Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/382

Rh arts; and he could no longer see, what the administration fully recognized, that it was essentially for its advantage to have the generals win victories. So far as the government was concerned, Taylor had some grounds for apprehension, perhaps. In all probability it entertained by this time unfriendly feelings toward him. The veteran F. P. Blair had warned Marcy distinctly that, as even the novice could see, a Democratic administration was waging war to make a Whig President, and under our system it was legitimate as well as natural to look for an avenue of escape. Scott, however, seems to have been his friend, privately exerting a strong influence in his favor on several occasions; and while the lawful rights of superior rank were made use of by the commander-in-chief, the same thing was done by Taylor himself with far less considerateness.

Finally Taylor had a particular moral disability, for he did not believe in the Vera Cruz expedition actually contemplated. The season of yellow fever — in his opinion a worse enemy than 100,000 Mexican bayonets — was now too near, he wrote, and an army besieging that port would be swept away by the pestilence. He lacked, therefore, some of the most necessary qualifications, and was not in a state of mind to work harmoniously and effectively with the administration, the commander-in-chief or his own principal subordinates in the exceedingly difficult and delicate situations which the proposed expedition was liable to create

Gaines being out of the question, there was but one man left, and he moreover, as an officer of experience and the head of the army, possessed exceptional claims to the appointment. Scott seems to have accepted his professional and political reverses of May very quietly, illustrating that fine aphorism of King Stanislaus, "A man greater than his misfortunes shows that he does not deserve them." Friends fell away rapidly, yet he kept up his courage. To one of them indeed he wrote, "Perhaps you might do well to imitate the example of that heathen who touched his hat to the fallen statue of Jupiter — saying, 'Who knows but he may be replaced upon his pedestal?'" and about the middle of September, having learned through several channels that his presence in Mexico had been desired by Taylor, to whom he generously referred