Mexico

( Originally Published 1898 )

POLK was not a great man; he might be called a small one, if the comparison is to be with such figures as those of Clay, Calhoun and Webster. He was elected by an unforeseen contingency, and seemed even less likely than Tyler to accomplish anything of importance. He was a disciple of Jackson, who still lived and talked at his Hermitage in Tennessee; he was a strict party man, and never entertained a thought of transcending the obligations which his election had imposed upon him. There was nothing striking in his character or physical appearance; he was a sober-looking individual in the neighborhood of fifty years of age, with plain manners and guileless habits—which included the national habit of tobacco chewing—and he was the husband of a lady who had strict ideas of religion and behavior. Such people might have been postmaster and postmistress of a small country town; blameless in their private lives, keeping up with current politics, observant of their routine civic and social duties. They were commonplace Americans. Polk was born in North Carolina and brought up on a Tennessee farm; he had been a member of Congress, and was industrious and trustworthy; he had tenacity of purpose, and could see clearly within his limited range; he had plenty of courage, and believed in his country, especially in the Democratic aspect of it. In short he was a good, honest business man, whose business was politics; and his unlooked-for elevation neither frightened him, nor made him vain. He looked upon it as a business contract, which he would proceed to carry out, on party lines, without fear or favor. He chose an able Cabinet, but was the master of it, and commanded its respect. Such a man is a proof, if any-thing can be, that any ordinary American of good character and political training can make a good President of the United States. And it may happen that, like Polk, the ordinary American will be the agent of events no less momentous than those which marked Polk's presidential career. We have just seen how great men may produce small results; we now see a small man produce great results—so far as an Executive can be said to produce anything.

But Polk was not only methodical: the plans that he made he carried out. Up to this time all the Presidents, from Washington down, had planned things which they did not execute; but Polk proposed to himself four special things, and he did them all during his four years of power. They were, reduction of the tariff, an independent treasury, the settlement of the Oregon boundary, and the Texan or Californian acquisition. That was a large contract for four years; but he carried it out. The changes he made in the civil service of course occasioned some dissensions; he alienated Calhoun and Tyler; but he could afford to do that; for Tyler was now nobody, and Calhoun was South Carolina only. Upon the whole, his appointments were judicious. In June, 1845, Jackson died, nearly eighty years old, pursued almost to the last by swarms of office-seekers who thought his word with the President would be conclusive. Polk, assuredly, had been his faithful disciple; but times were changing, and it is probable that Polk did quite as well without that autocratic power in the background.

The most pressing matter at the beginning of his term was the Oregon boundary. The United States had been the first, through Captain Grey, many years before, to discover the Columbia River; and with its discovery went the lands which it drained. But the British Fur Company had been collecting furs in the northwest region for generations, and the British government laid claim to everything in its usual high-handed and insolent manner. Our claim extended north to latitude 54° 40 the English would concede nothing above 49°. They wished to keep the country wild and uninhabited, in order to preserve their game; we wished to settle in it, and had been doing so for years ; and meanwhile a "joint occupation" had been agreed to, which was inconvenient, and admittedly temporary. Polk's inaugural ad-dress asserted our right to all Oregon; and the country took up the claim with the cry of "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!" Considering that we were on the brink of war with Mexico, this recalled our belligerent attitude at the time of the war of 1812, when we had debated whether we ought not to take on France as well as England. But though it was thought that England might fight for Oregon, it was not believed that Mexico would fight for Texas and California; an offer of money would satisfy her. If Congress had properly echoed the feeling of the country at this juncture, it is likely that war with England would have taken place. But Congress, the more it deliberated, grew the more moderate; and the messages of Polk were gradually toned down, till the final Congressional report became a practical basis for diplomatic negotiation. During the discussion, the influx of emigrants had been greaty increased, whereas the British only held fortified posts, and instead of making bona-fide settlements of their own, did all they could to put difficulties in the way of our emigrants, and did not hesitate to incite the Indians against them. But Buchanan was our Secretary of State; and he finally agreed to accept from Pakenham, the British minister, the boundary of 49°, with navigation of the Columbia for the Fur Company. It was less than our right, but for practical purposes it was quite as much as we could make use of.

After passing a new tariff bill, which reduced duties and assessed ad valorem, which was criticised by both Whigs and Democrats, but did not interrupt the prosperity of the country, the Mexican business came to the fore.

The war with Mexico was violently denounced at the time, and has often been condemned since; it gave James Russell Lowell a memorable opportunity to display his talent for satire and his command of Yankee dialect, in the Biglow Papers. The majority of New England people were never reconciled to it. The objectors make out a plausible case on paper, but the facts do not sustain them. The Mexicans were a semi-barbarous people, with whom no civilized association was possible; they conducted negotiations by massacre and murder, and in war mutilated the bodies of the slain. They were a cross between Spaniards and Aztec Indians, combining the least attractive features of both. Because a man is offensive, however, it does not follow that he has no rights; but the rights of Mexico in this affair are very dubious at best. When Texas revolted, she claimed the Rio Grande River as her Mexican boundary; and it is the natural geographical one. Mexico thereupon insisted on the river Nueces as their limit, a small stream about a hundred and fifty miles further east. It was this claim of theirs which was their only pretext for war. When Texas was annexed to us, her boundaries became ours; and General Taylor, who with a few thousand men had been for several months on the Nueces, crossed the disputed strip of ground, and took up his station on the Rio Grande, close to its mouth, on the American side. This was the extent of the provocation we offered to Mexico; we were on what we claimed as our own soil ; and our reason for being there was that the Mexicans were continually making border raids and murdering persons who were now American citizens.

Mexico, like all Spanish-American states, was continually subject to revolutions; and at this juncture Herrera, the President, was deposed in favor of a soldier, Paredes. Meanwhile Polk had endeavored to open negotiations with Mexico, with a view to settling the matter without blood-shed if possible; but Slidell, our envoy, was insulted, and returned.

