SUMMER 1846, ON THE RIO GRANDE
Down on the Rio Grande, Zachary Taylor was being afforded no time to savor his victories. Almost immediately after raising the siege of Fort Brown, he was once again headed back to Point Isabel, this time to meet with Commodore David E. Conner. Taylor needed Conner’s support in protecting the Brazos Santiago base from the sea and in facilitating his future plans.
Those plans were as yet unformed, as Taylor had heretofore been preoccupied with the threat from Arista’s army. His instructions were vague; the last word from Marcy was that of the previous January: “You will not act merely on the defensive.” Those words had not been supplemented, but now that the lands claimed by Texas north of the Rio Grande were safe, it was time to think ahead.
In the absence of further orders, Taylor was now planning, as a first step, to cross the Rio Grande and occupy Matamoros. Then, when he could be ready, he intended to move up the river to Camargo to prepare for an ambitious move westward to Monterrey,* capital of the Mexican state of Nuevo León. He could use the Rio Grande as the easiest means of moving troops and supplies to that advanced location, but to do so he needed the help of Conner in securing boats and crews.
Taylor had never met Conner before, but each man had advance word of the other’s reputation. Conner was known to be a formal type, so Taylor, wishing to be courteous, unpacked his wrinkled uniform, with gold braids and epaulets, for the first time since the abortive ceremonial review back at Corpus Christi. On May 13, just four days after Resaca de la Palma, Conner disembarked at Point Isabel, clad in mufti. Once the two recovered from the surprise of their reverse roles, they sat down to make their plans.1
In the course of their discussions, Taylor and Conner made new arrangements to improve the flow of men and supplies from the ships forward toward Matamoros. With the Mexican threat to the mouth of the Rio Grande removed, Taylor could bypass Point Isabel by disembarking his troops on Brazos Island and fording them across the shallow inlet directly to advanced bases on the Rio Grande itself. To receive these men and supplies he would establish a series of camps along the river where units could await the opportunity to move into the interior. Fortunate units would travel inland by water; those less favored would march through sand and heat along the banks.†
Taylor put his plans into effect with energy. He completed the arrangements for logistics by May 15 and was immediately back at the newly designated Fort Brown to prepare for crossing the Rio Grande. Thirty years older than most of his officers and men and being spared none of their hardships, Taylor was able not only to keep up with them but to lead them.
On May 17, 1846, Taylor’s long-awaited heavy mortars arrived, and Taylor had accumulated sufficient small boats to force a crossing of the river. Just as he was moving forward, he was greeted by an emissary from Arista requesting an armistice. The two armies could suspend activities, Arista proposed, until the respective governments had time to “settle the question” of the boundaries between the two countries.2 Taylor curtly refused this proposal but said that he would permit Arista’s army to retire from Matamoros unmolested, provided the Mexican commander left all “public property” in the town. Such sick and wounded as Arista could not take with him would be safe; Taylor was not in the habit of making war on the helpless. Taylor demanded a reply by sundown.3
The reply did not come, so Taylor decided to go ahead and force a river crossing just upstream of the town. He waited until daylight and then sent his light infantry across first, followed by cavalry. Once he had safely crossed to the right bank, he encountered a deputation of civil authorities who had come out to meet him. Arista, they reported, had pulled out of Matamoros on the night before. He had taken his equipment with him but had left his sick and wounded, three hundred in all. Taylor would make no concessions to these officials—he had no need to—but he assured them that he would respect their private property and permit their civil laws to remain in effect. Upon taking Matamoros, Taylor kept his units and his headquarters outside the town, and provided medical care for the casualties that Arista had left in the hospitals.4
United States policy, with which Taylor concurred, was to treat the people of Mexico as friends.5 Thus Taylor made every effort to avoid disrupting life in Matamoros. The guard he posted in the streets was light: to patrol a town of four thousand people, only two companies were assigned—and commanders were instructed to pay as much attention to the conduct of American soldiers as to maintaining order among the civilian populace. The members of the guard were, of course, “expected to present a model of discipline and correct deportment.”6 Taylor also strove to prevent making the occupation a financial burden on the people. Any supplies and provisions necessary for his army’s use would be paid for at full market value. The price the citizens asked for provisions and fodder often exceeded the “going rate,” but Taylor paid it.‡ And to further promote good feeling, Taylor established a newspaper, printed in both English and Spanish, called Republic of the Rio Grande and Friend of the People, the front page of which carried lessons in the Spanish language and a column in which his soldiers could air their complaints.§
