Churubusco, into which the Mexicans from the south and from the west
were pouring, bristled with defenses. They seemed to be mainly on the
left or west of the road. First, there was the straggling village, half
encircled by breastworks, with an immense stone church rising high
above everything, and already spouting smoke from its cannon mounted
upon the walls and the flat roof. There were cornfields and fruit trees
upon both sides of the road, and beyond the church there was a stone
bridge carrying the road across what appeared to be a large canal,
reaching from the lake on the east into the cornfields and meadows of
the west. It was at least a mile in length, piled with earth on either
bank, like a dike, and absolutely filled with infantry and artillery,
protected by the earthen parapets.
The end of the bridge in front of the earthworks, at the middle of the
dike, had been built up into a regular stone fort, containing a battery
under cover. While farther on, occupying the road after it had left the
village and the bridge, there were thousands more infantry and lancers,
swelled by the Santa Anna force.
The column had halted, the men ceased cheering, and General Worth and
staff surveyed Churubusco through their glasses.
It was an anxious moment. The enemy certainly numbered twenty thousand,
well stationed. The bridgehead and the dike had opened with cannon
balls which came ricocheting down the road and splashed the mud and
water of the cornfields. But the men paid little attention to them.
Hooray! Here was General Pillow, at last, with the General Cadwalader
brigade of Voltigeurs and Eleventh and Fourteenth Infantry――toiling in
from the west and uniting with the First Division on the road. He had
arrived too late for San Antonio, but was in time for Churubusco.
The men were growing impatient. Within a few minutes the gunfire from
Churubusco had risen deafening. The church was being attacked; it
fairly vomited smoke and shot and shell; every inch of it seemed alive.
The fields to the west of it were answering. Infantry in thin lines
could be seen stealing forward; a battery was hammering hard.
“Twiggs! Old Davy’s there, with Taylor’s battery!”
How the men knew, nobody could tell; but know they did. The word passed
that General Persifor Smith’s First Artillery and Third Infantry were
attacking the church. They appeared to be suffering, for they were
within point-blank range of the roof-top and the cupola, and had no
cover except the corn.
Another brigade――Colonel Riley’s Second and Seventh Infantry――was
hastening to the support of General Smith. The firing had spread to the
north, as if an attack was being made all along the line of the road.
The time was nearing noon but the smoke welled in such a cloud that it
hid the sun. Amidst the terrific uproar of artillery and small-arms the
orders of the First Division officers could scarcely be heard, here
half a mile away from the battle.
“Column, attention! Forward――march!”
The cannon balls tore in more and more viciously. The musketry of the
bridgehead also opened. Men were falling.
“Column, right half wheel――march!”
In column of companies they left the road and descended into the muddy
cornfields again on the right. One company stayed upon the road. It
was the gallant Sixth Infantry, advancing alone, moving very steadily,
the men gripping their muskets at right shoulder shift. The bluff old
Major Bonneville, that bald-headed veteran who, on leave of absence in
1832, had been a fur hunter across the Rocky Mountains, commanded the
Sixth. He was a Frenchman, but had graduated from the Military Academy
in 1813, so he was no new hand at the fighting game.
The Cadwalader Voltigeurs had been stationed in reserve. The two other
regiments――the Eleventh and Fourteenth――had joined the Second Brigade.
The First Brigade, Colonel Garland leading a-horse, swung out wider
to the right, and on through the corn, at the double, came the Second
Brigade, to march between the First Brigade and the road.
Unless the Garland brigade hurried, the Clarke column would strike the
bridgehead first, on the shorter inside track.
The Sixth Regiment was drawing the bridgehead fire. The companies were
rushing forward, muskets at a ready, but they met such a storm of
iron and lead that they crumpled, stopped, and firing furiously, took
shelter along the sides of the road.
“On the first battalion, deploy column! Battalions, right
face――quick――march!”
It was a wonder that the order, issuing from the red face of Adjutant
Nichols, could be heard at all. The First Brigade extended to the right
at a run, and front-faced on line of battle. Jerry and the field music
of the Fourth were behind again; now the positions of the lieutenants
was two paces in the rear of the rear rank of their companies. It
chanced that Lieutenant Grant was directly before Jerry’s place in the
rank of drummers. Jerry kept an eye upon him.
