The Training Ground (34 page)
Fourth of July
J
ULY 4, 1848
I
t was a Sunday. Rain had fallen during the night, tamping down the midsummer dust that so often drifted over Washington’s undeveloped riverfront. As the crowd of thousands flocked to the Mall in front of the Capitol, there was a “delicious freshness to the air,” in the words of one local paper.
They had come to witness the laying of the Washington Monument’s cornerstone. Local ferries and other transportation services had lowered their rates just for this special ceremony, which had begun early that morning with a grand parade and the pealing of church bells. The people came from near and far — local dignitaries, representatives of various Indian tribes, members of Congress and the judiciary, and names now synonymous with America’s earlier generations: Mrs. Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, the wife of Alexander Hamilton; Mrs. Dolley Payne Madison; Martin Van Buren; Sam Houston; John Quincy Adams; and Millard Fillmore. A forty-year-old bald eagle that had been in attendance when the legendary Lafayette visited nearby Alexandria in 1825 now perched atop a temporary archway. It was during his 1824–25 return to the United States (during which he had paid a poignant visit to the widow of Light-Horse Harry Lee and met a teenage Robert E. Lee) that the French general had presided over the dedication of the Bunker Hill Monument in Massachusetts. The eagle represented not just America and Lafayette’s visit but also the spiritual continuum between America’s early years of independence and the bold new future that now lay ahead. As if to remind one and all of the bird’s importance, it had ridden into the city on a stone wagon, as part of the grand procession, perched atop the 24,500-pound block of Baltimore marble that would soon become the cornerstone.
“In a hollow spread with boards and surrounded with seats the crowd gathered. Around two sides of this space were high and solidly constructed seats, hired out to spectators, covered with awnings, and affording a favorable position for seeing and hearing,” wrote one newspaper account. “From 15,000 to 20,000 persons are estimated to have been present, stretched over a large area of ground from the southern hill, gradually sloping to the plain below.”
Unbeknownst to most in attendance, the U.S. Senate had ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that morning, formally bringing an end to the Mexican War. Worth’s division, with Grant still among its members, had finally marched away from Mexico City on June 12, marking the end of the capital’s American occupation. Now, with the treaty’s ratification, the war was truly done.
Almost all of Polk’s demands had been met: Texas and all the lands west to the Pacific were now part of the United States, in exchange for fifteen million dollars, with the Rio Grande now specified as Texas’s southern boundary. The lone exception was that the United States had failed to secure control of transit rights across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which the British had magically finagled for themselves through deft diplomatic maneuvering. Nonetheless, America’s Manifest Destiny was complete.
For that reason, and for the powerful emotion accompanying the commencement of construction on the long-delayed Washington Monument, the Fourth of July, 1848, as one Washington newspaper noted, was truly “one of the most splendid and agreeable Washington has ever witnessed.”
T
HE WRITER DIDN’T
even know the half of it. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo’s biggest prize was California, with its deepwater ports and abundant natural resources. Now, as Lieutenant William Tecumseh Sherman prepared to celebrate the Fourth of July clear across the continent from Washington, those riches were about to take on a brand-new meaning. Sherman was working for the military governor of California, Colonel R. B. Mason, a stern yet fair individual who had been appointed when Kearny was ordered to take over as military governor of Veracruz. “I remember, one day in the spring of 1848, that two men, Americans, came into the office and inquired for the Governor. I asked them their business, and one answered that they had just come down from Captain Sutter on special business, and they wanted to see Governor Mason in person,” wrote Sherman, who ushered them into Mason’s office and then returned to his duties.
But Mason came to the door a moment later and summoned Sherman back into his office. A pair of dull yellow rocks lay atop a pile of papers on Mason’s desk. “What is that?” Mason asked him.
Sherman hefted one of the rocks. “Is it gold?” he asked.
It was. And soon Mason and Sherman struck out from Monterey, on their way up to an outpost known as Sutter’s Fort, in Sacramento. When they stopped at San Francisco, the soldiers were shocked to see the city almost empty of men. As they moved inland up the long, broad river delta that would take them to Sutter’s Fort, they saw that mills and shops in towns along the way were deserted and that farmers were allowing cattle and horses to wander about aimlessly in mature fields of wheat and corn, trampling and ruining the crops. Clearly, news of gold at Sutter’s Mill had already spread throughout northern California.
