ERRATA.

Since the printing of this book it has come to my knowledge that comrade James C. Carleton, secretary of the National Association of Mexican War Veterans of Bedford, Indiana, under-ranks me in age 14 days. He was born on the 17th of June, 1832, while I saw the light first on the 3rd of June of the same year. This knocks the conceit out of me as to being the youngest veteran of the Mexican War, and I take my hat off to my dear young comrade Carleton, late of the 5th Regiment Indiana Volunteers, Colonel Lane, and I am relegated to a back seat.

I hope my dear comrade will live to see his 100th birthday, and that he may never die till I kill him, and when he is called away at the last tattoo, may every hair of his head be converted into an electric light to illumine his march to glory.

by the Hon. WILLIAM McKAY

Comrades and welcome Guests:

It has been the custom of veterans of the war with Mexico to celebrate the fall of the capital of that Republic before the prowess of American soldiers on the 14th day of September, 1847.

Hence are assembled around this festive board in this magnificent Hotel Continental the few veterans of that war whose far-wandering footsteps have brought them to the “elbow-touch” once more on a foreign soil. We meet to-night in this splendid capital of France, yet with the radiant folds of our country’s flag above us, that flag honored of the nations:

“For grace and beauty and order draw
Around that symbol of light and law.”

In thus assembling, we commune in the sacrament of a common memory with our comrades across the seas, who on all their homestead hills are celebrating the same glorious event. With them we exult in the proud consciousness that by doing our duty as American soldiers in the days of our youth, we not only gave renewed lustre to the martial annals of our country, but through the triumph of our arms we added greatly to the sum of human happiness, by widening the area of the world’s civilization.

The occasion permits me to glance but briefly at the events of that war which to some are still vivid memories,[Pg 4] while others must either glean them from the historic page or hear them recited by the men who then acted history.

That war had its origin in the invasion of the soil of the United States by the Army of Mexico.

On January 10th, 1845, the Congress of the United States passed an Act providing for the annexation of Texas.

The Act was ratified by the Congress of that Republic on July 4th, 1845, and Texas with its two hundred and sixty five thousand square miles of territory, an area greater than that of the German Empire or of Austria, thus became an integral part of the American Union.

Texas had already maintained her independence for ten years against Mexico, the parent country.

Those who have questioned the political morality of the act of annexation may be fully answered by reference to the fact that England, France and Spain had all formally recognized the independence of the Republic of Texas three years before her admission into our Union. Mexico resolved to nullify that act by force of arms.

In view of her aggressive attitude, Major General Zachary Taylor, U. S. Army, was ordered to the Rio Grande, the Western boundary of Texas, with a force of about four thousand men, chiefly regulars, where he arrived July 20th, 1845, establishing his headquarters at Corpus Christi, within four miles of the Mexican Army, then encamped ten thousand strong, under the command of General Ampudia, on the South side of that river. In January, 1846, General Taylor moved his command to a point opposite Matamoras, Mexico, and erected an earthwork which he termed Fort Brown.

On the 24th of April, 1846, Captain Thornton, U. S. Army, while marching at the head of seventy men of the 2nd Dragoons in Texas, fell into an ambuscade of Mexican regular troops, numbering between three and four hundred, and after a gallant resistance, during which he had sixteen of his command killed, and thirty-eight wounded, was obliged to surrender. Six days later the Mexican forces attacked Fort Brown, and were handsomely repulsed. On May 8th General[Pg 5] Taylor with 2,300 men met and defeated the Mexican Army 6,000 strong, under the command of Generals Ampudia and Arista, at Palo Alto. On the following day, the Mexican Army having received a reinforcement of 1,000 men, made a stand at Resaca de la Palma (Ravine of Palms) and was there again defeated by General Taylor, the Mexican loss being 975 and ours but 110 killed and wounded.

It is a noteworthy fact that those battles were fought without a declaration of war on either side. Indeed no declaration of war was ever made by either of the two contending Republics.

