The Colonel's knows a bit about remote. He's been to some pretty far- flung and isolated corners of this big blue marble. His own vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere vie for inclusion on that list.
But, that's not even remotely germane to the topic of this post.
What is important, and is the record-correcting nature of this missive, is the fact that one particular state, which will go un-named (but whose name is spelled with a collection of double consonants and replicated vowels) lays claim to the moniker "Volunteer State" as if it's the best or only example of crisis volunteerism.
The Colonel would like to propose that another state whose name is spelled with a collection of double consonants and replicated vowels is in fact just as, if not more, deserving of recognition for its historic volunteers.
(For the LSU and Bama grads struggling to keep up, the Colonel's paragraphs above refer to the states: Tennessee and Mississippi.)
And now, the history lesson:
In 1836, Texas won its independence from Mexico after a sharp little fight on the banks of the San Jacinto River. Over the next decade, the Mexican government continued to contest the boundary separating their country and Texas. Once Texas was admitted to the Union, the United States claimed the Rio Grande River as the international boundary; Mexico claimed the Nueces River further to the north and east as the limit to their territory.
By 1846, the disagreement over the international boundary had degenerated into a series of escalating military clashes between the U.S. and Mexico. President Polk -- in the Colonel's not so humble estimation, the greatest U.S. President of the 19th Century (don't take his word for it; look up Polk's accomplishments, in just one term, and decide for yourself) -- stationed half of the U.S. Army's regular troops, some 3,600 men, on the Rio Grande to defend the U.S. claim. Mexico answered this provocation with force, killing American soldiers in a couple of forays north of the Rio Grande.
The die was cast.
President Polk asked congress to declare war with Mexico and requested that 50,000 volunteers be called into service for a twelve-month enlistment to augment the small regular army for what was expected to be a quick defeat of the Mexican army in order to force Mexico's acceptance of the Rio Grande border.
When the call went out for Mississippi volunteers, 17000 (seventeen thousand!) men descended on the Mississippi River port of Vicksburg to enlist. To put that number in perspective, the free male population of Mississippi at the time was less than 100,000. In other words, one in every six men in Mississippi volunteered to fight for the United States against Mexico. Factor out the older and physically unable and the ratio is nearer to one out of every three.
Great. The rest of you states can send your young men home. Mississippi will lick Mexico all by itself.
But, the U.S. War Department said that Mississippi was limited to only one 1000-man regiment. So, a competition of sorts was held in Vicksburg for a couple of weeks, at the end of which one of the finest bodies of American volunteers to ever assemble for combat stood up as the Mississippi Rifles -- so named because they were primarily armed with highly accurate rifled weapons vice the regular Army's and other volunteer state regiments' smooth bore muskets.
According to the custom of the day, most militia's and volunteer units chose their own officers by ballot. West Point graduate and Mississippi congressman Jefferson Davis was elected commanding officer of the Mississippi regiment. Davis had been reluctant to vote for war with Mexico, but when he went to war at the head of the Mississippi Rifles he did so without hesitation.
General Zachary Taylor, previously in command of the 3600 regular troops in the area between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, saw his force swell by 3X with the arrival of the volunteer regiments, and he was particularly pleased with the addition of the Mississippi Rifles (commanded by his son-in-law, Davis) to his command. Once Taylor's force was assembled and equipped to his satisfaction, he marched south into Mexico intending to strike deep and bring the bulk of the Mexican army to a climatic battle.
The Mexican army had other plans.
Astride Taylor's route of march south lay the city of Monterrey with a formidable citadel commanding its approach. Taylor did not have the resources to mount a lengthy siege, so he endeavored to weaken and reduce the defense of Monterrey through a series of attacks too complicated to tell here. But, the garrison of Monterrey eventually surrendered the town -- the Mississippi Rifles playing key roles in many of the Monterrey engagements.
Remember, the town of Buena Vista, Mississippi the Colonel mentioned earlier? Well, it wasn't called Buena Vista when it was first incorporated. In fact, news of Taylor's victory at Monterrey (the first capture of a major foreign city in U.S. history to that point) and the Mississippi Rifle's heroics arrived back home coincident with the incorporation of the little town in remote Chickasaw County and the founders named their new town Monterrey in commemoration.
Key to the surrender of Monterrey was General Taylor's offer of a two month armistice in return. This allowed the Mexican defenders to evacuate Monterrey relatively intact and to join with a larger Mexican force assembling to the south. President Polk was not happy with Taylor's decision, told him to hold at Monterrey, and sent a force under General Winfield Scott to land on the central Mexican coast at Vera Cruz and advance west on Mexico City.
In the meantime, Santa Anna (who had recently been allowed to return to Mexico under the pretense that he would help negotiate a settlement of the boundary dispute) prepared to retake Monterrey. By the middle of February, 1847 he had assembled a force of nearly 20,000 men, albeit not as well armed and equipped as the much smaller American force. That the date on which Santa Anna began his attack coincided with George Washington's birthday became a point around which the Americans took offense and they rallied in defense of their positions south of Monterrey at a narrow pass near the hacienda Buena Vista. The fight that followed was a desperate one for the Americans. Outnumbered and on several occasions outflanked by the Mexican troops, several volunteer elements of Taylor's force melted away under the onslaught. Into one particularly dangerous breach in his lines, Taylor committed his reserve -- the Mississippi Rifles. Colonel Davis's exhortation to his regiment, "Stand fast, Mississippians!," remains to this day the motto of the U.S. Army National Guard's 155th Regiment, of which the Mississippi Rifles was the forerunner.
The Mississippians stood fast. Taylor held Monterrey. Winfield Scott later took Mexico City. The rest is history for another blog post.
Remember the newly incorporated town of Monterrey, Mississippi? When news of the Mississippi Rifles' stand at Buena Vista reached home, Monterrey, Mississippi was shortly thereafter renamed...
Buena Vista, Mississippi.
The Colonel's great grandfather, Methodist minister, and namesake, Thomas Edwin Gregory, was born in Buena Vista, Mississippi 35 years later.
The Colonel wonders whether the Reverend ever knew the significance of his birthplace's name.
The Colonel also wonders why Mississippi is not the "Volunteer State."
1 comment:
BRAVO ZULU!
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