Had this discretion been granted to the President by the law of 1842, the army of occupation need not have been exposed to an attack by an army of three times its numbers; neither would there have been any occasion to expose to the ravages of disease the thousands of three months' men who rushed to its rescue. On the 19th of May a regiment of mounted riflemen intended for service in Oregon was added to the Army. The remaining laws, from May 13 to the month of August, the end of the first session of the Twenty-ninth Congress, mainly related to the temporary increase during the war, of the various staff departments. The Army, as organized by the foregoing laws, numbered 775 officers and 17,020 men; total, 17,812;" but so slow was the recruitment that, by the return of December 5, 1846, the aggregate present and absent numbered 10,690, leaving a deficiency of recruits amounting to 6,958. The reasons for this deficiency, the same as existed during the Revolution and the War of 1812, were plainly set forth in the Secretary's report. The want of better success in recruiting is, I apprehend, mainly to be ascribed to the large number of volunteers which has, in the meantime, been called out. The volunteer service is regarded generally by our citizens as preferable to that in the Regular Army, and as long as volunteers are expected to be called for it will be difficult to fill the ranks of the regular regiments unless additional inducements are offered or the terms of service modified. A small pecuniary bounty given at the time of enlistment, or land at the end of the term of service, would, it is believed, have a most beneficial effect. Probably an equally favorable result would flow from annexing a condition to the present period of service, allowing the recruit to be discharged at the end of the present war. It is presumed there are many thousand patriotic citizens who would cheerfully enter the service for the war if they could return to the pursuits of civil life at its close.c The second section of the law for the increase of the staff departments merits attention. It authorized the President to call into the service, under the act approved May 13, 1846, such of the general officers of the militia as the service, in his opinion, may require, and to organize into brigades and divisions the forces authorized by said act, according to his direction.d This section would apparently denote that Congress regarded the volunteers under the Constitution as substantially the same as the militia, and that conformably with the law of 1792 the Governors of States had an equitable right to the appointment of all the officers, from the highest to the lowest grades. This partial adhesion to the State system was the means, in many instances, of placing the fortunes of the country, as well as the lives of our soldiers, in the hands of generals utterly ignorant of the military art at a time when the Government had at its disposal numbers of competent officers who had devoted their lives to the theory and practice of their profession. The first law of the next session was passed on the 12th of January, 1847, and, pursuant to the recommendation of the Secretary of War, permitted recruits to enlist in the Regular Army for the period of “five years" or "during the war." The recruits were also to receive a bounty of $12, $6 paid in hand, the remainder to be retained till the recruit joined the regiment. Had patriotic citizens been permitted to enlist in the Regular Army for the war at the outset, it is probable that the difficulties of recruitment might have been largely diminished. a Army Register, 1847. House Ex. Doc. No. 4, Twenty-ninth Congress, second session, p. 68. House Ex. Doc. No. 4, Twenty-ninth Congress, second session, p. 53. a Callan's Military Laws of the United States, first section, p. 373. The legislation of the new session was not limited to the recruitment of the Army. On the 11th of February, but not till more than two months after the commencement of the session, Congress passed an act increasing the Army by 1 regiment of dragoons and 9 of infantry, the regiments to serve, and the men to be enlisted, for the war. of these infantry regiments was to be organized and equipped as voltigeurs and foot riflemen, and to be provided with a rocket and mountain howitzer battery." One The second section of the law, recognizing, in the absence of the law of retirement, the great scarcity of field officers with the troops, authorized the appointment of an additional major to each of the regiments of dragoons, artillery, infantry, and riflemen, the majors to be selected from the captains of the Army. The necessity for a law of retirement, which was strongly urged during the Florida war, was again presented at the beginning of the Mexican war. On the 30th of July, 1846, the Adjutant-General reported that out of 12 field officers of artillery but 4 were able to take the field, the remainder being disqualified by reason of age, wounds, or other disabilities. In the infantry one-third of the 24 field officers were disqualified to take the field for the same reasons. In the 5 regiments of infantry, belonging to