HIS COUNTRY HOME IN PICTURESQUE NORTH GEORGIA
Next to the smoke of battle in the cause of his country, he loved nature in her gentlest and most quiet moods. He was fond of the forest and farm. He owned a small farm near Gainesville, Georgia, which was one of the delights of his life. Here he set out an orchard and a vineyard on a scale somewhat extensive, in which he found much pleasure. It is a hilly, uneven country, this rugged Piedmont section of north Georgia, noted for its red clay, its rocks, its mighty trees, the wild honeysuckles that carpet its woods, and the purity of the air that sweeps over it and the water that gushes in abundance from its depths. General Longstreet made his little farm in this picturesque section as productive and attractive as he could. It was mostly hills, and had to be terraced extensively to keep it from washing away. He had it terraced with much care, and laid off something after the manner of a battle-field. Thereupon the people around jokingly called it “Gettysburg.”
Here he had built and lived in a splendid home of the old colonial style of architecture, such as has long been popular in the South. The house was richly furnished. He had one of the finest libraries in the South, and had collected interesting and valuable souvenirs, and furnishings from all over the world. His residence was situated on a lordly eminence; beyond, the everlasting mountains stretched in unbroken length; in the valley between, the placid waters of the mountain streams wound lazily to the sea. The location was most beautiful, and has often been called “Inspiration Point.” Amid these romantic surroundings General Longstreet dispensed a hospitality characteristic of the most splendid days of the old South. He often laughingly said that his house became a rendezvous for old Confederates who were hastily going West, and needed a “little aid.” They never knocked in vain at his door. He has said that a favorite tale of theirs was that they “had just killed a Yankee, and had to go West hurriedly;” thinking, of course, that this plea would strike a sympathetic chord.
Some twenty years ago General Longstreet’s home and everything it contained, save the people, vanished in flames. After that he lived in one of the out-houses, a small frame cottage such as any carpenter might build and any countryman might own.
Some years ago Hamlin Garland visited Gainesville for the purpose of calling on General Longstreet. After talking with him Mr. Garland wrote a very interesting article about him. He especially marvelled that he should find so great a man, so colossal a character, living in such modest fashion, seemingly almost forgotten by all sections of the country in whose destiny he had played so important a part. He said he found a world-famous general pruning grape-vines on a red hill-side of the picturesque mountain region of Georgia. He was delighted with his versatility, his information, and, most of all, with his glowing love of country and his broad ideas of the future greatness of America.
When the imposing house stood and when he afterwards occupied the cottage, his home was still the boasted “show-place” of Gainesville. He was Gainesville’s grand historic character, her first gentleman, and her best-loved citizen. Whatever resentment towards him because of political views may have been felt in other parts of the country where men were striving to be at the head of state processions, in his little home city there was never a break in the loving and proud esteem in which he was held by his home people.
Here life remained interesting to him to the last. His heart was ever young; when he died he was eighty-three years young. Only a day or two before he was taken away he was planning things that were to take place years in the future. Blindness, deafness, paralysis, the decay of physical faculties, failed to move his dauntless courage or quell his splendid determination.
General Longstreet’s last days were spent in revising his memoirs of the Civil War, as were Grant’s in writing his. The two colossal characters passed away suffering the excruciating pains of the same dread disease,—cancer,—both disdaining death, heroic to the end.
On the eve of the Spanish-American War General Longstreet was invited by the New York Herald to contribute to its columns a paper on the subject of the threatened trouble with Spain.
The closing paragraph of that paper comes across the years a prophecy and prayer for all mankind:
“As the evening hours draw near, the bugle calls of the eternal years sound clearer to my understanding than when drowned in the hiss of musketry and the roar of cannon. By memory of battle-fields and prophecy of coming events, I declare the hope that the present generation may witness the disbandment of standing armies, the reign of natural justice, the ushering in of the brotherhood of man. If I could recall one hour of my distant but glorious command, I would say, on the eve of battle with a foreign foe, “Little children, love one another.”
LONGSTREET ON THE FIELDS OF MEXICO[F]
CHAPTER I
THE WINNING OF OUR WESTERN EMPIRE
Mexico will always be a land of romance. Her ruins are yet fragrant with memories of the mighty plans of Louis Napoleon.
After an absence of fifty years, General Longstreet revisited Mexico in the eventful summer of 1898, leisurely passing over some of the scenes of his early military experiences. Half a century had stolen away, yet architecturally he found Mexico but little changed. Few of the old landmarks were effaced. Modern ideas and inventions have been encouraged and do prevail in our sister republic, but the dream-like strangeness of its civilization is still all-pervading. Mexico is not unlike Egypt in some respects. Everywhere is the poetry of a past age. Egypt has its sphinx and the pyramids to illustrate a mysterious past; in Mexico we find the temples of the Aztecs and the monuments of their cruel conquerors. The Montezumas have left the impress of their race and civilization on every hand. To the northern visitor Mexico will always be the land of the Aztecs, worshippers of the sun.
To me the battle-fields of 1846–47 were of supreme interest. They are to most Americans doubtless the chief magnet of attraction. But the eye of an active participant in those glorious achievements of American arms sees more as it sweeps over the valley of Mexico than is comprehensible to the unprofessional casual observer. It was my great privilege—to-day a cherished memory—to go over the fields that stretch away from Chapultepec with a war-worn soldier who fifty years earlier had there learned his first lessons in real warfare.
Mexico will always be a land of romance. Her civilization stands apart. Her ruins are yet fragrant with memories of the mighty plans of Louis Napoleon. From the ill-fated Maximilian empire to our own war with Mexico seems but a step back, and yet between the steps great history has been written.
Excepting Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo, the scene of all the leading events of General Scott’s campaign lie almost within cannon-shot of the Mexican capital.
The four battles of Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec, which decided the fate of the war, occurred within a period of four weeks and within a radius of a dozen miles. The Mexican General Valencia was disastrously routed at Contreras August 19, 1847, and Churubusco was fought and won by the Americans next day. Then there was a short truce between the two belligerents, and terms of peace were proposed by an American plenipotentiary. These not proving satisfactory, hostilities were resumed. Scott moved with energy. On September 8 the battle of Molino del Rey occurred, the Americans winning, but at heavy sacrifice in killed and wounded. The successful assault on Chapultepec hill was made on the 13th, five days later, and on the morning of the 14th Scott’s splendid little army entered the Mexican capital and hoisted its flag over the public buildings. The belligerents engaged in these affairs were comparatively small and the losses on both sides very severe. The Mexicans fought well, but were execrably led. With the fall of Mexico Scott had conquered a nation with an army fewer in numbers than the single corps Longstreet commanded at Gettysburg.
Scott’s army, for the most part, was composed of veteran troops,—regulars, with a considerable contingent of fine and well-officered volunteers. Most of them were already battle-seasoned, having participated in General Taylor’s initiatory campaign of 1846 on the Rio Grande, where they had signally defeated the Mexicans at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterey. Taylor’s crowning victory at Buena Vista, February 23, 1847, did not occur until after Scott had drafted away the best part of his regulars for the march on Mexico.
Among them were the Fourth and Eighth Infantry regiments. Lieutenant Longstreet had served in both,—in the Fourth as brevet second lieutenant after graduating from the Military Academy in 1842, up to 1845, when he was promoted and transferred to the Eighth, and he was lucky enough to be with the latter in the action at Palo Alto, May 8, 1846, at Resaca de la Palma next day, and in the siege and capture of Monterey, September 21 to 23, of the same year. It was on these fields that most of the young fellows who afterwards became conspicuous in the Union and Confederate armies flashed their maiden swords.
