America At War - Concise Histories Of U.S. Military Conflicts From Lexington To Afghanistan (9 page)

The battle for Chapultepec was to be the climax of the war.

On September 12 the American bombardment began. It lasted fourteen hours. The Mexican commander on the ridge, Nicolás Bravo, a hero of the effort in 1821 to oust Spain, called for reinforcements. Santa Anna, believing Chapultepec to be vulnerable, denied the request. He preferred to save his rebuilt army for a last-ditch defense of the city itself.

Scott carefully planned his attack. He feinted an assault from one direction and struck from two others. His troops stormed up the muddy slopes. Fighting was fierce, often hand-to-hand. More than once quarter was neither sought nor given. One American lieutenant, James Longstreet, fell wounded. The flag he was carrying was picked up by a fellow officer, George Pickett. The Mexicans fought hard. But the Americans kept coming. They were unstoppable. Two hours after it began, the assault was over. Scott’s army controlled Chapultepec, at a cost of 834 casualties.

Mexico had lost the battle, and the war. But it had gained a legend. The cadets of Chapultepec had fought the Americans and died for their country. Their heroism would never be forgotten. Today, as in the past,
los niños héroes de
Chapultepec
are celebrated throughout the Republic.

The Americans also gained something memorable. Among the troops assaulting Chapultepec were forty United States marines. Fighting hard, they had reached the top of the ridge, entering what the hymn of their beloved corps would term “the halls of Montezuma.”

The bloodshed did not stop with the American capture of Chapultepec. Scott’s army pushed on, entering Mexico City. There, as at Monterrey, men fought house by house, street by street. Destructive and bloody it was, but the battle was over by the end of the day. The Americans controlled the capital of Mexico.

Instead of a last-ditch defense of the city, Santa Anna chose to leave. Within the city and at Chapultepec he had lost some eighteen hundred men. Seeing no hope of winning, he and a still substantial number of men evacuated the city. Santa Anna hoped there would be another battle, one that he might win and so turn the tide. No such battle would occur. A few skirmishes perhaps, but no further engagements wherein armies clashed. The Mexican War was over. The United States had won, and decisively so.

Winfield Scott entered Mexico City on September 14, 1847. He had accomplished what he had set out to do. He had taken Vera Cruz, defeated the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo and Contreras, won victories at Churubusco and Chapultepec, and captured the Mexican capital, all in seven months. And he had done so with a relatively small army. Scott had done what a senior commander must do: he had planned, organized, and directed. Others would do the actual fighting. Winfield Scott had performed brilliantly. That few Americans remember him today detracts not at all from his accomplishment.

With Santa Anna gone, the civic leaders of Mexico City met with Scott. Together they arranged the American occupation of the capital. This would last until June of the following year, and was relatively peaceful. Scott himself departed in February.

Once the fighting essentially was over, Nicholas Trist entered center stage. His job was to negotiate a peace treaty. In doing so, he faced several obstacles, two of which were substantial. The first was that the Mexican government was far from organized. Securing legitimacy for discussions with the Americans was difficult, much less agreeing on terms. The second obstacle was more straightforward. Trist was recalled by Polk. The president thought that the emissary’s long stay in Mexico conveyed the message that the United States would do practically anything to nail down a treaty. Polk, through Buchanan, ordered Trist home.

Nicholas Trist then did something extraordinary. He ignored Polk’s directive. Trist reasoned that the best chance for successful negotiations lay with him already there and at work. So he stayed put. In time, the Mexicans came to the table and they and Trist produced a settlement. It is called the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the town in which it was signed.

The treaty established the boundary between Mexico and its northern neighbor. Additionally, the agreement called for the latter to pay the former $15 million for the lands ceded to the United States and to assume payment of certain claims filed against Mexico. Not surprisingly, as Trist had negotiated from a position of strength, terms of the treaty were favorable to the United States. As for the Mexicans, they just wanted the Americans to leave.

Angry with Trist, Polk nonetheless submitted the treaty to the U.S. Senate. Approval was not a foregone conclusion. Some senators wanted even more territory, some less. Some wanted slavery prohibited in the lands gained. To this, senators from the South predictably objected. Some simply wanted to embarrass Polk, as he and “his war” no longer were popular.

Debate in the Senate lasted eleven days, during which there were thirteen roll call votes. Finally, on March 10, 1848, the treaty, in modified form, was brought to a vote. It passed thirty-nine to fourteen. The Mexican Chamber of Deputies and Senate agreed to the same text in May.