On May 11, 1846, the first of the eight thousand volunteers recruited by General Edmund P. Gaines at New Orleans arrived at Point Isabel; thereafter Taylor’s army would assume a new complexion. The newcomers were an unruly lot, and their time aboard ship had done nothing to tranquilize them. A few renegades from their ranks had begun to pillage the environs on the Texas side of the Rio Grande even before Taylor had crossed over. And it was unfortunate that in Taylor’s general order renaming Fort Texas in honor of Major Brown, his adjutant found it necessary to issue threats to the new arrivals:
The commanding general is pained [that] instances have been brought to his knowledge where volunteers have seized private cattle, and sold them for their private benefit. Such conduct will not be tolerated.…7
Disorderly conduct, of course, could never be condoned, but in fairness these volunteers had plenty of cause for complaint about the situation in which they found themselves. Taylor completely lacked the facilities to treat them decently, and the camps he was forced to cram them into were miserable and crowded. To make matters worse, the three-month volunteers soon learned that their short enlistments would preclude their accomplishing anything useful during that time. Taylor was aware of their frustration and he was worried.† He took out his own frustration on Marcy by writing to him his complaints. He had requested only eight regiments, a total of five thousand men, he reminded the secretary, and for the record he wanted it understood that “this reinforcement, beyond the eight regiments, was never asked for by me.8
Taylor need not have written, for the officials in Washington were painfully aware of the mess, so much so that Marcy had filed court-martial charges against the cause of the fiasco, Edmund Gaines. And President Polk was well aware that the eight thousand Louisianans dumped on Taylor, though illegally recruited by Gaines for terms of six months, were obligated by the Constitution to serve only three months.9 He therefore attempted to solve the problem by officially recognizing those eight thousand men as Louisiana’s fulfillment of Taylor’s request and recommending that Taylor “urge” them to volunteer for twelve months.10
No chance. The men who had enthusiastically signed up for three months the previous May had now sweltered at the Brazos Santiago with its mosquitoes and had suffered in the crowded camps along the river. They wanted no part of this life, and only one Louisiana company, Captain Albert C. Blanchard’s, volunteered to extend its tour to a whole year.a So aside from Blanchard’s “Phoenix Company,” the men of Louisiana returned home, all except the 145 of their comrades who had died of disease.b
The volunteers from Texas were a different story. Taylor had requested four regiments from that state, and Texas had produced three, two of them mounted and one of infantry. Together the three had been organized into a division. The Texas governor, J. Pinckney Henderson, had left office temporarily to command them with the rank of major general. When presented with the option of extending their time, the men of the infantry regiment elected to be discharged. Those of the two mounted regiments, however, remained. One of these, under Colonel John C. (“Jack”) Hays, came from western Texas and would become known as the Texas Rangers, and would leave their names indelibly in the history of this war.
Hays’s men were veterans, men who had been fighting Indians and Mexicans ever since Texas had won independence in 1836 though they were not formally organized until February 1845. The regimental organization was loose, and in practice the several companies tended to operate separately. One of them, Sam Walker’s, had already participated in Taylor’s campaign against Arista; McCullough’s and Gillespie’s would arrive soon after.
These frontiersmen knew each other, knew the Mexicans, and knew what they were there for. As Walter Prescott Webb noted, they “brought their old sets of enemies with them,” the foremost being “the Chaparral Fox,” Antonio Canales. Inured to the cruelty of frontier warfare, they felt a contempt for all things Mexican, an attitude that clashed with Taylor’s efforts to promote friendship with the populace. But as irregular cavalry they were superb, and even though Taylor would despair of their conduct off the field, he would always strive to retain their services.11
About mid-May 1836 Ben McCulloch’s Texas Ranger Company arrived at Brazos Santiago. McCulloch had recruited his men in only thirty-six hours, and he had moved them out quickly—there had been no time for issuing uniforms, certainly no time for drill, and, most of all, no time for instilling discipline. To the casual observer these rangers were a ferocious-looking group, most of them wearing long beards and mustaches in an age when most men, certainly soldiers, were cleanshaven. All were contemptuous of any kind of uniform and could be identified only by the standard Texas Ranger slouched hat and the belt of pistols they wore around their waists.”12 But despite their rough appearance and conduct, the ranks of the Texas Rangers included doctors, lawyers, and many college graduates, who chose to set aside their professional status for the time of their enlistment.