On May 13th, 1846, the Congress of the United States passed a resolution declaring that war existed between the United Stales and Mexico, and further resolved, that the war should be prosecuted, until we obtained “indemnity for the past, and security for the future.”

In response to the call of the President (Jas. K. Polk) for thirty thousand volunteers, sixty-five thousand volunteered promptly. The quotas furnished by the respective States were as follows:

Alabama 2,981, Maryland and district of Columbia 1,372, Arkansas 1,274, Florida 289, Missouri 6,441, Georgia 1,987, North Carolina 895, Illinois 5,791, South Carolina 1,120, Indiana 4,329, Ohio 5,334, Iowa 229, New Jersey 420, Kentucky 4,094, New York 1,890, Louisiana 7,341, Pennsylvania 2,117, Michigan 1,072, Tennessee 5,392, Massachusetts 930, Texas 7,394, Mississippi 2,235, Wisconsin 146.

To these must be added about seven thousand regulars of the United States Army, and one thousand marines, making an aggregate force of about seventy-three thousand rank and file, constituting that gallant army, charged with the duty in connection with our grand old historic navy of enforcing from Mexico “indemnity for the past and security for the future.”

That demand, history attests, they translated into action.

The Republic of Mexico consisted of twenty-four states, with a population of about six millions. It had but twenty[Pg 6] years previously achieved its independence against the veteran army of Spain.

It had a standing army of fifty thousand, and had called into the field an additional force, chiefly volunteers, of nearly two hundred thousand.

Her soldiers were well armed and equipped, the muskets of her infantry all bearing the English Tower-stamp, and the cartridges being of the best British manufacture. Her troops were, in the main, magnificently uniformed, and we could say with literal truth that her “Cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold.” Her coast defences were provided with good armaments, her principal sea-port, Vera-Cruz, being guarded by the Castle of San Juan d’Ulloa, built of white coral rock, and mounting three hundred heavy guns. No country was better adapted by its topography for defensive warfare.

Abounding with mountain ranges, and rocky hill-slopes, the true citadels of freedom, that commanded all practicable roads to the interior, while she had a formidable ally in the deadly climate of her coast, where the tropical sun, shining upon the ever-decaying masses of rank vegetation, breeds the fatal malaria which burns up the blood with fever, alternating with the icy “norther” that within an hour will often vary the temperature from summer’s heat to an almost Arctic cold.

Three lines of operation against Mexico were now determined on:

1. General Taylor was to operate from Matamoras, along the line of the Rio-Grande.

2. A column under General Kearny was to conquer the Mexican territories of New Mexico and California.

3. A column under General Wool was to enter the Northern States of Mexico and conquer Chihuahua, and the adjacent country.

In pursuance of this plan General Taylor advanced upon the Mexican Array, then in position at Monterey, on September 5th, 1846.

[Pg 7]

His army numbered 6,600 of all arms, composed of 3,200 regular troops of the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th, infantry; 4 companies of the 2nd Dragoons, and 5 batteries (30) guns of field artillery, and 3,400 volunteers, consisting of the first regiments from Kentucky, Mississipi, Ohio and Tennessee, two Texas regiments commanded by Brig. Gen. Henderson, including Jack Hay’s famous Texas Rangers, and one battalion from Maryland and the District of Columbia.

The Mexican force consisted of 7,000 regulars and 3,500 volunteers, with 84 pieces of artillery in strong works covering every approach to the city. Their principal works were designated as Forts Diabolo, Teneria, Soldado, Independence, the Bishop’s Palace and the Citadel.

Our army attacked in three divisions, commanded respectively by Generals Worth, Twiggs and Butler of Kentucky.

The enemy made a desperate resistance. The firing was incessant from the windows and flat roofs of the dwellings, and from barricades in the streets when our troops had entered the city after carrying all the outer defences by assault.

The attack began on September 20th, and ended on the morning of the 23rd, with the surrender of the enemy. Our loss was about 950 killed and wounded.

