silence observed. As the transports lay a mile off shore, while the
only wharf was an open beach, and a norther blew violently from the
twelfth to the sixteenth, the work of landing ordnance and ordnance
stores proceeded slowly. Fortunately the work on the batteries was not
discovered; but the fire of Paixhan guns and heavy mortars from the
city and castle, though irregular and singularly unfruitful despite
the undeniable skill of the gunners,[22.19] compelled the Americans
to adopt extreme precautions. Nor were these embarrassments the only
ones. Notwithstanding seasonable orders, only fifteen carts and about
a hundred draught horses had arrived. Not more than one fifth of the
ordnance requisitioned by Scott about the middle of November and due
at the Brazos--he now reminded Marcy--by January 15, had yet appeared.
A great many artillery and cavalry horses had been drowned, injured or
delayed; and there was a shortage of almost every requisite for siege
operations.[22.20] But the army and the navy coöperated zealously;
soldiers took the places of draught animals; and in spite of every
difficulty three batteries, mounting seven 10-inch mortars, were in
readiness by two o'clock on the afternoon of the twenty-second, and the
soldiers felt eager to hear what they called the "sweet music" of these
"faithful bull-dogs."[22.21]
[THE BOMBARDMENT]
At this hour, therefore, Scott formally summoned the town, intimating
that both assault and bombardment were to be apprehended. The reply
was a refusal to surrender; and at a quarter past four, accompanied by
a deafening chorus of joyous, frantic shouts and yells, the American
batteries opened, while the "mosquito fleet" of two small steamers and
five gunboats,[22.22] each armed with a single heavy cannon, stationed
themselves behind Point Hornos, and fired briskly.[22.24]
Like "hungry lions in search of prey," a soldier thought, the shells
from the mortars flew "howling" to their mark. With heavier metal and
vastly more of it, Vera Cruz and the castle replied. The city wall
blazed like a sheet of fire. Shot, shell and rockets came forth in a
deluge, it seemed to the men; and the two columns of smoke, rolling
and whirling, mounted high and collided as if striving to outflank and
conquer each other. Still more terrible was the scene at night. A spurt
of red fire; a fierce roar; a shell with an ignited fuse mounting high,
pausing, turning, and then--more and more swiftly--dropping; the crash
of a roof; a terrific explosion that shook the earth; screams, wailing
and yells--all this could be distinctly seen or heard from the American
lines. During the twenty-third and the following night the fire still
raged, but on the American side more slowly, for although ten mortars
were now at work, a norther interrupted the supply of ammunition.[22.24]
But while the bombardment made an interesting spectacle, as a military
operation it was proving unsatisfactory. The ordnance thus far received
by Scott was inadequate for the reduction of the city--to say nothing
of Ulúa. With mortars, especially as the distances could not be
ascertained precisely, it was impossible to be sure of hitting the
bastions and forts. Shells could be thrown into the town, but while the
houses suffered much, the fortifications and garrison escaped vital
damage, and there was no sign of yielding. Not a few in the American
army, who had supposed that a fortified city could be taken at sight
like a mint julep, grew impatient; the officers eager for assault
fumed; Worth, proud of his quick work at Monterey, sneered; Twiggs
grunted. As an army man Scott naturally desired that branch of the
service to reap all the glory of its campaign, but he now found himself
compelled to ask for naval guns heavy enough to breach the wall, and
make an assault practicable; and when Perry, who had taken Conner's
place on the twenty-first, insisted that men from the squadron should
work them, he consented.[22.24]
The new battery, constructed by Robert E. Lee and mounting three long
32's for solid shot and three 68's for shells, was planted just behind
the bushy crest of a slight eminence, only some 800 yards from the city
wall, where the enemy did not suppose that such an enterprise would be
ventured; and until the guns were about ready to be unmasked on the
morning of the twenty-fourth, its existence was not suspected.[22.23]
Here were instruments of power and precision, and they told. The
Mexicans concentrated upon them a terrific fire, but with no serious
effect; and when on the next morning a battery consisting of four
24-pounders and two 8-inch howitzers joined the infernal chorus, the
fire, though hindered occasionally by the tardiness of ammunition,
was "awful," said Scott and Lee, while the city appeared like one
