The Training Ground

by Martin Dugard

  They had arrived on July 2. “Sutter’s Fort,” Sherman wrote, “stands about three miles back from the river, and about a mile from the American Fork, which is also a respectable stream. The fort encloses a space of about two hundred yards by eighty; the walls are built of adobe, or sun-dried brick. All the houses are of one story, save one, which stands in the middle, which is two stories.”

  There they had met Sutter, a balding German immigrant in his midforties who had made a small fortune selling supplies to the local Indians, Californians (as the local Mexican population was known), and those Americans coming west to make a new life in California.

  Sherman and Mason celebrated the Fourth of July at Sutter’s Fort in lavish fashion. “Sutter presided at the head of the table, Governor Mason on his right and I on his left. About fifty sat down to the table, mostly Americans, some foreigners, and one or two Californians. The usual toasts, songs, speeches, etc. passed off, and a liberal quantity of liquor was disposed of: champagne, Madeira, sherry, etc.; on the whole, a dinner that would have done credit in any frontier town.”

  But that Fourth of July was just a prelude to the momentous events that would follow. Mason and Sherman set out two days later, riding twenty-five miles up the American River, to the place where miners were scrambling over the sand and pebbles of the water’s shallows, panning for gold. A bemused Sherman rode back to Monterey with Mason shortly afterward. Under the governor’s orders, Sherman drafted the letter back to Washington that would spark a worldwide rush to the California gold fields. “I have no hesitation now in saying that there is more gold in the country drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers than will pay the cost of the present war with Mexico a hundred times over. No capital is required to obtain this gold, as the laboring man wants nothing but his pick, shovel, and tin pan,” wrote Sherman. “Many frequently pick gold out of the crevices of rock with their butcher knives in pieces from one to six ounces.”

  Sherman’s letter was handed to a courier, who sailed south, crossed the Panamanian isthmus on a mule, and then sailed to New Orleans via Jamaica and finally on to Washington. On December 5, 1848, in his final State of the Union address, President Polk announced the discovery of gold: “The accounts of abundance of gold are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service,” he said, crediting Sherman.

  Within days, thousands upon thousands of Americans were flooding toward California, along with immigrants from Australia and South America. This “gold rush,” in turn, would see the settlement of those lands between California and the Mississippi River, thanks to the countless pioneers who trailed along in the miners’ wake, seeking farmland instead of gold.

  Manifest Destiny had been realized. Lieutenant William Tecumseh Sherman never actually saw combat in the Mexican War, but in most unique fashion, his role in America’s sea-to-shining-sea expansion was as pivotal as any contribution by his West Point band of brothers.

  EPILOGUE

  On October 13, 1847, the American regular and volunteer officers stationed in Mexico City gathered to form a social group. They were a very special breed of men, and Scott had singled out the West Point graduates in particular when describing the outcome of the Mexican War: “I give it as my fixed opinion, that but for our graduated cadets, the war between the United States and Mexico might, and probably would have lasted some four or five years, with, in its first half, more defeats than victories falling to our share; whereas, in less than two campaigns, we conquered a great country and a peace without the loss of a single battle or skirmish.”

  At first their aims were merely to establish a place to enjoy one another’s company while on duty in Mexico, but the Aztec Club, as they called themselves, would meet on a regular basis, long after they returned home from the occupation. The meetings would cease during the Civil War but would resume after the conflict and be conducted with a great deal of joviality and nostalgia.

  Sam Grant arrived back in Saint Louis on July 28, 1848. He had been among the first men to march into Mexico at the start of the war and marched out of Mexico City with Worth’s division as the very last American troops to leave. He was belatedly promoted to first lieutenant for his heroism at Molino del Rey, and then to captain for his courage at the San Cosmé garita. However, at war’s end, he was still a quartermaster. Julia had waited more than four years for his return, and they married just a little over three weeks after his arrival. Pete Longstreet served as Grant’s best man. Fellow officers Cadmus Wilcox and Bernard Pratte were also in the wedding party, both of whom would fight for the Confederacy. “My wedding cake was a marvel of beauty. . . . We had music, and I think two of my bridesmaids took a turn around the room,” wrote Julia. The Grants honeymooned with a riverboat ride to Cincinnati. Julia described the craft as “almost human in its breathing, panting, and obedience to man’s will.” They were often alone on deck, and she would sing something “low and sweet” to him.