In the Fourth, among Longstreet’s earlier official and social intimates at Jefferson Barracks and Camp Salubrity, were Captain George A. McCall, Lieutenants Augur, Grant, Alex. Hays, and David A. Russell, all afterwards distinguished Union generals. Captain McCall was then forty-three years old, and was graduated from West Point in 1822, just twenty years ahead of Longstreet’s class.
The subsequent Civil War produced some singular anticlimaxes to these old Mexican War friendships. It so happened, for instance, that sixteen years afterwards, at the battle of Glendale before Richmond, Longstreet’s Confederate division was pitted against McCall’s smaller Union division, and the Confederates had the best of it. About dusk, after the heavy fighting was over, McCall and his staff accidentally rode into the Forty-seventh Virginia. Curiously enough, the Union general alone was captured and brought to Longstreet’s head-quarters.
Having for a time been a brevet second lieutenant under McCall in the old Fourth Infantry, and really commiserating his personal mishap, General Longstreet cordially advanced, offering his hand and proffering such hospitality as was permissible in the untoward circumstances. But, deeply chagrined by his defeat and capture, McCall sullenly repelled Longstreet’s friendly advances. It only remained for the Union general to be sent back to Richmond in charge of a staff-officer and guard. It was the last meeting between the old captain and his former lieutenant, and, strangely, was McCall’s last appearance in battle, though he was exchanged in a few weeks. He somehow fell into disfavor with the Washington authorities, resigned in March, 1863, and died on a farm near Westchester, Pennsylvania, in 1868. McCall was a fine soldier of the old school. Grant was also a second lieutenant with McCall in the Fourth, and liked him very much.
Alex. Hays and Longstreet had been associated in both regiments. Like Longstreet, Hays was promoted and transferred from the Fourth to the Eighth, though upward of a year subsequently. Grant never left the Fourth until he resigned as captain, about seven years after the Mexican War. Hays and Grant had been friends at West Point, though not classmates, and very chummy afterwards while subs. in the old Fourth Infantry. The official personnel of General Taylor’s army, scant three thousand men, was so small that they were almost like a family. Everybody knew everybody else.
Hays was detached from the Eighth when Scott advanced into the valley of Mexico, but was engaged in several severe affairs in defence of convoys of supplies to the front, and also at Heamantle and Sequaltiplan. After that war was over he resigned, but in 1861 immediately sought service again, and soon rose to the command of a Union division. His division contributed materially to the repulse of Longstreet’s attack at Gettysburg on July 3. But poor Hays was killed in front of Longstreet’s lines at the Wilderness in 1864, the first battle in Virginia after his old comrade, Grant, had assumed command of the Union armies. Such was the fortune of war of the civil struggle.
The Eighth Infantry furnished from its Mexican War contingent few conspicuous leaders to either side in the subsequent Civil War. The regiment was compelled to surrender to the local authorities of Texas early in 1861, and were detained at the South many months. Only a few of its old officers then remained. All those of Southern proclivities had already withdrawn. Longstreet left the Eighth in 1858, ten years after peace with Mexico, having been promoted to major and paymaster. By detention as prisoners of war the Union soldiers of the Eighth were deprived of the early promotion which fell to the lot of most regulars.
Out of all the officers of the two regiments engaged in Mexico, only seven, it appears, espoused the Southern cause, and of these but three attained to any considerable rank in the Confederate armies,—Longstreet, Pickett, and Cadmus E. Wilcox. Pickett was a magnificent soldier, one of the most daring in the Confederate army.
In the two campaigns of Taylor and Scott the Fourth and Eighth lost no fewer than twelve officers killed and fatally wounded, and eighteen others seriously wounded, a very heavy percentage. This alone proves that the Americans had no walkover. Every foot of the ground was bravely contested by the Mexicans.
To continue this digression a little farther, it may be said that the genesis of the two Mexican campaigns is not well understood. Winfield Scott was and had long been the commanding general of the United States army, and entitled as such, aside from his military renown, to the Mexican command. But Scott, a Southern Whig, was ambitious to be President. The Democratic administration of Polk was quite naturally chary of giving Scott an opportunity to win public applause through a victorious military campaign. Scott had early submitted a plan of operations, with request for permission to lead an American army into Mexico. But Zachary Taylor, then only a colonel and brevet brigadier, was chosen for the purpose, to the discomfiture of Scott and his coterie. Of course, the general-in-chief chafed because he had thus designedly been over-slaughed by a junior.
The administration overreached itself. Taylor’s small victories in northern Mexico in the Spring of 1846 were so greatly magnified by the press of the States that he at once became the hero of the hour. Soon he was the open candidate of the Whig party for the Presidency; for Taylor, like Scott, was a Southern Whig. Polk and his advisers were now between the devil and the deep sea. To beat back and neutralize the rising Taylor tide they precipitately turned to Scott. His original plan for bringing Mexico to terms via Vera Cruz was adopted, and he assigned to the command, with fulsome assurances of ample and continued support, which were never fulfilled.
Scott was thereupon given carte blanche to withdraw such force of regulars from Taylor as he deemed necessary to the successful prosecution of his proposed invasion, and meanwhile Taylor, with some five thousand volunteers and a slight leaven of regular troops, was to remain on the defensive. Then something happened. Taylor did not choose to remain stock still, but advanced. A few weeks after the depletion of his army, which began in January, 1847, and before Scott had landed at Vera Cruz with his raw volunteers, Taylor worsted Santa Anna at Buena Vista. He not only signally defeated the foreign enemy, but completed the rout of the Democratic administration at Washington, and the next year was nominated by the Whigs and elected President hands down, wholly on the strength of his military achievements. Scott, nominated in 1852, was disastrously beaten by the Democratic candidate, Franklin Pierce, one of his inconspicuous civilian brigadiers in Mexico. It must have been a galling blow to the old General’s pride. His defeat was the death-blow of the Whig party.
CHAPTER II
PECULIARITIES OF SCOTT AND TAYLOR
As we gazed down from Chapultepec’s heights, on that fragrant day of 1898, across the beautiful valley of Mexico, the war of fifty years agone seemed but yesterday to him who on those fields had added a new star of the first magnitude to the galaxy of American valor.
Since those old days General Longstreet often speculated on the result if Taylor and Scott had been required to handle the armies of Lee and Grant and meet the conditions which confronted the great Union and Confederate leaders at the crucial periods of their campaigns. He concluded that both would have maintained their high reputations at the head of much larger bodies of troops than they marshalled in Mexico, even though confronted by abler opponents than Santa Anna, supported by stronger and better-disciplined armies than the half-starved, ill-appointed levies he brought against them at Buena Vista and Cerro Gordo. At all events, the young fellows of 1846–47 to a man believed Taylor and Scott adequately equipped to successfully meet any military emergency.
They were extraordinary characters. Both were practised officers dating back to the war of 1812, though neither was a West Point graduate. Scott on the Canadian frontier had commanded against considerable bodies of disciplined British troops in pitched battle, and came off with increased reputation. He had then visited Europe and observed the continental armies. He was well educated; had studied for the bar, but by preference took up the military profession, of which he was a diligent student. Scott was thoroughly up in the literature of war. To a cultivated mind he added a colossal person and a fine presence.
