APRIL–JUNE 1847
Once more in his roller-coaster career Santa Anna was fleeing for his life. He sat silent as his horse picked its way into the steep valley of the Rio del Plan and as he and his fellow refugees forded the river and ascended the other side. Parties of Americans, he knew, were probably somewhere about, but no gringos materialized, and as Santa Anna, Ampudia, and others rode along, they gradually gathered up a small detachment. Once across the river, they turned abruptly westward toward Jalapa, hoping to reach Santa Anna’s ranch, El Encero. As they rode along, gunfire heard across the Rio del Plan told them that the Americans were still mopping up the remnants of Santa Anna’s army.
On approaching El Encero, Santa Anna’s party spotted American cavalry in the distance. The Americans saw them also and fired. Santa Anna quickly changed plans; he gave up hope of reaching his ranch and turned his party southward toward Orizaba.1
Santa Anna was despondent. A few hours earlier he had sat proud in the saddle, “possessed of power and of hopes of the brightest glory”; he was now “humbled and confused, seeking among the wretched a refuge to flee to.” Those “wretched,” however, were far from subservient. At one point Santa Anna asked a nearby curate to exchange horses, as his own was worn out. The clergyman refused. Santa Anna’s followers secretly applauded the priest’s defiance, but they stayed on with Santa Anna.
Early the next morning the party came upon a comfortable hacienda whose owner was hospitable, and Santa Anna decided to stay awhile. But that night the worried overseer warned that an American party was approaching. Santa Anna called for his comfortable litter, but his orderlies managed to make it “unready for his use,” so he once again left on horseback. Cold and exhaustion began to take their toll, but Santa Anna’s party finally reached the town of Orizaba two days later. There they were met by the dignitaries of the town, along with some generals who had arrived earlier.
At Orizaba the atmosphere was also hostile, but along the way Santa Anna had received a touch of encouragement. At the small but prosperous town of Huatusco the ayuntamiento had treated him with such sincere respect as to restore the dictator’s hope of once more regaining power. But Santa Anna showed his rising spirits in his own peculiar way, by pouring out his anger at a group of fleeing soldiers, “uttering a thousand unbecoming expressions, and cruelly chastising them with his whip.” So at Orizaba a hopeful Santa Anna, ignoring the prevailing sullenness, set about reassembling what troops he could. Soon he had organized a personal escort of four thousand men.2
The immediate reaction of the Americans after Cerro Gordo was one of relief—collective relief that the battle had been won so easily and personal relief at having survived. The troops of Twiggs’s division were shaking hands and congratulating one another, eyes glistening and voices trembling, when they spied General Scott approaching. The men crowded about as he spoke:
Brother soldiers, I am proud to call you brothers, and your country will be proud to hear of your conduct this day. Our victory has cost us the lives of a number of brave men, but they died fighting for the honour of their country. Soldiers, you have a claim on my gratitude for your conduct this day, which I will never forget.3
Stilted, perhaps—a pompous version of Henry V—but sincere. The general spoke with hat in hand, though still mounted, and he was “very much affected, and tears rolled over the furrowed cheeks of the majestic old hero.” And “many a rough and weather-beaten countenance” shed “sympathetic drops.” Scott rode off, bowing and waving his hat.4
But little time could be wasted on exultation. Much remained to be done, the most immediate of which was the inevitable burying of the dead. Scott employed Mexican prisoners as well as American troops for the purpose. As always, it was a grisly task, but it was also a pathetic one. A large number of young women lay strewn among the corpses, women who had followed their husbands and lovers when Santa Anna had scraped up his makeshift civilian army. They, as well as the men, had paid the price.*
The scene of carnage also had its humanitarian side. Mexican surgeons remaining on the field not only aided their own countrymen but also treated Americans. General Shields reportedly survived his head wound only through the efforts of a Mexican surgeon. One cynic had a theory for the doctor’s competence: he “came from a land unmatched for the practice it provided in curing wounds of all the shooting and stabbing varieties.” And there was an occasional chuckle. One woman, shot in the leg, at first refused to allow the surgeon to examine the wound, although such modesty was considered “extremely rare among the women of the lower classes in Mexico.”5
Once the dead were buried and the wounded cared for, Scott turned his attention to the future. Almost immediately he decided, over the objections of many, to release the Mexican prisoners he had taken, placing them on parole,† He had not the means, he explained, to feed them.
