Home of the Brave (52 page)

~

The cannons of the castle
roof were now working in rhythm and the smoke made it difficult for
Marina to see. There was a brief but ferocious artillery duel on
the main causeway and through the smoke she glimpsed infantry led
by about forty United States Marines with a United States Army
officer in front. Ahead of them all, her husband on the big black
warhorse that was usually boarded at William Livingston’s Liberty
Hall was slashing a path through the ragged line of Mexican
defenders.

She wiped away tears as she
watched Yank parry a bayonet thrust while Beelzebub bit a Mexican
cavalry horse whose rider had tried to close on Yank’s other side.
For a moment it seemed that the sheer weight of numbers would
overwhelm them but the black horse burst through the mêlée, biting
and kicking to turn back and attack again.

When at last Thomas, the
Marines and the following army infantry reached and fell upon the
Mexican defenders the tide turned very quickly, and within another
few minutes the Americans were at the front wall.

For a time nothing happened
and the sound of battle dropped to near silence. Then suddenly
sappers appeared with scaling ladders and the volume of battle
sounds increased instantly.

The first man onto the roof
drew his saber and rushed the closest defender. Seconds later
Marines were swarming onto the roof and Marina began to creep along
the parapet wall, around the tower toward the bloody
combat

~

Yank was near the end of his
endurance when he reached the top of the ladder but he was
immediately attacked by a wave of cadets with swords. They had
driven him back to the parapet when Thomas rushed in to join the
fray. Yank caught a glimpse of his son Robert, sword in hand,
bursting from a door onto the roof and the sight gave him new
strength.

~

Marina sat down wearily
against the water tower and watched as a small group of Marines
gained access to the watchtower and soon hauled down the Mexican
flag to raise the red, white and blue.

Yank collapsed next to her,
unable to talk, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath,
he put his hand on her thigh and gave her a weak smile.

“Are you okay, Mother?”
Thomas was holding his pistol in one hand and Yank’s in the
other.

“I need a doctor whenever
one is available,” she said, patting Yank’s hand. “Do either of you
have any dry stockings?”

Yank turned his coat pocket
inside out, spilling rolled gloves, rolled stockings, a box of
lucifer matches and two cigar tins onto the roof.

Marina took the stockings
and unrolled them. “I knew you’d have these,” she said with a
smile. “I’ve been dreaming of them for days.”

“You knew I’d come for you?”
Yank managed in a breathless voice.

“I never doubted it for a
moment,” Marina replied.

“Oh dear God, Mother.”
Thomas was looking at her feet in horror.

“Pay attention to what
you’re doing, Thomas,” Marina chided. “I didn’t go through all this
to have some schoolboy with a rusty musket shoot one of
us.”

Thomas chuckled. “Yes,
Mother.”

A scuffle broke out near the
tall watchtower as one of the students wrestled the Mexican flag
away from the Marine that had captured it. Before anyone else could
react the boy wrapped the flag around himself and ran for the
parapet to leap into space.

“Stupid little bastard,”
Thomas chuckled.

“They’ll be singing songs
about him tomorrow,” Marina replied.

“Can you walk?” Yank asked
Marina. He looked gray.

“Yes,” Marina said. “Can
you?”

“I think so, but I can’t
seem to catch my breath,” he said.

“The altitude here is nearly
eight thousand feet,” Thomas replied, “and that climb up the ladder
was no picnic.”

“Take your mother down and
find Surgeon-General Lawson, please,” Yank replied.

“I’ll wait for you,” Marina
pronounced.

“You have trench foot,” he
argued. “Minutes could matter.”

She set her jaw in
determination. “I’ll wait for you.”

Yank reached his hand toward
his son. “Help me up, Thomas. Then we’ll take your mother down
together.”

Thomas pulled Yank to his
feet then whistled shrilly. “Robert. We need you.”

“Wait,” Robert shouted back.
“I’ll get Jack. He’s in the stairwell.”

