INTO MEXICO WITH
GENERAL SCOTT

The American Trail Blazers

“THE STORY GRIPS AND THE HISTORY STICKS”

These books present in the form of vivid and fascinating fiction, the early and adventurous phases of American history. Each volume deals with the life and adventures of one of the great men who made that history, or with some one great event in which, perhaps, several heroic characters were involved. The stories, though based upon accurate historical fact, are rich in color, full of dramatic action, and appeal to the imagination of the red-blooded man or boy.

Each volume illustrated in color and black and white

12mo. Cloth.

• LOST WITH LIEUTENANT PIKE
• GENERAL CROOK AND THE FIGHTING APACHES
• OPENING THE WEST WITH LEWIS AND CLARK
• WITH CARSON AND FREMONT
• DANIEL BOONE: BACKWOODSMAN
• BUFFALO BILL AND THE OVERLAND TRAIL
• CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH
• DAVID CROCKETT: SCOUT
• ON THE PLAINS WITH CUSTER
• GOLD SEEKERS OF ’49
• WITH SAM HOUSTON IN TEXAS

[“YOU YOUNG RASCAL! WHAT’S THE MEANING OF THIS RACKET?”]

INTO MEXICO WITH
GENERAL SCOTT

WHEN ATTACHED TO THE FOURTH UNITED STATES INFANTRY, DIVISION OF MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM J. WORTH, CORPS OF THE FAMOUS MAJOR-GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT, KNOWN AS OLD FUSS AND FEATHERS, CAMPAIGN OF 1847, LAD JERRY CAMERON MARCHED AND FOUGHT BESIDE SECOND LIEUTENANT U. S. GRANT ALL THE WAY FROM VERA CRUZ TO THE CITY OF MEXICO, WHERE SIX THOUSAND AMERICAN SOLDIERS PLANTED THE STARS AND STRIPES IN THE MIDST OF ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND AMAZED PEOPLE

BY
EDWIN L. SABIN

AUTHOR Of “LOST WITH LIEUTENANT PIKE,” “OPENING THE
WEST WITH LEWIS AND CLARK,” “BUILDING THE
PACIFIC RAILWAY,” ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CHARLES H. STEPHENS
PORTRAIT AND 2 MAPS

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1920

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.

FOREWORD

Although General Winfield Scott was nicknamed by the soldiers “Old Fuss and Feathers,” they intended no disrespect. On the contrary, they loved him, and asked only that he lead them. No general ever lived who was more popular with the men in the ranks. They had every kind of confidence in him; they knew that “Old Fuss and Feathers” would look out for them like a father, and would take them through.

His arrival, all in his showy uniform, upon his splendid horse, along the lines, was the signal for cheers and for the bands to strike up “Hail to the Chief.” At bloody Chapultepec the soldiers crowded around him and even clasped his knees, so fond they were of him. And when he addressed them, tears were in his eyes.

General Scott was close to six feet six inches in height, and massively built. He was the tallest officer in the army. His left arm was partially useless, by reason of two wounds received in the War of 1812, but in full uniform he made a gallant sight indeed. He never omitted any detail of the uniform, because he felt that the proper uniform was required for discipline. He brooked no unnecessary slouchiness among officers and men; he insisted upon regulations and hard drilling, and the troops that he commanded were as fine an army as ever followed the Flag.

While he was strict in discipline, he looked keenly also after the comforts and privileges of his soldiers. He realized that unless the soldier in the ranks is well cared for in garrison and camp he will not do his best in the field, and that victories are won by the men who are physically and mentally fit. He did not succeed in doing away with the old practice of punishment by blows and by “bucking and gagging,” but he tried; and toward the ill and the wounded he was all tenderness.

As a tactician he stands high. His mind worked with accuracy. He drew up every movement for every column, after his engineers had surveyed the field; then he depended upon his officers to follow out the plans. His general orders for the battle of Cerro Gordo are cited to-day as model orders. Each movement took place exactly as he had instructed, and each movement brought the result that he had expected; so that after the battle the orders stood as a complete story of the fight.

His character was noble and generous. He had certain peculiar ways—he spoke of himself as “Scott” and like Sam Houston he used exalted language; he was proud and sensitive, but forgiving and quick to praise. He prized his country above everything else, and preferred peace, with honor, to war. Although he was a soldier, such was his justice and firmness and good sense that he was frequently sent by the Government to make peace without force of arms, along the United States borders. He alone it was who several times averted war with another nation.

General Scott should not be remembered mainly for his battles won. He was the first man of prominence in his time to speak out against drunkenness in the army and in civil life. He prepared the first army regulations and the first infantry tactics. He was the first great commander to enforce martial law in conquered territory, by which the conquered people were protected from abuse. He procured the passage of that bill, in 1838, which awarded to all officers, except general officers like himself, an increase in rations allowance for every five years of service. The money procured from Mexico was employed by him in buying blankets and shoes for his soldiers and in helping the discharged hospital patients; and $118,000 was forwarded to Washington, to establish an Army Asylum for disabled enlisted men. From this fund there resulted the present system of Soldiers’ Homes.

The Mexican War itself was not a popular war, among Americans, many of whom felt that it might have been avoided. Lives and money were expended needlessly. Of course Mexico had been badgering the United States; American citizens had been mistreated and could obtain no justice. But the United States troops really invaded when they crossed into southwestern Texas, for Mexico had her rights there.

The war, though, brought glory to the American soldier. In the beginning the standing army of the United States numbered only about eight thousand officers and men, but it was so finely organized and drilled that regiment for regiment it equalled any army in the world. The militia of the States could not be depended upon to enter a foreign country; they had to be called upon as volunteers. Mexico was prepared with thirty thousand men under arms; her Regulars were well trained, and her regular army was much larger than the army of the United States.

When General Zachary Taylor, “Old Rough and Ready,” advanced with his three thousand five hundred Regulars (almost half the United States army) for the banks of the Rio Grande River, he braved a Mexican army of eight thousand, better equipped than he was, except in men.

A military maxim says that morale is worth three men. All through the war it was skill and spirit and not numbers that counted; quality proved greater than quantity. “Old Zach,” with seventeen hundred Regulars, beat six thousand Mexican troops at Resaca de la Palma. At Buena Vista his four thousand Volunteers and only four hundred and fifty or five hundred Regulars repulsed twenty thousand of the best troops of Mexico. General Scott reached the City of Mexico with six thousand men who, fighting five battles in one day, had defeated thirty thousand. Rarely has the American soldier, both Regular and Volunteer, so shone as in that war with Mexico, when the enemy outnumbered three and four to one, and chose his own positions.

The battles were fought with flint-lock muskets, loaded by means of a paper cartridge, from which the powder and ball were poured into the muzzle of the piece. The American dragoons were better mounted than the Mexican lancers, and charged harder. The artillery was the best to be had and was splendidly served on both sides, but the American guns were the faster in action.

Thoroughly trained officers and men who had confidence in each other and did not know when they were beaten, won the war. Many of the most famous soldiers in American history had their try-out in Mexico, where Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan were young engineers, U. S. Grant was a second lieutenant, and Jefferson Davis led the Mississippi Volunteers. The majority of the regular officers were West Pointers. General Scott declared that but for the military education afforded by the Academy the war probably would have lasted four or five years, with more defeats than victories, at first.

Thus the Mexican War, like the recent World War, proved the value of officers and men trained to the highest notch of efficiency.

In killed and wounded the war with Mexico cost the United States forty-eight hundred men; but the deaths from disease were twelve thousand, for the recruits and the Volunteers were not made to take care of themselves. In addition, nearly ten thousand soldiers were discharged on account of ruined health. All in all the cost of the war, in citizens, footed twenty-five thousand. The expense in money was about $130,000,000.

By the war the United States acquired practically all the country west from northern Texas to the Pacific Ocean, which means California, Utah, Nevada, the western half of Colorado and most of New Mexico and Arizona. This, it must be said, was an amazing result, for in the outset we had claimed only Texas, as far as the Rio Grande River.

E. L. S.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

WORDS OF GENERAL SCOTT

His motto in life: “If idle, be not solitary; if solitary, be not idle.”

At Queenstown Heights, 1812: “Let us, then, die, arms in hand. Our country demands the sacrifice. The example will not be lost. The blood of the slain will make heroes of the living.”

At Chippewa, July 5, 1814: “Let us make a new anniversary for ourselves.”

To the Eleventh Infantry at Chippewa: “The enemy say that Americans are good at long shot, but cannot stand the cold iron. I call upon the Eleventh instantly to give the lie to that slander. Charge!”

From an inscription in a Peace Album, 1844: “If war be the natural state of savage tribes, peace is the first want of every civilized community.”

At Vera Cruz, March, 1847, when warned not to expose himself: “Oh, generals, nowadays, can be made out of anybody; but men cannot be had.”

At Chapultepec, 1847: “Fellow soldiers! You have this day been baptized in blood and fire, and you have come out steel!”

To the Virginia commissioners, 1861: “I have served my country under the flag of the Union for more than fifty years, and, so long as God permits me to live, I will defend that flag with my sword, even if my own native State assails it.”

THE WAR WITH MEXICO (1846–1847)

The Causes

March 2, 1836, by people’s convention the Mexican province of Texas declares its independence and its intention to become a republic.

April 21, 1836, by the decisive battle of San Jacinto, Texas wins its war for independence, in which it has been assisted by many volunteers from the United States.

May 14, 1836, Santa Anna, the Mexican President and general who had been captured after the battle, signs a treaty acknowledging the Texas Republic, extending to the Rio Grande River.

September, 1836, in its first election Texas favors annexation to the United States.

December, 1836, the Texas Congress declares that the southwestern and western boundaries of the republic are the Rio Grande River, from its mouth to its source.

The government of Mexico refuses to recognize the independence of Texas, and claims that as a province its boundary extends only to the Nueces River, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico, about 120 miles from the mouth of the Rio Grande.

This spring and summer petitions have been circulated through the United States in favor of recognizing the Republic of Texas. Congress has debated upon that and upon annexation. The South especially desires the annexation, in order to add Texas to the number of slave-holding States.

February, 1837, President Andrew Jackson, by message to Congress, relates that Mexico has not observed a treaty of friendship signed in 1831, and has committed many outrages upon the Flag and the citizens of the United States; has refused to make payments for damages and deserves “immediate war” but should be given another chance.

March, 1837, the United States recognizes the independence of the Texas Republic.

Mexico has resented the support granted to Texas by the United States and by American citizens; she insists that Texas is still a part of her territory; and from this time onward there is constant friction between her on the one side and Texas and the United States on the other.

In August, 1837, the Texas minister at Washington presents a proposition from the new republic for annexation to the United States. This being declined by President Martin Van Buren in order to avoid war with Mexico, Texas decides to wait.

Mexico continues to evade treaties by which she should pay claims against her by the United States for damages. In December, 1842, President John Tyler informs Congress that the rightful claims of United States citizens have been summed at $2,026,079, with many not yet included.

Several Southern States consider resolutions favoring the annexation of Texas. The sympathies of both North and South are with Texas against Mexico.

In August, and again in November, 1843, Mexico notifies the United States that the annexation of Texas, which is still looked upon as only a rebellious province, will be regarded as an act of war.

October, 1843, the United States Secretary of State invites Texas to present proposals for annexation.

In December, 1843, President Tyler recommends to Congress that the United States should assist Texas by force of arms.

April 12, 1844, John C. Calhoun, the Secretary of State, concludes a treaty with Texas, providing for annexation. There is fear that Great Britain is about to gain control of Texas by arbitrating between it and Mexico. The treaty is voted down by the Senate on the ground that it would mean war with Mexico, would bring on a boundary dispute, and that to make a new State out of foreign territory was unconstitutional.

Throughout 1844 the annexation of Texas is a burning question, debated in Congress and by the public. In the presidential election this fall the annexation is supported by the Democratic party and opposed by the Whig party. The Democrats had nominated James K. Polk for President, George M. Dallas for Vice-President; the Democrats’ campaign banners read: “Polk, Dallas and Texas!” Polk and Dallas are elected.

March 1, 1845, a joint resolution of Congress inviting Texas into the Union as a State is signed by President Tyler just before he gives way to President-elect Polk. The boundaries of Texas are not named.

March 6 General Almonte, Mexican minister to the United States, denounces the resolution as an act of injustice to a friendly nation and prepares to leave Washington.

March 21 orders are issued by President Polk to General Zachary Taylor to make ready for marching the troops at Fort Jesup, western Louisiana, into Texas.

This same month the Texas Secretary of State has submitted to Mexico a treaty of peace by which Mexico shall recognize the republic of Texas, if Texas shall not unite with any other power.

In May, this 1845, Mexico signs the treaty with Texas.

May 28 the President of the United States directs General Taylor to prepare his command for a prompt defence of Texas.

June 4 President Anson Jones, of the Texas Republic, proclaims that by the treaty with Mexico hostilities between the two countries have ended. But—

June 15 President Polk, through the Secretary of War, directs General Taylor to move his troops at once, as a “corps of observation,” into Texas and establish headquarters at a point convenient for a further advance to the Rio Grande River. A strong squadron of the navy also is ordered to the Mexican coast. And—

June 21 the Texas Congress unanimously rejects the treaty with Mexico, and on June 23 unanimously accepts annexation to the United States.

July 4, this 1845, in public convention the people of Texas draw up an annexation ordinance and a State constitution.

On July 7 Texas asks the United States to protect her ports and to send an army for her defence.

August 3 General Zachary Taylor lands an army of 1500 men at the mouth of the Nueces River, and presently makes his encampment at Corpus Christi, on the farther shore.

In October the Mexican Government, under President Herrera, agrees to receive a commissioner sent by the United States to discuss the dispute over Texas, and President Polk withdraws the ships that have been stationed at Vera Cruz.

December 6, 1845, John Slidell, the envoy from the United States, arrives in the City of Mexico to adjust the matter of Texas and also the claims held by American citizens against Mexico.

The Mexican Republic is in the throes of another revolution. It declines to include the claims in the proposed discussion; December 30 President Herrera is ousted and Don Maria Paredes, who favors war rather than the loss of Texas, becomes head of the republic. Minister Slidell finally has to return home, in March, 1846. But long before this President Polk had decided to seize the disputed Texas boundary strip.

General Taylor’s Campaign

January 13, 1846, General Taylor is directed by the President to advance and occupy the left or Texas bank of the Rio Grande River; he has been reinforced by recruits, and is authorized to apply to the Southern States for volunteer troops.

March 8 the first detachment is started forward to cross the disputed strip between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. Other detachments follow. Part way General Taylor is officially warned by a Mexican officer that a farther advance will be deemed a hostile act. He proceeds, with his 4000 Regulars (half the army of the United States), and establishes a base of supplies at Point Isabel, on the Gulf shore, about thirty miles this side of the Rio Grande River.

March 28 the American army of now 3500 men, called the Army of Occupation, encamps a short distance above the mouth of the Rio Grande River, opposite the Mexican town of Matamoros and 119 miles from the mouth of the Nueces.

The Mexican forces at Matamoros immediately commence the erection of new batteries and the American force begins a fort.

April 10 Colonel Truman Cross, assistant quartermaster general in the American army, is murdered by Mexican bandits.

April 12 General Ampudia, of the Mexican forces at Matamoros, serves notice upon General Taylor either to withdraw within twenty-four hours and return to the Nueces out of the disputed territory, or else accept war. General Taylor replies that his orders are for him to remain here until the boundary dispute is settled. He announced a blockade of the Rio Grande River.

April 19 Second Lieutenant Theodoric Henry Porter, Fourth Infantry, is killed in action with Mexican guerillas.

April 25, this 1846, occurs the first battle of the war, when at La Rosia a squadron of sixty-three Second Dragoons under Captain Seth B. Thornton, reconnoitering up the Rio Grande River, is surrounded by 500 Mexican regular cavalry. Second Lieutenant George T. Mason and eight enlisted men are killed, two men wounded, Captain Thornton, two other officers and forty-six men are captured.

By this victory the Mexicans are much elated; the flame of war is lighted in the United States.

May 11 President Polk announces a state of war, and a bloody invasion of American soil by the Mexican forces that had crossed the Rio Grande.

May 13 Congress passes a bill authorizing men and money with which to carry on the war, and declaring that the war has been begun by Mexico. There were objections to the bill on the ground that the President had ordered troops into the disputed territory without having consulted Congress, and that war might have been avoided. But all parties agree that now they must support the Flag.

General Taylor calls on the governors of Louisiana and Texas for 5000 volunteers.

April 28 Captain Samuel Walker and some seventy Texas Rangers and Volunteers are attacked and beaten by 1500 Mexican soldiers near Point Isabel, the American base of supplies. Captain Walker and six men make their way to General Taylor with report that his line of communication has been cut.

May 1, having almost completed the fort opposite Matamoros above the mouth of the Rio Grande, General Taylor leaves a garrison of 1000 men and marches in haste to rescue his supplies at Point Isabel. The Mexican troops are appearing in great numbers, and matters look serious for the little American army.

May 3 the Mexican forces at Matamoros open fire upon the fort, thinking that General Taylor has retreated.

May 8 General Taylor, hurrying back to the relief of the fort, with his 2300 men defeats 6500 Mexicans under General Arista in the artillery battle of Palo Alto or Tall Timber, fought amidst the thickets and prairie grasses about sixteen miles from Point Isabel. American loss, four killed, forty wounded; Mexican loss, more than 100 in killed alone.

The next day, May 9, “Old Rough and Ready” again defeats General Arista in the battle of Resaca de la Palma, or Palm Draw (Ravine), a short distance from Palo Alto. Having withstood a fierce bombardment of seven days the fort, soon named Fort Brown, of present Brownsville, Texas, is safe. The Mexican forces all flee wildly across the Rio Grande River.

May 18 General Taylor throws his army across the river by help of one barge, and occupies Matamoros. Here he awaits supplies and troops.

August 20 he begins his advance into Mexico for the capture of the city of Monterey, 150 miles from the Rio Grande River and 800 miles from the City of Mexico.

Meanwhile General Paredes, president of Mexico, has been deposed by another revolution, and General Santa Anna has been called back.

September 21–22–23 General Taylor with his 6600 men assaults the fortified city Monterey, in the Sierra Madre Mountains of northeastern Mexico, and defended by 10,000 Mexican soldiers under General Ampudia.

September 24 the city is surrendered. American loss, 120 officers and men killed, 368 wounded; Mexican loss, more than 1000.

General Taylor proceeds to occupy northeastern Mexico. In November he receives orders to detach 4000 men, half of whom shall be Regulars, for the reinforcement of General Scott’s expedition against Vera Cruz.

February 22, 1847, with 4300 Volunteers and 450 Regulars he encounters the full army of General Santa Anna, 20,000 men, at the narrow mountain pass of Buena Vista, near Saltillo seventy-five miles southwest of Monterey.

The American army, holding the pass, awaits the attack. In the terrible battle begun in the afternoon of February 22 and waged all day February 23, the Mexican troops are repulsed; and by the morning of February 24 they have retreated from the field. American loss, 267 killed, 456 wounded, 23 missing; Mexican loss, 2000.

The battle of Buena Vista leaves the American forces in possession of northeastern Mexico. General Santa Anna now hastens to confront General Scott and save the City of Mexico. General Taylor returns to Louisiana, and there is no further need for his services in the field.

