A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico

by Amy S. Greenberg

  But the hard days and long nights of work, his obsessive attention to detail, and the relentless control he exercised over every department and clerk were taking a toll. “In truth, though I occupy a very high position,” the president lamented in his diary, “I am the hardest working man in this country.” Back in the halcyon days before his inauguration, James Polk had warned potential cabinet members that he would “remain constantly at Washington” during his term in office. He kept that promise. Nine months after his inauguration he admitted that he hadn’t yet left Washington for a single day. “I find the Presidential office no sinecure,” he wrote a friend. “My labours and responsibilities are very great.” In total he spent less than six weeks of his entire four-year term away from the White House.31

  His stress was evident. In July, Brigadier General John Quitman noted “a haggard and careworn look” about the president. By Polk’s own admission, his “constant confinement to my office and great labour for many days past” left him increasingly “enfeebled and prostrated.” Sarah begged him to take a vacation, but his deep sense of duty made it impossible. Although in “the habit of taking exercise on horseback all my life,” Polk stopped riding soon after learning of Taylor’s armistice following the Battle of Monterrey. He was “so incessantly engaged in the onerous and responsible duties of my office” that he didn’t mount a horse for the next six months.32 Even an hour a day for himself was an impossible luxury with an invasion of central Mexico to manage and duplicitous Whig commanders to keep in line. His once dark brown hair was now almost completely white.

  Polk was perfectly aware that he was destroying his health. But he would not stop. Providence had made clear that he could not stop until the nation’s destiny was secure. And that required bringing the war to a close. It was now in its second year. Someone had to negotiate a peace treaty with Mexico. It had to be an official of high public stature, it had to be a Democrat, and it couldn’t be a presidential candidate. Polk refused to take sides in the battle to name his successor; he could not afford to further alienate any powerful Democrats. Given the unsettled state of affairs in Mexico, as well as Mexico’s unwillingness to negotiate, whoever left on the mission might be gone for a very long time. Polk received the “joyful news” of Scott’s capture of Veracruz on April 10, and at a meeting of his cabinet a few hours later, he argued in favor of immediately appointing a commissioner to join Scott’s army and “take advantage of circumstances as they might arise to negotiate for peace.”33

  It was James Buchanan who recommended Nicholas Trist, the impeccably credentialed chief clerk of the state department. Thomas Jefferson’s protégé was “an able man, perfectly familiar with the Spanish character and language,” and trustworthy. He was a personal friend of Buchanan’s, a southerner, and a slave owner. He was not running for office and had no public name to speak of. Polk could be sure to receive any acclaim for a treaty negotiated by the chief clerk. And Andrew Jackson himself had vouched for Trist’s “talents, integrity, and honor.” Trist could be counted on to follow whatever “well defined instructions” he was given. The suggestion struck Polk “favorably.” Trist had been open in his criticism of Polk’s Whig generals and appeared to dislike Scott as intensely as did the head of his party. Nicholas Trist was as thorough a Democrat as could be found in Washington.34

  Or so he appeared. Trist had been privy to all the negotiations between Mexico and the United States since his friend John Slidell’s charade of negotiation in 1845. He had spent long hours in Polk’s office in the year since, translating messages into and out of Spanish for his superiors. Working unconscionably long hours that didn’t nearly match those of the president, Trist had seen the machinations of the administration firsthand.

  Trist supported his country’s war in Mexico, but had not forgotten what Jefferson had taught him: the importance of justice and morality. Nor had he set aside his beloved grandmother’s words to him when he was a cadet at West Point: “Those who wage war for the purpose of subjugating nations to their will are guilty of a heinous crime.”35 Trist loved his country, but he was not a man to blindly follow orders when his conscience told him otherwise. Perhaps he already had doubts about the justice of this war.

  Wasting no time, Polk ordered Buchanan to fetch Trist. It was a Saturday afternoon, but the clerk was hard at work at his desk when Buchanan invited him to walk over to the White House. At the time, Trist had “as little thought of going to Mexico as of going to the moon.” He was astounded when the president conveyed his instructions. Trist was being dispatched to Mexico, incognito, to join up with Scott’s army in Veracruz. His secret mission: to negotiate a peace treaty including an ample territorial settlement. While Polk never wavered from citing Mexican aggression as the war’s cause, he had by now subtly added the necessity of expansion to his reasons for fighting. There would be no peace without territory, and the more abject the enemy’s defeat, the more land the United States could claim. Trist’s instructions specified a major territorial cession, not only the disputed Nueces Strip but Alta California and New Mexico as well, for which the United States would pay twenty million dollars. Polk authorized up to thirty million if Trist could obtain Baja California and additional territory to the south. Trist accepted his assignment, and suggested a possible reward for his service: a minor posting somewhere far from the capital that would yield a decent income without making many demands on his time. Trist dreamed that the end of the war would bring him some leisure.36

  No one, Polk felt, would be more reliable or loyal than Trist. But the president had no idea whom he was dealing with. “Had he been at all capable of attaining insight into character,” Trist later wrote, the president would have “obtained at least a glimpse into mine. But it remained a sealed book for him.”37

