The question of discrepancies evidently did not retard Pillow’s determination to portray himself in a flattering light. Later that month, he informed his wife that she was married to the “Hero of Chapultepec,” a title “I have won . . . by the glorious charge upon that powerful fortification. It was daring & glorious . . . unequalled in the history of the American arms.” Also, when Pillow learned that the Englishman James Walker, who was attached to Worth’s division as an interpreter, was painting a scene of the Battle of Chapultepec that featured Quitman’s attack, he offered the artist $100 to change the picture so that it highlighted his division instead. When that failed, he commissioned Walker to paint a second picture portraying the battle as he wanted. As one officer suggested, some men are born to fame, some have it foisted upon them, but others are intent on acquiring it by whatever means possible.35
Concurrent with this issue was another one associated with Pillow. It stemmed from the actions of two of his staff officers who, after the fall of the Chapultepec castle, had placed two captured howitzers in Pillow’s personal baggage wagon, presumably as souvenirs. Pillow claimed to have had no knowledge of their actions at the time and stated that when he found out about it, he ordered the officers to remove the guns from his wagon and return them. They failed to do so, and Pillow forgot about the incident for three weeks. When, on October 9, Scott discovered the chain of events, he blamed Pillow for the missing guns. Pillow may well have been innocent, but most people thought that a guilty Pillow, once caught, had tried to shift the blame to his two young staff officers. By this time, his relationship with Scott was badly strained and his reputation within the army, never good, was irretrievably stained. So Pillow asked for a court of inquiry to clear his name. The court met in the last week of October with Worth presiding, and on November 2, it exonerated Pillow from blame in taking the howitzers but found that, in fact, his subordinates did inform him that they had not removed them from the wagon as ordered. Before his inquiry had concluded, Pillow wrote an angry letter to President Polk to inform him of the bribery scheme that Scott and Trist had contemplated while in Puebla. He wrote other letters to Polk and also directly to Secretary Marcy criticizing his commanding general.36
Meanwhile, Pillow’s battle reports were not the only manifestations of self-adoration that the general produced, nor were they the most fantastic products of his inflated imagination. Unknown to Scott in early October, Pillow had already written or at least assisted in the writing of a lengthy and lofty account of the action at Padierna and Churubusco, which was published in newspapers back home in the form of a letter signed by “Leonidas.” New Orleans newspapers first published the Leonidas letter on September 10 and 17; then it made its way to Mexico City, where the English-language newspaper, the American Star, reprinted it. These articles, like his reports, had Pillow in charge of the army and overseeing its movements, issuing orders and later simply informing the commanding general, who, in this version, was not present. Indeed, according to Leonidas, “Gen. Pillow was in command of all the forces engaged, except Gen. Worth’s division.” The letter paints a picture of “gloom” during the third week of August as the army moved around the south of Lake Chalco, and in this desperate situation, Scott called on Pillow to rescue the army from its predicament. This he did with his brilliant battle at Padierna. Leonidas compared Pillow to Napoleon and asserted that Pillow’s “plan of battle, and the disposition of his forces, were most judicious and successful. He evinced on this, as he has done on other occasions, that masterly military genius and profound knowledge of the science of war, which has astonished so much the mere martinets of the profession.” Later, Leonidas summarized, “The victory was most brilliant and complete. Nothing could have been better planned than this battle.”37
Despite the pseudonym, most of the army’s rank and file immediately assumed that Pillow and Leonidas were one and the same. If Pillow was not the actual author, most believed that he had supplied the words for the one who was. The letter created quite a stir among the officers, many of whom wondered how he could have so skillfully orchestrated the decisive flank attack at Padierna while he slept comfortably at San Agustin four miles away, and by some accounts did not arrive on the battlefield the next morning until it was over. Moreover, a few officers claimed to have heard Pillow exclaim that he wanted to have nothing to do with the battle and had “washed his hands of the whole business.” Lieutenant A. P. Hill wrote, “I saw that some fool, supposed to be the gentleman himself, endeavoured to give Pillow the credit and glory of the whole affair.” Leonidas not only gave credit where it was not due, but he did so in a way that many found comical.38 This helps to explain Pillow’s obstinance in not wanting to change his battle report in early October. Aware of Leonidas’s panegyric account, which had already appeared back home but was as yet unknown in Mexico, Pillow obviously wanted the official battle reports to agree with, not contradict, that version.
