Monroe County, Indiana in the Mexican
War
By H. C. Duncan
This paper will not discuss the war with
Mexico, the cause of the war, its campaigns and results. That is
all history and can be found in the many histories of that short
but decisive conflict.
By reason of pressing demands on my time
I have not been able to give the subject the time and attention
I desired and its importance demanded. I was compelled to depend
largely upon the memories of persons then living in which two
persons rarely agreed. Time had either obliterated the early
impressions or had left them so blurred that the information
sought was at least of doubtful authenticity. With-in the past
few years General Oran Perry, a late adjutant general of the
State, has compiled a work on Indiana in the Mexican War which
has the general orders, proclamations, etc., of the governor and
adjutant general of the State covering that period, together
with extracts from the newspapers of the time, giving copies of
private letters written from the front to individuals and
published in the papers, and from letters written to the papers,
but nearly all of these were local, referring only to the
particular company and concluding with lengthy contemporaneous
letters discussing the conduct of the Second Indiana Regiment at
the battle of Buena Vista. It has also the roster of the five
regiments furnished by Indiana to the Mexican War, together with
the mounted riflemen. There is but little in these except to
show the time of muster in and out, deaths, discharges and
desertions, and nothing showing the residence of the individual
soldier.2 In fact, the opportunities for getting
information with reference to the particular part played by
Monroe county men in that campaign with all it accomplished,
with what it added in wealth and numbers to United States, are
indeed meager. At that time the special correspondent had not
been discovered, the modern newspaper had not been developed and
there is nothing to which we can go except the ill kept records
and the memories of old people. The former is never of interest,
the latter uncertain.
On May 13, 1846, President Polk approved
the Act of Congress declaring war with Mexico and calling for
50,000 volunteers to serve for one year, or during the war, and
appropriating $10,000,000 for defraying its expenses. On May 16,
1846, the secretary of war called on the governor of Indiana for
three regiments of infantry or riflemen, practically 3,000 men,
as its quota. On the 22nd of May Governor James Whitcomb issued
his proclamation calling for companies to be raised, each
company to report its organization to him as soon as filled and
the officers selected, to march to New Albany preparatory to
organizing into regiments and to moving on to Mexico, saying the
communication from Washington, calling for the volunteers was
dated "the 16th and was received late last evening." This you
will see was before the days of telegraph or fast mail and
required five days to reach Indianapolis from Washington, and
then got there "late in the evening."
The order of the adjutant general,
accompanying the governor's message goes into very great details
of the organization of the troops. It limited each company to
eighty privates, four corporals, four sergeants, two lieutenants
and one captain. It did not authorize anyone to raise a company,
but promised that after a company was filled there should be an
election for all of the officers from captain down which should
be certified to the governor who would issue commissions to the
commissioned officers.
At that time Indiana was without any
military organization. There had been no war since that of 1812.
The country was new; everybody was engaged in subduing the
wilderness and in other peaceful pursuits. Peace reigned
through-out the country. The old days of militia muster had
passed and there was no military establishment from which to
draw or around which the military spirit could concentrate. So
far as Indiana was concerned the military organization must be
built from the ground up. As soon as the governor's proclamation
calling for troops was received at Bloomington, recruiting
began. Lieutenant Governor Paris Dunning, James S. Hester,
Willis A. Gorman and John M. Sluss all had military aspirations
and entered into the work of recruiting with energy and
enthusiasm. By the 15th of June the full company had been
recruited; an election of officers was held and John M. Sluss
was elected captain, John Eller, first lieutenant; Aquilla
Rogers, second lieutenant, and Thomas Rogers, third lieutenant.
The regulation made no provision for a third lieutenant, but
nearly all the companies elected one and I have not been able to
learn their duties or what became of them. The company was
recruited and organized, reported to the governor and
commissions received, and the company was ready to march in
twenty-four days from the time the governor's proclamation was
issued. When it is considered there was no telegraph nor
telephone, that mail came only by stage which took a whole day
from Blooming-ton to Indianapolis; that the stage made only
about two trips a week, it will be understood that the company
was recruited and organized in a remarkably short space of time.
On the 15th of June, 1846, the company started to the front.
While the company was being recruited the ladies of Bloomington
bought the silk and with their own hands made a flag for
presentation. This was presented to the company by Miss Sarah E.
