Free The Training Ground by Martin Dugard Page A

fearless Philadelphian had been commandant of cadets when Grant was at West Point.
    Smith’s men wore a red stripe down the side of their uniform trousers as they splashed into the river, the stripes signifying that they were artillery soldiers trained to do double duty as infantry. These “redlegs” were supported by their gunnery brethren as they waded farther and farther into the brackish water, until it grew so deep that their stripes and sky blue tunics were underwater and only their heads and forage caps were visible. The men held their muskets high over their heads, keeping the barrels and cartridges dry but rendering Smith’s troops defenseless against Mexican sharpshooters, which was the brutal, awful point of Taylor’s sending such a small force across: to draw enemy fire. The moment such an attack commenced, American artillery would respond with their cannons, but not until then. Smith and his men were as exposed and vulnerable as a group of soldiers could ever be.
    Grant, Longstreet, and the rest of Taylor’s army were arrayed up and down the bank, mesmerized by the sight. No one dared speak; the silence on the American side was complete. “This was perhaps one of the most exciting hours of my life,” wrote Captain Kirby Smith, West Point class of 1826. “All, from the General-in-Chief to the smallest drummer boy, felt morally certain that we were on the verge of a fierce and bloody conflict, yet I saw no one who was not cheerful and apparently eager for the game to begin.”
    It was a false alarm. “I do not remember that a single shot was fired,” Grant wrote, remembering the disappointment.
    “When they were halfway over and not a shot fired, the disappointment of the men was shown from right to left in muttered curses,” noted an obviously disgusted Smith.
    The Mexicans were bluffing. In a ruse designed to thwart the American advance, a very small corps of musicians had been moving from position to position, blowing trumpets night and day. “They gave the impression that there was a large number of them,” Grant realized later, “and that if the troops were in proportion to the noise, they were sufficient to devour General Taylor and his army.” The Mexican lancers were long gone by the time the Americans waded across, having taken their creative band of buglers with them. “The Mexicans had no artillery,” rationalized Longstreet, “and could not expose their cavalry to the fire of our batteries; they made their formal protest, however, that the crossing would be regarded as a declaration of war.”
    As the band struck up “Yankee Doodle” and the rest of Taylor’s force began to wade the Rio Colorado, Grant spent hours keenly observing the nuances of military logistics. “The troops waded the stream, which was up to their necks in the deepest part,” he noted. “The bank down to the water was steep on both sides. A rope long enough to cross the river, therefore, was attached to the back axle of the wagons, and men behind would hold the rope to prevent the wagon from beating the mules into the water. This latter rope also served the purpose of bringing the end of the forward one back, to be used over again.” Concluded Grant: “In this manner the artillery and transportation of the ‘army of occupation’ crossed the Little Colorado River.”
    For a junior officer, this was vital knowledge. To learn about war at West Point was valuable. But to actually be out on the Texas plains, watching as men stood in the cold river hour after hour, straining to successfully maneuver a vast caravan of supplies and animals, was another thing entirely. This was the sort of immediately practical information Grant might be called upon to impart if it ever came his turn to lead an army into battle. Grant studied the crossing so thoroughly that he could clearly recall its details almost forty years later.
    B Y MARCH 28 , Taylor’s army had reached the Rio Grande. Mexico, the land that had haunted