by the Hon. WILLIAM McKAY
Comrades and welcome Guests:
It has been the custom of veterans of the war with Mexico to celebrate
the fall of the capital of that Republic before the prowess of American
soldiers on the 14th day of September, 1847.
Hence are assembled around this festive board in this magnificent Hotel
Continental the few veterans of that war whose far-wandering footsteps
have brought them to the “elbow-touch” once more on a foreign soil. We
meet to-night in this splendid capital of France, yet with the radiant
folds of our country’s flag above us, that flag honored of the nations:
“For grace and beauty and order draw
Around that symbol of light and law.”
In thus assembling, we commune in the sacrament of a common memory with
our comrades across the seas, who on all their homestead hills are
celebrating the same glorious event. With them we exult in the proud
consciousness that by doing our duty as American soldiers in the days
of our youth, we not only gave renewed lustre to the martial annals
of our country, but through the triumph of our arms we added greatly
to the sum of human happiness, by widening the area of the world’s
civilization.
The occasion permits me to glance but briefly at the events of that war
which to some are still vivid memories, while others must either glean
them from the historic page or hear them recited by the men who then
acted history.
That war had its origin in the invasion of the soil of the United
States by the Army of Mexico.
On January 10th, 1845, the Congress of the United States passed an Act
providing for the annexation of Texas.
The Act was ratified by the Congress of that Republic on July 4th,
1845, and Texas with its two hundred and sixty five thousand square
miles of territory, an area greater than that of the German Empire or
of Austria, thus became an integral part of the American Union.
Texas had already maintained her independence for ten years against
Mexico, the parent country.
Those who have questioned the political morality of the act of
annexation may be fully answered by reference to the fact that England,
France and Spain had all formally recognized the independence of the
Republic of Texas three years before her admission into our Union.
Mexico resolved to nullify that act by force of arms.
In view of her aggressive attitude, Major General Zachary Taylor, U.
S. Army, was ordered to the Rio Grande, the Western boundary of Texas,
with a force of about four thousand men, chiefly regulars, where he
arrived July 20th, 1845, establishing his headquarters at Corpus
Christi, within four miles of the Mexican Army, then encamped ten
thousand strong, under the command of General Ampudia, on the South
side of that river. In January, 1846, General Taylor moved his command
to a point opposite Matamoras, Mexico, and erected an earthwork which
he termed Fort Brown.
On the 24th of April, 1846, Captain Thornton, U. S. Army, while
marching at the head of seventy men of the 2nd Dragoons in Texas, fell
into an ambuscade of Mexican regular troops, numbering between three
and four hundred, and after a gallant resistance, during which he had
sixteen of his command killed, and thirty-eight wounded, was obliged
to surrender. Six days later the Mexican forces attacked Fort Brown,
and were handsomely repulsed. On May 8th General Taylor with 2,300 men
met and defeated the Mexican Army 6,000 strong, under the command of
Generals Ampudia and Arista, at Palo Alto. On the following day, the
Mexican Army having received a reinforcement of 1,000 men, made a stand
at Resaca de la Palma (Ravine of Palms) and was there again defeated by
General Taylor, the Mexican loss being 975 and ours but 110 killed and
wounded.
It is a noteworthy fact that those battles were fought without a
declaration of war on either side. Indeed no declaration of war was
ever made by either of the two contending Republics.
On May 13th, 1846, the Congress of the United States passed a
resolution declaring that war existed between the United Stales and
Mexico, and further resolved, that the war should be prosecuted, until
we obtained “indemnity for the past, and security for the future.”
In response to the call of the President (Jas. K. Polk) for thirty
thousand volunteers, sixty-five thousand volunteered promptly. The
quotas furnished by the respective States were as follows:
Alabama 2,981, Maryland and district of Columbia 1,372, Arkansas
1,274, Florida 289, Missouri 6,441, Georgia 1,987, North Carolina 895,
Illinois 5,791, South Carolina 1,120, Indiana 4,329, Ohio 5,334, Iowa
229, New Jersey 420, Kentucky 4,094, New York 1,890, Louisiana 7,341,
Pennsylvania 2,117, Michigan 1,072, Tennessee 5,392, Massachusetts 930,
Texas 7,394, Mississippi 2,235, Wisconsin 146.
To these must be added about seven thousand regulars of the United
States Army, and one thousand marines, making an aggregate force of
about seventy-three thousand rank and file, constituting that gallant
army, charged with the duty in connection with our grand old historic
navy of enforcing from Mexico “indemnity for the past and security for
the future.”
That demand, history attests, they translated into action.
The Republic of Mexico consisted of twenty-four states, with a
population of about six millions. It had but twenty years previously
achieved its independence against the veteran army of Spain.
