instead of pressing his attack, Houston
let the first day pass with only slight skir
mishing, for which he has been blamed by
most military critics, as the delay per
mitted Santa Anna to be joined that night
by General Cos, whose reinforcements
brought the Mexican army up to about
1,200 men, i field-piece, and 3 generals.
The Texans numbered about 800, 90 of
whom were mounted, and they had a bat
tery of 2 Iron four-pounders, presented by
sympathetic citizens of Cincinnati.
In the heart of the enemies' country, with
a deep swamp in his rear and a hostile army
in his front, which was protected only by
a flimsy barricade of baggage and pack-
49

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
saddles, Santa Anna calmly retired to his
tent for his usual midday nap. His sol
diers either followed their chief's example,
played cards, or cooked their dinners, their
guns unloaded, their bayonets unfixed. At
high noon on the 21st of April the Texans
filed quietly out of their camp and formed
in line behind an "island of timber." Two
shots from the four-pounders sent the
pack-saddles flying, a single volley crashed
from the Texan rifles, and while it still
rang In Santa Anna's startled ears, Houston
and his 800 came roaring over the barri
cade, beating down the defenders with
clubbed rifles and shouting vengefuUy:
"Remember Travis I Remember Bowie!
Remember Goliad ! Remember the Alamo !"
There was no fighting and no defense
worth speaking of at the so-called battle
of San Jacinto, though that In no way de
tracts from the credit of Houston and his
Texans. Utterly surprised and deserted by
their own officers, the meek-spirited Mexican
Indian conscripts were killed or stampeded
almost as easily as a flock of sheep. How
many hundred of them were killed and
wounded it is impossible to say, but less
5°

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!"
than 50 out of the whole 1,200 escaped
captivity or death. VInce's Bridge, the
only means of crossing the swamp In Santa
Anna's rear, had been destroyed just be
fore the assault by "Deaf Smith," a scout
famous ever after in Texan song and story.
Only 2 of Houston's men were killed and
23 wounded, including the general himself,
who had been shot in the foot.
President Santa Anna and General Cos
were both captured. Few could have
blamed the Texans if both these worthies
had been shot or hanged to the nearest tree,
but the humanity of the Texans and the
firmness of Houston spared their lives.
Santa Anna hastened to sign a treaty
recognizing the Independence of Texas.
Though the Mexican Government repudi
ated this treaty and behaved exactly like
the Government of Spain after the Treaty of
Cordova had been signed by O'Donoju and
Iturbide, the Independence of Texas was
nevertheless an accomplished fact. At the
news of Santa Anna's defeat, the other
Mexican commanders In Texas retreated
across the Rio Grande. Despite Mexico's
angry protests that Texas was merely a re-
51

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
belllous province to be presently subdued,
the other nations of the earth, following the
leadership of the United States, soon rec
ognized the independence of the Republic
of Texas.

52

CHAPTER V
MEDIATION AND ANNEXATION
MEDIATION between Mexico and the
Republic of Texas, through the good
offices of the British and French ministers
at Mexico City, was proposed by President
Houston In the summer of 1843. During
the seven years since San Jacinto, an ir
ritating and inconclusive border warfare
had been carried on by both sides. Towns
had been raided and cattle driven off on
either side of the border; Mexicans had cap
tured the district judge, members of the
bar and other prominent citizens of San
Antonio, and for the last three years the
Texan navy of four small schooners had
been subsidized by the revolutionary party
in Yucatan and cruised successfully off the
Gulf coast of Mexico.
More ambitious but less successful was
the attempt made to conquer New Mexico
— as all the huge and indefinite region
between Texas and California was then
S3

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
called — with a force of less than 300
Texans in 1841. Worn out and scattered
after their desert march, these men sur
rendered to the New Mexican authorities
without firing a shot, were imprisoned in
Santa Fe and then taken to Mexico City,
where they were eventually released, after
having suffered great hardships and count
less indignities. In the United States public
sympathy for the "prisoners of Santa Fe"
was both warm and outspoken, and It was
quite impossible for the Federal Govern
ment, with Its limited powers, to keep armed
American filibusters from going to help the
Texans either as individuals or in semi-
organized companies disguised as "im
migrants." A violent attack on the United
States Government for tolerating, if not
conniving at, these breaches of neutrality
was published by the Mexican Minister of
Foreign Affairs In a Mexico City news
paper and led to strange results.
A stray copy of this paper fell into the
hands of Commodore Ap Catesby Jones, a
gallant but somewhat impulsive officer of
Welsh descent, then commanding the Pa
cific squadron of the United States navy,
54

MEDIATION AND ANNEXATION
and convinced him that war must have
broken out between the United States and
Mexico. By the same mail — the first that
had reached him for many months — ^Jones
also received a Boston paper which declared
that Mexico was about to cede California
to Great Britain. These things, together
with the accidental departure of the British
fleet that had been lying with his own in the
harbor of Callao, on the west coast of South
America, were enough for Jones. Setting
sail at once, he reached the harbor of
Monterey, demanded and received the
surrender of the astonished town, scared
the 29 soldiers out of the fort and the
governor into the Interior — all on Wednes
day, October 19, 1842. On Thursday the
commodore landed his marines, hoisted the
stars and stripes, annexed both Upper and
Lower California, and delivered to the in
habitants an Impressive proclamation that
he had composed on his way up the coast.
On Friday an American who kept a general
store in Monterey came on board the flag
ship with a newspaper of later date. Dis
covering from this and the evidence of his
own senses that there was no war and
55

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
no English annexation. Commodore Jones
realized his error, hauled down his flag im
mediately, apologized like a gentleman, and
sailed away.
The belief that England was planning
to extend her empire and curtail the future
growth of the United States, by annexing
not only California but also "the Oregon
country" and Texas, was almost universal
among the American people at this time.
It was 'less than thirty years since the War
of 1812, the land operations of which had
consisted mainly of a series of disastrous
attempts on our part to Invade Canada,
and the danger of the creation of a second
Canada to the south of us had been darkly
portrayed by the aged Andrew Jackson,
hero of the last war with Great Britain.
The success of the mediators in obtaining
a truce preliminary to negotiations for peace
between Texas and Mexico, taken in con
junction with the well-known English zeal
for the abolition of slavery, greatly alarmed
the administration at Washington. In
reply to a communication from Mr. Up
shur, President Tyler's Secretary of State,
Lord Aberdeen, the British premier, de-
56

MEDIATION AND ANNEXATION
clared that Great Britain while "constantly
exerting herself to procure the general
abolition of slavery throughout the world"
was entertaining no "occult designs" in re
gard to either Mexico or Texas.
Forty-eight hours after this despatch was
sent Upshur was killed, together with a
number of other people, by the explosion
of the great wrought-Iron pivot gun " Peace
maker" on board the new cruiser Princeton,
and John C. Calhoun became Secretary of
State. Both President Tyler and the new head
of his Cabinet were Southerners and slave
owners, who judged slavery from the mild
paternalism of their own plantations and
neighborhoods and regarded the abolition
ists as misguided fanatics bent on the dis
ruption of the Union. Both men were
singularly free from the fear of political
consequences or the ties of party allegiance.
Elected Vice-President by the Whigs, to the
slogan of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too!" in
the roaring log-cabin-and-hard-clder cam
paign of 1840, Tyler had soon succeeded to
the presidency on the death of his aged and
infirm chief, General Harrison, and pres-
57

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
ently broke entirely with the party that
had elected him. Calhoun, on his part,
cared little for elective office but acted en
tirely on his own personal convictions,
chief among which was a sincere belief In
the righteousness of negro slavery. Ac
cident or fate had placed in power the two
•men best fitted to reopen the vexed question
of the annexation of Texas and set it
squarely before the American people.
President Andrew Jackson had favored
the annexation as well as the recognition
of Texas, but his Congress had voted it
down. Neither did it appeal, though re
peatedly sought by the Texans themselves,
to the Van Buren administration, which
sought to maintain neutrality with Mexico
and avoid stirring up unseemly contro
versies with the unpopular but rapidly
growing faction of abolitionists by advocat
ing what must be an extension of slave ter
ritory. Yet it became increasingly clear
that the matter could not be put off Indef
initely, for the 50,000 or 60,000 Texans
with an empty treasury could not long
defend an empty empire against 8,000,000
Mexicans if ever the latter stopped their
S8

MEDIATION AND ANNEXATION
internal wars and turned their full strength
to the subjugation of their "rebellious
province." To guarantee peace with Mex
ico, Texas had either to enter the Union, as
nine out of ten Texans desired, or, in the
last extremity, seek the protection of some
strong European power.
Within six weeks after he had become
Secretary of State, Calhoun had negotiated
and signed a treaty of annexation with
Texas. But before It could be ratified by
the United States Senate the two great
political parties had held their national
conventions for the approaching presiden
tial campaign. Henry Clay, the Whig
candidate, had shown himself indifferent, if
not hostile to annexation, and as the Whig
Senators were in the majority the treaty
was lost.
The Democratic National Convention of
1844 was one of the most exciting and in
teresting in our political history.* It was
the first to have its proceedings reported by
telegraph, and the first in which there was
either a "stampede" or the nomination of
* See Joseph Bucklin Bishop's "Presidential Nominations and
Elections." 59

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
a "dark horse." Though their candidate
was so little known in comparison to his il
lustrious opponent as to arouse the derisive
cry of "Who is James K. Polk ?" his plat
form appealed strongly to the popular spirit
of the time by declaring boldly that "the
reoccupation of Oregon and the reannexa-
tion of Texas are great American mea
sures." The Whigs, on the other hand, depended
less on their platform — an uninspiring re
cital of minor issues — than on the character
of their great but politically unfortunate
candidate. If Clay had followed the shrewd
advice of his managers and kept silence on
the Texas question, beyond opposing Im
mediate annexation, he would, in all prob
ability, have been elected. But he had a
fatal weakness for writing private letters
on public affairs, and two of these letters,
made public by his correspondents, cOst
him the presidency. In one. Clay depre
cated the admission of Texas, because It
would be "opposed to the wishes of a con
siderable and respectable portion of the
Confederacy," which statement was inter
preted as favoring the abolitionists and told
60

MEDIATION AND ANNEXATION
heavily against him in the South. In the
second letter. Clay declared that he did
not "think that the subject of slavery ought
to affect the question one way or another."
This turned against him the votes of the
abolitionist or "Liberty Party," which held
the balance of power in the closely contested
and pivotal States of New York and Michi
gan. Those few thousand votes cost Henry
Clay the thirty-six presidental electors from
New York and made James K. Polk Presi
dent of the United States.
President Tyler, who had come out for
re-election on an independent ticket, with
"Tyler and Texas" for his platform, soon
went over to the Democrats and withdrew
in favor of Polk. Encouraged by the result
of the November elections, wh^ch had
strengthened the Democratic majority in
the House and created one in the Senate,
Tyler urged the admission of Texas as a
State by a joint resolution of Congress.
It was inevitable that the new member
of the Union, both from its geographical
position and the desire of its own people,
should be a slave State. Ex-President
John Quincy Adams, the leader of the anti-
6i

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
slavery forces, had, curiously enough, been
the first to advocate the annexation of
Texas in 1824, and he now found some diffi
culty in explaining this apparent inconsis
tency. His real reasons for opposing the
annexation of Texas were a genuine hatred
of slavery and an equally genuine hatred
of Andrew Jackson and all his works. The
reasons he no\v advanced were, first, that
Texas was still an integral part of Mexico,
and, second, that the treaty-making power
of the United States Government, while
enabling it to annex uninhabited tracts of
land, did not authorize bringing alien popu
lations into the Union. Mr. Adams's first
objection, however, was hardly in accor
dance with the established facts, and his
second, though more worthy of considera
tion, was paid little heed to at the time.
The best that the opponents of slavery
could do was to limit its existence in the
new territory to below the line of the Mis
souri Compromise, thus fixing the northern
boundary of Texas at 36° 30' north lati
tude. The joint resolution, amended so as to
give the President the option of reopening
62

ICujuaco

JM I „ I hurubtlQ u_^

1 f 3f«p'*:":sP4'i''

MEDIATION AND ANNEXATION
negotiations for the annexation of Texas,
instead of directly admitting it as a State,
passed Congress and was promptly signed
by President Tyler on March i, 1845. In
stead of negotiating or waiting for his suc
cessor to act, Tyler immediately submitted
the offer to Texas.
Mediation between Texas and Mexico
had so far progressed that the preliminaries
of a treaty were actually signed on March
19 and May 29. Mexico, yielding to the
urgent warning of the French and English
mediators, was ready to acknowledge the
Independence of Texas, if the latter would
pledge herself never to suffer annexation by
the United States. But these concessions
had been made too late.
With scarcely a dissenting vote, the Texas
Congress, on June 16, a Texan national
convention on the 4th of July, and the
people themselves at a special election held
the following October, chose to accept the
offer of the United States. President Polk
signed the final resolution of Congress, ad
mitting the State of Texas on December 19,
184s. More than nine months before, between
63

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Tyler's offer to Texas and Polk's inaugura
tion, Sefior Almonte, the Mexican minister,
had demanded his passports and left the
United States, protesting against the threat
ened disintegration of his country and
breathing dire threats of war.

64

CHAPTER VI
CAUSES OF THE WAR
WHAT were the causes of our first war
with Mexico ?
To the abolitionists of the period the
answer was simply: Slavery. Their ver
sion of Texan history was well summed up
in a pamphlet published over the signature
of John Quincy Adams and twelve other
members of Congress In March, 1843. It
declared that the settlement of American
citizens in Texas, the creations of differences
with the Mexican Government, the setting
up of an independent republic, and the
frustration of Mexico's attempts to sub
due "her revolted province," had all been
brought about by the machinations of the
American slave owners, through the Federal
Government they controlled. The purpose
of this deep-laid plot was to bring about the
annexation of Texas and the creation from
its territories of three or four new slave
States. This, Mr. Adams declared, would
65

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
"eternize slavery," cause war with Mex
ico, and justify the withdrawal of the free
States from the Union.*
This publication had little effect in the
United States at the time, but it created a
great impression in Mexico by its confirma
tion of Alaman's theory of an "American
conspiracy." Like his fellow scholar and
statesman, Alaman, Adams was actuated
by high and patriotic motives, but uncon
sciously distorted the facts to fit his own
fervid convictions. As a campaign docu
ment. Illustrating his party's point of view,
Mr. Adams's pamphlet has great historical
value, but to regard it as an impartial
chronicle of past events is ludicrous. Yet
from the triumph of the abolition cause In
the Civil War until very recently most ac-
* These charges were based partly upon the observations of
Benjamin Lundy, an abolitionist who travelled through Texas
in 183s, and partly upon the indiscreet action of General Gaines,
commanding the United States forces on the Texas border in
1836. Importuned by refugees fleeing before the advance of
Santa Anna, Gaines wilfully mistook the Mexicans for "In
dians," and sent nine companies of United States infantry into
Texas as far as Nacogdoches. Though this was an outrageous
affront to Mexico that was never properly apologized for by the
United States, it was undertaken solely on General Gaines's own
initiative and had no effect on the outcome of the San Jacinto
campaign. But, like Jones's exploit at Monterey, it lent color
to the "conspiracy theory."
66

CAUSES OF THE WAR
counts of our first war in Mexico have been
based, consciously or unconsciously, rather
upon these excited assertions, made in the
heat of a bitter fight, than upon a careful
review of the facts. But now that that
fight has been won and slavery has been
dead for half a century and more, there is
no longer any reason either to fear that any
sane man will come forward in defense of
that ancient evil, or for us to continue to
charge the slave owners with a needless,
unproved conspiracy to gain an unprofit
able end.
No "conspiracy" was needed to create
the republic of Texas. If there had not
been a single negro slave In all North Amer
ica some Moses Austin would nevertheless
have led American settlers into Texas,
where they would sooner or later have
quarrelled with the Mexicans over home
rule, the tariff, and religious freedom, won
their independence and sought admission
into the Union. But because negro slavery
did exist both in Texas and the Southern
States of the Union, the entrance of Texas
was vehemently sought by slavery's friends
and fought by slavery's foes, till another
67

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
element brought aid and victory to the
former. Analysis of Polk's support at the polls
shows us what this element was. While
he carried eight slave States to Clay's five,
Polk also received the electoral vote of
seven free States to his opponent's six,
including two in New England and, what is
particularly significant, the entire north
west. Not only slavery but Oregon helped bring
Texas into the Union. For a quarter of a
century there had been a conscious pairing-
off of new States, slave and free, on either
side of the line established by the Missouri
Compromise. The danger to this jealously
preserved balance of power that many be
sides the abolitionists saw in the admission
of Texas, out of which three or four new
slave States might be made, was now met
and counterbalanced by the proposed ad
mission of an even greater expanse of free
territory to the north. The time had not
yet come when the American people were
to realize the great truth that Abraham Lin
coln was presently to declare: "A house
divided against itself cannot stand. . . .
68

CAUSES OF THE WAR
The Union cannot endure half slave and
half free." To the men of Polk's genera
tion his coupling of the "reoccupation of
Oregon and the re-annexation of Texas" in
his platform seemed not only shrewd poli
tics but sound statesmanship. His policy
accorded with both the compromising and
the adventurous spirits of the age. The
current of expansion to the northwest
joined with the current of expansion to the
southwest and together swept away all op
position. But after Texas was safely In the Union
slavery had little or nothing more to gain
by a war with Mexico, nor had it any need
to force that conflict. In the words of Pro
fessor Garrison, of the University of Texas :
"No theory of a conspiracy is needed to
explain the war with Mexico. While it
was strongly opposed and condemned by a
bold and outspoken minority, the votes in
Congress and the utterances of the con
temporaneous journals show that it was
essentially a popular movement, both in
Mexico and in the United States. The dis
agreement reached the verge of an out
break in 1837, and the only thing that pre-
69

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
vented a conflict then was that Congress
was a bit more conservative than the Presi
dent. But neither the aggressiveness of
Jackson nor even that of Polk would .have
been so likely to end in actual fighting, had
it not been well understood that they were
backed by sympathetic majorities."*
If there was no conspiracy, what, then,
brought about the war ?
The primary but not the sole cause was
our annexation of Texas and Mexico's re
sentment of that action. In the second
place were the unpaid claims, amounting
to more than ^5,000,000, of American citi
zens against the Mexican Government for
property seized or destroyed during past
revolutions. In the third place was the
desire of the United States to annex Cali
fornia. President Polk considered these three
things and evolved a plan. Though diplo
matic relations had been broken off before
his inauguration, he endeavored to reach a
peaceful settlement and persuaded the Mex
ican Government to receive an American
minister. This envoy, Mr. John Slidell,
* Hart's "American Nation," vol. XVII, p. 202.
70

CAUSES OF THE WAR
was instructed to obtain Mexico's recogni
tion of our right to annex Texas by offering
her indirect compensation, in the form of
an extra large price for the purchase of
California and as much of New Mexico as
could be obtained for not more than $25,-
000,000. This purchase price was to in
clude the assumption by the United States
Government of the otherwise uncollectible
claims of American citizens against Mexico.
This proposition seemed perfectly reason
able and generous to Polk, who laid much
stress on the precedent of Spain's cession
of Florida in 18 19 in return for the as
sumption by the United States of ^5,000,000
worth of bad debts to American citizens
from the Spanish crown. Mexico's hold on
her distant province of California in 1846
was almost as feeble as Spain's on Florida
in 1 8 19, and her financial condition was
fully as bad.
From the War of Independence till the
present day Mexico's unpaid debts have
been a fruitful source of shame and suffering
to that country. Except during the dic
tatorship of Porfirio Diaz the government
has changed hands so rapidly, the treasury
71

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
has been so empty, and the people, par
ticularly those of the capital, so prone to
regard the payment of foreign debts as an
unpatriotic surrender, that few of Mexico's
creditors have been paid in full.
One effective bit of debt collecting was
the bombardment and seizure of Vera
Cruz by a French fleet in 1838, which also
caused the restoration in popular favor of
General Santa Anna. Intrusted with the
defense of Vera Cruz after its capture, he
prudently waited till the French sailors and
marines were re-embarkIng, when the Mex
icans exchanged a few shots with them re
sulting In the "repulse" of the French and
the loss of Santa Anna's left leg. The
"Hero of Tampico" was now hailed as the
"Hero of Vera Cruz," and within three
years he was able to make himself once more
President of Mexico.
How Santa Anna ruled and robbed his
country in shabby pomp, how he had six
colonels in full-dress uniform stand behind
his chair at dinner, how he gave his own
left leg a magnificent military funeral, how
the people rose in exasperation, drove Santa
Anna into exile, dug up his left leg and
72

CAUSES OF THE WAR
dragged it disrespectfully through the streets
of Mexico City, can be best read in the de
lightful memoirs of Madame Calderon, the
American wife of the Spanish minister to
Mexico at that Interesting period.
President Herrera, who succeeded Santa
Anna, was not the leader of a mere clique
of successful mutineers, but had been placed
in power by something approaching a gen
uine popular movement. Yet because his
government consented to receive Mr. Sli
dell and discuss, however reluctantly, the
recognition of the annexation of Texas, the
settlement of the American claims, and the
cession of California, Herrera was promptly
driven out of office by a revolution under
the leadership of General Paredes, com
manding the Army of the North. The
American envoy took ship at Vera Cruz,
and President Paredes loudly declared that
the time had come "to appeal to the honor
of Mexican arms."
James K. Polk has been severely criticised
for his aggressive attitude toward Mexico at
this point, but his critics usually omit to say
anything of General Mariano Paredes y
Arillaga. No one would attempt to write a
73

