The Training Ground Page 15

THE LONG-AWAITED RIFLES would be another way of setting Davis’s men apart. In his mind, the fighting man’s musket was an antique, ill suited for the modern battlefield. The evidence was too powerful to ignore. The standard-issue gun used throughout the regular army was the Model 1822 flintlock, a smoothbore musket fifty-seven inches long, with a forty-two-inch barrel. The term smoothbore meant that there were no internal spiral grooves, or “rifling,” in the barrel.

  The two main forces affecting a projectile in flight are air resistance and gravity. The musket ball was particularly susceptible to both because it was shot from the barrel without any significant spin or rotation. As Isaac Newton noted as far back as the seventeenth century (the German physicist Heinrich Magnus would confirm his finding in 1853), all spheres effect a tumbling, spinning motion in flight. However, if the axis of that rotation is not parallel to the direction of travel, that object will begin to curve. Sometimes the curve is to the right or to the left, and sometimes it is simply straight down. As applied to the musket, the random tumbling affected accuracy and range by causing bullets to veer off course or plummet into the ground. This made the musket a liability when firing at great range, as Sam Grant had noted at Palo Alto.

  A rifle’s internal spiral grooves gave the bullet (not a ball) a deliberate spin as it exited the barrel. Forcing the bullet to spin on an axis parallel to its direction of travel negated the tumbling effect and minimized the effects of wind resistance and gravity. This greatly increased accuracy and range. On a good day, in a gentle breeze, a Model 1841 percussion-cap rifle with its .54-caliber bullet was capable of killing a man from one thousand yards away. And its thirty-three-inch barrel was also two feet shorter than a musket’s, making for a lighter and more mobile weapon.

  Just as notable was the use of percussion caps, which allowed the rifle to be fired in all weather conditions. There was never any worry about gunpowder charges getting wet, as with muskets. The explosive mixture that propelled the bullet from the gun was encased in a metal cartridge. And not only were percussion caps waterproof, but they were also easier to load and fire than musket balls and paper gunpowder charges.

  Back on March 23, Davis had taken the floor in Congress to argue in favor of a bill that would fund two new army rifle regiments. Noting that the British and French had already begun using rifles, he argued that America was “now falling behind” in terms of military weaponry.

  But that bill had been reworded by the time it passed, so that it merely funded new musket regiments. Soon after, Davis had argued in favor of a second bill that would fund a regiment of rifle dragoons. It had passed on May 19 and was signed into law that same day.

  As soon as it became clear that Davis would be leaving Congress to join the fighting, he had insisted that each and every man in his regiment be outfitted with a rifle.

  It wasn’t that simple. The U.S. Army had slowly begun to insinuate the rifle into combat ranks, but it was standard army procedure to outfit only two companies of each infantry regiment with the Model 1841 rifle (there were ten companies to a regiment, meaning that the other eight still carried muskets). In the eyes of the army’s top commanders, the lack of a bayonet mount made the rifle a liability, and they feared being overrun in close-quarters fighting. That, plus the musket’s many years of proven service, made it a familiar favorite. Indeed, battle tactics had been planned around its shortcomings. To change weapons and strategies on the eve of combat struck many officers as a needless gamble.

  Davis didn’t care. He ordered a thousand 1841s directly from the manufacturer, the Eli Whitney Company of New Haven, Connecticut. To compensate for the lack of a bayonet mount, Davis had commanded the First Mississippi’s soldiers to arm themselves with a secondary weapon for close-quarters fighting, whether it be a knife, a saber, an artillery sword, or even one of the brand-new Colt revolving pistols.

  General Winfield Scott, the army’s top general, had tried to thwart Davis. “He expressed a doubt as to the propriety of supplying a whole regiment with percussion arms and positively insisted that at least six of the companies should bear muskets, instead of rifles,” Davis wrote. “I knew the confidence the men I was expecting to lead had in rifles, and their distrust of the musket then in use and therefore notwithstanding my reluctance to oppose the General insisted upon the thousand rifles.”

