FUTURE PRESIDENTS, GENERALS CUT TEETH IN BROWNSVILLE BATTLES

By Juan Montoya

When President James K. Polk ordered Gen. Zachary Taylor to move his army from the north banks of the Nueces River and travel to the northern bank of the Rio Grande, he was putting together the last pieces of a policy that would eventually lead to the rupture of the Union and a civil war 15 years later.
Within the army that Taylor commanded were no less than 37 future generals who would participate on both sides in the in the Civil War, not to mention two future presidents, U.S. Grant and Taylor. A third future president – Franklin Pierce – was an officer in the forces of Winfield Scott when he invaded Mexico through Veracruz, as was Robert E. Lee, the future military leader of the Confederate States of America.
And Joseph K. Barnes, who was with Taylor at Palo Alto, went on to became the Surgeon General of the United States and was present at the theater when President Abraham Lincoln was shot and assisted with his care.
Grant was a lieutenant then. When the young Grant, then with the Fourth Infantry, heard the cannonade at Ft. Brown from Point Isabel indicating that hostilities between the two nations had begun, “I felt sorry,” he wrote in his letters home, “that I has enlisted,” and wrote home that he thought the was was "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation."
Grant felt the war was a conspiracy of slaveholders to increase the number of slave states.
At the time, the army was not held in high regard, according to historian Bernard de Voto, in “Year of Decision: 1946.”
“Congress thought it was a mere posse and paid it badly and barely equipped it at all. Dispersed in squads and platoons over half a continent , it had two jobs: to transfer Indian to worse lands when the frontier wanted their homesteads, which it usually contrived to do, and to defeat them when they went on the warpath, which it seldom could do without the help of the militia.”
Staff in the upper ranks was filled by oratorical veterans of 1812, some of them approaching senility. It had a good many brilliant officers who had been well trained at West Point and were now to serve an apprenticeship that would fit them for the more serious business that was to follow in the civil war.
To get an idea of the characters who fought together at Palo Alto, scene of the first encounter between the Mexican army and Taylor’s troops, a few biographies of Union and Confederate generals are included below. Robert E. Lee, who participated in the fighting in Mexico was not at Palo Alto. But 23 future Union generals were, as were another 14 generals who would eventually join the Confederacy.
Also, during the siege of Ft. Brown, six future Union generals participated, and nine future CSA generals were also there.
Ulysses S. Grant: 1822–85, commander in chief of the Union army in the Civil War, 18th President of the United States (1869–77), b. Point Pleasant, near New Richmond, Ohio. He was originally named Hiram Ulysses Grant.
Grant spent his youth in Georgetown, Ohio, was graduated from West Point in 1843, and served creditably in the Mexican War. Grant was forced to resign from the army in 1854 because of his excessive drinking. He failed in his attempts at farming and business, and was working as a clerk in the family leather store in Galena, Ill., when the Civil War broke out. He was commissioned colonel of the 21st Illinois Volunteers, and in Aug., 1861, became a brigadier general of volunteers.
Grant assumed command of the Dist. of Cairo, Ill., in September and fought his first battle, an indecisive affair, at Belmont, Mo., on Nov. 9, 1861. In Feb., 1862, aided by Union gunboats, he captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. It was the first major Union victory, and Lincoln at once made him a major general of volunteers. However, in April at Shiloh, it is likely that only the arrival of the army of Gen. Don Carlos Buell (also at Palo Alto) saved him from defeat.
The Vicksburg campaign (1862–63) was one of Grant’s greatest successes. After repeated failures to get at the town, he made a brilliant advance in cooperation with a fleet and finally took Vicksburg by siege. The victory of Braxton Bragg, the Confederate general who was also at Palo Alto, at Chickamauga, led to Grant's accession to the supreme command in the West, Oct., 1863. At Chattanooga in November his forces thoroughly defeated Bragg. The President, in March, 1864, made him commander in chief with the rank of lieutenant general, a grade especially revived by Congress for him.
Grant himself directed George G. Meade’s Army (also at Palo Alto) of the Potomac against Gen. Robert E. Lee in the Wilderness campaign. His policy of wearing Lee out by sheer attrition was effective, though it resulted in the slaughters of Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. Failing to carry Petersburg by assault in June, 1864, Grant had that city under partial siege until April, 1865.
Philip H. Sheridan's victory at Five Forks made Petersburg and Richmond no longer tenable. Lee retreated, but was cut off at Appomattox Courthouse, where he surrendered, receiving generous terms from Grant, on April 9, 1865.
