8

Mexican War

Honor Reconfirmed

Part of the essence of being a Kentuckian after the War of 1812 was having deep respect for the state's veterans who had defended the national honor in Canada and New Orleans. Schoolboys reading about George Washington and the founding fathers reflected that their own fathers and uncles had reconfirmed independence along the banks of the Raisin River and the Mississippi, and they longed for an opportunity to gain honor for themselves and contribute new luster to Kentucky's reputation. Honor, patriotism, and Kentucky's military tradition were celebrated publicly several times each year, and youths realized that there was no higher community value. During the battle between the medical schools of Louisville and Lexington, discussed below, the spirit of competition was laid aside for Washington's birthday on February 22, 1840. Louisville invited militia companies from Lexington and Frankfort to march in the parade with Louisville units. Several accepted, and the one that attracted the most attention was the Lexington Light Infantry with its attractive uniforms: black hats with red plumes, blue trousers, and blue coats with red collars and cuffs. The people of Louisville and Kentucky identified with that uniform because the company fought in the Battle of the River Raisin. They were known as the “Old Infantry,” and the two veterans of that battle marching in the parade were the center of attention. “We are glad to find a feeling of kindness growing up between Lexington and Louisville,” an editor noted.¹

When the United States declared war on Mexico in 1846, mainly over the issue of the annexation of Texas, Kentuckians supported the war, and men volunteered with overwhelming enthusiasm. Henry Clay had opposed annexation and opposed the war as unnecessary and motivated by an aggressive desire to take territory from Mexico. Many Kentuckians, however, had a strong identification with Texas, having relatives who had relocated there, and being acquainted with Kentuckians who had fought for Texas in its revolution. Slave owners in the deep South wanted to acquire additional slave territory, but this was not the chief motive behind Kentucky's war fever—the key motivating factor in Kentucky was the desire of a new generation to gain personal honor by identifying with the Kentucky tradition of patriotism and honor through military service. “Remember the history of the past,” declared the Lexington Observer and Reporter, “and be worthy of your immortal ancestry.” A volunteer wrote Governor William Owsley that he was anxious to emulate “the glory and chivalry of our fathers.”²

For one of the volunteers, identification with military tradition was always present because his name was Oliver Hazard Perry Beard. His father, a War of 1812 veteran, taught him to live up to his heroic namesake and assured everyone that Beard would be one of the first to enroll. Beard left his carpentry shop in Fayette County, became captain of one of the two cavalry companies organized in Lexington, and, in Colonel Humphrey Marshall's First Kentucky Cavalry Regiment, bravely led his men in the bloodiest battle of the war, the Battle of Buena Vista. Two of the members of Captain Beard's company were the Lexington Morgan brothers, twenty-one-year-old John Hunt Morgan and nineteen-year-old Calvin Morgan. When the two companies marched through the streets of Lexington on their departure, a large crowd gathered. One of the men in the crowd was John and Calvin's uncle, Alexander G. Morgan, a local farmer. Alexander had fought Indians in Florida, and, when he heard the band and saw the faces of the volunteers riding by on their beautiful horses, suddenly he said farewell to his wife America and his thirteen-year-old son, mounted his horse, and fell in beside his nephews. He was offered a commission as an aide but declined in order to serve in the ranks, where he could protect the two young men.³

Seldom have men so eagerly hastened to volunteer for military service. The War Department requested Governor Owsley to call twenty-four hundred militiamen, which amounted to only thirty companies of eighty men each for the entire state. The call was urgent, and word spread quickly that Owsley was accepting companies on a first-come, first-enrolled basis. The young men of Paris in Bourbon County organized an infantry company; when they heard that the infantry quota of two regiments was already filled, they asked citizens to give them horses so that they could apply for the cavalry regiment. As soon as horses for the men were secured, the captain and lieutenant hurried to Lexington in a carriage on their way to Frankfort to see the governor. In Lexington, they were informed that the officers of a new cavalry company raised in Lexington had just left for Frankfort ahead of them. The Paris officers acquired a fresh horse and departed on the gallop, and near Versailles they overtook and passed the Lexington officers. A few miles later, one of the wheels on the carriage broke, and the captain jumped on the horse and continued leading the race. He arrived at the governor's mansion about midnight, woke up the governor, and made his application. Owsley said that he was sorry but that a company from Frankfort had applied a few hours before and the regiment was full. He said that he would keep Paris in mind if additional regiments were required.⁴

