History of the War Between Mexico and the United States with a Preliminary View of its Origin Part 6

There can be no doubt that when General Herrera was, almost unanimously, elected president in August, 1845, he saw things in this light, and was prudently disposed to bend to inevitable fate. Notwithstanding the warlike despatches, speeches, and proclamations of the Mexicans in the earlier part of the year, our secretary of state seems to have sufficiently understood their gasconading habits, to disregard these inflated productions. He therefore authorized Mr. Black, who remained in Mexico as consul, upon Mr. Shannon's withdrawal, to propose that we should send an envoy with full powers to adjust all the questions in dispute between the two countries. Mexico, notwithstanding her open bravado, secretly a.s.sented to our proposal, declaring that she would receive "the commissioner of the United States who might come to the capital with full powers to settle the present dispute in a peaceful, reasonable and honorable manner."

Accordingly, Mr. Slidell was hastily despatched so as to be sure of meeting the same persons in power with whom the arrangement had been made; for in Mexico, the delay of even a day may sometimes change a government, and create new or unwilling negotiators. Nevertheless when our minister presented himself in the capital early in December, having travelled rapidly but unostentatiously, so as to avoid exciting ill feeling among the Mexicans as to the purposes of his mission, he found the secretary unprepared to receive him. It was objected that Mr.

Slidell's commission had not been confirmed by the senate of the United States and that the president had no const.i.tutional right to send him; that Mexico agreed to receive a commissioner to settle the Texas dispute, and not a resident envoy; that the reception of such an envoy would admit the minister on the footing of a friendly mission during a period of concord between nations, which would not be diplomatically proper so long as our amity was in the least interrupted;--and, finally, that the government had not expected a commissioner until after the session of congress began in January, 1846.

There may be some force in technical diplomacy, between the mission as agreed on by Messieurs Black and Pena, and the one despatched by Mr.

Buchanan, for the letter of credence declares that Mr. Slidell is "_to reside_ near the government of the Mexican republic in the quality of envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, and that he is well informed of the president's desire to _restore_, cultivate, and strengthen friends.h.i.+p and good correspondence between us." A point of extreme etiquette raised at such a moment, when both parties were confessedly anxious for peace, naturally excites some inquiry as to its probable origin. Accordingly we find that it was a mere subterfuge, urged by a tottering administration to avert its ruin. The violence of the cabinet against annexation had done its work among the people. When Herrera and Pena accepted, in October, our proposal to treat, they hoped the popular elections, as well as judicious overtures to the departments and citizens, would so modify national opinion as to permit their independent and liberal action. But such forbearance could scarcely be expected from the watchfulness of Mexican intriguers. Herrera was a federalist, but his failure to proclaim the federal system, and to throw himself on that party as soon as he attained power, alienated a large portion of it and made the rest but feeble supporters. The church and the centralists soon coalesced in hostility to his government; and, although his measures were moderate, and all his efforts designed to correct abuses, yet every political symptom denoted his speedy fall. Of all the popular clamors, probably none was louder in the mob and the army, than that which arose in consequence of his effort to negotiate a peace with our Union. General Paredes took advantage of this unpopularity, and, at the head of five thousand of the soldiery, p.r.o.nounced against the government of the president.

It will be perceived from this sketch how completely this Texas question and the war with our country have been made electioneering and revolutionary elements in Mexico: not, however, with patriotic hopes, or reasonable expectations of reconquest, but with the contemptible anxiety of usurping a temporary power which, for a while, enabled the aspirant to govern the country without the least prospect of settling the difficulty with us or of regaining Texas.[65]

This revolution commenced with the army of reserve stationed at San Luis Potosi, and was seconded by the military men generally. On the 15th of December, 1845, Paredes issued a bombastic proclamation[66] from his headquarters; and, in the latter part of the month the revolutionary forces reached the capital, when a portion of the garrison p.r.o.nounced in favor of the insurgent chief. This induced an early accommodation between the parties, and finished the outbreak without bloodshed. Yet Paredes, having overthrown Herrera, partly in consequence of his friendly disposition for peace with us, could not now attempt negotiations successfully. Mr. Slidell renewed his offers to the cabinet, but was repulsed and left the country. The lame reliance of Mexico upon bombastic proclamations was again adopted. Yet the people were discontented with Paredes who soon began to manifest the despotic tendency of his nature and education. The military life of this chieftain naturally inclined him towards centralism, but he was altogether unfit either by character or habits for civil authority. As soon as he a.s.sumed the reins of government, a party which had long drooped began again to lift its head. The monarchists, led by the Archbishop Manuel Posada y Garduno, and the wily Don Lucas Alaman, soon got possession of the insurgent general. They were joined by a large portion of the higher clergy, some influential men of fortune, a few soldiers, and a number of silly citizens, who promised themselves a futurity of progress and felicity by calling to the Mexican throne a monarch from beyond the sea. This party of royalists was strengthened by dissensions at home, and by the expected attack from the United States.

