You never appreciate your family until you meet your In-Laws

One more story about a man getting no slack, Jefferson Davis.

Yeah, Davis wasn't a very good Confederacy President, but he was a better man than all the Visigoths, put together, with which we're faced today are.

He was, next to Elihu Root, one of the best Secretaries of War we ever had. Give him a hard time over the Ox-Bow Route, but he modernized the US Army to a point where it could fight and win the Civil War. He started the process of standardizing the cavalry by creating 2 regiments of what could be called light dragoons. No more mounted rifles, dragoons, hussars, or (dare I say?) lancers. He also began the process of modernizing the infantry by creating to new regiments armed with rifles and ordering light infantry tactics be taught to all foot soldiers.

Which leads me to this story.

When he graduated West Point, Davis married the daughter of Zachary Taylor, a marriage which the Taylor family violently opposed. When the girl died of malaria a few years later, they never forgave Davis.

Fast forward to the Mexican (no, not the Mexican-American, we're not Euros, you know) War and the last big fight on the northern front at Buena Vista. Davis had raised a regiment of foot soldiers, the Mississippi Rifles, back when the rifle was still a specialty weapon and led them into battle. They were posted on Zachary Taylor's flank as he faced Santa Anna's last big shot at winning the war.

Lookouts soon reported cavalry moving on the flank, a hot Mexican regiment known as the Jalisco Lancers. In them thar days SOP for infantry was to receive cavalry on their bayonets, as the Scots Guards had done at Waterloo (horses, being smarter than people, knew enough that they didn't want to charge a line of pointy things that would probably hurt like Hell). Unfortunately, the military rifles of the day could not be fitted with bayonets. All the Mississippi Rifles had was their Bowie knives.

Oooooppppssss.

Davis, nothing daunted, called to his men, "Stand Fast, Mississippians", and the line held (anybody who could say, "Mississippians", at a moment like that probably had something up his sleeve, the men probably figured). Davis let the lancers get within easy range and ordered his men to open fire, stopping the charge dead in its tracks. Also throwing the lancers into something of a tizzy.

No one had ever stopped horse troops by musket fire before.

As the lancers milled in confusion, Davis ordered the charge (yeah, the guys on foot charged the guys on horseback). The Rifles promptly pulled the lancers from their mounts and dispatched them with their Bowie knives. The flank was secured, the attack broken, the battle was won, the day was saved.

In the process, Davis had been wounded in the foot and, as he waited his turn in the hospital tent, in walks the army commander who said to his erstwhile son-in-law, "I am gratified to see, sir, that my daughter was a far better judge of character than I".

They don't make 'em like that no more.