My Confession: The Recollections of a Rogue

Samuel Chamberlain was a boy from Boston with a grand sense of adventure.  He viewed himself as a romantic hero right out of the pages of a novel.  He wooed the ladies, clobbered the bullies, and traveled to his next adventure.  Is his autobiography just so much nonsense and self-promotion?  Oddly, a lot of it proved to be true.

Sam was an artistic lad whose father died when Sam was 14.  His wild streak began shortly thereafter.  Being more trouble than not, he went west to live with his uncle in Illinois.  Before long, he was fighting with his cousin, which caused his uncle to come at him with an axe!  Sam fled to Louisianna, where he became an accountant.  An affair with another man's wife sent him flying back to Illinois.  He had hardly arrived when there was a call for volunteers to go to war in Mexico.  Though only 16 years-old, Sam joined immediately.  He traveled to Texas with an Illinois Volunteer Regiment, but he didn't get along well with the command structure.  In San Antonio, he joined the Dragoons and found himself marching with General Wool to Monclova.  Being something of a hellion (his horse's name was Lucifer!), he found himself in several scrapes, sometimes with other troops, sometimes with Mexican guerrillas, and frequently on account of senioritas.

In December 1846, General Wool marched to support General Taylor at Saltillo.  There was a rumor that a grand army was marching north.  The army arrived in February and General Santa Anna attacked.  Samuel Chamberlain joined his first battle, the most epic one of the war: The Battle of Buena Vista.  The Dragoons didn't see a lot of action, but they were posted as sentinels during the breaks.  As action began on the 21st, expanded on the 22nd, and concluded on the 23rd, there was a need for lookouts during the nights.  Thus, Sam was posted between the two armies to be aware of night attacks.  Needless to say, he didn't get a lot of sleep.  It is a very different view of the battle where he spent much of it idle.

For the remainder of the war, he fought guerrillas and wooed the ladies.  When the war ended, he stayed in the service to head to California.  Halfway through the march, he deserted and joined a notorious band of scalp hunters.  Scalp hunters killed Apache and sold the scalps to Mexican authorities; it was a method of curbing the depredations that the Apache committed against the Mexicans.  Sam's tale of adventure ends in the California deserts between Yuma and the Salton Sea.

Like a good James Bond movie, Chamberlain had a new love interest in each adventure.  There was his true love in Boston, the woman met on the coach heading to Illinois, the girls at an all-girl school in Illinois, the married woman in Louisianna, and on and on.  Each is more beautiful than the last, but dreams of happily-ever-after are always foiled by circumstances.  Though the autobiography is built on actual incidents, his love life is almost certainly wishful thinking.

Chamberlain went on to become a general in the Civil War and lived until 1908.  Of note, his book and the many sketches and watercolors that accompanied it, was not published until 1956.  Doubtless, this book was an inspiration for George MacDonald Frazer's Flashman Papers.

Here is a great read with plenty of action, adventure, and romance.  Highly recommended.

Climax at Buena Vista

In this 1966 book, David Lavender tracks the paths taken by Zachary Taylor and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna to the epic battle at Buena Vista.  He details how Taylor established Camp Jessup on the Texas border as far back as 1821 and how Santa Anna himself had crossed La Angostura (the Mexican name for the narrows where the battle was fought) as far back as 1813.  In the wake of the annexation of Texas, Mexico and the United States had a diplomatic break and no effort by the US to cajole Mexico into negotiations worked.  So it was that Zachary Taylor was dispatched to the Rio Grande.  Both sides grew weary of the stalemate.  President Paredes ordered his army to attack the Americans.  Before President Polk even knew a battle had happened, he was composing his war message for Congress.  The war had begun.

While Taylor fought his way toward Buena Vista via the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterrey, Santa Anna had to smuggle himself back into Mexico.  He had been exiled in 1844 but the war offered opportunities.  He convinced Polk to let him through the blockade and he would negotiate.  Ha!  Once back, he assembled the largest army he could and marched north to crush the Americans.  Of course, it is entirely possible that Santa Anna was sincere when he made promises to negotiate but the political situation in Mexico would not allow it.  He was a man to capitalize on the currents rather than fight them.

