Halting his operations fit precisely with his strategy of moderation. Scott’s intention all along had been to achieve a peace treaty at the earliest possible moment, and he devised his carrot-and-stick approach to accomplish that end. Recall the five-page strategy paper “Vera Cruz & Its Castle,” which he had submitted to the president the previous October. It stated Scott’s intention to “conquer a peace” by either taking “the city of Mexico, or [placing] it in imminent danger of capture.” That was ten months earlier, but Scott’s strategy had not changed. Unlike the requested cease-fire at Veracruz, which sought to evacuate noncombatants but offered no prospective conclusion to hostilities, this armistice, if conducted in good faith, might bring the war to an end. Scott hoped that it would, but in the end, his desire for peace proved greater than Santa Anna’s. Always sensitive to politics and diplomacy, not merely the military conduct of the war, he had hoped for a peace proposal at every step of the campaign. He had half expected to receive one at Jalapa after the Battle of Cerro Gordo, hoped to bring about a negotiated settlement while at Puebla, and thought he might meet a white flag as he marched to the outskirts of Mexico City. In keeping with his bold note written before leaving Puebla, perhaps Churubusco was the victory “in view of the city” that would finally induce his opponent to seek peace. With the armistice, Scott was doing exactly what he predicted while still in Puebla: he promised that after a victory, he would “take measures to give those in the city an opportunity to save the capital by making a peace.”3 Scott had been remarkably consistent in both his goal and the means for accomplishing it since the campaign began. Now he waited.
An additional reason for agreeing to the armistice stemmed from Scott’s assumption that the president wanted the same thing. Polk had always sought the earliest possible end to the war, had hoped it would occur the previous year after Zachary Taylor’s victories, and had instructed Scott to do all within his power to bring the conflict to a speedy conclusion. There were strong political ramifications at stake, and the length and expense of the war were of central importance to the administration. The general was keenly aware of this. That Polk had placed a State Department official with Scott’s army was a constant reminder that the administration wanted to be prepared for peace negotiations at a moment’s notice.
Critics contended that Scott should have forced his way into the capital after Churubusco, but the general would not deviate from his strategy of moderation. He also knew that an intact and functioning Mexican government was a necessary prerequisite for a peace treaty. Toppling the government and scattering its officials would be an appropriate course only if the Americans wanted to dictate terms to a defeated and crushed enemy, but that was not the objective. Unaware of the intricacies of Scott’s plan, the army’s rank and file thought that capturing the capital was the primary objective and could not understand the delay. For Scott, however, the goal was to apply incremental pressure on the government to induce a peace settlement. Scott (and Trist) simply represented the administration’s desire for terms in the form of a land indemnity, and the American army needed only to apply sufficient pressure to exact concessions that the administration would deem acceptable. Scott, from the outset, had understood this as his mission and had conducted his campaign in such a way as to prevent the collapse of the enemy government. In notifying Secretary Marcy of the armistice, Scott explained that he had been advised not to create a hopeless mood of desperation within the capital.