It had a standing army of fifty thousand, and had called into the field
an additional force, chiefly volunteers, of nearly two hundred thousand.
Her soldiers were well armed and equipped, the muskets of her infantry
all bearing the English Tower-stamp, and the cartridges being of the
best British manufacture. Her troops were, in the main, magnificently
uniformed, and we could say with literal truth that her “Cohorts were
gleaming with purple and gold.” Her coast defences were provided with
good armaments, her principal sea-port, Vera-Cruz, being guarded
by the Castle of San Juan d’Ulloa, built of white coral rock, and
mounting three hundred heavy guns. No country was better adapted by its
topography for defensive warfare.
Abounding with mountain ranges, and rocky hill-slopes, the true
citadels of freedom, that commanded all practicable roads to the
interior, while she had a formidable ally in the deadly climate of her
coast, where the tropical sun, shining upon the ever-decaying masses
of rank vegetation, breeds the fatal malaria which burns up the blood
with fever, alternating with the icy “norther” that within an hour will
often vary the temperature from summer’s heat to an almost Arctic cold.
Three lines of operation against Mexico were now determined on:
1. General Taylor was to operate from Matamoras, along the line of the
Rio-Grande.
2. A column under General Kearny was to conquer the Mexican territories
of New Mexico and California.
3. A column under General Wool was to enter the Northern States of
Mexico and conquer Chihuahua, and the adjacent country.
In pursuance of this plan General Taylor advanced upon the Mexican
Array, then in position at Monterey, on September 5th, 1846.
His army numbered 6,600 of all arms, composed of 3,200 regular troops
of the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th, infantry; 4 companies of
the 2nd Dragoons, and 5 batteries (30) guns of field artillery, and
3,400 volunteers, consisting of the first regiments from Kentucky,
Mississipi, Ohio and Tennessee, two Texas regiments commanded by Brig.
Gen. Henderson, including Jack Hay’s famous Texas Rangers, and one
battalion from Maryland and the District of Columbia.
The Mexican force consisted of 7,000 regulars and 3,500 volunteers,
with 84 pieces of artillery in strong works covering every approach
to the city. Their principal works were designated as Forts Diabolo,
Teneria, Soldado, Independence, the Bishop’s Palace and the Citadel.
Our army attacked in three divisions, commanded respectively by
Generals Worth, Twiggs and Butler of Kentucky.
The enemy made a desperate resistance. The firing was incessant from
the windows and flat roofs of the dwellings, and from barricades in the
streets when our troops had entered the city after carrying all the
outer defences by assault.
The attack began on September 20th, and ended on the morning of the
23rd, with the surrender of the enemy. Our loss was about 950 killed
and wounded.
Early in December, 1846, all of the regular infantry was withdrawn from
General Taylor’s army and ordered to report to Major-General Winfield
Scott, the Commander-in-Chief, who had assumed command in person of the
fourth great column of attack, whose objective point was the Capital
of Mexico, and which was entitled, “The Army of Mexico.” General
Taylor’s army was thus reduced to only 4,500 men consisting altogether
of volunteers, except three batteries of the regular army, and two
squadrons of the 2nd Dragoons. Its numerical weakness invited attack,
and General Santa Anna, the most renowned and skilful of the Mexican
Commanders, and President of the Republic of Mexico, who had won a
decisive victory over the French Army of invasion nine years before,
moved his army against it. That army, according to the Mexican official
reports, numbered twenty three thousand, two-thirds regular soldiers.
General Taylor decided to accept battle, and selected a position
admirably adapted for defence at the Rancho Buena Vista. The position
was marked by narrow defiles, and rugged and high ridges, that
commanded the valley below. The battle began at daylight on February
23rd, 1846, by the attack of the enemy in force on our left flank.
It was gallantly repulsed by the fire of the second and 3rd Indiana
Riflemen, and a company of Col. Yell’s dismounted Arkansas Cavalry,
with Bragg’s and Shermann’s splendidly served batteries, diverged to
our left, where the enemy was concentrating for a decisive attack. The
extreme left of our line was posted on a high and broad plateau and was
composed of the 2nd Indiana, and 2nd Illinois regiments of infantry.