Taylor heard rumors of a grand army but repeatedly dismissed them.  It would be impossible to march an army through the desert from San Luis Potosi.  The Mexicans had captured dispatches exposing the planned landing at Veracruz and it was more logical for Santa Anna to oppose General Winfield Scott's landing.  Even as more credible news arrived of a grand army approaching, Taylor dismissed it as overblown.  Boy, was he in for a surprise.  By the time he was convinced, it was almost too late when 15,000 troops appeared in the distance; Taylor had fewer than 5,000 troops.  Taylor abandoned his forward camp and raced back beyond the narrow pass at Buena Vista to secure his supplies and rear.  He left General John Ellis Wool to layout the planned battleground.

As Santa Anna assembled his troops, he requested Taylor's surrender.  Taylor declined.  Most of Taylor's regular troops had been taken for the landing at Veracruz.  He was left with mostly volunteer regiments; Taylor had long distrusted volunteer soldiers, but now his career - his life! - depended on them.  Luckily for Taylor, the Mexican troops were exhausted.  They had marched through the desert and were sent to battle with hardly a rest and hungry.  Santa Anna urged them on by saying the Americans had food aplenty if only we break through their lines.  And break the lines did!  The America left retreated before a strong Mexican press.  Jefferson Davis and his Mississippi Rifles, among others, plugged the hole and sent the Mexican Lancers back to their side of the line.

The battle began on February 22 and was resumed on February 23.  It was a very near thing.  In fact, Taylor fully expected to resume the battle the following day, but Santa Anna withdrew.  His troops were starving and exhausted.  Where the Americans had almost 300 killed and 400 wounded, the Mexicans had 600 killed, over 1,000 wounded, and nearly 2,000 missing (probably deserted).

Lavender does an outstanding job of leading both principal generals to the field of battle and detailing their epic clash.  A Mexican victory would have changed the war.  No other Mexican general could have assembled so great an army.  Polk had allowed the most potent threat against his war aims into the country!  Santa Anna came so close to victory.

Taylor was not a great tactician but he was a boon to troop morale.  His homespun demeanor and absolute fearlessness as bullets and cannon balls whizzed about him transferred to his troops.  He was unflappable.  After his first couple of battles, he was willing to hand off further fighting to General Winfield Scott.  However, then there was talk of him as a presidential candidate.  At first, he brushed it aside as nothing but as time went on, he warmed to the idea.  After he had captured Monterrey, he was sold on the idea.  This also made him see political machinations in everything thereafter.  President Polk was trying to ruin him, General Scott was out to sabotage him, Secretary of War Marcy was bypassing him.  He needed one more battle to cement his candidacy, but not as big as the one he got.

The book is absolutely terrific.  It is well-researched and makes for a gripping narrative of Taylor's part in the war.  Highly recommended.

Narrative of the Central Division

With the start of the Mexican-American War, the US needed more troops.  As was the practice at the time, volunteer regiments were recruited from the states.  These regiments would elect officers, which was not the best means of assembling battle-ready units.  One of the armies raised through this process was the Central Division, also known as the Army of Chihuahua.  Commanded by General John E Wool, the army reported to San Antonio, Texas.  Among the regular army units were units of the 4th Artillery (Captain Washington), 2nd Dragoons (Colonel Harney), 6th Infantry, and 30 pioneers (Captain Robert E. Lee).  The volunteers consisted of the Arkansas Cavalry (Colonel Yell) and four companies of Illinois volunteers.

The army departed San Antonio and made its way to the Rio Grande and thence to Monclova.  Here, they learned of General Taylor's capture of Monterrey and the armistice.  As such, the army wiled away the days in Monclova.  Moreover, the planned march to Chihuahua was nixed and the army was instead dispatched to Parras.  In mid-December, General Worth called upon Wool to reinforce him at Saltillo as Santa Anna was reportedly enroute with a grand army.  Of course, by the time the Central Division arrived, there was no sign of the Mexican Army.