These cornfields were cut by ditches of water as the others had
been. The double line grew ragged as the men leaped the ditches.
The bridgehead and the dike were firing――with patter and hiss the
grape-shot and bullets ripped through the corn. The Mexican works were
higher than the cornfield, so that the division’s advance could be seen
while the Mexicans themselves were concealed.
Oh, but it was frightful in that cornfield! “Center guide, men! Keep up
with the colors. Center guide!” Lieutenant Grant and the other officers
shouted constantly. The color guard of the regiment pressed stanchly,
braced and holding the Stars and Stripes and the flag of the Fourth
Infantry above the murderous hail. Men were falling fast; they plunged,
or reeled and sank, some of them in the mud and some of them into the
water. As quickly as gaps occurred in the front rank, men from the
second rank sprang forward and filled the spaces. The corn bowed to the
withering blast. Ahead, Mexicans were jumping up and dodging for cover
after firing. The enemy’s skirmishers were being dislodged from their
holes.
What a noise! Thousands of guns, large and small, near and far,
speaking at once! The whole American army, except a tiny reserve,
was engaged with the whole Mexican army in the field. It was a fight
to a finish of eight thousand against twenty thousand. Somewhere
General Scott directed. It was safe to say that Old Fuss and Feathers
knew just what was going to happen; his plans had been made; and
although the First Division, with the help of General Cadwalader’s two
regiments, seemed to have been given the toughest job in the taking
of the bridgehead and the opening of the road, Jerry for one had not
the slightest doubt of the result. The Mexicans would be threshed, of
course.
On surged the double line and on; bending and weaving and staggering,
but ever on. The wounded and the dead were left. There was blood,
and ghastly sights. A bullet sang so close over Jerry’s head that he
ducked. A shower of grape spattered all around him. Drum Major Brown
was down――his leg had collapsed under him.
“Never mind me, boys.”
Jerry heard a cry――“Help! For th’ love o’ Hiven, help, wan o’ yez!”
He glanced behind. Corporal Finerty was bleeding and struggling, on
hands and knees, in a ditch with the water almost over him. Jerry
hustled back and dragged him out; then ran forward. It was no joke
being a drummer boy in a battle, for a fellow could do little with a
musician’s short sword fit only for frying bacon.
“Double time, men! Hurrah!”
How they all panted, and what a sight they were, muddy and smeared with
blood and sweat.
“Commence――firing!”
“Huzzah! Give ’em Yankee Doodle, boys!”
The darkly scowling faces of the rows of Mexicans behind the dike
breastworks could be seen. Their white teeth flashed from their lips
parted in the swarthy countenances flattened against the gunstocks. The
musket muzzles belched smoke; so did the cannon of the bridgehead to
the left. The soldiers in front of Jerry were aiming, firing, pausing
to load――to tear their paper cartridges with their teeth, dump a little
of the powder into the opened pan under the raised flint, pour the rest
into the muzzle, ram the paper and the three buckshot and a ball home
with the ramrod; aim, fire, and run again, loading.
The blue line was slowly moving in. The men worked like Trojans. Now
the buttons of the rows of red-capped Mexicans were showing, so near
were the trenches. Jerry stumbled along right behind Lieutenant Grant,
who never ceased shouting, never ducked nor dodged, and somehow had not
been hit yet.
The First Brigade advance had come to a standstill, while the ranks
fired more rapidly. The Mexicans were leaking away――wounded and
staggering, or running scot free. A tremendous cheer arose above even
the other tumult. The Second Brigade was into the bridgehead! A torrent
of blue blouses, firing and charging with the bayonet, the officers
leading and waving, had crossed a wide ditch at its base on this
side. The men were diving in through the battery embrasures or scaling
the walls like cats. In they went――in by the road went the Sixth
Infantry. The flags of the Eighth and Fifth disappeared over the top;
soon the flag of the Sixth was dancing to meet them. Out boiled the
Mexicans, artillery and infantry, and streamed in a tossing tide up the
bridge and into the north, or else into the trenches on the west. The
bridgehead had been taken by front and side.
“Now, men! On! Charge!”
“The bayonet, lads! The cowld steel!” shrieked old Sergeant Mulligan to
Company B.