Taylor occupied a fort twenty miles from Point Isabel, opposite the Mexican town of Matamoras on the Rio Grande. A large Mexican force was on the other side. General Ampudia, in command of the Mexicans, ordered him to retire within twenty-four hours. Taylor of course held his ground; but a few days later the Mexicans waylaid Colonel Cross outside the American lines, killed him, pounding out his brains, and stripped him of his uniform and arms. When he was missed from the American camp, Captain Thornton with a few horsemen was sent in search of him ; he also was ambushed and killed. This first blood of the war was shed on what could be reasonably claimed as American soil; and in a manner characteristically Mexican. "War exists," said Polk in his message, "and notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself."

After the killing of Captain Thornton, Taylor, leaving three hundred men in the little fort, went with the rest of his force to Point Isabel, where his supplies were stored. Having secured them, he set out on the return march the same evening, bringing ten cannon with him. At Palo Alto, the following noon, he was confronted by six thou-sand Mexican troops. Taylor had but two thousand; but he engaged his enemy, and by sunset had defeated him, with a loss of but nine men killed and less than fifty wounded ; for the Mexicans like the Spaniards, are poor marksmen on the field of battle, and cannot withstand civilized troops. Advancing the next day, Taylor found the enemy strongly reinforced and advantageously posted in a ravine flanked by chaparral. The fate of this battle hung on the Mexican artillery, which was well served; but Captain May, at Taylor's order, charged with his cavalry on the gunners and sabered them at their guns, but at the cost of half his men. General La Vega was captured in this charge, and, the infantry following it up, the Mexicans fled in haste. Taylor reached the fort and found it safe, though Brown had been killed in one of the assaults upon it. In all these contests, the dead and wounded who had fallen into Mexican hands had been uinformly stripped and mutilated.

It was in May, 1846, that these actions took place; before invading Mexico,. General Taylor waited for orders from Washington. But the government were taking a comprehensive view of the situation, and were moving both north and south of Taylor's position. Indeed, the expeditions of John C. Fremont to Oregon and California had begun in 1842, when there was no thought of doing more than investigating the nature of the great western country, with the intention, should it prove desirable, of making offers to Mexico for its purchase. This vast region belonged to Mexico by courtesy only; the Indians had better claim to it than she. She had never occupied it, in the sense of goverinng or protecting it; and the scattered inhabitants who dwelt isolated in its picturesque expanses could not by the most licensed imagination be regarded as a population. They were the feeble dregs of a decaying race, which at its best was ever hostile to progress and civilization; they were sunk in sloth and religious bigotry, and the mixture of ignorance, stupidity and obstinacy which they called pride was not more pathetic than absurd. Mexico was so weak and unstable that even within her own proper domain she was unable to insure any government a month's lease of power; and that she should pretend to control the stupendous realm lying west of the Rocky Mountains was preposterous. Nevertheless our government, anxious to keep far within the limits of reasonable obligations, aimed to make every concession which the most fastidious scruple could require. The American people were forcing the government's hand ; they were pouring across the mountains in ever-increasing numbers, and had already made the land American in all but name. It was necessary to provide against disorders arising from this source; for a free and enterprising body of emigrants cannot accommodate their ways and thoughts to the lifeless and obstructive usages of semi-barbarous degenerates, such as were these mongrel descendants of the red men and Spanish. That the "Greasers" should be overwhelmed was inevitable ; but it was our wish to afford them all possible compensation. Another element in the situation was the apparent intention of England to seize California for herself; to check this policy, with its sinister consequences, was the part of prudent and beneficent statesmanship. The impulse and the policy were national and non-partisan; conquest, in the ordinary sense, was not contemplated; at most, only a recognition of the fact that the horse is his who rides it. Fremont's surveys and his picturesque and stirring adventures were of great value, and made him personally popular; his romantic disposition gave color and character to what he did; and though, on one or two occasions, he was compelled by unforeseen circumstances to act up to the limit of his responsibility, no step that he took was other than honorable and sagacious.

But Fremont's third expedition was in 1846, when war between Mexico and the Uinted States was imminent. He found the Mexican governor, Castro, exercising tyrannical powers over the American emigrants, and admonished him to beware. Meanwhile Commodore Sloat, who at this time was too old for command, had been instructed to take possession of the port of San Francisco and other points during the continuance of the war. Sloat was timid about carrying out these instructions, fearing to involve himself in political complications; but upon their being reiterated, and in order to forestall the English Admiral Seymour, he finally received the surrender, without bloodshed, of San Francisco, Monterey, and the other ports on the coast. He sailed for home a few weeks later, and was succeeded by Stockton, a younger man, of more energy and resource, with whom Fremont could co-operate.

History sometimes imitates, if it do not repeat itself; and we can find in this Mexican war many similarities to that with which we engaged with Spain fifty years later. Polk, like McKinley, was a man of peace, and his Cabinet were of the like complexion; but war forced itself upon them. The Mexicans were never successful in any engagement, and never had a chance of success in the objects for which they fought; we continually offered them the opportunity of negotiation with a view to peace, and never struck a blow until after it was certain that nothing short of a blow would suffice; but the Mexicans, with the mulish and unreasoning obstinacy which took the place in them of patriotism and courage, insisted upon continuing the contest in the face of inevitable disaster. Thousands of their soldiers were killed to flatter the blind vanity or greed of their commanders; and thousands of square miles of territory were lost to Mexico, which might have remained hers had her leaders been truly patriotic. But the terms of peace we finally allowed her were ridiculously lenient, and she owes it to our clemency, and not to herself, that she exists as a distinct people to-day. The case has been the same with Spain, though her power of resistance has proved even less than that of Mexico. But the Spanish nature is a kind of disease, which has long afflicted the human race, and is now happily on the verge of final extinction.

