guard that day. If on guard, he prepared himself more thoroughly in dress uniform for inspection, paying particular heed to his rifle and the cleanliness of his person. At guard mounting which took place immediately after parade the soldier awaited the results of inspection to see whether he would be selected as the neatest and most immaculate man in ranks. If he were so selected he was appointed orderly at headquarters and was not required with the others to walk post and guard prisoners at work. If he was not on the guard detail for the day, he attended drill shortly after guard mount. Throughout the remainder of the day he helped in his fatigue uniform to make the post cleanly and to repair and construct those parts of the garrison that were ever in need of such labor. Since the small fort or stockade was far away from civilian help, the soldier shod the horses, fixed the chimneys, mowed the grass, picked up and carted away the débris, repaired the boots, sawed and planed the wood, fitted and nailed the lumber into buildings and performed all manner of chores for the garrison. Dinner was usually at one o'clock; the roll call of retreat, when the national colors were lowered, was at sunset; and tattoo, another roll call, was at nine o'clock. The soldier was in bed at ninethirty when taps was sounded by the drum.

Such was the routine of the army in the lonely and desert places of the nation. Too often these rounds of duty were interrupted by the call to arms or the order for a movement over weird distances. The long march, fraught with the same discipline and training as in the post, took the soldier to an unknown region where he was confronted afresh with rounding out his small comfort by the work of his hands, or where his hardships and dangers were excruciating torture.

But these men seldom forgot their duty to the pioneer and those at home. Creeping boldly to the edges of the frontier, which they pushed further and further outward, these little bands of trained and disciplined Americans wove the capillaries of civilization as thickly as they could through the wilderness. They had come from the heart of the country, but in spite of the fact that the heart beat feebly at times for them, they pressed onward dutifully and loyally. They knew hardship and death. They were not itching for war. They wanted peace,

but they knew that they could attain it quickly, after the strife was inevitable, only by having sufficient strength and skill.

Scott had saved the nation from great loss of life and serious embarrassment only by the narrowest of margins. By his indefatigable energy and uncommon tact he had persuaded mobs, convinced politicians and made diplomats see that the government was really at heart not anxious to take up arms. One minute he would calm rioters and the next judiciously placate foreign agents. An undisciplined and sometimes disloyal part of the civil population had placed the United States in a compromising position. His was a duty of honorable service to his flag. As an army officer his mission was to wrap his country with protection at any cost to himself. He had to be all things to all men, to the Canadian as well as the Cherokee, to the troublemaker as well as to the soldier.

Though Scott was a man of high merit in such tasks, other army officers tried whenever they could to rid themselves of strife wherever the savage could be mollified. Macomb, Clinch, Taylor and many junior officers treated with the Seminole as long as there was a hope of keeping him in check without bloodshed. But the Florida Indian was faithless. He understood force alone. The great pity was that there were too few of the trained army to end the affair quickly and thereby save the lives of many of its members and of the thousands of settlers, men, women and children, who were cut down by the tomahawk and scalping knife, during the long years of hopeless tracking.

Even with these handicaps, the fortresses and stockades arose as safe retreats for the pioneer settlers and the roads wound their rugged ways through sickly swamps and choking forest, in spite of the lurking bow and arrow. The soldier's jaw was set, his arm was flexed even as he toppled under a burning sun, with a hot fever or a fiery wound. Though his bones were laid in the dismal dust of nowhere, the work went on. When the automobile to-day tours safely from New York to Palm Beach, from Chicago to Kansas City, the anguish and courage of these determined Americans is commonly overlooked. But each mile is none the less a silent witness to their constructiveness.

1845

CHAPTER VII

THE ARMY WINS AND WIDENS THE BOUNDARIES

T

(1845-1859)

HE army is about to have a taste of real victory, to win a

war, to overcome the entire enemy in the field. It is soon to cross into a foreign territory, meet superior numbers, bear gross hardships and stick to its colors. It is going to go continuously forward and not be turned spasmodically backward. It will press the foe through cactus, swamp and mountain passes into the very gates of the hostile capital and then take the city. It will return as a conqueror to safeguard the remaining wilderness of the nation. It will prove to the world that the American soldier, trained, disciplined, and well led is the acme of bravery and hardihood.

In the year before the Mexican War, the army consisted of 8 regiments of infantry, 2 of dragoons and 4 of artillery, 3 general officers, the corps of engineers, the corps of topographical engineers and the following departments: adjutant general; quartermaster, inspector general; commissary; medical; pay; purchasing; and ordnance. The whole represented a paper strength of 8,613 men and an actual strength by the end of the year of 5,300. The army's effective force was less than at any time since 1808, though the population since that time. had doubled.