Many reflecting men cherished no hope of national progress so long as the turbulent army was unrestrained by paramount authority. They desired at once to crush freedom and domestic despotism by a foreign prince supported by European soldiery, whilst they believed that the continental sovereigns would greedily seize the opportunity of throwing their forces into America so as to check the aggressive ambition of the United States.[67] As soon as this scheme of Paredes was disclosed, his unpopularity increased. His intemperate habits were well known and destroyed confidence in his judgment. The financial condition of the country was exceedingly embarra.s.sed, and foreigners, who were the usual bankers of the government, refused loans on any terms. Payment was denied by the treasury to all employed in the civil departments, while money was disbursed to none but the army. The freedom of the press moreover was suspended; and, to crown the national difficulties, it was at this very moment that Mexico dreamed of overthrowing the republic at home and establis.h.i.+ng a monarchy in its stead, whilst it simultaneously encountered our armies abroad in order to reconquer Texas! With such deplorable fatuity was Mexico misruled, and entangled in a double war upon the rights of her own people and against the United States. It was unfortunate that she fell at this crisis into the hands of a despot and drunkard, whose mind, perplexed between ambition and intemperance, gave a permanent direction to that false public sentiment, which Herrera had been anxious to convert into one of peace and good will towards the United States.

I have thus succinctly narrated the events that led to the war between the United States and Mexico. The annexation of Texas, without the previous a.s.sent of Mexico, may have annoyed that government. It was mortifying to patriotic pride, and we should laud the republic for manifesting a proper sensibility. But true national pride is always capable of manly and dignified opposition. It does not expend itself in bravado, petulance or querulousness. It does not a.s.sail by threats, but by deeds; and never provokes an attack until it is prepared to return the blow with earnest force. It is silent as the storm until it bursts forth in overwhelming wrath. All other kinds of resistance are nothing but miserable exhibitions of mortified vanity, and invoke the world's contempt instead of respectful compa.s.sion.

Our government, from the beginning, desired and attempted to allay excitement, whilst that of Mexico, revolutionary, disorganized and impotent as it was at home, and as it subsequently proved itself to be in the field of battle, did all it could to foment animosity between the two countries. This st.u.r.dy resistance of Mexico did not arise from prudence, patriotism or courage, but from intestine factions, exasperated by rival usurpers. Our efforts to make peace and establish a boundary upon the most liberal principles were rejected with disdain.[68] The authorities, basing their refusal upon a frivolous subterfuge of diplomatic etiquette, would not even hear our proposals, or receive our minister. Our presidents were disposed to concede every thing reasonable in negotiation that could have saved the honor of Mexico and placed our future relations on the salutary foundation of alliance.[69] Instead of meeting us with the pacific and compromising temper of our age, her demagogue chieftains stimulated the pa.s.sion and vanity of the mob, until the stormy natures of an ignorant people became so completely excited that they were unable to control the evil spirit raised by their wicked incantations.

Blundering onward and blinded by pa.s.sion, this unfortunate nation reminds us of that pa.s.sage in the aenead wherein the sightless giant is described:--

"Summo quum monte videmus Ipsum inter pecudes vasta se mole moventem Pastorem Polypheum, et littera nota petentem; _Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum!_

aenead, B. 3, v. 655.

FOOTNOTES:

[64] Mexico as it was and as it is--see original letter in 4th ed. p.

387.

[65] See Mexico as it was and is, 4th ed. p. 396--and Slidell's correspondence with our government. Senate doc. No. 337, 29th cong. 1st sess.

[66] See Mexico as it was and as it is, p. 400.

[67] Tributo a la verdad, Vera Cruz, p. 3.

[68] See Wheaton's Elements of international law. ed. of 1836, part 2d chap. 1, pp. 88, 89, 90, 91. On the right of interference of governments for the pacification of belligerent nations.