But while part of the army was cleaning up, the Americans’ pursuit of the fragmented Mexican army continued toward Jalapa, only four miles away. By now General Patterson had recovered from his sickness sufficiently to command this pursuit, and he did it with gusto. One of his units, the 4th Illinois, took time out to loot Santa Anna’s former campsite, where they picked up a wooden leg, undoubtedly one that had belonged to the president himself. Some of the jealous regulars questioned the authenticity of the leg’s previous ownership, but the ornate limb provided a grand prize to send to the United States. For years thereafter it was proudly displayed in the Illinois State Capitol.6
Jalapa was a pretty town, a welcome relief to troops who had spent months of discomfort on the water, in the trenches around Veracruz, and on the road to Cerro Gordo. Kirby Smith, the melancholy captain of the 3d Infantry, found the mountain village the “prettiest town I have seen, surrounded by the finest country with the most delicious climate in the world, the thermometer never rising above eighty degrees or falling much below sixty.” In the town was a chapel originally built by Cortez, now joined with a Franciscan monastery.
And yet Smith’s delight was tempered with foreboding. Even the decisive battle of Cerro Gordo, he predicted, would not terminate the war. The Americans would have to take every town and fortress in the nation. “What a stupid people they are!” he fumed. “They can do nothing and their continued defeats should convince them of it. They have lost six great battles; we have captured six hundred and eighty cannon, nearly one hundred thousand stand of arms, made twenty thousand prisoners, have the greatest portion of their country and are fast advancing on their Capital which must soon be ours,—yet they refuse to treat! ‘Those the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad’!”7
Kirby Smith’s conclusions were wisely taken. Indeed the victory at Cerro Gordo was so complete that Scott had gloated in a letter to Taylor that “Mexico no longer has an army.”8 But Santa Anna’s forte remained his ability to restore decimated armies. And the newly released prisoners, to whom the word “parole” meant nothing, could be reassembled. Santa Anna could soon fight again.
But far more serious, from the American point of view, was the decimation of Scott’s army, not from battle but from the consequences of the War Bill that had been passed in haste in May of 1846. Now three thousand of his volunteers—nearly all of them—had served the year they had signed up for. Legally they were authorized, if they wished, to remain in service for the duration of the war, but a canvass of the ranks indicated that few would sign up—they had experienced enough. Therefore, on May 3, barely two weeks after Cerro Gordo, Scott published General Order No. 135:
The general-in-chief regrets to learn … that, in all probability, not one man in ten of those regiments will be inclined to volunteer for the war. This pre-determination offers, in his opinion, no ground for reproach, considering the long, arduous, faithful, and gallant services of these corps.…‡
The order pointed out that the departure of the volunteers would delay the end of the war, but admitted sadly that the general-in-chief could not, in good faith, hold these troops longer. Scott would not “throw upon them the necessity of returning to embark at Vera Cruz, at the season known to be, at that place, the most fatal to life.”9
Accordingly, the seven regiments marched out of Jalapa on May 6, 1846, under the command of General Patterson. The seriously wounded, much to their sorrow, would have to wait. Since Mexican guerrillas had made the road to Veracruz impassable for all but the most heavily armed escorts, most of those left behind would be held for a whole month longer.10
During that month of May the troops became bored, then unruly. The wounded were dying daily. Just before leaving, the last of the volunteers were subjected to the spectacle of five soldiers being punished in public. “It chills one’s blood,” wrote one, “to see free Americans tied up and whipped like dogs, in a market yard in a foreign land.”11
Scott was now left with only a little over seven thousand men.12 Nevertheless, he was confident of the prowess of his troops. On May 6, therefore, as the volunteers were departing, he sent part of his army, under Worth, to Puebla. As Worth’s force wound their way past the Fortress of Perote, one regiment was to stop off as a garrison. With Worth’s departure, Scott had only about three thousand men with him at Jalapa.13
Puebla was about sixty miles from Jalapa, and Worth’s force was no larger than Scott’s. But the split was not so rash as it might seem. Santa Anna was not yet ready to fight again, and Scott was counting heavily on a great ally at Puebla: the Roman Catholic Church. Scott’s courting of the bishops at Veracruz might have been helpful, and Santa Anna was their primary enemy. Ever since his return the previous summer Santa Anna had been drawing on Church resources without qualm.