  Life for the Grants soon turned turbulent. Sam Grant was eager to stay in the military, but his pay would not cover the expense of having his family live with him at frontier outposts. Homesick for Julia and their growing family, he abruptly resigned his commission in 1854 and returned home. Rumors that drunkenness was the cause have been greatly exaggerated, as Grant was known for his inability to drink more than a few sips of alcohol owing to his light weight and diminutive size. He struggled to find a new profession and soon failed at a number of business ventures that included farming, tanning, and bill collecting. When the Civil War began, Grant was commissioned as a colonel in the Illinois militia. Within three years he had risen to become general-in-chief of all U.S. armies. Following the war, he returned to civilian life. Grant successfully ran for president in 1868 and served two terms. He died on July 23, 1885, shortly after completing his memoirs, which were edited by Mark Twain. Julia and he were loyal to each other throughout their nearly four decades of marriage. She survived him by seventeen years and is buried next to him in New York.

  Robert E. Lee became commandant of cadets at West Point shortly after the Mexican War. Following that, he was posted to Texas to serve in the ongoing battles against the Comanches and the Apaches, and he put down the insurrection at Harpers Ferry just before the Civil War. General Winfield Scott asked Lee to command the Union forces during that conflict, but he could not turn his back on his beloved Virginia. Lee’s brilliant tactics very nearly won the war for the South, but his defeat at Gettysburg proved his undoing. His family estate in Arlington had been used as a cemetery by Union forces, seeking to ensure that the house would never again be inhabited by Lee. They were correct. After the war, he served as president of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University) from 1865 until his death from complications of pneumonia in 1870. He is buried in Lee Chapel on that campus.

  Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson returned from Mexico as a battle-tested veteran and a brevet, thanks to battlefield promotions for bravery at Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, and Chapultepec. But he had also found himself deeply impressed by the Mexicans’ religious faith. He would later become a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. Jackson left the military soon after the war, and in 1851 he became an instructor at the Virginia Military Institute. He married in 1853, but his wife died in childbirth. Jackson married again in 1857, and his second wife bore him two daughters, only one of whom lived. When the Civil War broke out, Jackson became Lee’s top general. He was mistakenly shot three times by a sentry during a nighttime lull in the Battle of Chancellorsville. His left arm was amputated as a result, but he died of pneumonia on May 10, 1863.

  William Tecumseh Sherman married in 1850. He and his wife, Ellen, had eight children. He resigned his commission in 1853 and served as president of a bank until it failed in 1857. He moved to Kansas to practice law, failed at that, and then moved on to Louisiana, where he taught at a military academy. He would become legendary for his relentless Civil War march th
rough Georgia. Sherman died on Valentine’s Day, 1891. One of his pallbearers was Confederate general Joe Johnston, who was eighty-four at the time. The day of Sherman’s funeral was rather cold; Johnston refused to wear a hat, soon took sick, and died of pneumonia one month later.

  Zachary Taylor was elected president in 1848, succeeding James K. Polk. Taylor died in office on July 9, 1850, after a Fourth of July celebration dedicating the newly completed Washington Monument.

  James K. Polk served just one term as president. He died on June 15, 1849, at the age of fifty-three, just five months after leaving office.

  On December 6, 1847, Abraham Lincoln formally took his seat in the House of Representatives as the Thirtieth Congress came to order. Over in the Senate, Jefferson Davis had been appointed to fill a vacancy from the Mississippi delegation, and the popular “hero of Buena Vista” made his triumphal return to Washington. After several passionate antiwar speeches from the House floor (known as the Spot Resolutions), Lincoln gained political renown all his own. However, he was not reelected in 1848 and struggled politically and personally for much of the next decade. He was elected president in 1859 and was assassinated on April 15, 1865, six days after the Civil War ended, by a single .44-caliber shot through the head. His guests that evening at Ford’s Theatre were to have been Ulysses and Julia Grant.