  One of Polk’s colleagues observed that the president’s “knowledge of men was imperfect, and when he required services from others they were made to understand that it was for their interest to serve him.” There is no better example of this than Polk’s closing promise to Trist. As the diplomat left his office, Polk told him, “Mr. Trist, if you can but succeed in restoring peace, you will render a great service to your country and acquire great distinction for yourself.” Trist took exception to the remark. “The service shall be rendered, sir, if it be possible for me to do that. But as for the distinction, I care nothing for that.” Assuming that most men craved glory, Polk was visibly irritated by Trist’s rejoinder, which struck him as profoundly insincere. It was an awkward parting.38

  As James Buchanan walked Trist out of Polk’s office, he elaborated on Polk’s suggestion. “If you succeed in this,” Buchanan told him, “we shall have to take you up as our candidate for the Presidency.” Trist laughed in response, but with “derision and heavy heartedness” rather than “merriment and satisfaction.” In truth, he was dismayed. How Buchanan, a man he considered a friend, could possibly think he was motivated by a quest for political office was beyond him. What Trist craved was time with his family, and the opportunity to read and reflect, as he had back with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. “How far you are from being capable of understanding me,” he thought. It was the last conversation the two men would ever have.39

  Four days later, Trist was on his way to Mexico. He had not sought his assignment. He had no interest in leaving his wife and children, even for a month, and he knew his absence would be far longer. But having accepted his duties, he embraced them fully. He would be the agent of peace. It never entered Polk’s head that his envoy had doubts about the war. Nor did it occur to him that Trist was very much like himself. Polk assumed that, like most men, Trist was driven by hopes of money and acclaim. But both were driven by idealism. Polk’s highest allegiance was to Manifest Destiny. Trist’s allegiance, as would become clear, was to justice.

  9

  Needless, Wicked, and Wrong

  NO FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD should have to break news like this to her mother. Ellen Hardin had been enjoying the winter in Mississippi
. With her father so far away, she particularly appreciated the attention lavished on her by her indulgent uncle Abe. “The Patriarch” might be an object of mockery to her parents, but he and Ellen got along well. In many ways he was like her father: a successful attorney and man of substance, wealthy, respected, and once elected to public office. Both kept extensive libraries, where Ellen indulged her growing interests in history and English literature.

  But of course Abe had not gone to Mexico, despite wanting to. As a result, he now had plenty of time for his niece. Ellen’s brothers were still children, but she was nearly an adult. Ellen and Abe discussed Shakespeare. He took her with him on business trips around the state and to New Orleans, where she delighted in the cosmopolitan atmosphere. Her explorations of the Crescent City with her uncle “opened up a new world of observation and experience” for her.1

  Those experiences did not include bumping into Henry Clay, although he was in residence that winter at William Mercer’s home. She certainly would have recognized him. Not only was he the leader of her father’s party, but they were related through both business and marriage as well. When John Hardin’s father died, his mother married Henry Clay’s brother. This made the Whig leader John Hardin’s uncle and Ellen’s great-uncle. John Hardin also served as Henry Clay’s business agent in Illinois in the 1830s. The bluegrass elite of Kentucky kept tight company.

  Ellen Hardin, age sixteen. The eldest of John J. Hardin’s children was devoted to her father. As a young child Ellen “always followed him about, as a little child more frequently follows the mother.” She dreamed about him when he left for Mexico and treasured the letters he sent home. On vacation in New Orleans, she was one of the first people in America to learn the news about Buena Vista. Courtesy Saratoga Springs History Museum. (photo credit 9.1)

  Virtually all war news from northeastern Mexico arrived in the United States via the port of New Orleans. The lag time was generally two to three weeks. Reports had to be carried by courier from the interior of Mexico over poor roads, and often through hostile populations, to the port of Matamoros. News then traveled by boat to the mouth of the Mississippi River, and from there to New Orleans. The fastest route from New Orleans to Washington included a steamboat to Montgomery, Alabama, and from there a combination of local trains and horse-drawn post carriages to a Georgia train depot that connected to the Northeast. As for the telegraph, in 1848 it extended no farther south than Petersburg, Virginia. The American public’s access to battle reports during the first year of the war was inversely proportional to their distance from New Orleans.

  News from central Mexico was even slower in arriving in the United States. It sometimes took six weeks or two months for Polk to receive official battle reports from General Scott. To his chagrin, President Polk often read about events in Mexico in newspapers days before reports arrived via official diplomatic routes. Embedded journalists and their special couriers proved more efficient at navigating the difficult and complex transportation routes than the army did.2

  A report of the “great victory at Buena Vista” arrived in New Orleans on Sunday afternoon, March 21, nearly a month after the battle. This was a week later than it might have appeared, but it took Taylor’s battered army eight days to regroup, bury their dead, and locate a courier willing to brave the guerrilla-controlled roads to the rear of Buena Vista before an American-authored account of the battle left Coahuila. The embedded journalists who had covered Taylor’s earlier victory at Monterrey and had an interest in scooping other papers had all left with Scott’s army for Veracruz. Along with virtually everyone except General Taylor, they assumed the fighting in northern Mexico was done.