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
history of President Wilson's relations with
Mexico and leave out all mention of Generals
Victoriano Huerta and Venustiano Car-
ranza, yet Paredes was fully as reactionary
as the former and as impossible to reason
with as the latter. As Mr. Rives points out,
he was a vainglorious incompetent, who be
lieved in the invincibility of Mexican arms
and the restoration of monarchical rule.
Like Santa Anna, whom he had recalled to
power with a mutiny In 1841 and driven
out with another one in 1844, Paredes had
been an officer in the Spanish army till the
declaration of independence by Iturbide.*
To deal with a Mexican ruler of this kind
would have exhausted the patience of a
far more diplomatic President than stub
born, narrow-minded James K. Polk. With
two such men placed respectively in the
White House and the Palacio Nacional at
such a time war was inevitable.
It was at this point that Santa Anna,
from his exile in Cuba, sent a confidential
agent to Washington with the suggestion
that if he were helped by Polk to return to
Mexico, Santa Anna would then drive out
* " Rives," vol. I, p. 27.
74

CAUSES OF THE WAR
Paredes, make himself President, and ne
gotiate the desired treaty with the United
States. Though Santa Anna afterward
denied ever making such an offer, there is
abundant evidence, including Polk's own
diary, that It was not only made but ac
cepted. But before it could be carried Into
effect hostilities had already begun.
The Immediate cause of the war was the
advance of the United States forces in
Texas, which had been encamped at Corpus
ChrlstI, near the mouth of the Nueces
River, to the east bank of the Rio Grande.
Though the Mexicans had continually
maintained that all Texas was still a part
of their country, they had made no pro
test about its occupation by United States
troops until Taylor crossed the Nueces.
By this action, they declared, he had left
Texas and invaded the Department of
Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, in Mexico.
The western boundary of Texas, both as
a Spanish and a Mexican province, had un
doubtedly been the Nueces River. The
claim of the Texans that their republic ex
tended to the Rio Grande rested, first, on a
secret treaty to that effect, signed by Santa
75

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Anna immediately after the battle of San
Jacinto, but promptly declared void by the
Mexican Government; and, second, on con
quest and the retreat of the Mexican armies
to the west bank of the Rio Grande. The
country between the two rivers was claimed
by both sides, but effectively occupied by
neither. It was in reality a No Man's Land,
settled here and there by squatters and riff
raff from both nations.
The Texan title by conquest was at least
a debatable one, but Polk rested his claim
squarely upon the old disproved fable of a
French title to Texas derived from La
Salle's settlement, acquired by the United
States with the Louisiana Purchase, and
surrendered to Spain by the Florida Treaty
(see pages 8 and 9). On a revival of this
non-existent and solemnly renounced right,
Polk based the plank In his platform urging
"the reannexation of Texas," as Is shown by
his subsequent assertion that "the Texas
which was ceded to Spain by the Florida
Treaty of 18 19 embraced all the country
now claimed by the State of Texas between
the Nueces and the Rio Grande,"*
* Message to Congress, December, 1846.
76

CAUSES OF THE WAR
There is no reason to doubt the sincerity
of Polk's belief in this notorious fable of
American history. Very many others, in
cluding Henry Clay, Polk's recent rival for
the presidency, had, at one time or another,
entertained this belief. The total influence
of this historical error in bringing about our
first war with Mexico Is incalculable.
Did Polk, by ordering Taylor to ad
vance to the Rio Grande, deliberately plan
to provoke a war in the Interest of slavery ?
What Polk and the South could have ex
pected to gain by so doing Is not easy to
prove. The South had already gained its
great object In the annexation of Texas,
and had no corresponding Interest in Cali
fornia. Polk ardently desired California,
but still hoped to obtain it peacefully.
And he was not unaware that his election
had been due to Northern as well as South
ern votes and that an expensive and un
popular war might well cost the Democratic
party its majority in Congress, as in fact
it did at the congressional elections in the
following autumn.
Polk's motive in ordering Taylor's ad
vance seems to have been twofold. By
77

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
thus taking possession of the disputed ter
ritory he expected, first, to put the United
States in a stronger position to negotiate
for that territory, and, second, to give the
United States army a good base from which
TO operate should negotiations fail and war
ensue. By exactly such an aggressive policy
Polk was even then carrying to a trlum-
4)hant conclusion the negotiations with
;Great Britain, which began with an Amer
ican migration into Oregon to the cry of
"Fifty-four Forty or Fight," and ended,
because neither side wanted to fight but
was ready to do so If necessary. In a peace
ful and honorable compromise at the forty-
ninth parallel. Because these strong, blunt
methods had succeeded with England, Polk
thought that would be equally effective
with Mexico.
Because Spain had prudently preferred
giving up Florida in payment of five million
dollars' worth of American claims to losing
It in a disastrous war with the United States
in 1 8 19, Polk saw no reason why Mexico
should not follow the same course with
California in 1846, especially as the United
States was offering a substantial cash bonus,
78

CAUSES OF THE WAR
over and above the assumption of debts.
He overlooked the fact that while the Span
ish people in 1819 did not care a maravedi
about Florida, the Mexican people In 1846
were ready to make short work of any Mex
ican executive that "surrendered" Texas
and California to the hated Americans of
the North.
In the last analysis, Polk's great error
lay in overestimating the yielding and un
derestimating the explosive elements of the
Mexican character. We can understand
this the more readily when we consider how
seventy years later another President of
the United States, Infinitely less aggressive
and more intelligent than James K. Polk,
almost failed for the same reasons to pre
vent American intervention and our second
war in Mexico.

79

CHAPTER VII
PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA
THE advance-guard of General Tay
lor's army, part of which had marched
overland from Corpus Christi and the rest
had been transported by sea to the new base
at Point Isabel, reached the east bank of
the Rio Grande, opposite the Mexican town
of Matamoros, on March 28, 1846. Great
excitement and resentment were displayed
by the Mexicans, who immediately threw
up batteries on their side of the river.
Taylor therefore had his engineers con
struct a large quadrangular earthwork or
"strong bastloned field-fort." From the
name of its commander this was presently
named Fort Brown, and became the nucleus
of the present city of Brownsville.
General Ampudia, commanding the Mex
ican Army of the North that had been
assembled at Matamoros, sent Taylor an
ultimatum on April 12 ordering him to with-
80

PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA
draw within twenty-four hours toward the
far bank of the Nueces. Instead of com
plying, Taylor arranged with the naval
escort that had accompanied his transports
to Point Isabel, for a blockade of the mouth
of the Rio Grande. This warlike act cut
off the Mexican army from its main source
of supplies, and was the last straw that
broke the back of Mexico's patience.
President Paredes issued a proclamation
on the 23d of April, declaring that:
"... Hostilities therefore have been
begun by the United States of America, who
have undertaken new conquests lying within
the line of the Department of Tamaulipas
and Nuevo Leon, while the troops of the
United States are threatening Monterey in
Upper California. . . .* From this day
defensive war begins, and every point of
our territory which may be invaded or at
tacked shall be defended with force."
General Arista, who had supplanted
Ampudia in command, led the Mexican
army across the Rio Grande on the 24th.
Captain Thornton's troop of the Second
United States Dragoons, on scouting duty,
* See page 98.
81

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
were surprised and captured by an over
whelming force of Mexicans on the follow
ing day. Thornton alone escaped by leap
ing his horse over a hedge, and carried the
news to General Taylor^ who immediately
notified Washington of the outbreak of
hostilities and, as he had been previously
authorized to do in such an emergency,
called on the governors of Texas and
Louisiana for eight regiments of volun
teers. Fearing that the Mexicans would try to
cut him off from his base, Taylor retreated
on May i with the main body of his army
to Point Isabel. Two companies of artillery
and the Seventh Infantry were left under
Major Brown to hold the fort opposite
Matamoros. Arista's army invested the
fort and bombarded It for several days, both
from the Matamoros batteries and with
guns planted in the rear of the work. Little
damage was done to the fort and only two
of the garrison were killed, but one of these
was Major Brown.
Hearing the cannonade and having ob
tained a strong guard of sailors and marines
from the fleet to hold Point Isabel, Taylor
82

PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA
turned back on May 6. Arista had marched
to meet him, and on the 8th the two
armies met on the open prairie at Palo
Alto, or "Tall Timber."
Deducting the thousand or so left in ob
servation outside Fort Brown, Arista had
approximately 4,000 men with which to
face Taylor's 2,300. The bulk of the Mex
ican force consisted of four large battalions
of regular infantry — patient, plodding con
scripts who had been released from jail or
kidnapped from civil life into the ragged
ranks of the standing army. Half-trained,
ill-disciplined, and seldom paid, these troops
were nevertheless celebrated for their abil
ity to make long marches, and, until their
spirit had been broken by continuous de
feats, were not afraid to face the Americans
in the open field.
As for the rank and file of Taylor's army,
a typical company of United States regu
lars at this time "consisted of 60 men, in
cluding non-commissioned officers and pri
vates; of these 2 were English, 4 Scotch, 7
Germans, 16 Americans, and the remainder
Irish."* Their high-collared, bobtailed
* Ballentine, "An English Soldier in Mexico," p. 91.
83

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
jackets were rendered still more uncom
fortable by barbarous old-fashioned leather
stocks; otherwise the dark-blue uniforms
were plain and serviceable, if rather hot for
a semitropical climate. The soft-topped,
bell-crowned American forage-caps of 1846
were shaped very much like those worn by
the British officers In Flanders in 19 16.
Unlike Flanders there was not a single
trench dug or fought in from beginning to
end of our first war in Mexico except at the
siege of Vera Cruz.
There was little need to dig shelters from
the Infantry fire when both sides were
armed with smooth-bore, muzzle-loading
flintlock muskets. Percussion-lock rifles,
though well known and widely used by
civilian sportsmen, were still distrusted by
the conservative military mind. There was
a great difference, however, between the
American and Mexican flintlocks. The
former, made at the Springfield arsenal, ,
were the best in the world, the latter "were
all of British manufacture and had the
Tower mark on their locks; but they were
old and worn out, having evidently been
condemned as unserviceable in the British
84

PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA
army and then sold to the Mexicans at a
low price."*
As for the cavalry of the two armies, the
American dragoons were much Inferior in
numbers to the Mexican lancers and equally
superior in every other respect. Though
northern Mexico is a country of born
horsemen and as admirably adapted for
mounted infantry tactics as was South
Africa in 1900, the Mexican trooper of 1846
was neither a mounted sharpshooter like
the Boer nor an old-fashioned cavalryman
who could charge home with the cold steel.
His clumsy escopeta, or carbine, made him
of little use when dismounted, and his gayly
pennoned lance was more often thrust
through the bodies of American wounded
than crossed with the bayonets of even
broken and disordered American infantry.
But the two regiments of United States
dragoons were the crack corps of the Amer
ican army. Gallantly led, well armed with
carbine, sabre, and pistol, and mounted on
chargers that dwarfed the undersized Mex
ican ponies, Twiggs's and Kearny's dra
goons were ready and eager to uphold the
* Ballentine, p. 199.
85

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
traditions of Light-Horse Harry Lee and
Mad Anthony Wayne.*
At Palo Alto, Arista had twelve pieces of
artillery, Taylor two light field-batteries of
four guns each and two elghteen-pounders
drawn by oxen. The Mexican cannon were
beautifully cast In bronze, many of them
bearing the crown and arms of Spain, with
dates and inscriptions like "Barcelona,
1774," or "Cadiz, 1767." Mounted on
clumsy wooden carriages, these ponder
ous relics were Incapable of being quickly
limbered up and moved from one part of
the battle-field to another, but were rather
regarded as fixtures once the Mexicans had
succeeded in bringing up and "placing their
cumbersome artillery In position, which was
ill proportioned to the poor little mules that
had to draw it."t The United States field
artillery, on the other hand, had been
brought to a high state of efficiency. (The
ox-drawn battery, mentioned above, was
an exceptional makeshift.) Its light, mod-
* The American people are still spoken of among certain of our
Indian tribes as the "Long Knives," a name derived from the
sabres of Wayne's dragoons at the battle of the Fallen Timbers
in 1794.
t Davis, "Jefferson Davis," I, 340.
86

PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA
ern six-pounders, each drawn by two pairs
of horses, dashed up and swung Into bat
tery in a way to make the Americans boast
of "the Flying Artillery," and the Mexi
cans marvelled to behold "the Northern
horses thunder with the cannon at their
heels." But the greatest difference between the
two armies was in the officers. Most of
the Spanish veterans in the Mexican service
were now superannuated. On the other
hand, the National Military Academy at
Chapultepec had not been founded till
1833, and its work had been much impeded
and interrupted by chronic poverty and
frequent revolutions. Both its few trained
graduates and the untrained political ap
pointees from civil life who made up the
great mass of officers had seen more or less
active service in the endless fighting be
tween the constantly shifting military fac
tions, where each learned to mistrust his
comrade as a possible future foe.
As for the American officers, to quote one
of them who was at that time a young
second lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry:
"Every officer, from the highest to the
87

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
lowest, was educated in his profession —
not at West Point necessarily, but in the
camp, in garrison, and many of them in
Indian wars. ... A better army, man for
man, probably never faced an enemy than
the one commanded by General Taylor in
the earliest two engagements of the Mex
ican War."*
Zachary Taylor, who at this time, at the
age of sixty-one, was only a colonel in
actual rank but had been brevetted a brig
adier-general by Polk, was a native of
northern Virginia, whose parents had taken
him with them to Kentucky when he was
ten years old. Entering the army In the
War of 1812, Taylor had distinguished him
self by his defense of Fort Harrison against
the Indians, and he had served in the Black
Hawk and the Seminole Wars. His ap
pearance was anything but military, for he
almost never wore a uniform and was fond
of riding with both his legs hanging over
the same side of the horse. But he was a
hard fighter and a born handler of men.
His soldiers affectionately nicknamed him
"Old Rough and Ready," and declared,
* "Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant," I, 130.
88

PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA
in the words of a popular ballad of the
period:*
"Though our General at best was indifferently
dressed,
In a dingy green frock coat and in pants of cot-
tonade,
And a brolcen old straw hat, still we did not care
for that. . . ."
The battle of Palo Alto was an artillery
duel, the Infantry on either side being
drawn up in solid ranks, just out of musket
range. Not only had Taylor fewer men in
line than his opponent, but he was also
obliged to detach a strong body of infantry
and a squadron of dragoons to protect the
supply-train of three hundred wagons
parked in the American rear. But his two
elghteen-pounders in the centre and the
light battery on either flank made terrible
havoc in the close-packed Mexican ranks
with accurate shell fire, while the copper
cannon-balls from the Mexican guns flew
so slowly through the air that the Amer
icans usually saw them coming in time to
open ranks and let the solid shot pass
*M'Carty's "National Songs, 1846."
89

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
harmlessly by. After his men had suffered
helplessly at long range for an hour, while
they implored him either to advance or
retreat. Arista made a half-hearted and
quickly checked forward movement against
the American right flank. The long prairie
grass was set on fire by burning wadding,
and under cover of the smoke Arista at
tempted to turn Taylor's left, at the same
time sending a body of lancers to renew the
attack on the right. There the Fifth United
States Infantry expectantly formed a hol
low square, in the centre of which was
Taylor himself, but the Mexican cavalry
did not press their charge, and their in
fantry were soon driven back by artillery
fire. Thereafter both sides remained in
active till nightfall, when Arista made good
his retreat under cover of darkness. His
ofiicial report placed the total Mexican loss
in killed and wounded at 252, which was
probably an underestimate. The American
loss was 9 killed, including the senior artil
lery officer. Major Ringgold; 44 wounded,
and 2 missing.
Falling back to within three miles of
Fort Brown, Arista's army took up a strong
90

PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA
position at Resaca de la Palma. This
"Palm-Tree Ravine" was one of a chain of
depressions and lakes that marked the
course of an abandoned bed of the Rio
Grande. Steep-banked and dry-bottomed,
it was shaped like a crescent with the points
toward the Americans, and lay directly
athwart the Point Isabel road, down which
they must advance. On either side of this
road the ground was covered with so dense
a growth of sharp-thorned chaparral as to
be impassable to either cavalry or artillery.
Behind this natural "barbed-wire entan
glement" the Mexican infantry lined the
near bank of the ravine, exposing only their
heads and shoulders. Most of Arista's
regulars were on the right of his concave
line, the left being held by one regular bat
talion, the Tampico veterans, and the vari
ous irregular and local troops, supported
by two field-pieces. Three other Mexican
guns were planted In the centre to sweep
the road. Behind their infantry supports
were the remaining guns and the cavalry
in reserve, while only two hundred yards
back of the firing-line lay the Mexican
camp. 91

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
A council of war, summoned by General
Taylor after the fight at Palo Alto, voted
against an advance, but "Old Rough and
Ready" overrode this advice. Leaving the
wounded and the wagon-train with a strong
guard of infantry inside a hastily thrown-up
earthwork armed with the two elghteen-
pounders and a couple of twelve-pounders
that had been carried unmounted in the
train, he led the rest of his little army in
pursuit of the Mexicans, and came in touch
with them at Resaca de la Palma about
four o'clock on the afternoon of the 9th of
May. Deploying his infantry to the left and
right of the road, Taylor drove In the Mex
ican left, but their stronger right wing re
sisted stubbornly. Realizing that the three
guns on the road were the keystone of the
defense, Taylor ordered Captain May to
charge and take them with his squadron of
dragoons. Covered by a round of grape-
shot from an American battery. May's
troopers charged down the road In column
of fours, rode over the Mexican guns, cut
down the artillerymen, drove in the in
fantry supports, wheeled and cut their
92

PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA
way out again, bringing with them a cap
tured general as a trophy of this gallant
little charge that moved even a Mexican
poet to sing its praise:
"On they came, those Northern horsemen.
On like eagles through the sun,
Behind them came the Northern bayonet
And the field was lost and won."

"The Northern bayonet," in the capable
hands of the Eighth Infantry and part of
the Fifth, foflowed hard on the heels of the
dragoons. Ridgely's battery galloped up
to the edge of the ravine, unlimbered and
poured grape-shot into the very faces of
the Mexican infantry. General Arista,
who up to this time had refused to believe
that any serious attack was contemplated
and had been writing in his tent, now
dropped his pen and ran out to rally his
cavalry and other reserves for a counter
charge. But the American infantry massed
on the road and scattered through the
chaparral met them with so hot a fire that
the Mexicans broke and fled.
The last Mexican to leave the field was
93

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
the brave color-sergeant of the Tampico
veterans, who vainly tried to rally the bat
talion whose colors he had saved. Hundreds
of muskets and all the cannon were aban
doned by the flying army. When the
Americans entered the captured camp, they
found the fires burning, five hundred pack-
mules tethered and their packs arranged
neatly on the ground, and General Arista's
personal baggage and private letters were
still in his tent.
Hotly pursued by the American dragoons
and field-batteries. General Arista and what
was left of his army fled through the gath
ering darkness to the Rio Grande. The
guns of Fort Brown opened at long range
on the demoralized fugitives huddled to
gether on the bank or crowded into the
one tiny ferry-boat, and many were drowned
in the flooded river before the survivors
found temporary shelter behind the bat
teries of Matamoros. The total Mexican
loss was conservatively estimated, in Arista's
official report, at 262 killed, 355 wounded,
and 185 missing. Thirty-nine Americans
had been killed and 82 wounded.
On the day of the battle of Resaca de la
94

PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA
Palma the news reached Washington of
the outbreak of hostilities and the capture
of Thornton's dragoons. The following
day was Sunday, and Polk spent It in writ
ing a message to Congress which was de
livered on Monday morning. Rehearsing
his version of the grievances of the United
States against Mexico, Polk declared:
"Mexico has passed the boundary of the
United States, has invaded our territory,
and shed American blood upon American
soil. She has proclaimed that hostilities
have commenced and that the two nations
are now at war. I invoke the prompt ac
tion of Congress to recognize the existence
of the war, and to place at the disposition
of the executive the means of prosecuting
the war with vigor and thus hastening the
restoration of peace. To this end I recom
mend that authority be given to call into
the public service a large body of volunteers
to serve for not less than six or twelve
months, unless sooner discharged. ... I
further recommend that a liberal provision
be made for sustaining our entire military
force and furnishing it with supplies and
munitions of war. ..." 95

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Spurred by the wide-spread fears for the
safety of Taylor's little army, known to be
facing superior numbers of the enemy.
Congress quickly carried out the Presi
dent's recommendations. A bill that was
passed by the House of Representatives
that same Monday, by the Senate on Tues
day, and made a law by the President's
signature on Wednesday, May 13, declared
that, whereas, " By the act of the Republic
of Mexico, a state of war exists between
that government and the United States,"
the President was authorized to call for
50,000 volunteers to serve for twelve
months or the war. Ten million dollars
were appropriated to defray the first costs
of the conflict.
All our wars have been popular at the
beginning, and the first Mexican War be
gan with two brilliant victories that evoked
an outburst of national enthusiasm com
parable to that caused fifty-two years later
by the battle of Manila Bay. Throughout
the country bonfires blazed, volunteer com
panies began to drill, and mass meetings
cheered the army and pledged their sup
port to the administration. Confident in
96

PALO ALTO AND RESACA DE LA PALMA
the nation's support, Polk and his advisers
proceeded to the easiest and most profitable
part of the war, the conquest of California
and the southwest.