dense thunder-cloud, red with flashes and quivering with incessant
roars.[22.24]
That night the batteries played still more fiercely. Sometimes four or
five shells were sizzling through the air at once. The fire, said an
officer, was now "perfectly terrific"; and to heighten the wildness
of the scene, many vessels could be observed by the light of the
moon going ashore in the norther. About thirty were wrecked by this
one gale, and others had to cut away their masts. In the meantime
preparations for assaulting both by land and by water, should an
assault prove to be necessary, were actively pressed.[22.24]
[THE SITUATION IN VERA CRUZ]
In town, during the early period of these operations, the enthusiasm
continued to run high, for the cautious and faint-hearted had gone
away, and the reports of the irregulars, constantly skirmishing against
the Americans, were colored to suit the popular taste. Work on the
fortifications proceeded, and fresh cartridges for the artillery were
made with feverish haste. Bands played; the gunners amused themselves
by firing at small and far distant groups among the sand-hills; and at
night fireballs and rockets lighted up the plain in anticipation of the
hoped-for assault. When the investment was completed, when the American
outposts drew near the town, and especially when it became known that
preparations for a bombardment were under way, the people grew more
serious; but it was expected that forces from without would break the
line, or at least prevent the construction of batteries.[22.26]
A painful disappointment followed, however. Soto made great efforts to
collect the tax levied by the state; but the citizens, impoverished
by the long blockade, had no money, and without cash troops could not
be fed. In spite of many hopes the fluctuating bands under Colonel
Senobio, the chief leader of the irregulars in the vicinity, do not
seem to have risen at any time far above 1000, and perhaps never
reached that number. In vain Soto appealed for an able general and a
nucleus of regulars. They were not within reach, and the few pieces of
artillery could not be moved. The states of Puebla and Oaxaca tried to
help, but were tardy and inefficient.[22.26]
Men from the upper country dreaded the yellow fever; and those of
the coast, volatile by nature, ignorant of real warfare, without
organization, training or discipline, were astonished and confounded
when they struck the solid American line. They pecked at it
continually, but Morales himself could see that no skill, concert or
strength marked their efforts. Discouragement and wholesale desertion
followed. The city, therefore, could not obtain provisions by land;
and as most of the seamen alongshore fled to the mountains, and boat
communication became more and more difficult, it was realized that
supplies from the interior were out of the question. After March 20 the
troops could be given little or no meat; but soldiers were detailed to
fish the prolific waters under the guns of Ulúa, and no doubt beans and
tortillas, the staple food of the common people, continued to be fairly
plentiful.[22.26]
The opening of the bombardment, however, precipitated a crisis, and as
our fire grew more and more intense, the consternation and suffering
increased. Crashing roofs; burning houses; flying pavements; doors,
windows and furniture blocking the streets; a pandemonium of confused
and frightful sounds; bells ringing without hands; awful explosions;
domes and steeples threatening to fall; the earth quaking; crowds of
screaming women, who rushed hither and thither; terrible wounds and
sudden deaths--all these were new and overwhelming scenes.[22.25]
Only one bakery escaped destruction, as it happened, and the children
cried in vain for bread; the priests would not leave their shelter to
comfort and absolve; and finally the very instinct of self-preservation
was lost in a stupid despair more dreadful to witness than death
itself.[22.26]
The troops in the southwestern section, under our heaviest fire, became
terror-stricken. In other quarters men left the ranks to look after
families and friends; and when a murky dawn ended the terrible night
of the twenty-fifth, demoralization was rife. People wandered about
the streets crying for surrender. Always passionate, they now hated
their own government for deserting them. The consuls went out under a
flag of truce, but Scott refused to see them, sending them word--it
was reported--that any persons leaving the city would be fired upon,
and that unless it should surrender in the meantime, new as well as
the old batteries would open the next morning. This fact overwhelmed
the people; and the prospect of being exterminated at leisure by
an enemy who could not be injured, beat down their last thought of
resistance.[22.26]
Consul Giffard had predicted that any plausible excuse for surrender