Grant went about the distasteful business of war realistically and grimly. He was a skilled tactician and at times a brilliant strategist (his Vicksburg campaign is regarded by many as one of the great battles of history). His courage as a commander of forces and his powers of organization and administration made him the outstanding general of the North. Grant also was notably wise in supporting good commanders, especially Sheridan, William T. Sherman, and George H. Thomas (Ft. Brown). Made a full general in 1866, he was the first U.S. citizen to hold that rank.
As president, Grant at first seemed to favor the Reconstruction policy of President Andrew Johnson. In April, 1867, Johnson appointed him interim Secretary of War, replacing Edwin Stanton. Johnson expected him to hold the office against Stanton and thus bring about a court test of the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act, but Grant turned the office back to Stanton when the Senate refused to sanction Stanton’s removal. The inevitable choice of the Republicans for President, Grant was victorious over the Democratic candidate, Horatio Seymour, in 1868.
Characterized chiefly by bitter partisan politics and shameless corruption, his administrations were a national disgrace. The punitive Reconstruction program of the radicals was pushed with new vigor, and monetary legislation favorable to the commercial and industrial interests was passed. The President associated with disreputable politicians and financiers; James Fisk and Jay Gould deceived him when they tried to corner the gold market in 1869. In foreign affairs, however, much was accomplished by the able Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish.
The party unanimously re-nominated Grant in 1872, and he was reelected easily over Horace Greeley, the candidate of the Liberal Republican party and the Democrats.
Gen. Benjamin Alvord: Graduate of the United States military academy in 1833, served in the Seminole war (1835-‘7), was instructor in mathematics at West Point until 1839, and was on frontier, garrison, and engineer duty until 1846, when he participated in the military occupation of Texas, and subsequently in the war with Mexico. He received the successive brevets of captain and major for gallantry in several of the more important engagements, and was chief of staff on the march from Vera Cruz to Mexico in 1847. He was made paymaster 22 June 1854, and served as such until 1862, when he became a Brigadier-General of volunteers, which grade he resigned 8 August 1865. He was brevetted brigadier in the regular army in April 1865. From 1872 till his retirement from active service in 1881 he was chief of the pay department with the rank of Brigadier-General. He is the author of treatises on mathematics and many essays.
Gen. Christopher Columbus Augur: He graduated from the USMA in 1843, placing 16th out of 39 (his classmates contained future Union Generals William B. Franklin, Ulysses S. Grant and Joseph J. Reynolds (Ft. Brown), as well as future Confederate Generals Roswell Ripley, Samuel G. French and Franklin Gardner (Ft. Brown)).
His service after graduation was typical, serving in the Mexican War and on the Western Frontier against the Plains Indians. When the Civil War started he had the rank of Captain, 4th United States Infantry in the Regular Army, and served as commandant of cadets at West Point.
In May 1861 he was promoted to Major of the newly-raised 13th United States Infantry, but his time with the new regiment as brief. In November 1861 he was promoted to Brigadier General, US Volunteers, and commanded a brigade along the Rappahannock River during the Spring 1862 Peninsular Campaign. He then served with General Nathaniel Banks in operations in Louisiana and Mississippi, leading the left wing of the Union Army that forced the capitulation of Port Hudson, Miss., in July 1863. He subsequently commanded simultaneously the XXII Corps and the Department of Washington to the end of the war. As commander of the Capital District, he was present when President Abraham Lincoln succumbed to an assassin’s bullet, and was detailed to escort the President’s body from the Petersen House, where he died, to the White House.
Joseph K. Barnes: Became Surgeon General of the U.S. and was at the theater at the time when Lincoln was shot to death by John Wilkes Booth April 14, 1865. He assisted Dr. Robert King Stone and Army surgeons Charles A. Leale and Dr. Charles A. Taft during Lincoln’s last hours.
William Thomas Harbaugh Brooks: He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1841 and served in Florida in 1841-2. In 1843-5 he was on frontier duty in Kansas, and in 1845-6 served in the military occupation of Texas, becoming first lieutenant in the 3d infantry, Sept. 21, 1846.
He was in nearly all the battles in the Mexican war, was brevetted captain, Sept. 23, 1846, for his conduct at Monterey, and major, Aug. 20, 1847, for services at Contreras and Churubusco. In 1848-‘51 he was aide-de-camp to General Daniel Twiggs, and on 10 Nov. 10, 1851, became captain in the 3d infantry. From this time until the civil war he served in various forts. In 1854 and again in 1858 he was on scouting duty, and from 1858 till 1860 was given sick leave.
