But Scott knew better. He had the historical example of Cortés, who also cut his link with the coast and lived off the countryside, and he knew the Mexican army would be in no condition to attack for several months. By then reinforcements would have arrived and he could resume the march to Mexico City. In addition, by cutting loose from his 175-mile supply line, Scott kept his combat strength intact. His troops would not have to protect wagon trains from Mexican guerrillas along the National Road, and the lush farmland surrounding Puebla would easily supply his immediate need for food and fodder. One of Grant’s important assignments in the Mexican War was leading Scott’s supply train in search of forage. Top dollar was paid, and according to Grant “we never thought of danger. We procured full loads for our entire train at two plantations, which could easily have furnished as much more.”128 Grant watched and learned. In 1863 he would repeat Scott’s maneuver, cutting loose from his base in Memphis to move south of Vicksburg. Guided by the example of Puebla, he knew the Mississippi countryside could support an army just as easily as did the Mexican interior.
By early August the Army of Invasion was back at full strength. Scott had used the three-month hiatus to organize his force for what he hoped would be its final campaign. As his regulars rested, the new volunteers were drilled and made ready. Brigadier General Franklin Pierce, former governor of New Hampshire, arrived in Puebla with the last body of replacements on August 6 and Scott set out for Mexico City the following day. The army numbered 14,000 men, but of those, 2,500 lay sick in hospital and another 600 were convalescing and unfit for duty, leaving Scott slightly less than 11,000 effectives.VII Against this, Santa Anna had mustered an army of between 30,000 and 35,000 men to defend the capital. His force varied in quality, but as military historians have noted, it was an army that “despite lack of training and competent leadership, would fight courageously against the superb army of invaders.”129
On August 12 Scott’s lead elements were fifteen miles from Mexico City having encountered little resistance. The reason soon became apparent. The National Road approaches the capital through an extensive lake district. The causeways are narrow and funnel an attacking force into several predetermined routes, all of which were heavily fortified. This was the terrain Santa Anna chose to defend. Scott paused and sent his engineers on reconnaissance. Again it was Lee who found a route that flanked most of the Mexican defenses and approached the city from the south. Accordingly, Scott shifted the army south. Santa Anna responded by moving south as well, and on August 20 battle was joined.
The American attack was two-pronged. The initial assault, launched against the towns of Contreras and San Gerónimo, broke the outer chain of Mexican defenses, and the follow-up, at Churubusco, penetrated the inner chain. Grant, with Garland’s brigade, took part in the assault on Churubusco. The fighting along both approaches was often hand-to-hand and the casualties were heavy. Scott lost 1,053 men at Contreras and Churubusco,130 but Mexican losses were much greater: 4,297 killed or wounded, 2,637 prisoners (including eight generals), and perhaps 3,000 missing.131 Vast quantities of small arms and ammunition also fell into American hands. In one day’s fighting Santa Anna lost one third of his army. His outer and inner defenses were pierced, and the Army of Invasion stood at the gates of Mexico City. Scott wrote characteristically, “I doubt whether a more brilliant victory—taking into view the ground, artificial defenses, batteries and the extreme disparity of numbers, without cavalry or artillery on our side—is to be found on record.”132 Grant, who was amused at Scott’s self-aggrandizement, nevertheless recognized his good fortune in serving under another gifted commander. “Both the strategy and tactics displayed by General Scott in those various engagements of the 20th of August, 1847, were faultless. The enemy outside the city outnumbered our soldiers quite three to one, but they had become so demoralized by the succession of defeats this day that the City of Mexico could have been entered without much bloodshed.”133
Instead of moving into the city, Scott agreed to a truce to allow peace negotiations to commence. The United States was represented by Nicholas P. Trist, President Polk’s special emissary; the Republic of Mexico by Santa Anna. Scott believed it was important to secure peace without humiliating Mexico and he trusted Trist to do this.134 But Trist’s instructions from Polk left little room to negotiate, and on September 2 he informed Santa Anna of America’s terms: the Texas boundary was to be set at the Rio Grande; New Mexico and California were to be ceded to the United States for a sum to be determined subsequently; and the United States was to acquire transit rights across the Isthmus of Tehauntepec, one of the proposed interocean canal routes. Grant wrote, “I do not suppose Mr. Trist had any discretion whatever in regard to boundaries. The war was one of conquest, in the interest of an institution [i.e., slavery], and the probabilities are that private instructions were for the acquisition of territory out of which new States might be carved.”135
Traditional American accounts suggest Santa Anna was stalling and that the possibility of an agreement was nil from the beginning.136 Grant was more charitable. The Mexicans, he said, “felt so outraged at the terms proposed that they commenced preparations for defense, without giving notice of the termination of the armistice.”137 Whatever Santa Anna’s intent, when Scott learned of the renewed Mexican preparations he broke off the truce and set out to resume his attack. Relying once again on his engineers to plot an approach, the general in chief elected to attack the city from the west, moving along two broad causeways that led, respectively, to the garitas (gates) of Belén and San Cosmé.
