BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
1809–1810.
LIANZA VICEROY.—AUDIENCIA.—VENEGAS VICEROY.—TRUE SOURCES OF THE REVOLUTION.—CREOLES LOYAL TO FERDINAND.—SPANIARDS IN FAVOR OF KING JOSEPH.—MEXICAN SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR SPAIN.—SECRET UNION IN MEXICO AGAINST SPANIARDS.—HIDALGO—ALLENDE—FIRST OUTBREAK.—GUANAJUATO SACKED—LAS CRUCES.—MEXICO MENACED.—INDIAN BRAVERY AT ACULCO.—MARFIL—MASSACRE AT GUANAJUATO—CALLEJA.—INSURGENTS DEFEATED—EXECUTION OF HIDALGO.
The Archbishop Francisco Xavier de Lianza,
LVIII. Viceroy of New Spain.
The Audiencia of Mexico, and Venegas, LIX. Viceroy.
1809–1810.
The pictures presented in the introductory chapter to the viceroyal history and in the subsequent detailed narrative of that epoch, will suffice, we presume, to convince our readers that they need not penetrate deeply for the true causes of misery and misrule in Spanish America. The decadence of Spain as well as the present unhappiness of nearly all her ancient colonies may be fairly attributed to the same source of national ruin—bad, unnatural government. A distinguished statesman of our country has remarked that "the European alliance of emperors and kings assumed, as the foundation of human society, the doctrine of unalienable allegiance, whilst our doctrine was founded on the principle of unalienable right." [51] This mistaken European view, or rather assumption of royal prerogative and correlative human duties, was the baleful origin of colonial misrule. The house of Austria did not govern Spain as wisely as its predecessors. The Spain that Philip I. received and the Spain of those who followed him, present a sad contrast. As the conquest of America had not been conceived, although it was declared to be, in a beneficent spirit, the sovereigns continued the system of plunder with which it was begun. Its results are known. The Americans were their subjects, bound to them by "unalienable allegiance;" vassals, serfs creatures, whose human rights, in effect, were nothing when compared to the monarch's will. This doctrine at once converted the southern portions of our continent into a soulless machine, which the king had a right to use as he pleased, and especially, as he deemed most beneficial for his domestic realm. The consequence was, that, in concurrence with the Council of the Indies, he established, as we have seen, an entirely artificial system, which contradicted nature, and utterly thwarted both physical and intellectual development.
The Indians and creoles of Mexico and Peru, ignorant and stupid as they were believed to be by Spain, had, nevertheless, sense enough to understand and feel the wretchedness of their condition. They cherished in their hearts an intense hatred for their foreign masters. There was no positive or merely natural enmity of races in this, but rather a suppressed desire to avenge their wrongs.
When the French seized Spain, the colonies in America were, for a period, forced to rely upon themselves for temporary government. They did not, at once, desire to adopt republican institutions, but rather adhered to monarchy, provided they could free themselves from bad rulers and vicious laws. This especially was the case in Mexico. Her war against the mother country originated in a loyal desire to be completely independent of France. The news of the departure of Ferdinand VII. for Bayonne, and the alleged perfidy of Napoleon in that city, excited an enthusiasm among the Mexicans for the legitimate king, and created a mortal hatred against the conqueror of Europe. All classes of original Mexican society seem to have been united in these sentiments. Subscriptions were freely opened and in a few months, seven millions were collected to aid their Peninsular friends who were fighting for religion, king, and nationality. The idea did not strike any Mexican that it was a proper time to free his native land entirely from colonial thraldom. [52] But after a short time, the people began to reflect. The prestige of Spanish power, to which we have alluded heretofore, was destroyed. A French king sat upon the Spanish throne. The wand of the enchanter, with which he had spell-bound America across the wide Atlantic, was broken forever. The treasured memory of oppression, conquest, bad government and misery, was suddenly refreshed, and it is not surprising to find that when the popular rising finally took place, it manifested its bitterness in an universal outcry against the Spaniards.
After the occurrences at Bayonne, emissaries from king Joseph Bonaparte spread themselves over the continent to prepare the people for the ratification and permanence of the French government. These political propagandists were charged, as we have stated with orders from Ferdinand VII. and the Council of the Indies, to transfer the allegiance of America to France. [53] It may be imagined that this would have gratified the masses in America, who perhaps, had heard that the French were the unquestionable patrons of "liberty and equality." But, the exact reverse was the case among the creoles, whilst the Spaniards in America, received the emissaries with welcome, and bowed down submissively to the orders they brought. Blinded for centuries to all ideas of government save those of regal character, the Mexicans had no notion of rule or ruler except their traditionary Spanish king. They clung to him, therefore, with confidence, for they felt the necessity of some paramount authority, as political self control was, as yet, an utter impossibility.
A secret union among leading men was, therefore, formed in 1810, which contemplated a general rising throughout the provinces, but the plot was detected at the moment when it was ripe for development. This conspiracy was based upon a desire to overthrow the Spaniards. "They felt," says Mr. Ward, "that the question was not now one between themselves as subjects, but between themselves and their fellow subjects, the European Spaniards, as to which should possess the right of representing the absent king," as guardians and preservers of the rights of Ferdinand. The Europeans claimed this privilege exclusively, with customary insolence. "The Ayuntamiento of Mexico was told by the Audiencia that it possessed no authority except over the leperos"—or mob of the capital; and it was a favorite maxim of the oidor Battaller that "while a Manchego mule or a Castilian cobler remained in the Peninsula, he had a right to govern." [54]
In those times, a certain country curate, by name Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, dwelt in the Indian village of Dolores, adjacent to the town of San Miguel el Grande, lying in the province of Guanajuanto. One of the conspirators being about to die, sent for his priest, and confessing the plot, revealed also the names of his accomplices. The curate Hidalgo was one of the chiefs of this revolutionary band, and the viceroy Venegas hoping to crush the league in its bud, despatched orders for his arrest and imprisonment, as soon as the confession of the dead conspirator was disclosed to him. Hidalgo's colleagues were also included in this order, but some of the secret friends of the insurgents learned what was occurring at court and apprised the patriot priest of his imminent danger. The news first reached Don Ignacio Allende, who commanded a small body of the king's troops in San Miguel, and who hastened with the disastrous tidings to his friend at Dolores. Concealment and flight were now equally unavailing. The troops of Allende were speedily won to the cause of their captain, while the Indians of Dolores rushed to defend their beloved pastor. As they marched from their village to San Miguel and thence to Zelaya, the natives, armed with clubs, slings, staves and missiles, thronged to their ranks from every mountain and valley. The wretched equipment of the insurgents shows their degraded condition as well as the passionate fervor with which they blindly rushed upon the enemies of their race. Hidalgo put on his military coat over the cassock, and, perhaps unwisely, threw himself at the head of a revolution, which rallied at the cry of "Death to the Gachupines." [55]
The result of this onslaught was dreadful. Wherever the rebellious army passed, Spaniards and uncomplying creoles they were indiscriminately slaughtered, and though many of the latter were originally combined with the conspirators and eagerly longed for the emancipation of their country, they were dismayed by the atrocities of the wild insurgents. As the rebel chief, armed with the sword and cross, pressed onward, immense numbers of Indians flocked to his banner, so that when he left Zelaya, a fierce and undisciplined mob of twenty thousand hailed him as undisputed commander. At the head of this predatory band he descended upon the noble city of Guanajuanto, in the heart of the wealthiest mining district of Mexico. The Spaniards and some of the creoles resolved upon a stout resistance, shut themselves up in the city and refused the humane terms offered by Hidalgo upon condition of surrender. This rash rejection led to an immediate attack and victory. When the city fell, it was too late for the insurgent priest to stay the savage fury of his troops. The Spaniards and their adherents were promiscuously slaughtered by the troops, and, for three days the sacking of the city continued, until wearied with conquest, the rebels, at length, stopped the plunder of the town. Immense treasures, hoarded in this place for many years, were the fruits of this atrocious victory which terrified the Mexican authorities and convinced them that the volcanic nature of the people had been fully roused, and that safety existed alone in uncompromising resistance.
The original rebellion was thus thrown from the hands of the creoles into those of the Indians. A war of races was about to break out; and although there were not among the insurgents more than a thousand muskets, yet the mere numerical force of such an infuriate crowd, was sufficient to dismay the staunchest. The viceroy Venegas, and the church, therefore, speedily combined to hurl their weapons against the rebels. Whilst the former issued proclamations or decrees, and despatched troops under the command of Truxillo to check Hidalgo who was advancing on the capital, the latter declared all the rebels to be heretics, and excommunicated them in a body. Venegas ordered all the higher clergy "to represent from the pulpit, and circulate the idea privately, that the great object of the revolution was to destroy and subvert the holy Catholic religion, while he directed the subaltern ministers to sow discord in families by the confessional." [56] But the arms of the Spanish chiefs and the anathemas of the Roman church, were unequal to the task of resistance. Hidalgo was attacked by Truxillo at Las Cruces, about eight leagues from the capital, where the Indian army overwhelmed the Spanish general and drove him back to Mexico, with the loss of his artillery. In this action we find it difficult to apportion the ferocity, with justice, between the combatants, for Truxillo boasted in his despatch that he had defended the defile with the "obstinacy of Leonidas," and had even "fired upon the bearers of a flag of truce which Hidalgo sent him." [57]
The insurgents followed up their success at Las Cruces by pursuing the foe until they arrived at the hacienda of Quaximalpa, within fifteen miles of the city of Mexico. But here a fatal distrust of his powers seems first to have seized the warrior priest. Venegas, it is said, contrived to introduce secret emmissaries into his camp, who impressed Hidalgo and his officers with the belief that the capital was abundantly prepared for defence, and that an assault upon the disciplined troops of Spain, by a disordered multitude without fire arms, would only terminate in the rout and destruction of all his forces. In fact, he seems to have been panic stricken, and to have felt unable to control the revolutionary tempest he had raised. Accordingly, in an evil moment for his cause, he commenced a retreat, after having remained several days in sight of the beautiful city of Mexico, upon which he might easily have swept down from the mountain like an eagle to his prey.
It is related by the historians of these wars, that in spite of all Venegas's boasted valor and assurance, he was not a little dismayed by the approach of Hidalgo. The people shared his alarm, and would probably have yielded at once to the insurgents, whose imposing forces were crowding into the valley. But in this strait the viceroy had recourse to the well known superstitions of the people, in order to allay their fears. He caused the celebrated image of the Virgin of Remedios to be brought from the mountain village, where it was generally kept in a chapel, to the cathedral, with great pomp and ceremony. Thither he proceeded, in full uniform, to pay his respects to the figure, and after imploring the Virgin to take the government into her own hands, he terminated his appeal by laying his baton of command at her feet. [58]
It is now that we first encounter in Mexican history the name of Don Felix Maria Calleja,—a name that is coupled with all that is shameless, bloody, and atrocious, in modern warfare. Calleja was placed at the head of a well appointed creole army of ten thousand men and a train of artillery, and with these disciplined forces, which he had been for some time concentrating, he was ordered to pursue Hidalgo. [59] The armies met at Aculco, and the Indians, in their first encounter with a body of regulars, exhibited an enthusiastic bravery that nearly defies belief. They were almost as completely ignorant of the use or power of fire arms as their Aztec ancestors three hundred years before. They threw themselves upon the serried ranks of infantry with clubs and staves. Rushing up to the mouths of the cannon they drove their sombreros or hats of straw, into the muzzles. Order, command, or discipline, were entirely unknown to them. Their effort was simply to overwhelm by superiority of numbers. But the cool phalanx of creoles stood firm, until the Indian disorder became so great, and their strength so exhausted by repeated yet fruitless efforts, that the regulars commenced the work of slaughter with impunity. Calleja boasts that Hidalgo lost "ten thousand men, of whom five thousand were put to the sword." It seems, however, that he was unable to capture or disband the remaining insurgents; for Hidalgo retreated to Guanajuato, and then fell back on Guadalaxara, leaving in the former city a guard under his friend Allende.
Calleja next attacked the rebel forces at the hacienda of Marfil, and having defeated Allende, who defended himself bravely, rushed onward towards the city of Guanajuato. This place he entered as conqueror. "The sacrifice of the prisoners of Marfil," says Robinson, "was not sufficient to satiate his vindictive spirit." He glutted his vengeance on the defenceless population of Guanajuato. Men, women and children, were driven by his orders, into the great square; and fourteen thousand of these wretches, it is alleged, were butchered in a most barbarous manner. Their throats were cut. The principal fountain of the city literally overflowed with blood. But, far from concealing these savage acts, Calleja, in his account of the conflict, exults in the honor of communicating the intelligence that he had purged the city of its rebellious population. The only apology offered for the sacrifice was that it would have wasted too much powder to have shot them, and therefore, on the principle of economy he cut their throats. Thus was this unfortunate city, in a single campaign, made the victim of both loyalists and insurgents.
Hidalgo and his division were soon joined by Allende, and although they suffered all the disasters of a bad retreat as well as of Spanish victories, he still numbered about eighty thousand under his banners. He awaited Calleja at Guadalaxara, which he had surrounded with fortifications and armed with cannon, dragged by the Indians, over mountain districts from the port of San Blas, on the Pacific; but it is painful to record the fact, that in this city Hidalgo was guilty of great cruelties to all the Europeans. Ward relates that between seven and eight hundred victims fell beneath the assassin's blade. A letter, produced on Hidalgo's trial, written to one of his lieutenants, charges the officer to seize as many Spaniards as he possibly can, and, moreover, directs him, if he has any reason to suspect his prisoners of entertaining seditious or restless ideas, to bury them at once in oblivion by putting such persons to death in some secret and solitary place, where their fate may remain forever unknown! As the cruelty of Old Spain to the Mexicans had well nigh driven them to despair, such savage assassinations, in turn, drove the Spaniards to revenge, or, at least furnished them with an excuse for their horrible atrocities.
Calleja, intent on the pursuit of his Indian prey, was not long in following Hidalgo. The insurgent chief endeavored to excite the ardor of his troops, while he preserved some show of discipline in their ranks; and, thus prepared, he gave battle to the Spaniards, at the bridge of Calderon, on the 17th of January, 1811. At first Hidalgo, was successful, but the rebels were no match for the royal troops kept in reserve by Calleja. With these he made a fierce charge upon the Indians, and sweeping through their broken masses he "pursued and massacred them by thousands."
Calleja was not a person either to conciliate or to pause in victory. He believed that rebellion could only be rooted out by utter destruction of the insurgents and their seed. Accordingly orders were issued to "exterminate the inhabitants of every town or village that showed symptoms of adherence to the rebels," whilst, from the pulpit, new denunciations were fulminated against all who opposed the royal authority. The insurgent chiefs fled, and reached Saltillo with about four thousand men. There it was resolved to leave Rayon in command, while Hidalgo, Allende, Aldama and Absolo endeavored to reach the United States with an escort for the purpose of purchasing munitions of war with the treasure they had saved from the sacking of Guanajuato. But these fierce and vindictive soldiers were destined to end their lives by treachery. Hidalgo's associate rebel, Ignacio Elizondo, hoping to make his peace with the government by betraying so rich a prize, delivered them up to the authorities on the 21st of March, 1811, at Acatila de Bajan. Hidalgo was taken to Chihuahua, and, after being degraded from holy orders, was shot on the 27th of July, whilst Calleja was rewarded for his victories with the title of Conde de Calderon, won by his brilliant charge at the bridge near Guanajuato.
Such is an outline of the warfare between the Sylla and Marius of this continent, and of some of the most prominent events in the origin of that revolution which finally resulted in the Mexican independence.
Footnotes
[ [51] John Quincy Adams's letter to Mr. Anderson, minister to Columbia, May 27, 1823. See President's message on the Panama Congress, March, 1823.
[ [52] Zavala, Historia, vol. 1, p. 38.
[ [53] Robinson's Hist. Mex. Rev. p. 10.
[ [54] Ward's Mexico, vol. 1, p. 127. Id. p. 157.
[ [55] This term has been variously interpreted; it is supposed to be an ancient Indian word significant of contempt. It is applied by the natives to the European Spaniards or their full blooded descendants. See Robinson's His. Rey. Mex., 15.
[ [56] Robinson Memoir Mex. Rev. 19.
[ [57] Ib. p. 20.
[ [58] Wards' Mexico in 1827, vol. i. p. 169.
[ [59] The creoles although unfriendly to the Spaniards, and ready to rebel against them, were nevertheless willing to aid them against the Indians whom they more reasonably regarded, under the circumstances as the more dangerous of the two classes.
CHAPTER II.
1810–1816.
VENEGAS VICEROY.—RAYON.—JUNTA IN 1811—ITS WILLINGNESS TO RECEIVE FERDINAND VII.—PROCLAMATION BY THE JUNTA—MORELOS.—ACAPULCO TAKEN—SUCCESSES OF THE INSURGENTS.—SIEGE OF CUAUTLA—IZUCAR—ORIZABA—OAXACA—CHILPANZINGO.—CALLEJA VICEROY—ITURBIDE.—REVERSES OF INSURGENTS—MORELOS SHOT.
Lieutenant General Don Francisco Xavier Venegas,
LIX. Viceroy of New Spain.
1810–1813.
After Hidalgo's death the country was for a considerable time involved in a guerilla warfare which extended throughout the whole territory of Mexico, to the provincas internas of the north Rayon assumed command of the fragments of Hidalgo's forces at Saltillo and retired to Zacatecas, but he had no command, or indeed authority, except over his own men. The whole country was in ferment. The valley of Mexico was full of eager partisans, who lazo'd the sentinels even at the gates of the town; yet, in all the chief cities, the viceroy's authority was still permanently acknowledged.
Men of reflection immediately saw that the cause of liberation would be lost, if, amid all these elements of boiling discontent, there was no unity of opinion and action. The materials of success were ample throughout the nation; but they required organization under men in whose judgment and bravery the insurgent masses could rely.
Such were the opinions of Rayon and his friends, who, in May, 1811, occupied Zitacuaro, when on the 10th of the following September, they assembled a Junta, or, central government, composed of five members chosen by a large body of the most respectable landed proprietors in the neighborhood, in conjunction with the Ayuntamiento and inhabitants of the town.
The doctrines of this Junta were liberal, but they maintained a close intimacy with Spain, and even admitted the people's willingness to receive Ferdinand VII. as sovereign of Mexico provided he abandoned his European possessions for New Spain. When Morelos, joined the Junta he disapproved this last concession to the royalists, though it was chiefly defended by Rayon as an expedient measure when dealing with people over whom the name of king still exercised the greatest influence. This Junta was finally merged in the congress of Chilpanzingo. Its manifesto, directed to the viceroy in March, 1812, is worthy of rememberance, as it contains the several doctrines of the revolution admirably expressed by Dr. Cos, who was its author. He paints in forcible language the misery created by the fifteen months of civil war, and the small reliance that Spain could place on creole troops, whose sympathies, at present, and whose efforts, in the end, would all be thrown into the scale of their country. He assumes as fundamental principles that America and Spain are naturally equal; that America has as much right to her Cortes as Spain has to hers; that the existing rulers in the Peninsula have no just authority over Mexico as long as their sovereign is a captive, and, finally, he proposes that if "the Europeans will consent to give up the offices they hold, and allow the assemblage of a general congress, their persons and property shall be religiously respected, their salaries paid, and the same privileges granted them as to native Mexicans, who, on their side, will acknowledge Ferdinand as the legitimate sovereign, and assist the Peninsula with their treasure, whilst they will at all times regard the Spaniards as fellow subjects of the same great empire."
The alternative of war was presented to the viceroy together with these moderate demands, but he was only requested to abate the personal cruelties that had hitherto been committed, and to save the towns and villages from sacking or destruction by fire. Yet the insane Venegas would listen to no terms with the rebels, and caused the manifesto to be burned in the great square, by the common executioner. The principles of the document, however, had been spread abroad among the people, and the flames of the hangman could no longer destroy the liberal doctrines which were deeply sown in the hearts of the people.
The distinguished revolutionary chief Morelos, a clergyman, now appears prominently upon the stage. He had been commissioned by Hidalgo as Captain General of the provinces on the south-west coast in 1810, and departed for his government with as sorry an army as the troop of Falstaff. His escort consisted of a few servants from his curacy, armed with six muskets and some old lances. But he gathered forces as he advanced. The Galeanas joined him with their adherents and swelled his numbers to near a thousand. They advanced to Acapulco, and having captured it with abundant booty, the insurgents soon found their ranks joined by numerous important persons, and, among them the Cura Matamoros and the Bravos, whose names have, ever since, been prominently connected with the history and development of Mexico.
The year 1811 was passed in a series of petty engagements; but, in January, 1812, the insurgents penetrated within twenty-five leagues of the capital, where Galeana and Bravo took the town of Tasco.
Morelos was victorious in several other actions in the same and succeeding months, and pushed his advanced guards into the valley of Mexico, where he occupied Chalco and San Agustin de las Cuevas, about twelve miles from the metropolis. Morelos finally resolved to make his stand at Cuautla, in the tierra caliente, on the other side of the mountain ranges which hem in the valley; and, to this place the viceroy Venegas despatched Calleja, who was summoned from the north and west, where, as may readily be imagined, so fiery a spirit had not been idle or innocent since the defeat of Hidalgo.
On the 1st of January, 1812, Calleja reached Zitacuaro, whence the alarmed Junta fled to Sultepec. The insatiate Spaniard took the town, decimated the inhabitants, razed the walls to the ground, and burnt the dwellings, sparing only the churches and convents. After this dreadful revenge upon a settlement which had committed no crime but in harboring the Junta, he made a triumphal entrance into Mexico, and, on the 14th of February, after a quarrel with the viceroy, and a solemn Te Deum, he departed towards Morelos, who was shut up in Cuautla de Amilpas.
On the 19th Calleja attacked the town, but was forced to retreat. He then regularly besieged the place and its insurgent visitors for more than two months and a half. In this period, the troops on both sides were not unoccupied. Various skirmishes took place, but without signal results of importance to either party. Morelos strove to prolong the siege until the rainy season set in, when he felt confident that Calleja would be forced to withdraw his troops, who could not endure the combined heat and moisture of the tierra caliente during the summer months. Calleja, on the other hand, supposed that by sealing the town hermetically, and cutting off all supplies, its inhabitants and troops would soon be forced to surrender. Nor did he act unwisely for the success of his master. Famine prevailed in the besieged garrison. Corn was almost the only food. A cat sold for six dollars, a lizard for two, and rats and other vermin for one. But Morelos still continued firm, hoping by procrastination and endurance, to preserve the constancy of his men until the month of June, when the country is generally deluged with rain and rendered insalubrious to all who dwell habitually in colder regions, or are unacclimated in the lower vallies and table lands of Mexico. His hopes, however, were not destined to be realized, for, upon consultation, it was found absolutely necessary to risk a general engagement or to abandon the town. The general engagement was considered injudicious in the present condition of his troops, so that no alternative remained but that of retreat. This was safely effected on the night of the 2d of May, 1812, notwithstanding the whole army of the insurgents was obliged to pass between the enemy's batteries. After quitting the town, the forces were ordered to disperse, so as to avoid forming any concentrated point of attack for the pursuing Spaniards, and to reunite as soon as possible at Izucar, which was held by Don Miguel Bravo. Calleja entered the abandoned town cautiously after the departure of the besieged, but the cruel revenge he took on the innocent inhabitants and harmless edifices, is indelibly imprinted in Mexican history as one of the darkest stains on the character of a soldier, whose memory deserves the execration of civilized men.
From Izucar, Morelos entered Tehuacan triumphantly, whence he passed to Orizaba where he captured artillery, vast quantities of tobacco, and a large amount of treasure. But he was not allowed to rest long in peace. The regular forces pursued his partizan warriors; and we next hear of him at Oaxaca, where he took possession of the town after a brief resistance. It was at this place that Guadalupe Victoria, afterwards president of the republic, performed a feat which merits special remembrance as an act of extraordinary heroism and daring in the face of an enemy. The town was moated and the single drawbridge suspended, so as to cut off the approach of the insurgents. There were no boats to cross the stagnant water; and the insurgents, as they approached, were dismayed by the difficulty of reaching a town which seemed almost in their grasp. At this moment Guadalupe Victoria, sprang into the moat, swam across the strait in sight of the soldiers in the town who seem to have been panic struck by his signal courage, and cut the ropes that suspended the drawbridge, which, immediately falling over the moat, allowed the soldiers of Morelos a free entrance into the city!
Here he rested for some time undisturbed by the Spaniards. He conquered the whole of the province with the exception of Acapulco, to which he laid siege in February, 1813, but it did not lower its flag until the following August. The control of a whole province, and the victories of Bravo and Matamoros, elsewhere in 1812 and 1813, considerably increased the importance and influence of Morelos, who now devoted himself to the assemblage of a national Congress at Chilpanzingo composed of the original Junta of Zitacuaro, the deputies elected by the province of Oaxaca, and others selected by them as representatives of the provinces which were in the royalists' hands. On the 13th of November, 1813, this body published a declaration of the absolute independence of Mexico.[60]
Don Felix Maria Calleja,
LX. Viceroy of New Spain.—1813–1816.
This was the period at which the star of the great leader, Morelos, culminated. Bravo was still occasionally successful, and the commander-in-chief, concentrating his forces at Chilpanzingo, prepared an expedition against the province of Valladolid. He departed on the 8th of November, 1813; and, marching across a hitherto untraversed country of a hundred leagues, he reached this point about Christmas. But here he found a large force under Llano and Colonel Iturbide,—who was still a loyalist—drawn up to encounter him. He attacked the enemy rashly with his jaded troops, and on the following day, was routed, with the loss of his best regiments and all his artillery.
At Puruaran, Iturbide again assailed Morelos successfully, and Matamoros was taken prisoner. Efforts were made to save the life of this eminent soldier, yet Calleja, who had succeeded Venegas as viceroy was too cruelly ungenerous to spare so daring a rebel. He was shot, and his death was avenged by the slaughter of all the prisoners who were in the hands of the insurgents.
For a while Morelos struggled bravely against adversity, his character and resources rising with every new danger, difficulty or loss. But the die was cast. Oaxaca was recaptured by the royalists on the 28th of March, 1814. Miguel Bravo died at Puebla on the scaffold; Galeana fell in battle; and the Congress was driven from Chilpanzingo to the forest of Apatzingo, where, on the 22d of October, 1814, it enacted the constitution which bears the name of its wild birth-place.
From this temporary refuge the insurgents resolved to cross the country by rapid marches to Tehuacan in the province of Puebla, where Mier y Teran had gathered a considerable force, which Morelos imagined would become the nucleus of an overwhelming army, as soon as he joined them. But his hopes were not destined to be realized. He had advanced as far as Tesmaluca, when the Indians of the village betrayed his slender forces to General Concha, who fell upon them, on the 5th of November, 1815, in the narrow gorge of a mountain road. The assault was from the rear; so that Morelos, ordering Nocalas Bravo to hasten his march with the main body of the army as an escort for the ill-starred congress, resolved to fight the royalists until he placed the national legislature out of danger. "My life"—said he—"is of little consequence, provided congress be saved:—my race was run when I saw an independent government established!"
The brave soldier-priest, with fifty men, maintained the pass against Concha, until only one trooper was left beside him. So furious was his personal bearing, during this mortal conflict, that the royalists feared to advance until he was bereft of all support. When finally captured, he was stripped, chained, treated with the most shameless cruelty, and carried back to Tesmaluca. Concha, however, was less cruel than his men. He received the rebel chief politely, and despatched him to the capital for trial. Crowds of eager citizens flocked to see the celebrated partizan warrior who had so long held the Spanish forces at bay. But his doom was sealed; and, on the 22d of December, 1815, Concha removed him to the hospital of San Cristoval. After dining with the general, and thanking him for his kindness, he walked to the rear of the building, where, kneeling down, he bound a handkerchief over his eyes and uttering the simple ejaculation, "Lord, if I have done well, thou knowest it;—if ill, to thy infinite mercy I commend my soul,"—he gave the fatal signal to the soldiers who were drawn up to shoot him.
Footnote
[ [60] We must mention an event, characteristic of Bravo, which occurred during this period. Bravo took Palmar, by storm, after a resistance of three days. Three hundred prisoners fell into his hands, who were placed at his disposal by Morelos. Bravo immediately offered them to the viceroy Venegas in exchange for his father, Don Leonardo Bravo, who had been sentenced to death in the capital. The offer was rejected, and Don Leonardo ordered to immediate execution. But the son at once commanded the prisoners to be liberated,—saying that he "wished to put it out of his power to avenge his parent's death, lest, in the first moments of grief the temptation should prove irresistible."—Ward, 1 vol. 204.
CHAPTER III.
1816–1821.
APODACA VICEROY.—SPANISH CONSTITUTION OF 1812 PROCLAIMED IN MEXICO.—CONDITION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY.—VICTORIA—MINA LANDS AT SOTO LA MARINA—HIS EFFORTS—LOS REMEDIOS—GUERILLAS—HE IS SHOT.—PADRE TORRES—ITURBIDE—APODOCA SELECTS HIM TO ESTABLISH ABSOLUTISM.—ITURBIDE PROMULGATES THE PLAN OF IGUA LA—ARMY OF THE THREE GUARANTIES.
Don Juan Ruiz de Apodaca, Conde del Venadito,
LXI. Viceroy of New Spain.
1816–1821.
With the death of Morelos the hopes of the insurgents were crushed and their efforts paralyzed. This extraordinary man, so fertile in resources, and blending in himself the mingled power of priest and general, had secured the confidence of the masses, who found among his officers, none upon whom they could rally with perfect reliance. Besides this, the congress which had been conducted safely to Tehuacan by Bravo, was summarily dissolved by General Teran, who considered it an "inconvenient appendage of a camp." We cannot but regard this act of the general as unwise at a moment, when the insurgents lost such a commander as Morelos. By the dissolution of the congress the nation abandoned another point of reunion; and from that moment, the cause began to fail in all parts of the country.
The Constitution, sanctioned by the Cortes in 1812, had, meanwhile, been proclaimed in Mexico, on the 29th of September of that year; and, whilst the people felt somewhat freer under it, they were enabled, by the liberty of the press, which lasted sixty-six days, to expend their new-born patriotism on paper instead of in battles. These popular excitements, served to sustain the spirits of the people, notwithstanding the losses of the army; so that when Apodaca, assumed the reins of the viceroyalty in 1816, the country was still republican at heart, though all the insurgent generals were either captured or hidden in the wilderness, whilst their disbanded forces, in most instances, had accepted the indulto, or pardon, proffered for their return to allegiance.
*****
The remaining officers of Morelos spread themselves over the country, as there was no longer any centre of action; and each of them, occupying a different district, managed, for a while, to support revolutionary fervor throughout the neighborhood. "Guerrero occupied the west coast, where he maintained himself until the year 1821, when he joined Iturbide. Rayon commanded in the vicinity of Tlalpujahua, where he successively maintained two fortified camps on the Cerro del Gallo, and on Coporo. Teran held the district of Tehuacan, in Puebla. Bravo was a wanderer throughout the country. The Bajio was tyrannized over by the Padre Torres, while Guadalupe Victoria occupied the important province of Vera Cruz." [61]
The chief spite of the royalists,—who hunted these republican heroes, among the forests and mountain fastnesses of Mexico, as the Covenanters had been hunted in Scotland,—seems to have fallen upon the last named of these patriot generals. Victoria's haunt was chiefly in the passes near the Puente del Rey, now the Puente Nacional, or National bridge, on the road leading from the port of Vera Cruz to the capital. He was prepared to act either with a large force of guerillas, or, with a simple body guard; and, knowing the country perfectly, he was enabled to descend from his fastnesses among the rocks, and thus to cut off, almost entirely, all communication between the coast and the metropolis. At length, superior forces were sent to pursue him with relentless fury. His men gradually deserted when the villages that formerly supplied them with food refused further contributions. Efforts were made to seduce him from his principles and to ensure his loyalty. But he refused the rank and rewards offered by the viceroy as the price of his submission. At length he found himself alone in his resistance, in the midst of countrymen, who, if they would no longer fight under his banner, were too faithful to betray him. Yet he would not abandon the cause, but, taking his sword and a small stock of raiment, departed for the mountains, where he wandered for thirty months, living on the fruits of the forest and gnawing the bones of dead animals found in their recesses. Nor did he emerge from this impenetrable concealment, until two faithful Indians, whom he had known in prosperous days, sought him out with great difficulty, and, communicating the joyous intelligence of the revolution of 1821, brought him back once more to their villages where he was received with enthusiastic reverence as a patriot raised from the dead. When discovered by the Indians he was worn to a skeleton, covered with hair, and clad in a tattered wrapper; but, amid all his distresses and losses, he had preserved and treasured his loyalty to the cause of liberty and his untarnished sword!
Meanwhile another actor in this revolutionary army had appeared upon the stage. This was Xavier Mina, a guerilla chief of old Spain, who fled from his country, in consequence of the unfortunate effort to organize an outbreak in favor of the Cortes, at Pampeluna, after the dissolution of that assembly by the king. He landed on the coast of Mexico at Soto la Marina with a brave band of foreigners, chiefly North Americans, on the 15th of April, 1817. His forces amounted to only three hundred and fifty-nine men, including officers, of whom fifty-one deserted before he marched into the interior. Leaving one hundred of these soldiers at Soto la Marina under the command of Major Sarda, he attempted with the remainder, to join the independents in the heart of the country.
Mina pressed onwards successfully, defeating several royalist parties, until he reached Sombrero, whence he sallied forth upon numerous expeditions, one of which was against the fortified hacienda or plantation of the Marques of Jaral, a creole nobleman, from which the inhabitants and the owner fled at his approach. His troops sacked this wealthy establishment, and Mina transferred to the public chest one hundred and forty thousand dollars, found concealed in the house. This nobleman, it is true, had given in his adhesion to the royal cause and fortified his dwelling against the insurgents who hitherto refrained from attacking him. Nevertheless, the unprovoked blow of an independent leader against a native of the country, and especially against a man whose extensive farming operations concentrated the interests of so large a laboring class, was not calculated to inspire confidence in Mina among the masses of the people.
Whilst the guerilla chief was thus pursuing his way successfully in the heart of the country, and receiving occasional reinforcements from the natives, the garrison he left at Soto la Marina fell into the hands of Spanish levies, two thousand of whom surrounded the slender band. Notwithstanding the inequality of forces between the assailants and the besieged, the royalists were unable to take the place by storm; but, after repeated repulses, General Arredondo proposed terms which were accepted by Major Sarda, the independent commander. It is scarcely necessary to say that this condition was not fulfilled by the Spaniards, who sent the capitulated garrison in irons, by a circuitous journey, to the sickly Castle of San Juan de Ulua at Vera Cruz, whence some of the unfortunate wretches were marched into the interior whilst others were despatched across the sea to the dungeons of Cadiz, Melilla and Ceuta. This was a severe blow to Mina, who nevertheless was unparalyzed by it but continued active in the vicinity of Sombrero to which he retreated after an illjudged attempt upon the town of Leon, where the number of his troops was considerably diminished. Sombrero was invested, soon after, by a force of three thousand five hundred and forty soldiers, under Don Pascual Liñan, who had been appointed Field Marshal, by Apodaca, and despatched to the Bajio. This siege was ultimately successful on the part of the royalists. The fresh supplies promised to Mina did not arrive. Colonel Young, his second in command, died in repulsing an assault; and, upon the garrison's attempting to evacuate the town, under Colonel Bradburn, on the night of the 19th of August, the enemy fell upon the independents with such vigor that but fifty of Mina's whole corps escaped. "No quarter," says Ward, "was given in the field, and the unfortunate wretches who had been left in the hospital wounded, were by Liñan's orders, carried or dragged along the ground from their beds to the square where they were stripped and shot!"
Mina, as a last resort, threw himself into the fort of Los Remedios, a natural fortification on the lofty mountain chain rising out of the plains of the Bajio between Silao and Penjamo, separated from the rest by precipices, and deep ravines.
Liñan's army sat down before Remedios on the 27th of August. Mina left the town so as to assail the army from without by his guerillas, whilst the garrison kept the main body engaged with the fort. During this period he formed the project of attacking the town of Guanajuato, which, in fact, he accomplished; yet, after his troops had penetrated the heart of the city, their courage failed and they retreated before the loyalists who rallied after the panic created by the unexpected assault at nightfall. On retreating from Guanajuato, our partizan warrior took the road to the Rancho del Venadito where he designed passing the night in order to consult upon his future plans with his friend Mariano Herrera. Here he was detected by a friar, who apprised Orrantia of the brave Mina's presence, and, on the morning of the 27th of October, he was seized and conveyed to Irapuato. On the 11th of November, 1817, in the 28th year of his age, he was shot by order of Apodaca, on a rock, in sight of Los Remedios.
At the end of December the ammunition of the insurgents in this stronghold was entirely exhausted, and its evacuation was resolved on. This was attempted on the 1st of January, 1818, but, with the exception of Padre Torres, the commander, and twelve of Mina's division, few or none of the daring fugitives escaped. The wretched inmates of the fort, the women, and garrison hospitals of wounded, were cut down, bayoneted, and burned. On the 6th of March, the fort of Jauxilla, the insurgents' last stronghold in the central parts of the country, fell, while, towards the middle of the year, all the revolutionary chiefs were dislodged and without commands, except Guerrero, who still maintained himself on the right bank of the river Zacatula, near Colima, on the Pacific. But even he was cut off from communication with the interior, and was altogether without hope of assistance from without. The heart of the nation, and the east coast,—which was of most importance so far as the reception of auxiliaries by the independents was concerned,—were, thus, in complete possession of the royalists; so that a viceroy declared in his despatches to Spain, "that he would be answerable for the safety of Mexico without a single additional soldier being sent out to reinforce the armies that were in the field."
But the viceroy Apodaca, confident as he was of the defeat of the insurrection, did not know the people with whom he dealt as well as his predecessor Calleja, [62] who, with all his cruelty, seems to have enjoyed sagacious intervals in which he comprehended perfectly the deep seated causes of revolutionary feeling in Mexico, even if he was indisposed to sympathize with them or to permit their manifestation by the people. In fact, the revolution was not quelled. It slept, for want of a leader;—but, at last he appeared in the person of Agustin de Iturbide, a native Mexican, whose military career, in the loyalist cause had been not only brilliant but eminently useful, for it was in consequence of the two severe blows inflicted by him upon the insurgents in the actions of Valladolid and Puruaran that the great army of Morelos was routed and destroyed.
In 1820, Apodaca, who was no friend of the constitution, and who suffered a diminution of power by its operation, was well disposed to put it down by force, and to proclaim once more the absolute authority of the king. The elective privileges, which the constitution secured to the people, together with the principles of freedom which those elections were calculated to foster among the masses, were considered by the viceroy as dangerous in a country so recently the theatre of revolution. The insurrection was regarded by him as ended forever. He despised, perhaps, the few distinguished persons who yet quietly manifested their preference for liberalism; and, like all men of despotic character and confident of power, he undervalued the popular masses, among whom there is ever to be found common sense, true appreciation of natural rights, and firmness to vindicate them whenever they are confident of the leaders who are to control their destiny when embarked upon the stormy sea of rebellion.
