A Gallant Little Army

by Timothy D Johnson

  The guerrilla war never accomplished what some Mexicans hoped it would, in part because it never attracted the support of enough of the citizenry to deny the American army the sustenance it needed in a foreign land. The primary reason for the ineffectiveness of these guerrilla bands was that they lacked coordination. The local leaders tended to act out of local or regional interests, and ultimately they possessed only enough strength to harass. Also, the partisans were often viewed as mere robbers who did not differentiate between Mexicans and Americans, and therefore they could not garner universal support from their countrymen. As late as February 1848, one U.S. soldier reported that the extant guerrilla bands “are roaming about robbing and plundering whoever they meet, making no distinction between their own countrymen or the Americans.” Indeed, during the occupation, some of the American soldiers viewed the protection of Mexican lives and property as one of their major roles. In November, six weeks after the fall of Mexico City, a large number of Mexicans wishing to travel to Veracruz requested that they be allowed to avail themselves of the protection of U.S. troops by traveling with a train that was scheduled to leave for the coast. Daniel Harvey Hill thought that “such a sight was never witnessed before, of a people voluntarily placing themselves under the protection of their enemies, so as to be saved from being pillaged by their own troops.” He noted that while the guerrillas “have done us but little injury,” they have nevertheless been “a terrible scourge to the Mexicans, robbing, pillaging and committing disorders of every kind.” In the same month, another soldier who was part of the counterguerrilla force stationed at the National Bridge, wrote, “I could not avoid thinking, how unhappy must be conditions of a country, where a foreign force was demanded to protect citizens against each other.”22

  With the roads open and the administration in Washington working hard to get more troops into the theater of operations, reinforcements arrived in Mexico monthly. In December, General Robert Patterson and a body of troops reached Mexico City, and traveling with his column was the Frenchman M. Le Marquis de Radepont. He arrived with a letter of introduction from the secretary of war and a note from the French minister to the United States attesting to Radepont’s character and explaining that he was from the French army come to observe the American army and to “safeguard the rights of French citizens” in Mexico. Scott granted the necessary permission, but Radepont’s mission was not as benign as he led the Americans to believe. One of his primary concerns in Mexico was to advance French interests (and block U.S. intentions) in the construction of a railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. He was alarmed at U.S. expansion and believed that the Americans were a menace. He wanted France in particular and Europe in general to wake up to American designs and stop its expansion before it controlled the entire Caribbean. Radepont remained in Mexico after the American army departed and spent the next few years cultivating friends among Mexican political and financial elites. His goal was to recreate Mexico in a way that made it appear that the Mexican people were choosing monarchy over democracy, and to that end, he helped plan and orchestrate the French intervention in Mexico in 1862, wherein the French emperor Napoleon III tried to install Maximilian as the ruling monarch of Mexico.23

  Radepont’s deceptive intentions were not as apparent in 1847 as were the immediate concerns of the occupation. Mexico remained a dangerous place for American soldiers. In the capital, the usual precautions were in place—a portion of each regiment under arms and on guard at all times, no soldier permitted to walk the streets alone and unarmed—but as time passed, discipline became lax, and soldiers increasingly disobeyed orders. Even after Scott issued a warning of a potential plot by the clerics to instigate an uprising in the city in late September, some men did not take even the most logical precautions. As a result, murders of lone American soldiers was a nightly occurrence. Newcomers to the country like A. P. Hill and Henry Heth quickly formed a negative impression of Mexicans. Heth assumed that Mexicans wore blankets wrapped around them so as to conceal what they had stolen: “Mexico,” he wrote, “is a nation of blanketed thieves.” Hill referred to them as “thieves and murderers” who are “constantly annoying us by assassinations.” Even armed soldiers on sentry duty were not immune from attack. One day a Mexican tried to lasso a guard and drag him away. He succeeded in getting the rope around him, but before he could gallop away, the lassoed American somehow managed to shoot the Mexican dead.24

  Liquor, or the search for it, often led to careless or dangerous behavior. One or two soldiers isolated in a bar or brothel often created a tempting opportunity that Mexican ruffians could not resist. Lieutenant D. H. Hill lamented that there were “miserable creatures” in the army who “would rush into Hell itself for a bottle of liquor.” Israel Uncapher recorded in his diary that there was plenty of liquor on hand and that drinking put the men in a “comfortable” state and made for “a fine jollification.” Lieutenant John S. Devlin of the marines was court-martialed for repeated drunkenness in and around Mexico City in late September. Captain John Lowe confessed to his wife that he drank one or two glasses of beer a day, but for medicinal purposes only. He hoped that his wife would understand that he was only human. He went on to tell her that he had visited with an old acquaintance from Ohio, Ulysses Grant, who, he reported, had changed in some respects. Before cautioning his wife not to spread the word back home, he explained that Grant had grown a long beard, put on weight, and drank to excess. Although the frequency of Americans found in a state of intoxication surprised some Mexican officials, the condition and its accompanying rowdiness were attributable to a relatively small number of soldiers. And when such actions led to lawlessness, stiff punishment and even executions resulted.25