  A special edition of the New Orleans Mercury appeared at five thirty that Sunday evening. The Picayune’s special edition appeared an hour later. Ellen Hardin, in New Orleans with her uncle, was thus one of the first people in America to learn of her father’s death. President Polk received his report two days later. Henry Clay received the news in Ashland a week after that. Had he extended his stay in New Orleans one week longer, he would have learned of his son’s death without Lucretia by his side.3

  Ellen and Abe immediately left for Vicksburg, where Sarah was visiting friends. It was in Vicksburg that Sarah Hardin’s daughter and brother told her that her husband was dead. The widow put her affairs in Mississippi in the best order she could, packed up her children, and returned home. By coincidence, an Illinois volunteer returning from Buena Vista traveled up the Mississippi on the same steamship as the Hardins, bound for the same destination. He carried with him some of the dead colonel’s personal effects, including a Mexican battle flag Hardin had captured in Buena Vista and which he had specifically requested should be “sent home as a last memento for his wife.”4

  They returned to a community that embraced them and their grief. The news from Buena Vista was difficult for the people of Illinois to wrap their heads around. For fifteen years the former congressman, militia general, and now Mexican War hero had built a reputation on a steely invincibility. He had vanquished Illinois of her Indians and Mormons, taken charge of the survivors after the explosion on the Princeton, and been the first to volunteer for Mexico. His constituents had grown to revere “Colonel John J.” Suddenly “no Hardin was there … his manly form, his proud, glorious smile greeted not the throng of his admiring friends.” A good portion of the first two Illinois regiments of Mexican war volunteers were also gone, but when news of Buena Vista made it to Illinois, it was “Col. Hardin’s death” that the papers predicted “will shed deep gloom over the state” and “be regarded as a national calamity.” The loss of “one of the noblest specimens of man” couldn’t help but “be felt in all the circles of society.”5

  When Hardin’s death was announced in his courthouse, an Illinois judge reported that there wasn’t “a dry eye” in the court. “He was too brave,” wept the major in charge of Hardin’s remains. Sarah was deluged with letters, from friends, from acquaintances, from admirers. They came from Illinois and Mississippi, St. Louis and New Orleans. Democrat Thomas Hart Benton sent his condolences despite his political differences with John. None of this was much consolation, not even the letters from women who wrote simply to reassure her that while they had never met, they sympathized with her. Virtually every letter asserted that her husband was a great hero. True, he had “died a glorious death.” But he was still dead, and at age thirty-six she was left with three children to raise. “My heart dies within me,” she admitted to her sister. “How can I live, how dark and lonely will be the journey of my life.”6

  Abraham Lincoln was in Illinois when he heard. The two men had parted as enemies over an election that Hardin was only half interested in and which Lincoln now looked back on with ambivalence. A year later, Lincoln was congressman-elect, still in Illinois. He understood what was required from a man in his position: he would take the lead in honoring Colonel Hardin. On Monday, April 5, he convened a memorial meeting in the state capital in honor of the state’s first volunteer. His introductory address praised Hardin’s many virtues, and then, speaking for the assembled multitudes, Lincoln proclaimed that “while we sincerely rejoice at the signal triumph of the American arms at Buena Vista … it is with the deepest grief that we have learned of the fall of the many brave and generous spirits there, and especially, that of Col. J. J. Hardin.” Lincoln made sure the meeting, and his words, were reported in the local paper.7

  Lincoln spoke for the people, as befitted their elected congressional representative. But did he speak for himself? Hardin had once been, in Lincoln’s own words, “more than a father” to him, yet Lincoln couldn’t help but notice that Hardin’s death vastly improved his own political prospects. “The death of Hardin was not detrimental to Lincoln,” noted one Illinois jurist, as Hardin had been the “strongest” politician in the state. Nor was this jurist the only observer to recognize that had Hardin survived the war, Lincoln would have been hard-pressed to match the colonel’s “high aspirations, strong conv
ictions, resolute purposes,” and “great military renown.” Hardin was “the most popular” Whig politician in the state even before the war, and some said his “personal popularity was greater” than that of almost anyone else in Illinois. David Davis, later Lincoln’s campaign manager, also concluded that had he lived, Hardin would have “controlled the politics and offices of the state.”8

  What none of these men knew was that Hardin had repudiated “the noise & hustle of politics & law” just weeks before Buena Vista, when he assured his wife he felt “no distinction to participate in them again.” That letter arrived posthumously. But John Hardin had just celebrated his thirty-seventh birthday. In political terms he was still a young man, and more than entitled to change his mind. His interest in “party struggles” might very well have revived once he was back in Illinois. He certainly could have returned to Congress had he chosen, and Stephen Douglas might have found the war hero a far more difficult challenger than Abraham Lincoln in the 1858 Senate race. Had Hardin lived, Lincoln would have been overshadowed.9

  As spring turned to summer, Lincoln had multiple opportunities to measure himself against his deceased rival. He didn’t have a great deal else to do; he was a year into an interminable sixteen-month wait between his election and the start of the Thirtieth Congress. There was year-old Eddie to deal with, and his legal practice could be demanding, but Lincoln was basically waiting for his future in Washington to begin.