Despite his reservations, Grant accompanied Taylor on his march across Texas in March 1846. On arriving at the Rio Grande, Taylor’s troops built an earthen fort in a provocative position across the river from the Mexican city of Matamoros. The Mexican War could be said to have begun when Mexican artillery finally opened fire on the fort in May. When Grant heard the bombardment from his camp miles away, he later wrote, I felt sorry that I had enlisted.

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Others, like McClellan, were not yet in Mexico and were just as sorry to be missing the action. The Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, both American victories against larger Mexican forces, came within a week of the first bombardment. Taylor entered Matamoros on May 18 and in July pushed west on a campaign toward the city of Monterey. There, again, the Americans would be outnumbered by their Mexican foes.

Monterey was extraordinarily well fortified and surrounded by rugged terrain. The battle for the city would last three days and cost hundreds of American casualties.

On the third day of the battle, the Americans had taken control of Monterey’s outskirts and began pressing in from all sides toward the grand plaza at its center, held by Mexican troops. An American head poked into one of the streets radiating out from the plaza would instantly summon a hail of artillery and musket fire, and snipers seemed to lurk on every roof. Lieutenant Grant, although officially acting as a regimental quartermaster, had managed to find his way to the firing line. When the unit he accompanied began to run out of ammunition, he volunteered to ride to Taylor’s headquarters to plead for more.

One of the finest horseman ever to pass through West Point, Grant found a creative solution to the hazard of moving through Monterey’s open streets. He swung to the side of his horse farthest from the enemy, leaving only one foot holding to the cantle of the saddle and one arm over the neck of the horse — Indian style. Shielded from stray bullets by his mount’s body, Grant sped through the streets at such a furious clip that few of the city’s defenders got off clean shots at him; both man and horse arrived at headquarters unharmed.

Thanks to that and similar instances of audacity, creative tactics, and good luck, the Americans were able to overcome Monterey. It was a resounding triumph for Taylor; news of the victory spread quickly north to the United States. To some eager young officers who had yet to reach the front, missing that battle seemed the ultimate tragedy of their military lives. McClellan was among those who arrived too late for the fight. It was a piece of bad luck, he moaned, which I shall regret as long as I live.

McClellan would soon see his share of action. Taylor’s victories were producing no overtures of surrender from the Mexican government. Convinced that nothing less than a campaign against the national capital, Mexico City, would bring the war’s end, President Polk sent Major General Winfield Scott, the army’s senior commander, to organize a coastal invasion of central Mexico. For that operation, Scott requisitioned the cream of Taylor’s force: most of his U.S. Army regulars and his cadre of West Point-trained officers. Taylor reluctantly acceded to Scott’s order and remained at Monterey with a force consisting primarily of volunteers.

Taylor’s volunteers would be tested in one last fight: the Battle of Buena Vista. There, Taylor was nearly routed by a larger Mexican army led by General Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna. The swift and resolute action of troops from Indiana and Mississippi saved the day. The commander of the Mississippi volunteers was Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederacy.

Buena Vista was the end of the campaign in northern Mexico, but far from the end of the war. Taylor stayed in Monterey and later returned home, but Scott spent the winter preparing a sea-borne invasion of Mexico’s greatest port, Vera Cruz. McClellan, meanwhile, was having the time of his young life. Around the campfires at night, he wrote his mother, you never saw such a merry set as we are — no care, no trouble — we criticize the Generals — laugh & swear at the mustangs & volunteers…. Waking before dawn was common: When on a march, we get up at 2 or 3, when we halt, we snooze it, till 8 or 9 — when we have cigars we smoke them, when we have none, we go without — when we have brandy, we drink it, when we have not, we make it up by laughing at our predicament — that is the way we live.

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