  Lieutenant John Sedgwick noted a difference in the drinking habits of Mexicans and Americans, and he even interpreted the rowdiness of drunken Americans as an indication of a sort of virtue. Such drunken behavior, according to Sedgwick’s logic, indicates a special energy and intellect, and in a letter to his sister, he revealed not only stereotypical racial views but anti-Semitism as well. He thought Mexicans were generally more temperate, and when drunk, “you will see them slip off without noise, while if one of our soldiers gets drunk it takes half a dozen sober ones to get him home. It requires something to rouse a man’s faculties and his energy,” he wrote. “We are the greatest go-ahead people in the world, and we beat the Jews in getting drunk.”26

  If drinking was the leading preoccupation among the troops, romance ran a close second. Soon after the capital’s occupation, it became common to see Mexican women on the arms of American soldiers, a fact that the young men of the city resented. Captain Joseph Hooker possessed the kind of manners and personality that made him popular with the ladies and won him the nickname “El Capitan Hermoso,” the beautiful captain. Robert Anderson thought that young women from wealthy families were particularly flirtatious, “ogling their lovers and brandishing their charms. These young ladies are pretty, very pretty with languishing black eyes.” Lieutenant Ambrose Burnside developed a relationship with a girl named Annita from Tacubaya. “I made love to Annita, went to see her several times,” he told his friend Lieutenant Henry Heth. When she saw Burnside kissing another girl, Annita attacked her and “pulled out enough hair from that girl’s head to have stuffed a pillow.” Next she pulled a knife on Burnside, but he ran to safety. Be careful “about having anything to do with these Mexican girls,” Burnside warned Heth; “they are she-devils, the most jealous beings on earth.”27

  Perhaps the most accomplished seducer among the young West Point graduates was the tall and handsome Winfield Scott Hancock, “a magnificent specimen of youthful beauty,” according to Heth. Hancock’s biographer wrote that his reputation as a ladies’ man was well deserved. Heth and Hancock, along with Lew Armistead, were fast friends, and in Mexico City, Heth learned to stick close to Hancock. The women were interested in Hancock, and he often received invitations to social events, and, to Heth’s delight, so too did associates who
were close at hand when the invitations were extended. At one such event, Hancock met Isabella Garcia, a beautiful and wealthy girl who possessed the added benefit of being fluent in English. According to the lieutenant who shared his experience with Heth, he charmed her by taking her hand and squeezing it gently while asking if he could be her sweetheart. “I kissed her and told her that I had never loved before.” To which Heth responded, “How could you have told such a story? I know you have said the same thing to half a dozen girls in the city of Mexico and God knows how many in the States.” Hancock defended himself by reminding Heth that “all is fair in love and war.”28

  While many of the young lower-grade officers sought the attention of the ladies, others of all ranks courted the favor of the public back home. The most unflattering aspect of the officer corps in the weeks after the capture of the capital was the contention that arose over competition for credit. Many of the officers wanted to share in the recognition, deserved or not, for the victorious conclusion of the campaign. Immediately after the capture of the capital, Scott did not reprimand Quitman for his insubordination—it would have seemed foolish in the face of such a success. He did, however, suspect that Quitman would try to claim undue credit, and he immediately acted to undermine such an effort in the first letter that he wrote to the War Department after settling into the city. He assured the secretary that Mexico City “was not taken by any one or two corps, but by the talent, the science, the gallantry, the prowess of this entire army. In the glorious conquest, all had contributed.” Quitman, however, thought that he should have received more credit for “pressing on this bold and vigorous attack upon the city of Mexico,” and that the fight at the Belén garita should be considered a separate battle rather than simply a continuation of the Chapultepec fight. His interpretation of events would make him not just a prominent participant in one aspect of a big battle, but the leading figure in a separate engagement.29

  Others were displeased about the amount of praise they received in Scott’s battle report. Pierre G. T. Beauregard rightfully felt slighted. After repeatedly conducting extensive and dangerous reconnaissance along the southern approaches to the capital and almost single-handedly swaying the weight of support away from a southern attack to a western attack at the September 11 war council, the lieutenant received only passing mention in the commanding general’s report. He was disappointed and came to blame Scott for the unfair oversight. Meanwhile, some of the Pennsylvania volunteers were upset because despite leading the way up the hill during the Chapultepec charge, the New York and South Carolina units received more accolades in the after-action reports. Lieutenant James Coulter attributed the slight to guilt by association stemming from what he believed to be cowardice displayed by the regiment’s lieutenant colonel, John W. Geary.30

  Another complaint regarding the volunteers was not by them but about them. It had been a source of discontent throughout the campaign and resurfaced during the occupation. Regulars contended that the volunteers received too much, and often unwarranted, credit after the battles. After reading the commanding general’s report of engagements around the capital, D. H. Hill asserted that the regulars “have been very much mortified at it.” He believed Scott, hoping to win favor with the public back home, “lavished praise most profusely on raw levies and Volunteers who he knew did not merit it.” Theodore Laidley complained in a letter home about the bogus praise that the press bestowed on the volunteers. “The newspapers create phoney heroes by crediting volunteers for things they did not do, and thus no wonder the people back home think so highly of them.” But, Laidley continued, the public never hears the rest of the story, “How they rob houses, steal, sack churches, ruin families, plunder and pillage. . . . The outrages they have committed, here, will never be known by people of the U.S.” Robert E. Lee thought that within the army in general, it had been “so much more easy to make heroes on paper than in the field.” He maintained that for each true hero one meets, there are twenty paper heroes. These “fine fellows are too precious of persons so dear to their countrymen to expose them to the view of the enemy, but when the battle is won, they accomplish with the tongue all that they would have done with the sword, had it not been dangerous so to do.” Hill had penned in his diary much earlier that he wished the army could be “rid of these paper heroes.”31