General Scott’s Campaign

March 9, 1847, General Winfield Scott, with the assistance of the naval squadron under Commodore Conner, lands his Army of Invasion, 12,000 men transferred in sixty-seven surf-boats, upon the beach three miles below the fortified city of Vera Cruz, without loss or accident.

In spite of shot and shell and terrific wind storms the army advances its trenches and guns to within 800 yards of the city walls. On March 22 the bombardment of Vera Cruz is begun.

March 27 the surrender of the city and of the great island fort San Juan de Ulloa is accepted. The siege has been so scientifically conducted that 5000 military prisoners and 400 cannon are taken with the loss to the American forces of only sixty-four officers and men killed and wounded.

Having been detained at Vera Cruz by lack of wagons and teams, on April 8 General Scott starts his first detachment for Mexico City, 280 miles by road westward.

The March to the City of Mexico, 279 Miles

April 12, arrangements being completed, he hastens to the front himself and is received with cheers for “Old Fuss and Feathers” all along the way.

April 18 storms and captures the heights of Cerro Gordo, sixty miles inland, where his 8000 men are opposed by 12,000 under Santa Anna. Three thousand prisoners, among them five generals, are taken; 5000 stands of arms and forty-three pieces of artillery. American loss, 431, thirty-three being officers; Mexican casualties, over 1000.

April 19 he occupies the town of Jalapa, fifteen miles onward. April 22 the castle of Perote, some fifty miles farther, is captured without a struggle. On May 15 the advance division of 4300 men enters the city of Puebla, 185 miles from Vera Cruz. In two months General Scott has taken 10,000 prisoners of war, 700 cannon, 10,000 stands of small-arms, 30,000 shells and solid shot.

The term of enlistment of 4000 twelve-months Volunteers being almost expired, he waits in Puebla for reinforcements.

August 7 he resumes the march for the Mexican capital, ninety-five miles. His force numbers 10,800, and he needs must cut loose from communications with Vera Cruz, his base.

August 9, from Rio Frio Pass, elevation 10,000 feet, on the summit of the main mountain range of Mexico, the army gazes down into the Valley of Mexico, with the city of Mexico visible, thirty-five miles distant.

By a new and difficult route he avoids the defences of the main road to the city, and on August 18 has approached to within nine miles and striking distance of the outer circle of batteries.

August 19–20, by day and night attack, 3500 Americans carry the strong entrenchments of Contreras defended by 7000 Mexicans. American loss, in killed and wounded, 60; Mexican casualties, 700 killed, 1000 wounded.

The same day, August 20, 1847, the outpost of San Antonio is taken, the high citadel of Churubusco stormed. There are five separate actions, all victorious, and the dragoons charge four miles to the very gates of the city. Thirty-two thousand men have been defeated by 8000. The total Mexican loss is 4000 killed and wounded, 3000 prisoners, including eight generals; the American loss is 1052, of whom seventy-six are officers.

August 21 President and General Santa Anna proposes an armistice.

September 7 the armistice is broken and General Scott resumes his advance upon the city.

September 8 the General Worth division, reinforced to 3000 men, in a bloody battle captures the outpost Molino del Rey or King’s Mill, and the Casa-Mata supporting it—the two being defended by 14,000 Mexicans. American loss, killed, wounded and missing is 789, including fifty-eight officers. The Mexican loss is in the thousands.

September 12, by a feint the Scott army of 7000 able-bodied men is concentrated before the Castle of Chapultepec, situated upon a high hill fortified from base to summit and crowned by the Military College of Mexico, with its garrison of cadets and experienced officers.

September 13 Chapultepec is stormed and seized; the road to the city is opened, the suburbs are occupied and the General Quitman division has forced the Belen gateway into the city itself. Twenty thousand Mexicans have been routed.

At daybreak of September 14 the city council of Mexico informs General Scott that the Mexican Government and army have fled. At seven o’clock the Stars and Stripes are raised over the National Palace and the American army of 6000 proceeds to enter the grand plaza.

This fall of 1847 there is still some fighting in the country along the National Road between Vera Cruz and the City of Mexico, and the fleeing Santa Anna attacks Puebla in vain.

February 2, 1848, a treaty of peace is signed at Guadaloupe Hidalgo by the United States commissioner and the Mexican commissioners.

May 30, 1848, the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo is ratified by both parties.

June 19, 1848, peace is formally declared by President Polk, who on July 4 signs the treaty.

Other Campaigns

At the end of June, 1846, the Army of the West, composed of 2500 Volunteers and 200 First Dragoons, under General Stephen W. Kearny, leaves Fort Leavenworth on the Missouri River to march 1000 miles and seize New Mexico.

August 18 General Kearny enters the capital, Santa Fé, and takes possession of New Mexico.

This same month the Army of the Center, 2500 Volunteers and 500 Regulars under General John E. Wool, assembles at San Antonio of Texas for a march westward to seize Chihuahua, northwestern Mexico, distant 400 miles.

General Wool is ordered to join General Scott; but in December, 1846, Colonel A. W. Doniphan, of the Missouri Volunteers of the Kearny army, leaves Santa Fé with 800 men to march to Chihuahua, 550 miles, and reinforce him.

December 25 he defeats General Ponce de Leon, commanding 500 Mexican regular lancers and 800 Chihuahua volunteers, in the battle of Brazitos, southern New Mexico.

February 28, 1848, in the battle of Sacramento, he defeats General Heredia and 4000 men, entrenched on the road to Chihuahua. American loss, one killed, eleven wounded; Mexican loss, 320 killed, over 400 wounded.

On March 1 the American advance enters the city of Chihuahua.

Meanwhile, during all these events, on July 7, 1846, Commodore John D. Sloat, of the navy’s Pacific Squadron, has hoisted the Flag over Monterey, the capital of Upper California. The explorer, John C. Fremont, already has supported an uprising of Americans in the north, and the flag is raised at San Francisco and Sacramento.

On September 25 (1846) General Kearny starts from Santa Fé with 400 First Dragoons to occupy California, 1100 miles westward. On the way he learns that California has been taken. He proceeds with only 100 Dragoons. A battalion of 500 Mormons enlisted at Fort Leavenworth is following.

December 12 he arrives at San Diego, California, and forthwith military rule is established in California.

[WINFIELD SCOTT]

General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States at the Period of his Commanding in Mexico. From the Picture by Chappel

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL [WINFIELD SCOTT]

“Old Fuss and Feathers”

Born on the family farm, fourteen miles from Petersburg, Virginia, June 13, 1786.

His father, William Scott, of Scotch blood, a captain in the Revolution and a successful farmer, dies when Winfield is only six years old. Until he is seventeen the boy is brought up by his mother, Ann Mason, for whose brother, Winfield Mason, he is named. All the Scott family connections were prominent and well-to-do.

Winfield is given a good education. When he is twelve he enters the boarding-school of James Hargrave, a worthy Quaker, who said to him after the War of 1812: “Friend Winfield, I always told thee not to fight; but as thou wouldst fight, I am glad that thou weren’t beaten.” When he is seventeen he enters the school, of high-school grade, conducted in Richmond, Virginia, by James Ogilvie, a talented Scotchman. Here he studied Latin and Greek, rhetoric, Scotch metaphysics, logic, mathematics and political economy.

In 1805, when he is approaching nineteen, he enters William and Mary College, of Virginia. Here he studies chemistry, natural and experimental philosophy, and law, expecting to become a lawyer.

This same year he leaves college and becomes a law student in the office of David Robinson, in Petersburg. He has two companion students: Thomas Ruffin and John F. May. The three lads all rose high. Thomas Ruffin became chief justice of North Carolina; John May became leader of the bar in southern Virginia; Winfield Scott became head of the United States Army.

In 1806 he is admitted to the bar and rides his first circuit in Virginia. At Richmond, in 1807, he hears the arguments by the greatest legal orators of the day in the trial of ex-Vice-President Aaron Burr for high treason.

While the trial is in progress the British frigate Leopard enforces the right of search upon the United States frigate Chesapeake, off the capes of Virginia. On July 2 (1807) President Thomas Jefferson forbids the use of the United States harbors and rivers by the vessels of Great Britain, and volunteer guards are called for to patrol the shores.

Young Lawyer Scott, now twenty-one years of age, becomes, as he says, “a soldier in a night.” Between sunset and sunrise he travels by horse twenty-five miles, from Richmond to Petersburg, and having borrowed the uniform of a tall absent trooper and bought the horse he joins the first parade of the Petersburg volunteer cavalry.

While lance corporal in charge of a picket guard on the shore of Lynnhaven Bay he captures a boat crew of six sailors under two midshipmen, coming in from Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy’s British squadron for water. The Government orders him to release the prisoners, and not to do such a trick again, which might bring on war.

England having made amends for the attack upon the Chesapeake the volunteers are disbanded. Corporal Scott resumes his practice of law. On Christmas Eve, 1807, he arrives in Charleston, South Carolina, to practice there. But he hears that war with Great Britain is again likely. Thereupon he hastens to Washington and applies for a commission in the increased regular army. He is promised a captaincy.

The Peace Party in the United States gains the upper hand over the War Party. In March, 1808, Lawyer Scott returns to Petersburg without his commission.

May 3, 1808, he receives his commission at last, and is appointed to a captaincy in the regiment of light or flying artillery then being raised. He recruits his company from Petersburg and Richmond youths and is ordered to New Orleans. For the next fifty-three years he is a soldier, and he outlives every other officer of 1808.

After a voyage of two months in a sailing vessel he arrives at New Orleans April 1, 1809.

The trouble with Great Britain having quieted down this summer, he despairs of seeing active service and attempts to resign. While in New Orleans he has said that he believed General James Wilkinson, commanding that department, to have been a partner of Aaron Burr in the conspiracy against the United States government. Now when he arrives in Virginia he hears that he is accused of having left the army through fear of punishment for his words. So he immediately turns about and goes back to face the charges. He rejoins the army at Washington, near Natchez, Mississippi, in November.

In 1810 he is court-martialed under the Articles of War and found guilty of “conduct unbecoming a gentleman,” in having spoken disrespectfully of his commanding officer. He is sentenced to twelve months’ suspension from duties, with the recommendation that nine of the months be remitted.

Under this sentence he returns to Petersburg. He spends every evening, when at home, reading English literature with his friend Benjamin Watkins Leigh, in whose family he is staying. His motto is: “If idle, be not solitary; if solitary, be not idle.” During this period he again despairs of seeing active service; but he writes: “Should war come at last, who knows but that I may yet write my history with my sword?”

In the fall of 1811 he rejoins the army at department headquarters at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, having made the journey by land over a new road through the country of the Creeks and Choctaws.

This winter of 1811–1812 he is appointed superior judge-advocate for the trial of a prominent colonel. He also serves upon the staff of Brigadier General Wade Hampton, commander of the Southern Department, and is much in New Orleans.

The inactive life of a soldier in peace palls upon him. In February, 1812, the news arrives that Congress has authorized an increase of the regular army by 25,000 men. This looks like war. May 20, as a member of General Hampton’s staff, he embarks with the general for Washington. Upon entering Chesapeake Bay their ship passes a British frigate standing on and off; in less than an hour they pass a pilot boat bringing to the frigate the message that the United States has declared for war with Great Britain. Thus by a narrow margin they have escaped capture by the frigate.

July 6, 1812, is appointed lieutenant-colonel, Second Artillery, at the age of twenty-six.

Is ordered with his regiment to the Canadian border; reports at Buffalo October 4, 1812.

On October 13 leads 450 regulars and militia in a final attack upon Queenstown Heights, opposite Lewiston, New York. The Heights are held by a greatly superior force of British regulars and militia and 500 Indians. The United States militia left on the American side of the Niagara River refused to cross and support, and the attack failed for lack of reinforcements. There were no boats for retreat; two flags of truce had been unheeded; with his own hand young Lieutenant-Colonel Scott, tall and powerful and wearing a showy uniform (“I will die in my robes,” he said), bears the third flag forward into the faces of the raging Indians to save his men. He is rescued with difficulty by British officers. After the surrender he is held prisoner with the other Regulars until paroled on November 20 and sent to Boston.

In January, 1813, is released from parole. Is ordered to Philadelphia to command a double battalion of twenty-two companies.

March 12, 1813, promoted to colonel, Second Artillery.

March 18, appointed adjutant general, rank of colonel.

May, 1813, appointed chief of staff to Major-General Henry Dearborn on the Niagara frontier, New York, and reorganizes the staff departments of the Army.

May 27 commands the advance again in the attack on Fort George, Canada. Every fifth man is killed or wounded. By the explosion of a powder magazine his collar-bone is broken and he is badly bruised; but he is the first to enter the fort and he himself hauls down the colors.

July 18 he resigns his adjutant generalcy in order to be with his regiment as colonel. Leads in several successful skirmishes.

March 9, 1814, aged twenty-eight, is appointed brigadier-general. He has become noted as a student of war—a skilful tactician and a fine disciplinarian. At the Buffalo headquarters he is set at work instructing the officers. The United States has no military text-book, but he has read the French system of military training and employs that.

July 3, 1814, leads with his brigade to the attack upon Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo. Leaps from the first boat into water over his head, and laden with sword, epaulets, cloak and high boots swims for his life under a hot fire, until he can be hauled in again. The fort is captured.

July 4, again leading his brigade he drives the enemy back sixteen miles.

July 5 fights and wins the decisive battle of Chippewa against a much superior force. The war on the land had been going badly for the United States. Now the victory of Chippewa sets bonfires to blazing and bells to ringing throughout all the Republic; the American army had proved itself with the bayonet and General Scott is hailed as the National hero.

July 25 he distinguishes himself again in the night battle of Niagara or Lundy’s Lane. He is twice dismounted, and is bruised by a spent cannon ball. Receives an ounce musket ball through the left shoulder and is insensible for a time. Is borne from the field in an ambulance.

July 25 brevetted major-general for gallantry at Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane.

The wound in his shoulder refuses to heal properly. He is invalided and is unable to take part in further active service for the rest of the war. Travels upon a mattress in a carriage. Stops at Princeton College on Commencement Day, is given an ovation and the degree of Master of Arts. Congress votes him a special gold medal; the States of Virginia and New York vote him each a sword. His wound slowly heals under treatment by noted surgeons, but leaves him with a left arm partially paralyzed.

He is placed in charge of operations in defence of Baltimore and is made president of the National Board of Tactics, sitting in Washington.

After the close of the war he presides, May, 1815, upon the board convened to reduce the army.

Declines to accept the office of Secretary of War.

July, 1815, sails for Europe, where he witnesses the reviews of 600,000 soldiers, following the defeat of Napoleon by the allied troops. He meets distinguished commanders and statesmen of the Old World, and is awarded many honors.

Returning from Europe in 1816 he marries Miss Maria Mayo, of Richmond, Virginia. Seven children—five girls and two boys—were born. Of these, four died early in life.

As brigadier-general, in 1818, he begins the preparation of a system of General Regulations or Military Institutes for the United States Army. This was approved of by the War Department and Congress.

September 22, 1824, he writes and has printed “A Scheme for Restricting the Use of Ardent Spirits in the United States.” This essay was the basis of the temperance movement in the country.

In 1824 is president of the Board of Infantry Tactics, meeting at West Point.

In 1826 is president of a board of militia officers and regular officers, convened at Washington to devise an organization and system of tactics for the militia of the United States.

In 1828, while inspecting the Indian frontier of Arkansas and Louisiana, is approved of by the cabinet for appointment to commander-in-chief of the army, but loses to General Alexander Macomb.

In the summer of 1832 is ordered from his Eastern Department to proceed in person against the Sacs and Foxes under Chief Blackhawk, in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. The cholera is raging in the Great Lakes region. Before leaving New York he takes instructions from a doctor, and when his force is attacked by the disease on the boats he himself applies the remedies and prevents a panic.

Arrives at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, after Blackhawk’s surrender. Descends the Mississippi to Fort Armstrong, on Rock Island, and holds grand council with the Sacs, Foxes, Sioux, Menominees and Winnebagos. Is congratulated by the Secretary of War for his services and his high moral courage in combating the cholera.

On his way home to West Point he narrowly escapes a severe attack of the cholera himself.

November, 1832, is sent to South Carolina, which has threatened to secede unless the tariff laws of the Government are modified. General Scott takes command in Charleston, and by his firmness and good sense among his fellow Southerners averts civil war.

In 1834–1835 translates and revises the new French infantry tactics for use by the United States. These, known as “Scott’s Infantry Tactics,” were the first complete tactics adopted by the army and were used up to 1863.

January 20, 1836, is directed by the President to proceed against the Seminole Indians of Florida. Asked at four in the afternoon when he could start, he says: “This night.” Through failure of supplies and by reason of the short-time enlistment of the majority of the troops, the campaign is unsuccessful. For this, and for a similar delay in a march against the Creeks, he is court-martialed by order of President Jackson. The court approves of his campaign plans and acquits him. Returning to his headquarters in New York he is tendered a public dinner April, 1837. This he declines.

January, 1838, is ordered to the Niagara frontier again, where misguided Americans and Canadians are attempting a movement to annex Canada to the United States. In dead of winter he travels back and forth along the American border, quieting the people by his words and the force of his presence.

In the spring of this 1838 he is sent into Alabama to remove the Cherokee Indians to new lands given them by treaty, west of the Mississippi River. The Indians had refused to go, but by using reason and gentleness he avoids bloodshed and persuades them to move of their own accord.

In February, 1839, is sent by the President as special agent to northern Maine, where the State of Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick are in arms against each other over a dispute upon the boundary between. Again by his rare good judgment and by his influence with the authorities upon either side, he averts what might easily have resulted in another war.

In 1840 he is proposed as the Whig candidate for President, but he declines in favor of General William Henry Harrison, who is elected.

June 25, 1841, appointed full major-general.

July 5, 1841, appointed chief of the Army, a position that he occupies for twenty years.

From 1841 to 1846 is busied with the duties of his office. He aims to enforce justice and discipline among the rank and file. August, 1842, he issues general orders forbidding the practice of officers striking enlisted men and cursing them, and directs that in cases of offense the regulations of the service be employed.

In the summer and fall of 1846, believing that the campaign by General Zachary Taylor to conquer Mexico by invasion from the Rio Grande River border cannot succeed, he advises an advance upon the City of Mexico from Vera Cruz on the Gulf. He asks permission to lead the army in person.

November 23, 1846, he is directed by the Secretary of War to conduct the new campaign.

Leaves Washington for New Orleans November 25.

In his absence a bill is introduced in Congress to create the rank of lieutenant-general, and thus place over him a superior officer. This movement for politics was defeated, but General Scott felt that he had “an enemy in his rear.”

Under these conditions he goes to meet General Taylor at the Rio Grande in January, 1847, and detaches a portion of the forces for the Vera Cruz campaign. This makes an enemy of General Taylor.

February 19, 1847, he issues general orders declaring martial law in Mexico, for the purpose of restraining the Volunteers from abusing the people of the conquered territory. This wins over the natives and restores discipline.

March 9 to September 14, 1847, he conducts the campaign by which the City of Mexico, is captured.

September 14, 1847, to February 18, 1848, he remains in charge of the military government in Mexico. By his enforcement of martial law that respects the persons and property of the Mexican people he gains the leaders’ confidence. He is proposed for dictator of the Mexican Republic, with a view to annexation to the United States, but declines.

February 18, 1848, he receives orders from President Polk to turn over his command to Major-General William O. Butler, and report for trial by a court of inquiry, on charges that he had unjustly disciplined Generals Quitman and Pillow, and Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan. He is acquitted.

