Two days later, the column was again ambushed before reaching the relative safety of Jalapa on June 15. A week earlier, the Jalapa garrison had received orders from General Scott to evacuate the town and proceed to Puebla. This resulted from Scott’s manpower dilemma and his decision to consolidate all available troops for the push to Mexico City. When he realized that the promised 20,000-man army would not materialize, he took the fearless step of drawing in most of his garrisons, thus cutting himself off from the coast. It was indeed a bold decision made by an audacious and confident commander, but one that raised eyebrows back home. When President Polk heard about it, he declared, “I cannot approve” of such a “hazardous” decision, and later he suggested that Scott had “acted very unwisely.” Major Patrick Galt of the Second Artillery thought the perilous move put Scott in “a most delicate position,” and considering the way the president felt about the general, the “poor fellow [is] between the devil and the deep sea.”6
Cutting his line of communication, however, probably was not as risky as some people have portrayed it. Most observers understood that Scott’s decision constituted a violation of one of Jomini’s maxims regarding the necessity of maintaining at all times a secure line of communications back to the army’s base. When the Duke of Wellington, victor at Waterloo, heard the news, he supposedly proclaimed, “Scott is lost. He has been carried away by successes. He can’t take the city, and he can’t fall back upon his base.”7 However, keeping garrisons in Perote and Jalapa—towns that already had demonstrated an unwillingness to rebel against the American occupation—had not rendered the road to Veracruz safe from guerrillas. Even with those posts occupied, American troops had been forced to travel in strength to discourage or defeat guerrilla attacks. What would he lose by abandoning the towns? Besides, he knew that they could be reoccupied at a time of his choosing. In the face of the enemy’s guerrilla efforts, Scott did just the opposite of what might be expected. Rather than strengthen outposts and guard his supply lines, he simply eliminated them as potential targets for partisan bands, and in so doing, added strength to his limited numbers. Taking into account that his pacification program had allowed him to consistently purchase supplies in country, he chose to simply continue that practice. Adequate ammunition might become a concern, but food would not. Ultimately, in a game of numbers, Scott realized that he stood to gain more by consolidating his forces than by keeping them dispersed.
So when Cadwalader continued his march on June 18, he took the Jalapa garrison with him, bringing his total to about two thousand men. The next leg of the journey was perhaps the most treacherous because it took the troops through La Hoya, with its notorious Black Pass. The town had a reputation for cooperating with guerrilla bands. One volunteer described it as “a most villainous hole” and “a perfect settlement of ladrones” (thieves). Located about a dozen miles west of Jalapa and close to Las Vigas, where Father Caledonio Domeco Jarauta commanded seven hundred irregular Mexican guerrillas, the Americans knew to expect trouble there, and Jarauta was waiting for the five-mile-long column when it approached. However, Colonel Francis M. Wyncoop, the garrison commander at Perote, which was twenty miles farther west, heard rumors of an ambush and responded by marching to the Black Pass with four companies of infantry and Captain Samuel Walker’s company of Mounted Rifles to disrupt Jarauta’s plan. On the evening of June 19, Wyncoop attacked the guerrilla position in the pass from the west. After an inconclusive skirmish against overwhelming numbers, Wyncoop inexplicably ordered his men back to Perote with Cadwalader’s column on the other side of the pass, just a few miles away.