The tremendous impact of that attack forced those regiments to retire
in considerable disorder after they had sustained for some time a
severe cross-fire of artillery, and a heavy fire on their front, by a
greatly superior force of infantry. At that crisis of the battle the
1st Mississipi Rifles, the only regiment of that army that was armed
with rifles having percussion locks, commanded by Colonel Jefferson
Davis, promptly interposed between the retreating regiments, and the
charging Mexican cavalry, and doubtless saved the day by their rapid
and effective firing, before which the enemy recoiled. There are
veterans of Buena Vista, who, though in after years they still remained
true to the flag of their country, and struck in its just defence on
fields “shot-sown and bladed thick with steel,” do not feel that they
sully their loyalty in respectfully saluting Jefferson Davis, _as he
was_, recalling him to memory as with tall heroic form he so gallantly
upheld the starry ensign of the Union upon the steady and blazing line
that sheltered the brave but broken columns of Illinois and Indiana,
from the uplifted sabres of a merciless foe.
The art of dying at the right time is the art preservative of great
reputations.
The Mississipi Rifles were soon bravely supported by the 1st Illinois,
2nd Indiana, and 2nd Kentucky regiments with section (2 pieces) of
Bragg’s famous battery, and the ground lost on our left flank was
in great part recovered. At the base of the ridge the left flank of
the enemy was held in check by Indiana and Arkansas infantry, and the
destructive fire of our artillery.
At that moment, when his army had met with a disastrous and
demoralizing repulse, General Santa Anna sent forward a flag of truce
and our fire was suspended. The bearer of the flag, to the amazement of
General Taylor, presented a demand for the surrender of his army.
This expedient cannot be too strongly commended in the art of war,
although writers upon grand strategy have strangely overlooked it. It
is not suggested even by General Jomini, in his exhaustive work “Traité
des grandes Opérations Militaires.”
It may, however, be thus formulated: When your attacking columns are
shattered and repulsed, hurry up a flag of truce, and check the advance
of your exultant enemy, and demand his surrender, and then, before he
can recover from his astonishment at your sublime impudence reform your
shattered lines and advance to further vantage ground, or retire in
good order, under the shelter of the peaceful symbol.
Santa Anna’s messenger returned with General Taylor’s laconic answer,
“I decline acceding to your demand,” and the Mexicans again advanced
to the attack, bringing into action all their reserves, and were again
repulsed with heavy loss, after a terrible struggle.
The battle of twelve sanguinary hours on that mountain plateau had
ended, and “our flag was still there.”
General Santa Anna retired rapidly with his army, only pausing in the
vicinity long enough to send off a bulletin to the Capital announcing
that he had “won a decisive victory over the barbarians of the North.”
Thus ended in a blaze of glory the battle-record of the “army of
occupation,” under General Taylor.
In the meantime, the Army of the West, under the command of General
Stephen W. Kearney, had been reaping a rich harvest of laurels.
By a rapid march from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to Santa Fé, a distance
of 750 miles in thirty days, he secured possession of New Mexico.
Dividing his force (2,500) at Santa Fé, General Kearney with 1,500
Dragoons marched to California, and defeated the enemy in a warm
engagement at San Pasqual. He then formed a junction with the
California rifle battalion, and a force of 750 sailors and marines
from the naval squadron, under the command of Commodore Stockton, who
had just succeeded the gallant Commodore Sloat, who had previously
taken the California port of Monterey. Prior to the arrival of General
Kearney, however, that brilliant soldier, and untiring and sagacious
explorer, John C. Fremont, had hoisted the American standard in
California. He was there under orders to ascertain and lay out a new
route to Oregon further South than that travelled by our emigrants.
The Mexican Governor of California having in May, 1846, ordered
all American settlers to leave that province, and having raised a
force to expel them, Colonel Fremont recruited a body of 400 men and
defeated the Mexicans in several sharp engagements in the valley of
the Sacramento, before he had even heard that war existed between the
United States and Mexico. Under his able and enterprising leadership
the Americans in California, united with many of the natives, declared
the independence of the province of California on the 4th of July, 1845.
It has since transpired that but for this timely action on the part of
Col. Fremont and the resolute Americans associated with him, a large
force would have been landed from the British fleet in that vicinity,
and California would have been taken possession of by England, under an
arrangement with its Mexican Governor.
It had been taken possession of by Admiral Drake for England in the
year 1579, under the name of “New Albion,” and the vague British claim
was to be revived in the interest of English capitalists who held the
bonds of Mexico to the amount of one hundred and fifty millions of
dollars.
A few months after these stirring and important events on the Pacific
slope, Col. A. W. Doniphan began his famous march from Santa Fé to
Saltillo.
He started on November 13th, 1846, with a force consisting of nine
hundred Missouri cavalry and two batteries of Missouri artillery.