97

CHAPTER VIII
THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA
THOUGH the Jesuits had maintained
missions on the arid shores of Lower
California since the end of the seventeenth
century, it was not until after the expulsion
of the Society of Jesus from Spanish Amer
ica in 1767 that the colonization of Upper
California began. It was prompted by
the fear that the English — or perhaps the
"Muscovites" from Russian America —
were about to found a colony at Monterey;
the same fear that brought about the sei
zure of that port seventy-five years later by
Commodore Jones.* The Franciscan friars,
to whom the work was now Intrusted, made
fast progress under the energetic leadership
of the famous Brother Junlpero Serro, and
with the not always helpful assistance of
the Spanish colonial office. From San
Diego to San Francisco missions were
* Richman, "California," chap. V.
98

THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA
easily established among the lazy, degener
ate California Indians. Each mission was
indifferently guarded by a detachment of
"Presldlal troops" — not regular soldiers,
but half-disciplined military colonists, who
debauched the converts and quarreUed with
the friars. Very few civilian settlers could
be induced to go from Mexico to Cali
fornia, though it was a veritable lazy man's
paradise. Wheat was so easily grown that
there was bread enough for all, cattle and
sheep abounded, and wild horses were so
plentiful that they were sometimes killed
as vermin.
Even before the Mexican War of Inde
pendence, which destroyed the already de
caying authority of the friars, but was
otherwise unfelt In this far region of New
Spain, English, Russian, and American
traders were plying up and down the coast
of California. The Californlans were too
glad to be able to buy English hardware
and Yankee "notions" to pay much heed
to either Spanish or Mexican prohibitive
tariffs, yet they were too lazy to flay and
clean the hides of their own cattle the
traders wished to buy, but left this work to
99

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
the sailors, as you may read in Dana's
"Two Years Before the Mast."
Even more stringent than Mexico's tariff
on foreign goods was Mexico's ban on for
eign settlers in California. But it was In
evitable that the systematic evasion of the
former should lead to the nullification of
the latter. Sailors deserted their ships to
turn beach-combers, agents acquired resi
dences, and traders built stores in every
port in California. To be sure, these out-
landers remained with the tacit permission
of the Californlans. But presently a newer,
rougher, and more numerous foreign ele
ment appeared, that cared no more about
native Californlans and Mexican laws
than Miles Standish did for the Pequot
Indians and their tribal customs. These
rude intruders were the American frontiers
men who came In ever-increasing numbers,
year after year, over the passes of the
Rockies or down from Oregon, to spy out
the rich lands of California and gradually
to form their ov/n settlements in the Sacra
mento Valley. Unlike the Texans, these
Americans on the Pacific coast had neither
been invited into the country nor granted
TOO

THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA
tracts of land. They had no legal right to
remain in California, and did so simply be
cause the Californian government, whose
leaders were constantly organizing petty
"revolutions" either against each other
or against the distant rulers in Mexico
City, was too weak to evict them. These
American squatters were only too ready to
start fighting on their own account at the
first rumor of hostilities between Mexico
and the United States.
"If you ascertain with certainty that
Mexico has declared war against the United
States, " read the standing orders that Polk
had sent to Commodore Sloat, who had
succeeded the impulsive Jones in command
of the Pacific squadron, "you will at once
possess yourself of the port of San Francisco
and blockade or occupy such other ports as
your force will permit."
New orders to Sloat, bidding him "in
the event of actual hostilities " to seize the
ports without further delay, were sent out
in November, 1845, by the frigate Congress,
commanded by Commodore Stockton, who
was also charged with a confidential letter
to Mr. Larkin, the American consul at
lOI

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Monterey. As a secret agent of his govern
ment, Larkin was "to cultivate the good
will and friendship of the Californlans,"
whether California was sold by Mexico to
the United States, or revolted from Mexico
and wished to enter the Union, or was con
quered by the United States in case Mexico
declared war.
Because the Congress was to make a
long passage by way of Cape Horn and
Hawaii, a cipher copy of the orders to
Sloat and verbal Instructions to Larkin were
intrusted to Lieutenant Gillespie of the
Marine Corps, who was to disguise himself
as a civilian travelling for pleasure and
hasten overland to California through Mex
ico. Gillespie also took with him private
letters from Senator Benton to Benton's
son-in-law, Captain Fremont.
John Charles Fremont, the son of a
French father and a Virginian mother, was
born In Savannah, Georgia, on January 21,
1813. He taught mathematics in the navy,
became a railroad surveyor, and was ap
pointed a second lieutenant in the corps of
topographical engineers in 1838. After his
marriage to the daughter of Thomas H.
102

THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA
Benton, in 1842, Fremont was detailed to
make important explorations in the West,
and greatly distinguished himself by his
daring, his accurate surveys, and his vivid
accounts of hitherto little-known regions.
He had followed the Oregon trail from St.
Louis, up the north fork of the Platte, and
across the South Pass of the Rocky Moun
tains in 1842. During the following year
he had explored the Salt Lake region, re
visited Oregon, and descended the Columbia
River to the Pacific, crossed the Sierra
Nevada in midwinter into California, dis
proved the existence of the mythical " River
Buenaventura," then supposed to flow Into
San Francisco Bay, and returned south
through the San Joaquin Valley and east
by the Spanish trail from Los Angeles.
On his third expedition, in the summer of
1845, Fremont had with him a party of
fifty men of the topographical corps, and
after making explorations in the unin
habited northern part of California, where
the Mexican authorities had given them
tacit permission to go, he led his force into
inhabited Mexican territory near Monterey.
To General Jose Castro, the commanding
103

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
officer of that district, Fremont explained
that his men were not soldiers but civilians,
surveying a route from the United States
to the Pacific. But they had no passports,
so Castro ordered them out of the country.
Whereat Fremont built a log fort only a
few miles from Monterey, hoisted the stars
and stripes, and breathed bombastic de
fiance to Castro. The protestations of
Consul Larkin and the assembling of a
force by Castro compelled Fremont to
withdraw to the Sacramento Valley and
thence to Oregon, where he prepared to re
turn east. He had already accomplished
sufficient mischief, for his behavior before
Monterey was one of the reasons given by
President Paredes for declaring war.
But on the 9th of May, 1846, Fremont
met Lieutenant Gillespie at Klamath Lake,
Oregon, and received from him the letters
from Senator Benton. Fremont afterward
claimed that Gillespie also brought him the
news of the outbreak of the Mexican War,
but that would have been a physical im
possibility, for that news had only reached
Washington on that very day, the day of
Resaca de la Palma. Fremont likewise
104

THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA
professed to have been given at the same
time mysterious secret orders from Presi
dent Polk that justified his subsequent
behavior, but what these were he never re
vealed, nor would he divulge the contents
of his father-in-law's letters. From what
we now know of the state of Benton's knowl
edge at the time of writing them, these letters
could have contained nothing more definite
than a suggestion that Fremont remain on
the coast to await developments in view of
possible hostilities with Mexico or a possi
ble seizure of California by Great Britain.
The only secret orders known to have
been sent by Polk to any one in California
were his instructions to Consul Larkin to
"cultivate the good- will and friendship of
the Californlans" in any case, but primarily
to reconcile them to the purchase of Cali
fornia by the United States. When he
sent those instructions in November, 1845,
Polk fully expected to carry out that pur
chase, and it would have been utterly for
eign to his purpose to have created a second
secret agent to deliberately undo the work of
the first. It is much easier to believe that
the erratic Fremont, whose conceit far out-
105

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
weighed both his discretion and his sense
of duty and who was burning to revenge
himself on Jose Castro for having "humili
ated" him before Monterey, proceeded to
act on his own initiative.
We now come to the famous incident of
"Fremont's Ride." According to his own
account, Fremont learned that the "Span
iards" were about to attack the American
settlers in California, dashed back across the
mountains, rallied the Americans, and saved
California to the United States. As a mat
ter of fact, when Fremont returned to Cali
fornia, at the same time deliberately deceiv
ing Gillespie about his intentions to return
to the East, no attacks were being made by
the Mexicans on the Americans. To be
sure. General Jose Castro had assembled an
"army" of 70 men, but he was planning
to use It against his old rival in office. Gov
ernor Pio Pico. Nevertheless, the muster
ing of this force, together with the affair
before Monterey, the mysterious comings
and goings of United States officers, the ap
pearance of American war-ships off the
coast, and a thousand and one disquieting
rumors, most of which seem to have been
106

THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA
born In Fremont's camp, was enough to
stir the suspicious and fight-loving American
settlers to a revolt of their own.
A band of Americans, prompted by Fre
mont, stole a herd of horses destined for
Castro's camp on June lo. Sonoma, the
largest Mexican settlement north of San
Francisco Bay, was captured without re
sistance four days later, and there 33 Amer
icans hoisted a "banner with the strange
device" of a grizzly bear, and proclaimed
the Californian Republic. The insurgents
confidently appealed for aid to Commander
Montgomery, of the U. S. S. Portsmouth,
then lying In San Francisco Bay, but that
officer very properly maintained a strict
neutrality. Fremont, however, lost no
time in joining the "Bear" party. Under
his leadership the little village of Yerba
Buena, or San Francisco, was seized and
the guns spiked In its deserted presidio.
The "Bears" now numbered 200 men,
and had already fought a preliminary
skirmish with the Mexicans, whose leaders,
Pico and Castro, had sunk their differences
and joined their forces in the presence of a
common enemy. 107

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
But before serious hostilities began. Com
mander Montgomery received important
orders from Commodore Sloat. That aged
and infirm officer had waited several days
even after he had learned of the battles of
Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma for a
formal declaration of war, till he had finally
persuaded himself to take action. Sloat
occupied Monterey on July 7, and the fol
lowing day Montgomery received orders to
take possession of San Francisco Bay. The
grizzly-bear flag was joyfully replaced by
the stars and stripes, and the Californian
Republic disappeared from history.
Commodore Stockton in the Congress
reached Monterey on July 15, twenty-four
hours before the arrival of the great ship-
of-the-llne Collingzuood, flag-ship of the
British Pacific squadron. Because of this
coincidence, a legend soon sprang up about
a "race" between Sloat and Stockton on
one side and the British admiral on the
other, for the possession of California.
But nothing could have been less like a race
than the slow and uncertain movements of
all three of these commanders, and it would
not have made the slightest difference to
108

THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA
California if the Collingzuood had reached
Monterey even before the Congress had
cleared from Honolulu. Little as Great
Britain liked to see Texas and California
become American, Its government liked
still less the Idea of another war with the
United States. Lord Aberdeen, the pre
mier, had said so very frankly to the Mex
icans when they approached him with hopes
of an alliance.*
Commodore Sloat, who was very old and
infirm, now turned over his command to
Stockton, at the latter's pointed suggestion,
and went home, where he was severely
reprimanded for his delay in taking pos
session of California. This task was rapidly
and easily accomplished. General Jose
Castro and Governor Pio Pico fled to Mex
ico, and every town in California was soon
occupied by the Americans. Fremont was
appointed by Stockton, first, to the com
mand of a battalion of local volunteers,
and, later, civil governor.
Despatches were sent off overland to
Washington by the hand of the famous
frontiersman. Kit Carson. But one hun-
* See Rives, chap. XXXI.
109

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
and twenty miles west of Santa Fe Carson
was met by 300 United States dragoons
under General Kearny. With this hand
ful of regulars and 900 Missouri volunteers
under Colonel Doniphan, Kearny had
marched unresisted from Fort Leavenworth
to Santa Fe, occupied that ancient city, and
annexed all New Mexico to the United
States (see page 139). Leaving Doniphan's
volunteers behind, Kearny had pushed on
with the cavalry till he met Carson and
learned of the occupation of California.
This Induced him to send back two-thirds
of his dragoons and proceed with the re
maining hundred and a couple of light
howitzers. But the nineteen-hundred-mlle march
from Fort Leavenworth had been hard on
horseflesh, and when Kearny's command
reached California only the officers and
twelve of the troopers still retained their
horses. The rest were either mounted on
mules or marched afoot with the guns and
wagons. At San Pascual, thirty-eight miles
from San Diego, they were attacked by 160
superbly mounted Mexican Californlans,
under Don Andres Pico, brother of the
no

THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA
governor. Repulsed by the American's
fire, the Californlans let the few American
horsemen scatter in pursuit, then wheeled
and lanced them at leisure before the dra
goons on mules could come up. Twenty
Americans were .killed and i8 wounded,
including Kearny himself, In this skir
mish. To add to the Mexicans' triumph,
the mules harnessed to one of the American
howitzers stampeded and took the gun with
them Into the Californian lines.
In spite of his wounds, Kearny joined
Stockton's marines, bluejackets, and volun
teers at San Diego on December 12, and
on the 20th the United States forces, 500
strong, started for Los Angeles, from which
city the Americans had been driven by a
revolt under the leadership of Don Andres
Pico and Don Mariano Flores.
This revolt, which for the moment had
regained for Mexico all southern California,
was short-lived. Kearny and Stockton
forced the passage of the San Gabriel River
on January 8, 1847, defeated the insurgents
on the plain of the Mesa next day, and made
an unopposed entry Into Los Angeles on
the loth. Flores and Pico, fleeing for their
III

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
lives, met Fremont and his battalion of
mounted volunteers as they came up from
Santa Barbara and with him signed a capit
ulation. The subsequent arrival of ad
ditional troops — a battalion of Mormon
volunteers from Fort Leavenworth, and a
battery of regular artillery (among whose
officers was Lieutenant William Tecumseh
Sherman), which with a regiment of New
York volunteers had been sent round Cape
Horn — put an end to Mexico's hopes of
recovering her lost province of California.
Kearny, who was Fremont's superior
officer, refused to recognize the latter as
governor of California, which office Kearny
now assumed himself. Fremont was or
dered to report himself under arrest at
Washington, where he was court-martialled
and dismissed from the service, but par
doned and reinstated by President Polk.
So greatly did Fremont strike the popular
imagination that he was nominated for the
presidency by the new Republican party in
1856, but his prestige waned rapidly in the
Civil War. Yet, charlatan though he was
in many ways, there are few more pic-
112

THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA
turesque and romantic figures in our his
tory than this teacher of mathematics, the
"Pathfinder," the "Gray Mustang," John
Charles Fremont.

"3

CHAPTER IX
MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
REFUSING to grant an armistice, Taylor
. crossed the Rio Grande on May i8 and
occupied Matamoros, hastily evacuated by
Arista, who retreated into the interior with
all speed. Taylor's "Army of Occupation"
was now an "Army of Invasion," with its
headquarters on Mexican soil, but before
it could advance any farther both men and
supplies were needed.
The first eight regiments of volunteers,
called for by Taylor himself from Louisi
ana and Texas, reported for duty before
the middle of June, but they had been
called out under the old militia law of
1795, for three months' service only. At
the end of that time they all marched home
again, except the two Texan cavalry regi
ments, which re-enlisted for twelve months
or the war. Soon many more regiments of
twelve-month volunteers poured into Mata
moros, much sooner than Taylor could ob-
114

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
tain the tents, blankets, baggage-wagons,
and the thousand and one other things
needed by even the smallest army in a
barren and hostile land. As in '6i and '98
there was great Impatience on the part of
the administration and public, who de
manded an immediate advance, great diffi
culty on the part of the commanding gen
erals in explaining why such an advance
was not practicable, and great mortality
among the raw recruits In the hot, unsani
tary camps. Measles and typhoid killed
many more American soldiers than did the
Mexican bullets. To add to the army's
discomfort, the rainy season, which had
now begun, was the wettest that had been
known for many years.
But though the camps were flooded, the
Rio Grande was also, and that usually shal
low stream was unexpectedly made navi
gable by steamboats. As soon as enough of
these could be collected, the army was
transported up-stream, and a new base
established at Camargo for the advance on
Monterey. Taylor's army marched out of Camargo
at the beginning of September 6,000 strong,
"5

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
almost equally divided between regulars
and volunteers. There were four field-
batteries of regular artillery — Ridgely's,
Bragg' s, Duncan's, and Taylor's — and a
battering-train of two twenty-four-pounders
and a ten-inch mortar. The garrison of
Monterey, commanded by General Am
pudia, was about equal to the force that
was marching to besiege it. Four thousand
Mexican infantry and 2,000 lancers held
the town with more than forty field-pieces,
besides several heavy guns of position
mounted on the fortifications.
The Monterey of 1846 was not the Amer
icanized city of to-day, with its street-cars
and factories and 100,000 inhabitants. It
was a sleepy little Spanish-American town
of 10,000 or 12,000 people, and narrow
streets that ran at right angles to each
other from the great plaza in front of the
cathedral. Roughly rectangular in shape,
with its long axis running east and west,
Monterey lay on the north bank of the
River of San Juan de Monterey, that flowed
into the Rio Grande not far from Camargo.
The plain on which the city stands is sur
rounded by high mountains on all sides
116

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
except the north. That approach was well
guarded by the citadel — a square, bastloned
fortification, called by the Americans "The
Black Fort." To the west rose an isolated
steep hill, the Loma de Independencia,
crowned by the huge, unfinished Bishop's
Palace, a thick-walled masonry building,
easily converted into a fort. Beneath its
guns the road to Saltillo left the western end
of Monterey, turned southward across the
river and passed between two hills, on each
of which had been thrown up a one-gun
battery, called respectively Fort Soldado
and Fort Federacion. The eastern end of
the city, where the river curved to the
north, was protected by three redoubts,
mounting three or four guns apiece, but
open In the rear. Fort Libertad and Fort
Diablo stood nearest the river in the order
named. The most Important of these three
redoubts was the one at the northeast angle
of the city, called Fort Teneria, from the
brook that flowed past it from a tannery a
few blocks within the town.
Taylor's army arrived and went into
camp at the wood of San Domingo, or the
"Walnut Springs," three miles northeast
117

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
of Monterey on September 19. Confident
that the Mexicans would keep strictly on
the defensive, Taylor did not hesitate to
divide his own force. Worth's division of
regulars, with a regiment of Texan cavalry,
made a wide detour to the southwest, seized
and held the road to Saltillo, stormed the
two little batteries that had guarded it,
and turned their guns on the Bishop's
Palace. At three o'clock in the morning
of Tuesday, the 22d, during a down
pour of rain, six companies of regulars and
200 Texans captured a small earthwork at
the extreme western end of the long crest
of the Loma de Independencia, hauled up
a twelve-pounder, and began firing it into
the Bishop's Palace. Out swarmed the
garrison, reinforced by troops from the
city, but the Americans met their charge
with so deadly a fire that the Mexicans fled
back into the palace and out the other side
with Worth's men after them. The de
tachment that had captured the forts across
the river now recrossed in haste, Duncan's
and Taylor's batteries galloped up, and the
demoralized defenders were driven back
into the city. 118

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
Hearing heavy firing at the other end of
the town. Worth advanced next day down
the two parallel streets that led from the
Bishop's Palace to the Cathedral Plaza.
Instead of storming the barricades they
encountered at every corner, the Americans
broke their way through the walls of the
houses, as the Texans had done at San An
tonio de Bexar. By nightfall Worth's men
had reached and occupied a large building
within one block of the plaza, and during
Wednesday night they brought up and
mounted three pieces of artillery on Its roof.
They were ready to open a most destruc
tive fire when the white flag was displayed
at dawn.
To create a diversion in Worth's favor,
Taylor had ordered an assault on the eastern
ind of the city on Monday morning. The
small American siege-battery, scantily sup
plied with ammunition, made little Impres
sion on the citadel, or "Black Fort," and
when the First, Third, and Fourth Infan
try under Twiggs attempted to storm the
Teneria redoubt, they were raked by a
flanking fire from the citadel, and repulsed
with heavy loss. As the regulars fell back,
119

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Quitman's brigade of volunteers, the First
Tennessee and the Mississippi Rifles under
Colonel Jefferson Davis dashed gallantly
forward, drove back an attempted sortie
by the Mexican lancers, swept over the
walls of Fort Teneria and captured it,
garrison and all. But Fort Diablo held out
after three assaults, and at nightfall the
Americans withdrew, leaving the First
Kentucky to hold Fort Teneria.
Tuesday was passed In long-range bom
bardment. That night Ampudia ordered
the evacuation of the two forts he still held
at the eastern end of the city, and concen
trated his men in the thick-walled houses
and barricaded streets about the Cathe
dral Plaza. Quitman's brigade, supported
by Garland's regulars, entered the eastern
end of the city on Wednesday morning as
Worth, hearing the heavy fire that greeted
them, advanced from the west. Instead of
fighting from house to house, Quitman's
men fought their way doggedly up the open
street, raked by grape-shot and swept by
the fire of swarms of .snipers on the sand
bagged roofs. 120

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
"But on, still on our column kept
Through hissing sheets of fiery spray.
Where fell the dead the living stepped
Still storming on the guns that swept
The slippery streets of Monterey."
When they were within a block of the
plaza the ammunition ran out, and Lieu
tenant U. S. Grant, of the Fourth Infantry,
volunteered to ride back for more. Hang
ing over the side of his horse like an Indian,
Grant galloped out of the city, with the
Mexicans firing at him from every street cor
ner. Instead of sending the ammunition,
however, Taylor ordered Quitman to with
draw, and postponed the assault until next
morning, pending a consultation with Gen
eral Worth.
But on Thursday morning General Am
pudia sent Taylor a white flag and offered
to capitulate. Though he might well have
insisted on an unconditional surrender, Tay
lor was satisfied with the evacuation of the
city and citadel. Two days later Ampu
dia and his army marched out free men,
with their small arms, one field-battery, and
all the honors of war — bands playing, flags
121

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
flying, and the American soldiers looking
on with great interest. There was to be an
armistice for the next eight weeks, unless the
truce were terminated sooner by the action
of the government on either side.
The American Government was extremely
displeased with Taylor for granting the
armistice for which, however, he advanced
military, humane, and political reasons.
To have pressed the assault would have
cost many more American lives — his army
had already lost 120 killed and 350 wounded
— and his small force could not have sur
rounded the city and prevented the escape
of the garrison. Nor was he ready for an
advance. "In regard to the temporary cessation of
hostilities, the fact that we are not at this
moment (within eleven days of the termina
tion of the period fixed by the convention)
prepared to move forward in force, is a
sufiiclent explanation of the military rea
sons which dictated this suspension of arms.
It paralyzed the enemy during a period
when, from the want of necessary means,
we could not possibly move. . . .
"In the conference with General Ampudia
122

