NOVEMBER 1846–FEBRUARY 1847
While Polk was altering the character of the war in Washington, Taylor, at Monterrey, was going ahead with his own plans. Essentially his views as to the strategy of the war had changed little from those he had outlined in early July, that American forces in his area “should not look to the city of Mexico, but should be confined to cutting off the northern provinces.”1 His views in that regard had not changed, but now he was able to be more specific as to numbers.
Just to reach San Luis Potosí from Saltillo, Taylor believed, would require an American army of twenty thousand men, half of them regulars.2 And to attack San Luis Potosí and Tampico simultaneously would require some twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand. Taylor was also consistent in his attitude toward Tampico. He had always been in favor of seizing that city, but only as one of a chain of positions to be held pending negotiations for peace. He did not see it as a springboard for future advances.
But Taylor conceded that an amphibious landing near Veracruz and a subsequent march to Mexico City would be necessary if the strategy of occupying the northern provinces should fail to bring peace. That campaign, he estimated, would require an expedition of twenty thousand men, again half of whom must be regulars.3 Taylor had always considered that campaign with reluctance, but not for selfish reasons. At the time when he expressed those views, he had every reason to expect that he would command such a campaign himself.*
On November 8, 1846, Taylor learned that Wool had arrived at Monclova and was recommending that his force remain as part of Taylor’s rather than march to Chihuahua. Wool’s scouts had returned to Monclova reporting the route to be devoid of water and too rough for his wagons. Wool recommended marching down to Parras, 180 miles to the southeast, a point that controlled one main road to San Luis Potosí (the other was Saltillo). With Santa Anna known to be forming an army at San Luis Potosí, Taylor was only too glad to add Wool’s force to his own. As far as he was concerned, Wool’s original mission had been a failure.†
Taylor himself had already decided to move forward to Saltillo. On the same day that Wool’s message arrived, Taylor ordered Worth to depart for Saltillo in four days. The morning that Worth was scheduled to leave, however, Taylor received a message from Marcy reflecting the concern prevalent in Washington. Marcy, as usual, worded his orders tentatively, expressing only “serious doubts” in Washington regarding the wisdom of pushing on beyond Monterrey. It directed Taylor to secure his present position and merely keep his line of communications open, if he should “concur in this view.”4
Given that latitude, Taylor continued with his plans the next day. Worth led the march with about one thousand men, and Taylor, with two squadrons of May’s dragoons, followed him closely.‡
The route to Saltillo took Worth and his men nearly thirty miles up the Santa Catarina River, past a village of the same name, then southward into the gorge of the Rinconada Pass, then upward once again, breaking out into a wide valley that led to Saltillo itself. Here in the higher altitudes the vegetation turned from cintus groves to wheat fields. A seventy-mile march brought them from a tropical climate to a temperate one.5
Along with the change in scenery, Worth’s men could easily detect a hostility in the attitude of the Mexican people. When Worth’s advance guard approached within a dozen miles of Saltillo, it met the usual deputation carrying a protest from the governor, who, however, had already departed for San Luis Potosí. Naturally, the protest was ignored, and Worth’s men marched on to the Saltillo town square with drums beating and colors flying. Taylor continued and pitched his tent by a stream on the south of the city.6
Despite the cold welcome they received, the men found Saltillo to be a fairly agreeable place, about the same size as Monterrey but more compact. The streets were well paved, the houses well built. It boasted four plazas, and its cathedral was larger than the one in Monterrey. Flour was plentiful, but fuel had to be brought in from miles away, and the lack of firewood would make the winter cold. The townspeople at first attempted to charge exorbitant prices for forage, until Taylor threatened to seize what he wanted, paying his own prices.7
Taylor had never intended to remain at Saltillo personally, but before returning to Monterrey, he sent a company of his dragoons down the road toward San Luis Potosí to check on its ability to carry an army—Taylor’s or Santa Anna’s. They returned after having gone thirty miles, reporting that all the water tanks over that stretch had been destroyed. At least the Mexicans would not return by this route—or so Taylor believed.8
• • •
Taylor’s personal leadership had been missed at Monterrey; relations between soldiers and civilians were degenerating. One regiment had sent a detachment back to Marin to exact revenge for the murder of two of their men. That same day a Mexican was shot in his own doorway, and an officer passing by casually watched as he breathed his last. Further, the line of communications with the Rio Grande was reported endangered, as nearly every train along the route was attacked by rancheros. The army needed the reassuring presence of Old Rough and Ready, even though he had been absent only about ten days.9
Upon his return, Taylor was greeted with word that Tampico had fallen to Conner’s Home Squadron. This time, since he was acting on his own, Taylor responded with alacrity, sending a brigade under Brigadier General James Shields to Camargo, for travel by water to Tampico. Shields would command the garrison in that city pending the arrival of a larger force.§ But Taylor needed an overland route from Monterrey to Tampico, and to clear the road through Linares and Victoria, he decided to conduct four thousand men personally to Victoria, about halfway, send part of that contingent on to Tampico, and return to Monterrey with the rest. He began preparations for this move immediately, in late November.