  Just to make sure he got those precious new guns, Davis had made the savvy move of enlisting President Polk’s assistance. Polk, of course, wanted a favor in return. A bit of political horse trading ensued.

  Polk promised Davis his thousand rifles in exchange for his vote on a crucial tariff bill then making its way through Congress. Proposed by Treasury Secretary Robert J. Walker, the bill would lower tariffs in the hopes of increasing Treasury revenue through increased trade. Walker was a Davis confidant who also made his home in Mississippi. Forty-five years old and eager to impose his antiprotectionist views on the national economy, the former U.S. senator wielded immense political clout. By voting in favor of the Walker Tariff, Davis was courting favor with the president and treasury secretary — the two most powerful men in Washington.

  There was just one problem: the tariff bill was extremely divisive, literally pitting North against South. Northern manufacturing states opposed it, saying they needed protection from foreign competition; the agricultural southern states argued that the lower tariffs would allow greater international sales of cotton and other such goods. The crucial swing vote would come from the western states, which at the time consisted of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River valley regions. In exchange for southern backing of a pro-West measure known as the Harbors and Rivers Bill, sponsored by South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun, the western voting bloc would cast its ballots in favor of the Walker Tariff.

  The measure would go before Congress on July 3. Davis, at Polk’s personal request, had delayed his departure for Mexico accordingly so that he could first cast his vote on that very close bill.

  The Walker Tariff passed. The next morning, Jefferson Davis had left Washington with Varina, secure in the knowledge that his rifles would be delivered to the Mississippi First.

  But by August 3, as Davis and his men adjusted to life at the mouth of the Rio Grande, those rifles still hadn’t arrived.

  On the very same day, in far-off Washington, having successfully attained the pro-southern Walker Tariff and no longer needing the support of the western voting bloc, President Polk blithely vetoed the Harbors and Rivers Bill.

  Western states were outraged by Polk’s unabashed act of partisanship toward the South and soon formed a congressional voting alliance with the North. Among the new bloc’s demands was that slavery be permanently excluded from all western territories. Fifteen years hence, the split that commenced with this issue would drive a wedge between North and South. When that time came, Jefferson Davis would find himself at the head of a great and terrible rebellion. But first — now — there was Mexico.

  SIXTEEN

  The Westerner

  AUGUST 3, 1846

  The president’s veto of the Harbors and Rivers Bill was just one beef Abraham Lincoln, a westerner, had with James K. Polk. Like Polk, Lincoln was a deeply partisan politician, loyal to his party and its ideals. In his case, the party in question was Whig. And now, on the same day that Jefferson Davis was arriving to fight the Mexican War, Lincoln had been elected to Congress. For the first time in his political career, the lanky veteran of the Illinois legislature would stride onto the national political stage.

  The honor was a long time coming. The thirty-seven-year-old Lincoln had coveted Springfield’s congressional seat for years, but in the name of party unity he had held off.

  Back in 1842, he had plotted a congressional candidacy but had realized that the field was overcrowded with Whigs. At the party’s convention in Pekin that year, Lincoln had introduced a resolution designed to fix that problem. Rather than force pro-Whig voters to divide their votes between him and two other candidates, Lincoln suggested that th
e three men rotate the job. Each would agree to serve just one term in the House and then let another run for the office. The resolution passed. Lincoln, knowing that his day was imminent, stepped aside. Thirty-two-year-old John Hardin received the Whig Party nod and was duly elected. In 1844, Hardin left office in favor of Lincoln’s good friend Edward Dickenson Baker, after whom Lincoln’s six-month-old son was named. The British-born Baker was duly elected and traveled to Washington to serve out his two-year term.

  Lincoln was next. Early in 1846, he began making campaign plans.

  But Hardin had enjoyed his time in Washington, with the power and prestige that attended national office. He reneged on the deal and began planning a campaign of his own. Lincoln was an imposing six feet four and had a thoughtful disposition and calm demeanor that led some to overlook his deeply competitive nature. Hardin certainly did. Lincoln began writing letters to Whigs throughout the district, seeking their support; he questioned those who were opposed to his candidacy, and he lobbied Whig newspapers to support him. Stung, Hardin pulled out of the race.

