West Point to Mexico

by Bob Mayer

  West Point to Mexico

  Book I in the Duty, Honor, Country Trilogy

  by

  Bob Mayer

  Who commanded the major battles of the Civil War? ------ There were 60 important battles of the War. In 55 of them, graduates commanded on both sides; in the remaining 5, a graduate commanded one of the opposing sides.

  Required Plebe knowledge at West Point.

  Dedication

  Dedicated to the men and women of The Long Gray Line.

  Letter from Ulysses Grant 1839

  Military Academy

  West Point, NY

  Sept 22d 1839

  To R. McKinstry Griffith from Ulysses Grant

  Dear Coz,

  I was just thinking that you would be right glad to hear from one of your relations who is so far away as I am, so I have put aside my Algebra and French and am going to tell you a long story about this prettiest of places, West Point. So far as it regards natural attractions it is decidedly the most beautiful place I have ever seen; here are hills and dales, rocks and rivers; all pleasant to look upon. From the window near I can see the Hudson; that far famed, that beautiful river with its bosom studded with hundreds of snow sails. Again if I look another way I can see Fort Putnam frowning far above; a stern monument of a sterner age, which seems placed there on purpose to tell us of the glorious deeds of our fathers and to bid us remember their sufferings—to follow their examples. In short this is the best of all places—the place of all places for an institution like this.

  I have not told you half its attractions. Here is the house Washington used to live in—there Kosciuszko used to walk and think of his country and ours. Over the river we are shown the duelling house of Arnold, that base and heartless traitor to his country and his God. I do love the place. It seems as though I could live here forever if my friends would only come too. You might search the wide world over and not find a better. Now all this sounds nice, very nice, “what a happy fellow you are” you will say, but I am not one to show false colors the brightest side of the picture. So I will tell you about a few of the drawbacks.

  First, I slept for two months upon one single pair of blankets; now that sounds romantic and you may think it very easy. But I will tell you what coz, it is tremendous hard. Suppose you try it by way of experiment for a night or two. I am pretty sure that you would be perfectly satisfied that is no easy matter. But glad am I these things are over. We are now in our quarters. I have a splendid bed and get along very well. Our pay is nominally about twenty-eight dollars a month. But we never see one cent of it. If we want anything from a shoestring to a coat we must go to the commandant of the post and get an order for it or we cannot have it. We have tremendous long and hard lessons to get in both French and Algebra. I study hard and hope to get along so as to pass the examination in January. This examination is a hard one they say, but I am not frightened yet. If I am successful here you will not see me for two long years. It seems a long while to me. But time passes off very fast. It seems but a few since I came here. It is because every hour has its duty which must be performed. On the whole I like the place very much. So much that I would not go away on any account. The fact is if a man graduates here he is safe for life. Let him go where he will. There is much to dislike but more to like. I mean to study and stay if it be possible. If I cannot—very well—the world is wide. I have now been here about four months and have not seen a single familiar face or spoken to a single lady. I wish some of the pretty girls of Bethel were here just so I might look at them. But fudge! Confound the girls.

  I have seen great men plenty of them. Let us see. Gen. Scott. M. Van Buren. Sec. of War and Navy. Washington Irving and lots of other big bugs. If I were to come home now with my uniform on. The way you would laugh at my appearance would be curious. My pants sit as tight to my skin as the bark to a tree and if I do not walk militarily. That is if I bend over quickly or run. They are apt to crack with a report as loud as a pistol. My coat must always be buttoned up tight to the chin. It is made of sheeps grey cloth all covered with big round buttons. It all makes me look very singular. If you were to see me at a distance. The first question you would ask would be: “Is that a Fish or an Animal”? You must give my very best love and respects to all my friends particularly your brothers. Uncle Ross & Sam’l Simpson. You must write me a long, long letter in reply to this and tell me every thing and every body including yourself. If you happen to see my folks just tell them that I am happy, alive, and kicking.