As a means of averting the conflict, the government entered into negotiations with Santa Anna, who was a refugee in Cuba, offering him safe conduct to Mexico, where the brief government of Paredes was already tottering, on the understanding that he use his influence with the nation for peace. He came accordingly; but once he was in the saddle, he abjured his promise and became a more aggressive leader of the war. Upon learning this, in October, the government was fain to issue orders for the raising of volunteer troops; and the response was enthusiastic: six times as many offering themselves as were required. So far as the people were concerned, the war was popular; though it is to be observed that the majority of the volunteers, as might have been expected, were from the Southern states.

General Kearney now set out from Fort Leavenworth, on the Missouri border, and led a thousand men south-westward along the Arkansas River to Santa Fe, a march of nine hundred miles; it was the outpost of New Mexico, and submitted without resistance. After taking measures for the organization of a government here, Kearney continued his march southward, along the western slopes of the mountains, till he was met by the famous scout, Kit Carson, who had been with Fremont, and who informed him that the latter had brought California to subjection. He sent the greater part of his troops back, but himself kept on with a small force on horseback to the Pacific, his goal being San Diego, on the coast. The main body, under Doniphan, marched south to Chihuahua, on the other side of the Rio Grande, fighting their way against largely superior numbers, and capturing the town, with forty thousand inhabitants. Doniphan effected a junction with Wool, who had brought a force of three thousand undisciplined troops from San Antonio, drilling them by the way, until at the end of the march they were seasoned veterans. The union of the two forces was effected at Saltillo, south of Chihuahua, near which place Taylor had by that time penetrated. Doniphan's men, on the expiration of their terni, marched to New Orleans, and were disbanded, having traversed in all five thousand miles within twelve months.

Though there was no lack of men anxious to fight Mexico, there was a strong opposition to the war on the part of many politicians and theorists. The same causes which had operated against the admission of Texas—fears of the extension of slavery—were active now; and there is no doubt that the slave states would willingly have seen their institution established in the new country. In consequence, the elections showed a tendency to the return of Whig influence; and when money was asked for by the government for the purchase of Mexican claims, a proviso was tacked to the bill stipulating that all land bought with such money should be closed to slavery. The proviso, called after Wilmot, who introduced it, met with angry opposition ; but it was popular in the North, and was heard of later. Slavery or no, the war must be carried on, and Congress passed the necessary measures. The government, which desired to get all the credit for the war that was possible, from political motives, were embarrassed by the fact that no Democratic generals were available; both Taylor and Winfield Scott were Whigs. Benton might have been used, for he had seen service before becoming a statesman; but there were technical difficulties in the way of his appointment, even had he been certainly competent to discharge his military duties. The President had to make the best of it; and after all, if the war were Democratic, it was perhaps to his advantage that it should be carried on by Whig officers. But the rivalry of parties was very keen; and the admission of Iowa and Wisconsin as free states did not lull the apprehensions of the anti-slavery section.

The majority of our population probably regarded the war as an outward incident of the spontaneous expansion of the nation over the continent. There could be no question of the spontaneity of that expansion, and there was no means of checking it. It was in 1846 that the Mormon emigration, which had started from Missouri under its prophet, Joseph Smith, in 1842, and had tarried for some years in Illinois, building the City of Nauvoo, came under the guidance of the new prophet, Brigham Young, to Utah, where they founded their present abode. Smith had been arrested in Illinois for breaking the laws of the state, and had been taken from jail and shot by the mob. This singular sect, known to the world chiefly as advocates of polygamy, made many converts, and exercised great influence; and their settlement in the far west undoubtedly helped the general tendency in that direction. They were fortunate in their leaders; Smith was as sure he was right as was Mohammed centuries before, and his belief in himself, and the odd circumstances which he imported into his propaganda, won him disciples; while Young was a man of great ability, and a master of discipline and organization. He made the desert into an Eden, and the great city which he built is now, since its peculiar shadow of polygamy has been re-moved, the center of a growing civilization.

Scott and Taylor were both Virginians, and, as has been said, both Whigs; but here all likeness between them ceased. Scott was a martinet, a pompous and irritable man, vain as a peacock, fond of dress and display, arrogant and domineering ; a man who could never win the personal affection of his officers and men, though they might respect him as an able and far-seeing general, which he certainly was. Physically he was a striking figure, towering a head and shoulders above the rest of the army; and in his plumed hat and showy uniform, mounted on his charger, he was the type of Mars come to earth. He was jealous and ambitious, finding great difficulty in conceding merit to any other soldier in the army; and his ambition had long aimed at the Presidency. Taylor, on the contrary, was of medium height, and in all respects as homely as Scott was handsome. His sobriquet was "Rough-and-Ready," and it suited him well. He had no graces of culture; his speech was rude and ungrammatical; he abhorred conspicuousness in attire or anything else; his manners were kindly and democratic, he was fond of his soldiers and looked personally after their welfare; and their devotion to him was confirmed by the fact that he was a great fighter, and absolutely free from fear; he would loll in his saddle, and crack jokes, in the midst of a rain of bullets and cannon balls that would have stiffened and sobered any other man whom they did not frighten. Scott was brave enough, as had often been proved in the past, though he had once avoided a duel; but his ideas of military propriety kept him from needlessly exposing himself; he remained grandly in reserve, and sent his subordinates to the front. In his conduct of this war, he never made an error, and his exploits were almost as brilliant as Taylor's; but he could not gain the love of his soldiers, nor was the impression he produced at home comparable to his rival's, who was immediately understood and liked as a true American type of the good old simple sort : unpretending, sagacious, humorous, and grit all the way through. It was not long, as we shall see, before this feeling for Taylor declared itself in a very practical manner.