General Scott’s chief fault was an overweening personal vanity which often took the form of mere pedantry, not unseldom bringing him into personal ridicule. Insufferably pompous, he invariably maintained a vast, unbending dignity, both of manner and speech, whether oral or written. The subalterns of the army looked upon him with absolute awe. Many a brevetted cadet would readily have chosen to go against a Mexican intrenchment rather than into the commanding general’s presence. He brooked no familiarity from high or low. While he sometimes indulged in a sort of elephantine affability, he was naturally dictatorial towards all subordinates, though always within the limits of decency. Scott’s was not at all the overbearing insolence of the coward. He always rode in full uniform, with all the insignia of his rank visible to the naked eye.
Such a queer combination of bigness and littleness, learning, practical ability, and whimsicality formed a character sure to create enemies, and it must be said that Scott had plenty of them, both in and out of the army. By them he was derisively dubbed “Old Fuss and Feathers.” Notwithstanding his weakness, the General was physically and morally a very brave man. He was cool and deliberate in forming his military plans, and once determined upon they were prosecuted with unhesitating energy and precision. Above all he was an honest man. Undoubtedly General Scott possessed a comprehensive military mind.
Equally cool and careful in planning, equally energetic in execution, and equally brave, honest, and true, in other respects Taylor was an entirely different type of man. Personally he was the antipodes of the handsome giant, Scott, being only of middle stature. His complexion was swarthy and his face rugged and homely, but with a kindly expression. Unlike Scott again, Taylor’s schooling had been limited, yet without any affectation of style he wrote clearly and vigorously. From the age of one year he had lived the life of a Kentucky frontier farmer boy up to his entry into the army as a lieutenant in 1808.
Taylor’s military experience, confined wholly to the Western border in 1812, was limited to outpost affairs with Indians and the few squads of British soldiers and borderers who supported them. As an officer he had never met so much as a full company of disciplined soldiers until Palo Alto. Taylor never wore his uniform, or almost never. He dressed in rough clothes no better than those worn by the common soldier. He was often seen riding without his staff or other attendant, seeing things with his own eyes. He was frank and somewhat rough, but kindly in speech. While he was not without proper dignity, he talked and acted straight to the mark without much consideration for appearances. He treated his subordinates with easy consideration, and was often seen joking and laughing with mere subalterns. He was given the sobriquet of “Old Rough and Ready” by the army, in which he was dearly loved by all. It was a title which rang through the country in the political campaign of 1848. He not only inspired universal good will, rough and uncultivated as he was, but confidence. Such were the two Mexican commanders.
As we gazed down from Chapultepec’s heights, on that fragrant day of 1898, across the beautiful valley of Mexico, the war of fifty years agone seemed but yesterday to him who on those fields had added a new star of the first magnitude to the galaxy of American valor. Memories of the glorious past rushed through his mind. Here Grant and Lee had taken their first lessons in practical warfare on a considerable scale. Here had been won not only Texas, but the vast domain away to the Pacific. Since then what social, industrial, and political revolutions had he not witnessed. From the Mississippi had spread out a great republic, reaching from ocean to ocean. He had seen the Southern Confederacy rise and fall, and colossal history, along the way from Chapultepec to Manila, written in the blood of the nation’s strong men. And Mexico has not been behind in the mighty changes that have swept over the continent since her bitter humiliation in 1847. She has advanced by heroic strides, especially under the wise leadership of Diaz.
But after all it was not wholly the great events of half a century that crowded upon General Longstreet’s memory at this interesting juncture. Curiously enough, his mind persisted in fixing itself upon minor incidents,—social and personal relations,—on the comrades who had here and elsewhere laid down their lives in the service, on others who had risen to distinction or dropped out of the running. The “boys” of ’46 and ’47 again crowded upon him. It could hardly be otherwise, for they were a band of brothers then. When General Taylor’s little Army of Observation was collected in western Louisiana, the whole regular establishment of the United States consisted of no more than 12,139 officers and men. The Army of Occupation which was concentrated at Corpus Christi, Texas, in the fall of 1845, numbered only three thousand men.
The days of Corpus Christi still formed a vivid picture in General Longstreet’s mind. The oldest officers present—even General Taylor himself—had never seen so large a body of the regular army together. Adjoining the camp were extensive level prairies, admirably adapted to military manœuvres. Many of the officers had not taken part in even a battalion drill since leaving West Point, and with most of them evolutions of the line had only been read in tactics. So widely had the troops been scattered, and in such small detachments, to meet the requirements of the country’s extensive frontiers, that there were colonels who had never seen their entire regiments.
This concentration afforded opportunity for practical professional instruction and discipline which was appreciated and availed of. But with this preparatory work there were amusements, and lasting friendships were formed; perhaps a few equally lasting enmities. Game and fish abounded. There were no settlements; the country was absolutely wild. Within a few hours’ ride of the camps were wild turkeys in flocks of twenty to forty; deer and antelope were numerous, and not far afield were vast droves of wild mustangs. Wolves and coyotes were everywhere, and occasionally a Mexican lion (cougar) was found. Many of the young officers became expert hunters. Muzzle-loading shot-guns were used mainly; there were no breech-loaders in those days. The camp tables fairly groaned with game dishes; wild turkey and venison finally so palled upon many of the soldiers as actually to become distasteful, and the old reliable beef and pork of the commissariat was resorted to in preference.
Wild horses were lassoed and brought into camp by Mexicans and tame Indians, and sold to the Americans for two or three dollars a head. An extra good animal would sometimes bring twelve dollars, which was the tip-top price. A good many were purchased by the quartermaster for the use of the army, and proved very serviceable. These animals looked something like the Norman breed; they had heavy manes and tails, and were much more powerful than the plains ponies farther north of a later date. They foraged for themselves and flourished where the American horse would deteriorate and soon die.
CHAPTER III
UNPRETENTIOUS LIEUTENANT GRANT
It was not until Grant came East during the Civil War that Longstreet began fully to appreciate his military ability. Grant’s successes at Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg were but vaguely understood in the Army of Northern Virginia, where they were mainly ascribed to bad generalship on the Confederate side, and some blundering good luck on Grant’s part.
Lieutenant Grant, of the Fourth, had acquired great reputation at the Military Academy as an expert horseman. He was always the show rider upon great occasions. He greatly added to this reputation at Corpus Christi. He was regimental quartermaster, and had much to do with these horses. He bought several of the better class for his own use. While riding one and leading the others to water one day, just before the army moved to the Rio Grande, his colored servant lost the whole bunch, or perhaps sold them for his own account. He claimed that, throwing him off, they jerked loose and stampeded away. There was a joke among the boys that, upon being told of the incident, General Taylor humorously remarked, “Yes, I understand Mr. Grant lost five or six dollars’ worth of horses recently,” satirically referring to their extraordinary cheapness. Grant declined to buy more horses for his private use. Soon after, the army advanced to the Rio Grande, and foot officers had no use for horses.
The unpretentious Grant was soon famous throughout the army as a “bronco buster,” in the sense the term is now familiarly used. He would unhesitatingly mount and soon bring to terms the most vicious of wild horses. On horseback he was a very centaur. In no other manner could an animal unhorse Grant than by lying down and rolling over. A large group of interested officers one day had opportunity to observe his success in dealing with an unbroken horse. An Indian had brought to camp a splendid specimen which had struck Grant’s fancy, and for which he paid the record price of twelve dollars. It seemed to prance on springs of steel; its beautiful head was carried on high, and the noble eyes shot sparks of fire. While two grooms held it by lariats from either side, Grant blindfolded the stallion. Then the regulation accoutrements of Spanish saddle and heavy-bitted bridle were adjusted, and Grant mounted, his heels armed with an enormous pair of Mexican spurs.
