Chapter 15 of 18 · 1571 words · ~8 min read

CHAPTER IV

PLEASANT INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT CORPUS CHRISTI

Among General Longstreet’s pleasant memories of camp life at Corpus Christi was a rude theatre erected by a joint stock company of the young officers, who acted in the plays produced on its boards, taking both male and female parts. Many roaring comedies were billed, and cheered the garrison from time to time. The enlisted men were of course permitted to pay the entrance fee and see the best that was going. General Worth was always a delighted auditor, General Taylor occasionally honored the entertainments with his presence, and General Twiggs rarely. After exhausting the field of comedy and having already reimbursed themselves for all outlays, the officers concluded to enter the more expensive and difficult field of tragedy. The first play chosen was the Moor of Venice. Lieutenant Porter, brother of Admiral Porter, was assigned the part of Othello, whilst Lieutenant Longstreet was nominated for Desdemona; but upon inspection the manager protested that six feet dignified in crinoline would not answer even for a tragic heroine. So Longstreet was discarded and Grant substituted. Finally, after a rehearsal or two, Grant, too, had to give way under protests of Porter that male tragediennes could not give the proper sentiment to the play. Then the officers “chipped in” and sent to New Orleans for a real actress, and thereafter all went well. The play was pulled off eventually with as much _éclat_ as followed General Taylor’s first victory a few months later on the Rio Grande.

A volume could be filled with incidents of those sunny days on the Mexican Gulf, the incipient stage of the first campaign in real war for the young officers. They gave little heed of the morrow. Their pay was small, but their requirements were on even a less scale. There was a good deal of drilling, but otherwise their duties were far from onerous. A large proportion of the cadets Longstreet had known at West Point from 1838 to 1842 were there congregated, and old associations were renewed. Of course, all these officers were not intimates, but nearly all were personal acquaintances on the most friendly footing. Every one brought his share to the common aggregate of interest and pleasure.

Among the officers there collected who afterwards became prominent in the Union and Confederate armies, in addition to those already mentioned, were William J. Hardee, Thomas Jordan, John C. Pemberton, Braxton Bragg, Earl Van Dorn, Samuel G. French, Richard H. Anderson, Robert S. Garnett, Barnard E. Bee, Bushrod R. Johnson, Abram C. Myers, Lafayette McLaws, and E. Kirby Smith, of the Confederate service; and J. K. F. Mansfield, George G. Meade, Don Carlos Buell, George H. Thomas, N. J. T. Dana, Charles F. Smith, Joseph J. Reynolds, John F. Reynolds, Abner Doubleday, Alfred Pleasanton, Thomas J. Wood, Seth Williams, and George Sykes, distinguished Union generals in the Civil War. There were many others too numerous to mention. Longstreet afterwards met many of these officers as mortal foes on the field of battle. He served with others in the Confederate armies, and others served under him. McLaws and Pickett were long fighting division commanders in his corps.

Robert E. Lee, George B. McClellan, G. T. Beauregard, and Joseph E. Johnston were not with Taylor, and they and others, notably E. R. S. Canby, Isaac I. Stevens, and John G. Foster, did not join the army until Scott’s campaign opened in 1847, though it appears that Lee was with General Wool’s column in the movement towards Chihuahua. They were among the great names of the subsequent Civil War. Jefferson Davis, colonel of the Mississippi Rifles, joined Taylor after Scott had withdrawn the regulars, but in time to turn the tide of battle at Buena Vista. Altogether it was a brilliant roster. They were all graduates of the Military Academy. Of all the officers collected at Corpus Christi, it is doubtful if there is to-day a score of survivors. A large number were killed in action. A far greater number died of disease in the Mexican or Civil War campaigns.