[69] Mr. Slidell was fully empowered to negotiate on liberal terms.

BOOK SECOND:

MILITARY OPERATIONS IN TEXAS AND ON

THE RIO GRANDE.

BOOK II.

MILITARY OPERATIONS IN TEXAS AND ON THE RIO GRANDE.

CHAPTER I.

Boundary of Texas defined by Almonte--Description of Texas--Rivers of Texas--Army of observation--General Taylor--Army of occupation--How formed--Difficulty of landing in Texas--Aransas bay--Army lands at St. Joseph's island--Kinney's rancho--Corpus Christi--State of the army during the winter--Sufferings of the troops--Alarms of war-- General Gaines's views--Necessity of ample preparation--Our first aggressive war.

The scene of our observation is now about to change from the cabinet to the field. The theatre of war properly attracts our attention, and the spot of earth which was the chief cause of dispute between Mexico and the United States, and where our armies a.s.sembled, justly demands our first notice.

Texas, until she attained the rank of an independent State, seems to have been almost an unknown country even to the Mexicans. This was natural for a people who are not essentially agriculturists, but pa.s.s their lives as herdsmen, miners, or merchants, and whose central government is far removed from its outposts.

In the year 1834, General Almonte was deputed by the Mexican authorities to visit this northern province, and prepare a statistical report upon its extent and character. According to this valuable doc.u.ment, Texas proper lies between 28 and 35 of north lat.i.tude, and 17 and 25 of longitude, west from Was.h.i.+ngton. It is bounded on the north by the territory of Arkansas; east by Louisiana; south by the Gulf of Mexico and State of Tamaulipas; and west by Coahuila, Chihuahua, and New Mexico. Almonte was informed, by the State government of Coahuila and Texas, that instead of the Rio de las Nueces forming the boundary between Coahuila and Texas, as the map denoted, the true limit commenced at the embouchure of the Rio Aransaso which it followed to its source, whence it continued by a direct line until it reached the junction of the Medina with the San Antonio, and thence proceeded along the eastern bank of the Medina to its source, terminating, finally, on the borders of Chihuahua. The territory comprised within these limits is estimated at near two hundred thousand square miles--a surface almost as extensive as that of France.[70] But, since Texas receded from the Mexican central government, these confines have been changed. By an act of her congress, in December, 1836, the boundary was declared to begin at the mouth of the Rio Grande, and thence to run up the princ.i.p.al stream of the said river to its source; thence due north to the 42 of lat.i.tude, and thence, along the boundary as defined in the treaty between the United States and Spain, to the beginning.[71]

The great body of the territory of Mexico is rich in upland vallies, extensive plains, n.o.ble mountains, fertile soil, beautiful groves, and rich mines, but it is almost entirely deprived of rivers, whilst Texas is singularly favored in this respect. On the east, the Gulf of Mexico affords her an extensive sea coast indented by the mouths of the Sabine river and lake, the Rio Naches, the Rio Trinidad, the Rio San Jacinto, Galveston bay, the Rio Brazos, Matagorda bay, the Rio Colorado, the Rios San Antonio and Guadalupe, Aransaso bay and the Rio Grande, besides numerous smaller streams that drain her soil and almost cover it with an interlacing network of water.

Texas presents to the traveller three distinct natural regions. Along the sh.o.r.es of the gulf from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, a flat country extends from thirty to one hundred miles in the interior, widening, towards its centre on the Colorado, and gradually diminis.h.i.+ng towards the Nueces. The sandy wastes and lagunes of the coast give place, at some distance in the interior, to a rich alluvial country, diversified by skirts of timber, insulated groves, and open prairies. A large portion of this part of Texas is described as being singularly free from those large collections of stagnant water, which, combined with a burning sun and prolific vegetation, create malaria in our southern States.

Westward of this level skirt, begins the rolling region. The land gradually swells in gentle undulations, "covered with fertile prairies and valuable woodlands, enriched with springs and rivulets." Farther westward still, these beautiful hills tower up into the steeps of the _Sierra Madre_, that great chain of gigantic mountains, which, broken at the junction of the Rio Grande with the Puerco, takes thence a north-easterly course, and enters Texas near the source of the Nueces.

These elevations are of the third and fourth magnitude, and abound with forests of pine, oak, cedar, and an extraordinary variety of shrubbery.