  Jefferson Davis served as secretary of war from 1853 to 1857, then ran successfully to regain his Senate seat. However, when the Civil War broke out, he abandoned the Senate and was named a major general in the Mississippi militia, reclaiming his former Mexican War command. He soon accepted the position of president of the Confederate States of America, which he held throughout the war. Davis was briefly imprisoned afterward and then made his living selling insurance. He died at the age of eighty-one in New Orleans. His body was marched nonstop back to Richmond, Virginia, and was attended throughout by a throng of mourners.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It was my agent, the incomparable Eric Simonoff, who called one day with the idea that later became this book. On the surface, it was a very simple concept, a sort of Young Guns take on the great generals of the Civil War. But as I researched and began writing, it became much more than that, as books like this always do. So as I grappled with structure and the sometimes-daunting task of weaving together the various biographies and battle scenes that fill these pages, Eric availed himself as a sounding board. I am deeply indebted to him for the time and thought he has put into this project. If not for him, The Training Ground would simply not exist.

  Likewise, my editor, Geoff Shandler. It was Geoff who coaxed me into writing a longer and more sprawling book than I had originally envisioned. This gave me and the characters room to breathe as I told their stories, allowing me to know them and their exploits on a much more intimate level. Geoff likes to deflect credit back onto the writer rather than bask in the limelight himself. But his skill with a red pencil is second to none, and this book is stronger for his suggestions, comments, queries, and even deletions.

  Special thanks to Michael Pietsch at Little, Brown.

  Thanks also to Junie Dahn and Amanda Erickson.

  My friend Jim Yount, a former Marine Corps officer, was a fount of military knowledge, and I am deeply indebted to him for his insights. Thanks also to Marc Spizzirri, Jeff Davis, Chris and Wendy Teske, Tom Silber, and Gary Shutler, and to all the members of the JSerra High School Running Lions cross-country and track teams, whom I have had the privilege of coaching these past few years.

  Thanks to John Trowbridge.

  Dr. Dave Vogel was very helpful in my education on yellow fever and the other maladies incurred by American troops in Mexico, as was Dr. Matthew Dugard.

  Rachel Careau and Peggy Freudenthal did the heavy lifting on copyediting. Thanks for catching my mistakes and inconsistencies.

  Finally, if you happened to be sitting at my family dinner table over the past two years, you would have overheard an inordinate amount of talk on my part about Mexican War trivia. Thanks to my wife, Calene, and our three sons for putting up with my endless stream of “fun facts” as I returned from my daily mental journeys down into Mexico.

  APPENDIX A

  THE BROTHERHOOD

  West Point graduated 1,365 officers between the years of 1802 and 1847. Approximately one-third of these men soon left the military for civilian life, and 268 died in the Mexican War. A great number of those still serving after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo left the military during the 1850s, when the army once again settled into a life of routine and garrison duty during America’s westward expansion. It’s interesting to note that many military establishments along America’s seaboard were named for Revolutionary War figures, while the forts and cities of the American West were named for men like Bliss, Worth, and Ord, the next generation of men who fostered America’s growth — the heroes of the Mexican War. When the Civil War began, many of those who had left the military quickly made themselves available for service on both sides of the great divide. The Mexican War, which had been until then the greatest military conflict of their lives, suddenly paled by comparison. Here is a short list of those officers, compiled as part of Meade’s memoirs.

  GEORGE G. MEADE’S LIST OF U.S. OFFICERS WHO SERVED IN MEXICO AND LATER ACHIEVED DISTINCTION IN THE CIVIL WAR

  REGULAR ARMY

  George A. McCall, assistant adjutant-general, afterward commanded the Pennsylvania Reserves in the Federal Army of the Potomac.

