Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848 by Martin Dugard

From the Publisher

Few historical figures are as inextricably linked as Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. But less than two decades before they faced each other as enemies at Appomattox, they had been brothers—both West Point graduates, both wearing blue, and both fighting in the same cadre in the Mexican War. They were not alone: Sherman, Davis, Jackson-nearly all of the Civil War's greatest soldiers had been forged in the heat of Vera Cruz and Monterrey.
The Mexican War has faded from our national memory, but it was a struggle of enormous significance: the first U.S. war waged on foreign soil; and it nearly doubled our nation. At this fascinating juncture of American history, a group of young men came together to fight as friends, only years later to fight as enemies. This is their story. Full of dramatic battles, daring rescues, secret missions, soaring triumphs and tragic losses, THE TRAINING GROUND is history at its finest.

Publishers Weekly

Dugard (The Last Voyage of Columbus) offers a fast-paced, colloquially written account of the Mexican War of 1848, constructed around the experiences of the U.S. Army's corps of junior officers. Shaped by the common experience of West Point and tempered by battle, these comrades in arms (including Lee, Grant, Davis and Sherman) matured into the leading generals and statesmen on both sides of the Civil War. Dugard introduces others as well, from Union artilleryman Henry Hunt to Confederate icon Stonewall Jackson, who also learned their craft fighting the Mexicans. At the war's end, commanding general Winfield Scott saluted West Point's graduates as the key to America's victory over Mexico. The image of a band of brothers transformed into enemies by conscience and politics is a familiar trope of the Civil War, but Dugard's spirited narrative animates a group of men whose force of character, professional skill and ability to think outside conventional limits revitalized the sclerotic army. Readers will conclude this book with reinforced awareness of why the Civil War was so long and so bitterly fought: because, as Dugard shows, the contending armies were shaped and led by a remarkably capable-and experienced-body of officers. (May)

Stephen H. Peters - Library Journal

In his newest work, New York Times best-selling author Dugard (The Last Voyage of Columbus: America's Continental Dream and the Mexican War, 1846-1848) gives a straightforward account of the Mexican War, but with a twist. He lets us see the war through the eyes of several young officers-primarily Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee but also George G. Meade, William T. Sherman, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and others-who would rise to prominence during the Civil War. While Dugard does sketch in the big picture so that the reader is able to understand the course of the Mexican War, his purpose is to provide a richly detailed account of the battles, secret missions, and daring rescues and thus to show how participation in the Mexican War prepared these junior officers for the roles they would later play in the Civil War. Academic libraries will prefer Joseph Wheelan's Invading Mexico, Timothy J. Henderson's A Glorious Defeat, and John C. Pinheiro's Manifest Ambition. This less scholarly book will appeal to lay readers and Civil War buffs and is recommended for all public libraries.

Kirkus Reviews

Dugard (Chasing Lance: The 2005 Tour de France and Lance Armstrong's Ride of a Lifetime, 2005, etc.) offers an admiring, blow-by-blow account of one of the most shameful wars of aggression in American history. The tight-knit West Point "brotherhood" who served during the Mexican War-which included the illustrious names Grant, Lee, Jackson, Davis, Bragg, Beauregard, Sherman, Pickett, Burnside, Longstreet and Hooker-would meet again in more dire, momentous circumstances during the Civil War. Dugard works backward from Appomattox, 1865-when generals Lee and Grant recognized each other from their stint in Mexico some 18 years before-and follows their dissimilar early military careers from West Point. Lee, an exemplary student who graduated second in his class of 1829, was the gentleman son of the famous Revolutionary War hero. Grant, who graduated in 1843, was a scrappy kid from Ohio who didn't excel in much but horsemanship. (Pickett, in contrast, was the class "goat," graduating last in his class.) The cadets cut their teeth during the Mexican-American conflict, after the Alamo had fallen in 1836, martyring the Texian rebels, who had provoked Mexico into challenging their desire for independence and annexation by the United States. The country was ripe for expansion (Manifest Destiny), and annexation of California and Texas from Mexico, as well as Oregon from Britain, was the game plan for many politicians, led by James K. Polk. General Zachary Taylor commanded the American army marching on Texas, and with him quartermaster Grant, whose letters to his sweetheart Julia Dent back in St. Louis, along with extracts from his later memoirs, help frame the subsequent incursions into Mexico, fromFort Texas and Monterrey to Veracruz and Mexico City. Dugard alternates this narrative with glimpses of Lee's dogged engineering work under General Winfield Scott, and Mississippi Congressman Jefferson Davis's eager volunteer action. Though the Mexican point-of-view receives scant consideration, the book is action-packed and peopled by intriguing characters.

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