Apodaca, in pursuit of his project to restore absolutism on this continent, fixed his eyes upon the gallant Iturbide, whose polished manners, captivating address, elegant person, ambitious spirit, and renowned military services, signalized him as a person likely to play a distinguished part in the restoration of a supreme power whose first favors would probably be showered upon the successful soldier of a crusade against constitutional freedom.
Accordingly the viceroy offered Iturbide the command of a force upon the west coast, at the head of which he was to proclaim the re-establishment of the king's absolute authority. The command was accepted; but Iturbide, who had been for four years unemployed, had, in this interval of repose, reflected well upon the condition of Mexico, and was satisfied that if the creoles could be induced to co-operate with the independents, the Spanish yoke might be cast off. There were only eleven Spanish expeditionary regiments in the whole of Mexico, and although there were upwards of seventy thousand old Spaniards in the different provinces who supported these soldiers, they could not oppose, effectually, the seven veteran and seventeen provincial regiments of natives, aided by the masses of people who had signified their attachment to liberalism.
Instead, therefore, of allying himself with the cause of a falling monarchy, whose reliance must chiefly be confined to succors from across the ocean, Iturbide resolved to abandon the viceroy and his criminal project against the constitution, and to throw himself with his forces upon the popular cause of the country. It was a bold but successful move.
On the 24th of February, 1821, he was at the small town of Iguala, on the road to Acapulco; and on that day, at his headquarters, he proclaimed the celebrated Plan of Iguala, the several principles of which are:—"Independence, the maintenance of Roman Catholicity, and Union;"—whence his forces obtained the name of the "Army of the three Guaranties."
As this is probably one of the most important state papers in the history of Mexico, and is often referred to without being fully understood, we shall present it to the reader entire:
Plan of Iguala.
Article 1.—The Mexican nation is independent of the Spanish nation, and of every other, even on its own continent.
Art. 2.—Its religion shall be the Catholic, which all its inhabitants profess.
Art. 3.—They shall all be united, without any distinction between Americans and Europeans.
Art. 4.—The government shall be a constitutional monarchy.
Art. 5.—A Junta shall be named, consisting of individuals who enjoy the highest reputation in different parties which have shown themselves.
Art. 6.—This Junta shall be under the presidency of his excellency the Conde del Venadito, the present viceroy of Mexico.
Art. 7.—It shall govern in the name of the nation, according to the laws now in force, and its principal business will be to convoke, according to such rules as it shall deem expedient, a congress for the formation of a constitution more suitable to the country.
Art. 8.—His Majesty Ferdinand VII. shall be invited to the throne of the empire, and in case of his refusal, the Infantes Don Carlos and Don Francisco De Paula.
Art. 9.—Should his Majesty Ferdinand VII. and his august brothers, decline the invitation, the nation is at liberty to invite to the imperial throne any member of reigning families whom it may choose to select.
Art. 10.—The formation of the constitution by the congress, and the oath of the emperor to observe it, must precede his entry into the country.
Art. 11.—The distinction of castes is abolished, which was made by the Spanish law, excluding them from the rights of citizenship. All the inhabitants are citizens, and equal, and the door of advancement is open to virtue and merit.
Art. 12.—An army shall be formed for the support of religion, independence, and union, guaranteeing these three principles, and therefore shall be called the army of the three guaranties.
Art. 13.—It shall solemnly swear to defend the fundamental basis of this plan.
Art. 14.—It shall strictly observe the military ordinances now in force.
Art. 15.—There shall be no other promotions than those which are due to seniority, or which are necessary for the good of the service.
Art. 16.—The army shall be considered as of the line.
Art. 17.—The old partizans of independence who shall adhere to this plan, shall be considered as individuals of this army.
Art. 18.—The patriots and peasants who shall adhere to it hereafter, shall be considered as provincial militiamen.
Art. 19.—The secular and regular priests shall be continued in the state which they now are.
Art. 20.—All the public functionaries, civil, ecclesiastical, political and military, who adhere to the cause of independence, shall be continued in their offices, without any distinction between Americans and Europeans.
Art. 21.—Those functionaries, of whatever degree and condition who dissent from the cause of independence, shall be divested of their offices, and shall quit the territory without taking with them their families and effects.
Art. 22.—The military commandants shall regulate themselves according to the general instructions in conformity with this plan, which shall be transmitted to them.
Art. 23.—No accused person shall be condemned capitally by the military commandants. Those accused of treason against the nation, which is the next greatest crime after that of treason to the Divine Ruler, shall be conveyed to the fortress of Barbaras, where they shall remain until congress shall resolve on the punishment that ought to be inflicted on them.
Art. 24.—It being indispensable to the country, that this plan should be carried into effect, inasmuch as the welfare of that country is its object, every individual of the army shall maintain it, to the shedding (if it be necessary) of the last drop of his blood.
Town of Iguala, 24th February, 1821.
Footnotes
[61] Ward vol. i, 221.
[ [62] See Calleja's confidential letter to the Spanish minister of war, with a private report on the Mexican Revolution. Ward, vol. i, p. 509—Appendix.
CHAPTER IV
1821–1824.
O'DONOJU VICEROY.—CONDUCT OF ITURBIDE—NOVELLA.—REVOLT—TREATY OF CORDOVA.—FIRST MEXICAN CORTES—ITURBIDE EMPEROR—HIS CAREER—EXILED TO ITALY.—ITURBIDE RETURNS—ARREST—EXECUTION—HIS CHARACTER AND SERVICES.
O'Donoju, LXII. Viceroy of New Spain,
Iturbide, Emperor of Mexico.—1821–1824.
It will be seen by the Plan of Iguala, that Mexico was designed to become an independent sovereignty under Ferdinand VII. or, in the event of his refusal, under the Infantes Don Carlos and Don Francisco de Paula. Iturbide was still a royalist—not a republican; and it is very doubtful whether he would ever have assented to popular authority, even had his life been spared to witness the final development of the revolution. It is probable that his penetrating mind distinguished between popular hatred of unjust restraint, and the genuine capacity of a nation for liberty, nor is it unlikely that he found among his countrymen but few of those self-controlling, self-sacrificing and progressive elements, which constitute the only foundation upon which a republic can be securely founded. His ambition had not yet been fully developed by success, and it cannot be imagined that he had already fixed his heart upon the imperial throne.
When the Plan of Iguala was proclaimed, the entire army of the future emperor, consisted of only eight hundred men, all of whom took the oath of fidelity to the project, though many deserted when they found the country was not immediately unanimous in its approval.
In the capital, the viceroy appears to have been paralyzed by the sudden and unexpected movement of his officer. He paused, hesitated, failed to act, and was deposed by the Europeans, who treated him as they had Iturrigaray in 1808. Don Francisco de Novella, an artillery officer, was installed temporarily in his stead, but the appointment created a dissension among the people in the capital and the country, and this so completely prostrated the action of the central authorities, who might have crushed the revolution by a blow, that Iturbide was enabled to prosecute his designs throughout the most important parts of the interior of the country, without the slightest resistance.
He seized a million of dollars on their way to the west coast, and joined Guerrero who still held out on the river Zacatula with the last remnant of the old revolutionary forces. Guerrero gave in his adhesion to Iturbide, as soon as he ascertained that it was the general's design to make Mexico independent, though, in all likelihood, he disapproved the other features of the plan. Guerrero's act was of the greatest national importance. It rallied all the veteran fighters and friends of Morelos and the Bravos. Almost all of the former leaders and their dispersed bands, came forth, at the cry of "independence," under the banner of Iturbide. Victoria even, for a while, befriended the rising hero; but he had fought for a liberal government, and did not long continue on amicable terms with one who could not control his truly independent spirit. The clergy, as well as the people, signified their intention to support the gallant insurgent;—and, in fact, the whole country, from Vera Cruz to Acapulco, with the exception of the capital, was soon open in its adhesion to him and his army.
Don Juan O'Donoju,
LXII. Viceroy of New Spain.—1821.
Iturbide was now in full authority, and whilst preparing to march on the city of Mexico, in which the viceroy, ad interim, was shut up, he learned that Don Juan O'Donoju had arrived at San Juan de Ulua to fill the place of Apodaca as viceroy. Proposals were immediately sent by the general to this new functionary, and in an interview with him at Cordova, Iturbide proposed the adoption of the Plan of Iguala by treaty, as the only project by which the Spaniards in Mexico could be saved from the fury of the people, and the sovereignty of the colony preserved for Ferdinand. We shall not pause to enquire whether the viceroy was justified or even empowered, to compromise the rights of Spain by such a compact. O'Donoju, though under the safeguard of a truce, was in truth a helpless man as soon as he touched the soil of Mexico, for no portions of it were actually under the Spanish authority except the castle of San Juan de Ulua and the capital, whose garrisons were chiefly composed of European levies. Humanity, perhaps, ultimately controlled his decision, and in the name of his master, he recognised the independence of Mexico and yielded the metropolis to the "army of the three Guaranties," which entered it peacefully on the 27th of September, 1821. A provisional Junta of thirty-six persons immediately elected a regency of five, of which Iturbide was president, and, at the same time, he was created Generalissimo, Lord High Admiral, and assigned a yearly stipend of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
On the 24th of February, 1822, the first Mexican Congress or Cortes, met; but it contained within it the germ of all the future discontents, which since that day, have harassed and nearly ruined Mexico. Scarcely had this body met when three parties manifested their bitter animosities and personal ambitions. The Bourbonists adhered, loyally, to the Plan of Iguala, a constitutional monarchy and the sovereignty of Ferdinand. The Republicans, discarded the plan as a device that had served its day, and insisted upon a central or federal republic; and, last of all, the partisans of the successful soldier, still clung to all of the plan save the clause which gave the throne to a Bourbon prince, for, at heart, they desired to place Iturbide himself upon it, and thus to cut off their country forever from all connection with Europe.
As soon as O'Donoju's treaty of Cordova reached Spain, it was nullified by the Cortes, and the Bourbon party in Mexico, of course fell with it. The Republicans and Iturbidists, alone remained on the field to contend for the prize, and after congress had disgraced itself by incessant bickerings over the army and the public funds, a certain Pio Marcha, first sergeant of the first regiment of infantry gathered a band of leperos before the palace of Iturbide on the night of the 18th of May, 1822, and proclaimed him Emperor, with the title of Agustin the First. A show of resistance was made by Iturbide against the proffered crown; but it is likely that it was in reality, as faint as his joy was unbounded at the sudden elevation from a barrack room to the imperial palace. Congress, of course, approved the decision of the mob and army. The provinces sanctioned the acts of their representatives, and Iturbide ascended the throne.
But his reign was brief. Rapid success, love of power, impatience of restraint,—all of which are characteristic of the Spanish soldier,—made him strain the bonds of constitutional right. His struggles for control were incessant. "He demanded," says Ward, "a veto upon all articles of the constitution then under discussion, and the right of appointing and removing, at pleasure, the members of the supreme tribunal of justice. He recommended also the establishment of a military tribunal in the capital, with powers but little inferior to those exercised by the Spanish commandants during the revolution; and when these proposals were firmly rejected, he arrested, on the night of the 26th August, 1822, fourteen of the deputies who had advocated, during the discussion, principles but little in unison with the views of the government."
This high handed measure, and the openly manifested displeasure of congress, produced so complete a rupture between the emperor and the popular representatives, that it was impossible to conduct public affairs with any concert of action. Accordingly, Iturbide dissolved the assembly, and on the 30th of October, 1822, created an Instituent Junta of forty-five persons selected by himself from amongst the most pliant members of the recent congress. This irregularly formed body was intolerable to the people, while the expelled deputies, who returned to their respective districts, soon spread the spirit of discontent and proclaimed the American usurper to be as dangerous as the European despot.
In November, General Garza headed a revolt in the northern provinces. Santa Anna, then governor of Vera Cruz, declared against the emperor. General Echavari, sent by Iturbide to crush the future president of Mexico, resolved not to stem the torrent of public opinion, and joined the general he had been commissioned to capture. Guadalupe Victoria,—driven to his fastnesses by the emperor, who was unable to win the incorruptible patriot, descended once more from the mountain forests, where he had been concealed, and joined the battalions of Santa Anna. And, on the 1st of February, 1823, a convention, called the "Act of Casa-Mata," was signed, by which the re-establishment of the National Representative Assembly was pledged.
The country was soon in arms. The Marques Vibanco, Generals Guerrero, Bravo, and Negrete, in various sections of the nation, proclaimed their adhesion to the popular movement; and on the 8th of March, 1823, Iturbide, finding that the day was lost, offered his abdication to such members of the old congress as he was able to assemble hastily in the metropolis. The abdication was, however, twice refused on the ground that congress, by accepting it, would necessarily sanction the legality of his right to wear the crown; nevertheless, that body permitted his departure from Mexico, after endowing him liberally with an income of twenty-five thousand dollars a year, besides providing a vessel to bear him and his family to Leghorn in Italy.
Victoria, Bravo, and Negrete entered the capital on the 27th of March, and were chosen by the old congress which quickly reassembled, as a triumvirate to exercise supreme executive powers until the new congress assembled in the following August. In October, 1824, this body finally sanctioned the federal constitution, which, after various revolutions, overthrows, and reforms, was readopted in the year 1847.
On the 14th of July, 1824, a vessel under British colors was perceived on the Mexican coast near the mouth of the Santander. On the next day, a Polish gentlemen came on shore from the ship, and, announcing himself as Charles de Beneski, visited General Felix la Garza, commandant of the district of Soto la Marina. He professed to visit that remote district, with a friend, for the purpose of purchasing land from the government on which they designed establishing a colony. Garza gave them leave to enter the country for this purpose; but suspicions were soon aroused against the singular visitors and they were arrested. As soon as the friend of the Pole was stripped of his disguise, the Emperor Iturbide stood in front of Garza, whom he had disgraced for his participation in the revolt during his brief reign.
La Garza immediately secured the prisoner, and sent him to Padilla, where he delivered him to the authorities of Tamaulipas. The state legislature being in session, promptly resolved, in the excess of patriotic zeal, to execute a decree of the congress, passed in the preceding April, by condemning the royal exile to death. Short time was given Iturbide to arrange his affairs. He was allowed no appeal to the general government. He confessed to a priest on the evening of the 19th of July, and was led to the place of execution, where he fell, pierced with four balls, two of which took effect in his brain and two in his heart!
Thus perished the hero who, suddenly, unexpectedly, and effectually, crushed the power of Spain in North America. It is not fair to judge him by the standards that are generally applied to the life of a distinguished civilian, or even of a successful soldier, in countries where the habits and education of the people fit them for duties requiring forbearance, patience, or high intellectual culture. Iturbide was, according to all reliable accounts, a refined gentleman, yet he was tyrannical and sometimes cruel, for it is recorded in his own handwriting, that on Good Friday, 1814, "in honor of the day, he had just ordered three hundred excommunicated wretches to be shot!" His early life was passed in the saddle and the barrack room; nor had he much leisure to pursue the studies of a statesman, even if his mind had been capable of resolving all their mysteries. His temper was not calculated for the liberal debates of a free senate. He was better fitted to discipline an army than to guide a nation. Educated in a school in which subordination is a necessity, and where unquestioning obedience is exacted, he was unable to appreciate the rights of deliberative assemblies. He felt, perhaps, that, in the disorganized condition of his country, it was needful to control the people by force in order to save the remnant of civilization from complete anarchy. But he wanted conciliatory manners to seduce the congress into obedience to his behests,—and he therefore unfortunately and unwisely played the military despot when he should have acted the part of a quiet diplomatist. Finding himself, in two years, emperor of Mexico, after being, at the commencement of that period, nothing more than commander of a regiment, it may be pardoned if he was bewildered by the rapidity of his rise, and if the air he breathed in his extraordinary ascent was too etherial for a man of so excitable a temperament.
In every aspect of his character, we must regard him as one altogether inadequate to shape the destiny of a nation emerging from the blood and smoke of two revolutions,—a nation whose political tendencies towards absolute freedom, were at that time, naturally, the positive reverse of his own.
Death sealed the lips of men who might have clamored for him in the course of a few years, when the insubordinate spirit that was soon manifested needed as bold an arm as that of Iturbide, in his best days, to check or guide it. Public opinion was decidedly opposed to his sudden and cruel slaughter. Mexicans candidly acknowledged that their country's independence was owing to him; and whilst they admitted that Garza's zeal for the emperor's execution might have been lawful, they believed that revenge for his former disgrace, rather than patriotism, induced the rash and ruthless soldier to hasten the death of the noble victim whom fortune had thrown in his lonely path.
CHAPTER V.
1824–1829.
REVIEW OF THE CONDITION OF MEXICO AND THE FORMATION OF PARTIES.—VICEROYAL GOVERNMENT—THE PEOPLE—THE ARMY—THE CHURCH.—CONSTITUTION OF 1824.—ECHAVARI REVOLTS.—VICTORIA PRESIDENT—ESCOCESSES—YORKINOS—REVOLTS CONTINUED.—MONTAYNO—GUERRERO.—GOMEZ PEDRAZA PRESIDENT—IS OVERTHROWN.—FEDERALISTS—CENTRALISTS—GUERRERO PRESIDENT.—ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN MEXICO.
We must pause a moment over the past history of Mexico, for the portion we now approach has few of the elements either of union or patriotism which characterized the early struggles for national independence. The revolutionary war had merited and received the commendation of freemen throughout the world. The prolonged struggle exhibited powers of endurance, an unceasing resolution, and a determination to throw off European thraldom, which won the respect of those northern powers on this continent who were most concerned in securing to themselves a republican neighborhood. But, as soon as the dominion of Spain was crushed, the domestic quarrels of Mexico began, and we have already shown that in the three parties formed in the first congress, were to be found the germs of all the feuds that have since vexed the republic or impeded its successful progress towards national grandeur. After the country had been so long a battle field, it was perhaps difficult immediately to accustom the people to civil rule or to free them from the baleful influence which military glory is apt to throw round individuals who render important services to their country in war. Even in our own union, where the ballot box instead of the bayonet has always controlled elections, and where loyalty to the constitution would blast the effort of ambitious men to place a conqueror in power by any other means than that of peaceful election, we constantly find how difficult it is to screen the people's eyes from the bewildering glare of military glory. What then could we expect from a country in which the self-relying, self-ruling, civil idea never existed at any period of its previous history? The revolution of the North American colonies was not designed to obtain liberty, for they were already free; but it was excited and successfully pursued in order to prevent the burthensome and aggressive impositions of England which would have curtailed that freedom, and, reduced us to colonial dependence as well as royal or ministerial dictation. Mexico, on the contrary, had never been free. Spain regarded the country as a mine which was to be diligently wrought, and the masses of the people as acclimated serfs whose services were the legitimate perquisites of a court and aristocracy beyond the sea. There had been, among the kings and viceroys who controlled the destinies of New Spain, men who were swayed by just and amiable views of colonial government; but the majority considered Mexico as a speculation rather than an infant colony whose progressive destiny it was their duty to foster with all the care and wisdom of Christian magistrates. The minor officials misruled and peculated, as we have related in our introductory sketch of the viceroyal government. They were all men of the hour, and, even the viceroys themselves, regarded their governments on the American continent as rewards for services in Europe, enabling them to secure fortunes with which they returned to the Castilian court, forgetful of the Indian miner and agriculturist from whose sweat their wealth was coined. The Spaniard never identified himself with Mexico. His home was on the other side of the Atlantic. Few of the best class formed permanent establishments in the viceroyalty; and all of them were too much interested in maintaining both the state of society and the castes which had been created by the conquerors, to spend a thought upon the amelioration of the people. We do not desire to blacken, by our commentary, the fame of a great nation like that of Spain; yet this dreary but true portrait of national selfishness has been so often verified by all the colonial historians of America, and especially by Pazo and Zavala, in their admirable historical sketches of Castilian misrule, that we deem it fair to introduce these palliations of Mexican misconduct since the revolution. [63]
*****
The people of New Spain were poor and uneducated,—the aristocracy was rich, supercilious, and almost equally illiterate. It was a society without a middle ground,—in which gold stood out in broad relief against rags. Was such a state of barbaric semi-civilization entitled or fitted to emerge at once into republicanism? Was it to be imagined that men who had always been controlled, could learn immediately to control themselves? Was it to be believed that the military personages, whose ambition is as proverbial as it is natural, would voluntarily surrender the power they possessed over the masses, and retire to the obscurity and poverty of private life when they could enjoy the wealth and influence of political control, so long as they maintained their rank in the army? This would have been too much to expect from the self-denial of creole chiefs; nor is it surprising to behold the people themselves looking towards these very men as proper persons to consolidate or shape the government they had established. It was the most natural thing conceivable to find Iturbide, Guerrero, Bustamante, Negrete, Bravo, Santa Anna, Paredes, and the whole host of revolutionary heroes succeeding each other in power, either constitutionally or by violence. The people knew no others. The military idea,—military success,—a name won in action, and repeated from lip to lip until the traditionary sound became a household word among the herdsmen, rancheros, vaqueros and Indians,—these were the sources of Mexican renown or popularity, and the appropriate objects of political reward and confidence. What individual among the four or five millions of Indians knew anything of the statesmen of their country who had never mixed in the revolutionary war or in the domestic brawls constantly occurring. There were no gazettes to spread their fame or merit, and even if there had been, the people were unable to buy or peruse them. Among the mixed breeds, and lower class of creoles, an equal degree of ignorance prevailed;—and thus, from the first epoch of independence, the People ceased to be a true republican tribunal in Mexico, while the city was surrendered as the battle field of all the political aspirants who had won reputations in the camp which were to serve them for other purposes in the capital. By this means the army rose to immediate significance and became the general arbiter in all political controversies. Nor was the church,—that other overshadowing influence in all countries in which religion and the state are combined,—a silent spectator in the division of national power. The Roman Hierarchy, a large landholder,—as will be hereafter seen in our statistical view of the country,—had much at stake in Mexico, besides the mere authority which so powerful a body is always anxious to maintain over the consciences of the multitude. The church was, thus, a political element of great strength; and, combined with the army, created and sustained an important party, which has been untiring in its efforts to support centralism, as the true political principle of Mexican government.
*****
On the 4th of October, 1824, a federal constitution, framed partly upon the model of the constitution of the United States, with some grafts from the Spanish constitution, was adopted by Congress; and, by it, the territory comprehended in the old viceroyalty of New Spain, the Captaincy General of Yucatan, the commandancies of the eastern and western Internal Provinces, Upper and Lower California, with the lands and isles adjacent in both seas, were placed under the protection of this organic law. The religion of the Mexican nation was declared to be, in perpetuity, the Catholic Apostolic Roman; and the nation pledged its protection, at the same time prohibiting the exercise of any other!
Previous, however, to these constitutional enactments the country had not been entirely quiet, for as early as January of this year, General Echavari, who occupied the state of Puebla, raised the standard of revolt against the Triumvirate. This seditious movement was soon suppressed by the staunch old warrior, Guerrero, who seized and bore the insurgent chief to the capital as a prisoner. Another insurrection, occurred not long after in Cuernavaca, which was also quelled by Guerrero. Both of these outbreaks were caused by the centralists, who strove to put down by violence the popular desire for the federal system. Instead of destroying the favorite charter, however, they only served to cement the sections, who sustained liberal doctrines in the different provinces or states of the nation, and finally, aided materially in enforcing the adoption of the federal system.
Another insurrection occurred in the city of Mexico, growing out of the old and national animosity between the creoles and the European Spaniards. The expulsion of the latter from all public employments was demanded by the creoles of the capital, backed by the garrison commanded by Colonels Lobato and Staboli. The revolt was suppressed at the moment; but it was deemed advisable to conciliate feeling in regard to the unfortunate foreigners; and, accordingly, changes were made in the departments, in which the offices were given to native Mexicans, whilst the Spaniards were allowed a pension for life of one-third of their pay. At this period, moreover, the supreme executive power was altered, and Nicolas Bravo, Vicente Guerrero, and Miguel Dominguez, were appointed to control public affairs until a president was elected under the new constitution.
Early in 1825, the general congress assembled in the city of Mexico. Guadalupe Victoria was declared president, and Nicolas Bravo vice president. The national finances were recruited by a loan from England; and a legislative effort was made to narrow the influence of the priesthood, according to the just limits it should occupy in a republic.
All Spanish America had been in a ferment for several years, and the power of Castile was forever broken on this continent. Peru, as well as Mexico, had cast off the bonds of dependence, for the brilliant battle of Ayacucho rescued the republican banner from the danger with which for a while it was menaced. The European forces had never been really formidable, except for their superior discipline and control under royalist leaders,—but they were now driven out of the heart of the continent,—whilst the few pertinacious troops and generals who still remained, were confined to the coasts of Mexico, Peru, and Chili, where they clung to the fortress of San Juan de Ulua, the castle of Callao, and the strongholds of Chiloe.
Victoria was sworn into office on the 15th of April, 1825. Several foreign nations had already recognized the independence of Mexico, or soon hastened to do so; for all were eager to grasp a share of the commerce and mines which they imagined had been so profitable to Spain. The British, especially, who had become holders of Mexican bonds, were particularly desirous to open commercial intercourse and to guard it by international treaties.
In the winter of 1826, it was discovered, by the discussions in congress of projects for their suppression, that the party leaders, fearing an open attempt to conduct their unconstitutional machinations, had sought the concealment of masonic institutions in which they might foster their antagonistic schemes. The rival lodges were designated as Escocesses and Yorkinos, the former numbering among its members the vice president Nicolas Bravo, Gomez Pedraza, and José Montayno, while the Yorkinos boasted of Generals Victoria, Santa Anna, Guerrero, Lorenzo de Zavala, and Bustamante. The adherents of the Escocesses were said to be in favor of a limited monarchy with a Spanish prince at its head; but the Yorkinos maintained the supremacy of the constitution and declared themselves hostile to all movements of a central character. The latter party was, by far, the most numerous. The intelligent liberals of all classes sustained it; yet its leaders had to contend with the dignitaries of the church, the opulent agriculturists, land holders and miners, and many of the higher officers of the army whose names had been identified with the early struggles of the independents against the Spaniards.
These party discussions, mainly excited by the personal ambitions of the disputants, which were carried on not only openly in congress, but secretly in the lodges, absorbed for a long time, the entire attention of the selfish but intelligent persons who should have forgotten themselves in the holy purpose of consolidating the free and republican principles of the constitution of 1824. The result of this personal warfare was soon exhibited in the total neglect of popular interests, so far as they were to be fostered or advanced by the action of congress. The states, however, were in some degree, free from these internecine contests; for the boldest of the various leaders, and the most ambitious aspirants for power, had left the provinces to settle their quarrels in the capital. This was fortunate for the country, inasmuch as the states were in some measure recompensed by their own care of the various domestic industrial interests for the neglect they suffered at the hands of national legislators.
At the close of 1827, Colonel José Montayno, a member of the Escocesses, proclaimed, in Otumba, the plan which in the history of Mexican pronunciamientos, or revolts, is known by the name of this leader. Another attempt of a similar character had been previously made, against the federative system and in favor of centralism, by Padre Arénas; but both of these outbreaks were not considered dangerous, until Bravo denounced president Victoria for his union with the Yorkinos, and, taking arms against the government, joined the rebels in Tulancingo, where he declared himself in favor of the central plan of Montayno. The country was aroused. The insurgents appeared in great strength. The army exhibited decided symptoms of favor towards the revolted party; and the church strengthened the elements of discontent by its secret influence with the people. Such was the revolutionary state of Mexico, when the patriot Guerrero was once more summoned by the executive to use his energetic efforts in quelling the insurrection. Nor was he unsuccessful in his loyal endeavors to support the constitution. As soon as he marched against the insurgents, they dispersed throughout the country; so that, without bloodshed, he was enabled to crush the revolt and save the nation from the civil war. Thus, amid the embittered quarrels of parties, who had actually designed to transfer their contests from congress and lodges to the field of battle, terminated the administration of Guadalupe Victoria, the first president of Mexico. His successor, Gomez Pedraza, the candidate of the Escocesses, was elected by a majority of but two votes over his competitor, Guerrero, the representative of the liberal Yorkinos.
*****
These internal discontents of Mexico began to inspire the Spanish court with hope that its estranged colony would be induced, or perhaps easily compelled, after a short time, to return to its allegiance; and, accordingly, it was soon understood in Mexico, even during Victoria's administration, that active efforts were making in Cuba to raise an adequate force for another attempt upon the republic. This, for a moment, restrained the fraternal hands raised against each other within the limits of Mexico, and forced all parties to unite against the common danger from abroad. Suitable measures were taken to guard the coasts where an attack was most imminent, and it was the good fortune of the government to secure the services of Commodore Porter, a distinguished officer of the United States Navy, who commanded the Mexican squadron most effectively for the protection of the shores along the gulf, and took a number of Spanish vessels, even in the ports of Cuba, some of which were laden with large and costly cargoes.
The success of the centralist Pedraza over the federalist Guerrero, a man whose name and reputation were scarcely less dear to the genuine republicans than that of Guadalupe Victoria,—was not calculated to heal the animosities of the two factions, especially, as the scant majority of two votes had placed the Escoces partizan in the presidential chair. The defeated candidate and his incensed companions of the liberal lodge, did not exhibit upon this occasion that loyal obedience to constitutional law, which should have taught them that the first duty of a republican is to conceal his mortification at a political defeat and to bow reverentially to the lawful decision of a majority. It is a subject of deep regret that the first bold and successful attack upon the organic law of Mexico was made by the federalists. They may have deemed it their duty to prevent their unreliable competitors from controlling the destinies of Mexico even for a moment under the sanction of the constitution; but there can be no doubt that they should have waited until acts, instead of suspicions or fears, entitled them to exercise their right of impeachment under the constitution. In an unregulated, military nation, such as Mexico was at that period, men do not pause for the slow operations of law when there is a personal or a party quarrel in question. The hot blood of the impetuous, tropical region, combines with the active intellectual temperament of the people, and laws and constitutions are equally disregarded under the impulse of passion or interest. Such was the case in the present juncture. The Yorkinos had been outvoted lawfully, according to the solemn record of congress, yet they resolved not to submit; and, accordingly, Lorenzo de Zavala, the Grand Master of their lodge, and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who was then a professed federalist, in conjunction with the defeated candidate Guerrero and Generals Montezuma and Lobato, determined to prevent Pedraza from occupying the chair of state. Santa Anna, who now appeared prominently on the stage, was the chief agitator in the scheme, and being in garrison at Jalapa, in the autumn of 1828, pronounced against the chief magistrate elect, and denounced his nomination as "illegal, fraudulent and unconstitutional." The movement was popular, for the people were in fact friendly to Guerrero. The prejudices of the native or creole party against the Spaniards and their supposed defenders the Escocesses, were studiously fomented in the capital; and, on the 4th of December, the pronunciamiento of the Accordada, in the capital, seconded the sedition of Santa Anna in the provinces. By this time the arch conspirator in this drama had reached the metropolis and labored to control the elements of disorder which were at hand to support his favorite Guerrero. The defenceless Spaniards were relentlessly assailed by the infuriate mob which was let loose upon them by the insurgent chiefs. Guerrero was in the field in person at the head of the Yorkinos. The Parian in the capital, and the dwellings of many of the noted Escocesses were attacked and pillaged, and for some time the city was given up to anarchy and bloodshed. Pedraza, who still fulfilled the functions of minister of war previous to his inauguration, fled from the official post which he abandoned to his rival Santa Anna; and on the 1st of January, 1829, congress,—reversing its former act,—declared Guerrero to have been duly elected president of the republic! General Bustamante was chosen vice president, and the government again resumed its operation under the federal system of 1824.
Note.—Although a masked Indian slavery or peonage, is permitted and encouraged in Mexico, African slavery is prohibited by positive enactments as well as by the constitution itself. But as it may interest the reader to know the Mexican enactments relative to negroes, on this subject, the following documents are subjoined for reference:—
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.
The President of the Mexican United States to the Inhabitants of the Republic.
Be it known—That, being desirous to signalize the anniversary of independence, in the year 1829, by an act of national justice and beneficence, which may redound to the advantage and support of so inestimable a good; which may further insure the public tranquillity; which may tend to the aggrandisement of the republic, and may reinstate an unfortunate portion of its inhabitants in the sacred rights which nature gave to them, and the nation should protect by wise and just laws, conformably with the dispositions of the thirtieth article of the constituent act, employing the extrordinary faculties which have been conceded to me, I have resolved to decree—
1. Slavery is and shall remain abolished in the republic.
2. In consequence, those who have hitherto been regarded as slaves, are free.
3. Whensoever the condition of the treasury shall permit, the owners of the slaves shall be indemnified according to the terms which the law may dispose.
Guerrero.
Mexico, Sept. 15, 1829.
MEXICAN LAW FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE REPUBLIC.
Art. 1.—Slavery is abolished, without any exception, throughout the whole republic.
2. The owners of the slaves manumitted by the present law, or by the decree of September 15, 1829, shall be indemnified for their interests in them, to be estimated according to the proofs which may be presented of their personal qualities; to which effect, one appraiser shall be appointed by the commissary general, or the person performing his duties, and another by the owner; and, in case of disagreement, a third, who shall be appointed by the respective constitutional alcalde; and from the decision thus made, there shall be no appeal. The indemnification mentioned in this article shall not be extended to the colonists of Texas, who may have taken part in the revolution in that department.
3. The owners to whom the original documents drawn up with regard to the proofs mentioned in the preceding article, shall be delivered gratis—shall themselves present them to the supreme government, which will authorise the general treasury to issue to them the corresponding orders for the amount of their respective interests.
4. The payment of the said orders shall be made in the manner which may seem most equitable to the government, with the view of reconciling the rights of individuals with the actual state of the public finances.
April 5, 1837.
The Constitution of 1843, or Bases organicas de la Republica Mejicana, of that year, declares that: "No one is a slave in the territory of the nation, and that any slave who may be introduced, shall be considered free and remain under the protection of the laws."—Title 2d.
The Constitution of 1847—which, in fact, is the old Federal Constitution of 1824—does not rëenact this clause; but, in the Acta de Reformas annexed to it in 1847, declares, "that every Mexican, either by birth or naturalization, who has attained the age of twenty years, who possesses the means of an honest livelihood, and who has not been condemned by legal process to any infamous punishment, is a citizen of the United Mexican States."—Acta de Reformas, Article 1. "In order to secure the rights of man which the Constitution recognizes, a law shall fix the guaranties of liberty, security, property and equality, which all the inhabitants of the republic enjoy, and shall establish the means requisite to make them effective."—1d. Article 5. The third article provides that "the exercise of the rights of citizenship are suspended by habitual intemperance; by professional gambling or vagabondage; by religious orders; by legal interdict in virtue of trial for those crimes which forfeit citizenship, and by refusal to fulfil public duties imposed by popular nomination" (nombramiento popular.)
Footnote
[ [63] Zavala's Hist. Rev. of Mex. 2 vols.;—and Pazo's letters on the United Provinces of South America.
CHAPTER VI.
1829–1843.
CONSPIRACY AGAINST GUERRERO BY BUSTAMANTE—GUERRERO BETRAYED AND SHOT.—ANECDOTE—REVOLT UNDER SANTA ANNA—HE RESTORES PEDRAZA AND BECOMES PRESIDENT.—GOMEZ FARIAS DEPOSED—CHURCH.—CENTRAL CONSTITUTION OF 1836—SANTA ANNA—HIS TEXAN DISGRACE—MEXIA.—BUSTAMANTE PRESIDENT.—FRENCH AT VERA CRUZ.—REVOLTS IN THE NORTH AND IN THE CAPITAL.—BUSTAMANTE DEPOSED—SANTA ANNA PRESIDENT.
Violent as was the conduct of the pretended liberals in overthrowing their rivals the Escocesses, and firmly as it may be supposed such a band was cemented in opposition to the machination of a bold monarchical party, we, nevertheless, find that treason existed in the hearts of the conspirators against the patriot hero whom they had used in their usurpation of the presidency. Scarcely had Guerrero been seated in the chair of state when it became known that there was a conspiracy to displace him. He had been induced by the condition of the country, and by the bad advice of his enemies to assume the authority of dictator. This power, he alleged, was exercised only for the suppression of the intriguing Escocesses; but its continued exercise served as a pretext at least, for the vice president, General Bustamante, to place himself at the head of a republican division and pronounce against the president he had so recently contributed to place in power. The executive commanded Santa Anna to advance against the assailants; but this chief, at first, feebly opposed the insurgents, and, finally, fraternizing with Bustamante, marched on the capital whence they drove Guerrero and his partisans to Valladolid in Michoacan. Here the dethroned dictator organized a government, whilst the usurping vice president, Bustamante, assumed the reins in the capital. In Michoacan, Guerrero, who was well known and loved for his revolutionary enterprises in the west of Mexico, found no difficulty in recruiting a force with which he hoped to regain his executive post. Congress was divided in opinion between the rival factions of the liberalists, and the republic was shaken by the continual strife, until Bustamante despatched a powerful division against Guerrero, which defeated, and dispersed his army. This was the conclusion of that successful warrior's career. He was a good soldier but a miserable statesman. His private character and natural disposition are represented, by those who knew him best, to have been irreproachable; yet he was fitted alone for the early struggles of Mexico in the field, and was so ignorant of the administrative functions needed in his country at such a period, that it is not surprising to find he had been used as a tool, and cast aside when the service for which his intriguing coadjutors required him was performed. His historical popularity and character rendered him available for a reckless party in overthrowing a constitutional election; and, even when beaten by the new usurper, and with scarcely the shadow of a party in the nation, it was still feared that his ancient usefulness in the wars of independence, might render him again the nucleus of political discontent. Accordingly, the pursuit of Guerrero was not abandoned when his army fled. The west coast was watched by the myrmidons of the usurpers, and the war-worn hero was finally betrayed on board a vessel by a spy, where he was arrested for bearing arms against the government of which he was the real head, according to the solemn decision of congress! In February, 1831, a court martial, ordered by General Montezuma tried him for this pretended crime. His sentence was, of course, known as soon as his judges were named; and, thus, another chief of the revolutionary war was rewarded by death for his patriotic services. We cannot regard this act of Bustamante and Santa Anna, except as a deliberate murder for which they richly deserve the condemnation of impartial history, even if they had no other crimes to answer at the bar of God and their country.
Whilst these internal contests were agitating the heart of Mexico, an expedition had been fitted out at Havana composed of four thousand troops commanded by Barradas, designed to invade the lost colony and restore it to the Spanish crown. The accounts given of this force and its condition when landed at Tampico, vary according to the partizans by whom they are written; but there is reason to believe that the Spanish troops were so weakened by disease and losses in the summer of 1830, that when Santa Anna and a French officer,—Colonel Woll—attacked them in the month of September, they fell an easy prey into the hands of the Mexicans. Santa Anna, however, with his usual talent for such composition, magnified the defeat into a magnificent conquest. He was hailed as the victor who broke the last link between Spain and her viceroyalty. Pompous bulletins and despatches were published in the papers; and the commander-in-chief returned to the capital, covered with honors, as the saviour of the republic.