March 9, by joint resolution of Congress, he is voted the National thanks for himself and his officers and men, and the testimony of a specially struck gold medal in appreciation of his “valor, skill and judicious conduct.”

May 20, 1848, he arrives home to his family at Elizabeth, near Philadelphia.

Is assigned to command of the Eastern Department of the Army, with headquarters in New York.

In 1850, after the death of President Taylor, he resumes his post in Washington as commander-in-chief of the Army.

In 1850 he is awarded the honorary degree of LL.D. by Columbia College (University).

June, 1852, he is nominated by the Whig party for President. He is opposed by President Fillmore and Secretary of State Daniel Webster, who had been candidates. Is badly defeated in the election by Franklin Pierce of the Democratic party.

February, 1855, he is brevetted lieutenant-general from date of March 29, 1847—the surrender of Vera Cruz. This rank had not been in use since the death of Lieutenant-General George Washington, and was now revived by special act of Congress.

In November, 1859, he sails in the steamer Star of the West for Puget Sound, by way of Panama, to adjust difficulties arising between Great Britain and the United States over the possession of San Juan Island of the international boundary.

In 1860 he counsels the Government to garrison the forts and arsenals on the Southern seaboard with loyal troops, and thus probably prevent the threatened secession of the Southern States. His advice is disregarded.

In March, 1861, submits other plans by which he still hopes that the rebellion may be averted.

Is offered high command by his native State, Virginia, and declines to forsake the Flag.

October 31, 1861, being seventy-five years of age and long a cripple, almost unable to walk from wounds and illness, he retires from the army. President Lincoln and the cabinet call upon him together and bid him farewell. There are tears in the old hero’s eyes.

November, 1861, he sails for a visit in Europe.

December, 1861, is recommended by President Lincoln in first annual message to Congress for further honors, if possible.

June 10, 1862, his wife dies, leaving him with three daughters, now grown.

He removes from New York to West Point, and on June 5, 1864, after a year’s work he completes his autobiography in two volumes.

He dies at West Point, May 29, 1866, aged eighty, lacking two weeks.

INTO MEXICO WITH
GENERAL SCOTT

I
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

“The North Americans! They are getting ready to attack the city!”

“Who says so? Where are they?”

“At Point Anton Lizardo, only sixteen miles down the coast. A great fleet of ships has arrived there, from North America. The sails looked like a cloud coming over the ocean. The harbor is crowded with masts and flags. Yes, they are getting ready.”

That was the word which spread through old Vera Cruz on the eastern coast of Mexico, at the close of the first week of March, 1847.

“Well, the castle will sink them all with cannon balls. It will be another victory. We shall see a fine sight, like on a fiesta (holiday). Viva!”

“Bien! Viva, viva!” Or: “Good! Hurrah, hurrah!”

There was excitement, but the news travelled much faster than the Americans, for they seemed to be still staying at desolate Anton Lizardo.

Now, March 9, up here at the city of Vera Cruz, was as fine a day as anybody might wish for. The sun had risen bright and clear above the Gulf of Mexico, and one could see land and ocean for miles and miles.

From the sand dunes along the beach about three miles southeast of Vera Cruz, where Jerry Cameron was helping old Manuel and young Manuel cut brush for fagots, the view was pleasant indeed. To the northward, up the sandy coast, the fine city of Vera Cruz—the City of the True Cross—surrounded by its fortified wall two miles in length, fairly shone in the sunlight. Its white-plastered buildings and the gilded domes of its many churches were a-glitter. In the far distance, inland behind the city, the mountain ranges up-stood, more than ten thousand feet high, with Orizaba Peak glimmering snowy, and the square top of Perote Peak (one hundred miles west) deeply blue, in shape of a chest or strong-box. Outside the sea-wall in front of the city there was the sparkling bay, dotted with the sails of fishing boats, and broken by shoals.

Upon a rocky island about a third of a mile out from the city there loomed the darkly frowning Castle of San Juan de Ulloa—the fort which guarded the channel into the harbor. And almost directly opposite the place where Jerry worked as a woodcutter there basked the island of Sacrificios or Sacrifices, about two miles out, with the flags of the foreign men-of-war anchored near it streaming in the breeze. While farther out, beyond Sacrificios, appeared Green Island, where the ships of the United States had been cruising back and forth, blockading Vera Cruz itself.

The United States and Mexico were at war. They had been at war for well-nigh a year, but the fighting was being done in the north, where the Americans had tried to invade by crossing the Rio Grande River and had been thrashed. At least, those were the reports. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna himself, Mexico’s famous leader, had returned from exile in Cuba to command the army. He had been landed at Vera Cruz without the Americans objecting. The Americans had foolishly thought that he would advise peace—or else they were afraid to stop him. At any rate, he had gone on to Mexico City, had gathered an army, and not a week ago word had arrived that he had completely routed the army of the American general named Taylor, in the battle of Buena Vista, north Mexico!

It was said that the crack Eleventh Infantry of the Mexican regular army had alone defeated the North Americans. The Eleventh had marched to war last summer, carrying their coats and shirts and pantaloons slung on the ends of their muskets, because the weather was hot. The soldiers had not looked much like fighters, to Jerry; many of the muskets were without locks, and most of the soldiers were barefoot.

But the news of the great victory filled all Vera Cruz with rejoicing. The guns of the forts were fired, the church bells were rung, and the people cheered in the streets, and from the sea-wall shook their fists at the American fleet in the offing.

It had been unpleasant news to Jerry, he being an American boy whose father had died in Vera Cruz, from the yellow fever, and had left him alone. He hated to believe that Mexico actually was whipping the United States. But he and the few other Americans stranded here did not dare to say anything.

Now that the North Americans (as they were called) had been driven out, in the north, very likely they would try to invade Mexico at another point. Yes, no doubt they might be foolish enough to try Vera Cruz, hoping to march even to the City of Mexico from this direction! Of course, the notion was absurd, for the City of Mexico was two hundred and eighty miles by road, and on the other side of the mountains. So the Vera Cruzans laughed and bragged.

“No hay cuidado, no hay cuidado! Somos muy valientes. Es una ciudad siempre heroica, esta Vera Cruz de nosotros,” they said. Or, in other words; “No fear, no fear! We are very brave. It is a city always heroic, this Vera Cruz of ours.”

“That is right,” had agreed old Manuel and young Manuel, with whom Jerry lived and worked. “If those North Americans wish to come, let them try. We have two hundred great guns on the walls, and three hundred in the castle—some of them the largest in the world. Yes, and five thousand soldiers, and the brave General Morales to lead us.”

“The Vera Cruz walls are ten feet thick, and those of the castle are fifteen feet thick,” old Manuel added. “Cannon balls stick fast; that is all.”

“The guns will kill at two miles,” young Manuel added. “Never once have those North American ships dared to come within reach. The commander at the castle laughs. He says to the American commander: ‘Bring on your fleet. You may fire all your shot at us and we will not take the trouble to reply. We only despise you.’”

“Así es—that is so,” grunted old Manual. “The castle has stood there for two hundred and fifty years. Please God, it will stand there two hundred and fifty more years, for all that those Yahnkee savages can do.”

It was true that the American fighting ships had stayed far out from shore. They cruised back and forth, preventing supplies from being brought in. That was a blockade, but Vera Cruz did not care. It had plenty to eat. It went about its business: the fishing boats of the native Indians caught vast quantities of fish in the harbor, the ranches raised cattle and vegetables and fruits, and peons or laborers like the two Manuels cut fagots and carried loads of it on their burros into town, to sell as cooking fuel.

Thus it happened that Jerry, who worked hard with the two Manuels for his living, was out here amidst the sand hills, as usual, on this bright morning of March 9, 1847.

These sand hills fringed all the beach on both sides of the city, and extended inland half a mile. The winter gales or northers piled them up and moved them about. Some of them were thirty feet high—higher than the walls of the city. From their crests one could look right into Vera Cruz. They were grown between, and even to their tops, with dense brush or chaparral, of cactus and thorny shrubs, forming regular jungles; and there were many stagnant lagoons that bred mosquitoes and fevers.

From the city the National Road ran out, heading westward for the City of Mexico, those two hundred and eighty miles by horse and foot.

To-day, of all the flags flying off shore scarcely one was the American flag. The American warships had disappeared entirely, unless that sloop tacking back and forth several miles out might be American. At first it had been thought that the Yankees had grown discouraged by the news of the defeats of their armies on land, and now did not know what to do. The very sight of the grim castle of San Juan de Ulloa had made them sick at their stomachs, the Vera Cruzans declared. But the reports from Anton Lizardo had changed matters.

The morning passed quietly, with the flags of the city and castle—flags banded green, white and red and bearing an eagle on a cactus in the center—floating gaily, defying the unseen Americans. At noon the two Manuels and Jerry ate their small lunch, and drank water from a hole dug near a shallow lagoon. Then, about two o’clock, old Manuel, who had straightened up for a breath and to ease his back, uttered a loud cry.

“Mira! See! The Americans are coming again!”

He was gazing to the east, down the coast. Young Manuel and Jerry gazed, squinting through the chaparral. Out at sea, to the right of the little island Sacrificios, there had appeared against the blue sky a long column of ships, their sails shining whitely. They came rapidly on, bending to the gentle breeze, and swinging in directly for the island anchorage. Scrambling like a monkey, old Manuel hustled for a high, clear place and better view; young Manuel and Jerry followed.

The foremost were ships of war; they looked too trim and large, and kept in too good order, for merchantmen, and they held their positions, in the lead and on the flanks, as if guarding. But what a tremendous fleet this was—sail after sail, until the ships, including several steamers, numbered close to one hundred! Soon the flags were plain: the red-and-white striped flags of the United States, streaming gallantly from the mast ends.

“The Americans!” young Manuel scoffed. “They want another beating? They think to frighten us Vera Cruzanos? Bah! We will show them. We are ready. See?”

That was so. How quickly things had happened! As if by a miracle the sea wall of Vera Cruz was alive with people clustered atop; yes, and people were gathering upon all the roofs, and even in the domes of the churches. From this distance they were ants. The news had spread very fast. The notes of the army bugles sounded faintly, rallying the gunners to the batteries.

Now out at the anchorage near Sacrificios the mastheads and the yards of the foreign men of war and the other vessels, from England, France, Spain, Prussia, Germany, Italy, were heavy with sailors clustered like bees, watching the approach of the American fleet.

Straight for Sacrificios the fleet sped, silent and beautiful, before a steady six-knot breeze which barely ruffled the gulf. A tall frigate (the American flagship Raritan) forged to the fore, and in its wake there glided a vessel squat and bulky, leaving a trail of black smoke.

“Un barco de vapor—a steamboat!”

“Yes, yes! But it has no paddles—it moves like a snake!”

“No matter,” said old Manuel. “Everybody knows that the North Americans are in league with the Evil One. Only the Evil One could make a boat to move without paddles. But the saints will protect us.”

“They are bringing soldiers!” young Manuel cried. “Look! The decks of the warships are crowded!”

The American warships all forged to the fore; in line behind the tall Raritan and the smoking new steamer (which was only a propeller) they filed past the foreign ships at the Sacrificios anchorage, and about a mile from the beach they cast anchor also. Now it might be seen that each ship had towed a line of rowboats, and that every deck was indeed crowded with soldiers, for muskets and bayonets flashed, uniforms glittered, bands played, and a clatter and hum drifted with the music to the shore.

The merchant ships stayed outside the anchorage, as if waiting. There seemed to be seventy-five or eighty of them; too many for the space inside.

The warships lost no time. Small launches instantly began to tow the rowboats to their gangways; soldiers began to descend——

“What! They are going to land here, on our beach of Collado?” old Manuel gasped.

“No! Viva, viva!” young Manuel cheered. “Our brave soldiers are there, waiting! Viva, viva!”

“Now we shall see!” And old Manuel cheered, waving his ragged hat. “There will be a battle. Maybe we shall have to run.”

From the brush and sand hills a troop of Mexican lancers, in bright uniforms of red caps and red jackets and yellow capes, had cantered down to the open beach, their pennons flapping, their lance tips gleaming. They rode and waved defiantly, daring the Americans to come ashore.

A row of little flags broke out from the mizzen mast of the Raritan. At once two gunboat steamers and five sloops of war left the squadron, they ploughed in, a puff of whitish smoke jetted from the bows of a gunboat, and as quick as a wink another puff burst close over the heads of the lancer troop. Boom-boom!

The gay lancers, bending low in their saddles, scudded like mad back into the sand hills and the brush, with another shell peppering their heels.

“Hurrah! Hurrah!” Jerry cheered, for it looked as though that beach was going to be kept clear.

He got such a box on the ear that it knocked him sprawling and set his head to ringing.

“You shut up!” old Manuel scolded. “You little American dog, you! Your Americans are cowards. They dare not land and fight. They think to stand off out at sea and fight. The miserable gringos from the north! That’s the Mexican name for them: gringos. You understand?”

No, Jerry did not understand. “Gringo” was a new word—a contempt word recently invented by the Mexicans, when they spoke of the North Americans—his Americans. But he wasn’t caring, now; he was wild with the box on the ear, and the sight of the United States soldiers. Boxes on the ear never had angered him so, before. It was pretty hard to be cuffed, here in front of the Flag; cuffed by the enemies of the Flag.

“That isn’t so,” he snarled hotly. “They aren’t cowards. You’ll see. They’ll land where they please. [And all your army and guns can’t keep them off.] Then they’ll walk right over your walls.”

[“AND ALL YOUR ARMY AND GUNS CAN’T KEEP THEM OFF”]

“Shut up!” young Manuel bawled, and cuffed him on the other side of the head. “Of course they are cowards. They’ve been beaten many times by our brave men. Your General Taylor has been captured. He dressed like a woman and tried to hide. Now your gringos are so afraid that they think to land out of reach of our cannon. If they do land, what will they do? Nothing. The minute they come closer the guns of the castle will blow them to pieces.”

“Yes; and soon the yellow fever will kill them. They will find themselves in a death-trap,” old Manuel added. “Bah! Our brave General Morales may let them land. He sees how foolish they are. All he needs do is to wait. Where can they go? Nowhere! They will fight mosquitoes. That is it: they are come to fight the mosquitoes!”

Jerry saw that there was no use in arguing; not with two men whose hands were heavy, and who preferred to believe lies. They did not know American soldiers and sailors.

The cannon of the city and castle had not yet spoken, but the walls of San Juan de Ulloa, like those of Vera Cruz, a little nearer, were thronged with people, watching. And that was a busy scene, yonder toward Sacrificios. The two gunboats and the five sloops cruised lazily only eight hundred yards out from the beach, their guns trained upon it; the sailors stood prepared at the pieces, and spy-glasses, pointed at the beach, occasionally flashed with light. Well it was, thought Jerry, that he and the two Manuels were securely hidden. He did not wish an American shot coming his way. But there, beyond the seven patrol boats, the rowboats were being loaded at the gangways of the men-of-war; for the soldiers of his country evidently were determined to land.

Boat after boat, crammed to the gunwales with men, left the gangways, was pulled a short distance clear, and lay to.

“How many boats?” young Manuel uttered. “Many, many. It is wonderful.”

“And a crazy idea,” old Manuel insisted, “to land here where the ships cannot follow, right in sight of Vera Cruz. But the more the better; the yellow fever will have a feast, and so will the vultures.”

The loading of the boats took two hours. The sun was almost set when the last one appeared to have been filled. No shot had been fired by the Mexican batteries. Suddenly a great cheer rang from the ships and the boats; yes, even from the English, and French and Spanish ships. The boats had started; they were coming in at last, and a brave spectacle they made: a half-circle more than three-quarters of a mile front, closing upon the beach, with oars flashing and bayonets gleaming and the trappings of the officers glinting, all in the crystal air of sunset, upon the smooth sea. The breeze had died down, as if it, too, were astonished; but above the boats a myriad seagulls swerved and screamed.

Five, ten, twenty, forty, sixty, sixty-seven! Sixty-seven surf-boats each holding seventy-five or one hundred soldiers! Sixty-seven surf-boats, and one man-of-war gig!

“Sainted Mary! Where did the Americans get them all?” old Manuel gasped.

Jerry thrilled with pride. Hurrah! He was an American boy, and those were American ships and American boats, manned by American soldiers and American sailors, under the American flag. He shivered a little with fear, also; for when the guns of the castle and the city began to throw their shells, what would happen to those blue-coated men, helpless upon the bare beach of Collado?

The music from the bands in the boats and upon the ships sounded plainly. The bands were playing “Yankee Doodle,” “Hail, Columbia!” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Even the dip of the oars from the sixty and more boats, pulled by sailors, sounded like a tune of defiance, as the blades rose and fell and the oar-shafts thumped in their sockets.

Splash, splash, chug, chug, all together in a measured chant; and still the guns of the city and castle were silent, biding their time.

Now it was a race between the boats, to see which should land its men first. The sailors were straining at the oars; the figures of the soldiers—their bristling muskets, their cross-belts and cartridge boxes, their haversacks—were clear; their officers might be picked out, and also the naval officers, one in the stern of each boat, urging the rowers.

The gig beat. One hundred yards from the beach it grounded. It scarcely had stopped when a fine, tall officer leaped overboard into the water waist deep; with his sword drawn and waved and pointed he surged for the shore. He wore a uniform frock coat, with a double row of buttons down the front and with large gold epaulets on the shoulders. Upon his head was a cocked hat; and as he gained the shallows the gold braid of his trousers seams showed between boots and skirts. He was of high rank, then; perhaps a general—perhaps the general of the whole army! And his face had dark side-whiskers.

Close behind him there hurried a soldier with the flag. All the men, mainly officers, his staff, had leaped overboard; and from the other boats, fast and faster, the men were leaping, and surging in, and in, holding their muskets and cartridge boxes high, and cheering.

“Boom!” A cannon shot! Smoke floated from the bastion fort of Santiago, in the nearest corner of the city walls, three miles up the shore; but the ball must have fallen short.

“Boom!” A great gun in San Juan castle, three miles and a half, had tried. By the spurt of sand this ball also was short.

“We’d better get out of here,” old Manuel rapped. “To the city! Quick! The Americans are surely landing. We don’t want to have our ears cut off; and we don’t want to be blown up, either. The guns are beginning; they are playing for the dance.”

“Yes; and you come, too, you little gringo,” young Manuel exclaimed, grabbing Jerry by the arm. “We’ll not have you running to those other gringos and telling them tales.”

Away scuttled old Manuel and young Manuel, dragging Jerry and shoving him before them while they followed narrow trails amidst the dunes and the thick, thorny brush. Presently they all heard another hearty shout from a thousand and more throats; but it was not for them.

Pausing and looking back they saw the whole broad beach blue with the American uniforms; flags of blue and gold were fluttering—a detachment of the soldiers had marched to the very top of one high dune and had planted the Stars and Stripes. Already some of the boats were racing out to the ships, for more soldiers. The bands upon the shore were playing “The Star-Spangled Banner” again.

“Hurrah!”

“Shut up, gringito (little gringo)!”

“You will sing another tune if you don’t take care. There!” And Jerry received a third and fourth cuff. “Your soldiers are cowards. They land out of reach of the guns. And now maybe we have lost our burro.”

“Why don’t you go back for it, then?” Jerry demanded. “Why don’t your own soldiers march out and stop the soldiers of my country?”