Some of Scott’s soldiers—but only some—understood the reason for the armistice. His aide, Lieutenant Colonel Ethan Allen Hitchcock, offered proof that he grasped its necessity in a letter to his wife when he explained that to march into the capital would have caused the government to flee, thereby eliminating the chance for negotiations. Lieutenant Daniel Harvey Hill of the Fourth Artillery recorded in his diary similar understanding. General Scott, he wrote, “knew that if he overthrew Santa Anna that ’twould be impossible to find again a responsible Government with which to make a stable peace.” Engineer Lieutenant Isaac I. Stevens, however, expressed the clearest grasp of the purpose of the armistice. Was not peace the primary objective of the campaign, he asked, and is not an armistice the first step? Indeed, throughout the entire campaign, was not the desire for peace the “obvious explication of Gen. Scott’s whole course?”4
However, Hill also accurately observed that by agreeing to the armistice, “Gen. Scott has mortified his troops.” Many of his soldiers were mystified as to why a victorious army with its objective in reach would halt operations and agree to talks. Lieutenant Nathaniel Lyon of the Second Infantry was angry and thought “this stupid twaddle about peace” was a waste of time, and Lieutenant George Davis remembered that “a spirit of indignation” emanated from the troops because of this “national disgrace.” Most of the general officers also opposed the armistice, and Worth was particularly critical. He and Pillow were on the same side of this issue, and they began to form an alliance of sorts. Both generals thought that Scott at least should have required the occupation of the Chapultepec castle two miles from the edge of the city as a guarantee of good-faith behavior. Quitman wanted to capture the capital before trying to wring concessions out of the Mexicans. Pillow wrote an angry letter of protest to the commanding general; then, in keeping with his role as Polk informant, he wrote to the president criticizing the cease-fire decision.5
Many American troops believed that Santa Anna tricked Scott into halting military operations by dangling the prospects of peace in front of him. Scott understood the possibility that the armistice might be a ruse, but he felt compelled to try negotiations.6 To do otherwise would have been inconsistent with his strategy. Churubusco proved to be inadequate leverage to force a peace settlement, and he probably erred in making a decision that rested on trust in Santa Anna. Ordinarily, Scott was adept at balancing political and diplomatic issues within a military context. Indeed, his strategy necessitated an equilibrium between the application of violence and the extension of peace, but maintaining the proper balance was a potential dilemma. Scott had skillfully maneuvered his way to the outskirts of Mexico City by knowing when to talk and when to fight, but his generosity after Churubusco was, in retrospect, a mistake. He made a political decision in what was essentially a military situation. While granting the armistice was consistent with his strategy, it was based on the false assumption that his latest application of the sword would be a sufficient inducement to bring about peace. His army would pay a price as a result.
While Trist embarked upon negotiations, the army settled into camp south of the city around the hamlets of Tacubaya, Mixcoac, San Angel, and San Agustin. Scott made his headquarters in the archbishop’s palace in Tacubaya, which lay just three miles southwest of the capital and about a thousand yards south of Chapultepec. Meanwhile, he ordered the establishment of patrols to prevent outrages against Mexican civilians, and he issued instructions allowing Mexicans to freely pass through and among American troops. Most of the Americans “behaved better than conquering troops ever behaved before.” This liberality did not apply to both sides. The movement of American troops was restricted, and they were especially forbidden to enter Mexico City (except for the Quartermaster Department) under the terms of the armistice.7
When the armistice went into effect, the Americans only had two days of rations left, and as a consequence, they needed to procure supplies immediately. This crucial and compelling need may also have been a reason why Scott agreed to the cease-fire. Captain William Hardee commanded a wagon train that went into the countryside looking for corn, and he returned a few days later with a thousand bushels. Similar efforts to purchase provisions in the capital did not produce the same yield. The first time Scott tried to send wagons into the capital, the Mexicans stopped them outside the city and turned them back. Next day the train was allowed in, only to be attacked by a mob shouting, “Here come the friends of Santa Anna!” and “Death to Santa Anna! Death to the Yankees!” The angry citizens pelted the wago
ns with rocks and beat two of the teamsters to death before the drivers could get the wagons out of the city. It took the Mexican military to restore order, and the government later apologized for this breach of the terms of the armistice. In further violation of the armistice, Santa Anna forbade Mexicans from selling to the Americans, which included the mill owners on the outskirts of the city. When American contractors went to purchase flour, the owners refused to grind the wheat and sell it because they said that to cooperate would cost them their lives. So the army took over the mills, posted heavy guards to protect the Mexican workers, and then paid the owners for the flour they produced. A similar result occurred when a Tacubaya rancher refused to sell cattle to the Americans: the army took the cattle anyway, but paid the owner for them. “Our army is not going to starve,” snorted Scott.8
