SUMMER 1845–DECEMBER 1845
Brevet Brigadier General Zachary Taylor,* colonel of the 6th Infantry, U.S. Army, was unlikely material for building a national hero. He was an old soldier by the standards of the day, nearly sixty-one years of age, deliberate and unpolished in manner. Long service in every American war since 1812 had dulled whatever appetite he had ever had for fighting, and somehow he had been able through the years to combine soldiering with his lifelong love of farming. His father, a planter, had moved from Virginia to a ten-thousand-acre plantation in Kentucky the year after Zachary’s birth. The son, even while in the army, had purchased one plantation in Louisiana and another in Mississippi.
But despite his homely ways, Taylor had lived a relatively comfortable life between wars, bringing his family and his household furniture with him. After the Seminole (Florida) War in 1840, in which he had earned his brevet promotion to brigadier general, Taylor had been looking forward to retiring to one of his plantations. It is not surprising that such a practical man should develop a certain immunity to frantic instructions from Washington, as well as a healthy skepticism toward the wild rumors that always permeate armies in the field.
But these characteristics were only one side of Taylor’s makeup. In battle he had always been a tower of strength. In 1812, as a captain, he had earned a brevet to major, the first such honor ever bestowed in the army. His record had been creditable in the Black Hawk War and his recent brevet, in the Seminole War, had been awarded for leading 1,100 men through swamp water up to the waist, achieving a surprise victory. Andrew Jackson himself had advised President-elect James Polk that in case of war with the British over Canada, Taylor should be the man to command the American army in the field. Relaxed Taylor may have appeared, even a little bored, but he was still quite fit for arduous duty.
In early June 1845, as Texans were choosing annexation, Zack Taylor was ordered to mass two thousand troops at Fort Jesup, Louisiana—just across the Sabine River from Texas. This Army of Observation comprised about one-quarter of the fighting power of the U.S. Army in 1845. Clearly something was in the air.
Actually, it would have required no genius to deduce the general outlines of Taylor’s prospective mission. Nearly three months had passed since President Tyler had sent his annexation offer to Texas, and Taylor’s presence was a response to the Texan demand for U.S. protection pending the Texans’ acceptance of the annexation proposal. Only the specific future employment of Taylor’s army was in question.
A letter order from Secretary of War William L. Marcy, written on May 28, alerted Taylor for action against Mexico. When the Texans accepted the proffered terms of annexation, which the president expected them to do soon, they would then be regarded as “entitled from this government to defence and protection from foreign invasion and Indian incursions.” The troops under Taylor’s command, therefore, were to be “placed and kept in readiness to perform this duty.…”1
Without undue haste, Old Zack, also known among his men as Old Rough and Ready, began preparations for a march into Texas. At the moment of receiving that preparatory order, Taylor’s small force included two of the army’s eight infantry regiments—the 3rd and 4th—and the bulk of one of its two regiments of dragoons, the 2d. (Dragoons were mounted infantry, who served the role of cavalry when on horseback and of infantry when afoot.)
The order promised reinforcement, as it granted Taylor authority to draw upon the state governors for additional forces. That power, to be sure, was nearly meaningless, for only Louisiana could provide any reinforcements in a reasonable time, but Polk and Marcy were sending more regiments from the northern and western frontiers, and in the next few months Taylor’s Army of Occupation—as the force had been renamed—would come to include almost the entire regular establishment.
In mid-June 1845, spurred on by Stockton’s exaggerated reports, Secretary of War Marcy ordered Taylor to move down the Sabine River or to some other point “… as may be most convenient for an embarkation at the proper time for the Western frontier of Texas.” Taylor was not to make a landing until certain that the Texas convention, scheduled for July 4, had accepted the terms of annexation—or “until you receive instructions from Mr. Donelson.”2
By directing Taylor to be guided by Donelson’s instructions, Polk was violating established governmental procedure by subjecting a general, a field commander, to the directions of a chargé d’affaires, a member of another department of government. Army General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, in Washington, flew into a rage when he saw that order but could do nothing about it. Donelson, a West Pointer himself, saved the situation. Recognizing its delicacy, he tactfully consulted Taylor rather than trying to direct him.
Taylor, who was probably far less excited over the gaffe than Scott, willingly accepted Donelson’s advice to move at once, but only after the Texas Congress had overwhelmingly voted for annexation in mid-June. The two men then conferred and agreed that the Mexican town of Corpus Christi, just across the mouth of the Nueces River, should be Taylor’s logical destination. Taylor decided to send the 3d and 4th infantry regiments by water, from New Orleans, but to oblige Donelson’s desire for a show of force in the Texas interior, he sent the 2d Dragoons overland by way of San Antonio. A voyage on the sea would be hard on the dragoons’ horses, anyway.
