CHAPTER III.

LIEUTENANT MEADE IN THE MEXICAN WAR.

An extended account of the Mexican War, so far as it relates to General Meade, would not seem to be imperative in a brief history of his military career, in view of the fact that he was then only a lieutenant in the army, and that the bearing of his presence in its military operations was therefore proportionally limited. The account of that episode of his life is therefore confined to the moderate limits of this chapter.

General Meade, a lieutenant of Topographical Engineers in 1845, a corps merged during the Civil War in that of the Engineers, arrived at Corpus Christi on September 14, 1845, having been assigned to the staff of General Zachary Taylor, who was in chief command of the American forces then assembling as an army of occupation on the Mexican frontier. Passing through the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, he finally marched with General Taylor to Monterey. assisting there in reconnoissances of that portion of the enemy's position which was assailed by General Worth. General Worth said, in his official report of the operations here, "Annexed is an accurate sketch of the theatre of operations, for which I am indebted, as in many other respects, to the intelligent zeal and gallantry of Lieutenant Meade, Engineers."

Marching beyond Monterey to Saltillo, on November 13th, General Taylor made dispositions in advance of Monterey, sending General Quitman to Victoria. Under General Taylor Lieutenant Meade made, in connection with

the new operations, reconnoissances of the passes of the Agua Nueva, and under General Quitman, of the passes of the Tula. But, at this point of time, a sudden change took place in affairs, General Taylor, upon returning to Monterey, finding that the whole character of his operations had to be changed, General Winfield Scott having arrived on the coast in supreme command, and having ordered many of General Taylor's troops to join him in the projected capture of Vera Cruz and of the city of Mexico. Lieutenant Meade had, at that moment, reached Victoria with the column under General Quitman. Marching thence, under the command of General Patterson, for Tampico, on the coast, he was there about to take ship for Vera Cruz, when, on the 23d of February, 1846, the battle of Buena Vista was fought by General Taylor.

On the 9th of March General Scott's army began debarking near Vera Cruz, and on the following day invested the town, which lies at the water's edge; a walled town, supported in its defensive capacity by the Castle of San Juan d'Ulloa, a short distance off, seaward. Lieutenant Meade assisted his immediate chief, Major William Turnbull, in the survey of the lines of contravallation, and helped in the designing of the naval battery. After a severe bombardment lasting several days, a parley was sounded from the town, resulting, after some negotiation, in its surrender. Here Lieutenant Meade's duty with the army terminated. He had been in the field nearly two years, had shared in three battles and this siege, and the officers of his branch of the service were present in sufficient numbers for the needs of the army of General Scott. Consequently General Scott relieved him from duty in a complimentary order, in which he said that Lieutenant Meade " was much distinguished in the field since 1845." Here, then, we will with the reader leave General Scott and his gallant little army on

the eve of their triumphant march to and capture of the city of Mexico. Lieutenant Meade's departure from the army must, we have reason to believe, have been coupled with his regret that his duties had not been with the line rather than with the staff, for we find him, at the beginning of the Civil War, evidently resolved that it should then be otherwise. We meet him at that time, fourteen years afterwards, as a general of brigade, and so often in the forefront of battle, in that rank and in that of corps-commander, that the marvel is he was not killed outright instead of wounded before the Civil War was two years old.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CAUSE OF THE CIVIL WAR AND RESPECTIVE ADVANTAGES OF THE BELLIGERENTS.

THE essential difference between the ancient and modern way of regarding great movements among mankind lies in difference of view as to the propulsive forces at work, the ancients believing that they obeyed a blind destiny, represented chiefly by some powerful human leadership, whereas the wiser moderns have come to look for and find directive cause for such phenomena in race, climate, geographical distribution, clashing material interests, and a multitude of other agencies in that which compels men to change and to collision with their fellow men. Ancient history, in a word, regards the mass of men as mere ciphers, which give value to an inexplicable range of activities, while modern history regards them as subject to and moving amid these, under law; the people, more than their rulers, the source of grand movements; the ruler but the product of surrounding root and soil. Hence Macaulay was wise when he introduced into his History of England an account of the people as the main source of the events which he proceeds to describe. The peoples of the same and of contiguous countries, more than a Greek Chorus, bearing as they do the chief part in the drama, serve, however, in formal history, that purpose also. Otherwise, to mental vision, the principal actors would go mopping and mowing and gibbering over the stage of life, as inane as dancers without music look to one whose ears are closed.

It is with a very simple fragment of history with which

ence.

we have to deal, and yet, to this day, simple as it is, it is sometimes misunderstood. It was represented, even in an English work published about the time of the Civil War, that the Southerners were fighting only for their independTo account for fighting for independence, however, some rational cause must be assigned and proved to exist. That there was no just cause for secession, leading to fighting for independence, is amply shown in the demonstration of Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, a man of distinguished ability, who afterwards became the Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy. The real cause of secession was not the presence of slavery in the Southern States and its absence in the Northern ones, but the fact that the difference between them in that respect had gradually had the effect of making two peoples of different interests in social and governmental development. There was, at the beginning of the Civil War, no general feeling in the North against the institution of slavery, save as an abstract proposition; none such as would have made any great sacrifice for its abolishment. It was only as the war proceeded that the feeling in the North grew stronger and stronger against it as the cause back of the estrangement between the two parts of the country. The South, as represented especially by new generations, is now, in retrospection, grateful that it did not achieve a success which would have blighted the magnificent future of the country; and in this feeling even the majority of those there who bore the heat and burden of the day profoundly share. The South can now afford to admit, the fever-fit of passion being past, that it was not, even by the conceded right of revolution, justified in its action, when, having held the power of the general Government for many years, having been assured by Congress that whatever was lacking in protection of its rights should be given, having entered into and been defeated in a general