September 13,
1848

Tucubaya, Mexico

Yank was dozing in the
overstuffed chair when Jack opened the door to his quarters and
held it so that Robert and Thomas could carry Marina inside. “What
did Surgeon-General Lawson say?” Yank asked as his sons let Marina
down onto the sofa.

“He said that mother’s in no
serious danger of losing her feet,” Jack replied, “but the pain
will be very bad for several days. He offered to give her laudanum
but she refused. Maybe you can talk some sense into
her.”

“That’s none of your
business and your father knows better than to try to change my mind
about anything.” Marina swatted at Jack.

“Mexico City has fallen,”
Thomas said, walking toward Yank. “John Quitman had intended to
make a feint down the causeway toward the Belén Gate but the
defenses collapsed and he broke through.”

Jack nodded. “Worth’s
Division forced the La Veronica Causeway and took the San Cosme
Gate.”

“Do you remember meeting Sam
Grant on the ship, Dad?” Robert asked.

“Yes, of course,” Yank
replied. “He wasn’t last in his class, by the way and his name on
his commission is Ulysses Simpson Grant, not Sam.”

Robert laughed. “Well,
whatever his name may be, he hoisted a cannon into a bell tower and
then fired it down at the gate.”

“Thank you, boys,” Marina
said. “Your father can read General Scott’s complete report to Bill
Marcy when the staff has it complete. Now we both need some
rest.”

“Can we get you anything
before we go?” Jack asked.

“No thank you,” Marina said.
“I can walk if I must. It just hurts like hell.”

Thomas went to the door but
stopped. “In all the excitement we forgot to tell you Jack’s news.
He’s married.”

Yank smiled. “Oh that’s
wonderful news, Jack. Congratulations. What’s her name?”

“Clementine,” Jack said.
“Everyone calls her Clem. I think you’ll love her as much as I
do.”

September 20,
1847

Mexico City,
Mexico

To: HON. WM. L. MARCY,
Secretary of War.

HEADQUARTERS OP THE ARMY,
NATIONAL PALACE OF MEXICO, September 18, 1847.

SIR:

At the end of another
series of arduous and brilliant operations, of more than
forty-eight hours continuance, this glorious army hoisted, on the
morning of the 14th, the colors of the United States on the walls
of this palace.

The victory of the 8th, at
the Molino del Rey, was followed by daring reconnaissances on the
part of our distinguished engineers Captain Lee, Lieutenants
Beauregard, Stevens and Tower Major Smith, senior, being sick, and
Captain Mason, third in rank, wounded. Their operations were
directed principally to the south toward the gates of the Piedad,
San Angel, (Nino Perdido), San Antonio, and the Paseo de la
Yiga.

This city stands on a
slight swell of ground, near the centre of an irregular basin, and
is girdled with a ditch in its greater extent a navigable canal of
great breadth and depth very difficult to bridge in the presence of
an enemy, and. serving at once for drain age, custom-house
purposes, and military defense ; leaving eight entrances or gates,
over arches each of which we found defended by a system of strong
works, that seemed to require nothing but some men and guns to be
impregnable.

Outside and within the
cross-fires of those gates, we found to the south other obstacles
but little less formidable. All the approaches near the city are
over elevated causeways, cut in many places (to oppose us), and
flanked on both sides by ditches, also of unusual dimensions. The
numerous cross-roads are flanked in like manner, having bridges at
the intersections, recently broken. The meadows thus checkered,
are, moreover, in many spots, under water or marshy ; for, it will
be remembered, we were in the midst of the wet season, though with
less rain than usual, and we could not wait for the fall of the
neighboring lakes and the consequent drainage of the wet grounds at
the edge of the city the lowest in the whole basin.

After a close personal
survey of the southern gates, covered by Pillow’s division and
Eiley’s brigade of Twiggs’s with four times our numbers
concentrated in our immediate front I determined, on the 11th, to
avoid that network of obstacle, and to seek, by a sudden inversion
to the southwest and west, less unfavorable approaches.

