On the 6th of October he again wrote:

There is also a considerable volunteer force which was called out many months since, and has been slow in organizing, now on its way to your column. The Adjutant-General's estimate herewith of the total number of these troops and other detachments make the aggregate force en route under orders and being mustered into service about 15,000, since General Pierce's advance from Vera Cruz on the 14th of July, a

Notwithstanding these numbers it was not until October 18,' that General Lane with 3,300 reached Puebla. November 10, General Patterson with 2,600 arrived at Jalapa; December 14, these combined reinforcements, advancing in two or three columns, concentrated at Puebla to the number of 9,000; December 17, their advance reached the City of Mexico. In the meantime such was the sickness of the troops in the army at the capital that those present for duty on December 4, were reported by General Scott as only about 6,000. These figures show that in consequence of errors of statesmanship and a bad system of recruitment we needlessly exposed our army to the dangers of capture for a period of more than six months. Had the strength of the army during this time been calculated with nicety, based on a knowledge of the numbers and discipline of the enemy, we might applaud the apparent economy which achieved such results; but with the fact already stated, that for want of a bureau of military statistics, the chief of the most important department of supply could not learn at Washington whether wagons could be used in Mexico, we must ascribe the perils of our troops to the same mismanagement and want of reflection that supplied the means for military operations in 1812.

Notwithstanding the delays in forwarding men and supplies, such was the quality of our troops that the enemy, no longer able to oppose them, listened to propositions of peace, and on the 2d of February, 1848, ratified the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. Pursuant to this treaty and the President's proclamation, our army on the 5th of the following July, 26 months after the commencement of hostilities, evacuated Mexican territory.

STATISTICS.

With the salient facts before us, that General Taylor fought the first battles of the war with 2,100 regulars, when, but for the defect of the law, he might have had, by a simple increase of the rank and file, a force of 8,000; that the 13 regiments of the Regular Army with which General Scott landed at Vera Cruz could have been raised to 15,000 men; that with such an army he could have entered the City of Mexico on the heels of Cerro Gordo; that at no time before the event his maximum force exceeded 13,500, and that after a brilliant series of battles he finally entered the Mexican capital with less than 6,000 men, let us next consider the number of troops the Government employed:

Regulars (old establishment).

Army of occupation, May, 1846..

Number of recruits and troops who joined the Army in Mexico..

Total..

a House Ex. Doc. No. 60, Thirtieth Congress, first session, p. 1008.

Same, p. 1030.

Same, p. 1031.

d Same, p. 1039.

Same, p. 1033.

ƒ Scott's Autobiography, vol. 2, p. 420.

3, 554 15,736

19,290

Regulars (new establishment).

1 regiment of dragoons, 8 regiments of infantry, 1 regiment of voltigeurs.... 11, 186

Total, Regular Army..

Battalion of marines..

30,476 548

Total, regular forces.

31, 024

Reenforcements for the old army to the number of 19,066 started for Mexico, leaving, after deducting 15,736 who joined, 3,930 who never reached their destination. The whole number of troops and recruits sent to the new establishment was 11,976, of whom 790 failed to join. For the old establishment from May 1, 1846, to July 5, 1848, 21,018 men were enlisted. For the new establishment during the same period the number was 13,991. Total 35,009.

Resolving the volunteer force of 73,260 into the different arms of

service, it consisted of

Cavalry or mounted troops.

Artillery..

Infantry

Resolving it into officers and men, it consisted of

Officers..

Noncommissioned officers and privates

16, 887

1, 129

55, 244

3, 131

70, 129

In this mass of men, who were totally inexperienced at the beginning of their service, there was a leaven of between thirty and forty officers who were in, or had been in, the Regular Army. The total force employed during the war, including 31,024 regulars and marines, was 104,284.

The actual number mustered in, exclusive of the army of occupation (3,554) and 548 marines, was 100,454.

From these figures it will be perceived that the regular troops, 31,024, exceeded more than six times the number of regulars and volunteers with whom Taylor at Buena Vista defeated the entire Mexican army; while, omitting the three and six months' men and adding 31,024 to the 60,659 volunteers for twelve months and the war, the aggregate, 91,683 regulars and volunteers, was nine times as great as the effective strength of the army with which Scott fought the decisive battles around the City of Mexico.

CASUALTIES.

The casualties among the different classes of troops were as follows:

Total wounded, killed, and died of wounds .

Total killed, wounded, and died of wounds, Regular Army

The number killed, wounded, and died of wounds, in the three classes of troops was as follows:

Regulars (19,290), old establishment.