Scott now made the one miscalculation of his campaign. The approaches he selected came under the guns of the Castle of Chapultepec and were partially blocked by Molino del Rey (the king’s mill), a sprawling pile of stone buildings 200 yards long. Scott assumed the mill was lightly defended and on September 8 dispatched Worth’s division to subdue it. The result was a bloodbath. The mill was taken, but in two hours of fighting Worth’s division lost 25 percent of its strength: 116 dead, 671 wounded, and 22 missing. The casualties included 58 officers. The total was more than Taylor had lost in three days at Monterrey.
Garland’s brigade was in the thick of the fighting. Grant was one of the first to enter the mill and assisted in disarming the garrison.138 The losses were staggering. “A few more such victories and this army would be destroyed,” said Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock, commanding the 3rd Infantry.139 Lieutenant John Sedgwick, who would be killed leading his corps at Spotsylvania, wrote his father that some of the men who had fought most gallantly soon deserted, “so desperate they thought our situation.”140 Grant did not criticize the assault at the time, but he later wrote that the San Cosmé and Belén garitas could have been reached by alternate routes, making the attack on the mill unnecessary.141
With Molino del Rey occupied, Scott decided to take the fortress of Chapultepec before assaulting the city itself. Situated high on a rocky hill, with a commanding field of fire in all directions, the castle was home to Mexico’s military academy (Colegio Militar), a symbol of national honor. It was defended by 1,000 regular army soldiers, the cadets—all of whom voted to remain—and another 4,000 infantrymen close by.142 Scott could not afford a defeat at this stage and deployed three of his four divisions in the assault. The artillery preparation began at 5 A.M. on September 12 and continued throughout the day. The effect was devastating. The walls of the castle were formidable, but the roof was tile and provided little protection from the barrage Scott’s guns let loose. At dawn on the 13th the shelling resumed and continued until 8 A.M. As the fire lifted, six brigades of infantry charged up the steep slopes to the castle wall. Joseph E. Johnston’s Voltiguer regiment was the first over the battlements, followed by the South Carolina Palmetto Regiment and the 8th Infantry. When Longstreet, who was carrying the colors of the 8th, fell to the ground with a musket ball in his thigh, he handed the banner to George Pickett, who carried it over the wall. By 9:30 the fortress had fallen. As Old Glory was hoisted above the ramparts, Santa Anna, watching from a distance, said to his assembled officers, “If we were to plant our batteries in Hell, the damned Yankees would take them from us.” Ampudia replied sullenly, “God is a Yankee.”143
Once Chapultepec was in American hands, Worth’s division moved to take the causeway leading to San Cosmé garita. General Quitman led a second column against Belén garita. With the assaults channeled along the narrow causeways, Mexican defenders were able to concentrate their fire against the onrushing troops and for a time Worth’s division found it impossible to advance. But Garland’s brigade worked its way forward, shielded by the giant arches carrying the city’s aqueduct along the causeway. Grant led a detachment that outflanked several Mexican artillery pieces and in the late afternoon he hauled a light, mountain howitzer atop the belfry of San Cosmé church, the fire from which broke the final Mexican resistance. Reflecting on the episode years later, Grant wrote that when he knocked for admission to the church, the priest was extremely polite but “declined to admit us.”