Walker, however, refused to obey the order. As a Texas Ranger, Walker was a fearless leader, and as a member of the 1842 Mier Expedition (an invasion of Texans into northern Mexico) who had spent time in a Mexican prison, he had a thirst for revenge. Next morning, about fifty of Walker’s Mounted Rifles attacked Jarauta’s irregulars again, and for close to an hour, the opposing forces were locked in a sharp battle. Then a forewarned Cadwalader entered the pass and attacked from the east, causing Jarauta’s guerrillas to break and run. Walker had a horse shot from under him and he lost one man while the guerrillas suffered significantly higher losses. The American losses were minimal in terms of personnel, but they lost several more supply wagons and many of their pack mules. The confrontation at La Hoya was, at times, hand to hand, and the young Lieutenant Thomas Jackson, traveling with Cadwalader’s column, came away with a Mexican sword as a prize for his role in the fighting.8
After routing the guerrillas, Walker and his men went on a rampage. In the words of one volunteer, Walker’s “inveterate hatred against the Mexicans” caused him to wage war “according to his own peculiar feelings.” Wheeling their mounts around, they galloped into nearby Las Vigas and burned every building in the town as punishment for providing safe haven for guerrillas. The log houses of Las Vigas gave the town a notably different look from the typical adobe huts; they were also easier to burn. Cadwalader’s men followed close behind and found many of the houses still in flames as they marched through. Sergeant Thomas Barclay, a Pennsylvania volunteer, feared the repercussions of such destruction. If the Mexican “people are once aroused either by an attack upon their religion or property, a resistance will be made similar to the Spanish campaigns of 1813 & ’14.”9 And if such were to happen, no number of American troops could prevail. Of course, Barclay’s perceptive analysis painted precisely the picture that Scott had hoped to avoid, but he was willing to overlook such wanton destruction when it was directed against those who harbored and facilitated unconventional war. It was a lesson in the hard hand of war.
On the same day that Cadwalader marched out of Jalapa, Gideon Pillow left Veracruz to join him with two thousand men. Pillow had returned to his Columbia, Tennessee, home after his Cerro Gordo wound. While there, he fended off charges of incompetence made by subordinate officers in the disbanded Second Tennessee Regiment before President Polk promoted him to major general. Now a division commander, Pillow had been in Veracruz preparing troops for the inland march before departing from the coast on June 18. When he arrived at Jalapa ten days later, he was surprised to find the town abandoned by the army, and he sent a letter to Polk censoring Scott’s decision to vacate the post and asking the president to hurry more men to Mexico so that the army’s communication line could be restored. From Jalapa Pillow also sent orders ahead to Cadwalader, instructing him to wait at Perote until his arrival so they could finish the march to Puebla united and with overwhelming strength.10
Pillow arrived in Perote a few days behind Cadwalader, and within two days, he had incorporated the latter’s troops along with the local garrison and set out for Puebla. The march was “long and tedious,” and guerrillas continued to swarm around the long column. Attacks occurred almost daily, one coming at 2:00 A.M. on July 6 while the column was still thirty miles from their destination. It was an insignificant skirmish instigated by fifty irregular Mexican cavalry, but on receiving news of the attack, Scott dispatched Colonel Harney with cavalry and infantry to escort the column the rest of the way in. On the afternoon of July 8, Pillow’s dirty and weary troops reached Puebla with a strength of over four thousand and with over four hundred wagons laden with badly needed supplies.11
Pillow’s arrival with provisions, money, and especially reinforcements came as a relief to Scott and the rest of the army. However, by the time he got to Puebla, Nicholas Trist had opened a diplomatic channel that he hoped would render further military operations unnecessary, for his efforts to use the British as intermediaries had borne fruit. Two weeks after Edward Thornton’s initial visit to Puebla, wherein he had agreed to deliver correspondence from Trist to Mexican authorities, he returned with a reply. In his visit to Trist, he took with him two other Englishmen, one named Turnbull, a merchant living in Puebla, and Ewen Macintosh of the Manning and Macintosh banking firm and also the British consul general in Mexico. Macintosh’s firm had investments in the country and had helped refinan
ce Mexico’s debt in 1845, giving him a vested interest in the return of peace. The three delivered Foreign Minister Domingo Ibarra’s response, which indicated a willingness on the part of Santa Anna to propose negotiations based on Polk’s territorial demands. They also told Trist that the Mexican congress had been called together to consider the proposal. The prospects looked promising, but, of course, the financial incentives—bribery—that Thornton and Trist had discussed earlier was an understood prerequisite for a peace treaty.12
This development created an opportunity for Scott and Trist to break the ice of their frigid relationship, and as author Wallace Ohrt put it, the two “gentlemen began to feel foolish and then to behave like grown men.” In the last week of June, Trist notified Scott of this potential avenue of communication with the Mexicans, and the general responded courteously. Soon after, Trist fell ill and was confined to bed for two weeks with his host, General Persifor Smith, acting as nursemaid. It was on July 6, during his convalescence, that Scott penned the following note to Smith: “Looking over my stores, I find a box of Guava marmalade which, perhaps, the physician may not consider improper to make part of the diet of your sick companion.” This simple gesture transformed their mutual contempt into a warm working relationship, and the thaw occurred just as Pillow arrived.13