Indeed, Owsley had the opposite problem of Shelby in the War of 1812—rather than having to draft men, he had to assuage the disappointment of the thousands he turned down. Within four days of his call, the quota was filled, and he had to reject seventy-five companies. Officers in eastern and western Kentucky complained that he did not inform them in time and that he should have distributed the opportunities geographically. Another chance came a year later, in 1847, and Owsley was more careful about geographic balance, but, with the quota of only twenty companies, it was impossible to accommodate all applicants. Twelve companies were rejected; the Jackson Purchase area was omitted from both requisitions.⁵

Kentucky's women encouraged their sons and husbands to enroll, attended prayer services for their dedication, and joined the cheering crowds when they left. The women of Louisville made new army uniforms for the Louisville Legion militia regiment, which was redesignated the First Kentucky Infantry Regiment. Beautiful nineteen-year-old Sallie Ward presented their regimental flag. During the second requisition, a detachment of recruits from Estill County paused at Ashland to fill their canteens from Henry Clay's well. Lucretia came out to meet them, and, introducing them to her two young grandsons, she challenged them to avenge the killing of their father, Henry Clay Jr., at Buena Vista. In the first requisition, one of the companies of the Second Kentucky Infantry was from Frankfort and the women of Frankfort made their regimental flag decorated with flowers and featuring an American eagle perched in defiance and ready to attack. The company arranged to leave by boat, and the women decorated the flag with fresh flowers and were present at the wharf when their spokesperson, Mrs. Harlan, presented it to the men. Mrs. Harlan challenged the volunteers to return the flag to Frankfort with honor, and they responded with a loud cheer and said that they would return with honor or give up their lives.⁶

One measure of the dedication of the volunteers is that they maintained their determination in spite of the lack of adequate state support. When the crisis came, Owsley was in the same situation as Shelby when New Orleans was threatened—there was no money, state or federal. Realizing that funds would be appropriated later, Owsley said that he refused to allow his gallant and patriotic troops to “be in want” and sent the state adjutant general, A. W. Dudley, to the mustering camp in Louisville with orders to purchase on credit what was needed. Louisville merchants collected $54,000 and advanced it to the state, and the Bank of Kentucky loaned another $250,000. Eventually, the state legislature provided funds, but the lack of timely state financial support caused a delay in the departure of the Second Kentucky Infantry and the First Kentucky Cavalry regiments, with the result that they missed the Battle of Monterey. When they left, many had no muskets, but soon the General Assembly approved the purchase of arms; when the units went into battle, all Kentucky's militiamen were adequately armed.⁷

Like their militia forefathers, Kentuckians in the Mexican War became impatient with camp life and reacted to boredom and fatigue by complaining, getting drunk, and fighting among themselves. On the Rio Grande, they almost had a fistfight over a catfish caught in the river. Despising military discipline, the men in one company shot at their commander in Louisville when he attempted to enforce an order. In Mexico, they hated guard duty, and sometimes failed to post guards around their camp. Cassius Clay opposed slavery and the war, but at a public rally he said: “My country calls for help, and, ‘right or wrong,’ I rally to her standard.” He enlisted as a private and was elected captain in the cavalry regiment. In northern Mexico, he and a detachment of seventy-one of his men were on a scouting expedition. They camped for the night in hostile territory without posting any guards. Clay was not the officer in charge, but as an officer he was partially responsible. They awoke the next morning surrounded by over three thousand Mexican cavalrymen and were taken to Mexico City as prisoners. At first, Kentuckians were embarrassed by this fiasco, but newspapers described how Clay and the other prisoners suffered a grueling march of thirty miles a day with chains on their legs. Reports followed telling how Clay went to great lengths to purchase food for the prisoners when they were almost starving; finally, when he and his men were released, they came home as national heroes.⁸

None of the three Kentucky regiments organized in 1846 arrived in Mexico in time for General Zachary Taylor's first two battles, Palo Alto and Resaca de Palma, both north of the Rio Grande. The First Kentucky Regiment was the first unit to leave, and it was in the important Battle of Monterey, south of the Rio Grande. Organized in 1839 as the Louisville Legion militia regiment, it was an elite, well-drilled force that screened volunteers for membership; it was an honor to be accepted. There was strict discipline and regular drill competition between companies. With their new uniforms, the men traveled to New Orleans on two steamboats and joined Taylor's army. Monterey was located on the important road that led west toward Rinconada Pass and south to Saltillo and Mexico City—this made it the most strategic city in northern Mexico. General Pedro Ampudia took full advantage of Monterey's natural defenses and organized a very strong position with the Santa Catarina River on his right and two formidable hills on his left, each with an artillery battery. He erected two lines of earthworks, inner and outer lines. For three days of fierce fighting, Taylor's men attacked Monterey from the west and east simultaneously, and finally the battle ended in Ampudia's surrender, with the provision that he and his army could depart if they agreed to withdraw beyond Rinconada Pass.⁹