Early in December, 1846, all of the regular infantry was withdrawn from General Taylor’s army and ordered to report to Major-General Winfield Scott, the Commander-in-Chief, who had assumed command in person of the fourth great column of attack, whose objective point was the Capital of Mexico, and which was entitled, “The Army of Mexico.” General Taylor’s army was thus reduced to only 4,500 men consisting altogether of volunteers, except three batteries of the regular army, and two squadrons of the 2nd Dragoons. Its numerical weakness invited attack, and General Santa Anna, the most renowned and skilful of the Mexican Commanders, and President of the Republic of Mexico, who had won a decisive victory over the French Army of invasion nine years before, moved his army against it. That army, according to the Mexican official reports,[Pg 8] numbered twenty three thousand, two-thirds regular soldiers.

General Taylor decided to accept battle, and selected a position admirably adapted for defence at the Rancho Buena Vista. The position was marked by narrow defiles, and rugged and high ridges, that commanded the valley below. The battle began at daylight on February 23rd, 1846, by the attack of the enemy in force on our left flank. It was gallantly repulsed by the fire of the second and 3rd Indiana Riflemen, and a company of Col. Yell’s dismounted Arkansas Cavalry, with Bragg’s and Shermann’s splendidly served batteries, diverged to our left, where the enemy was concentrating for a decisive attack. The extreme left of our line was posted on a high and broad plateau and was composed of the 2nd Indiana, and 2nd Illinois regiments of infantry.

The tremendous impact of that attack forced those regiments to retire in considerable disorder after they had sustained for some time a severe cross-fire of artillery, and a heavy fire on their front, by a greatly superior force of infantry. At that crisis of the battle the 1st Mississipi Rifles, the only regiment of that army that was armed with rifles having percussion locks, commanded by Colonel Jefferson Davis, promptly interposed between the retreating regiments, and the charging Mexican cavalry, and doubtless saved the day by their rapid and effective firing, before which the enemy recoiled. There are veterans of Buena Vista, who, though in after years they still remained true to the flag of their country, and struck in its just defence on fields “shot-sown and bladed thick with steel,” do not feel that they sully their loyalty in respectfully saluting Jefferson Davis, as he was, recalling him to memory as with tall heroic form he so gallantly upheld the starry ensign of the Union upon the steady and blazing line that sheltered the brave but broken columns of Illinois and Indiana, from the uplifted sabres of a merciless foe.

The art of dying at the right time is the art preservative of great reputations.

The Mississipi Rifles were soon bravely supported by the 1st Illinois, 2nd Indiana, and 2nd Kentucky regiments with section (2 pieces) of Bragg’s famous battery, and the ground[Pg 9] lost on our left flank was in great part recovered. At the base of the ridge the left flank of the enemy was held in check by Indiana and Arkansas infantry, and the destructive fire of our artillery.

At that moment, when his army had met with a disastrous and demoralizing repulse, General Santa Anna sent forward a flag of truce and our fire was suspended. The bearer of the flag, to the amazement of General Taylor, presented a demand for the surrender of his army.

This expedient cannot be too strongly commended in the art of war, although writers upon grand strategy have strangely overlooked it. It is not suggested even by General Jomini, in his exhaustive work “Traité des grandes Opérations Militaires.”

It may, however, be thus formulated: When your attacking columns are shattered and repulsed, hurry up a flag of truce, and check the advance of your exultant enemy, and demand his surrender, and then, before he can recover from his astonishment at your sublime impudence reform your shattered lines and advance to further vantage ground, or retire in good order, under the shelter of the peaceful symbol.

Santa Anna’s messenger returned with General Taylor’s laconic answer, “I decline acceding to your demand,” and the Mexicans again advanced to the attack, bringing into action all their reserves, and were again repulsed with heavy loss, after a terrible struggle.

The battle of twelve sanguinary hours on that mountain plateau had ended, and “our flag was still there.”