McCulloch’s company marched from Point Isabel on May 22, 1846, and camped near the water hole of Palo Alto. During the evening they indifferently noted the sound of horses’ hooves passing them in the dark. Only later did they learn that the passing party was that of William J. Worth, en route from Point Isabel to Matamoros.
At noon the next day McCulloch’s men reached Resaca de la Palma, where hats, cartridge boxes, belts, broken bayonets, and torn and bloody garments of the Mexican soldiers were still lying about. It was a grim sight; “the free fresh air of heaven was tainted by the horrible effluvia arising from the dead bodies of horse, mules, and oxen which lay on every side,” wrote one of the men. But cleaning up this debris of battle was none of McCulloch’s concern, so he continued his march out of the stench, “leaving the wolves and carrion birds to gorge and fatten undisturbed upon the dainty feasts prepared for their revolting appetites by man.”13
William Jenkins Worth, who had passed McCulloch’s company during the night at Palo Alto, reported to Zachary Taylor on May 23, 1846. Worth was despondent that the newly authorized promotions to brigadier general had gone to David E. Twiggs and to Stephen W. Kearny, but Taylor was not very sympathetic. He disapproved of Worth’s leaving the Army of Occupation earlier over the petty question of brevet rank (thereby missing the battles of Palo Alto and the Resaca). He had also received reports that Worth had behaved badly in the United States while under the influence of liquor. Taylor, whose sour judgments of peers and superiors contrasted with his courtly demeanor toward subordinates, viewed Worth with distaste. Worth, he wrote, had been “pampered and bloated for things he never done [sic] or acts he never performed.” And even worse, “There are few if any officers in the service who require more from the private soldier to make himself comfortable, or who would put himself to less inconvenience for their benefit.…”14 But though harsh in his judgment of the man’s character, Taylor recognized Worth’s unquestioned capabilities and was glad to get his wayward subordinate back.
In Washington, war planning remained remarkably vague, even after news arrived of Taylor’s victories on the Rio Grande. Polk had ceased to confer with Scott directly, and even Marcy kept the general at arm’s length. As a result Marcy and Scott sent separate orders to Taylor, some of which duplicated each other and at times varied in their emphasis. But all instructions from Washington left the ultimate decisions in the hands of Taylor. On June 8 Marcy made his first cautious mention of Monterrey. “It is desirable,” he wrote, “that you should maintain yourself in sufficient strength to capture and hold Monterrey with your present force.”15 And four days later Scott was only a little more specific: “… it is the wish of the President that, with your accustomed energy, you take up lines of march beyond the Rio Grande, and press your operations toward the heart of the enemy’s country.… The high road to the capital of Mexico will, of course, be one of those lines.…” The “high road to the capital of Mexico” could be interpreted in no way other than the road that led from Monterrey through the eastern range of the Sierra Madre by way of the Rinconada Pass to Saltillo and beyond.
At the same time, however, Polk was sending expeditions to occupy other parts of the northern Mexican territories. As early as June 2 Marcy issued orders to Colonel Stephen W. Kearny to lead a force from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, overland to Santa Fe. Having secured New Mexico for the United States, Kearny was to continue to California, if he deemed it possible, before winter.16 At the same time Polk had personally instructed Brigadier General John E. Wool to assemble an army of volunteers at San Antonio, Texas, to march into Mexico and report to Taylor. If Taylor thought it feasible, Wool was to continue westward to the trading center of Chihuahua.17 Finally, Polk expected that Commodore John D. Sloat’s Pacific Squadron would seize the ports of upper California, probably before Kearny’s arrival.18
These operations were necessary and well advised, as their success would ensure occupation of the territories that President Polk surreptitiously wished to obtain at the end of the war when the two nations signed a treaty of peace. But they were small expeditions compared with that of Taylor, who commanded the bulk of the United States Army. His was the principal effort.
