A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico

by Amy S. Greenberg

  Before hearing back from Taylor, Wool began his march south, while Taylor, who was directly disobeying orders from Polk to stay where he was, also began to move toward Parras. Hardin was thrilled to be on the move, but he complained to his wife about the “long tedious & tiresome march” and the weather along the way: “extremely hot in the middle of the day, the nights are quite cold.” They reached Parras on December 5. The Illinois volunteers had marched seven hundred miles since they first landed in Texas. They had yet to see action, and Hardin was shocked by the poverty and desolation of northern Mexico. “Occasionally a Hacienda is found in a day’s march, on a small stream but beyond all is ‘a vast howling wilderness’ yielding nothing for the support of man or beast,” he wrote his wife. “Not an acre in 100 is or ever can be worth a cent in all Mexico we have traversed.”33

  Sad to say, they seemed no closer to a fight in Parras than they had back in Texas. “We have supplies of wheat here for 4 months for 3000 men, & of corn for 2 months & of Brandy and rum for 10 years,” Hardin complained to David Smith, his fellow temperance advocate. The troops were getting restless, and to Hardin’s dismay, “our men use the liquor rather freely when they get a chance.”34 General Wool ordered Hardin to post a guard to prevent the “plundering” of Mexican civilians in the vicinity. Hardin took offense at the “imputation” that his men were stealing, or worse. Wool backed down: it wasn’t the Illinois volunteers he was worried about, “it was the Arkansas troops.” But the damage was done. Hardin threatened to march his men home—an idle threat. Wool said he would be happy to see Hardin leave, “but your men cannot, and shall not go.” If there was ever any question in their minds, the volunteers of the First Illinois now realized they were stuck in Mexico for the duration of their yearlong enlistment.35

  Henry Clay Jr. faced similar problems with his own troops camped nearby. According to one publicized report, the men of the entire Second Kentucky “were incompetent from inebriation,” although Clay assured his father that the reports were overstated and that, upon his “honor,” he himself was sober. “My own habits have not for years been so good as during this campaign,” he wrote his namesake, assuring him that he had “not for a single moment been incapacitated for my duties” by alcohol. But Colonel Clay admitted that the strain of keeping the Second Kentucky volunteers in line was “making me prematurely old. I long for a battle that it may have an end.”36

  As they sat in camp Hardin’s patience began to wear thin. He had not received a letter from his family since September. He wrote to Smith in early December, “I have seen a good deal of the world since I left home.… I want now to see a squirmish, a fight & a battle, & then will be ready to go home & attend to other business than arms, unless there is a call for troops at home.” His feelings were nearly universal among the soldiers gathered in northern Mexico under Wool’s command. Archibald Yell, a disciple of Andrew Jackson’s and close ally of Polk’s since the 1830s, gave up his congressional seat to lead the First Arkansas Volunteer Cavalry to Mexico in 1846, only to wait around in camp. He wrote Polk in early November that “I now dispare of being able to do my country much service or myself much credit—I wish to God I was with Kearny or Taylor but so it is my destiny is sealed, and without remedy, I never murmur, but posibly the time may come when I can expose the folly and imbecility of this collum.” Captain Robert E. Lee of the Army Corps of Engineers, just weeks shy of his fortieth birthday, also worried that his “ambition for battle would be permanently thwarted” by the bad luck of being assigned to Wool’s division.37

  Noting the great “dissatisfaction in his com[man]d,” Taylor admitted at Thanksgiving that “Genl Wools column had turned out an entire failure, which, I expected from the first would be the case.” Taylor had, in fact, predicted back in June that the vast number of volunteers being sent to northern Mexico “will from design or incompetency of others, have to return to their homes without accomplishing anything commensurate with their numbers … The question will be asked why did the troops lay idle, & why did they not march against the enemy no matter where he was, find, fight & beat him.”38

  Meanwhile, as Hardin’s frustration over “missing” the war grew, he began to question America’s future in the region. Back in October, when he first reached Mexico, he had seen potential for U.S. development. He had written in his diary that the silver mines near the town of Santa Rosa “are reported to be amongst the richest in Mexico.” They were abandoned because of the “ignorance of the Mexicans” but “would require only a little skill and energy to make very valuable.”39 Hardin could easily envision the mines, and territory, in the hands of the United States.