would be turned to good account. Supplies were now said to be failing,
and in the course of this dreadful night an informal meeting of
officers agreed upon capitulation. Naturally the idea gave offence
to many, and there was talk of opening a way through the American
line with the sword. But a council of war soon decided to negotiate;
commissioners were appointed; and Scott, who was invited to take
similar action, did so. The six men came together on the afternoon of
the twenty-sixth, but could not agree; and the Mexicans returned to the
city, leaving behind them a proposition.[22.29]
[THE SURRENDER OF VERA CRUZ]
Worth, who was our chief representative, believed the negotiations
were simply a waste of time, and favored an immediate assault; but
Scott saw that the Mexicans, while trying to save appearances, really
meant surrender, and the next morning granted with certain vital
modifications their terms.[22.27] His demands were accepted, and it was
thus agreed in substance that Landero, to whom the command had been
turned over, should march his army out with all the honors of war,
the troops be paroled, and the armament--so far as not destroyed in
the course of the war--be disposed of by the treaty of peace. It was
further agreed that all the Mexican sick should remain in town under
Mexican care, private property be respected, and religious rights be
held sacred.[22.29]
It was a "shameful surrender," declared Santa Anna, and from a military
point of view this could hardly be denied. Ulúa had practically not
been touched; it had a considerable supply of provisions, and there was
a chance of obtaining more from blockade-runners. Vera Cruz was in a
harder yet not in a desperate plight. Men of importance there, knowing
the city would be denounced for surrendering, naturally endeavored
to prove that it had suffered terribly and exhausted its resources
before yielding; and the principal neutrals--friendly toward them,
engaged mostly in trade, and more willing to have life sacrificed than
property--raised an outcry against the proceedings of Scott that became
a fierce indictment in Europe and the United States. But the British
naval commander, though not inclined to favor the General, reported
that the casualties in the city were only eighty soldiers killed or
wounded, about one hundred old men, women and children killed, and an
unknown number injured, and that its food supply, while no doubt less
delicate and varied than could have been desired, would have lasted
beyond the middle of April; and there is considerable evidence that his
figures were approximately correct.[22.28] Ammunition did not fail, nor
did water.[22.29]
The surrender was really due therefore to the moral effect of
Scott's artillery. Even Giffard, who termed his operations cruel
and unnecessary, admitted this; and, bearing in mind the General's
obligations to obey his government and save the lives of his men, the
inevitable horrors of an assault by night, and the serious danger that
a reliance upon starvation as the sole means of reducing the city
would have given time for Santa Anna's regulars and the yellow fever to
arrive, one concludes again and finally that Scott's method was humane
and wise.[22.29]
Owing to inequalities of the ground, the character of the soil, great
skill on the part of our engineers, incessant care and remarkable good
fortune, the total losses caused by 6267 Mexican shot, 8486 shells and
all the bullets of the irregulars were only about nineteen killed and
sixty-three wounded. The siege was not exactly a _fête champêtre_,
however. It was tiresome to be awakened at night so often by Mexican
skirmishers, disagreeable to be routed out by the diabolical screech of
a heavy shell, and quite annoying to have one of the "big dinner-pots,"
as the soldiers called them, explode close by. Saturating dews,
abominable drinking water, scanty and bad rations, howling wolves,
lizards in one's boot, "jiggers" that made the feet itch incessantly,
fleas that even a sleeping-bag could not discourage, and sand-flies
nearly as voracious, were minor but real afflictions. When a norther
began, the whole aspect of nature seemed to change. The sky became
a pall, the atmosphere a winding-sheet, the wind a scourge; and the
roaring, chilling blast filled one's ears, eyes, mouth and even pores
with biting grit, cut the tents into ribbons, and sometimes buried
their sleeping inmates.[22.30] To escape from the Mexican shot sentries
often had to burrow in the sand, and under the tropical sun they
learned to appreciate the power of the old brick oven. When carrying
provisions or dragging cannon, amidst hills that blazed like the
mirrors of Archimedes at Syracuse, men often dropped.[22.31]
On the other hand, besides the initial high spirits, which helped
