The Wages of Fame

by Thomas Fleming

  Sarah pronounced it perfect and Caroline agreed—although she was sure Jeremy Biddle and his fellow Whigs would take exception to the claim that war existed on the basis of a single clash of cavalry. She foresaw the day when they might use the words to accuse James Polk of welcoming the war and even rushing to embrace it. But the exhausted president clearly could not tolerate another round of criticism.

  The next day, the House of Representatives took only two hours to vote the president everything he wanted—a declaration of war and the money he needed to fight it. But the Senate was a different story. Senator Benton declared that a war was too important a matter to decide in two hours. Senator Calhoun spoke passionately against the message. He called it a war for territory, which would disgrace America. The Whigs enthusiastically concurred with both Democratic senators. The World’s Greatest Deliberative Body adjourned without making a decision.

  At the White House, Caroline found Sarah Polk in agony. James had scarcely slept all night, anticipating the worst in the Senate, which now seemed to be happening. The cabinet was meeting with the president now. From remarks they had made as they gathered in the anteroom, Sarah could see they were pessimistic about the Senate vote.

  Caroline confided to Sarah her worries about the war message. “I thought the same thing,” Sarah said. “I warned James against it when he showed me an earlier draft. But Mr. Buchanan—or Senator Benton, or both—liked the idea of saying war was already a fact, which would make a vote against it a kind of desertion of our soldiers.”

  Sarah’s voice was so weary, Caroline had to resist an impulse to do or say something extravagantly sympathetic. She struggled to maintain the delicate balance that their silent partnership required.

  “This is beginning to be much more difficult than I ever imagined,” Sarah said.

  “‘’Tis not in mortals to command success, but we’ll do more, Sempronius; we’ll deserve it,’” Caroline said.

  Sarah managed a wan smile. “I’m afraid I recall Cato’s tragic ending more than the sublime opening.”

  “I begin to think reality, especially political reality, is never sublime.”

  “The whole thing is so precarious.”

  The cabinet meeting broke up. They could hear the male voices rumbling in the hall. After a few minutes, the president came into Sarah’s sitting room. He looked ghastly. His face seemed to be collapsing into his hollowed cheeks; his eyes were bloodshot with sleeplessness.

  “No one thinks the message has a chance,” he said, sinking into a chair. “We spent most of the time talking about what we can do if the Senate rejects it.”

  “What was the conclusion?”

  James Polk shook his head. “It’s a mare’s nest. If I order General Taylor to retaliate for the murder of our soldiers, I can be impeached for making war without a declaration by Congress. If I order him to retreat, we’ve lost the game. If I order him to stand fast, we risk more loss of life.”

  “Mr. President?”

  Senator Stapleton loomed in the doorway. His face was expressionless. Caroline’s heart plummeted. He was bringing bad news. The Senate had rejected the war message. The Polk administration was about to be engulfed by unparalleled humiliation.

  “Yes, Senator?”

  “I’m here to report that the Senate passed your war message by a vote of forty ayes and two nays.”

  Life, vigor, joy, surged through James Knox Polk’s small frame. He leaped to his feet and pumped George Stapleton’s big hand.

  “Was there much debate?”

  “Plenty. Most of it hot air from the Whigs about how they deplored voting for what my friend Senator Biddle called a mendacious war. But only two men had the nerve to vote no.”

  “Was one Calhoun?”

  “After making another speech against it, he abstained.”

  President Polk smacked his fist into his palm and turned to Sarah. He seemed to be growing taller by the second. Caroline thought for a moment his’ head was above George’s shoulder. “We’ve got your war. Now let’s see what we can do with it,” Polk said.

  “We’re going to do more than win fame,” Sarah said, meeting Caroline’s eyes as she spoke. “We’re going to deserve it.”

  Oh, my dear girl, I fear for thy salvation.