In the days following the fighting around the Pedregal, erratic and inaccurate news of the battle began to arrive back in Puebla. Information obviously filtered through Mexican sources caused the U.S. garrison under Colonel Thomas Childs to hear and believe the worst. The first news to arrive on August 22 was that Santa Anna had repulsed the American army on the outskirts of the capital and had inflicted heavy casualties. That their army had been “entirely cut to pieces” was a hard pill to swallow, and some simply refused to believe it. Three days later, additional information arrived indicating that the Americans actually had defeated the Mexicans in the fighting on August 19 and 20 and that the opposing generals had agreed to an armistice. This happy news was followed by the disturbing report that Santa Anna had used the armistice as cover to launch a surprise attack. According to this erroneous account, not only had the American army been destroyed but Worth had been killed and Scott captured. Colonel Childs assured his subordinates that the information came from a reliable Frenchman, and he apparently believed it. So did the Pueblans. Major Madison Mills, a doctor assigned to care for the sick and wounded in Puebla, recorded in his diary that the local inhabitants, emboldened by the news, appeared to be preparing to attack the small garrison and convalescents in the town. Furthermore, rumors circulated that Mexican troops were gathering on the outskirts of Puebla. Mills thought, or at least hoped, that the news from Mexico City was inaccurate, but Childs took no chances and ordered that the wounded be relocated to safer places. The truth surfaced, however, in later reports, causing the locals to return to complacency and easing the tension for the isolated Americans in Puebla.9
The respite offered by the armistice unfortunately provided time for the officers to engage in varying degrees of self-puffing. Some of it was simply braggadocio, as in the case of Lieutenant Simon B. Buckner, who, in a letter to his future wife, wrote that he had worn a tartan that she had made for him in the fighting at Churubusco. In describing his role in the battle, he quoted the highland chieftain, Lord Lenox: “I did start my hour upon the stage.” Other higher-ranking officers, however, engaged in more serious breaches of military etiquette by trying to claim for themselves greater credit than they deserved. Sometimes they exaggerated their role in letters back home, and sometimes they fudged on the facts in official reports. Battle reports from various unit commanders contained a “mass of discrepancies,” and when subordinates felt that their contributions had received inadequate description, they protested. The incentives for misrepresenting one’s actions varied. For some it was a desire to go back home as military heroes, and for others it was an effort to acquire political gain. Regardless of the motivations, seeds were sown in the last week of August and first week of September that would erupt into a firestorm after the occupation of Mexico City.10
The frictions that a successful army must overcome manifest themselves in a variety of forms. While other officers crowed about their martial exploits, John Quitman remained dissatisfied over his lack of prominence in the army. He commanded the volunteer division made up of four regiments that was actually more like an oversized brigade, while his chief rival, William Worth, had a full division of six regiments. Although some of Quitman’s men had been involved in the fighting of August 20, the general had been stuck in San Agustin guarding the supply wagons. He suspected that Scott had kept him in the rear to punish him for his earlier complaints. He was skeptical about what might come out of the armistice and confident that if any more fighting occurred, it would be minor, and if another battle came, he thought that he would likely “be kept in the shade.” Staff officer George Davis reminded him that it was impossible to please everyone and that some officers were bound to be dissatisfied after a major engagement. Nevertheless, by the beginning of September, Quitman was determined to resign. Davis’s persistence, however, convinced him to remain with the army.11
The first official negotiating session between Trist and Mexican officials took place on August 27. At Scott’s request, Major Abraham Van Buren, son of the former president, accompanied Trist during the peace talks. The American diplomat immediately proposed a settlement based on President Polk’s original territorial demands. This included a Rio Grande boundary for southern Texas and a substantial land concession between Texas and the Pacific Ocean. The Mexican commissioners countered with a demand for a Nueces River boundary farther north, and when they refused to budge after days of wrangling, Trist asked that the armistice be prolonged so as to allow time for him to submit the boundary question to Washington. It was a foolish request, for Polk was not going to alter the Rio Grande demand. To do so would have negated the whole reason for going to war—Polk’s contention that the April 1846 attack by Mexicans on the north bank of the Rio Grande was an act of war. His request for a declaration of war was predicated on the assertion that American blood had been shed on “American soil.” For Trist to even submit the question to his superiors suggested that perhaps the Mexican demand for a Nueces boundary had some legitimacy—a point that the administration would not acknowledge.12 It was now evident that the Mexican government was not serious about acceding to U.S. demands, and here Scott should have realized that his generosity was not being reciprocated. He should have immediately canceled the armistice and resumed military operations rather than give Santa Anna through the first week of September to regain his balance and fortify key sites.
