Gone for Soldiers

No one writes war like Jeff Shaara. Years ago, I devoured the father-son Civil War trilogy Gods and Generals, The Killer Angels, and The Last Full Measure and easily ranked the father, Michael, who wrote The Killer Angels, and the son, Jeff, who wrote the book ends among my favorite authors. Michael, unfortunately, is dead. Jeff continues to write. Recently I stumbled upon his recounting of the Mexican War, Gone for Soldiers: A Novel of the Mexican War. Happily, this book lives up to his other works, with the added benefit of providing a good bit of education about a war which I was previously pretty ignorant of. It’s a good story, with plenty of rich characters, realistic dialogue, and carefully reconstructed battle scenes.

As in his Civil War books, he alternates the voice of each chapter between various protagonists; in this case, the most frequent narrators are Winfield Scott and Robert E. Lee, with guest appearances by Mexican General Santa Anna (who, we learn, was the leader of Mexico on eleven separate occasions), as well as future Confederate generals/heros Jackson, Beauregard, Johnston, and Longstreet. Other famous faces appear as well, from the disheveled Pickett to the distinguished Grant. And while the activities of the “present” (i.e., the Mexican War) are clearly the focus of the book, one can’t help but feel with each turn of the page that Shaara is setting the stage for the Civil War. Did Scott repeatedly tell Lee that he was destined to command a great army? Did Lee feel Jackson “needed” a war? Did Johnston tell Lee that one day he (Johnston) would lead men into battle while Lee gave the orders? Any of this is possible, but the pattern repeats itself so frequently that I couldn’t help but feel it was, perhaps, just a little over done. 

Having read this book, for me, there can be no doubt that the Mexican War shaped not only this country’s borders— it does seem to have been a bit of a land grab, even if we did pay $15 million in the end – but also the course of the Civil War, and arguable Reconstruction years, as well. Shaara notes in his afterward that 11 of the 15 Confederate generals on the field at Bull Run/Manassas in 1861 served under Scott in Mexico. Indeed, the (future) Confederate-to-Union ratio of officers who appear in this book is astounding. More than once I certainly thought that, had it not been for an inexhaustible supply of conscripted new immigrants, the Union surely would have had to cede to these U.S.-cum-Confederate generals and strategists. I truly enjoyed this book, and look forward to exploring Shaara’s other wars, which appear to extend from the Revolution to World War II.