Soon another letter surfaced over the name “Veritas,” which had also appeared in papers back home. It praised General William Worth for convincing Scott to take the road around Lake Chalco in the approach to Mexico City. This road, once believed impassable, had caused Scott some hesitation for several days in August, and it was to assess this route that Scott had sent out numerous officers to reconnoiter. At Scott’s request, Worth had sent Colonel James Duncan on one such mission, and the colonel reported the road useable. So had others. But the Veritas account gave the impression that Worth had saved Scott from a grave mistake by convincing him to march south of Chalco. The letters were “romantic . . . and unique productions” that had a net result of “abusing Genl. Scott.” Winslow Sanderson of the Mounted Rifles, who had only heard rumors of the contents of the letters, believed that they represented an attempt to “puff Him,” referring to Worth.39
Caricature of Gideon Pillow’s attempt to exaggerate his role in the campaign. The Nathaniel and Bucky Hughes Collection, courtesy of Lupton Library, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Scott had had enough, so two days after seeing the Veritas letter, he issued General Order No. 349, reminding his officers that it was a violation of army regulations to write accounts of military operations for publication. In it, he referred to the “scandalous letters” and the “false credit” they gave to certain officers. Without mentioning names, he made it clear that he believed that the heroes of the letters wrote them or caused them to be written, and he condemned their “despicable self-puffings and malignant exclusions of others.” Because Worth was the hero of the Veritas letter, he correctly assumed that Scott’s thinly veiled accusation was aimed at him, so he fired off an angry letter to Scott demanding to know if the order alluded to him. When Scott did not give a direct answer, Worth went over his head on November 16, as Pillow had done less than three weeks earlier, and wrote directly to Washington to complain of Scott’s “malicious and gross injustice.” In the letter, he also charged Scott with conduct “unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” and forwarded a copy to the commanding general. By the last half of November, Scott was furious, and when he learned that both Pillow and Worth had broken the chain of command and appealed to the administration in language both disrespectful and insubordinate, Scott had them arrested. The controversy broadened when Lieutenant Colonel Duncan publicly admitted to writing the Veritas letter. Scott then arrested him also.40
When the president became involved, the controversy broadened still further. In December, he received Pillow’s letter informing him of the bribery scheme and Pillow’s dishonest account of his own role in the episode. He explained to the president that he had at first gone along with the scheme but only reluctantly, then on reflection changed his mind and vigorously opposed it. Polk was outraged. At a cabinet meeting on December 11, he condemned the proposed action and raised the subject of removing Scott from command. A week later, the president and cabinet again discussed the issue and determined to conduct an official investigation when they gathered more information. Then o
n December 30, Polk read a letter from Pillow informing him of his, Worth’s, and Duncan’s arrest, and he concluded that the entire problem stemmed from Scott’s “vanity and tyrannical temper . . . & his want of prudence and common sense.” 41 He was partially correct, for Scott was vain and he carefully sought to protect his share of the glory.