Regulars (11,186), new establishment.

2,595 415

@ 1, 831

Volunteers (73,260).

The losses in killed and died of wounds among the volunteers were distributed as follows:

The deaths from disease and accidents were as follows:

Of the 16 killed or died of wounds among the three and six months' men (all held for three months), 15 belonged to the Texas rangers, two companies of whom were organized by General Taylor before leaving Corpus Christi, and who were with him in the skirmishes preceding Palo Alto.

This loss of but one man among the remaining 12,000, who were called out too late to participate in the battle of Palo Alto and for too short a period to be available for operations beyond the Rio Grande,

indicates how useless was their service.

The same remark applies with almost equal force to the 33,000 volunteers for the war, called out to replace the 27.000 men who had had the benefit of a year's campaign and instruction. An analysis of their losses shows that of the 152 killed and died of wounds, 118 fell upon the four regiments (the Second New York, First and Second Pennsylvania, and First South Carolina), which were with Scott's army at Cerro Gordo and remained with it till the hour of its triumph. Thus it appears that, excepting the Texas rangers from the three and six

a The killed and wounded in the entire force of volunteers is taken from the Statistical Report of the Surgeon-General, Ex. Doc. No. 96, Senate, Thirty-fourth Congress, first session, p. 621. This number is taken in preference to 1,778, computed from Ex. Doc. No. 24, II. R., Thirty-first Congress, first session; both are based on figures of the Adjutant-General, compiled from the reports of commanders and regimental and company returns. As stated by the Adjutant-General, “The statistics of the war are given as close approximation only."

House Ex. Doc. No. 24, Thirty-first Congress, first session, pp. 23, 24, 25, 26, Table C.

House Ex. Doc. No. 24, Thirty-first Congress, first session, pp. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 Table C.

months' men and the four gallant regiments which entered the Mexican capital from the volunteers called out for the war, the total loss among more than 42,000 men was but 35 in killed and died of their wounds.

If we choose to carry the argument further and add to the 42,000 the 11,000 new regulars who were likewise called out to repair the mistake of twelve-month enlistments, it will appear that we had more than 53,000 men in the service, whose losses in killed and died of wounds numbered but 178. Laying aside the President's responsibility for this result, it is important to observe that 12,000 of these men (militia) were called out because our defective laws gave the President no power to increase the rank and file of the Army, while 41,000 were called out to remedy another legislative blunder which permitted him to accept volunteers for twelve months instead of for the war.

To establish the fact that these 41,000 men, regulars and volunteers, need not have been summoned to the field except to retrieve errors of statesmanship, self-evident to the military mind, we have only to state that the old army recruited to 19,000, added to the 27,000 volunteers, had the latter been accepted for the war, would have given the Government a permanent force of 46,000 men. Contrasted with this number the greatest strength of the Mexican army was never estimated to exceed 36,000 men. As these conclusions bear solely on the extravagance of our system, it is possible that they may be lightly considered under the popular conviction that in time of peace our economy more than offsets the prodigality of war, but there are other considerations of deeper import than dollars and cents. Ina government of the people and for the people, more than in any other, it is the duty of statesmen to study the means of preserving life as well as property, yet history shows that in proportion as the national treasure has been squandered, have the lives of our brave and patriotic citizen soldiers been thrown away.

As an evidence of the penalty paid for entrusting raw troops to inexperienced officers who knew nothing of the principles governing their diet and health, let us again recur to statistics, taking, for example, the deaths by disease in the old and new regular regiments. A comparison of these figures shows that while the old army, numbering from first to last 19,290, was exposed for more than two years to a sickly climate and lost 2,574 enlisted men, or at the rate of 6 per cent per annum, the new establishment, numbering but 11,186, lost in less than a year 2,055, or at the rate of 19 per cent per annum- -a loss three times as great as the old regiments.

That this loss might have been much lessened had their field officers been selected from the old regiments, scarcely admits of denial. Other figures may be quoted which should not escape the attention of the philanthropist. If it be admitted that but for the unfortunate option granted by the law, the 27,000 volunteers first called out, in connection with the old regular establishment, would have been sufficient to bring the war to a speedy termination, then it must also be granted

At the battle of Salem Heights or Chancellorsville the One hundred and twentyfirst New York Volunteers, after six months' training under a regular officer, went into action with 8 companies, numbering 458 men, and lost 228 killed and wounded, of whom 92 were killed and died of their wounds. This loss of part of a regiment in a single battle exceeded one-half of the loss of 53,000 men who served in the Mexi

can war.