Justin Harvey Smith

“ When war with England led to the raising of Mexican troops, a new sense of power began to be felt; when the Spanish monarchy crumbled before Napoleon in 1808, the illusion of the king's divinity and invincibility faded; when the royal family exhorted the Mexicans to accept the heir of the French revolution as their master, loyalty quivered to its base; and when the people of Spain took up arms to defend their betrayed nationality, the principle of popular sovereignty loomed up as greater than royal prerogatives. ”

“ All the faults of our people, who were better known than other foreigners, came to be under stood. Their brusque, overbearing, strenuous ways impressed the polite, indolent Californians as almost ferocious. Indeed a natural antipathy — social, religious and racial — made harmony well-nigh impossible. Finally, doubts were felt whether we should be able to offer immediate and effective protection against Mexico and the Indians, and whether our flag would not go down after a time, as when Jones had raised it, leaving our friends to settle with the mother-country as best they could. ”

“ As the ages have demonstrated, man is naturally a fighting animal, and therefore he finds in war the keenest sense of his vital selfhood. It is our chief glory to will and to do; and in mortal combat this glory is more intense, if not more real, than in peaceful occupations. Besides, if a man comes to his end in being supremely himself, he triumphs over death, and indeed he wins another victory, too, for life — so rich in menaces — can threaten him no longer. ”

“ Who is not aware of that criminal connivance, that stubborn and insolent protection, which — in violation of righteous law and in violation of the treaties with Mexico — is given by the policy of North America to a Department filled with rebels from every land, who are determined to ruin it completely and to soil the dignity and honor of a lawfully constituted government? ”

“ All this has been called an intrigue; but, if that word is in fairness applicable, the "intrigue"? was only designed, so far as it concerned Mexico and California, to rescue with a gentle hand the neglected, abused and lost; so far as it concerned England and France, to ward off an interposition which, if attempted, would probably have led to war; and, so far as it concerned the United States, to safeguard and advance most important national interests while promoting the general good of the world. Such "intrigues" are among the most legitimate achievements of true statecraft. ”

“ Silent and sad, apparently frail but capable of great exertion, trotting barefooted to and from their huts with their coarse black hair flowing loosely or gathered in two straight braids, watching everything with eyes that seemed fixed on the ground, loving flowers much,but a dagger more, fond of melody but preferring songs that were melancholy and wild, always tricky, obstinate, indolent, peevish and careless yet affectionate and hospitable, often extracting a dry humor from life as their donkeys got nourishment from. ”

“ In June the Federalists rose, but the affair was badly managed and failed. Tornel, the arch-plotter, a general who never had a command, was sent to the northern army; and other turbulent men were imprisoned. But still the government merely drifted—blind, irresolute, vacillating, moribund; and the general public looked on with complete indifference. Going to sleep red and waking up green—for revolutions usually began at night—was no longer a novelty. ”

“ Here is the government house, and we stop to picture the wily politicians, who—with noble exceptions—obtain the offices of local grandeur, and the little horde of clerks, many of them rendered prematurely decrepit by their vices, that fawn but cannot be made to Work at the nod of authority, In vain we look for a book—store, though somewhere that name doubtless appears on a sign; but we do and the office of the comandante general, an officer who represents the central power, has charge of the military, and often is mining and counter—mining in a sharp struggle with the governor. ”

“ Business of a large sort there is none. The little newspapers are scarcely more than echoes from partisan sheets at Mexico. Religion is a subject that one must let alone, and education a subject that it is useless to discuss. Of science, history, art, nothing is known. The small men in power brook no criticism except from enemies. Affairs in other states, even a famine or a flood, excite little interest Not much is left except petty intriguing and the gratification of coarse appetites. A revolution is about the only possible escape from this more deadly ennui. ”

“ For some time the United States has considered your country a part of our territory, and we have come to take possession of it. We are among you as friends — not as enemies; as protectors — not as conquerors; for your benefit — not your injury. I absolve you from all allegiance to the Mexican government and to Armijo. [20] They have not defended you against the Indians, but the United States will. All who remain peaceably at home shall be safeguarded in person and in property. Their religion also shall be protected. ”