There is an anecdote connected with the final expulsion of the Spaniards from Mexico, which deserves to be recorded as it exhibits a fact which superstitious persons might conceive to be the avenging decree of retributive providence. Doña Isabel Montezuma, the eldest daughter of the unfortunate Emperor had been married to his successor on the Aztec throne, and, after his wretched death, was united to various distinguished Spaniards, the last of whom was Juan Andrade, ancestor of the Andrade Montezumas and Counts of Miravalle. General Miguel Barragan, who afterwards became president ad interim of Mexico, and to whom the castle of San Juan de Ulua was surrendered by the European forces—was married to Manuela Trebuesta y Casasola, daughter of the last Count of Miravalle, and it is thus a singular coincidence that the husband of a lady who was the legitimate descendant of Montezuma, should have been destined to receive the keys of the last stronghold on which the Spanish banner floated on this continent! [64]
*****
By intrigue and victories Santa Anna had acquired so much popular renown throughout the country and with the army that he found the time was arriving when he might safely avail himself of his old and recent services against Iturbide and Barradas. Under the influence of his machinations Bustamante began to fail in popular estimation. He was spoken of as a tyrant; his administration was characterized as inauspicious; and the public mind was gradually prepared for an outbreak in 1832. Santa Anna, who had, in fact, placed and sustained Bustamante in power, was, in reality, the instigator of this revolt. The ambitious chief, first of all issued his pronunciamiento against the ministry of the president, and then, shortly after, against that functionary himself. But Bustamante, a man of nerve and capacity, was not to be destroyed as easily as his victim, Guerrero. He threw himself at the head of his loyal troops and encountering the rebels at Tolomi routed them completely. Santa Anna, therefore, retired to Vera Cruz, and, strengthening his forces from some of the other states, declared himself in favor of the restoration of the constitutional president Pedraza, whom he had previously driven out of Mexico. As Bustamante advanced towards the coast his army melted away. The country was opposed to him. He was wise enough to perceive that his usurped power was lost; and prudently entered into a pacific convention with Santa Anna at Zavaleta in December, 1832. The successful insurgent immediately despatched a vessel for the banished Pedraza, and brought him back to the capital to serve out the remaining three months of his unexpired administration!
The object of Santa Anna in restoring Pedraza was not to sustain any one of the old parties which had now become strangely mingled and confused by the factions or ambitions of all the leaders. His main design was to secure the services and influence of the centralists, as far as they were yet available, in controlling his election to the presidency upon which he had fixed his heart. On the 16th of May, 1833, he reached the goal of his ambition. [65]
The congress of 1834 was unquestionably federal republican in its character, and Santa Anna seemed to be perfectly in accord with his vice presidential compeer, Gomez Farias. But the church,—warned by a bill introduced into congress the previous year by Zavala, by which he aimed a blow at the temporalities of the spiritual lords,—did not remain contented spectators while the power reposed in the hands of his federal partizans. The popular representatives were accordingly approached by skilful emissaries, and it was soon found that the centralists were strongly represented in a body hitherto regarded as altogether republican. It is charged in Mexico, that bribery was freely resorted to; and, when the solicitations became sufficiently powerful, even the inflexible patriotism of Santa Anna yielded, though the vice president Farias, remained incorruptible.
On the 13th of May, 1834, the president suddenly and unwarrantably dissolved congress, and maintained his arbitrary decree and power by the army, which was entirely at his service. In the following year, Gomez Farias was deposed from the vice presidency by the venal congress, and Barragan raised to the vacant post. The militia was disarmed, the central forces strengthened, and the people placed entirely at the mercy of the executive and his minions, who completed the destruction of the constitution of 1824 by blotting it from the statute book of Mexico.
Puebla, Jalisco, Oaxaca, parts of Mexico, Zacatecas and Texas revolted against this assumption of the centralists, though they were finally not able to maintain absolutely their free stand against the dictator. Zacatecas and Texas, alone, presented a formidable aspect to Santa Anna, who was, nevertheless, too strong and skilful for the ill regulated forces of the former state. The victorious troops entered the rebellious capital with savage fury; and, after committing the most disgusting acts of brutality and violence against all classes and sexes, they disarmed the citizens entirely and placed a military governor over the province. In Coahuila and Texas, symptoms of discontent were far more important, for the federalists met at Monclova, and, after electing Agustin Viesca governor, defied the opposite faction by which a military officer had been assigned to perform the execute the duties of the state. General Cos, however, soon dispersed the legislature by violence and imprisoned the governor and his companions whom he arrested as they were hastening to cross the Rio Grande. These evil doings were regarded sorrowfully but sternly by the North Americans who had flocked to Texas, under the sanctions and assurances of the federal constitution, and they resolved not to countenance the usurpation of their unquestionable rights.
Such was the state of affairs in the Mexican Republic when the Plan of Toluca was issued, by which the federal constitution was absolutely abolished, and the principles of a consolidated central government fully announced. Previous to this, however, a pronunciamiento had been made by a certain Escalada at Morelia, in favor of the fueros, or especial privileges and rights of the church and army. This outbreak was, of course, central in its character; whilst another ferment in Cuautla had been productive of Santa Anna's nomination as dictator, an office which he promptly refused to accept.
The Plan of Toluca was unquestionably favored by Santa Anna who had gone over to the centralists. It was a scheme designed to test national feeling and to prepare the people for the overthrow of state governments. The supreme power was vested by it in the executive and national congress; and the states were changed into departments under the command of military governors, who were responsible for their trust to the chief national authorities instead of the people. Such was the Central Constitution of 1836.
It is quite probable that Santa Anna's prudent care of himself and his popularity, as well as his military patriotism induced him to leave the government in the hands of the vice president Barragan whilst the new constitution was under discussion, and to lead the Mexican troops, personally, against the revolted Texans, who had never desisted from open hostility to the central usurpations. But as the history of that luckless expedition is to be recounted elsewhere in this volume, we shall content ourselves with simply recording the fact that on the 21st of April, 1836, the president and his army were completely routed by General Houston and the Texans; and, that instead of returning to the metropolis crowned with glory, as he had done from the capture of Barradas, Santa Anna owed his life to the generosity of the Texan insurgents whose companions in arms had recently been butchered by his orders at Goliad and San Antonio de Bejar. [66]
During Santa Anna's absence, vice president Barragan filled the executive office up to the time of his death, when he was succeeded by Coro, until the return from France of Bustamante, who had been elected president under the new central constitution of 1836. In the following year Santa Anna was sent back to Mexico in a vessel of the United States government. But he was a disgraced man in the nation's eyes. He returned to his hacienda of Manga de Clavo, and burying himself for a while in obscurity, was screened from the open manifestation of popular odium. Here he lurked until the brilliant attempt was made to disenthral his country by Mexia, in 1838. Demanding, once more, the privilege of leading the army, he was entrusted with its command, and, encountering the defender of federation in the neighborhood of Puebla, he gave him battle immediately. Mexia lost the day; and, with brief time for shrift or communication with his family, he was condemned by a drum-head court martial and shot upon the field of battle. This was a severe doom; but the personal animosity between the commanders was equally unrelenting, for when the sentence was announced to the brave but rash Mexia, he promptly and firmly declared that Santa Anna was right to execute him on the spot, inasmuch, as he would not have granted the usurper half the time that elapsed since his capture, had it been his destiny to prove victorious!
Soon after the accession of Bustamante there had been gritos in favor of federation and Gomez Farias, who was, at that period, imprisoned; but these trifling outbreaks were merely local and easily suppressed by Pedraza and Rodriguez.
In the winter of 1838, however, Mexico was more severely threatened from abroad than she had recently been by her internal discords. It was at this time that a French fleet appeared at Vera Cruz, under the orders of Admiral Baudin, to demand satisfaction for injuries to French subjects, and unsettled pecuniary claims which had been long and unavailingly subjects of diplomacy. Distracted for years by internal broils that paralyzed the industry of the country ever since the outbreak of the revolution, Mexico was in no condition to respond promptly to demands for money. But national pride forbade the idea of surrendering without a blow. The military resources of the country and of the Castle of San Juan de Ulua, were, accordingly, mustered with due celerity, and the assailed department of Vera Cruz entrusted to the defence of Santa Anna, whose fame had been somewhat refreshed by his victory over Mexia. Meanwhile the French fleet kept up a stringent blockade of Vera Cruz, and still more crippled the commercial revenues of Mexico by cutting off the greater part of its most valuable trade. Finding, however, that neither the blockade nor additional diplomacy would induce the stubborn government to accede to terms which the Mexicans knew would finally be forced on them, the French squadron attacked the city with forces landed from the vessels, whilst they assailed the redoubtable castle with three frigates, a corvette and two bomb vessels, whence, during an action of six hours, they threw three hundred and two shells, one hundred and seventy-seven paixhan, and seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-one solid shot. The assaults upon the town were not so successful as those on the castle, where the explosion of a magazine forced the Mexicans to surrender. The troops that had been landed were not numerous enough to hold the advantages they gained; and it was in gallantly repulsing a storming party at the gates of the city, that Santa Anna lost a leg by a parting shot from a small piece of ordnance as the French retreated on the quay to their boats.
The capture of the castle, however, placed the city at the mercy of the French, and the Mexicans were soon induced to enter into satisfactory stipulations for the adjustment of all debts and difficulties.
*****
In 1839, General Canales fomented a revolt in some of the north-eastern departments. The proposal of this insurgent was to form a republican confederation of Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Durango, which three states or departments, he designed should adopt for themselves the federal constitution of 1824, and, assuming the title of the independent "Republic of the Rio Grande," should pledge themselves to co-operate with Texas against Bustamante and the centralists. An alliance was entered into with Texas to that effect, and an expedition of united Texans and Republicans of the Rio Grande, was set on foot to occupy Coahuila; but at the appearance of General Arista in the field early in 1840, and after an action in which the combined forces were defeated, Canales left the discomfitted Texans to seek safety by hastening back to their own territory.
The administration of Bustamante was sorely tried by foreign and domestic broils, for, whilst Texas and the Republic of the Rio Grande were assailing him in the north, the federalists attacked him in the capital, and the Yucatecos revolted in the south. This last outbreak was not quelled as easily as the rebellion in the north; nor was it, in fact, until long afterwards during another administration, that the people of the Peninsula were again induced to return to their allegiance. Bustamante seems to have vexed the Yucatecos by unwise interference in the commercial and industrial interests of the country. The revolt was temporarily successful; On the 31st of March, 1841, a constitution was proclaimed in Yucatan, which erected it into a free and sovereign state, and exempted the people from many burdens as well as the odious intolerance of all other religions except the Roman Catholic, that had been imposed by both the federal constitution of 1824 and the central one of 1836.
*****
The discontent with Bustamante's administration, arising chiefly from a consumption duty of 15 per cent. which had been imposed by congress, was now well spread throughout the republic. The pronunciamiento of Urrea on the 15th of July, 1840, at the palace of Mexico was mainly an effort of the federalists to put down violently the constitution of 1836; and although the insurgents had possession, at one period, of the person of the president, yet the revolt was easily suppressed by Valencia and his faithful troops in the capital.
But, a year later, the revolutionary spirit had ripened into readiness for successful action. We have reason to believe that the most extensive combinations were made by active agents in all parts of Mexico to ensure the downfall of Bustamante and the elevation of Santa Anna. Accordingly, in August, 1841, a pronunciamiento of General Paredes, in Guadalajara, was speedily responded to by Valencia and Lombardini in the capital, and by Santa Anna himself at Vera Cruz. But the outbreak was not confined merely to proclamations or the adhesion of military garrisons; for a large body of troops and citizens continued loyal to the president and resolved to sustain the government in the capital. This fierce fidelity to the constitution on the one hand, and bitter hostility to the chief magistrate on the other, resulted in one of the most sanguinary conflicts that had taken place in Mexico since the early days of independence. For a whole month the contest was carried on with balls and grape shot in the streets of Mexico, whilst the rebels, who held the citadel outside the city, finished the shameless drama, by throwing a shower of bombs into the metropolis, shattering the houses, and involving innocent and guilty, citizens, strangers, combatants and non-combatants, in a common fate. This cowardly assault under the orders of Valencia, was made solely with the view of forcing the citizens, who were unconcerned in the quarrel between the factions, into insisting upon the surrender of Mexico, in order to save their town and families from destruction. There was a faint show of military manœuvres in the fields adjoining the city; but the troops on both sides shrank from battle when they were removed from the protecting shelter of walls and houses. At length, the intervention of Mexican citizens who were most interested in the cessation of hostilities, produced an arrangement between the belligerants at Estanzuela near the capital, and, finally, the Plan of Tacubaya was agreed on by the chiefs—as a substitute for the constitution of 1836. By the seventh article of this document, Santa Anna was effectually invested with dictatorial powers until a new constitution was formed.
The Plan of Tacubaya provided that a congress should be convened, in 1842, to form a new constitution, and in June, a body of patriotic citizens, chosen by the people, assembled for that purpose in the metropolis. Santa Anna opened the session with a speech in which he announced his predilection for a strong central government, but he professed perfect willingness to yield to whatever might be the decision of congress. Nevertheless, in December of the same year, after the assembly had made two efforts to form a constitution suitable to the country and the cabinet, president Santa Anna,—in spite of his professed submission to the national will expressed through the representatives,—suddenly and unauthorizedly, dissolved the congress. It was a daring act; but Santa Anna knew that he could rely upon his troops, his officers, and the mercantile classes for support. The capital wanted quietness for a while; and the interests of trade as well as the army united in confidence in the strong will of one who was disposed to maintain order by force.
After congress had been dissolved by Santa Anna, there was, of course, no further necessity of an appeal to the people. The nation had spoken, but its voice was disregarded. Nothing therefore remained, save to allow the dictator, himself, to frame the organic laws; and for this purpose he appointed a Junta of Notables, who proclaimed, on the 13th of June, 1843, an instrument which never took the name of a constitution, but bore the mongrel title of "Bases of the Political Organization of the Mexican Republic." It is essentially central, in its provisions; and whilst it is as intolerant upon the subject of religion, as the two former fundamental systems, it is even less popular in its general provisions than the constitution of 1836.
Footnotes
[ [64] Alaman Disertaciones, vol. i, p. 219.
[ [65] The following letter from Santa Anna to a distinguished foreigner, will afford the reader a specimen of his personal modesty and political humility. The individual to whom it was written, was afterwards expelled by Santa Anna from the republic during his presidency, after having been invited by him to the country:
"Vera Cruz, October 11th, 1831.
"My Esteemed Friend:—I have the pleasure to answer your favor of the 5th ultimo, by which I perceive that my letter of the 9th of April last, came to hand. I have received the prospectus of the "Foreign College" you contemplate to establish, which not only meets with my entire approbation, but, considering your talents and uncommon acquirements, I congratulate you on employing them in a manner so generally useful, and personally honorable. I thank you cordially for the news and observations you have had the kindness to communicate to me, and both make me desire the continuation of your esteemed epistles. Retired as I am, on my farm, and there exclusively devoted to the cultivation and improvement of my small estate, I cannot reply, as I desire, to the news with which you have favored me. But, even in that retirement, and though separated from the arena of politics, I could never view with indifference any discredit thrown on my country, nor any thing which might, in the smallest degree, possess that tendency. We enjoy at present peace and tranquillity, and I do not know of any other question of public interest now in agitation, than the approaching elections of President and Vice President. When that period shall arrive, should I obtain a majority of suffrages, I am ready to accept the honor, and to sacrifice, for the benefit of the nation my repose and the charms of private life. My fixed system is to be called (ser llamado), resembling in this a modest maid (modesta doncella), who rather expects to be desired, than to show herself to be desiring. I think that my position justifies me in this respect. Nevertheless, as what is written in a foreign country has much influence at home, especially among us, in your city I think it proper to make a great step on this subject; and by fixing the true aspect, in which such or such services should be regarded, as respects the various candidates, one could undoubtedly contribute to fix here public opinion, which is at present extremely wavering and uncertain. Of course, this is the peculiar province of the friends of Mexico; and as well by this title, as on account of the acquirements and instruction you possess, I know of no one better qualified than yourself to execute such a benevolent undertaking. * * * * *
"I hope you will favor me from time to time with information, which will always give satisfaction to your true friend and servant, who kisses your hands."
"Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna."
[ [66] See Gen. Waddy Thompson's Recollections of Mexico, p. 69, for Santa Anna's wretched vindication of these sanguinary deeds.
CHAPTER VII.
1843–1846.
RECONQUEST OF TEXAS PROPOSED.—CANALIZO PRESIDENT AD INTERIM.—REVOLUTION UNDER PAREDES IN 1844.—SANTA ANNA FALLS—HERRERA PRESIDENT—TEXAN REVOLT.—ORIGIN OF WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES.—TEXAN WAR FOR THE CONSTITUTION OF 1824—NATIONALITY RECOGNIZED—ANNEXATION TO THE UNITED STATES.—PROPOSITION TO MEXICO.—HERRERA OVERTHROWN—PAREDES PRESIDENT—OUR MINISTER REJECTED.—CHARACTER OF GENERAL PAREDES.
After the foundation of the new system in 1843, the country continued quiet for a while, and when the Mexican Congress met, in January 1844, propositions were made by the executive department to carry out Santa Anna's favorite project of reconquering Texas. It is probable that there was not much sincerity in the president's desire to march his troops into a territory the recollection of which must have been, at least, distasteful to him. There is more reason to believe that the large sum which it was necessary to appropriate for the expenses of the campaign—the management of which would belong to the administration,—was the real object he had in view. Four millions were granted for the reconquest, but when Santa Anna demanded ten millions more while the first grant was still uncollected, the members refused to sustain the president's demand. The congressmen were convinced of that chieftain's rapacity, and resolved to afford him no further opportunity to plunder the people under the guise of patriotism.
Santa Anna's sagacious knowledge of his countrymen immediately apprised him of approaching danger, and having obtained permission from congress to retire to his estate at Mango de Clavo, near Vera Cruz, he departed from the capital, leaving his friend General Canalizo as president ad interim. Hardly had he reached his plantation in the midst of friends and faithful troops, when a revolt burst out in Jalisco, Agnas Calientes, Zacatecas, Sinaloa and Sonora, against his government, headed by General Paredes. Santa Anna rapidly crossed the country to suppress the rebellion, but as he disobeyed the constitutional compact by taking actual command of the army whilst he was president, without the previous assent of congress, he became amenable to law for this violation of his oath. He was soon at enmity with the rebels and with the constitutional congress, and thus a three fold contest was carried on, chiefly through correspondence, until the 4th of January, 1845, when Santa Anna finally fell. He fled from the insurgents and constitutional authorities towards the eastern coast, but being captured at the village of Jico, was conducted to Peroté, where he remained imprisoned under a charge and examination for treason, until an amnesty for the late political factionists permitted him to depart on the 29th of May, 1845, with his family, for Havana.
Upon Santa Anna's ejection from the executive chair, the president of the council of government, became under the laws of the country, provisional president of the republic. This person was General José Joaquim de Herrera, during whose administration the controversies rose which resulted in the war between Mexico and the United States.
The thread of policy and action in both countries is so closely interwoven during this pernicious contest, that the history of the war becomes, in reality, the history of Mexico for the epoch. We are therefore compelled to narrate, succinctly, the circumstances that led to that lamentable issue.
*****
The first empresario, or contractor, for the colonization of Texas, was Moses Austin, a native citizen of the United States, who, as soon as the treaty of limits between Spain and our country was concluded in 1819, conceived the project of establishing a settlement in that region. Accordingly, in 1821 he obtained from the Commandant General of the Provincias Internas, permission to introduce three hundred foreign families. In 1823, a national colonization law was approved by the Mexican Emperor Iturbide during his brief reign, and on the 18th of February, Stephen F. Austin, who had succeeded his father, after his death, in carrying out the project, was authorized to proceed with the founding of the colony. After the emperor's fall, this decree was confirmed by the first executive council in conformity to the express will of congress.
In 1824 the federal constitution of Mexico was, as we have narrated, adopted, by the republican representatives, upon principles analogous to those of the constitution of the United States; and by a decree of the 7th of May, Texas and Coahuila were united in a state. In this year another general colonization law was enacted by congress, and foreigners were invited to the new domain by a special state colonization law of Coahuila and Texas.
Under these local laws and constitutional guaranties, large numbers of foreigners flocked to this portion of Mexico, opened farms, founded towns and villages, re-occupied old Spanish settlements, introduced improvements in agriculture and manufactures, drove off the Indians, and formed, in fact, the nucleus of an enterprizing and progressive population. But there were jealousies between the race that invited the colonists, and the colonists who accepted the invitation. The central power in the distant capital did not estimate, at their just value, the independence of the remote pioneers, or the state-right sovereignty to which they had been accustomed at their former home in the United States. Mexico was convulsed by revolutions, but the lonely residents of Texas paid no attention to the turmoils of the factionists. At length, however, direct acts of interference upon the part of the national government, not only by its ministerial agents, but by its legislature, excited the mingled alarm and indignation of the colonists, who imagined that in sheltering themselves under a republic they were protected as amply as they would have been under the constitution of the North American Union. In this they were disappointed; for, in 1830, an arbitrary enactment—based no doubt upon a jealous dread of the growing value and size of a colony which formed a link between the United States and Mexico by resting against Tamaulipas and Louisiana, on the north and south,—prohibited entirely the future immigration of American settlers into Coahuila and Texas. To enforce this decree and to watch the loyalty of the actual inhabitants, military posts, composed of rude and ignorant Mexican soldiers, were sprinkled over the country. And, at last, the people of Texas found themselves entirely under military control.
This suited neither the principles nor tastes of the colonists, who, in 1832, took arms against this warlike interference with their municipal liberty, and after capturing the fort at Velasco, reduced to submission the garrisons at Anahuac and Nacogdoches. The separate state constitution which had been promised Texas in 1824, was never sanctioned by the Mexican Congress, though the colonists prepared the charter and were duly qualified for admission. But the crisis arrived when the centralists of 1835, overthrew the federal constitution of 1824. Several Mexican states rose independently against the despotic act. Zacatecas fought bravely for her rights, and saw her people basely slain by the myrmidons of Santa Anna. The legislature of Coahuila and Texas was dispersed by the military; and, at last, the whole republic, save the pertinacious North Americans, yielded to the armed power of the resolute oppressor.
The alarmed settlers gathered together as quickly as they could and resolved to stand by their federative rights under the charter whose guaranties allured them into Mexico. Meetings were held in all the settlements, and a union was formed by means of correspondence. Arms were next resorted to and the Texans were victorious at Gonzales, Goliad, Bejar, Conception, Lepantitlan, San Patricio and San Antonio. In November they met in consultation, and in an able, resolute and dignified paper, declared that they had only taken up arms in defence of the constitution of 1824; that their object was to continue loyal to the confederacy if laws were made for the guardianship of their political rights, and that they offered their lives and arms in aid of other members of the republic who would rightfully rise against the military despotism.
But the other states, in which there was no infusion of North Americans or Europeans, refused to second this hardy handful of pioneers. Mexico will not do justice, in any of her commentaries on the Texan war, to the motives of the colonists. Charging them with an original and long meditated design to rob the republic of one of its most valuable provinces, she forgets entirely or glosses over, the military acts of Santa Anna's invading army, in March, 1836, at the Alamo and Goliad, which converted resistance into revenge. After those disgraceful scenes of carnage peace was no longer possible. Santa Anna imagined, no doubt, that he would terrify the settlers into submission if he could not drive them from the soil. But he mistook both their fortitude and their force; and, after the fierce encounter at San Jacinto, on the 21st of April, 1836, with Houston and his army, the power of Mexico over the insurgent state was effectually and forever broken.
After Santa Anna had been taken prisoner by the Texans, in this fatal encounter, and was released and sent home through the United States in order to fulfil his promise to secure the recognition of Texan independence, the colonists diligently began the work of creating for themselves a distinct nationality, for they failed in all their early attempts to incorporate themselves with the United States during the administrations of Jackson and Van Buren. These presidents were scrupulous and faithful guardians of national honor, while they respected the Mexican right of reconquest. Their natural sympathies were of course yielded to Texas, but their executive duties, the faith of treaties, and the sanctions of international law forbade their acceding to the proposed union. Texas, accordingly, established a national government, elected her officers, regulated her trade, formed her army and navy, maintained her frontier secure from assault, and was recognized as, de facto, an independent sovereignty by the United States, England, France and Belgium. But these efforts of the infant republic did not end in mere preparations for a separate political existence and future commercial wealth. The rich soil of the lowlands along the numerous rivers that veined the whole region soon attracted large accessions of immigrants, and the trade of Texas began to assume significance in the markets of the world.
Meanwhile Mexico busied herself, at home, in revolutions, or in gathering funds and creating armies, destined, as the authorities professed, to reconquer the lost province. Yet all these military and financial efforts were never rendered available in the field, and, in reality, no adequate force ever marched towards the frontier. The men and money raised through the services and contributions of credulous citizens were actually designed to figure in the domestic drama of political power in the capital. No hostilities, of any significance, occurred between the revolutionists and the Mexicans after 1836, for we cannot regard the Texan expedition to Santa Fé, or the Mexican assault upon the town of Mier as belligerant acts deserving consideration as grave efforts made to assert or secure national rights.
Such was the condition of things from 1836 until 1844, during the whole of which period Texas exhibited to the world a far better aspect of well regulated sovereignty than Mexico herself. On the 12th of April of that year, more than seven years after Texas had established her independence, a treaty was concluded by President Tyler with the representatives of Texas for the annexation of that republic to the United States. In March, 1845, Congress passed a joint resolution annexing Texas to the union upon certain reasonable conditions, which were acceded to by that nation, whose convention erected a suitable state constitution, with which it became finally a member of our confederacy. In the meantime, the envoys of France and England, had opened negotiations for the recognition of Texan independence, which terminated successfully; but when they announced their triumph, on the 20th of May, 1845, Texas was already annexed conditionally to the United States by the act of congress.
The joint resolution of annexation, passed by our congress, was protested against by General Almonte, the Mexican minister at that period in Washington, as an act of aggression "the most unjust which can be found in the annals of modern history" and designed to despoil a friendly nation of a considerable portion of her territory. He announced, in consequence, the termination of his mission, and demanded his passports to leave the country. In Mexico, soon after, a bitter and badly conducted correspondence took place between the minister of foreign affairs and Mr. Shannon, our envoy. And thus, within a brief period, these two nations found themselves unrepresented in each other's capital and on the eve of a serious dispute.
But the government of the United States,—still sincerely anxious to preserve peace, or at least, willing to try every effort to soothe the irritated Mexicans and keep the discussion in the cabinet rather than transfer it to the battle field,—determined to use the kindly efforts of our consul, Mr. Black, who still remained in the capital, to seek an opportunity for the renewal of friendly intercourse. This officer was accordingly directed to visit the minister of foreign affairs and ascertain from the Mexican government whether it would receive an envoy from the United States, invested with full power to adjust all the questions in dispute between the two governments. The invitation was received with apparent good will, and in October, 1845, the Mexican government agreed to receive one, commissioned with full powers to settle the dispute in a peaceful, reasonable and honorable manner.
*****
As soon as this intelligence reached the United States, Mr. John Slidell was dispatched as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary on the supposed mission of peace; but when he reached Vera Cruz in November, he found the aspect of affairs changed. The government of Herrera, with which Mr. Black's arrangement had been made, was tottering. General Paredes, a leader popular with the people and the army, availing himself of the general animosity against Texas, and the alleged desire of Herrera's cabinet to make peace with the United States, had determined to overthrow the constitutional government. There is scarcely a doubt that Herrera and his ministers were originally sincere in their desire to settle the international difficulty, and to maintain the spirit of the contract they had made. But the internal danger, with which they were menaced by the army and its daring demagogue, induced them to prevaricate as soon as Mr. Slidell presented his credentials for reception. All their pretexts were, in reality, frivolous, when we consider the serious results which were to flow from their enunciation. The principal argument against the reception of our minister was, that his commission constituted him a regular envoy, and that, he was not confined to the discussion of the Texan question alone. Such a mission, the authorities alleged, placed the countries at once, diplomatically, upon an equal and ordinary footing of peace, and their objection therefore, if it had any force, at all, was to the fact, that we exhibited through the credentials of our envoy, the strongest evidence that one nation can give to another of perfect amity! We had, in truth, no questions in dispute between us, except boundary and indemnity;—for Texas, as a sovereignty acknowledged by the acts, not only of the United States and of European powers, but in consequence of her own maintenance of perfect nationality and independence, had a right to annex herself to the United States. The consent of Mexico to acknowledge her independence in 1845, under certain conditions, effectually proved this fact beyond dispute.
Whilst the correspondence between Slidell and the Mexican ministry was going on, Paredes continued his hostile demonstrations, and, on the 30th of December, 1845, president Herrera, who anxiously desired to avoid bloodshed, resigned the executive chair to him without a struggle. Feeble as was the hope of success with the new authorities, our government, still anxious to close the contest peacefully, directed Mr. Slidell to renew the proposal for his reception to Paredes. These instructions he executed on the first of March, 1846, but his request was refused by the Mexican minister of foreign affairs, on the twelfth of that month, and our minister was forthwith obliged to return from his unsuccessful mission.
All the public documents, and addresses of Paredes, made during the early movements of his revolution and administration, breathe the deadliest animosity to our union. He invokes the god of battles, and calls the world to witness the valor of Mexican arms. The revolution which raised him to power, was declared to be sanctioned by the people, who were impatient for another war, in which they might avenge the aggressions of a government that sought to prostrate them. Preparations were made for a Texan campaign. Loans were raised, and large bodies of troops were moved to the frontiers. General Arista, suspected of kindness to our country, was superceded in the north by General Ampudia, who arrived at Matamoros on the 11th of April, 1846, with two hundred cavalry, followed by two thousand men to be united with the large body of soldiery already in Matamoros.
These military demonstrations denoted the unquestionable design and will of Paredes, who had acquired supreme power by a revolution founded upon the solemn pledge of hostility against the United States and reconquest of Texas. His military life in Mexico made him a despot. He had no confidence in the ability of his fellow-citizens to govern themselves. He believed republicanism an Utopian dream of his visionary countrymen. Free discussion through the press was prohibited, during his short rule, and his satellites advocated the establishment of a throne to be occupied by an European prince. These circumstances induced our government to believe, that any counter-revolution in Mexico, which might destroy the ambitious and unpatriotic projects of Paredes, would promote the cause of peace, and accordingly, it saw with pleasure, the prospect of a new outbreak which might result in the downfall, and total destruction of the greatest enemy we possessed on the soil of our sister republic.
CHAPTER VIII.
1846.
GENERAL TAYLOR ORDERED TO THE RIO GRANDE.—HISTORY OF TEXAN BOUNDARIES.—ORIGIN OF THE WAR.—MILITARY PREPARATIONS—COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES.—BATTLES OF PALO ALTO AND RESACA.—MATAMOROS—TAYLOR'S ADVANCE.—FALL OF MONTEREY.
Whilst Slidell was negotiating, and, in consequence of the anticipated failure of his effort to be received,—as was clearly indicated by the conduct of the Mexican government upon his arrival in the capital,—General Taylor, who had been stationed at Corpus Christi, in Texas, since the fall of 1845, with a body of regular troops, was directed, on the 13th of January, 1846, to move his men to the mouth of the Rio Grande. He, accordingly left his encampment on the 8th of March, and, on the 25th, reached Point Isabel, having encountered no serious opposition on the way. The march to the Rio Grande has been made the subject of complaint by politicians in Mexico and the United States, who believed that the territory lying between that river and the Nueces, was not the property of Texas. But inasmuch as Mexico still continued vehemently to assert her political right over the whole of Texas, the occupation of any part of its soil, south of the Sabine, by American troops, was in that aspect of the case, quite as much an infringement of Mexican sovereignty, as the march of our troops, from the Nueces to the Rio Grande.
As it is important that the reader should understand the original title to Louisiana, under which the boundary of the Rio Grande, was claimed, first of all for that state, and, subsequently, for Texas, we shall relate its history in a summary manner.
Louisiana had been the property of France, and by a secret contract between that country and Spain in 1762, as well as by treaties between France, Spain, and England, in the following year, the French dominion was extinguished on the continent of America. In consequence of the treaty between this country and England in 1783, the Mississippi became the western boundary of the United States, from its source to the thirty-first degree of north latitude, and thence, on the same parallel, to the St. Mary's. France, it will be remembered, had always claimed dominion in Louisiana to the Rio Bravo del Norte, or Rio Grande; by virtue:—
1st. Of the discovery of the Mississippi from near its source to the ocean.
2d. Of the possession taken, and establishment made by La Salle, at the bay of Saint Bernard, west of the river Trinity and Colorado, by authority of Louis XIV. in 1635—notwithstanding the subsequent destruction of the colony.
3d. Of the charter of Louis XIV. to Crozat in 1712.
4th. Of the historical authority of Du Pratz, Champigny and the Count de Vergennes.
5th. Of the authority of De Lisle's map, and of the map published in 1762, by Don Thomas Lopez, Geographer to the king of Spain, as well as of various other maps, atlases, and geographical authorities.
By an article of the secret treaty of San Ildefonso in October, 1800, Spain retroceded Louisiana to France, but this treaty was not promulgated until the beginning of 1802. The paragraph of cession is as follows: "His Catholic majesty engages to retrocede to the French republic, six months after the full and entire execution of the conditions and stipulations above recited, relative to his royal highness the Duke of Parma, the colony and province of Louisiana, with the same extent that it already has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and, such as it should be, after the treaties passed subsequently between Spain and other powers." In 1803, Bonaparte, the first consul of the French republic, ceded Louisiana to the United States, as fully, and in the same manner, as it had been retroceded to France by Spain, under the treaty of San Ildefonso; and, by virtue of this grant, Messrs. Madison, Monroe, Adams, Clay, Van Buren, Jackson, and Polk, contended that the original limit of the new state had been the Rio Grande. However, by the third article of our treaty with Spain, in 1819, all our pretensions to extend the territory of Louisiana towards Mexico on the Rio Grande, were abandoned by adopting the river Sabine as our boundary in that quarter.
The Mexican authorities upon this subject are either silent or doubtful. No light is to be gathered from the geographical researches of Humboldt, whose elucidations of New Spain are in many respects the fullest and most satisfactory. In the year 1835, Stephen Austin published a map of Texas, representing the Nueces as the western confine,—and in 1836, General Almonte the former minister from Mexico to the United States, published a memoir upon Texas in which, whilst describing the Texan department of Bejar, he says—"That notwithstanding it has been hitherto believed that the Rio de las Nueces is the dividing line of Coahuila and Texas, inasmuch as it is always thus represented on maps, I am informed by the government of the state, that geographers have been in error upon this subject; and that the true line should commence at the mouth of the river Aransaso, and follow it to its source; thence, it should continue by a straight line until it strikes the junction of the rivers Medina and San Antonio, and then, pursuing the east bank of the Medina to its head waters, it should terminate on the confines of Chihuahua." [67]
The true origin of the Mexican war was not this march of Taylor and his troops from the Nueces to the Rio Grande, through the debatable land. The American and Mexican troops were brought face to face by the act, and hostilities were the natural result after the exciting annoyances upon the part of the Mexican government which followed the union of Texas with our confederacy. Besides this, General Paredes, the usurping president, had already declared in Mexico, on the 18th of April, 1846, in a letter addressed to the commanding officer on the northern frontier, that he supposed him at the head of a valiant army on the theatre of action;—and that it was indispensable to commence hostilities, the Mexicans themselves taking the initiative!
We believe that our nation and its rulers earnestly desired honorable peace, though they did not shun the alternative of war. It was impossible to permit a conterminous neighbor who owed us large sums of money, and was hostile to the newly adopted state, to select unopposed her mode and moment of attack. Mexico would neither resign her pretensions upon Texas, negotiate, receive our minister, nor remain at peace. She would neither declare war, nor cultivate friendship, and the result was, that when the armies approached each other, but little time was lost in resorting to the cannon and the sword.
As soon as General Taylor reached the Rio Grande he left a command at the mouth of the river, and taking post opposite Matamoros erected a fort, the guns of which bore directly upon the city. The Mexicans, whose artillery might have been brought to play upon the works, from the opposite side of the river, made no hostile demonstration against the left bank for some time, nor did they interrupt the construction of the fort. Reinforcements, however, were constantly arriving in the city. Ampudia and Arista were there. Interviews were held between the Mexican authorities and our officers, in which the latter were ordered to retire from the soil it was alleged they were usurping. But as this was a diplomatic, and not a military question, General Taylor resolved to continue in position, though his forces were perhaps inadequate to contend with the augmenting numbers of the foe. He examined the country thoroughly by his scouting parties and pushed his reconnoissances, on the left bank, from Point Isabel to some distance beyond his encampment opposite Matamoros. Whilst engaged in this service, some of his officers and men were captured or killed by the ranchero cavalry of the enemy; and, on the 24th of April, Captain Thornton who had been sent to observe the country above the encampment with sixty-three dragoons, fell into an ambuscade, out of which they endeavored to cut their way, but were forced to surrender with a loss of sixteen killed and wounded. This was the first blood spilled in actual conflict.
MATAMOROS.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the news of Taylor's supposed danger, greatly exaggerated by rumor, was spread far and wide. An actual war had, perhaps, not been seriously apprehended. Taylor had been expressly commanded to refrain from aggression. It was supposed that the mere presence of our troops on the frontier would preserve Texas from invasion, and that negotiations would ultimately terminate the dispute. This is the only ground upon which we can reasonably account for the apparent carelessness of our government in not placing a force upon the Rio Grande, adequate to encounter all the opposing array. Congress was in session when the news reached Washington. The president immediately announced the fact, and, on the 13th of May, 1846, ten millions of dollars were appropriated to carry on the war, and fifty thousand volunteers were ordered to be raised. An "Army of the West" was directed to be formed under the command of Kearney, at fort Leavenworth, on the Missouri, which was to cross the country to the Pacific, after capturing New Mexico. An "Army of the Centre," under General Wool, was to assemble at San Antonio de Bejar whence it was to march upon Coahuila and Chihuahua, and, whilst the heart and the west of Mexico were penetrated by these officers, it was designed that Taylor should make war on the northern and eastern states of the Mexican republic. In addition to these orders to the army, the naval forces, under Commodores Stockton and Sloat in the Pacific, and Commodore Conner, in the Gulf of Mexico, were commanded to co-operate with our land forces, to harass the enemy, and to aid, with all their power, in the subjugation and capture of Mexican property and territory.