However, Scott did have cause to take action against his subordinates, if only he had not overreacted. A mild reprimand or a stern reminder regarding army regulations would have sufficed, and then Scott could have let history take care of the proper distribution of praise. Polk thought that there was no need “to make so serious an affair” out of the Leonidas and Veritas letters. In this he was correct, but he was incorrect in his belief that Scott’s general order caused the trouble. Scott did indeed turn the episode into a more serious offense than it warranted, and in so doing, he looked petty and vindictive, thereby damaging his reputation with the army and giving the administration the ammunition it needed to justify his recall. The opinionated D. H. Hill, who despised Pillow and respected Scott, recorded the following sentiments in his diary: “Genl. Scott has lowered himself very much in the Army by his jealousy of the reputation of his subalterns. He is in many respects a very small man.” Captain James Mason of the engineers thought that Scott had “injured himself, the service, and military reputation generally, by his absurd order & ridiculous letters,” and through his actions he had shown how “silly” a famous general can be.42
In Washington, the president and his advisors had discussed their troubled army several times in the latter weeks of 1847. Polk was most indignant about the effort to bribe Santa Anna into a peace settlement, and he directed Buchanan and Marcy to write to the various actors in the plot requesting details. Most were reluctant to divulge incriminating information, and Scott flatly responded that the meeting in which it was discussed was confidential. With multiple controversies swirling around the army’s high command, Polk decided in early January to call a court of inquiry to investigate Scott’s actions, his charges against Pillow and Duncan, and Worth’s charges against the commanding general. He sent instructions to that effect, as well as an order that Scott release Pillow, Worth, and Duncan from arrest. And as a final insult, Polk dismissed Scott from command because of “the present state of things in the Army,” and in his place, he appointed the veteran Major General William O. Butler to replace him at the head of the army.
In an act that characterized the shabby treatment the administration had afforded Scott all along, the general first learned that he was to be replaced and put before a court from newspaper accounts and letters received from home by other officers. Somewhat sarcastically, Scott wrote to Marcy that he had learned of these developments through “slips of newspapers and letters from Washington.” “I learn,” he continued, “that the President has determined to place me before a court, for daring to enforce necessary discipline in this army against certain of its high officers!” The general concluded his one-paragraph note with, “Perhaps, after trial, I may be permitted to return to the United States. My poor services with this most gallant army are at length to be requited as I have long been led to expect they would be.” 43
Butler assumed command on February 19, but the court of inquiry did not begin until the next month. Even before knowing that Polk would authorize the investigation, Pillow seemed to suspect that such would happen. In a letter to his wife in late November, he was optimistic and looking forward to the opportunity afforded by a clash with Scott. “He has violated . . . my principle of justice in regard to myself & I feel very confident of flooring him.” Then in a reference to Scott’s embarrassing letter-writing episode with the administration eighteen months earlier, Pillow wrote, “I will blow him higher & kill him deader than did the ‘hasty plate of soup’ letter or ‘the fire in front & fire in rear.’ . . . The whole affair . . . will prove ultimately great to my advantage.” Later in the letter, he suggested that the general public would be shocked when it compared “my brilliant success” with Scott’s infamy. Such a comparison “will show a degree of malignity in Scott, as black and atrocious as ever disgraced a fiend.”44
The court opened its proceedings in the National Palace on March 16. Scott, in his opening statement, summarized his version of the events that brought about the investigation. After drawing up charges and requesting a court-martial of three of his subordinate officers, this “inquiry is the result. I am stricken down from my high command; one of the arrested generals is pre-acquitted and rewarded,” and the rest of the parties, the guilty and innocent alike, are “all thrown before you, to scramble for justice as we may.” Because some of the officers needed for witnesses had already departed Mexico for home, Scott could not adequately prosecute his charges against Pillow. He wanted to drop the charges against the Tennessean, but Pillow, sensing his advantage, would not permit it. The court provided a perfect platform for Pillow to excel. Acting in his own defense, Pillow demonstrated that in crossing over from military operations to legal proceedings, he now was in his element. In the former he was a mere pretender, but in the latter, he was knowledgeable and experienced, and he scored points interviewing witnesses. Having brought in all of the principal parties who were still in Mexico to testify, the court adjourned on April 22 to reconvene in the United States.45