  Hannah Cosway Stapleton’s voice whispered in Caroline’s head. She dismissed the specter. Her mind thronged with images of muscular Americans in blue following General George Stapleton in a headlong charge that sent the Mexican Army fleeing in disarray. She saw the story in the newspapers. She would make sure that John L. O’Sullivan and other reporters hailed the hero senator. There were no limits to the power that throbbed around them in this city now.

  “Who knows,” Caroline said. “We may end up ruling all of Mexico.”

  TWO

  THREE MONTHS LATER, ON AUGUST 13, 1846, Brigadier General George Stapleton stood on the scorching upper deck of the paddle-wheel steamer USS Texas and gazed at the thousands of white tents arrayed in neat military rows for at least three miles on the left bank of the sluggish San Juan River. The sun beat down on the flat arid plain with a ferocity George had never experienced before in his life. Beyond the tents was a collection of white-walled buildings, the Mexican town of Camargo. Beyond that was a vast sunbaked emptiness.

  “How many men have we got here now?” he asked stumpy Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio.

  “About fifteen thousand. But the volunteers are dying so fast, it may soon be a third of that.”

  Raising men had been the least of President Polk’s worries. When he called for fifty thousand volunteers, the rush to enlist had overwhelmed recruiting offices everywhere. In Tennessee, thirty-six thousand came forward in the first two days, swamping the state’s quota of thirty-five hundred men. Similar overflows occurred in Mississippi, Kentucky, and Louisiana. The war was stupendously popular. Huge mass meetings in New York and other cities had pledged all-out support to the president.

  Lieutenant Grant had boarded the steamship on the Rio Grande, which met the San Juan about three miles below Camargo. A regimental quartermaster, he had been roving the border in search of pack mules to transport the army’s baggage on the advance into Mexico. He was not happy with his assignment. He wondered why he had spent four years at West Point studying mathematics and engineering to become a mule skinner.

  “An old sergeant heard me asking that question,” Grant said. “He told me there were three ways of doing everything: the right way, the wrong way, and the army way.”

  George had grown fond of the diffident soft-spoken young lieutenant. They had sat on the top deck last night discussing the war. He was dismayed to learn that Grant and many other members of the regular army disapproved of it. They bought the lies that John Quincy Adams and other Whigs were spouting in Congress that the war was a grab for more territory in which to spread slavery. Grant listened respectfully while George talked about Andrew Jackson’s continental vision and President Polk’s repeated attempts to negotiate with the Mexicans.

  Ashore, George told Hannibal Flowers to guard his baggage while he located the army’s commander, Major General Zachary Taylor. Hannibal had volunteered to serve as George’s orderly. George suspected the big black was glad to escape his wife, Mercy. He had married her at Caroline’s urging, and to give his daughter Tabitha a mother. But in his heart he was still mourning the other Tabitha he had lost in Charleston. Mercy sensed his lack of love and often expressed her discontent with cutting remarks.

  Lieutenant Grant said he would be happy to lead George to the general’s tent. As they trudged down the dusty camp streets, no less than three funerals passed them, preceded by fifes wailing and drums thudding the march for the dead.

  “You see what I mean?” Grant said. “It would be hard to find a more unhealthy place to camp an army. The river is fouled. You can’t get clean water anywhere.”

  The next thing George noticed was the overpowering stench. Grant nodded glumly when George mentioned it. “Fifteen
thousand men emptying their bowels and their bladders each day makes for a less than sublime atmosphere, no matter how much quicklime you put in the latrine ditches,” the lieutenant said.

  At the center of the camp, Grant pointed to a tent with a marquee in front of it. Beneath the marquee was a crude table made by placing a door over two barrels. At the table sat an elderly man in a rumpled civilian coat and a wide-brimmed floppy hat, reading what looked like newspaper clippings. George assumed he was a reporter. Grant had remarked that at least a hundred of them were with the army.

  “Excuse me, I’m looking for General Taylor,” George said.

  “You’ve found him,” the man said with what seemed minimal courtesy.

  George introduced himself. Taylor did not produce even the ghost of a smile. “We’ve been expecting you. I gather you’re a close friend of James Knox Polk.”