  But the longer he spent in Mexico, the less he liked it. He believed the land, for the most part, to be worthless. In early December he wrote David Smith that “there is not an acre in 500 that a man in Illinois would pay taxes on.” The people of Mexico were far worse. “I have never seen a drunken Mexican,” he admitted. “That is the only good thing I can say about them—they are a miserable race, with a few intelligent men who lord it over the rest ¾ of the people, or more are Paeons and as much slaves as the negroes of the South—Treachery, deceit & stealing are their particular characteristic—They would make a miserable addition to any portion of the population of the United States.” A week later he informed another friend that the only difference between the “paeons” of Mexico and “the slaves of the South is, their color, & that the bondage of the father does not descend to the son—as for making these Paeons voters & citizens of the United States, it should not be thought of until we are … to give all Indians a vote.” As for Mexico’s women, they “are not pretty enough to please a man who has not seen a white faced lady for 4 months—in fact, they are generally most decidedly homely.”40

  When Hardin had volunteered for Mexico he was infused with ideals of Manifest Destiny. But three months in the country had radically changed his views. “Although I was for annexing all of this part of Mexico to the United States before I came here,” he told a friend, “yet I now doubt whether it is worth it.… So much for Mexico. Its people are not better than the country—not more than 1 in 200 is worth making a citizen of.” John Hardin’s evolution from an avid expansionist to xenophobic cynic was a rapid one. Gone were his early professions of destiny and national greatness. Hardin’s single goal in December 1846 was to see action.41

  Hardin’s views were shared by many in the army. The Genius of Liberty, a newspaper published by and for U.S. troops in Veracruz, attributed the dramatic decline in volunteering to soldier disillusionment. “At the commencement of the war … many of us entertained extravagant notions of the country which we were about to invade.… We were to rove in the delicious gardens of the south, basking in the charms of some beautiful maiden as she wreathed the flowers, or offered the fruits of her native soil.… But a few days in Mexico soon dispelled the illusion.… The gardens turned out to be vast forests of palm, maguey and cactus.” Exposure to the land and people of northern Mexico led them to question the future of Manifest Destiny in the region, and with few opportunities to prove themselves in combat, many volunteers wondered exactly why they had signed up in the first place. “A right hard fight with the enemy, followed by a riddance of this pestilent country, would be hailed by the whole regiment as a consummation of too much happiness,” one Georgian volunteer wrote home. “I would willingly forego [sic] the possession of all the rich acres I have seen to get back from this land of half-bred Indians and full-bred bugs.”42

  Group of Mexicans with a soldier, 1847. This daguerreotype was most likely taken in Saltillo, Mexico, in the late winter or spring of 1847. The soldier has been identified as Abner Doubleday, the New Yorker who is often said to have created the modern game of baseball while a student in Cooperstown. A first lieutenant in the army, Doubleday was stationed in Saltillo with the First Regiment of Artillery from February 1847 to the end of the American occupation in May 1848. Doubleday spoke Spanish well and showed more sympathy for the peop
le of Mexico than most American soldiers. His irregular uniform reflects the widely varied costumes worn by volunteers. Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. (photo credit 7.3)

  But soldiers also regretted the deaths of Mexican civilians, the “friendly” inhabitants who “always treated us with kindness,” in the words of The Genius of Liberty. “It is painful for us to reflect upon the fact, that many of those who fell before our invincible soldiers … sacrifice[d] their lives in a warfare which is as inglorious as it is useless.” Of course America was turning away from the war. “A powerful nation may be compelled to prosecute a war with a weaker one, and destroy the innocent with the guilty in order to secure its own rights, but the more civilized its citizens will be, the more reluctantly will they engage with it,” the paper wrote in October. In December Taylor remarked that the volunteers “are beginning to look many of them to their homes with much anxiety, & will leave the moment if not before their time expires.”43 For most of the volunteers, the great adventure in Mexico had turned out to be anything but.