Though it had no battles during months of marching and occupying, the Central Division had several false alarms, called stampedes by the men.  There were always rumors of Mexican forces, starting from the time they marched from San Antonio.  There was an expectation of fighting to cross the Rio Grande, a potential ambush on the road to Monclova, fears of attack while camped at Monclova (this one proposed that Santa Anna himself was spying in the camp while selling sugary treats to the soldiers!), rumors of entrenched forces on the march to Parras, encroaching armies while camped in Parras, etc.  This repeated pattern of stampedes led the army to discount the later rumor that Santa Anna was approaching with a grand army, which happened to be true.

With much of Taylor's army having been appropriated for General Scott's coming campaign to Mexico City, Santa Anna saw an opportunity.  He believed the mostly volunteer forces left to Taylor would be easy prey for his massive army.  It was a nail-biter of a battle, but the American's held Buena Vista and Santa Anna hurried south to meet Major General Scott's forces at Cerro Gordo.

The Army of Chihuahua, which failed to go to Chihuahua, was glad to have had a fight.  Not long after the battle, Colonel Doniphan and his troops arrived in Saltillo with an account of capturing Chihuahua.

The author, Jonathan Buhoup, was a member of the Arkansas Cavalry.  This is a much more detailed account than that of Harvey Neville, a member of the 2nd Illinois regiment, offering a view of the events on the march and some personalities of the officers and men.  Of particular note was the Cherokee who was a member of the Arkansas Cavalry.  His often humorous antics pepper the narrative.  By the end, I was more interested in the adventures of the nameless Cherokee than those of the Central Division.

Wool's March from San Antonio is usually little more than a footnote in most accounts of the Mexican-American War.  There were no battles and Wool maintained good relations with the local populace.  Wool's success as a commander led to an unremarkable march, at least as the big picture is concerned.  Buhoup provides lots of details that demonstrate this was a difficult and eventful march.  Though his prose is sometimes awkward and his frequent reference to 'our readers' should have been nixed by the editor, it is an entertaining and informative read.  Recommended.

Recollections of Mexico and Buena Vista

In January 1847, Lt. Henry Washington Benham arrived at the mouth of the Rio Grande.  The Mexican War had been ongoing for 8 months, the most recent battle being Monterrey (September 1846).  Benham found Major General Scott appropriating much of General Taylor's army, which he planned to use for his invasion by way of Vera Cruz.  Most of the troops left to Taylor were volunteers with limited training.  Benham was to join Taylor's weakened army and even weaken it further; he was to deliver orders to send yet another regular army artillery battery to Scott.

Benham joined a wagon train bound for Monterrey and found the teamsters to be a villainous bunch who created a lot of hard feelings among the locals.  Upon reaching Monterrey, Benham joined with Captain Thomas Sherman, an artillery officer, and departed for Saltillo.  The pair arrived at General Zachary Taylor's encampment in Agua Nueva in the first week of February.  Even then, there were rumors of a massive army on the way.  On the evening of February 20th, the approaching army was confirmed.  Taylor's base at Agua Nueva was indefensible and a hasty retreat was made to the pass at Buena Vista.

As a member of the engineers of fortifications, Benham soon found himself crisscrossing the planned battlefield.  He served as a courier and scout.  He provides an account of the battle that paints a picture of competing blunders.

First, Santa Anna dispatched his cavalry to the field, assigning them to his rightwing.  However, the US Army had barely begun to take positions.  Had the Mexican cavalry pressed down the road, it would have been an immediate victory.  In fact, Taylor was not even on the battlefield yet, having withdrawn to Saltillo the previous evening.

