The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 95, July 1991 - April, 1992 Page: 414

Southwestern Hzstorical Quarterly

quite well, because they were more excluded victims than active dissenters, he
gets into some theoretical difficulty when he forces matters by overintegrating
them into his general theme of loyalty and dissent.
After the war, in a bitterly ironic manner, white supremacy served to rally
Anglo-Texans to more unity than they had ever achieved during the war itself.
In opposition to Reconstruction, dissent was snuffed out more systematically
and loyalty rendered more nearly universal than had been achieved during the
war itself.
Marten's monograph is well within the emerging historiographical picture of
a South far more divided than united in its rebellion, once the reality of a long
and grinding war came home to root in Southern consciousness. One wonders
how the Confederacy remained together and fought so powerfully for as long
as it did. Perhaps this resistance was able to continue in part because, well into
1864, dissent and war weariness in the North were as strong as they were in the
South. Although widespread disaffection with the Confederacy was especially
true in the Trans-Mississippi West, the alienated home front was the case in
Indiana and New York as in Texas and Georgia. Marten might have done more
to place Texas in this Confederate and Union-wide context. Although the
Texas story was one of division, moral betrayal, and brutality, there was noth-
ing unique about Texans: such was the case across the continent.
Szmon Fraser Univerizty MICHAEL FELLMAN
Monterrey is Ours! The Mexican War Letters of Lzeutenant Dana, 1845- 184 7. Edited
by Robert H. Ferrell. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 199o.
Pp. xiii+218. Introduction, maps, illustrations, black-and-white photos, ac-
knowledgments, index. $29.)
Lieutenant Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, a native of Maine, wrote his
wife, Sue, on September 24, 1846, "Monterrey is Ours!" (p. 122). United States
forces under Gen. Zachary Taylor had taken the Mexican city after a bloody
four-day battle.
Dana's letter collection is the most recent addition to a slackening number of
such Mexican War publications, and in some respects it is among the most in-
teresting. Dana, an observant man, wrote long letters with vivid details about
topics not covered in the published correspondence of many other military
men. Some specific examples follow.
Unlike most other American soldiers who left behind written accounts, Dana
stayed with the relatively small garrison force at Fort Texas (later Fort Brown)
when General Taylor and most of his army marched to the supply base at Point
Isabel in early May 1846. Taylor ordered the movement (after Mexican troops
had been reported north of the Rio Grande) to search for his enemy and to
assure supply replenishment for Fort Brown. Thus Dana kept an account of
the bombardment of the fort, which began during Taylor's absence.
Unlike some other writers, neither Dana nor the editor of this correspon-
dence seems to have searched for euphemisms to tone down occasional refer-
ences to sexual activity, or earthy observations regarding the opponent in the

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