  Now Hardin and Baker were off to war with Illinois’s volunteer regiments. The Irishman James Shields, a close political acquaintance and a man with whom Lincoln had nearly fought a duel several years earlier, was soon to join them. There was political capital to be gained from soldiering, and all three were eager to display their heroism against Mexico.

  Lincoln had no interest in that sort of fight; he had already earned his military stripes, serving as a captain of the volunteers during the Black Hawk War. This short conflict between the Illinois militia, the U.S. Army, and a disgruntled sixty-five-year-old Sauk warrior named Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak — Black Hawk — was grounded in America’s westward expansion and the practice of displacing Indians from their tribal lands in favor of incoming farmers and other settlers. An avenging Black Hawk’s rampage in the spring of 1832 had proved disastrous for his tribe, and by September of that year he was being escorted to a prison cell at the Jefferson Barracks by Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, who had missed all but the last battle of the war because of a sixty-day furlough.

  Lincoln’s contribution to that war was also slight but was notable for his determination to serve. His captaincy in the Fourth Regiment of Mounted Volunteers was short lived — the Illinois regiments enrolled men for just thirty days at a time. Lincoln was a captain from April 21, 1832, until mustering out on May 27. He immediately reenlisted, but as a private, the rank he would hold until his unit was deactivated on July 10. Lincoln never saw combat, but he traveled widely through Illinois and Wisconsin during the course of the conflict. Years later he would look back fondly on his election to captain and subsequent service as “a success which gave me more pleasure than any I have had since.”

  Lincoln was that sort of man, offbeat and adventurous, with a quietly competitive spirit. It was the pioneer’s attitude, one that came naturally through his lineage. He was born in Kentucky and lived there until moving to Illinois at the age of twenty-two. “My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or 2, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania,” he noted. His own mother died when Lincoln was ten, and he was raised by his father on the Kentucky frontier at a time when bears roamed the forests and there was no doubt the land was pure wilderness. Schools were in such short supply that the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic were the extent of most education. “If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard,” Lincoln wrote.

  Classroom studies were sandwiched between working in the fields. Lincoln received just one year of formal education and, as he noted later, had “not been to school since.” “The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity,” he wrote. Lincoln was being modest. He had an intelligence bordering on genius and was deeply ambitious. Though his formal education may have ended in early childhood, he was profoundly intellectual.

  He entered politics after moving to Illinois. It was a rather abrupt career change — with the exception of one year spent working in a small store, he had been a farmworker his entire life and had even navigated a flatboat down the Mississippi to bring produce to market. Lincoln’s first campaign was for the Illinois legislature. He lost, though that was not surprising, considering that he had just moved to the state and had interrupted his campaign to enlist for the Black Hawk War.

  It was the last election he would lose for many years to come. Lincoln served three terms in the legislature, always studying on the side. In 1842 he wed Mary Todd, whose blue eyes and dimples had caught Lincoln’s eye at a party. She was attractive, though not pretty, just as the clean-shaven and gray-eyed Lincoln was distinctive without being handsome. Their courtship did not go smoothly, and at one point she broke up with him, but their marriage was fruitful. Their first child, Robert, was born almost nine months to the day after their wedding; Edward came along three years later.

  The time span between Lincoln’s election to Congress and the day he first set foot on the floor of the House of Representatives was remarkable for its length. The Thirtieth Congress would not hold its first session until December 6, 1847, some sixteen months after the election. (Although the Thirtieth Congress technically ran from March 4, 1847, to March 3, 1849, their first meeting was delayed until December by Article I, Section 4, of the Constitution, which stipulated that “the Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.”)

  It was an auspicious time in America’s history to hold a national elected office, a time when a congressman’s vote could influence the shape and direction of the country for decades to come. Already, Whig politicians were attacking the war. Many of them saw it as unconstitutional. A group known as the Conscience Whigs argued that the spread of slavery was an underlying cause. With the Whigs controlling the House, 115–108, Lincoln’s vote would most often be in the majority.

