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

courage.”
    T aylor’s force remained at Matamoros long enough for the arriving volunteers to fill out its ranks, and then it moved a hundred miles inland to Camargo, the head of Rio Grande navigation and the gateway to Monterrey, the most important city in northern Mexico. Monterrey beckoned not simply because its capture would indicate American seriousness about the war but also because, at a higher elevation than Matamoros and Camargo, it was less prone to the diseases that constituted Taylor’s principal concern for his troops.
    “When we left Matamoros,” Grant wrote Julia in mid-August, “it had been raining a great deal so that the roads were very bad, and as you may well guess, in the low latitude the weather was none of the coolest. The troops suffered considerably from heat and thirst.” Camargo had little to recommend it. “Matamoros is a perfect paradise compared to this place.” The village was small and poor, with adobe buildings with earthen floors lining its dirt streets. The water supply and sanitary facilities barely accommodated the resident population and were quickly overwhelmed by the needs of the invading force. Grant and the army regulars understood how to dig latrines and where to find clean water, but the volunteers made a horrible mess of their hydraulics and paid the price.“About one in five is sick all the time,” Grant wrote Julia. Many of the soldiers recovered,but some fifteen hundred died of their illnesses.
    Grant received a new assignment for the welcome journey away from the fever zone. His obvious ability with horses caused his commanders to think he would be good with mules, and so he was named quartermaster of the regiment, with the chief task of arranging transport for the provisions required for the advance to Monterrey. He resisted the reassignment. “I respectfully protest against being assigned to a duty which removes me from sharing in the dangers and honors of service with my company at the front,” he wrote his colonel. The protest was rejected.
    The mules were necessary on account of the rough terrain between Camargo and Monterrey, and Mexicans were needed to help with the mules. This put Grant in the curious position of having to hire enemy citizens to support an invasion of their own country. Most who heard of Grant’s offer of employment refused, but others were glad for the work and pay.
    The mules reminded Grant why he liked horses better. The troops would start marching early each day, leaving Grant and his helpers to break camp. “The tents and cooking utensils had to be made into packages, so that they could be lashed to the backs of the mules,” he explained later. “Sheet-iron kettles, tent-poles and mess chests were inconvenient articles to transport in that way.” The loading took hours, and the delay caused the first-loaded mules to get restless. “Sometimes one would start to run, bowing his back and kicking up until he scattered his load; others would lie down and try to disarrange their loads by attempting to get on the top of them by rolling on them; others with tent-poles for part of their loads would manage to run a tent-pole on one side of a sapling while they would take the other.” The experience tested Grant’s patience. “I am not aware of ever having used a profane expletive in my life,” he said (in a statement none who knew him then or later would have disputed). “But I would have the charity to excuse those who may have done so, if they were in charge of a train of Mexican pack mules at the time.”
    A fter two weeks the American army reached Monterrey. Grant was more impressed than by anything he had seen in Mexico till then. “Monterrey is a beautiful city enclosed on three sides by the mountains, with a pass through them to the right and to the left,” he wrote Julia. “There are points around the city which command it, and these the Mexicansfortified and armed. The city is built almost entirely of stone and with very