the army of occupation, there were present but 6 field officers, 2 of whom, General Taylor and General Worth, held commands higher than a regiment." The ninth section gave to every soldier, whether volunteer or regular, who had enlisted for twelve months, a bounty, on receiving an honorable discharge, of 160 acres of land, or the equivalent of $100 in Treasury scrip bearing interest at 6 per cent. Soldiers of less than a year's service were in like manner given a bounty of 40 acres of land or $25 in scrip. Other sections of this law provided for an increase of the Pay and Quartermaster's Departments, necessitated by the general increase of the line. The delay in the passage of the above law, which was recommended in the President's message at the beginning of the session, made it impossible for the new regiments to arrive in the field till late in the summer. March 3, 1847, another act was passed, authorizing an increase of the general officers to correspond to the number of new regiments which The second section were to be discharged at the end of the war. added a lieutenant-colonel and two captains to the Adjutant-General's Department. The third section, passed on the President's recommendation as a means of partially retrieving the mistake of short enlistments, authorThe section ized him to organize into companies, battalions, and regiments such volunteers then in Mexico as would reenlist for the war. also contained the important recognition of the right of the President to commission the officers of volunteers. The fourth section gave to the volunteers so reenlisting a bounty of $12. The fifth section authorized the President to accept the services of individual volunteers to fill vacancies in any of the existing regiments of volunteers. These three sections clearly indicated a growing difficulty in procuring volunteers to replace casualties, a difficulty that would have increased in accordance with all previous experience in direct proportion to the prolongation of the war. P. 379. a Callan's Military Laws of the United States, first section, The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth sections increased the Pay Department; the sixteenth section added 2 captains and 6 first lieutenants to the Ordnance Department; the eighteenth section added 2 companies to each regiment of artillery, and authorized 2 light batteries to be equipped in each regiment; the twenty-first section, recognizing the difficulty of recruiting by voluntary enlistment, authorized the President, in case of failure in filling any regiment or regiments (regulars or volunteers), to consolidate such deficient regiment or regiments, and discharge all supernumerary officers. This law, passed the day before the close of the second session of the Twenty-ninth Congress, completed all the military legislation of the war. As organized under the foregoing laws, the Army was composed as follows:" * Eleven assistant adjutants-general and 23 assistant quartermasters of the general staff, being detailed from the line and counted in their regiments, are, to avoid being counted twice, deducted from the number 86 in summing up the total officers and aggregate of officers and men. The field officers of each of the line regiments consisted of 1 colonel, 1 lieutenant-colonel, and 2 majors. The strength of each company and regiment in the different arms was as follows: The adjutants in the regiments of dragoons and riflemen were extra lieutenants. The adjutants of artillery, infantry, and voltigeurs, as @ Army Register, 1848. also the regimental quartermasters in all arms of the service, were lieutenants detailed from the subalterns. This provision in time of war proved to be false economy. It necessarily reduced two companies in each infantry regiment to two officers each at the beginning of a campaign, and when casualties occurred, exposed it to the danger of being left without a commissioned officer. Having examined all military legislation since the announcement of hostilities, we may now return to the operations of the army on the Rio Grande. CAMPAIGNS OF MONTEREY AND BUENA VISTA. So rapid was the organization of volunteers under the President's call of May 13, 1846, that some of the new regiments arrived on the Rio Grande during the month of June, and such numbers soon followed that the commander was at a loss as to their employment and subsistence. In fact, when he proceeded in August up the Rio Grande to Camargo, and thence began his march to Monterey, with an army composed of two divisions of regulars and a field division of volunteers his entire force but little more than 6,000-he was compelled to leave no less than 6,000 volunteers behind. His reasons for this were given in Order No. 108, issued at Camargo on August 28, 1846: The limited means of transportation, and the uncertainty in regard to the supplies that may be drawn from the theater of operations, imposes upon the commanding general the necessity of taking into the field, in the first instance, only a moderate portion of the volunteer force under his orders. It further appears that "while some 20,000 volunteers were sent to the theater of war, not a