SUMMER 1846, IN WASHINGTON
Far to the north of the action on the Rio Grande, American public opinion was shifting decisively. Word of the Thornton debacle reached New Orleans several days before it arrived in Washington. As Zachary Taylor was preparing his official dispatch, newspaper reporters on the scene were likewise writing their accounts. Since both types of communication would go on the same ships, the stories destined for the New Orleans papers would be blazing headlines days before the government had any inkling of what had happened. The public, long held in suspense by the dwindling hopes for the Slidell mission, by the fall of the Herrera government in Mexico, by Taylor’s move to the Rio Grande, and finally by the murder of Colonel Cross, now reacted like the breaking of a dam. In the Southwest, where the Mexican threat was considered very real, where the Texans of the Alamo, Goliad, and the ill-fated Mier 1843 expedition had been friends and kinfolk, where Mexicans in general and Ampudia in particular had long been seen as “wicked barbarians,” men thronged to the banners. They could not stand idle while Taylor’s army was in danger.
One officer, writing years later, could still feel the impulse of the moment:
Scattered throughout the country, especially in the Southern and Western states, were many who had taken an active part in the Texan struggle for independence and returning home were objects of attention, notably at barbecues and mass meetings, so dear to the American heart, where their denunciation of Mexican oppression and cruelty, and their descriptions of the heroic sufferings of the Texan martyrs never failed to touch a responsive chord. There was scarcely a fireside in the land unfamiliar with the barbarous massacre of Fannin’s men at Goliad, of the Spartanlike defense of the Alamo … of the retreat of the Texans across the San Marcos, Guadalupe, Colorado, Brazos, Buffalo Bayou, halting only when they reached San Jacinto.… There was scarcely a hearthstone where the details of the ill-starred Mier expedition had not been listened to with horror.… Of Ampudia it was related that in the Yucutan … his adversary, General Santmenal, fell in his hands, and without … a trial he had his head cut off and boiled in oil and his body mutilated beyond recognition. Naturally, when announced that Thornton, Hardee, and comrades had been captured and were in Ampudia’s power, there was … common impulse to rush to their rescue.”1
In New Orleans, old Brigadier General Edmund P. Gaines reacted as he had “in nearly every disturbance since the war of 1812.”2 Without awaiting word from Washington, Gaines called on the governors of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Missouri for volunteers—all on his own responsibility. In a remarkably short period he called up and organized about 12,600 men. Remarkably, he enlisted most of them—11,000, in fact—for a six-month period, although such a term of service had no basis in law. Three months was the prescribed maximum for militia. Before Washington could act to stop him, he actually shipped out some eight thousand to Taylor’s army at Brazos Santiago, where Taylor had neither space nor use for them.
In Congress the response to the newly recognized war was scarcely less impulsive. After their two-hour debate of Polk’s war message on May 11, the House of Representatives promptly voted to grant the President more by way of men and money than he had anticipated. In his war message, Polk had not specified his exact requirements, merely asking for authority “to call into the public service a large body of volunteers, to serve for not less than six or twelve months, unless sooner discharged” and “a liberal provision for sustaining our entire military force and furnishing it with supplies and munitions of war.”3 He was actually thinking in terms of twenty-six regiments, some 23,000 men.4 The House, however, authorized the President, in addition to employing the regular and militia forces in being, to call up and accept “any number of volunteers, not exceeding 50,000” to serve twelve months or to the end of the war.*
In the Senate, however, some members seemed more anxious to avoid the appearance of being railroaded. Prominent among them was Senator John J. Crittenden, a Kentucky Whig, whose first reaction was to question the circumstances under which his friend Zachary Taylor had marched to the Rio Grande. When assured that Taylor had been acting under specific orders from the War Department, Crittenden seemed to feel relieved. Then, after expressing sorrow that we had “entered into war with our nearest neighbor,” Crittenden proposed sending a “special mission” of diplomats to accompany Taylor’s army.5 Having thus expressed his disapproval of Polk’s actions, Crittenden joined in voting the president overwhelming resources to prosecute the war. This pause for debate prevented the Senate from acting as swiftly as the House—a matter next to treason, in Polk’s view—but the delay was minimal; Polk signed the War Bill into law on Wednesday, May 13, 1846.