In early July Taylor’s 3d Infantry, its band playing, marched through the streets of New Orleans to board the steamboat Alabama. The rest of the army—the 4th Infantry, the artillery, and supporting troops—would follow on the slower sailing vessels. After an uneventful voyage of about three weeks, Taylor’s vanguard arrived at Aransas Bay in Texas on July 25, 1845, Taylor in the lead. The 3d Infantry was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock, one of the early West Pointers (Class of 1817), grandson of the famous Revolutionary War leader Ethan Allen, erstwhile commandant of cadets at West Point—and egotist extraordinaire. Prolific with his pen, Hitchcock provided the principal account of the difficult landing. His descriptions are self-serving but vivid.
The Alabama, Hitchcock reports, could not cross the shoals into Corpus Christi, so Taylor was forced to land first at St. Joseph’s Island and then transship his men by smaller craft. The landing met with frustration from the start. The lighters failed to arrive, and the impatient and crowded men fretted aboard the Alabama for nearly a whole day. Hitchcock, however, with an eye for the historic and dramatic, procured a small boat in which he sent one of his company commanders ashore to plant an American flag. “The first stars and stripes ever raised in Texas by authority,” Hitchcock gloated.3
By evening Hitchcock had prevailed upon a Texas revenue cutter to carry three of his companies ashore, and by the next evening he had landed his entire regiment. But troubles were not over. Taylor and his men were stuck on St. Joseph’s Island for two more days, and finally, “beside himself with anxiety, fatigue, and passion,” Taylor determined to take two companies by lighter down Aransas Bay to Corpus Christi. But the lighter ran aground in the flats, and Taylor’s party languished on board the small craft for another full day and night.
It was the thirty-first, five days after arrival at St. Joseph’s Island, before Taylor’s whole command reached Corpus Christi. The safe landing was “little short of a miracle,” Hitchcock grumbled, attributable to the “mere accident” of an exceptionally calm bay.
At least the Americans were greeted by friendly settlers. The worthies of Corpus Christi, who welcomed Taylor’s men with “satisfaction,” were almost all smugglers, their sole source of illegal goods being the overland trail to the Mexican town of Matamoros, on the Rio Grande. They would profit immensely by the presence of a well-paid American army. Their head man, “Colonel” H. L. Kinney, was a Texan. His nationality could provide a rationale, though nobody in the army believed it, that Corpus Christi, on the western bank of the Nueces River, was an extension of Texas. By that line of reasoning Taylor’s force had not left Texan soil.
Once safely ashore at Corpus Christi, however, Taylor’s force was exposed to attack from the Mexican mainland. At the moment he had no cavalry that could warn of impending attack, and he would have none until the three hundred men of the 2d Dragoons, moving overland, would arrive in the nearby town of San Patricio. Taylor knew that the troopers were scheduled to arrive on August 24, and he was in no mood to sit back and wait. In his impatience he set out to meet them, only to have his guide lose his way, and to spend another uncomfortable night, this time in the wilderness. The next day, however, the dragoons appeared, slightly ahead of schedule. Their commander, Colonel David E. Twiggs, had mistaken a thunderstorm over the Gulf for hostile artillery fire and was hurrying to Taylor’s relief.
Twiggs brought reports from San Antonio. Great excitement, he said, was being felt in Washington over Taylor’s exposed position on the Nueces River, and the President had called for additional troops to reinforce him. “It seems,” Hitchcock noted, “that the ridiculousness of the plan to send 800 or 1200 men to make war on a civilized nation of 8,000,000 inhabitants has occurred to others besides me.”4
Washington was indeed in a state of alarm—and not only because of the situation in Mexico. On August 26, two days after the 2d Dragoons had arrived at Corpus Christi, Polk discussed Packenham’s rejection of his 49th parallel proposal with his cabinet. In view of Packenham’s rudeness, Polk was determined to withdraw his offer and revert to his basic position. He directed Buchanan to “assert and enforce our right to the whole Oregon territory from 42 degrees to 54 degrees, 40’ north latitude,” for Packenham, he noted, had submitted no counter proposition. “If we do have war,” Polk wrote complacently, “it will not be our fault.”
But while Polk was flirting with war along the Northwest frontier he was going on with his plan to reinforce Taylor’s position at Corpus Christi. By the end of October Taylor would have with him a total of 3,554 men.‡ The Northwest would now be naked.