Second, O'Brien's battery was giving the Mexican army a drubbing and had cleared an area forward of its current position.  O'Brien set to move his guns forward.  However, the volunteer regiment that served as protection for the battery, mistook the connecting of guns with horse carts as a sign of retreat.  Soon, the volunteer regiment was in flight and the Mexican army pressed into the gap.  Only the advance of the Mississippi Rifles under Jefferson Davis, Captain Sherman's artillery, and May's Dragoon squadron averted disaster.

Third, nearly a thousand Mexican cavalry got lost in the smoke of battle and found themselves hemmed in and in serious threat.  At this moment, two Mexican officers proposed a parley.  This was a ruse that bought a brief one-sided ceasefire that allowed the Mexican cavalry to escape back to the Mexican lines.

Fourth, it appeared that the Mexican army was withdrawing.  Therefore, three volunteer regiments - constituting 1500 men - advanced.  The battlefield was a series of arroyos, thus requiring the advancing troops to descend into the arroyo before climbing to the opposite ridge.  Too late they discovered that the Mexicans had vanished into an arroyo and were now descending on them from the high ground or pressing them into the open where Mexican Lancers commenced to slaughter.  This time, O'Brien's battery was captured.  Of note, his guns were recovered some months later during Scott's campaign to Mexico City.

In his brief retelling of the battle, he has criticism of both Taylor - whom he lays the blame for the charge into the arroyo - and Wool - whom he states had ordered a suicidal cavalry charge but remanded it before it was begun.  He further accuses Taylor of nearly inducing a panic by ordering Washington's battery to be ready to retreat.

During the Civil War, Benham proved to be an unreliable subordinate, who repeatedly disobeyed orders.  With that in mind, how accurate is his retelling of Buena Vista.  He wrote his recollections in 1871, noting that it was the 24th anniversary of the battle.  It is also of note that he was top of his West Point class in 1837.  Did this color his views thereafter, that he was better than others?  Generally, his writing is clear and informative.  However, he has a habit of name-dropping (he seldom fails to mention all the officers at Buena Vista who went on to be generals in the Civil War) and reporting gossip (the blundering orders of Taylor and Wool).

A short and interesting read for any student of the Mexican-American War.

Life of Maj. Gen. John E. Wool

General John Ellis Wool was born and raised in New York.  In 1812, he joined the army on rumors of war with Great Britain.  Indeed, there was a war.  He took part in the Battles of Queenstown Heights (1812) and Plattsburgh (1814).  A taskmaster and stickler for detail, Wool was promoted to Inspector General of the Army after the war (1816).  In 1841, he was promoted to brigadier general.  When hostilities finally erupted on the Rio Grande in April 1846, General Wool was called upon to call up 12,000 volunteers from the states to reinforce the 3,000 regular troops of Taylor's Army of Occupation.  By August, he was in San Antonio, Texas to train many of those volunteers while the rest had been sent to the Rio Grande.  While General Taylor marched on Monterey, Wool set out for Chihuahua.  His march across the Rio Grande and thence to Monclava involved no battles.  When he arrived in Monclava, he received word that General Taylor had arranged a two-month armistice in the wake of capturing Monterey (Sept 24).  As such, Wool cooled his heels.  However, he was not idle.  He sent out scouts and discovered that his initial plan of capturing Chihuahua was pointless as the troops there had withdrawn.  He proposed joining Taylor.  Rumors of a grand army headed north resulted in an urgent call from Wool's forces.  He arrived in Agua Nueva by December 21, but there was no grand army.  However, that did not prevent him from surveying the region and deciding that the pass of Buena Vista would be the best place to defend should such an army arrive.  On February 21st, after most of the veteran soldiers had been sent to Tampico to join Major General Scott, Santa Anna arrived with 20,000 troops.  While Taylor marched back to Saltillo, he left Wool to arrange the defense at Buena Vista.  The most harrowing battle of the war then commenced, with Wool more often than not in command.  Indeed, Taylor's dispatches after the victory indicated that he was not present for the placing of forces or during a particularly ferocious attack by the Mexican Army.  In the aftermath of the battle, Wool became military governor of Saltillo and, when Taylor returned to the US, he was the commander of Northern Mexico until the war's conclusion.  He returned home to Troy, New York to the cheers of his fellow citizens.