  Joseph Hooker, assistant adjutant-general, afterward commanded the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Chancellorsville, May 1863.

  Irvin W. McDowell, assistant adjutant-general, afterward commanded the Federal forces at the First Battle of Bull Run, July 1861.

  Robert E. Lee, captain Engineer Corps, afterward commander-in-chief Confederate States Army, and commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1863.

  P. G. T. Beauregard, first lieutenant Engineer Corps, afterward commanded the Confederate forces at the Battle of Shiloh, 1863.

  George B. McClellan, second lieutenant Engineer Corps, afterward organizer and commander of the Army of the Potomac.

  Joseph E. Johnston, captain Topographical Engineer, afterward commanded the Confederate forces at the First Battle of Bull Run, July 1861; also commanded the Confederate forces opposing General Sherman’s march to Atlanta, 1865.

  George G. Meade, second lieutenant Topographical Engineers, afterward commanded the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863.

  John Pope, second lieutenant Topographical Engineers, afterward commanded the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, August 1862.

  Richard S. Ewell, first lieutenant First Regiment of Dragoons, afterward commanded the Third Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, at the Battle of Gettysburg.

  George Stoneman, second lieutenant First Regiment of Dragoons, afterward commanded the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac in the campaign known as “Stoneman’s cavalry raid,” May 1863.

  Alfred Pleasanton, second lieutenant Second Regiment of Dragoons, afterward chief of cavalry Army of the Potomac, at the Battle of Gettysburg.

  Abner Doubleday, first lieutenant First Regiment of Artillery; afterward, on the death of General Reynolds, commanded the First Corps, Army of the Potomac, at the Battle of Gettysburg.

  William H. French, first lieutenant First Regiment of Artillery, afterward commanded the Federal forces at Harpers Ferry during the Gettysburg campaign.

  Seth Williams, first lieutenant First Regiment of Artillery, afterward assistant adjutant-general of the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg.

  Ambrose P. Hill, second lieutenant First Regiment of Artillery, afterward commanded Third Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, at the Battle of Gettysburg and was killed at the Battle of Petersburg, April 1865.

  Henry J. Hunt, first lieutenant Second Regiment Artillery, afterward chief of artillery, Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg.

 
John Sedgwich, first lieutenant Second Regiment of Artillery, afterward commanded the Sixth Corps, Army of the Potomac, at the Battle of Gettysburg, and was killed at the Battle of Spotsylvania C.H., May 1864.

  Richard Rush, second lieutenant Second Regiment of Artillery, afterward colonel Sixth Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry (Rush’s Lancers), Army of the Potomac.

  Braxton Bragg, captain Third Regiment of Artillery, afterward commanded Confederate forces in the Civil War.

  Edward O. C. Ord, first lieutenant Third Regiment of Artillery, afterward commanded the Federal forces at the Battle of Dranesville, December 1861.

  John F. Reynolds, first lieutenant Third Regiment of Artillery, afterward commanded the left wing of the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Gettysburg, and was killed July 1, 1863.

  George H. Thomas, first lieutenant Third Regiment of Artillery, afterward commanded the Federal Army of the Cumberland.

  Ambrose E. Burnside, second lieutenant Third Regiment of Artillery, afterward commanded the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Fredericksburg, December 1862.

  John Gibbon, second lieutenant Fourth Regiment of Artillery, afterward commanded the Second Corps, Army of the Potomac, at the Battle of Gettysburg.

  George Sykes, first lieutenant Third Regiment of Infantry, afterward commanded the Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac, at the Battle of Gettysburg.

  Ulysses S. Grant, second lieutenant Fourth Regiment of Infantry, afterward commander-in-chief United States Army and President of the United States.

  Lewis Armistead, first lieutenant Sixth Regiment of Infantry, afterward commanded a brigade in “Pickett’s Charge” at the Battle of Gettysburg and was wounded and died within Union lines.

  Edward Johnson, first lieutenant Sixth Regiment of Infantry, afterward commanded a division in the Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Gettysburg.