At first the clergy, like the Mexican liberals, had supported continuation of the war in hopes that Santa Anna would be destroyed in battle. But the dictator had proved indestructible, and Moses Y. Beach, in Mexico City, had now convinced the priests that they would be fairly treated by the Americans if they would work for peace. He had met with success: the bishop of Puebla had arranged for the removal of the town governor, who was hostile to Scott, and substituted was a man more “dedicated to the cause of peace.”14 Thus, although the municipal officialdom at Puebla received Worth’s arrival coldly, the people, influenced by the priests, were friendly.15
A circular that Scott had prepared, with the assistance of a priest from Puebla, helped a great deal to keep order in the city. It promised, among other things, that the army of the United States would always respect the private property of every class, as well as the property of the Mexican Church: “Wo [sic] to him who does not—where we are.” It ended the promise with a threat: “I shall march with this army upon Puebla and Mexico. I do not conceal this from you.16
On May 19, four days after his arrival at Puebla, Worth sent back an optimistic report. He estimated that some six hundred to eight hundred “beggarly cavalry” might be infesting the area between the two points—no force that could stand up to a hundred disciplined Americans. He could get along until Scott arrived with the rest of the army, he added, and waxed enthusiastic about Scott’s circular, asserting that he had had a third edition struck off. “It … has produced more decided effects than all the blows from Palo Alto to Cerro Gordo.”17
Soon Scott decided to move forward. He left a small garrison at Jalapa and arrived in Puebla on May 28, 1847.
Scott’s force had been reduced to a fraction of the strength he needed. But his greatest practical problem was the maintenance of his communications with the coast. Mexican guerrillas along the National Highway were making it too dangerous to dispatch convoys without substantial escorts. After the train had left for Veracruz in early May, escorted by three thousand “old” volunteers, Scott did not expect those six hundred wagons to return for many months, for he could not spare enough men to convoy them. With two thousand men sick and wounded distributed among Veracruz, Jalapa and Perote, Scott calculated that providing garrisons for those three places had reduced his active army at Puebla to an alarming 5,820 men. So those garrisons would have to be brought up to Puebla. On June 4, 1847, Scott abandoned all stations between Veracruz and Puebla, effectively cutting his army off from the coast. With no supply line, he would live off the land.18
Learning of Scott’s desperate move, the aged Duke of Wellington, who had been marking every one of Scott’s movements on a map, now concluded that his old acquaintance had overreached himself. “Scott is lost!” he declared. “He has been carried away by successes! He can’t take the city, and he can’t fall back on his bases.”19
Winfield Scott could amass armies, land them on foreign shores, invest cities, decimate foes, even cut his small force loose in hostile country and still keep his aplomb. But whenever he encountered a real or imagined slight from Marcy and Polk—which was often—he became nearly unhinged. Thus he interpreted the arrival of Nicholas Trist, bearing a confidential message for the Mexican government, only as another effort on Polk’s part to humiliate him. The possibility that a civilian might properly negotiate a peace with Mexico seems not to have crossed his mind.
Trist’s conduct, however, contributed mightily to Scott’s rage. While still in Washington, Trist had been indoctrinated with Polk’s and Marcy’s distaste for Scott, which they had made plain. When Trist arrived at Scott’s headquarters, Polk had advised, he should place his trust in that Cincinnatus, that Scipio Africanus, Gideon Johnson Pillow. Trist’s job would be to “perform a Great National Act and incidentally to put Winfield Scott where he belonged.”20
To all this Trist had been receptive, for despite his impressive credentials and all his surface amiability, Trist suffered from delusions of grandeur. Polk had played on that weakness by hinting that he, Trist, might find himself considered as the 1848 Democratic nominee for the presidency if he handled Scott and the Mexicans well. During the necessary wait, while the State and War departments were preparing his credentials and secret messages,§ Trist had been afforded time to think about the wonderful possibilities of his situation.
Trist arrived at Veracruz from New Orleans on May 6,1847. Unfortunately for the relations between him and Scott, he became violently ill upon landing and was unable to travel. From his sickbed he sent Scott certain documents to be forwarded to Mexico City—sealed, via courier. He pointedly did not intend that Scott should see any of them, including the set of instructions that Buchanan had issued him. Even though he had been “authorized” to give Scott a copy of the draft treaty he did not do so. Instead Trist penned his own letter, which must have been tactless in the extreme.‖
Had Trist himself been able to deliver the documents to Scott, his personal charm might have lessened the general’s distress; as it was, his letter was so upsetting that Scott apparently neglected to study the letter of explanation that Marcy had sent directly to him. At first glance Marcy’s words appeared to confirm Scott’s suspicions that he was being insulted:
Mr. Trist is clothed with such diplomatic powers as will authorize him to enter into arrangements with the government of Mexico for the suspension of hostilities. Should he make known to you, in writing, that the contingency has occurred, in consequence of which the President is willing that further active military operations should cease, you will regard such notice as a direction from the President.…”
Scott apparently overlooked the caveats that came later in the letter and quickly concluded that Trist was authorized to decide on his own when Scott should cease fighting. This was bitter to a commander in dire jeopardy, his force down to six thousand men, with no reinforcements known to be coming, and cut off from his base of supply!
