Chapter VII · LONGSTREET’S HONEYMOON

After reaching home from Mexico, Longstreet soon regained his strength. He then wrote to Colonel John Garland, of Virginia, his old brigade commander, asking for his youngest daughter. Colonel Garland promptly replied, “Yes, with all my heart.”

With several wounded comrades Longstreet was assigned quarters with the Escandons, a kind-hearted, refined Mexican family. They could not conceal their deep chagrin at the defeat of their army, and were doubtless mortified by the enforced presence of the wounded Americans. Nevertheless they insisted that those officers confined to their beds should be supplied from their own table. Delicacies without stint were sent. The days of confinement were greatly brightened by their delicate attentions. On the 1st of December the accomplished surgeons, Satterlee and DeLeon, thought that Longstreet was strong enough to travel, and announced that he was to be ordered out of the country on sick-leave.

With others he left Mexico on December 9. A few days later he sailed from Vera Cruz with a large number of sick and wounded, among whom was Brigadier-General Pierce, who was very popular in the army. After reaching home Longstreet soon regained his strength. He then wrote to Colonel John Garland, of Virginia, his late brigade commander, asking for his youngest daughter. Colonel Garland promptly replied, “Yes, with all my heart.” He had won fame in Mexico and returned home on leave a month before Longstreet was well enough to travel, and was then with his family. The young lady and her soldier sweetheart already had a pretty good understanding on the subject, and her answer was equally flattering. On the 8th of March, 1848, the marriage occurred at Lynchburg. After a brief honeymoon orders were received from the War Department detailing Longstreet for recruiting service, with station at Poughkeepsie, New York. Before autumn of that year nearly all the troops in Mexico were withdrawn, and the Eighth, Longstreet’s old regiment, was ordered to Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, where he had been stationed before the war, then a brevet second lieutenant in the Fourth.

After fifty years General Longstreet found that many of the physical details of the battle terrain in the valley of Mexico differed quite materially from the memory conveyed by his younger eyes in the heat of action. There was no real change in fixed landmarks, but the depressions were not so deep, nor the impregnable hills the Americans attacked so high, as they appeared when the Mexicans were defending them with sword, musket, and cannon. In instants of supreme danger it is very difficult for the soldier or subordinate officer to see things exactly as they are on a battle-field. His eye and mind are inevitably and anxiously concentrated on the enemy or the battery that is dealing death and destruction round about.