  I am truly your cousin

  And obedient servant

  U. H. Grant

  (West Point class of 1843)

  Letter from Sidney Albert Johnston in 1862

  Vicinity Shiloh, TN 23 years later

  Grant’s invading Army of the Tennessee

  5 April 1862

  To The Soldiers of the Army of the Mississippi:

  I have put into motion to offer battle to the invaders of your country. With the resolution and discipline and valor becoming men fighting, as you are, for all worth living or dying for, you can but march to decisive victory over the agrarian mercenaries sent to subjugate and despoil you of your liberties, property and honor. Remember the dependence of your mothers, your wives, your sisters, and your children on the result; remember the fair, broad, abounding land, the happy homes and the ties that would be desolated by your defeat. The eyes and hopes of eight millions of people rest upon you; you are expected to show yourselves worthy of your lineage, worthy of the women of the South, whose noble devotion in this war has never been exceeded in any time. With such incentives to brave deeds, and with the trust that God is with us, your generals will lead you confidently to the combat—assured of success.

  C.S.A. General Sidney Albert Johnston

  (West Point class of 1826)

  Chapter One

  27 May 1840, West Point, New York

  “To, duty, honor, and country,” William Tecumseh Sherman proposed, raising his mug of ale.

  He shoved his chair back, along with his classmate who sat at the same table. The mugs were clunked together, whereupon the two turned their backs to each other and imbibed. Done, they turned to the table and reclaimed their seats inside the tavern on the west bank of the Hudson River, just outside of the Military Academy post limits.

  “Tell me, Mister Sherman,” a young cadet leaning against the bar asked, “why do you say honor in the center as the linchpin between duty and country, and not loyalty?”

  Before Sherman could respond, his classmate, a lean young man with a hatchet face under short, thick black hair, drawled in a low, southern voice. “Why, honor is all a man has, Mister Cord.”

  Cord laughed. “Where I come from, we couldn’t afford honor, Mister King.”

  The three cadets were the only customers left in the dimly lit tavern, with dawn less than an hour off. A rough wooden plank bar stretched across one side of the room. Behind it, head slumped onto the scarred surface, was the proprietor, Benny Havens. His loud snoring sawed through the room. Clanking noises came through the curtain behind him, where his daughter, Lidia, was cleaning up the remains of the party that had covered most of the night as many members of the class of 1840 had celebrated their pending graduation. Cord was not a member of ’40, but finishing his plebe year, class of ’43.

  King shook his head, but didn’t immediately pursue Cord’s observation. “A toast without a fine cigar is practically wasted.” He unbuttoned his dress grey tunic and withdrew a pair of cigars. “Direct from my home in Charleston, where they came straight from Havana.” He extended one to Sherman.

  The two Firsties went through the lighting ritual, to add to the lingering cloud from the night’s revelries.

  King blew a puff of smoke Cord’s
way. “With your grades and conduct record, Mister Cord, one could not expect any different.”

  “Here, here.” Sherman slapped a hand on the scarred wooden table. “None of that. It’s not fair.” He had fiery red hair and thick sideburns that tapered toward the point of his chin, not quite meeting.

  “Cord is the Immortal in every section, Cump,” King said. “Last in every one! An honorable man would not hold such a record. He should have more pride. He should have the decency to study.”

  “Mister Cord studies,” Sherman said. He turned to Cord with a grin. “You do, don’t you?”

  Benny Havens lifted his head off the bar and blearily gazed about, like an old hound dog sensing trouble at a distance.

  Cord was of average size and tightly built. His face was pleasant, made more so by a wide mouth that was most amendable to a cheerful expression. His nose had a slight crook to it, broken long ago in some waterside tavern and set as well as a drunken ship’s doctor could manage on a drunker patient. He had pale blue eyes and pale blond hair from his family’s Nordic ancestry.