The situation facing Taylor had now changed. With the threat of meeting a large Mexican force deemed remote, he could now occupy strongpoints much as he used to do on the frontier. So he reorganized, abolishing the bulky Volunteer Division, and grouping the Ohio and Kentucky infantry regiments in one brigade (Butler) and the Georgia, Mississippi, and 1st Tennessee regiments in another (Quitman). Taylor would take Twiggs’s division, with Quitman’s brigade and the Baltimore Battalion, along with him to Victoria, leaving Worth at Saltillo; Wool at Parras; and Butler at Monterrey. Butler, the senior officer, would be in overall command of the various troops left behind. Patterson, currently at Matamoros, would join Taylor at Victoria.‖
Back in Washington, Winfield Scott was happily preparing to leave for the Rio Grande, taking special care to preserve his fragile truce with Polk and Marcy. When Taylor’s letter protesting the detachment of Patterson reached the President, Scott readily “condemned” it and said that he would demand an explanation from Taylor.10 (He never did.) He planned to depart from New York by steamer on November 28, a bare ten days after being notified of his new assignment. Polk forbade Scott to inform Taylor of the new strategy, but when Scott reached New York he wrote Taylor a letter that cloaked the new developments only thinly. He was going to Mexico, he wrote, to conduct operations in a new field (which he presumed Taylor could guess). He would be forced to take most of Taylor’s troops, but Taylor’s victories had given him “such an eminence” that he could afford to act on the defensive for a time. Scott professed to hope that Taylor would be reinforced sufficiently before spring to resume operations. And then:
I am not coming, my dear general, to supersede you in the immediate command on the line of operations rendered illustrious by you and your gallant army. My proposed theatre is different.…
But, my dear general, I shall be obliged to take from you most of the gallant officers and men (regulars and volunteers) whom you have so long and nobly commanded.… But I rely upon your patriotism to submit to the temporary sacrifice with cheerfulness. No man can better afford to do so.…
You will be aware of the recent call for nine regiments of new volunteers.… These, by the spring—say April—may … be in the field, should Mexico not earlier propose terms of accommodation, and long before the spring (March) it is probable you will be again in force to resume offensive operations.11
Scott was careful to apprise Taylor of his own schedule, in hopes that they might meet. He planned to be in New Orleans on December 12, Point Isabel on December 17, and Camargo on December 23. He did not expect to visit Monterrey, and acknowledged that Taylor might be prevented by circumstances from coming to see him. In that case, he would regret not having an opportunity to congratulate Taylor in person for his “brilliant achievements,” but he expected to meet him “somewhere in the interior of Mexico.”12
Scott sailed on the last day of November, but the voyage was slowed by bad weather. After a busy stop in New Orleans he reached the Brazos two days after Christmas, two weeks late.