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
I was distinctly told by him that he had
invited it to spare the further effusion of
blood and because General Santa Anna had
declared himself favorable to peace.
"The result of the entire operation has
been to throw the Mexican army back more
than three hundred miles to the city of San
Luis Potosi, and to open the country to us,
as far as we choose to penetrate it, up to
the same point."*
Paredes was no longer President — he had
been driven out by a revolution on August
4. A week later. General Santa Anna ap
peared off Vera Cruz on the British steamer
Arab, and was permitted to pass through
the United States fleet blockading the port
because of his secret agreement with Presi
dent Polk. Though he did not have him
self "elected" President of Mexico until
December, Santa Anna immediately ob
tained control of the government and
prompted its refusal to discuss peace on
any terms. For all his pacific promises
that so completely gulled James K. Polk,
Santa Anna knew his own countrymen too
* Taylor to Adjutant-General Jones, November 8, 1846. House
Rep. Doc. 60, 30th Congress, 1st Session, 359.
123

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
well to imagine that any Mexican govern
ment could last for twenty-four hours after
refusing to fight an invading enemy. And
no other Mexican of the period was as cap
able as he in raising and organizing large
armies In a short time.
As it permitted the return of Santa Anna
to Mexico in 1846, so in 1898 the United
States Government brought the exiled
Agulnaldo from Hong-Kong to help drive
the Spaniards out of the Philippines, and
in 19 14 did its utmost to aid Generals Car-
ranza and Villa in getting rid of the ob
noxious dictator Huerta. And In each of
the first two cases, and possibly the^thlrd,
our sincere desire for peace led us Into mak
ing a present of their most efficient leader
to our opponents in a long and difficult
foreign war.
Before the Americans had fully realized
that he was not "favorable to peace," Santa
Anna was at San Luis Potosi drilling re
cruits and concentrating the garrisons from
Monterey, Tampico, and all the smafler
towns of northern Mexico into an army.
Tampico had been taken without a fight
by our naval forces in the middle of No-
124

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
vember, while Taylor had at the same time
caused Saltillo to be occupied by General
Worth, also without meeting any resis
tance. General Wool, commanding the "Army
of the Centre" of 2,400 men, had left San
Antonio in September to march directly
on the city of Chihuahua, while Taylor was
advancing farther east. When Wool was
halted by the armistice, he had got as far
into Mexico as Monclova. There, on his
own initiative, subsequently affirmed by
Taylor's orders. Wool abandoned the ad
vance on Chihuahua, turned toward Saltillo,
and on December 5, after marching three
hundred miles through Mexican territory
without burning gunpowder, occupied Par-
ras. Even after this partial concentration, the
few thousand American troops in northern
Mexico were scattered over an irregular
front of nearly five hundred miles, from
Parras to Tampico, while swarms of gue
rillas harassed the plodding wagon-trains
bringing supplies from the Rio Grande, and
Santa Anna mustered his forces to the
southward at San Luis Potosi.
125

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Polk's administration realized the mili
tary weakness of this position, now that
the cherished scheme of making peace
through Santa Anna had failed. Peace
must now be won by striking harder and
swifter blows than was possible In northern
Mexico — the harder and swifter the better,
as the war was no longer popular in the
United States. This was convincingly
shown by the result of the congressional
elections in November, which turned a
large Democratic majority in the House of
Representatives Into a small majority of
Whigs. To make matters worse, General
Taylor, who was getting all the credit and
military glory of the war, was himself an
ardent Whig.
For all these reasons, Polk and his Cabi
net decided to suspend operations In the
north and adopt General Winfield Scott's
plan of sending an expedition to Mexico
City by way of Vera Cruz. General Scott
was now placed in command of this expedi
tion, and to strengthen his force he was
given the flower of Taylor's army. All the
regulars, except four field-batteries and two
squadrons of dragoons under Lieutenant-
126

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
Colonel May (who had been promoted for
his gaUantry at Resaca de la Palma), and
all the experienced volunteers, except Jef
ferson Davis's Mississippi Rifles, were de
tached from Taylor's command, while he
was ordered to fall back from Saltillo and
remain on the defensive in and about Mon
terey. But Taylor, disregarding Scott's urgent
advice to retreat, remained at Agua Nueva,
eighteen miles south of Saltillo, drIUing his
new volunteers. And General Santa Anna,
stung by the taunts of the Mexican news
papers about the inactivity of his army
in Its "Capua" of San Luis Potosi, sud
denly started, on January 27, 1847, on the
two-hundred-and-forty-mile march, the last
stage of which ran through a waterless
desert, to Saltillo. His lancers captured
two unsuspecting detachments of Arkansas
and Kentucky cavalry near Encarnacion,
and it was not until the early hours of Sun
day, February 21, that May's dragoons
brought in the news that 2,000 Mexican
lancers under General Miiion had turned
Taylor's left and were swooping down on
Saltillo from the east. At midday Major
127

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
McCulloch's Texas Rangers gaUoped' in
from the south to report that Santa Anna's
main army, 20,000 strong, was advancing
swiftly across the desert from Encarnacion.
Taylor fell back that afternoon twelve
miles to Buena Vista. Yell's Arkansas
Cavalry, left as a rear-guard to cover the
removal of stores, set fire to everything that
was left and galloped off with what wagons
they had had time to load as Santa Anna's
vanguard dashed into the blazing town at
midnight. Ordering General Minon to fall on the
Americans' rear, Santa Anna pressed on
with all speed. Though his infantrymen
were dropping with fatigue and tortured by
thirst after their forced march across the
desert, their commander gave them no rest
nor even a chance to fill their empty can
teens, but urged them on remorselessly at the
double-quick in the dust of the mounted
advance-guard, while behind the artillery
drivers flogged their weary mules. Well
informed as to the smallness of Taylor's
army, Santa Anna mistook his opponent's
sudden but orderly retreat for a demoralized
rout. He was astounded to find the Amer-
128

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
leans calmly awaiting him at "the gorge of
Buena Vista, which no one could pass, with
any military eye, without selecting it as an
admirable defensive point."*
The ranch and hamlet of Buena Vista, so
cafled from the "beautiful view" it com
manded, was situated three miles south of
Saltillo in the centre of a long barren valley
that runs almost due north and south and
varies from a mile and a half to two miles
in width. The road from San Luis Potosi
ran up the west side of this valley, hugging
the bed of a stream that was then, in Febru
ary and at the height of the dry season, a
mere dusty arroyo. In the rainy season
the heavy drainage down the slope from
the hills on the east side of the valley cut
many steep-banked barrancas, or gullies,
sloping from east to west and breaking up
the ground into irregular plateaus of vary
ing size. On the edge of the largest of these
plateaus Taylor formed his line across the
valley. His left flank, resting on the eastern
hills, was weak, but his right was very
strong. The key of his position was the
deep, narrow gulch or pass where river and
* Benham, "Recollections of Buena Vista," p. 9.
129

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
road ran between the western cliffs and the
edge of the plateau; and this point, called
by the Mexicans "La Angostura," or "The
Narrows," was held by a battery under
Captain Washington, well supported by
"horse, foot, and dragoons."
Santa Anna sent a white flag at noon on
the 22d to demand General Taylor's sur
render, which was curtly refused. There
was some long-range cannonading and skir
mishing that afternoon, but the real attack
began at dawn on the 23 d.
Santa Anna sent forward his infantry In
three heavy columns, each supported by
cavalry, while he himself remained in the
rear In command of a strong reserve. The
first Mexican column, advancing In close
formation against the American right, was
crumpled up by a storm of grape-shot from
Washington's battery on the road, forced
to seek shelter in the mouths of the nearest
ravines and disposed of for the rest of the
day. But the second column, advancing
diagonally up one of the ravines, and the
third column of light troops under Ampudia,
keeping to the upper slope of the eastern
hills, together struck the weak left of the
130

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
American line. Here three field-pieces, sup
ported by the Second Indiana, a raw vol
unteer regiment that had never before
been under fire, held their ground against
overwhelming odds for half an hour. But
at the end of that time every man and
horse attached to one of the guns had been
shot down, and the other two pieces were
limbered up and withdrawn. An orderly
retreat before superior numbers was too
much for the untrained Second Indiana,
which broke and fled to the rear in utter
rout as the exultant Mexicans poured
through the break in the American line.
But the centre held fast, and from the
right, where the assaulting column had been
repulsed, came Bragg's battery and the
Second Kentucky to reinforce the left.
The Arkansas and Kentucky cavalry hurled
themselves on the second Mexican column,
and though driven back with heavy loss
checked It for many valuable minutes. Am
pudia' s men, driving the American skir
mishers before them, had advanced far up
the valley and completely turned the Amer
ican left flank.
Taylor himself now galloped up from
131

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Saltillo with two troops of dragoons, and
followed by the Mississippi Rifles. That
regiment, joined by the Third Indiana that
was no longer needed to support Washing
ton's battery on the right, received the
Mexican advance with the utmost steadi
ness and a deadly fire that drove in the
heads of both columns. The Mexican
cavalry circled round the American in
fantry and became engaged with a mixed
force of May's dragoons and Kentucky and
Arkansas volunteers, who succeeded in
driving them away from Buena Vista.
Both that ranch and the town of Saltillo
were filled with stragglers from the battle
field who had stopped their flight and joined
the teamsters and camp-guards In defend
ing the buildings and wagon-trains against
the recurring attacks of the Mexican cav
alry. The retreat had now stopped after the
American army had been bent back into a
letter L, reversed, with the long limb run
ning north and south at right angles to the
original line, and facing the Mexican cav
alry and infantry who thronged the east
side of the vaUey above the heads of the
132

After the drawing by C. Nebel.

The Battle of Buena Vista.

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
ravines. For two hours or more both sides
pounded steadily at each other with can
non and musketry, till the Mexican right
and centre began to fall back under our
artillery fire. A second mass of lancers
charged down the slope and threatened to
overwhelm the handful of American cav
alry at Buena Vista till Reynolds's battery
came to their aid with grape-shot. Lancers,
dragoons, and mounted volunteers, thrust
ing and hacking in tangled conflict, swept
through the hamlet of Buena Vista and
out on the plain to the west, where the
Mexicans galloped off round the entire
American army and rejoined Santa Anna.
The third charge of the Mexican lancers
was directed at the First Mississippi. This
regiment had been retained by Taylor not
only because its colonel, Jefferson Davis,
was the general's son-in-law, but because
Davis was a West Pointer, who had brought
his command to a high state of drill and
efficiency. Armed with percussion-lock
Whitney rifles, that far outranged their
opponents' flintlocks, the MIssIssippians
had caused the dense masses of Mexican
infantry to suffer heavily, but the riflemen
133

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
had no bayonets with which to resist a
charge of cavalry. Forming his regiment
into a re-entrant angle, or letter V, with
the open end toward the lancers and across
the ravine down which they were advancing
rapidly in column of fours, , Davis had his
men hold their fire till the foremost troopers
were nearly upon them, when one terrible
volley emptied scores of Mexican saddles
and sent the surviving lancers back even
faster than they had come.
Hard pressed by the now advancing and
exultant American infantry, penned in
against the eastern side of the valley, and
in imminent danger of capture, the Mexican
left wing raised the white flag. Deceived
by this, the Americans halted and ceased
firing long enough for the Mexicans to
extricate themselves and escape by the
way they had come, after which they
promptly resumed the fight.
Realizing that the critical moment of
the battle had come, Santa Anna hurled
his entire reserve against the angle of the
American line. There Lieutenant O'Brien,
of the Fourth Artillery, fought his two field-
pieces till they were captured, deliberately
134

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
sacrificing his guns to save time for Taylor
to bring up reinforcements. Outnumbered
and shot to pieces, the Second Kentucky
and Second Illinois were being driven back
down the nearest ravine, and the gap in the
American line was wide and ominous.
"Speed, speed, artillery, to the front, where the hur
ricane of fire
Crushes those noble regiments, reluctant to retire !
Speed swiftly ! Gallop ! Ah, they come ! Again
Bragg climbs the ridge
And his grape sweeps down the swarming foe as a
strong man moweth sedge."*
"A little more grape, Captain Bragg,"
said General Taylor coolly, a command that
struck the popular imagination and was
echoed throughout the United States in
the next presidential campaign, f The Mis
sissippi Rifles and Third Indiana came up
at the double as the Mexicans fell back.
Nightfall found both armies back in their
original positions.
So ended the battle of Buena Vista, the
"Albert Pike, "Battle of Buena Vista."
t Or "as Bragg told me, unluckily for the poetry of the story,
fOive 'em hell, Bragg!' " Benham, p. 23.
135

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
hardest-fought action of the war. Both
sides claimed the victory, and when he re
turned to Mexico City Santa Anna made a
great show of the prisoners taken at En
carnacion and the captured American guns.
But during the night after the battle, while
Taylor was making ready for another day
of fighting, Santa Anna abandoned his
wounded and retreated as hastily as he had
advanced. Hundreds of his disheartened
and exhausted soldiers died and thousands
deserted during the terrible march across
the waterless waste, and Santa Anna
brought back to San Luis Potosi less than
half of the 20,000 he had led out so con
fidently to the north.
Taylor's army had gone into action
4,754 strong, and had lost 746 officers and
men killed, wounded, or missing. Count
ing Minon's cavalry, which had remained
near Saltillo picking up stragglers and
waiting for the Americans to retreat, Santa
Anna had had at least 16,000 or 17,000 ef
fectives within striking distance on the day
of the battle. Had General Mifion chosen
to disregard the strict letter of his orders
and hurled his 2,000 lancers on the Ameri-
136

MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA
can rear, the story of Buena Vista might
well have been written differently.
The battle of Buena Vista put an end to
the fighting in northern Mexico, made
Jefferson Davis the hero of the South, and
Zachary Taylor the next President of the
United States.

137

CHAPTER X
NEW MEXICO AND CHIHUAHUA
"O'er the bitter and beautiful desert, in the dust and
heat and haze.
Through mornings of ruby and topaz and evenings
of chrysoprase.
The golden noon of a pitiless June and the heat of
a fierce July,
We tramped and limped till the August flame lit
up the merciless sky,
All the thirsty way to Santa Fe, and there, with
out a blow,
We took in a day to keep for ay the land of New
Mexico." — CuYLER Van Slycke,
THE land of New Mexico" had been
formally taken possession of in the
name of the King of Spain by Don Juan
de Onate, on April 30, 1598. The Span
iards established missions among the Pueblo
Indians and maintained a small garrison in
Santa Fe. Except for the great Indian
uprising at the end of the seventeenth
century, the life of New Mexico was placid
138

NEW MEXICO AND CHIHUAHUA
and uneventful, even during the Mexican
War of Independence. After 1821 there
was a constantly Increasing trade over the
old Sante Fe trail to and from St. Louis.
The abortive Texan expedition against
New Mexico in 1841 failed without firing a
shot (see page 53), where five years later
the United States forces, with an equal lack
of bloodshed, succeeded.
At the outbreak of the First Mexican
War, Colonel Philip Kearny, of the First
Dragoons, was at Fort Leavenworth, in
what is now the State of Kansas, with
six troops of his regiment, 300 strong.
Polk made Kearny a brigadier-general,
in command of the "Army of the West,"
consisting of his own regulars, the First
Missouri Mounted Volunteers under
Colonel Doniphan, two batteries and two
infantry companies, also of volunteers —
a total force of 1,700 men and 16 guns.
Over 1,500 wagons, 3,500 mules, and nearly
15,000 oxen were needed for the transport
and subsistence of even this little army
on its desert march.
Leaving Fort Leavenworth late in June,
Kearny's men swung down the Santa Fe
139

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
trail at an average pace of nearly twenty
miles a day. They crossed into Mexican
territory at the trading-post of Bent's
Fort on the Arkansas River, on August 2,
and ten days later the Army of the West
made its unopposed entry into Santa Fe.
Armljo, the Mexican governor, who had
assembled a force at Apache Canon, lost
heart as the Americans approached and
fled into Mexico.
An officer of Kearny's dragoons made
the following professional comment on this
expedition :
"The 'Army of the West' marched from
Bent's Fort with only rations calculated
to last, by uninterrupted and most rapid
marches, until It should arrive at Santa
Fe. Is this War ? Tested by the rules
of the science, this expedition Is anoma
lous, not to say quixotic. A colonel's com
mand, called an army, marches eight
hundred miles beyond its base, its com
munications liable to be cut off by the
slightest effort of the enemy — mostly
through a desert — the whole distance al
most totally destitute of resources, to
conquer a territory of two hundred and
140

NEW MEXICO AND CHIHUAHUA
fifty thousand square miles. . . . This
Is the art of war as practised In Amer-
ica. *
Hoisting the stars and stripes over the
old adobe "palace" of the Spanish gover
nors. General Kearny formally annexed
"The Territory of New Mexico In the
United States," had an "Organic Law"
for its government struck off on an anti
quated Spanish printing-press, and, in
September, departed with his dragoons
for California, leaving Doniphan in pos
session of Santa Fe.
The Second Missouri Volunteers arrived
presently under Colonel Sterling Price,
who was made civil governor of New
Mexico. Early in 1847 there was a formi
dable uprising of Indians and Mexicans,
promptly and vigorously put down by
Price. Within a fortnight and with less
than 400 men, he defeated the insurgents
at La Canada, where Price was wounded,
and at El Embrido, stormed their forti
fied position at Taos and forced them to
surrender their leaders, whom he tried and
hanged. From that day to this, there has
* Cooke's "Conquest of New Mexico and California."
141

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
been no more loyal and patriotic part of
the United States than New Mexico.
In the meanwhile, from September to
December, 1846, Doniphan had gone by
General Kearny's orders Into the country
of the Navajo and Zuiii Indians, where
he had shown great firmness and diplo
macy in making these tribes stop fighting
with each other and raiding into New
Mexico, as they had done for centuries,
release the prisoners and property they
had taken from the whites, and enter into
a treaty with the United States.
This done, Doniphan's orders read that
he was to "proceed to report with his
regiment to Brigadier-General Wool," who
was supposed to be at, or approaching,
the city of Chihuahua, five hundred and
fifty miles distant through the enemy's
country. Doniphan rode out of Santa Fe on De
cember 14, 1846, at the head of 856 mounted
riflemen, followed by a long train of canvas-
topped wagons. Suffering terribly from
cold and thirst on the ninety-mile stretch
through the desert of the Jornada del
Muerto, the advance-guard, 500 strong,
142

NEW MEXICO AND CHIHUAHUA
reached Brazito, or the "Little Arm" of
the Rio Grande, about twenty-five miles
from EI Paso, now caUed Ciudad Juarez.
(The present city of El Paso on the Amer
ican side of the river was not then in
existence.) Christmas Day found the 500 MIssou-
rlans taking life very easy at Brazito. The
men were scattered far and near, looking
for forage and fire-wood, while Doniphan
and his officers were playing a game of
"three-trick loo" for a fine Mexican horse
they had captured that morning, when a
cloud of dust betrayed the approach of a
Mexican army.
"Then we must stop the game long
enough to whip the Mexicans," said Doni
phan, laying down his cards. "But re
member that I am away ahead in the
score and cannot be beaten, and we'll
play it out as soon as the battle is over."
But In the confusion of the fight, the
horse was lost, and the game was never
finished.* The Mexicans advanced 1,300 strong,
500 regular dragoons from Vera Cruz
* Connelley's "Doniphan's Expedition," p. 371.
143

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
and 800 volunteers, both horse and foot,
from El Paso and Chihuahua with a
howitzer. Outflanking the Americans at
both ends of the line, the Mexicans sent
forward an officer carrying a black flag
inscribed "Libertad 6 Muerto," and painted
pirate-wise with a skull and cross-bones,
who announced that no quarter would be
given. The fight began with a charge against
the American left of the Vera Cruz dra
goons, in all their glory of "blue panta
loons, green coats trimmed with scarlet,
and tall caps plated in front with brass,
on the top of which fantastically waved
a plume of horsehair or buffalo's tail." *
But these gorgeous horsemen could not face
the heavy rifle-fire, and 17 mounted Mis-
sourians chased them Ignominlously from
the field. The Chihuahua militia attacked
the American right, which lay down and
waited till the Mexicans were within sixty
paces, then poured in a single volley that
sent the survivors flying. Forty-three
Mexicans were killed, 150 wounded, and
5 prisoners and the howitzer were captured
* Hughes's "Doniphan's March," p. 370.
144

NEW MEXICO AND CHIHUAHUA
in this skirmish, in which only 7 Americans
were Injured.
El Paso was occupied three days later,
and Doniphan remained there for six weeks,
till his artillery came up. The Missourians
marched out of El Paso on February 8,
1847, 924 strong, with a six-gun battery
and their own wagon-train, besides 315
other wagons belonging to American traders
wishing to do business in Chihuahua. For
twenty days this caravan-army continued
its way unopposed, now crossing deserts
where the troopers held their swords In
their hands, that they might carry water
in the scabbards, now fighting a prairie fire
by cutting down the tall grass from around
the camp with their sabres.
Unaided by their national government,
the citizens of Chihuahua had succeeded in
raising and equipping an army of their
own of at least 2,000 men. "It was a
division small indeed in numbers, but per
fectly well armed. . . . The good Chi-
huahuans looked with pride upon the result
of their labors, and in every piece of artil
lery, every musket, in every object which
presented itself to their sight, they recog-
145