With the little Spanish then at my command, I explained to him that . . . I intended to go whether he consented or not. He began to see his duty in the same light as I did, and opened the door, though he did not look as if it gave him special pleasure to do so. The gun was carried to the belfry and put together. We were not more than two or three hundred yards from San Cosmé. The shots from our little gun dropped in upon the enemy and created great confusion. Why they did not send out a small party and capture us, I do not know.144
General Worth, who was directing his division’s assault, saw the effect the gun was having and sent his aide, Lieutenant John C. Pemberton, to bring Grant to him.VIII Worth congratulated Grant and instructed him to take along another gun and its officer and crew. “I could not tell the General that there was not room enough in the steeple for another gun, because he probably would have looked upon such a statement as a contradiction from a second lieutenant. I took the captain with me, but did not use his gun.”145
By sundown on September 13 both the San Cosmé and Belén garitas were in American hands. Altogether, Scott’s casualties that day totaled 130 killed, 703 wounded, and 29 missing. Mexican losses were estimated at three to four times that.146 Worth’s and Quitman’s divisions were inside the city although Santa Anna still had about 10,000 troops at his disposal and a bitter house-to-house struggle lay in the offing.147 But that night the battle ended. At 2 A.M., yielding to the pleas of city officials, Santa Anna withdrew the remnants of his army to Guadalupe Hidalgo. For all practical purposes the war was over. The following day General Scott, preceded by the divisions of Quitman and Worth, rode triumphantly into Mexico City’s Grand Plaza. The commanding general slept that evening in the Halls of the Montezumas, guarded by a company of United States marines.
Grant gave Scott and Taylor full credit for the American victories. Taylor, he said, “considered the administration accountable for the war, and felt no responsibility resting on himself other than the faithful performance of his duties.”148 Grant said General Scott may have been more concerned about his reputation than Taylor, but acknowledged that “his successes are the answer to all criticism. He invaded a populous country, penetrated two hundred and sixty miles into the interior, with a force at no time equal to one-half of that opposed to him; he was without a base; the enemy was always entrenched, always on the defensive; yet he won every battle, he captured the capital, and conquered the government.”149
In Grant’s view, two additional factors contributed to America’s success: the professional quality of the United States army, and the lack of professionalism of its Mexican counterpart:
At the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, General Taylor had a small army, but it was composed exclusively of regular troops, under the best of drill and discipline. Every officer, from the highest to the lowest, was educated for his profession, not at West Point necessarily, but in the camp, in garrison, and many of them in Indian wars. The rank and file were probably inferior to the volunteers that participated in the later battles of the war; but they were brave men, and drill and discipline brought out all there was in them. . . . The volunteers who followed were of better material, but without drill or discipline at the start. They were associated with so many disciplined men and professionally educated officers, that when they went into engagements it was with a confidence they would not have felt otherwise. They became soldiers themselves almost at once.