General Santa Anna retired rapidly with his army, only pausing in the vicinity long enough to send off a bulletin to the Capital announcing that he had “won a decisive victory over the barbarians of the North.” Thus ended in a blaze of glory the battle-record of the “army of occupation,” under General Taylor.

In the meantime, the Army of the West, under the command of General Stephen W. Kearney, had been reaping a rich harvest of laurels.

[Pg 10]

By a rapid march from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to Santa Fé, a distance of 750 miles in thirty days, he secured possession of New Mexico.

Dividing his force (2,500) at Santa Fé, General Kearney with 1,500 Dragoons marched to California, and defeated the enemy in a warm engagement at San Pasqual. He then formed a junction with the California rifle battalion, and a force of 750 sailors and marines from the naval squadron, under the command of Commodore Stockton, who had just succeeded the gallant Commodore Sloat, who had previously taken the California port of Monterey. Prior to the arrival of General Kearney, however, that brilliant soldier, and untiring and sagacious explorer, John C. Fremont, had hoisted the American standard in California. He was there under orders to ascertain and lay out a new route to Oregon further South than that travelled by our emigrants.

The Mexican Governor of California having in May, 1846, ordered all American settlers to leave that province, and having raised a force to expel them, Colonel Fremont recruited a body of 400 men and defeated the Mexicans in several sharp engagements in the valley of the Sacramento, before he had even heard that war existed between the United States and Mexico. Under his able and enterprising leadership the Americans in California, united with many of the natives, declared the independence of the province of California on the 4th of July, 1845.

It has since transpired that but for this timely action on the part of Col. Fremont and the resolute Americans associated with him, a large force would have been landed from the British fleet in that vicinity, and California would have been taken possession of by England, under an arrangement with its Mexican Governor.

It had been taken possession of by Admiral Drake for England in the year 1579, under the name of “New Albion,” and the vague British claim was to be revived in the interest of English capitalists who held the bonds of Mexico to the amount of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars.

A few months after these stirring and important events on[Pg 11] the Pacific slope, Col. A. W. Doniphan began his famous march from Santa Fé to Saltillo.

He started on November 13th, 1846, with a force consisting of nine hundred Missouri cavalry and two batteries of Missouri artillery. A part of his command 500 strong was attacked on Christmas Day at Brazito by a force of 1,000 Mexicans, which they defeated in twenty minutes. They again defeated the enemy on February 28th, 1847, at Sacramento, near the city of Chihuahua, and entered that important city triumphantly. On the next day Doniphan began his march through the Northern States of Mexico, back to Saltillo. He accomplished this renowned march, winning victories as he went, in forty days, a distance of 1,500 miles. This dims the lustre of the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks from the field of Cunaxa, as graphically described by Xenophon, their commander and historian.

While these events were in progress, Col. Sterling Price, of Missouri, who had been left by Doniphan at Santa Fé, with a force of about 500 men, had been, as he always was, active and successful.

On January 19th, 1847, Governor Charles Bent, with thirty-five other Americans were massacred at Taos, New Mexico, in cold blood by a Mexican force of about two thousand cavalry, which soon after appeared in the vicinity of Santa Fé. Price attacked and defeated them, after a desperate conflict, at Canada, about 18 miles north of Santa Fé. He pursued them on their retreat, and two days later inflicted severe loss upon them at Embedo, and finally on February 4th he utterly routed them at Taos, the scene of their recent savage atrocity.

The scene now opens on a broader field of action.

On the 9th of March, 1847, the Army of Mexico, under the command of Major-General Winfield Scott, that most regal of American soldiers, never to be named by us, comrades, but with uplifted hat, began its victorious march for the “Halls of the Montezumas.” General Scott on that day effected the landing of his army at Sacrificios, an island seven miles west of Vera Cruz. The landing was made in seventy-five surf[Pg 12] boats, each carrying seventy-five men, under cover of our fleet, commanded by Commodore Conner, with those able and dashing officers Commodores Perry and Tatnall commanding squadrons of the fleet. The army there numbered 13,200 rank and file. General Scott established his lines on the north and east fronts of Vera Cruz on the same day. Within ten days he had planted five large siege batteries built of sand bags about 1,000 yards from the walls of the city. One of them was mounted with 8-inch ship guns, and manned by sailors from the fleet.

