Lot 210 email save

(PRINCIPAL OFFICERS ARGUE OVER THE BATTLE OF MONTE

210. (PRINCIPAL OFFICERS ARGUE OVER THE BATTLE OF MONTERREY) An important draft for a newspaper article comprising 10 folio manuscript pages, written in between March and July of 1858 by Major ELECTUS BACKUS of the regular army. In his neat, almost clerical hand, Backus's heavily annotated article disputes the claims of retired Brigadier General J.A. QUITMAN, a U.S. Senator from Mississippi, concerning the relative performance of the regular and volunteer troops at the Battle of Monterrey. Official accounts state that on the first day of the battle Backus and about 50 regulars stubbornly refused to retreat, holding out on the roof of a tannery when the remainder of the army had withdrawn. This action gave the main body of the army time to regroup, helping to change the outcome of the battle. In a reelection speech Quitman appears to have taken some license with the facts, crediting his volunteers, including Jefferson Davis's vaunted Mississippi Rifles, with winning the first day of the battle, fighting on after the regular army had fled from the field. In an extract from a speech in the Daily Globe Senator Quitman is credited with saying that: "...the gallant Mississippi and 1st Tennessee regiments under Colonel Jefferson Davis & Colonel Campbell marched for two miles under an unceasing fire and carried the works upon the East side of Monterrey...The regular force, superior in numbers, had been repulsed...The batteries were carried by my brigade of volunteers...". Backus, who was brevetted to the rank of Major for his actions on that day, understandably takes exception to this statement. Using his personal recollections and the official records, Backus gives an entirely different account of events in this pivotal Battle of the Mexican War...to make his point, Backus quotes the testimony of eyewitnesses such as Captain Henry, the Commander of the 3rd Regular Infantry, who stated in the Official report that: "...Before the volunteers reached within point blank musket range the fire of Capt. Backus was so hot, the work became untenable and all [ the enemy] fled toward Fort Diablo...When the volunteers took the work there was no resistance. Their fire had beensilenced by Backus, and all that remained was a few unresisting prisoners..." Continuing to refer to the Official record and the sworn statements of eye witnesses, Backus disputes all of Senator Quitman's assertions. In response to Senator Quitman's claims that the volunteers, though inferior in numbers to the regulars, nonetheless managed to take several enemy batteries on the first day of the battle, Backus contends that his regulars, which were vastly inferior in numbers to the volunteers, captured the only battery taken by American forces. In conclusion, Backus asserts that: "...General Taylor, in his official report, divides the credit very equally between Captain Backus with 50 regulars and General Quitman with nearly 900 volunteers. The report is official; it is from the General commanding the Army. It constitutes a page in the history of our country. It cannot be changed by the speech of any politician on the eve of any election..." While Quitman died before the election, Backus remained in the regular Army and was sent to the frontier to fight the Indians. While writing this article he was the command of Fort Defiance, New Mexico, and in a few months would lead a successful expedition against the Navaho. He died in early 1862 while recruiting men for the Union Army. This article, which is entirely in Major Backus's hand and signed several times within the text and footnotes, was found among his personal papers. It is offered here to the public for the first time, and is in very good to fine condition. $1,000-1,500

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