“ Yonder goes a millionaire, a real king of gold, at sight of whom all hats come off, while all eyes court his glance; but another, who passes with a triumphant step and bold gestures, appears to the crowd a greater man, for he is the king of the sword, the king of the bull—ring, the matador. But most, perhaps, are talking and thinking of love and of pleasure. Furtive but meaning glances are often exchanged; occasionally hand presses hand under the folds of the cloak; at times a few mysterious words pass quickly ”

“ All his infantry and cavalry were drawn up in one long line. The bands, massed in front, rendered the sacred music with grand effect; the smoke of incense mounted to the clear, radiant sky; and a body of priests in splendid robes passed along the line, bestowing their benedictions. [16]
The troops then moved to their places with deliberation and precision, for whether they could shoot or not, Mexican soldiers were always able to march and wheel. Evolution followed evolution. Eminence beyond eminence bristled with steel. ”

“ Though so many strong men, soon to fight for their lives, were present, the solitude of the desert seemed to reign. The night air was bitterly cold. A drizzling rain fell. Except at the mountain there was no fuel. The tents of the Americans were now in the wagons, and the Mexicans had none; and long before daybreak the troops on both sides felt ready for anything that would stop their teeth from chattering. For our men especially it was a dismal situation, and the reported statement of a captured Mexican that Santa Anna had 21,000 troops gave Taylor's army no mental comfort. ”

“ A brevet captain, just blossoming into a lieutenant colonel, eclipsed a commodore and a brigadier general; and the arch-ruffian of the Bear cult reappeared as a fairy godmother to save and bless the Californians, who detested him. But the ending was after all a happy one. The Americans felt a new respect for the people, and they were able to see that, although destitute of gunpowder, the insurgents, if driven to extremities, could have done much harm with lance, dagger and torch, and could have sown the seeds of perennial hate. ”

“ Every few miles a stream of cool, sparkling water leaped across the road. In the morning a curtain of gray, thinning little by little, went slowly up at last, and revealed a world of hills, edged with burnished gold, where one or two, catching the sun aslant on a bare, crystalline side, would flash out amidst the lingering shadows in all the colors of a diamond ”

“ Monterey, with a quantity of indifferent gunpowder and a number of cannon, many of them bad, was ours, and soon the people of the United States, Whom a costly but valorous battle impressed far more than orderly, scientific operations could have done, were again acclaiming Taylor. By distance, by his courage, by his picturesque individuality, and by his very position as commander of the one American army fighting the Mexicans, he was idealized. ”

“ Corruption was rampant everywhere, of course. "An arbitrary system, indeed, must always be a corrupt one," as Burke said; "there never was a man who thought he had no law but his own will, who did not soon find that he had no end but his own profit." These words describe Santa Anna's course. And when his chest was full enough and his army big enough, putting a substitute in his place and shaking off the cares of state, he went down to enjoy his gambling and cockfighting and plan his next political move at Manga de Clavo, secure from observation and protected by troops. ”

“ To regard such a man, uninspired and uninspiring, as capable of playing the brilliant villain's role in a grand international tragedy, of dreaming the conqueror's dream and sacrificing his fellow-citizens on the altar of gory but gorgeous ambition, of smelling the battle from afar like the war-horse and crying, "Ha, ha!" ”

“ When people of our own became the victims, when they were robbed and deported without cause on the shores of the Pacific, when they were shot without trial at Tampico, when they were threatened with the death of pirates for joining the Texans, and especially when the newspapers told how Americans among the Santa Fe prisoners were insulted, abused and forced to work in chains on the road to Santa Anna's palace, so that he might feast his cruel, cowardly eyes upon their sufferings, fury burned like a flame in many a heart. ”

“ By 1845 the appetite for more territory was pronounced "There appears to be no limit to the insatiable lust of territorial acquisition which pervades the minds of many of our citizens," lamented the New Orleans Tropic. When the annexation of Texas appeared to be certain, the New York Morning News exclaimed, "Who's the next customer, California or Canada?" To this question the Tribune replied, that its neighbor had tasted blood and growled for more. No, we don't growl, retorted the News; more "will come soon enough — come of its own accord," for our destiny is to possess the Whole continent. ”