During the battle, the First Kentucky received orders to guard a mortar battery, and it came under enemy artillery fire for about twenty-four hours. Since the men were ordered to refrain from returning fire, this was one of the most difficult combat assignments, taking incoming shells without being able to fire back. Their discipline paid off, and they were proud that they had obeyed orders. They could hardly believe it when, to their great chagrin, the Baltimore Sun accused them of cowardice for not returning fire. It was the west bank at New Orleans all over again, and the Battle of Monterey left them longing for an opportunity to demonstrate courage in battle. They were as brave as any troops, but, when Taylor left Monterey, he ordered the regiment to remain behind in the city on garrison duty. They felt complimented that he entrusted them with this important duty, but it meant that they missed the Battle of Buena Vista. It would be up to the Second Kentucky Infantry and Humphrey Marshall's cavalry regiment to wipe out the stain on Kentucky's reputation.¹⁰

Two Kentuckians had prominent roles in the Battle of Monterey. Zachary Taylor grew up in Louisville; his second in command was General William O. Butler, a veteran of the Battle of the River Raisin. Butler was a Democrat who had recently lost the gubernatorial election to Owsley. President Polk appointed him major general of volunteers and assigned him to Taylor. Taylor placed Butler in command of a division of volunteers, and he led his men in some of the most intense fighting, assaulting the defensive works around the city from the east. He was wounded in the leg and carried from the field; reporters made him a popular national hero, “brave as an Ajax.” Later, he served under General Winfield Scott in Mexico City; when Scott left, Butler commanded all U.S. forces in Mexico and was in charge of the troop withdrawal. He was presented a ceremonial sword by the Kentucky General Assembly and another by Congress. He won the Democratic nomination for vice president in 1848.¹¹

After the Battle of Monterey, the Second Kentucky Infantry and Marshall's cavalry arrived in northern Mexico, but, meanwhile, President Polk withdrew four-fifths of Taylor's army and sent the men to General Winfield Scott for his invasion at Vera Cruz and the drive on Mexico City. General Santa Anna recognized the opportunity, organized a strong army of 19,500 soldiers, and headed north expecting to easily defeat Taylor's green force of less than 5,000 men. Taylor had about 500 regular army soldiers, and the rest were volunteers, only 200 of whom had combat experience. As was the case with the American armies in the Battle of the Thames and the Battle of New Orleans, this was an army of militia, 90 percent of whom were volunteers, and 85 percent of whom had never been under fire. Taylor had the advantage of timely intelligence that Santa Anna was approaching, and he selected a strong defensive position in a pass in the Sierra Madre Mountains at the hacienda Buena Vista. His right was covered by a series of impassable gullies next to the mountains and his left by bluffs of the foothills of the high mountains. The battle was fought in the pass in a one-mile-wide plateau toward Taylor's left flank.¹²

Several factors made Buena Vista the most famous battle of the war. One was that the Americans were on the defensive against a force that outnumbered them over three to one: Mexico had 16,000 men in the battle and the United States 4,759. Another was that the Mexican army was trained and well drilled while the U.S. army was not. In his previous battles, Taylor was on the offensive, but, at Buena Vista, the situation was reversed, and Santa Anna was on the offensive, expecting to annihilate Taylor's army and return in victory to fight the stronger forces of Scott. The first rumors that rushed across the United States after the battle were that Taylor was defeated and reinforcements were needed to protect the U.S. border from a strong enemy army. Officials in New Orleans began accepting new recruits and awaited confirmation of American defeat with “painful suspense.” When accurate reports were received, national “joy was uncontained,” wrote Taylor's biographer Holman Hamilton.¹³

