[12] George A. McCall was born in Philadelphia, Pa., on March 16, 1802, and died there on February 25, 1868. He graduated from West Point in 1822. McCall was made a brigadier general in 1861 and placed in command of the Pennsylvania Reserves. He distinguished himself in the Peninsular Campaign under the command of McClellan at the battles of Mechanicsville, Gaines’s Mill and Frazier’s Farm.
[13] Meade, in a letter dated “Monterey, November 10, 1846,” wrote in explanation of this move as follows: “The cabinet at Washington, profiting by the history of the Aulic Council, is manoeuvering his (Taylor’s) troops for him, and at Washington, entirely independent of his wishes and views, organizing expeditions for Tampico, even going so far as to designate the troops and their commanders. To-be-sure, it is well understood how this is done, by the mighty engine of political influence, that curse of our country, which forces party politics into everything.
“General Patterson and others are good Democrats; they are indignant that General Taylor should have left them in the rear when he carried more troops than he could feed. They complain at Washington, and forthwith General Patterson and Co. are directed to proceed against Tampico, and General Patterson informed before his commanding general knows anything about it. Well may we be grateful that we are at war with Mexico! Were it any other power, our gross follies would have been punished severely before now.
“General Taylor, of course, has to succumb, and the Tampico expedition is to be immediately prosecuted. General Patterson goes from Camargo.... He marches direct to Tampico. General Taylor, however, does not design that he shall have it in his power, from ignorance or other causes, to fail; therefore he will leave here with a column of some two thousand men and artillery, light and heavy, and will join General Patterson before he reaches Tampico, when both columns united, and under General Taylor’s command, will operate against the town, in conjunction with the navy, if the latter have it in its power to do anything.” (Life and Letters of G. G. Meade, Vol. I, page 152.)
[14] i. e., General Patterson.
[15] Aide to General Patterson.
[16] Surgeon on General Patterson’s staff.
[17] A Mexican servant.
[18] George C. Furber, in his Twelve Months Volunteer; or Journal of a Private in the Campaign in Mexico, gives in chapters VIII and IX (pages 275-393) a lively account of this same march, in which he took part, from Matamoros to Victoria and Tampico. He describes many of the events noted by McClellan, but from the standpoint of an enthusiastic and self-confident member of the volunteer forces.
The contemptuous sting in McClellan’s frequent references to “mustangs” can be appreciated from the following. Says Furber (page 376): “The ‘mustang cavalry’—a description of force unknown to the army regulations ... accompanied us from Victoria.—It was composed of numbers from the three regiments of infantry. Any one that could raise the means to buy a long-eared burro (jackass), or a mule, or old Mexican horse, or any such conveyance, immediately entered the mustang cavalry. Such animals could be bought for from three to five dollars. Some of the riders had procured Mexican saddles, with their horsehair housings and bridles also; while some had bridles, but no saddles; others had saddles without bridles; while others, again, had neither. Here was a soldier large as life, with his musket in his hand, on a little jackass, without saddle or bridle, and so small that the rider had to lift his feet from the ground;—the little burro jogged along with him, occasionally stopping to gather a bite of grass.”