“Because we Mexicans are too wise. The Americans never can get near the city. Why should we waste any lives on them? Now you come along, gringito.”

And Jerry had to go, wild with rage and hot with hopes.

The balls from the city and castle were falling short; the patrol vessels and the soldiers and sailors paid no attention to them; but from all the ranches and fields and huts outside the city walls the people were hastening in, for protection. This was another sight: those men, women and children, carrying bundles, and driving laden donkeys, and chattering, threatening, bragging and laughing.

Hustling on, Jerry and the two Manuels joined with the rest, crossing the open strip a half a mile wide, bordering the walls, and pushing in through the gate on this side, named the Gate of Mexico and commanded by batteries.

Inside the city there were hubbub and excitement. The broad paved streets of the down-town among the two-story stone buildings were crowded as on a feast day. Bugles were pealing, drums were beating, soldiers in the bright blue and white of the infantry and the red and green of the artillery were marching hither thither, lancers in their red and yellow clattered through, while the roof-tops and the church belfries above swarmed with gazers.

Nobody showed much fear.

“Wait, until the cannon get the range.”

“Or until the northers bury the gringos in the sand!”

“And then the vomito, the yellow fever! That is our best weapon.”

“Indeed, yes. All we Vera Cruzanos need do is to wait.”

The northers, as everybody should know, were the terrific winds that blew in the winter and early spring; they blew so fiercely, from the gulf and a clear sky, that anyone lying for a few moments in the sand would be covered up. Neither man nor beast could face a norther, there in the open where the sand drifted like snow.

And the vomito, or yellow fever! Ay de mi! That was worse. It came in the spring as soon as the northers ceased and stayed all summer. Some days and nights it appeared like a yellow mist, rising from the lagoons of the coast and spreading toward the city; men and women and children died by the hundreds, even in the city streets, so that the buzzards feasted on the bodies. The City of the Dead: this was the name for Vera Cruz during the vomito season. Everyone who was able fled to the higher country inland, and stayed there above the vomito fog.

Until ten o’clock this night the American boats landed the American soldiers; by token of the twinkling lights and the distant shouts the beach was occupied for a mile of length, and the bivouacs extended back into the dunes.

II
A SURPRISE FOR VERA CRUZ

“Boom!”

It was such a tremendous explosion that it shook the solid buildings of the city. It also brought Jerry upon his feet, all standing, where he had been asleep for the night in a vacant niche against a stone warehouse. A great many of the people slept this night in the open air, just where they chanced to be, so that they might miss no excitement.

The explosion awakened them all. There was a rush for good viewpoints; perhaps the battle had begun. Right speedily Jerry had scrambled atop the wall at a place between batteries, from which he could see the harbor and the Americans’ beach eastward. Nobody objected to him, here.

“Boom—Boom!” A double explosion well-nigh knocked him backward. A cloud of black smoke had spurted from the walls of San Juan de Ulloa castle, a quarter of a mile before; but yonder amidst the sand hills the louder “Boom!” had raised a much greater, blacker smoke, where the shell had burst.

The people upon the wall cheered.

“Viva, viva!”

“Now we shall see. San Juan is speaking with his giants.”

“Yes, the Paixhans,” said a Volunteer. “It is the Paixhans that he is turning loose, to blow the Yankees up. Viva!”

The Paixhan guns were large pieces that threw shells in a line, instead of solid shot or high-sailing bombs like the mortars.

“Boom!” from the castle; and in a moment, “Boom!” from the thickets of the dunes. The smoke jetted angrily; the people imagined that they could see brush and trees and bodies flying through the air; but just how much damage was being done no one might say, because most of the American army was out of sight, concealed in the wilderness of the jungle.

General Morales, commanding the city and castle, had issued a proclamation calling upon the soldiers and citizens to rally for the defense. All this day the American boats, large and small, plied back and forth between the fleet and the shore, out of range, bringing in horses and mules and cannon and supplies; when the cannon had been landed, soldiers and sailors fell to like ants and helped the long teams drag them across the beach, into the sand hills. The larger part of the army had been swallowed by the chaparral; but now and again a column of blue-uniformed men could be sighted, winding through a cleared spot, as if gradually encircling the city on the land side.

All day the city forts and outworks and the castle pitched round-shot and shell into the dunes. There were several little battles when the Mexican lancers and infantry outposts met the American advance. A number of wounded Mexican soldiers were carried in; but the American flags kept coming on, bobbing here and there, bound inland.

“To-morrow it will blow,” the weather prophets asserted, noting the yellow sunset. “A norther! Then those gringos will wish they were somewhere else.”

“Yes, that is so.”

Sure enough, about noon the next day (which had dawned calm), far out at sea a sharp, vivid line of white appeared, approaching rapidly.

“The norther! Hurrah! It is the norther!”

A norther never had been so welcomed before. The shipping was frantically lowering sails and putting out storm anchors. The war vessels at Sacrificios were riding under bare poles. The line of white reached them—they bowed to it, their masts sweeping almost to the water. On it came, at prodigious speed, in a front miles long. The white was foam, whipped feathery by wind. Suddenly all the shipping in the harbor was in a confusion of scud; the few American small boats plying between war vessels and beach were striving desperately, and see! The dunes had been veiled in a cloud of yellow dust driven by the gale.

The change was miraculous. So strong was the wind that it cleaned the walls of people. Like the rest, Jerry crouched in shelter, while the gale howled overhead.

The dunes were completely shut from view by the cloud of scud and sand. Firing from the city and castle ceased. There was nothing to do but wait and let the norther work. Somewhere under that sand cloud the Americans crouched also, fighting for breath and to keep from being buried. Here in Vera Cruz everybody was safe and happy, except Jerry Cameron. He was safe, but he was sorry for those other Americans, although he did not dare to say so.

It was a bad norther. It blew without a pause for two nights and days. Then, about noon of the third day, which was March 13, it quit about as suddenly as it had arrived. It left the ocean tossing with white caps and thundering against the sea-wall and upon the beach, but the air over the dunes cleared and all eyes peered curiously to see what had become of the American army.

Why, the flags were nearer! Some of them fluttered at the very inside edge of the hills, not much more than half a mile away, across the open space which skirted the city walls. There were signs that the ground was being dug out, as if for batteries. As soon as the ocean quieted a little, the boats again hustled back and forth, landing more guns and supplies. The forts and castle fired furiously at the American camps. But the Americans had not been stopped by the norther and they were not to be stopped by shot and shell.

Now more than a week passed in this kind of business, with the city and castle firing, and with the Mexican soldiers skirmishing in the brush to annoy the gringos, and with the Americans doing little by day, but each night creeping nearer. One morning a strange new token was to be sighted. To the south the ground had been upheaved, during the night, out from the edge of the dunes, and a line of earth extended like a mole-run into the cleared space. The Americans were burrowing.

The city forts lustily bombarded the place and evidently drove the Americans out of the trench, for there was no reply. In fact, very few gringos were seen, but their flags might be glimpsed, farther back. Where were their cannon?

After this fresh burrows appeared frequently. Still there was no firing by the American cannon. What was being done, in that brush, none of the Vera Cruzans could say from such a distance. Only——

“It will be a siege,” the wise-acres nodded. “Very well. We shall wait until the vomito comes. The vomito will fight for us, in the sand hills where our brave soldiers cannot go. The yellow fever will find those skulking gringos, who dare not attack us.”

Then, about two o’clock of March 22, after the Americans had been digging and dragging cannon for almost two weeks, and had advanced their flags in a complete half circle around the city, excitement rose again. A Yankee officer and two other men, bearing a white flag, had ridden out from among the dunes and were boldly cantering forward across the flat strip, for the southern Gate of Mexico.

The three were received by a Mexican officer sent by General Morales. Word spread that the American general, named Scott, demanded the surrender of Vera Cruz! He gave two hours for an answer.

General Morales did not require the two hours. Before the time was up, back went the flag of truce, while the soldiers loudly cheered when they learned that he had refused to surrender. If the Americans wished to try a battle, let them start in; they all would die without having reached the walls; and as for breaching the walls with their cannon, that was impossible.

Four o’clock had been the limit set by the American general, Scott. Usually Vera Cruz slept from noon until four; all Mexico took its siesta then: stores were closed and shutters drawn and nobody stirred abroad; in Vera Cruz even the water carriers who cried “Water! Pure water!” on the streets, dozed like the rest. And by this time, two weeks, the people had grown accustomed to the guns, so that they slept right through.

But this afternoon the city waked early, and by four o’clock the roof tops and the walls were thick with spectators watching to see what would happen. Ragged Jerry gazed with the others. He had paid no attention to the two Manuels. There had been no fagot gathering, and little other business except talk.

The sea was smooth; the ships swung at anchor under a blue sky; out at Sacrificios island, four miles distant to the east, the Stars and Stripes languidly flapped from the mast ends of the men-of-war; the sand dunes shimmered yellow, buzzards circled above them and the chaparral which flowed into the flat strip—the buzzards might see the American army, but few persons in the city could. Nevertheless, from the east clear around into the west the faint sounds of the burrowing blue coats drifted in.

There was no sign of any charge. Then, at four o’clock precisely, from a spot half a mile out, between the city and Collado Beach, a sudden great belch of black smoke issued; a black speck streaked high through the sky, fell—and there was a resounding crash and a mighty shock, from an explosion in the very center of the city. The clatter of stones followed.

Next, while the people gazed at each other, astounded, in the southeast the chaparral was drowned by a perfect torrent of the same smoke, blasts of air rocked the very walls and buildings, all the city shook to explosion after explosion mingled. Several shells had arrived at once; the air was filled with dust and shrieks.

Vera Cruz was being bombarded. The bastion guns boomed hotly, replying; the great guns of the castle chimed in; the chaparral was being torn to pieces. But so was the city; and out in the roadstead the two steam gunboats and the five sloops of war veered nearer and from a mile away began to shoot, also, at the city and the castle both.

The battle had opened. The Americans were firing only seven mortars; that was all—seven. Where were their other cannon? Stuck in the sand and brush, as like as not. The seven mortars were hard to see, but the city forts and the castle would bury them. As for those little ships a mile at sea, one shot from San Ulloa would sink any of them.

However, the mortars stuck to it. They kept firing all night, while it was too dark for the forts and the castle to answer. There was no sleep for Vera Cruz—not amidst that steady “Boom! Boom! Boom!” and “Crash! Crash! Crash!”, with showers of iron and rock flying far and wide into all parts of the city.

In the morning ten mortars were at work. The forts and San Ulloa spouted smoke and flame in vain. The walls had not been hurt; but what with the booming, and the crashing, and the yelling and running, assuredly Vera Cruz was no place in which to stay. Jerry resolved to get out before he, an American boy, was killed by shots from his own country.

This afternoon another norther set in, as if to help Vera Cruz. It silenced the mortars, and drove the American gunners to cover. Nobody could see to shoot in such a dust storm. The people were happy over it. They knew that the northers and the yellow fever would come to their rescue. The Americans were crazy, their guns useless, their trenches would be filled faster than they could be dug. But to Jerry the norther looked like a lucky stroke for one American, at least. To slip over the walls and sneak across the flat strip and enter the American camp would be as easy as—well, as cutting a watermelon.

III
THE AMERICANS GAIN A RECRUIT

The norther was making things uncomfortable in the city as well as outside. The streets were lashed by howling wind, and raked by sand and bits of clay; loosened stones crashed to the pavement, threatening the few people who scuttled around the corners; and when the thick dusk gathered early Vera Cruz seemed deserted. But if matters were bad here, what must they be yonder, out in the open?

Jerry was going to know, pretty soon. It was time that he left Vera Cruz. He did not belong in Vera Cruz, where Americans were disliked. It was the enemy’s country. The two Manuels had housed him in their shack, and had fed him, but only because he worked for them. He had not seen them this day—did not wish ever to see them again; they had cuffed him on the ears, they thought little of slapping him about. He had stayed with them because there was nothing else for him to do. But now his own people had arrived to teach these Mexicans a lesson; had brought the Flag right to the doorway of Mexico, and were knocking for admittance.

If they really did not get in—of course they would get in, but supposing they didn’t, and had to go away and try at another place! Supposing, as the Vera Cruzans said, the walls held out against the cannon, and the yellow fever raged, then he would be stranded the same as before. It was a long, long way from Vera Cruz to the United States.

So this was the time to make a dash for freedom, while the way was short and the norther blew.

At eight o’clock the darkness was dense with the smother of dust. Nobody saw him as he ran low like a rabbit, tacking from building to building and corner to corner, until he had reached the wall at a place nearest to the American cannon. The wall was twelve feet high, here; at intervals it was built into batteries, jutting outside and inside both; but to-night even the sentries had been forced under cover.

The wall was very old; there were sections where it had crumbled and could be climbed easily enough by means of toe-holds and finger-holds. All the boys of Vera Cruz knew that old wall perfectly; and it was used as a promenade also by men and women who strolled upon the wide top.

The American cannon had done little damage to it yet. The mortar bombs all passed over, to land in the city. But Jerry remembered a spot where he often had climbed before, in fun—and to show the Vera Cruzans that their wall could not keep a boy in.

He had to guess at the spot, in the wind and the darkness. When he thought that he was there, he shinned up. Here the wind struck him full blast, and whew! He had to lie flat and crawl, clutching fast with fingers and toes, feeling his way, and fairly plastered to the rough top. If once he raised up, away he would go like a leaf; for that wind certainly meant business.

At last, feeling ahead, he came to the crumbled edge. And now, cautiously swinging about, he prepared to slide over feet first. If this was the right spot, he would land outside after a slide of only about ten feet. But how to tell? There wasn’t any way. It might be that this was not the right place at all, and he would drop straight down more than ten feet and break a leg. Still, he was bound to try. So he backed like a crab, farther and farther, exploring with his toes; he was over the edge, he was clinging with his knees and hands and barking his shins—and on a sudden the edge gave under his fingers and down he slithered, fast and faster, all in the darkness, with clatter and rasp and scrape, until—thump!

No, it had not been the exact spot. Maybe by daylight he wouldn’t have risked such a long slide, on his stomach. But his clothes could not be hurt—a few more rags made no difference, and he was all right.

He had landed on his back in the dry moat or ditch which skirted the bottom of the wall. Under his feet there was a heap of mortar from the wall, and a stiff bush had almost skewered him. He picked himself up, to claw out. In a moment the wind struck him full, again—sent him reeling and sprawling, and stung his cheek with sand and pebbles. Somewhere before him there lay the dunes and the American camp; but he could not see a thing, he had to cross the flat, brushy strip half a mile wide, and unless he kept his wits sharpened he would get all turned around.

Well, the wind was his only guide; it hit him quartering, from the left or gulf side—came like a sheet of half-solid air, to flatten him. Leaning against it he bored on, trying to go in a straight line. Ouch! Cactus! And more cactus. Ouch! A large thorny bush. Ouch! A hollow into which he stepped with a grunt.

The plain was a whirlpool of whistling wind and blinding sand that took his breath and blistered his cheek. The cactus stabbed him, the brush tripped him; every little while he had to sit down and rest. One lone boy seemed a small figure in the midst of that great storm, black with murk, especially when he wasn’t dead certain that he was heading right.

That was a tremendously long half mile. Was he never going to get to the other edge? Perhaps he would be better off if he stayed in one spot and waited for morning. No; then he would be caught between two fires—might be shot by one side or the other, or else captured by prowling Mexican soldiers.

After a while the wind slackened a little; the air cleared, and so did the sky. A moon peeped forth from the overhead scud. He thought that he could see the dunes, in a dim line, and he pushed on for them as fast as he could. He ought to be drawing near to them, by this time, for Vera Cruz lay hours behind him, according to the way his legs ached from his stumblings and zigzaggings.

Here came the wind, again—in a terrific blast as if it had been only taking breath, too. The moon vanished, everything vanished, and he was blinded by the dust once more.

Then, quite unexpectedly, as he was leaning and gasping and blundering on, breaking through the brush and never minding the cactus, he ran against a mound of sand. He sort of crawled up this, clawing his way—the wind seized him, on top, hurled him forward, and down he pitched, headfirst, into a hole on the other side.

This time he landed upon something soft and alive. It grabbed him tightly in two arms and he heard a voice in good sailor American:

“Shiver my timbers! Belay there, whoever you be. Hey, maties! Stand by to repel boarders! They’re entering by the ports.”

“No, no! I’m a boy—I’m an American!” Jerry panted. “There’s nobody else.”

“A boy? Bless my bloomin’ eyes.” The grip relaxed, but the voice growled. “Wot d’you foul my hawser for, when I’m snugged under for the night, with storm anchors out?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Jerry stammered.

“Who are you, then? Wot’s your rating? Answer quick, and no guff.”

“I’m nobody ’special—I’m Jerry Cameron. I’ve run away from Vera Cruz.”

“Under bare poles, too, by the feel of you. You’re a bloody spy, eh?”

“No, I’m not,” Jerry implored. “I’m an American, I told you.”

“Where’s the rest of your boarding crew?”

“There aren’t any.”

“Does your mother know you’re out?”

“She’s dead. So’s my father.”

“Now if you’re one o’ them young limbs o’ drummer boys, playing a game on me——”

“I’m not,” Jerry declared.

“Wot do you want here?”

“I want to join the army.”

“The army! Get out, then. Don’t you go taking this for any landlubber mess. Avast with you! Port your helm and sheer off.” And the clutch loosened.

“But where am I, please?” Jerry asked, bewildered.

“Wait till I put a half hitch on you and I’ll tell you; for if you’re putting up a game you’ll be hanged to the yardarm at sunrise. That’s regulations. Lie quiet, now. I’m hungry and I’m a reg’lar bloomin’ cannerbal.”

A cord was deftly passed about Jerry’s slim waist, tightened, tied, and apparently fastened to his captor also—who growled again as if satisfied. Flint and steel were struck, and a lantern lighted—a lantern enclosed in a wire netting—a battle lantern. It was flashed upon Jerry, and at the same time flashed upon his captor. He saw a very red face—a dirty face but a good-natured face, under a shock of tow hair; and a pair of broad shoulders encased in a heavy woollen jacket. Two bright blue eyes surveyed him.

“A bloomin’ bloody stowaway,” the man growled, not unkindly. “That’s wot! Well, wot you want to know?”

“Where am I, if this isn’t the army?” Jerry pleaded.

“The army be blowed,” answered the man. “This is the navy, young feller. Bless my eye, but you’re in the naval battery, as you’ll soon find out, and so’ll those bloody dons when we open up in the morning.”

“Yes, sir. But I think I’d like to stay, anyway,” said Jerry; for he was down under the wind, and he was very tired.

“Right-o, my hearty.” The man untied the rope. “Now we can lie yard and yard, but mind you keep quiet, ’cause I’m dead for sleep. One wiggle, and out you go. All quiet below decks. That’s discipline and them’s man-o’-war orders.”

The sailor turned down the lantern, and settled himself with a grunt.

IV
JERRY MAKES A TOUR

The norther certainly was slackening off, as if it had blown itself out. The wind died to a fitful breeze, and this itself finally ceased. There was a dead calm. Overhead the stars sparkled again. It seemed to be a great relief to everything—this calm, after the lashing and the howling and the general strain. Only the gulf surf roared dully in the distance.