Thus blindfolded, the beautiful animal had stood stock still, trembling like an aspen. The instant his eyes were uncovered he sprang forward like a shot. Grant held his seat firmly. Then the horse began to “buck,”—that is, to jump high into the air, at the same moment suddenly crooking his back upward with intent to throw off his burden. This was repeated time after time, of course without dislodging Grant, who was up to that sort of thing. The proceeding was greeted by the by-standers with shouts of laughter and yells of “Hang on, Grant,” “Don’t let him down you, old boy,” etc. The animal presently tired of this work, and at the proper juncture the cool-headed rider vigorously applied the spurs, at the same time loosening the rein, when the stallion plunged straight forward at a breakneck pace through the chaparral and cacti of the plain. The soldiers watched them until they disappeared, and the uninitiated wondered if they should ever see Grant alive again. Two hours later they returned at a slow walk, both exhausted, the horse’s head down and his sides wet with sweat and foam. He was conquered, and was thereafter as docile as any well-trained American horse.
When not on duty, Grant’s chief amusement at Corpus Christi was horseback riding. He was no sportsman, and only occasionally played “brag” for small stakes. Longstreet’s classmate, Lieutenant Benjamin, of the Fourth Artillery, came in one day with a story about Grant’s one attempt at gunning for turkeys. The two, on a short leave with other officers, had made a journey on horseback to Austin late in the fall of 1845, accompanying a train of supplies. Returning, the party was reduced to three,—Benjamin, Grant, and Lieutenant Augur, afterwards major-general in the Union army. Augur fell sick and was left at Goliad, to be picked up by a train following. At Goliad Grant and Benjamin went out to shoot turkeys. Benjamin was a good shot and soon returned to camp with several fine birds. He found Grant already in, but without any game. The latter said that a large flock of turkeys had taken flight in twos and threes from branches of the pecan-trees overhead, some of them calmly looking at him several moments before taking wing. He had watched them with much interest until the last turkey had disappeared. Then it suddenly occurred to him that he had come out to shoot turkeys. “I concluded, Benjamin, from this circumstance,” explained Grant, with much chagrin, “that I was not cut out for a sportsman, so I returned to the house, confident you would bring in plenty of birds.” This explanation was offered with the utmost simplicity, and Benjamin repeated it with much unction. Poor Benjamin did not live to see the heights of fame reached by the little lieutenant who did not know enough to shoot wild turkeys in 1845. He was killed at the storming of the city of Mexico, September 13, 1847.
These anecdotes of a distinguished man naturally find place in a potpourri paper of this kind, but their special purpose is to show Grant’s personal characteristics, and in some sort the estimate placed upon him by his comrades of sixty years ago. But in those days the young fellows of the army fooled away no time in estimating upon the intellectual capacity of even the most promising associate. Grant was just simply an unobtrusive, every-day second lieutenant, without special promise or remarkable traits. It must be said that no one looked upon him then as the coming great man of the greatest war of civilized times. Rather quiet, seldom seeking crowds, Grant nevertheless enjoyed his friends, and among them was both a voluble and interesting talker. The alleged taciturnity of the later time was assumed to shut off busybodies—it was only judicious reticence. He was quickly known as a very brave and enterprising soldier in action, and, in fact, distinguished himself under both Taylor and Scott. He and Longstreet were intimate friends from 1839 through the seven years ending with the Mexican War, and often met in friendliest relations after the Civil War. Grant never forgot a friend in need.
It was not until Grant came East during the Civil War that Longstreet began to fully appreciate his military ability. Grant’s successes at Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg were but vaguely understood in the Army of Northern Virginia, where they were mainly ascribed to bad generalship on the Confederate side, and some blundering good luck on Grant’s part. But after the war was over and access was had to the inside history of those events, Longstreet soon perceived that the Vicksburg campaign was one of the greatest in military history, and that Pemberton’s destruction was almost wholly due to Grant’s bold conception of the military requirements to fulfil the expectations of his government.
Longstreet had been near by when Grant attacked and defeated Bragg at Chattanooga, and also thought that victory was largely due to overwhelming numbers and Bragg’s incapacity to perceive the impending storm. Longstreet wrote to General Lee from East Tennessee, some time in the winter of 1863–64, that he need have no fear of Grant, then presumptively booked for the Army of the Potomac; that he was overestimated, largely from his prestige acquired against inferior commanders, etc. But in the very beginning of the Wilderness campaign in 1864 the commander of the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia saw a power displayed in manœuvring the Army of the Potomac which the Confederates had never met before. There is no doubt that General Lee himself appreciated that he had a new and puzzling force to deal with. At the Wilderness Lee assumed the offensive the moment Grant crossed the Rapidan, essaying the same tactics that had been practised upon Hooker at Chancellorsville, but he failed. The Confederates withstood Grant in the Wilderness, but it was the last time General Lee attempted a general offensive. This was somewhat due to his inferior numbers and waning morale, but it was mainly because of Grant’s presence. The year before, after what was practically a drawn battle at Chancellorsville, Hooker, with double Lee’s force, withdrew across the river. He had between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand men who had scarcely fired a gun in battle. Grant, with fewer men than Hooker, fought a larger Confederate army at the Wilderness. It, too, was no more than a drawn battle, yet Grant had no thought of recrossing the river to recuperate. He moved forward and immediately put General Lee on the defensive.
General Lee at last realized that the Confederacy’s only hope was defensive battle, and his fame as a General will rest wholly on that campaign. If he had persisted in the tactics employed against Hooker and Pope and McClellan, his army would have been destroyed in ten days after the Wilderness. Grant really had the Army of Northern Virginia on the go on the morning of the 6th of May; it was saved from utter rout only by the timely arrival of the First Corps, which rolled back Hancock’s victorious lines upon the Brock road and beyond.
CHAPTER IV
PLEASANT INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT CORPUS CHRISTI
The reunion at Corpus Christi made a deep impression upon the fledglings of the service. The long encampment there formed a green spot in the memory of the little army that bore our colors in triumph to the city of Mexico.
Among General Longstreet’s pleasant memories of camp life at Corpus Christi was a rude theatre erected by a joint stock company of the young officers, who acted in the plays produced on its boards, taking both male and female parts. Many roaring comedies were billed, and cheered the garrison from time to time. The enlisted men were of course permitted to pay the entrance fee and see the best that was going. General Worth was always a delighted auditor, General Taylor occasionally honored the entertainments with his presence, and General Twiggs rarely. After exhausting the field of comedy and having already reimbursed themselves for all outlays, the officers concluded to enter the more expensive and difficult field of tragedy. The first play chosen was the Moor of Venice. Lieutenant Porter, brother of Admiral Porter, was assigned the part of Othello, whilst Lieutenant Longstreet was nominated for Desdemona; but upon inspection the manager protested that six feet dignified in crinoline would not answer even for a tragic heroine. So Longstreet was discarded and Grant substituted. Finally, after a rehearsal or two, Grant, too, had to give way under protests of Porter that male tragediennes could not give the proper sentiment to the play. Then the officers “chipped in” and sent to New Orleans for a real actress, and thereafter all went well. The play was pulled off eventually with as much éclat as followed General Taylor’s first victory a few months later on the Rio Grande.