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
nized the fruit of their personal exertions.
... All had been created by them, all
was new, all was brilliant. . . . The en
emy were to appear on the following day,
according to the news received of their ap
proach, and that night was a festival in the
camp. In every tent, in every family
group, cheerful toasts were drunk to the
liberty of the fatherland, the young men
abandoning themselves to the illusive de
lirium of expected triumph, and thinking
more of their expedition to New Mexico to
assist their brethren to cast off the Amer
ican yoke than of the approaching en
counter, which they looked upon as less
important than it was." *
Eighteen miles north of Chihuahua town
the road from El Paso ran over the lowest
and narrowest part of a dumb-bell-shaped
ridge, beyond which lay the dry bed of the
Rio Sacramento. There the Mexicans lined
the east side of the pass with tier above tier
of batteries and intrenchments, apparently
expecting that the Americans would file
tamely Into the gulch to be shot down. But
Doniphan knew a trick worth two of that.
* "Noticias por la Guerra," pp. 168-173.
146

NEW MEXICO AND CHIHUAHUA
Except for the 200 horsemen riding in
advance, nothing was to be seen of the
American army as it approached but wagons
— a great wagon-train nearly a quarter of
a mile long and five vehicles abreast.
Hidden in the centre, with two "prairie-
schooners" on either side of each gun,
trundled the field-battery, while between
the outer files of wagons rode the mounted
infantry. Instead of entering the pass, the
column swung to the right and trotted to
the western end of the ridge, where a steep
but practicable slope led to the plateau
above. Up this slope dashed the American
battery, and went into action on the pla
teau, supported by the 200 cavalrymen,
while the mounted infantry left their horses
and deployed to left and right of the guns.
The horses and wagons were left in the rear,
guarded by two companies of armed team
sters. A thousand Mexican lancers with four
guns dashed forward along the top of the
plateau, but recoiled before the deadly fire
poured Into them, and retreated behind the
intrenchments In great disorder. At this
the exultant Missourians, horse, foot, and
147

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
guns, charged irresistibly across the deep
ravine and over the Mexican lines. The
Chihuahuan amateur soldiery, firing ex
citedly from the hip, were shot or knocked
on the head by hundreds, their sixteen can
non, their entire camp equipment, and even
the saddle-mules and carriages of the prom
inent citizens who had ridden out to watch
the repulse of the invaders, all fell into the
hands of the Americans — only i of whom
had been killed and 8 wounded.
Doniphan took peaceful possession of
Chihuahua on the following day, March i,
and released a number of American citi
zens found In prison there. The American
traders who had accompanied the army
now unpacked their wagons and opened a
fair. After occupying the city for two
months, Doniphan got In touch with Gen
eral Wool at Saltillo, more than six hundred
miles away, and presently joined him there,
after a rapid and unresisted march through
the states of Durango and Coahuila. The
First Missouri Mounted Volunteers were
reviewed on the battle-field of Buena Vista
by General Wool on May 22, and then, as
their year of service was nearly expired,
148

NEW MEXICO AND CHIHUAHUA
they were sent from Saltillo to the mouth
of the Rio Grande and thence by sea to
New Orleans and up the Mississippi to
their homes.
Doniphan's march was enthusiastically
likened by William Cullen Bryant to Xeno-
phon's Anabasis. The 10,000 Greeks had
marched through 3,450 miles of hostile
country in fifteen months; the 1,000 Mis
sourians had covered 3,500 miles in thir
teen months by land, besides 2,500 miles
by water. Each had demonstrated the
weakness of the country they had marched
through so easily, and the apathy of its
population. Like the Persian peasantry,
the great bulk of the Mexican people were
weary of wars and cared little who ruled
them. After the organized Mexican forces
were defeated and dispersed, there was very
little of the guerilla warfare that had been
so much dreaded by the Americans when
hostilities began.

149

CHAPTER XI
VERA CRUZ AND CERRO GORDO
WINFIELD SCOTT and Zachary
Taylor were both natives of north
ern Virginia, brave and efficient general
officers in the United States army, and
Whigs; but there the resemblance ceased.
Scott was a college graduate, a polished
and widely travelled man of the world, and
military pomp and circumstance were as
dear to him as they were hateful to "Old
Rough and Ready." As huge and hand
some as Porthos, Scott took the same child
ish delight in dressing himself up in the
fullest of full-dress uniforms as did that
immortal musketeer. But for all his van
ity and his ludicrous lack of a sense of
humor that set the entire country to chuck
ling over his famous "hasty plate of soup,"
Scott was a master of his profession. In
the War of i8 12 he had organized the best-
drilled body of troops on our side of the
Niagara frontier and led them to victory at
150

VERA CRUZ AND CERRO GORDO
the battle of Chippewa, and had had his
left shoulder "pierced by a British musket-
ball" at Lundy's Lane. Brave though he
was on the battle-field, Scott was even better
at planning a siege or a campaign, and he
spent many weary weeks perfecting the
details of the descent on Vera Cruz.
Twelve thousand regulars and volun
teers, drawn from Taylor's army or sent
from various Gulf and Atlantic ports, were
gradually assembled at Lobos Island, a
good harbor long used by English smugglers,
within three days' sail of Vera Cruz. The
great fleet of white-sailed transports ap
peared off the city on March 5, and were
piloted by officers of the blockading squad
ron to the anchorage of Anton Lizardo,
twelve miles down the coast. Nearer the
city and only a mile offshore lies the deso
late island of Sacrlficios, so called because
Juan de Grijalva found traces of human
sacrifice there in 15 18. The beach opposite
this island was the place Scott picked to
land his men.
As there was not enough room between
Sacrlficios and the shore for all the trans
ports, the troops were transferred to the
151

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
decks of the war-ships, at the anchorage
off Anton Lizardo, from dawn to noon on
the 9th of March, 1847. The squadron
then crossed over and anchored off the
landing-place. Worth's division of regu
lars, 4,500 strong, with two field-batteries
and a detachment of marines, embarked
in sixty-five large whale-boats that had
been specially built for this purpose by
Scott's orders, and were manned by naval
bluejackets. Forming in line of battle,
with the regimental colors flying in the
brilliant sunlight from the leading boat of
each regiment, the bands playing and
the soldiers and seamen cheering from the
fleet, the whale-boats dashed for the shore,
while the distant guns roared harmlessly
from the city wall, and the "mosquito
flotilla" shelled the sand-hills beyond the
beach, where Scott fully expected to find
Santa Anna and his entire army lurking
in ambush.
"On coming to within a hundred yards
of the shore, the boats grounded on a small
sand-bar. The officers and men imme
diately leaped into the water, the latter
carrying their muskets on their shoulders
152

After the drawing by C. Nebel.

The Bombardment of Vera Cruz.

VERA CRUZ AND CERRO GORDO
and holding their cartridge-boxes well up,
as the water reached to their hips when
wading ashore. As the boats successively
arrived the men were formed on the beach,
the boats making all expedition back to
the vessels for more men. All of the first
party having formed into line, several
regimental colors were displayed, and a
charge made to the heights in front, but
not a single Mexican was to be seen.
The American flag was immediately planted
amidst loud and prolonged cheers, which
were enthusiastically echoed by the troops
on board." *
This was at sunset; by ten o'clock that
night 10,000 men, with two field-batteries
and two days' rations for all, had been
placed safely on shore, within the space
of four hours, without any mishap or the
loss of a single life. Scott's elaborate
plans, aided by the cordial co-operation of
the navy, had worked out perfectly. Ad
ditional men, horses, and supplies were
landed on the same spot thereafter, as
fast as the weather allowed.
Worth's division, followed by Patter-
* Ballentine, p. 299.
153

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
son's volunteers and a second division of
regulars under Twiggs, marched into posi
tion and went into camp, together form
ing a solid semicircle that completely in
vested the landward side of Vera Cruz.
The fortifications before them, "consisted
of a series of small bastions and redans,
solidly built and capable of mounting
from eight to ten guns each. The cur
tains by which they were connected con
sisted of a thin wall, proof only against
musketry and of but little use. None of
the defenses were protected by ditches,
as the shifting sands which surrounded
the city on all sides would have filled any
ditch in the event of a heavy gale." *
Trenches were dug and four batteries
established, under the direction of Colonel
Totten of the engineering corps, who two
years later was to begin the construction
of the Panama Railroad. The first shovel
ful of earth was dug by Captain Robert
Anderson, afterward commander of Fort
Sumter. A formal demand for the sur
render of the city and castle having been
made on March 22, and refused by the
¦* Rives, 11, 384.
154

VERA CRUZ AND CERRO GORDO
commander. General Juan Morales, Scott
decided to conduct a regular siege, begin
ning with a bombardment.
But the army's siege-train was still at
sea, and though the light field-pieces and
mortars that were brought to bear dropped
shells in every part of the city and caused
intense suffering among the peaceful in
habitants, the walls were not breached
and the garrison, sheltered in their case
mates, were undismayed. Three eight-inch
Paixhan guns, firing sixty-eight pound
shells, and three long thirty-two-pounders
were accordingly brought ashore from the
steam-frigate Mississippi. Dragged for a
mile through loose sand, set up and served
by successive details of seamen, this naval
battery soon silenced or smashed every
thing before it. Except for this landing
party and a brief bombardment of the
Castle of San Juan de UUoa by the two
tiny steamers and four schooners of the
"mosquito flotiUa," the navy took no
active part In the siege of Vera Cruz.
The sturdy frigates and steamers of the
blockading fleet, some of which after
ward fought their way up the Mississippi
155

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
under Farragut, were kept carefully out
of range of the one hundred and thirty-
five guns of San Juan de UUoa, which was
then considered capable of sinking the
entire American navy. For precisely op
posite reasons, not a shot was fired at the
ancient fortress prison by our battleships
when the United States forces took Vera
Cruz for the second time, in 1914, San
Juan de UUoa being then too weak, as it
had once been too strong, to attack.
At the end of four days' bombardment
the walls were breached and plans made
for an assault, when General Landero, the
new commander of the city, made over
tures for surrender. (Morales, who had
turned over the command to his subor
dinate when he saw further resistance was
hopeless, succeeded In making his escape in
a small boat.)
Terms were quickly agreed on and the
garrison marched out with all the honors
of war, stacked and surrendered their
arms, and departed into the interior, on
parole not to serve again in the war until
duly exchanged. The citizens of Vera
Cruz were guaranteed protection of their
156

VERA CRUZ AND CERRO GORDO
property and freedom of religious worship.
Scott's army made its formal entry into
the city on the following day, March 29;
the port was immediately reopened, and a
period of great activity and prosperity
began. The defense of Vera Cruz was marked
by the same inept passivity as that of
Monterey. The large force of Mexican
lancers in the neighborhood made only
two attempts to molest the besieging army,
and were each time easily driven off by
the regular dragoons and volunteer cav
alry. The loss of life on both sides — 19 Amer
icans and about 400 Mexicans, during the
siege of Vera Cruz in 1847 — was almost
exactly duplicated at the second taking of
the city by the Americans, sixty-seven
years later. But while Funston's brigade
could live for seven months in Vera Cruz
at the hottest season of the year, without
endangering their health and efficiency,
Scott had to hurry his army away from
the coast and into the interior, or see his
men perish of yellow fever. Though the
raging "northers" swept day after day
157

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
into the open roadstead, swamping the
whale-boats and wrecking transports and
store-ships, the work of unloading went
on apace, for far more terrible than the
northers, whose season was now nearly
at its end, was the yellow fever that in
variably appeared as soon as they ceased
to blow.
Enough mules, wagons, and supplies were
at last landed to permit General Twiggs to
march out at the head of his division of
regulars on April 8, followed next day by
General Patterson with two of his three
brigades of volunteers. Having crossed
the Tierra Caliente or "Hot Country"
of the coastal plain in three days' forced
march, Twiggs reached the beginning of
the rise to the central plateau at Plan
del Rio, and came in touch there with the
cavalry outposts of a Mexican army under
t Santa Anna.
After the debdcle of the Buena Vista
campaign, Santa Anna had succeeded in
organizing a force of 5,650 men out of the
wreckage of his army at San Luis Potosi.
He had then hastened back to Mexico
City, which was in a state of civil war
158

VERA CRUZ AND CERRO GORDO
over the attempt of Farias, the liberal and
anti-clerical vice-president, to force the
Catholic Church to contribute some of
its Immense wealth to the defense of the
country. Throughout the war the church
behaved in the most selfish and unpatriotic
manner, but Santa Anna dared not antag
onize its mighty power. Instead, he had
his congress repeal Farias's law for the
secularization of part of the church prop
erty, and pass an act that in effect deposed
the vice-president from office. Having
settled these political difficulties, Santa
Anna left the capital on AprU 2, to meet
the invading army under Scott.
The defile at La Joya, about ten mUes
west of the city of Jalapa, was where Santa
Anna first intended to make his stand, but
he soon abandoned it in favor of the pass
of Cerro Gordo, thirty mUes nearer the
coast, and not far from Plan del Rio.
At Plan del Rio the road from Vera Cruz
crossed a stone bridge over the swift-run
ning Rio del Plan, curved in a big semi
circle through broken and hilly country,
and came back to the river at Cerro Gordo.
There the road.ran through a narrow pass,
159

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
with the river flowing through a deep,
steep-walled ravine on the left, and on the
right the cone-shaped height of Cerro
Gordo, which dominated all the surround
ing country. On top of this hill, Santa Anna
placed a six-gun battery in front of and at
the centre of his line, which extended
through the pass with Its rear resting on
the unfordable river, and its right wing
protected by powerful batteries that swept
the road and the ground between it and
the river as the highway approached the
pass from Plan del Rio. Santa Anna, who
should have known the ground well, as
Cerro Gordo lay between his two country
estates of El Encerro and Manga de Clavo,
declared that no other line of attack was
possible, and that the hills in front of his
centre and left wing were so rough that
not even a rabbit could get through them.
He also refused to fortify the Atalaya
HiU* that stood close to Cerro Gordo on the
side away from the river, but was lower
than the latter. He confidently expected
*This is the hill usually referred to in American histories as
"El Telegrafo," but that name was given by the Mexicans to
Cerro Gordo itself, from the semaphore that had formerly stood
there.
1 60

VERA CRUZ AND CERRO GORDO
that the Americans would run their heads
against his almost impregnable right wing.
General Twiggs, after reconnoitring for
two days, prepared to make a direct frontal
attack with his division alone, but fortu
nately General Patterson, his superior in
rank, came up in time to countermand it
and order a halt tUl the arrival of General
Scott. A careful reconnoissance was then
made by two young officers of the engineer
ing corps, Lieutenant Beauregard and Cap
tain Robert E. Lee, who presently found a
way through the "rabbit-proof country,"
whereby the Mexican position could be
turned. Twiggs's division of regulars and Shields's
brigade of volunteers marched out accord
ingly before daybreak on Sunday, April i8,
"over chasms where the walls were so
steep the men could barely climb them.
. . . The engineers, who had directed the
opening, led the way and the troops fol
lowed. ArtUlery was let down the steep
slopes by hand, the men engaged attaching
a strong rope to the rear axle and letting the
guns down a piece at a time, while the men
at the rope kept their ground at the top,
i6i

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
paying out gradually, while a few at the
front directed the course of the piece. In
like manner the guns were drawn up by
hand the opposite slopes."*
Atalaya HUl was reached and stormed at
two o'clock in the afternoon, the Americans
driving the Mexican outpost from the crest
with small loss, but suffering severely as
they pursued the fugitives down the far
ther slope, swept by the battery on Cerro
Gordo. The column halted for the rest of
that day and the following night, when
Captain Lee directed the bringing up and
placing of a twenty-four pound gun and two
howitzers, with great labor and under cover
of darkness, on the summit of Atalaya. At
the same time an eight-inch howitzer was
being mounted by Scott's direction on the
heights across the river. At the sound of
Twiggs's guns on Atalaya at dawn Pillow's
brigade of volunteers were to make a direct
frontal attack on the strong batteries on
the Mexican right, and clear the pass for
the cavalry and field-battery that were to
dash forward in pursuit as soon as the Mex
icans began their retreat.
* Grant, "Memoirs," I, 132.
162

VERA CRUZ AND CERRO GORDO
At the break of day a picked brigade of
Twiggs's regulars, with shells and "war
rockets" screaming over their heads from
the battery on the crest, dashed down the
slope of Atalaya HIU, up Cerro Gordo, and
over the Mexican breastworks. As the de
fenders broke and fled, the Americans
turned their own guns on them and the
troops drawn up In the pass below. At the
same time Shields's brigade of volunteers
charged the extreme Mexican left. There
Santa Anna and all his cavalry were sta
tioned with a battery, but rather than be
captured or driven Into the river, they left
the guns and fled up the road to Jalapa.
Pillow's brigade, guided by Lieutenant
George B. McClellan of the engineers, had
dashed gallantly forward against the bat
teries on the Mexican right, but the volun
teers encountered such dlflScult ground and
so deadly a fire that they fell back with
considerable loss. General Pillow himself
being badly wounded. But when the
force holding those batteries realized that
Twiggs had seized the pass in their rear and
cut off their retreat, they hoisted the white
flag and surrendered. Twiggs then started
163

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
up the road in pursuit of the others, as did
the cavalry and field-battery detaUed for
the purpose as soon as the road was cleared.
But Santa Anna had had too long a start.
All that had escaped of the Mexican army
was widely dispersed and utterly demoral
ized. Its artillery, ammunition, camp, and
entire equipment had fallen into the hands
of the Americans, and 3,000 officers and
men, including 5 generals, were prisoners
of war. Like the garrison of Vera Cruz,
these prisoners were released on parole,
because of the difficulty of guarding them
and also because Scott expected that such
leniency would "diminish the resistance of
other garrisons in our march."
"I am also somewhat embarrassed," said
Scott, in his report to the Secretary of War,
"with the pieces of artillery — all bronze —
that we have captured. It would take a
brigade and half the mules of this army to
transport them fifty mUes. A field-battery
I shall take for service with the army, but
the heavy metal must be coUected and left
here for the present. We have our own
siege-train, and the proper carriages with
us." 164

Afwr the drawing

The Battle of Cerro Gordo.

VERA CRUZ AND CERRO GORDO
Counting Worth's division, which did not
get into the fight, there had been about
9,000 Americans to drive 8,000 Mexicans
out of Cerro Gordo. How many of Santa
Anna's men were kUled and wounded can
only be conjectured; Scott's army lost 263
kiUed and 368 wounded.
Jalapa was occupied without resistance
the day after the battle. From there Scott
sent forward Worth with his division of
regulars and three volunteer regiments
under Quitman. Leaving one of the latter
to garrison the Castle of Perote, a famous
old Spanish fortress that he found aban
doned on April 22, Worth pushed on over the
mountains, easily brushed aside 2,000 or
3,000 Mexican cavalrymen under Santa
Anna at Amazoc on May 15, and three
days later made a triumphant and unre
sisted entry into Puebla, the second city of
the Mexican Republic.
"The singular appearance of some of the
soldiers," says a Mexican historian, "their
wagons, their artillery, their large horses,
all attracted the curiosity of the multitude,
and at the corners and squares an immense
crowd surrounded the new Conquistadores.
165

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
The latter, extremely fatigued, confiding in
the mutual guarantees exchanged between
the city government and General Worth,
or perhaps despising a people who so easily
permitted the occupation of their terri
tory, stacked arms and bivouacked in the
plaza. . . . There is no doubt that more
than 10,000 persons were gathered in the
plaza and the surrounding streets. One
cry, one effort, the heart of one determined
man would have sufficed. If once this
multitude had pressed in upon the enemy
they would inevitably have perished. Noth
ing was done. . . . " *
* "Noticias," p. 227.