Taylor was realistic as he received successive discretionary orders from Washington. On July 2 he advised that the thousand-mile overland route from the Rio Grande to Mexico City could never support a sizable army, and he recommended that his operations be limited to “cutting off the northern provinces.”19 By the “northern provinces” he meant Nuevo León, whose capital was Monterrey, and Coahuila, whose capital was Saltillo, fifty miles beyond Monterrey.
But long-range strategy was not Taylor’s primary concern at this time. He had decided to march on Monterrey but was still uncertain as to which route to follow. He would prefer, if the Rio Grande would take him, to establish his base at Camargo, but the uncertainties of that means of transport necessitated his planning an overland route as an alternative. Specifically, he was eager to learn if the road direct from Matamoros to Monterrey by way of Linares was feasible.20 In early June, therefore, he sent McCulloch’s company of Texans to reconnoiter the Linares route. To help McCulloch, Taylor gave him a fine map that had been found in the tent of General Mariano Arista as the Mexicans had left in haste from Resaca de la Palma. McCulloch’s rangers set out enthusiastically, for one bonus of this mission would be the opportunity to hunt for Antonio Canales and also for Blas Falcón, the reputed killer of Colonel Cross. In their quest for Falcón they were nearly successful. On June 12 the rangers fought off a group of Mexicans, who hit and ran. Falcón, they later learned, had been among them.21
By June 23 McCulloch was satisfied that the march from Matamoros to Linares would be impracticable for a “large division” because the route lacked sufficient water. McCulloch also learned that Arista was currently at Linares with a thousand infantry and a few squadrons of cavalry. Canales was reported to be hiding in the hills to the west, so McCulloch, his job done, cut off contact with Taylor and took off in pursuit of his personal enemy.22
When Taylor received McCulloch’s findings, he decided to concentrate on moving his army up the Rio Grande to Camargo. Such a move was possible, as Taylor had succeeded in procuring a number of small boats, but it would not be easy; the river was proving a formidable opponent. The direct distance of a hundred miles was actually four hundred as measured by the course of the winding stream. Furthermore, the current was strong, and the water swirled in the tortuous riverbed. No pilots familiar with the river were available and wood for fuel was short. Nevertheless, he pushed on by moving his army a section at a time.23 In this effort he called on Worth, the man he trusted most with independent command, and before the end of July Worth had taken most of the 1st Brigade ahead. Advance contingents—the 5th and 7th infantries—were already on hand at Camargo. Taylor himself left Matamoros on August 4.24
In late July Captain Luther Giddings, 1st Ohio Volunteers, landed with a group of replacement officers at Brazos Santiago Island. Giddings had been separated from his regiment when he had come down sick in New Orleans after the journey down the Mississippi River. Now recovered, he was attempting to catch up with his comrades.
The scene at the Brazos fascinated Giddings. The island that had recently been a wilderness was now “alive with busy men; soldiers, sailors, artisans, and others, who were running to and fro like ants.” But the real work was being done by the Mexican stevedores as they unloaded the vessels, all of the laborers naked except for their great sombreros and seeming not to suffer from the sun. And besides the soldiers and laborers were the sutlers that follow every army. These welcome parasites were displaying their merchandise under awnings, asking for exorbitant prices, and the troops, having no alternatives, were buying their goods.
On one part of the island was a tragic sight—the corner where deathly sick volunteers were trying to find some sort of shade. Suffocating, choked with sand, and parched with fever, they were denied access to the comfortable hospital that housed the wounded of Palo Alto and the Resaca.25 Such facilities were reserved for the regulars.
Giddings himself was fortunate, for officers traveling individually were detained only a few hours on the Brazos Island. Soon he found himself on a small boat pounding in the rough water toward Camp Belknap, the temporary station of the 1st Ohio Volunteers. On the way, as the boat approached the narrow mouth of the river, Giddings peered at a small collection of mud-and-reed huts on the Mexican bank, a town known to the Americans as “Bagdad.” Camp Belknap was located farther up the river on the left, or Texan, bank. Upon arrival Giddings witnessed the same hubbub that had absorbed him the day before at the Brazos. The camp was full of soldiers, sailors, sutlers, clerks, cooks, and camp followers, but again only the Mexican laborers appeared to be really working.