wagon reached the advance of General Taylor till after the capture of Monterey." b This lack of transportation developed in a striking manner the want in our War Department of a bureau of military statistics. General Jesup, the Quartermaster-General, wrote to the Secretary of War from New Orleans, on the 15th of December, 1845: As to the complaint in regard to the want of land transportation, it is proper to remark that there was no information at Washington, so far as I was informed, to enable me or the War Department to determine whether wagons could be used in Mexico.c This deficiency of wagons, however, in the end proved to our advantage, since it enabled the commander to form the volunteers who were left behind, into an army of the second line and to drill and prepare them for future campaigns. The importance which General Taylor attached to instruction was referred to by a writer who, after describing the causes of our success at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, stated: Never was the value of disciplined men more triumphantly demonstrated than on these glorious occasions; and since we have learned that General Taylor compels the volunteers with him to receive six hours' drilling per day and relieves them from all other duties, to make soldiers of them, we venture to predict that they, too, when they meet the enemy, will add to the reputation of our arms. "Rough and Ready" will first make them soldiers and then win victories with them. This prophecy was not slow of fulfillment. In the battle around Monterey, from the 20th to the 23d of September, the volunteers fought a House Ex. Doc. No. 119, Twenty-ninth Congress, second session, p. 210. Stevens's Campaigns of the Rio Grande and of Mexico, p. 21. e Montgomery's Life of General Taylor, p. 169. with a steadiness that earned the applause of their comrades of the regulars. The forces engaged at Monterey numbered,-Mexicans, 10,000, of whom 7,000 were regulars; Americans, regulars and volunteers, 6,645.@ The losses in these battles, which resulted in the capitulation of the city-the Mexican garrison being permitted to retire with their arms were: Regulars, killed and wounded ↳. Volunteers C. 205 282 But a still greater triumph awaited the volunteers. In January, 1847, nearly all the regular troops, as also a large number of volunteers, were withdrawn to take part under General Scott in the campaign against the City of Mexico. This detachment, which it was expected would contine General Taylor to the defensive, at least till after the arrival of new regiments of volunteers called out for the war, reduced the force with which in December he had advanced beyond Saltillo to about 6,000 men. Availing himself, with the instincts of a skillful commander, of this division of our forces, General Santa Ana advanced to Buena Vista, where, on the 22d and 23d of February, he sought to overwhelm and capture our army. In this battle, the most desperate of the war, our forces, numbering 4,759 men, of whom but 517 were regulars, defeated the entire Mexican army, estimated at 20,000. Our losses were 746 killed, wounded, and missing. The Mexican loss was estimated at 1,500. In his official report General Taylor gave the regular artillery, composed of the celebrated batteries of Washington, Sherman, and Bragg, the credit of saving the day. But the battle of Buena Vista, like all great battles, was fought chiefly by infantry, and the gallant volunteers, who, against overwhelming numbers, successfully mantained the honor of our arms, had been undergoing field training for nearly eight months, a period twice as long as the time considered necessary to transform a recruit into a regular soldier. In referring to General Wool, General Taylor in his official report stated: The high state of discipline and instruction of several of the volunteer regiments was attained under his command, and to his vigilance and arduous service before the action and his gallantry and activity on the field a large share of our success may justly be attributed.g General Taylor and General Wool were not alone in their efforts to discipline and instruct the Army. The commander of the Mississippi Rifles, as also the field officers of the Second Kentucky Volunteers, of which the colonel and lieutenant-colonel laid down their lives, were former officers of the Army. a Ripley's War with Mexico, vol. 1, p. 198, 199. House Ex. Doc. No. 24, Thirty-first Congress, first session, p. 10, Table B. General Taylor's official report, Ex. Doc. No. 1, Twenty-ninth Congress, first session. In his official report of the battle, Santa Ana states that he left San Luis Potosi with 18,133 men, and that his artillery train consisted of 17 pieces. General orders found on the battlefield indicate that he had 20 pieces of artillery. In summoning General Taylor to surrender, the Mexican commander gave his strength at 20,000 men.— EDITORS. House Ex. Doc., No. 24, House of Representatives, Thirty-first Congress, first session, p. 13 B and 29 D. f General Taylor's official report, Montgomery's Life of General Taylor, p. 299. 9 Montgomery's Life of General Taylor, pp. 298, 299. 15836-04- -14 |