166

CHAPTER XII
FROM PUEBLA TO CHURUBUSCO
NEGOTIATIONS for peace kept the
American army from advancing be
yond Puebla for nearly three months after
Worth's bivouac in the plaza. Hoping
that the recent victories would Induce the
Mexicans to treat for the conclusion of the
war that threatened his own political de
struction, Polk sent Mr. Nicholas Trist,
chief clerk of the State Department, as a
special commissioner to abide at Scott's
headquarters with authority to make and
sign a treaty with Santa Anna's govern
ment. Though he immediately got into a furious
quarrel with Scott, who had diplomatic
ambitions of his own and was enraged at the
thought of yielding up any of his authority
to a civilian, Trist soon made a firm friend
of the general, and got in touch with the
Mexican Government through the medium
of the British minister. But neither Santa
167

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
Anna nor his congress dared incur the wrath
of the Mexican people by surrendering New
Mexico and California as the price of peace.
If they did so, a domestic revolution was
certain, while the repulse of Scott's army
was possible, particularly as the delay had
given the Mexicans time to organize the
defense of their capital.
But the delay had also helped the in
vaders. All seven of Scott's volunteer
regiments had been sent home in June at
the expiration of their year's enlistment,
and it took time to replace them with vol
unteers of a later levy. Ten new regiments
of infantry had been added to the regular
army for the rest of the war, and these
were sent south as fast as they could be
raised and organized. Yellow fever raged
at Vera Cruz, and though the arriving
troops were marched as fast as possible into
the cool and healthy hill-country, yet there
were more than 3,000 sick in the various
hospitals by the end of June. Even worse
than "Yellow Jack" was dysentery, caused
by "excessive indulgence in fruits, which it
was found impossible to keep from the
troops." But the general health of the
168

FROM PUEBLA TO CHURUBUSCO
army. In the delightful climate of Puebla,
was excellent. Between drills the soldiers
mingled amicably with the townspeople,
who even to-day remember the army that
actually paid cash for supplies Instead of
seizing them.
Yet, in spite of this liberal policy, Scott
wrote to the Secretary of War:
"Our difficulties lie in gathering subsis
tence from a country covered with exas
perated guerillas and banditti, and main
taining with Inadequate garrisons and
escorts communications with the rear."
For the latter reason, though he himself
had not feared to ride from Jalapa to
Puebla far in advance of the main body of
his army and with an escort of only 250
dragoons, Scott decided to cut the long
cord that bound him to his base at Vera
Cruz and advance like Cortez after burning
his ships. When the news of this decision
reached London, the aged Duke of Welling
ton, who had been following the campaign
with great interest, shook his head gravely
and gave Scott up for lost.
Leaving a garrison of 393 Pennsylvania
volunteers under Colonel ChUds of the
169

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
regular army to guard the i,8oo American
sick in the hospitals and hold a city of
80,000 Mexicans, Scott led out his army on
August 7 on the road to the city of Mexico.
He had in all 10,738 officers and men, or
ganized in four divisions of infantry, com
manded respectively by Generals Worth,
Twiggs, Pillow, and Quitman, and an inde
pendent brigade of dragoons under Colonel
Harney. With this force, Scott confidently
advanced to attack a city of 200,000 in
habitants, defended by an army that was
twice, and that he supposed to be fully
three times, as numerous as his own.
Marching unresisted through deep de
files where 100 men could have stopped
an army, the long blue columns climbed
higher and higher till they passed the great
snow-covered peak of Iztacclhuati, and
came, on the morning of the third day, to
the summit of the pass, more than ten
thousand feet above the level of the sea.
Before and below them lay the vaUey of
Mexico, beyond a semicircular chain of
lakes lay the capital city.
"The direct road from Puebla, winding
down from the mountain heights near the
170

FROM PUEBLA TO CHURUBUSCO
conspicuous and snow-covered mass of
Iztacclhuati, passed along the northeasterly
shore of Lake Chalco, the southernmost of
the chain of lakes, and then upon an ancient
causeway over the isthmus lying between
Lakes XochimUco and Texcoco. On this
isthmus a rocky hill known as the Peiion
VIejo was made strong by every device of
the engineering art. The direct access to
the city was thus controUed by what was
believed to be an impregnable position, and
the isthmus was further strengthened by
strong works thrown up In the neighboring
village of Mexicalclngo." *
At the sound of a signal-gun announcing
the approach of Scott's army on the after
noon of August 9 thousands of enthusiastic
volunteers, accompanied by bands playing
patriotic airs, clergy invoking blessings, and
a great part of the population of the capital
poured out from the city to the Peiion to
help repulse the Invader. But Scott was
not the sort of general to order an impetu
ous frontal attack on the carefully prepared
trenches and batteries before him. Halt
ing at Ayotla, in front of the Peiion, he
* Rives, II, 4S3.
171

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
spent the next two days reconnoitring the
ground, and had almost decided to turn
Santa Anna's right by an attack on Mex
icalclngo when Colonel Duncan, an artil
lery officer of Worth's division, discovered
a practicable path round the southern end
of Lake Chalco, between the marshy shore
of the lake and the steep slope of the hills
at the southern end of the valley.
Marching by this route, the American
army came on August i6 to the village of
San Augustin, on the road from the Pacific
port of Acapulco to Mexico City. But be
tween San Augustin and the capital the
Acapulco road passed first by the great
hacienda of San Antonio and then through
the hamlet and over the bridge of Churu
busco, both strongly built places held by
large forces of Mexicans. A direct advance
over the mile of open road northward from
San Augustin to the castle-like buUdlngs of
San Antonio would have cost many lives.
Again a turning movement had to be made,
though the swampy fields to the east of the
road were too soft for the passage of ar
tillery, while to the west lay a great field of
lava called the Pedregal. 172

FROM PUEBLA TO CHURUBUSCO
"I cannot better describe this Pedregal,"
declared a young naval officer with Scott's
army, "than by comparing It to a sea, which
having been lashed into fury by a tempest,
had been suddenly transformed by the wand
of an enchanter into stone."*
It was no easy task to move an army
across this jagged mass of lava, but five
miles of it had to be crossed to reach the
next road to the north. This was a local
highway running from the little village of
Contreras through the town of San Angel
to Mexico City, and following the ravine
of the Magdalena Brook tUl that stream
flowed into the Churubusco River. A
mule path through the Pedregal from San
Augustin to the Contreras road was dis
covered by Scott's engineers and widened
to permit the passage of artillery by the
labor of Pillow's division, which led the
advance over it on the 19th.
But when Worth's advance-guard came
to the edge of the Pedregal they found the
exit blocked by a strong force of Mexicans,
* Raphael Semmes, "Service Afloat and Ashore," p. 393. He
is best known to history as the captain of the Confederate com
merce-destroyer Alabama.

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
intrenched on a hiU on the other side of the
Contreras road. This hiU was near a ranch
called PaJierna, which the Americans con
fused with the vUlage of Contreras, a mUe
farther south at the end of the road. Be
cause of this confusion the fight that fol
lowed is called by us the battle of Con
treras, but by the Mexicans the battle of
Padierna. "War-rockets," mountain howitzers, and
Magruder's field-battery — which had been
armed with guns captured at Cerro Gordo
and had "Stonewall" Jackson for its second
lieutenant — were brought up by Worth and
opened fire on the hill. But General Val
encia, who held that position with 4,000
men of the Mexican "Army of the North,"
had twenty-two guns in position. His heavy
cannon soon drove the American guns and
skirmishers back into the Pedregal. "Noth
ing but their excessively bad firing," writes
one of Magruder's gunners, "had saved our
battery from being annlhUated."
General Valencia, elated with his suc
cess, reported a great victory and refused
to obey the orders sent him by Santa
Anna to faU back on the capital. That
174

?^v•^¦'^

ft:

.#H^.>lii

After the drawing by C. Nebel.

The Battle of Churubusco.

FROM PUEBLA TO CHURUBUSCO
night whUe Valencia made merry in his
tent, three brigades of United States reg
ulars, and one of volunteers were advanc
ing through the Pedregal to turn his left
flank, "passing over volcanic rocks and
across large fissures barely narrow enough
for the men to get across by leaping."
Men who cross that lava-field to-day
find it no mean task for a trained athlete
unburdened and in broad daylight to
foUow the trail those soldiers, encumbered
with knapsack and flintlock, hurried over
in pitchy darkness. Striking the Con
treras road higher up, they cut off Valen
cia from the city and caused Santa Anna,
who was advancing with a brigade to his
relief, to fall back to San Angel and leave
Valencia, whom he distrusted and hated
as an old political rival, to his fate.
The four American brigades, commanded
by General Persifer F. Smith, the senior
brigadier, spent the night in and about
the village of San Geronimo in a heavy
downpour of rain. During this storm
Captain Robert E. Lee made his way
back across the Pedregal: "The greatest
feat of physical and moral courage per-
175

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
formed by any individual in my knowl
edge, pending the campaign," in the opin
ion of General Scott to whom Lee reported
at San Augustin in time to arrange for a
demonstration in Valencia's front to dis
tract his attention whUe Smith attacked
his rear.
At sunrise on Friday, August 20,
Smith's, RUey's, and Cadwalader's brigades
crept quietly up the ravines that led to
the left and rear of Valencia's position,
reloaded and primed their rain-soaked mus
kets, fixed bayonets, and charged. Two
Mexican guns were hastily pointed and
fired to the rear, there was a feeble sputter
of musketry, and then the charge struck
home. In exactly seventeen minutes the
fight was over, and the utterly routed
Mexicans were riding or running their
fastest up the road to San Angel.
"Thus," reported Scott, "was the great
victory at Contreras achieved; one road
to the capital opened; 700 of the enemy
killed; 813 prisoners, including among 88
officers 4 generals; besides many colors
and standards; 22 pieces of brass ordnance,
half of large caliber; thousands of small
176

FROM PUEBLA TO CHURUBUSCO
arms and accoutrements; an immense
quantity of shot, shells, powder, and car
tridges; 700 pack-mules, many horses, etc.,
etc. — all in our hands. "
Among the captured cannon were the
two brass six-pounders that had been lost
by Lieutenant O'Brien of the Fourth Artil
lery at Buena Vista, and were retaken at
Contreras by a company of the same regi
ment. Scott himself led Pillow's and Twiggs's
divisions In pursuit of the flying Mexicans
up the road from Contreras through San
Angel and beyond. Swinging to the east,
Scott quickly drove a small force of Mex
icans out of the ancient village of Coyoacan,
where Cortez had first established the
viceregal capital of New Spain. This was
an important cross-roads, in the rear of
San Antonio, from which post the Mexican
garrison were retreating as fast as they
could run, with Worth's division In close
pursuit, up the Acapulco road to the
bridge at Churubusco.
A tete-de-pont, a strong earthwork mount
ing five guns and protected by a wet
ditch filled waist-deep with river water,
177

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
guarded the southern end of the bridge.
A quarter of a mile to the southwest,
toward Coyoacan, stands the picturesque
Convent of San Mateo, buUt in 1678, and
designed like aU the Spanish-American
ecclesiastical edifices of that period, for a
fortress In time of need. Round It ran a
thick stone wall twelve feet high, scaffolded
within so that infantry might fire over the
top, and protected without by an earth
work mounting six guns. The main strength
of the convent garrison consisted of the
crack Independencia and Bravo battalions
of the National Guard, the flower of Mexico
City, while the tete-de-pont was held by
the Battalion of San Patricio, composed
of deserters, most of whom were Irish
Catholics from the American army. Across
the bridge on the north bank of the shallow
Churubusco River, which had been artifi
cially straightened Into an irrigation ditch
running due east and west, were drawn up
dense masses of Mexican infantry in re
serve. The guns of the tete-de-pont, opening on
the head of Worth's column, made that
general deploy his division to the left and
178

FROM PUEBLA TO CHURUBUSCO
right of the road, but the heavy cross-fire
from the convent forced his left wing back
on the centre, tUl his whole force had with
drawn to the east of the Acapulco road.
There, with their line curving concavely
from the river on their right to the road
on their left. Worth's regulars stood or
advanced slowly for two hours through the
swampy fields, suffering severely, though
covered by the tall uncut corn, from the
fire of the renegades in the tete-de-pont.
Twiggs at the same time was advancing
independently against the convent, also
through corn-fields and under a withering
fire. An artiUery duel raged between the
six Mexican guns at the convent and an
American light battery. Shields's brigade
of New York volunteers and the "Pal
metto Regiment" of South Carolina, to
gether with a brigade of "new regulars,"
under Franklin Pierce, later President of
the United States, forded the river and
advanced east along its north bank. These
raw volunteers and recruits, raked by a
flanking fire from the convent, and faced
by thousands of Mexicans under Santa
Anna himself, were soon forced to halt
179

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
but stood their ground sturdily. So three
independent and bloody actions raged In
and about Churubusco.
At last the Mexican troops lining the
north bank of the river began to retreat,
while the defenders of the tete-de-pont and
the convent ran out of ammunition. As
their fire slackened, a mixed force of Worth's
men waded across the river and began fir
ing into the rear of the tete-de-pont. At
this, their comrades charged across the
ditch and over the earthwork. The de
fenders were quickly kUled, captured, or
put to flight; the fugitives streaming over
the bridge and mingling with the reserve
troops north of the river in a disorderly
retreat to the city. After them came
Worth, Pierce, and Shields with their in
fantry, while Harney's dragoons charged
up to the very guns of the San Antonio
gate of Mexico City.
"At this moment," says a Mexican his
torian, "a mounted American officer, in uni
form of blue, penetrated the low earthen
rampart, sword in hand, dealing sabre
blows and falling wounded on the es
planade. Many swords were drawn to
1 80

FROM PUEBLA TO CHURUBUSCO
kiU him, but others also hastened to de
fend him on seeing him fall. He rose
crippled, radiant with valor, and smiling
at the felicity of being at the gates of the
capital." *
So did "Dashing PhU Kearny," then a
captain in the First Dragoons, lose his arm,
while Major Mills of the Pennsylvania in
fantry, who had joined the charge as a vol
unteer, was kUled Inside the gate itself.
As Worth went over the tete-de-pont,
Twiggs stormed the battery outside the
convent wall. The church Itself held out
a little longer, but the defenders, when
they saw they were surrounded and their
own guns turned against them, displayed
the white flag from the belfry.
One hundred and four officers and 1,155
men surrendered at the convent. All the
American deserters captured at the bridge
were either hung, or branded with a red-
hot iron with the letter "D," in accor
dance with the brutal mUItary code of the
period. Curiously enough, a company of
Mexican renegades fought at Churubusco
on the American side.
* "Noticias," p. 286.
181

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
The two days' fighting that gained Scott
the whole valley south of Mexico City cost
his army 137 kiUed, 879 wounded, and 40
missing — a total loss of 1,056, or more than
a tenth of its total strength. The Mexican
loss cannot be computed with any exact
ness, but counting the very many deser- •
tions, Santa Anna's army must have been
reduced by at least 6,000 men, besides the
guns and equipment captured. The moral
havoc created by these two crushing de
feats was also very great, though somewhat
offset by the gallant defense of Churubusco
and the repulse of the pursuers at the San
Antonio gate.
Most mUItary critics agree that Churu
busco was a needless battle. By menacing
its rear and allowing the garrison time to
retreat, Scott could have taken that place
as he took San Antonio, without losing a
man. But he had not expected to find
Churubusco strongly held, and Scott's slow-
working mind was better at planning a
pitched battle than evading an unexpected
obstacle in the field.
Ordering his divisional commanders "to
take up battering or assaulting positions,"
182

FROM PUEBLA TO CHURUBUSCO
Scott sat down in his headquarters at San
Augustin to draw up a summons for the
surrender of the city to be delivered in the
morning. "But," wrote the war correspondent of
the New Orleans Picayune, "the darkness
of night had hardly fallen on the 20th
of August, and the smoke of Churubusco
was stUl hanging lazily over the low and
marshy grounds, when a coach containing
a deputation from the English embassy
came out of the city and approached
Worth's pickets. ... As their mission was
to General Scott, they were permitted to
pass the outposts. It was now evident that
Santa Anna, unable further to continue the
defense with his army broken and dispirited,
was disposed to open negotiations for an
armistice." *
* George W. Kendall, "The War Between the United States
and Mexico," illustrated, p. 35.

183

CHAPTER XIII
THE FALL OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
AN armistice was promptly granted by
Scott, who wanted peace and the
political prestige it would bring him as
ardently as Santa Anna desired a breathing
space. Commissioners were appointed on
each side to discuss terms. On the day they
met, a week after Churubusco, some Amer
ican quartermaster's department wagons
that had been permitted to enter the city
for supplies were attacked by a mob, one
of the unarmed teamsters killed and several
others badly beaten. The Mexican Govern
ment apologized, however, and the nego
tiations continued, but without accomplish
ing anything. Santa Anna dared not bring
on a revolution at home by yielding up the
territory demanded by the Americans, and
after a great deal of shilly-shallying the
armistice was broken off on September 5.
On the following day a rumor reached
184

THE FALL OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
General Scott that the Mexicans were
melting down their church-bells and cast
ing them into cannon at a foundry in the
Molino del Rey. This "MiU of the King,"
where both flour and gunpowder had been
made In colonial times, was a long range of
massive stone buUdings at the western end
of the hill of Chapultepec.
When the Aztec people first came to the
valley of Anahuac, or Mexico, many cen
turies before Cortez, they made their first
settlement, according to ancient legend, on
Chapultepec, the "HIU of the Grasshop
pers.'' This hUl is a long, narrow ridge of
volcanic rock, rising steeply out of the flat,
prehistoric lake bottom of the surrounding
valley to a height of one hundred and ninety-
five feet. This ridge is nearly half a mUe
long at the base, runs almost due east and
west, and lies about three mUes southwest
from the National Palace on the great plaza
of Mexico City. Precipitous on the north
and east, Chapultepec slopes steeply down
on the west, where from time immemorial
has stood a noble grove of cypress-trees.
The summit of the hiU was levelled off into
terraces and a palace built there by two
i8s

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
successive Spanish viceroys, father and son,
toward the end of the eighteenth century.
The National MUItary Academy has been
housed there since its creation in 1833, the
Ul-fated MaximUian chose Chapultepec for
his imperial palace, and to-day it is the
official summer residence of the President
of Mexico.
The palace, or "Castle," of Chapultepec,
as the Americans persisted in calling it,
though it was and Is no more like a fortress
than any other large, substantial dwelling-
house, faces to the south, and its main en
trance was reached in 1847 by a zigzag
ramp or roadway running up the steep
southern side of the hill. Below, high park
walls surrounded the ridge on every side
but the west, where the Molino del Rey
completed the enclosure.
Separated from the Molino and about
five hundred yards west of its northern end
was another old Spanish structure — a small,
square buUdIng caUed the Casa Mata.
This is Spanish for "casemate," but it is
said the place had been built for a powder-
mill. Surrounded by an earthwork and
ditch, it was a formidable position to attack,
186

THE FALL OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
but Its strength was much concealed by a
fold of the ground before It.
General Worth was ordered by Scott on
September 7 to drive away the large body
of Mexican troops massed in or about the
Molino, and capture and destroy the "can
non foundry." Reconnoitring carefully.
Worth discovered the strength of the Mex
icans' left wing resting on the Molino,
underestimated that of their right at the
Casa Mata, and decided to pierce their
centre between the two groups of build
ings. The Mexican line made two sides of a
right-angled triangle, and Worth, under
cover of darkness, formed his men on the
third. A storming party of 500 picked offi
cers and men chosen from the two brigades
of Worth's division were ready to charge
the enemy's centre, covered by the fire of
two field-batteries and a couple of twenty-
four-pounders. Garland's brigade was on
the right, Clarke's on the left, while Cad
walader's brigade of Pillow's division, whose
assistance Worth had asked for, stood in
reserve. Three hundred dragoons under
Major Sumner sat in their saddles and
187

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
wondered if they were there to charge stone
walls. But only a mUe to the west, at the haci
enda of Morales, were no less than 4,000
Mexican lancers under General Alvarez,
with orders to fall on the American rear
and left flank as soon as they advanced to
the attack. In the Molino were four bat
talions of the National Guard, two bat
talions of Mexican regulars held the Casa
Mata, and six more battalions of regulars
and a light battery had formed the centre
under General Ramirez. But during the
night of August 7, whUe Worth's men were
forming to attack them, Santa Anna took
away one of Ramirez's battalions and or
dered the rest to move over to the left in
front of the Molino del Rey.
At the first flush of the tropic dawn the
American twenty-four-pounders began to
shell the Molino, as the storming party
dashed gaUantly forward, routed Ramirez's
men, and captured their battery. But the
grape-shot and musket-baUs poured into
them from the buUdings drove the stormers
back. The triumphant Mexicans pursued
them down the slope, retaking the cap-
188

THE FALL OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
tured guns and butchering the American
wounded. Garland's and Cadwalader's brigades
now charged together and assaulted the
Molino along its entire quarter mile of
front. The garrison defended themselves
like men and there was the savagest kind
of hand-to-hand fighting. Finally the gates
were burst in, the Americans poured into the
buUdings and cleared them with the bay
onet. The surviving Mexicans fled up the
hill to Chapultepec, whose guns had kept
up a constant but ineffective fire at long
range throughout the fight.
In the meanwhUe Clarke's brigade, after
a too-slight bombardment by Duncan's
battery, had attempted to storm the Casa
Mata, but had been driven back in confu
sion and with heavy loss. Nearly 40 per
cent of one regiment, the Fifth United
States Infantry, had been killed or wounded.
General Alvarez and his cavalry division,
outnumbering the total American force in
the field, now had a golden opportunity to
charge and ride down his broken and dis
ordered enemy. But Duncan's battery
opened on him with canister, Sumner's
189

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
300 dragoons trotted up, and Alvarez and
his 4,000 tamely withdrew.
Duncan's guns were turned again on the
Casa Mata, which was now isolated by
the fall of the Molino. Realizing this,
the garrison slipped over the rear wall
and got away over the fields to the north.
The Americans were under strict orders
not to pursue, though Worth had begged
to be allowed to press on after taking the
Molino del Rey and assault Chapultepec.
"Had this victory been followed up
promptly," wrote General Grant, who had
been foremost In the fight, "no doubt
Americans and Mexicans would have gone
over the defenses of Chapultepec so near
together that the place would have fallen
into our hands without further loss." *
Molino del Rey was a useless fight and
a Pyrrhic victory. Neither cannon nor
foundry were discovered there, though
some old disused molds showed that there
might once have been such an establish
ment in the mill. After the powder maga
zine had been blown up and the captured
cannon removed, the buildings were aban-
* "Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant," I, 153.
190

THE FALL OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
doned. As at Churubusco, General Scott
had thrown away his men's lives need
lessly, from his inability to judge accurately
when he was forced to think quickly.
Of the 3,447 American troops engaged,
Ii6 were killed, 653 wounded, and 18
missing — a total loss of 787. At least nine
or ten thousand fought on the Mexican
side, and of these 685 were taken prisoners.
Their Infantry must have lost very many
kUled or wounded, and many more de
serted from the broken and disorganized
battalions. The cavalry had kept care
fully out of harm's way.
Having reoccupled the abandoned Mo
lino, Santa Anna proclaimed a great vic
tory, and had the church-bells ring peals
of triumph. But unlike Buena Vista,
this battle had been fought too near home
to be lied about successfully, and the
.demoralized garrison and terrified citizens
waited gloomily for the next move of the
besiegers. "The city of Mexico," says Mr. Rives,
"was in no sense a fortified place. There
were no walls about It. The so-called
gates (garitas) were mere stations intended
191

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
to be occupied by detachments of police
or revenue officers; but, as they were gen
erally solid stone buUdlngs they could be
made to serve for purposes of defense,
and at most of them barricades and earth
works, mounting only a few light guns,
had been hastily constructed. But the
strength of these posts lay chiefly in the
fact that they could only be approached
by perfectly straight causeways running
through marshy fields and flanked by
broad ditches." *
After carefully going over the ground
and holding a council of war, Scott de
cided to make a demonstration against
the southern gates, but to enter the city
by the two causeways that ran from the
eastern end of Chapultepec HUl. Of these
two, the Tacubaya causeway was the
more southerly and led straight to the
Belem Gate, whUe the other made a long
angle to the north before entering the
Gate of San Cosme. If his army was to
foUow these routes, it was necessary for
Scott to capture not only the batteries
that guarded the entrance to the cause-
* Rives, II, S39.
192

After the drawing by C. Nebel.