“ The regiment was then sent into the fight again. Garland's remnant, still in the outskirts of the city, came up; Quitman's troops were ordered to coöperate; and a determined effort was made to gain the rear of El Diablo. Both grand and pitiful that effort was. As an exhibition of pluck it could hardly have been surpassed. Taylor, fighting on foot matched Richard Coeur de Lion storming Front de Bœuf's castle; and his intrepidity was so flawless and unforced that courage appeared to all round him the easy and only way. To die under such a leader seemed the acme of living. ”

“ It cannot have been a difficulty as to the boundary of Texas, for two nations do not fight over an issue that exists for only one of them — and that one not the aggressor; and for Mexico the question between the Nueces and the Rio Grande had no international significance except when it could be used, as an argumentum ad hominem, to embarrass Americans. ”

“ July 19 about one hundred and sixty horsemen entered Monterey from the north — men with gaunt bodies, frames of steel, shaggy beards, and an air of indomitable courage and endurance, armed with a long, heavy rifle on the shoulder and a big knife on the hip, and speaking a lingo sometimes hard to understand. These were the youngest and hardiest of the Sacramento men, reinforced with the pick of the immigrants just arrived. ”

“ A multitude of persons clamored for money and he could give them none; a multitude clamored for reforms, and he scarcely knew what they were talking about As far as possible the rest of the Gachupines were driven out, but this merely added to the confusion. President and nation simply drifted, and the rocks were near. Before long the general government was practically ignored except at the capital, and the heads of the secret societies wielded the real power. Guerrero even allowed the oligarchy, his deadliest foe, to alienate him from the common people, the source of his strength. ”

“ Now of course Polk may have said that a war was needed to redress American wrongs, but to suppose that a man who kept his own counsel so closely would have confessed to this comparative stranger a dishonorable intention concealed from everybody else, and would have done so knowing that in reality he and Jones were at swords' points on a vital matter, annexation, is incredible. When Jones wrote his book he was a ruined man in consequence of the general and well-founded belief that he had tried to prevent the incorporation of Texas in the United States, and he was very bitter against Polk. ”

“ While vast concentrations of forces and complicated tactical operations on a great scale were out of the question, the handling of even small armies at a long distance from home and in a region that was not only foreign but strange, created problems of a peculiar interest and afforded lessons of a peculiar value, such as no earlier or later war of ours has provided; and the examples of courage, honor and heroism exhibited in a conflict not only against man but against nature merited correct appreciation and lasting remembrance. ”

“ Many felt inclined on general principles to suspect that our aggrieved citizens were not entirely exempt from blame. Money was used by the agents of Mexico to influence our press. Domestic politics warped public opinion in her favor sometimes; and finally the anti-slavery people went great lengths in championing her government and accusing their own, for every suggestion of war upon Mexico was suspected of aiming at the acquisition of territory and the reinforcement of a hated institution. ”

“ The fight at Monterey was pictured as creditable to Mexican arms and costly to the enemy. Every life sacrificed there on the altar of nationality, proclaimed the government, called to heaven for vengeance, and the outrages perpetrated by the insolent invaders proved how they would trample on the whole country, if they could. [16]
Once more our wicked administration and its horde of "adventurers"? were denounced in the good old blood-curdling style, and once more the forays of the savage Indians were laid to our charge. Detestable wretches like the Americans could not wage war long. ”

“ Soon Weightman took the howitzers across the river. A part of the Americans flanked the redoubt on one side by scaling the mountain, and then a wild gallop up the road on the other side to its rear ended the fighting. Pursuit followed, but under the first beams of the moon Doniphan's command re-assembled on the field of victory. Not a man had lost his life except Owens, and only five had been wounded. Of the Mexicans three hundred had been killed, it was thought, and an equal number wounded. ”

“ As a territorial stake New Mexico, Arizona and California were of immense value. National honor was involved, and not a few of the Mexicans thought their national existence imperilled. Some of the diplomatic questions were of the utmost difficulty and interest. The clash of North and South, American and Mexican, produced extraordinary lights and shades, and in both countries the politics that lay behind the military operations made a dramatic and continual by-play. ”