To economize the lives of
our gallant officers and men, as well as to insure success, it
became indispensable that this resolution should be long masked
from the enemy ; and again, that the new movement when discovered,
should be mistaken for a feint, and the old as indicating our true
and ultimate point of attack.

Accordingly, on the spot,
the 11th, I ordered Quitman’s division from Coyoacan, to join
Pillow by day light before the southern gates, and then that the
two major-generals with their divisions, should by night proceed
(two miles) to join me at TACUBAYA, where I was quartered with
Worth’s division. Twiggs, with Riley’s brigade and Captains
Taylor’s and Steptoe’s field batteries the latter of 12-pounders
was left in front of those gates to maneuver, to threaten, or to
make false attacks, in order to occupy and deceive the enemy.
Twiggs’s other brigade (Smith’s) was left at supporting distance in
the rear at San Angel, till the morning of the 13th, and also to
support our general depot at Mixcoac. The stratagem against the
south was admirably executed throughout the 12th and down to the
afternoon of the 13th, when it was too late for the enemy to
recover from the effects of his delusion.

The first step in the new
movement was to carry Chapultepec, a natural and isolated mound of
great elevation, strongly fortified at its base, on its acclivities
and heights. Besides a numerous garrison, here was the military
college of the republic, with a large number of sub-lieutenants and
other students. Those works were within direct gunshot of the
village of TACUBAYA, and, until carried, we could not approach the
city on the west without making a circuit too wide and too
hazardous.

In the course of the same
night (that of the 11th), heavy batteries within easy ranges were
established. No. 1, on our right, under the command of Captain
Drum, 4th Artillery (relieved the next day for some hours by
Lieutenant Andrews of the 3d), and No. 2, commanded by Lieutenant
Hagner, Ordnance both supported by Quitman’s division. Nos. 3 and
4, on the opposite side, supported by Pillow’s division, were
commanded, the former by Captain Brooks and Lieutenant S. S.
Anderson, 2d Artillery, alternately, and the latter by Lieutenant
Stone, Ordnance. The batteries were traced by Captain Huger,
Ordnance, and Captain Lee, Engineer, and constructed by them with
the able assistance of the young officers of those corps and of the
artillery.

To prepare for an assault,
it was foreseen that the play of the batteries might run into the
second day; but recent captures had not only trebled our siege
pieces, but also our ammunition and we knew that we should greatly
augment both by carrying the place. I was, therefore, in no haste
in ordering an assault before the works were well crippled by our
missiles.

The bombardment and
cannonade, under the direction of Captain Huger, were commenced
early in the morning of the 12th. Before nightfall, which
necessarily stopped our batteries, we had perceived that a good
impression had been made on the castle and its outworks, and that a
large body of the enemy had remained outside, toward the city, from
an early hour, to avoid our fire, but to be at hand on its
cessation in order to reinforce the garrison against an assault.
The same outside force was discovered the next morning after our
batteries had reopened upon the castle, by which we again reduced
its garrison to the minimum needed for the guns.

Pillow and Quitman had
been in position since early in the night of the 11th.
Major-General Worth was now ordered to hold his division in
reserve, near the foundry, to support Pillow and Brigadier-General
Smith, of Twiggs’s division, had just arrived with his brigade from
Piedad (two miles), to support Quitman. Twiggs’s guns before the
southern gates, again reminded us, as the day before, that he, with
Riley’s brigade and Taylor’s and Steptoe’s batteries, was in
activity threatening the southern gates, and thus holding a great
part of the Mexican army on the defensive.

Worth’s division furnished
Pillow’s attack with an assaulting party of some two hundred and
fifty volunteer officers and men, under Captain McKenzie, of the 2d
Artillery and Twiggs’s division supplied a similar one, commanded
by Captain Casey, 2d Infantry, to Quitman. Each of these little
columns was furnished with scaling ladders.