Buena Vista was one of the most colorful battles in history; it was fought in one of the most beautiful natural settings. The scenery in the pass is breathtaking, with magnificent mountain peaks sweeping high into the deep blue sky on the left and right, and, as soon as Taylor's men became accustomed to the view, the day before the main battle, Santa Anna's army appeared on the plain before them in clear view in the bright sunlight. It was like a scene in a romantic novel—in Napoleonic style, like Edward Pakenham at New Orleans—Santa Anna presented a pageant that he expected would intimidate the inexperienced, outnumbered North Americans. The Mexican army marched forward in column and, with perfect precision, wheeled left and right, regiments of infantry with distinct uniforms, beautiful, bright, professional-looking uniforms of blue, red, green, or yellow. Fluttering in the breeze over their dressed ranks were brilliant silk banners and flags, one for each company, on standards held straight and tall. Bright plumes on their high caps made the enemy appear taller than they were, and they unlimbered their artillery with practiced precision and held their muskets straight up so that thousands of bayonets gleamed like mirrors in the sunlight. They filled the pass and splayed left and right around the mountains and into the desert beyond, gleaming color and military precision as far as the eye could see, blending into the deep blue sky. Still today, the sky in the pass seems unusually blue, and, without field glasses, it was impossible to determine where the Mexican army ended and the sky began—it was a magnificent and intimidating display.¹⁴

Americans of that generation were fascinated with the battle, and Buena Vista was the toughest, stand-up battle of the Mexican War. The Kentuckians hoped to have a position on the front line, and Taylor gave them that opportunity in full measure—three times the decision hung in the balance, and every time Kentucky militiamen were on the scene, fighting like regulars. Santa Anna conducted frontal assault after frontal assault with cavalry, artillery, and infantry, and the Americans mostly remained on the defensive, meeting the attacks head-on. Popular lithographs of the battle showed infantry from both sides remaining in closed ranks in the face of blazing enemy cannon. When Taylor ordered counterattacks, the Mexicans advanced in response, and they clashed, head-to-head. The fighting began at 8:00 A.M. on February 23, 1847, and lasted until dark. When one side seemed to have an opening, when the enemy seemed to break through, other regiments moved into the breach, and both armies held their battle line all day—neither side gained any ground.¹⁵

The Kentucky volunteers were in the thickest, most brutal fighting, as they had been in the Battle of New Orleans. The Second Kentucky Infantry under Colonel William McKee was positioned on the front line. Zachary Taylor took special interest in this regiment from the time he first saw it. He said that the men were equal to regulars and were the “best looking, largest and best drilled of any troops in the army.” They missed the Battle of Monterey but had the advantage of a few months of marching, drill, and garrison duty in Mexico under their talented West Point leaders. The men complained and became depressed, but the training cycle gave them the discipline of regular army infantry. McKee graduated from West Point and was practicing law in Woodford County when war came. His second-in-command was Henry Clay Jr., who graduated from West Point in 1831 and resigned from the army the next year to study law. He practiced law, farmed, and never seemed to find himself until the Mexican War gave him an opportunity to establish honor on his own outside the shadow of his famous father.¹⁶

The Second Kentucky was on the American right with the Second Illinois to the left and the Second Indiana next in line to the left. The first Mexican attack was concentrated on the Second Indiana, which fought bravely on the defensive for a half hour. Then its commander, General Joseph Lane, sensed a lull and ordered a counterattack. However, Lane's second in command, Colonel William A. Bowles, misunderstood and ordered a retreat without indicating a rallying place. The withdrawal turned into a rout, and other units ran toward the rear as well, including the Second Illinois. The battle might have been lost before 9:00 A.M., but McKee's Kentuckians shifted left into the breach and were joined by regulars and other volunteers in what historian K. Jack Bauer has described as a masterful withdrawal and closing and holding of the line. Holman Hamilton wrote: “In this drastic emergency, the regulars and McKee's Kentuckians stemmed the Mexican tide.” At sunrise, Taylor had been inspecting defenses in the rear and first arrived on the field about 9:00 A.M. According to Hamilton, when Taylor observed the situation, he saw the two Mexican assault divisions encountering an “impenetrable wall” of Kentuckians and others, supported by intense artillery fire. The Mexican attack stalled, and the Kentuckians and others counterattacked, driving the enemy back, and relieving pressure on the American center.¹⁷