  His dress grey tunic, unlike the others, had the top three buttons unfastened, and was lacking the starched white collar the other two wore.

  “No need for you to step in, Mister Sherman, and defend my lack of schooling. I could study every minute and I believe I’d still be the Immortal in every section. So why fight such a futile battle?”

  “It’s your duty,” King said. “All of us share the same duty as cadets.” He turned to Sherman. “Perhaps, Mister Cord is just dull in the wits. And it’s more than academics being indicative of lack of character, there are the demerits, his inattention to duty and his shabby appearance. And his presence at a gathering of firsties when he is just a plebe.”

  “Well, none of us really are allowed to be here.” Sherman held up his mug in a token of peace. “I say we take another draft, then make our way back to our rockbound highland home and get some rest before First Call.”

  He and King stood once more, raised their mugs, no toast this time, turned their backs to each other, and drank. The turning of the backs had both a logical and traditional purpose. It was illegal for cadets to drink alcohol. They were also bound by the honor code to report another cadet they saw breaking regulations. So the practice had begun years ago at Benny Havens to turn backs to each other when drinking in order to be able to truthfully say, if questioned, that one had not seen the other drink. They turned to the table and thumped the mugs down, King with a bit extra force.

  Sherman grabbed his cadet hat. “Time to be off.”

  “Perhaps I am just sorta stupid,” Cord said as he peeked at the curtain, hoping for one last glance at Lidia before departing. “To the barracks and--”

  “I believe,” King said, his low voice cutting Cord off, “that an honorable man is one who judges himself accurately.”

  Cord smiled. “Why thank you, Mister King. That’s the nicest way anyone’s ever agreed when I said I was stupid. Kind of. Sort of.”

  King’s eyes narrowed. He placed both fists on the tabletop, as much for balance as emphasis. “Are you saying I don’t know the judge of a man?”

  “I say no such thing, Mister King,” Cord said, brightening as Lidia came out from behind the curtain.

  Lidia had curly red hair, fair skin and sparkling green eyes. An enticing allure, like the dark blue water of a small harbor in the Bahamas that Cord had sailed by as a younger man. A harbor with such sublime depth and surrounded by perfect sand and palms, it wanted to draw you in, but the ship’s master had warned Cord that such apparent havens often held hidden reefs and shoals that could cause the vessel to founder and be trapped forever.

  “You spoke out of turn, plebe,” King said. “As we say in South Carolina, if the dog is slapped, it barks.”

  Sherman sighed. He once more grabbed his mug, trying to douse the growing tension with more alcohol. “One last toast, George. To country at least. We can all agree on that.”

  “I might not be the best judge of every trait in a man,” King continued, ignoring Sherman, “but I know honor and I can clearly see lack of honor.”

  Cord’s grin disappeared. “Because you believe you’re honorable, you question it in others?”

  “You question my honor?” King demanded, face flushed.

  “Honor,” Cord said, “is a mirror in front of you and loyalty is a pane of glass that must be carefully nurtured and kept clean.”

  King’s eyes narrowed. “What the devil does that mean?”

  “It means you don’t quite see me,” Cord said. “You only see me as reflected by you.”

  “So you do say I am not honorable?” King pressed.

  “No. You’ve had too much to drink, sir,” Cord said, “as have I. We can continue this conversation some other time.”

  “Gentlemen,” Sherman interjected, “we must be off. We’ve all had too much to imbibe.”

  King slapped the table. “I demand clarification!”

  “Hey now!” Benny Havens called out from the bar. “Enough of that.”

  Unseen by her father, Lidia placed a hand on Cord’s forearm and shook her head.

  “We are speaking of honor,” King said, dismissing Havens as uninvited to the argument.

  “You can have whatever honor you want to claim for yourself, sir,” Cord said with a shrug.

  “I claim that which I have earned,” King said, “which is more than can be said of you. You are no gentleman, sir.”

