Monterrey Is Ours!

The Mexican War Letters of Lieutenant Dana, 1845-1847

Napoleon Tecumseh Dana, Robert H. Ferrell

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780813152424, 9780813117034
• eBook ISBN: 9780813194103
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

"Here we are on the banks of the Nueces in the grand camp of the army of occupation." So wrote Lt. Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana when in 1845, not many months before the outbreak of the Mexican War, he joined the white-tented encampment of General Zachary Taylor in Texas. And so he continued writing during the uncertain life of camp and campaign for the better part of the next two years. In these letters to his wife, published here for the first time, Dana provides a detailed, firsthand view of the United States' war with Mexico—fighting off the Mexicans from within Fort Brown during the initial attack; hearing the distant thunder of artillery as Taylor's army marched to the rescue of the beleaguered Seventh Infantry; occupying Matamoros; taking Monterrey, street by street with the defenders firing from the housetops. After Monterrey, Dana was at the siege of Veracruz and on the march to Cerro Gordo. Badly wounded in the attack on Telegraph Hill at Cerro Gordo, he was left on the field for dead, but was rescued by a burial party a day and a half later. Following the Mexican War, Dana went on to become a major general during the Civil War and later to have an illustrious career as a railroad executive. Nearly one hundred of his letters about the Mexican War survived and are now in the archives at West Point. From them Robert Ferrell has edited this vivid, eyewitness narrative.

1
On the Nueces

August-October 1845

Arrival in the Grand Camp. Appointment as Quartermaster. In Bed with Rattlesnakes. Intimate Advice to Sue. Terrible Accident to the Dayton. Funeral. Lipan Indians. Mrs. Hawkins. Flies, Cockroaches. Toothache. Alf. Cool Weather. A Horseback Ride.

The antecedents of the Mexican War of 1846-48 need no recital. Suffice it to say that during the presidential election of 1844, between the supposed dark horse candidate of the Democrats, James K. Polk of Tennessee, who had actually been a prominent member of the House of Representatives, having occupied the post of Speaker, and the Whig candidate Henry Clay of Kentucky, the issue became the annexation of Texas—which was likely to produce war with Mexico. The Texas issue was nothing if not complicated. The Mexican government claimed Texas as its rightful northern territory. Texas, however, had made itself independent in the revolution of 1835-36. Upon the success of that revolution, the people of Texas sought to bring Texas into the Union. Such an arrangement had not happened immediately less because of Mexican displeasure—the government in Mexico seemed too weak to intervene—than because of the uneasy sectional balance within the United States. Addition of what was then called Texas, which comprised not merely present-day Texas but the upper Rio Grande valley, might have required a division into several states, which would have destroyed the balance in the U.S. Senate between slave states and free. But annexation was a popular issue in the American South and in the West, and the Democrats under Polk decided it was a winner. In part because Clay could not make up his mind about expansion, Polk won. John Tyler, then president, signed a joint resolution of Congress annexing Texas. Upon taking office, Polk sent General Taylor into Texas with a few thousand troops as an army of occupation. The Mexicans said the border between their province of Texas and Mexico’s other provinces was the Nueces River. The Americans said it was the Rio Grande. Taylor’s troops were soon in the disputed area. The situation was, to put things mildly, uneasy. Polk trusted that a show of force would suffice to confirm the annexation of Texas, but if the Mexicans were foolish enough to challenge Taylor, the president was willing to go to war—in which case the soldiers of the United States would seize New Mexico and California.

August 29

Here we are on the banks of the Nueces in the grand camp of the army of occupation. I am seated in ... a chair upon my chest, and writing in the chair, myself sitting in the rocking chair (what luxury for the camp), with a piece of candle lighted by me flaring, so that I find difficulty in writing. There is always a very strong sea breeze blowing here, which renders the land very pleasant and Corpus Christi Bay the roughest piece of water for its size I have ever seen.

Well, how did we get here? My dearest wife, I will go ‘way back to St. Joseph’s Island, thirty-five miles, and tell you. Yesterday morning at seven o’clock we loaded, with two companies and their baggage, a schooner to which the one we went to Pensacola in was a splendid palace. No exaggeration. She was the ugliest and nastiest craft I ever saw. Well, we crowded ourselves on board of the cranky, tarry, filthy concern and started, with the hope of getting to General Taylor’s headquarters by twelve o’clock.¹ But oh, the fallacy of human expectations! We little knew what a fix we had got into. We had not gone more than two miles before we had been aground twice and the men had to jump overboard and shove the vessel off. After a good deal of fuss and no fun, we made out to reach the head of a bayou, five miles, where the wind was dead ahead. Here the men had to get out into the water waist-deep and with a line cordelle us for three hours.²

Not liking the accommodations on board, I took my gun and jumped overboard too. After stubbing my boots entirely out I came on board again with two whole birds.