At San Luis Potosí Santa Anna received word from his agents that Taylor was planning to take the bulk of his army to Victoria. He therefore decided immediately to overwhelm Worth’s small garrison at Saltillo, and to that end he sent the bulk of his cavalry northward, intending to follow with his main army as soon as possible. Word of Santa Anna’s movements reached Worth on December 16, and he duly notified Butler at Monterrey. Butler sent a messenger to Taylor, who had been on the road to Victoria for four days13 and had still heard nothing of Scott’s new assignment.
When Taylor received Butler’s message on December 18, he decided to return to Monterrey with his regulars and to send Quitman’s volunteers on to Victoria. All the units still in northern Mexico were to converge on Saltillo. Butler arrived from Monterrey on December 19; Wool, from Parras on the twenty-first. Taylor was following behind Butler.14
Meanwhile, Santa Anna’s alert scouts brought word that Taylor had changed his plans and was now concentrating a force at Saltillo, so Santa Anna, not yet ready for a major battle, canceled his own northward movement for the moment. A frustrated Taylor learned of the false alarm as he was passing through Monterrey. He therefore turned back once more to Victoria.15
Taylor arrived in Montemorelos, forty-five miles from Monterrey, the day after Christmas. Here he received mail from Washington, including the letter Scott had written a month earlier from New York. Since Scott’s itinerary had anticipated his arriving at Camargo on December 23, which had already passed, a rendezvous between the two seemed out of the question.a Taylor sent a reply reporting his recent activities and his immediate plans. He would examine the pass between Victoria to Tula, he wrote, and then, when his presence was no longer required at Victoria, he would return to Monterrey, probably in February. He would, he added, be “happy to receive your orders.”16
On January 4, 1847, Taylor arrived in Victoria, six days behind Quitman. A body of some fifteen hundred Mexican cavalry, in no mood to fight, had fled the town on Quitman’s approach. On examination, Taylor concluded that the passes to Tula, where Santa Anna was concentrating part of his army, were impracticable for artillery or wagons. Satisfied that Santa Anna offered no threat from that point, he sent all of Twiggs’s division ahead to Tampico. He, personally, could return to Monterrey earlier than his scheduled February date.17
At that point the friendship between Scott and Taylor began to break down. The main cause was faulty communications. Scott had arrived at Camargo on January 3, 1847, to learn that Taylor had gone to Victoria. But Taylor’s letter of December 26, written at Montemorelos, was waiting, and its cheerful wording seems to have emboldened Scott. In Taylor’s absence, therefore, Scott hastily instructed Butler to put most of Taylor’s troops in motion for the Rio Grande, and unfortunately Scott saved time by simply sending Taylor a copy of his detailed letter to Butler, accompanied by a brief note. The troops he was taking included the following:
| Regular cavalry (1st and 2d dragoons) | 500 men |
| Volunteer cavalry (Butler’s choice) | 500 men |
| Two batteries of light field artillery, (Duncan’s and Taylor’s) |
|
| Regular infantry (Worth, Twiggs) | 4,000 men |
| Volunteer infantry | 4,000 men18 |
Insensitive to Taylor’s feelings, Scott worded his letter tactlessly, showing a tinge of pique. He regretted, he said, that his letter of November 25 had taken so long, as “it would, I think, have brought you back to Monterey.” He added a smarmy reference to the chimerical prospect of a further advance, later, by Taylor. And his ending, though reflecting the optimism that any commander needs, was on an irritatingly airy note: “Providence may defeat me, but I do not believe the Mexicans can.”19
Scott’s instructions to Butler were sent to Taylor by two different couriers. One copy was entrusted to a young infantry lieutenant, John Alexander Richey, born in Ohio, graduated from West Point in 1845. With a small escort Richey left on this routine mission, reaching the village of Villa Gran, between Monterrey and Victoria, on January 13, 1847. Upon arrival there, Richey decided to purchase some provisions. He went into town alone, carrying Scott’s letter with him, and that evening was lassoed and murdered. At San Luis Potosí a delighted Santa Anna soon was perusing a full-scale blueprint of American dispositions and intentions in northern Mexico.20 Since the other copy of Scott’s letter reached Taylor direct from Matamoros, the Americans would not suspect for several days that Santa Anna was privy to its contents.