A volume could be filled with incidents of those sunny days on the Mexican Gulf, the incipient stage of the first campaign in real war for the young officers. They gave little heed of the morrow. Their pay was small, but their requirements were on even a less scale. There was a good deal of drilling, but otherwise their duties were far from onerous. A large proportion of the cadets Longstreet had known at West Point from 1838 to 1842 were there congregated, and old associations were renewed. Of course, all these officers were not intimates, but nearly all were personal acquaintances on the most friendly footing. Every one brought his share to the common aggregate of interest and pleasure.
Among the officers there collected who afterwards became prominent in the Union and Confederate armies, in addition to those already mentioned, were William J. Hardee, Thomas Jordan, John C. Pemberton, Braxton Bragg, Earl Van Dorn, Samuel G. French, Richard H. Anderson, Robert S. Garnett, Barnard E. Bee, Bushrod R. Johnson, Abram C. Myers, Lafayette McLaws, and E. Kirby Smith, of the Confederate service; and J. K. F. Mansfield, George G. Meade, Don Carlos Buell, George H. Thomas, N. J. T. Dana, Charles F. Smith, Joseph J. Reynolds, John F. Reynolds, Abner Doubleday, Alfred Pleasanton, Thomas J. Wood, Seth Williams, and George Sykes, distinguished Union generals in the Civil War. There were many others too numerous to mention. Longstreet afterwards met many of these officers as mortal foes on the field of battle. He served with others in the Confederate armies, and others served under him. McLaws and Pickett were long fighting division commanders in his corps.
Robert E. Lee, George B. McClellan, G. T. Beauregard, and Joseph E. Johnston were not with Taylor, and they and others, notably E. R. S. Canby, Isaac I. Stevens, and John G. Foster, did not join the army until Scott’s campaign opened in 1847, though it appears that Lee was with General Wool’s column in the movement towards Chihuahua. They were among the great names of the subsequent Civil War. Jefferson Davis, colonel of the Mississippi Rifles, joined Taylor after Scott had withdrawn the regulars, but in time to turn the tide of battle at Buena Vista. Altogether it was a brilliant roster. They were all graduates of the Military Academy. Of all the officers collected at Corpus Christi, it is doubtful if there is to-day a score of survivors. A large number were killed in action. A far greater number died of disease in the Mexican or Civil War campaigns.
Besides the long list of West Pointers, there were at Corpus Christi many regulars appointed from civil life, meritorious officers who afterwards made their mark. One of these was Lawrence P. Graham, a Virginian, already a captain in the Second Dragoons. He was some six years Longstreet’s senior. After Mexico Graham stuck to the old army, rose to the colonelcy of the Fourth Cavalry in 1864, and was a Union brigadier of volunteers. He had been in the army nearly ten years when the Mexican War broke out. He still survives at the green old age of eighty-eight, a retired colonel since 1870, thirty-three years. He has been carried on the rolls of the United States army nearly sixty-seven years. That is one of the rewards for having been lucky enough to espouse the winning side in 1861. But self-interest had little to do with the choice of sides; conscience pointed the way in that hour of passion.
The reunion at Corpus Christi made a deep impression upon the fledglings of the service. The long encampment there formed a green spot in the memory of the little army that bore our colors in triumph to the city of Mexico. Those who have left memoirs of their military careers have to a man dwelt largely upon the various interesting, though generally unimportant, incidents of this delightful episode. March, 1846, brought the hour of their ending; on the 9th the bugles of the line sounded the assembly, and in obedience to instructions from Washington General Taylor put his army in motion by easy stages for the line of the Rio Grande River. That movement immediately produced a result which the government had long secretly desired,—war. Negotiations for the amicable possession of Texas and the territory to the Pacific had failed.
It is not the purpose of this paper to write the history of the Mexican War, but a few of its salient features may be recounted perhaps with profit.
Under the Texas treaty of annexation and the act admitting Texas into the American Union the United States claimed all the territory down to the Rio Grande and westward to the border of New Mexico. Mexico, on her part, denied that Texas was a free agent, although President Santa Anna, captured by the Texans the next day after the battle of San Jacinto in 1836, while in durance had consented to a treaty which acknowledged Texan independence. Texas had adopted a constitution and set up an independent government. Mexico repudiated Santa Anna’s agreement, but nevertheless had subsequently never been able to conquer the lost territory. The entrance of the American troops into Texas was therefore by Mexico considered a casus belli, and her troops, under General Arista, crossed the river and began aggressive war upon the United States detachments as soon as they reached the vicinity.
The Mexican General Torrejon captured a detachment of United States dragoons April 25, including Captains Thornton and Hardee and Lieutenant Kane, besides killing Lieutenant George J. Mason and sixteen men. Mason was a classmate of Longstreet. Thornton, Hardee, and Kane were well treated, and soon after exchanged. Small bands of Mexicans committed other depredations. Shortly after the unfortunate incident above recited, Lieutenant Theodoric Porter and a small party were fired upon from an ambuscade in the chaparral, and Porter and one soldier killed. Porter had been one of the theatrical stars at Corpus Christi.
The march to Point Isabel, the siege of Fort Brown by General Ampudia, and the stirring affairs at Palo Alto and Resaca soon followed. The spirit of camaraderie and patriotic zeal which animated the Army of Occupation was vividly illustrated when Captain Charles May was ordered by Taylor, at Resaca de la Palma, to charge a Mexican battery. As May drew up his own and Graham’s squadrons for the work, Lieutenant Randolph Ridgely, of Ringgold’s artillery, called out, “Hold on, Charlie, till I draw their fire,” and he “turned loose” with his six guns upon the enemy. The return fire was prompt, but Ridgely’s wise purpose was accomplished. Then the invincible heroism with which May rushed forward at the head of a handful of the Second Dragoons signalized the qualities which unerringly foreshadowed the result of that war. The opposing battery was secured in the twinkling of an eye, and the Mexican General La Vega captured amid his guns. May’s gallant exploit was the theme of the army. May, Ridgely, and Longstreet were close friends, of the trio Longstreet being youngest in years and service. Ridgely was killed at Monterey that fall. May lived until 1864, having resigned in 1861. He took no part in the Civil War. The first successes of the Mexican War were easy and decisive. The real hardships began with the march over the sterile wastes towards Monterey. Monterey was equally as decisive, but it was found to be a much harder nut to crack, and here the American losses were very heavy. The general effect of Taylor’s operations, in conjunction with Wolf’s campaign and the overland march of General Kearny to California, was demoralizing to the Mexicans.
CHAPTER V
INTO THE INTERIOR OF MEXICO
In after-years Lee’s admirers claimed that much of Scott’s glory on the fields of Mexico was due to Lee’s military ability. Scott gave him great praise.