The entire episode created “in the Army a feeling of unmitigated condemnation.” In a letter, Robert E. Lee wrote that Scott had been sacrificed for Pillow’s gain, and he hoped that “Worth & Pillow may be held up in the light they deserve.” In another letter, he wrote that if “the whole truth is known, Genl S. can suffer no injury.” Theodore Laidley expressed his opinion that Pillow “will be killed as dead in the states as he is in the army” because blatant “falsehood can too easily be proved on him.” Presidential politics was at the root of the whole affair, thought Laidley, and Scott’s recall was “the greatest misfortune that could possibly happen to the Army.” Everyone knew Scott’s history of vanity, pettiness, and injudicious letter writing, but those weaknesses notwithstanding, the soldiers believed in their commanding general and trusted his leadership. Most of them believed that “there is no one of the Generals that can at all compare with him.” Before the court convened, Laidley had heard someone remark that “Genl Scott’s little finger is more of a general than all the other generals put together.” Daniel Harvey Hill offered another critical and somewhat colorful appraisal of Scott’s predicament. It resulted from “the intrigues of that arch-scoundrel Pillow. He has very great influence with our weak, childish President.” Hill had a low opinion of all officers who attained rank or status as a result of Polk’s assignment, and that attitude extended to the new army commander. “Maj. Genl. Butler is a creature of Mr. Polk’s appointment and of course a fool.” But Hill saved his harshest criticism for Pillow. “That an idiot monkey could cause the greatest Captain of the age to be disgraced upon the very theatre of his glory will not be credited by posterity.” Lieutenant Romeyn B. Ayres, a West Point graduate and future veteran of many Civil War battlefields, penned in his diary the following summation: “the General who had fought his way, and led the army triumphantly through every difficulty, to the city of Mexico, and taken the enemy’s capital, was suspended from the command, and brought before a court of inquiry, upon charges preferred by a subordinate, who was himself under charges for unmilitary conduct!!! A most anomolous affair!” 46
The day after the court adjourned, Scott left for Veracruz. As he departed his headquarters, members of the guard unit stationed there, the Rifle Regiment, shed tears as they presented arms. Then Scott mounted a carriage that poignantly symbolized the degree to which he had fallen: the carriage was drawn by mules and serviced by a disabled soldier. But his stature had not fallen with the rank and file of the army. Although he had requested to leave Mexico City quietly, a crowd of soldiers were gathered in the plaza to say farewell. About thirty officers came with their horses and rode with him out of the city until Scott asked that they
go back. Before leaving, they all insisted on shaking his hand and saying a personal good-bye. One lieutenant, Theodore Laidley, noted that Scott was returning home from his “noble, meritorious and brilliant achievements” not the recipient of praise, but with “all the disgrace that it was possible to heap on him.” Within nine days, he arrived in Veracruz and boarded a steamer for the States.47
The court reconvened on June 5 in Frederick, Maryland. Scott had stood before an inquiry in that town a dozen years earlier when Polk’s mentor, President Andrew Jackson, attempted to censor Scott for his failed operations against the Seminole Indians. And coincidentally while the 1836 proceedings were underway, Santa Anna traveled through Frederick. The 1848 inquiry ended anticlimactically. Scott had withdrawn his charges against Worth and Duncan, so the legal battle had become something of a showdown between Scott and Pillow. After another month of testimony, the court could not prove that any money exchanged hands in an attempt to bribe Mexican officials, and it determined that the much-discussed scheme had not influenced military operations. Historian K. Jack Bauer’s account suggests that the hearings took on the tone of “an inquisition” more than of a legal inquiry. The results were highly satisfactory to Pillow, who was pleased with his “most triumphant vindication,” as he put it. The court found that he had indeed tried to claim “a larger degree of participation” in the flank attack at Padierna than he deserved, but otherwise it exonerated him.48 After Polk decided to drop the matter, the court disbanded on July 6, but its purpose had been served. Scott was out of command and out of favor; the Whig general had been put in his place and rendered politically impotent. From the beginning to the end of Winfield Scott’s role in the Mexican War, he came full circle, beginning in 1846 and ending in 1848 with embarrassment at the hands of the president.
A Gallant Little Army Page 38