Considering the haste with which it was passed, the War Bill, with its later amendments, provided a reasonable basis for mobilization. It had two notable weaknesses, however, one of which was that it left the power to appoint the volunteer officers below the rank of brigadier general in the hands of the respective governors even though the men they would command were to be in federal, not state, service. The other weakness, a masterpiece of buck-passing, stemmed from the politicians’ unwillingness to set a definite enlistment term for those volunteers. That artful dodging applied to both Polk and the Congress. Thus Polk asked for volunteers to serve for terms of six or twelve months—take your choice, Congress. Congress authorized twelve months or the end of the war—take your choice, Mr. President. In implementing the law, Polk then asked the governors for a volunteer force to serve “for the period of twelve months or the end of the war”6—take your choice, Mr. Volunteer. As it turned out, few if any signed up for the duration of the war. So after a year new volunteers would have to be recruited, or the war abandoned.
On Wednesday, May 13, 1846, the day that Polk signed the War Bill, Secretary of War William Marcy and General-in-Chief Winfield Scott arrived at the White House for a conference. Scott was no favorite of Polk’s: besides being the professional head of the army, he was also considered “in full chase of the presidency”7—as a Whig. No worse condemnation could be leveled against anyone in the eyes of Polk.
Further, in terms of personality, Scott was Polk’s direct opposite. Big (six feet, five inches), bluff, egotistical, and famous, he tended to condescend to the diminutive, withdrawn Polk. It was Polk who was forced to suppress his personal resentment out of respect for Scott’s position as general-in-chief of the army and, even more, for his position as a national hero. Thus, while Polk preferred to turn to such “experts” as Thomas Hart Benton for military advice,* he still could not mobilize for war without the professional help of his highest-ranking soldier.
By 1846 Major General Winfield Scott had already become a legend. Just approaching his sixtieth birthday, he had spent more than half his life as a general officer, having been made a brigadier during the War of 1812 at the age of twenty-eight. He had participated brilliantly against the British at Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane, and for his performance in the latter battle he had been awarded a congressional medal† and a brevet to major general. In a war that produced few successes and few heroes, Scott’s performance had been a source of national pride, and his military renown had come to rival that of the older Andrew Jackson. Scott had stayed in the army while Jackson had gone on to politics. Thus Scott had been the leading figure in the Black Hawk War (1832) and in “watching” the “nullifiers” in Charleston that same year. He had commanded during the Seminole War (1837), and in 1838 along the Canadian border. He had further gained stature by executing Jackson’s controversial order to move 16,000 Cherokees from South Carolina and Tennessee to reservations west of the Mississippi. His administration of the army, since becoming general-in-chief in 1841, had been marked with precision and reason.
But the road had not always been smooth. In 1809, as a captain in the “flying artillery,” Scott had tactlessly referred to his commanding general as a traitor “as great as Aaron Burr.” Court-martialed and suspended from command for a year, Scott used the time to study the military profession. He had come off easier in 1817 when he had criticized an order of General Jackson’s as “mutinous,” this time receiving no punishment except being called in return a “hectoring bully.” Twenty years later Jackson finally court-martialed him for lack of success in the Florida war. The court not only exonerated Scott but praised his “energy, steadiness, and ability.”
Thus Scott’s overbearing manner and his tendency to speak his mind too freely were not, as might be assumed, the result of too many years as a general. They had always been part of his makeup. But he had never been punished severely enough to make him change his ways. In fact, some of the disciplinary actions against him had turned out to be blessings in disguise.
With such a career behind him, Scott had no place to go but the presidency to attain another “brevet”; all other national honors had been his. Not that he allowed this new diversion to interfere with his administration of the army, but it was creeping more and more into his correspondence. His affiliation had always been with the Whigs, possibly stemming from his lifelong competition with Andrew Jackson but more likely from the inbred natural conservatism of most military men.‡ Scott’s name was mentioned in political circles as early as 1839.8 By 1842 he was taken seriously enough that Pennsylvania put him forward as a sort of favorite son.9 Henry Clay; however, would be the nominee in 1844.
After Clay’s defeat in 1844, Whig leaders, Senator John Crittenden in particular, had decided that Clay could never be elected, and Crittenden began to consider both Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor as possible leaders of the Whig party. And as the only Whig on the Senate Military Affairs Committee, Crittenden was a natural channel of complaint for generals who felt politically mistreated by a Democratic president. Crittenden was good in his role. Described as “the ugly, hard-drinking, whist-playing little senator from Kentucky, dispenser by turns of rough fun, polished oratory, and shrewd political judgment,”10 he was a born kingmaker. But close association with Crittenden was not something to endear Scott to his commander-in-chief.