With the Mexican attack on the center repulsed, Santa Anna directed another assault on the American left, but Taylor had ordered Colonel Jefferson Davis to move to an advance position on a finger of the plateau between two gullies with his Mississippi Rifles and other units. Davis positioned his men in a V formation, with the open end toward the enemy, and, when the Mexican lancers attacked, they were caught in a cross fire and withdrew. About noon, a fifteen-minute rainstorm settled the dust and brought a pause in the fighting. After the rain, Taylor assumed that Santa Anna was preparing to withdraw and ordered an attack by the First Illinois under Colonel John J. Hardin, McKee's Kentuckians, and the Second Illinois, supported by artillery on the left and right. Actually, the movement Taylor had observed in the enemy army was, not a retreat, but a shifting of men to organize an assault with every available man. The two attacking forces met each other head-on. The Americans had fixed bayonets, and they clashed with Santa Anna's lancers with blood on their lances from the morning. The Illinois and Kentucky troops fought bravely but were greatly outnumbered and had to withdraw. Taylor brought up additional artillery and ordered them to fire double-shot canister; he then sent Mississippi and Indiana volunteers into the breach, and the line held.¹⁸

Santa Anna was a fighter; he knew that one of the greatest strengths in his army was his well-trained cavalry, his lancers. He appreciated the shock value of the cavalry charge and expected that the sight of his fifteen hundred colorful and elite lancers would strike fear in the hearts of the American militia and cause them to flee. They were the pride of the Mexican army and nation, well mounted on beautiful, strong horses; the color of horses for each company was uniform. The men's coats were bright red with white belts and shiny buttons. Red and black plumes danced on top of their brass helmets as they sat erect in the saddle with their short muskets holstered and their double-edged swords sheathed. The most intimidating aspect of their appearance—one that could send a chill down the spine of an opponent—was their eight-foot lances, thrusting toward the sky, and decorated with bright ribbons.¹⁹

If one were writing a novel, there could be hardly any better plot than to have one of the most famous men in the American army killed in the most famous battle of the war in a charge by the most elite and colorful unit of the enemy thrusting their eight-foot lances into him as he fought to the last, covering the withdrawal of his companions. This happened when the Mexican lancers killed Henry Clay Jr. and elevated him into the pantheon of American heroes alongside his grieving father. The clash was fierce, and both Colonel McKee and Colonel Hardin were killed. Clay was shot through the thigh; he and the regiment were withdrawing when he and the men helping him came to a steep, rough embankment. There was not a moment to lose; the lancers were closing in, and he saw that they all might be killed if they took time to lift him up the cliff. He ordered them to leave him and save themselves. He handed the pistols his father had given him to George Washington Cutter, captain of the Kenton Rangers, a company from Covington, and said: “Leave me, take care of yourselves. Take these Pistols to my father and tell him, that I have done all I can with them, and now return them to him.” Cutter and the others obeyed. When they looked back, they saw Clay sitting on the ground supported by his left hand, his right hand slashing at several lancers with his sword until they ran him through and killed him with their lances.²⁰

Clay's death was emphasized in the dramatic accounts of the battle, and he was mourned throughout the army and the nation. Most Americans were so familiar with Henry Clay and his family that it seemed as though a member of their own family had died. He was immortalized in prose, countless poems, and popular prints. Taylor wrote Henry Clay Sr. that his son and the other sons of Kentucky had, “in the thickest of the strife, upheld the honor of the State and of the country.” What made this death extremely painful to Henry Sr. was that Henry Jr. was his favorite son, the one with the most promise. He was the seventh child, the third son, and his namesake, and it seemed fitting that he was tall and attractive and resembled his father. “You are one of my greatest comforts,” Henry Sr. had written.²¹

The horrible news of the battle and Henry's death first came to Lexington by carrier pigeon from Mexico to New Orleans to the birdcages on top of the stagecoach barn on Limestone Street in Lexington. Word spread quickly through the streets; the family was having dinner when Henry's younger brother James walked in and made the announcement. Clay “bowed his head, covered his face with his hands,” and wept. He wrote later: “Alas, there are some wounds so deep and so excrutiatingly painful, that He only can heal them, by whose inscrutable dispensations they have been inflicted. And the death of my beloved son is one of them.” Cutter returned the pistols, and an officer sent Clay a lock of Henry's hair, which Clay wore in a breast pin that he bequeathed to Henry Clay III.²²

The other Kentucky regiment in the battle, the First Kentucky Cavalry, also had the advantage of a commander with a West Point education whom the men respected. Colonel Humphrey Marshall was born in Frankfort; he had resigned from the army for a career in the law. After volunteering in the Mexican War, he was appointed minister to China and was elected twice to the U.S. House of Representatives. He was familiar with the idea that volunteers hated strict discipline, and his men were grateful for the freedom from inspection and drill that he gave them. But, fortunately, the regiment arrived in northern Mexico in time to participate with other volunteer units in the training given by regular army general John Ellis Wool. “Old Granny Wool” was a volunteer's worst nightmare—stern in manner, extremely severe with discipline, and strict in enforcing long days of marching and drill. Later in the Civil War, John Hunt Morgan would treat his raiders more as volunteers than as regular soldiers; he may have developed his distaste for stern discipline under Wool.²³

