In September 1861, while stationed in Paducah, Ky., Private John H. Page of the 1st Illinois Light Artillery received notice that he had been promoted to second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Infantry and was to report for duty in Washington, D.C. After packing his belongings, Page caught a boat for Cairo, Ill., where he reported to the general in charge of the District of Southeast Missouri before obtaining transportation for the next leg of his journey.
Page immediately recognized Ulysses S. Grant perched behind a wire screen at a local bank where the general had set up his headquarters. “He looked at my commission and seemed buried in deep thought,” Page recalled. “He looked at me intently and repeated several times, Jno. Page,” apparently lost in reverie. It took a tap on the shoulder by a gray-haired officer in attendance to snap Grant out of his trance.
Assuredly, Grant had been reminiscing about the Mexican War, Page suspected, when he, then a 24-year-old second lieutenant, personally witnessed a Mexican cannonball mortally wound Page’s father, Captain John Page Sr., during the fierce Battle of Palo Alto. “No doubt,” Page concluded in observing Grant’s unusual reaction, “his thoughts, when looking at my commission were wandering back to his early days.”
Grant and Private Page had both lost something special during the U.S. victory at Palo Alto on May 8, 1846: Page ultimately his father, and Grant his innocence.
We, of course, will never know for sure what crossed Grant’s mind when the young private handed him his commission, but the now 39-year-old brigadier had perhaps revisited the senior Page’s disfiguring wound, him writhing in agony on the plains of Palo Alto…the comrade he had lost 15 years earlier.
For many of the more than 500 Mexican War veterans who became Confederate or Union generals during the Civil War, battle deaths evoked strong emotional reactions. Those traumatic experiences had introduced them to the dreadful lessons of war: that it was terrible, that loss and grief were normal, and how to cope with them. Inevitably, death in battle played a significant role in shaping their identities.
Dr. Nigel C. Hunt, who studies war trauma and memory, stresses that mostor emotions when recalling what they witnessed, although that doesn’t necessarily mean they will suffer from long-term or debilitating problems. Even with these memories indelibly etched into their minds, most continue to live normal lives. Grant and his comrades never forget what they saw or how they felt when confronted with death on the battlefield in Mexico.