A demand for the surrender of the city having been made and refused, our guns opened fire on March 22nd, and for three days and nights rained upon it the red ruin of avenging war. On the morning of the 25th, General Laudero, commanding the garrison of the city and the Castle of San Juan d’Ulloa, sent in a flag of truce with overtures of surrender. He at first proposed to surrender the city alone. General Scott refused this, as the castle distant but a mile to the South East of the city, completely commanded it, and he therefore demanded its surrender also.

This demand was finally acceded to and the surrender of the Castle of San Juan d’Ulloa, and the City of Vera Cruz, with their garrisons 8,000 strong was formally made on March 29, 1847. Our loss was but sixteen killed and wounded.

On April 8th our army took up its line of march along the national road for the Capital of Mexico distant 290 miles. On April 14th it confronted the Army of Santa Anna, 20,000 strong posted on the heights of Cerro Gordo. The mountain ridges on which he had taken position, had been well fortified by that indomitable but cruel and faithless Mexican general, and fully commanded our route to the Capital. At the instance, and under the direction of that most excellent soldier Captain Robert E. Lee, of the Corps of Engineers, a road was cut through the dense forest on the enemy’s left, so as to enable us to take his position in reverse. This work occupied three days during which our working parties were frequently attacked.

[Pg 13]

On the morning of the 18th of April, at dawn, we attacked in force.

The command of our column of attack on the enemy’s left was the post of honor, for it was the strongest point of his position, as it covered his only line of retreat. That command was assigned to Brigadier General James Shields, one of that warlike Irish race who have ever keenly felt the rapture of the fight wherever battle was to be done for a noble cause—a most knightly and heroic soldier, who would have worn with stainless honor the white plume of Henry of Navarre on the field of Ivry, and have worthily led the immortal Irish Brigade along the path of glory that it trod at Fontenoy.

Our troops dashed up the mountain side with unquailing intrepidity, the First Regiment of New York, volunteers of Shield’s brigade under the command of that most gallant soldier Colonel Ward B. Burnett, bravely leading on our extreme right. The rocky ridge was soon ablaze with the fire of musketry and artillery.

In three hours the Mexican Army was routed. The battle was done, and far up on the crest of the mountain range where the eagle dwells alone, the white stars of our country’s banner shone serenely on their blue field. Our loss was 97 killed and 408 wounded, and that of the enemy about 1,400 in killed and wounded, and 2,750 prisoners, among whom were officers and men of the recently surrendered garrison of Vera Cruz, who were serving against us in violation of their paroles.

Harney’s Dragoons pursued the enemy hotly, and sabred their scattered columns for fifteen miles along the road to Jalapa.

At that city the army of Scott was reduced to about 6,500 by the muster out of the greater part of his volunteer forces, as they had enlisted for only one year; and their term of service had expired. Leaving Jalapa on the 22nd of April we entered Peroté and its strong castle, a full bastion work of 80 guns, on the evening of the 23rd, the enemy having evacuated it on approach. Halting here to rest for about[Pg 14] two weeks we marched for Puebla, 70 miles distant, the chief manufacturing city in Mexico with a population of 65,000.

We occupied Puebla on May 15th, after a desultory fire from the enemy in its streets.

Here General Scott was obliged to await, for nearly three months, the arrival of reinforcements. Every day’s delay increased our hazard, as the enemy was fortifying, along all the approaches to the capital.

The time was not wholly lost, however, for General Scott there brought the drill of his volunteer regiments to the highest state of perfection, so that they marched and manœuvred with all the precision of trained regulars.