They had arrived on July 2. “Sutter’s Fort,” Sherman wrote, “stands about three miles back from the river, and about a mile from the American Fork, which is also a respectable stream. The fort encloses a space of about two hundred yards by eighty; the walls are built of adobe, or sun-dried brick. All the houses are of one story, save one, which stands in the middle, which is two stories.”
There they had met Sutter, a balding German immigrant in his midforties who had made a small fortune selling supplies to the local Indians, Californians (as the local Mexican population was known), and those Americans coming west to make a new life in California.
Sherman and Mason celebrated the Fourth of July at Sutter’s Fort in lavish fashion. “Sutter presided at the head of the table, Governor Mason on his right and I on his left. About fifty sat down to the table, mostly Americans, some foreigners, and one or two Californians. The usual toasts, songs, speeches, etc. passed off, and a liberal quantity of liquor was disposed of: champagne, Madeira, sherry, etc.; on the whole, a dinner that would have done credit in any frontier town.”
But that Fourth of July was just a prelude to the momentous events that would follow. Mason and Sherman set out two days later, riding twenty-five miles up the American River, to the place where miners were scrambling over the sand and pebbles of the water’s shallows, panning for gold. A bemused Sherman rode back to Monterey with Mason shortly afterward. Under the governor’s orders, Sherman drafted the letter back to Washington that would spark a worldwide rush to the California gold fields. “I have no hesitation now in saying that there is more gold in the country drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers than will pay the cost of the present war with Mexico a hundred times over. No capital is required to obtain this gold, as the laboring man wants nothing but his pick, shovel, and tin pan,” wrote Sherman. “Many frequently pick gold out of the crevices of rock with their butcher knives in pieces from one to six ounces.”
Sherman’s letter was handed to a courier, who sailed south, crossed the Panamanian isthmus on a mule, and then sailed to New Orleans via Jamaica and finally on to Washington. On December 5, 1848, in his final State of the Union address, President Polk announced the discovery of gold: “The accounts of abundance of gold are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service,” he said, crediting Sherman.
Within days, thousands upon thousands of Americans were flooding toward California, along with immigrants from Australia and South America. This “gold rush,” in turn, would see the settlement of those lands between California and the Mississippi River, thanks to the countless pioneers who trailed along in the miners’ wake, seeking farmland instead of gold.
Manifest Destiny had been realized. Lieutenant William Tecumseh Sherman never actually saw combat in the Mexican War, but in most unique fashion, his role in America’s sea-to-shining-sea expansion was as pivotal as any contribution by his West Point band of brothers.
O
n October 13, 1847, the American regular and volunteer officers stationed in Mexico City gathered to form a social group. They were a very special breed of men, and Scott had singled out the West Point graduates in particular when describing the outcome of the Mexican War: “I give it as my fixed opinion, that but for our graduated cadets, the war between the United States and Mexico might, and probably would have lasted some four or five years, with, in its first half, more defeats than victories falling to our share; whereas, in less than two campaigns, we conquered a great country and a peace without the loss of a single battle or skirmish.”
At first their aims were merely to establish a place to enjoy one another’s company while on duty in Mexico, but the Aztec Club, as they called themselves, would meet on a regular basis, long after they returned home from the occupation. The meetings would cease during the Civil War but would resume after the conflict and be conducted with a great deal of joviality and nostalgia.
Sam Grant
arrived back in Saint Louis on July 28, 1848. He had been among the first men to march into Mexico at the start of the war and marched out of Mexico City with Worth’s division as the very last American troops to leave. He was belatedly promoted to first lieutenant for his heroism at Molino del Rey, and then to captain for his courage at the San Cosmé
garita.
However, at war’s end, he was still a quartermaster. Julia had waited more than four years for his return, and they married just a little over three weeks after his arrival.
Pete Longstreet
served as Grant’s best man. Fellow officers Cadmus Wilcox and Bernard Pratte were also in the wedding party, both of whom would fight for the Confederacy. “My wedding cake was a marvel of beauty. . . . We had music, and I think two of my bridesmaids took a turn around the room,” wrote Julia. The Grants honeymooned with a riverboat ride to Cincinnati. Julia described the craft as “almost human in its breathing, panting, and obedience to man’s will.” They were often alone on deck, and she would sing something “low and sweet” to him.
