Charles F. Smith, Joseph J. Reynolds, John F. Reynolds, Abner Doubleday, Alfred Pleasanton, Thomas J. Wood, Seth Williams, and George Sykes, distinguished Union generals in the Civil War. There were many others too numerous to mention. Longstreet afterwards met many of these officers as mortal foes on the field of battle. He served with others in the Confederate armies, and others served under him. McLaws and Pickett were long fighting division commanders in his corps.

Robert E. Lee, George B. McClellan, G. T. Beauregard, and Joseph E. Johnston were not with Taylor, and they and others, notably E. R. S. Canby, Isaac I. Stevens, and John G. Foster, did not join the army until Scott's campaign opened in 1847, though it appears that Lee was with General Wool's column in the movement towards Chihuahua. They were among the great names of the subsequent Civil War. Jefferson Davis, colonel of the Mississippi Rifles, joined Taylor after Scott had withdrawn the regulars, but in time to turn the tide of battle at Buena Vista. Altogether it was a brilliant roster. They were all graduates of the Military Academy. Of all the officers collected at Corpus Christi, it is doubtful if there is to-day a score of survivors. A large number were killed in action. A far greater number died of disease in the Mexican or Civil War campaigns.

Besides the long list of West Pointers, there were at Corpus Christi many regulars appointed from civil life, meritorious officers who afterwards made their mark. One of these was Lawrence P. Graham, a Virginian, already a captain in the Second Dragoons. He was some six years Longstreet's senior. After Mexico Graham stuck to the old army, rose to the colonelcy of the Fourth Cavalry in 1864, and was a Union brigadier of volunteers. He had been in the army nearly ten

years when the Mexican War broke out. He still survives at the green old age of eighty-eight, a retired colonel since 1870, thirty-three years. He has been carried on the rolls of the United States army nearly sixtyseven years. That is one of the rewards for having been lucky enough to espouse the winning side in 1861. But self-interest had little to do with the choice of sides; conscience pointed the way in that hour of passion.

The reunion at Corpus Christi made a deep impression upon the fledglings of the service. The long encampment there formed a green spot in the memory of the little army that bore our colors in triumph to the city of Mexico. Those who have left memoirs of their military careers have to a man dwelt largely upon the various interesting, though generally unimportant, incidents of this delightful episode. March, 1846, brought the hour of their ending; on the 9th the bugles of the line sounded the assembly, and in obedience to instructions from Washington General Taylor put his army in motion by easy stages for the line of the Rio Grande River. That movement immediately produced a result which the government had long secretly desired, -war. Negotiations for the amicable possession of Texas and the territory to the Pacific had failed.

It is not the purpose of this paper to write the history of the Mexican War, but a few of its salient features be recounted perhaps with profit.

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Under the Texas treaty of annexation and the act admitting Texas into the American Union the United States claimed all the territory down to the Rio Grande and westward to the border of New Mexico. Mexico, on her part, denied that Texas was a free agent, although President Santa Anna, captured by the Texans the next day after the battle of San Jacinto in 1836, while in durance had consented to a treaty which acknowledged Texan independence. Texas had adopted

a constitution and set up an independent government. Mexico repudiated Santa Anna's agreement, but nevertheless had subsequently never been able to conquer the lost territory. The entrance of the American troops into Texas was therefore by Mexico considered a casus belli, and her troops, under General Arista, crossed the river and began aggressive war upon the United States detachments as soon as they reached the vicinity.

The Mexican General Torrejon captured a detachment of United States dragoons April 25, including Captains Thornton and Hardee and Lieutenant Kane, besides killing Lieutenant George J. Mason and sixteen men. Mason was a classmate of Longstreet. Thornton, Hardee, and Kane were well treated, and soon after exchanged. Small bands of Mexicans committed other depredations. Shortly after the unfortunate incident above recited, Lieutenant Theodoric Porter and a small party were fired upon from an ambuscade in the chaparral, and Porter and one soldier killed. Porter had been one of the theatrical stars at Corpus Christi.

The march to Point Isabel, the siege of Fort Brown by General Ampudia, and the stirring affairs at Palo Alto and Resaca soon followed. The spirit of camaraderie and patriotic zeal which animated the Army of Occupation was vividly illustrated when Captain Charles May was ordered by Taylor, at Resaca de la Palma, to charge a Mexican battery. As May drew up his own and Graham's squadrons for the work, Lieutenant Randolph Ridgely, of Ringgold's artillery, called out, "Hold on, Charlie, till I draw their fire," and he "turned loose" with his six guns upon the enemy. The return fire was prompt, but Ridgely's wise purpose was accomplished. Then the invincible heroism with which May rushed forward at the head of a handful of the Second Dragoons signalized the qualities which

unerringly foreshadowed the result of that war. The opposing battery was secured in the twinkling of an eye, and the Mexican General La Vega captured amid his guns. May's gallant exploit was the theme of the army. May, Ridgely, and Longstreet were close friends, of the trio Longstreet being youngest in years and service. Ridgely was killed at Monterey that fall. May lived until 1864, having resigned in 1861. He took no part in the Civil War. The first successes of the Mexican War were easy and decisive. The real hardships began with the march over the sterile wastes towards Monterey. Monterey was equally as decisive, but it was found to be a much harder nut to crack, and here the American losses were very heavy. The general effect of Taylor's operations, in conjunction with Wolf's campaign and the overland march of General Kearny to California, was demoralizing to the Mexicans.

CHAPTER V

INTO THE INTERIOR OF MEXICO

In after-years Lee's admirers claimed that much of Scott's glory on the fields of Mexico was due to Lee's military ability. Scott gave him great praise.

WHEN it was learned that two divisions of Taylor's army had been ordered to the coast, there was much speculation at the front as to the meaning of the movement. The younger contingent immediately jumped to the conclusion that the war was over, and that Twiggs's and Patterson's troops were ordered home. This proved not to be the case, but the army was not much disappointed to learn that another campaign farther south was projected. There was some friction between Taylor and Scott over the withdrawal of the

regulars. Some of Scott's letters to Taylor miscarried, and Scott, pressed for time, was compelled to order the troops he wanted down to the coast without Taylor's knowledge, the latter at times being far in the interior. When Taylor learned that his best troops had been ordered away without an hour's previous notice, the old general was naturally very much incensed. He was afterwards somewhat mollified when he received Scott's delayed correspondence, and saw that his chief had endeavored to reach him in the proper spirit. Scott was the senior, and of course it was for him to order; besides, Scott himself had orders from the President to withdraw the troops. Taylor, however, made, both to Scott and the Secretary of War, a sharp protest against the manner of carrying out the design. Doubtless Taylor felt sore upon learning that the administration intended leaving him upon the defensive, without means to continue his victorious advance. Buena Vista, a few weeks later, probably melted the old fellow's rancor into sardonic satisfaction.

Once started, the troops rapidly retrograded to the Rio Grande. The weather was fairly cool, and the marches made from twenty to twenty-eight miles per day. One rather warm day, while the troops were on this move, a burnt district was passed over, and the heat and flying smoke and ashes choked the tired men and officers. When the column camped, it was upon a beautiful mountain stream, into which all rushed for a bath. First Lieutenant Sydney Smith, of the Fourth, one of the first to start for the water, while passing through the timber which fringed the stream, was attacked by peccaries, a species of wild pig common in Mexico. They are not very large, but travel in droves, and are very fierce. They treed Smith upon a low-hanging limb barely out of reach of his excited pursuers. The limb was very slender for his weight, and as he swung to the