At length the long-expected reinforcements arrived, and on the morning of August 7th, 1847, our Army moved out of Puebla on its march for the city of Mexico, all our bands playing the Star Spangled Banner.

It numbered then about 10,000 men, consisting of four divisions.

The cavalry was commanded by that redoubtable soldier, the Murat of the Army, Brt. Brig. Genl. Wm. S. Harney, and consisted of detachments of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Dragoons, to the number of about seven hundred and fifty.

After a toilsome march of about seventy miles, across mountain spurs and along a very rugged road, the army, on the afternoon of August 17th, 1847, looked down for the first time on the valley of Mexico, and saw from afar its magnificent capital, with the golden crosses of its churches glittering in the red light of the setting sun. There lay before us the same broad lake, mirroring the same snow-crowned mountains in its glassy bosom, on which Cortez with his steel-clad warriors had gazed, in the same month, three hundred and twenty six years before. On reaching a point about nine miles from the city, General Scott ascertained by a reconnaissance that the Mexicans had fortified El Peñón, a mountain that commanded the approach to the capital by the National road. He therefore ordered a counter march with the view to turn the lake (Chalco) on the south. This required[Pg 15] a march of twenty five miles, which was rapidly made, and on the 18th, the army was concentrated at a point about ten miles from the city at Contreras, a strong position held by General Valencia, with field-works mounting twenty-four guns. These, General Scott determined to take in reverse, and we therefore made a night march of eight miles over the pedregal or lava fields, a route deemed by the Mexicans impracticable for any army. The assault was made on the rear and flanks of the surprised enemy soon after daylight on August 20th, by Riley’s Cadivalders and Shield’s Brigades, all under the command of General P. F. Smith, whom General Shields, although ranking above him, magnanimously allowed to retain the command that he might carry out dispositions made prior to the arrival of Shields on the ground.

The whole line of works was stormed, and the battle won in eighteen minutes.

The enemy broke at the first assault, and fled in the direction of the city, and nearly five hundred of them were captured by the New York Volunteers and the Palmetto regiment, that were posted to cut off their retreat. At this battle two guns of the 4th Artillery, that were lost without dishonor at Buena Vista, were recaptured from the enemy.

The army, after resting a few hours at St. Augustine, a town about four miles from Contreras, marched against the main body of the enemy, distant six miles from the former point.

We were soon in the presence of the Mexican Army, thirty thousand strong, commanded by Santa Anna, and composed of the best troops of Mexico, including several thousand volunteers. It occupied a vast intrenched camp near the village and convent of Churubusco, about seven miles from the capital.

While marching to this field we heard a number of heavy explosions which we soon learned were due to the blowing up of the bridges along all our possible lines of retreat back to the coast.

That meant, as every soldier well knew, a declaration by[Pg 16] our Mexican foe of “War to the knife, and the knife to the hilt.”

General Scott halted the army on a lofty plateau overlooking the valley where stretched the serried lines of the enemy and where

“The sheen of the spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue waves roll nightly on deep Galilee.”

He there briefly addressed the several commands, and expressed his firm conviction, that each man would do his duty as an American soldier, and thus assure victory to our arms.

That word “Duty,” a code of honor in itself, unknown in its full import, to every language but our own, has ever inspired the loftiest achievements of the English speaking race.

The battle opened at noon, by the attack of the Division of General Worth (the Marshal Ney of the Army) on the enemy’s left flank, and soon became general.

The degree of resistance that we encountered, is indicated by the following extract from the report of Brig. Genl. Shields as to the operations of his own brigade and it is doubtless applicable to every command on that field: “My brigade composed of the 1st New York regiment of Volunteers, and the Palmetto (S. C.) regiment, advanced steadily against the right flank of the enemy under as terrible a fire as any that soldiers ever faced.”

At sundown the battle ended with the defeat of the Mexican army which retreated in great disorder toward the city.

