The Training Ground by Martin Dugard Read Free Book Online Page B

war on one another.
    I
    LINE IN THE SAND
    The men engaged in the Mexican War were brave, and the officers of the regular army, from highest to lowest, were educated in their profession. A more efficient army for its number and armament I do not believe ever fought a battle.
    — U LYSSES S. G RANT ,
M EMOIRS
    ONE
    Corpus Christi
    M ARCH 11, 1846
    I t was just after dawn when the soldiers of the U.S. Army’s Fourth Infantry assembled, rank and file, for the long march to war. Amid a great shuffling of black leather brogans and last-minute adjustments of pistols, muskets, sabers, cartridge belts, bedrolls, india-rubber canteens, and the M1839 forage caps that would keep the South Texas sun off their heads, the nearly five hundred men organized themselves by their separate companies.
    A soft wind blew in off the Gulf of Mexico as the men awaited the order to move out. It was a subtle reminder that spring had arrived after a winter they would long remember for torrential rain, flimsy white tents, and rampant dysentery. Given a choice between spending one more day in Corpus Christi and charging straight into a Mexican artillery battery, most of the Fourth would have chosen the cannon every time.
    With the exception of the regimental band, which wore bright red, every man’s uniform was blue, America’s official national color. The enlisted were mostly immigrants, German, Scottish, and Irish boys who joined the army for the seven dollars a month and the promise of regular employment. The officers were almost all West Point trained and the sons or grandsons of men who fought in the wars of 1776 and 1812. Some were old enough to have fought the British themselves. Among the West Point graduates was Sam Grant, who just wanted out of Corpus Christi. He had camped on the beach for seven long months, and what had begun as a military idyll had become a bivouac hell.
    “I do not believe there is a healthier spot in the world,” he had blithely written to Julia shortly after he’d first arrived. Grant loved the outdoor lifestyle. He had filled his off-duty hours hunting, riding horseback, and losing at cards and had even been cast as the female lead in a production of
The Moor of Venice,
which was being staged at the new eight-hundred-seat theater the officers had built. (His theatrical career ended before it began: Lieutenant Theodoric Porter, the male lead, objected to performing opposite a man in drag, and an actress was imported from New Orleans for the actual performance.) Those diversions, combined with General Zachary Taylor’s penchant for casual leadership, meant that Corpus Christi was good duty when the weather was nice.
    Grant also liked the fact that most of his friends from West Point were in Corpus Christi. In fact, nearly two hundred academy graduates rounded out the officer corps. Even as the army prepared for war (indeed, a surprise Mexican attack on their camp could have come at any time), there was a burgeoning sense of sadness among the officers because they feared the conflict would be diplomatically resolved before they tested themselves on the field of battle. Grant was dismayed to note that this zeal for war had less to do with right and wrong than with personal advancement and glory. “The officers are all collected in little parties discussing affairs of the nation,” he wrote Julia on May 6. “Annexation of Texas, war with Mexico, occupation of Oregon, and difficulties with England are the general topics. Some of them expect and seem to contemplate with a great deal of pleasure some difficulty where they may be able to gain laurels and advance a little in rank.” With war came promotion and perhaps glory and riches. Death and dismemberment, for many American troops, were secondary concerns.
    Yet even in the best of times, conditions were treacherous, and it became difficult for Grant to maintain his high spirits. The camp was infested with snakes, and more than one man woke in the night to find a deadly