Taylor’s army was remarkable in the U.S. military experience because it was made up entirely of regulars. These were unusual troops—tough, rigorously disciplined, and reliable in a fight. A large number of them, about 42 percent, were foreign-born Germans and Irishmen, soldiering as professionals in the U.S. Army as they would in any other. Yet since so many were not citizens of the United States, they were overly inclined to desert the colors when bored or uncomfortable—Twiggs had lost one man in seven from desertion on his overland march.‡ But on duty these men accepted hardship, neglect, and too often abuse, conditions that would have caused volunteers to rebel. Their leaders were superior, for Taylor had inherited an excellent set of junior officers, largely products of Sylvanus Thayer’s teaching methods at West Point. The infantry officers—Grant, Kirby Smith, Sykes, Sedgwick—would provide discipline and backbone. Artillerists—Sam Ringgold, Ridgeley, Bragg—would provide a decisive weapon in the light artillery. Engineers such as George G. Meade would give expert advice on routes, waterways, terrain, and fortifications.
If this unusual army was in danger, Taylor showed little concern. Part of his confidence—stoicism perhaps—may have stemmed from his experiences with the Indians, who invariably outnumbered whatever force he was commanding. He seemed content sitting outside his tent, ready to receive any and all visitors. One, so the story went, mistook him for an orderly. A certain lieutenant who prided himself on belonging to one of the first families of the State of Virginia went up to headquarters to obtain a glimpse of the general. Seeing an old man cleaning a sword in a bower, the officer went in and addressed the bronze-faced old gentleman hard at work in his shirt sleeves: “I say, old fell’, can you tell me where I can see General Taylor?”
The old “fell’ ” without rising replied, “Wull, stranger, thar is the old hoss’s tent,” pointing to the headquarters.
“Lieutenant, if you please,” said the F.F.V. “And by the way, my old trump, whose sword is that you are cleaning?”
“Wull, Colonel,” replied the old man, “I don’t see there is any harm in telling you, seeing’s you’re an officer. This sword belongs to the general himself.”
The lieutenant took off his sword and said, “My good man, I would like to have you clean my sword, and I shall come tomorrow to see the general and then I will give you a dollar.”
The lieutenant was on hand the next day, and seeing his old friend of the day before standing under an awning conversing with some officers, he beckoned to him to come over. The old gentleman came out, bringing the lieutenant’s sword. The lieutenant was profuse in his thanks and, giving the old man a poke in the ribs, said, “Come, old fatty, show me General Taylor and the dollar is yours.”
The “old fatty” drew himself up and said, “Lieutenant! I am General Taylor”—he turned slowly around—“and I will take that dollar!” The next day the general had the lieutenant introduced in due form.5
Others had similar impressions. When Lieutenant George Meade reported for duty in mid-September, he found the general “a plain, sensible old gentleman, who laughs very much at the excitement in the Northern States on account of his position, and thinks there is not the remotest possibility of there being any war.” And, Meade volunteered, “He is said to be very tired of this country, and the duty assigned to him, and it is supposed will return on the arrival of General Worth.” Taylor was also rumored to be “a staunch Whig, and opposed in toto to the Texas annexation.”6
But Meade was seeing only what Taylor wanted to show the world. Hitchcock harbored another suspicion, that Taylor was actually “succumbing to ambition.” Hitchcock sneered when Taylor casually mentioned “going to the Rio Grande.” Such a thought, wrote Hitchcock, was “singular language for one who originally and until very lately denounced annexation as both injudicious in policy and wicked in fact!” Taylor, he finally concluded, wanted “an additional brevet, and would strain a point to get it.”7
Whatever Taylor’s true motivations, morale among his troops and officers was high during the late summer months at Corpus Christi. Compared with winter duty in the snowdrifts of Minnesota, conditions were comfortable; the weather was not too hot, and the breezes kept the camp free of all diseases except for mild diarrhea caused by drinking the brackish water. Granted, firewood for cooking was scarce, a lack that prevented the hunters from fully enjoying the venison and wild turkey they shot on freely granted hunting expeditions, but the mess was adequate, even though the mainstay was pork and beans.
A family atmosphere existed among the officers; many West Point graduates were seeing familiar faces for the first time since graduation. Typical was Captain Ephraim Kirby Smith, commander of a company of the 5th Infantry, who described his arrival in camp during a thunderstorm. He had stumbled past the campfires, he wrote, “greeted frequently by cordial welcomes from the well-known voices of old companions, whom I had not met for years.” And like the others, he sensed opportunity. “Our companies are strengthened by fifty recruits.… I shall have a pretty command for a captain, and if there is anything to be done, I think I shall have a chance.” And, as a dedicated regular, he fairly burst with pride: soon “The Camp … will be the largest body of regulars … which has been assembled since the Revolution.”8
On first arriving at Corpus Christi the soldiers conducted themselves better than might have been expected. They were veterans, and a camp in one place was much the same as a camp in another. Little excitement could be found in the small trading post, and they believed that this expedition would be over soon; it would doubtless turn out to be just another foray.