Wool's training was valuable, and it contributed to the discipline of the Kentucky cavalry in the battle. During the first Mexican assault, the men were along the bluffs on the extreme left with a unit of Arkansas cavalry, guarding the left flank of the Second Indiana Infantry. When the Indiana soldiers withdrew, Marshall had no choice but to order a retreat or be captured. Alexander Morgan and several others in the rear wheeled their horses to fight a rear-guard action—Alexander was carrying out his promise to protect his nephews—and allow the main element to escape. Alexander and a few others, still on horseback, met the Mexican lancers in hand-to-hand fighting. The thrust of a lance opened his stomach, and his bowels streamed onto the ground below at his horse's feet, but he continued fighting with his sword until a lancer ran him through again and killed him. Alexander was the twin brother of John and Calvin's father, Calvin, and the twins had an older brother, prominent Nashville merchant Samuel D. Morgan. John brought home a Mexican sword and gave it to Uncle Samuel in honor of Alexander's death.²⁴

The Kentucky and Arkansas cavalry withdrew and regrouped at the hacienda three miles in the rear. About one thousand enemy lancers moved north against them, planning to capture the hacienda and operate from it on the American flanks and rear. The Americans numbered about four hundred, and, although outnumbered, they moved head-on against the lancers. The fighting was hand-to-hand again, and, when the melee drifted toward the walls of the ranch, dismounted Americans opened fire from behind the walls, panicking the Mexicans, who fled. This action ended the fighting for Marshall's regiment. Taylor's report commended the unit for “good service” on the left flank and for “meeting and dispersing the column of cavalry at Buena Vista,” along with part of the Arkansas cavalry.²⁵

Santa Anna and his brave troops withdrew in the night, and, when the Americans saw the empty valley before them the next morning, they cheered at the top of their voices. Taylor's report praised his army for gallantly, promptly, and cheerfully defeating, “at great odds, a disciplined foe.” Concerning Clay, McKee, and Hardin, he wrote: “The cool and steadfast courage with which they maintained their positions during the day, fully realized my hopes.” At 9:00 A.M. on the morning of the battle, when McKee and others moved to close the hole in the American line, one of Taylor's aides told him that the battle was lost. “I know it,” Taylor answered, “but the volunteers don't know it. Let them alone, we'll see what they can do.” Perhaps the moment when he saw the line was holding was the time when he reportedly shouted: “Hurrah for Old Kentuck! That's the way to do it.” Kentucky had greater casualties proportionally than any other state. The Second Kentucky suffered a casualty rate of almost 30 percent and the First Kentucky Cavalry almost 26 percent. Taylor told Marshall: “Kentucky lost not a jot of glory that day.”²⁶

One reason that the Kentucky volunteers fought so well was Taylor's leadership. As soon as they saw him, they knew that he was no “Old Granny Wool.” This fellow Kentuckian was called “Old Rough and Ready” by his men, and they identified with him immediately because he looked like one of them. His horse, “Old Whitey,” was caparisoned plainly, and, like a farmer, Taylor would turn in the saddle and swing one leg over the pommel. He was a West Point graduate and a career army man, but on his short, stocky body he wore a light jacket with no insignia of rank, plain trousers, and a wide-brimmed straw hat—people said he looked like a Kentucky backwoodsman. Except for the First Kentucky regiment, the Kentucky volunteers and most of the volunteers from other states were dressed similarly, with particular preference for straw hats as protection from the sun. Taylor was born in Orange County, Virginia; when he was eight months old, his family emigrated to Louisville, so he considered Kentucky his home. He met his wife, Margaret Mackall Smith, in Jefferson County, and five of their six children were born in Kentucky. Ulysses S. Grant served as a captain under him until after the Battle of Monterey, and he wrote in his memoirs: “No soldier could face either danger or responsibility more calmly than he.” The Kentuckians sensed that he was not looking down on them like Wool had looked down on the cavalrymen; they responded well to his appeals to state pride; they knew he would treat them fairly in recognizing their honor and valor. Later, when Taylor was elected president, Kentucky veterans and many Kentucky citizens in general were proud of Taylor's Kentucky background.²⁷

