It was the night after the battle bearing this name--fought between the
American and Mexican armies in the month of April, 1847.
The routed regiments of Santa Anna--saving some four thousand men
captured upon the ground--had sought safety in flight, the greater body
taking the main road to Jalapa, pursued by our victorious troops; while
a large number, having sprawled down the almost perpendicular cliff that
overhangs the "Rio del Plan" escaped, unperceived and unpursued, into
the wild chapparals that cover the _piedmont_ of Perote.
Among these last was the _lame_ tyrant himself, or rather should I say,
_at their head leading the retreat_. This has always been his favourite
position at the close of a battle that has gone against him; and a score
of such defeats can be recorded.
I could have captured him on that day but for the cowardice of a colonel
who had command over me and mine. I alone, of all the American army,
saw Santa Anna making his escape from the field, and in such a direction
that I could without difficulty have intercepted his retreat. With the
strength of a corporal's guard, I could have taken both him and his
glittering staff; but even this number of men was denied me, and _nolens
volens_ was I constrained to forego the pleasure of taking prisoner this
truculent tyrant, and hanging him to the nearest tree, which, as God is
my judge, I should most certainly have done. Through the imbecility of
my superior officer, I lost the chance of a triumph calculated to have
given me considerable fame; while Mexico missed finding an avenger.
Strictly speaking, I was not _in_ the engagement of Cerro Gordo. My
orders on that day--or rather those of the spruce colonel who commanded
me--were to guard a battery of mountain howitzers, that had been dragged
to the top of the cliff overlooking El plan--not that already mentioned
as the field of battle, and which was occupied by the enemy, but the
equally precipitous height on the opposite side of the river.
From early daylight until the Mexicans gave way, we kept firing at them
across the stupendous chasm that lay between us, doing them no great
damage, unless they were frightened by the whizz of an occasional
rocket, which our artillerist, Ripley--now a second-rate Secesh
general--succeeded in sending into their midst.
As to ourselves and the battery, there was no more danger of either
being assaulted by the enemy than there was of our being whisked over
the cliff by the tail of a comet. There was not a Mexican soldier on
our side of the _barranca_; and as to any of them crossing over to us,
they could only have performed the feat in a balloon, or by making a
circuitous march of nearly a dozen miles.
For all this security, our stick-to-the-text colonel held close to the
little battery of howitzers; and would not have moved ten paces from it
to have accomplished the capture of the whole Mexican army.
Perfectly satisfied, from the "lights with which we had been furnished,"
that there was no danger to our battery, and chafing at the ill-luck
that had placed me so far away from the ground where laurels were
growing, and where others were in the act of reaping them, I lost all
interest in Ripley and his popguns; and straying along the summit of the
cliff, I sat me down upon its edge.
A yucca stood stiffly out from the brow of the precipice. It was the
tree-yucca, and a huge bole of bayonet-shaped leaves crowning its
corrugated trunk shaded a spot of grass-covered turf, on the very edge
of the escarpment.
Had I not scaled the Andes, I might have hesitated to trust myself under
the shadow of that tree. But a cliff, however sheer and stupendous,
could no longer cause a whirl in my brain; and to escape from the rays
of a tropical sun, at that moment in mid-heaven, I crept forward, caught
hold of the stem of the yucca, lowered my extremities, all booted and
spurred as they were, over the angle of the porphrytic rock, took a
Havana out of my case, drew a fusee across the steel-filings, and,
hanging ignited the cigar, I commenced watching the deadly strife then
raging in full fury on the opposite side of the ravine.
The prudent _nawab_, who preferred looking at a tiger-hunt out of a
two-storey window, or the spectator of a bull-fight in the upper tier of
a "plaza de toros," could not have been safer than I, since, without
running the slightest risk, I had a "bird's-eye view" of the battle.
I could see the steady advance of Worth's division of regulars,
supported by the fiery squadrons of Harney's Horse; the brigade of
Twiggs--that hoary-headed sexagenarian _bavard_, since distinguished as
the "traitor of Texas;" the close-lined and magnificently-mounted troop
of dragoons with horses of light grey, led by Phil Kearney--Kearney, the
accomplished gentleman--the best cavalry officer America ever produced;
the dashing, daring Phil Kearney, who, under my own eyes, lost his right
arm in the _garita_ of San Antonio de Abad; the lamented Phil. Kearney,
since become a victim to the accursed Secesh rebellion, or rather to the
mismanagement of that wooden-headed pretender whose stolid "strategy"
ignorance still continues to mistake for genius--McClellan.
I saw them, one and all, regulars and volunteers, horse and foot, move
at the "forward." I saw them advance towards the hill "El Telegrafo."
I saw them mending their pace to the double-quick, and break into a run
at the "charge!"
I could hear the charging signal and the cheer that succeeded it. I
could see the base of the hill suddenly empurpled with smoke--a belt of
conglomerate puffs rapidly merging into one another. I could perceive
the opposing puffs upon the summit, growing thinner and thinner, as the
blue mantle below _caped_ gradually up towards the shoulder of the
"cerro."
Then the smoke upon the summit became dissolved into translucent vapour;
the tricoloured Mexican flag flickered for a moment longer through its
film, until, as if by some invisible hand, it was dragged down the
staff; while at the same instant the banner of the stars and stripes
swept out upon the breeze, announcing the termination of the battle of
Cerro Gordo.
Story 1, Chapter II.