But when that other copy reached Taylor at Victoria, Old Rough and Ready reacted furiously. To maintain official decorum, he sent two replies, an “official” one to Scott’s adjutant and an angry personal one to Scott himself. The personal letter protested against the amount of force to be removed and the manner in which it was done. Such a decimation of his army, he claimed, had never crossed his mind before, though Scott’s letter of November 25 had “hinted” at it. He would never have complained (he claimed) had he simply been relieved of command and assigned as a subordinate to Scott or allowed to go home. But Scott’s action had left him with fewer than a thousand regulars, and a volunteer force of new levies, to hold a defensive line with a Mexican army of over twenty thousand approaching from the south. As to Scott’s promise that he would later be able to advance toward San Luis Potosí, the idea was “too preposterous to be entertained for a moment.”
Nevertheless, Taylor did not resign his position: he would remain in Mexico “however much I may feel personally mortified and outraged by the course pursued, unprecedented, at least in our own history.”21
Scott brushed off this blast in remarkably good humor. He ignored Taylor’s reproofs, and soothingly rejected Taylor’s offer to serve under his command. Taylor’s present position, he wrote, carried greater responsibility than a post directly under him. But one paragraph, all-important, belied the soft words: “… I must ask you to abandon Saltillo, and to make no detachments … much beyond Monterey.”22
That sentence was too much for Taylor, who received it back at Monterrey. He chose to ignore that order—for an order it was—and unloaded his frustrations on his friend Senator John Crittenden, calling Scott’s course “outrageous,” without precedent. He accused Scott of “the greatest duplicity.” Then he reversed himself on the strategy he had recommended only a few weeks before: “I believe much the safest course would have been to have concentrated the whole force at Saltillo … and at once marched into the heart of the country.” He ended with an ominous postscript:
Just as I finished this, a report has reached here from Saltillo, sixty or seventy miles in front of this, where there is a considerable force stationed, that one or two companies of the Arkansas mounted men, under Major Borland, of that State, sent in advance, some fifty or sixty miles, to gain intelligence and watch the movements of the enemy, had been surprised and the whole captured; although it comes from an officer of high rank, yet I flatter myself it will prove erroneous.b
By late January 1847 the situation seemed well under control to Taylor at Monterrey. True, his efforts to recover the dispatches on Richey’s body had failed, but rumor had it that Santa Anna, as newly elected president of Mexico, had returned to Mexico City and that the San Luis Potosí army was suffering from want of supplies, the Mexican Congress being “unwilling or unable to vote the necessary appropriations.”23
With the threat apparently eased, therefore, Taylor decided to put his own cherished plan into effect, to concentrate south of Saltillo. He would leave Worth at that city and send the newly arrived Wool down to Agua Nueva, eighteen miles farther on. This he did, and twelve days later he himself was at Agua Nueva, still serene.
Not all news was good, however. A force of Kentucky and Arkansas cavalry, under Majors John P. Gaines and Solon Borland respectively, had indeed been surprised and taken prisoner at Encarnación, thirty miles south. And a small detachment of Kentucky cavalry under Captain William J. Heady, sent out to find Gaines and Borland, had suffered the same fate. But these were minor incidents, instigated by a Mexican cavalry force that had presumably fallen back. Taylor concluded that “large detachments have been made from San Luis in the direction of Vera Cruz, which I think not improbable.”