Immediately after Thornton's surrender, General Taylor, availing himself of authority with which he had been invested to call upon the governors of Louisiana and Texas for military aid, demanded four regiments of volunteers from each state, for the country in the neighborhood of the Rio Grande was alive with belligerant Mexicans. He then visited the fortifications opposite Matamoros, and finding the garrison but scantly supplied with provisions, hastened back to Point Isabel with a formidable escort, and obtaining the requisite rations, commenced his march back to Matamoros and the fort on the 7th of May. But, in the interval, General Arista, had crossed the Rio Grande with his forces, and on the 8th, our General encountered him, drawn up in battle array at Palo Alto and ready to dispute his passage along the road. A sharp engagement ensued between the two armies from two o'clock in the afternoon until nearly dark, when the Mexicans withdrew from the action for the night. Our total force in this affair, according to official reports, was two thousand two hundred and eighty-eight, while that of Mexico, according to the admission of the officers, amounted to six thousand regulars with a large and probably undisciplined force drawn, at random, from the country.
The night of the 8th was passed with some anxiety in the American camp, for the fierce conflict of the day induced many prudent officers to believe it best either to return to Point Isabel or await reinforcements before again giving battle to the enemy. General Taylor heard and weighed the opinions of his most reliable officers, but, after due reflection, determined to advance. The condition of the fort opposite Matamoros demanded his urgent aid. The moral effect of a retreat would be great, at the commencement of a war, both on Mexico and our own troops; and, moreover, he had perfect confidence in the disciplined regulars who sustained so nobly the brunt of the first battle.
Accordingly the troops were advanced early on the 9th, for they found, at day dawn, that the Mexicans had abandoned Palo Alto for a stronger position nearer the centre of action and interest at Matamoros. After advancing cautiously, in readiness for immediate battle, our men came up with the Mexicans, in the Resaca de la Palma, or as it is properly called La Resaca del Guerrero,—the "Ravine of the Warrior," which afforded them a natural defence against our approach along the road. The ravine, curved across the highway and was flanked by masses of prickly plants aloes, and undergrowth, matted into impenetrable thickets, known in Mexico as chapparal. The action was begun by the infantry in skirmishes with the foe, and after the centre of the position on the road had been severely harassed and damaged by our flying artillery, a gallant charge of the dragoons broke the Mexican lines and opened a pathway to Matamoros. The engagement lasted a short time after this combined movement of artillery and cavalry, but, before night fall the enemy was in full flight to the river and our garrison at the fort joyously relieved. In the interval, this position had been bombarded and cannonaded by the Mexicans from the opposite side of the river, and its commanding officer slain. In memory of his valiant defence, the place has been honored with the name of Fort Brown.
After General Taylor had occupied Matamoros on the 18th of May,—and he was only prevented from capturing it and all the Mexican forces and ammunition on the night of the 9th by the want of a ponton train, which he had vainly demanded,—he established his base line for future operations in the interior, along the Rio Grande, extending several hundred miles near that stream. His task of organizing, accepting, or rejecting the multitudes of recruits who flocked to his standard, was not only oppressive but difficult, for he found it hard to disappoint the patriotic fervor of hundreds who were anxious to engage in the war. The Quatermaster's department, too, was one of incessant toil and anxiety; because, called unexpectedly and for the first time into active service in the field, it was comparatively unprepared to answer the multitude of requisitions that were daily made upon it by the government, the general officers, and the recruits. The whole material of a campaign was to be rapidly created. Money was to be raised; steamers bought; ships chartered; wagons built and transported; levies brought to the field of action; munitions of war and provisions distributed over the whole vast territory which it was designed to occupy! Whilst these things were going on, the country, at home, was ripe, and most eager for action.
Nor was our government inattentive to the internal politics of Mexico. It perceived at once that there was no hope of effecting a peace with the administration of Paredes, whose bitter hostility was of course, not mitigated by the first successes of our arms. Santa Anna, it will be recollected had left Mexico after the amnesty in 1845, and it was known there was open hostility between him and Paredes who had contributed so greatly to his downfall. Information was, moreover, received from reliable sources in Washington, that a desire prevailed in the republic to recall the banished chief and to seat him once more in the presidential chair; and, at the same time, there was cause to believe that if he again obtained supreme power he would not be averse to accommodate matters upon a satisfactory basis between the countries. Orders were, accordingly issued to Commodore Conner, who commanded the home squadron in the gulf, to offer no impediment if Santa Anna approached the coast with a design of entering Mexico. The exiled president was duly apprised of these facts, and when the revolution actually occurred in his favor in the following summer and his rival fell from power, he availed himself of the order to pass the lines of the blockading squadron at Vera Cruz.
After General Taylor had completely made his preparations to advance into the interior along his base on the Rio Grande, he moved forward gradually, capturing and garrisoning all the important posts along the river. At length the main body of the army, under Worth and Taylor reached the neighborhood of Monterey, the capital of the state of New Leon, situated at the foot of the Sierra Madre on a plain, but in a position which would enable it to make a stout resistance, especially as it was understood that the Mexican army had gathered itself up in this stronghold, which was the key of the northern provinces and on the main highway to the interior, in order to strike a death blow at the invaders. On the 5th of September, the divisions concentrated at Marin, and on the 9th they advanced to the Walnut Springs, which afterwards became, for so long a period, the headquarters of the gallant "Army of Occupation."
Reconnoissances of the adjacent country were immediately made and it was resolved to attack the city by a bold movement towards its southern side that would cut off its communications through the gap in the mountains by which the road led to Saltillo. Accordingly General Worth was detached on this difficult but honorable service with a strong and reliable corps, and, after excessive toil, hard fighting and wonderful endurance upon the part of our men, the desired object was successfully gained. An unfinished and fortified edifice called the Bishop's Palace, on the summit of a steep hill was stormed and taken, and thus an important vantage ground, commanding the city by a plunging shot, was secured.
Meanwhile, General Taylor seeking to withdraw or distract the enemy from his designs on the southern and western sides of the city, made a movement under General Butler, of Kentucky, upon its northern front. What was probably designed only as a feint soon became a severe and deadly conflict. Our men,—especially the volunteers,—eager to flesh their swords in the first conflict with which the war indulged them, rushed into the city, which seems to have been amply prepared, in that quarter, with barricades, forts, loop-holes, and every means of defence suitable for the narrow streets and flat roofed and parapeted houses of a Spanish town. After the first deadly onset there was, of course, no intention or desire to abandon the conflict, fatal as its prosecution might ultimately become. On they fought from street to street, and house to house, and yard to yard, until night closed over the dying and the dead. On the second day a different system of approach was adopted. Instead of risking life in the street which was raked from end to end by artillery, or rendered untenable by the hidden marksmen who shot our men from behind the walls of the house tops, our forces were thrown into the dwellings, and breaking onward through walls and enclosures, gradually mined their way towards the plaza or great square of Monterey.
Thus, both divisions under the eyes of Worth, Butler and Taylor, successfully performed their assigned tasks, until it became evident to the Mexicans that their town must fall, and, that if finally taken by the sword, it would be given up to utter destruction and pillage. A capitulation was therefore proposed by Ampudia who stipulated for the withdrawal of his forces and an armistice. Our force was in no condition to seize, hold, and support a large body of prisoners of war, nor was it prepared immediately to follow up the victory by penetrating the interior. General Taylor, who was resolved not to shed a single drop of needless blood in the campaign, granted the terms; and, thus, this strong position, garrisoned by nearly ten thousand troops, sustained by more than forty pieces of artillery, yielded to our army of seven thousand, unsupported by a battering train and winning the day by hard fighting alone. The attack began on the 21st of September, continued during the two following days, and the garrison capitulated on the 24th. This capitulation and armistice were assented to by our commander after mature consultation and approval of his principal officers. The Mexicans informed him, that Paredes had been deposed,—that Santa Anna was in power, and that peace would soon be made; but the authorities, at home, eager for fresh victories, or pandering to public and political taste, did not approve and confirm an act, for which General Taylor has, nevertheless received, as he truly merits, the just applause of impartial history.
Footnote
[ [67] Memorias para la historia de la Guerra de Tejas, vol. ii, p. 543.
CHAPTER IX.
1846–1847.
GENERAL WOOL INSPECTS AND MUSTERS THE WESTERN TROOPS.—ARMY OF THE CENTRE.—NEW MEXICO—KEARNEY—MACNAMARA—CALIFORNIA.— FRÉMONT—SONOMA—CALIFORNIAN INDEPENDENCE—POSSESSION TAKEN.—SLOAT—STOCKTON.—A REVOLT—PICO—TREATY OF COUENGA.—KEARNEY AT SAN PASCUAL—IS RELIEVED—DISPUTES—SAN GABRIELLE—MESA—LOS ANGELES.—FRÉMONT'S CHARACTER, SERVICES, TRIAL.
General Wool, who had been for a long period inspector general of the United States army, was entrusted with the difficult task of examining the recruits in the west, and set forth on his journey after receiving his orders on the 29th of May, 1846. He traversed the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi, and, in somewhat less than two months, had journeyed three thousand miles and mustered twelve thousand men into service. This expedition of a hardy soldier exhibits, at once, the powers of a competent American officer, and the facility with which an efficient corps d'armée, may at any urgent moment, be raised in our country.
Nearly nine thousand of these recruits were sent to Taylor on the Rio Grande, while those who were destined for the "Army of the Centre," rendezvoused at Bejar, in Texas. At this place their commander Wool joined them, and commenced the rigid system of discipline, under accomplished officers, which made his division a model in the army. He marched from Bejar with five hundred regulars and two thousand four hundred and fifty volunteers, on the 20th of September, and passed onwards through Presidio, Nava, and across the Sierra of San José and Santa Rosa, and the rivers Alamos, Sabine, and del Norte, until he reached Monclova. He had been directed to advance to Chihuahua, but as this place was in a great measure controlled by the states of New Leon and Coahuila which were already in our possession, he desisted from pursuing his march thither, and, after communicating with General Taylor and learning the fall of Monterey, he pushed on to the fertile region of Parras and thence to the headquarters of General Taylor, in the month of December, as soon as he was apprised of the danger which menaced him at that period.
We have already said that it was part of our government's original plan to reduce New Mexico and California,—a task which was imposed upon Colonel Kearney, a hardy frontier fighter, long used to Indian character and Indian warfare—who, upon being honored with the command was raised to the rank of Brigadier General. This officer moved from Fort Leavenworth on the 30th of June, towards Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico, with an army of sixteen hundred men, and after an unresisted march of eight hundred and seventy-three miles, he reached his destination on the 18th of August. Possession of the place was given without a blow, and it is probable that the discreet Armijo yielded to the advice of American counsellors in his capital, in surrendering without bloodshed to our forces. Kearney had been authorized to organize and muster into service a battalion of emigrants to Oregon and California, who eagerly availed themselves of this favorable military opportunity to reach their distant abodes on the shores of the Pacific. After organizing the new government of Santa Fé, forming a new code of organic laws, and satisfying himself of the stability of affairs in that quarter, Kearney departed on his mission to California. But he had not gone far when he was met by an express with information of the fall of that portion of Mexico, and immediately sent back the main body of his men, continuing his route through the wilderness with the escort of one hundred dragoons alone. In September of this year, a regiment of New York volunteer infantry had been despatched thither also, by sea, under the command of Colonel Stevenson.
There is evidence in existence that shortly before the commencement of this war, it had been contemplated to place a large portion of the most valuable districts of California, indirectly, under British protection, by grants to an Irish Catholic clergyman named Macnamara, who projected a colony of his countrymen in those regions. He excited the Mexicans to accede to his proposal by appeals to their religious prejudices against the Protestants of the north, who, he alleged, would seize the jewel unless California was settled by his countrymen whose creed would naturally unite them with the people and institutions of Mexico. "Within a year, he declared, California would become a part of the American nation; and, inundated by cruel invaders, their Catholic institutions would be the prey of Methodist wolves." The government of Mexico granted three thousand square leagues in the rich valley of San Joaquin, embracing San Francisco, Monterey, and Santa Barbara, to this behest of the foreign priest; but his patent could not be perfected until the governor of California sanctioned his permanent tenure of the land.
In November, 1845, Lieutenant Gillespie was despatched from Washington with verbal instructions to Captain Frémont who had been pursuing his scientific examinations of California, and had been inhospitably ordered by the authorities to quit the country. Early in March of 1846, the bold explorer was within the boundaries of Oregon, where he was found, in the following May, by Gillespie, who delivered him his verbal orders and a letter of credence from the Secretary of State.
In consequence of this message, Frémont abandoned his camp in the forest, surrounded by hostile Indians, and moved south to the valley of the Sacramento, where he was at once hailed by the American settlers, who, together with the foreigners generally, had received orders from the Mexican General Castro, to leave California. Frémont's small band immediately formed the nucleus of a revolutionary troop, which gathered in numbers as it advanced south, and abstaining guardedly from acts which might disgust the people, they injured no individuals and violated no private property. On the 14th of June, Sonoma was taken possession of, and was garrisoned by a small force, under Mr. Ide, who issued a proclamation, inviting all to come to his camp and aid in forming a republican government. Coure and Fowler, two young Americans, were murdered about this period in the neighborhood, and others were taken prisoners under Padilla. But the belligerants were pursued to San Raphael by Captain Ford, where they were conquered by the Americans; and, on the 25th of June, Frémont, who heard that Castro was approaching with two hundred men, joined the camp at Sonoma. Thus far, every thing had been conducted with justice and liberality by our men. They studiously avoided disorderly conduct or captures, and invariably promised payment for the supplies that were taken for the support of the troopers. The Californians were in reality gratified by the prospect of American success in their territory, for they believed that it would secure a stable and progressive government, under which, that beautiful region would be gradually developed.
On the 5th of July, the Californian Americans declared their independence, and organizing a battalion, of which Frémont was the chief, they raised the standard of the Bear and Star.
MONTEREY.
Frémont, at the head of his new battalion, moved his camp to Sutter's Fort on the Sacramento and whilst he was preparing, in July, to follow General Castro to Santa Clara, he received the joyful news that Commodore Sloat had raised the American flag on the 7th of the month at Monterey, and that war actually existed between Mexico and the United States. The Californian Americans of course immediately abandoned their revolution for the national war, and substituted the American ensign for the grisly emblem under which they designed conquering the territory.
On the 8th of July, Commander Montgomery took possession of San Francisco, and soon after, Frémont joined Commodore Sloat at Monterey. Sloat, who had in reality acted upon the faith of Frémont's operations in the north, knowing that Gillespie had been sent to him as a special messenger, and having heard, whilst at Mazatlan, of the warlike movements on the Rio Grande, was rather fearful that he had been precipitate in his conduct; but he resolved to maintain what he had done; and accordingly, when admiral Sir George Seymour, arrived in the Collingwood at Monterey, on the 6th of July, the grants to the Irish clergyman were not completed, and the American flag was already floating on every important post in the north of California. Seymour took Macnamara on board his ship, and thus the hopes of the British partizans were effectually blighted when the Admiral and his passenger sailed from the coast.
Commodore Stockton arrived at Monterey during this summer and Sloat returned to the United States, leaving the Commodore in command. Frémont and Gillespie, who were at the head of forces on shore determined to act under the orders of the naval commander, and Stockton immediately prepared for a military movement against the city of Los Angeles, where, he learned, that General Castro and the civil governor Pico had assembled six hundred men. Frémont and the Commodore, embarking their forces at Monterey, sailed for San Pedro and San Diego, where, landing their troops, they united and took possession of Los Angeles on the 13th of August. The public buildings, archives and property fell into their possession without bloodshed, for Castro, the commanding general, fled at their approach. Stockton issued a proclamation announcing these facts to the people on the 17th of August, and having instituted a government, directed elections, and required an oath of allegiance from the military. He appointed Frémont, military commandant and Gillespie, secretary. On the 28th of August he reported these proceedings to the government at Washington, by the messenger who was met by General Kearney, as we have already related, on his way from Santa Fé to the Pacific. Carson, the courier, apprised the General of the conquest of California, and was obliged by him to return as his guide, whilst a new messenger was despatched towards the east, with the missives, escorted by the residue of the troop which was deemed useless for further military efforts on the shores of the Pacific.
But before Kearney reached his destination, a change had come over affairs in California. Castro returned to the charge in September with a large Mexican force headed by General Flores, and the town of Los Angeles and the surrounding country having revolted, expelled the American garrison. Four hundred marines who landed from the Savannah under Captain Mervine, were repulsed, while the garrison of Santa Barbara, under Lieutenant Talbott had retired before a large body of Californians and Mexicans. Frémont, immediately resolving to increase his battalion, raised four hundred and twenty-eight men, chiefly from the emigrants who moved this year to California. He mounted his troopers on horses procured in the vicinity of San Francisco and Sutter's Fort, and marched secretly but quickly to San Luis Obispo, where he surprised and captured Don Jesus Pico, the commandant of that military post. Pico having been found in arms had broken his parole, given during the early pacification, and a court-martial sentenced him to be shot; but Frémont, still steadily pursuing his humane policy towards the Californians, pardoned the popular and influential chieftain, who, from that hour, was his firm friend throughout the subsequent troubles.
On Christmas day of 1846, amid storm and rain, in which a hundred horses and mules perished, Frémont and his brave battalion passed the mountain of Santa Barbara. Skirting the coast through the long maritime pass at Punto Gordo,—protected on one flank by one of the vessels of the navy, and assailed, on the other, by fierce bands of mounted Californians,—they moved onward until they reached the plain of Couenga where the enemy was drawn up with a force equal to their own. Frémont summoned the hostile troops to surrender, and after their consent to a parley, went to them with Don Jesus Pico and arranged the terms of the capitulation, by which they bound themselves to deliver their arms to our soldiers and to conform, at home, to the laws of the United States, though no Californians should be compelled to take an oath of allegiance to the United States, until the war was ended and the treaty either exonerated them or changed their nationality.
Meanwhile General Kearney, on his westward march from Santa Fé, had reached a place called Warner's Rancho, thirty-three miles from San Diego, where a captured Californian mail for Sonoma apprised him that the southern part of the territory was wrested from our troops. The letters exulted over our discomfiture, but it was supposed that, as usual in Mexico, they exaggerated the misfortune of the Americans. Kearney's small troop was much enfeebled by the long and fatiguing journey it had made from Santa Fé amid great privations. From Warner's Rancho the commander communicated with Stockton by means of a neutral Englishman, and, on the 5th of December, was joined by Gillespie, who informed him, that a mounted Californian force, under Andres Pico, was prepared to dispute his passage towards the coast. On the 6th the Americans left the rancho, resolving to come suddenly upon the enemy, and confident that the usual success of our troops would attend the exploit;—but the fresh forces of this hardy and brave Californian band, composed perhaps, of some of the most expert horsemen in that region, were far more than a match for the toil-worn troopers of Kearney. Eighteen of our men were killed in this action at San Pascual, and thirteen wounded. For several days the camp of the Americans was besieged by the fierce and hardy children of the soil. The provisions of the beleagured band were scant, and it was almost entirely deprived of water. Its position was, in every respect, most disastrous, and, in all probability, it would have perished from famine or fallen an easy prey to the Mexicans, had not the resolute Carson, accompanied by Lieutenant Beale and an Indian, volunteered to pass the dangerous lines of the enemy to seek assistance at San Diego. These heroic men performed their perilous duty, and Lieutenant Grey, with a hundred and eighty soldiers and marines, reached and relieved his anxious countrymen on the 10th of December, bringing them, in two days, to the American camp at San Diego.
As soon as the band had recruited its strength, Kearney naturally became anxious to engage in active service. He had been sent to California, according to the language of his instructions, to conquer and govern it; but he found Commodore Stockton already in the position of governor, with an ample naval force at his orders, whilst the broken remnant of the dragoons who accompanied him from Santa Fé, was altogether incompetent to subdue the revolted territory. By himself therefore, he was altogether inadequate for any successful military move. Stockton, quite as anxious as Kearney to engage in active hostilities, was desirous to accompany the general as his aid; but Kearney declined the service, and, in turn, volunteered to become the aid of Stockton. The commodore, less accustomed, perhaps, to military etiquette than to prompt and useful action at a moment of difficulty, resolved at once to end the game of idle compliments, and accepted the offer of General Kearney; but, before they departed, Stockton agreed that he might command the expedition in a position subordinate to him as commander-in-chief.
On the 29th of December, with sixty volunteers, four hundred marines, six heavy pieces of artillery, eleven heavy wagons, and fifty-seven dragoons composing the remains of General Kearney's troop, they marched towards the north, and, on the 7th of January, found themselves near the river San Gabrielle, the passage of which the enemy, with superior numbers under General Flores, was prepared to dispute. It was a contest between American sailors and soldiers, and California horsemen, for the whole Mexican troop was mounted; yet the Americans were successful and crossed the river. This action occurred about nine miles from Los Angeles, and our men pushed on six miles further, till they reached the Mesa, a level prairie, where Flores again attacked them and was beaten off. Retreating thence to Couenga, the Californians, refusing to submit to Stockton and Kearney, capitulated, as we have already declared to Colonel Frémont, who had been raised to this rank by our government. On the morning of the 10th of January, 1847, the Americans took final possession of Los Angeles. Soon after this a government was established for California, which was to continue until the close of the war or until the government or the population of the region changed it.
The disputes which arose between Stockton, Kearney, and Frémont, as to the right to command in California, under the orders from their respective departments, are matters rather of private and personal interest than of such public concern as would entitle them to be minutely recounted in this brief sketch of the Mexican war. It is impossible to present a faithful idea of the controversy and its merits without entering into a detail of all the circumstances, but for this, we have no space, in the present history. Strict military etiquette appears to have demanded of Kearney, immediately upon his arrival, the assertion of his right to command as a general officer operating in the interior of the country. This was a question solely between Stockton and himself, in which Frémont, a subordinate officer, recently transplanted from the Topographical corps into the regular army as a Colonel, had of course, no interest save that of duty. Nevertheless he became involved in the controversy between the claimants, and although raised to the rank of Governor of California, by Commodore Stockton, he was deprived of his authority when General Kearney subsequently assumed that station. The disputes between the Commodore and the General seem to have arisen under the somewhat conflicting instructions of the War and Navy Departments, and were calculated, as distinguished officers afterwards declared officially, to "embarrass the mind, and to excite the doubts of officers of greater experience" than the Colonel.
Although Frémont's services were lost for a while on the shores of the Pacific, he was not forgotten either there, or at home. What he had done for his country in that remote region by exploring its solitudes with his hardy band; what he added to geographical and general science; what regions he almost revealed to American pioneers; what services he rendered in securing a happy issue to the war in California—have all been recollected with gratitude and rewarded with the virgin honors of the new born State. But, at that time, this brilliant officer who combined the science of Humboldt with the energy and more than the generosity of Cortéz, was doomed to suffer more than the temporary deprivation of power. After the war was in reality over, after Commodore Stockton had departed and General Kearney had assumed the governorship which was subsequently given to Colonel Mason—Frémont was refused permission to continue his scientific pursuits in California or to join his regiment on the active fields of Mexico. When General Kearney turned his face homewards, towards the close of the spring of 1847, Frémont was ordered to follow in his train across the mountains, and was finally arrested at Fort Leavenworth, on the borders of civilization. During the next winter he was tried by a Court Martial on charges of mutiny, disobedience, and conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline, and being found guilty was sentenced to be dismissed the service. A majority of the court, however, considering all the circumstances of the case, recommended him to the lenient judgment of the President, who not being satisfied that the facts proved the military crime of mutiny—though he sustained the court's opinion otherwise—and recognizing Frémont's previous meritorious and valuable services, released him from arrest, restored his sword and ordered him to report for duty. But Frémont, feeling unconscious, as he declared, of having done any thing to merit the finding of the court, declined the offered restoration to the service, as he could not, "by accepting the clemency of the President, admit the justice of the decision against him."
CHAPTER X.
1847.
VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE.—SANTA ANNA AT SAN LUIS.—SCOTT COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.—PLAN OF ATTACK ON THE EAST COAST.—GENERAL SCOTT'S PLAN.—DONIPHAN'S EXPEDITION.—BRACITO—SACRAMENTO.—REVOLT IN NEW MEXICO.—MURDER OF RICHIE.—SELECTION OF BATTLE GROUND—DESCRIPTION OF IT.—BATTLE OF ANGOSTURA OR BUENA VISTA.—MEXICAN RETREAT—TOBASCO—TAMPICO.
We return from the theatre of these military operations on the shores of the Pacific, to the valley of the Rio Grande and the headquarters of General Taylor. The armistice at Monterey had ceased by the order of our government, and the commander of our forces, leaving Generals Worth and Butler at Monterey and Saltillo which had been seized, hastened with a sufficient body of troops to the gulf for the purpose of occupying Tampico, the capital of the state of Tamaulipas. But he did not advance further than Victoria, when he found that Tampico had surrendered to Commodore Conner on the 14th of November.
In the meanwhile the political aspect of Mexico was changed under the rule of Santa Anna who had returned to power, though he had not realized the hopes of our president by acceding to an honorable peace. A secret movement that was made by an agent sent into the country proved altogether unsuccessful, for the people were aroused against this union, and would listen, willingly, to no advances for accommodation. Santa Anna, cautiously noted the national feeling, and, being altogether unable to control or modify it,—although he studiously refrained from committing himself prior to his return to the capital,—he resolved to place himself at the head of the popular movement in defence of the northern frontier. Accordingly, in December, 1846, he had already assembled a large force, amounting to twenty thousand men, at San Luis Potosi, the capital of the state of that name south of Monterey, on the direct road to the heart of the internal provinces, and nearly midway between the gulf and the Pacific.
The news of this hostile gathering which was evidently designed to assail our Army of Occupation, soon reached the officers who had been left in command at our headquarters during Taylor's absence; and, in consequence of a despatch sent by express to General Wool at Parras for reinforcements, that officer immediately put his whole column in motion, and, after marching one hundred and twenty miles in four days, found himself at Agua Nueva, within twenty-one miles of Saltillo. Thus sustained, the officers in command, awaited with anxiety, the movements of the Mexican chief and the return of General Taylor.
But, in the meantime, the administration at home, seeing the inutility of continuing the attacks upon the more northern outposts of Mexico,—which it was, nevertheless, resolved to hold as indemnifying hostages, inasmuch as they were contiguous to our own soil and boundaries,—determined to strike a blow at the vitals of Mexico by seizing her principal eastern port and proceeding thence to the capital. For this purpose, General Scott, who had been set aside at the commencement of the war in consequence of a rupture between himself and the war department whilst arranging the details of the campaign,—was once more summoned into the field and appointed commander-in-chief of the American army in Mexico. Up to this period, November, 1846, large recruits of regulars and volunteers had flocked to the standard of Taylor and were stationed at various posts in the valley of the Rio Grande, under the command of Generals Butler, Worth, Patterson, Quitman and Pillow. But the project of a descent upon Vera Cruz, which was warmly advocated by General Scott, made it necessary to detach a considerable portion of these levies, and of their most efficient and best drilled members. Taylor and his subordinate commanders, were thus, placed in a mere defensive position, and that, too, at a moment when they were threatened in front by the best army that had been assembled for many a year in Mexico.
It is probable that the government of the United States, at the moment it planned this expedition to Vera Cruz and the capital, was not fully apprised of the able and efficient arrangements of Santa Anna, or imagined that he would immediately quit San Luis Potosi in order to defend the eastern access to the capital, inasmuch as it was not probable that Taylor would venture to penetrate the country with impaired forces, which, in a strictly military point of view, were not more than adequate for garrison service along an extended base of three hundred miles. But, as the sequel showed, they neither estimated properly the time that would be consumed in concentrating the forces and preparing the means for their transportation to Vera Cruz, nor judged correctly of the military skill of Santa Anna, who naturally preferred to crush the weak northern foe with his overwhelming force than to encounter the strong battalions of veterans who were to be led against him on the east by the most brilliant captain of our country.
The enterprise of General Scott was one of extraordinary magnitude and responsibility. With his usual foresight he determined that he would not advance until the expedition was perfectly complete in every essential of certain success. Nothing was permitted to disturb his equanimity or patient resolution in carrying out the scheme as he thought best. He weighed all the dangers and all the difficulties of the adventure, and placed no reliance upon the supposed weakness of the enemy. This was the true, soldier-like view of the splendid project; and if, at the time, men were found inconsiderate enough to blame him for procrastinating dalliance, the glorious result of his enterprise repaid him for all the petty sneers and misconceptions with which his discretion was undervalued by the carpet knights at home. There is but one point upon which we feel justified in disagreeing with his plan of campaign. He should not have weakened the command of General Taylor in the face of Santa Anna's army. It was almost an invitation to that chief for an attack upon the valley of the Rio Grande; and had the Army of Occupation been effectually destroyed at Buena Vista, scarcely an American would have remained, throughout the long line of Taylor's base, to tell the tale of cruelties perpetrated by the flushed and revengeful victors.
*****
Whilst events were maturing and preparations making in the valley of the Rio Grande and the island of Lobos, we shall direct our attention again for a short time to the central regions of the north of Mexico in the neighborhood of Santa Fé.
A considerable force of Missourians had been organized under the command of Colonel Doniphan, and marched to New Mexico, whence it was designed to despatch him towards Chihuahua. Soon after General Kearney's departure from Santa Fé for California, Colonel Price, who was subsequently raised to the rank of general, reached that post with his western recruits and took command, whilst Doniphan was directed, by orders from Kearney, dated near La Joya, to advance with his regiment against the Navajo Indians, who had threatened with war the New Mexicans, now under our protection. He performed this service successfully; and, on the 22d of November, 1846, made a treaty with the chiefs, binding them to live in amity with the Spaniards and Americans. Reassembling all his troops at Val Verde, he commenced his march to the south, in the middle of December, and, after incredible difficulties and great sufferings from inadequate supplies and equipments he reached Chihuahua, fighting, on the march, two successful actions against the Mexicans at Bracito, and Sacramento. Having completely routed the enemy in the latter contest, Chihuahua fell into his power. Here he tarried, recruiting his toil-worn band, for six weeks, and, as the spring opened, pushed onwards to the south until he reached the headquarters of Taylor, whence he returned with his regiment to the United States. His army marched five thousand miles during the campaign, and its adventures form one of the most romantic episodes in the war with Mexico.
Whilst Doniphan was advancing southward, the command of Price was well nigh destroyed in New Mexico and the wild region intervening between its borders and the frontiers of the United States. A conspiracy had been secretly organized, among the Mexican and half-breed population, to rise against the Americans. On the 19th of January, 1847, massacres occurred, simultaneously, at Taos, Arroyo Hondo, Rio Colorado and Mora. At Taos, Governor Charles Bent, one of the oldest and most experienced residents in that region was cruelly slain, and a great deal of valuable property destroyed by the merciless foe. Price received intelligence of this onslaught on the 20th, and rapidly calling in his outposts, marched with a hastily gathered band of about three hundred and fifty men against the enemy, whom he met, attacked and overawed on the 24th, at Cañada. Reinforced by Captain Burgwin from Alburquerque, he again advanced against the insurgents; and on the 28th, defeated a Mexican force estimated at fifteen hundred, at the pass of El Embudo. Passing, thence, over the Taos mountain, through deep snows, in midwinter, the resolute commander pursued his way unmolested through the deserted settlement which had been recently ravaged by the rebels, nor did he encounter another force until he came upon the enemy at Pueblo, when he stormed the fortified position, and gained the day but with the loss of the gallant Burgwin and other valuable officers. Mora was reduced again to subjection, early in February, by Captain Morin; and, in all these rapid but successful actions, it is estimated that near three hundred Mexicans paid the forfeit of their lives for the cruel conspiracy and its fatal results.
From this moment the tenure of our possessions in New Mexico was no longer considered secure. The troops in that district were not the best disciplined or most docile in the army, and, to the dangers of another sudden outbreak among the treacherous Mexicans, was added the fear of a sudden rising among the Indian tribes who were naturally anxious to find any pretext or chance for ridding the country of a foe whom they feared far more, as a permanent neighbor, than the comparatively feeble half-breeds and Mexicans.
In December of 1846, Lieutenant Richie, who bore despatches to Taylor apprising him of the meditated attack upon Vera Cruz, was seized and slain by the Mexicans whilst on his way to the headquarters, and, thus, Santa Anna became possessed of the plan of the proposed campaign. The Army of Occupation had been sadly impaired by the abstraction of its best material for future action on the southern line under the commander-in-chief. But General Taylor resolved at once to face the danger stoutly, and to manifest no symptom of unsoldierlike querulousness under the injustice he experienced from the government. Nevertheless,—prudent in all things, and foreseeing the danger of his command, of the lower country, and of the morale of the whole army, in the event of his defeat,—he exposed the error of the war department in his despatches to the adjutant general and secretary, so that history, if not arms, might eventually do justice to his discretion and fortitude.
The note of preparation preceded, for some time, the actual advent of Santa Anna from San Luis Potosi, and all was bustle in the American encampments which were spread from Monterey to Agua Nueva beyond Saltillo, in order to give him the best possible reception under the circumstances. Wool was encamped with a force at Agua Nueva, in advance on the road from Saltillo to San Luis, about thirteen miles from the pass of Angostura, where the road lies through a mountain gorge, defended, on one side, by a small table land near the acclivities of the steep sierra and cut with the channels of rough barrancas or ravines worn by the waters as they descend from the summits, and, on the other by an extensive net work of deep and impassable gullies which drained the slopes of the western spurs.
This spot was decided upon, as the battle ground in the event of an attack, and the encampment at Agua Nueva, in front of it was kept up as an extreme outpost, whence the scouts might be sent forth to watch the approach of Santa Anna.
SIERRA MADRE PASS.
On the 21st of February, the positive advance of that chief was announced. The camp was immediately broken up, and all our forces rapidly concentrated in the gorge of Angostura. Our troops did not amount to more than four thousand six hundred and ninety efficient men, while we had reason to believe that Santa Anna commanded nearly five times that number and was greatly superior to us in cavalry, a part of which, had been sent by secret paths through the mountains, to the rear of our position, so as to cut off our retreat, in the event of our failure in the battle.
The great object of Taylor in selecting his ground and forming his plan of battle, was to make his small army equal, as near as possible, to that of Santa Anna, by narrowing the front of attack, and thus concentrating his force upon any point through which the Mexicans might seek to break. In other words, it was his design to dam up the strait of Angostura with a living mass, and to leave no portion of the unbroken ground on the narrow table-land undefended by infantry and artillery. The battle ground that had been selected was admirably calculated for this purpose; and his foresight was justified by the result. It was not necessary for Taylor to capture, or annihilate his enemy, for he was victor, if with, but a single regiment, he kept the valley closed against the Mexicans. The centre of the American line was the main road, in which was placed a battery of eight pieces, reduced, during the action to five, supported by bodies of infantry. On the right of the stream, which swept along the edge of the western mountains, was a single regiment and some cavalry, with two guns, which it was supposed, would be sufficient, with the aid of the tangled gulleys to arrest the Mexicans in that quarter. On the left of the stream, where the ravines were fewer, and the plain between them wider, stood two regiments of infantry, suitably furnished with artillery, and extending from the central battery on the road, to the base of the eastern mountains, on whose skirts an adequate force of cavalry and riflemen was posted.
In order to break this array, Santa Anna divided his army into three attacking columns, each of which nearly doubled the whole of Taylor's force. One of these, was opposed to the battery of eight guns in order to force the road, and the other two were designed to outflank our position by penetrating or turning the squadrons stationed at the base of the mountains.
On the afternoon of the 22d of February, the attack began by a skirmishing attempt to pass to the rear of our left wing; but as the Mexicans climbed the mountain, in their endeavor to outflank us in that quarter, they were opposed by our infantry and riflemen, who disputed successfully every inch of ground, until night closed and obliged the Mexicans to retire. General Taylor, fearing an attack from the cavalry upon Saltillo, immediately departed with a suitable escort to provide for its safety, and left General Wool to command during his absence.
After day dawn, on the 23d, Santa Anna again commenced the battle, by an attack upon the left wing, and, for a while, was withstood, until a portion of our forces, after a brave defence, mistaking an order to retire, for an order to retreat, became suddenly panic-struck, and fled from the field. At this moment, Taylor returned from Saltillo, and found the whole left of our position broken, whilst the enemy was pouring his masses of infantry and cavalry along the base of the eastern mountains towards our rear.
Meanwhile the battery in the road had repulsed the Mexican column sent against it, and spared three of its guns for service on the upper plain. The regiment, on the right of the stream, had been brought over to the left bank with its cannons, and was now, in position with two other regiments, facing the mountains, between which and this force, was a gap, through whose opening, the Mexicans steadily advanced under a dreadful fire. Nearly all the artillery had been concentrated at the same place, while, in other parts of the field and nearer to the hacienda of Buena Vista, in the American rear, were bodies of our cavalry, engaged in conflict with the advancing foe.
As Taylor approached this disastrous scene, he met the fugitives, and speedily made his dispositions to stop the carnage. With a regiment from Mississippi, he restrained a charge of Mexican cavalry, and ordered all the artillery, save four guns, to the rear to drive back the exulting Mexicans. This manœuvre was perfectly successful, and, so dreadfully was the enemy cut up by the new attack, that Santa Anna, availed himself of a ruse, by a flag of truce, in order to suspend the action, whilst he withdrew his men.
The transfer of so large a portion of Taylor's most efficient troops to the rear of his original line, had greatly weakened his front, in the best positions, where the inequalities of ground sustained his feeble numbers. Santa Anna was not unmindful of the advantage he had gained by these untoward events, and prepared all his best reserves, which were now brought for the first time into action, for another attack. Taylor had with him three regiments and four pieces of artillery. His front was rather towards the mountain than the open pass, while his back was towards the road along the stream. On his right was the whole Mexican army; on his left, far off in the rear, were the troops that had repulsed and cut up the Mexican column; and the great effort, upon whose success all depended, was to bring these dispersed squadrons again into action, whilst he maintained the position against the assault of the fresh reserves. As Santa Anna advanced with his inspirited columns, he was met by regiments of infantry, which stood firm, until, overwhelmed by numbers and driven into a ravine, they were cruelly slaughtered. After the American infantry had been overcome, the last hope was in the artillery, and, with this, the Mexican advance was effectually stopped and the battle won.
The whole day had been spent in fighting, and when night came, the field was covered with dead. It was an anxious season for our battered troops, and whilst all were solicitous for the event of a contest, which it was supposed would be renewed on the morrow, the greatest efforts were not only made to inspirit the troops who had borne the brunt of two days' battle, but to bring up reinforcements of artillery and cavalry that had been stationed between Saltillo and Monterey. At day dawn, however, on the 24th, the enemy was found to have retreated.
This wonderful battle saved the north of Mexico and the valley of the Rio Grande; for Miñon and Urrea were already in our rear with regular troops and bands of rancheros, ready to cut up our flying army, and descend upon our slender garrisons. Urrea captured a valuable wagon train at Ramos, in the neighborhood of Monterey. From the 22d to the 26th of February, he continually threatened our weakened outposts, and from that period until the 7th of March inflicted severe injuries upon our trains and convoys from the gulf. In the meantime Santa Anna retreated to San Luis Potosi with the fragments of his fine army, and not long after, General Taylor retired from a field of service, in which he was no longer permitted to advance, or required except for garrison duty.