The men of all three regiments of the first requisition were fully aware that they had brought honor to themselves, Kentucky, and the nation. They had helped defeat a much larger army and forced it to retreat. They had provided a boost in the morale of the army and the American people. They had proved that they could fight, and the Buena Vista veterans themselves believed that they were superior to regulars. One man stated that he was proud to have fought in the “battle of battles” and to have “added to the honor of old Kentucky as having the bravest soldiers in the Union.” This opinion was reinforced by Taylor's report, newspaper accounts, the popularity of the battle in the national consciousness, and the Kentuckians' welcome home. Newspaper reports in Kentucky made them heroes. An extra by the Paris Western Citizen was headlined: “Battle of Buena Vista, Gen. Taylor Victorious!!—Santa Anna defeated with great Loss.” George Prentice was opposed to the war, but he praised the Buena Vista volunteers and Taylor's leadership. The Maysville Tri-Weekly Herald reported: “The chivalry of her sons has again been tried in the fiery ordeal, and shines forth with a brighter and more glorious lustre.” The Shelbyville Shelby News praised the men for “maintaining their heritage.”²⁸

State pride and hero worship were boundless, and one of the themes of the praise of the Buena Vista veterans was the comparison to the soldiers of ancient Sparta. At the giant barbecue in Lexington for the veterans in August 1847, one of the toasts was to “The Heroes of Buena Vista: By their firmness and valor, they have given themselves to history as the SPARTANS of the Republic.” In January 1848, when the regimental flag of the Second Kentucky regiment was presented to the House of Representatives, House speaker James F. Buckner compared Mrs. Harlan's presentation of the flag to the men on their departure to the anecdote of the Spartan mother who told her son: “Either come back alive with this or be brought back dead upon it.” The mother who said this in Sparta has never been identified, but some ancient orators connected it to the famous defense of the pass at Thermopylae by three hundred Spartans and other Greek soldiers in 480 B.C. Buena Vista was fought in a mountain pass, and the Americans were vastly outnumbered, as were the Greeks; Buena Vista was a bloody head-on fight like Thermopylae. Santa Anna said afterward: “Both armies have been cut to pieces.” The Mexican army had 1,800 killed or wounded, and Taylor had 673. Mrs. Harlan said that the men must return these colors to the bosom of Kentucky or die in their defense.²⁹ Theodore O'Hara's “The Bivouac of the Dead,” an elegy for Kentuckians killed at Buena Vista, included the lines:

Thus, ’neath their parent turf they rest,

Far from the gory field,

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast

On many a bloody shield.³⁰

The Kentucky regiments saw no further combat, and, when their enlistment was completed, they came home. The people of Kentucky welcomed them as heroes, with towns organizing parades, ceremonies, and barbecues. Marshall's cavalry arrived in Lexington on the morning train from Frankfort on Saturday, June 19, 1847, and a large crowd welcomed them at the depot. In the afternoon, there was a ceremony with speeches on the courthouse square. In August, a group of leading men in Fayette County invited everyone from Fayette County and surrounding counties to a barbecue in Lexington, and ten thousand people came. The veterans marched in a parade through the downtown streets and to the parade grounds, where Lexington attorney George B. Kinkead lauded their valor and said that the news of their glorious victory flew over the state “on the wings of the wind.” The abundant food was served on two acres of tables arranged in a huge square, with women eating first, followed by the men in shifts.³¹

Kentucky celebrated and commemorated Buena Vista for the next several years. In January 1848, the Kentucky House of Representatives held a ceremony to accept the regimental flag of the Second Kentucky Infantry into the state archives. Surviving members of the regiment selected General Leslie Combs to speak for them in the ceremony. Combs had participated in Dudley's Defeat in the War of 1812 and was one of the prisoners of war of that battle. He had recently served as speaker of the House and was now a member of the House. Pointing to the flag, bloodstained, tattered, riddled with bullet holes, and trimmed in mourning, he asked who would not willingly die to protect this flag and declared that, in the future, when any foe approached, Kentucky's brave sons would “meet them at every mountain pass and die with glory rather than fly with disgrace.” Speaker Buckner replied that the sight of the bloody flag filled him with melancholy over the loss of lives but that he was proud of the example established for future generations. “The glory of that day, and the fame acquired by the brave Kentucky volunteers on that memorable occasion, is part of the Inheritance of every child of this commonwealth.” He said that he accepted it “as a trophy of the chivalry of Kentucky.”³²