As to his own intentions, “It is my purpose to hold this position, unless I am positively ordered to fall back by the government at Washington, to which my views and the position of affairs here are fully communicated.”24
Scott and Taylor had been right in fearing that Santa Anna would soon be in possession of Richey’s copy of Scott’s letter to Taylor. Scott learned of Richey’s fate in early February, but he misjudged how Santa Anna would react. Santa Anna, Scott believed, would now concentrate against Scott’s landing at Veracruz, of which he was learning for the first time. Since such a movement would preclude any action on Santa Anna’s part against Taylor, Scott planned to write Taylor suggesting a move southward from Saltillo to San Luis Potosí.25 Scott never sent that letter, but Taylor had come to the same conclusion, that he could move south of Saltillo, though not all the way to San Luis Potosí.
Santa Anna, however, did not react as Scott and Taylor had predicted. From a military viewpoint he would have been sensible to do so, but Santa Anna was more interested in elevating his personal position in the eyes of the Mexican public. He was therefore less concerned with a possible future threat by way of Veracruz than with the shining prospect of overwhelming Taylor. Such a resounding victory over the gringos would raise the Napoleon of the West to unprecedented heights of popularity.
And political pressures were building in Mexico City, whose population was impatient with the lack of action. So Santa Anna undertook to march an army of some twenty thousand men across the desert and mountains between San Luis Potosí and Saltillo to destroy Taylor.
On January 28, Santa Anna’s lead units, comprising the artillery, a battalion of engineers, and the San Patricio company of American deserters, departed San Luis Potosí. An infantry division would follow on each of the three succeeding days.c Headquarters moved on February 2. Many of the troops had a good idea of what was in store for them, and though they were determined, they were also sad. In a resigned fashion they said their tearful farewells.26 Aside from the troops, considerable numbers of camp followers also trailed along, mostly women.
From the very beginning of the march, everything seemed to go wrong. On the day of departure three men of Ortega’s division died of the cold. Fatigue set in quickly, eased only by the sight of the American prisoners, taken by Miñón’s cavalry, being sent to the rear.d Freezing rain, unusual for that region, persisted for a week. A respite came on February 5 with a few hours of good weather, but this quickly dissipated into excessive heat. Thus, after the troops had left the cultivated land, which stretched only thirty miles, they encountered the heat of the desert, which caused thirst and suffering. Poorly disciplined, many men threw away rations and other necessaries to lighten their loads, and the incompetence of some commanders contributed to the misery.e
Pacheco’s division, in the lead, reached Encarnación on February 17, 1847, having covered about three hundred miles in slightly less than three weeks. It was not a rapid march, but Santa Anna himself had contributed to its hardships some weeks before by destroying all the water tanks along the route. The remarkable thing, actually, was that fifteen thousand of perhaps twenty thousand men made it at all. The rest had died, been abandoned, or deserted. And yet when the doughty Santa Anna held a review of the survivors at Encarnación, he was cheered with enthusiastic vivas.27
Only the strong had made it. And soon these rugged troops would be falling on an overextended, greatly outnumbered Taylor.
In Washington, Senator John Crittenden was continuing in his role as the pacifier among Whigs. Having received Taylor’s bitter letter, he answered with sympathy but also with the hope that the wrongs done to him had been the result of inadvertence only. He also hoped that any further controversy between Scott and Taylor could be avoided unless such were necessary for Taylor’s “defense and honor.”28
But more important things were on Crittenden’s mind. He was concerned over Taylor’s safety, not only as a friend but as a political asset. Somehow all the events, all the machinations on both sides, had worked to place Taylor in a favorable light with the public. In the public mind the villains who were putting Taylor’s force at risk by either incompetence or foul design were Scott and an increasingly unpopular Polk. Crittenden had seldom seen “such a burst of public feeling.” Taylor was “the object of universal sympathy and concern,” every voice being raised against “those by whom you had been left exposed to such inevitable dangers.… The greatest anxiety still prevails.”29
* Taylor to TAG, October 15, 1846, in U.S. Congress, Exec. Doc. No. 60, pp. 352–53. Parenthetically, Taylor reiterated these views in a letter to Edmund Gaines on November 5, 1846, a couple of days after receiving orders to terminate the truce. After a long justification of the truce, he took exception to the Veracruz expedition: “If we are (in the language of Mr. Polk and General Scott) under the necessity of ‘conquering a peace,’ and that by taking the capital of the country—[then] we must go to Vera Cruz, take that place, and then march on the city of Mexico.… But, admitting that we conquer a peace by doing so—say, at the end of the next twelve months—will the amount of blood and treasure, which must be expended in doing so, be compensated by the same? I think not—especially if the the country we subdue is given up; and I imagine there are but few individuals in our country who think of annexing Mexico to the United States.” Taylor to Gaines, Monterrey, November 5, 1846. This letter, made public in January 1847 served only to harass and anger Polk. Gaines should not have released it.