*****
In the months of October and November, 1846, Tobasco and Tampico had yielded to our navy; the former after a severe attack conducted by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, and the latter without bloodshed.
CHAPTER XI.
1846–1847.
SANTA ANNA'S RETURN—CHANGES HIS PRINCIPLES.—SALAS EXECUTIVE.—CONSTITUTION OF 1824 RESTORED—PAREDES.—PLANS OF SALAS AND SANTA ANNA—HIS LETTER TO ALMONTE—HIS VIEWS OF THE WAR—REFUSES THE DICTATORSHIP—COMMANDS THE ARMY.—STATE OF PARTIES IN MEXICO—PUROS—MODERADOS—SANTA ANNA AT SAN LUIS.—PEACE PROPOSITIONS—INTERNAL TROUBLES.—FARIAS'S CONTROVERSY WITH THE CHURCH.—POLKO REVOLUTION IN THE CAPITAL—VICE PRESIDENCY SUPPRESSED—IMPORTANT DECREE.
When General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna landed from the steamer Arab, after having been permitted to pass the line of our blockading fleet at Vera Cruz he was received by only a few friends. His reception was in fact not a public one, nor marked by enthusiasm.
By the revolution which overthrew Paredes, General Salas came into the exercise of the chief executive authority, and as soon as Santa Anna arrived he despatched three high officers to welcome him, among whom was Valentin Gomez Farias, a renowned leader of the federalist party, in former days a bitter foe of the exiled chief. Santa Anna, in his communications with the revolutionists from Cuba, had confessed his political mistake, in former years, in advocating the central system. "The love of provincial liberty," said he, in a letter to a friend dated in Havana on the 8th of March, 1846, "being firmly rooted in the minds of all, and the democratic principle predominating every where, nothing can be established in a solid manner in the country, which does not conform to these tendencies, nor can we without them attain either order, peace, prosperity or respectability among foreign nations.
FIELD OF BUENA VISTA.
"To draw every thing to the centre, and thus to give unity of action to the republic as I at one time deemed best, is no longer possible; nay, more, I say it is dangerous; it is contrary to the object I proposed to myself in the Unitarian system, because we thereby expose ourselves to the separation of the northern departments which are most clamorous for freedom of internal administration. * * * * I therefore urge you to use all your influence to reconcile the liberals, communicating with Señor Farias and his friends, in order to induce them to come to an understanding with us. * * * * I will in future, support the claims of the masses; leaving the people entirely at liberty to organize their system of government and to regulate their offices in a manner that may please them best."
These declarations, and the knowledge of Santa Anna's sagacity and influence with the masses had probably induced Farias to adhere to the project of his recall which was embraced in the movements of the revolutionists. And, accordingly, we find that upon his landing, Santa Anna published a long manifesto to the people which he concludes by recommending that, until they proclaim a new constitution, the federal constitution of 1824 be readopted for the internal administration of the country.
Salas, who had previously ordered the governors of the departments to be guided solely by the commands of Santa Anna, immediately issued a bando nacional, or edict, countersigned by the acting secretary of state, Monasterio, which embodied the views of the returned exile, and proclaimed the constitution of 1824, in accordance with his recommendation.
Paredes, meanwhile, who had been taken prisoner on the 5th of August, 1846, whilst attempting to fly the country, was held in close confinement at the castle of Peroté. Some persons proposed to treat him severely in consequence of his monarchical notions; but Salas averted dexterously all the spiteful blows that were aimed at him, and he was finally allowed to retire to Europe, where he remained until a later period of the war, when he returned to yield no significant services to his invaded country. Since the termination of the contest he has paid the great debt of nature, on his native soil, and a merciful pen will conceal the faults of a mixed nature which was not unadorned by virtues, and, under other circumstances and with different habits, might have made him a useful ruler in Mexico.
*****
General Salas, who exercised supreme command from the 7th to the 20th of August, professed to have done as little as possible of his own will, and only what was urgently demanded by the necessity of the case. He boasted, however, that he had effected what he could "to aid the brave men who, in Monterey, have determined to die rather than succumb to the invasion and perfidiousness of the Americans." In his communications to Santa Anna he urged him to hasten to Mexico as soon as possible to assume his powers, and the Mexican gazettes commend him for refusing to accept the pay of president while discharging the functions of his office.
On the 15th of August, Salas issued a proclamation, in which he announced to his countrymen that a new insult had been offered to them, and that another act of baseness had been perpetrated by the Americans. He alluded to the Californias, which, he said, "the Americans have now seized by the strong hand, after having villanously robbed us of Texas." He announced that the expedition which had been so long preparing would set forth in two days for the recovery of the country, and that measures would be taken to arrange the differences existing between the people of the Californias and the various preceding central administrations. In conclusion, he appealed eloquently to the Californians to second with their best exertions the attempt which would be made to drive out the Americans, and to unite their rich and fertile territories forever to the Republic.
During the administration of this chief, various proclamations were issued to arouse the people to take part in the war, by enlisting and by contributing their means. Efforts were also made to organize the local militia, but with little effect.
Santa Anna, in his reply to Salas on the 20th of August, accepts the trust which is formally devolved upon him, and approves of the acts of the latter, especially in sending forward all the troops to Monterey, New Mexico, and California, and in summoning a Congress for the 6th of December. These, he says, are the two first wants of the nation, the formation of a constitution for the country, and the purification of the soil of the country from foreign invaders. These ends gained, he will gladly lay down his power. "My functions will cease," he says, "when I have established the nation in its rights; when I see its destinies controlled by its legitimate representatives, and when I may be able, by the blessing of heaven, to lay at the feet of the national representatives laurels plucked on the banks of the Sabine—all of which must be due to the force and the will of the Mexican people."
Santa Anna at length quitted his hacienda, where he had doubtless been waiting for the opportune moment to arrive when he could best exhibit himself to the inhabitants of the capital, and profit by their highest enthusiasm, pushed to an extreme by alternate hopes and fears. On the 14th of September he reached Ayotla, a small town distant twenty-five miles from the city of Mexico. Here he received a communication from Almonte, the secretary of war, ad interim, proposing to him the supreme executive power, or dictatorship. This offer was made on the part of the provisional government.
Santa Anna immediately replied in the following strain to the missive of his partizan:
General Santa Anna, commander-in-chief of the Liberating Army, to General Almonte, minister of war of the republic of Mexico.
Ayotla, 1 o'clock, A. M., Sept. 14, 1846.
Sir: I have received your favor of this date, acknowledging a decree issued by the supreme government of the nation, embracing a programme of the proceedings adopted to regulate a due celebration of the re-establishment of the constitution of 1824, the assumption by myself of the supreme executive power, and the anniversary of the glorious grito of Dolores.
My satisfaction is extreme to observe the enthusiasm with which preparations are made to celebrate the two great blessings which have fallen upon this nation—her independence and her liberty—and I am penetrated with the deepest gratitude to find that my arrival at the capital will be made to contribute to the solemnities of so great an occasion. In furtherance of this object I shall make my entrée into that city to-morrow at midday, and desire, in contributing my share to the national jubilee, to observe such a course as may best accord with my duties to my country—beloved of my heart—and with the respect due to the will of the sovereign people.
I have been called by the voice of my fellow-citizens to exercise the office of commander-in-chief of the army of the republic. I was far from my native land when intelligence of this renewed confidence, and of these new obligations imposed upon me by my country was brought to me, and I saw that the imminent dangers which surrounded her on all sides, formed the chief motive for calling me to the head of the army. I now see a terrible contest with a perfidious and daring enemy impending over her, in which the Mexican republic must reconquer the insignia of her glory and a fortunate issue, if victorious, or disappear from the face of the earth, if so unfortunate as to be defeated. I also see a treacherous faction raising its head from her bosom, which, in calling up a form of government detested by the united nation, provokes a preferable submission to foreign dominion; and I behold, at last, that after much vacillation, that nation is resolved to establish her right to act for herself, and to arrange such a form of government as best suits her wishes.
All this I have observed, and turned a listening ear to the cry of my desolated country, satisfied that she really needed my weak services at so important a period. Hence I have come, without hesitation or delay, to place myself in subjection to her will; and, desirous to be perfectly understood, upon reaching my native soil, I gave a full and public expression of my sentiments and principles. The reception which they met convinced me that I had not deceived myself, and I am now the more confirmed in them, not from having given them more consideration, but because they have found a general echo in the hearts of my fellow-citizens.
I come, then, to carry my views into operation, and in compliance with the mandate of my country. She calls me as commander-in-chief of the army, and in that capacity I stand ready to serve. The enemy occupies our harbors—he is despoiling us of the richest of our territories, and threatens us with his domination! I go, then, to the head of the Mexican army—an army the offspring of a free people—and joined with it, I will fulfil my utmost duty in opposing the enemies of my country. I will die fighting, or lead the valiant Mexicans to the enjoyment of a triumph to which they are alike entitled by justice, by their warlike character, and by the dignity and enthusiasm which they have preserved, of a free nation. The war is a necessity of immediate importance; every day's delay is, an age of infamy; I cannot recede from the position which the nation has assigned me; I must go forward, unless I would draw upon myself the censure due to ingratitude for the favors with which I have been overwhelmed by my fellow-citizens; or, unless I would behold her humbled and suffering under a perpetuation of her misfortunes.
Your excellency will at once perceive how great an error I should commit in assuming the supreme magistracy, when my duty calls me to the field, to fight against the enemies of the republic. I should disgrace myself, if, when called to the point of danger, I should spring to that of power! Neither my loyalty nor my honor requires the abandonment of interests so dear to me. The single motive of my heart is to offer my compatriots the sacrifice of that blood which yet runs in my veins. I wish them to know that I consecrate myself entirely to their service, as a soldier ought to do, and am only desirous further to be permitted to point out the course by which Mexico may attain the rank to which her destinies call her.
In marching against the enemy, and declining to accept power, I give a proof of the sincerity of my sentiments; leaving the nation her own mistress, at liberty to dispose of herself as she sees fit. The elections for members of a congress to form the constitution which the people wish to adopt, are proceeding. That congress will now soon convene, and while I shall be engaged in the conflict in armed defence of her independence, the nation will place such safeguards around her liberties as may best suit herself.
If I should permit myself for a single moment, to take the reins of government, the sincerity of my promises would be rendered questionable, and no confidence could be placed in them.
I am resolved that they shall not be falsified, for in their redemption I behold the general good, as well as my honor as a Mexican and a soldier. I cannot abandon this position. The existing government has pursued a course with which the nation has shown itself content, and I have no desire to subvert it by taking its place. I feel abundant pleasure in remaining where I am, and flatter myself that the nation will applaud my choice. I shall joyfully accept such tasks as she shall continue to impose upon me; and while she is engaged in promoting the objects of civilization, I will brave every danger in supporting its benefits, even at the cost of my existence.
Will your excellency have the goodness to tender to the supreme government my sincere thanks for their kindness? I will personally repeat them to-morrow, for which purpose I propose to call at the palace. I shall there embrace my friends, and hastily pressing them to my heart, bid them a tender farewell, and set out to the scene of war, to lend my aid to serve my country, or to perish among its ruins.
I beg to repeat to your excellency assurances of my continued and especial esteem.
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
On the 15th of September, Santa Anna arrived at the capital, amid rejoicings more enthusiastic than had ever been witnessed before. The people seemed to behold in him their saviour, and were almost frantic with joy. The testimonies of attachment to his person were unbounded, and the next day the most vigorous measures, so far as declarations go, were adopted by the provisional government.
A levy of thirty thousand men to recruit the army was ordered. Requisitions were forthwith transmitted to all the principal places in the republic, for their respective quotas of men. Puebla, and the whole of the towns within a circuit of fifty or sixty leagues of the metropolis, are stated to have complied with the requisition for troops, with the greatest alacrity. To facilitate the arming and equipping of this large body, the government ordered that duties on all munitions of war shall cease to be levied, until further notice.
Santa Anna was thus once more in the capital and effectually at the head of power; but he remained only a short time to attend to political matters, and dreading, doubtless, to assume openly the management of the government or to trust himself away from the protection of the military, he hastened to surround his person with the army;—as commander-in-chief, he effectually controlled all the departments of the government.
In order to perceive distinctly the perilous position of Santa Anna, we must understand the state of parties in Mexico. The revolution which placed him in power was brought about by a union of the federalists with his partizans. Santa Anna, of course, retained an influence over his adherents after arriving in Mexico; but the federalists were divided into two parties—the Puros and Moderados, or, democrats and conservatives. The dissensions in these sections enabled Santa Anna, in a degree, to hold the balance between them. Salas, the acting executive, was a conservative, and Gomez Farias, president of the council of government, was a democrat. Intrigue after intrigue occurred in the cabinet and elsewhere among the ultras to supplant Salas, and several resignations gave evidence of the ill feeling and dissensions betwixt the ministers—Cortina and Pacheco, both conservatives, resigned—and so did Rejon and Farias. The National Guard intimated its discontent with the condition of things very manifestly, and the new cabinet was filled with old enemies of Santa Anna. Meanwhile Almonte, the ablest man in the country, retained the ministry of war.
About this time the state of San Luis Potosi pronounced against the presidency of General Salas, demanding that General Santa Anna should assume the executive functions, or that some one should be named by him. As a precaution against the apprehended attempts upon his life, Salas retired on the 25th of October from the capital to Tacubaya. The greater part of the permanent garrison of the capital took up its quarters in the same place. Santa Anna was probably determined that General Salas should not obtain too absolute an ascendancy. Report said that Salas was honest enough to attempt to carry into effect all the guaranties of the revolution of Jalisco and the citadel, and that his policy did not suit the chief; but Santa Anna professed to act in the utmost harmony with him.
This outbreak against the provisional government of General Salas was soon suppressed, and Santa Anna remained in command of the army at San Luis Potosi, but without making any attack upon our forces on the Rio Grande after the defeat of Ampudia at Monterey, or endeavoring to prevent our subsequent capture of Victoria and Tampico.
On the 23d of December congress voted, by states, for provisional president and vice president. Each state had one vote in this election, determined by the majority of its deputies. Twenty-two states voted, including the federal district of Mexico, and two territories. Santa Anna's opponent, Francisco Elorriega, was the choice of nine states, and Gomez Farias was elected vice president. The day before the election the members of the cabinet threw up their portfolios; and, in the midst of his evident political unpopularity with the politicians Santa Anna seems to have been left by the authorities at San Luis Potosi with an army destitute of efficient arms, of military knowledge, and of the means of support. Santa Anna accepted the provisional presidency.
Meanwhile our army had been advancing steadily since the battles of Resaca de la Palma and Palo Alto on the 8th and 9th of May, 1846. California had fallen into our hands, and New Mexico had been subjugated. Tampico was, also, ours, and Taylor had pushed his victorious army to Saltillo. Santa Anna stood, at bay, in San Luis Potosi; for he was not yet prepared to fight, and popular opinion would not permit him to negotiate. In this forlorn condition he resorted to the usual occupation of the Mexican government when in distress, and issued, despatch after despatch to stimulate congress, the cabinet and the people in the lingering war.
*****
Nor was the government of the United States, meanwhile, inattentive to this position of affairs in Mexico, or indisposed to afford the government an opportunity to reconcile our difficulties by negotiation. Two distinct efforts were made by Mr. Buchanan, our secretary of state in the summer of 1846, and in January, 1847; but both proved abortive, and we were therefore obliged to continue hostilities.
At length, when Santa Anna perceived the enfeebled condition of General Taylor, and believed that Scott would be for a long time hindered from effecting his attack upon Vera Cruz, he marched to Buena Vista and experienced the sad reverse which we have already recounted. As soon as the battle was over the wily and discomfited chief immediately began to repair the losses of his arms by the eloquence and adroitness of his pen. In a long account of the battle he treats the affair as almost a victory, and leaves the public mind of Mexico in doubt as to whether he had been beaten or victorious. The few trophies, taken in the saddest moments of the action, were sent in triumph to the interior and paraded as the spolia opima in San Luis and the city of Mexico. The public men of the country knew that Angostura had in reality been lost, and Miñón who was seriously assailed in the press by Santa Anna for not co-operating at the critical moment, published a reply in which he treated Santa Anna in the plainest terms and denounced, as false, the general's statement that his troops were famishing for food on the 24th of February, and that his failure to destroy Taylor's army was only owing to this important fact! This system of mutual denunciation and recrimination was quite common in Mexico, whenever a defeat was to be accounted for or thrown on the shoulders of an individual who was not in reality answerable for it.
When Santa Anna returned to San Luis Potosi, he entered that city with not one half the army that accompanied him on his departure to the north. It was moreover worn out and disorganized by the long and painful march over the bleak desert, and had entirely lost its habit of discipline. Such was the condition of things at San Luis in the month of March, when Santa Anna found himself compelled to organize another force to resist the enemy on the east; but whilst his attention was diligently directed to this subject the sad news reached him, that Mexico was not only assailed from without, but that her capital was torn by internal dissensions.
The peace between the president, and the vice president, Don Valentin Gomez Farias, had been cemented by the good offices of mutual friends, though it is not likely that any very ardent friendship could have sprung up suddenly between men whose politics had always been so widely variant. Nor was there less difference between the moral than the political character of these personages. Santa Anna, the selfish, arrogant military chieftain,—a man of unquestionable genius and talent for command,—had passed his life in spreading his sails to catch the popular breeze, and by his alliances with the two most powerful elements of Mexican society,—the army and the church,—had always contrived to sustain his eminent political position, or recover it when it was temporarily lost. Such was the case in his return to power after the invasion of the French, in the attack upon whom he fortunately lost a limb which became a constant capital upon which to trade in the corrupt but sentimental market of popular favor. Valentin Gomez Farias, on the contrary was a pure, straightforward, uncompromising patriot, always alive to the true progressive interests of the Mexican nation, and satisfied that these could only be secured by the successful imitation of our federal system, together with the destruction of the large standing army, and the release of the large church properties from the incubus of mortmain.
There was much discontent in Mexico with the election of these two personages to the presidency and vice presidency. Reflecting men thought the union unnatural, and although the desperate times required desperate remedies, there was something so incongruous in the political alliance between Farias and Santa Anna, that little good could be expected to issue from it. The clergy were alarmed for its wealth, and the moderate party was frightened by the habitual despotism of Santa Anna. The latter personage was in fact, regarded with more favor at the moment by all classes, than Farias, because the country had reason to believe him a man of action, and familiar in times of danger and distress, with all its resources of men and money; and as he was entirely occupied with the organization and management of the army at San Luis, the opposition party directed all its blows against the administration of the vice presidency.
A few days after the installation of the new government, the agitation of the mortmain question was commenced in congress. The Puro party united with the executive, made every effort to destroy the power of the clergy, by undermining the foundation of its wealth, while the Moderados became the supporters of the ecclesiastics, under the lead of Don Mariano Otero.
At length the law was passed, but it was not a frank and decided act, destroying at once the privileges of the clergy and declaring their possessions to be the property of the republic. In fact it was a mere decree for the seizure of ecclesiastical incomes, which threatened the non-complying with heavy fines if they did not pay over to the civil authorities, the revenues which had formerly been collected by the stewards of convents and monks.
This act, comparatively mild as it was, and temporary as it might have been considered, did not satisfy the clergy, even in this moment of national peril. They resorted to the spiritual weapons which they reserved for extreme occasions. They fulminated excommunications; and published dreadful threats of punishment hereafter for the crime that had been committed by placing an impious hand upon wealth which they asserted belonged to God alone. This conduct of the religious orders had its desired effect not only among the people, but among the officers of government; for the chief clerk of the finance department, Hurci, refused to sign the law, and it was sometime before a suitable person could be found to put the law in operation. Santa Anna adroitly kept himself aloof from the controversy, and wrote from San Luis, that he merely desired support for the army, and that in other questions, especially those touching the clergy, he had no desire to enter, but would limit himself to the recommendation, that neither the canons, nor the collegiate establishment of Guadalupe, should be molested, inasmuch as he entertained the greatest friendship for the one, and the most reverential devotion for the other.
But the executive, fixed in its intention to liberate the property held in mortmain, took every means to carry the law into effect, and experienced the utmost resistance from the incumbents, especially when the property happened to belong to the female sex, which is always averse from intercourse or dealings with persons who are regarded as inimical to the church.
This rigorous conduct of the executive, and the opposition it encountered from the Moderados, fomented by that powerful, spiritual class which has so long controlled the conscience of the masses, gave rise, at this period, to the outbreak in the capital, which is known as the revolution of the Polkos. It began on the 22d of February, 1847, in Mexico, whilst Santa Anna was firing the first guns at Angostura; and its great object was to drive Farias from executive power. The forces on both sides, amounted to six thousand men, and were divided between the Polkos and the partizans of the government. Funds were found to support both factions, and from that time to the 21st of March, the city of Mexico was converted into a battle field. On the morning of that day Santa Anna, who had already despatched a portion of his broken army towards the coast, and who had been approached on his journey from the capital, by emissaries from both factions, arrived at Guadalupe, and immediately the contest ceased. The stewards of the convents refused to expend more money for the support of their partizans, and the treasury of the government was closed against its adherents. The personal influence of Santa Anna thus put an end to a disgraceful rebellion which threatened the nationality of Mexico, within, whilst a foreign enemy was preparing to attack its most vital parts from the gulf.
The conflict of arms was over, but the partizans of the clergy did not intermit their efforts to get rid of the obnoxious vice-president; and at length, they effected pacifically, what they had been unable to do by force.
They brought in a bill declaring that "the vice presidency of the republic, created by the decree of the 21st December, 1846, should be suppressed." The debate upon this was of the most animated nature, the friends and enemies of Farias showing equal vehemence in sustaining their views. On the 31st day of March the vote was taken, and the proposition carried by a vote of thirty-eight to thirty-five.
The following day a decree was passed embodying the above proposition and others:
1. Permission is granted to the actual president of the republic to take command in person of the forces which the government may place under his command, to resist the foreign enemy.
2. The vice presidency of the republic, established by the law of 21st December last, is suppressed.
3. The place of the provisional president shall be filled by a substitute, named by congress according to the terms of the law just cited.
4. If in this election the vote of the deputations should be tied, in place of determining the choice by lot, congress shall decide, voting by person.
5. The functions of the substitute shall cease when the provisional president shall return to the exercise of power.
6. On the 15th day of May next the legislatures of the states shall proceed to the election of a president of the republic, according to the form prescribed by the constitution of 1824, and with no other difference save voting for one individual only.
7. The same legislatures shall at once transmit to the sovereign congress the result of the election in a certified despatch.
This decree having been passed, it was at once signified to congress, through a minister, that Santa Anna was desirous of assuming the command of the army immediately and marching to the east to provide for the national defence. Congress went at once into permanent session, in order to choose a substitute for the president. The election resulted in the choice of Señor D. Pedro Anaya. He received sixty votes and General Almonte eleven, voting by persons, and eighteen votes against three, counting by deputations. The result being promulgated, permission was granted that Señor Anaya should at once take the oath of office. This was on the 1st of April, and on the 2d, Anaya entered upon his duties. He dispensed with the usual visits of congratulation and ceremony on account of the pressure of public business, and Santa Anna left the capital for the army in the afternoon of the same day.
CHAPTER XII.
1847.
GENERAL SCOTT AT LOBOS—LANDING AT AND SIEGE OF VERA CRUZ—CAPITULATION AND CONDITION OF VERA CRUZ—CONDITION OF MEXICO—ALVARADO, ETC., CAPTURED—SCOTT'S ADVANCE—DESCRIPTION OF CERRO GORDO—MEXICAN DEFENCES AND MILITARY DISPOSAL THERE—BATTLE OF CERRO GORDO.—PEROTÉ AND PUEBLA YIELD—SANTA ANNA RETURNS—CONSTITUTION OF 1824 READOPTED—MEXICAN POLITICS OF THE DAY—WAR SPIRIT—GUERILLAS—PEACE NEGOTIATIONS—TRIST—SANTA ANNA'S SECRET NEGOTIATIONS.
The extraordinary genius of Santa Anna, and the influence he possessed over his countrymen were perhaps never more powerfully manifested than in the manner in which, amid all these disasters, he maintained his reputation and popularity, and gathered a new army to defend the eastern frontier of Mexico. But whilst he was engaged preparing in the interior, we must return to the scene of General Scott's operations on the coast. The small island of Lobos, about a hundred and twenty-five miles from Vera Cruz, had been selected for the rendezvous of the several corps which were to compose the American invading army; and the magnitude of the enterprize may be estimated from the fact, that one hundred and sixty-three vessels were employed as transports. On the seventh of March, Scott embarked his troops in the squadron under Commodore Connor, and on the ninth, landed the army upon the coast below the island of Sacrificios without the loss of a man, and without opposition from the neighboring city of Vera Cruz, which he summoned in vain to surrender. Having planted his batteries, and placed them under the command of Colonel Bankhead, as Chief of Artillery, he commenced a vigorous bombardment of the city on the eighteenth, aided, afloat and on shore, by the guns of the fleet which had been transferred from Commodore Connor to the command of Commodore Perry. The town was thus invested by land and water, and although the Mexican castle, city walls and forts, were but poorly garrisoned and provided, they held out bravely during the terrible siege, which nearly converted Vera Cruz into a slaughter-house. On the morning of the twenty-sixth, when no hope remained for the Mexicans, General Landero, the commander, made overtures for a capitulation, which being satisfactorily arranged, the principal commercial port, and the most renowned fortress in Mexico were surrendered, together with four hundred guns, five thousand stand of arms and as many prisoners who were released on parole.
General Scott had endeavored to mitigate the dangers of this terrific attack upon Vera Cruz by the employment of such a force as would honorably satisfy the inefficient garrison of the town and castle that it was in truth unable to cope with the American forces. He delayed opening his batteries to allow the escape of non-combatants; he refrained, moreover, from storming the town, a mode of assault in which multitudes would have fallen on both sides in the indiscriminate slaughter which always occurs when an enemy's town is invaded in hot blood and with a reckless spirit of conquest and carnage. Yet, weak and badly provided as was the garrison of both strongholds, the walls of the city, its batteries and its guardian castle held out for sixteen days, during which time it is estimated that our army and navy, threw into the town about six thousand shot and shells, weighing upwards of 463,000 pounds. On the side of the Mexicans the slaughter was exceedingly great. Nearly a thousand fell victims during the siege; and, among the slain, numerous unfortunate citizens, women and children, were found to have perished by the bombs or paixhan shot which destroyed the public and private edifices, and ruined many important portions of the city.
When this new disaster was reported in the capital and among the highlands of Mexico, it spread consternation among the more secluded masses who now began to believe that the heart of the country was seriously menaced. They had doubtless trusted to the traditionary, proverbial strength of San Juan de Ulua, and believed that the danger of disease and storm on the coast would serve to protect Vera Cruz from the attack of unacclimated strangers, during a season of hurricanes. Indeed, it was fortunate that our troops were landed from the transports and men-of-war as early as they were in March, for almost immediately afterwards, and during the siege, one of the most violent northers that ever ravaged these shores raged incessantly, destroying many of the vessels whose warlike freight of men and munitions had been so recently disembarked.
But if the people were ignorant of the true condition and strength of Vera Cruz or its castle, such was not the case with the military men and national authorities. They had made but little effort to guard it against Scott, of whose designed attack they had been long apprised, and they were probably prevented from doing so chiefly by the plans of Santa Anna, who supposed that Taylor would fall an easy prey to the large Mexican forces in the field at Buena Vista, especially as the American army had been weakened by the abstraction of its regulars for the operations at Vera Cruz. Victorious at Buena Vista, he could have hastened, by forced marches, to attack the invaders on the eastern coast, and under the dismay of his anticipated victory in the north, he unquestionably imagined that they too would have fallen at once into his grasp. Besides these military miscalculations, Mexico was so embarrassed in its pecuniary affairs, and disorganized in its Central Civil Government, that the proper directing power in the capital,—warned as it was,—had neither men nor means at hand to dispose along the coast of the Gulf, or to station at points in its neighborhood whence they might quickly be thrown into positions which were menaced.
It was at this juncture that Santa Anna's voice was again heard in the council and the field. At the conclusion of the last chapter we left him hastening to the new scene of action; and when he announced the capitulation of the vaunted castle and sea port of the Republic, he declared in his proclamation, that although "chance might decree the fall of the capital of the Aztec empire under the power of the proud American host, yet the Nation shall not perish." "I swear," continues he, "that if my wishes are seconded by a sincere and unanimous effort, Mexico shall triumph! A thousand times fortunate for the nation will the fall of Vera Cruz prove, if the disaster shall awaken in Mexican bosoms, the dignified enthusiasm, and generous ardor of true patriotism!" This was the tone of appeal and encouragement in which he rallied the credulous and vain masses, the disheartened country, the dispersed troops of the north, and reanimated the broken fragments of the army which still continued in the field.
Meanwhile, General Scott placed Vera Cruz under the command of General Worth; opened the port to the long abandoned commerce which had languished during the blockade; established a moderate tariff, and together with the forces of the navy took possession of the ports of Alvarado and Tlacotlalpam on the south, and directed the future capture of Tuspan on the north of Vera Cruz. All his arrangements being completed, and these captures made and projected, he marched a large portion of his twelve thousand victorious troops towards the capital.
VERA CRUZ.
When the road to the interior leaves Vera Cruz, it runs for a mile or two along the low, sandy, sea-beaten shore, and then strikes off, nearly at a right angle, in a gap among the sand-hills towards the west. For many miles it winds slowly and heavily through the deep and shifting soil, until, as the traveller approaches the river Antigua, the country begins to rise and fall by gentle elevations like the first heavy swells of the ocean. Passing this river at Puente Nacional over the noble and renowned bridge of that name, the aspect of the territory becomes suddenly changed. The nearer elevations are steeper and more frequent, the road firmer and more rocky, while, in the western distance, the tall slopes of the Sierras rise rapidly in bold and wooded masses. All the features of nature are still strictly tropical, and wherever a scant and thriftless cultivation has displaced the thick vines, the rich flowers, and the dense foliage of the forest, indolent natives may be seen idling about their cane-built huts, or lazily performing only the most necessary duties of life. Further on, at Plan del Rio the geological features of the coast assume another aspect. Here the road again crosses a small streamlet, and then suddenly strikes boldly into the side of the mountain which is to be ascended. About seven leagues from Jalapa the edge of one of the table lands of the Cordillera sweeps down from the west abruptly into this pass of the river Plan. On both sides of this precipitous elevation the mountains tower majestically. The road winds slowly and roughly along the scant sides which have been notched to receive it. When the summit of the pass is attained one side of the road is found to be overlooked by the Hill of the Telegraph, while on the other side the streamlet runs in an immensely deep and rugged ravine, several hundred feet below the level of the table land. Between the road and the river many ridges of the neighboring hills unite and plunge downwards into the impassable abyss. At the foot of the Hill of the Telegraph, rises another eminence known as that of Atalaya, which is hemmed in by other wooded heights rising from below, and forming, in front of the position a boundary of rocks and forests beyond which the sight cannot penetrate.
When Don Manuel Robles left Vera Cruz, after its fall, he was desired by General Canalizo to examine the site of Cerro Gordo. After a full reconnoissance it was his opinion that it afforded a favorable spot in which the invaders might be at least injured or checked, but that was not the proper point to dispute their passage to the capital by a decisive victory. The most favorable position for resistance he believed to be at Corral Falso.
These views, however, did not accord with the opinions of the commander-in-chief, who when the ground was explored under his own eye, resolved to fortify it for the reception of the Americans. The brigades of General Pinzon and Ranjel; the companies of Jalapa and Coatepec, commanded by Mata; and the veterans of the division of Angostura arrived also about this period, and their last sections reached the ground on the 12th. Meanwhile all was activity in the work of hasty fortification. Robles constructed a parapet at the edge of the three hills, but failing to obtain all requisite materials for such a work, his erection merely served to mark the line of the Mexican operations, and to form a breast-work whence the artillery and infantry might command the ground over which, as the defenders supposed, the Americans would be obliged to advance. Colonel Cano had already cut off the access by the road at the point where it turned on the right slope of the Telegraph, by placing a heavy battery. He also formed a covered way leading to the positions on the right, while General Alcorta constructed a circular work on the summit of the eminence and established within it a battery of four guns. In the centre of this the national flag was hoisted, and off to the left nothing was seen but thick, thorny dells and barrancas, which were regarded by Santa Anna as impassable.
Such was the Mexican line of defences extending on the brink of these precipices for nearly a mile, and, throughout it, the commander-in-chief hastened to distribute his forces. The extreme right was placed under the command of General Pinzon, the next position under the naval captain, Buenaventura Aranjo, the next under Colonel Badillo, the next under General Jarero, the next post, at the road, under General La Vega, and finally the extreme left, at the Telegraph, under Generals Vazquez, Uraga and Colonel Palacios. The forces thus in position, according to the Mexican account, amounted to three thousand three hundred and seventy men with fifty-two pieces of ordnance of various calibre. The remainder of the army, with the exception of the cavalry, which remained at Corral Falso until the 15th, was encamped on the sides of the road at the rancheria of Cerro Gordo, situated in the rear of the position. In this neighborhood was placed the reserve, composed of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th light infantry, comprising 1,700 men; and the 1st and 11th regiments of the line, with 780 men, together with their artillery. It is said that the army was badly provided with food and suffered greatly from the climate and the innumerable insects which infest the region.
As Scott advanced against this position the dangers of his enterprize became manifest, and he caused a series of bold reconnoissances to be made by Lieutenant Beaurgard and Captain Lee, of the engineers. He found that the deep rocky ravine of the river protected the right flank of the Mexican position, while abrupt and seemingly impassable mountains and ridges covered the left. Between these points, for nearly two miles, a succession of fortified summits bristled with every kind of available defence, while the top of Cerro Gordo commanded the road on a gentle slope, like a glacis, for nearly a mile. An attack in front, therefore, would have been fatal to the American army, and Scott resolved, accordingly, to cut a road to the right of his position so as to turn the left flank of the Mexicans. To cover his flank movements, on the 17th of April, he ordered General Twiggs to advance against the fort on the steep ascent, in front, and slightly to the left of the Cerro. Colonel Harney, with the rifles and some detachments of infantry and artillery, carried this position under a heavy fire, and, having secured it, elevated a large gun to the summit of the eminence, and made a demonstration against a strong fort in the rear. Early on the 18th, the columns moved to the general attack. General Pillow's brigade assaulted the right of the Mexican entrenchments, and although compelled to retire, produced a powerful impression on that part of the enemy's line. General Twigg's division stormed the vital part of Cerro Gordo, pierced the centre, gained command of the fortifications and cut them off from support; while Colonel Riley's brigade of infantry rushed on against the main body of the foe, turned the guns of their own fort against them, and compelled the panic stricken crowd to fly in utter confusion. Shields' brigade, meanwhile, assaulted the left, and carrying the rear battery, aided materially in completing the rout of the enemy. The whole American force, in action and reserve, was 8,500. Three thousand prisoners, four or five thousand stand of arms, and forty-three pieces of artillery, fell into Scott's hands. In the two days of conflict our loss amounted to 33 officers and 398 men, of whom 63 were killed. The enemy's loss was computed at 1,000 at least, while among the prisoners no less than two hundred and eighty officers and five generals were included. Santa Anna, and General Ampudia who was in the action, escaped with difficulty; and the commander-in-chief, accompanied by a few friends and a small escort, finally reached Orizaba in safety, after encountering numerous dangers amid the mountains and lonely paths through which he was obliged to pass.
This very decisive victory opened the path for the American army to the highlands of the upper plateau of Mexico, and, accordingly, our forces immediately pushed on to Jalapa and Peroté, both of which places were abandoned by the Mexicans without firing a gun. General Worth took possession of Peroté on the 22d of April, and received from Colonel Velasquez, who had been left in charge of the fortress or castle of San Carlos de Peroté by his retreating countrymen, 54 guns and mortars of iron and bronze, 11,065 cannon balls, 14,300 bombs and hand grenades, and 500 muskets. On capturing the post he learned that the rout at Cerro Gordo had been complete. Three thousand cavalry passed the strong hold of Peroté in deplorable plight, while not more than two thousand disarmed and famishing infantry had returned towards their homes in the central regions of Mexico. From Peroté Worth advanced towards Puebla on the direct road to the capital.
Thus was Mexico again reduced to extreme distress by the loss of two important battles, the destruction of her third army raised for this war, and the capture of her most valuable artillery and munitions. But the national spirit of resistance was not subdued. If the government could no longer restrain the invaders by organized armies, it resolved to imitate the example of the mother country during Napoleon's invasion, and to rouse the people to the formation of guerilla bands under daring and reckless officers. Bold as was this effort of patriotic despair, and cruelly successful as it subsequently proved against individuals or detached parties of the Americans, it could effect nothing material against the great body of the consolidated army. Meanwhile the master spirit of the nation—Santa Anna—had not been idle in the midst of his disheartening reverses. In little more than two weeks, he gathered nearly three thousand men from the fragments of his broken army, and marched to Puebla, where he received notice of Worth's advance from Peroté. Sallying forth immediately with his force, he attacked the American general at Amozoque, but, finding himself unable to check his career, returned with a loss of nearly ninety killed and wounded. On the 22d of May, Puebla yielded submissively to General Worth, and Santa Anna retreated in the direction of the national capital, halting at San Martin Tesmalucan, and again at Ayotla, about twenty miles from Mexico. Here he learned that the city was in double fear of the immediate assault of the victorious Americans and of his supposed intention to defend it within its own walls, a project which the people believed would only result, in the present disastrous condition of affairs, in the slaughter of its citizens and ruin of their property. The commander-in-chief halted therefore at Ayotla, and playing dexterously on the hopes and fears of the people in a long despatch addressed to the minister of war, he at length received the Presidential and popular sanction of his return to Mexico.
In truth, the nation at large had no one but Santa Anna, at that moment of utter despair, in whose prestige and talents—in spite of all his misfortunes and defeats—it could rely for even the hope of escape from destruction, if not of ultimate victory.
Whilst the Mexican nation had been thus sorely vexed by intestinal commotions and foreign invasion an Extraordinary Constituent Congress—Congreso Extraordinario Constituyente—had been summoned and met in the capital, chiefly to revise the Constitution, or the "Bases of Political Organization," of 1843, which had been superseded by the temporary adoption of the Federal Constitution of 1824, according to the edict issued by Salas, under the direction of Santa Anna soon after that personage's return from exile. This Extraordinary Congress readopted the old Federal Constitution of 1824 without altering its terms, principles, or phraseology, and made such slight changes as were deemed needful by an Acta Constitutiva y de Reformas, containing thirty articles, which was sanctioned on the 18th, and proclaimed on the 21st of May by Santa Anna, who had reassumed the Presidency. By this approval of the Federal System the Executive entirely abandoned the Central policy for which he had so long contended, but which, as we have seen in the 11th chapter, he no longer believed, or feigned to believe, suitable for the nation.