Scott was commander-in-chief of the army. But the outbreak of the war had found Taylor at the front; and the first news from him indicated that his little force was in some danger. Scott expected to be sent with a large army to take the lead in the campaign, his idea being to make a maginficent tour down the Mississippi, with the admiration of the world upon him, and then to cross the Rio Grande and shrivel up the Mexicans. But as soon as Democratic politicians perceived the significance of this intention, and realized that Scott was playing for other stakes than mere victory in war, they remonstrated with the President, and Polk was obliged to intimate that he contemplated making other arrangements. To clinch the matter, news was now received that Taylor was safe, having, beyond all expectation, beaten his enemy without assistance. Scott was very angry, and allowed his irritation to appear in letters which made the people laugh, but not on his side. Taylor was promoted to be major-general, and the conduct of the campaign was intrusted to him. He was gratified, so far as this favor showed that the people appreciated his efforts; but he was not disposed to rely very far upon the smile of the Democratic government, and felt that were he to fail their support of him would be withdrawn. In fact, the men and supplies of which they were lavish on paper were not always forth-coming in real life, and he had to do the best he could with what he had.

His proceedings on the Rio Grande have already been outlined. The general first in command of the Spanish forces, Ampudia, had quickly been superseded by Arista, but with no favorable results so far as the Mexican army was concerned; the Americans were better disciplined and commanded, and their morale was perfect; while man for man they were of course immensely superior; their only deficiency was in numbers.

At odds of nearly three to one the battle of Palo Alto was fought and won; but Arista, though retreating, seems to have shared the delusion which we have lately observed in the Spanish in Cuba, that the Americans would not pursue. But Taylor, anxious for the safety of his fort, kept steadily on, and overtook the enemy at Reseca de Palma, in a formidable position. But as before, the charge of our troops was irresistible, and once in retreat, and their fear of their own officers forgotten, the flight of the Mexicans was headlong. Spanish courage is like the spurt of a match; it comes and is gone again in a moment, and if that moment does not decide the contest, all is over for them. The Mexican government, still following the Spanish fashion, court-martialed Arista, whom it never should have appointed to such a command.

These brilliant little victories sent Taylor's name all over the Union, and he was already spoken of for the Presidency. He, however, thought of nothing but attending to the work in hand; and was soon advancing upon Matamoras. Arista fled without attempting a battle; and Taylor took possession and treated the inhabitants well. For a time he paused, while reinforcements were on the way, and the political squabbles in Washington, which always occur on such occasions, and which appear so contemptible in the retrospect, were being fought out. The line on which Taylor was now advancing could not reach the City of Mexico; the attack on that should be made by way of Vera Cruz, as Taylor himself pointed out; his duty, meanwhile, would be to push on to Saltillo via Monterey, cutting the Mexicans' line of communications. But in carrying out this programme he was hampered in various ways : the inhabitants had few supplies, and sold them dear; transport was difficult in the rough country, and the short term volunteers would be ready to go home just when they were most wanted. How-ever, by the end of July he was joined by General Worth, their united army numbering between six and seven thou-sand, three thousand of whom were regulars. Taylor reached a small town twenty miles from Monterey on the 15th of September. Monterey was occupied by ten thou-sand Mexicans under Ampudia, who had again superseded Arista, but who was almost equally cowardly and incompetent. The defenses of the town were very strong, and so was its natural position along a river, with heights be-hind. Taylor decided to make his main attack on the west; but he began by a strong feint on the east under Garland, which was only partially successful, and was accompanied by severe loss from the enemy's well-posted artillery. But Worth had had better fortune on the west, carrying with small loss the heights on that end of the town, and cutting off the enemy's supplies and reinforcements on the Saltillo road. During the next two days, it was to Worth that the laboring oar was necessarily given, and in a series of magnificent attacks, he won position after position, and finally swept down the heights, driving the foe before him into the town. Ampudia, terrified by this advance, shrunk within his inmost defenses. Taylor had not yet established communication with his victorious subordinate, with a view to combining an attack; but it was not necessary; for Worth kept advancing, fighting his way from street to street, until he planted his guns in a position whence he could throw shells into the central square in which the Mexicans were huddled in stupid consternation. Fortunately for them, night put a stop to the attack; and before it could be resumed the next day, Ampudia sent a flag of truce. The Mexicans, in treating for surrender, showed precisely the same imbecility which we see displayed by the beaten Spanish commanders in the Cuban war; they would sooner perish with the city, they declared, than evacuate as paroled prisoners of war. And Taylor, like our contemporary generals, was perhaps overindulgent; he loved not slaughter for its own sake; and finally agreed to let them march out with small arms, a battery, and twenty-one rounds of ammunition. Mexican "honor" was satisfied, and Monterey, with its guns, munitions and stores, passed into our possession.

There were no eager newspapers with their daily bulletins and their army of war correspondents, in those days; but there seems to have been present at this battle a gentleman connected with the "Louisville Courier," who was moved to write to that newspaper in the following terms, which we may compare with the style of half a century later. "In the midst of the conflict," he writes, "a Mexican woman was busily engaged in carrying bread and water to the wounded men of both armies. I saw the miinstering angel raise the head of a wounded man, give him water and food, and then bind up the ghastly head with a handkerchief she took from her own head. After having exhausted her supplies, she went back to her house to get more bread and water for others. As she was returning on her errand of mercy, to comfort other wounded persons, I heard the report of a gun, and the poor innocent creature fell dead. I think it was an accidental shot that killed her. I would not be willing to believe otherwise. It made me sick at heart; and, turning from the scene, I involuntarily raised my eyes toward heaven, and thought, Great God ! is this war? Passing the spot the next day, I saw her body still lying there, with the bread by her side, and the broken gourd, with a few drops of water in it—emblems of her errand! We buried her; and while we were digging her grave, the cannon-balls flew around us like hail. "--It seems as if fifty years were scarce enough to mark the abyss which stretches between whipsyllabub of this kind, and the terse, stern telegrams which tell us of war nowadays. One can imagine the sweep of the blue pencil in a modern newspaper office upon receipt of such a communication.