Scott’s first meeting with the President was short. When Scott outlined his plans for raising the volunteers, something—perhaps his manner—offended Polk, who declared the presentation “incomplete” and demanded a more formal report “during the day.” Before the meeting closed, however, Polk did offer Scott the “command of the army to be raised,” which Scott, of course, accepted. Polk then recorded that he did not consider Scott “in all respects suited to such an important command.”11
That day, Wednesday, May 13, 1846, was a busy one for Polk. In his diary he described a long cabinet meeting to discuss the messages to be sent to the heads of the other nations announcing the state of war.12 But he omitted a meeting with Benton, and made no mention of its follow-up: his orders to a certain brigadier general to take a force westward from Fort Leavenworth, Indian Territory. Neither did he mention a brief message that secretary of the Navy Bancroft sent by his direction:
United States Navy Department
May 13, 1846
To Commodore Conner, Commanding Home Squadron:
Commodore: If Santa Anna endeavors to enter the Mexican ports, you will allow him to pass freely.
George Bancroft13
At 8 P.M. the next evening Marcy and Scott called on Polk again for a conference that lasted until midnight. Polk began by outlining his simple, basic war plan, to “march a competent force into the northern provinces” of Mexico and hold them while peace was being negotiated. This plan would be calculated to occupy such large parts of her territory that Mexico would be forced to negotiate a peace. Since that scheme would give the best chance of limiting military action to a small, quick campaign, Marcy and Scott readily agreed. In the course of the meeting Scott proposed to call up twenty thousand of the fifty thousand volunteers authorized by Congress, the initial force to come from the western and southwestern states.§ Polk was reluctant to call out such a large force, but he agreed, “not being willing to take the responsibility of any failure of the campaign by refusing to grant to General Scott all he asked.”14 The course had been set, at least for the first stages of the war.
The tense atmosphere in these two meetings precluded open, frank communication. Certainly the conditions under which Polk intended to offer the command of the army on the Rio Grande were misunderstood. Polk, on his part, expected Scott to depart Washington immediately. Scott’s presence on the Rio Grande would not, in itself, ensure the safety of the army, but it would be a relief, from Polk’s point of view, to get Scott out of daily public view. It would even be in Scott’s interest to make his new command a fait accompli, for many Western Democrats in the Senate and elsewhere were pressuring Polk to appoint someone other than the Whig Scott. So Polk wanted action—fast.
Scott, on the other hand, believed that he should stay in Washington for a while, long enough to come to grips with the gigantic administrative task of mobilizing to fight a foreign war. In the course of putting the machinery in motion, he planned to make a trip down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to ascertain that the shipment of troops was going well. Then at a later time he could proceed to the Rio Grande accompanied by a “cloud of reinforcements.” The increase in the size of the force would lend justification to the presence of the General-in-Chief to take command. Under such a circumstance, his arrival would spare Taylor’s pride at being replaced.‖ At that time, of course, nobody in Washington had received any news of Taylor’s victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Nevertheless, Taylor had performed well at Corpus Christi and Matamoros and Scott, while anxious to replace Taylor in the field, sincerely desired to avoid the appearance that Taylor was being replaced through any fault of his own. And, additionally, cynics have pointed out, Scott could have seen little attraction in taking over a small army in an exposed position.
On May 19, less than a week after his evening meeting with Scott and Marcy, Polk gave his secretaries of war and the navy a lecture on how the war was to be run. With his usual passion for secrecy—and his mistrust of his generals—he “urged upon both the necessity of giving their personal attention to all matters, even of detail, and not confiding in their subordinates to act without their supervision.”15 In other words, to run their departments as Polk ran his administration. But behind this sermon lay Polk’s concern over his first inkling that Scott planned to stay in Washington until the first of September 1846. Such a delay would not be permitted, Polk admonished Marcy, and if Scott did not proceed to his post “very soon,” Polk would “supersede” him in command. That would be Polk’s policy, but Marcy would at least share the onus for any controversy. He was to “take the matter into his own hands; to issue orders and cause them to be obeyed.”a
Marcy took these instructions to heart. The next day he visited Benton on Capitol Hill, and together the two men planned a way to put Scott on the shelf. They could attach an amendment to a pending bill that would authorize the President to appoint two new major generals to the rolls of the regular army (making a total of three) and four brigadier generals (making a total of six). The two additional major generals would allow Polk to promote Taylor (a political necessity) and to appoint another major general who could take command in the field or even become general-in-chief in Washington. That appointment, it was agreed, would go to Benton himself. Although the senator had not been in uniform for thirty years, he had long cherished military ambitions. With the establishment being shaken up by war, this might be his chance. The bill was duly introduced.