Notwithstanding this submission to popular will, and apparent desire to deprive the Central Government of its most despotic prerogatives, the conduct of Santa Anna did not save him entirely from the machinations of his rivals or of intriguers. Much discontent was expressed publicly and privately, and the President, accordingly tendered his resignation to Congress, intimating a desire to hasten into private life! This stratagetic resignation was followed by the retiracy of General Rincon and General Bravo, who commanded the troops in the city. Acts of such vital significance upon the part of the ablest men in the Republic, in an hour of exceeding danger, at once recalled Congress and the people to their senses; and if they were designed, as they probably were, merely to throw the anarchists on their own resources and to show them their inefficiency at such an epoch, they seem to have produced the desired effect, for they placed Santa Anna and his partizans more firmly in power. Congress refused to accept his resignation. Unfortunate as he had been, it perhaps saw in him the only commander who was capable in the exigency of controlling the Mexican elements of resistance to the invaders, and he was thus enabled to form his plans, to collect men, means and munitions, and to commence the system of fortifications around the capital. "War to the knife," was still the rallying cry of the nation. The Congressional resolutions which had been passed on the 20th of April, immediately after the battle of Cerro Gordo, proclaimed "every individual a traitor, let him be private person or public functionary, who should enter into treaties with the United States!" Parties in the capital were, nevertheless, not unanimous upon this subject. There were wise men and patriots who foresaw the issue, and counselled the leaders to come to honorable terms before the capital was assaulted. Others craved the continuance of the war with the hope that its disasters would destroy the individuals who conducted it to an unfortunate issue; and, among these, they saw that Santa Anna was finally pledged to abide that issue for weal or woe. Nor were politicians wanting in the Republic who honestly looked to the prolongation of the conflict as a blessing to Mexico, believing that it would result in the complete subjugation of the whole country by American arms and its final annexation to our Union.
In June a coalition was formed at Lagos by deputies from Jalisco, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Mexico and Querétaro, in which these States combined for mutual defence; but, while they opposed peace, they resolved to act independently of the General Government. Many other parts of the republic looked on the scene with apathy. There was no longer a revenue from foreign commerce. The products of the mines were smuggled from the west coast in British vessels. Disorder and uncertainty prevailed every where in regard to the collection of the national income from internal resources. Individuals, and not States, corporations or municipalities, were now to be relied on for support; and, as the most important parts of the nation on the north and east were virtually in the enemy's hands, the whole effort of the frail authorities was confined to the protection of the capital. In the midst of all this complication of confusion Santa Anna found that the election for President, which was held by the States on the 15th of May, had resulted unfavorably to his pretensions, and, by an adroit movement, he prevailed on Congress to postpone the counting of the votes from the 15th of June until January of the following year! All who opposed his schemes of defence or resistance, were disposed of by banishment, persecution or imprisonment, nor did he fail to establish so severe a censorship of the press, that, in July, it is believed, but one paper was allowed to be issued in the capital, and that one, of course, entirely under his control. Throwing himself, like a true military demagogue, publicly, if not at heart, at the head of popular feeling in regard to the war with the United States, he adopted every measure and availed himself of every resource in his power to place the city in a state of defence, and to fan the flame of resistance. In the meanwhile the guerilla forces, organized on the eastern coast, chiefly under a recreant clergyman named Jarauta, harassed every American train and detachment on their way to the interior, and rendered the country insecure, until a fearful war of extermination was adopted by our garrisons on the line.
The government of the United States had, during the whole of this unfortunate contest, availed itself of every supposed suitable occasion to sound Mexico in relation to peace. In July, 1846, and in January 1847, overtures were made to the national authorities and rejected; and again, early in the spring of 1847, as soon as the news of the defeat at Cerro Gordo reached Washington, Mr. Nicholas P. Trist was despatched by the President upon a mission which it was hoped would result in the restoration of international amity. The commissioner reached Vera Cruz while the American army was advancing towards the interior, but it was not until the forces reached Puebla, and General Scott had established his head quarters in that capital, that he was enabled, through the intervention of the British Minister, to communicate with the Mexican government. The stringent terms of the decree to which we have already alluded, of course, prevented Santa Anna, powerful as he was, from entertaining the proposals in the existing state of the public mind, and, accordingly, he referred the subject to Congress, a quorum of whose members was, with difficulty, organized. On the 13th of July, seventy-four assembled, and voted to strip themselves of the responsibility by a resolution that it was the Executive's duty to receive ministers, and to make treaties of peace and alliance, and that their functions were confined to the approval or disapproval of those treaties or alliances when submitted in due form under the constitution. But Santa Anna, still adhering to the letter of the mandatory decree passed after the battle of Cerro Gordo in April, alleged his legal incapacity to treat, and recommended the repeal of the order, inasmuch as the American commissioner's letter was courteous, and the dignity of Mexico required the return of a suitable reply. Before the appeal could reach Congress, its members had dispersed, foreseeing probably, the delicacy, if not danger, of the dilemma in which they were about to be placed. Without a constitution tribunal to relieve him from his position, the President finally referred the matter to a council of general officers of the army. This body, however, was quite as timorous as Congress, and dismissed the project by declaring that "it was inexpedient to enter into negotiations for peace, until another opportunity had been afforded Mexico to retrieve her fortunes in the field."
These were the negotiations that met the public eye, and are reported in the military and diplomatic despatches of the day; but there was a secret correspondence, also, which denotes either the duplicity or strategy of Santa Anna, and must be faithfully recorded. It seems that the Mexican President, about the time that the public answer was proclaimed, sent private communications to the American head quarters at Puebla, intimating that if a million of dollars were placed at his disposal, to be paid upon the conclusion of a treaty of peace, and ten thousand dollars were paid forthwith, he would appoint commissioners to negotiate! The proposal was received and discussed by General Scott, Mr. Trist, and the leading officers, and being agreed to, though not unanimously, the ten thousand dollars were disbursed from the secret service money which Scott had at his disposal, and communications were opened in cypher, the key of which had been sent from Mexico. Intimations soon reached Puebla, from Santa Anna, that it would be also necessary for the American army to advance and threaten the Capital;—and, finally, another message was received, urging Scott to penetrate the valley and carry one of the outworks of the Mexican line of defences, in order to enable him to negotiate! [68]
The sincerity of these proposals from the Mexican President, is very questionable, and we are still in doubt whether he designed merely to procrastinate and feel the temper of the Americans, or whether he was in reality angling for the splendid bribe of a million which he might appropriate privately, in the event of playing successfully upon the feelings or fears of the masses. The attempt, however, proved abortive; and although both General Scott and Mr. Trist deemed it proper to entertain the proposal, the commander-in-chief never for a moment delayed his military preparations for an advance with all the force he could gather. Thus were the last efforts of the American authorities in Mexico and Washington repulsed in the same demagogue spirit that hastened the rupture between the nations in the spring of 1846, and nothing remained but to try again whether the sword was mightier than the pen.
Footnote
[ [68] See Major Ripley's History of the War with Mexico, p. 148. et. seq.
CHAPTER XIII.
1847.
SCOTT AT PUEBLA—TAMPICO AND ORIZABA TAKEN—SCOTT's ADVANCE—TOPOGRAPHY OF THE VALLEY OF MEXICO—ROUTES TO THE CAPITAL—EL PEÑON—MEXICALZINGO—TEZCOCO—CHALCO—OUTER AND INNER LINES AROUND THE CITY—SCOTT'S ADVANCE BY CHALCO—THE AMERICAN ARMY AT SAN AGUSTIN.
The American forces, as we have stated, had concentrated at Puebla on the main road to the city of Mexico, but their numbers had been thinned by desertion, disease and the return of many volunteers whose term of service was over or nearly completed. Meanwhile the Mexican army was increased by the arrival of General Valencia from San Luis with five thousand troops and thirty-six pieces of artillery, and General Alvarez with his Pinto Indians from the south and south-west, all of which, added to the regiments in the city and its immediate vicinity, swelled the numbers of the Mexican combatants to at least twenty-five or thirty thousand. It was discovered that General Taylor would not advance towards the south, and consequently the presence of Valencia's men was of more importance at the point where the vital blow would probably be struck.
Whilst the events we have related were occurring in the interior, Commodore Perry had swept down the coast and captured Tobasco, which, however, owing to its unhealthiness, was not long retained by the Americans. But every other important port in the Gulf, from the Rio Grande to Yucatan, was in our possession, while an active blockade was maintained before those in the Pacific. Colonel Bankhead subsequently, occupied Orizaba, and seized a large quantity of valuable public property. It had been the desire of the American authorities, from the earliest period of the war, to draw a large portion of the means for its support from Mexico, but the commanding Generals finding the system not only annoying to themselves but exasperating to the people and difficult of accomplishment, refrained from the exercise of a right which invaders have generally used in other countries. Our officers, accordingly, paid for the supplies obtained from the natives. Nor did they confine this principle of action to the operations of the military authorities alone whilst acting for the army at large, but, wherever it was possible, restrained that spirit of private plunder and destruction which too commonly characterizes the common soldier when flushed with victory over a weak but opulent foe. When the ports of Mexico, however, had fallen into our possession and the blockade was raised, they were at once opened to the trade of all nations upon the payment of duties more moderate than those which had been collected by Mexico. The revenue, thus levied in the form of a military contribution from Mexican citizens upon articles they consumed, was devoted to the use of our army and navy. It was, in effect, the seizure of Mexican commercial duties and their application to our necessary purposes, and thus far, only, was the nation compelled to contribute towards the expense of the war it had provoked.
*****
Early in August, General Scott had been reinforced by the arrival of new regiments at Puebla, and on the 7th of that month, he resolved to march upon the capital. Leaving a competent garrison in that city, under the command of Colonel Childs, and a large number of sick and enfeebled men in the hospitals, he departed with about ten thousand eager soldiers towards the renowned Valley of Mexico.
In the same month, three hundred and twenty-eight years before, Hernando Cortéz and his slender military train, departed from the eastern coasts of Mexico, on the splendid errand of Indian conquest. After fighting two battles, with the Tlascalans who then dwelt in the neighborhood of Puebla, and with the Cholulans whose solitary pyramid,—a grand and solemn monument of the past,—still rises majestically from the beautiful plain, he slowly toiled across the steeps of the grand volcanic sierra which divides the valleys and hems in the plain of Mexico. Patiently winding up its wooded sides and passing the forests of its summit, the same grand panoramic scene lay spread out in sunshine at the feet of the American General that three centuries before had greeted the eager and longing eyes of the greatest Castilian soldier who ever trod the shores of America.
In order to comprehend the military movements which ended the drama of the Mexican war, it will be necessary for us to describe the topography of the valley with some minuteness, although it is not designed to recount, in detail, all the events and personal heroism of the battles that ensued. This would require infinitely more room than we can afford, and we are, accordingly, spared the discussion of many circumstances which concern the merits, the opinions, and the acts of various commanders.
*****
Looking downward towards the west from the shoulders of the lofty elevations which border the feet of the volcano of Popocatepetl, the spectator beholds a remarkable and perfect basin, enclosed on every side by mountains whose height varies from two hundred to ten thousand feet from its bottom. The form of this basin may be considered nearly circular, the diameter being about fifty miles. As the eye descends to the levels below, it beholds every variety of scenery. Ten extinct volcanoes rear their ancient cones and craters in the southern part of the valley, multitudes of lesser hills and elevations break the evenness of the plain, while, interspersed among its eight hundred and thirty square miles of arable land and along the shores of its six lakes of Chalco, Xochimilco, Tezcoco, San Cristoval, Xaltocan and Zumpango, stretching across the valley from north to south, are seen the white walls of ten populous cities and towns. In front of the observer, about forty miles to the west, is the capital of the Republic, while the main road thither descends rapidly from the last mountain slopes, at the Venta de Cordova, until it is lost in the plain on the margin of Lake Chalco near the Hacienda of Buena Vista. From thence to the town of Ayotla it sweeps along the plain between a moderate elevation on the north and the lake of Chalco on the south.
On the 11th of August, General Scott, after crossing the mountains, concentrated his forces in the valley. General Twiggs encamped with his division in advance, on the direct road, at Ayotla, near the northern shore of Lake Chalco; General Quitman was stationed with his troops a short distance in the rear; General Worth occupied the town of Chalco on the western shore of its lake, while General Pillow brought up the rear by an encampment near Worth.
This position of the army commanded four routes to the capital whose capture was the coveted prize. The first of these, as well as the shortest and most direct, was the main post road which reaches the city by the gate or garita of San Lazaro on the east. After passing Ayotla this road winds round the foot of an extinct volcanic hill for five miles when it approaches the sedgy shores and marshes of Lake Tezcoco on the north, thence it passes over a causeway built across an arm of Tezcoco for two miles, and, by another causeway of seven miles finally strikes the city. The road is good, level, perfectly open and comfortable for ordinary travelling, but the narrow land between the lakes of Chalco and Tezcoco, compressed still more by broken hills and rocks, admits the most perfect military defence. At the end of the first causeway over the arm of Tezcoco which we have just described, is the abrupt oblong volcanic hill styled El Peñon, four hundred and fifty feet above the level of the lake, its top accessible in the direction of Ayotla at only one point, and surrounded by water except on the west towards Mexico. It is a natural fortress; yet Santa Anna had not neglected to add to its original strength, and to seize it as the eastern key of his defences. Three lines of works were thrown up, at the base, at the brow, and on the summit of the eminence. The works at the base, completely encircling El Peñon, consisted of a ditch fifteen feet wide, four and a half feet deep, and a parapet fifteen feet thick whose slope was raised eight and a half feet above the bottom of the ditch. Ample breastworks formed the other two lines of the bristling tiara. In addition to this, the causeway across the arm of Tezcoco, immediately in front, had been cut and was defended by a battery of two guns, while the fire from all the works, mounting about sixty pieces, swept the whole length of the causeway.
The second road to the capital was by Mexicalzingo. After leaving Ayotla the highway continues along the main post road for six or seven miles and then deflects southwardly towards the village of Santa Maria, whence it pursues its way westwardly towards Istapalapan, but, just before reaching Mexicalzingo, it crosses a marsh formed by the waters of Lake Xochimilco, on a causeway nearly a mile long. This approach, dangerous as it was by its natural impediments, was also protected by extensive field works which made it almost as perilous for assault as the Peñon.
The third route lay through Tezcoco. Leaving Chalco and the Hacienda of Buena Vista, it strikes off from the main route directly north, and passing through the town of Tezcoco, it sweeps westwardly around the shores of the lake of that name until it crosses the stone dyke of San Cristoval, near the lake and town of that name; thence, by a road leading almost directly south for fifteen miles, through the sacred town of Guadalupe Hidalgo, it enters the capital. It is an agreeable route through a beautiful country, yet extremely circuitous though free from all natural or artificial obstacles, until it reaches Santiago Zacualco within two miles of Guadalupe. But at the period of Scott's invasion of the valley, General Valencia, with the troops that were afterwards convened at Contreras, was stationed at Tezcoco, either for the purpose of observation, or to induce an attack in that quarter, and thus to draw our forces into a snare on the northern route, or to fall on the rear of the American commander if he attacked El Peñon, or advanced by the way of Mexicalzingo. At Santiago Zacualco, west of the lake and on the route, formidable works were thrown up to defend the entire space between the western shore of lake Tezcoco and the mountains; while on the road to Querétaro, at the mountain pass north of Tenepantla, other defences were erected, so as to screen the country on all sides of the group of hills which lies west of the lakes of Tezcoco and San Cristoval and north of the town of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
The fourth and last advance to the city was that which turned to the south from the Hacienda of Buena Vista, and passing by the town of Chalco, led along the narrow land intervening between the shores of lake Chalco and the first steeps of the mountains forming the southern rim of the valley, until it fell at right angles, at Tlalpam or San Agustin de las Cuevas, into the main road from the city of Mexico towards the southern States of the Republic.
All these routes were boldly reconnoitred by the brave engineers accompanying the American army, and, where they could not extend their personal observations, the officers obtained from the people of the country, information upon which subsequent events proved that they were justified in relying. From the knowledge thus gained as to the route south of the lake of Chalco, they were induced to believe, although it was rough, untravelled, difficult, and narrowly hemmed in between the lake and the mountains, yet that the long and narrow defile, which was open to resistance at many points, was not sufficiently obstructed or fortified to prevent our passage. All the routes on the lower lands, it should also be remembered, were liable to increased difficulties from the deluging rains prevailing at this season on the highlands of Mexico, and which sometimes convert the highways and their borders, for many leagues, into almost impassable lagunes.
Santa Anna and his engineers had probably supposed that this southern route would not be adopted, but a reasonable explanation of his conduct is given by one of the most competent commentators upon the valley of Mexico and the march of the American army. [69] "When an enemy is in front of El Peñon, the communication between it and troops on the other routes is only by way of the city of Mexico itself; in other words, the American troops being at Ayotla, General Santa Anna's forces at El Peñon were one day's march distant from those at Mexicalzingo, three from those under General Valencia, and would have been about four days' march from troops thrown forward on the Chalco route. Fords on these different routes were by no means within supporting distances of each other. Holding the position that General Scott then did, it would have required, of an equal enemy, four times his own force, to have opposed successfully his further advance. The Mexican forces were not numerically equal to this, and, accordingly, they were concentrated at the threatened point. It is evident that as long as the American troops were in front of El Peñon, the enemy necessarily held to their position. In moving off, the former could gain one day the start. This brought the only difficult parts of the Chalco route actually nearer General Scott than the Mexican chief. If to this we add the delay necessary in moving heavy artillery and breaking up from a fortified position, it would seem that, instead of oversight, it was rather impossible for General Santa Anna to meet our forces sooner than he did."
The description of the various routes to the capital has necessarily acquainted the reader with the important Mexican defences on the north, the east, and the north-east of the capital, both by military works hastily thrown up after Santa Anna's retreat from Cerro Gordo, and by the encampment of large bodies of soldiery. We thus, already know a part of the external line of defences at El Peñon, Mexicalzingo, Tezcoco, Santiago Zacualco, and the Pass north of Tenepantla. But in addition to these, there are others that must be noticed on the south and west of the capital, which it should always be recollected is situated in the lap of the valley, but near the western edge of the gigantic rim of mountains.
Along the Chalco route there were no more fortifications, but west of lakes Chalco and Xochimilco, a line of entrenchments had been commenced, connecting the fortified hacienda, or massive stone plantation house of San Antonio, about six miles south of the city, with the town of Mexicalzingo. West of this hacienda, the Pedregal, a vast, broken field of lava, spread out along the edge of the main road, and skirting it to San Agustin, extended high upon the mountain slopes still further west near San Angel and Contreras, whose neighboring fields were cut into deep ravines and barrancas by the wash from the declivities. The Pedregal was a most formidable obstacle in the march or manœuvres of an army. But few levels of arable land were found among its rocky wastes. It admitted the passage of troops at but few points, and was entirely impracticable for cavalry or artillery, except by a single mule-path. [70] North of San Angel and the edge of the Pedregal, at the distance of about four miles, rose the solitary hill and castle of Chapultepec, which had been amply prepared for defence; and still further north on the same line, frowned the stern ridges of the sierra, cut by barrancas and profound dells, until the ring of the outer series of military works was thus finally united at the pass beyond Tenepantla. But inside of this formidable barrier of outworks, nearer the city, another line of fortifications had been prepared to dispute the American march. The first, and perhaps the most important of these, was at Churubusco, a scattered village lying midway between San Agustin and the city of Mexico, directly on the road, at a spot where the stream or rivulet of Churubusco runs eastwardly from a point on the road from San Angel to the capital, towards the lake of Xochimilco. The sides of the water course were planted with the prickly maguey, and one of the most western buildings in the village was a strong massive stone convent, whose walls had been cut for musketry, and whose parapets, azotéas or flat roofs, and windows, all afforded suitable positions for soldiery. Large quantities of ammunition were stored within the edifice. The enclosure of the church and convent was defended by about two thousand men, and mounted seven guns, while, towards the east was a beautiful, solid and scientifically constructed tête de pont which covered the bridge over the stream by which the road led to the capital. In this work three heavy guns were mounted, while the neighborhood is said to have swarmed with troops.
We have already mentioned the garita or gate of San Lazaro, which was the entrance to the city by the main road from the east, passing the hill and fortification of El Peñon. This garita was strengthened by strong works on the road, with platforms and embrasures for heavy cannon, which would have swept the path, while the marshes on the south were protected by redoubts and lunettes extending to the garita or entrance of La Candelaria on the canal from Xochimilco. North of San Lazaro strong works hemmed in the city to the garita of Peralvillo, and connected with defences and fortified houses reaching to the garita of Santiago. Other advanced works were begun in that quarter, while the ground in front of the main line was cut into troux de loups.
On the west of the city are the garitas of San Cosmé and Belen. "Works had been commenced to connect that of San Cosmé, the most northerly of the two, with that of Santiago, and the nature of the country and of the buildings, formed obstructions to any advance between San Cosmé and Belen. Belen was defended principally by the citadel of Mexico, a square bastioned work with wet ditches, immediately inside the garita. Barricades had also been commenced; but the great obstacle to an entrance by either garita, was presented in the rock and castle of Chapultepec, two miles south-west of the city. From this hill two aqueducts extend to the capital, the one, north-east, in a direct line to Belen, and the other, north, to the suburb of San Cosmé, where, turning at right angles, it continued onward and entered at the garita. The roads from the west ran along the sides of the aqueducts. Two roads enter the city from the south, between the garita of San Antonio and Belen, one at Belen and the other at the garita of El niño Perdido, neither of these roads have branches to the Acapulco road south of the Pedregal and the Hacienda of San Antonio, and, therefore, had been left comparatively unfortified." [71]
These defences, overlooked by the lofty sierras and the barrancas which broke their feet, hemmed in the capital, and the Mexicans readily imagined that they could not be turned by an army marching from the east, so as to reach the city on the west, except by a tedious circuit which would allow them time to complete their protective works in that quarter. The east had claimed their chief and most natural attention, and thus the south and the west became unquestionably their weakest points.
*****
Such were the Mexican lines, natural and artificial, around the capital in the valley in the middle of August, 1847, and such was the position of the American troops in front of them. The Mexicans numbered then, with all their levies, probably more than thirty thousand fighting men, while the Americans did not count more than ten thousand—under arms at all points. The invaders had prepared as well as circumstances admitted, and their materiel for assault or siege had been gathered carefully, and transported slowly into the interior, through the country intervening between Vera Cruz and Puebla, every train being usually attacked by guerillas, and fighting its way boldly through the most dangerous passes.
The equipments of the Mexicans, except the weapons saved from the wreck of former battles, had been chiefly prepared at the cannon foundries and powder factories of the country, and it is quite amazing to notice how completely a great exigency brought forth the latent energies of the people, teaching them what they might ordinarily effect, if guided by a spirit of industry and progress. Under the most disheartening depression, but fired by the stimulus of despair, by an overpowering sense of patriotic duty, and by religious enthusiasm which had been excited by the crusading address of the clergy of San Luis Potosi, issued in the month of April, they manifested in their last moments, a degree of zeal, calmness, and foresight that will forever redound to their credit on the page of history.
*****
The Mexican preparations for defence were not, of course, as completely known to the Americans as we now describe them. Through spies, scouts and reconnoisances of our engineers, some of the exterior, and even of the interior lines were ascertained with tolerable accuracy; but sufficient was known to satisfy General Scott that of all the approaching routes to the capital, that which led along the southern shores of lake Chalco was the only one he ought to adopt. [72]
Accordingly, on the 15th of August, the movement was commenced in the reverse order from that in which the army had entered the valley from Puebla. Worth's division passing Pillow's, led the advance, Pillow and Quitman followed, while Twiggs' brought up the rear. Scott took his position with Pillow, so as to communicate easily with all parts of the army. Water transportation, to some extent, had been obtained by General Worth at Chalco, by the siezure of market boats which plied between that place and the capital. When Twiggs moved he was assailed by Alvarez and his Pintos, but soon drove them off, while the advance columns, after passing San Gregorio, were frequently assailed by the enemy's light troops in their front, and harassed and impeded by ditches that had been hastily cut across the road, or by rocks rolled down from the mountains. These obstacles necessarily consumed time, but the simple-minded Indians of the neighborhood, who had just been compelled by the Mexicans to throw the impediments in the Americans' way, were perhaps more easily induced to aid in clearing the path for the invaders, than their ancestors had been in the days of Cortéz. On the afternoon of the 17th, Worth, with the advance, reached San Agustin, at the foot of the mountains, and at the intersection of the southern road from Mexico to Cuernavaca and Acapulco—a point whose topography we have already described;—and, on the 18th, the rear division entered the town.
As soon as Santa Anna discovered Scott's advance by the Chalco route, and that the attack on Mexico would be made from the south instead of the east, he at once perceived that it was useless to attack the American rear, whilst passing the defiles between the lake and the mountains even if he could possibly come up with it, and consequently, that it was best for him to quit his head quarters at El Peñon, while he also recalled General Valencia with the most of the troops at Tezcoco and at Mexicalzingo, which were no longer menaced by the foe. Santa Anna himself, established his quarters at the fortified hacienda of San Antonio, and ordered Valencia to march his whole division, cavalry, infantry and artillery, to the town of San Angel and Coyoacan, so as to cover the whole west and centre of the valley in front of Mexico.
Footnotes
[ [69] See the admirable Map and Memoir of Lieutenant M. L. Smith, and Brevet Captain E. L. F. Hardcastle, published in the Senate Document, No. 11 of the first session of the 31st Congress: 1849 '50.
[ [70] Ripley's War with Mexico, vol. 2, 181.
[ [71] Ripley, 2d vol., 182.
[ [72] General Scott had set his heart, even at Puebla, on the Chalco route, but he resolved not to be obstinate, if, on a closer examination of the ground, a better route was presented. The last information of his spies and officers, in the valley, satisfied him as to the propriety of advancing by Chalco.
PLAIN OF MEXICO. P LOOMIS, SC.
CHAPTER XIV.
1847.
DIFFICULTIES OF THE ADVANCE—THE PEDREGAL—SAN ANTONIO—HACIENDA—RELATIVE POSITION OF AMERICAN AND MEXICAN ARMIES—PATH OVER THE PEDREGAL TO CONTRERAS—VALENCIA DISCONCERTS SANTA ANNA'S PLAN OF BATTLE—AMERICAN ADVANCE AND VICTORY AT CONTRERAS—SAN ANTONIO TURNED BY WORTH—BATTLE OF CHURUBUSCO—BATTLE AT THE CONVENT AND TETE DE PONT—THEIR CAPTURE—FLIGHT OF THE MEXICANS.
In order to understand the ensuing military movements, it will be proper for the reader to study the map of the valley, and acquaint himself fully with the relative posture of both parties. The plans of both generals in chief were well made; but the blunders and obstinacy of the Mexican second in command disconcerted Santa Anna's desired combination, and ultimately opened the ground to the American advance with more ease than was anticipated.
We will sketch rapidly the military value of the arena upon which the combatants stood on the 18th of August, 1847.
Let us imagine ourselves beside General Scott, standing on one of the elevations above the town of San Agustin de las Cuevas, at the base of the southern mountain barrier of the valley, and looking northward towards the capital. Directly in front, leading to the city, is the main road, the left or western side of which, even from the gate of San Agustin to the Hacienda of San Antonio, and thence westwardly to San Angel, forms, together with the bases of the southern and western mountains about St. Geronimo and Contreras, a vast basin, ten or twelve square miles in extent, covered with the Pedregal or the field of broken lava which we have already mentioned. This mass of jagged volcanic matter, we must remember, was at that time barely passable with difficulty for infantry, and altogether impassable for cavalry or artillery, save by a single mule path. North, beyond the fortified hacienda and headquarters of Santa Anna at San Antonio, the country opened. A line of field works, the lake of Xochimilco, a few cultivated farms, and vast flooded meadows, were on its right to the east, but from the hacienda, a road branches off to the west, leading around the northern edge of the Pedregal or lava field through Coyoacan and San Angel, whence it deflects southwardly to Contreras. The main road, however, continues onward, northwardly, from the hacienda of San Antonio, until it crosses the Churubusco river at the strong fortification we have described. Beyond Churubusco the highway leads straight to the gate of San Antonio Abad, whence a work had been thrown north-westwardly towards the citadel. The city of Mexico, built on the bed of an ancient lake, was on a perfect level, nor were there any commanding or protecting elevations of importance around it within two or three miles, and the first of these, beyond this limit, were chiefly on the north and west.
Thus, General Santa Anna, in front, on the main road to the city, at the massive fortified hacienda of San Antonio, blocked up the highway in that direction, protected on his right by the barrier of the Pedregal; and by the lake of Xochimilco, the field works, and the flooded country on his left. General Valencia had been placed by him with his troops at San Angel, on the western edge of the valley, and at the village of Coyoacan, a little further east in the lap of the valley, on roads communicating easily with his position at San Antonio, while they commanded the approaches to the city by the circuitous path of the Pedregal around the edge of the valley from San Agustin de las Cuevas, through Contreras or Padierna. Valencia and Santa Anna were consequently within supporting distance of each other; and in their rear, in front of the city, were the fortifications of Churubusco. General Scott, with the whole American army was, therefore, apparently hemmed in between the lakes and the Pedregal on his flanks; the Mexican fortifications and army in front; and the steep mountains towards Cuernavaca in his rear. He was obliged, accordingly, either to retreat by the defiles through which he had advanced from Chalco,—to climb the steeps behind him and pass them to the tierra caliente,—to force the position in front at the hacienda of San Antonio,—or to burst the barrier of the Pedregal on his left, and, sweeping round the rim of the valley, to advance towards the capital through the village of San Angel. Such were some of the dangers and difficulties that menaced Scott on his arrival at San Agustin. He was in the heart of the enemy's country, in front of a capital aroused by pride, patriotism and despair, and possessing all the advantages of an accurate knowledge of the ground on which it stood, or by which it was surrounded. Scott, on the other hand, like the mariner in storm on a lee shore, was obliged to feel his way along the dangerous coast with the lead, and could not advance with that perfect confidence which is ever the surest harbinger of success.
The reconnoissances of the American engineers which had been pushed boldly, in front, on the main road, to the north, by the hacienda of San Antonio, soon disclosed the difficulty in that direction. But among the mass of information which the American General received at Puebla, his engineers learned that there was a pathway through this Pedregal whose route had been indicated by the spies with sufficient distinctness and certainty to justify a hope that he might be able to render it practicable for his whole army, and, thus, enable him to turn the right flank of the Mexicans' strongest positions. There is no doubt, as subsequent events demonstrated, that the ground in the neighborhood of Contreras, where the road descends from the mountains and barrancas towards San Angel was of great importance to the Mexicans in the defence of the various modes of access to the city, and it is unquestionable that a strong post should have been placed in that quarter to cripple the American advance. It is stated by Mexican writers, that General Mendoza, with two members of his topographical corps had reconnoitred this route and pass, and pronounced it "absolutely indefensible." It is probable, therefore, that no general action, involving the fortunes of a division, or of a large mass of the Mexican army, should have been risked among the ravines between the mountains and the Pedregal near Contreras; yet we do not believe that it should have been left by Santa Anna without a force capable of making a staunch resistance.
We are now acquainted with the ground, and with the positions of the two armies. Scott's plan was to force a passage by either or both of the two adits to the levels of the valley in front of the city, while Santa Anna's, according to his manifesto dated subsequently on the 23d of August, was to have made a concerted retrograde movement with his troops, and to have staked the fortunes of the capital on a great battle, in which all his fresh, enthusiastic, and unharmed troops would have been brought into a general action against the comparatively small American army, upon an open ground where he would have had full opportunity to use and manœuvre infantry, cavalry and artillery.
But this plan was disconcerted at first, and probably destroyed, both in its materiel and morale, by the gross disobedience of General Valencia, who forgot as a soldier, that there can never be two commanders in the field. Valencia, apparently resolving to seize the first opportunity to attack the Americans, in spite of the reported untenable character of the ground about Padierna or Contreras, left his quarters at Coyoacan and San Angel, and advanced, without consulting his commander, to Contreras, upon whose heights he threw up an entrenched camp! As soon as Santa Anna learned this fact, he ordered the vain and reckless officer to retire, but finding him obstinately resolute in his insubordination, the commander-in-chief suffered him, in direct opposition to his own opinion, to remain and to charge himself with the whole responsibility of the consequences. Thus, if Scott advanced upon the main road, he would meet only Santa Anna in front, and the efficiency of Valencia's force, on his left flank, would be comparatively destroyed. If he conquered Valencia, however, at Contreras, after passing the Pedregal, he would rout a whole division of the veterans of the north—the remnants of San Luis and Angostura,—while the remainder of the army, composed of recent levies and raw troops, disciplined for the occasion, would, in all likelihood, fall an easy prey to the eager Americans.
The reconnoissances of the American army were now completed both towards San Antonio over the main northern road, and towards Padierna or Contreras over the southern and south-western edge of the Pedregal. That brave and accomplished engineer, Captain—now Colonel Robert E. Lee—had done the work on the American left across the fields of broken lava, and being convinced that a road could be opened, if needed, for the whole army and its trains, Scott resolved forthwith to advance.
On the 19th of August, General Pillow's division was commanded to open the way, and advancing carefully, bravely and laboriously over the worst portion of the pass,—cutting its road as it moved onward,—it arrived about one o'clock in the afternoon at a point amid the ravines and barrancas near Padierna or Contreras where the new road could only be continued under the direct fire of twenty-two pieces of Mexican artillery, most of which were of large calibre. These guns were in a strong entrenched camp, surrounded by every advantage of ground and by large bodies of infantry and cavalry, reinforced from the city, over an excellent road beyond the volcanic field. Pillow's and Twiggs's force, with all its officers on foot, picking a way along the Mexican front and extending towards the road from the city and the enemy's left, advanced to dislodge the foe. Captain Magruder's field battery of twelve and six-pounders, and Lieut. Callender's battery of mountain howitzers and rockets, were also pushed forward with great difficulty within range of the Mexican fortifications, and, thus, a stationary battle raged until night fell drearily on the combatants amid a cold rain which descended in torrents. Wet, chilled, hungry and sleepless, both armies passed a weary time of watching until early the next morning, when a movement was made by the Americans which resulted in a total rout of Valencia's forces. Firing at a long distance against an entrenched camp was worse than useless on such a ground, and although General Smith's and Colonel Riley's brigades, supported by Generals Pierce's and Cadwallader's, had been under a heavy fire of artillery and musketry for more than three hours along the almost impassable ravine in front and to the left of the Mexican camp, yet so little had been effected in destroying the position that the main reliance for success was correctly judged to be in an assault at close quarters. The plan had been arranged in the night by Brigadier General Persifer F. Smith, and was sanctioned by General Scott, to whom it was communicated through the indefatigable diligence of Captain Lee, of the Engineers.
At 3 o'clock A. M. of the 20th August, the movement commenced on the rear of the enemy's camp, led by Colonel Riley and followed successively by Cadwallader's and Smith's brigades, the whole force being commanded by General Smith.
The march was rendered tedious by rain, mud and darkness; but, about sun rise, Riley reached an elevation behind the Mexicans, whence he threw his men upon the works, and, storming the entrenchments, planted his flag upon them in seventeen minutes. Meanwhile Cadwallader brought on the general assault by crossing the deep ravine in front and pouring into the work and upon the fugitives, frequent volleys of destructive musketry. Smith's own brigade under the temporary command of Major Dimick, discovered, opposite and outside the work, a long line of Mexican cavalry drawn up in support, and by a charge against the flank, routed the horse completely, while General Shields held masses of cavalry, supported by artillery, in check below him, and captured multitudes who fled from above.
It was a rapid and brilliant feat of arms. Scott,—the skilful and experienced General of the field,—doubts in his despatch whether a more brilliant or decisive victory is to be found on record, when the disparity of numbers, the nature of the ground, the artificial defences, and the fact that the Americans accomplished their end without artillery or cavalry, are duly and honestly considered. All our forces did not number more than 4,500 rank and file, while the Mexicans maintained, at least, six thousand on the field, and double that number in reserve under Santa Anna, who had advanced to support but probably seeing that it was not a spot for his theory of a general action, and that an American force intervened, declined aiding his disobedient officer. The Mexicans lost about 700 killed, 813 prisoners, including 4 Generals among 88 officers. Twenty-two pieces of brass ordnance, thousands of small arms and accoutrements, many colors and standards, large stores of ammunition, 700 pack mules, and numbers of horses fell into the hands of the victors.
The rage of Santa Anna against Valencia knew no bounds. He ordered him to be shot wherever found; but the defeated chief fled precipitately towards the west beyond the mountains, and for a long time lay in concealment until the storm of private and public indignation had passed. The effect of this battle, resulting in the loss of the veterans of the north, was disastrous not only in the city, but to the morale of the remaining troops of the main division under Santa Anna. It certainly demonstrated the importance of Padierna or Contreras as a military point of defence; but it unquestionably proved that the works designed to maintain it should have been differently planned and placed at a much earlier day, after mature deliberation by skilful engineers. The hasty decision and work of Valencia, made without preconcert or sanction of the General-in-chief, and in total violation of his order of battle, followed by the complete destruction of the entire division of the northern army, could only result in final disaster.
Whilst the battle of Contreras was raging early in the day, brigades from Worth's and Quitman's divisions had been advanced to support the combatants; but before they arrived on the field the post was captured, and they were, accordingly, ordered to return to their late positions. Worth, advanced from San Agustin, in front of San Antonio, was now in better position, for a road to the rear of the hacienda had been opened by forcing the pass of Contreras. Moving from Contreras or Padierna through San Angel and Coyoacan, Pillow's and Twiggs's divisions would speedily be able to attack it from the north, while Worth, advancing from the south, might unquestionably force the position. Accordingly while Pillow and Twiggs were advanced, General Scott reached Coyoacan, about two miles, by a cross road, in the rear of the hacienda of San Antonio. From Coyoacan he despatched Pillow to attack the rear of San Antonio, while a reconnoissance was made of Churubusco, on the main road, and an attack of the place ordered to be effected by Twiggs with one of his brigades and Captain Taylor's field battery.
General Pierce was next despatched, under the guidance of Captain Lee, by a road to the left, to attack the enemy's right and rear in order to favor the movement on the Convent of Churubusco and cut off retreat to the capital. And, finally, Shields, with the New York and South Carolina volunteers, was ordered to follow Pierce and to command the left wing. The battle now raged from the right to the left of our whole line. All the movements had been made with the greatest rapidity and enthusiasm. Not a moment was lost in pressing the victory after the fall of Contreras. Shouting Americans and rallying Mexicans were spread over every field. Every one was employed; and, in truth, there was ample work to do, for even the commander-in-chief of our forces was left without a reserve or an escort, and had to advance for safety close in Twiggs's rear.