  “I’ve known him almost twenty years.”

  “What the hell is the matter with the man? Was he behind the door when they passed out the brains?”

  General Taylor launched into a tirade against President Polk, his secretary of war, and the Democratic Party. “Look at these slanders,” he said, shaking the newspaper clippings. “Every Democratic paper in the country is calling me General Delay. They expect me to win the war overnight. What am I supposed to do when your asshole friend the president sends me fifteen thousand men and not a single wagon to transport their baggage? Or doctors to care for them when they get sick? Or food to feed them? I suppose you’ve got a pen in your pocket, ready to skewer me in your newspapers. I’ve been told you own a half dozen in New Jersey and New York—”

  “General,” George said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m here to fight Mexicans. I’m not in the habit of writing to newspapers about anything.”

  The general still glowered suspiciously. “Have you had any military experience?”

  “I’ve had a lifelong interest in military matters. I’ve read Jomini and other writers on strategy and tactics. My father was a West Point graduate. I’ve served on the military affairs committees in the House and Senate. I can claim some credit for the money that bought the artillery I’ve heard the army has used to such good effect.”

  “They’re damn good guns,” Taylor grudgingly admitted. He drummed his fingers on the table. “See Major Bliss, my chief of staff. He’ll tell you where to pitch your tent. Have you brought any men with you?”

  “Only a Negro orderly.”

  “Keep him out of the town of Camargo. That’s where the volunteers are catching everything from cholera to the clap. If it weren’t for my regulars, we’d have only a ghost of an army here.”

  George was somewhat astonished by this attitude toward the volunteers. Taylor sounded as if he were talking about two separate armies. “How do you keep the regulars out of there, General?”

  “By giving a hundred lashes to anyone found near the place. You can’t do that with volunteers. They’d all start writing their mothers and that would be the end of somebody’s political career.”

  George struggled to control his temper. He wanted to say he was not here to further his political career. But that was not entirely true. He had to be satisfied with reiterating, “General, I’m here to fight Mexicans. Also to tell you the president is very anxious for you to begin your advance on Monterrey.”

  “I’m as anxious as he is!” Taylor snarled. “But I’ll be damned if I’ll be rushed into a failure so your friend Polk can fire me to make sure I don’t run for president.”

  “If you’ll excuse me, General. My orderly is waiting in the hot sun. I’d like to consult Major Bliss.”

  George found the chief of staff in a nearby tent. A West Pointer, he was as cordial as Zachary Taylor had been rude. He quickly selected a site on the west side of the camp for General Stapleton’s tent and summoned a half dozen regular soldiers from the camp guard to help Hannibal set it up. When George expressed a wish to call on the other general officers, Bliss briskly identified the location of their tents. George hurried back to the riverside with the regulars, entrusted Hannibal and his baggage to them, and headed for the tent of Brigadier General Gideon Pillow.

  About George’s age, Pillow had been James Polk’s law partner after Slim Jimmy Jones had temporarily retired him from politics. Handsome, mustachioed, he was a lady-killer who probably reminded Polk of his flamboyant youth, before he met Sarah Childress and got religion. Pillow had been at the Baltimore convention that nominated Polk. He greeted George cordially and ordered his orderly to set out two glasses and a bottle of Tennessee bourbon.

  “Have you met Old Zach?” Pillow asked.

  “Met is hardly the word,” George said. “He practically skinned me alive. I get the feeling he doesn’t like Democrats.”

  “He thinks we’re out to get him. He’s giving us damn good reason. Why in God’s name did Jim Polk put that old Whig curmudgeon in command?”

  “He was the ranking officer in this part of the country. We never dreamt he was a politician. He’s spent his whole life in the army. Then he won those battles …”

  Four days before Congress voted for war in Washington, D.C., the Mexican Army had crossed the Rio Grande and attacked Taylor’s army. He had beaten them badly in back to back battles and sent them fleeing a hundred miles to Monterrey. The newspapers had christened Taylor “Old Rough and Ready” and made him a national hero. Whigs in Louisiana, where Taylor owned two large plantations, began running him for president.