  “Now, now!” Benny Havens came from around the bar and his daughter quickly pulled her hand back. He was a florid-faced, full-bodied rock of a man. He sported close-cropped salt and pepper hair atop a craggy face. His apron was dirty from a night of serving food and drink to cadets. He pointed at a large flagon on the end of the bar, trying to defuse the situation. “How about I rustle the three of you up a hot flip?” The concoction of rum, beaten eggs, sugar and spices, heated by a red hot poker shoved into it, was his specialty, especially for cadets trying to beat the inevitable hangover.

  King folded his arms across his chest. “I will have an apology or satisfaction.”

  “There isn’t going to be any duel,” Sherman said. “And the insults are the result of spirits, not bad intention.”

  “You southerners,” Cord said. “You take things that aint important, awfully serious, but I apologize.”

  King opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Havens’ wife, Letitia, came through the curtain. Tears stained her cheeks. She walked up to Benny and held out her hands. Stretched across her palms was a limp white cadet collar.

  “Where did you find it?” Havens demanded.

  Letitia responded by turning to her daughter. “On her bed.”

  Benny Havens staggered back as if he’d been punched in the chest.

  Sherman hurried forward to the tavern keep. “Mister Havens, I understand your anger at the trespass into your daughter’s quarters by Cadet Cord. Let me take him back to the barracks for now and we’ll deal with the matter later, when cooler heads might prevail.”

  The old man was slowly shaking his head, as if to dislodge the last few moments. He ignored Sherman and looked at his daughter. “Lidia, did you lay with Mister Cord this night?”

  Lidia closed her eyes for a moment, and then met her father’s gaze. “I did not lie with him tonight, father.” She swallowed. “I wished to speak with him. He took the collar off to be more comfortable in the heat.”

  Letitia spoke: “What could you have to speak to him about that it needed to be in the sanctity of your room?”

  Lidia looked at her mother, then her father, and finally the young cadet. “It’s a private matter, but I couldn’t bring the subject up with him. I couldn’t bring it up with anyone.” Tears began to flow as did the pent up words. “I made a mistake. Three months ago. And now—” she began sobbing and Letitia hurried to her daughter and wrapped her arms around her.

  It took a moment for the implications to sink in to Benny Havens brain.
When it landed, he howled with rage.

  “Sir!” King was at Havens’ side. “Allow me the privilege of defending your daughter.” Before the old man could respond, King stepped forward and slapped Cord across the face. Hard. “You truly have no honor, defiling a young woman’s reputation. In thirty minutes, on the river field, with pistols, which I will fetch from town.” He stormed out of the tavern, brushing off Sherman’s attempt to stop him.

  Havens glared at Cord. “I’m going to let Mister King shoot you like the dog you are. And if you run, I’m sending my man for the Superintendent right now. One way or the other, I’ll have you, Mister Cord!”

  Cord was blinking, trying to sort the rapid series of events through his drunken haze.

  “Mister Havens!” Sherman exclaimed. “Dueling is illegal and if the Superintendent comes, that’ll at the least cost Mister Cord his cadetship, if not entail a court-martial. And if they duel, both Mister King and Mister Cord will be dismissed immediately from the Corps.”

  “So be it.” Thunder rumbled in the distance, as if to punctuate Havens’ resolve.

  “Sir, let the Vigilance Committee take care of the matter,” Sherman suggested. “At least for Mister King’s sake. His anger and the alcohol have gotten the better of him.”

  “It’s beyond the Vigilance Committee’s scope,” Havens said. “It happened here, in my house. To my daughter.”

  Sherman gave a slight bow, both in actuality and to Havens’ resolve. “With all due respect, sir, then I’ll make my way back to the Academy as I’m not involved and I have a busy day ahead. Perhaps I’ll come back when things are peaceful.”

  Havens vaguely nodded. “You’d best be on your way then.”

  Sherman ran outside and jumped on his horse, galloping off, not in retreat, but in search of reinforcements.