Meanwhile, about an hour earlier, Worth, by a skilful and daring movement upon the enemy's front and right at the hacienda of San Antonio, had turned and forced that formidable point whose garrison no doubt was panic struck by the victory of Contreras. The enterprise was nobly achieved. Colonel Clarke's brigade, conducted by the engineers Mason and Hardcastle, found a practicable path through the Pedregal west of the road, and, by a wide sweep, came out upon the main causeway to the capital. At this point the three thousand men of the Mexican garrison at San Antonio, were met in retreat, and cut by Clarke in their very centre;—one portion being driven off towards Dolores on the right, and the other upon Churubusco in the direct line of the active operations of the Americans. Whilst this brave feat of out-flanking was performed, Colonel Garland, Major Galt, Colonel Belton, and Lieutenant Colonel Duncan advanced to the front attack of San Antonio, and rushing rapidly on the flying enemy, took one General prisoner, and seized a large quantity of public property, ammunition and the five deserted guns.
Thus fell the two main keys of the valley, and thus did all the divisions of the American army at length reach the open and comparatively unobstructed plains of the valley.
Worth soon reunited his division on the main straight road to the capital, and was joined by General Pillow, who, advancing from Coyoacan to attack the rear of San Antonio, as we have already related, soon perceived that the hacienda had fallen, and immediately turned to the left, through a broken country of swamps and ditches, in order to share in the attack on Churubusco. And here, it was felt on all sides, that the last stand must be made by Mexico in front of her capital.
The hamlet or scattered houses of Churubusco, formed a strong military position on the borders of the stream which crosses the highway, and, besides the fortified and massive convent of San Pablo, it was guarded by a tête de pont with regular bastions and curtains at the head of a bridge over which the road passes from the hacienda of San Antonio to the city. The stream was a defence;—the nature of the adjacent country was a defence;—and here the fragments of the Mexican army,—cavalry, artillery and infantry, had been collected from every quarter,—panic stricken, it is true,—yet apparently resolved to contest the passage of the last outwork of importance in front of the garita of San Antonio Abad.
When Worth and Pillow reached this point, Twiggs had already been sometime hotly engaged in attacking the embattled convent. The two advancing Generals immediately began to manœuvre closely upon the tête de pont, which was about four hundred and fifty yards east of the convent, where Twiggs still earnestly plied the enemy. Various brigades and regiments under Cadwallader, Lieutenant Colonel Smith, Garland, Clark, Major White and Lieutenant Colonel Scott continued to press onward towards the tête de pont, until by gradual encroachments under a tremendous fire, they attained a position which enabled them to assault and carry the formidable work by the bayonet. But the convent still held out. Twenty minutes after the tête de pont had been taken, and after a desperate battle of two hours and a half, that stronghold threw out the white flag. Yet it is probable that even then the conflict would not have ended, had not the 3d infantry under Captains Alexander, J. M. Smith, and Lieutenant O. L. Shepherd, cleared the way by fire and the bayonet to enter the work.
Whilst this gallant task was being performed in front of the Mexican defences, Generals Pierce and Shields had been engaged on our left, in turning the enemy's works so as to prevent the escape of the garrisons, and to oppose the extension of numerous corps from the rear, upon and around our left. By a winding march of a mile around to the right, this division under the command of Shields, found itself on the edge of an open, wet meadow, near the main road to the capital, in the presence of nearly four thousand of the enemy's infantry, a little in the rear of Churubusco. Shields posted his right at a strong edifice, and extended his left wing parallel to the road, to outflank the enemy towards the capital. But the Mexicans extended their right more rapidly, and were supported by several regiments of cavalry, on better ground. Shields, accordingly, concentrated his division about a hamlet, and attacked in front. The battle was long and bravely sustained with varied success, but finally resulted in crowning with victory the zeal and courage of the American commander and his gallant troops. Shields took 380 prisoners, including officers; while at Churubusco seven field pieces, some ammunition, one standard, three Generals, and 1261 prisoners, including other officers, were the fruits of the sharply contested victory.
This was the last conquest on that day of conquests. As soon as the tête de pont fell, Worth's and Pillow's divisions rushed onward by the highway towards the city, which now rose in full sight before them, at the distance of four miles. Bounding onward, flushed and exultant, they encountered Shields' division, now also victorious, and all combined in the headlong pursuit of the flying foe. At length the columns parted, and a small part of Harney's cavalry, led by Captain Kearney of the 1st dragoons, dashed to the front and charged the retreating Mexicans up to the very gates of the city.
Thus terminated the first series of American victories in the valley of Mexico.
Note.—It is ungracious to criticize unfavorably the conduct of a conquered foe, but there are some things in Santa Anna's behavior at Contreras and Churubusco, which must not be passed silently. At Contreras, he came with aid, by a short and fine highway, to the field at a late period, when the Americans, moving slowly over an unknown and broken country, had already outflanked with a strong force, Valencia's left, and he then made no effort whatever, with his large support, to relieve the beleagured general. If he did not design doing any thing, why did he come at all; and, if as he says, he believed Valencia could, during the night, withdraw all his forces, after spiking his guns, by a secret path of which he apprised him, why did he not take the same path to aid him? Did he believe that it was best to lose Valencia and his division only, without risking the loss of the large support under his own command? In the morning of the 20th it was certainly too late for action, but Santa Anna must have been convinced, when he ordered the retreat from the Hacienda of San Antonio, and thus voluntarily opened a gate for Worth's advance, that now, if ever, had arrived the moment for a general action in front of the city, the key of which, on the main road, was the convent of Churubusco and the adjacent works. The loss of Valencia's army and materiel was undoubtedly disheartening, but, according to his own account, Santa Anna had been prepared for an event which he foresaw. This should not have destroyed his self-possession if he sincerely desired victory. When Contreras fell, he had, in reality, only lost a division consisting of five or six thousand men. The whole centre and left wing of his army were untouched, and these must have numbered at least 20,000. Yet, if we admit the brave resistance of the garrison, only hastily thrown into the convent and works at Churubusco, it may then be asked what masterly effort Santa Anna made (at the moment when he had actually drawn the American army into the valley) to bring on a general action with all the fresh troops either under his own command or under that of obedient, brave, skilful, and patriotic officers? The Mexican accounts of these actions, and in fact, his own despatch from Tehuacan, dated 19th Nov. 1847, exhibit no able manœuvres on the last field with which he was perfectly and personally familiar. The Americans stormed a single point,—and the battle was over, though bravely fought by those who were under cover and by the traitor battalion of San Patricio, formed of renegades from our army. The despatches of Santa Anna, like most of the Mexican despatches after military or political disaster, seem rather designed to criminate others, and to throw the whole blame of ultimate complete defeat on Valencia, than to point out the causes of conquest in spite of able generalship after the fall of Contreras. See Santa Anna's despatches, Mexico 23 Aug. 1847; and Tehuacan, 19 Nov. 1847, in Pillow's Court Martial, pp. 532 and 540. See also Apuntes para la historia de la guerra, &c., &c., chapters XVII-XVIII-XIX, and Ripley's History of the War, vol. 2, p. 256; "No part of the Mexican force was ready for battle, except Rincon's command," says this writer.
CHAPTER XV.
1847.
WHY THE CITY WAS NOT ENTERED ON THE 20TH—CONDITION OF THE CITY—DELIBERATION OF THE MEXICAN CABINET AND PROPOSALS—REASONS WHY GENERAL SCOTT PROPOSED AND GRANTED THE ARMISTICE—DELIBERATIONS OF COMMISSIONERS—PARTIES AGAINST SANTA ANNA—FAILURE OF THE NEGOTIATION—MEXICAN DESIRE TO DESTROY SANTA ANNA.
It was late in the day when the battles ended. One army was wearied with fighting and victory; the other equally oppressed by labor and defeat. The conquered Mexicans fled to their eastern defences or took refuge within the gates of their city. There was, for the moment, utter disorganization among the discomfited, while the jaded band of a few thousand invaders had to be rallied and reformed in their ranks and regiments after the desperate conflicts of the day over so wide a field. It surely was not a proper moment for an unconcentrated army, almost cut off from support, three hundred miles in the interior of an enemy's country, and altogether ignorant of the localities of a great capital containing nearly two hundred thousand inhabitants, to rush madly, at night fall, into the midst of that city. Mexico, too, was not an ordinary town with wide thoroughfares and houses like those in which the invaders had been accustomed to dwell. Spanish houses are almost castles in architectural strength and plan, while from their level and embattled roofs, a mob, when aroused by the spirit of revenge or despair, may do the service of a disciplined army. Nor was it known whether the metropolis had been defended by works along its streets,—by barricades, impediments and batteries,—among which the entangled assailants might be butchered with impunity in the narrow passages during the darkness and before they could concentrate upon any central or commanding spot. Repose and daylight were required before a prudent General would venture to risk the lives of his men and the success of his whole mission upon such a die.
Accordingly the army was halted; the dispersed recalled, the wounded succored, the dead prepared for burial, and the tired troops ordered to bivouack on the ground they had wrested from the enemy.
VIEW OF THE VOLCANOES FROM TACUBAYA.
Meanwhile the greatest consternation prevailed within the city. When Santa Anna reached the Palace, he hastily assembled the Ministers of State and other eminent citizens, and, after reviewing the disasters of the day and their causes, he proclaimed the indispensable necessity of recurring to a truce in order to take a long respite. There was a difference of opinion upon this subject; but it was finally agreed that a suspension of arms should be negotiated through the Spanish Minister and the British Consul General. Señor Pacheco, the Minister of Foreign Relations, accordingly addressed Messrs. Mackintosh and Bermudez de Castro, entreating them to effect this desired result. During the night the British Consul General visited the American camp, and was naturally anxious to spare the effusion of blood and the assault by an army on a city in which his country had so deep an interest. On the morning of the 21st, when General Scott was about to take up battering or assaulting positions, to authorize him to summon the capital to surrender or to sign an armistice with a pledge to enter at once into negotiations for peace, he was met by General Mora y Villamil and Señor Arrangoiz, with proposals for an armistice in order to bury the dead, but without reference to a treaty. Scott had already determined to offer the alternative of assault or armistice and treaty to the Mexican government, and this resolution had been long cherished by him. Accordingly he at once rejected the Mexican proposal, and, without summoning the city to surrender, despatched a note to Santa Anna, expressing his willingness to sign, on reasonable terms, a short armistice, in order that the American Commissioner and the Mexican Government, might amicably and honorably settle the international differences, and thus close an unnatural war in which too much blood had already been shed. This frank proposal, coming generously from the victorious chief, was promptly accepted. Commissioners were appointed by the commanders of the two armies on the 22d; the armistice was signed on the 23d, and ratifications exchanged on the 24th; and thus, the dispute was for a while transferred once more from the camp to the council chamber. On the morning of the 21st, the American army was posted in the different villages in the vicinity. Worth's division occupied Tacubaya. Pillow's Mixcoac, Twiggs's San Angel, while Quitman's remained still at San Agustin, where it had served during the battles of the 19th and 20th in protecting the rear and the trains of the army. Tacubaya became the residence of General Scott, and the headquarters of the commander-in-chief were established in the Bishop's Palace.
There are critics and politicians who are never satisfied with results, and, whilst their prophecies are usually dated after the events which they claim to have foreseen, they unfortunately find too much favor with the mass of readers who are not in the habit of ascertaining precisely what was known and what was not known at the period of the occurrences which they seek to condemn. General Scott has fallen under the heavy censure of these writers for offering the armistice and avoiding the immediate capture of the capital, the practicability of which they now consider as demonstrated. We propose to examine this question, but we believe that the practicability or impracticability of that event does not become one of the primary or even early elements of the discussion.
If we understand the spirit of this age correctly, we must believe that mankind, purified by the progressive blessings of Christianity and modern civilization, desires the mitigation rather than the increase of the evils of war. It does not seek merely to avert danger or disaster from the forces of one party in the strife, but strives to produce peace with as little harm as possible to all who are engaged in warfare. It is not the mission of a soldier to kill, because his profession is that of arms. It is ever the imperative duty of a commander to stop the flow of human blood as soon as he perceives the slightest chance of peace; and if his honorable efforts fail entirely, through the folly or obstinacy of the foe, he will be more fully justified in the subsequent and stringent measures of coercion.
The Mexican masses, mistaking vanity for true national pride, had hitherto persevered in resisting every effort to settle the international difficulties. Diplomacy, with such a nation, is extremely delicate. If we exhibited symptoms of leniency, she became presumptuous;—if we pushed hostilities to the extreme, she grew doggedly obstinate. On the 21st of August her capital was in Scott's power. His victorious army was at her gates. Two terrible battles had been fought, and the combatants on both sides had shown courage, skill and endurance. The Mexican army was routed, but not entirely dispersed or destroyed. At this moment it doubtless occurred to General Scott, and to all who were calm spectators of the scene, that before the last and fatal move was made, it was his duty to allow Mexico to save her point of honor by negotiating, ere the city was entered, and while she could yet proclaim to her citizens and the world, that her capital had never been seized by the enemy. This assuaged national vanity, and preserved the last vantage ground upon which the nation might stand with pride if not with perfect confidence. It still left something to the conquered people which was not necessary or valuable to us.
There are other matters, unquestionably, that weighed much in the very responsible deliberations of General Scott. If our army entered the city triumphantly, or took it by assault, the frail elements of government still lingering at that period of disorganization, would either fly or be utterly destroyed. All who were in power, in that nation of jealous politicians and wily intriguers would be eager to shun the last responsibility. If Santa Anna should be utterly beaten, the disgrace would blot out the last traces of his remaining prestige. If so fatal a disaster occurred, as subsequent events proved, the Americans would be most unfortunately situated in relation to peace, for there would be no government to negotiate with! Santa Anna's government was the only constitutional one that had existed in Mexico for a long period, and with such a legalized national authority peace must be concluded. It was not our duty to destroy a government and then gather the fragments to reconstruct another with which we might treat. If a revolutionary, or provisional authority existed, what prospect had we of enduring pacification? What guaranty did we hold in a treaty celebrated with a military despot, a temporary chief, or a sudden usurper, that such a treaty could be maintained before the nation? What constitutional or legal right would an American general or commissioner have, to enter into such a compact? Was it not, therefore, Scott's duty to act with such tender caution as not to endanger the fate of the only man who might still keep himself at the head of his rallied people?
Besides these political considerations, there are others, of a military character, that will commend themselves to the prudent and the just. The unacclimated American army had marched from Puebla to the valley of Mexico during the rainy season, in a tropical zone, when the earth is saturated with water, and no one travels who can avoid exposure. Our men were forced to undergo the hardships of such a campaign, to make roads, to travel over broken ground, to wade marshes, to bivouack on the damp soil with scarce a shelter from the storm, to march day and night, and finally, without an interval of repose, to fight two of the sharpest actions of the war. The seven or eight thousand survivors of these actions,—many of whom were new levies—demanded care and zealous husbanding for future events. They were distant from the coast and cut off from support or immediate succor. The enemy's present or prospective weakness was not to be relied on. Wisdom required that what was in the rear should be thought of as well as what was in advance.
May it not then be justly said that it was a proper moment for a heroic general to pause in front of a national capital containing two hundred thousand people, and to allow the civil arm to assume, for a moment of trial, the place of the military? Like a truly brave man, he despised the eclat of entering the capital as Cortéz had done on nearly the same day of the same month, three hundred and twenty-six years before. Like a wise man, he considered the history and condition of the enemy, instead of his personal glory, and laid aside the false ambition of a soldier, to exhibit the forbearance of a christian statesman. [73]
*****
The American Commissioner unquestionably entered upon the negotiations in good faith, and it is probable that Santa Anna was personally quite as well disposed for peace. He, however, had a delicate game to play with the politicians of his own country, and was obliged to study carefully the posture of parties as well as the momentary strength of his friends and enemies. Well acquainted as he was with the value of men and the intrigues of the time, he would have been mad not to guard against the risk of ruin, and, accordingly, his first efforts were directed rather towards obtaining the ultimatum of the United States, than to pledging his own government in any project which might prove either presently unpopular or destroy his future influence. The instructions, therefore, that were given to General José J. de Herrera, Bernardo Couto, Ignacio Mora y Villamil and Miguel Atristain, the Mexican commissioners, were couched in such extreme terms, that much could be yielded before there was a likelihood of approaching the American demands. In the meanwhile, as negotiations progressed, Mexico obtained time to rally her soldiers, to appease those who were discontented with the proposed peace, and to abjure the project if it should be found either inadmissible or impossible of accomplishment without loss of popularity.
For several days consultations took place between Mr. Trist and the commissioners, but it was soon found that the American pretensions in regard to the position of Texas, the boundary of the Rio Grande and the cession of New Mexico and Upper California, were of such a character that the Mexicans would not yield to them at the present moment. The popular feeling, stimulated by the rivals of Santa Anna, his enemies, and the demagogues, was entirely opposed to the surrender of territory. Sensible as the President was, that the true national interests demanded instantaneous peace, he was dissuaded by his confidential advisers from presenting a counter projét, which would have resulted in a treaty. Congress, moreover, had virtually dissolved by the precipitate departure of most of its members after the battles of the 20th.
All the party leaders labored diligently at this crisis, but none of them with cordiality for Santa Anna, in whose negotiations of a successful peace with the United States, they either foresaw or feared the permanent consolidation of his power. The puros, or democrats, still clung to their admiration of the constitution of our Union; to their opposition to the standing army; to their desire for modifying the power and position of the church and its ministers, and to their united hostility against the President. They were loud in their exhortations to continue the war, while Olaguibel, one of their ablest men and most devoted lovers of American institutions, issued a strong manifesto against the projected treaty. This was the party which, it is asserted, in fact desired the prolongation of the war until the destroyed nationality of Mexico took refuge from domestic intrigues, misgovernment and anarchy, in annexation to the United States.
The monarquistas, who still adhered to the church and the army, proclaimed their belief in the total failure of the republican system. Revolutions and incessant turmoils, according to their opinions, could only be suppressed by the strong arm of power, and in their ranks had again appeared General Mariano Paredes y Arrellaga, who, returning from exile, landed in disguise at Vera Cruz, and passing secretly through the American lines, proceeded to Mexico to continue his machinations against Santa Anna, whom he cordially hated.
The moderados formed a middle party equally opposed to the ultraisms of monarchy and democracy. They counted among their number, many of the purest and wisest men in the republic, and although they were not as inimical to the United States as the monarquistas, or as many of the puros pretended to be, yet they cordially desired or hoped to preserve the nationality and progressive republicanism of Mexico. In this junto Santa Anna found a few partizans who adhered to him more from policy than principle, for all classes had learned to distrust a person who played so many parts in the national drama of intrigue, war, and government. As a party, they were doubtless unwilling to risk their strength and prospects upon a peace which might be made under his auspices.
In this crisis the President had no elements of strength still firmly attached to him but the army, whose favor, amid all his reverses, he generally contrived to retain or to win. But that army was now much disorganized, and the national finances were so low that he was scarcely able to maintain it from day to day. The mob, composed of the lower classes, and the beastly leperos, knowing nothing of the principles of the war, and heedless of its consequences,—plied moreover by the demagogues of all the parties,—shouted loudly for its continuance, and thus the president was finally forced to yield to the external pressure, and to be governed by an impulse which he was either too timid or too weak to control.
The armistice provided that the Americans should receive supplies from the city, and that no additional fortifications should be undertaken during its continuance; nevertheless the American trains were assailed by the populace of the city, and, it is alleged, that Santa Anna disregarded the provision forbidding fortifications. When it became evident to the American commissioner and General Scott, that the Mexicans were merely trifling and temporizing,—that the prolongation of the armistice would be advantageous to the enemy, without affording any correspondent benefits to us,—and when their supplies had been increased so as to afford ample support for the army during the anticipated attack on the city,—it was promptly resolved to renew the appeal to arms. Accordingly, on the 6th of September, General Scott addressed Santa Anna, calling his attention to the infractions of the compact, and declaring that unless satisfaction was made for the breaches of faith before noon of the following day, he would consider the armistice terminated from that hour. Santa Anna returned an answer of false recriminations, and threw off the mask. He asserted his willingness to rely on arms;—he issued a bombastic appeal to the people, in which he announced that the demands of the Americans would have converted the nation into a colony of our Union. He improved upon the pretended patriotic zeal of all the parties—puros, moderados, monarquistas and mob—who had proclaimed themselves in favor of the war. Instead of opposing or arguing the question, he caught the war strain of the hour, and sent it forth to the multitude in trumpet tones. He was determined not to be hedged or entrapped by those who intrigued to destroy him, and resolved that if he must fall, his opponents should share the political disaster. Nor was he alone in his electioneering gasconade, for General Herrera—a man who had been notoriously the advocate of peace, both before and since the rupture,—addressed the clergy and the people, craving their aid by prayer, money, fire and sword, to exterminate the invaders! All classes were, thus, placed in a false and uncandid position.
This is a sad picture of political hypocrisy based upon the misnamed popular will of a country which had for twenty years been demoralized by the very chieftain who was about to reap the direful harvest he had sown in the hearts of his people. Every man, every party, acknowledged, privately, the impolicy of continued hostilities, yet all men and all parties were resolved that Santa Anna should not make the peace whilst an American army remained in the country to sustain it, or an American government dispensed millions to pay for the ceded territory. Distrusting his honesty and patriotism, they believed that the money would only be squandered among his parasites, or used for the prolonged corruption and disorganization of their country. With gold and an army they believed him omnipotent; but, stripped of these elements of power in Mexico, the great magician dwindled into a haggard and harmless witch.
Combinations arose readily and bravely against the man whose sway was irresistible as long as he dealt with his countrymen alone or preserved a loyal army and dependant church, whose strength and wealth were mutual supports. The sky was dark and lowering around him, and he must have acknowledged secretly, that the political parties of his country, if not his countrymen universally, were more anxious to destroy him than the Americans. The army of the invaders, they hoped, might perform a task in this drama, which the Mexicans themselves could not achieve; and there are multitudes who would have been glad to see its end become tragic by the death of one whom they feared in prosperity, and despised in adversity.
Footnote
[ [73] It will be remembered that even Cortéz had paused in the precincts of the ancient capital of the Aztecs, in order to give them a chance of escape before striking the fatal blow. See Prescott, vol. 3, p. 199. It is a little remarkable also, that the dates of Scott's and Cortéz's victories coincide so closely. Cortéz's victory was on the 13th of August, 1521, Scott's on the 20th of August, 1847. The date of Cortéz's achievement is given according to the Old Style, but if we add ten days to bring it up to New Style, it will be corrected to the 23d of August!
CHAPTER XVI.
1847.
MILITARY POSITION OF THE AMERICANS AT THE END OF THE ARMISTICE—MEXICAN DEFENCES—PLAN OF ATTACK—RECONNOISSANCES OF SCOTT AND MASON—IMPORTANCE OF MEXICAN POSITION AT MOLINO DEL REY—SCOTT'S SCHEME OF CAPTURING THE CITY—BATTLE OF MOLINO DEL REY—REFLECTIONS AND CRITICISM ON THIS BATTLE—PREPARATIONS TO ATTACK CHAPULTEPEC—STORMING OF CHAPULTEPEC AND OF THE CITY GATES OF SAN COSMÉ AND BELEN—RETREAT OF THE MEXICAN ARMY AND GOVERNMENT—AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF THE CITY OF MEXICO.
At the termination of the armistice the position of the American forces was greatly changed from what it had been on the morning of the 20th of August. The occupation of San Agustin had been followed by that of Contreras, San Angel, Coyoacan and Churubusco in the course of that day, and on the next, Mixcoac and Tacubaya were taken possession of. Thus the whole southern and south-western portion of the valley, in front of Mexico, were now held by the Americans; and this disposition of their forces, commanding most of the principal approaches to the capital, enabled them, for the first time to select their point of attack.
In reconnoitering the chief outworks of the Mexicans by which he was still opposed, General Scott found that there were several of great importance. Directly north of his headquarters at Tacubaya, and distant about a mile, arose the lofty, isolated hill of Chapultepec, surrounded by its massive edifice, half castle, half palace, crowned with cannon. This point, it was known, had been strongly fortified to maintain the road leading from Tacubaya to the garita of San Cosmé on the west of the city. Westwardly, beyond the hill of Chapultepec, whose southern side and feet are surrounded by a dense grove of cypresses, and on a rising ground within the military works designed to strengthen the castle, was the Molino del Rey, or King's Mill, which was represented to be a cannon foundry to which large quantities of church bells had been sent to be cast into guns. Still further west, but near the Molino or Mill, was the fortified Casa Mata, containing a large deposit of powder.
These,—together with the strong citadel, lying near the garita of Belen in the south-western corner of the city,—were the principal external defences still remaining beyond the immediate limits of the capital. The city itself stands on a slight swell between lake Tezcoco and the western edge of the valley, and, throughout its greater extent, is girdled by a ditch or navigable canal extremely difficult to bridge in the face of an enemy, which serves the Mexicans not only as a military defence but for drainage and protection of their customs. Each of the eight strong city gates were protected by works of various character and merit. Outside and within the cross fires of these gates there were other obstacles scarcely less formidable towards the south. The main approaches to the city across the flat lands of the basin are raised on causeways flanked by wide and deep ditches designed for their protection and drainage. These causeways, as well as the minor cross roads which are similarly built, were cut in many places and had their bridges destroyed so as to impede the American's advance and to form an entangling net work; while the adjacent meadows were in this rainy season either filled with water in many places or liable to be immediately flooded by a tropical storm.
With these fields for his theatre of action, and these defences still in front of him, it was an important and responsible question, whether General Scott should attack Mexico on the west or on the south.
There can be hardly a doubt that the capture of the hill and castle of Chapultepec, before assaulting the city, was imperatively demanded by good generalship. If the capital were taken first, the Mexicans instead of retreating towards Guadalupe and the north, when we attacked and captured from the south, would of course retire to the avoided stronghold of Chapultepec; and, if our slender forces were subsequently obliged to leave the city in order to take the fortress, our sick, wounded and thinned regiments would be left to the mercy of the mob and the leperos. Chapultepec would thus become the nucleus and garrison of the whole Mexican army, and we might be compelled to fight two battles at the same time,—one in the city, and the other at the castle. But, by capturing the castle first, and seizing the road northward beyond it, we possessed all the most important outworks in the lap of the valley, and cut off the retreat of the Mexicans from the city either to the west, to the castle, or towards our rear in the valley. We obtained, moreover, absolute command of two of the most important entrances to the capital, inasmuch as from the eastern foot of the hill of Chapultepec two causeways, and aqueducts raised on lofty arches, diverged northeastwardly and eastwardly towards the city. The northernmost of these entered Mexico by the garita of San Cosmé, while the other reached it by that of Belen near the citadel.
In attacking Chapultepec, it was important to consider the value of the Molino del Rey or King's Mill, and Casa Mata, both of which, as we noticed, lie on rising ground within the works designed to protect Chapultepec. Upon examination it will be found that the Molino del Rey, or King's Mill, bears the relation of a very strong western outwork both to the castle of Chapultepec and its approaches by the inclined plain which serves to ascend its summit. As the Molino del Rey is commanded and defended by the castle, so it reciprocally, commands and defends the only good approach to the latter. [74] As long as the Molino was held by the Mexicans, it would of course, form an important stronghold easily reached from the city around the rear of Chapultepec; so that if Scott attacked the castle and hill from the south, where the road that ascends it commenced, he would be in danger of an attack on his left flank from the Mexicans in the defences at Molino and Casa Mata.
If the King's Mill fell, the result to the enemy would be that, in addition to the loss of an important outwork and the consequent weakening of the main work, its occupants or defenders would be driven from a high position above the roads and fields into the low grounds at the base of Chapultepec, which were completely commanded from the Molino, and thus the Mexicans would be unable to prevent the American siege pieces from taking up the most favorable position for battering the castle. It was important, therefore, not only that the foundry should be destroyed, but, in a stratagetic view, it was almost indispensable in relation to future operations that the position should be taken. It is undeniable, as following events showed, that the Mexicans regarded it as one of their formidable military points. The capture of Chapultepec and the destruction of the post at Molino del Rey were, accordingly, determined on as preliminary to the final assault upon the city.
*****
As soon as the armistice was terminated bold reconnoissances were made by our engineers in the direction of Chapultepec and the Molino or King's Mill and Casa Mata. On the 7th of September Santa Anna's answer to Scott's despatch was received, and on the same day the Commander-in-Chief and General Worth examined the enemy's formidable dispositions near and around the castle-crowned hill. The Mexican array was found to consist of an extended line of cavalry and infantry, sustained by a field battery of four guns, either occupying directly or supporting a system of defences collateral to the castle and summit; but as the lines were skilfully masked a very inadequate idea of the extent of the forces was obtained. Captain Mason's reconnoissance on the morning of the same day, represented the enemy's left as resting on and occupying the group of strong stone buildings at the Molino adjacent to the grove at the foot of Chapultepec and directly under the castle's guns. The right of his line rested on the Casa Mata, at the foot of the ridge sloping gradually to the plain below from the heights above Tacubaya; while, midway between these buildings, were the field battery and infantry forces disposed on either side to support it. This reconnoissance indicated that the centre was the weak point of the position, and that its left flank was the strongest. In the Mill or Molino, on the left, was the brigade of General Leon, reinforced by the brigade of General Rangel; in the Casa Mata, on the right, was the brigade of General Perez; and on the intermediate ground was the brigade of General Ramirez, with several pieces of artillery. The Mexican reserve was composed of the 1st and 3d light, stationed in the groves of Chapultepec, while the cavalry consisting of 4,000 men, rested at the hacienda of Morales, not very far from the field. Such was the arrangement of the Mexican forces made by Santa Anna in person on the 7th of September, though it has been alleged by Mexican writers that it was somewhat changed during the following night. The wily chief had not allowed the time to pass during the negotiation between Trist and the Commissioners in political discussion alone. Regarding the failure of the treaty as most probable, he had striven to strengthen once more the military arm of his nation, and the first result of this effort was demonstrated in his disposition of troops at El Molino del Rey. The Americans' attack upon Chapultepec, as commanding the nearest and most important access to the city had been foreseen by him as soon as the armistice ended, and as a military man, he well knew that the isolated hill and castle could not be protected by the defenders within its walls alone or by troops stationed either immediately at its base or on the sloping road along its sides.
General Scott's plan of assault upon the city seems now to have been matured, though it required several days for full development according to the reconnoissances of his engineers. He designed to make the main assault on the west and not on the south of the city. Possessing himself suddenly of the Molino del Rey and the adjacent grounds he was to retire after the capture without carrying Chapultepec, the key of the roads to the western garitas of San Cosmé and Belen. The immediate capture of Chapultepec would have been a signal to Santa Anna to throw his whole force into the western defence of the city; but by retiring, after the fall of the Molino or King's Mill, and by playing off skilfully on the south of the city in the direction of the garita of San Antonio Abad, Scott would effectually divert the attention of the Mexicans to that quarter and thus induce them to weaken the western defences and strengthen the southern. At length, at the proper moment, by a rapid inversion of his forces from the south to the west, he intended to storm the castle-crowned hill, and rush along the causeways to the capital before the enemy could recover his position.
*****
In pursuance of this plan, an attack upon El Molino del Rey and La Casa Mata was the first great work to be accomplished, and as soon as Santa Anna's reply closing the armistice was received on the 7th the advance towards that place was ordered for the following morning. This important work was entrusted to General Worth, whose division was reinforced by three squadrons of dragoons; one command of 270 mounted riflemen under Major Sumner; three field pieces under Captain Drum; two twenty-four pounders under Captain Huger, and Cadwallader's brigade 784 strong. The reconnoissances had been completed; at three o'clock in the morning of the 8th of September the several columns were put in motion on as many different routes, and when the gray dawn enabled them to be seen they were as accurately posted as if in midday for review. Colonel Duncan was charged with the general disposition of the artillery, while the cavalry were under Major Sumner.
At the first glimmer of day Huger's powerful guns saluted the walls of El Molino and continued to play in that quarter until this point of the enemy's line became sensibly shaken. At that moment the assaulting party, commanded by Wright of the 8th Infantry, dashed forward to assault the centre. Musketry and cannister were showered upon them by the aroused enemy, but on they rushed, driving infantry and artillerists at the point of the bayonet, capturing the field pieces and trailing them on the flying foe, until the Mexicans perceiving that they had been assailed by a mere handful of men suddenly rallied and reformed. In an instant the reassured and gallant foe opened upon the Americans a terrific fire of musketry, striking down eleven out of the fourteen officers who composed the command, and, for the time, staggering the staunch assailants. But this paralysis continued for an instant only. A light battalion which had been held to cover Huger's battery, commanded by Captain E. Kirby Smith, rushed forward to support, and executing its bloody task amid horrible carnage, finally succeeded in carrying the line and occupying it with our troops. In the meanwhile Garland's brigade, sustained by Drum's artillery assaulted the enemy's left near the Molino, and after an obstinate contest drove him from his position under the protecting guns of Chapultepec. Drum's section and Huger's battering guns advanced to the enemy's position, and his captured pieces were now opened on the retreating force. While these efforts were successfully making on the Mexican centre and left, Duncan's battery blazed on the right, and Colonel Mackintosh was ordered to assault that point. The advance of his brigade soon brought it between the enemy and Duncan's guns, and their fire was of course discontinued. Onwards sternly and steadily moved the troops towards the Casa Mata, which, as it was approached, proved to be a massive stone work surrounded with bastioned entrenchments and deep ditches, whence a deadly fire was delivered and kept up without intermission upon our advancing troops until they reached the very slope of the parapet surrounding the citadel. The havoc was dreadful. A large proportion of the command was either killed or wounded; but still the ceaseless fire from the Casa Mata continued its deadly work, until the maimed and broken band of gallant assailants was withdrawn to the left of Duncan's battery where its remnants rallied. Duncan and Sumner had meanwhile been hotly engaged in repelling a charge of Mexican cavalry on the left, and having just completed the work, the brave Colonel found his countrymen retired from before the Casa Mata and the field again open for his terrible weapons. Directing them at once upon the fatal fort he battered the Mexicans from its walls, and as they fled from its protecting enclosure he continued to play upon the fugitives as relentlessly as they had recently done upon Mackintosh and his doomed brigade.
The Mexicans were now driven from the field at every point. La Casa Mata was blown up by the conquerors. Captured ammunition and cannon moulds in El Molino were destroyed. And the Americans, according to Scott's order previous to the battle, returned to Tacubaya, with three of the enemy's guns, (a fourth being spiked and useless,) eight hundred prisoners including fifty-two commissioned officers, and a large quantity of small arms, with gun and musket ammunition. Three thousand two hundred and fifty-one Americans, had on this day, driven four times their number from a selected field; but they had paid a large and noble tribute to death for the victory. Nine officers were included in the one hundred and sixteen of our killed, and forty-nine officers in the six hundred and sixty-five of our wounded. The Mexicans suffered greatly in wounded and slain, while the gallant General Leon and Colonel Balderas fell fighting bravely on the field of battle. [75]
*****
The battle was over by nine o'clock in the morning. The Americans, after collecting their dead and wounded, retired from the bloody field, but they were not allowed to mourn over their painful losses. They had suffered severely, yet the battle had been most disastrous to the Mexicans. The fine commands of Generals Perez and Leon and of Colonel Balderas, were broken up; the position once destroyed, could not serve for a second defence, and the morale of the soldiers had suffered. The Mexicans were beginning to believe that mere formidable masses, if not directed by skilful chiefs, were, in truth, but harmless things, and not to be relied on very confidently for national defence. The new levies, the old regular army, and the volunteers of the city, had all been repeatedly beaten in the valley both before and since the armistice. Nevertheless, Santa Anna, in spite of all these defeats and disasters at the Molino and Casa Mata, caused the bells of the city to be merrily rung for a victory, and sent forth proclamations by extraordinary couriers, in every direction, announcing the triumph of Mexican valor and arms!
On the morning of the 11th, Scott proceeded to carry out the remainder of his projected capture of the capital. His troops had been already for some time hovering around the southern gates, and he now surveyed them closely covered by General Pillow's division and Riley's brigade of Twigg's command, and then ordered Quitman from Coyoacan to join Pillow by daylight, before the southern gates. By night however, the two Generals with their commands were to pass the two intervening miles between their position and Tacubaya where they would unite with Worth's division, while General Twiggs was left, with Riley, Captain Taylor and Steptoe, in front of the gates to manœuvre, threaten, or make false attacks so as to occupy and deceive the enemy. General Smith's brigade was halted in supporting distance at San Angel, in the rear, till the morning of the 13th, so as to support our general depot at Mixcoac. This stratagem against the south was admirably executed throughout the 12th and until the afternoon of the 13th, when it was too late for Santa Anna to recover from his delusion.
In the meanwhile preparations had been duly made for the operations on the west by the capture of Chapultepec. Heavy batteries were established and the bombardment and cannonade under Captain Huger, were commenced early on the morning of the 12th. Pillow and Quitman had been in position, as ordered, since early on the night of the 11th, and Worth was now commanded to hold his division in reserve near the foundry to support Pillow, while Smith was summoned to sustain Quitman. Twiggs still continued to inform us with his guns that he held the Mexicans on the defensive in that quarter and kept Santa Anna in constant anxiety. Scott's positions and strategy perfectly disconcerted him. One moment on the south—the next at Tacubaya—then reconnoitering the south again—and, at last, concentrating his forces so that they might be easily moved northward to Chapultepec or southward to the gate of San Antonio Abad. These movements rendered him constantly sensible of every hour's importance, yet he would not agree with the veteran Bravo who commanded Chapultepec and was convinced that the hill and castle would be the points assailed. During the whole of the 12th the American pieces, strengthened by the captured guns, poured an incessant shower of shot into the fortress until nightfall, when the assailants slept upon their arms, to be in position for an early renewal on the 13th.
At half-past five in the morning the American guns recommenced upon Chapultepec; but still Santa Anna clung to the southern gates while Scott was silently preparing for the final assault according to a preconcerted signal. About 8 o'clock, judging that the missiles had done the work, the heavy batteries suddenly ceased firing, and instantaneously Pillow's division rushed forward from the conquered Molino del Rey, and overbearing all obstacles, and rapidly clambering up the steep acclivities, raised their scaling ladders and poured over the walls. [76]
Quitman, supported by Generals Shields and Smith, was meanwhile advancing rapidly towards the south-east of the works, over a causeway with cuts and batteries defended by an army strongly posted outside the works towards the east. But nothing could resist the impulse of the storming division, though staunchly opposed and long held at bay, and whilst it rushed to complete the work, the New York, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania volunteers, under Shields, crossed the meadows in front amid a heavy fire, and entered the outer enclosure of Chapultepec in time to join the enterprise from the west. The castle was now possessed at every point. The onslaught had been so rapid and resistless, that the Mexicans stood appalled as the human tide foamed and burst over their battlements. Men who had been stationed to fire the mines either fled or were shot down. Officers fell at their posts, and the brave old Bravo, fighting to the last, was taken prisoner with a thousand combatants.