These troops were occupying more than 100 posts. The artillery was largely on the Atlantic coast. The infantry and cavalry together occupied the broad line of the Great Lakes and the western frontier outlined by the Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and Red rivers. The main posts in the west were Fort Snelling, near St. Paul, Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Fort Leavenworth, in western Kansas, and Fort Jesup, in western Louisiana.

Winfield Scott was the major general in chief and the two brigadiers were Gaines and Wool. Taylor was colonel of the Sixth Infantry, Twiggs of the First, and Kearny of the Second Dragoons. One of the colonels, Walbach, was 82 years of age, such senility being due to the lack of provision for proper retirement of officers. The officers of the lower units, however, were the great compensating factor of the coming war. Grant, Thomas, Reynolds, Hancock, Lee, McClellan, McDowell, Meade, Beauregard, Hooker, J. E. Johnston, Longstreet and "Stonewall" Jackson were in the service. And many who had resigned in the period surrounding 1836 were about to come back to the colors as volunteers, notably Jefferson Davis.

The Military Academy furnished nearly the whole quota of these trained young men. Approximately 500 graduates were already with the colors. A similar number were in civil life, many of whom came into the service with the state troops in the course of the war.

In contrast to the excellent results that were going to be obtained from having these skilled officers, were the debates in Congress which tended toward the abolition of West Point. A feeling that there was being raised up a sort of aristocracy by that institution led the unacquainted into the belief that it should be abolished.

Three times this cavil had nearly plucked the hen that laid the golden eggs. Secretary of War Eustis, just before the conflict of 1812, had tried to wreck West Point by open attack. At the close of the same war Colonel Swift had had to borrow $65,000 from a private individual in order to keep the school running, because Congress refused to appropriate the current expenses. And now the Academy lay in the throes of political hatred and ignorant juggling. Luckily the only setback that came of all this controversy was the reduction of pay of each cadet to $24 per month. Twice the Academy had been saved March 3 by the prospect of war and once by the intervention of a private individual.

1845

While the cradle of the army was being disturbed, the higher officers were looking after technical betterment. General Scott's regulations entitled, Instructions for Field Artillery, 1845 Horse and Foot, appeared. The Secretary of War in issuing it

March 6

enunciated a new rule. He bound not only the regulars but the militia also to the use of no other "exercises and maneuvers." This was a great step toward uniformity. The "school of the battery" prescribed completely movements by hand and by horse, and covered every possible contingency with which the battery might find itself confronted in action. For detachments of from 2 to 9 men in serving the piece, the duties were precisely described and each man numbered. The firing1 was explained with great care. The pieces of the field artillery were the 6-pounder gun and the 24-pounder howitzer, both of bronze.

For regular infantry the muskets and rifles were being rapidly provided with percussion locks for caps, so that two motions of the manual-opening and closing the pan-were eliminated. In the main, however, the army all through the coming war had to be provided with the old flintlock musket,

122. "Firing. No. 4 stands in line with the knob of the cascable, covering No. 2. At the command Load, he steps to his right, takes the portfire stock out of its socket with his right hand, takes hold of the lighted end of the slow match from under the apron of the box, and, blowing it, lights the portfire; he then steps back to his place outside the wheel; holding the portfire stock firmly in the right hand, finger nails to the front, the portfire stock touching the wheel and the portfire inside of it.

When the piece is not provided with a slow match box, the linstock is used. In this case, as soon as the piece is unlimbered, No. 4 steps in and takes the linstock from its socket, steps back again, and plants it in his rear, facing to his right and stepping off with his right foot for that purpose. He then draws back his foot and faces to the front. He lights the portfire by facing and stepping off in the same way.

66

'At the command Fire, he raises his hand slowly, clear of the wheel, turning the back of the hand to the front, brings the portfire rather in front of the vent and fires. As soon as the gun is fired he lowers the portfire slowly. When a lock is used he takes the lanyard in his right hand, moves to the rear so far as to keep the lanyard slack, but capable of being stretched without altering his position, which is to be clear of the wheel. Should the tube or cap fail to explode the charge, the gunner immediately commands, 'Don't advance, the tube or cap's failed'; upon which No. 2 steps inside the wheel close to the axletree; No. 3 advances outside the opposite wheel and gives his priming wire to No. 2, who pricks the cartridge; he then gives him a tube or cap which he fixes, and both resume their posts. No. 4 is answerable that the slow match is kept burning.

"At the command Cease Firing, No. 4 shifts the portfire stock into his left hand, cuts off the lighted end of the portfire, and places the stock in its socket; if a linstock is used he puts that up also. When using a lock he coils the lanyard round the neck of the cascable, or unhooks it and carries it in his hand, as the mode of attaching it to the lock may require.''