Word of this chicanery reached Scott, who “smelt the rat.” The evening after the Marcy-Benton meeting, he confronted Marcy, who countered by conveying the President’s displeasure with Scott’s continued presence in Washington.16 The next day Scott wrote at length to Marcy. He began with a long description of the problems he was confronting every day—with the adjutant general, the quartermaster general, the commissary general of subsistence, the chief of ordnance, and the surgeon general. Then he declared that he had “learned that much impatience is already felt, perhaps in high quarters, that I have not already put myself in route for the Rio Grande.” He was “too old a soldier” not to “feel the infinite importance” of securing himself against danger in his rear.b He concluded that he did not “desire to place myself in the most perilous of all positions:—a fire upon my rear, from Washington, and a fire, in front, from the Mexicans.”17
That same evening, on May 21, President Polk received an annoying visitor, a stranger who was requesting a reinstatement of his brother-in-law to the rank of captain in the army. Apparently to advance his case by discrediting Scott, the man produced a letter Scott had written the previous February refusing to recommend an applicant for a position in the new Mounted Infantry Regiment. Such an action would be futile, the letter continued, because the proposed riflemen “are intended by Western men to give commissions or rather pay to the Western democrats. Not an eastern man, not a graduate of the Military Academy and certainly not a Whig would obtain a place.…”18 As Polk was fuming over the political accusation in this letter, Marcy walked in with the letter he had received from Scott that day. Polk was now satisfied that Scott was not to be trusted, but he still avoided direct action. Unless he could secure the approval of Congress to appoint new generals, he conceded, he might still be forced to send Scott to command in Mexico.19
A solution to Polk’s bureaucratic problem arrived the evening of May 23, when the New Orleans press reported on Taylor’s victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. An elated Polk needed official confirmation before taking action,20 but by Monday he was sufficiently certain of Taylor’s victory that he called a special cabinet meeting to discuss Marcy’s draft of a reply to Scott’s indiscreet letter. The final product was a masterpiece—lofty, pained, and magnanimous—treating Scott like a small boy. After referring to the “extraordinary character” of Scott’s letter and the “grave issues set forth therein,” it concluded that the “President would be wanting in his duty to the country, were he to persist in his determination of imposing upon you the command of the army in the war against Mexico.” Scott would be continued in his present position, instructed to “devote your efforts to making arrangements and preparations.…”21
With relish Polk ordered Marcy’s letter to be delivered that day. With Taylor’s victories, the country now had a new general, and Scott might fade from the public stage.
Winfield Scott was not accustomed to being treated so condescendingly, and receipt of Marcy’s letter put him in a state of shock. When he recovered sufficiently to reply, he characteristically opened his letter on a note of self-pity: “Your letter of this day, received at about 6 P.M., as I sat down to a hasty plate of soup.…”22
Those twenty words gave Polk and Marcy ammunition to make Scott an object of ridicule. And that they did, ignoring Scott’s lame explanation of the terms he had used, as well as a whole paragraph devoted to obsequious praise of Polk.c The correspondence was immediately made public, and the “hasty plate of soup” would haunt Scott for the rest of his life. Polk lost no time in sending a message to Congress nominating Brevet Brigadier General Zachary Taylor to be brevet major general.d With this new rank, Taylor could not legally remain on the Rio Grande, serving under another major general such as Scott. And public opinion would no longer allow him to be brought home.