From Scott’s perspective, the potential for peace talks could not have come at a better time. Knowing that his numbers and resources were limited, he welcomed a possible end to the fighting, and he knew that the resumption of active military operations would hamper the political process in Mexico City. Indeed, Santa Anna intimated that an American advance on the capital would diminish the influence of peace advocates in the Mexican congress. Scott liked the possibility of ending the war without further bloodshed, but he also understood the controversy associated with paying a bribe to achieve peace. Just five months earlier on the floor of the House, Congressman Henry J. Seaman of New York had expressed a view that many held regarding the question of bribery. During a debate on an appropriations bill, Seaman wondered if some of the money requested by the administration was to be used “to bribe the Mexican General, and make him a traitor to his country.” If it were true, the congressman thought it to be “as wicked as it is ridiculous.” Further, he suggested that such would dishonor the country, and Scott certainly understood the disdain with which members of the administration would view a bribery attempt.14 However, he obviously concluded that if there was any dishonor associated with bribery, surely it would attach to those soliciting and accepting it.
During the second week of July, the major players in the so-called bribery scheme danced around the issue in an effort to discover who favored it and who opposed it. Polk had instructed Trist to freely consult with his friend and informant Pillow, which he did. The diplomat explained the situation to the new major general and asked his opinion, and, according to Scott’s aide, Ethan A. Hitchcock, Pillow “sanctioned” the action. Trist then consulted the commanding general, who actually had the funds on hand to initiate the process. At some point, the two decided to make an initial payment of $10,000 from Scott’s contingency funds to get negotiations underway with the promise of $1 million for the conclusion of a treaty. However, Scott was not willing to go forward without consulting his top-ranking officers. He probably already knew what he wanted to do, but he needed to feel out Pillow, who was known to be Polk’s surrogate in Mexico.15
On July 17, Scott called together Generals Cadwalader, Pillow, Quitman, Shields, and Twiggs “to post them up,” as Scott called it, regarding army matters. First he told them that General Franklin Pierce would soon arrive with additional reinforcements, and he asked their opinion as to whether they should wait or go ahead and push on to Mexico City. The council advised waiting. Then Scott got to the business at hand. He explained the bribery offer and the money Trist needed to go forward with the plan. He further said that he did not like the notion of tempting the “fidelity or patriotism” of the Mexicans, but that he saw nothing wrong with taking advantage of the situation if Mexican officials were willing to be bribed. Then he asked his subordinates for their opinions. Pillow was the first to speak “fully and eloquently” in favor of the plan, and he even bragged about his role in helping Trist decide to pursue this course. Quitman, who regularly played chess with Scott and had grown close to the commanding general since the army arrived in Puebla, was careful not to offend. He had reservations about using such a shady measure to try to purchase a peace, and he feared the public outcry that would result from its disclosure. Shields, a former Illinois supreme court justice, also offered mild opposition to the plan, and Cadwalader, when asked to weigh in, refused comment and simply shook his head. Davy Twiggs, who easily could have assumed Zachary Taylor’s nickname “Old Rough and Ready” and who possessed a healthy dislike for Mexicans, thought the plan was more political than military, but he endorsed it nevertheless.16
The plan ultimately accomplished nothing and probably caused more controversy than it deserved. Scott proceeded with the initial payment of $10,000, which many assumed went into Santa Anna’s pocket. Historian Justin Smith, however, asserted that the recipient was Miguel Arroyo, who later served on the Mexican peace commission. After sending the money, Scott received word from Santa Anna that he had been unable to get the legislature to agree to open negotiations, but the exceedingly manipulative generalissimo suggested that perhaps another opportunity would arise as the Americans approached the outskirts of Mexico City. Thus ended an unsuccessful attempt to use money as a lubricant to engineer a peace treaty. The one positive thing to come out of the effort was that it brought Scott and Trist together into a close working relationship.17
William Worth’s absence from the generals’ council indicated how far he had fallen out of favor. He criticized Scott for the long delay at Puebla while the Mexicans strengthened the capital’s defenses. “We gain victories and halt until all the moral advantages are lost,” he complained. Others protested as well, arguing that the bribery intrigue was nothing but a ploy by Santa Anna to delay the American advance while he prepared to defend the city. It did not, however, delay Scott’s army a single day. It was not that Scott decided to wait in Puebla to see if the bribery plan would work; it was rather that, because the army was stuck in Puebla awaiting reinforcements, he decided to pursue this avenue.18 And it was consistent with his desire to win a peace through negotiations.