A part of his command 500 strong was attacked on Christmas Day at
Brazito by a force of 1,000 Mexicans, which they defeated in twenty
minutes. They again defeated the enemy on February 28th, 1847, at
Sacramento, near the city of Chihuahua, and entered that important
city triumphantly. On the next day Doniphan began his march through
the Northern States of Mexico, back to Saltillo. He accomplished this
renowned march, winning victories as he went, in forty days, a distance
of 1,500 miles. This dims the lustre of the retreat of the ten thousand
Greeks from the field of Cunaxa, as graphically described by Xenophon,
their commander and historian.
While these events were in progress, Col. Sterling Price, of Missouri,
who had been left by Doniphan at Santa Fé, with a force of about 500
men, had been, as he always was, active and successful.
On January 19th, 1847, Governor Charles Bent, with thirty-five other
Americans were massacred at Taos, New Mexico, in cold blood by a
Mexican force of about two thousand cavalry, which soon after appeared
in the vicinity of Santa Fé. Price attacked and defeated them, after
a desperate conflict, at Canada, about 18 miles north of Santa Fé. He
pursued them on their retreat, and two days later inflicted severe loss
upon them at Embedo, and finally on February 4th he utterly routed them
at Taos, the scene of their recent savage atrocity.
The scene now opens on a broader field of action.
On the 9th of March, 1847, the Army of Mexico, under the command of
Major-General Winfield Scott, that most regal of American soldiers,
never to be named by us, comrades, but with uplifted hat, began its
victorious march for the “Halls of the Montezumas.” General Scott on
that day effected the landing of his army at Sacrificios, an island
seven miles west of Vera Cruz. The landing was made in seventy-five
surf boats, each carrying seventy-five men, under cover of our fleet,
commanded by Commodore Conner, with those able and dashing officers
Commodores Perry and Tatnall commanding squadrons of the fleet. The
army there numbered 13,200 rank and file. General Scott established his
lines on the north and east fronts of Vera Cruz on the same day. Within
ten days he had planted five large siege batteries built of sand bags
about 1,000 yards from the walls of the city. One of them was mounted
with 8-inch ship guns, and manned by sailors from the fleet.
A demand for the surrender of the city having been made and refused,
our guns opened fire on March 22nd, and for three days and nights
rained upon it the red ruin of avenging war. On the morning of the
25th, General Laudero, commanding the garrison of the city and the
Castle of San Juan d’Ulloa, sent in a flag of truce with overtures of
surrender. He at first proposed to surrender the city alone. General
Scott refused this, as the castle distant but a mile to the South East
of the city, completely commanded it, and he therefore demanded its
surrender also.
This demand was finally acceded to and the surrender of the Castle of
San Juan d’Ulloa, and the City of Vera Cruz, with their garrisons 8,000
strong was formally made on March 29, 1847. Our loss was but sixteen
killed and wounded.
On April 8th our army took up its line of march along the national
road for the Capital of Mexico distant 290 miles. On April 14th it
confronted the Army of Santa Anna, 20,000 strong posted on the heights
of Cerro Gordo. The mountain ridges on which he had taken position, had
been well fortified by that indomitable but cruel and faithless Mexican
general, and fully commanded our route to the Capital. At the instance,
and under the direction of that most excellent soldier Captain Robert
E. Lee, of the Corps of Engineers, a road was cut through the dense
forest on the enemy’s left, so as to enable us to take his position in
reverse. This work occupied three days during which our working parties
were frequently attacked.
On the morning of the 18th of April, at dawn, we attacked in force.
The command of our column of attack on the enemy’s left was the post of
honor, for it was the strongest point of his position, as it covered
his only line of retreat. That command was assigned to Brigadier
General James Shields, one of that warlike Irish race who have ever
keenly felt the rapture of the fight wherever battle was to be done for
a noble cause--a most knightly and heroic soldier, who would have worn
with stainless honor the white plume of Henry of Navarre on the field
of Ivry, and have worthily led the immortal Irish Brigade along the
path of glory that it trod at Fontenoy.
Our troops dashed up the mountain side with unquailing intrepidity, the
First Regiment of New York, volunteers of Shield’s brigade under the
command of that most gallant soldier Colonel Ward B. Burnett, bravely
leading on our extreme right. The rocky ridge was soon ablaze with the
fire of musketry and artillery.
In three hours the Mexican Army was routed. The battle was done, and
far up on the crest of the mountain range where the eagle dwells alone,
the white stars of our country’s banner shone serenely on their blue
field. Our loss was 97 killed and 408 wounded, and that of the enemy
about 1,400 in killed and wounded, and 2,750 prisoners, among whom were
officers and men of the recently surrendered garrison of Vera Cruz, who
were serving against us in violation of their paroles.
Harney’s Dragoons pursued the enemy hotly, and sabred their scattered
columns for fifteen miles along the road to Jalapa.