On Sept. 28, 1861, he was made brigadier-general of volunteers, and served in the peninsular campaign of 1862, being engaged at Yorktown, Lee's Mills, Golden’s Farm, Glendale, and Savage Station, where he was wounded. In September, 1862, during the Maryland campaign, he was in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, being wounded again at the latter place.
In October and November, 1862, on the march to Falmouth, Virginia, he commanded a division, and again in the Rappahannock campaign, December, 1862, to May, 1863. From June 11, 1863, till 6 April, 1864, he commanded the Department of the Monongahela, and in the operations before Richmond in 1864 was at the head of the 10th army corps, being engaged at Swift’s Creek, Drury's Bluff, Bermuda Hundred, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. His health failing on account of wounds and exposure, he resigned on July 14, 1864, and in 1866 went to a farm in Huntsville, Alabama, where he remained until his death.
Robert Christie Buchanan: He was appointed to the United States Military Academy from the District of Columbia, and after his graduation in 1830 served as lieutenant in the Black Hawk and Seminole wars.
He was made captain on Nov. 1, 1838, and in the war with Mexico took part in numerous battles. He was brevetted major, May 9, 1846, commanded a battalion of Maryland volunteers from Nov. 25, 1846, till May 30, 1847, and brevetted lieutenant colonel, Sept. 8, 1847, for services at Molino del Rey. He was made major in the 4th infantry, 3 February, 1855, served against hostile Indians and in various positions until the beginning of the Civil War, when he became lieutenant colonel of his regiment and stationed in the defenses of Washington from November, 1861, till March, 1862.
He had command of his regiment in the army of the Potomac during the peninsular campaign, and afterward of a brigade of infantry. He was engaged in the siege of Yorktown and in the battles of Gaines’s Mills, Glendale, and Nalvern Hill, and made brevet colonel 27 June, 1862. He took part in the second battle of Bull Run and in the Maryland and Rappahannock campaign, in November, 1862, was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers, and in March, 1863, was placed in command of Fort Delaware.
In February, 1864, he was promoted to the rank of colonel of the 1st infantry, which regiment he commanded at New Orleans from December, 1864, till August, 1865. In March, 1865, he was made brevet brigadier-general of the United States army for gallant conduct at Malvern Hill, and brevet major general for services at Manassas and Fredericksburg. He commanded the district of Louisiana from January, 1868, till January, 1869, and on 31 December, 1870, was retired, on his own application, after thirty years of consecutive service.
Don Carlos Buell: The Ohio-born, Indiana-raised West Pointer (1841) was posted to the infantry and saw service in the Seminole and Mexican wars.
In the latter he was wounded at Churubusco and received two brevets. The outbreak of the Civil War found him on the West coast as the adjutant general of the Department of the Pacific.
Arriving in Washington in September 1861, he helped organize the Army of the Potomac under Gen. George B.McClellan and briefly commanded a division. Transferred to Ohio, he was placed in command of the army for operations into East Tennessee. This represented a special desire of the president to liberate the mountain loyalists.

But Buell had other ideas and, with the misgivings of both Lincoln and McClellan, moved against Nashville instead. His advance came simultaneously with Grant's against Forts Henry and Donelson. After taking the Tennessee capital (with little opposition) he moved to the support of Grant at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee.
He arrived on the scene of the battle of Shiloh, with his leading divisions, late on the first day. Witnessing the fugitives from Grant's army cowering under the river bank, he believed that it was only his army that saved Grant from defeat. This point has long been debated. It must be remembered that the worst place from which to judge how a battle is going is the straggler-filled rear of an army.
He took a notable part in the fighting of the second day. By this time his department had been absorbed into Halleck’s – his army however, maintained its name – and he commanded one of the three armies in the extremely slow advance on Corinth.
He later led four divisions along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad towards Chattanooga while repairing the line. With his supply line destroyed by Rebel cavalry, his movement came to a halt.
With Bragg's invasion of Kentucky, he was forced to fall back north to protect the line of the Ohio River. Dissatisfied with his progress, the authorities ordered him to turn over command to George H. Thomas on Sept. 30, 1862, but the next day this order was revoked. On Oct. 8 he fought the indecisive battle of Perryville, which halted a Confederate invasion that was already faltering.
He failed, however, to follow up the retreating enemy and for this was relieved on Oct. 24, 1862. For the next half year a military commission reviewed the facts but made no recommendation. Buell returned to Indianapolis, claiming that he had not advanced because of a lack of supplies. There he awaited orders that never came. He was mustered out of the volunteers on May 23, 1864. A few days later, on June 1,1864, he resigned his regular commission as well. His friendship with the ousted McClellan was of no benefit to him. After the war he was in the Kentucky iron and coal industry.