  Rumors of Santa Anna’s march increased in early January. Mexican civilians gleefully reported to the American troops that they should expect “mucho fandango pocotiempo” or “a big party coming up soon.” Taylor ordered Wool’s column of the army to a wide valley south of the town of Saltillo, at the base of a mountain pass known as Angostura, or the Narrows. A hacienda named Buena Vista was close by. At last a battle seemed imminent, but again, nothing happened.44

  Hardin wrote his daughter Ellen a long and lonely letter soon after arriving at Buena Vista. Ellen, now fourteen, was five years older than her brother Martin, and eight years older than the baby of the family, Lemuel. She was a studious girl whose love of both books and horses had been nurtured by her father. He had taught her to ride before Martin’s birth, placing her on a horse in a great pasture adjoining their home and issuing the warning, “Now my daughter, don’t let him throw you off.”45

  The two had been unusually close before he entered national politics. When she was young she “always followed him about, as a little child more frequently follows the mother. He never checked this following and I was in great happiness when sometimes he would take my hand as I trudged about, or would turn and tell me about some object, tree, pond, bird or other animal.” One of her most vivid childhood memories was standing perfectly still in the corner of the family’s sitting room, unseen by the adults, while her father had a bullet removed from his eye after a hunting accident. “I held my breath while the physicians were at work—I thought my father was so brave to utter no sound, that I must not cry, although I seemed to realize his suffering—for even then I had an unbounded devotion to him.”46

  The two remained close, or as close as they could be given her father’s repeated absences from Illinois. When they were together they took long rides on horseback. When he was in Congress he talked about bringing her out to Washington “for a few days,” so she could see the “splendid” Capitol and other sights. But it didn’t happen. Ellen was still devoted to her father, however, and although Hardin never put his family before what he saw as his “duty,” he was clearly fond of his daughter as well. “Very gladly would I exchange a few days or weeks of camp life to be by the sides of my sweet children and their mother,” he wrote her.47

  He had visited the elegant late eighteenth-century cathedral in Saltillo, famous for its carvings of Quetzalcóatl, the Aztec rain god, and columns of intricately carved gray stone. Like most other Protestants, he was distinctly unimpressed. The church was “gaudy” and full of “contemptable” wax figures. “Just think of the virgin Mary stuck up on the side of the wall over an altar in a glass case looking like the ‘Belle of Philadelphia’ or some other beauty and dressed in the finery of 15 years ago,” he wrote Ellen. “If I could only show you a mountain vista & a church you could see all of Mexico worth seeing & these are much better to look at than to be amongst.” He wistfully admitted to his daughter that Mexico had failed to live up to his imagination. “The rich, beautiful, lovely & Indian, this valley which I expected to find in Mexico & which I thought I might be tempted to live, has not yet been seen.”48

  At last he received news from his wife, who was, as he suspected, staying at her brother Abram Smith’s cotton plantation in Princeton, Mississippi. In a long letter, written just before Christmas, she revealed her concern for her husband. “I know you will never knowingly or wantonly commit an act that will make me blush for you or myself and to know that the Father of my children is a man of spoilless character and of unblemished morals is a comfort indeed, now that you are exposed to the demoralizing influence of a soldier’s life.” Sarah had heard the stories of the behavior of America’s soldiers, and while she trusted her husband, she was also frustrated at being left alone. She need not have worried. John didn’t touch liquor, and he appears to have avoided the fandangos that entranced his men.