At that city the army of Scott was reduced to about 6,500 by the muster
out of the greater part of his volunteer forces, as they had enlisted
for only one year; and their term of service had expired. Leaving
Jalapa on the 22nd of April we entered Peroté and its strong castle,
a full bastion work of 80 guns, on the evening of the 23rd, the enemy
having evacuated it on approach. Halting here to rest for about two
weeks we marched for Puebla, 70 miles distant, the chief manufacturing
city in Mexico with a population of 65,000.
We occupied Puebla on May 15th, after a desultory fire from the enemy
in its streets.
Here General Scott was obliged to await, for nearly three months, the
arrival of reinforcements. Every day’s delay increased our hazard, as
the enemy was fortifying, along all the approaches to the capital.
The time was not wholly lost, however, for General Scott there
brought the drill of his volunteer regiments to the highest state of
perfection, so that they marched and manœuvred with all the precision
of trained regulars.
At length the long-expected reinforcements arrived, and on the morning
of August 7th, 1847, our Army moved out of Puebla on its march for the
city of Mexico, all our bands playing the Star Spangled Banner.
It numbered then about 10,000 men, consisting of four divisions.
The cavalry was commanded by that redoubtable soldier, the Murat of the
Army, Brt. Brig. Genl. Wm. S. Harney, and consisted of detachments of
the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Dragoons, to the number of about seven hundred
and fifty.
After a toilsome march of about seventy miles, across mountain spurs
and along a very rugged road, the army, on the afternoon of August
17th, 1847, looked down for the first time on the valley of Mexico,
and saw from afar its magnificent capital, with the golden crosses of
its churches glittering in the red light of the setting sun. There
lay before us the same broad lake, mirroring the same snow-crowned
mountains in its glassy bosom, on which Cortez with his steel-clad
warriors had gazed, in the same month, three hundred and twenty six
years before. On reaching a point about nine miles from the city,
General Scott ascertained by a _reconnaissance_ that the Mexicans had
fortified El Peñón, a mountain that commanded the approach to the
capital by the National road. He therefore ordered a counter march with
the view to turn the lake (Chalco) on the south. This required a march
of twenty five miles, which was rapidly made, and on the 18th, the army
was concentrated at a point about ten miles from the city at Contreras,
a strong position held by General Valencia, with field-works mounting
twenty-four guns. These, General Scott determined to take in reverse,
and we therefore made a night march of eight miles over the pedregal
or lava fields, a route deemed by the Mexicans impracticable for any
army. The assault was made on the rear and flanks of the surprised
enemy soon after daylight on August 20th, by Riley’s Cadivalders and
Shield’s Brigades, all under the command of General P. F. Smith, whom
General Shields, although ranking above him, magnanimously allowed to
retain the command that he might carry out dispositions made prior to
the arrival of Shields on the ground.
The whole line of works was stormed, and the battle won in eighteen
minutes.
The enemy broke at the first assault, and fled in the direction of the
city, and nearly five hundred of them were captured by the New York
Volunteers and the Palmetto regiment, that were posted to cut off their
retreat. At this battle two guns of the 4th Artillery, that were lost
without dishonor at Buena Vista, were recaptured from the enemy.
The army, after resting a few hours at St. Augustine, a town about
four miles from Contreras, marched against the main body of the enemy,
distant six miles from the former point.
We were soon in the presence of the Mexican Army, thirty thousand
strong, commanded by Santa Anna, and composed of the best troops of
Mexico, including several thousand volunteers. It occupied a vast
intrenched camp near the village and convent of Churubusco, about seven
miles from the capital.
While marching to this field we heard a number of heavy explosions
which we soon learned were due to the blowing up of the bridges along
all our possible lines of retreat back to the coast.
That meant, as every soldier well knew, a declaration by our Mexican
foe of “War to the knife, and the knife to the hilt.”
General Scott halted the army on a lofty plateau overlooking the valley
where stretched the serried lines of the enemy and where
“The sheen of the spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue waves roll nightly on deep Galilee.”
He there briefly addressed the several commands, and expressed his firm
conviction, that each man would do his duty as an American soldier, and
thus assure victory to our arms.
That word “Duty,” a code of honor in itself, unknown in its full
import, to every language but our own, has ever inspired the loftiest
achievements of the English speaking race.
The battle opened at noon, by the attack of the Division of General
Worth (the Marshal Ney of the Army) on the enemy’s left flank, and soon
became general.
The degree of resistance that we encountered, is indicated by the
following extract from the report of Brig. Genl. Shields as to the
operations of his own brigade and it is doubtless applicable to every
command on that field: “My brigade composed of the 1st New York
regiment of Volunteers, and the Palmetto (S. C.) regiment, advanced
steadily against the right flank of the enemy under as terrible a fire
as any that soldiers ever faced.”
