Audioboook demo - Historical biography
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North American (General) North American (US South)Transcript
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Nevertheless, this life of enterprise and hard work. The constant struggle against nature for the ill immeasurable space of the inhospitable wilderness was a more formidable antagonist than the stealthy savage benefited the american soldier in more ways than one. He grew accustomed to danger and privation. He learned to use his wets to adapt his means to his end, to depend on his intelligence rather than on rule above all. Even the most junior had experience of independent command before the enemy. A ready assumption of responsibility and a prompt initiative distinguished the regular officers from the very outset of the Civil War, and these characteristics had been acquired on the western prairies. But the warfare of the frontier had none of the glamour of the warfare which was waged with equal arms against an equal enemy of the conflict of nation, against nation, to bring the foe to bay was a matter of the utmost difficulty. A fight at close quarters was of rare occurrence, and the most successful campaign ended in the destruction of a cluster of dirty wigwams, or the surrender of a handful of starving savages in such unsatisfactory service. Jackson was not called upon to take apart. It is doubtful if he ever crossed the Mississippi. His first experience of campaigning was to be on a field where gleams of glory were not wanting The ink on his commission was scarcely dry when the artillery Subaltern was ordered to join his regiment. The first artillery in Mexico, the war with the Southern Republic had blazed out on the Texan border in 1845, and the American government had now decided to carry it into the heart of the hostile territory with the cause of quarrel. We have no concern. General Grant has condemned the war as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against the weaker nation. Be this as it may. It is doubtful whether any of Grant's brother officers traveled themselves at all with the equity of invasion. It was enough for them that the expedition meant to struggle with the numerous enemy, armed and organized on the european model, and with much experience of war, that it promised a campaign in a country which was the very region of romance, possessing a lovely climate, historic cities and magnificent scenery. The genius of Prescott had just descent umed from dusty archives. The marvelous story of the spanish conquest and the imagination of many. A youthful soldier had been already kindled by his glowing pages to follow the path of Cortez to traverse the golden realms of Montezuma, to look upon the lakes and palaces of Mexico, the most ancient city of America, to encamp among the temples of a vanished race, and to hear, while the fireflies flitted through the perfumed night the music of the black eyed maidens of New Spain was ever more fascinating prospect offered to a subaltern of two and 20. The companies of the first artillery, which had been detailed for foreign service, were first transferred to point Isabel at the mouth of the Rio grande