The most enduring legacy of Kentucky's role in the Battle of Buena Vista resulted from the poem “The Bivouac of the Dead,” and for years a myth circulated about the writing and first public reading of it. Four months after Buena Vista, the state sent a delegation to bring home the bodies of Henry Clay Jr., William McKee, and fifteen other men killed in the battle. The bodies came from New Orleans to Louisville on the steamboat Ringgold, and the city of Louisville held a procession in the downtown streets past buildings decorated in black. Governor Owsley declared July 20, 1847, a day of state mourning; eleven militia companies marched in the cortege through Frankfort to the state cemetery. A popular legend arose that Theodore O'Hara, a Mexican War veteran, worked all the night before and into the morning that day finishing “The Bivouac of the Dead.” It is true that he was inspired by the battle to write the poem, but it had not been written yet, and on that day he was still with the army in Mexico.³³

Theodore O'Hara was born in Danville, graduated from St. Joseph College in Bardstown, studied law under William Owsley, and was admitted to the bar. He served in the Mexican War in the second requisition and was discharged as a brevet major on October 15, 1848. In 1850, he was one of several Kentuckians who fought with Narciso Lopez's filibustering expedition in Cuba, attempting to overthrow the government. Wounded in both legs, he came home to Frankfort to recover and spent time in the state cemetery reflecting on the new state Veterans War Memorial, which had been completed on June 25, 1850. O'Hara had a problem with alcohol, and one story holds that he first read the poem aloud in a tavern across the street from the capitol in Frankfort. He worked as a journalist and in the Civil War was a lieutenant colonel of the Twelfth Alabama Infantry. He died in 1867 and was buried in Columbus, Georgia. On September 15, 1874, his body was reinterred in the Frankfort Cemetery, where a monument honors him. There were plans to have the poem read at his grave, but it rained, and the poem was read during the service inside a building in Frankfort.³⁴

At the time of his death in 1867, O'Hara apparently had no idea that “The Bivouac of the Dead” was being used to honor Civil War dead and would become one of the most famous poems in Kentucky history and be appreciated around the world. His family was not aware of the Civil War connection until metal plaques with lines from the poem appeared in Arlington National Cemetery in the 1880s. By the time of the Civil War, the poem had circulated widely without crediting the author. Union army quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs, who lost his only son in the Civil War, had lines from the poem carved on wooden signs and placed in Arlington during the war. In 1881, he ordered five hundred cast-iron tablets to replace the wooden ones in Arlington and to be installed in other national cemeteries as well. According to historians Hughes and Ware: “Ironically, Meigs took a poem about the fallen Kentuckians of the Mexican War and applied its lines to the Union dead of the Civil War, and thence to all soldiers in death's tenting grounds.” The author was not identified, and his name was not included with his lines on the McClellan Gate erected in 1879 at what was then the main entrance to Arlington. Still today, without the author's name, his lines appear on the monument in the Confederate cemetery at Perryville and on plaques at cemeteries at Antietam, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, and others.³⁵ The first stanza reads:

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat

The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on life's parade shall meet

That brave and fallen few.

On fame's eternal camping-ground

Their silent tents are spread,

And Glory guards, with solemn round,

The bivouac of the dead.³⁶

The monument that inspired O'Hara represented Kentucky pride in its military tradition. The state legislature, determined “to commemorate the deeds of Kentucky's gallant dead,” appropriated $15,000 for the project in February 1848. It was to honor all Kentucky's war dead by including the names of battles and campaigns from Fort Boonesborough to Buena Vista and Cerro Gordo. According to historian Mary Ellen Rowe: “To Kentuckians, it was not only a sacred shrine to fallen heroes, but a resounding assertion of state pride and a glorification of the militia tradition.”³⁷

Indeed, Kentucky's military tradition was stronger than ever in 1850. John Hunt Morgan greatly enjoyed serving in the First Kentucky Cavalry in the Mexican War, and he pleaded for permission to organize a cavalry company for the second requisition. But, as will be shown below, the difference in the Civil War was that people in local communities and the state as a whole were divided on whether to support the North or the South. Morgan continued his involvement in the militia as long as possible and organized his own volunteer infantry company when the state no longer supported the state militia. But the coming of the Civil War was so divisive that he refrained from fighting until he felt he could no longer stay home with honor. When he joined the Confederate war effort, his goal was to operate as a guerrilla chief, take Kentucky out of the Union, and help the Confederacy gain its independence. He and other Kentucky soldiers on both sides furthered the reputation of Kentuckians as fierce fighters—but, tragically, many times by fighting fellow Kentuckians on the other side.