At sundown the battle ended with the defeat of the Mexican army which
retreated in great disorder toward the city.
The Dragoons, under Harney, followed the flying enemy fast and far,
and Major Phil. Kearney, not hearing the recall sounded, or rather not
heeding it, pursued them to the walls of the city, sabreing the gunners
at its very gate, where he lost his right arm, and returned wounded
behind one of his soldiers. Our loss was 1,045 killed and wounded,
while that of the enemy was estimated at 7,000 in killed, wounded, and
prisoners.
We captured 5,000 prisoners and 86 pieces of artillery.
Among the many deeds of heroism done at Churubusco, I must note one
of the most daring that has passed into history. In our charge upon
the field-work known as the tête de pont, we found our way blocked
by a burning Mexican ammunition wagon, that threatened a destructive
explosion. At this juncture Sergeant Alexander M. Keneday of the 3rd
Dragoons, attached to Worth’s escort, sprang into the wagon, and
calling three of his comrades to his aid, with the sparks flying around
him threw the packages of gunpowder into the river below, thus saving
many lives and enabling our charging columns to advance. Sergeant
Keneday is now the honored Secretary of our National Association.
On the same evening a flag of truce arrived from Santa Anna who
proposed an armistice of twenty days, stating that he desired to
negociate terms of peace. General Scott assented, and having but three
days’ rations in his commissariat, imposed as one of the conditions,
that he should be allowed to send a train with a proper escort into the
city, and there purchase supplies for his army. This was accordingly
done. On Sept. 6th, Gen. Scott declared the armistice at an end, having
discovered that the wily Santa Anna, in violation of its solemn terms,
was engaged in fortifying his position and reinforcing his army.
At dawn on Sept. 8th we again advanced. Santa Anna with his army
occupied Molino del Rey or the King’s Mill, a series of massive stone
buildings surrounded by high walls, about one mile and a half west of
the castle of Chapultepec and three miles from the city of Mexico. His
force consisted of ten thousand men and twenty four pieces of artillery.
Our attacking columns numbered 3,600 with Drum’s, Huger’s, and Duncan’s
batteries, and a company of Voltigeurs, under the immediate command of
General Worth, all regulars.
We attacked in three columns, and our first attack being repulsed, the
Mexicans sallied from their works, and lanced our wounded officers and
men, and cut their throats within full view of our army.
Worth rapidly reinforcing with Cadwallader’s Brigade, and Stewart’s
rifles, that had been left to support Huger’s Battery, and Duncan’s
heavy Battery of 24-pounders, attacked the enemy’s right and centre,
and having taken the Casa Mata, a strong stone citadel, the enemy
abandoned all his other positions, and the day was won. In proportion
to the force engaged, this was, for us, the most bloody battle of the
war. We had 953 killed and wounded, among them seventy five officers.
The loss of the enemy was 1200 killed and wounded, and 850 prisoners.
The desperate nature of the conflict may be indicated by the fact that
towards its close, the guns of Drum’s and Huger’s batteries were served
almost entirely by officers--graduates of West Point, nearly every
enlisted artillery man having fallen at his post.
The victory was important as Molino del Rey was the chief cannon
foundry of Mexico and its guns commanded some of the approaches to the
Castle of Chapultepec.
That castle was a strong fortress of rock and masonry, mounting 26
guns, and garrisoned by 2,500 regular troops and 300 cadets under the
command of General Bravo. It was the National Military Academy of
Mexico. It was situated about one mile and a half from the capital, on
the crest of a steep rocky height, which rose 189 feet above the road
which entered the city at the Belén gate. About midway up the ascent
was a strong redoubt on the south front, and just below that, a heavy
stone wall, with a banquette, which ran along nearly the entire front,
and was well manned with Mexican regulars. Our batteries opened fire
on the castle at the distance of about 700 yards, on the morning of
September 12th, and at night fall had made several breaches in its
walls.
Soon after midnight our forces silently occupied the ditch that nearly
encircled the foot of the hill, and which was bordered with a profuse
growth of the Maguay plant or American aloe, which served to screen us
from the view of the enemy. At day-dawn on the 13th our men stepped
from the ditch, and being quickly aligned under the fire of the enemy,
advanced to the assault. The entire army was brought into action,
except three regiments of Worth’s division held in reserve at Molino
del Rey. In a whirlwind of fire from cannon and musketry, that swept
down the hill, which was everywhere ablaze with the flashing guns,
our men pressed upward, and onward, our artillery, in the road below,
firing shot and shell over their heads as they advanced.