Now voices sounded, right and left and behind, as if the American camp had aroused and the men were issuing from their coverts. They had weathered the storm. Jerry carefully raised, to look. He could see the occasional flash of a lantern. Then he lay down. In the calm he was more exhausted than ever. That had been a tough trail through the brush, fighting the wind at every step. Before he knew, he was asleep, beside the snoring sailor; and the next that he knew, he was awakened into gray dawn by a bustle around him.

Where was he? Oh, yes; he was safe with the Americans. So he got up, shook himself, and took stock.

He was still out in the plain, instead of at the edge of the dunes; the trench which sheltered him was six feet wide and the same in depth, and was screened by brush outside the dirt thrown out. It ran right and left, as if connecting with other trenches. Figures of sailors and their officers hurried back and forth, scarcely noticing him. There were gruff orders. He had to see what was going on; so he fell in with the busy files, and in a moment he had arrived at the breech of an enormous cannon, surrounded by sailors stripped to the waist and tugging and heaving to move the cannon into place.

Beyond it there was another cannon, already in place, its muzzle pointing out through sandbags, its squatty solid iron frame resting upon little wheels which fitted a pair of iron rails bolted to a plank turn-table upon a platform. Beyond that was still another great gun. And to the rear there was the sand-bagged roof of a low hut, sunk deeply almost on the level with the surface of the ground. This was a battery, then; and that probably was the powder house—the magazine. And all had been dug out, and erected, here, between the dunes and Vera Cruz, in point-blank range of the walls!

By the hurry and bustle something was going to happen very soon. A smart naval officer in blue and gold, with sword drawn, was overseeing the work of setting the first gun into position. A boatswain, his shirt open upon his hairy chest and a whistle dangling at the end of a cord, was bossing. Everybody was a sailor, so it must be the naval battery.

The boatswain saw Jerry staring; and he stared likewise.

“Hi! What you doin’ here, young ’un?”

“Just watching,” said Jerry.

“Where you from?”

“Vera Cruz. But I’m an American.”

“Shiver my tops’ls!” uttered the boatswain; and the other sailors briefly paused to wipe their brows and grin. “A bloomin’ American from Very Cruz.” He saluted the officer. “Recruit for the navy, sir. What shall I do with him?”

“Send him to the rear. This is no place for boys,” rapped the officer. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Jerry Cameron.”

“How did you get in here?”

“I ran away from Vera Cruz last night. I don’t belong there.”

“Too much Yankee music in that city, eh?”

“Yes, sir. It’s awful.”

“Well, it will be worse. If you’ve come to join the band you’ll have to go to the rear. We can’t take care of you here. Things will open lively in a short time, now.”

And as if to prove his words the air shook, a dull boom sounded, a louder boom rolled from the dunes. Vera Cruz had awakened to action again.

“You follow that trench and keep going,” the officer ordered. “March, before your head’s blown off.”

“Boom—Bang!” A great mass of sand and brush spouted up not fifty yards to the front, and the shock sent everyone staggering. A shell from Vera Cruz had landed near indeed. “Boom—Bang!” That was another. The Mexican batteries were trying.

“Handspikes, there! Put a block under that transom, bo’s’n,” barked the officer, never noticing.

“Aye, aye, sir!” The men jumped to their work. Jerry turned and headed back through the trench. He was glad that he was not to be in Vera Cruz this day. Those guns looked mean.

The trench, higher than his crown and wider than he was tall, led obliquely toward the dunes. To have cut such a trench must have been a prodigious job—and the queer part was, that from Vera Cruz the work had not been seen.

Judging by deep wheel tracks the cannon had been dragged through the trench, to the front.

For a little way he met nobody. Now the shells from the city and castle were bursting all around him, well-nigh deafening him; and from a distance the American guns were replying. Next, he came to a squad of sailors, sitting in a side gallery and eating breakfast. They hailed him.

“Ahoy! Where bound, young ’un?”

“Nowhere,” Jerry answered.

“Heave to, then, and come aboard with your papers. Where you from?”

“Vera Cruz.”

“Lay alongside.” So Jerry turned in. “What’s your colors? Speak sharp. Report to the admiral.”

“Red, white and blue,” asserted Jerry.

“Blow me, but he is American, by the cut of his jib,” one of them exclaimed. “Where’s your convoy, young sloop-o’-war?”

“Nowhere. I ran away last night.”

“Homeward bound in ballast. Can’t you see he’s floating clean above loading mark?” said another. “He’s empty to his keel. Fall to, my hearty. Line your lockers.”

They were a jovial party, grimy with sand and sweat, their blue sailor shirts open, their faces red and their big hands tarry and scarred. They passed him hard biscuit and meat and a cup of coffee—and every now and again the earth shook to the explosion of a shell. While they were asking him questions about himself, and Vera Cruz, and the Mexicans (for whom they appeared to feel much scorn) there was a fresh hullaballoo, somewhere in the main trench. Up they sprang, to crowd and gaze.

“Another pill-tosser to feed the bloomin’ dons,” they cried. “Hooray!”

And here, through the trench, there came one of the great naval guns: first, rounding an elbow, a long double file of sailors, stripped to the waist, leaning low to a rope and tugging like horses; then the breech of the gun, then high wheels upon which it had been mounted, with other sailors wrestling at them; then the immensely long barrel, with still other sailors pushing at this clear to the muzzle.

A bo’s’n trudged beside, urging the work. When the gun stuck for a moment crowbars were thrust under the wheels—

“Heave-ho! Together, now! Heave-ho!”

“Aye, aye! Heave-ho!”

“Heave, my bullies!”

And they panted a song:

“’Way down Rio, Rio, Rio!

’Way down Rio, Oh!”

The gun went surging by.

“We’ll be needed up for’d, maties,” said one of the sailor squad. “Young ’un, you set your course the direction you were steering.”

They mopped their mouths with the backs of their tarry fists and lurched on after the cannon.

Jerry proceeded. Next, but not much farther, the trench was cut by another trench, crossing it at right angle and extending without end on either hand. This trench on right and left was lined with blue-capped, blue-coated soldiers, crouching low, or daringly peering through openings they had made in the ridge of sand thrown out in front of the trench, their long-barreled muskets leaning against the wall, beside them. Jerry kept on, following the wheel tracks.

His trench grew shallow; and the wheel tracks wound through low places amidst the dunes. He left the trench behind him. Next, he began to see soldiers in squads—messing, shaking their blankets free of sand, clearing out small trenches that had almost filled during the storm; and so forth and so forth. And tents, some blown flat and being hoisted again; and the United States flags, and regimental flags; and stacks of muskets in rows.

The soldiers appeared to be of the rough-and-ready order; many of them bearded or stubbly, their uniforms worn carelessly, their caps set at an angle; some were barefoot, as if easing their feet; some had on shoes, and some had one trouser-leg tucked into a boot-top; and several who seemed ill were sitting enveloped in Mexican blankets.

They were singing—these soldiers—in groups, as they lolled or worked at various tasks; singing not very musically, but gaily:

“Green grow the rushes, O!

Green grow the rushes, O!

The sweetest hours that e’er I spend

Are spent among the lasses, O!”

That was the chorus of one group nearest to Jerry, as he sidled through the camp. It was not much of a song, although as good as most of the Mexican songs. He saw a flag, of blue and gold, which said “First Tennessee Volunteers.” A soldier was shaking it out from its folds.

“Well, I’m in the army, anyway,” Jerry thought, to himself. “But I guess I’ll go on, to the beach, and see what’s there.”

So although the men hailed him, as the sailors had, only in different language, he shook his head and did not stop.

Pretty soon he came to a cleaner camp, within easy sight of the surf beyond the dunes, and of the ships at anchor off Sacrificios. There were many soldiers, here, too, but more orderly and better clothed. The camp appeared to stretch clear to the beach; and while he was wandering and gazing, somebody challenged him.

It was another boy, in uniform—a red-headed boy, spick and span and as smart as a new whip.

“Hey, you! What you doing?”

He wore a tight blue jacket and lighter blue trousers; the front of the jacket was crossed by a lot of red braid, a high collar held his chin up, upon his head was perched a jaunty blue, red-decorated round cap with leather visor, and a short sword hung at his right thigh.

“Nothing special,” Jerry answered back.

“Come over till I investigate. We don’t allow camp followers in the lines.”

Jerry went over.

“I’m not a camp follower,” he retorted. The soldiers who heard, laughed.

“Then what’s your regiment?”

“Haven’t any, yet. I left Vera Cruz only last night.”

“You did! Huh! That’s a likely yarn. How’d you get into the lines, then?”

“Just walked. I skipped out, over the wall, and crossed the plain in the storm.”

“What’d you skip out for?”

“Because I’m an American. I don’t like it in Vera Cruz.”

“Guess you didn’t. Guess nobody does—and they’ll all like it less, to-day. We’re to give ’em a jolly good shaking up. Got any folks?”

“No.”

“Anybody come with you?”

“No.”

“Well, what’s your name?”

“Jerry Cameron.”

“That sounds all right. What did you do in Vera Cruz?”

“Lived there with my father until he died from yellow fever. Then I worked for two Mexicans, until I had a chance to run away.”

“Mind you don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying. Should think you could see I’m American.”

“Guess you are. Guess you’re O. K., Jerry. I’m Hannibal Moss, drummer boy, Company A, Eighth United States Infantry,” said the boy, with a little swagger of importance. “That’s what. Best company in the best fighting regiment of the whole army. What you intend to do? Join us?”

“I’d like to, mighty well.”

“Where’ve you been since you got in?”

“Out there with the sailors and the big guns. That’s where I landed. But they sent me back.”

“Oh, that’s the navy battery. What’d you think of it?”

“They’re the biggest guns I ever saw.”

“Guess they are. Guess they’ll fix those dons—blow their walls to pieces. They’re sixty-eight-pounder shell guns and thirty-two-pounder solid shot fellows. You bet! The army’s got some just as big, but they haven’t come yet, so the navy’s going to help us out. We’ve a battery of twenty-four-pounders out there, though. Only seven hundred yards from the walls. Wait till you hear the music.”

“The walls haven’t been hurt yet; or they hadn’t been, when I left,” said Jerry.

“That’s because we weren’t ready. We’ve had to use mortars; but throwing bombs into houses isn’t what we’re here for. Old Fuss and Feathers—he knows what he’s about. That’s why he called on the navy, when his own siege guns didn’t arrive. He wants to finish things here and march on into the mountains before the yellow fever starts up. Say, it’s been pretty hot in Vera Cruz, hasn’t it, with all those bombs bursting?”

“It certainly has,” Jerry answered soberly. “They’ve killed people who weren’t fighting, and knocked down a lot of houses.”

“Well, that’s war. The Mexicans ought to have surrendered when they had a chance. They can surrender any time. All they need do is to hang out a white flag. Fuss and Feathers is going to take their city. He doesn’t want their houses, though, and I guess he’s sorry to hurt non-combatants. The civilians ought to have moved their families out. After we’ve breached the walls proper and forced terms, we’ll have Vera Cruz as a base and we’ll march straight to the Halls of Montezuma.”

“Who’s Fuss and Feathers?”

Hannibal stared.

“You don’t know anything about the army, that’s sure. Fuss and Feathers is Major-General Winfield Scott, commander-in-chief of the United States army. We call him Fuss and Feathers, for fun. Not when he’s around, though. M-m-m! You bet not! He’s a stickler for discipline. But he’ll take us to the Halls of Montezuma.”

“Where are they, Hannibal!”

“My eye, you’re green! The Halls of Montezuma are the capitol in the City of Mexico, of course. Guess you’ve a lot to learn. Want me to show you about? Maybe I can find you a job if you’re an American. Looks like you need a suit of clothes—but you aren’t much worse than some of those Mohawks are already. Come on; let’s walk.”

“You see, I’m off duty,” Hannibal explained, as he strolled with Jerry in tow. “We had to work half the night, digging trenches. We just got back. Golly, but that was a storm, wasn’t it! Filled us up as fast as we could dig out. But no storms are going to stop this army. Say; do you know where you are?”

“In the American army.”

“Yes, siree, and in the First Division, too. This is Brigadier-General William J. Worth’s division of Regulars: Fourth Infantry, Fifth Infantry, Sixth Infantry, Eighth Infantry, Second and Third Artillery. The Eighth Infantry—that’s my regiment—is in the Second Brigade. Colonel Clarke’s our commander. Garland’s commander of the First Brigade. They’re both good men—and so’s General Worth. My eye! Isn’t he, though! You’re lucky to have struck the Regulars. If you’d stayed with the Mohawks—my eye!”

“Who are they, Hannibal?”

“The Volunteers. We call ’em ‘Mohawks’ because they’re so wild. They’re General Patterson’s division, the Third: the Palmettos—those are the South Carolinans; the First and Second Tennessee Mountaineers; the First and Second Pennsylvania Keystoners; the Second New Yorkers; the Third and Fourth Illinois Suckers; the Georgia Crackers, and the Alabamans. Guess they can fight, but they’re awful on discipline. Won’t even salute their officers. Expect you passed through them on your way from the naval battery.”

The sun had risen, flooding all the chaparral and glinting on the gulf surges beyond the fringing beach. The uproar of the cannon in castle and city had welled to a deep, angry chorus; the American guns were answering; the morning air quivered to the quick explosions; and over city and strip of plain a cloud of black smoke floated higher and higher, veiling the sun itself. Now and then a piece of shell droned in, skimming the sand hills and kicking up puffs of dust. A round-shot of solid iron actually came rolling down a slope and landed at their very feet. Jerry stooped to feel of it. Ouch! It was still hot.

“Shucks!” Hannibal laughed. “Put it in your pocket.” He cocked his cap defiantly. “It’s a dead one. When you’re in your first battle you think every gun is aimed at you; and after that you don’t care.”

“You’ve been in other battles, Hannibal?”

“I should rather say! We’re all veterans, in this division. We were with Old Zach—he’s General Zachary Taylor—when he licked the dons at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma in Texas last May, and we helped take Monterey in September. We’d have been licking ’em again if we hadn’t been sent here with Old Fuss and Feathers.”

“But General Taylor’s been licked since, hasn’t he? At Buena Vista?”

“He? Old Zach? Do you believe that story? It’s just a Mexican lie. I wasn’t there, but the New Orleans papers say he wasn’t licked at all. There can’t anybody lick Old Zach. He just wears his old clothes and sits his horse sideways, and tells the men: ‘The bayonet, my hardy cocks!’ When we joined Old Fuss and Feathers we knew he was all right, too, but we expected to have to dress up and shave. I tell you, there was hustling. Regulations say that officers’ and men’s hair has got to be cropped—cut short, you know; whiskers can’t grow lower than the ears and nobody except the cavalry can wear moustaches. Old Davy—that’s General David Twiggs of the Second Division of Regulars—he had a white beard reaching nearly to his waist, and he shaved it all off and cut his hair. Looked funny, too. But the regulations aren’t being enforced, after all. We’re in Mexico to fight. Wait till you see General Worth’s side-whiskers. But let’s climb a hill, farther front, and lie down, and I’ll show you things. No! Wait a minute. Listen to that cheering. I guess there’s news. Come on.”

They ran back, toward the camp. Cheers could be heard—beginning at the beach edge of the dunes and traveling inward. The soldiers were running, and gathering. An officer on horseback attended by other mounted officers was riding slowly on, among the dunes and occasionally stopping. Whenever he had paused, fresh cheers arose.

“That’s General Worth, and Captain Mackall, division adjutant,” Hannibal informed. “Golly! Wonder what’s up. Something special.”

They hastened until they had joined a crowd of the men, all waiting expectant, for General Worth and party were coming on.

“Mind your eye, now,” Hannibal whispered. “If you know how to salute you’d better do it. You’re with the Regulars.”

The soldiers stiffened to attention—Hannibal like the rest, and Jerry trying to imitate. Every hand went to a salute. General Worth was as fine a looking man as one might ever see—tall and straight in the saddle, with handsome face, dark complexion, flashing black eyes, and side-whiskers of graying black. Rode perfectly.

He halted again, returning the salute.

“By direction of General Scott you will listen to good news, men,” he said.

Whereupon another officer, who evidently was the division adjutant, unfolded a paper, and read:

“The commanding general of the Army of Invasion takes prompt occasion to announce to his fellow soldiers that by battle of February Twenty-second and Twenty-third, at Buena Vista, northeastern Mexico, Major-General Zachary Taylor, with a force of less than forty-five hundred, decisively defeated the Mexican general Santa Anna and twenty-three thousand of the best troops of Mexico. The commanding general desires to congratulate his army upon this great victory of the successful General Taylor.

“By command of Major-General Scott.

“H. L. Scott,

“Assistant Adjutant-General.”

“Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!” cheered the men.

General Worth and staff rode on, leaving excitement in their wake.

“I told you so,” Hannibal cried. “Old Zach had mostly Volunteers, too. But that made no difference. And now you’ve seen Worth. Just like him to publish those orders this way, instead of waiting for parade. And fight? Oh, my! I guess so!”

“I’ve seen him before,” Jerry exclaimed, remembering. “He jumped ashore first when you all landed on the beach.”

“He did that. The First Division led and his boat beat and he was first out. But did you see us land? Where were you?”

“Here in these sand hills, cutting brush.”

“Wasn’t that a landing, though! We set a record. General Scott and Commodore Conner of the navy put twelve thousand men ashore in ten hours, and all we got was wet. Never lost a life. That’s discipline for you. Whoo-ee! Listen to those guns talk! The dons are right angry to-day. Guess they’ve discovered those batteries out in front. Come on, now, if you want to see the fun.”

They left the camp; trudged fast until they approached the edge of the dunes, toward the city, crossed a shallow trench or road that wound along, and climbing to the top of a sand hill were in view of the plain and the Mexican batteries. A number of soldiers were here, watching. They had dug little hollows, as a protection from shell fragments.

The firing had increased. The city and the castle of San Ulloa were shrouded in the dense smoke; the plain was spouting earth and brush, but it was spouting smoke and shot and shell also, for American batteries were replying. And the entrenched line of blue-coats, supporting the artillery, might be glimpsed.

“Those dons are trying to find our guns,” asserted Hannibal. “That plain is full of trenches. Golly, but it was a job to dig them. We Regulars, and the Mohawks, too, had to work by night, in shifts; and we got jolly well peppered, you bet. We didn’t dare use lanterns; worked by the feel, in the cactus and brush, and the northers near smothered us, besides. We were marched out after dark, and every man grabbed a spade and his orders were to dig a hole eight feet long and five feet wide and six feet deep. When the holes were connected they made a ditch all ’round the city, five miles not counting the sand-bags and parapets and battery emplacements and caves for magazines. Then we and the sailors dragged the guns clear from the beach, three miles and more, through the sand and swamps. We haven’t guns enough yet. Only sixteen out of about sixty that the general expected. The most of ’em are ten-inch mortars, and they’re no good for breaching walls. The castle’s firing thirteen-inch shells at us—sockdologers! But the navy’s helping the army with three six-inch solid-shot guns and three eight-inch Paixhan shell guns, for direct fire into the walls. Wait till that Battery Five opens. It’s point-blank range of the walls on this side.”

“Is the army all ’round the city?”

“Yes, siree, boy. The First Division has the right of line, starting at the beach. That’s ours. Patterson’s Third Division Mohawks have the center. They’re the Voluntarios. Twigg’s Regulars of the Second Division have the left, reaching to the beach on the other side of the city. We’ve got the Mexicanos cooped up. They can’t sneak out.”