Besides the long list of West Pointers, there were at Corpus Christi many regulars appointed from civil life, meritorious officers who afterwards made their mark. One of these was Lawrence P. Graham, a Virginian, already a captain in the Second Dragoons. He was some six years Longstreet’s senior. After Mexico Graham stuck to the old army, rose to the colonelcy of the Fourth Cavalry in 1864, and was a Union brigadier of volunteers. He had been in the army nearly ten years when the Mexican War broke out. He still survives at the green old age of eighty-eight, a retired colonel since 1870, thirty-three years. He has been carried on the rolls of the United States army nearly sixty-seven years. That is one of the rewards for having been lucky enough to espouse the winning side in 1861. But self-interest had little to do with the choice of sides; conscience pointed the way in that hour of passion.

The reunion at Corpus Christi made a deep impression upon the fledglings of the service. The long encampment there formed a green spot in the memory of the little army that bore our colors in triumph to the city of Mexico. Those who have left memoirs of their military careers have to a man dwelt largely upon the various interesting, though generally unimportant, incidents of this delightful episode. March, 1846, brought the hour of their ending; on the 9th the bugles of the line sounded the assembly, and in obedience to instructions from Washington General Taylor put his army in motion by easy stages for the line of the Rio Grande River. That movement immediately produced a result which the government had long secretly desired,--war. Negotiations for the amicable possession of Texas and the territory to the Pacific had failed.

It is not the purpose of this paper to write the history of the Mexican War, but a few of its salient features may be recounted perhaps with profit.

Under the Texas treaty of annexation and the act admitting Texas into the American Union the United States claimed all the territory down to the Rio Grande and westward to the border of New Mexico. Mexico, on her part, denied that Texas was a free agent, although President Santa Anna, captured by the Texans the next day after the battle of San Jacinto in 1836, while in durance had consented to a treaty which acknowledged Texan independence. Texas had adopted a constitution and set up an independent government. Mexico repudiated Santa Anna’s agreement, but nevertheless had subsequently never been able to conquer the lost territory. The entrance of the American troops into Texas was therefore by Mexico considered a _casus belli_, and her troops, under General Arista, crossed the river and began aggressive war upon the United States detachments as soon as they reached the vicinity.

The Mexican General Torrejon captured a detachment of United States dragoons April 25, including Captains Thornton and Hardee and Lieutenant Kane, besides killing Lieutenant George J. Mason and sixteen men. Mason was a classmate of Longstreet. Thornton, Hardee, and Kane were well treated, and soon after exchanged. Small bands of Mexicans committed other depredations. Shortly after the unfortunate incident above recited, Lieutenant Theodoric Porter and a small party were fired upon from an ambuscade in the chaparral, and Porter and one soldier killed. Porter had been one of the theatrical stars at Corpus Christi.

The march to Point Isabel, the siege of Fort Brown by General Ampudia, and the stirring affairs at Palo Alto and Resaca soon followed. The spirit of _camaraderie_ and patriotic zeal which animated the Army of Occupation was vividly illustrated when Captain Charles May was ordered by Taylor, at Resaca de la Palma, to charge a Mexican battery. As May drew up his own and Graham’s squadrons for the work, Lieutenant Randolph Ridgely, of Ringgold’s artillery, called out, “Hold on, Charlie, till I draw their fire,” and he “turned loose” with his six guns upon the enemy. The return fire was prompt, but Ridgely’s wise purpose was accomplished. Then the invincible heroism with which May rushed forward at the head of a handful of the Second Dragoons signalized the qualities which unerringly foreshadowed the result of that war. The opposing battery was secured in the twinkling of an eye, and the Mexican General La Vega captured amid his guns. May’s gallant exploit was the theme of the army. May, Ridgely, and Longstreet were close friends, of the trio Longstreet being youngest in years and service. Ridgely was killed at Monterey that fall. May lived until 1864, having resigned in 1861. He took no part in the Civil War. The first successes of the Mexican War were easy and decisive. The real hardships began with the march over the sterile wastes towards Monterey. Monterey was equally as decisive, but it was found to be a much harder nut to crack, and here the American losses were very heavy. The general effect of Taylor’s operations, in conjunction with Wolf’s campaign and the overland march of General Kearny to California, was demoralizing to the Mexicans.