"All the vices engendered in a garrison life; all the cowardice which their constant defeats by the Indians had created; all the laziness contracted in an idle monotonous existence, and very little military skill." The new levies came unwillingly, and were often only "food for powder." On the American side was a small body of veteran soldiers, low and coarse men—it is the policy of America to have the rank and file of our army in peace composed usually of such—but full of brute courage; accustomed to all sorts of hardships and exposure; under a discipline rigorous and almost perfect; wonted to danger, and weaned from fear; careless of life almost to desperation; full of confidence in their commander, and of contempt for their foe. The volunteers brought with them the characteristic ardour of Americans, their confidence of success, their contempt of toil and of danger; familiar with fire-arms from their youth, they soon learned the discipline of the camp.
You see what a difference this makes between the two armies; but the chief superiority of the American soldiers was this—they came from a country where there is a complete national unity of action. So the government could trust the army, and the army the government; the soldiers had confidence in their commander, confidence in their country, confidence in their cause; while the Mexicans had no national unity of action, the people little confidence in the government, the government as little in the people; the nation but little trust in the army, and the army little in the nation; the soldiers had great fear of the enemy, little faith in their officers, and the officers little in their men. Did you ever see a swarm of bees when the queen bee was dead, and moths had invaded the hive? The Mexicans were much in the same state. The result was what had readily been foreseen: at the battle of Buena Vista, on the one side, there were twenty-one thousand five hundred and fifty-three Mexicans; on the other, four thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine American soldiers, of which only four hundred and seventy-six were regulars. Yet the American loss, in killed, wounded and missing, was but seven hundred and forty-six, while that of the Mexican army was nearly two thousand men lost. If the Mexicans had done the same proportionate execution, every American would have been killed long before night.