The victory of Monterey had a somewhat illogical result —from the strictly military point of view. Taylor was deprived of a large part of his command, and left to face the enemy with a remnant, at a moment when the latter was reinforced to the amount of twenty thousand men, and was commanded by the ablest of the Mexican generals, Santa Anna. Owing, moreover, to what must be supposed to have been an accident, a duplicate of the communication from General Scott, informing Taylor of this depletion, was allowed to fall into Santa Anna's hands; so that the Mexicans were encouraged to attack a foe whom they already heavily outnumbered.

What was the explanation of this change of commanders and of the plan of campaign? As regards the latter point, the attack on Mexico City by the Vera Cruz route was judicious; the city could not have been reached from Taylor's position, as he had himself pointed out. For the rest, we must seek the reason in the intrigues of politics, and in the professional jealousy and selfishness of Scott. The Democrats in Congress saw in Taylor's successes a menace to their own continuance in power, and feared that a continuance of them would make the old general Polk's successor.

Their only defense against this danger was so to weaken him in the field that he would either be obliged to retreat, or, if he engaged, would be defeated. Scott, ordinarily a man of honor, was seduced by his ambition into aiding this unsavory plot. But all parties to it were ashamed of their own work, and also fearful lest the country, getting wind of it, should condemn them; so instead of ordering Taylor, frankly, to put himself under the orders of his ranking superior, they tried to hoodwink him and obscure their true purposes; and Scott, rather than brave a personal interview with Taylor, which the etiquette and courtesy of the service demanded, put him off with letters and excuses, and committed the gross breach of decorum of giving orders directly to one of Taylor's subordinates. Taylor saw through the whole ignoble transaction, and was bitterly mortified and indignant. Almost any other commander—certainly, Scott —would have resigned his place; but Taylor showed a greatness of soul worthy of Washington himself. He held his peace, went ahead with his duty, and, with a force which after his junction with Worth amounted to less than a quarter of that under Santa Anna, prepared to meet the latter at Buena Vista. Such patriotism and magnainmity some-times meet reward even in this world.

In a gorge of the mountains a high plateau was protected front and rear by ravines, while a connecting ridge joined it to higher ground commanding the roads. On this plain Taylor drew up his force. Santa Anna sent him a grandiloquent summons to surrender on pain of annihilation. Taylor curtly declined. It was the anniversary of the birthday of Washington, February 22, 1847.

Santa Anna thought it best to defer the annihilation of the Americans until the next day; and meanwhile Taylor rode back to Saltillo, in his rear, to provide for its safety. Before he could get back in the morning the battle had begun. Ampudia was attacking our left with strong support, and an Indiana regiment of volunteers was giving way in disorder. Taylor brought two regiments and Braxton Bragg's artillery to their support, turned back the enemy, charged, and reoccupied most of the ground which had been given up. Santa Anna, with his superabundance of men, attacked in front and on either flank; but his soldiers, as soon as the bubble of their audacity, blown up by their own boastings, had been pricked by American resistance, betrayed the cowardice which is deep in the heart of all men of Spanish race, and could not be led to the attack again. A strong detachment made a detour to capture our baggage ; but were hurled back with heavy loss by the volunteers of Kentucky and Arkansas, assisted by May's cavalry charge. At the end of the day, the enemy's attack had failed at all points; our troops bivouacked where they were, and the next morning Santa Anna with the remains of his vainglorious army had disappeared. Our total loss was about seven hundred; but not more than half of Santa Anna's force reassembled at San Louis Potosi, whence he had set forth. Those who were not killed, wounded or prisoners had deserted.

This victory ranks with the great battles of history; and none of the combatants comes out of it with quite so much credit as Taylor himself ; he was in the thick of it all the time, saw everything, provided against everything, placed the troops where they would do the most good, sent sup-ports at the moment they were needed, and inspired the men to fight like heroes under every trial. A strategy board, sitting at home, would have decided that Taylor must be beaten; but the homely old warrior was willing to do his best first; and his best proved more than good enough for four times his number of Mexicans, led by their best generals. There were many brilliant exploits during the war, but none to equal this ; and when Taylor fired his last gun he had—though he was far from being aware of it at the time—burst open the doors of the White House at Washing-ton. Zack Taylor, betrayed by his government and wronged by his fellow commander, was the coming President of the United States. The news of his wonderful victory reached home just at the right moment, when all were expecting to hear of his defeat. The country knew that he had been foully dealt with, and its joy at his success was doubled on that account. His most malignant enemies at Washington dared not attempt to check the torrent of enthusiasm; and Taylor was and he remained the popular hero from that hour until his death. The detachment taken from his army, by which our Secretary of War, Marcy, had hoped to cripple him, accomplished nothing; its ostensible purpose had been to besiege Tampico on the coast; but Perry had taken it be-fore Patterson, with the detachment, arrived, and the latter was able only to garrison it. But meanwhile Scott, in pursuit of glory for personal ends, was making a gallant record along the road to Mexico City.

Distrusting the sincerity of the favor which had put him forward, but resolved to take advantage of it to the utmost, and profiting by the revelation of the incompetence of the enemy which Taylor's campaign had afforded, Scott sailed from New Orleans and landed at Vera Cruz with twelve thousand men. His regulars were led by Worth and Twiggs, his volunteers by Patterson; and a host of smaller fry, mostly Democratic political generals anxious to forward their fortunes, made up the list. On the 9th of March, after the most anxious preparations for a strong resistance from Santa Anna, who had just been annihilated by Taylor, though Scott did not know it, the latter got his men ashore on a smooth sea without the loss of a life, and was ready to begin the siege of the castle and fortifications.

From Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico is a distance of about two hundred miles in an air line, and the capital is raised above the sea about a mile and a half. The road to it, defended by brave and intelligent troops, could be held against the world in arms. But these wretched people were divided among themselves, and were bewildered and terrified by the sight of an invading army. Juan Morales, commanding at Vera Cruz, had forty-five hundred men under him; but he could get no reinforcements, and depended on holding out till that favorite ally of Spanish Americans, the yellow fever, should fight on his side. His position was of immense strength; but his artillery was poor, and what was more to the purpose, his soldiers were Mexicans. Scott had one eye on politics and the other on his army; but the result was good; he determined to risk nothing by assault, but to proceed by the regular operations of a siege. Commodore Perry deployed his ships so as to assist him, and the bombardment began on the 23d of March, after Scott had offered to allow the non-combatants to withdraw—an offer which Morales had characteristically refused. But the next day this proud commander caused the foreign consuls to make a request for a truce, while the withdrawal might take place; but Scott would now entertain the proposal only in case Morales himself should proffer it, with a. view to surrender; and meanwhile he opened another battery. This was too much for Morales, who, too cowardly (or as Spanish ethics interpret it, too proud) himself to sue for terms, handed the command over to a subordinate to do it for him. We have seen precisely the same subterfuge adopted of late at Santiago de Cuba. Scott was not particular on that point; the city and fort were surrendered, the garrison being allowed to march out with the honors of war.

After waiting for transport, the advance was made in April, and no resistance was met with until our army reached Cerro Gordo, in the mountains. Here Santa Anna, who had recovered his volatile spirits after Taylor's chastisement, was arrayed with ten thousand men. His proclamation to the Mexicans announced that triumph or death was the alternative he proposed to himself. Three days later he was in headlong flight, leaving even his wooden leg be-hind him. But in Spanish philosophy, a word is as good as a blow, and they take as much credit for saying they will be heroes, as others do for being so.

Santa Anna's position, indeed, was theoretically impregnable, and was defended with elaborate works and ample artillery. His main force was in the pass of Cerro Gordo, a steep mountain ascending from the river's bank; the road passes through the ravine to Jalapa above. The hilltops had been fortified; Santa Anna's right was protected by a precipice; but his extreme left could be turned by the almost impossible feat of scaling Cerro Gordo itself. Twiggs, how-ever, succeeded in accomplishing this, thereby gaining the rear of the enemy's main force, between the latter and Jalapa. Resting behind the shelter of the peak during that night, while heavy guns were brought up, Twiggs then joined in a general assault, which Scott had planned in de-tail, and which was carried out just as he had designed. Pillow kept the enemy busy on the right, Riley engaged the center, and Shields took the left in front; and Colonel Harney, of Twiggs's division, clambered up an ascent which hardly afforded foothold, in the face of a heavy -fire, and carried the intrenchments on the summit with the bayonet. The enemy gave way everywhere, and when the cavalry started in pursuit, the rout was complete. Several thou-sand Mexicans escaped with Santa Anna and Ampudia by the Jalapa road just before Twiggs was able to get down to intercept them; but their losses were very heavy; our own was four hundred and fifty men.

Santa Anna arrived with his shattered army in Mexico City; but although he knew that further resistance was vain, his desire to hold the reins of government prompted him to deceive his countrymen with audacious falsehoods, and stimulate them to defend the City. The approaches were accordingly well fortified; and the arrival of a clerk of the War Department at this juncture, with ambiguous messages to Scott, and a sealed packet of unknown con-tents for the Mexican government, irritated the American general with the idea that the fruits of his victory were to be stolen from him The packet turned out to contain the offer of a treaty on a money basis ; Santa Anna made it the pretext of delays, and finally told the clerk that he could not venture to appoint peace commissioners until the American army had carried one of his defenses at Mexico City. By the time this conclusion was reached, Santa Anna's preparations were complete, and Brigadier-general Franklin Pierce, a New Hampshire Democrat, just appointed, arrived to reinforce Scott with twenty-five hundred men. It was August, and four months had been frittered away, to the profit of the enemy.

Proceeding from Pueblo, Scott, marching in four divisions, came in sight of the plain on which the city stands about the middle of the month. After reconnoitering the fortifications, Scott decided to attack on the left, which Santa Anna fancied to be impregnable. Fighting began at the suburb of Contreras, where Santa Anna himself was driven back and the works captured, with the road on that side to the city. At Cherubesco, another outlying hamlet, with a stone convent by way of citadel, a severe engagement took place ; Twiggs was finally assisted by Worth and Pillow, who had been successful at the village of San Antonio ; the outworks were carried, and the convent surrendered. In this action, General Pierce, who had been wounded in the foot the day before, had his horse shot under him : the wounded foot was caught beneath the horse; the general fainted from pain, and was carried from the field. The total losses of the enemy were seven thousand killed, wounded and prisoners, with three times as many cannon as the invaders had brought with them. The total number of Mexicans engaged was twenty-seven thousand, while Scott had less than half as many; he lost a thousand killed and wounded.

In compliance with orders from Washington not to conquer the enemy too much, Scott forbore to enter the city at once as he might have done, and offered to receive tenders of surrender. Santa Anna, however, had resources of rascality and duplicity which Scott had not fathomed; and was ready to ruin his country, or to accept the bribes which he hoped to secure from our government, as circumstances might dictate. After the American commissioners had stated our terms of peace—a sum of money, and the cession of Texas, New Mexico, and Upper California—Santa Anna replied by offering to sell Texas east of the Nueces, and to cede so much of California as was above the latitude of San Francisco; requiring of us, in return for these favors, the payment of all Mexico's expenses in the war, the restoration of all forts which we had captured, and a solemn promise never hereafter to attempt to annex a foot of Mexican territory. Such was our reward for treating men of Spanish blood with consideration. While the negotiations were in progress, the Mexicans had violated the terms of the truce, and were repairing and strengthening their fortifications.