When it was learned that two divisions of Taylor’s army had been ordered to the coast, there was much speculation at the front as to the meaning of the movement. The younger contingent immediately jumped to the conclusion that the war was over, and that Twiggs’s and Patterson’s troops were ordered home. This proved not to be the case, but the army was not much disappointed to learn that another campaign farther south was projected. There was some friction between Taylor and Scott over the withdrawal of the regulars. Some of Scott’s letters to Taylor miscarried, and Scott, pressed for time, was compelled to order the troops he wanted down to the coast without Taylor’s knowledge, the latter at times being far in the interior. When Taylor learned that his best troops had been ordered away without an hour’s previous notice, the old general was naturally very much incensed. He was afterwards somewhat mollified when he received Scott’s delayed correspondence, and saw that his chief had endeavored to reach him in the proper spirit. Scott was the senior, and of course it was for him to order; besides, Scott himself had orders from the President to withdraw the troops. Taylor, however, made, both to Scott and the Secretary of War, a sharp protest against the manner of carrying out the design. Doubtless Taylor felt sore upon learning that the administration intended leaving him upon the defensive, without means to continue his victorious advance. Buena Vista, a few weeks later, probably melted the old fellow’s rancor into sardonic satisfaction.
Once started, the troops rapidly retrograded to the Rio Grande. The weather was fairly cool, and the marches made from twenty to twenty-eight miles per day. One rather warm day, while the troops were on this move, a burnt district was passed over, and the heat and flying smoke and ashes choked the tired men and officers. When the column camped, it was upon a beautiful mountain stream, into which all rushed for a bath. First Lieutenant Sydney Smith, of the Fourth, one of the first to start for the water, while passing through the timber which fringed the stream, was attacked by peccaries, a species of wild pig common in Mexico. They are not very large, but travel in droves, and are very fierce. They treed Smith upon a low-hanging limb barely out of reach of his excited pursuers. The limb was very slender for his weight, and as he swung to the ground, the maddened peccaries reared upon their hind feet and snapped savagely at Smith’s pendent feet and legs. The woods were now full of the officers and men going to the stream, and a party soon relieved Smith from his precarious perch. Smith was a brave fellow. He was the next year wounded at Molino del Rey, and within a week after killed at the attack on Belen Gate.
There was a considerable delay at the mouth of the river, awaiting transports. The point of assemblage of the troops from New Orleans, Mobile, and Taylor’s army was Lobos Island, some three hundred miles south of the Rio Grande’s mouth. The march began January 9, 1847, but it was not until about February 12 that the first of the regulars sailed from the Rio Grande to Lobos Island. Scott had expected the concentration at Lobos to have been completed three weeks earlier. The fault was in the transport service.
The fleet did not leave Lobos Island until March 2. A week later a landing was effected near Vera Cruz, and on the 10th the first guns of the new campaign were heard,—shots from the castle of San Juan de Ulloa at Worth’s troops encamped upon the sand-hills. The investment of the city was speedily completed and siege operations begun. The army heard of Taylor’s remarkable victory at Buena Vista on the 15th of March. It took away their breath to learn that Santa Anna had marched a great army against Taylor after they had left, and had been defeated. It explained why there had been so little opposition to the landing of the American forces. Vera Cruz surrendered on the 29th.
Then the march into the interior of Mexico began, led by Twiggs’s division. The first objective point was Jalapa. Scott’s design was to get upon the mountain plateau before the yellow-fever season approached on the coast. It was deadly in that region. The precision with which Scott’s plans were carried forward, and their uniform success, made a profound impression upon the army. His reputation was very high before he had struck the first blow, but after Vera Cruz no one of that army doubted that he would soon enter the Mexican capital. The army’s morale was high from the outset; it was small, consequently but little bothered with the impedimenta which make the movements of a large army so slow and oftentimes tortuous. It marched rapidly, and Scott sent it square at the mark every time occasion offered.
Nevertheless there was great delay in the advance to the valley of Mexico. Operations were very energetic in the beginning. The battle of Cerro Gordo occurred on the 18th of April, where a complete and technically brilliant victory was won. It was here Santa Anna, already returned from his ill-fated movement against Taylor, undertook to defend the passage of the mountains against Scott’s advance. After careful reconnoissances, the American general turned his position, attacked his flank, and after a short fight broke up his army in utter rout, very nearly cutting off and capturing the whole. As it was, the Americans captured about four thousand prisoners, forty-three cannon, and three thousand five hundred small-arms. All this was done with a force of less than nine thousand Americans against some twelve thousand Mexicans strongly fortified.
This extraordinary victory opened the road to the valley. Thus within twenty days Scott had effected a landing, captured Vera Cruz, signally defeated the enemy in pitched battle, and taken the road into the heart of Mexico. Jalapa was entered on the 20th. At Jalapa seven regiments of volunteers were discharged, and the American force was too greatly reduced to attack the capital. The enforcements promised did not arrive. The advance, however, was pushed on to Puebla, a city then of some seventy thousand inhabitants, which was occupied by Worth on the 15th of May; Lieutenant Longstreet was with the division occupying Puebla. Here there was a long wait of weeks for the required forces to attack the capital, now less than three marches away. From Jalapa Scott set out for the front on May 23, arriving at Puebla on the 28th. Many of the higher officers rode out to meet and give the General a proper reception, and he entered the city in considerable state. “El Generalissimo! El Generalissimo!” was shouted by the citizens as the general-in-chief rode through the streets to his head-quarters. The army welcomed him with enthusiasm.
It was at the siege of Vera Cruz and the operations at Cerro Gordo that the engineer officers, R. E. Lee, G. B. McClellan, I. I. Stevens, G. T. Beauregard, and others, began to attract the notice of the line. Taylor had made little use of engineers in northern Mexico. He largely depended upon his own practised military eye to determine positions, either for the offensive or defensive. Scott’s methods were entirely different. He depended more upon reconnoissances led by his staff engineers, and their reports of situations, approaches, etc. He saw largely through the eyes of these officers, and his fine strategy was based on their information. Hence under Scott the engineer officers soon began to fill a large space in the eyes of the army. They became familiar figures.
Longstreet’s personal acquaintanceship with Lee began in this campaign. He was graduated from the Academy, No. 2 of the class of 1829, nine years before Longstreet entered it. Lee was already a captain of engineers when Longstreet entered as a cadet in 1838. He was past forty when the American forces landed before Vera Cruz. So in years he was much older, as in rank and prestige he was away above the line subalterns of that campaign, many of whom subsequently served under him and against him in 1861–65. He evinced great admiration, even reverence, for Scott’s generalship. In after-years his admirers claimed that much of Scott’s glory was due to Lee’s military ability. Scott gave him great praise. But while Lee was much respected in the army, it is due to say that nobody then ascribed the victories of American arms to him. Besides which, Colonel Joseph G. Totten was Scott’s chief-engineer, and Lee had another superior present in the person of Major J. L. Smith. The army thought General Scott entitled to the full credit of leadership in the campaign of 1847.
About August 14 sufficient reinforcements had arrived to warrant another forward movement. Scott had now about ten thousand men, with more coming on from the coast. His army was composed of four divisions, commanded by Generals Twiggs, Worth, Pillow, and Quitman, the two latter volunteer major-generals. The army began its final advance on the 8th of August, 1847. It had been idle nearly three months, awaiting the action of the government. It was General Longstreet’s opinion that with five thousand more men Scott could have followed Santa Anna straight into Mexico from Cerro Gordo. Owing to dilatoriness in raising troops at home, his active force at Puebla was at one time reduced to five thousand men. The three months’ halt gave the demoralized enemy time to recover courage and recruit their numbers.
The American advance from Puebla to the valley of Mexico was over the Rio Frio Mountain. The pass is over eleven thousand feet above the ocean. It was easily susceptible of successful defence, but the experience of the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo probably led their generals to conclude that Scott’s strategy was irresistible in a mountain region. At any rate there was no resistance, and after a toilsome climb of three days in the mountains, the Americans debouched into the beautiful valley without firing a shot.