With the passage of time, however, the small trading post began to grow, and soon the population reached two thousand. Few women were among them, other than a few Texan wives and those present as “laundresses.” Drinking saloons began to proliferate. Soon after the arrival of the 2d Dragoons, “disgraceful brawls and quarrels” and even “drunken frolics” became commonplace. One dragoon captain resigned from the army to avoid trial, and two others were tried for fighting over a woman. The disorder worsened as time went on.9
Taylor himself realized that the army could not remain at Corpus Christi indefinitely, but the decision to stay or leave was out of his hands. So he did what any prudent commander would do: he prepared for all contingencies. In anticipation of a forward move he sent reconnaissance parties to scout the territory between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. These parties were usually headed by members of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, among whom was George Meade.
Meade’s letters home reveal both the situation and the man. Kirby Smith may have been struck by the beauty of the interior lands, but Meade, even in personal correspondence, would dwell on the topography: the impassable roads, the soft soil, the limited visibility due to the high chaparral. He was intrigued by a place called the Brazos de Santiago, “an arm of the sea, which juts in near the mouth of the Rio Grande, and approaches within twenty miles of the Mexican town of Matamoros.” Meade expected to head a hundred-man party to that critical location, but the mission was canceled and he was disappointed.
The reason for the cancellation of that mission probably was word from Washington that the Army of Occupation would remain at Corpus Christi throughout the winter. For most of the winter they did stay there, feeling the bad weather and developing bad tempers. Some of the officers, Hitchcock and Captain William W. S. Bliss (Taylor’s adjutant) among them, formed a study group to read Spinoza, Schiller, Kant, and Socinus, but others were less constructive.
In late autumn a nasty quarrel cropped up among the higher commanders over the question of brevet rank. Two fine soldiers—Colonel (Brevet Brigadier General) William J. Worth, Taylor’s second in command, and Colonel David E. Twiggs, commanding the 2d Dragoons—were the antagonists. They were very different men. Worth cut a dashing figure—the Ney of the Army, a paper called him—commandant of cadets at West Point (just before Hitchcock), and in 1812 an aide to Winfield Scott. Twiggs was a large, bullnecked, white-haired man, unappealing in personality but forceful and aggressive. This was not a good hour for either of them.
When Taylor called a review one day, he designated Twiggs as commander of troops. Twiggs had been granted no brevet but, as a regular colonel, was senior to Worth. The vain Worth was incensed at this supposed affront, and he made his fury known. Soon the camp broke up into two factions, each supporting its own views of the priority to be accorded to brevet versus regular rank. Taylor became exasperated, so rather than go through with a ceremony that would cause dissatisfaction, he canceled the review and sent a message to the President requesting a resolution of the problem. The request was intercepted by General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, and in his capacity as senior professional in the army he published a circular declaring that brevet should take precedence over regular rank.
Scott’s ruling soon became common knowledge at Corpus Christi, and a group of officers, headed by Hitchcock, drew up a petition, ten pages long, to be sent to the president of the Senate, signed by 158 officers. It was sent on December 19, 1845, and pending a reply the emotionally charged issue would remain unresolved.10
Autumn rolled on to the New Year, 1846, at Corpus Christi. That New Year’s Day would differ little from any New Year’s Day anywhere at any time, with drinking, horse racing, gambling, theatrical amusements, and a ball that evening. The one formal observance was a required official call on the senior officers of the camp, who provided eggnog and cake. According to Meade, the theater hosted a “company of strolling actors, who murder tragedy, burlesque comedy, and render farce into buffoonery, in the most approved style.”11
But the days of boredom were nearly over for Zachary Taylor’s little army. The year 1846 would provide all the excitement that they had bargained for—and more.
* Taylor’s “brevet” rank was an honorary title. On the rolls, and for pay purposes, he was a colonel. But since positions exceeded the ranks that Congress was willing to authorize, officers were often assigned, by “direction of the President,” to positions according to their brevet rank. All officers were customarily addressed according to their brevet rank, if they held one. The system was a source of much confusion and occasional dispute.
† Four infantry regiments (of a total of eight authorized in the entire army), one dragoon regiment (out of two), and all four of the artillery regiments. His army did not need to be so small, even without volunteers. The regular units could have been quickly augmented by filling out the companies and regiments to authorized strength of 42 privates per company. Marcy would ask Congress for 100 per company later in the year; General-in-Chief Scott would have preferred 100. Such an augmentation would have increased the rolls of the regular army by nearly 8,000 men, for a total of nearly 16,000, and would have fleshed out Taylor’s army to well over 7,000 overnight. Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the United States, p. 198; Matthew Steele, American Campaigns, p. 81. Hitchcock was a little off in estimating the population of Mexico.
‡ One thousand deserted throughout the army every year, according to the Adjutant General’s Office Records, National Archives.