The Storming of Chapultepec — Pillow's Attack.

THE FALL OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
ways, but the hUl and palace that towered
above them.
Therefore, the American siege guns and
mortars were trained on Chapultepec, and
bombarded the palace all day Sunday,
September 12. The buUdIng itself, well-
protected by sand-bags and timbering,
was not much damaged, but the nerves of
the garrison were badly shaken. Many of
the Mexican soldiers there deserted that
night. Sunrise on Monday the 13 th, found
Pillow's division in possession of the Mo
lino del Rey, ready to charge up the western
slope of the hUl, whUe another division
under Quitman were waiting to storm the
zigzag road leading up to the south front
of the palace. The windows and flat-
topped roof of that building were swarm
ing with Mexican infantry, whUe fourteen
guns had been mounted on the terrace.
At eight o'clock, the American batteries
ceased firing, and by so doing gave the
signal for the advance of the two divisions.
Each was headed by a storming party of
500 picked regulars, carrying crowbars,
picks, and scaling ladders. 193

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
General Pillow was struck down by a
grape-shot, but his men rushed on, driv
ing the Mexican skirmishers before them
through the cypress grove, and from be
hind an intrenchment half-way up the
slope, so precipitately that the fugitives
had no time to light the fuses of the
mines that had been laid on the hillside.
A moat, twelve feet wide and ten deep,
checked the advance at the foot of the re
taining wall of the terrace. Under a heavy
fire, the scaling ladders were brought up
and used for bridges, then raised and
placed against the wall. WhUe their com
rades below picked off the Mexicans who
lined the parapet, the foremost Americans,
led by a private of the "Voltlguers," or
Tenth Infantry, swarmed up the ladders,
fought their way over the ramparts, and
cleared the terrace.
On the south, the New York, Pennsyl
vania, and South Carolina volunteers from
Quitman's division had breached the park
wall with crowbars, and were scaling the
terrace, or fighting their way up the zig
zag road, in spite of a four-pounder placed
at the angle and the musketry fire from
194

THE FALL OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
the palace windows and roof. Presently
the Americans on the terrace were able
to fire down on the rear of the batteries
guarding the entrance to the Tacubaya
road. These batteries were then charged
and taken by Quitman's storming party and
the battalion of marines.
The palace itself was broken Into and
Its defenders, after savage fighting, were
driven at the point of the bayonet from
room after room and floor above floor,
tlU the American flag waved triumphantly
from the roof, and the surviving Mexicans
threw down their arms. While resistance
lasted, no quarter had been given, for
many of the garrison were known to have
been among the defenders of the Molino
del Rey, and the memory of how their
wounded comrades had been put to death
there maddened the Americans.
The young cadets of the National MUI
tary Academy joined bravely in the de
fense of their Alma Mater, the West Point
of Mexico, and several of them were killed.
A monument commemorates the valor of
these boy-patriots, which has recently found
a parallel in the desperate defense of the
195

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
National Naval Academy at the taking of
Vera Cruz by the Atlantic Fleet, April
21, 1 9 14. An historical legend has nat
urally grown up about the former ex
ploit — as a similar legend may be expected
to grow up about the latter — so that it
is widely believed that Chapultepec was
defended mainly by the cadets. But, as a
matter of fact and record, there were
more than 1,200 Mexican regulars and
National Guardsmen in the garrison, and
so few cadets — certainly less than 50 —
that General Bravo, the commanding of
ficer, did not include them in his report of
the strength of his forces, made the night
before the assault.
After the faU of Chapultepec, General
Quitman advanced with his division and
a number of other troops along the Tacu
baya causeway, while Worth, who had
driven away a Mexican brigade from the
north side of the ridge, pushed on along
the other causeway, leading to the San
Cosme Gate.
"The causeways by which Worth's and
Quitman's commands respectively advanced
were wide and solid structures, well ele-
196

THE FALL OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
vated above the level of the marshes they
traversed. Down the middle of each ran
an aqueduct, the city's water-supply, which
rested upon open arches and massive pil
lars of masonry, and afforded, said Scott,
'fine points of attack and defense.' The
arches were, perhaps, of four or five feet
span, and the columns four feet thick; so
that, while affording some cover, the arches
could not shelter many men at one
time."* Quitman placed three South Carolina
volunteers, with bayoneted muskets and
three regulars from the "Rifles," whose
otherwise superior weapons had no bay
onets, under each archway as the column
advanced. Though the Mexicans holding
the Belem garita defended their post bravely
with cannon and musketry, they were
picked off by the American rifles and their
defenses battered by Quitman's field-guns,
till they were forced to abandon the gate.
But farther advance on Quitman's part
was checked by the citadel with its fifteen
guns, just within and to the north of the
gate, and for the rest of that day and the
* Rives, II, SS4-
197

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
following night his men had enough to do
to hold the ground already taken.
Worth, in the meanwhile, had made his
way along the San Cosme causeway under
cover of the arches till he came to where
the road was lined by houses on both sides.
From that point he battered his way
through the walls from house to house, ad
vancing under cover and turning the barri
cades as he had done at Monterey. Quick
witted Lieutenant Grant of the Fourth
Infantry planted a mountain howitzer in
a church belfry, from where it dropped shell
after shell among the defenders of the San
Cosme.Gate. Soon the gate was won, and
that night several heavy mortars and siege-
guns were brought up and planted within
the city itself.
But at sunrise came delegations from the
city government, bearing white flags and
the news that Santa Anna and as much of
his army as he could hold together had
abandoned the city and were retreating to
Guadalupe Hidalgo. Scott immediately
demanded and received the surrender of the
capital. A battalion of United States marines led
198

THE FALL OF ^THE CITY OF MEXICO
the army into the city of Mexico (as the
marines have led it Into so many other
places before and since), drove a mob of
looters out of the National Palace, and
hoisted the stars and stripes. Then Gen
eral Winfield Scott, riding in full uniform
at the head of his staff and escort, reined
up his horse in the middle of the great plaza,
and dramatically announced the comple
tion of the conquest of Mexico.

199

CHAPTER XIV
THE TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO
STREET fighting began soon after Scott
entered the National Palace. Though
the Mexican army had withdrawn from the
city, its generals had, like General Maas at
Vera Cruz sixty-seven years later, released
and armed all the convicts and left them to
fight the Americans. Knives had been dis
tributed among the "leperos," or profes
sional beggars, with whom the capital
swarmed, and these men, joined by de
serters from Santa Anna's army and mem
bers of the National Guard, began stoning
and "sniping" the American troops from
windows and housetops.
One of the first shots wounded Brigadier-
General Garland as he rode at the head of
Worth's division into the city. A twenty-
four-pound shell from a siege-gun promptly
demolished the house from which that
musket-shot had been fired. Other houses
200

TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO
held by "snipers" were broken into and
cleared with the bayonet. Many by
standers and non-combatants were killed
during the thirty-six hours of street fighting
that followed, but, deplorable as this was, it
was unavoidable. Deducting the Chapul
tepec garrison and other detachments, Scott
had but 6,000 men with which to subdue
and hold a hostile city of 200,000 inhabi
tants. It was no time for half-way measures
or the tame sort of fighting the Mexicans
were wont to wage in their own capital, when
two rival factions would carefully intrench
themselves and fire harmlessly at each other
for several weeks. The Americans fought
in grim earnest, expecting at every minute
the return of Santa Anna and his army.
Hearing that the Americans were hard
pressed, Santa Anna did return with a few
troopers to Mexico City, but only to find
Scott in complete control and the municipal
authorities helping him restore order. Santa
Anna accordingly rode back to Guadalupe
Hidalgo, where he resigned the presidency
and set out with the few thousand men re
maining to him to recapture Puebla.
The small American garrison there had
201

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
been attacked by the populace soon after
Scott's advance to Mexico City. Aban
doning the rest of Puebla, the Americans
occupied the citadel and a massive church
that stood near it on a ridge overlooking
the town, whUe most of the i,8oo sick and
wounded were quartered in the San Jose
barracks not far below. With not more
than 500 volunteers and convalescents,
and a few pieces of captured artUlery, the
commanding officer. Colonel ChUds of the
regular army, had to maintain all three of
these positions against a large force of local
irregular troops, who, however, did nothing
but keep up a futUe fire from a perfectly
safe distance.
Santa Anna reached Puebla on Septem
ber 21 with several thousand Mexican reg
ulars and a train of artillery, formally sum
moned Colonel ChUds to surrender, and
received a prompt but equally formal refusal.
Though he had now a splendid opportunity
to strike Scott a heavy blow, capture much-
needed supplies, and revive Mexico's hopes
and power of resistance by what should
have been an easy victory, Santa Anna,
instead of pressing the siege, made only a
202

TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO
few feeble and desultory attacks during the
next week.
Then, hearing of the approach of a wagon-
train and escort from Vera Cruz, Santa
Anna marched to meet it with most of his
forces on October i. But the train-guard
had been overtaken and reinforced by a
newly landed brigade under General Lane,
whUe Santa Anna's men rapidly deserted on
the march. Having easily brushed Santa
Anna aside and captured two of his guns
in a spirited skirmish, Lane entered Puebla
and relieved ChUds on October 12.
After a narrow escape from being cap
tured by Lane's cavalry and having been
summoned by his own government to ap
pear before a court of Inquiry, Santa Anna
left Mexico under an American safe-con
duct and fled to Jamaica. Though he was
recalled again as dictator in the fifties, he
was soon driven out, to return once more in
1867, when he was imprisoned for conspir
acy against the republic, but pardoned and
released. Santa Anna's long and adven
turous life was ended amid poverty and
neglect in the city of Mexico in 1876.
Except for a second and uncaUed-for
203

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
invasion of Chihuahua by Colonel Sterling
Price, the governor of New Mexico, the
fighting was now over. The Mexican army
was reduced to a few thousand men, in
widely scattered detachments, without a
head. The American army could have
marched with little or no opposition through
the rest of Mexico, whUe the American navy
had captured or was closely blockading
every Mexican port. It was time to make
peace and on the conqueror's terms.
After Santa Anna's abdication, in the
absence of a vice-president or secretary of
foreign affairs, the presiding judge of the
supreme court, Seiior Manuel de la Pena y
Pena, became provisional President. Like
Sefior Carbajal in 1914, Pena y Pena was
not a great leader of men, but he was a
jurist of high repute and a peace-loving
patriot. A provisional government was
established at Queretaro, and began nego
tiations with Mr. Trist.
A letter from Buchanan, written early in
October when the news of the failure of the
September armistice had reached Washing
ton, now ordered Trist to withdraw from
Mexico. Trist accordingly arranged to go
204

TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO
down to Vera Cruz by the next convoy, but
changed his mind at the importunities of
the Mexicans and stayed to negotiate a
treaty on the terms of his original instruc
tions. As soon as the immediate danger of war
was removed the Mexican Congress delayed
for weeks over trifles and haggled for an
advance payment of the promised indem
nity after the terms had been agreed on,
till the American commissioner and the
American general came, or pretended to
come, to the end of their patience. To
ward the end of January, Trist ostenta
tiously broke off the negotiations, and Scott,
whose army had been strongly reinforced
and was unhampered by any armistice,
talked loudly of marching on Queretaro.
Though one hundred and fifty miles of
rough road separated that town from
Mexico City, the news of that threat
reached Queretaro in less than two days
and the order for the Mexican commis
sioners at the capital to sign the treaty came
posting back in something like twenty-four
hours. The treaty was signed, however, not in
205

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
the city of Mexico but, at the request of
the Mexican commissioners, in the neigh
boring town of Guadalupe Hidalgo, on
February 2, 1848.
By this Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
Mexico ceded to the United States, New
Mexico, upper California, and Texas to
the Rio Grande, in return for the pay
ment of jSi5,ooo,ooo. Three mUlions were
to be paid in cash as soon as the treaty
should be ratified, and the remainder in
instalments. The United States also as
sumed the unpaid claims of American
citizens against Mexico, and agreed to
prevent the Indians from raiding across
the new frontier — a service that was com
muted a few years later for an additional
payment of ^10,000,000.
Both President Polk and the majority
of the United States Senate were well
pleased with the terms of the treaty, and
so were most of the American people.
The country had gained what it was
fighting for, and was weary of war, with
its expense and bloodshed. But there
was a formidable opposition in the Senate,
formed of two diametrically opposite fac-
206

TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO
tions— the extreme Southerners, led by
Calhoun, who wanted more, if not all, of
Mexico for additional slave territory, and
the New England extremists, led by Web
ster, who wanted no new territory at all.
The latter, actuated both by the love of
freedom and the narrow provincialism that
characterized the New England of that
period, were unwittingly helping their bit
terest foes, for the rejection of the treaty
would have meant the resumption of the
war and, perhaps, the extinction of Mexico
as a nation. But the middle course, for
which Polk had firmly stood, prevaUed,
and the treaty was ratified by the vote
of 38 senators to 14, well over the neces
sary two-thirds, on March i, 1848.
Then followed another tedious period of
dilatory action on the part of the Mexican
Government in giving its ratification to
the now slightly amended treaty. The
statesmen at Queretaro talked on intermi
nably, while General Paredes was hatching
royalist plots, Santa Anna's partisans were
busy intriguing for his return, and minor
uprisings and mutinies broke out con
tinuously in one part of the country after
207

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
another. One Mexican faction that fa
vored American rule, even asked General
Scott to proclaim himself dictator and
raise a "Mexican" army of American
veterans. This tempting offer was, how
ever, declined by Scott, who was soon
afterward ordered to hand over the com
mand to his subordinate. General Butler,
and appear before a court of inquiry on
charges of attempting to bribe Santa Anna
into making peace during the negotia
tions at Puebla. This court, composed
of army officers who had not served under
Scott, and were therefore supposed to be
impartial, also investigated the unseemly
squabbles that had taken place between
Scott and Generals Worth and Pillow.
Though Scott was soon acquitted of some
of these charges whUe the rest were dropped,
this arraignment and trial of a victorious
general in the presence of his own army
did more than anything else to impress
the Mexicans with the power of the United
States Government.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was
finally ratified and signed on May 30,
1848. The rearguard of the American
208

TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO
army marched out of Mexico City on
June 12, and on July 30, the city of Vera
Cruz and the Castle of San Juan de UUoa,
always the last points to be yielded up
by an invader, were formally evacuated.

209

CHAPTER XV
THE RESULTS OF THE WAR
"/TpHE United States forces employed
JL in the Invasion of Mexico," says
Wilcox, "aggregated about 100,000 armed
men — 26,690 regulars, 56,926 volunteers,
and the balance in the navy, commis
sariat and transportation departments. Of
this number, 120 officers and 1,400 men
fell in battle or died from wounds received
there; 10,800 men perished by disease,
always more fatal than bullets, and many
were ruined In health or disabled by wounds
— in all about 25,000. The cost, exclusive
of pensions granted in late years, was from
130,000,000 to 160,000,000 of dollars." *
But over a million square miles of terri
tory had been added to the United States.
Out of the conquered Mexican provinces
of California and New Mexico, whose
southern borders were presently advanced
* Wilcox, "History of the Mexican War," p. 567.
210

THE RESULTS OF THE WAR
and rounded out by the Gadsden Purchase,
have been formed not only the two States
of California and New Mexico, but all of
Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, most of Colo
rado, and parts of Wyoming and Kansas.
And over the division of these rich spoils of
the Mexican War began a dispute that
led directly to the Civil War.
Representative Brinkerhoff of Ohio had
prepared an amendment to a bill that was
introduced in the House of Representa
tives in 1846, to appropriate money to
compensate Mexico for any of her territory
the United States might forcibly annex.
But, being unable to obtain the floor him
self, Brinkerhoff had his proposed amend
ment Introduced by Representative Daniel
WUmot of Pennsylvania, and therefore, it
is known In history as the WUmot Proviso.
"As an express and fundamental con
dition to the acquisition of any territory
from the Republic of Mexico by the United
States," demanded the Proviso, "neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude shall
exist in any such territory."
"The WUmot Proviso," says Professor
Albert BushneU Hart, "was the bugle-caU
211

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
which aroused the North to the intention
of the South to increase the slave States
beyond Texas, and thus to extend slavery.
Lincoln once boasted that he had voted
for the principle of the WUmot Proviso
forty-two times in the two years of his
service in the House." *
Passed by the House by a large major
ity, the WUmot Proviso was lost in the
Senate on the last night of the session,
because a Massachusetts senator, a well-
meaning but fatal friend of the measure,
made too long a speech in its favor, and so
prevented a vote till midnight and ad
journment. By the next session, the
Southerners who had voted for the Proviso
had now grasped its import and fought it,
and indeed the sectional line was soon so
clearly drawn and the feeling on both
sides so bitter that the Civil War might
well have broken out ten years earlier
than it did, if the leaders of each faction,
Calhoun and Webster, had not made a
truce with the famous Compromise of
of 1850. By this, the question of slavery
in the new territories was left to the de-
* Hart's "Contemporaries," IV, 38.
212

THE RESULTS OF THE WAR
cision of the men who settled there; the
doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty," whose
memory calls up visions of "Bleeding
Kansas," Sharps' rifles, and John Brown
of Osawatomie.
California's fate was decided a week be
fore the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, when gold was discovered in
Colonel Sutter's mUl-race. Over the plains,
round Cape Horn, or across the Isthmus of
Panama came the Forty-niners to populate
California and make it a State — a free
State. Slavery could not be tolerated In a
land of highly paid white labor, and when
the war came California stood by the Union.
So also did New Mexico, whose people's
loyalty, however, was greatly stimulated
by their ancient grudge against Texas.
From the Mexican War the Southern
"slave-power" gained only Texas — which
had entered the Union before the first shot
was fired at Palo Alto — and the awakened
hostility of the North.
"Even the question of slavery," noted
President Polk in his diary, " is thrown Into
Congress and agitated In the midst of a
foreign war. ... It is a most wicked agl-
213

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
tatlon that can end in no good and must
produce Infinite mischief."*
"Old Rough and Ready," Zachary Taylor,
the popular military hero of the war, suc
ceeded Polk In the presidency, and four
years later Brigadier-General Franklin
Pierce was also elected President, largely
on his war record. Throughout the coun
try veterans were favored candidates for
every office from President to pound-keeper.
The Mexican War inspired Lowell to
write his BIglow Papers — the first great
American satire. Long after the world has
forgotten the victories of General Winfield
Scott it wUl chuckle over the sayings and
misadventures of Private Birdofredum
Sawin. In our first war in Mexico, as in the war
with Spain, we made a slow and expensive
job of beating a fourth-rate adversary and
thereby learned how unprepared we were to
fight a real enemy. Most of this lesson was
promptly forgotten, but not aU. DrUl was
simplified, weapons modernized, and gen
eral efficiency increased during the elghteen-
fifties, both in the regular army and the
* "Polk's Diary," p. 347.
214

THE RESULTS OF THE WAR
organized militia. It was the memory of
his subordinate's briUiant work in Mexico
that made the aged General Scott beseech
Colonel Robert E. Lee to take command of
the United States and not the Virginian
forces at the outbreak of the Civil War.
Grant, boldly investing Fort Donelson with
an army smaller than the garrison It was
besieging, did so because he "had known
General Pillow in Mexico and judged that
with any force, no matter how small, I
could march up to within gunshot of any
intrenchment he was given to hold."*
When Vicksburg fell. Grant received Its
"unconditional surrender" from Pember-
ton, whom he had last met in the church-
steeple, where Grant had been training a
mountain howitzer on the San Cosme Gate
of Mexico City. Captain Winslow of the
Kearsarge and Captain Semmes of the Ala
bama were old messmates, who had each
commanded and lost a ship In the blockade
of Vera Cruz. Mexico supplemented West
Point and Annapolis as a training-school
for the Civil War.
Mexico itself, weary of war and with Its
* Grant's "Memoirs," I, 241.
215

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
government strengthened by the three mil
lions of cash indemnity, had a few months
of respite after the withdrawal of the Amer
ican troops. Then the mutinies and revo
lutions broke out anew but with a differ
ence. It had taken the American invasion
to make the common people of Mexico
realize how weak and worthless was the
army and how selfishly unpatriotic the
church that had ruled and plundered them
since the days of Iturbide. The spirit of
Hidalgo was born again in the great Indian
patriot Benito Juarez. Under his leader
ship the Mexican people had broken the
power of the military and clerical oligarchy
when Napoleon III took advantage of our
own Civil War to set up a sham empire in
Mexico. But the heroic Juarez kept up
the struggle in the north, tUl gathering war-
clouds in Europe and a strong hint from
Secretary Seward that Mexico was a good
place for the French troops to emigrate
out of, forced the Emperor of the French
to withdraw Bazaine's army and leave the
"Emperor of Mexico" to his fate. Maxi
milian, Austrian archduke, sham emperor,
but brave man, died facing a firing-squad
216

THE RESULTS OF THE WAR
at Puebla with the gaUant grace of a
Charles II.
"God save the King! Well, that King is gone,
Ages ago, and the Hapsburg one,
Shot; but the rock of the Church lives on.
"God save the King! What matter indeed.
If King or President succeed
To a country haggard with sloth and greed ?" *
If royalty and Imperialism were at last
dead in Mexico, democracy and self-govern
ment were not yet born. Juarez, weary
and old, sank into his grave before the task
of buUdIng up a true republic had been
fairly begun. The forces of reaction, aided
now by American capitalists eager for rail
road and mining concessions, triumphed in
the long despotism of Porfirio Diaz. Super
ficially there were peace and plenty in the
land, and historians wrote "finis" to the
long tale of Mexico's sorrows. They neither
foresaw that the old anarchy would return,
once the dictator's hand relaxed, nor did
they recall this gloomy prophecy made by
a Mexican in 1850:
"What must be, must be. Sooner or
* Bret Harte.
217

OUR FIRST WAR IN MEXICO
later, we shaU see ourselves overwhelmed in
another, or more than one, disastrous war,
untU the flag of the stars floats over the last
span of the territory which it so much
covets."*
* "Noticias," chap. I.

