Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/155

126 from the Anglo-Saxon rifle, the first charge of the Anglo-Saxon bayonet." "An adventure full of fun and frolic and holding forth the rewards of opulence and glory," was therefore the Commercial Bulletin's golden picture of a war with Mexico, and such became the common idea.

In the summer of 1845 this magnificent dream of sport, glory and opulence appeared to be on the point of realization, and the war spirit flamed high. Even journals that had stood firmly against annexing Texas took fire. "What more inspiring strain can strike the ears of freemen," demanded the Richmond Enquirer, "than the trumpet note Which summons our people to the punishment of tyrants?. . . We utterly mistake the spirit of republicanism in America, if there be not one Voice for a full and thorough chastisement of Mexican arrogance and folly." The prospect of "coercing" out of Mexico her "spirit of depredation, perfidy and aggression" and thus inaugurating the sweet and commercially profitable reign of peace excited hot zeal. West of the Alleghanies the feeling was peculiarly strong. At Nashville the Union promised that "any number" of volunteers the government might call for would be forthcoming. At St. Louis, in the opinion of the Reveille, only a prospect of service in the field was needed to induce "the most active volunteering" among the "enthusiastic population." "Go where you will," recorded the Picayune, "'tis war and nothing but war;" and Buchanan wrote, "You can have no adequate conception of the military ardor which exists" in the west and southwest; "It will be easy to bring 100,000 volunteers into the field from those States."

When Mexico seemed to be slow about striking, the New York Morning News declared that "a feeling of disappointment" began to be shown by the public, though still, it added, "At every spring of the whelp, at every mail from the Gulf, the national pulse moves quicker." When the prospect of immediate hostilities appeared to be over, the Mobile Herald and Tribune announced, "After all the visions of glory and honor which have been dancing through the popular brain for the last six months" nothing has been done. But in reality something had been done. Such a state of passion could not simply go out of existence, especially since the causes of it still remained. The people had become yet more thoroughly