The drummers beat the charge; with a volley and a yell the Fourth
Infantry and all the line ran for the dike. The Mexicans in it answered
with one volley; out they bolted. Right through the canal, shoulder
deep with mud and water, the men scrambled, and leaped over the other
bank. The Mexican red-caps, throwing away muskets and knapsacks, were
frantically crowding the built-up road where it crossed the lowlands
beyond the bridge.
The bridgehead had been the key. The enemy’s left was emptied; the
trenches along the dike west of the road were still fighting, but
Duncan’s battery had come into action. It had been unable to advance
through the cornfields; had continued by the road, under cover of a
mass of abandoned wagons from San Antonio. It was firing from the
road――never had guns been served faster. The four pieces made one
continuous roar, cannonading the west trenches that reached all the way
to the great stone church set in the midst of other field works.
The bridgehead’s captured guns also were being turned. That was too
hot for the Mexicans. Out they, too, boiled, fleeing madly through the
fields to the rear.
Duncan’s battery and a four-pounder in the bridgehead changed to the
church and battered the walls. The Second Division, with Taylor’s
battery of the First Artillery, was still battering from the other
side. A white flag fluttered in the smoke upon the church’s flat roof.
It vanished――it had been hauled down. Now the Second Division line
sprang to its feet and charged. The church was surrounded by double
walls――the blue figures mounted the first wall――the church cupola was
crumbling under the solid shot――the church was about to be taken――no!
The wall was cleared by the Mexican sharp-shooters upon the roof. Yes!
The wall filled again, the men vaulted over and down and rushed for the
second wall――the sharp-shooters were leaping from the cupola and off
the roof――the Mexican cannon had been silenced――there were more white
flags――“Cease firing!” pealed the artillery bugles, for the standard of
the Third Infantry, blue and gold, had unfurled from the balcony. In a
moment the standard of the First Artillery was displayed beside it.
The First Division, jumbled all together, the men cheering and waving
and even crying with joy, had paused to watch――had paused for orders,
maybe, to assault the church itself. Jerry found himself grabbed by
Hannibal――a grimy, excited Hannibal, wild with excitement, like the
rest.
“We did it, we did it! Hooray! And you and I aren’t hurt.”
“But we lost a lot of men,” Jerry panted.
“Fall in! Fall in! Form companies. Beat the rally, drummers.” Those
were the orders. Hannibal scooted. General Worth was waiting no longer.
There was heavy firing in the north, where Santa Anna was standing off
the left of General Scott’s line.
“Who’s yonder?”
“Shields and his Mohawks, and the Pierce Brigade. They’re hard pushed.”
“Forward――double time――march!”
The Cadwalader men had joined again. They had entered the bridgehead
closely behind the Second Brigade. In column of platoons all doubled
up the road, which was strewn with bodies and plunder. The rout was on
before and extended as far as eye might see; but a desperate battle was
raging only a mile distant.
The column was in time; in fact, may not have been needed. The flight
from the bridgehead and the church proved too much for the Santa Anna
soldiers. General Pierce’s Ninth, Twelfth and Fifteenth Regulars,
and General Shields’ New Yorkers and South Carolinans, two thousand
men, were having a give-and-take with General Santa Anna’s reserve
of four thousand infantry and three thousand lancers. But before the
General Worth and General Pillow column arrived, the Mohawks were
seen to charge――the Mexicans did not stand――their line wavered, the
Pierce Regulars struck it on right and left――the center burst apart,
all the line broke into fragments, fleeing for the road; and when the
First Brigade, led by General Worth and Colonel Garland, panted in the
Santa Anna troops had mingled with the vast throng of refugees from
Churubusco.
The Pierce Regulars and the Shields’ Volunteers met the van of the
First Division.
“On, men! To the city!”
No time was granted to the Mexicans to re-form; their infantry,
artillery and camp followers jammed the road and flowed out upon
either side. Lancers protected the rear, and threatened the pursuit.
Matters looked good. The First Division, both of General Pillow’s Third
Division brigades (General Cadwalader’s and General Pierce’s), and
the Shields Mohawks were united, a victorious little army, and cared
nothing about the lancers; the road to the capital was open. Hooray!