Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/39

10 duty,. . . and their personal courage, I fear, is of a very negative character.”

In 1838, a German Visitor stated there were a hundred and sixty generals for an army of thirty thousand, and this was perhaps a fair estimate of the usual proportion; but out of all these, every one of whom could issue a glowing proclamamion, probably not a single "Excellency" could properly handle a small division, while few out of thousands of colonels could lead a regiment on the ﬁeld, and some were not qualified to command a patrol. A battle was almost always a mob fight ending in a cavalry charge; and Waddy Thompson, an American minister to Mexico, said he did not believe a manoeuvre in the face of the enemy was ever attempted. Naturally the general administration of military affairs became a chaos; and, worst of all, a self-respecting general thought it almost a disgrace to obey an order—even an order from the President.

The privates and non-commissioned ofﬁcers, on the other hand, mainly Indians with a sprinkling of half~breeds, were not bad material. The Indians in particular could be described as naturally among the best soldiers in the world, for they were almost incredibly frugal, docile and enduring, able to make astonishing marches, and quite ready ﬁfrom animal courage, racial apathy or indifference about their miserable lives~to die on the ﬁeld. But usually they were seized by force, herded up in barracks as prisoners, liberally cudgelled but scantily fed, and after a time driven OH to the capital, chained, in a double ﬁle, with distracted women beside them wailing to every saint When drilled enough to march fairly well through the street in column, clothed in a serge uniform or a coarse linen suit, and equipped with an old English musket and some had powder, they were called soldiers, and were exhorted to earn immortal glory; but naturally they got away if they could, and frequently on a long expedition half a corps deserted.

Such men were by no means ”thinking bayonets," and as a rule they shot very badly, often ﬁring with their guns at the hip in order to avoid the heavy recoil. Not only did they lack the inspiration of good ofﬁcers, but in pressing times it was customary to empty the prisons, and place their inmates in the ranks to inculcate vice. The government furnished their