But Polk was not destined to have his own way completely. Benton’s bill authorizing two new major generals and four new brigadiers sailed through the Senate handily but ran into opposition in the House of Representatives. There Garrett Davis, one of the Immortal Fourteen who had voted against the war, took the floor. He dismissed the creation of four new brigadier generals as a device, “obvious enough, to increase his [Polk’s] patronage,” unnecessary to such a short war with a weak, disorganized nation like Mexico. But the authorizing of two new major generals brought his heaviest attack. This request, Davis charged, had two ulterior motives behind it: “the one to dispose of our present commander-in-chief,… the other to supersede General Taylor, and tear from his brow some of the rich chaplet of laurels with which he has lately wreathed it.…”
Then Davis suggested that Old Rough and Ready be allowed to manage the war, as the general-in-chief had laurels enough: “It is my wish, Mr. Chairman, that General Taylor should have the chief command in carrying on this war until it is brought to a close.”23
He called attention to the squib that had appeared in the National Union on the evening of May 9, in which Ritchie, under orders, had tried to transfer blame for any impending disasters to Taylor himself.e He then cited every request that Taylor had made for reinforcements, ending with an urgent call for “speedily sending recruits to this army.…”24
Davis’s speech was enough to defeat Polk’s purpose. Two days later a committee of the House reduced the augmentation to one major general and two brigadiers. Under these circumstances, Polk had no choice but to promote the new hero, Taylor, to major general. Thomas Hart Benton’s military ambitions were temporarily thwarted.
The twenty-ninth Congress had one more task, to clean up some loose administrative matters pertaining to the army. Brigadier General Edmund Pendleton Gaines was reprimanded for recruiting 11,000 illegal volunteers and transferred to an innocuous administrative position. Colonels Stephen W. Kearny and David E. Twiggs would be promoted to the rank of brigadier general. And finally, Polk was granted authority to appoint general officers of volunteers for the duration of the war.25 Congress adjourned on June 25, 1846.
Thus the “Battle of the Potomac” came to an end. The clear winner was Zachary Taylor, who was promoted to major general, United States Army, and continued in command of United States forces on the Rio Grande. Between Polk and Scott, Polk was the clear winner; Scott, his political reputation in temporary shambles due to public amusement over his letters, was left frustrated in Washington.
Polk’s victory was on points only. Scott was not knocked out.
* Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the United States, p. 203. Other sections of the law required volunteers to provide for their own clothes, horse, and equipment (but not arms), for which they would be compensated by the government.
† Not to be confused with the later Congressional Medal of Honor
‡ One of Polk’s problems, at least as he viewed things, was that the three general officers of the army as of May 1846—Scott, Gaines, and Brigadier General John E. Wool—were all Whigs, not to mention Brevet Brigadier General Zachary Taylor and Brevet Brigadier General Roger Jones, the adjutant general.
§ Texas, Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.
‖ Scott to R.P. Letcher, 5 June, 1846. Though this letter was written a few weeks later, in a mood of deep self-pity, there is no reason to doubt that these were always Scott’s intentions.
a Polk, pp. 96–97. Understandably, Scott had another view: according to him, he was “much of the time engaged in doing … all the critical work of the Secretary with my own pen.” Scott’s letter to R. P. Letcher, June 5, 1846, in John J. Crittenden, Life, vol. I, p. 245.
b Bernard DeVoto (The Year of Decision, p. 198) describes the letter as “insubordinate and injudicious … but first-rate prophecy.”
c “You speak of my interview with the President on the subject of the extended formidable invasion of Mexico. I wish I had time to do justice to my recollection of the President’s excellent sense, military comprehension, patience, and courtesies in these interviews. I have since often spoken of the admirable qualities he displayed on those occasions, with honor, as far as it was in my power to do him honor.” Polk, p. 652.
d Polk, Diary, May 26, 1846, pp. 104–5. In Scott’s memoirs, written in 1864, this incident was still a sore subject. His version: “At this period, Scott usually—as always in troubled times—spent from fifteen to eighteen hours a day in his office, happened, on being called on by the Secretary of War, to be found absent. In explanation, Scott hurriedly wrote a note to say that he was back in the office, having stepped out, for the moment, to take—regular meals being out of the question—a ‘hasty plate of soup.’ ” Winfield Scott, Memoirs, vol. II, p. 385. This was a plausible explanation except that Scott’s letter was not a “note” but a long, pompous epistle.
e “It should be understood that General Taylor has been, for several months, authorized to call for any auxiliary forces from Texas, Louisiana, and some other of the south-western states—in fact, for such reinforcements as he might deem it necessary to possess. But, like a gallant officer, believing his force adequate to meet any enemy which might present itself, and to overcome any danger, he omitted to exercise the authority with which he has been entrusted. His sense of security has overcome every other consideration, and he has not made his call to secure himself against all contingencies.” Quoted in the Congressional Globe.