To make matters even worse, Scott was already annoyed by the presence of Lieutenant Raphael Semmes, USN, who had been sent by Commodore Perry to seek escort to Mexico City in order to intercede on behalf of a midshipman who was unjustly being held there as a spy. Scott learned of Semmes’s futile mission only from the credentials the lieutenant carried. He had received no direct word from Perry or anyone else.
The combination of these two outside demands was too much for Winfield Scott. He answered Trist’s letter directly, expressing his regret that the base commander at Veracruz had diverted troops to bring Trist’s letter—and Semmes—to Puebla. The core of his message was contained in a short paragraph: “… I see that the Secretary of War proposes to degrade me, by requiring that I, as the commander of this army, shall defer to you, the chief clerk of the Department of State, the question of continuing or discontinuing hostilities.”
That Scott would not tolerate. He finished by demanding that Trist refer any overtures regarding a suspension of hostilities to himself because “the safety of this army demands no less, and I am responsible for that safety.…”21
Scott did not write Marcy at length other than to pen a curt cover letter and enclose a copy of his own tirade to Trist. Marcy replied with some restraint at the end of May, promising replacements for Scott’s departed volunteers but reproving Scott for his liberality in releasing prisoners. Then, turning to Scott’s letter to Trist, Marcy regretted that Scott had written a letter of such an “extraordinary character” to Trist, concluding that “it will be no less regretted by yourself on more reflection and information.”
Marcy’s letter then went on to conjecture, very wisely, that if Trist could have been present (and willing to show all the dispatches), Scott would not have had “any just ground of complaint.” He explained that Trist had been “the bearer of that despatch to yourself—not to the Mexican government—and when he delivered it into your hands his agency had ceased.”22 That was not the way it had appeared at Jalapa, nor was it the impression Trist had given.
Trist was by this time as furious as Scott, and when he finally arrived at Jalapa on May 14, he refused to pay a courtesy call. Scott likewise refused to call on Trist, choosing instead to write further insulting letters. Even after the army had arrived at Puebla, Scott called Trist’s latest missive a “farrago of insolence, conceit, and arrogance,” and referred to the author as “the personification of Danton, Marat, and St. Just,” promising to throw back any further insults with “the contempt and scorn which you merit at my hands.”23
Scott did, however, provide for Trist’s physical comfort—at Persifor Smith’s mess, not his own. When word of the childish proceedings reached the War Department, Marcy, who knew both men, groaned. “I fear Scott and Trist have got to writing. If so, all is lost!24
Marcy had read Scott accurately. On June 4, 1847, Scott wrote, “Considering the many cruel disappointments and mortifications I have been made to feel since I left Washington … I beg to be recalled from this army the moment that it may be safe for any person to embark at Vera Cruz.…”25
* “Among these we observed the body of a young and handsome though coarsely attired female, apparently not more than eighteen years of age. She had been the wife of one of the soldiers, and had stayed with him during the action. Perhaps they were newly married, and had been spending their honeymoon amid the horrid din of war. One could scarcely help wondering which among that group of ghastly corpses had been her husband. For among them he must be; it would be impossible to picture him flying on the road to Jalapa, and leaving behind the bleeding corpse of his young and beautiful bride.” George Ballantine, An English Soldier in the U.S. Army, pp. 199–200.
† Hitchcock, inspector general, estimated 199 officers and 2,837 men were paroled. Another 1,000 had escaped. K. Jack Bauer, The Mexican War, p. 168. Scott reported American losses at 63 killed, 367 wounded (Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 974).
‡ U.S. Congress, Exec. Doc. No. 60, p. 956. The regiments referred to were the Tennessee cavalry, the 3d and 4th Illinois infantry, the 1st and 2d Tennessee infantry, the Georgia infantry, and the Alabama infantry.
§ His letter of introduction to the Mexican government, the draft treaty (sealed), the formal commission from the president, a letter of credence from the secretary of state, and authority to draw on the Treasury for $3 million, to be advanced upon the ratification of the treaty, and also an informal letter from Marcy to Scott. Bauer, p. 282.
‖ Justin Smith, The War with Mexico, vol. II, p. 128. Trist’s letter has been lost, but Smith logically concludes that it was “top-lofty” and “high-strung.”