Another desperate rush, and their bayonets sparkled at every breach,
and soon the flag of the First New York volunteers, the first to crown
the castle, floated out above the battlements with its inspiring motto
“Excelsior,” and proclaimed that Chapultepec was ours!
The presence here to-night of one of the gallant survivors of that
heroic regiment, Colonel Daniel E. Hungerford who is on my left, and
Colonel Charles J. Murphy who is on my right, a soldier of another
regiment, leads me to recall two incidents of that battle, one of which
moves me deeply with a sense of personal gratitude and bereavement.
The Colonel of that Regiment, Ward B. Burnett, who proved himself
worthy to lead it, was severely wounded at Cherutusco, and the command
devolved upon its Lieutenant-Colonel Baxter, who was killed while most
gallantly leading it at Chapultepec. Its brave Major Burnham then
assumed command, but was soon temporarily disabled by a glancing shot
or a flying fragment of rock.
At that critical moment, when the Regiment was nearing the breaches
under a galling fire, Captain Daniel E. Hungerford, then but in his
twenty-fifth year, though not entitled to command it, sprang to the
front and cheered the regiment forward with his voice and waving sword.
As to the incident which touches me personally. I recall the forlorn
hope of my regiment composed of thirty men under the command of
Lieutenant Ralph Bell, third Lieutenant of my company and the youngest
officer of the _Palmetto Regiment_, being only in his twenty-first
year. Those who knew him well remember his tall, lithe but soldierly
figure, his light hair and gentle blue eyes, and his face almost
feminine in its delicate beauty.
Most vividly does he come back to my memory, as he sprang forward
leading that forlorn hope, as cheerily as if he were going to meet
his bride, and with the blood trickling from a wound upon his right
cheek, pointing upward to the castle with the hilt of his sword, its
blade having been shivered by a grape shot. But only two years later,
he passed away among strangers in (California) far distant from his
home, and his eyes closed in a strange land in death by the brotherly
ministrations of his old comrade-in-arms Colonel Charles J. Murphy,
who was himself a gallant actor on that field, though but a youth of
seventeen years. Well indeed has the poet written,
“The bravest are the tenderest.
The loving are the daring.”
But to continue my cursory narrative of events that would require a
volume to detail them fully.
Worth’s division pressed the enemy closely on his line of retreat to
the eastern or San Cosmo gate of the city. General Scott decided to
make his main attack at that gate, deeming it the most vulnerable
point. With that view he ordered General Quitman with his division, to
make a feint, and occupy the attention of the enemy at the Garita de
Belén on the west.
Quitman’s command moved rapidly along the causeway leading to the city
near the margin of the lake, carrying several batteries of the enemy,
he having determined to convert the intended feint into a real attack
and win a victory in violation of orders.
Far to the front the New York volunteers, the _Palmetto Regiment_, and
Captain James Stewart’s company of regular rifles sprang from arch to
arch of the great stone aqueduct, firing with rapidity as they advanced.
Drum’s battery galloped rapidly to the front, and opened an effective
fire, which was at once replied to by the enemy, with at least twenty
heavy guns. In a few minutes nearly every officer and man of the
battery was killed or wounded. Its chivalric commander lay in the road
with both thighs shattered by a cannon ball, but true to the line
of his duty, living and dying, he called out to the Infantry in the
arches, “For God’s sake save my guns!” They quickly responded, and met
the advancing foe with the bayonet, driving them back, and following
them into their works, and the last sounds that reached the ears of the
noble captain Simon Drum, were the victorious shouts of his comrades at
the gate.
The magnificent Infantry of P. F. Smith’s and Pierce’s Brigades, were
also at this time delivering a destructive fire at the enemy on our
flanks.
The Mexican troops were soon driven from all their positions near
the gate, and at twenty minutes past one o’clock on the afternoon of
September 13th, 1847, the _Palmetto flag of South Carolina_ was planted
on the wall of the City of Mexico,--the first foreign ensign that had
waved over that spot since Fernando Cortez had there unfurled the royal
standard of Spain on August 13th, 1521.
Our further advance that day was checked by the fire of the citadel, a
work with ten guns, about 600 yards from the Belén gate.
About six in the afternoon its commander, General Flores, offered to
surrender, on the novel condition that General Quitman should give him
a receipt for all his ordnance, quartermaster and commissary stores.
He was informed that receipts on such occasions were written with the
sword, but his demand was acceded to, and the citadel surrendered the
next morning, September 14th, at sunrise.
The main body of the army under General Worth drove the enemy from
every position at the San Cosmo gate, and on the night of the 13th
bivouacked within the walls of the city.