  “Has he got White House fever?” George asked.

  “He keeps denying it. But I think the bug has bitten him. His chief of staff, Bliss, keeps whispering it in his ear. He’s got a son-in-law down in Corpus Christi who sends him newspaper clippings by the ton.”

  “What kind of a general is he?”

  Pillow sneered. “He hasn’t done any real fighting. Our artillery is so much better than the Mexicans’, in the first battle, at Palo Alto, the infantry hardly fired a shot. In the second battle, at Resaca de la Palma, it was pretty much the same story. Without the West Pointers operating those guns, Old Zach would have been ruined.”

  “And he let them run away after he beat them—instead of rounding up every mother’s son of’m and ending the war on the spot.”

  The speaker was gray-haired Major General of Volunteers William O. Butler of Kentucky. His weather-beaten face reminded George of Andrew Jackson. Butler was thoroughly disillusioned with General Taylor. “We’ve been sitting here for two months with the men dying like dogs,” he said. “His regulars are dying too, though he won’t admit it.”

  “How many have we lost?” George asked.

  “At least a thousand,” Butler said. “Twice that many so sick they’ll have to be sent home. I visited a Georgia regiment yesterday. Only three hundred men were fit for duty—out of seven hundred.”

  Their local bad news exhausted, the two generals wanted good news from Washington. George did his best to supply it. The president was prosecuting the war with vigor. He had ordered a separate expedition commanded by General John E. Wool to march on Chihuahua, another major city in northern Mexico. Colonel Stephen E. Kearney was on his way with another column to take California. A third column under Colonel Alexander Doniphan was marching into New Mexico. “The goal is to occupy all the territory we want by the time the Mexicans sue for peace,” George said.

  “What has the president heard from Mexico City?” Butler asked.

  “Nothing. The only hope on that front is General Santa Anna. He sent a representative from his exile in Havana to tell Polk if he helps him return to Mexico, he’ll take over the government and talk peace. The president’s ordered the navy to let him pass through the blockade. He should be in Vera Cruz in a few weeks.”

  General Stapleton did not tell his fellow generals that as Senator Stapleton he had strongly advised the president against trusting General Antonio Santa Anna, the man who had slaughtered the defenders of the Alamo, signed a peace treaty with Texas and th
en repudiated it, and been kicked out of Mexico by his own people for his two-faced politics and gross corruption. But Polk was so anxious to end the war quickly, he could not resist the Mexican’s offer.

  On August 17, General Taylor staged a grand review of his regulars. Wearing a faded old blue uniform, he sat on horseback with his two regular brigadiers, Generals William Worth and David Twiggs. The brigadiers and their staffs were in full dress regimentals, dripping with gold braid. It was obvious that Old Zach was polishing his frontier image for the reporters. George and his fellow volunteer generals—there were now five of them in camp, all Democrats, naturally—were ruefully forced to envy the precision and snap the regular companies displayed as they swung past their commanders. George was even more impressed by the four batteries of artillery, led by West Pointers on prancing horses, with the gunners in red-striped trousers sitting erect on the rumbling caissons.

  The next day, Taylor summoned all the general officers in camp and announced his plans for the advance on Monterrey. He was taking only six thousand men. Washington had failed to send the thousand wagons he needed to transport provisions for the whole army. He was being forced to rely on mules. All three thousand regulars were coming with him—and only three thousand volunteers. They would be commanded by Major General William Orlando Butler—and Brigadier General George Stapleton.

  That evening at supper in the generals’ mess, George noted a distinct coolness emanating from General Pillow. After several drinks of bourbon, Pillow said, “How is it, Stapleton, that the last brigadier to arrive is the first to see action?”

  “You’ll have to ask General Taylor that,” George said.

  “It couldn’t have anything to do with you owning a lot of newspapers that can hardly wait to write up you—and him—could it?”

  “I hope not. I hope you don’t think so.”