immensely, and the excitement and comradeship that knocked off the
edge of hardships, there were special sources of cheer--particularly
the "blue-shirts," as the seamen were called. When turning out in the
face of an icy sand-blast sharp enough to cut granite, it was something
to hear a salty voice give the order, "Form line of battle on the
starboard tack!" But sailors on shore leave, who burst from their long
confinement like birds let loose, and "cruised" in the environs with
perfect abandon, were better yet. Their sport with the wild monkeys
was truly edifying, and their delight over the burro would have set
Diogenes laughing. Sometimes they rode him, and sometimes they carried
him. Planted in the Mexican style just forward of the creature's
tail, they felt that at last they were riding the quarter-deck, and
commanding a snug vessel of their own. Above all they enjoyed "mooring
ship." This congenial manoeuvre was achieved by taking aboard for
"anchor" a heavy block of wood, previously attached to the donkey's
neck with a long rope, then racing at full speed, heaving the "anchor,"
paying out the cable, and bringing up in a heap on the sand--the donkey
on top, very likely.[22.31]
Not less cheering and a little more military was the news, which
arrived by the fifteenth of March, that "Old Wooden-leg's" army had
been "licked up like salt" at Buena Vista. And still another comfort
was to gaze from a safely remote hill at Vera Cruz, which looked--the
soldiers agreed--so oriental, with airy palm trees visible over the
white wall, hundreds of buzzards floating in wide circles far above,
the dark bulwarks of Ulúa set in waves of purple and gold on the left,
a forest of American spars and masts on the right, piercing the misty
splendor of the yellow beach, the bright sails of fishing boats in the
middle distance, and the vast, blue, cool Gulf beyond it all. How the
panting soldiers gloated on the prospect of taking possession![22.31]
[VERA CRUZ OCCUPIED]
And on March 29 they did so. The day was enchantingly summerlike; a
delightful southeast breeze came over the water; and the domes of Vera
Cruz were gilded with splendid sunshine. In a green meadow, shaded with
cocoanut palms, a little way south of the town, Worth's brigade was
drawn up in a dingy line, and a dingy line of volunteers, about seventy
yards distant, faced it. At one end of the intervening space, near
the city wall, stood sailors and marines. The American dragoons and a
battery were opposite them, and a white flag waved at the centre. A
little before noon the Mexican troops, in their best uniforms of blue,
white and red, marched out of the gate, formed by company front with a
band at the head of each regiment, advanced to the flag, and stacked
arms. A few slammed or even broke their muskets; many kissed their
hands to the city; and a standard bearer, who had removed his flag from
the staff and secreted it in his bosom, wept for joy when permitted to
keep it. But most of the men seemed in fairly good spirits, and as a
rule the much-decorated officers, who retained their swords, produced a
fine impression.[22.32]
As the rear of the column left the gate, the Mexican banner on Fort
Santiago, after receiving a last salute from the guns of the city
and castle, was lowered; and then issued forth a crowd of men, women
and children, loaded with fiddles, guitars, parrots, monkeys, dogs,
game-cocks, toys and household utensils, that was enough to destroy any
funereal sentiments which otherwise might have been felt. Even by the
Mexican accounts, not a word or look of triumph, not even a note of
authority, was chargeable to the victors; and Worth, who received the
column, proffered a thousand courtesies. General Scott, the so-called
"vain-glorious," remained in the background; but he sent a note
excusing from their parole about forty officers, whom he expected to
aid him at the capital as in effect advocates of peace.[22.32]
Amid cheers and the waving of caps, American flags then rose on the
forts, greeted by hundreds of salutes from sea and shore. It seemed,
wrote a soldier, as if there were nothing in the world but cannon, and
all the cannon thundering; and the glory of the Stars and Stripes,
gleaming amidst the smoke, gave a new significance to the emblem of
patriotism. With his bands playing favorite American airs, Worth's
brigade now marched into the town; and later Scott, with his staff and
a brilliant escort, followed it. Perry took formal possession of Ulúa;
and the disbanded Mexican troops that resided elsewhere scattered to
their homes, preparing the people for submission wherever they went by
tales of American invincibility, and teaching them by every sort of
outrage to welcome American rule.[22.32]
XXIII
CERRO GORDO
April, 1847
I believe it would be many months after the capture of Vera Cruz and