Grant thought the problem with the Mexican army was not with the men but with the officers. Despite the fact the soldiers were “poorly clothed, worse fed, and seldom paid,” they fought bravely. In virtually every battle the Mexicans performed well initially. “The trouble seemed to be a lack of experience among the officers, which led them after a certain time simply to quit, without being particularly whipped, but because they had fought enough.”150
With the fighting over, Grant wrote immediately to Julia. “Since my last letter four of the hardest fought battles that the world ever witnessed have taken place, and the most astonishing victories have crowned the American arms. But dearly have they paid for it. The loss of officers and men killed and wounded is frightful.” Grant told Julia, “out of all the officers that left Jefferson Barracks with the 4th Infantry, only three besides myself now remain with us.” Of the twenty-one officers originally assigned to the regiment, only four had survived.151
I. On February 3, 1846, Taylor received orders from Washington “to advance and occupy . . . positions on or near the east Bank of the Rio [Grande] del Norte as soon as it can be conveniently done with reference to the Season and the routes by which your movement must be made.” Taylor was instructed not to treat Mexico as an enemy, “but should she assume that character by a declaration of war, or any open act of hostility toward us, you will not act merely on the defensive.” The general was given discretion as to the placement of his forces on the Rio Grande, but the evidence appears conclusive that President Polk, frustrated in seeking a peaceful settlement, sought to provoke Mexico into war, partially to settle the Texas boundary question, but more importantly to loosen the republic’s hold on California and New Mexico. See Secretary of War William Marcy to Taylor, January 13, 1846, U.S. Congress, House, Executive Document No. 60, 30th Cong., 1st sess., Messages of the President of the United States with the Correspondence Therewith Communicated, Between the Secretary of War and Other Officers of Government on the Subject of the Mexican War 91 (Washington, D.C.: Wendell and Van Benthuysen, 1848).
II. The term applies to artillery soldiers serving as infantrymen. The uniform of the artillery was distinguished by a red trouser stripe.
III. Canister shot were small iron balls packed in a tin cylinder fitting the bore of the howitzer from which it was fired. Grape shot were somewhat larger projectiles, fitted in shells of three layers. Canister shot covered a wider area; grape had a more devastating effect. Both were examples of the case shot used so effectively by Napoleon. The tactic required that the artillery be highly mobile, because the guns galloped into position well in front of the infantry. Then, with case shot fire, they annihilated a portion of the enemy line, permitting the infantry to reach the gap unmolested.
IV. It is a tenet of military thought that a commander does not divide his force in the face of a powerful enemy, since each element becomes vulnerable to attack and defeat sequentially. Yet the novelty and risk of the maneuver often carries the day. General Sir William Howe’s stunning defeat of George Washington on the Brandywine in the Revolutionary War is a prime example. Howe bet that Washington would not stir from his defensive position behind the river. The British general split his army, hit the unsuspecting Washington in the flank, and rolled up the American line.
V. A handy way of looking at the differences between Taylor and Scott is to remember Eisenhower and MacArthur. The former shared Taylor’s down-to-earth style; the latter gloried in the pomp and ceremony that Scott so loved. Like their predecessors, both men were brilliant exemplars of the military profession and both were eminently successful in battle. It may also be true, as Bruce Catton has suggested, that if Grant emulated Taylor, General Lee was inspired by Scott. “The business of living and looking the part of a great soldier, with splendor worn as a familiar cloak about starred shoulders; the battle technique of bringing troops to the scene of action and then relying on subordinates to run things; the willingness to rely on sheer audacity in the face of superior numbers—all of these, characteristic of Lee in Virginia, were equally characteristic of Scott in Mexico.” U.S. Grant and the American Military Tradition 38 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1954). Also see Douglas Southall Freeman, 1 R.E. Lee 294–98 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934).
VI. The victory at Buena Vista also catapulted Colonel Jefferson Davis, the commander of the Mississippi Rifles, into the United States Senate. Severely wounded early in the battle, Davis continued to lead his regiment until the Mexicans withdrew. The unit was subsequently referred to as “the only regiment never to turn its back to the enemy.” Davis was appointed to fill a Mississippi vacancy in the United States Senate later that year. He was elected to a full term in 1850, and appointed secretary of war in 1853 by President Franklin Pierce.
VII. During the Mexican War, illness and disease proved far more deadly than enemy fire. The United States lost 1,721 men killed in action (and another 4,102 wounded), but 11,562 fell prey to sickness, accidents, and miscellaneous causes. 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Executive Document 36, Report of the Secretary of War Showing the Number of . . . Killed and Wounded. . . . 6–7 (Washington, D.C.: Wendell and Van Benthuysen, 1848).
VIII. Pemberton defended Vicksburg against Grant in 1863.