  The most unseemly episode during the occupation phase resulted from several issues that coalesced in the fall of 1847, beginning as a rumbling disagreement and culminating in an eruption of venom and hostility that became the preoccupation of the entire army. What started as a silly effort by Gideon Pillow to claim undue credit for the victories around Mexico City mushroomed into a vitriolic battle over much more than that and involved several of the army’s top officers and the president. This imbroglio ultimately pitted Scott against Pillow, Worth, Polk, and artillery officer James Duncan, and while much of the army’s rank and file sided with the commanding general, they all recognized that he sank to an unbecoming level of pettiness while confronting his opponents. Finally, the embarrassing and highly publicized series of events beginning in October led to a controversial climax when President Polk dismissed Scott from command of the army.

  It started when Scott took issue with some of the statements in Pillow’s official reports of the engagements around the Pedregal on August 19 and 20 and at Chapultepec on September 13. On October 2, Scott communicated to Pillow some tactfully worded suggestions that he correct the following inaccuracies in his reports before the documents were forwarded to the War Department. First, in his account of the fighting around Padierna, Pillow claimed that before Scott even arrived on the battlefield, he had issued orders to subordinates regarding the movement of their troops. Scott reminded Pillow that he had actually only forwarded the order at Scott’s behest. In his report of the Battle of Chapultepec, Pillow wrote that at the outset of the battle, “I ordered all the batteries silenced and the command to advance,” and later “Having carried Chapultepec, and being unable to proceed with my command, I ordered it forward under Generals Quitman and Worth.” In both instances, Pillow referred to orders actually given by Scott, and furthermore the commanding general reminded Pillow that after receiving his wound, he actually relinquished command of his division. Pillow wrote his accounts in a fashion that left the impression that he was the one in charge of events and responsible for issuing the orders to the various elements of the army. These were irritants, but there was one other statement that troubled Scott. In his report of the earlier engagement, Pillow had commended the commanding general for his role in the battle. Scott thanked Pillow for the “handsome” compliment but thought it entirely inappropriate for a subordinate officer to write such a commendation about a senior officer. “If the right of a junior to praise be admitted, it would carry with it the correlative right of the junior to censure the senior.” Scott concluded that because such praise “appears in an official paper,” it is “impossible for the senior to forward it.”32 Pillow’s effort to bestow praise on Scott, no doubt given with the best of motives, was more that a breach of military etiquette; it revealed a condescending attitude.

  In his brief response, Pillow showered Scott with praise and gratitude and tried to assure him of his pure motives. It too was a tactfully written letter, but what seemed to bother him most was the last sentence of Scott’s letter wherein the commanding general had asserted, “There are other inaccuracies . . . which have, or may be, silently corrected” in the final report sent to Washington. Pillow was clearly troubled by the suggestion that his account might be altered. He indicated a willingness to correct inaccuracies, although he admitted to none and twice referred to the portions of his reports that were “deemed” incorrect. He then requested an opportunity to talk about the discrepancies, and because his wound prevented him from visiting Scott, he asked that Scott visit him.33 It was another act of condescension, even if unintended, and thereafter their syrupy, mutually complimentary correspondence changed tone to a more direct and i
mpatient style.

  Scott was too busy with army matters to visit Pillow, so he wrote another letter, this one brief, in which he elaborated on the “other inaccuracies” that Pillow had asked about. Essentially there were two: Pillow inappropriately asserted that in attacking the Mexican rear at Padierna at dawn on August 20, General Smith and Colonel Riley were executing the exact plan that Pillow had outlined for them and that Pillow inaccurately claimed credit for proposing his late morning march around the Pedregal to attack San Antonio in rear. “That part of your report . . . is unjust to me, and seems, without intending it, I am sure, to make you control the operations of the whole army, including my own views and acts.” Pillow corrected all of the discrepancies except the one regarding Smith and Riley and so informed Scott on October 3. He continued to insist that the flank attack at Padierna was of his design and a result of his orders, and he politely but firmly requested that his account be retained as the official version. In all other areas, he wrote, “I have altered my report. . . . In deference to your understanding of the facts.” Thus in his wording Pillow made it clear that he disagreed with Scott but would subordinate his reports to Scott’s wishes. An irritated Scott briefly responded the next day that the “discrepancies between your memory and mine, respecting those operations, are so many and so material, that I regret that you have made any alteration in either report at my suggestion.” In other words, Scott wished that he had left the issue alone and simply allowed time to sort out the truth. He then suggested that their correspondence on the matter end.34