Army of Manifest Destiny: The American Soldier in the Mexican War, 1846-1848

3. Off to War

CHAPTER 3 {9ffto ~r The enthusiasm with which young Americans hurried to join the army made it easy for the government to attain its manpower quotas. But before these thousands of eager recruits could actually face the enemy the army had to make sure that it trained its soldiers and provided them with the proper types and amounts of equipment, such as weapons , ammunition, food, medical supplies, tents, and blankets. This had not been a difficult task before the outbreak of war with Mexico. The army was small, less than seventy-four hundred officers and men, but suddenly the secretary of war was calling for twenty thousand volunteers immediately, with the possibility of thirty thousand more to be available in the near future. In fact, before the wartime emergency subsided, over I 12,000 men had joined the army. I The least critical item, in terms of what was already available, was weapons. The two national arsenals, at Springfield, Massachusetts, and Harpers Ferry, Virginia, constantly turned out muskets, and there were thousands of them stockpiled at various armories around the country. There were plenty of guns on hand in the summer of 1846. By the middle of June, there were already enough muskets and rifles at a depot in Galveston, Texas, to arm all of the expected Texas volunteers many times over. The Allegheny Arsenal dispatched weapons to Alton, Illinois, and Louisville, Kentucky, and the arsenal at Baton Rouge sent guns to Fulton and Fort Smith, Arkansas, Mobile, and Memphis for distribution to the volunteers gathered there. Many 35 OFF TO WAR other troops stopped at Baton Rouge on their way down the Mississippi River to pick up their muskets.2 These thousands of muskets were of no practical use, however, unless the recruits knew how to use them effectively. The commanding general of the army, Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott, recognized the need for training and advised that the newly enrolled volunteers remain in the United States for several months while they received the necessary education. Some of the new troops, because of previous militia duty, were familiar with basic military instruction. For others, though, including some of the company officers, this was their first exposure to such things. The martial ardor of some men rapidly waned when they reached their rendezvous points and discovered that army life was not to be one big frolic. In order to become effective soldiers, they had to learn to drill. And learning the drill took hours and hours of repetition. Still, the men found time for less military pursuits. Many of them were away from home for the first time in their lives and wanted to kick up their heels a bit. Kentucky volunteers quickly wore out their welcome among the civilian population of Louisville. In fact, their antics so disturbed a local newspaper editor that he wrote, "An order for the speedy embarkation of the volunteers would be hailed with the liveliest satisfaction by the citizens of Louisville." Sometimes the antics of the soldiers were more serious than mere drunken carousing. A handful of Alabama volunteers came upon a Creole family in the vicinity of their camp near Mobile, and mistook them for mulattoes. After several visits the head of the family, himself a slaveowner, discovered their mistake and tried to convince them of their error. The soldiers were not easily dissuaded, however, and had already resolved to return at night and satisfy their lustful cravings with the old man's dark-complected daughters. That night the men, fortified with whiskey , returned and demanded admittance. The Creole, of course, refused , and told them to leave before someone got hurt. Not about to be put off by one man, the Alabamians proceeded to break down his door, whereupon he fired and killed one of them. In the ensuing confusion, the family fled to the city and sought the protection of the local sheriff until the regiment left for Mexico. 3 OFF TO WAR 37 The root cause of many of these problems was alcohol. Hundreds of young men with a lot of free time on their hands made an inviting prospect for all the whiskey peddlers in the neighborhoods of the camps. Some camp commanders went to great lengths to cut down on the drinking, but enterprising groups of soldiers just as often found ways of circumventing such measures. At Camp Toulmin, for instance , sentinels patrolled the camp's perimeter with...