Living conditions at Camp Belknap were miserable. Men and animals were packed together in the mud, and mere survival required extraordinary efforts. For the convenience of the quartermaster, the regimental commissary had been located on the bank of the Rio Grande, but the camp itself lay a mile away on the other side of a swamp. Thus every man was forced to wade daily through the mire in order to draw his provisions. To add to the discomfort, the area teemed with snakes, tarantulas, ants, scorpions, fleas, and spiders. The ants were the most annoying, the tarantulas the most feared.c One out of eight men in the 1st Ohio were on the daily sick report when Giddings arrived, and a month later he estimated that number was one in four.26
With tempers short, incidents were inevitable. One involved a dispute between the 1st Ohio and the nearby Maryland Battalion. A Maryland volunteer had been caught stealing a catfish from the tent of the 1st Ohio’s commander, and the troops of each command rallied to the support of their respective fellows. In the confrontation, someone had given the order to load live ammunition, which, however, had not been followed and a major catastrophe had been averted, but the respective colonels were now abashedly explaining the circumstances to Taylor himself. The disorder provided absorbing news for the newspapers at home.d
Eventually the 1st Ohio left Camp Belknap by water for Camargo. The trip up the Rio Grande was both novel and perilous. The high water, strong current, and inexperienced pilots delayed the riverboat so much that the four-hundred-mile journey took a whole week. The water overflowed the banks and covered the country for miles; the pilots found it difficult just to identify and stay within the river itself, and sometimes it was necessary for the colonel to send troops ashore to gather wood for the riverboat’s boilers.27
But the trip had its rewards. The Mexicans along the west bank were friendly. At one stopping point the troops went ashore to mix with the people and to witness a “fandango,” which turned out to be an open-air dance involving “a swarthy and sweating crowd, of both sexes, engaged in waltzing, gambling, smoking, and drinking.” And one evening the boat moored near the hut of a locally renowned fiddler. The troops sought him out and spent the evening with him; some of them made music in their own way, while others danced to the clatter of their heavy shoes. Glad to be released from the crowded quarters of the boat, the men “vied with each other in the extent and singularity of their saltations.”28
The 1st Ohio arrived at Camargo on Sunday, August 16. The town itself was located up the San Juan River about three miles from its junction with the Rio Grande. The American camp, which eventually held over 12,000 men, was spread southward along the San Juan River. Unfortunately, its water was even less potable than that of the Rio Grande, which Giddings estimated to consist of 20 percent mud. And to add to the health hazard some soldiers were complacently filling camp kettles alongside others doing laundry. Upstream from the Ohio regiment the Texans were washing their horses, and above the Texans were the Mexican women, carrying water away in primitive earthen jars, water far cleaner than that which filled the canteens of the soldiers.29
At first Giddings found the camp at Camargo agreeable. With a newfound friend, a volunteer brigadier general, he called on General Taylor himself, who was standing casually outside his tent “dressed in linen coat and trousers, twirling a straw hat between his fingers, and apparently conversing with or dictating to someone within.” Benevolent and affable, the stout, gray-haired Taylor greeted his visitors and had a short discussion with them. Then he asked that the two officers pay a call on General Worth, as Worth was formally in command at the camp.30 The next morning Giddings strolled through the camp of the regulars, admiring its impeccable organization. The infantry, artillery, and cavalry, all located in the same field, were each in place, “their appointments and discipline” perfect.31 And Giddings wound up his tour of the camp by witnessing the review that Taylor held on August 18. As always, Giddings focused on Taylor, who, though wearing comfortable civilian clothing, was “conspicuous in the glittering group.”32
Unfortunately, the glitter at Camargo was confined to Taylor and his regulars. For the volunteers the very name Camargo was synonymous with boredom, filth, and tragic death. Diseases took a fearful toll, and the dead march never ceased throughout the day. The large hospital tents were constantly full; the dead were removed at sunrise and sunset. But the nearby troops could hear “the groans and lamentations of the poor sufferers” throughout the night.33