It was a great sight—those bursting shells and those bounding solid shot, some of which ricochetted to the dunes and rolled hither thither. Now and then shell fragments flew past, and an occasional long-range shell burst behind. The soldiers appeared to enjoy the view. They seemed to know what was coming; they all had been under fire before, and every few moments a shot or shell might be seen sailing above the smoke.

“Look out, boys! There’s a bomb—a thirteen-inch, from the castle!”

“Here comes a solid shot. Lie low.”

“There’s an eight-inch, again.”

Suddenly a lull occurred in the shouts and jokes. The men stiffened as they lay poking their heads up. A brilliant group of officers were riding along the shallow trench or road at the inside base of the sand hill parapets. The foremost was a very large man, broad shouldered and erect and towering high upon his horse. He had a square, stern, wrinkled face, smooth shaven except for grey side-whiskers of regulation trim; wore a plumed chapeau upon his grey hair, full uniform of dark blue, with gold buttons in a double row down the front, heavy gold epaulets on the shoulders, and broad gold braid following his trousers seams. A sword in engraved scabbard hung at his left side; his left arm was curiously crooked. A splendid horse bore him proudly.

All the other officers were in full uniform, too, and kept behind him.

“That’s Scott! That’s General Scott! Old Fuss and Feathers himself!” Hannibal whispered. “Now mind your eye. No foolishness, boy.”

General Scott turned his horse and rode boldly right up the sand hill, until he sat looking at the plain and the enemy through his spy-glass. The men promptly stood up, at salute.

“Keep down, keep down, men,” he gruffly ordered. “You shouldn’t expose yourselves this way.”

A solid shot whistled by him, and he never stirred. A shell burst in front, and he never stirred. He sat, gazing.

“Sure, sir, you’re exposin’ yourself, ain’t you?” somebody called.

General Scott snapped his glass together, and smiled grimly. Jerry could see his grey eyes, as he glanced at the man. They were of a keen grey, but kindly. There was something fatherly as well as severe about him.

“Oh, as for that,” General Scott answered, “generals, nowadays, can be made of anybody, but men, my lad, are hard to get.”

He leisurely rode back to his staff; and how the soldiers cheered!

V
IN THE NAVAL BATTERY

“Listen!” Hannibal cried.

He had sharp ears. The beat of drums and the shrill of fifes could be faintly heard, sounding from the rear.

“That means us. It’s the Eighth Infantry march, as a warning signal. Expect I’m wanted. Golly, hope I haven’t missed musicians’ call. Old Peters—he’s drum major—will be mad as a hornet. A drummer never gets any rest, anyhow. Good-by. See you again. You look me up.”

Away ran Hannibal, and most of the soldiers followed.

“More trench work,” they grumbled.

The place seemed very empty. Jerry hesitated, and wandered after. Before he got to the camp he met a double file marching out to tap of drum, their muskets on their shoulders. Hannibal and a fifer led, behind a sergeant. Hannibal wore his drum, suspended from a pair of whitened cross-belts that almost covered his chest. He gave Jerry a wink, as he passed, sturdily shuttling his drumsticks.

Jerry fell in behind, at a respectful distance; soon he lost the file and the sound of the drum, but he kept on, guided by wheel tracks. Next he had arrived among the Volunteers again, where they were laughing and lounging as before, except that these were a different batch, at this particular spot—grimy as if they had just come out of the trenches, themselves. Decidedly it was easy to tell a Volunteer from a Regular, by the clothes and the untrimmed hair and the free off-hand manners.

The sun was high and hot; a perfect day had succeeded to the stormy night. Jerry continued, until he struck the big trench scored by the broad tracks. He was heading back for the naval battery; and presently there he was, once more, his farther way blocked by the great guns and a mass of sailors.

Nobody noticed him. The cross-trench for the battery was ringing with orders and with the crash of shells from the castle and city. The magazine was open—a squad of sailors stood beside each gun—the cannon were being loaded—the charges were rammed home by two sailors to each rammer—there was a quick order, repeated by the bo’s’ns, who blew their whistles; and as if by magic all the brush fringing the cannon muzzles was swept away with cutlasses and brawny arms.

With a cheer the sailors holding the rope tackle hauled hard and the enormous cannon darted silently forward, so that their muzzles were thrust beyond the parapet.

A sailor behind each breech drew his cord taut. It was attached at the other end to a large lever, like a trigger, connected with an upraised hammer.

A gunner sighted—screwed down, screwed up, sprang aside—

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” announced the other squinting gunners, one to each piece.

“Fire!” shouted the battery officer, with dash of sword.

The lock strings were jerked viciously. Such a thunderous blast tore the air to shreds that Jerry’s ear drums felt driven right into his head, and the suction of the air, following the report, dragged him upon his nose.

The smoke gushed wider and higher. He could see the officers standing and peering through their spy-glasses, at the city; they shouted—he could not hear a word, but the smoking guns had recoiled inward until checked by ropes and chocks; the rammers swabbed with the swab ends of their long ramrods; other sailors thumbed the vent holes; the swabbers reversed their tools; sailors rapidly inserted a flannel bag of powder into each muzzle; in it went, forced home by the ramrods; shells for some guns, shot for others, had been handed up—were rammed down—out rolled the guns, to the haul on block and tackle—

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Fire!”

“Boom-m-m!”

The sailors appeared to be cheering as they toiled. The guns thundered and smoked—recoiled as if alive and eager, were sponged and loaded and run out again; every man was on the jump, but they all moved like clockwork. Cowering there, back of the magazine, and glued to the side of the trench, Jerry stared roundly. Nobody paid any attention to him. All were too busy to take heed of a ragged boy.

“Bang!” A return shot had arrived. It was a shell, and had burst so near that the fragments and the dirt rained down.

“Bang!” Another. The naval battery had been discovered, and Jerry was under fire.

The naval guns and the guns of the city forts answered one another furiously. What a clangor and turmoil—what a smother of hot smoke from the cannon muzzles and the bursting shells! Solid shot thudded in, too. They ripped across the parapet, cutting gashes and sending the sand-bags flying. They bounded into the trench, and lay there spinning, ugly and black. It was hard to tell whether they were really solid or were going to burst. Horrors! One of the men passing ammunition had lost his head! A solid shot skimming through the same slot out of which a cannon muzzle pointed had taken the man’s head off; he crumpled like a sack, and Jerry felt sick at the red sight.

When he opened his eyes and had to look again, shuddering, the body was gone; another sailor—a live one—stood in the place, and the guns were booming as before.

All the guns of the city forts on this side seemed to be firing at the naval battery. Several sailors had been wounded; a young officer was down and bleeding. The wounded were staggering to the rear; one stopped and sank beside Jerry. He had an arm dangling and crimsoned, and a bloody head.

“Ship ahoy, matie,” he gasped. Jerry recognized him as his first friend of the night preceding. “You’re here again, are you? D’you know where the sick bay is?”

“No, sir,” said Jerry.

“It’s aft some’ers down this bloomin’ trench. Lend me a tow, will you? I’ve got a spar nigh shot off and a bit o’ shell in my figgerhead. Hard for me to keep a course, d’you see?”

“All right. You tell me where to take you.”

“Right-o, my hearty. Steady, there. P’int due sou’-sou’east. The sick bay and the bloody sawbones’ll be some’ers abeam. You’ll smell the arnicky.”

With the shells exploding and the cannon-balls pursuing they made way down the trench, the sailor leaning with his sound arm on Jerry’s shoulders.

The sick bay, or hospital, was a sandbag-covered room at one side; not a pleasant place—oh, no, for wounds were being dressed and things were being cut off by the navy surgeon and his assistant. Still, it seemed to be safe from the shot and shell, and there were not many wounded, yet; only four or five. So Jerry lingered, until the surgeon espied him and set him at work picking lint, serving water, and so forth.

The reports from the battery were encouraging, judging by the conversation. The six guns were all in action, together: the three Paixhans, which threw shells eight inches in diameter and weighing sixty-eight pounds, and the three solid-shot pieces, which threw balls, six inches in diameter, and weighing thirty-two pounds. These were the heaviest American guns firing yet, for breaching.

“Yes, shiver my timbers!” growled Jerry’s sailor to one of the other wounded. “Scott axed for ’em, didn’t he? Would the commodore please to land a few o’ the navy toys and furnish the bass in this here music? Would the navy lend the army some genuyine main-deck guns, of a kind to fire a broadside with and send the bloomin’ dons to Davy Jones? ‘Bless my bloody eyes!’ says the commodore. ‘Sartinly I will, general. But I must fight ’em.’ And ain’t we a-fightin’ of ’em? Well, I guess we are, matie!”

So being navy guns, they were being “fought” by the navy. From seven hundred yards their shot and shell were tearing right through the walls of the city. The astonished Mexicans were fighting back with three batteries, all aimed at the naval battery, to put it out.

The army was erecting another battery, nearby—Battery Number 4, of the heaviest army cannon, sixty-eight-pounders and twenty-four-pounders. Pretty soon these would join with the navy fire.

The work in the sick bay slackened, and Jerry stole up “forward” again. The din and the rush were as bad as ever. The sailors, bared to the waist, were black with powder grime and streaked with sweat, on faces, bodies and arms. The guns were alive and alert—they were monsters, belching, darting back, fuming, while they waited to be fed, then eagerly darting to belch once more.

After each shot the gun squads cheered, peering an instant through the fog.

“Another for the dons’ lockers!”

“Hooray, lads! We’ve cut his bloomin’ flag away.”

“No, no! It’s up again.”

Yonder, across the heaving plain, the figure of a Mexican officer had leaped upon the parapet of a bastion fort set in the walls and was fastening the Mexican flag to its broken flagpole. It was a brave act. Cheers greeted him.

The crew in front of Jerry reloaded at top speed. The great gun spoke.

“They’re serving those pieces like rifles,” said somebody, in Jerry’s ear. “By thunder, they’re planting shot and shell exactly where they please.” That was the surgeon, who had come forward for a view. “But the enemy’s making mighty good practice, too. He has German artillery officers.”

Suddenly the surgeon yelled, and grabbing Jerry forced him flat.

“Look sharp!”

The parapet of the battery was scored ragged. The gun platforms and the trench were littered with shell fragments and spent solid shot. Now there had sounded a soft “plump” or thud. A round black sphere as large as Jerry’s head had landed in the bottom of the wide space behind the guns—it was only a few feet to the rear of the quarter-gunner who stood holding in his arms a copper tank containing the powder charges. Each charge weighed ten pounds.

He heard the thump, and what did he do but turn and stoop and put his hand upon the thing! Evidently it was hot—it was smoking—a shell! Down dived the quarter-gunner, quick as a wink, plastering himself against the ground. There was a chorus of startled shouts, and—“Boom!” the shell had exploded.

The tremendous shock drove Jerry rolling over and over. As seemed to him, the trench and the emplacements and the battery and all the men had been blown to bits. But when he picked himself up amidst the dense smoke, instead of seeing bloody shreds everywhere, he saw the men likewise picking themselves up and staring about dazedly. The ammunition chest had exploded also, but even the quarter-gunner had not been harmed. One lieutenant had had his hat-brim torn off; that was all.

“A thirteen-inch bomb, from the castle,” the surgeon remarked. “Young man, we’d better get out of here, and stay where we belong.”

“Send that boy out of fire,” an officer barked. “Now, my hearties! Show those fellows we’re still alive.”

Cheering, the sailors jumped to their task.

His head ringing, Jerry stumbled back with the surgeon. And at the hospital he got a quick dismissal.

“You heard the orders, youngster. Follow your nose and keep going.”

That was good advice, when such shells were landing and he could be of no use. So Jerry scuttled back down the trench, hoping to run upon Hannibal somewhere.

VI
SECOND LIEUTENANT GRANT

The Volunteer section of the trenches, extending right and left back of the naval battery, had not escaped the fire of the Mexican guns. It was filled with the blue-coats and blue-caps, as before; but shot and shell had ripped it, squads were repairing it, under fire, by throwing up fresh sand and stowing the sandbags more securely. The other men crouched nervously, their muskets grasped, as if they were awaiting the word to charge. Some of them grinned at Jerry, when he paused to look in; they leveled jokes at him.

“Did you get blown up, bub?”

“How’s the weather, where you’ve been?”

“Does your maw know you’re out?”

But Jerry pressed on again, “following his nose,” and trying to dodge shell fragments; tried a short cut among the dunes, rounded one of the numerous lagoons or marshes, where soldiers off duty were washing their socks; and sooner than he had expected he had entered the camp of the Regulars, once more.

He could tell it by the looks of it. The men were better “set up” than average, seemed well cared for, acted business like; their older officers were brusque, the younger were stiff-backed and slim-waisted, and as a rule they all sat or stood apart from the soldiers.

The hour was after noon; he knew this by the sun, dimly shining through the drifting smoke cloud, and by his empty stomach—amazingly empty now that he thought about it. But he had not laid eyes upon Hannibal, yet, nor anybody else that he ever had seen before.

He happened to stop for a moment near a young officer. The officer was composedly standing by himself, his hands in his pockets as if he were not at all concerned about the racket at the front. He had a smooth-shaven, rather square face, dark brown hair and blue-grey eyes, and was stocky but not large. In fact, was scarcely medium. He had a thoughtful, resolute look, however—a quiet way, that is, which might make anyone hesitate to tackle him for trouble.

He gave Jerry a slow, quizzical smile.

“Well, my lad, what do you want here?”

“Will you please tell me if this is the Eighth United States Infantry?” Jerry asked.

“No. That’s in the Second Brigade. This is the Fourth Infantry, First Brigade.”

“Then where is the Eighth Infantry?” asked Jerry.

“The Eighth is posted with the Second Brigade, farther on. You’ll see the regimental flag. What do you want with the Eighth Regiment?”

“I know a boy there. He promised to get me a job.”

“What kind of a job?”

“He didn’t say, but he’s a drummer boy.”

“You reckon on being a drummer boy? Better not. There’s one with his arm shot off, already.”

“Not Hannibal!” Jerry exclaimed.

“Hannibal who?”

“Hannibal Moss. He’s the boy I mean.”

“Oh, no; not that young rascal of the Eighth. Another boy by the name of Rome, over in the Twiggs division. Now he’ll be a cripple for life.”

“Will he have to go home?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” said Jerry, “I’d hate to have my arm shot off, but I’d hate worse to have to go home and miss all the rest of the fighting. Could I get his job, do you think?”

The officer laughed. When he laughed, his face lighted up.

“I don’t believe that this army can wait until you learn to drum. We’re liable to be busy from now on. Where did you come from? Where are your folks?”

“Haven’t any. I’ve been in the naval battery.”

“You have! Belong to the navy, do you?”

“No, sir. I don’t seem to belong anywhere. I ran away from Vera Cruz last night. I’m an American.”

“So I see. Well, how do you like the naval battery?”

“It’s pretty lively,” said Jerry, shaking his head. “They didn’t want me, there, so I came back to the army.”

“You’d better go on to the rear; go down to the beach, and some of those camp followers will take care of you.”

“Are they a part of the army?”

“Not exactly,” the officer grimly answered. “Their duty seems to lie in raking in the army’s money as fast as they can bamboozle us. Still, the laundresses are rather necessary. I’ll speak to some laundress about you, when I have opportunity. Are you willing to scrub clothes in a tub?”

“No,” Jerry declared honestly. “I think I’d rather join the army and help fight. Are you a general?”

“I?” The young officer acted astonished. “Not yet. I’m only Second Lieutenant Grant. I’m about as far from being a general as you are.”

“But you’re fighting, anyway.”

“Not very fiercely, at present. The artillery is doing the fighting. After the artillery has opened the way, then the infantry will have a chance.”

“Well,” said Jerry, “I guess I’d better be going on.”

“Look here,” spoke Lieutenant Grant. “I’ll wager you’re hungry. Aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You see that tent at the end of the row?” And Lieutenant Grant pointed. “That’s my quarters—mine and Lieutenant Sidney Smith’s. You go there and you’ll find a darky; or you’ll find him if he isn’t somewhere else. He’s Smith’s servant. You tell Pompey that Lieutenant Grant sent you to get something to eat. Then you can tidy up my things. I reckon,” added Lieutenant Grant, stubbornly, as if to himself, “that I’ll show Smith I can have a bodyguard as well as he can.”

“And shall I stay there?” Jerry asked eagerly.

“You say you want to join the army. So if you’re willing to play understudy to a mere second lieutenant instead of to a drum major, maybe we can come to some agreement. At any rate, go get a meal.”

Jerry hustled for the tent. The flaps were open, nobody was within, but on the sunny side, without, he discovered a young darky asleep, on his back, with a bandanna handkerchief over his face to keep off the flies.

The darky was dressed in a torn whitish cotton shirt, a pair of old army trousers, sky-blue, tied about his waist with a rope, and gaping shoes from which his toes peeped out.

He was snoring. But Jerry had to get something to eat, according to orders.

“Hello,” he said, gazing down.

The bandanna rose and fell; the snores continued. Shot and shell and big guns made no difference to this darky.

Jerry considered. He broke a twig from a scrap of bush and tickled the toes. They twitched, the snores changed to grunts, the bandanna wriggled, and on a sudden with a prodigious “Oof! G’way from dar!” the darky blew off his bandanna and sort of burst into sitting up, staring wildly, his eyes rolling.

“Who you?” he accused. “Wha’ fo’ you do dat, ticklin’ me like one o’ dem t’ousand-leggers? I’se gwine to lambast you fo’ dat, you white limb o’ Satan!”

“Lieutenant Grant said you’d find me something to eat,” Jerry explained. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Scyare me? Oof! I shuah felt one o’ dem t’ousand-legger centipeders crawlin’ right inside my shoes. Huh! I don’t give house room to no t’ousand-leggers. What you say you want? Who-all sent you?”

“Lieutenant Grant. He said you were to find me something to eat.”

“Where am dat Lieutenant Grant?”

“Over there. He was there, but he’s gone now.” For Lieutenant Grant had disappeared.

“Done issued me ohders, did he? I don’t belong to no second lieutenant. I belong to Lieutenant Smith. He fust lieutenant. If he say to feed white trash, I got to feed ’em, but I ain’t takin’ ohders from no second lieutenant.”

“I’ll go back and tell him,” Jerry proffered. “There he is.” Lieutenant Grant was in sight, talking with another officer. Once he glanced toward the tent; and his glance could be felt.

The darky hastily sprang up.

“Reckon I’ll find you sumpin. Yes, suh; when anybody’s jined the ahmy he’s got to ’bey his s’perior offercers. Come along, white boy. Where you from, anyhow?”

“Vera Cruz.”

“You from Very Cruz? What you do dar?”

“Worked for my keep. Last night I ran away.”

“You an American boy?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Hi yi!” Pompey chuckled “’Spec’ Very Cruz ain’t a place to lib in, dese days. Hi yi! Guess when dose big bombs come a-sailin’ dey say: ‘Where dose Mexicans? Where dose Mexicans? Here dey be, here dey be—Boom! Now where dey be?’ Yes, suh, white folks better get out. Bombs cain’t take time to ’stinguish color. Gin’ral Scott, he in berry big hurry to march on to City ob Mexico. Gwine to spend Fo’th ob Jooly in Halls ob Montyzoomy, eatin’ off’n golden platters. Come along, white boy. Ain’t got nuffin’ but cold cohn pone an’ salt hoss, but I’ll feed you. You gwine to jine the ahmy?”

“Hope to,” said Jerry.

“What’s yo’ name?”

“Jerry Cameron.”

