thus wrote Park Benjamin the day Polk signed the war bill. A longing to escape from the dulness of bare existence, ambition to see the world and test one’s powers, a passion for adventure and frolic in a far clime believed to be all glitter, beauty and romance, the prospect of revelling in the Halls of Montezuma, a feeling that one who was not “in it” would have to spend the rest of his days explaining why, the expectation of honors and popularity that would make success easy in any pursuit, quarrels with sweethearts or hopes of becoming irresistible to the “girls,” were among the motives. For the high officers it was a “political tour,” said one of them; and with everybody the barbarities perpetrated by the Mexicans in Texas counted for much. The hardships of campaigning were unknown. While every one understood that some would fall, it was practically impossible for an ardent young fellow, well and strong, to imagine his particular person stretched lifeless on the ground; or, if such an end was ever contemplated, it appeared as something quick, unfelt amidst the excitement, and sweetened by the greatness of one’s cause.[24]
Behind all of this lay certain facts too deep for the soldiers themselves to perceive, but not too deep for them to feel. One instinctively shunned that “misery of cowardice,” which—as Pericles told the Athenians—is more dreadful to men of spirit than death in battle. As the ages have demonstrated, man is naturally a fighting animal, and therefore he finds in war the keenest sense of his vital selfhood. It is our chief glory to will and to do; and in mortal combat this glory is more intense, if not more real, than in peaceful occupations. Besides, if a man comes to his end in being supremely himself, he triumphs over death, and indeed he wins another victory, too, for life—so rich in menaces—can threaten him no longer. The validity of nearly all these motives was more or less transitory. When, for example, a man had proved that he could face a cannon, it seemed unnecessary to keep on facing it. But while they lasted, they were strong.[24]
In almost every section, therefore, except New England, where the annexation of Texas could not yet be forgiven, the war spirit rose high, astonishing even the most sanguine. At New York the walls were covered with placards headed, “Mexico or Death,” or “Ho, for the halls of the Montezumas!” and the streets echoed to the song:
“Come all ye gallant volunteers
Who fear not life to lose,
The martial drum invites ye come
And join the Hickory Blues:
The gallant Hickory Blues,
The daring Hickory Blues—
To Mexico they proudly go,