On June 19, 1848, amid great fanfare, the Stars and Stripes were hauled down in the center of Mexico City. Replacing the American flag was the green, white, and red banner of the Republic of Mexico. Control of the city, and therefore of the country, reverted to those to whom it belonged.

Why did Mexico not win?

Throughout the conflict Mexico enjoyed several advantages that might have led to victory: On the battlefield the Mexicans usually outnumbered the Americans. They were well armed and not lacking in courage. Indeed, Mexican troops fought hard and with skill. Moreover, they were defending their homeland, a situation that often serves to motivate soldiers. So why did they not defeat the Americans? The answer lies in the skill of their military commanders. The Mexican generals, particularly Antonio López de Santa Anna, were not up to the tasks entrusted to them. They failed the test of leadership.

Why did the Americans win?

The Americans won their war with Mexico because the United States Army performed superbly. At the top were two generals who were expert at their trade. Zachary Taylor both inspired his men and positioned them to win. Winfield Scott organized and led an expedition into the heart of enemy territory and did so brilliantly. In the middle were the lieutenants and captains, many of them graduates of the newly established military academy adjacent to the Hudson River. At West Point these young officers learned skills that served them well at Monterrey and Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo and Chapultepec. Many of these officers—Grant, Longstreet, Lee, and Meade among them—would be heard from again. At the bottom ranks of the U.S. Army were the ordinary soldiers. They were regulars and volunteers, two distinct groups that rarely held the other in high regard. But in battle, each fought tenaciously, matching the courage of their Mexican counterparts.

In support of these officers and men was a branch of the army that deserves special mention. Throughout the war, American artillery was particularly effective, often, as John S. D. Eisenhower has written, “the difference between defeat and victory.”

Was the war with Mexico a just war?

The Whigs certainly thought not. Fourteen Whigs had opposed the initial declaration and, as the war continued and casualties mounted, opposition to the war increased. In the 1846 midterm elections Polk’s Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives, largely due to the war. Two years later they lost the White House. Whigs saw the war with Mexico as a blatant grab for land or simply as a partisan ploy on the part of Polk. They also saw the war as an effort by Southerners to extend slavery. Subscribing to the last view was a veteran of the conflict and of the one that followed. In his memoirs, Grant wrote that the Mexican War was unjust and, moreover, that the annexation of Texas itself was a conspiracy to bring additional slave states into the Union.

If Grant was correct, then the war clearly was not justified. But there is another interpretation, one that sees the war as not about slavery, but about land. Many Americans, Whigs, and Democrats alike believed that the United States should extend to the Pacific coast. They considered it America’s destiny to span the continent. The war to them was simply the means by which destiny was to be realized.

Was the war then simply an effort to acquire land?

If so, and this view has much merit, was the effort an honorable one? Some would say no. They would contend that the United States invaded Mexico and, by force of arms, stripped it of land. Others would see a more complicated picture. They would point out that the land in question was sparsely inhabited, that many of the inhabitants had no love of or allegiance to the Republic of Mexico, and that in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo the Americans paid Mexico for the land ceded to the United States.

Justified or not, was the war inevitable?

One purpose of diplomacy is to settle differences between nations without either side resorting to force. In the case of Mexico and the United States in the 1840s, diplomacy failed. James Polk tried to negotiate with Mexico but was unable to do so. Once Texas became part of the Union, Mexico considered itself at war. To keep the peace, diplomacy would have had to accommodate Mexican pride and grievances and, at the same time, take into account America’s irresistible appetite for new lands. That was not impossible, but only a saint could have brokered a peaceful resolution. None was available in 1846.

Did the Mexican War have a significant impact on the United States?

It most certainly did. The conflict of 1846–1848 shaped the future of the country. Most importantly, and obviously, the war increased the nation’s size. The territory that now comprises the states of Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah as well as parts of Colorado and Wyoming became part of the United States. The dream of many Americans for a nation that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific became a reality.

America’s military greatly benefitted from the war. Those young West Pointers who served under Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott gained experience in Mexico. When they rose to command Union and Confederate armies in 1860–1865 they were battle-tested. Historian Douglas V. Meed reports that more than 130 men who saw service in the Mexican War achieved the role of general in the armies of either the North or the South.

The American Civil War began as an effort to preserve the Union. Abolitionists in the North may have wanted to abolish slavery in 1860, but Abraham Lincoln didn’t. He wanted to keep the United States together. Had slavery been limited to those states where it had an established foothold, the war might not have been fought. But the expansion of the United States in 1848 —resulting from the war with Mexico—raised the question of whether the new lands would be free or slave. That caused slavery to be an issue on the national agenda, one that could not be set aside. Extremely contentious, the failure to resolve the issue triggered events that twelve years after the conclusion of the war with Mexico led to Americans again taking up arms, this time against one another.