Well, to make a long story short, we did not arrive at Corpus Christi till after sunset, and there we had to anchor four hundred yards from the shore and land in small boats with a tremendous sea running. I tell you the waves were bigger than ever you saw. Where we were it was out of the question to land any of the baggage in the night. So we had to take the [illegible] and jump overboard to our hips to do that and there we were again on the sand beach with no tents and I no blanket. Captain Lee went up to the dragoon camp to sleep with Sibley, his brother-in-law, the adjutant, who was kind enough to send me a buffalo robe as I had to pass the night with the company on the beach.³ So without any supper, and only hard biscuit for dinner, we laid ourselves down with nothing over us but (as Crittenden says) the starry canister of heaven. But would you believe it, in spite of this real soldier fare I slept so soundly that I could not even dream of my sweet wife and babe, far, far away. . . .

Camp of the army of occupation. Lithograph after Daniel P. Whiting.

We have been hard at work all day clearing ground for our camp, pitching tents, digging wells, etc. We have a great deal yet to do, in fact we will continue to have hard work till we go home again, which will be God knows when. I don’t think there is to be anything done in the way of fighting. If there is, it will be a long time first. If Mexico declares war, I believe General Taylor means to march us right on Matamoros. If he does, it is to be hoped that we will not get a whipping. . . .

I believe, my dear Sue, that I have not changed my shirt for five days, but as soon as I stop writing I am going to undress to my shirttail and slippers and go to the beach some thirty yards behind my tent and take a fine bath. Then I will go to bed and think of you and wake up in the morning and think of my loved one again. You are always my first and my last thought, my alpha and my omega, and so you ever shall be. I have not shaved for a week and do not intend to till I see you. You never saw such a hairy looking set of fellows in your life as we have here. Nobody shaves, some have hair all over their faces, and some you can see nothing but their eyes.

1. For Gen. Zachary Taylor, see Holman Hamilton, Zachary Taylor, 2 vols. (New York, 1941-51); Brainerd Dyer, Zachary Taylor (Baton Rouge, 1946); Silas B. McKinley and Silas Bent, Old Rough and Ready (New York, 1946); and K. Jack Bauer, Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest (Baton Rouge, 1985). Also see John S.D. Eisenhower, “Polk and His Generals,” in Douglas W. Richmond, ed., Essays on the Mexican War (College Station, Tex., 1986), 34-65.

2. A cordelle is a towline or towrope.

3. Francis Lee graduated from West Point in 1822, was a captain at the outset of the Mexican War, was promoted to major in 1847, and was brevetted to lieutenant colonel that same year. He died in St. Louis in 1859. George W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy . . . , 2 vols. (New York, 1868), I, 234-35. Caleb C. Sibley graduated from the Academy in 1829 and was a captain in the Fifth Infantry in 1845. He served as a lieutenant colonel and colonel in the Civil War (Cullum, I, 353). The brevet rank of Francis Lee, mentioned above, requires explanation. Intended to reward officers for combat, it became a way to promote men unable to receive promotion because of lack of retirements. Normally brevet rank carried no increase in authority or pay, but General Taylor received a larger command while enjoying brevet rank—he was a brevet brigadier general in 1845 (K. Jack Bauer, The Mexican War, 1846-1848 [New York, 1974], 33-34).

September 1

How I wish I could know how my sweet little Sue is coming in all that she does and all that she feels in the absence of her husband. If I could only get one look at you, I do not say that I would be satisfied, but it would repay me for many of these sad and lonesome moments. You must have been home now some five or six days, and with your father and sisters, and you must be comparatively happy.¹ I have no doubt that you have a good many cries, and a good many hours of low spirits, but you must welcome them and patiently await the distant day of our meeting. We can, none of us, give any guess when that day will come. Probably it will be long first, quite long. . . .

The skin, dear wife, [is] off of two places on me, it is burned off of my face by the hot sun and rubbed off of my tail by a hard-trotting horse. You did not know that I am a mounted officer, though, and I belong to the regimental staff. Yesterday I was appointed quartermaster to the regiment by Major Brown, under an order from General Taylor. It has nothing to do with the company, but quartermaster alone.² So that I have charge and conduction of all the transportation, mules, horses, oxen wagons, baggage train, etc. of the regiment. It is a high compliment paid me by the major when there are so many officers senior to me. The task is very arduous and responsible and will keep me riding about pretty near all the time. I have a good horse and saddle and have used him a good deal already. This will give me back the sixteen dollars a month which I lost by leaving Fort Pike. How long I shall keep the appointment I cannot tell, because there are three quartermasters ordered out here from Washington, and one of them may be required to perform the duties for this regiment. Should I retain it and we commence our marches, all my energies will be called out, every one of them in full play. The office, if faithfully fulfilled, is no sinecure.