While negotiations continued, seventy-two San Patricio captives went on trial. Two courts heard the cases; one in Tacubaya tried forty-three of the deserters and another one in San Angel tried the remaining twenty-nine. Some of the defendants had willfully deserted and offered no excuses, but sixty of the men pled not guilty, often testifying that they had been taken against their will and forced to serve in the Mexican army. Forty percent of the defendants cited liquor as the culprit. Finding themselves intoxicated and isolated in some back-alley cantina in Puebla or some other town, some of them claimed to have been victims of kidnaping and impressment. Regardless of their pleas, the courts found seventy of the defendants guilty of desertion and sentenced them to death. However, Scott sought any reasonable grounds to overturn the verdicts. After examining each case, he ultimately confirmed the execution of fifty of the men, but he reduced the sentences for fifteen and pardoned five. All fifty were hanged in Mixcoac and San Angel during the second week of September.13
By September 5, the negotiations were stalled and Scott began to receive reports that the Mexicans were strengthening the city’s defenses, in violation of the armistice. Additional reports confirmed to a disbelieving Scott that he had been duped. Indeed, Santa Anna had been calling in reinforcements from outside Mexico City and strengthening his position south and west of the capital. The Mexican leader was in a predicament when the fighting of August 20 ended, for Scott’s decision to march around Lake Chalco and approach the capital from the southwest had caught him off guard. The armistice had come just in time to save him militarily and politically. He entered into the cease-fire hoping for a diplomatic solution that would help him shore up his flagging support in the Mexican congress, but the two governments were too far apart for meaningful negotiations. Perhaps Santa Anna knew that; he had b
een strengthening the Chapultepec castle and other defensive positions in preparations for renewed hostilities.14
After a fruitless negotiating session on September 6, Scott finally gave Santa Anna notice that the armistice would end, citing the facts that his army had been prohibited from procuring supplies and the Mexicans had continued with military preparations. Now that diplomacy had failed, the decision to attempt it looked even more foolhardy than it had before. Scott’s decision to halt his army’s successful march on August 21 was probably the one major flaw of the campaign, and his men knew it. Roswell Ripley thought it was a bad idea all along, and he believed that “the enemy is trifling with us.” Talk around the army during the armistice was that “they were humbugging us” while they secretly reorganized their army. “At last,” thought Nathaniel Lyon, General Scott had “blundered into the idea that he was being deceived.” Captain Moses Barnard said sarcastically, “We can beat the Mexicans in fighting, but they can excel us far in diplomacy.” Then, after referring to how Santa Anna had “vanquished” Scott in the armistice affair, he added contemptuously, “Gen’l Scott met him with the honesty & honour of a veteran. . . . Santa Anna in return gave him . . . promises ending in empty air.” The consensus among the troops was that now the price that the Americans would have to pay to occupy Mexico City would be infinitely greater than it would have been two weeks earlier.15 Of course, by their measurement, the campaign would successfully end only when they captured the city, but Scott saw the campaign ending in victory when both sides agreed to a peace treaty. He still was not certain that the capital would have to be occupied.
In casual conversation with some of his subordinates on the evening of September 6, Scott learned that most of them preferred to attack the city from the south, forcing their way through the Niño Perdido and San Antonio gates. This approach would avoid the strong Mexican position around Chapultepec. With that end in mind, Scott ordered reconnaissance of the southern causeways, and he and his staff, along with his engineers, spent September 7 surveying the entire area. After dark, Lieutenant Beauregard, escorted by four companies, attempted to get as close as possible to the southern gates, but an enemy patrol fired on them, forcing them to go back.16
A Gallant Little Army Page 29