The death statistics of Taylor’s stay at Camargo are startling. When his army finally marched out, only 370 of 795 Georgians were present for duty; only 324 of 754 Alabamians; 317 of 588 in the 2d Tennessee. An estimated 1,500 men died at Camargo—one out of every eight to encamp there.34 Taylor was keenly aware of the sufferings of his men, and he was bewildered that the inadequate advance information of the place had caused him unwittingly to select that location as a concentration point. But once there, he was powerless to do anything other than to visit the hospitals, plan to leave as soon as possible, and to write the adjutant general asking for a supplement in medical officers. (The surgeon general, in Washington, dismissed Taylor’s pleas and called his medical officers “censurable.”)e
About a week before Taylor’s planned departure from Camargo the first wave of volunteer generals arrived at his camp from the United States. In this contingent were Major General William O. Butler and Brigadier Generals John A. Quitman, Gideon J. Pillow, Thomas L. Hamer, and James Shields. It was a large contingent, and Taylor was taken aback by the surplus. “There will be no lack of generals,” he commented wryly. “I could have myself wished that they had not been quite so numerous.”35
But considering the political nature of their appointments, it was not a bad group. Butler, of Kentucky, was the most experienced, having served under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. Quitman, of Mississippi (whom Taylor sized up as “a gentleman of intelligence”), had also seen military service, having raised a body of troops in 1836 to aid the Texans.
The one destined for dubious fame, Gideon Pillow, of Tennessee, had already made an imprint on history by his efforts in securing James Polk’s nomination by the Democrats at Baltimore in 1844. But as a soldier, Pillow had little to offer. Though he had long been a brigadier general of the Tennessee militia, that rank had been political and social; he had seen no active military service. That deficiency could be remedied by experience, of course, if such hands-on training would not cost too many lives, but Pillow had a menacing aspect to him: his role as President Polk’s secret informant. Taylor was probably unaware of that attribute of Pillow’s, and Pillow, for the moment, at least, felt cordial toward Taylor.36
By early September 1846 the need to leave Camargo was becoming a matter of urgency. Polk, the press, and the public were becoming impatient. The recent hero of Palo Alto and the Resaca de la Palma was now being called “General Delay.” And of course Taylor was yearning to remove his army from the cesspool of Camargo. So he chose to move out before he was completely ready. He would make up for his shortage of wagons by substituting mules.f Further, he would advance with only a portion of his army, all his regulars (about 3,200) and only about 3,000 of his volunteers. And he would take only a portion of the heavy artillery he had available.
On August 19 Worth’s 2nd Division set out for Cerralvo, about sixty miles away, to establish a forward base there. Twiggs’s 1st Division would follow Worth in a few days, and the “Field Division,” Butler’s volunteers, would bring up the rear. On a parallel route, to the left (south), Hays’s Texas Rangers would march by way of China, presumably to join up with Taylor’s main body at Marin.g
Since Taylor had decided that he could take only 3,000 volunteers to Monterrey, out of 7,700 such volunteers on hand, his decision as to which to take was a touchy matter. All of the 4,700 left behind were bound to be bitterly disappointed, as they had signed up to fight, not to die in mud holes. Nevertheless, the decision had to be made, and Taylor’s prime consideration, so he wrote the War Department, was to draw from “as many States as possible.”h Common sense, of course, also meant giving priority to those units least depleted by disease. So he selected, besides the Texans, the Mississippi Rifles, the Tennessee Regiment, the 1st Ohio, and the Baltimore-Washington Battalion. Those left behind were distributed among Camargo, Matamoros, camps in the lower Rio Grande, and the hospital. All left behind were to be under the inevitably loose command of newly arrived Major General Robert Patterson.i
The last of Taylor’s force left Camargo on September 6.37 A stirring and dangerous adventure lay ahead for those who would face the guns of the enemy. For them the miserable period of buildup was over.
* To differentiate, I am using the modern spelling for this city, in contrast to Monterey, as in Monterey, California. Also, despite our tendency to think of Monterrey as being south of Texas, it is nearly due west of Matamoros.
† This was a more efficient arrangement than the previous one, but it caused an overload on Brazos Island. On the average it seems that a unit during that summer would spend about five days on Brazos Island before departing for one of the camps. At one time there were as many as eight thousand troops on Brazos Island. The pilings of Taylor’s port were still visible in 1984.