This valley is one of the most singular of natural features. It is simply a basin in the mountains without any visible outlet. In seasons of heavy rainfall and snowfall on the stupendous mountains which surround it, the small lakes in this basin overflow, and sometimes inundate the capital itself. It is only in recent years that a channel, or tunnel, has been cut to drain off the superfluous water in time of need. At some time in the past the basin was probably a lake. There must have been some unknown subterranean outlet which originally drained it down and afterwards prevented it refilling. Before the artificial drain was made, however, there were indubitable signs that the lakes were much smaller than in the beginning of the sixteenth century when Cortés conquered the Aztec capital. The bed of this valley is seven thousand feet above the sea level. There are five shallow lakes in the basin. The capital is located on the west side of Lake Tezcuco. It contained about two hundred thousand people in 1847.
The army entered the valley from the east, at first aiming to pass between Lakes Chalco and Tezcuco, but the fortified hill of El Penyon and other obstructions made that approach very difficult, if not impossible, and after the engineers had examined the ground, Scott concluded to pass around to the southward of Lake Chalco and Xochimilco. The movement was inaugurated on the 15th of August, four days after entering the valley. On the 17th, the border of Lake Xochimilco was skirted, and that night Worth bivouacked in San Augustin, the Tlalpan of Cortés, on the road approaching the capital from the south and west of the lakes. It became for the time the depot and base of the army. These preliminary movements consumed a week’s time.
CHAPTER VI
FROM CONTRERAS TO CHAPULTEPEC
While rushing up the heights of Chapultepec with the regimental flag in his hands, Longstreet was severely wounded by a musket-ball through the thigh. After Longstreet fell, George E. Pickett carried the old Eighth’s flag to the works on the hill and to the top of the castle.
On the 18th the brilliant action of Contreras was fought. Here Scott outmanœuvred the enemy completely, employing again the Cerro Gordo tactics, and striking him in flank and rear. The routed Mexicans fled back to the fortified lines about Churubusco. Many prisoners were captured at Contreras. The attack was pressed against the position of Churubusco on the 19th and 20th, resulting in the severest battle of the war, except perhaps Buena Vista. Longstreet’s regiment, the Eighth Infantry, of which he was adjutant, here distinguished itself, aiding in the capture of many prisoners and some guns. At one crucial point Longstreet had the proud honor to carry forward the regimental colors mentioned in Worth’s despatches. After the surrender some of the prisoners attempted to escape by a rush, and many of them did get away. Others were shot down and some were recaptured. A company of Americans who had deserted the year before from Taylor’s army and joined the Mexicans were here captured in a body. Their resistance had caused severe loss to the American army. They were tried for desertion, found guilty and a score or so of them shot to death.
Scott won Churubusco with less than nine thousand men. The routed enemy fled into the city and to the fortified hill of Chapultepec, and were followed pell mell by the American cavalry. It was in this charge that Phil Kearny lost his arm. He was afterwards killed at Chantilly, in Pope’s campaign of 1862, a Union major-general. The Americans could certainly have entered the city that day on the heels of the flying foe, but Scott thought it wisest to hold back and not disperse the Mexican government, to give the American peace commissioner, Mr. Trist, an opportunity to propose terms. An armistice followed, but the Mexican government declined the basis of peace proposed.
The Americans were in possession of the whole country practically; at least there was nothing left to successfully oppose their occupation of its territory to the farthest limits. Yet after these victories, they proposed to take only Texas, New Mexico, and California, and to pay for them a large sum of money. Texas was counted our own before the war began. The terms of our government were so liberal that the Mexicans probably suspected that there was alarm for the result of future operations. Perhaps they judged the terms would be no worse after another trial of arms. And they were not.
Molino del Rey and Chapultepec followed on September 8 and 13 respectively. At the first affair the Americans lost seven hundred and eighty-seven men in the two hours of severe fighting, but won a complete victory, as usual. The fight was made by Worth’s division, and Longstreet’s regiment was engaged, of course. Thus far he had got through without a scratch.
Scott’s army, at the outset not over-large for the contract he had undertaken, was now very much reduced, but its morale was still fine. It was a critical question to determine the point of attack on the city. On the 11th there was a council of nearly all the generals and engineer officers at Piedad. Major Smith, Captain Lee, and Lieutenants Tower and Stevens, of the engineers, reported in favor of attacking the San Antonio or southern gate. Generals Quitman, Shields, Pierce, and Cadwalader concurred. General Scott, on the contrary, favored the Chapultepec route, and General Twiggs supported the general-in-chief. Alone of the engineers, Lieutenant Beauregard favored the Chapultepec route. After hearing Beauregard’s reasons, General Pierce changed his opinion. At the conclusion of the conference General Scott said, “We will attack Chapultepec and then the western gate.”
“The Hill of the Grasshopper,” Chapultepec, is an isolated mound rising one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet above the valley. Nearly precipitous in some parts, it slopes off gradually to the westward. Heavy batteries frowned from its salient positions, sweeping the approaches from all directions. To the southward the ground was marshy. The position was regarded by both belligerents as the key to the capital.
The American batteries opened fire upon Chapultepec on the 12th, causing great destruction and killing and wounding many of its defenders. The Mexican leader, Santa Anna, a very brave fellow with only one leg, was under this heavy fire for a time, taking observations of its effect. On the 13th this fire was resumed, followed by an assault of infantry. The volunteers of Quitman and Pillow, led by picked storming parties, made the assault on two fronts. The hill was carried with a rush after Scott gave the signal of attack. Pillow calling for reinforcements, Longstreet’s brigade was ordered forward by General Worth, and he went into the enemy’s works on the hill with the others.
Longstreet did not quite reach the works, for while rushing up the hill with the regimental flag in his hands he was severely wounded by a musket-ball through the thigh. The castle, all the enemy’s guns, and many prisoners were captured. General Scott rode to the summit soon after and surveyed the work of his gallant army. It was well done. General Worth chased the fleeing enemy to the city’s gates. After Longstreet fell George E. Pickett carried the flag to the works on the hill, and to the top of the castle. The old Eighth’s flag was hoisted from the staff which but a month before flaunted the Mexican banner.
This was the last action in the valley. There was some fighting at the gates, and desultory firing from the houses as the American troops pushed in, but the city fell without much loss after Chapultepec. The Mexicans evacuated the capital that night, and General Scott entered the next day. The Mexican War was practically over. In a few months a treaty was made giving the United States about what was demanded by Mr. Trist after Churubusco in August, the United States salving up Mexico’s wounded pride with fifteen million dollars.
CHAPTER VII
LONGSTREET’S HONEYMOON
After reaching home from Mexico, Longstreet soon regained his strength. He then wrote to Colonel John Garland, of Virginia, his old brigade commander, asking for his youngest daughter. Colonel Garland promptly replied, “Yes, with all my heart.”
With several wounded comrades Longstreet was assigned quarters with the Escandons, a kind-hearted, refined Mexican family. They could not conceal their deep chagrin at the defeat of their army, and were doubtless mortified by the enforced presence of the wounded Americans. Nevertheless they insisted that those officers confined to their beds should be supplied from their own table. Delicacies without stint were sent. The days of confinement were greatly brightened by their delicate attentions. On the 1st of December the accomplished surgeons, Satterlee and DeLeon, thought that Longstreet was strong enough to travel, and announced that he was to be ordered out of the country on sick-leave.