Markle, late the wife of our honored and esteemed
fellow-townsman, William F. Browning. Fortunately the speech of
presentation has been preserved and is as follows:
"Gentlemen of the Monroe Guards: On
behalf of the ladies of Monroe County, I present to you this
flag and with it their warmest applause for the choice you have
made. You are about to sacrifice the comforts to which you have
been accustomed, to undergo and endure the privations of a
soldiers' life, and to exchange your peaceful and happy homes
with their cheerful firesides for the field of battle and camp
life. Yet in this there is no cause for regret. You make the
sacrifice not at the call of a despot nor to satisfy a criminal
ambition, but in the name of that beloved liberty which is
dearer to you and to us than life. Your choice is that of
patriotic, brave men, and as such we honor it and you. And while
you are fighting the battles of our beloved country for liberty,
thereby endangering your lives, we shall wait with impatience
for the glad tidings of your welfare and success. A portion of
the glory achieved by you will be reflected upon the thousands
who are here today to say goodbye and to bid you Godspeed and to
pledge you our prayers and good wishes for the glorious triumph
of this flag and of our country.
"Take this flag as the emblem of liberty
and union and may its presence ever be the true emblem of the
downfall of the enemies of American freedom."
It is not certain just where the
presentation took place. One who was present says that it was in
front of the Butler Corner, now the Bowles Hotel. Another who
was also present, says that it was on the common just east of
the Christian church. Mr. Markle, the father of Miss Markle,
lived in the two story, hewed log house in which Elias Able
died, at the southeast corner of Rogers and Seventh streets. The
departure of this company was a sad day for Bloomington. Many of
the best young men were going to a foreign land, to an
inhospitable climate, to endure the hardships of a military
campaign. They were to go to New Albany where they would be
organized in regiments. There was no railroad and the farmers of
the community gave a lift with wagons and teams. Our old friend,
Esquire William L. Adams, was then a young man of seventeen and
at the time was working for Isaac Buskirk, who lived near Mt.
Gilead church on the Unionville road. He had two boys in the
company and sent a wagon which Esquire Adams drove. John
Whisenand, Isaac Whisenand, James Storms, David Rader and Joseph
Dearman all sent wagons. The line of march was down Walnut
street on to the Salem road, past Fairfax, where the company
camped the first night, on through Heltonsville, Leesville and
Salem to New Albany which was reached on the third day. The
company went into camp there and became Company A of the Third
regiment, commanded by Colonel James H. Lane of Lawrenceburg,
afterwards a major general in the Civil War and a United States
senator from the State of Kansas. At that time the science of
war had not advanced to its present efficiency. The volunteer
army of this State was organized on a decidedly democratic
basis. Both the field and line officers were elected by the men
of the regiment, the staff officers were appointed by the
President and the non-commissioned staff by the colonel of the
regiment. While the company was the actual unit in the Mexican
war, it was designated by name. Each company had a name and
carried it with it into history. The men were not known as
members of a regiment or brigade, but of a certain named
company. Thus Captain Sluss's company was the "Monroe Guards,"
the company from Lawrence County, the "Lawrence Grays," the
Brown county company, "Brown County Blues," the Greene county
company, "Greene County Volunteers," etc.
The men furnished their own clothing,
although subsequently they were reimbursed by the government.
This company got its uniforms at New Albany, which consisted of
a gray cashmere sack coat with black velvet stripes up the
front, pants of the same material with black velvet stripes up
the legs, broad brim, gray hat with the brim turned up at the
side. By an order from the ordinance office at Washington, the
Indiana troops were to be supplied at Baton Rouge with musketry
and accoutrements, forty cartridges and two flints for each
musket. The old muskets issued were pretty crude. They were
smooth bored with flint locks and muzzle loaders. The cartridges
were handmade and consisted of one large ball and three buck
shot.
Of course there was great enthusiasm
manifested during the organization of the company. The military
spirit was thoroughly aroused. A desire to march into the
enemy's country and to resent the insults to the flag were
manifested on all sides. Some of the volunteers in their fiery
zeal while on the streets of Bloomington delighted to shoot down
imaginary Mexicans who might be straying into the interior. Two
of these blood-thirsty ones, who delighted in this harmless but
appalling pastime, after marching to New Albany and seeing the
probabilities of war, remembered the helpless condition of loved
ones at home, cried and begged so piteously to be returned that
Captain Sluss permitted them to go.
Footnotes:
1. Read before the Monroe County Historical Society, Jan. 13,
1911. Judge Duncan died Jan. .30, 1911. See Indiana Magazine of
History VII, 31.
2. It would be a valuable
contribution to State History if some competent person in each
county which sent soldiers to the Mexican War would do what the
author has done in this paper. - Ed.
3. Duncan: Monroe County in Mexican War 289
Index
Source: Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. XII March, 1916
Indiana AHGP
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