Santa Anna was at last undeceived. He detached at once the greater portion of his troops from near the garita of San Antonio Abad; but it was too late;—the key to the roads of San Cosmé and Belen had fallen; the advance works were weak, and the routed troops of Chapultepec fled rapidly along the causeways and over the meadows. Still as they retreated they fought courageously, and as our men approached the walls, the fresh troops in the neighborhood poured their volleys from behind parapets, windows and steeples. Nevertheless, Santa Anna dared not withdraw all his forces in the presence of Twigg's threatening division on the south.
Meanwhile Worth had seized the causeway and aqueduct of San Cosmé, while Quitman advanced by the other towards the garita of Belen. The double roads on each side of these aqueducts which rested on open arches spanning massive pillars, afforded fine points for attack and defence. Both the American Generals were prompt in pursuing the retreating foe, while Scott, who had ascended the battlements of Chapultepec and beheld the field spread out beneath him like a map, hastened onward all the stragglers and detachments to join the flushed victors in the final assault.
Worth speedily reached the street of San Cosmé and became engaged in desperate conflict with the enemy from the houses and defences. Ordering forward Cadwallader's brigade with mountain howitzers, preceded by skirmishers and pioneers with pick-axes and crow bars to force windows and doors and to burrow through the walls, he rapidly attained an equality of position with the enemy; and by 8 o'clock in the evening, after carrying two batteries in this suburb, he planted a heavy mortar and piece of artillery from which he might throw shot and shells into the city during the night. Having posted guards and sentinels and sheltered his weary men, he at length found himself with no obstacle but the gate of San Cosmé between his gallant band and the great square of Mexico.
The pursuit by Quitman on the road to the gate of Belen had been equally hot and successful. Scott originally designed that this General should only manœuvre and threaten the point so as to favor Worth's more dangerous enterprise by San Cosmé. But the brave and impetuous Quitman, seconded by the eager spirits of his division, longing for the distinction of which they had been hitherto deprived, heeded neither the external defences nor the more dangerous power of the neighboring citadel. Onward he pressed his men under flank and direct fires;—seized an intermediate battery of two guns;—carried the gate of Belen,—and thus, before two o'clock, was the first to enter the city and maintain his position with a loss proportionate to the steady firmness of his desperate assault. After nightfall, he added several new defences to the point he had won so gloriously, and sheltering his men as well as he was able, awaited the return of daylight under the guns of the formidable and unsubdued citadel.
So ended the battles of the 13th of September, 1847, and so, in fact, ended the great contests of the war. Santa Anna had been again "disconcerted" in his plan of battle, by Scott, as he had previously been thwarted by Valencia's disobedience and wilfulness. Scott would not attack the south of the city where he expected him, and consequently the American chief conquered the point where he had not expected him!
When darkness fell upon the city a council of disheartened officers assembled in the Mexican citadel. After the customary crimination and recrimination had been exhausted between Santa Anna and other officers, it was acknowledged that the time had come to decide upon future movements. Beaten in every battle, they now saw one American General already within the city gate, while another was preparing to enter on the following morning, and kept the city sleepless by the loud discharges of his heavy cannon or bursting bombs as they fell in the centre of the capital. General Carrera believed the demoralization of his army complete. Lombardini, Alcorta and Perez coincided in his opinion, and Santa Anna at length closed the panic stricken council by declaring that Mexico must be evacuated during the night and by naming Lombardini General-in-Chief, and General Perez second in command. Between eight and nine o'clock Señor Trigueros called at the citadel with his coach, and bore away the luckless military President to the sacred town of Guadalupe Hidalgo, three miles north of the capital.
The retreat of the Mexican army began at midnight, and not long after, a deputation from the Ayuntamiento, or City Council, waited upon General Scott with the information that the federal government and troops had fled from the capital. The haggard visitors demanded terms of capitulation in favor of the church, the citizens and the municipal authorities. Scott refused the ill-timed request, and promising no terms that were not self imposed, sent word to Quitman and Worth to advance as soon as possible on the following morning, and, guarding carefully against treachery, to occupy the city's strongest and most commanding points. Worth was halted at the Alameda, a few squares west of the Plaza, but Quitman was allowed the honor of advancing to the great square, and hoisting the American flag on the National Palace. At 9 o'clock the Commander-in-Chief, attended by his brilliant staff, rode into the vast area in front of the venerable Cathedral and Palace, amid the shouts of the exulting army to whose triumphs his prudence and genius had so greatly contributed. It was a proud moment for Scott, and he might well have flushed with excitement as he ascended the Palace stairs and sat down in the saloon which had been occupied by so many Viceroys, Ministers, Presidents and Generals, to write the brief order announcing his occupation of the capital of Mexico. Yet the elation was but momentary. The cares of conquest were now exchanged for those of preservation. He was allowed no interval of repose from anxiety. His last victories had entirely disorganized the Republic. There was no longer a national government, a competent municipal authority, or even a police force which could be relied on to regulate the fallen city. Having accomplished the work of destruction, the responsibility of reconstruction was now imposed upon him; and first among his duties was the task of providing for the safety and subordination of that slender band which had been so suddenly forced into a vast and turbulent capital.
Note.—We shall record as very interesting historical facts, the numbers with which General Scott achieved his victories in the valley.
Forces.
| He left Puebla with | 10,738 rank and file. |
| At Contreras and Churubusco, there were | 8,497 engaged. |
| At El Molino del Rey and La Casa Mata, | 3,251 " |
| On 12th and 13th September, at Chapultepec,&c. | 7,180 " |
| Final attack on city, after deducting killed, wounded, garrison of Mixcoac and Chapultepec, | 6,000 |
Losses.
| At Contreras and Churubusco, | 137 killed. | 877 wounded. | 38 missing. |
| At El Molino, &c., | 116 " | 665 " | 18 " |
| September 12th, 13th, and 14th, | 130 " | 703 " | 29 " |
| Grand total of losses, 2,703. |
"On the other hand," says Scott in his despatch of 18th September, 1847, "this small force has beaten on the same occasions, in view of the capital, the whole Mexican army, composed, at the beginning, of thirty odd thousand men, posted always in chosen positions, behind entrenchments or more formidable defences of nature and art;—killed or wounded of that number more than 7,000 officers and men,—taken 3,730 prisoners, one-seventh officers, including 13 generals, of whom 3 had been Presidents of this Republic;—captured more than 20 colors and standards, 75 pieces of ordnance, besides 57 wall pieces, 20,000 small arms, and an immense quantity of shot, shells and powder." See Ex. Doc. No. 1 Senate, 30th Congress, 1st Session, p. 384.
Footnotes
[ [74] See Lieut. Smith's Memoir, ut antea, p. 8.
[ [75] This was a great but a rash victory. The American infantry relying chiefly on the bayonet and expecting to effect its object by surprise and even at an earlier hour of the morning, advanced with portions of the three thousand two hundred and fifty-one men to attack at least eleven or twelve thousand Mexicans upon a field selected by themselves, protected by stone walls and ditches, commanded by the fortress of Chapultepec and the ground swept by artillery, while four thousand cavalry threatened an overwhelming charge! We have no criticism to make as to inequality of numbers, but although we believe that our officers did not anticipate so strong a resistance, we are satisfied that it would have been better to rely at first upon the fatal work of mortars and siege pieces, of which we had abundance, and, then, to have permitted the bayonet to complete the task the battering train had begun. If the difficulty of moving rapidly to the scene of action in the night, prevented a night attack and surprise, it would probably have been better to change the plan of battle even at a late hour. In the end, Duncan's great guns, effectually destroyed a post which had been the slaughter house of many a noble American soldier. The Mexican cavalry behaved shamefully. In Colonel Ramsey's notes on the translation of the Mexican Apuntes para la historia de la Guerra, &c., p. 347, he says: "it is now known in Mexico that Santa Anna was in possession of General Scott's order to attack the Molino del Rey in a few hours after it was written, and during the whole of the 7th, troops were taking up their positions on that ground. It is believed further that Santa Anna knew the precise force that was to attack. When, therefore, Scott supposed that Worth would surprise the Mills and Casa Mata, he was met by what? Shall the veil be raised a little further? There was a traitor among the list of high ranking officers in the Mexican army, and for gold he told the Mexican force. Scott had been betrayed by one not an American, not an officer or soldier, but Santa Anna was betrayed by one of his own officers and a Mexican. Santa Anna believed the information he received and acted on it. General Scott did not believe what he learned at night, and—the victory was won!"
[ [76] The importance of the previous capture of El Molino del Rey was proved in this assault upon Chapultepec, for Pillow's division started from this very Mill, from within the enemy's work, and found itself on an equality with the foe up to the very moment of scaling the walls at the crest of the mount, whereas the other assaulting column under Quitman taking the only remaining road to the castle, a causeway leading from Tacubaya, was successfully held at bay by the outworks defending this road at the base of the hill, until after the castle was taken, and the opposing force was taken in rear by troops passing through and around Chapultepec. Had El Molino still been held by the Mexicans, the siege pieces would not have been allowed to play uninterruptedly, nor would the assaulting parties been able to take position or attack with impunity. See Lieut. Smith's Memoir, ut antea p. 8.
CHAPTER XVII.
1847–1850.
ATTACK OF THE CITY MOB ON THE ARMY—QUITMAN GOVERNOR—PEÑA PRESIDENT—CONGRESS ORDERED—SIEGE OF PUEBLA—LANE'S, LALLY'S AND CHILDS'S VICTORIES—GUERRILLEROS BROKEN UP—MEXICAN POLITICS—ANAYA PRESIDENT—PEACE NEGOTIATIONS—SCOTT'S DECREE—PEÑA PRESIDENT—SANTA ANNA AND LANE—SANTA ANNA LEAVES MEXICO FOR JAMAICA—TREATY ENTERED INTO—ITS CHARACTER—SANTA CRUZ DE ROSALES—COURT OF INQUIRY—INTERNAL TROUBLES—AMBASSADORS AT QUERÉTARO—TREATY RATIFIED—EVACUATION—REVOLUTIONARY ATTEMPTS—CONDITION OF MEXICO SINCE THE WAR—CHARACTER OF SANTA ANNA—NOTE ON THE MILITARY CRITICS.
Scarcely had the divisions of the American army, after the enthusiastic expression of their joy, begun to disperse from the great square of Mexico in search of quarters, when the populace commenced firing upon them from within the deep embrasures of the windows and from behind the parapet walls of the house tops. This dastardly assault by the mob of a surrendered city lasted for two days, until it was terminated by the vigorous military measures of General Scott. Yet it is due to the Mexicans to state that this horrible scheme of assassination was not countenanced by the better classes, but that the base outbreak was altogether owing to the liberation of about two thousand convicts by the flying government on the previous night. These miscreants,—the scum and outcasts of Mexico—its common thieves, stabbers and notorious vagrants,—banded with nearly an equal number of the disorganized army, had already thronged the Palace when Quitman arrived with his division, and it was only by the active exertion of Watson's marines, that the vagrant crowd was driven from the edifice.
GREAT SQUARE OF MEXICO.
General Quitman was immediately appointed civil and military Governor of the conquered capital, and discharged his duties under the martial law proclaimed by Scott on the 17th September. The general order of the Commander-in-Chief breathes the loftiest spirit of self-respect, honor and national consideration. He points out clearly the crimes commonly incident to the occupation of subdued cities, and gives warning of the severity with which their perpetrators will be punished. He protects the administration of justice among the Mexicans in the courts of the country. He places the city, its churches, worship, convents, monasteries, inhabitants and property, under the special safeguard of the faith and honor of the American army. And finally, instead of demanding, according to the custom of many generals in the old world, a splendid ransom from the opulent city, he imposed upon it a trifling contribution of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars,—twenty thousand of which he devoted to extra comforts for the sick and wounded; ninety thousand to purchase blankets and shoes for gratuitous distribution among the common soldiers, while but forty thousand were reserved for the military chest. This act of clemency and consideration is in beautiful contrast with the last malignant spitefulness of the conquered army, whose commander, unable to overthrow the invaders in fair combat, had released at midnight, the desperadoes from his prisons, with the hope that assassination might do the work which military skill and honorable valor had been unable to effect.
Meanwhile Santa Anna despatched a circular from the town of Guadalupe recounting to the Governors of the different States the loss of the capital, and, on the 16th, he issued a decree requiring Congress to assemble at Querétaro, which was designated as the future seat of government. As president and politician, he at once saw that he could do nothing more without compromising himself still further. Resigning, therefore, the executive chair in favor of his constitutional successor, Señor Peña-y-Peña, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he despatched General Herrera with four thousand troops to Querétaro, and departed to assail the Americans in Puebla. On the 18th he evacuated Guadalupe, and took the road to the eastward, with two thousand cavalry commanded by General Alvarez. He knew that the communication with our base of operations in that quarter was seriously interrupted if not entirely cut off; and he vainly hoped to recover his military prestige by some brilliant feat of arms over detached or unequal squadrons.
When Scott marched into the valley of Mexico, Puebla was left in charge of Colonel Childs, with four hundred efficient men and nearly eighteen hundred in his hospitals. The watchful commander and his small band preserved order until the false news of Mexican success at Molino del Rey was received. But, at that moment, the masses, joined by about three thousand troops under General Rea, a brave and accomplished Spaniard, rose upon, and besieged the slender garrison. On the 22d, Santa Anna arrived, and increasing the assailants to nearly eight thousand, made the most vigorous efforts during the six following days and nights to dislodge the Americans from the position they had seized.
About the middle of the month, Brigadier General Lane left Vera Cruz with a fresh command, and at Jalapa joined the forces of Major Lally, who with nearly a thousand men and a large and valuable train, had fought his way thither against Jarauta and his guerrilleros at San Juan, Paso de Ovejas, Puente Nacional, Plan del Rio, Cerro-Gordo and Los Animas. As soon as the news of Puebla's danger reached these commanders they marched to support the besieged band, while Santa Anna believing that Rea could either conquer or hold Childs in check until his return, departed in quest of the advancing columns of Lane and Lally, who were reported to have convoyed from the coast an immense amount of treasure. The combined lust of glory and gold perhaps stimulated this last effort of the failing chief. Rea continued the siege of Puebla bravely. Santa Anna, advancing eastward, and apparently confident of success, established his headquarters at Huamantla; but whilst manœuvering his troops to attack our approaching columns, Lane fell upon him suddenly on the 9th of October, and after a sharp action, remained victor on the field. On the next day our eager general continued his march to Puebla, and entering it on the 13th of October, drove the Mexicans from all their positions and effectually relieved the pressed but pertinacious commander of the beleagured Americans.
It was now the turn of those who had been so long assailed to become assailants. Rea retired to Atlixco, about twenty-five miles from Puebla, but the inexorable Lane immediately followed in his steps, and reaching the retreat at sunset on the 19th, by a bright moonlight cannonaded the town from the overlooking heights. After an hour's incessant labor, Atlixco surrendered,—the enemy fled,—and thus was destroyed a nest in which many a guerrillero party had been fitted out for the annoyance or destruction of Americans.
Mexico possesses a wonderful facility in the creation of armies, or in the aggregation of men under the name of soldiers. Wherever a standard is raised, it is quickly surrounded by the idlers, the thriftless, and the improvident, who are willing, at least, to be supported if not munificently recompensed for the task of bearing arms. At this period, and notwithstanding all the recent disgraceful and disheartening defeats, a large corps had been already gathered in different parts of the republic. The recruits were, however, divided into small, undisciplined, and consequently inefficient bodies. It is reported that Lombardini and Reyes were in Querétaro with a thousand men; Santa Anna's command, now turned over to General Rincon by order of President Peña-y-Peña, consisted of four thousand; in Tobasco and Chiapas there were two thousand; Urrea, Carrabajal and Canales commanded two thousand; Filisola was at San Luis Potosi with three thousand; Peña y Barragan had two thousand at Toluca; one thousand were in Oajaca, while nearly three thousand guerrilleros harassed the road between Puebla and Vera Cruz and rendered it impassable after the victories in the valley. The conflict was now almost given up to these miscreants under Padre Jarauta and Zenobio, for, in the eastern districts, General Lane with his ardent partizans held Rincon, Alvarez, and Rea in complete check.
These guerrilla bands had inflicted such injury upon our people that it became necessary to destroy them at all hazards. This severe task was accomplished by Colonel Hughes and Major John R. Kenly who commanded at Jalapa, and by General Patterson, whose division of four thousand new levies was shortly to be reinforced by General Butler with several thousand more. Patterson garrisoned the National Bridge in the midst of these bandit's haunts, and having executed, at Jalapa, two paroled Mexican officers captured in one of the marauding corps, and refused the surrender of Jarauta, he drove that recreant priest from the neighborhood into the valley of Mexico, in which Lane pursued and destroyed his reorganized band.
Whilst these scattered military events were occurring, Peña-y-Peña, as President of the Republic, had endeavored, both at Toluca and at Querétaro, to combine once more the elements of a congress and a government. He summoned, moreover, the Governors of States to convene and consult upon the condition of affairs; he suspended Santa Anna; ordered Paredes into nominal arrest at Tololopan; directed a court martial upon Valencia for his conduct at Contreras; attempted to reform the army, and in all his acts seems to have been animated by a sincere spirit of national reorganization and peace. Nevertheless, among the deputies who were assembled, the same quarrels that disgraced former sessions again arose between the Puros, the Moderados, the Monarquistas, and Santannistas or friends of Santa Anna, who now formed themselves into a zealous party, notwithstanding the disgraceful downfall of their leader. These contests were continued until early in November, when a quorum of the members reached Querétaro and elected Señor Anaya, the former President substitute, to serve until the month of January, to which period the counting of votes for the Presidency had been postponed, as we have already stated, by the intrigues of Santa Anna. Anaya's election was a triumph of the Moderados.
Congress broke up after a few day's session, having provided for the assemblage of a new one on the 1st of January, 1848; but, unfortunately most of the leaders did not depart from Querétaro which was henceforth for many months converted into a political battle field for the benefit or disgrace of the military partizans. The Puros, led by Gomez Farias, were joined by the disaffected officers of the army ready for revolution, pronunciamientos, or any thing that might prolong the war with the same ultimate views that animated them during the armistice in August. But Peña-y-Peña and Anaya were both firm, discreet and consistent in their resistance. The assembled Governors of States resolved to support the President, his opinions, and acts, with their influence and means, while the mass of substantial citizens and men of property throughout the republic joined in an earnest expression of anxiety for peace. Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi, and Jalisco, under the lead of Santannistas and Puros who mutually hated each other, alone continued hostile to a treaty.
Mr. Trist, soon after the capture of Mexico, had sounded Peña-y-Peña in relation to the renewal of negotiations; but it was not until the end of October that the prudent President thought himself justified in expressing, through his minister, Don Luis de la Rosa, a simple but ardent wish for the cessation of war. When Anaya assumed the presidency, a few days afterwards, Peña-y-Peña did not disdain to enter his cabinet as minister, and, on the 22d of November, offered to our envoy the appointment of commissioners. But in the meanwhile our government at home believing that the continuance of Mr. Trist in Mexico was useless, and probably discontented with his conduct, had recalled him from the theatre of action. The American commissioner hastened, therefore, to decline the negotiation and apprised the Mexicans of his position. But, mature reflection upon the political state of Mexico, as well as upon the real desires of his government and people, induced Mr. Trist to change his views, and accordingly he notified the Mexican cabinet that, in spite of his recall, he would assume the responsibility of a final effort to close the war. Good judgment at the moment, and subsequent events, fully justified our envoy's diplomatic resolve. Commissioners were at once appointed to meet him, and negotiations were speedily commenced in a spirit of sincerity and peace. General Scott, nevertheless, though equally anxious to terminate the conflict, did not for a moment intermit his military vigilance. The capital, and the captured towns were still as strictly governed; the growing army was organized for future operations, and a general order was issued demanding a large contribution from each of the states for the support of our army. This military decree, moreover, reformed and essentially changed the duties, taxation, collection and assaying of the nation; it indicated the intention of our government to spread its troops all over the land; and while it reasserted the supremacy of law, and the purity of its administration, it announced instant death, by sentence of a drum-head court-martial, to all who engaged in irregular war. This decree satisfied reflecting Mexicans, who noticed the steady earnestness and increase of our army, that their nationality was seriously endangered, and greatly aided, as doubtless it was designed to do, in stimulating the action of the cabinet and commissioners.
Thus closed the eventful year of 1847. On the 1st of January, 1848, only thirty deputies of the new congress appeared in their places; and on the 8th,—the day for the decision of the presidency,—as there was still no quorum in attendance, and Anaya's term had expired, he promptly resigned his power to his minister of foreign affairs, Peña-y-Peña, who reassumed the executive chair, as he formerly had done, by virtue of his constitutional right as chief justice. Anaya at once came into his cabinet as minister of war, while De la Rosa took the port-folio of foreign relations. All these persons were still sincere coadjutors in the work of peace.
*****
The destiny of Santa Anna was drawing to a close. Huamantla had been perhaps his last battle field in Mexico. About the middle of January General Lane received information of the lurking place of the chieftain, who now, with scarcely the shadow of his ancient power or influence, was concealed at Tehuacan in the neighborhood of Puebla. The astute intriguer's admission into the Republic had once been considered a master stroke of American policy; but his death, capture, or expulsion, was now equally desired by those who had watched him more closely and knew him better. Lane, accordingly, with a band of about three hundred and fifty mounted men, undertook the delicate task of seizing Santa Anna and had he not received timely warning, notwithstanding the secrecy of the American's movements, it is scarcely probable that he would have quitted his retreat alive. Among the corps of partizan warriors who went in search of the fugitive there were many Texans who still smarted under the memory of the dreary march from Santa Fé in 1841, the decimation at Mier, the cruelties of Goliad and the Alamo; and the imprisonments in Mexico, Puebla, or Peroté in 1842. But when Lane and his troopers reached Tehuacan, the game had escaped, though his lair was still warm. All the personal effects left behind in his rapid flight, were plundered, with the exception of his wife's wardrobe, which, with a rough though chivalrous gallantry, was sent to the beautiful but ill matched lady. A picked military escort, personally attached and doubtless well paid, still attended him. But, beyond this, he had no military command, and as a soldier and politician, his power in Mexico had departed.
Having sought by public letters to throw, as usual, the disgrace of his defeats at Belen and Chapultepec, upon General Terres and the revolutionary hero Bravo, he aroused the united hatred of these men and the disgust of their numerous friends. Public opinion openly condemned him every where. After Lane's assault he took refuge in Oajaca; but the people of that region were equally inimical and significantly desired his departure. Thus, broken in fame and character, deprived of a party, personal influence, patronage, and present use of his wealth, the foiled Warrior-President stood for a moment at bay. But his resolution was soon taken. From Cascatlan he wrote to the minister of war on the 1st of February, demanding passports, and at the same time he intimated to the American Commander-in-chief his willingness to leave an ungrateful Republic and to "seek an asylum on a foreign soil where he might pass his last days in that tranquillity which he could never find in the land of his birth." The desired passports were granted. He was assured that neither Mexicans nor Americans would molest his departure; and, moving leisurely towards the eastern coast with his family, he was met near his Hacienda of Encero by a select guard, detailed by Colonel Hughes and Major Kenly, and, escorted with his long train of troopers, domestics, treasure and luggage to La Antigua, where he embarked on the 5th of April, 1848, on board a Spanish brig bound to Jamaica. One year and eight months before, returning from exile, he had landed from the steamer Arab in the same neighborhood, to regenerate his country! [77]
But before his departure probably forever from Mexico, Santa Anna had been doomed to see the peace concluded. The complete failure of the Mexicans in all their battles, notwithstanding the courage with which they individually fought at Churubusco, Chapultepec, and Molino del Rey, impressed the nation deeply with the conviction of its inability to cope in arms with the United States. The discomfiture of Paredes, the want of pecuniary resources, the disorganization of the country, the growing strength of the Americans who were pouring into the capital under Patterson, Butler and Marshall, and the utter failure of the arch-intriguer,—all contributed to strengthen the arm of the executive and to authorize both the negotiation of a treaty and the arrangement of an armistice until the two governments should ratify the terms of peace. Mr. Nicholas P. Trist, Don Luis G. Cuevas, Don Bernardo Couto, and Don Miguel Atristain, signed the treaty, thus consummated, on the 2d of February, 1848, at the town of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Its chief terms were 1st, the re-establishment of peace; 2d, the boundary which confirmed the southern line of Texas and gave us New Mexico and Upper California; 3d, the payment of fifteen millions by the United States, in consideration of the extension of our boundaries; 4th, the payment by our government of all the claims of its citizens against the Mexican Republic to the extent of three and a quarter millions, so as to discharge Mexico forever from all responsibility; 5th, a compact to restrain the incursions and misconduct of the Indians on the northern frontier. The compact contained in all, thirty-three articles and a secret article prolonging the period of ratification in Washington beyond the four months from its date as stipulated in the original instrument.
This important treaty, which, we believe, history will justly characterise as one of the most liberal ever assented to by the conquerors of so great a country, was despatched immediately by an intelligent courier to Washington; and, notwithstanding the irregularity of its negotiation after Mr. Trist's recall, was at once sent to the Senate by President Polk. In that illustrious body of statesmen it was fully debated, and after mature consideration, ratified, with but slight change, on the 10th of March. Senator Sevier and Mr. Attorney General Clifford, resigned their posts and were sent as Plenipotentiaries to Mexico to secure its passage by the Mexican congress.
Meanwhile the last action of the war was fought and won on the 16th of March, in ignorance of the armistice, by General Price at Santa Cruz de Rosales, near Chihuahua; and the diplomatic and military career of two of our most distinguished citizens was abruptly closed on the theatre of their brilliant achievements. Scott, the victor of so many splendid fields, was suspended from the command of the army he had led to glory, and General William O. Butler was ordered to replace him. Hot dissensions had occurred between the Commander-in-chief, Worth, Pillow, and other meritorious officers, and although our government might well have avoided a scandalous rupture at such a moment in an enemy's capital, a Court of Inquiry was, nevertheless, convened to discuss the battles and the men who had achieved the victories! Nor was Mr. Trist, the steadfast, persevering and successful friend of peace, spared when he had accomplished all that his government and countrymen desired. Learned in the language of Spain; intimate with the character of the people; familiar, by long residence, with their tastes, feelings and customs, he had been selected by our Secretary of State in consequence of his peculiar fitness for the mission and its delicate diplomacy. Yet he was not allowed the honor of finishing his formal task at Querétaro but was ordered home almost in disgrace. History, however, will render the justice that politicians and governments deny, and must honestly recognize the treaty which crowned and closed the war as emphatically the result of his skill and watchfulness. The fate of the four most eminent men in this war illustrates a painful passage in the story of our country, for whilst Frémont, the pacificator of the west, was brought home a prisoner, and Taylor converted into a barrack master at Monterey,—Scott was almost tried for his victories in the presence of his conquered foes, and Trist disgraced for the treaty he had been sent to negotiate! But the private or public griefs of our commanders and diplomatists should properly find no place in these brief historical sketches, nor must we dwell upon them, even in passing. The great victors and the able negotiators are secure in the memory and gratitude of the future.
While the court of inquiry pursued its investigations in the capital, and the United States Senate, at home, was engaged in ratifying the treaty, President Peña-y-Peña and his cabinet still labored zealously to assemble a Congress at Querétaro. The Mexican President resolved, if necessary to obtain a quorum, to exclude New Mexico, California, and Yucatan from representation; the two first being in possession of the United States and the latter in revolt. The disturbance in Yucatan which had been for some time fermenting, broke out fiercely in July, 1847, and became, in fact, a long continued war of castes. The Indian peones and rancheros, under their leaders Pat and Chi, carried fire and sword among the thinly scattered whites, until relief was afforded them by Commodore Perry, the Havanese, the English of Jamaica and some enlisted corps of American volunteers returning from the war. About Tuspan and Tampico on the east coast,—in the interior State of Guanajuato,—and on the northern frontiers of Sonora, Durango, and San Luis, the wild Indians, and the semi-civilized Indian laborers were rebellious and extremely annoying to the lonely settlers. There were symptoms everywhere, not only of national disorganization, but almost of national dissolution. Yet, difficult as was the position of the government, amid all these foreign and domestic dangers, every member strove loyally to sustain the nation and its character until the return of the ratified treaty. Money was contributed freely by the friends of peace, who sought a renewal of trade and desired to see the labors of the mines and of agriculture again pursuing their wonted channels. The clergy, too, who feared national ruin, annexation, or complete conquest, grudgingly bestowed a portion of their treasures; and thus the members of Congress were supplied with means to assemble at the seat of government.
On the 25th May, a brilliant cortége of American cavalry was seen winding along the hills towards Querétaro as the escort of the American commissioners, who were welcomed to the seat of government by the national authorities, and entertained sumptuously in an edifice set apart for their accommodation. The town was wild with rejoicing. Those who had been so recently regarded as bitter foes, were hailed with all the ardor of ancient, and uninterrupted friendship. No one would have imagined that war had ever been waged between the soldiers of the north and south who now shared the same barracks and pledged each other in their social cups. If the drama was prepared for the occasion by the government, it was certainly well played, and unquestionably diverted the minds of the turbulent and dangerous classes of the capital at a moment when good feeling was most needed.
Congress was in session when our commissioners arrived, and on the same day the Senate ratified the treaty, which, after a stormy debate, had been previously sanctioned by the Chamber of Deputies. On the 30th of May the ratifications were finally exchanged, and the first instalment of indemnity being paid in the city of Mexico, our troops evacuated the country in the most orderly manner during the following summer.
*****
It cannot be denied that the Mexican Government, whose tenure of power was so frail, almost trembled at the sudden withdrawal of our forces and the full restoration of a power for which, as patriots, they naturally craved. The sudden relaxation of a firm and dreaded military authority in the capital, amid all those classes of intriguing politicians, soldiers, clergymen, and demagogues, who had so long disturbed the nation's peace before Scott's capture of Mexico, naturally alarmed the president and cabinet, who possessed no reliable army to replace the departing Americans. But the three millions, received opportunely for indemnity, were no doubt judiciously used by the authorities, while the men of property and opulent merchants leagued zealously with the municipal authorities to preserve order until national reorganization might begin. One of the first steps in this scheme was the election by Congress of General Herrera,—a hero of revolutionary fame,—as Constitutional President, and of Peña-y-Peña as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. These and other conciliatory but firm acts gave peace at least for the moment to the heart of the nation; but beyond the capital all the bonds of the Federal Union were totally relaxed. Scarcely had the National Government been reinstalled in the city of Mexico, when General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga unfurled the standard of rebellion in Guanajuato, under the pretext of opposing the treaty. The administration, possessing only the skeleton of an army, did not halt to consider the smallness of its resources, but promptly placed all its disposable men under the command of Anastasio Bustamante, who with Miñon, Cortazar, and Lombardini, not only put down the revolution of Paredes, but, by their influence and admirable conduct imposed order and inspired renewed hopes for the future wherever they appeared. In the same way the strong arm of power was honestly used to destroy faction wherever it dared to lift its turbulent head,—and the National Guard of the Federal District faithfully performed its duty in this patriotic task. Paredes disappeared after his fall in Guanajuato, and remained in concealment or obscurity until his death.
Various outbreaks occurred in Mazatlan, on the western coast; in the State of Tobasco; in Chiapas, and among the Indians of Puebla; in the Huasteca of the State of Mexico; and in the Sierra Gorda belonging to the States of Querétaro, San Luis, and Guanajuato. These, like the revolt in Yucatan, threatened a war of castes, but the energetic government found means to subdue the rebels, and to reduce their districts to order.
*****
Thus, for more than two years, has the government of President Herrera maintained its respectability and authority in spite of a failing treasury, political factionists, and domestic rebellion. The attempted task of national reorganization has been honestly and firmly, if not successfully carried out. The army, that canker of the nation, has been nearly destroyed, and its idle officers and men discharged to earn their living by honest labor. A great change has passed over Mexico. Santa Anna lives abroad in almost compulsory exile. Canalizo and Paredes are dead. Bustamante, without political strength or party, retains a military command. The force in garrison does not amount to more, probably, than five or six thousand. The prestige of the army was blurred and blighted by the war. Nearly all the old political managers and intriguers are gradually passing from the stage, and, with the new men coming upon it, to whom the war has taught terrible but salutary lessons, we may hope that another era of civilization and progress is about to dawn upon this great country. This hope is founded on the establishment of order and official responsibility by a strong government which will neither degenerate into despotism nor become corrupt by the uninterrupted enjoyment of power. The true value of the representative system will thus become rapidly known to Mexico as she develops her resources, by the united, constitutional, and peaceful movement of her state and national machinery.
*****
Among all the agitators of the country no one has been, by turns, so much courted and dreaded as Santa Anna. His political history, sketched in this volume, discloses many but not all the features of his private character. He possessed a wilful, observant, patient intellect, which had received very little culture; but constant intercourse with all classes of men, made him perfectly familiar with the strength and weaknesses of his countrymen. There was not a person of note in the Republic whose value he did not know, nor was there a venal politician with whose price he was unacquainted. Believing most men corrupt or corruptible, he was constantly busy in contriving expedients to control or win them. A soldier almost from his infancy, during turbulent times among semi-civilized troops, he had become so habitually despotic that when he left the camp for the cabinet he still blent the imperious General with the intriguing President. He seemed to cherish the idea that his country could not be virtuously governed. Ambitious, and avaricious, he sought for power not only to gratify his individual lust of personal glory, but as a means of enriching himself and purchasing the instruments who might sustain his authority. Accordingly, he rarely distinguished the public treasure from his private funds. Soldier as he was by profession, he was slightly skilled in the duties of a commander in the field, and never won a great battle except through the blunders of his opponents. He was a systematic revolutionist; a manager of men; an astute intriguer;—and, personally timid, he seldom meditated an advance without planning a retreat. Covetous as a miser, he nevertheless, delighted to watch the mean combat between fowls upon whose prowess he had staked his thousands. An agriculturist with vast landed possessions, his chief rural pleasure was in training these birds for the brutal battle of the pit. Loving money insatiably, he leaned with the eagerness of a gambler over the table where those who knew how to propitiate his greediness learned the graceful art of losing judiciously. Sensual by constitution, he valued woman only as the minister of his pleasures. The gentlest being imaginable in tone, address, and demeanor to foreigners or his equals, he was oppressively haughty to his inferiors, unless they were necessary to his purposes or not absolutely in his power. The correspondence and public papers which were either written or dictated by him, fully displayed the sophistry by which he changed defeats into victories or converted criminal faults into philanthropy. Gifted with an extraordinary power of expression, he used his splendid language to impose by sonorous periods, upon the credulity or fancy of his people. No one excelled him in ingenuity, eloquence, bombast, gasconade or dialectic skill. When at the head of power, he lived constantly in a gorgeous military pageant; and, a perfect master of dramatic effect upon the excitable masses of his countrymen, he forgot the exhumation of the dishonored bones of Cortéz to superintend the majestic interment of the limb he had lost at Vera Cruz. [78]
It will easily be understood how such a man, in the revolutionary times of Mexico, became neither the Cromwell nor the Washington of his country. The great talent which he unquestionably possessed, taught him that it was easier to deal corruptly with corruptions than to rise to the dignity of a loyal reformer. He and his country mutually acted, and reacted upon each other. Neither a student nor a traveller, he knew nothing of human character except as he saw it exhibited at home, and there he certainly sometimes found excuses for severity and even despotism. It is undeniable that he was endowed with a peculiar genius, but it was that kind of energetic genius which may raise a dexterous man from disgrace, defeat or reverses, rather than sustain him in power when he has reached it. He never was popular or relied for success on the democratic sentiment of his country. He ascertained, at an early day, that the people would not favor his aspirations, and, abandoning federalism, he threw himself in the embrace of the centralists. The army and the church-establishment,—combined for mutual protection under his auspices,—were the only two elements of his political strength; and as long as he wielded their mingled power, he was enabled to do more than any other Mexican in thoroughly demoralizing his country. As a military demagogue he was often valuable even to honest patriots who were willing to call him to power for a moment to save the country either from anarchy or from the grasp of more dangerous aspirants. Until the army was destroyed, Santa Anna could not fall, nor would the military politicians yield to the civil. As long as this dangerous chief and his myrmidons remained in Mexico, either in or out of power, every citizen felt that he was suffering under the rod of a Despot or that the progress of his country would soon be paralyzed by the wand of an unprincipled Agitator. But with the army reduced to the mere requirements of a police system, and Santa Anna beyond the limits of the Republic, the nation may breathe with freedom and vigor. [79]
Note.—These historical sketches of the late war with Mexico are designed to present a rapid view of the chief events and motives of the international conflict rather than to portray the separate actions of civil and military men who were engaged in it. We have, therefore, not been as minute as might be desired either by ourself or by interested individuals. This, however, will be remedied in the general "History of the War between Mexico and the United States," which we design publishing.
In narrating the battles we have sketched them according to the published plans of the commanders on both sides. This is the fair system of describing and judging; but whether those plans were always the most judicious, is a matter for military criticism in which we have not present space to indulge. Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, and the time as well as the mode of capturing the capital, have all been discussed and condemned by the prolific class of fault finders—most of whose judgments, when at all correct, are founded upon knowledge acquired or assured subsequently to the actions, and which was entirely inaccessible to the commanders when they fought the battles that are criticised. One thing, however, should gratify our Generals exceedingly, and it is that in truth they did fight and win the several actions in question, notwithstanding their blunders and notwithstanding the fact that their junior civil and military critics could have fought them so much better! They had, it seems, a double triumph—one over their own stupid ignorance and another over the enemy!
Footnotes
[ [77] In his letter to the Secretary of War on the 1st of February from Cascatlan, he says: "to enable me to live out of the way of the banditti travelling about here in large parties, I have had to spend more than two thousand dollars, necessary to maintain a small escort, when, through the scarcity of means in the treasury, I served my country without pay." This is a singular illustration of Santa Anna's characteristic avarice. Perhaps no man ever served his country for more liberal and certain pay than this chieftain. We have been informed by one of our highest officers, who was in the capital after its occupation by our troops, and had access to the Mexican archives, that, amid all Santa Anna's political and military distresses he never forgot his pecuniary interests. The books of the treasury showed that, at the moment when the city was about to fall and when there was scarcely money enough to maintain the troops, he paid himself the whole of his salary as President up to that date, and all the arrears which he claimed as due to him, as President also, during the period of his residence in exile at Havana!
[ [78] See page 91, vol. 1, and Mexico as it was and as it is, p 207.
[ [79] See vol. 2, chapter xii, p. 155. Reflections upon the Republic.
Transcriber's Note
- Obvious punctuation and spelling errors repaired.
- Footnotes moved to end of respective chapters.
- Notes moved to end of respective paragraphs.
- Notes normalized to include — (Example: Note.—)
- Hyphenation of words normalized.
- Pg [226]: "1512" changed to "1712" in "In 1512, Philip V. found himself...."