When Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met at Appomattox Court House in April 1865, their first topic of conversation had nothing to do with the Civil War they had fought for four years, but another conflict nearly two decades in the past.
“I met you once before, General Lee,” Grant said, “while we were serving in Mexico, when you came over from General Scott's headquarters to visit Garland's brigade, to which I then belonged. I have always remembered your appearance, and I think I should have recognized you anywhere.”
“Yes,” Lee answered. “I know I met you on that occasion, and I have often thought of it and tried to recollect how you looked, but I have never been able to recall a single feature.”
Lee may have had problems remembering his first encounter with Grant during the Mexican-American War, but he – as well as Grant – had no problems remembering the lessons they learned during that war or the general who taught them: Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott.
War of 1812 Hero
Scott, a hero of the War of 1812 and the early Indian conflicts, was an old school soldier. Unlike Lee and Grant, both West Point graduates, Scott’s military education was largely self-taught. He was an avid reader of military history and strategy. In 1815, he traveled throughout Europe, studying the tactics of the French, English and German armies. He wrote several books and Army field manuals on infantry and artillery tactics. By the time Mexican war started, Scott had attained the highest rank then in the U.S. Army, major general.
The general was daring as well. For his epic march from Vera Cruz to Mexico City, Scott did the unthinkable – he jettisoned his logistics tail. His army would march on its own, living off the land. The young Lee and younger Grant would play major roles in making Scott’s plan work.
Scott was an avid believer in forward reconnaissance. As an engineer on the general’s staff, Lee was relied on for scouting the route to the Mexican capital as well as the enemy’s strongholds. At times, he would be responsible for building roads where no roads existed. Lee’s success as a scout and engineer became legend during the war.
Decades later, Grant would write admiringly of Lee and his engineers’ work in preparation for the Battle of Cerro Gordo, where Mexican Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna confronted Scott with a mountain fortification impregnable by either frontal or flanking attack. Lee discovered a narrow path to the Mexicans’ vulnerable rear and, under cover of darkness, his engineers improved it for the movement of troops and artillery. “This was accomplished without the knowledge of Santa Anna or his army, and over ground where he supposed it impossible,” Grant wrote.
Lee’s experience as a scout entrenched in him the importance of reconnaissance. During the Civil War, he would rely heavily on his cavalry, led by Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, as his eyes and ears. Stuart’s failure to report promptly to Lee at the battle of Gettysburg contributed to the Confederate general’s first defeat of the war.
Living Off the Land
Grant, quartermaster for the 4th Regiment, was responsible for supplying the regiment with food and clothing for the march. Each day, he would ride out with empty wagons and barter with local farmers, ranchers and other suppliers. At the end of the day, he would return, the wagons loaded, his tunic gray with dust and unbuttoned for comfort.
It was while returning from one such sortie that Lee and Grant had their first and only face-to-face encounter before Appomattox. Lee, like his commander, remained nattily dressed even in the field. Now a major, Lee berated the younger Grant for his unmilitary appearance.
Nevertheless, Grant’s quartermaster experience showed him how an army could survive without its lines of communications. During the Civil War, he would use that knowledge during his successful Vicksburg campaign and, later, when ordering Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman on his famed March to the Sea.
Lee and Grant were not the only Civil War leaders to learn their trade under Scott. Most of the war’s generals, Union and Confederate, served under Scott in Mexico. These include George McClellan, P.G.T. Beauregard, Stonewall Jackson, "Fighting" Joe Hooker, Irwin McDowell, Winfield Scott Hancock, John Magruder, A. P. Hill, James Longstreet and George Pickett.
"It is strange to me,” wrote Scott biographer Arthur D. Howde, “that historians up to this time have failed to appreciate that all the important leaders of the Union and Confederate armies were trained by him (Scott), and that their performances in action were proportionate to the thoroughness with which they absorbed his ideas.”
Scott was in command of the Army when the Civil War started in 1861. But at 74, the general was in ill health, excessively overweight and unable to hold a field command. He resigned his commission that year. He died in 1866, living long enough to see his two brightest protégés, Lee and Grant, bring the country back together at Appomattox.
Sources:
- Maj. James A. Cope (1989). Winfield Scott's Mexico City Operation: Genesis of American Operational Art?. Leavensworth, KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.
- Martin Dugard (2008). The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Co.
- Michael Swift, George Grant (2005). Defining Moments: The Civil War. San Diego, CA: Thunder Bay Press.
- Ulysses S. Grant (2000). Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (Online edition). New York, NY: Bartleby.com.
Martin Hill - Martin Hill, former journalist and now a military analyst, has 20 years of military, SAR and disaster response experience.
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