This hagiography to Wool was published in 1851, a year after President Taylor had died in office.  The essay - only 30 pages in length - misses no opportunity to acclaim Wool, often at the expense of Taylor.  Where Taylor's volunteer regiments were a rabble that created guerillas among the Mexicans, Wool's were disciplined, and occupied territory peacefully and even received the gratitude of those occupied.  While Taylor was oblivious of the approach of Santa Anna, Wool had argued for a withdraw from Agua Nueva.  Indeed, it took Santa Anna's Army appearing in the distance to convince Taylor that Agua Nueva was a terrible battlefield when he was so outnumbered.  While Wool placed troops at Buena Vista, Taylor marched the most seasoned troops back to Saltillo to 'inspect the defenses.'  Amazingly, all of these claims are supported by General Taylor's reports after the fact.  Truly, it does appear that Wool won the battle in spite of Taylor's interference in strategy.  Of course, this victory cemented General Taylor's nomination for the presidency.

Had Santa Anna won at Buena Vista, he could have marched to Texas.  That may have resulted in the recall of Scott's invasion force to counter Santa Anna.  Such a reversal could have changed everything.  Where the victory made Taylor president, a defeat would have greatly extended the war and probably reduced the amount of territory the US finally secured.

A Diary of the Mexican War

In the summer of 1846, Harvey Neville joined the 2nd Regiment of Illinois Volunteers to fight in the Mexican-American War.  He was a First Lieutenant.  His regiment sailed from New Orleans to the Texas coast, being deposited at Port Lavaca in Matagordo Bay on August 1st.  From there, the regiment marched through Victoria and thence to San Antonio by way of Goliad.  The regiment remained in San Antonio from late August until mid-October.  Heading west, the regiment crossed the Rio Grande and made its way to Monclava, arriving in early November.  Five companies were left to occupy the city and the rest of the army continued south.  By early December, the regiment was stationed in Parras.  However, an urgent summons arrived from General Worth at Saltillo.  There was threat of a massive army coming from San Luis Potosi.  As such, Lt. Neville found himself on the march again.  By the 21st of December, the 2nd Illinois Regiment arrived to find no Mexican Army in the area.  However, over the next two months, there were constant rumors of a massive Mexican Army led by Santa Anna enroute.  On February 21st, Santa Anna arrived and the most harrowing battle of the war commenced.  In the wake of the battle, the 2nd Regiment remained in the area for the next 3 months.  In late May, with their 1-year enlistment set to expire, General Wool offered thanks and congratulations before sending them home.  With other volunteer regiments from Arkansas, Indiana, and Kentucky, the regiment marched to the Rio Grande, took boats from Matamoros to the Gulf, and finally boarded ships to take them to New Orleans.  Harvey Neville arrived home on July 12th, 1847.

At only 50 pages, this is a quick read.  Neville is not the best of reporters.  Though he discusses the quality of the soil, the variety of flora, the quality of the water, the dearth of rain, and the distances traveled over good or broken ground, he has little to say regarding his fellow soldiers or the Battle of Buena Vista.  He does not mention General Wool, who has commanded the brigade since San Antonio, except for his parting words when the unit was released.  The same is true of the regiment's colonel, William Bissel.  He does detail a few interesting events, such as the murder of an Arkansas volunteer, the burial ceremony for a soldier, the method of creating tortillas (this is a surprisingly common thing for diarists to describe), and the recent depredations of Comanche near Parras.  He also leaves large gaps in the narrative.  Though he arrived in San Antonio in late August, he offers nothing of his time there and just skips to the middle of October when the army set out.  Then there are a couple of weeks spent in Monclova without entries.  His time around Saltillo is a record of the weather or the latest war news from Scott's march toward Mexico City.

It offers a flavor of the era and gives the views of a man who must surely have been a farmer back in Illinois; who else would have been so concerned with soil quality, what plants grow, and amount of rain?