marked intellectual power; if his instructors saw no sign of
masterful resolution and a genius for command, it was because at West
Point, as elsewhere, his great qualities lay dormant, awaiting the
emergency that should call them forth.


CHAPTER 1.2. MEXICO. 1846-47.

1846.

On June 30, 1846, Jackson received the brevet rank of second
lieutenant of artillery. He was fortunate from the very outset of his
military career. The officers of the United States army, thanks to
the thorough education and Spartan discipline of West Point, were
fine soldiers; but their scope was limited. On the western frontier,
far beyond the confines of civilisation, stood a long line of forts,
often hundreds of miles apart, garrisoned by a few troops of cavalry
or companies of infantry. It is true that there was little chance of
soldierly capacity rusting in these solitary posts. From the borders
of Canada to the banks of the Rio Grande swarmed thousands of savage
warriors, ever watchful for an opportunity to pay back with bloody
interest the aggression of the whites. Murder, robbery, and massacre
followed each other in rapid succession, and the troops were allowed
few intervals of rest. But the warfare was inglorious--a mere series
of petty incidents, the punishment of a raid, or the crushing of an
isolated revolt. The scanty butcher's bills of the so-called battles
made small appeal to the popular imagination, and the deeds of the
soldiers in the western wilderness, gallant as they might be, aroused
less interest in the States than the conflicts of the police with the
New York mob. But although pursuits which carried the adversaries