the fortress of Ulúa, said Minister Pakenham in substance at the end
of January, 1847, before an army strong enough to advance any distance
into the interior could be collected there, and meantime the climate
would be "frightfully destructive." Heat, fatigue, differences in
food, and the yellow fever will cause heavy losses, wrote Bermúdez de
Castro, the Spanish minister at Mexico in March, and the road to the
capital passes so many centres of population and so many fine military
positions, that without great labor and preparations an invading force
can be destroyed. Two men better qualified to express opinions on the
matter could scarcely have been found; but without hesitation the
"scientific and visionary" Scott addressed himself to the task. Had the
requisitions duly made by him in November been complied with, he might
by this time, at a trifling cost in lives, have been standing on the
great plateau, and quite possibly within the capital; but now, with
only two thirds of the desired troops[23.1] and an insufficient supply
of many other essentials, he fearlessly girded up his loins.[23.5]
Stores were expeditiously landed. The First Infantry and two
independent volunteer companies received orders to garrison the town
and the fortress. It was arranged to minimize the danger of yellow
fever by keeping the Americans at the water-front as much as possible
and cleaning the city. The military department of Vera Cruz, extending
fifty miles inland, was created. Foreign merchants, under the threat
of a six per cent duty on exported gold and silver, supplied funds by
cashing official drafts on the United States at par. "One more appeal
... to the ninety-seven honorable men, against, perhaps, the three
miscreants in every hundred," urging them to coöperate actively in
preventing even trivial outrages, was issued; and the people of the
region were addressed[23.2] in a proclamation.[23.5]
"Mexicans," said Scott, I am advancing at the head of a powerful army,
which is soon to be doubled, and another army of ours is advancing
in the north. "Americans are not your enemies," however, but only
the enemies of those who misgoverned you, and brought about this
unnatural war. To the peaceable inhabitants and to your church, which
is respected by the government, laws and people in all parts of our
country, we are friends. Everything possible will be done to prevent
or punish outrages against you; and on the other hand any citizen, not
belonging to the regular forces, who undertakes to injure us will be
severely chastised. "Let, then, all good Mexicans remain at home, or
at their peaceful occupations." Let them also furnish supplies, for
all who do so will be paid in cash and protected. If such a course
be followed, the war may soon end honorably for both sides; and the
Americans, "having converted enemies into friends," will return
home.[23.5]
The problem of transportation, however, caused the General a great
deal of trouble. As early as the beginning of February notice of
his probable needs had been given by him to the quartermaster's
department, and presumably steps had been taken to meet them; but the
loss of animals on board the ships during storms or by the wrecking
of transports had upset all calculations.[23.3] For wagons especially
he was dependent upon the United States. At least eight hundred were
needed, and up to April 5 only one hundred and eighty had arrived,
though three hundred more were known to be on the way. Four or five
thousand mules were required for wagons, two or three thousand for
pack-saddles, and about four hundred mules or horses for the siege
train; and by the same date less than 1100 had been obtained. An
expedition to the village of La Antigua[23.4] on the north shore met
with little success in this regard, and a more important one, to the
rich country on the upper Alvarado River,[23.4] which was supposed
to abound in horses and mules, produced but very disappointing
results.[23.5]
In the opinion of Scott, however, the district near Jalapa, a beautiful
city about seventy-four miles inland, was likely to prove more
satisfactory. From Beach's friend, Mrs. Storms, who had presented
herself to him on March 20, he seems to have learned that friendly
sentiments were entertained there. No serious opposition below that
point and even for some distance beyond it seemed to him probable;
and hence on April 8, although his means for equipping a road train
were but a quarter of what he desired, and only an inadequate siege
train could be moved, the second division of regulars, commanded by
Brigadier General Twiggs, marched for Jalapa, which was also the
first point where large quantities of subsistence and forage could be
obtained.[23.5]
[Illustration: VERA CRUZ TO PEROTE]
[MEXICAN DEFENSIVE PLANS]