But this tricky and profligate adventurer had overestimated the power of mere politics in America; he had left the American people out of account. His impudent proposal had been a bid for more money; but Scott admonished him that hostilities would be resumed at once. On the 8th of September Worth destroyed a powder magazine at the base of the fortified hill of Chapultepec; but as no attempt was made on this occasion to capture Chapultepec itself, the Mexicans hailed it as a victory, and gave medals to the heroes who had crouched behind the castle walls while Worth was carrying off the powder. On the following days Scott attacked the defenses of the city, which were strong enough to have defied any assault had they been defended by men of courage. On the 12th of the month Chapultepec was bombarded; on the 13th it was carried by assault ; the terrified Mexicans actually leaping down precipices in their mad rush to escape. In a roaring mass of confusion the huge throngs of the flying enemy crowded into the city, of which at the end of the day Scott occupied two gates ; but during the night Santa Anna stole out on the other side, and was personally safe. He had played for a large stake, trusting that others were as base and corrupt as himself; it was almost his last appearance in history. For although, years after, he succeeded for a moment in snatching once more the reins of power, he was almost immediately overthrown; and, after long exile, he died at last, a neglected and despised outcast, at the age of eighty-one, in the city he had betrayed and abandoned. He was a typical Mexican; but one of the worst, as well as one of the cleverest, of his type.

After he had been ousted from the government which he had unlawfully seized—if law could have any application to the Mexico of that era—denounced by his own late subjects as a traitor and robber of the public treasury, the treaty of peace was concluded by Scott, with terms which showed every desire to be just and tolerant to the vanquished. In consideration of the large amount of territory taken, we agreed to pay Mexico fifteen million dollars, a fifth of this upon signature of the instrument. The boundary line agreed upon was as specified in our earlier proposals, and as it now appears on our maps; and time to remove, and protection, were accorded to the inhabitants of the ceded provinces. So far as Mexico was concerned, the proceedings were over, and we had shown ourselves more lenient than the customs of war would have warranted; though of course no American desired the annexation of Mexico itself, with its undesirable population. But Scott had still other battles to fight with his own Democratic subordinates; which resulted in his ordering Worth and other officers under arrest, pending charges brought against them; but the War Department directed these charges to be preferred at home, and they resulted in a virtual acquittal. Before this time there had been an immense quantity of Whig and Democratic talk in Congress anent the war, little of which was sincere; but the critics of the war were upon the whole less sincere than were its defenders. The moral issues which they sought to raise were absurd ; the real point of dispute, more or less cunningly disguised, was as to the admission into the conquered district of slavery. Should the Missouri Compromise line be run to the Pacific, or should the entire new region be open to slaves? This was a pregnant question; it was compromised for a time by Clay, as we shall see; but meanwhile the Wilmot Proviso served to formulate the issue before the country. The slavery dispute was rushing fiercely to its issue, and men were divided between the passions which it excited, and their wish to avoid a fatal rupture. The greatest states-men of the country were to lavish their best thoughts and energies upon the problem, and after all the knot was to be severed by the sword.

At present, it became evident that the Democrats were losing. The Whigs had been helped by the fact that after the Mexicans had been proved unable to effectually resist us, the war lost most of its interest for the people; the result seemed known beforehand, and the details were monotonous if not tedious. The Mexicans were called patriotic because they so prolonged the peace arrangements, when in truth the delay was due partly to the selfish designs of their officials, and partly to the latter's fear to take the responsibility of negotiating at all. When the peace was established, the Whigs charged that the Democrats had waged the whole war in the interests of slavery; and in the inflamed state of men's minds, even so extravagant an accusation as this was allowed to pass. But the strongest argument for the return of the Whigs to power was the prospect of electing Zachary Taylor to the Presidency; he could unite both parties as no one else could, since his own party predilections were any-thing but bigoted, and he was the hero of the war, whether the war were right or wrong. "I beat 'em at Buena Vista" was all the politics he needed for his election. Yet his victories were not his only qualifications for the Presidency by any means; and the American people had divined that the man who had won such battles over not only the enemy, but himself, was able to make the office of Executive respected.

There was a dwindling Whiggish minority, however, who clung to their ancient idol Henry Clay, who had become a farmer since his retirement, and had experienced religion. Horace Greeley, through his "Tribune," represented these patterns of constancy; and the famous old leader, now seventy years old, was induced to make a speech at Lexington, Kentucky, denouncing the war, abusing the Democrats, and advocating "the virtues of moderation and magnanimity:" The veteran's eloquence was almost as bright as ever, but he could no longer move the people by exhortations and attacks of this kind. It was observable that though the Whigs had constantly abused the war while it lasted, they had not ventured to stop supplies. They wanted both the moral advantage of having opposed it, and the concrete benefits it would secure. Webster himself would commit himself to nothing further than general disapproval. In the House, a new member, Abraham Lincoln, made an able speech analyzing the Democratic professions; but it had no serious effect. The remonstrances of the aged but still fiery John Quincy Adams had more weight; but just before the news of peace came, Adams, in his place in the House, was stricken by death; he lingered from the 21st to the 23d of February, but his last conscious words were uttered within a few minutes of the attack : "This is the last of earth," he said; "I am content." He might well be content; he had lived eighty years, had served his country all his life, and had never done an ignoble deed. From his funeral the House returned to give its approval to the treaty of peace; and now the question must be decided, How was this new world to be divided, as between the slaveholders and the free? Peace with Mexico was the begininng of civil war in the United States.

