Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/338

320 you work?" "Sell my shirt first." "Soldier, will you fight?" "Twell I die."" But even their fighting did not prove entirely satisfactory. Individually they were braver than the regulars; but the soldier's business is to fight when the time comes, and the volunteers to a considerable extent wanted to fight when they pleased. They might do splendidly and they might not, their general knew. I na word, they were unreliable; and they even imperilled their own cause by exasperating the people. Marcy confessed that he felt disappointed. Yet there were offsets. Their patriotism and enthusiasm stimulated their officers and the regulars; and at their best — silent, grim, patient, with a look of kingship in their faces — they glorified hardships, perils, wounds, disease and death.

A common idea of the regulars was expressed in the House by Tilden of Ohio, who described them as "a set of puppets . . . shut up without exercise and in barracks, from year's end to year's end"; and the "sausage democracy" looked with contempt upon West Pointers as both puppets and aristocrats. The regulars, however, were preferable not only in camp and on the march, but on the field. In addition to being steady themselves, they helped immensely to steady the volunteers; and the regular officers furnished volunteer generals with knowledge, skill and sometimes resolution. As for their own commands, West Pointers might curse their men, but they took splendid care of them; and it was far better that men should fear their officers than that officers, like many in the volunteer army, should fear their men. General Scott said that without the science of the Military Academy his army; multiplied by four, could not have set foot in the capital; and Patterson, like him not a graduate of the school, concurred in this opinion.

Our horse was to a large extent little more than mounted infantry; and our real cavalry, besides riding like the French and therefore badly, showed no mastery in sword practice. On the other hand our field artillery was excellent in personnel and material; and the engineers, though not fully trained according to the most exacting standards, earned abundant praise. More than once they made the very strength of the Mexican position help our men while they were preparing to attack; and the report of General Smith upon certain officers — "Nothing seemed to them too bold to be undertaken, or too difficult to