At noon on September 14th the entire army was united in the Plaza
Mayor, or great square of the city of Mexico, the site of the ancient
Tenochtitlan of the Aztec empire, nearly eight thousand feet above the
level of the sea.
The stars and stripes were soon unfurled above the Palace of the
Cortes, (Congress), and six thousand five hundred American soldiers
stood triumphant in the capital of Mexico, with its hostile population
numbering one hundred and fifty thousand souls.
The subsequent operations of our army, though brilliant, were but of
a minor character. Early in October, Santa Anna laid siege to our
garrison at Puebla which consisted of the First Pennsylvania regiment
of volunteers, under Colonel Childs. He summoned the garrison to
surrender, stating, with his usual mendacity, that he had routed the
army of General Scott. Col. Childs occupying Fort Loretto, in the
western suburb of Puebla, repelled four desperate assaults of the
enemy, 5000 strong, and Santa Anna drew off his forces on the approach
of General Joseph Lane who was advancing from the coast, with needed
reinforcements for Scott’s army. The last engagement of the war was
fought by Brig. General Sterling Price at Rosales, New Mexico, on March
15th, 1848. He there, with but 300 Missouri Volunteers, defeated a
Mexican force of 1000, capturing their commanding General, and eleven
pieces of artillery.
The war ended by a treaty of peace, concluded at the Hacienda of
Guadeloupe Hidalgo on February 2nd, 1848. Peace was formally announced
in a proclamation by the President of the United States, on July 4th,
1848.
In this necessarily imperfect sketch of the salient events of the
Mexican war, I have had to omit even the name of many an unforgotten
hero.
It was no holiday war. It was replete with toilsome marches, with
blistered and bleeding feet, through hot sands, under a tropical sun,
and over jagged rocks, and snowy mountain ranges where horses and
riders perished with cold. It abounded with nameless tragedies, both
on bloody fields near many a battery’s smoking guns, and in the deep
gloom of fever stricken hospitals. In that memorable war of two years,
we fought seventy battles and engagements without the final loss of a
single gun or American ensign.
Engaged always against heavy odds, we bore the honor of our great
republic triumphantly, on our ever advancing swords and bayonets.
Blended with this patriotic reflection, we proudly recall the fact that
we marched nearly three thousand miles through the country of an enemy,
alien to us in race and language, and performed no act to wound the
modesty of woman, or to sully the sanctity of her person.
The flames of no defenceless homestead lighted up our line of march,
and no matin hymn or vesper bell was silenced by our coming. We were
always merciful in the hour of victory, and our army, while vindicating
the prowess of our country, also illustrated its civilisation. What
have been the material results of that victorious war? It acquired for
us the vast territories of California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico,
Idaho, Arizona, and Utah, thus adding one million square miles or
640,000,000 of acres to the United States, nearly doubling its area.
According to authoritative statistics, there have been taken from the
mines and rivers of the region thus acquired since 1848, gold and
silver of the value of three thousand millions of dollars. Averaging
the soldier at 140 pounds, this amount is sufficient to award to every
soldier engaged in the battles of Mexico, were even all now living, his
weight in pure gold.
But the enterprising men, who developed that imperial domain that
had so long lain stagnant under a semi-barbaric rule, were more than
mere delvers in mines, and gold-washers in river-sands. They were the
builders of empire, the raw material, the muscle and the mind of great
civilised States, whose industrial products have even exceeded in value
during the past thirty five years, all the precious metals that have
been taken from their rocks and streams.
Time, with its wide arch of forty years, has spanned many memorable
events in our country, since we bore its flag in triumph over the
smoking guns of hostile batteries on fields afar.
Within thirteen years after we had entered victoriously the capital
of Mexico, the capital of the United States was itself menaced by a
hostile army.
Through four years of internecine war the republic, founded by
Washington, battled for its existence against armed legions that
challenged its rightful supremacy within the State where Washington was
born.
That war embraced within its theatre of operations more than 2,700,000
men, and was signalized by more than one thousand battles and
engagements. Soon after its termination, every American State, through
its duly elected representatives, answered to the roll call beneath the
dome of the Nation’s Capitol.
The magnanimous victors in that mighty war deserved victory, and they
neither abridged the rights, nor wounded the self-respect of the
vanquished.
Hence, to-day, all American citizens dwell together in loyal unity
beneath the benign rule of our indestructible Union. And I can attest,
as a Southerner, through five generations “native and to the manor
born,” that if my comrades in arms of the Confederate army ever dream
of future wars, it is with the sincere hope, that they may aid in
bearing the flag of the Union among a people who have never looked upon
its starry folds, and into lands that have never felt the power of its
eagle’s beak.