The Man Who Saved the Union by H.W. Brands Read Free Book Online

tents. “The whole country is low and flat,” Grant wrote Julia. “It has rained almost incessantly so that now the whole country is under water. Our tents are so bad that every time it rains we get a complete shower-bath.”
    M ore than comfort was at stake. “I am afraid, Julia, that Matamoros will be very sickly this summer,” Grant wrote. The threat of sickness disposed Taylor to move his troops to higher ground. ButJames Polk weighed matters other than the health of the army. During the 1844 campaign Polk had quieted concerns about a potential dynasty of Tennessee Democrats—his supporters called him “Young Hickory”—by promising to serve but a single term if elected. As a result the 1848 race was wide open, and everyone knew that a victorious general would have an advantage over mere civilians.Winfield Scott, the ranking army general, was the obvious person to lead an invasion of Mexico in the event an invasion proved necessary. But Scott was a Whig with badly disguised political ambitions, and Polk had no desire to make him a war hero and hand the Whigs the presidency.
    Zachary Taylor was the obvious alternative to Scott. Taylor was also a Whig, but he appeared content to remain a soldier. The trouble with Taylor was that he was junior to Scott; in fact he was only a colonel by permanent rank, having been brevetted a brigadier general to lead the border operation. To put Taylor over Scott would cause problems in the army and among the army’s supporters in Congress.
    Polk proceeded nonetheless to favor Taylor and undermine Scott. When Scott proposed a war plan based on a landing at Vera Cruz, on the central Mexican coast, followed by a thrust to Mexico City, the president countered with an assertion that the fighting should be confined to Taylor’s theater in northern Mexico, the part of the country the United States desired. Scott wanted a large army of volunteers; Polk, knowing that volunteers tended to vote for their generals, maneuvered to limit the enlistments. After the American victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, Polk arranged to have Taylor promoted to major general, equal in rank to Scott.
    G rant observed the Washington machinations from afar and dimly. As a cadet at West Point he had considered Scott the sum of what a soldier should be, but as a second lieutenant in Mexico he found himself drawn to Taylor. “General Taylor never made any great show or parade, either of uniform or retinue,” Grant remembered later. “In dress he was possibly too plain, rarely wearing anything in the field to indicate his rank, or even that he was an officer; but he was known to every soldier in his army and was respected by all.” Taylor was considerate, to the pointof inadvertent humor. The senior naval officer on the Rio Grande said he was coming to Taylor’s camp to pay his respects; Taylor knew that the navy instructed its officers to wear all the uniform to which they were entitled, and, not wishing to make his visitor uncomfortable, he dusted off his own good uniform and put it on. The navy man, meanwhile, having heard of Taylor’s distaste for show, dressed down for the meeting. The result was that both men were embarrassed and uncomfortable and spent most of the session apologizing to each other.
    Grant took something else from Taylor. “General Taylor was not an officer to trouble the administration much with his demands, but was inclined to do the best he could with the means given him,” Grant recalled. “If he had thought he was sent to perform an impossibility with the means given him, he would probably have informed the authorities of his opinion and left them to determine what should be done. If the judgment was against him he would have gone on and done the best he could with the means at hand without parading his grievance before the public. No soldier could face either danger or responsibility more calmly than he. These are qualities more rarely found than genius or physical