With others he left Mexico on December 9. A few days later he sailed from Vera Cruz with a large number of sick and wounded, among whom was Brigadier-General Pierce, who was very popular in the army. After reaching home Longstreet soon regained his strength. He then wrote to Colonel John Garland, of Virginia, his late brigade commander, asking for his youngest daughter. Colonel Garland promptly replied, “Yes, with all my heart.” He had won fame in Mexico and returned home on leave a month before Longstreet was well enough to travel, and was then with his family. The young lady and her soldier sweetheart already had a pretty good understanding on the subject, and her answer was equally flattering. On the 8th of March, 1848, the marriage occurred at Lynchburg. After a brief honeymoon orders were received from the War Department detailing Longstreet for recruiting service, with station at Poughkeepsie, New York. Before autumn of that year nearly all the troops in Mexico were withdrawn, and the Eighth, Longstreet’s old regiment, was ordered to Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, where he had been stationed before the war, then a brevet second lieutenant in the Fourth.
After fifty years General Longstreet found that many of the physical details of the battle terrain in the valley of Mexico differed quite materially from the memory conveyed by his younger eyes in the heat of action. There was no real change in fixed landmarks, but the depressions were not so deep, nor the impregnable hills the Americans attacked so high, as they appeared when the Mexicans were defending them with sword, musket, and cannon. In instants of supreme danger it is very difficult for the soldier or subordinate officer to see things exactly as they are on a battle-field. His eye and mind are inevitably and anxiously concentrated on the enemy or the battery that is dealing death and destruction round about.
GREAT BATTLES BEFORE AND AFTER GETTYSBURG[G]
THE FIRST MANASSAS
The armies that prepared for the first grand conflict of the Civil War were commanded by West Point graduates, both of the Class of 1838,—Beauregard and McDowell. The latter had been assigned to the command of the Federal forces at Washington, south of the Potomac, in the latter part of May, 1861. The former had assumed command of the Confederates at Manassas Junction about the 1st of June. To him, Brigadier-General Longstreet reported for duty.
McDowell marched on the afternoon of the 16th of July at the head of an army of five divisions of infantry, supplemented by nine batteries of the regular service, one of volunteers, besides two guns operating separately, and seven companies of regular cavalry. In his infantry columns were eight companies of regulars and a battalion of marines,—an aggregate of thirty-five thousand men.
Beauregard stood behind Bull Run with seven brigades, including Holmes, who joined on the 19th, twenty-nine guns, and fourteen hundred cavalry,—an aggregate of twenty-one thousand nine hundred men, all volunteers. To this should be added, for the battle of the 21st, reinforcements aggregating eight thousand five hundred men, under General Johnston, making the sum of the aggregate thirty thousand four hundred men.
The line behind Bull Run was the best between Washington and the Rapidan for strategy, tactics, and army supplies.
General Longstreet always believed that by vigorous and concentrated work the Confederates, after the battle of the first Manassas, might have followed McDowell’s fleeing columns into Washington, and held the capital. But this is not a part of my story.
On the eve of the battle the Confederates had occasional glimpses behind the lines about Washington, through parties who managed to evade the eyes of guards and sentinels, which told of McDowell’s work since May, and heard on the 10th of July that he was ready to march. Most of the Confederates knew him and of his attainments, as well as those of Beauregard, to the credit of the latter, and on that point they were satisfied. But the backing of an organized government, and an army led by the foremost American war-chief,—that consummate strategist, tactician, and organizer, General Scott,—together with the splendid equipment of the field batteries and the presence of the force of regulars of infantry, gave serious apprehension.
A gentleman who was a boy in Washington during the Civil War, said not long ago, in speaking of the first Manassas, that he would never forget the impression made upon his youthful mind by McDowell’s army in moving towards Manassas Junction. Their arms glistened in the sunshine; the new uniforms added to the splendid bearing of the ranks; the horses were garlanded with flowers; the silken folds of regimental flags, lifted caressingly by the breezes of mid-summer, made an ocean of color above the noble columns. It was an inspiring sight; every flag in the capital was a beckoning call to arms in the nation’s defence. McDowell’s army seemed setting out for some festal occasion, and gayly moved to the sound of music and song. But oh, what a different sight after Manassas, when his weary and routed columns straggled back to Washington, before the victorious Confederates. Their gala day had been of short duration.
On the 16th of July the Confederates learned that the advance of McDowell’s army was under definite orders for next day. Longstreet’s brigade was at once ordered into position at Blackburn’s Ford, and all others were ordered on the alert.
At eight o’clock A.M. on the 18th McDowell’s army concentrated about Centerville, his immediate objective being Manassas Junction. His orders to General Tyler, commanding the advance division, were to look well to the roads on the direct route to Manassas Junction and via the Stone Bridge, to impress an advance upon the former, but to have care not to bring on a general engagement.
Under the instructions, as General Tyler construed them, he followed the Confederates to the heights of Centerville, overlooking the valley of Bull Run, with a squadron of cavalry and two companies of infantry. From the heights to the Run, a mile away, the field was open, and partially disclosed the Confederate position on his right. On the left the view was limited by a sparse growth of spreading pines.
The enemy was far beyond the range of Confederate guns, his position commanding as well as his metal, so Longstreet ordered the guns withdrawn to a place of safety, till a fair opportunity was offered them. The guns were limbered and off before a shot reached them. Artillery practice of thirty minutes was followed by an advance of infantry. The march was quite up to the bluff overlooking the ford, when both sides opened fire.
The first pouring-down volleys were most startling to the new troops. Part of Longstreet’s line broke and started at a run. To stop the alarm he rode with sabre in hand for the leading files, determined to give them all that was in the sword and his horse’s heels, or stop the break. They seemed to see as much danger in their rear as in front, and soon turned and marched back to their places, to the evident surprise of the enemy. Heavy firing was renewed in ten or fifteen minutes, when the Federals retired. After about twenty minutes a second advance was made to the top of the bluff, when another rousing fusilade followed, and continued about as long as the first, with like result. Longstreet reinforced the front line with part of his reserve, and, thinking to follow up his next success, called for one of the regiments of the reserve brigade.
The combat lasted about an hour, when the Federals withdrew to their ground about Centerville, to the delight of the Confederates, who felt themselves christened veterans; their artillery being particularly proud of the combat against the famed batteries of the United States regulars.
General McDowell’s order for the battle on the 21st of July was issued on the afternoon of the 20th.
Beauregard’s order for battle, approved by General Johnston, was issued at five A.M. on the 21st.
The orders for marching were only preliminary, coupled with the condition that the troops were to be held ready to move, but to wait for special order for action. The brigade at Blackburn’s Ford had been reinforced by the Fifth North Carolina and Twenty-fourth Virginia Regiments, under Lieutenant Jones and Colonel Kemper. Longstreet crossed the Run under the five o’clock order, adjusted the regiments to position for favorable action, and gave instructions for their movements on the opening of the battle.
This first clash of arms tested the fighting qualities of the Confederates; but the soil was Virginia, and for them it was to be death or victory.
The close of the battle of the 21st found the Federals beaten and fleeing towards the shelter of their capital. They had fought stubbornly. McDowell made a gallant effort to recover his lost power, riding with his troops and urging them to brave effort. Although his renewed efforts were heroic, his men seemed to have given confidence over to despair when fight was abandoned and flight ensued. Over the contested field of the first battle of the war, Longstreet had borne the victorious banners of the South.