As July turned to August, the army continued to wait for General Pierce, who marched out of Veracruz on July 15 with 2,500 men. While the New Hampshire native and future president was en route, another one of New Hampshire’s sons made an unexpected visit in Puebla, and his role in the final weeks of the campaign, although significant, has been all but forgotten. In early August, this unexpected rider came into Puebla from Mexico City bearing dispatches from the British minister, Charles Bankhead. The nature of the documents is unknown—they may have related to the bribery project—but the importance of the event was the messenger, not the message. It was Noah E. Smith who arrived at Scott’s headquarters in the middle of the night, and after some cajoling, he convinced the guards to awaken the general. The two men had a long conversation in which Smith shared with Scott all that he knew about the capital, and Scott discovered that he possessed such a wealth of information about Mexico, the terrain, influential citizens, and such that he bade Smith to remain with the army.19
A native of New Hampshire, where his father had served in the state legislature, Smith had moved to Mexico in the early 1830s to work for a stagecoach company that ran a line from Mexico City to Veracruz. Later he started his own business in the capital, buying and selling Mexican horses and importing larger, more expensive horses from the United States. His business became lucrative, and through it, he gained access to many of the capital’s financial and political elites. By the time the war started, he was wealthy and well known, but because he was an American, local officials viewed him with increasing suspicion. In the summer of 1847, with th
e U.S. Army eighty miles away in Puebla, the authorities ordered all Americans out of the capital. Fearing for his life, Smith adopted a disguise, paid a last visit to his friend Minister Bankhead, hired a guerrilla band as an escort, and, leaving his family behind, slipped out of the capital. Several days later, he arrived at Scott’s headquarters, where the commanding general quickly recognized his value to the army, not the least of which was his knowledge of the roads, garnered from his stagecoach experience. He agreed to guide the army back to Mexico City and thus became a de facto member of Scott’s staff.20
As they waited to start the last leg of the journey, the troops wondered whether there would be another fight. Opinions varied, just as they had after the fall of Veracruz and the victory at Cerro Gordo. Some “predict that not a shot will be fired,” while others believed that heavy fighting lay ahead. “If we do fight,” wrote Lieutenant Ralph Kirkham, “many an honest and brave heart that now beats will beat no more.” Despite a shortage of artillery ammunition, the men were generally sanguine about their ability to triumph. In Washington, President Polk was also optimistic. He had some weeks earlier expressed the opinion that the brave American soldiers would win battles even “if there was not an officer among them.” But the men did not always share the same optimistic feelings for Polk as he felt for them. Hiram Yeager asserted that “there is a general Condemnation of Polk . . . in the army.” He was particularly frustrated because “our government is not furnishing men to carry on this war. . . . We want men and money if we have not those two principle thing[s] we might just as well be called home. There is a great fault somewhere and where it is, is more than the poor soldier can tell.”21
A Gallant Little Army Page 21