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Civil War Generals in the Mexican-American War: Friends Who Became Enemies

In 1846, graduates of West Point Military Academy were deployed to fight in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). Less than 20 years later, many now wearing different uniforms, they would meet again as adversaries in the American Civil War (1861-1865), leading some later historians to refer to the earlier conflict as a 'training ground' for the latter.

To characterize the Mexican-American War as only a training ground for the officers who would later serve on both sides in the Civil War is a simplification and a disservice to all who fought between 1846 and 1848, but, at the same time, there is truth to the label. The Mexican-American War provided the theater in which many of the most famous Civil War generals learned the art of warfare firsthand, and they made use of those lessons later to great effect. American Battlefield Trust sums the situation up concisely:

It was during the Mexican-American War that these men developed the strategy and tactics that would dominate the Civil War. Some of these strategies and tactics include:

Acknowledging the importance of speed

The use of massive artillery bombardments to weaken an enemy's defenses, which was followed by a large-scale infantry assault

The importance of reconnaissance and reconnoitering

Additionally, many of these prominent generals became acquainted with one another through their service in the war. The information learned about one another, including temperament, battle style, and character, played vital roles on future battlefields.

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These young officers also all learned from the same two mentors: General Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) and General Winfield Scott (1786-1866), the supreme commanders of the US troops in the Mexican-American War. Scott would exert significant influence over the young Robert E. Lee, while Ulysses S. Grant would learn more from Taylor, even emulating his casual style of dress, but many of the later Civil War officers learned valuable lessons from one or both of these men.

A complete list of all the Civil War luminaries who first saw action in the Mexican-American War is beyond the scope of this article, but it includes Jefferson Davis, future President of the Confederacy; Joseph Hooker, the Union general who lost the Battle of Chancellorsville; George Pickett, the Confederate general famous for his doomed charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. There was also Albert S. Johnston, Ambrose Burnside, John Bell Hood, A. P Hill, Gideon J. Pillow, Winfield Scott Hancock, and Lewis Armistead – among many others – fighting on the same side before they came to fight each other. Hancock and Armistead were best friends before they came to face each other as enemies, Hancock fighting for the Union and Armistead for the Confederacy.

The following ten are the best-known or, in the case of George H. Thomas, the most overlooked:

Union:

George B. McClellan

George Meade

Ulysses S. Grant

William Tecumseh Sherman

George H. Thomas

Confederate:

Robert E. Lee

Stonewall Jackson

James Longstreet

P. G. T. Beauregard

Braxton Bragg

All would serve in the Civil War with distinction, some more effectively than others, and all would draw, to greater or lesser degrees, on what they had learned early on in the Mexico Campaign.

George McClellan (1814-1879)

McClellan arrived at his post in October 1846, months after the war had started, and was soon after struck with dysentery and malaria. Upon recovering, he served under General Winfield Scott, leading reconnaissance missions, but he rose through the ranks through his skill as an engineer. After the Battle of Chapultepec, he was promoted to captain and, as an artillery officer, was frequently cited for valor. He later served as Commanding General of the United States Army from 1861 to 1862. His attention to detail, noted in citations during the Mexican-American War, made him overly cautious as a Civil War general, and he repeatedly delayed actions until he had everything just right; so much so that President Abraham Lincoln finally replaced him with Ambrose Burnside, who was far worse.

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Battle of Nashville: The Bitter End of the Army of Tennessee

The Battle of Nashville (15-16 December 1864) was the last major battle in the western theater of the American Civil War (1861-1865). After suffering a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Franklin (30 November), Lieutenant General John Bell Hood led the once-proud Confederate Army of Tennessee onward in a desperate attempt to capture Nashville, a major supply and manufacturing center. He clashed with a 55,000-man Union army under Major General George H. Thomas a few miles south of the city, and, after a brutal two-day battle, the rebel lines crumbled. At Nashville, the Army of Tennessee was neutralized as an effective fighting force, bringing an end to the war in the West.

The Killing Fields of Franklin

A pale sun clawed its way into a frosty sky on the morning of 1 December 1864, shining its light over a carpet of bloodied corpses in the fields outside Franklin, Tennessee. Mere hours before, these fields had been alive with the blaring of bugles and the banging of drums, the clatter of musket fire and the roar of artillery, the thunderous footfalls of thousands of soldiers and the bitter screams of the dying. Now, as the morning mists dissipated, an eerie silence hung over the town of Franklin, broken only by the distant rush of the Harpeth River and the ambient calls of birds. Presently, details of weary Confederate soldiers went out with spades and shovels to get to work burying the dead, pouring dirt over the heads of men who had been their friends and comrades.The Battle of Franklin

The Battle of Franklin had been the culmination of a ten-day Confederate invasion of Tennessee. Lieutenant General John Bell Hood had led 39,000 rebel soldiers across the Tennessee River, with wild dreams of liberating Nashville from Union occupation before pushing up through Kentucky to plant the Confederate flag on the banks of the Ohio River. All that stood in their way were two Union armies of 30,000 men each – one was under Major General George H. Thomas at Nashville, the other under Major General John M. Schofield, 75 miles away (120 km) at Pulaski. Hood hoped to destroy each of these Union armies piecemeal before they had a chance to join forces. He went after Schofield first – after failing to trap him, first at Columbia, then at Spring Hill, Hood finally cornered him at Franklin. Although he found Schofield's army strongly entrenched, Hood decided to attack anyway, ordering his men to embark on a frontal assault over two miles (3.2 km) of open ground with minimal artillery support. The result was catastrophic: the Confederates lost 6,200 men killed or wounded, including 55 regimental officers and 12 generals. It was one of the most devastating Southern defeats of the war.

Having held off Hood's assault at the cost of only 2,300 losses of his own, Schofield slipped away during the night. On 1 December, as the battered Confederates spent the day burying their dead, Schofield's tired troops marched into Nashville and linked up with General Thomas, bringing the total number of Union soldiers in the city to just about 55,000 men. Nashville had been occupied by the Union since February 1862, and, in the intervening two and a half years, the Yankees had worked to improve the city's defenses. By now, they had built a seven-mile-long (11 km) line of fortifications that formed a semicircle around the southern and western sides of the city, while the mighty Cumberland River served as a natural barrier on the northern and eastern sides. For Hood's weakened army to attack Nashville against these odds seemed borderline suicidal. Yet the yellow-bearded, one-legged Confederate general felt he had no other choice – if he were to retreat from Tennessee now, his demoralized army would surely melt away from desertion. So, Hood pressed on, arriving outside Nashville on 2 December. Rather than laying siege, he decided to goad the enemy into coming out of their fortifications and attacking him. He staked out a position to the south of Nashville and dug in, forming a four-mile-long (6.4 km) defensive line of his own. The rebel soldiers then hunkered down to await the attack that would decide the fate of the war in the West.

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