‡ Not every soldier agreed with such a policy: “Our government was wise enough to suppose that they could conquer the Mexicans by kindness, and force them to a speedy cessation of hostilities, by offering them a ready market for every thing they could raise, and paying an enormous price.… How absurd that policy has been, the experience of the campaign has since exhibited.” Samuel Reid, The Scouting Expeditions of McCullough’s Texas Rangers, pp. 43–44.
§ This from one soldier: “There was a little bayou … to cross and boats to ferry over, but the water being shallow, many chose to wade it. [One volunteer] said, “I’d like to wade this water, but it would be volunteering, and I’ll never do that again, so help me.” Republic of the Rio Grande, Matamoras, June 23, 1846 (Courtesy, Bruce Aiken).
‖ “I fear so many volunteers will come we will hardly find anything for them to do; the enemy’s principal positions are so far off, with deserts intervening, that it will be, I fear, impossible to reach them for want of transportation.” Zachary Taylor, Letters, Taylor to Robert C. Wood, May 19, 1846, p. 3. Taylor had begun an extensive and revealing correspondence with his son-in-law, Surgeon Wood, who remained as a doctor at Point Isabel for several months after Taylor’s departure.
a The decision to send the “six-month men” home after three months caused bitter resentment. “His Excellency,” Isaac Johnson, governor of Louisiana, wrote that the three-month term was harsh and would subject the recruits to the “torture” of choosing between three months and twelve. After all, “The call upon the patriotism of Louisiana … left no time for calculating, reflection and none for delay.… The judge deserted the bench, the lawyer his clients, the physician his patients, the merchant his counting-house, the mechanic his workshop, the minister of the Gospel his pulpit, to respond to the proclamation for volunteers.…” Johnson to Marcy, June 12, 1846, in U.S. Congress, Exec. Doc. No. 60, pp. 309–10.
b Marcy to Taylor, June 26, 1846, Exec. Doc. No. 60, pp. 307–8. Emory Upton (The Military Policy of the United States, p. 202), notes that this number was only twenty-five short of all casualties (dead and wounded 170) at Palo Alto and Resaca.
c A tarantula bite would cause spasms and delirium sufficient that a victim could be dealt with only by carrying him forcibly to his tent and keeping him there.
d Luther Giddings, Sketches of the Campaign in Northern Mexico, p. 38. This “catfish war” was one of the two celebrated confrontations between volunteer units. The other, between the Illinois and Georgia volunteers, actually broke out in fighting. Colonel Edward D. Baker, of Illinois, who would later place Abraham Lincoln’s name in nomination for the presidency, was one of the injured. See Taylor, Letters, Taylor to Robert C. Wood, September 16, 1846, p. 59.
e Taylor to the attorney general (TAG), September 2, 1846. Exec. Doc. No. 60, p. 414; the surgeon general to Taylor, July 29, 1846, Exec. Doc. No. 60, p. 41, (this letter is an answer to an earlier one from Taylor, which is missing).
f Taylor to TAG, September 1, 1846, Exec. Doc. No. 60, p. 558. Justin Smith, The War with Mexico, vol. I, 490, says that Taylor procured one thousand mules from the alcalde of Reynosa.
g Taylor had some doubts as to whether the Texans would show up—their unique six-month enlistments had almost expired—but he had hopes. If they failed to do so, he would go on without them. Taylor to TAG, September 3, 1846. Exec. Doc. No. 60, p. 418.
h Taylor to TAG, September 3, 1846, Exec. Doc. No. 60, p. 417. The army was organized as follows: Eight regiments of regular infantry (2,500 men), four regiments of volunteer infantry (2,000 men), four batteries of light artillery (280 men), one battery of heavy artillery (100 men), two squadrons of regular cavalry (200 men), one squadron of volunteer cavalry (150 men), and two regiments of volunteer cavalry (1,000 men). Total 6,230 men. George Meade, Life and Letters, vol. I, p. 126.
i Justin Smith, War with Mexico, vol. I, p. 493. Distribution was Camargo 2,100 (Pillow and Marshall); Matamoros 1,100 (Clarke); camps below Matamoros (4,500); hospitals (1,400).