Besides being a mounted officer, I have also mounted my bed. Until last night I have slept on the ground, but the reptiles were so abundant I could stand it no longer, so I made Evans cut me four crooked forks and plant them at the four corners of my bed. Across these I laid two crooked poles and again across these I laid some flour-barrel staves. This is my bedstead. It broke down this afternoon and I rolled out of the tent, to the great amusement of Britton and all hands.³ When I rolled out, the horse kicked and Bascomb barked and everybody laughed.

But the snakes are really bad here and are the only bedfellows we have. Yesterday morning Whiting found a huge rattlesnake coiled up at the foot of his bed. He woke all around him with his nine rattles. They killed him and Whiting has his skin.⁴ A Lieutenant Smith had one crawl over his bare legs one night and he laid still until His Snakeship crawled off. We all get used to the varmints here and you must not be surprised if I bring home a few pets of the kind.

1. Major Sandford was then living in Gold Springs, Missouri, a locality not on present-day maps.

2. Jacob Brown served in the War of 1812 and was promoted to captain in 1825 and major in 1843 (Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 2 vols. [Washington, D.C., 19031, I, 252). Years later, Dana recalled some of the officers of the Mexican War and wrote about Major Brown: “The Seventh Infantry was the first regiment which received the fire of the enemy in Mexico. Having lost its lieutenant colonel, Hoffman, who died at Corpus Christi the preceding winter, it marched to Matamoros under the command of Major Brown, who was a veteran of the War of 1812, having been a sergeant in that war and promoted for gallantry from the ranks. When General Taylor found it necessary to take his whole force with him to his base of supplies for rations, knowing that a strong Mexican army was on our side of the river, as he mounted his horse (Old Whitey) the officers of the regiment gathered about him to bid him farewell. He had selected this regiment from his army to garrison the fieldwork which the army had thrown up right in front of Matamoros on the riverbank, at point- blank range of the batteries of the Mexicans on the opposite side, and with Bragg’s battery of light artillery of four guns (in which George H. Thomas, ‘the Rock of Chickamauga,’ was a second lieutenant) and Captain Lowd’s company of artillery with four eighteen-pounders, making us about five hundred all told for a garrison. He said to us as he mounted his horse, ‘Gentlemen, this fort has no name. It will be named for the first officer that falls here.’ He knew full well that we would be attacked as soon as he left, and the first officer who fell was the commanding officer, Major Brown, from whence comes the name of Brownsville, opposite Matamoros today” (Undated typescript in Dana MSS.)

3. Forbes Britton, an 1834 Academy graduate, was a first lieutenant with the Seventh Infantry in 1845. He attained a captaincy in 1847, resigned in 1850, and died in 1861 (Cullum, I, 460-61).

4. Capt. Daniel P. Whiting was Dana’s brother-in-law. A short biography appears in Cullum, I, 410. See also Mary B. Saunders, In Memoriam: Daniel Powers Whiting (n.p. n.d.), a copy of which is in the archives of the U.S. Military Academy. Born in New York State in 1808, Whiting graduated from West Point in 1832, served in the Indian War in Florida, was promoted to captain in 1845, and was brevetted major after the Battle of Cerro Gordo. After further garrison and frontier duty, during which he took part in the Utah expedition in 1858-60, he entered the Civil War as a lieutenant colonel but retired in 1863 because of ill health. After spending years as an invalid, he died in Washington in 1892. From the time he left West Point until near his death, he kept a detailed diary and after the Mexican War wrote an autobiography. He placed these documents in the charge of his youngest daughter, Mary Saunders. Alas, diary and autobiography seem to have disappeared. Whiting did arrange for publication of five lithographs. The first, of the army of occupation at Corpus Christi, was initially done in Baltimore in two hundred copies; the lithographer was Charles Fenderich, the publisher Edward Weber. It was not to the captain’s taste, and he arranged for ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Maps
• Introduction
• A Note on the Editing
• 1. On the Nueces
• 2. Tedium
• 3. The Rio Grande
• 4. War
• 5. Matamoros
• 6. To Reynosa and Camargo
• 7. To Monterrey
• 8. Monterrey Is Ours
• 9. Life in Monterrey
• 10. The Long March
• 11. Tampico
• 12. Veracruz
• 13. Cerro Gordo
• Acknowledgments
• Index