  Sarah resented her husband’s absence, but she was also proud he was no tame, spiritless fellow. He had chosen to go to war. Her brother Abe was another story. He appeared to be “a perfect Patriarch,” she wrote John. Abe was master of a prosperous plantation and owned sixty-one slaves. He had a thriving law business, had served in the state legislature, and had earned a reputation as a Shakespearian scholar of some note. But he had not gone to Mexico. This gave Sarah license to belittle her brother. She confided to her husband that, appearances aside, Abe was “a complete henpecked husband.” Her evidence? “He would like to go to Mexico but his wife wont let him even though he wants to go.”49

  Did she wish her own husband were slightly less spirited, or somewhat more henpecked? Between his term in Congress and his service in Mexico, the couple had seen very little of each other over the past three years. The children missed their father, and the boys were running wild. Her brother’s plantation, she complained to John, was “decidedly the last place to raise children.” She felt free to mock Abe in a letter to her husband, but in a moment of anger she wrote her soldier husband, “life is too short to be wasted in the way you are living.”50

  John responded in an emotional letter the week before Valentine’s Day. Home seemed very far away to him as well. When he had first arrived in Texas, his mind was still in Illinois. He had been aware that it was election day, and he had mentally framed his duties as a soldier in the context of his previous work as a lawyer and politician.

  But in February 1847, that was no longer the case. “I have been so long freed from the noise & hustle of politics & law that I think of them as ‘things that were,’ ” he told his wife. “I feel no distinction to participate in them again—especially is this the case with Politics—Afar off in Mexico in a foreign land we cease to feel an interest in party struggles & only desire to see our Country triumphant & prosperous.” While Hardin’s dreams of Manifest Destiny had faded, he still craved a battle. “I will not conceal from you, what indeed you well know,” he admitted to Sarah. “I am anxious to see more of Mexico, and some real service. If I see that I have accomplished my goal, if not it will have been a year thrown away.”51

  What John did not tell Sarah was that only three days earlier he had written Stephen A. Douglas, now a U.S. senator, in the hopes of obtaining a transfer to General Scott’s army. Perhaps he was inspired by the good luck of Robert E. Lee, who learned on the eve of his fortieth birthday that he was being transferred to General Scott’s expedition. Both Hardin and Lee were convinced that glory awaited them in Veracruz.

  Hardin told Senator Douglas that if there was any opportunity for him to join the departing soldiers and march to the heart of Mexico, he would grab it. Otherwise he was sure he “would get no battle” and had no wish to continue with his regiment after his term of enlistment ended.52 Rumors of a great Mexican army on the march were, by early February, “so frequent and so groundless” that “we now disregard them,” Hardin admitted.53

  A week later rumors were arriving “every few hours” that Santa An
na was “about to be on us with 20,000 men.” But Hardin didn’t believe “one word of the whole story.” His “dull and stagnant” life in camp was only alleviated by the arrival of “many old acquaintances” in Henry Clay Jr.’s Second Kentucky Regiment. Socializing with Clay and the other Kentucky officers provided some distraction, but not enough.54

  Hardin had one other matter to write home about: a shocking massacre. At the close of 1846, a sergeant in the Arkansas regiment of volunteers stationed with Taylor’s troops admitted in his diary that “a portion of our Regiment are assuming to act as Guerrillas, and have been killing, I fear innocent, Mexicans as they meet them.” Not long afterward, Mexicans killed an Arkansas volunteer in retribution for a Christmas Day raid on a local ranch at Agua Nueva where Arkansas volunteers robbed and raped the inhabitants.55

  On February 13, the Arkansas cavalry took revenge. They rounded up civilians and commenced “an indiscriminate and bloody massacre” of twenty-five or thirty Mexican men in the presence of their wives and children, utilizing tactics learned in Indian wars. An Illinois volunteer named Samuel Chamberlain heard gunshots and rushed to the scene. He later described the shocking sight: “The cave was full of volunteers, yelling like fiends, while on the rocky floor lay over twenty Mexicans, dead and dying in pools of blood, while women and children were clinging to the knees of the murderers and shrieking for mercy … nearly thirty Mexicans lay butcherd on the floor, most of them scalped. Pools of blood filled the crevices and congealed in clots.”56

  Archibald Yell, Polk’s friend and commander of the Arkansas “Rackensackers,” as they were now known, refused to discipline the guilty troops; Taylor was ready to send the whole crew home, except that he desperately needed troops. He, unlike Hardin, knew there was a greater battle than this in store for the men of the Army of Chihuahua.