Sumner County in the War with Mexico
Sumner County furnished three companies for the war with Mexico, 1846-7. Two of these were
in the First
Tennessee Regiment Infantry, commanded by W.B. Campbell. These companies were
commanded by Captains W.
M. Blackmore and Robert A. Bennett, the former being known as the "Tenth Legion," and the
latter as the "Polk
Guards." The Tenth Legion was composed of volunteers from Gallatin and its vicinity, while the
Polk Guards was
made up from enlistments at Hartsville and that neighborhood. These companies were enlisted for
and served twelve
months and there were about one hundred men in each company. S. R. Anderson, the First
Lieutenant-Colonel of the
First Tennessee Regiment, was from Sumner County, as was Major Richard B. Alexander, and
was seriously
wounded at Monterey. The third company was known as Legion Second, and was a part of the
Third Tennessee
Regiment Infantry, commanded by Colonel B. Frank Cheatham. This company was commanded
by Captain
William Hatton. Major Perrin Solomon, of the Third Tennessee Regiment, was a Sumner
countian. Lieutenant
Nimrod D. Smith acted as Adjutant of the First Tennessee for a while.
As in the last war with Spain, so it was in the war with Mexico, the inhospitable climate was often
more destructive
to life than the missiles of the enemy, and many a young succumbed to the ravages of disease.
The First Tennessee Regiment won distinction and gained the praise of the General commanding
the American
forces for the valor and dash displayed by it in its charge on the enemy's defenses at Monterey on
September 21,
1846. This regiment was brigaded at Monterey with Mississippi Rifles, and commanded by
Colonel Jefferson Davis,
and were in Quitman's Brigade.
General Zachary Taylor, commanding the army, in his dispatch to Washington in regard to this
battle, said: " The
Fourth Infantry and three regiments of volunteers were ordered to march at once upon the heavy
battery, which was
pouring a continuous fire from five pieces of cannon. The Mississippi and Tennessee Troops,
proceeded by three
companies of the Fourth, advanced against the works, while the Ohio Regiment, entered the town
to the right. The
advance of the Fourth was received by so destructive a charge that one-third of the officers and
men were instantly
killed or disabled. They were compelled to retire until reinforced. The Tennessee and Mississippi
corps, under
Captain Backus, whose men occupied the roof of a house in the rear of the redoubt, captured it in
gallant style, taking
five pieces of ordnance, a large quantity of ammunition and several Mexican officers and men
prisoners."
In this charge the First Tennessee suffered heavily in killed and wounded and won for itself the
name of the "Bloody
First." Many noble Sumner countains gave up their lives in this charge at their country's behest,
while others were
maimed for life. Here Booker H. Dalton and John F. Ralphfile, of the Polk Guards, and First
Corporal Julius C.
Elliott, Peter Hinds Martin, Edward Pryor, Benjamin Soper, Isaac Inman Elliott, and Thomas
Jones of the Tenth
Legion were killed, and the Lieutenant J. Cam. Allen of that company, lost a leg. History states
that there were one
hundred and twenty American soldiers killed at the battle of Monterey. Eight of these were
Sumner countains, so out
of every fifteen killed in that battle, Sumner county mourned one dead son or six and two-thirds
per cent, of the slain
in that engagement. Out of these three companies forty-five men died of disease contracted in the
service in the ward
with Mexico.
The Third Tennessee Regiment was formed about the close of the war, after the First Regiment
had been mustered
out, and this regiment reached Mexico after the fighting had ceased.
General W. B. Bate was a soldier in the war with Mexico, first as a member of a Louisiana
regiment, and afterwards
as a Lieutenant in Captain Hatton's Company of the Third Tennessee Regiment, and acted
Adjutant of that regiment.
Sumner county sent, in the person of General Wm. Trousdale, another distinguished soldier to the
war with Mexico.
He was Colonel of the Fourteenth Regular Infantry, but commanded a brigade in the operations of
the army in the
capture of the City of Mexico, and was wounded and brevetted for gallantry in the storming of the
heights of
Chepultepee, and was given honorable mention in General Scott's report to the Government.
Sumner county
sustained in the war, as she had in every war before and has in every war since, her title to the
name of the
"Volunteer County of the Volunteer State."
By the liberality of its citizens the county erected, in 1848 as stone monument in the cemetery
here to the memory of
her sons who died in that war, but time and the elements have so wrought upon it that it is now
toppling over, and
soon even "Old Mortality," with chisel and hammer, could not preserve from utter defacement the
names of those
who are inscribed on its roll of honor.
From Historic Sumner
County,
Tennessee
1909
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