Wide vallies of alluvial soil, commonly susceptible of irrigation from copious streams in the highlands, wind through the recesses of these mountains and afford a delightful region for the purposes of agriculture. The table lands beyond these ranges have been but little explored, and still less is known of the northern region extending to the 42 of north lat.i.tude, as well as of that portion lying between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. But such, in brief, is Texas from the gulf to the mountains;--a country adapted alike to the planter, the grazier and the farmer, while it offers to commerce a wide extent of sea coast whose harbors may be made perfectly secure by the skill of modern science.[72]

I have already stated that in 1844 President Tyler stationed an army of observation under General Taylor, at fort Jesup, as soon as he negotiated the annexation treaty.[73] This corps, but poorly sheltered from the weather, and in an inhospitable climate, was, for a long time, left inactive on the banks of the Sabine. In midsummer of 1845, after the joint resolution was pa.s.sed, and when our difficulties with Mexico began to thicken, it was at length ordered to advance, under the same commander, towards the southern frontier of Texas. The army then consisted of but two regiments of infantry, one of dragoons, and a single company of artillery, in all about fifteen hundred efficient men.

As the climate was known to the sickly, the war department despatched only such an unacclimated force as was deemed absolutely necessary to protect a tropical region in the month of July, awaiting the colder months before its numbers were increased. This body was called the army of occupation, whose appointments seem to have been extremely imperfect.

"The dragoon regiment had just been formed from a rifle corps; half of its men were raw, undisciplined recruits, and many of them unable to ride, while their recently purchased horses were small, weak and undrilled. The infantry regiments were enfeebled by their long exposure, in miserable tents, to the withering heats and drenching rains of a low southern lat.i.tude; and the artillerists were without their guns. Towards the end of June, 1845, a company of the last mentioned arm of the service, equipped as infantry, at fort Moultrie, was ordered to New Orleans. This body, armed only with muskets, sailed from Charleston on the 26th of the month, and on its arrival in Louisiana on the 19th of July, found that it was destined for service in Texas. The instructions to the commanding officer informed him that his company was to be mounted and equipped as flying artillery for the campaign under Taylor; that horses would be sent him and a battery s.h.i.+pped from New York, upon the arrival of which he was to join his general at the mouth of the Sabine."[74] Fortunately for these troops they encountered General Taylor in New Orleans, though they were obliged to depart without their ordnance, which did not reach them for two months afterwards, while their horses were even still longer in attaining their destination.

The war in Texas, and the unsettled state of that country, had prevented the preparation of an accurate map, or indeed, even of a survey of the coasts or interior. It was difficult, therefore, to find any one in New Orleans acquainted with the harbors and rivers of the new State, or who was willing to incur the responsibility of directing the army's steps.

The topographical bureau at Was.h.i.+ngton had, with infinite pains and ingenuity, constructed a map of the country from the scant materials in its possession; but this chart has since been proved to be almost entirely useless as a guide.

However, after considerable difficulty, General Taylor procured a pilot for large wages, who professed a thorough acquaintance with the Texan waters, and a particular knowledge of his destination at Aransas bay.

This individual was immediately put in charge of one of the transports loaded with troops, and under his lead, the commander in chief sailed from New Orleans with three s.h.i.+ps and two steamers in search of the port of his disbarkation. The blundering pilot grounded his vessel among the breakers where it would inevitably have been wrecked, had it not been extricated by timely a.s.sistance, while the captain of another transport coasted the low sh.o.r.es of the gulf for several days, in sight of land, seeking an inlet, and when his s.h.i.+p was at length anch.o.r.ed off St.

Joseph's, he a.s.serted that it was the island of Espiritu Santo.[75]

This bay of Aransas was perhaps one of the most unsuitable for the disbarkation of troops on the coast of Texas, and was selected in utter ignorance of the country. Indeed we seem to have committed two great and often fatal errors in warfare when we contemplated hostilities with Mexico--first, in despising our foe; and secondly, in failing to inform ourselves of his country's geography.

Aransas bay lies between the south end of St. Joseph's and the northern point of Mustang island, quite close to the latter, and almost at right angles with the coast. It has a narrow but s.h.i.+fting sand bar at its entrance, upon which the depth of water varies according to the action of the winds. The bay is about twenty-five miles in length and twelve in width, but is obstructed by a shoal and a range of islands that traverse it.[76]