his wits; to adapt his means to his end; to depend on his
intelligence rather than on rule. Above all, even the most junior had
experience of independent command before the enemy. A ready
assumption of responsibility and a prompt initiative distinguished
the regular officers from the very outset of the Civil War; and these
characteristics had been acquired on the western prairies.

But the warfare of the frontier had none of the glamour of the
warfare which is waged with equal arms against an equal enemy, of the
conflict of nation against nation. To bring the foe to bay was a
matter of the utmost difficulty. A fight at close quarters was of
rare occurrence, and the most successful campaign ended in the
destruction of a cluster of dirty wigwams, or the surrender of a
handful of starving savages. In such unsatisfactory service Jackson
was not called upon to take a part. It is doubtful if he ever crossed
the Mississippi. His first experience of campaigning was to be on a
field where gleams of glory were not wanting. The ink on his
commission was scarcely dry when the artillery subaltern was ordered
to join his regiment, the First Artillery, in Mexico. The war with
the Southern Republic had blazed out on the Texan border in 1845, and
the American Government had now decided to carry it into the heart of
the hostile territory. With the cause of quarrel we have no concern.
General Grant has condemned the war as "one of the most unjust ever
waged by a stronger against a weaker nation."* (* Grant's Memoirs
volume 1 page 53.) Be this as it may, it is doubtful whether any of
Grant's brother officers troubled themselves at all with the equity
of invasion. It was enough for them that the expedition meant a
struggle with a numerous enemy, armed and organised on the European
model, and with much experience of war; that it promised a campaign
in a country which was the very region of romance, possessing a