4

BETWEEN THE STATES

1861–1865

Five days before Christmas in 1860, South Carolina, in a convention convened to consider the question of secession, chose to leave the American federal union. It did so because Abraham Lincoln had just been elected president of the United States.

Lincoln was an Illinois politician, a Republican, who had been elected with but 40 percent of the popular vote and had carried not a single state in the South. His views and those of his party were anathema to most Southerners, particularly in regard to slavery, the key issue of the day. Personally, Lincoln was opposed to the South’s “peculiar institution,” although, like many in the North, he would not seek its abolition in those states where it already existed. But in the new lands to the west, where additional states soon would be established, Lincoln and his colleagues were dead set against its extension. States of the American South whose economy and social system depended on slavery understood that their way of life and influence within the national union were threatened should the Western states be declared slave-free. With Lincoln in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, they feared for the future. So they decided to withdraw from the Union.

Mississippi soon followed South Carolina’s example. Then, in turn, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas seceded. Early in February, delegates from these states met in Montgomery, Alabama. Drafting a constitution, they created a new political entity, the Confederate States of America, and selected its first (and only) president, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi. In addition, they declared their intent to exercise control of federal military assets within the South, including forts along the coast.

Lincoln had no intention of allowing the seven states to secede, nor of transferring military resources to those he considered in rebellion. Cleverly, he maneuvered the South into firing the first shot, which it did on April 12, 1861. That morning Confederate artillery opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Thirty-four hours later the fort surrendered. Though no one had been killed, the bloodiest war in America’s history had begun.

Two days later Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand men to join the army. Then, on April 19, he proclaimed a naval blockade of the Confederate coast. The blockade would prove effective, though the president would need, and obtain, a far greater number of soldiers.

Meanwhile, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee signed on with the Confederacy. That brought the number of states in rebellion to eleven, all committed to slavery. Four slave-holding states—Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri—remained in the Union.

When Virginia seceded, the Confederate capital was moved to Richmond, one hundred miles south of Washington, D.C. Defending the Southern city was an army that both in its day and in history became legendary, the Army of Northern Virginia. Aiming to seize Richmond was the North’s premier fighting force: the Army of the Potomac (Union armies tended to be named after the river in the area where they first assembled). These two armies, each with its eyes on Richmond, would battle each other throughout the conflict, fighting seven of the war’s longest battles.

The first one took place on July 21, 1861, at Manassas Junction. This was in northern Virginia, not far from Washington. To reach the enemy, Lincoln’s troops had to cross a small stream called Bull Run. In command of the Union force, some thirty thousand men, was General Irwin McDowell, whose army was, up to then, the largest military force ever to be seen in America. But they were an untrained lot lacking in discipline and experience. McDowell pointed this out to Lincoln, who responded that the same was true of the rebels. The Union commander wanted more time to prepare his troops for their first battle, but the political pressure to march “on to Richmond” was such that Lincoln ordered him to engage the enemy, which he did. McDowell’s plan was to hold the Confederates’ center while moving around to his right, attacking the rebels’ left flank. The plan was solid and it almost worked. But Confederate reinforcements arrived at a critical time, and McDowell’s army was sent scurrying back to Washington.

The Union defeat at Bull Run (the North tended to name battles by the nearby body of water, while the South called them by the town near where the battle occurred) was followed three weeks later by another defeat, this time in the West. There, in Missouri, a small Union army led by Nathaniel Lyon attacked a larger Confederate force. This proved unwise, as Lyon lost his life and the federals lost the battle. These early setbacks destroyed the hopes of many in the North who, anticipating early success on the battlefield, had expected a quick return to the political fold on the part of the South.

Two additional events associated with the Southern victory at Bull Run are worth mentioning. The first took place during the battle. The second occurred afterward. The first event explains one of the most famous nicknames in all of American history. During the early hours of the fight, when Northern troops appeared to have their Southern counterparts on the run, a senior Confederate commander, Thomas Jackson, effectively rallied his troops. Another Southern general pointed this out to his own wavering men, exclaiming, “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall.” Henceforth, General Jackson had a moniker that would stay with him forever.

The second event associated with the July 1861 engagement at Bull Run was the appointment of a new commander of the Army of the Potomac. President Lincoln relieved McDowell, who fades from our story. His successor was a West Point graduate by the name of George B. McClellan.