“Any kin to the No’th Car’liny Camerons?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t any folks.”

“Sho’, now! Dem No’th Car’liny Camerons are mighty uppity people. Dat Lieutenant Grant, he a fine man, too. But I’m ’tached to Fust Lieutenant Smith, Fo’th United States Infantry. If you get ’tached to Lieutenant Grant, I’m uppitier than you are, remember. When you work ’round with me you got to ’bey my ohders. I’m yo’ s’perior offercer.”

“All right, Pompey,” Jerry agreed.

He munched the cornbread and salt beef, and Pompey chattered on.

“Listen to dem guns talk! Oof! Talkin’ a way right through dem walls, laike the horn ob Jericho. Mebbe to-morrow Gin’ral Scott wave his sword, an’ Lieutenant Smith an’ me an’ all the rest de ahmy, we fix bagonets an’ go rampagin’ ’crost dat patch ob lebbel ground an’ capture all dem Mexicans. What you gwine to do den?”

“Go, too, I guess,” said Jerry.

“We don’t ’low no nuncumbatants along when we-all charge,” Pompey asserted. “Ob co’se I got to stay with Massa Smith. I’se part the ahmy. But when dose cannon balls come a-sayin’ ‘Hum-m-m, where dat little white boy?’, what you gwine to do den?”

“I’d dodge ’em,” said Jerry.

“Wha’ dat? You dodge ’em? Now you talk foolish. Guess you nebber fit a battle yet. We-all am vet’rans. We-all belong to the Fo’th Infantry. We-all fit under Gin’ral Taylor. The Fo’th Infantry done licked dem Mexicans out o’ Texas an’ clyar into Mexico till dar warn’t any more to lick; den Gin’ral Scott, he said: ‘I got to have dat Fo’th Infantry to whup Santy Annie an’ capture the City ob Mexico.’ If you gwine to jine the Fo’th Infantry, boy, you meet up with a heap o’ trouble. We don’t dodge cannon balls. We hain’t time. We jest let ’em zoop an’ we keep a-goin’.”

“All those cannon balls don’t hit somebody,” said Jerry.

“Um-m-m. How you know? You talk laike you’d been sojerin’. Where you hide yo’self, after you leave Very Cruz? ’Way back on the beach?”

“No. I’ve been in the naval battery.”

“Wha’ dat?” Pompey’s eyes stuck out. “Out dar, with dose big guns? You lie, boy. How you get dar?”

“I tumbled into it, last night.”

“Befo’ the shootin’?”

“Yes; but I went back this morning. I stayed as long as they’d let me. Then a big shell burst right inside and an officer made me get out.”

“Sho’!” Pompey exclaimed. “You been under fiah? ’Pears laike you don’t talk more’n Lieutenant Grant. He’s the least talkin’est man I ebber did see. He shuah don’t take any back seat in fightin’, though. Um-m-m, no indeedy! Dar at Monterey he rode so fast Mexican bullets couldn’t ketch him. Powerful man on a hoss, dat Lieutenant Grant. But you ’member, now, if you stay ’round hyar, waitin’ on him, I don’t take ohders from you. You take ’em from me. I’m sarvent to a fust lieutenant; yo’ man’s only a second lieutenant. He may be good man; but dat’s ahmy way. I’m yo’ s’perior in the ahmy.”

“All right,” Jerry agreed again.

“Now I’m gwine back to sleep, an’ don’t you tickle my toes. No, suh! I ain’t ’feared ob bombs, but I’se drefful scyared ob t’ousand-leggers. Dar’s yo’ side the tent, where Lieutenant Grant sleeps. You kin tidy it up, if you gwine to stay.”

Pompey went to sleep, as before. Jerry found little to do. Lieutenant Grant’s side of the tent was in apple-pie order, not a thing misplaced. The whole interior of the tent was as neat as a pin. There were only a couple of cots, two canvas stools, a folding table, two blue painted chests, with canteens, overcoats, and a few small articles hanging up.

After fiddling about, Jerry strolled out. Pompey was snoring, the guns of batteries and city and castle were thundering, soldiers were drilling or sitting in groups. Lieutenant Grant came walking hastily.

“Did that darky treat you well?”

“Yes, sir. I had something to eat.”

“That’s good.”

“But I didn’t find much to do in the tent.”

“I suppose not. Well, I’m on quartermaster detail, and I may not be back to-night. You’ll have to look out for yourself.”

“Can I stay?”

“Where?”

“With you and the Fourth Infantry.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” Lieutenant Grant smiled. “How are you at foraging?”

“I don’t know. I’ll try.”

“Pompey’ll teach you. He’ll take eggs from a setting hen. If Lieutenant Smith turns up and asks who you are, you tell him you’re attached to the Fourth Infantry as chief forager for Lieutenant U. S. Grant.”

“Sha’n’t you need me any more to-day?” Jerry asked.

“No. You can report in the morning. You may sleep in my bunk to-night unless I’m there first. That will keep the fleas from getting too hungry.”

“I’d like to find the Eighth Infantry and tell Hannibal Moss I’m in the army.”

“Go ahead.”

Lieutenant Grant hurried on. He mounted a horse and galloped for the beach. Jerry went seeking the Eighth Infantry.

The sun was much lower in the west. The bombardment had dwindled. It was said that ammunition for the mortars and other guns had run short until more could be landed through the heavy surf from the ships. The firing of the naval battery guns had ceased entirely.

By the time that Jerry had found the Eighth Infantry the sun was setting and throughout the camp the company cooks were preparing supper. A detachment of sailors marched up from the beach, at their rolling gait, to relieve the crews in the battery. They were given a cheer.

“Hello, there!”

It was Hannibal, again. He stood up and beckoned. Jerry gladly went over to him.

“Where you going?”

“Looking for you, is all.”

“Good. Wait a minute, till after retreat. I’ve got to beat retreat.”

“Do you have to retreat?” Jerry blurted, aghast.

“Naw; not that kind. Not for Old Fuss and Feathers. Cracky, but you’re green! It’s evening roll-call and parade.”

Through the camp drums were tapping, fifes squeaking, horns blaring. Officers were striding, buttoning their jackets and buckling on their swords. Soldiers were seizing muskets from the stacks and forming lines under their gruff sergeants. Hannibal himself ran and grabbed his drum from a stack of muskets, and disappeared around a tent. Sergeants were calling the company rolls. And in a few moments here came the regiment’s band, and the fifers and drummers, in a broad, short column, playing a lively march tune; led by a whopping big drum major, in a long scarlet coat, gay with gilt braid and cord, on his head a shako which with nodding plume looked to be three feet high, in his hand a tasseled staff.

The music formed on a level space, the band to the fore, then a rank of fifers, then a rank of drummers—with all the little drummer boys bursting through their tightly fitting uniforms of red-braided snug jackets and sky-blue long trousers flaring at the bottoms, their swords by their sides, their drums slung from their white cross-belts, their caps tilted saucily. Hannibal was there, rolling his drumsticks as lustily as the others.

The regiment followed, marching by companies, the stars and stripes and the regimental flag of blue and gold at the head. The companies changed direction into line three ranks deep, on the left of the music.

“Eyes—right! Right—dress!”

It was funny to see those eyes.

“Front!”

The eyes gazed straight before.

A man on horseback, who must have been the colonel, sat out in front.

“Support—arms!”

“Carry—arms!”

“Right shoulder—shift!”

“Shoulder—arms!”

“Present—arms!”

The band and field music marched up and down, playing bravely. The two ranks stood motionless, the soldiers as stiff as ramrods, their muskets held perpendicularly in front of them. Why, compared with these Regulars the Mexican Regulars, even the famous Eleventh Infantry of the Line, were only slouchers.

The music resumed position; the drums rolled, a bugler lilted a kind of call.

Pretty soon the colonel turned his horse and left; the company officers barked snappy orders, and the companies were marched back to stack arms again and be dismissed. Hannibal came rollicking without his drum.

“I’m off till tattoo at half-past nine,” he announced, to Jerry. “No guard duty. Our company’s to rest. If I wasn’t a drummer I wouldn’t have anything to do till to-morrow. But a drummer never gets much rest. He has to be Johnny-on-the-Spot all the time. Just wait till you’re a drummer. What you want to do? Where’ve you been since morning?”

“I was up in the naval battery.”

“Under fire, you mean?”

“Guess so. A big shell burst right in front of me, inside the battery; in the middle of us all. Didn’t kill anybody, though. Then an officer made me get. But I’ve joined the army.”

“You have? How? Already?”

“You bet. I’m in the Fourth Regiment.”

“What do you do there? A drummer? Who’s teaching you? Old Brown?”

“No, I’m not a drummer. I’m with the officers. I’m attached to Lieutenant Grant.”

“Aw——!” and Hannibal stared. “What you mean now? How ‘attached?’”

“That’s what he said. I take care of his tent and I go along with him and the Fourth Regiment.”

“You do? That’s not soldiering; that’s only being a follower. But what did you join the Fourth for? Maybe I could have got you into the Eighth. You ought to be a drummer. A drummer gets nine dollars a month and he’s some pumpkins, too. He’s no private. He wears a sword like an officer, and has his own drill. I could have taught you the taps and flams and drags and rolls. They’re easy. Then maybe you’d be a drum major some day. That’s what I intend to be.”

“Well, I can learn to be an officer. Lieutenant Grant will teach me,” Jerry answered.

“You’ve got to be a soldier first, before you learn to be an officer. You ought to enlist or go to school. Nearly all the company officers in the Regulars went to school at West Point. The old fellows were appointed or rose from the ranks, but most of them fought in the War of 1812 or in Florida. Some of the fresh civilians are jolly green when they join. My eye! I know more than they do. But anyhow,” Hannibal continued, as if not to be disagreeable, “the Fourth is a good regiment, next to the Eighth. You’ll learn, I guess. I know Lieutenant Grant. I know all the officers. He’s got a funny name. Ever hear it? Ulysses! That’s it. He’s not very big, but you ought to see him stick on a horse. Come along. Let’s go up on top of one of the hills and watch the shells.”

Then, as they trudged:

“Here come the sailors from the battery. Jiminy, but they’re black! It’s no sport, serving those big guns. I’d rather be in the artillery than in the infantry, though, if I wasn’t a drummer.”

The tars from the naval battery trooped wearily by, for the beach and their ships. Black they were, with powder, and coated with sand, so that their eyes peered out whitely.

“Did you give ’em Davy Jones, Jack?” Hannibal called smartly.

They grinned and growled; and one of them answered back:

“Aye, aye, young hearty. Blowed their bloomin’ bul’arks all to smash, that’s wot. Hooray for the navy!”

“Hooray!” Hannibal and Jerry cheered.

The sand hills were being occupied by officers and men, gathered to watch the show. The best point seemed to be awarded to a special little group—

“Say! We’ll have to take another,” Hannibal exclaimed. “There’s General Scott, again—and his engineers, too. We’ll get as close as we can. Wait. They’re coming down. You mind your eye and I’ll show you a fine officer.” The group, with the commanding figure of General Scott to the fore, gazing through glasses, seemed about to leave. “You see that officer who’s just turned our way? Talking to another officer? He’s Captain Robert E. Lee, of the engineers, on Scott’s staff. He laid out these trenches and batteries—he’s the smartest engineer in the army. The officer he’s talking to is Lieutenant George B. McClellan, graduated from West Point only last summer. I know him—I knew him when we all were under Old Zach, in the north of Mexico, before we came here with Fuss and Feathers. He’s smart, too, but he gets funny sometimes. Captain Lee is the smartest of all.”

Upon leaving their hill the group passed nearer. Jerry might see that Captain Lee was a slender, dark-eyed, handsome young officer; Lieutenant McClellan was not so good-looking—had a long nose and a pinched face, and a careless, happy-go-lucky manner; was slight of build. General Scott towered over them all. What a giant of a man he was—and with what a voice when he spoke in measured sentences!

They mounted horses held by orderlies, and cantered away, probably for headquarters where General Scott’s large tent stood, back of the First Division camp.

Jerry and Hannibal climbed to the crest of the sand hill. The evening had fallen; the west was pink, and the tops of the sand hills and the towers of the city glowed, but the dusk was gathering on the plain and over the gulf. Down in the plain the mortars were firing slowly, as before, one after another, as if timed by a clock; and the city and the castle were replying in same fashion. As the dusk deepened the bombs could be seen. They rose high, sailed on, leaving a streak of red from their burning fuses, and dropped swiftly—and all the city was lighted luridly by the burst of flame.

The Mexican shells crossed their tracks with other streaks of red; and they, also, burst with great lurid explosions, illuminating the sand hills and the dark lines of trenches below. Sometimes there were four and five bombs in the air at the same time, going and coming.

It was a grand sight, from the outside. Jerry was glad that he was not in Vera Cruz; and he was glad that he was not one of the soldiers in those little detachments that now and again hustled silently through the hills, to enter the trenches, and do outpost duty and repair the works, under fire.

“Guess to-morrow the army heavies will be helping the navy thirty-twos and sixty-eights,” Hannibal remarked. “Then we’ll have the walls breached, and we’ll all go in and capture the whole shebang. General Scott won’t sit around here, waiting. He’ll storm the walls and have the business over with before the yellow fever starts up. We’ve got to get away from this low country.”

“What are we fighting about, anyway, Hannibal?”

“Fighting about, boy! To whip Mexico, of course. Got to fetch her to time, haven’t we? ‘Conquer a peace’—that’s what General Scott says. The Republic of Texas has come into the United States, and as long as Mexico says she sha’n’t, and keeps pestering Americans and won’t pay for damages, the only way to get a peace is to conquer it. Besides, Mexico fired first, at the Rio Grande—killed some of the dragoons and captured Lieutenant Thornton and a lot more. Guess we had to fight, after that, didn’t we?”

“Mexico says we invaded her.”

“Aw, shucks!” Hannibal scoffed. “So do some of the home papers. That’s politics. When once the army gets to shooting then talk isn’t much use till one side or the other is licked. They all ought to have arranged matters before the fighting started.”

Until long after dark they two crouched here, together with other soldiers, watching the bombs. The night was clear and still, except for the smoke and the guns. And when the castle spoke with a thirteen-incher, and that landed, then—Boom!

“Well, I’ve got to go for tattoo,” said Hannibal, with a yawn. “You’d better skip, too, or you won’t be let in if you don’t have the countersign. After tattoo everybody’s supposed to be bunked for the night.”

“Maybe I’ll see you to-morrow.”

“See you in Vera Cruz, boy,” Hannibal promised. “Bet you the Eighth will beat the Fourth, if we storm. Sorry you aren’t one of us, in the Eighth. That’s General Worth’s regiment. He was our colonel before I joined.”

“I’ll stay with the Fourth,” Jerry retorted. “I’ll go sharpen Lieutenant Grant’s sword.”

Hannibal laughed.

“Those toad-stickers aren’t meant to be sharp. They’re just for looks. But I keep mine sharp, all right. To-morrow I’ll capture a Mexican with it.”

Jerry found the tent. Everything here was quiet, except Pompey, and he was snoring. So Jerry snuggled down upon Lieutenant Grant’s cot, under a blanket, intending to stay awake to make certain that it was all right; but while listening to Pompey, and to the steady cannonade, dulled by distance, he drowsed off—dreamed of charging and throwing shells while he ran, with Hannibal beating a drum and the Mexican army lying flat and shooting bullets that burst like little bombs.

In the morning he was aroused by drums and fifes. He was still in the cot. Pompey was about to shake him, and a tall officer in undress was laughing.

“Hi, you white boy! Wha’ fo’ you sleepin’ in an offercer’s bed?” Pompey accused. “Hain’t you manners? Heah dat reveille—an’ me cookin’ all the breakfus! Turn out. When Lieutenant Grant come, what he gwine to do fo’ a place to sleep?”

“You’re Grant’s boy, are you?” the tall officer asked. “I’m Lieutenant Smith. And in absence of your superior officer I politely request that you help Pompey with the breakfast. Lieutenant Grant will be here at any moment. He’ll appreciate a warm bed, but he’ll want it for himself.”

VII
HURRAH FOR THE RED, WHITE AND BLUE!

“A truce! A truce! They’ve surrendered!”

It was afternoon again. All this morning the cannon of both sides had been hammering away; but the new army battery, Number 4, of four twenty-four-pounders and two sixty-eight-pounder shell guns or Paixhans, had joined with the naval battery. The fire seemed to be battering the walls to pieces. The men from the trenches, and the officers who watched through their spy-glasses, declared that the shells and solid shot were dismounting the Mexican guns and tumbling the casemates and parapets upon the heads of the gunners. The mortars were still blowing up the buildings and the streets. The Mexican fire was growing weaker.

Lieutenant Grant had come back just after reveille, from all-night work in the quartermaster department, overseeing the landing of stuff on the beach from the transports in the offing. He had gone to bed and had slept until noon.

“Do you think we’ll charge on Vera Cruz to-day?” Jerry asked at his first opportunity; for Pompey had been prophesying, and the waiting infantry appeared to be a little nervous, and the old sergeants would say neither yes nor no.

“That’s not for me to answer,” Lieutenant Grant replied. “We’ll obey orders.”

“Vera Cruz has got to surrender, though, hasn’t it? And if Old Fuss and Feathers says to charge, we’ll charge.”

“Look here,” the lieutenant rapped, severely. “Don’t let me catch you using that nickname again. You’re speaking disrespectfully of the commanding officer. He’s Major-General Scott. Remember that: Major-General Winfield Scott, chief of the United States army, and commanding this Army of Invasion. Where did you get that name?”

“The men call him that; even the drummer boys do,” Jerry apologized. “So I thought I might.”

“Well, the men don’t do it out of disrespect. They know him. All the old soldiers are proud to serve under General Scott. The drummer boys are young rascals, without respect for anybody. So don’t pattern on them.”

“Is General Scott as good a general as Old Zach—General Taylor, I mean?”

“I’m not supposed to express an opinion. A second lieutenant has no opinions to express about his superior officers. I served under General Taylor in Texas and northeastern Mexico. General Taylor won all his battles; that’s the test of a general. He’s an old hand at fighting. So is General Scott. They were appointed to the army at the same time, 1808. As far as I may judge, their methods are different but equally effective. General Taylor I was privileged to see in action. He is experienced in emergency fighting, learned from his campaigns against the Indians in the War of 1812 and in the Florida War. He apparently does not plan far ahead, but meets the emergencies as they come up, on the field, and handles his forces in person. General Scott, who attained high reputation for bravery and skill against British regular troops in the War of 1812 and is a hard student of war—in fact, has compiled the system of tactics in use by the United States army—relies more, I understand, upon having his orders carried out as issued in advance and covering the whole field. He is regarded as a master of tactics, which, you know, means the moving of troops upon the field, in the presence of the enemy. Strategy is the science of moving troops to advantage before contact with the enemy; the getting ready to fight. Tactics may be learned in books, but strategy is largely a gift. General Taylor is named by the soldiers who admire him ‘Old Rough and Ready,’ and that well describes him. He is a straightforward fighter, and opposed to all display; he places dependence upon the natural courage of his men, rather than upon drill. His tactics are successful. The tactics of General Scott have brought the army to a fine state of discipline. The American regular army is the best in the world, and the Volunteers will soon be not far behind. As I have not served long under General Scott, of course I cannot say much about his strategy when in command of a large body of troops. One thing is sure: he has the ablest engineers yet produced, to help him carry out his plans, and a splendidly trained army, both officers and rank and file, to perform his plans; and officers and men are confident that his plans will be thoroughly sound.”