2l8

INDEX

Aberdeen, Lord, 56, 109
Acapulco, 172; road, 177, 179
Adams, John Quincy, 61, 62; his
pamphlet on slavery, 6s, 66
Agua Nueva, 127
Aguinaldo, 124
Alabama, the, 173, 215
Alaman, Don Lucas Ignacio, 29-
32, 34. 37. 38, 66
Alamo, the, 43-46, 50
Alexander VI, Papal Bull of, 2
Allen, Ethan, 40
Almonte, Sefior, 64
Alvarez, General, 188-190
Amazoc, 165
Ampudia, General, 80, 116, 120-
122, 130, 131
Anahuac, 33, 34, 38, 185
Anderson, Captain Robert, 154
Angostura, La, 130
Anton Lizardo, 151, 152
Apache Cafion, 140
Arab, the, 123
Arista, General, 81-83, 86, 90, 91,
93, 94, 114
Arizona, 211
Arkansas cavalry, 128, 131, 132
Annies, United States and Mexi
can compared, 83-88
Armijo, Governor, 140
"Army of the Centre," 125
"Army of the West," the, 139,
140
Artillery, Fourth, 134, 177
Artillery, Mexican, 164
Atalaya HiU, 160-163
Atlantic Fleet, the, 196
Augustin I, IS
Austin, Moses, 22, 23, 30
Austin, Stephen Fuller, 23-26, 37,
39-41
Ayotla, 171
Aztecs, the, 185

Balleutine's "English Soldier in
Mexico," 83, 8s, 1S2, IS3
Bancroft, quoted, 7
Bazaine's army, 216
"Bear" party, the, 107
Beauregard, Lieutenant, 161
Belem gate, the, 192, 197
Benham's " Recollections of Buena
Vista," 129, 13s
Benton, Senator Thomas H., 102,
104
Bent's Fort, 140
Bexar (San Antonio), 19, 21, 23,
34, 40-42. 45, S3. 119, I2S, 172,
177, 182
Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, S9
Bishop's Palace, Monterey, 117-
119
"Black Fort, The," 117, 119
Black Hawk War, 88
Bonaparte, Joseph, 10
Bowie, 44-46, so
Bradbum, Colonel, 33, 34
Bragg, Captain, 116, 131, 13s
Bravo battalion, 178
Bravo, General, 196
Brazil, 2
Brazito, 143
Brazoria, 33
Brinkerhoff, Representative, 211
Brown, John, 213
Brown, Major, 82
Brownsville, 80
Bryant, William Cullen, 149
Buchanan, 204
Buena Vista, battle of, 129-137,
148, is8, 177, 191
"Buenaventura River," 103
Bustamante, President, 29, 34
Butler, General, 208
Cadillac, Governor, 6
Cadwalader's brigade, 176, 187, 189

219

INDEX

Calderon, Bridge of, 12
Calderon, Madame, 73
Calhoun, John C, S7-S9, 207, 212
California, 55, s6, 7°, 7i, 73, 77-
79, 97; conquest of, 98-113;
168, 206, 210, 211, 213
Callao, 55
Camargo, 115, 116
Canada, 56
Cape Horn, 112
Carbajal, Senor, 204
Carranza, General Venustiano, 74,
124
Carson, Kit, 109, no ¦
Casa Mata, the, 186-190
Castle of Perote, 165
Castro, General Jos£, 103, 104,
106, 107, 109
Cathedral Plaza, 119, 120
Catholic Church, the, 159
Cerro Gordo, battle of, 159-165,
174
Chalco, Lake, 171, 172
Chapultepec, 185, 186, 189, 190,
192; battle of, 193-196
Cherokee Indians, 44
Chihuahua, 125, 142, 144; battle
of, 145-148, 204
Childs, Colonel, 169, 202, 203
Chippewa, battle of, 151
Churubusco, 172; battle of, 177-
183; 184, 191
Cincinnati, 49
Ciudad Juarez, 143
Civil War, the, 211, 212, 215, 216
Clarke's brigade, 187, 189
Clay, Henry, 8, 59-61, 68, 77
Coahuila, 18, 27, 29, 36, 39, 148
Collingwooil, flag-ship, 108, 109
Colonization Acts, Mexican, 24, 31
Colorado, 211
Comanche Indians, 2, 6, 28
Compromise of 1850, 212
Congress, frigate, loi, 102, 108,
109
Connelley's "Doniphan's Expedi
tion," 143
Contreras, battle of, 174-177
Cooke's "Conquest of New Mex
ico and California," 140, 141
Corpus Christi, 75, 80
Cortez, 2, 48, 169, 177, 185
Cos, General, 41, 43, 4^, 49, 51

Coyoacan, 177, 178
Creek Indians, 44
Creoles, the, 11
Cuba, 12
Dana's "Two Years Before the
Mast," 100
Davis, Jefferson, 120, 127, 133,
134, 137 . ,
Davis's "Jefferson Davis, 80
"Deaf Smith," 51
Democratic National Convention
of 1844, 59, 60
Diaz, Porfirio, 12, 71, 217
Dolores, the Cry of, 10, 11
Doniphan, Colonel, no, 139, 141-
143, 14s. 146, 148
Drake, Francis, 32, 33
Duncan, Colonel, 116, 118, iSg,
190
Durango, 148
El Embrido, 141
EI Encerro, 160
El Paso, 143-146
El Telegrafo, 160
Encarnacion, 127, 128, 136
English possessions in North
America, 7, 56
Enterprise, United States brig, 20
Fallen Timbers, battle of the, 86
Fannin, Colonel, 44, 46-48
Farias, 159
Farragut, 156
Ferdinand VII, 11-13, 35
Filibusters, American, 19, 20, 54
Flanders, 84
Flores, Don Mariano, in
Florida, 7-9, 71, 78; Treaty, 8, 9,
76
Fort Brown, 80, 83, 90, 94
Fort Diablo, 117, 120
Fort Donelson, 215
Fort Federacion, 117
Fort Harrison, 88
Fort Leavenworth, no, 112, 139
Fort Libertad, 117
Fort St. Louis, 3, 4, 8
Fort Soldado, 117
Fort Sumter, 134
Fort Teneria, 117, 119, 120
Forty-niners, the, 213

220

INDEX

Franco-Spanish War of 1719, 7
Fremont, John Charles, 102-107,
109, 112, 113
Frendi, explorers in America, 3, 4;
attempt to found colony in
Texas, 3, 4; colonization of
Louisiana, 6; trade with Span
ish colonies, 6, 7 ; withdrawal of,
from Mexico, 216
Frontiersmen, American, 100, loi
Funston, General, 157
Gadsden Purchase, the, 211
Gaines, General, 66
Galveston, the island of, 19
Galveston Bay, 27, 33, 49
Garland, Brigadier-General, 120,
187, i8g, 200
Garrison, Professor, quoted, 69, 70
Gillespie, Lieutenant, 102, 104,
106
Goliad, 19, 21, 40, 43, 44, 46, 47, so
Gonzales, 40, 41, 43, 48
Grant, U. S., 121, 198; his "Mem
oirs" quoted, 88, 161, 162, 190,
21S
Great Britain, 55-57, 78, los, 109
Grenville, Sir Richard, 44
Grijalva, Juan de, 151
Guadalajara, n
Guadalupe Hidalgo, 198, 201;
treaty of, 206-208, 213
Guanajuato, 11
Guerrero, President, 29
Harney, Colonel, 170, 180
Harrisburg, 48
Harrison, General, 57
Hart, Professor Albert Bushnell,
quoted, 70, 211, 212
Harte, Bret, 217
Hawkins, John, 32
Hay, John, quoted, 38
Herrera, President, 73
Hidalgo, 10-12
Horseshoe Bend, 44
Houston, General Sam, 44, 46,
48-51, S3
Huerta, General Victonano, 74,
124
Hughes's "Doniphan's March,"
144

Iguala, Plan of, 35
Illinois regiment. Second, 135
Independencia battalion, 178
Indiana regiments: Second volun
teers, 131; Third, 132, 135
Indians, Aztec, 185; Cherokee,
44; Comanche, 2, 6, 28; Creek,
44; Navajo, 142; Pueblo, 138;
Tejas, i; Zuni, 142
Infantry regiments. United States:
First, 119; Third, 119; Fourth,
119, 121, 198; Fifth, 90, 93,
189; Eighth, 93; Tenth, 194
Isabella, Queen, 38
Iturbide, General Eduardo, 9, 14,
IS, 23,35, Si, 74, 216
Iztacdhuatl, 170, 171
Jackson, Andrew, 19, 38, 44, 56.
58, 62, 70
Jackson, "Stonewall," 174
Jalapa, 159, 163, 169
Jamaica, 203
Jesuit missions, 98
Jones, Adjutant-General, 123
Jones, Commodore Ap Catesby,
54-56, 66, loi
Jornada del Muerto, the, 142
Juarez, Benito, 216, 217
Kansas, 139, 211, 213
Kearny, General PHlip, 85, no-
112, 139-142, 181
Kearsarge, the, 215
Kendall, George W., his "War
Between the United States and
Mexico" quoted, 183
Kennedy's "Texas " quoted, 26
Kentucky regiments, 131, 132,
135
Klamath Lake, 104
La Bahia (Goliad), ig, 21, 40, 43,
44, 46, 47, SO
La Canada, 141
Lafitte, Jean, 19, 20
La Joya, 159
Landero, General, 156
Lane, General, 203
Larkin, Consul, loi, 102, 104, loS
La Salle, Robert Cavalier de, 3, 8,
76

221

INDEX

Lee, Captain Robert E., i6i, 162,
17s. 176, 215
Lee, Light-Horse Harry, 86
Liberty bell, Mexican, 10
Lincoln, Abraham, 68, 212
Lobos Island, 151
Loma de Independencia, the, 117,
118
Long, James, 20
Los Angeles, in .
Louis XIV, 3
Louisiana, 6, 22, 23, 26, 114
Louisiana Purchase, the, 7-9, 76
Lowell's Biglow Papers, 214
Lundy, Benjamin, 66
Lundy's Lane, 151
M'Carty's "National Songs," 89
McClellan, George B., 163
Maas, General, 200
Magruder's field-battery, 174
Manga de Clavo, 160
Manila Bay, battle of, 96
Marshall, Chief Justice, i6
Martinez, 23
Matagorda Bay, 3
Matamoros, 80, 82, 94, 114
Maximilian, 15, 186, 216
May, Lieutenant-Colonel, 92, 127,
132
Mesa, the, in
Mexicaldngo, 171, 172
Mexican Army, 83-87
Mexican Constitution of 1824,
16-18, 36
Mexican Empire, 14
Mexican National Military Acad
emy, 87, 186, 19s
Mexican National Naval Acad
emy, 196
Mexican War of Independence,
10-21, 35, 48, 71, 99, 139
Mexico, proclamation of inde
pendence of, 9, 14; govern
ment of, 16-18; unpaid debts
of, 71, 72; made centralized re
public, 39; declaration of war
with, 96
Mexico City, 4, 15, 23, 37, 54, 126,
158, 172, 180, 182; fall of, i8s-
199; 200, 201, 2og, 215
Milam, Ben, 42, 43
Mills, Major, t8i

Miiion, General, 127, 128, 136
Missions, Spanish, 5, 6, 8, 98, 99,
138
Mississippi, frigate, 155
Mississippi Rifles, 120, 127, 132,
133, 135
Mississippi River, 3, 22
Missouri Compromise, the, 62, 68
Missouri Mounted Volunteers,
First, 139, 143, 144, 147-149
MoKno del Rey, the, 185-191,
193, 195
Monclova, 125
Monroe, President, 8
Monterey, 55, 66, 81, 98, loi,
103, 104, 106, 108, log; battle
of, 115-122; 124, 127, 157, 198
Montezuma, 15
Montgomery, Commander, 107,
108
Morales, General Juan, 155, 156,
188
Mosquito flotilla, the, 155
"Muscovites," the, 98
Nacogdoches, 21, 66
Napoleon Bonaparte, 7, 11, 12
Napoleon III, 216
Natchitoches, 6, 27
Navajo Indians, 142
Nevada, 211
New Mexico, 53, 54, no, 138; an
nexation of, 141, 142; 168, 206,
210, 211, 213
New Orleans, 6, 7, 22, 27, 149
New Spain, the Kingdom of, 4-6,
9, 14, 177
New York, 28
New York volunteers, 179, 180,
194
North America, early European
settlers in, 2, 3
"Noticias por la Guerra," 146,
166, 181, 218
Nueces River, 75, 76, 81
Nuevo Leon, 75, 81
O'Brien, Lieutenant, 134, 177
O'Donoju, 14, 51
OCate, Don Juan de, 138
Oregon, 68, 78, 104
Oregon trail, the, 103

222

INDEX

Padfic squadron, loi, British, io8
Padierna, battle of, 174
"Pahnetto Regiment," the, 179
Palo Alto, battle of, 83-86, 89, 108,
213
Panama, 32
Panama Railroad, 154
Paredes, General Mariano, 73-75,
81, 104, 123, 207
Parras, 125
Patterson, General, 153, 154, 158,
161
Pedregal, the, 172-175
Pemberton, 215
Pena y Pena, Senor Manuel de la,
204
Pennsylvania regiments, 169, 181,
194
Penon Viejo, 171
Peon, the Mexican, 17, 18, 29
Peru, 2, 32
Philippines, the, 124
Picayune, New Orleans, 183
Pico, Don Andres, no, in
Pico, Governor Pio, 106, 107, 109
Pierce, Franklin, 179, 180, 214
Pike's "Battle of Buena Vista,"
135
Pillow, General, 162, 163, 170,
173, 177, 187, 193, 194, 208, 21S
Pifieda, Alvarez de, i, 8
Pizarro, 2
Plan del Rio, 158-160
Point Isabel, 8c^82
Polk, James K., 60, 61, 63, 64,
68-71, 73-79, 88, 95-97, los,
112, 123, 126, 139, 167, 206,
207, 213, 214
Portsmouth, U. S. S., 107
Portugal, 2
Price, Colonel Sterling, 141, 204
Princeton, cruiser, 57
Puebla, 165, 167, i6g, 170, 201-
203, 208, 217
Pueblo Indians, 138
Queretaro, 204, 205, 207
Quitman, Brigadier-General, 120,
121, 165, 170, 193-197
Ramirez, General, 188
Resaca de la Palma, battle of, 91-
95, 104, 108, 127

"Revenge," battle of the, 44
Reynol<£'s battery, 133
Richman's " California," gS
Ridgely's battery, g3, 116
Riego, 13
Riley's brigade, 176
Ringgold, Major, 90
Rio Grande, the, 75-77, 80, 81,
91,94, 114, 115, 125, 143
Rives's "The United States and
Mexico" quoted, 16, 20, 21,
74, 109, IS4, 171, 191, 192, 197
Sabine, the, 33
Sacramento Valley, 100, 104
Sacrifidos, island of, 151
St. Lawrence, the, 3
Saltillo, 117, 118, 125, 127, I2g,
132, 136, 148, I4g
San Angel, 173, 175-177
San Antonio de Bexar, ig, 21, 23,
34, 40-42, 45, Si, iig, "5. 172.
177, 182
San Augustin, 172, 173, 176, 183
San Bias, n
San Cosme gate, the, ig2, ig6,
198, 215
San Diego, 98, no, in
San Domingo, 117
San Felipe, 36
San Frandsco, 98, loi, 107
San Frandsco Bay, 107, 108
San Gabriel River, in
San Geronimo, 175
San Ildefonso, Treaty of, 7
San Jacinto, battle of, 49-51, S3,
66,76
San Jos^ barracks, 202
San Juan de UUoa, 155, 156, 209
San Luis Potosi, 11, 123-125,
127, 129, 136, 158
San Mateo, Convent of, 178, 179,
181
San Pascual, no
San Fatrido, battalion of, 178
Santa Anna, Antonio Lopez de,
34-36. 38, 39. 41, 43-45, 47-
51, 66, 72-75, 123-128, 130,
133-136. 152, 158-160, 163-165,
167, 172, 174, 17s, 179, 183, 184,
188, 191, 198, 200-204, 207, 208
Santa Barbara, 112
Santa Ffi, 54, no, 138-142

223

INDEX

Santa F6 trail, 139
Scott, General Winfield, 126, 127,
150-153. iss, 157, 159, 161,
162, 164, 165, 167-171, 173, 176,
177, 182-185, 187, 191, 198, 199,
200-202, 205, 208, 214, 215
Seminole War, 88
Semmes, Captain Raphael, his
"Service Afloat and Ashore"
quoted, 173; 215
Serro, Brother Junipero, 98
Seven Years' War, the, 7
Seward, Secretary, 216
Sharps's rifles, 213
Sherman, WilUam Tecumseh, 112
Shields's brigade, 161, 163, I7g,
180
Slavery, 17, 2g, 56, 60, 61, 6s-6g,
77, 212, 213
SUdell, John, 70, 73
Sloat, Commodore, loi, 102, 108,
log
Smith, General Persifer F., 175,
176
Sonoma, 107
South Africa, 85
South CaroUna regiment, I7g, ig4,
197
Spanish, explorations in Texas, i,
2; possession of Texas, 2-7;
Colonial system, 4
Spanish- American War, 12
Spanish Cortes, or Parliament, 13
"Squatter Sovereignty," 213
Standish, Miles, 100
Stockton, Commodore, loi, 108,
109, in
Sumner, Major, 187, i8g, igo
Sutter, Colonel, 213

Tacubaya causeway, the, 192,
igs, ig6
Tamaulipas, 75, 81
Tampico, 36, gi, g4, 124, 125
Taos, 141
Taylor, General Zachary, 75, 77,
80, 82, 83, 86, 88-go, 92, 96,
114-116, 118, 119, 121-123,
125-131, 133, 135-137, 150,
151, 214
Tejas, Indians, i
Tennessee, First, volunteers, 120

Ttte-de-pont, the, at Churubusco,
177-181
Texas, early history of, i-g; a
Mexican state, 18; attempts to
found American colonies in,
19, 20; in 1821 almost de
populated, 20, 21; American
migration to, 23-31; question
of reUgion in, 25, 26; growth of
American population, 27, 28;
negro slavery in, 29; Mexican
restrictions on trade, 31-33;
uprising in smuggler affair, 33,
34; conventions of 1832 and
1833, 36, 37; offer of United
States to purchase, 38; third
general convention, 40; hos-
tiUties with Mexico, 40-54; in
dependence declared, 48, and
recognized, 51, 52; admitted
to the Union, 58-69; log, 114,
206, 213
Texcoco Lake 171
Thornton, Captain, 81, 82, 95
Ticonderoga, 40
Tierra Caliente, 158
Totten, Colonel, 154
Travis, WUham B., 38, 39, 44-
46, 50
Treaty, Florida, 8, 9
Treaty of Cordova, 14, 51
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
206-208, 213
Treaty of San Ildefonso, 7
Trist, Nicholas, 167, 204, 205
Twiggs, General, 85, 119, 154,
158, 161-163, 170, 177, 179, 181
Tyler, President, 56, 57, 61-64
Upshur, Secretary, 56, 57
Utah, 211
Vaca, Nunez Cabeza de, i
Valencia, General, 174-176
Van Buren, Martin, 58
Van Slycke, Cuyler, 138
Velasco. 33, 34, 36
Vera Cruz, 6, 32, 72, 73, 84, 123,
126, 143, 144; siege of, 151-
157; 164, 168, i6g, 196, 200,
203, 20S, 209, 215
Vicksburg, 215
ViUa, General Pancho, 48, 124

224

INDEX

Vince's Bridge, 51
"Voltlguers," the, 194
"Walnut Springs," 117
War of 1812, 150, 156
War of Jenkins's Ear, 32
Washington, 41, 130
Wayne, Mad Anthony, 86
Webster, 207, 212
Wellington, Duke of, 169
Wilcox's "History of the Mexi
can War," 210
Wilmot, Daniel, 211
Wilmot Proviso, the, 211, 212
Wilson, President, 74
Winslow, Captain, 215
Wool, General, 125, 142, 14S

Worth, General, 118-121, 125,
152, 153, 165, 166, 170, 172-
174, 177-181, 183, 187, 188,
198, 200, 208
Wyoming, 211
Xenophon's Anabasis, 149
XochimUco, Lake, 171
YeU's Arkansas Cavalry, 128
YeUow fever, 168
Yerba Buena, 107
Yucatan, 53
Zacatecas, 11
Zavala, 39
Zufii Indians, 142

Z2.if

YALE UNIVERSITY

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