Pending that decision, Oregon was admitted as a territory, under the Wilmot Proviso, though, as Polk remarked, the Missouri Compromise was a sufficient protection in itself. Clayton of Delaware proposed that new territory should be slave or free according to the decisions of the Supreme Court; but this "Clayton Compromise" was not approved, though Jefferson Davis, among others, advocated it. It was thought that the platforms of the national conventions would shed light upon the problem; but the Whig convention, after nominating Taylor and Fillmore in preference to either Clay or Webster, adjourned without a mention of the Wilmot Proviso, or any other platform plank; and the Democrats, who chose Cass and Butler for their standard-bearers (Polk having declined to run), were almost equally reticent. The desperate eagerness of the Whigs for power, at any cost, was demonstrated in their choice of a slave-holding candidate, and their silence as to the Proviso. Indeed, an extreme wing, comprising Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, Charles Sumner and Samuel Hoar, combined with the corresponding subdivision of the Democrats known as Barnburners, and set up a Free-soil Party; the old Liberty Party joining them. They met in convention at Utica, and nominated Martin Van Buren, on a platform which, while abstaining from interfering with established slave states, forbade the creation of any more. Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy, was nominated for the Vice-Presidency.

Clay and Webster had been much mortified by the preference given to Taylor; for what is the use of being a leading statesman all one's life, if a rude soldier who knows nothing of statesmanship is to be chosen over one's head at last? Webster had been offered the Vice-Presidency, but had declined it from pride; yet had he accepted it he would have been President after a year. Clay accepted his defeat as final; he would not help Taylor's canvass, but refrained from opposing it, as Webster—not explicitly, but by implication—certainly did. For the rest, little could be gathered as to Webster's real attitude till toward the latter part of the summer, when he made that powerful declaration : "I shall oppose all slavery extension and all increase of slave representation," he said, speaking on the Oregon bill, "in all places, at all times, under all circumstances, even against all inducemnets, against all supposed limitation of great interests, against all combinations, against all compromise." This seems sweeping enough; yet Webster remains open to the imputation of having regarded the Union and the Constitution as superior to the simple law of right and wrong.

Calhoun and his followers took the bolder and franker course of declaring that any citizen of the United States had the right to reside in any state of the Union he pleased, and to take his slaves, if he had any, with him; and Calhoun added that the time was come to arm against the North. Mexico had been conquered chiefly by Southern soldiers, and Southerners should have the privilege of occupying the territory upon their own terms. The Missouri Compromise no longer satisfied these men; they demanded not only to be "let alone" where they were, but to have liberty to carry their institutions elsewhere. After taking such a stand, the alternative of mere secession might seem almost like conceding a favor. They did not succeed in enforcing their opinions upon Congress, for the Southern Whigs would not go so far; but they managed to block decisive legislation as regarded California, and postpone the issue to the next session at least.

Polk's administration accomplished solid and valuable results; in this respect it is entitled to far more credit than were several which had preceded it—not to speak of its immediate followers. But Polk personally had not been a success, in the popular sense; he was too reticent; he never spoke with the people as man to man; he took his course, and vindicated it in his long and dry messages; but he sought no means of getting into closer touch with the country; he was totally devoid of what is called magnetism. His enemies abused him without stint; but what he accomplished is a sufficient answer to most of their charges and denunciations. He was faithful in his work and devoted to his country; in his silent way, he suffered keenly from the wanton abuse which was directed against him; his four years in the White House made him prematurely old; and he died in June, 1849, a few months after his successor had been inaugurated. He received no public funeral; no national monument commemorates him; but Texas and California, and the vast region between, are his contribution to our greatness; and Oregon, with the northern boundary of the Republic. Again, his tariff bill, with its tendency to free trade, was of immense benefit to our commerce, and proved anything but a check to our manufactures—thus falsifying the predictions of its eminent opponents. The financial situation had also greatly improved. The only really serious charge brought against him—that he provoked the Mexican War for party ends, and for the sake of illicit conquest —will not stand the test of dispassionate scrutiny. It was a war forced upon us, partly by the natural westward movement of our population, partly by the outrages perpetrated by Mexico, whose cruelty and anarchy made all political association with her impossible. It was a thoroughly justifiable war, and was carried on with as much humanity as brilliance.

To turn aside for a moment from these political matters, let us remember that it was during Polk's admiinstration that a discovery was made which, more than any other single fact in medical annals, has proved of lasting benefit to mankind. Pain is the great evil that afflicts mortal man; and the inseparable connection of pain with surgical operations had been, since earliest history, one of the darkest shadows of human life. It had moreover rendered practically impossible all those extraordinary surgical triumphs which the latter half of this century has won; for they are de-pendent for success not only on the entire immobility of the patient during the operation, but upon his ability to survive the shock of the often long and exquisite agony inflicted by the kinfe. The discovery of ana sthesia by Dr. W. T. G.

Morton, in 1846, has saved thousands of lives, and has spared millions of men and women incalculable suffering. The world owes this young New England physician a debt which can never be repaid, save by acknowledging its indebtedness.

W. T. G. Morton was born in Massachusetts in 1820; he had a good academy education, but was largely dependent upon his own ability, courage and resolution for a livelihood. He studied medicine first with a private physician in Boston, afterward entering the Harvard Medical School, and following a course of lectures there ; and it was while still a student, and engaged in the practice of dentistry, that he became impressed with the anesthetic properties of sulphuric ether. On the 16th of October, 1846, in the operating room of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Morton demonstrated to an assembly of distinguished physicians the value of his discovery. In so doing he not only went against the opinions and warning of some of the best medical minds of the age, but he risked an indictment for manslaughter, should his experiment terminate unfavorably. It is not easy to over-estimate the heroism which, in the face of such discouragement, went steadily forward to establish what he knew was a truth, and what has proved so vast a blessing to the world.

A patient was to be treated for tumor. Morton had his ether in a little glass globe; he put the rubber mouthpiece of the globe between the patient's lips, and caused him to inhale the contents. The man speedily became insensible; the removal of the tumor was successfully accomplished by Dr. John C. Warren, the patient appearing all the while as if in profound slumber, except some slight movements toward the end of the operation; and upon recovering consciousness he declared that he had felt no pain. Such were the simple circumstances which ushered in this stupendous revolution.