home to stay. Taylor, it appeared, had recommended the advance to the Rio Grande; he protested against embarrassing the prosecution of the war by discussing its genesis; and the smallness of his army at the critical time, his waiting so long after the occupation of Matamoros, the terms given at Monterey, his peril at Buena Vista, Kearny's off-hand annexation of New Mexico, Scott's discharging volunteers after the battle of Cerro Gordo, and his famous Jalapa proclamation, all brought up against the administration, proved in every case chargeable to the Whig commanders.[1]
Orators caused as much pain as generals, perhaps. "Black Tom" Corwin's brilliant advice that American soldiers in Mexico should be welcomed to hospitable graves, though it gained high rank in the nightmare school of literature, overshot the mark. It scandalized the nation. It staggered patriotism. It shocked humanity. Most of all it infuriated the troops, battling for their country in a foreign land. The speech arrived at Buena Vista soon after the struggle with Santa Anna. A rude effigy of Corwin was made up of the vilest materials, dressed in a Mexican uniform and burned; and over the ashes these lines were posted up:
"O'd Tom Corwin is dead and here he lies;
Nobody's sorry and nobody cries;
Where he's gone and how he fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares."
The soldiers had friends at home, and of course made their sentiments known. 'The speech sounded the knell of its author's great political hopes; and there is reason to believe that its reception frightened into dumbness a number of his colleagues, who had arranged to follow his lead.[2]
But other styles of oratorical attack were still feasible. Just before Congress met in December, 1846, the Whigs hung out at the Chinese Museum, Philadelphia, their Great Blue Light. In other words a powerful orator, a powerful lawyer, a powerful statesman — Daniel Webster by name — after studying on the problem for half a year, undertook, if one may quote an admirer, to "knock the sand"' from under the government. Hour after hour he talked on, till he mortgaged fourteen columns of the United States Gazette, and the reporters fled; but he came far short of making out a case. Other efforts of his proved no
