Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory (review)

book reviews WinfieldScott: The QuestforMilitary Glory. ByTimothy D. Johnson (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. Pp. xi, 315. $35.00.) Winfield Scott spent the first half of the nineteenth century in the public spotlight , the preeminent soldier of his time, the "Captain of the Age." He has spent the century and a half since in virtually total eclipse. Within the last year, two military scholars have attempted to resurrect him with major biographies—John S. D. Eisenhower with Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times ofGeneral Winfield Scott in 1997, and now Timothy D. Johnson in Winfield Scott: The Questfor Military Glory. Both are welcome additions to the all-too-thin Scott canon. Scott was anAmerican original. He was a physical giant, six feet five inches tall, with heft to match. Mentally he wasjust as awesome, a military scholar without peer andthe nation's preeminent practitionerofthe science ofwar—a strategic and tactical genius—and wholly learned in philosophy, history, literature, and diplomacy. No military figure in the American past has dominated his times so thoroughly and for so long—from the War of 1 8 1 2 to the coming of the Civil War—as he. But he was not without his faults, and Johnson chronicles them without pity. Scott was obsessed with rank, fame, glory, laurels, and promotion. He was ambitious , quarrelsome, pompous, aristocratic, arrogant, self-promoting, prestigegrabbing , social climbing, and power-hungry. This huge mixture of military genius and personality warts fashioned one of the masterpieces of military history—the American conquest of Mexico in the U.S.-Mexican War. He marched his small, vastly outnumbered and outgunned army from Vera Cruz to Mexico City in a stunning campaign of victories without defeat As a work of intelligent, imaginative strategy and tactics it is unmatched . What most of the great commanders on both sides of the Civil War knew of waging war on a grand scale they learned from him in Mexico. Not only was Scott a standout as a commander, who could fight creatively and fearlessly, but he also had a genius for administration and for teaming his enormous soldier's smarts with diplomatic agility. His martial-law policy for ruling conquered Mexico was an innovative, far-sighted matching of war with benign diplomacy as striking as the battlefield victories themselves. Johnson is at his best describing this genius in Scott for tempering the sword with the olive branch that made the conquest of Mexico such a stunning success. BOOK REVIEWSl6l Oddly, adept at diplomacy and pacification, Scott was wholly inept at politics . He wanted to be president, but he lacked the common touch. Instead of attracting voters, his abrasive, bombastic personality and high-falutin', longwinded speechmaking repelled them. Not for him the trenchant stump speech or hard-hitting one-liner. Johnson makes that clear as well, giving more than equal weight to Scott's warts. The strength ofJohnson's biography is its research. He has turned over virtually every rock in every crevice that bears on Scott. One might wish that he had paired his impressive research with more dramatic punch and less matter-offact prose. But that should not stop a reader from picking up this book with profit and becoming acquainted—or reacquainted—with this soldier who occupied the American stage so dramatically for so long and then was permitted, for all too long, to fade into obscurity. Johnson's book—and Eisenhower's—together are important, long overdue bids to put him back under the spotlight where he belongs. John C. Waugh Arlington, Texas Agent ofDestiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott. By John S. D. Eisenhower. (NY: Free Press, 1997, Pp xiv, 464. $27.50.) Winfield Scott is the longest active-duty general in U.S. history (1814-1861). Scott had outstanding traits that kept him in the good graces of some of his peers, and he had negative traits that got him in trouble. He was generous in nature, outgoing, and liked to learn. He achieved the rank of general through energetic work in forming and training an effective military command that could fight on equal terms with the BritishArmy regulars. Traits ofbrashness, ambition, impulsiveness , and egotism sometimes caused...