An extremely capable military executive, McClellan retooled the Army of the Potomac. Under his leadership, the army, dispirited by its performance at Bull Run, became a first-rate fighting force. No longer a collection of amateurs, the Army of the Potomac was transformed into a body of men willing and able to fight. Having selected many of its top officers and attending to the needs of ordinary soldiers, McClellan was revered by the 120,000 he would lead into battle. The Army of the Potomac was his army.

Much was expected of this force and of its commander. Northern newspapers heaped praise on McClellan, who came to see himself, as did others, as the savior of the American republic. Lincoln was more perceptive, but he hoped the young general—McClellan was only thirty-four—would swiftly move his army south and take Richmond.

The general, however, procrastinated. In a pattern that would repeat itself, he delayed his departure, asking for more troops and more equipment, justifying his action by exaggerating the size of the opposing army. Abraham Lincoln said McClellan had “the slows.” Frustrated, the president pushed hard to get the general to move, which he finally did, in March 1862.

Instead of taking his army overland to Richmond, McClellan moved south via the navy, landing his troops on the peninsula bounded by the York and James Rivers. Richmond lay not far to the west. He thus kept his supply lanes free from attack and avoided battle while in transit. Methodically and slowly, as was his style, McClellan advanced, eventually coming within five miles of the Confederate capital.

Known to historians as the Peninsula Campaign, McClellan’s efforts in late spring and early summer of 1862 did not succeed. A number of battles took place, not all of which the Union army lost. Yet the net result was failure, for Richmond remained under Southern control. Disheartened, the Army of the Potomac withdrew from the peninsula in August.

In one of the early battles on the Peninsula, the general commanding Confederate forces was wounded and had to be replaced. His successor was Robert E. Lee, who, with ninety thousand men, the largest number of soldiers ever to comprise the Army of Northern Virginia, proceeded to outmaneuver the Union forces. However, the cost to the South was high. During the campaign, Lee suffered more than twenty thousand casualties. McClellan, who blamed his defeat on everyone but himself, paid in blood as well: the Union army had more than fifteen thousand killed or wounded.

These losses, as well as subsequent ones, upset McClellan on a personal level. He felt the pain of his men and worked hard to secure medical treatment for them. Given his reaction to the dead and wounded, it’s not clear that George B. McClellan had the stomach to do what generals must.

As the Army of the Potomac began its campaign on the peninsula, a clash of a different sort took place at Hampton Roads, a body of water at the confluence of the James and Elizabeth Rivers in southeastern Virginia, immediately north of Norfolk. It was on these waters, on March 9, 1862, that two ships, one belonging to Abraham Lincoln’s navy, the other to its Confederate counterpart, fought a battle that forever changed naval warfare.

Upon seizing the Norfolk navy yard in April 1861, Southern engineers rebuilt the partially destroyed Union steam frigate the
Merrimac
. But what they created was an entirely new form of warship. Discarding masts and sails, they constructed an armored warship with sloping sides (the armor and angled structure would cause enemy shells to ricochet off rather than penetrate the vessel) powered by the
Merrimac
’s repaired engine. They armed the ship with ten guns and, in a throwback to Roman times, attached a fifteen-hundred-pound iron ram to the bow. Christened the
Virginia
, this strange-looking vessel first went to sea on Saturday, March 8, 1862. Her commander was Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, an experienced sailor who had been the first superintendent of the United States Naval Academy.

Buchanan took the
Virginia
into Hampton Roads intent on striking at Union warships that formed part of the blockade Lincoln had ordered the previous year. Buchanan’s first sortie was a success. Employing both guns and the ram, his ship sunk the USS
Cumberland
, a twenty-four-gun wooden sloop, and then so damaged the fifty-gun frigate
Congress
that the Union vessel later exploded and was destroyed.

In but an afternoon the
Virginia
apparently had altered the naval equation of the War Between the States. She had demonstrated that the Confederate navy could challenge the much larger Union fleet and, thereby, break the blockade. If the United States Navy’s blockade could be rendered ineffective, the chances were good that the South might win its battle for separation from the Northern American states.

However, that same Saturday, about an hour after the
Virginia
had dropped anchor, having returned safely to port, an equally strange vessel, this one belonging to the North, tied up alongside a Union warship in Hampton Roads. Her name was the USS
Monitor
.

She had been built in Brooklyn when Union naval leaders had learned the rebels were constructing an ironclad in Norfolk. Designed for calm, coastal waters, her freeboard (that portion of the side of the hull above the water) was but eighteen inches. She carried neither masts nor sails and had a crew of only 49 (the
Virginia
’s crew numbered 360). Amidships was an armored, rotating turret containing two cannons. No one had ever seen a ship like her.