With this military lecture, Lieutenant Grant strode away.

Pompey chuckled.

“Hi yi! Nebber did heah Lieutenant Grant talk so much at onct. Didn’t say nuffin’ much, neither.”

At noon the fire from the city had ceased. There were rumors that the Mexican general wished to surrender. About two o’clock the American batteries ceased, also. Cheers spread from the advance trenches back to the camps. A white flag had been borne from the city to General Scott’s headquarters.

“A truce! A truce! They’ve surrendered!”

Out on the front the soldiers could be seen scrambling from the trenches and cheering; and the officers of the batteries stood upon the sandbags to examine the walls at leisure with their glasses.

The truce, however, did not last long. The Mexican flag went back. The general officers, who had been called into council with General Scott, returned to their divisions; and one of them—a burly short-necked, red-faced, lion-looking man who was General David Twiggs of the Second Division of Regulars, said, in plain hearing as he rode:

“Humph! My boys will have to take that place with the bayonet yet.”

The mortar batteries opened again. It was reported that General Scott and Commodore Perry (Commodore Conner had gone home) of the navy had agreed upon an assault of the city to-morrow, March 26, by soldiers and sailors both.

The mortars fired all night, in slow fashion, as if for reminder. The city forts and the castle answered scarcely at all. Evidently the time for the assault was ripe. About midnight another norther came; the worst norther to date. In the morning half the tents were flat, everything and everybody were covered with sand, and the trenches and the city could not be seen through the sand cloud.

“We gwine to attack, jest the same,” Pompey proclaimed. “We cain’t see the enemy; enemy can’t see us. Fust t’ing dey know, dar we’ll be. Wind cain’t stop bagonets. No, suh! Oof! Don’t believe I laike dis country, nohow. If Gin’ral Scott don’t take us away, I’se gwine back to Virginny. Yaller feber’s done arriv. Dey’s got it yonduh in Very Cruz, already. Mebbe we don’t want dat Very Cruz. I ain’t pinin’ to stay ’round hyar. Nigger don’t stand no show ’gin yaller feber. Dey say dar’s a big passel ob Mexican sojers collectin’ in back country to capture us when yaller feber an’ dese no’thers gets done with us. So if Gin’ral Scott don’t quit foolin’ an’ mahch away, I’se gwine by myself.”

Soon after breakfast, or about eight o’clock, the firing stopped once more; another white flag had been taken in to General Scott. This time it proved to be in earnest, for the batteries did not reopen during the day, nor during the night.

The surrender was set for the morning of the twenty-ninth, at ten o’clock sharp.

Jerry looked up Hannibal, and learned more news from him than he could get by listening to Lieutenant Grant and Lieutenant Smith talk, or to Pompey chatter.

“We bagged ’em both,” Hannibal asserted. “City and castle, too. General Scott didn’t start in to say anything about the castle. All he wanted was the city, and then the castle would have to surrender or starve. But the Mexican general offered the two, and so of course we took ’em. General Worth, of our division, and Pillow, of the Tennessee Volunteers in the Third Division, and Colonel Totten, chief of engineers, did the talking. The surrender’s to be made at ten o’clock in the morning, day after to-morrow. Who did you say the Mexican general was?”

“General Morales.”

“Well, he isn’t. He escaped and left another general, Landero, to foot the bill. But you’ll see a great sight when all those Mexicans march out and pile up their guns. We took that city easy, too. Had only two officers and nine men killed in the army and one officer and four men killed in the navy, and less than sixty wounded. That’s pretty good for twenty days’ skirmishing and investing.”

“The Mexicans have lost a thousand, I guess,” proffered Jerry.

“They ought to have surrendered sooner. The longer they held out the worse they got it. We were going to storm the walls this very day. The navy was to carry the water front and the army the sides; and there’d have been bullets and shells and solid shot and bayonet work, all mixed.”

The morning for the surrender dawned clear and calm. The orders had called for every officer and man to clean up and wear his best uniform. So there were preparations as if for parade.

“Sech a polishin’ an’ scourin’ an’ slickenin’ I nebber did see,” Pompey complained, as he and Jerry worked on the belts and swords and uniforms of their lieutenants. Through all the regiment and division the soldiers were scouring their muskets and polishing their buttons and whitening their cross-belts and shining their tall leather dress-hats.

The drums beat the assembly, which was the signal for the companies to fall in. The troops, under the stars and stripes and their regimental colors, were marched to a green meadow south of the city walls. The sailors had come ashore. They wore their white flapping trousers, and short blue jackets, and white flannel shirts with broad blue collars, having a star in the corners. They, and the Regulars, were spick and span, because they had been trained to take care of themselves and their things. The Volunteers were not so neat, but that was the fault of their officers.

The sailors and the Regulars were drawn up in one long line, extending nearly a mile; the Volunteers were drawn up in another long line, facing them. The dragoons were at the head of the double line, and so were two mounted companies of Riflemen, and the Tennessee Horse. By this time a great stream of Mexican men and women and children and loaded burros were filing out of the city gate, taking their goods with them. General Scott had promised not to interfere with the citizens, but nevertheless the people were afraid.

Jerry himself, hastening with Pompey and a throng of the camp followers, had his first chance to see the whole army.

The generals all were here, with their staffs: General Scott, of course, the most imposing of any, by reason of his great size and his full uniform; the swarthy, flashing-eyed General Worth, very handsome on a prancing horse—he had been appointed to receive the surrender, which was an honor to the First Division; the white-haired, lion-like General Twiggs (Old Davy), of the Second Division of Regulars—his whiskers on his cheeks were growing again, which, with his short neck and stout shoulders, made him look more like a lion than ever; General Robert Patterson of the Volunteer Third Division—an old soldier of Pennsylvania, who had a rugged face and high forehead and was known as a fighting Irishman; and Colonel William S. Harney of the Dragoons—another giant of a man, almost as large as General Scott, with sunburned face and blue eyes, and a quick, bluff manner, which just fitted a bold dragoon.

Then there were the brigade commanders: Colonel John Garland and Colonel Newman S. Clarke of the First Division; Colonel Bennet Riley (who had risen from the ranks) and General Persifor Smith (the colonel of the Mounted Rifles), of the Second Division; General Gideon Pillow the Tennessean (a slightly built man and the youngest of all the brigadiers), General John A. Quitman the Mississippian (a slender man with elegant side-whiskers), and General James Shields from Illinois (a black-moustached Irishman), of the Volunteers.

But the Regular cavalry took the eye: The one company of the First Dragoons, under young Captain Phil Kearny, the six companies of the Second Dragoons, and the nine companies of the Riflemen under Major Edwin V. Sumner of the Second Dragoons, while their own colonel, Persifor Smith, was serving as brigadier. Only two companies of the Riflemen were really Mounted Riflemen; the regiment had lost most of its horses in a storm on the way, and not all the dragoons were mounted, either, for the same reason.

The uniform of the dragoons was short dark-blue jackets piped with yellow, and light blue trousers with yellow stripes down the seams, and buff saddle reinforcements on the inside legs; cavalry boots, and dress helmets floating a white horsehair plume. The Riflemen (who carried rifles instead of muskatoons) had green trimmings. It was said to be a dashing regiment, equal to the dragoons.

Suddenly, at ten o’clock precisely, in the city and at the castle of San Ulloa, down fluttered the Mexican red, white and green tricolor flags, while the Mexican cannon fired a salute to them; the red, white and blue rose in their place, and the salute by the army and navy guns was almost drowned by the great cheer from Jerry and all the rest of the non-combatants. The two ranks of soldiers and sailors did not dare to cheer without orders, but they swelled with pride.

And here came the Mexican army, in a long column, out of the southern gate, with a lot more women and children (the soldiers’ families) trudging beside, carrying bundles.

There were five thousand—infantry, artillery and cavalry—led by their bands. Their uniforms were dazzling: green and red, light blue and white, blue and red, whitish and red, red and yellow—many combinations, the officers being fairly covered with gilt and bright braid.

“Shuah, dey’s most all gin’rals an’ drum-majors,” Pompey exclaimed, admiring.

In comparison, the United States uniforms of plain navy blue and sky blue, with a little white and a little red and a little yellow and green, looked very business like—even the gold epaulets of the officers’ dress coats.

General Worth and General Landero severely saluted one another. General Landero drew aside with his staff. The whole Mexican army marched down between the two lines, and out beyond the end they were shown where to stack their muskets and deposit their belts and other equipment and the flags. A regiment of lancers, in green, with tall red caps and yellow cloaks, brought up the rear, on foot, to pile their lances.

Some of the Mexican soldiers looked sad; some looked rather glad to have the matter ended. They all were pledged by their officers not to take part in the war again, unless exchanged for American prisoners. Meanwhile they were permitted to go home.

“Reckon dey mought as well plow deir cohn,” Pompey chuckled. “’Case why? ’Case dar won’t be anybody to exchange ’em fo’.”

VIII
INSPECTING THE WILD MOHAWKS

After the surrender the army camp was moved out of the sand hills and to the beach. That was a great relief—to be away from the swamps and thickets and dust and the thousands of small flies and millions of fleas. Some of the clever officers had been greasing themselves all over with pork rind and sleeping in canvas bags drawn tightly around their necks; but even this did not work.

General Worth was appointed military governor of Vera Cruz; another honor for the First Division. General Quitman’s brigade of Mohawks was put in as garrison.

The men were granted leave, in squads, to go into Vera Cruz. And Vera Cruz was a sad sight, as Jerry found out when he and Hannibal strolled through. The bombs from the mortars had crashed through the tiled roofs of the buildings, burst the walls apart, and had made large holes in the paved streets. It was dangerous to walk because of the loosened cornices of the roofs. The beautiful cathedral had been struck; it now was a hospital, containing hundreds of wounded soldiers and civilians.

But the most interesting thing to “military men” was the wall on the side of the city toward the naval battery. The sixty-eights and thirty-twos had hewed two openings—had simply pulverized the coral rock laid twelve feet thick; and a wagon and team might be driven through either gap. The bastions, also, and the outlying batteries, had been knocked to smithereens.

Yet it was astonishing how quickly American rule was bringing order. The streets were being rapidly cleaned up by squads of soldiers and by the Mexicans who were hired. Shops were doing a big business—the soldiers, especially the Volunteers, were gorging themselves with fruits and vegetables and cakes. The harbor was again crowded with masts, of American transports and merchantmen flying many flags. The sea-wall was a regular market, piled with bales and boxes and crates for the army, and thronged with people white, yellow and black, who set up stalls, or crowded around the huge naval guns hauled there to be placed back upon the ships of Commodore Perry’s squadron. A new wharf was being built, extending out clear to the coaling depot that had been erected upon the reef near the castle, at the entrance to the harbor.

Assuredly old Vera Cruz was being Americanized. But although everything was under strict martial law, and one negro camp follower who had frightened a Mexican woman had been promptly tried and hanged, Jerry never caught a glimpse of the two Manuels among all the Mexicans who stayed in safety.

He was not now afraid of the two Manuels. They had cuffed him and had sneered at the “gringos”—but here the gringos were, unbeaten! And Vera Cruz belonged to the Mexicans no longer.

In a short time the camp was moved again, to the plain between the city and the sand hills. The men had been rested; they were set at work drilling. As soon as horses and mules and wagons arrived from the United States, the march for the City of Mexico would be begun.

“Let’s go over to the Volunteer camp and watch the foot Mustangs drill,” Hannibal proposed, one afternoon. “That’s great fun.”

So they went to the Third Division camp. A number of companies were being put through their drill, according to the tactics of General Scott. The Kentuckians (a regiment newly arrived) were exercising in the manual of arms.

“Eyes—right!”

“Eyes—left!”

“Front!”

“Shoulder—arms!”[1]

[1] In Scott’s Tactics “shoulder arms” was the same as “carry arms.”

“Secure—arms!”

“Shoulder—arms!”

“Order—arms!”

“Rest!”

“Attention—company!”

“Shoulder—arms!”

“Right shoulder—shift!”

“Shoulder—arms!”

“Charge—bayonets!”

“Shoulder—arms!”

“Load in twelve times—load!”

Then—

“Open—pan!”

“Handle—cartridge!”

“Tear—cartridge!”

Every soldier tore the end of the paper cartridge open with his teeth.

“Prime!”

A little of the powder was emptied into the pans of the guns.

“Shut—pan!”

“Cast—about!”

At that, the soldiers dropped their guns upright, and prepared to pour the powder in from the cartridge.

“Charge—cartridge!”

The powder was dumped into the muzzles, and the ball and cartridge paper for a wad, were forced in after.

“Draw—rammer!”

“Ram—cartridge!”

“Return—rammer!”

“Shoulder—arms!”

Or perhaps—

“Ready!”

“Aim!”

And while one held one’s breath, expecting a volley—

“Recover—arms!”

This left them at a “ready,” again.

“That load in twelve times is only for discipline,” Hannibal scoffed. “To teach ’em to work together. Load in four times is the Regulars’ way, by count—one, two, three, four. But mostly it’s ‘Load at will—load!’ I’d hate to be a Volunteer. They can fight, though. Yes, siree; they can fight. They’re not much on discipline, and they yell and sing and straggle while marching; but when they see the enemy—my eye!”

These Volunteers were indeed a lively and good-natured if rather rough set. When drill was over they raced for their messes and proceeded to loll about and cook and eat and sing, as if they had no thought in the world except to picnic. The rust on their guns and the length of their beards never bothered them at all.

Here’s a health to all them that we love,

Here’s a health to all them that love us,

Here’s a health to all them that love those that love them

That love those that love them that love us!

This was the song of one group, who were drinking from tin cups.

Molly is the gal for me——

sang another group. And—

Upon the hill he turned,

To take a last fond look

Of the valley and the village church,

And the cottage by the brook.

He listened to the sounds,

So familiar to his ear,

And the soldier leant upon his sword

And wiped away a tear.

A tall bearded Tennesseean was singing that, while his companions listened soberly.

But a chorus welled and spread until all the groups were joining in.

Green grow the rushes, O!

Green grow the rushes, O!

The sweetest hours that e’er I spend

Are spent among the lasses, O!

“They sang that stuff all through Texas and North Mexico,” said Hannibal. “It’s the Mohawk war cry. And the Mexicans think it’s a sort of national song, like some of theirs. You ought to hear ’em try to sing it themselves. ‘Gringo, gringo,’ they say, instead of ‘Green grow,’ and they call the Americans ‘gringos’!”

“That’s right; they do,” Jerry agreed, remembering the two Manuels and other Vera Cruzans. “They called me a ‘gringo’ whenever they were mean, but it wasn’t Spanish and they didn’t seem to know where it came from. ‘Gringo!’ Huh!”

Now he understood at last.

“Well, I’ve got to go back for that blamed ‘retreat,’” Hannibal grumbled. “Thunder! I never did see the use in all this parading every day.” Which was an odd remark for a Regular and a veteran.

They were just leaving the mess fires of the Mohawks, when there was a great shout of laughter, and out of the brush here came a big Illinoisan, a dead turkey in one hand and his long musket in the other, driving before him two ragged Mexicans.

“What you got there, Bill?”

“Part the Mexican army, boys. [’Peared like they were going to ambush me and take this turkey]; but I said ‘Nary, Mary Ann,’ and fetched ’em along with help of old Sal.” And he flourished his gun.

[“’PEARED LIKE THEY WERE GOING TO AMBUSH ME AND TAKE THIS TURKEY”]

“We meant no harm, good Americanos,” the Mexicans whined. “We are only poor countrymen.”

“Pass your turkey over to us,” the soldiers cried, to Bill. “Tell your paisanos to git and come back with the rest of their army.”

“I know them!” Jerry exclaimed. “They aren’t in the army. They’re brush cutters.” He ran aside. “Hello, Manuel.”

The two Manuels had been cringing and smiling and repeating: “Good Americanos! Valiant soldiers! Do not harm us, and God will reward you.” They saw Jerry, and recognized him. “Gringo puppy,” they hissed. “Where have you been?”

“Yes, I’m a gringo,” Jerry answered. “And I’m in the army of the Americans. You said they couldn’t take Vera Cruz. What do you say now?”

“They took Vera Cruz by standing off and killing all the people,” old Manuel snarled, in Spanish. “But wait, till they try to march on. Our Santa Anna and fifty thousand brave men are coming to meet them. Hear that, gringito? You’ll wish you’d stayed in the brush with old Manuel.”

Jerry laughed. He told Hannibal what had been said, and Hannibal laughed. As they went on they looked back. The two Manuels were scuttling out of the camp, unharmed, for the soldiers were more interested in the turkey.

Teams and cavalry mounts, and wagons and supplies were very slow in arriving, so that the army stayed in camp at Vera Cruz for over a week without a move. The yellow fever increased—only the fresh lively air blown in by the northers had held it down; and as soon as the northers ceased then the vomito would rage as usual. A large number of the men, especially the Volunteers, were ill with disease caused by drinking bad water and by over-eating.

General Scott reorganized the army for the march inland. The general orders changed the assignment of the regiments very little, and left them as follows:

First Regular Division, Brevet Major-General William J. Worth commanding: Light Battery A, Second Artillery; Second Artillery, eight companies, as infantry; Third Artillery, four companies, as infantry; Fourth Infantry, six companies; Fifth Infantry, six companies; Sixth Infantry, five companies; Eighth Infantry, seven companies.

Second Regular Division, Brigadier-General David E. Twiggs commanding: Light Battery K, First Artillery; howitzer and rocket company; Mounted Rifles, nine companies; First Artillery as infantry; Fourth Artillery, six companies, as infantry; Second Infantry, nine companies; Third Infantry, six companies; Seventh Infantry, six companies.

Third or Volunteer Division, Major-General Robert Patterson commanding: Third Illinois, Fourth Illinois; Second New York, ten companies; First Tennessee, Second Tennessee; First Pennsylvania, ten companies; Second Pennsylvania, ten companies; South Carolina, eleven companies; Kentucky, and a detachment of Tennessee cavalry.

The enlistment term of the Georgians and Alabamans had almost expired, so they were not included.

The company of engineers, which contained Captain Lee and Lieutenant McClellan and Lieutenant Beauregard and other smart young officers, was independent; and so were the ordnance or heavy artillery company and the dragoons.

Each division had been broken into brigades as before; and although Jerry’s Fourth Infantry and Hannibal’s Eighth Infantry were still in separate brigades they were in the First Division, anyway.

Subtracting the General Quitman brigade of South Carolinans (the Palmettos), Alabamans and Georgia Crackers, and the Tennessee cavalry, who were to garrison Vera Cruz, the army numbered between eight and nine thousand officers and men—not many for a march into Mexico and a fight with General Santa Anna’s thirty or fifty thousand.

Jerry proceeded to learn the drum, with Hannibal as instructor. The drumsticks proved tricky—there seemed to be a lot of rigmarole and Hannibal was a hard drillmaster; but who might tell what would happen in the coming battles? Young Rome, drummer boy in the Twiggs division, had been disabled already. So it behooved a fellow to be prepared to fill a vacancy.

For the army there were drills and evolutions “in masse,” as they were styled, with General Scott himself commanding. And a grand spectacle that was, when the infantry wheeled, and the artillery galloped, and the dragoons spurred, all upon the plain under the walls of Vera Cruz crowded with townspeople, gathered to view the sight.