  The war, however, was extremely popular in Illinois. Of the state’s seven seats in the House of Representatives, six were controlled by pro-war Democrats. His opponent for Congress, a fiercely evangelical old circuit judge named Peter Cartwright, had taken pains to cast Lincoln as a secular deist who belonged to no specific Christian denomination. Being antiwar as well as anti-God could very well end Lincoln’s career.

  Illinois was a frontier state and populated with residents who believed powerfully in Manifest Destiny. The Black Hawk War was their own, much smaller battle to rid their lands of an unwanted native populace that loomed as an impediment to growth. Some 8,370 Illinois men volunteered for just 3,720 spots in the state’s Mexican War regiments. The conflict offered them something Illinois could not: a job. The state was in the midst of a financial crisis. Farmers were unable to sell their crops, there were too many men for too few jobs, and there was such a chronic cash shortage that barter was the most popular form of mercantile exchange. Lincoln and his law partner, William H. Herndon, often accepted produce in exchange for legal services.

  For a politician, the war was a guaranteed way to make a name for oneself. Small wonder that Lincoln’s fellow Whigs had raced off to it. Baker had personally raised one of the four Illinois regiments. Hardin had led an emotional call to arms at a pro-war rally in Springfield: “Let us not say Taylor and his brave men can whip Mexico without our aid,” he cried. “This is not the language of brave men. Let us have a hand in whipping her. Let our people answer ‘Aye’ in one universal and glorious response.”

  In fact, most antiwar Whigs were from places like New En-gland, which represented the staid, industrial America many residents of Illinois had abandoned for the wilds of frontier living. And though Illinois had b
een a state since 1818, the twenty-first admitted to the Union, it was only a few decades removed from being part of a region known as the Northwest Territory, so called because it signified the farthest edge of the American wilderness, divided from the rest of the continent, pre–Louisiana Purchase, by the Mississippi River. Illinois was still wild enough that major blizzards in the winters of 1830 and 1836 killed scores of travelers caught in the vast spaces between settlements. Its populace viewed the war in purely emotional terms, for in the Texans’ plight it was easy to see themselves.

  Lincoln could be just as emotional. His upbringing and those adventures on the Mississippi guaranteed that no one could doubt his credentials as a frontier “westerner.” But he was also a deeply political animal. Lincoln was notably quiet on the Mexican War during his campaign. He urged Illinoisans to support the flag and the troops (he conspicuously made no mention of supporting the president). Privately, Lincoln was beginning to view the war as Polk’s underhanded attempt to push a personal agenda and deflect the public’s criticism of his shortcomings. The president, Lincoln would later note, hoped “to escape scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory . . . that serpent’s eye, that charms to destroy.”

  This deep Whig-Democrat divide, felt so acutely by the army, was even more pronounced in the halls of Congress. Those halls and that schism loomed prominently in Lincoln’s immediate future.

  SEVENTEEN

  The Rifles

  AUGUST 19, 1846

  Finally, Davis’s rifles arrived. A Treasury Department cutter delivered crates full of the brand-new weapons to the sands of Brazos Island. On August 24, armed and ready, the First Mississippi boarded steamships for the long journey up the Rio Grande to Camargo.

  They were lucky to get the ride. Taylor’s ambitious plans to move his army upriver by steamboat were solidly at odds with reality. Like so many other aspects of the Mexican War, in which outdated War of 1812 mind-sets had to be replaced with a more up-to-date approach, the U.S. Army’s approach to logistics remained antiquated. This had already become apparent through Taylor’s inability to get his hands on enough wagons to haul supplies. It was even more obvious on the subject of water craft. The army had very few steamboats, and the U.S. Navy, which had begun blockading Mexican ports, lacked the sort of shallow-draft vessels necessary to navigate inland waters. The few that existed were often barely afloat, thanks to shipworms boring into their wooden hulls. The impact was immediate. “My operations are completely paralyzed,” Taylor groused.