Life for the Grants soon turned turbulent. Sam Grant was eager to stay in the military, but his pay would not cover the expense of having his family live with him at frontier outposts. Homesick for Julia and their growing family, he abruptly resigned his commission in 1854 and returned home. Rumors that drunkenness was the cause have been greatly exaggerated, as Grant was known for his inability to drink more than a few sips of alcohol owing to his light weight and diminutive size. He struggled to find a new profession and soon failed at a number of business ventures that included farming, tanning, and bill collecting. When the Civil War began, Grant was commissioned as a colonel in the Illinois militia. Within three years he had risen to become general-in-chief of all U.S. armies. Following the war, he returned to civilian life. Grant successfully ran for president in 1868 and served two terms. He died on July 23, 1885, shortly after completing his memoirs, which were edited by Mark Twain. Julia and he were loyal to each other throughout their nearly four decades of marriage. She survived him by seventeen years and is buried next to him in New York.
Robert E. Lee
became commandant of cadets at West Point shortly after the Mexican War. Following that, he was posted to Texas to serve in the ongoing battles against the Comanches and the Apaches, and he put down the insurrection at Harpers Ferry just before the Civil War. General Winfield Scott asked Lee to command the Union forces during that conflict, but he could not turn his back on his beloved Virginia. Lee’s brilliant tactics very nearly won the war for the South, but his defeat at Gettysburg proved his undoing. His family estate in Arlington had been used as a cemetery by Union forces, seeking to ensure that the house would never again be inhabited by Lee. They were correct. After the war, he served as president of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University) from 1865 until his death from complications of pneumonia in 1870. He is buried in Lee Chapel on that campus.
Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson
returned from Mexico as a battle-tested veteran and a brevet, thanks to battlefield promotions for bravery at Cerro Gordo, Churubusco, and Chapultepec. But he had also found himself deeply impressed by the Mexicans’ religious faith. He would later become a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. Jackson left the military soon after the war, and in 1851 he became an instructor at the Virginia Military Institute. He married in 1853, but his wife died in childbirth. Jackson married again in 1857, and his second wife bore him two daughters, only one of whom lived. When the Civil War broke out, Jackson became Lee’s top general. He was mistakenly shot three times by a sentry during a nighttime lull in the Battle of Chancellorsville. His left arm was amputated as a result, but he died of pneumonia on May 10, 1863.
William Tecumseh Sherman
married in 1850. He and his wife, Ellen, had eight children. He resigned his commission in 1853 and served as president of a bank until it failed in 1857. He moved to Kansas to practice law, failed at that, and then moved on to Louisiana, where he taught at a military academy. He would become legendary for his relentless Civil War march through Georgia. Sherman died on Valentine’s Day, 1891. One of his pallbearers was Confederate general
Joe Johnston,
who was eighty-four at the time. The day of Sherman’s funeral was rather cold; Johnston refused to wear a hat, soon took sick, and died of pneumonia one month later.
Zachary Taylor
was elected president in 1848, succeeding James K. Polk. Taylor died in office on July 9, 1850, after a Fourth of July celebration dedicating the newly completed Washington Monument.
James K. Polk
served just one term as president. He died on June 15, 1849, at the age of fifty-three, just five months after leaving office.
On December 6, 1847,
Abraham Lincoln
formally took his seat in the House of Representatives as the Thirtieth Congress came to order. Over in the Senate,
Jefferson Davis
had been appointed to fill a vacancy from the Mississippi delegation, and the popular “hero of Buena Vista” made his triumphal return to Washington. After several passionate antiwar speeches from the House floor (known as the Spot Resolutions), Lincoln gained political renown all his own. However, he was not reelected in 1848 and struggled politically and personally for much of the next decade. He was elected president in 1859 and was assassinated on April 15, 1865, six days after the Civil War ended, by a single .44-caliber shot through the head. His guests that evening at Ford’s Theatre were to have been Ulysses and Julia Grant.
Jefferson Davis
served as secretary of war from 1853 to 1857, then ran successfully to regain his Senate seat. However, when the Civil War broke out, he abandoned the Senate and was named a major general in the Mississippi militia, reclaiming his former Mexican War command. He soon accepted the position of president of the Confederate States of America, which he held throughout the war. Davis was briefly imprisoned afterward and then made his living selling insurance. He died at the age of eighty-one in New Orleans. His body was marched nonstop back to Richmond, Virginia, and was attended throughout by a throng of mourners.