† William Henry, p. 241. Wool’s peregrinations around northern Mexico gave the mistaken impression to Taylor’s men that Wool had been lost. The general was seen as “marching somewhere in the wilderness, hunting for the army of occupation.” A standing joke circulated around Taylor’s camp: “When did you hear from General Wool?” (John Kenly, Memoirs of a Maryland Volunteer, p. 167.)
‡ Justin Smith, The War with Mexico, vol. I, p. 264. Troops consisted of Duncan’s battery, the 5th and 8th infantries, Blanchard’s company, and the eight companies of dismounted artillery, all of whom had been with him during the Monterrey battle.
§ Henry, p. 247. Taylor was probably unaware of reinforcements being sent directly from the United States.
‖ Justin Smith, The War with Mexico, vol. I, p. 357; letter, Taylor to Crittenden January 26, 1847, in John J. Crittenden, Life, vol. I, p. 272. Kenly (pp. 168–69) described his battalion’s elation at going to Victoria with Taylor: “I went over to the market this morning to buy some oranges; having made my purchase, I was returning with an armful of the fruit, when hearing the call of ‘Captain,’ I looked and saw General Taylor sitting on a camp-stool in front of his tent. I approached him, and shaking me by the hand, he gave me a seat; I was so highly flattered that I hardly knew what I did, except that I gave him an orange. He asked me how we were getting on; I told him. He then said, ‘What could have induced Watson, yourself, and others to come so far from home to go through so many dangers and hardships?’ I replied. He listened attentively, and when I got through he shook his head, smiled, and said ‘he couldn’t understand it.’ Before I left, General Twiggs came to where we were sitting, and made inquiry of General Taylor as to when they would likely march, and whether he would take the Baltimore Battalion with him. General Taylor turned to me and asked whether I wished to go. I replied, ‘General we always wish to follow you.” He answered Twiggs, ‘certainly, take them along.’ I waited to hear no more, but ran over to our camp to spread the joyous intelligence.”
a Scott was two weeks behind that schedule, but he did not realize that Taylor was unaware of his delay. He therefore had reasonable hopes that Taylor might meet him at Camargo.
b Taylor to Crittenden, January 26, 1847, Crittenden, vol. I, p. 273–78. Taylor was unknowingly being unfair to Scott, as the order to pull back from Saltillo had originated with Marcy (Scott to Marcy, February 4, 1847, Exec. Doc. No. 60, p. 876.
c January 29, Don Francisco Pacheco; January 30, Don Manuel Lombardini; January 31, Don J. M. Ortega. R. S. Ripley, (The War with Mexico, vol. I, p. 377) quotes “Mexican accounts” as estimating Santa Anna’s force at 23,340 with twenty pieces of artillery. This number may have included the four cavalry brigades sent ahead.
d Ramón Alcaraz, The Other Side, p. 115. The prisoners were from Gaines’s, Borland’s, and Heady’s commands, taken prisoner at Encarnación. Alacaraz does not specify their unit identification.
e At about the halfway point, one division commander decided to rest in a comfortable spot without notifying the division to the rear. Since each such station could accommodate only one division, that meant that a full division, on arrival, was forced to march backward a day to retain proper interval. Alcaraz, p. 117.