The Mexicans fled down the road to Matamoros, pursued by dragoons. The flatboats at the riverbank filled quickly and hundreds of fleeing troops leapt into the river to swim across, coming under artillery fire from Fort Brown, whose cheering defenders watched in amazement as the Mexican army disintegrated before their eyes. Scores drowned in the retreat, including some officers and the army’s priest. The Mexicans left behind their baggage train, supplies, Arista’s personal papers, and a large feast that had been prepared to celebrate their expected victory.23 They lost hundreds killed, wounded and taken prisoner. The Americans suffered 122 casualties, of them 39 killed. May’s command had lost 8 men and 18 horses killed, 10 men and horses wounded. Zeb Inge was buried where he fell. His dog was cared for by his comrades.24
Four days after the battle, Kirby’s brother Edmund wrote their mother, “You may banish all concern for our safety. The war is pretty much over.”25
“TWO SUCH BATTLES UNDER ALL THE circumstances have never been fought in the United States,” Wyche wrote from Fort Brown, two days after Resaca de la Palma and three after Palo Alto. “They are really glorious victories, and I have no doubt they will be appreciated as such by the country at large.” He was right. The opening battles of the Mexican War were remarkable triumphs, psychologically as well as militarily. In the weeks leading up to the conflict, few foresaw a favorable outcome, and most commentators predicted disaster, a fact that magnified the impact of the Mexican rout. The battles were celebrated in song, and Zachary Taylor was courted by Whig politicians as a potential presidential candidate. May’s charge had made him a national hero and he received two brevet promotions. His feat became the basis for the design on the shield of the Second Dragoons’ coat of arms, and his order, “Remember your regiment and follow your officers,” became their motto. The United States formally declared war within days, copying the text from the declaration of war against Britain in 1812.
Nevertheless, the war was not universally popular. Congressman Abraham Lincoln opposed it and later participated in a Whig effort to have it declared unnecessary and unconstitutionally begun. The American Whig Review called the war “as gross an outrage on our part as was ever committed by one civilized nation on another.”1 Henry David Thoreau went to jail rather than contribute taxes to support it, and he wrote the tract “Civil Disobedience” in which he characterized the Mexican War as “the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.”2 But the majority opinion was echoed by Walt Whitman, writing in the Brooklyn Eagle: “Let our arms now be carried with a spirit which shall teach the world that, while we are not forward for a quarrel, America knows how to crush, as well as how to expand.”3
Mexican politics mirrored American volatility. There was substantial debate over whether outright war was necessary, and a response to the war declaration was not issued until July 1. A month later, General Paredes was deposed, and on August 16, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna reached Vera Cruz in the ship Arab, returning from exile in Cuba. He was given free passage through the American blockade, in the belief that he would be more amenable to a peaceful solution. Santa Anna marched on the capital to great acclaim, as Napoleon had in returning from Elba. By the end of the year he would be both president and commander in chief of the Mexican forces; but he would be no more disposed to peace than Paredes.4
The opening battles in Texas were a windfall to the Regular Army soldiers, and to the West Pointers in particular. The outnumbered Americans defeated the enemy with dash and bravery, helping to dispel the image of the West Pointer as a lazy intellectual who was either unwilling or afraid to get into a hard fight. Furthermore, the officers were finally able to put their training in conventional warfighting to use. As well, they did without the participation of the militia, so there would be no question as to who was responsible for victory, as there had been in previous wars. The regulars were conscious of this fact even before the battles began. Three days before Palo Alto, George Meade wrote,
We are all anxious to give [the Mexicans] a sound thrashing before the volunteers arrive, for the reputation of the army; for should we be unable to meet them before they come, and then gain a victory, it will be said the volunteers had done it, and without them we were useless. For our own existence, therefore, we desire to encounter them.5
Ephraim Kirby Smith echoed this sentiment afterwards, saying, “It is a glorious fact for the Army that there were no volunteers with us.”6 The validation of West Point was the one aspect of the war that pleased the Whig critics. In the same piece that denounced the conflict in harsh terms, the American Whig Review stated: “West Point has nobly vindicated herself from the attacks of [its critcs], and her brave sons that lie on those fierce fought battlefields shall forever silence their slanderous tongues.”7
Congress voted to increase the size of the Army to prosecute the war effort, and veterans of the opening battles were dispatched on recruiting duty, heroes from the front who could inspire others and tell stories of the heroism they had witnessed and participated in firsthand. Nathaniel Wyche Hunter was sent out as a recruiter, wrapped in the glory of the Second Dragoons, and he took the opportunity to marry Sarah Golding on August 18. William Logan Crittenden went to Philadelphia, and George Meade asked him to pay a visit to his family and give a detailed account of the two battles.8 Volunteer regiments began forming across the country, many of them led by West Pointers. When the war commenced, 523 USMA graduates were on active duty and nearly equal that number returned to the colors, most of them with militia regiments from their home states. John Taylor Pratt, the first Goat, was a major general in the Kentucky militia and commander of the state’s Third Division when the war broke out. He petitioned to lead forces in Mexico, but the governor would not grant him a command. “I was so unfortunate as to be a Democrat,” he wrote, “[and] of course had no favor in a Whig governor’s eyes.” He resigned his commission “in disgust” and was reelected to the Kentucky House of Representatives.9 Franklin Saunders, the Goat of 1837, who had served one year with the Second Dragoons in Florida before resigning, returned for a year as a captain in the First Kentucky Volunteers. George C. McClelland, the Goat of 1843, resigned from active duty while in Texas, a week before the opening battles. He returned as a private in the First Pennsylvania Volunteers, fighting in several battles, being recommissioned, and ultimately cashiered for “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” and “drunkenness on duty.”10
Among the West Pointers who volunteered for service in Mexico, perhaps the most distinguished was Jefferson Davis. He had only recently reentered public life. In 1835, he had married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of Zachary Taylor, who at the time was his commanding officer. He resigned his commission to become a cotton planter in Mississippi. Sarah died three months later, and Davis went into seclusion for almost a decade. In 1844, he ran for Congress as a Democrat and won, serving from March 1845 to June 1846. Representative Davis then resigned his seat to command the First Regiment of Mississippi Riflemen. He joined Taylor’s army as it moved deep into northern Mexico. There followed a series of battles, most significantly at Monterey in September 1846, and Buena Vista in February of 1847. At Buena Vista, Davis and his Mississippi Rifles plugged a hole in the American line at a critical moment, backed up by artillery under Captains Thomas W. Sherman and Braxton Bragg. Davis was wounded in the process, but became a national hero.11
Taylor believed he could continue his march through the whole of Mexico, but political pressures stayed his advance. The seat of war moved to the south and to a new commander. On March 9, 1847, U.S. forces under General Winfield Scott made what was then the largest amphibious landing in history south of the port city of Vera Cruz, near the spot where Cortes had landed in 1519. After a twenty-day siege the city fell, opening the way into Mexico. The Americans began to move inland, along the great national road leading to Mexico City. The line of march was ripe with defensive