The Dragoons, under Harney, followed the flying enemy fast and far, and Major Phil. Kearney, not hearing the recall sounded, or rather not heeding it, pursued them to the walls of the city, sabreing the gunners at its very gate, where he lost his right arm, and returned wounded behind one of his soldiers. Our loss was 1,045 killed and wounded, while that of the enemy was estimated at 7,000 in killed, wounded, and prisoners.

We captured 5,000 prisoners and 86 pieces of artillery.

[Pg 17]

Among the many deeds of heroism done at Churubusco, I must note one of the most daring that has passed into history. In our charge upon the field-work known as the tête de pont, we found our way blocked by a burning Mexican ammunition wagon, that threatened a destructive explosion. At this juncture Sergeant Alexander M. Keneday of the 3rd Dragoons, attached to Worth’s escort, sprang into the wagon, and calling three of his comrades to his aid, with the sparks flying around him threw the packages of gunpowder into the river below, thus saving many lives and enabling our charging columns to advance. Sergeant Keneday is now the honored Secretary of our National Association.

On the same evening a flag of truce arrived from Santa Anna who proposed an armistice of twenty days, stating that he desired to negociate terms of peace. General Scott assented, and having but three days’ rations in his commissariat, imposed as one of the conditions, that he should be allowed to send a train with a proper escort into the city, and there purchase supplies for his army. This was accordingly done. On Sept. 6th, Gen. Scott declared the armistice at an end, having discovered that the wily Santa Anna, in violation of its solemn terms, was engaged in fortifying his position and reinforcing his army.

At dawn on Sept. 8th we again advanced. Santa Anna with his army occupied Molino del Rey or the King’s Mill, a series of massive stone buildings surrounded by high walls, about one mile and a half west of the castle of Chapultepec and three miles from the city of Mexico. His force consisted of ten thousand men and twenty four pieces of artillery.

Our attacking columns numbered 3,600 with Drum’s, Huger’s, and Duncan’s batteries, and a company of Voltigeurs, under the immediate command of General Worth, all regulars.

We attacked in three columns, and our first attack being repulsed, the Mexicans sallied from their works, and lanced our wounded officers and men, and cut their throats within full view of our army.

Worth rapidly reinforcing with Cadwallader’s Brigade,[Pg 18] and Stewart’s rifles, that had been left to support Huger’s Battery, and Duncan’s heavy Battery of 24-pounders, attacked the enemy’s right and centre, and having taken the Casa Mata, a strong stone citadel, the enemy abandoned all his other positions, and the day was won. In proportion to the force engaged, this was, for us, the most bloody battle of the war. We had 953 killed and wounded, among them seventy five officers. The loss of the enemy was 1200 killed and wounded, and 850 prisoners.

The desperate nature of the conflict may be indicated by the fact that towards its close, the guns of Drum’s and Huger’s batteries were served almost entirely by officers—graduates of West Point, nearly every enlisted artillery man having fallen at his post.

The victory was important as Molino del Rey was the chief cannon foundry of Mexico and its guns commanded some of the approaches to the Castle of Chapultepec.

That castle was a strong fortress of rock and masonry, mounting 26 guns, and garrisoned by 2,500 regular troops and 300 cadets under the command of General Bravo. It was the National Military Academy of Mexico. It was situated about one mile and a half from the capital, on the crest of a steep rocky height, which rose 189 feet above the road which entered the city at the Belén gate. About midway up the ascent was a strong redoubt on the south front, and just below that, a heavy stone wall, with a banquette, which ran along nearly the entire front, and was well manned with Mexican regulars. Our batteries opened fire on the castle at the distance of about 700 yards, on the morning of September 12th, and at night fall had made several breaches in its walls.

Soon after midnight our forces silently occupied the ditch that nearly encircled the foot of the hill, and which was bordered with a profuse growth of the Maguay plant or American aloe, which served to screen us from the view of the enemy. At day-dawn on the 13th our men stepped from the ditch, and being quickly aligned under the fire of the enemy, advanced to the assault. The entire army was[Pg 19] brought into action, except three regiments of Worth’s division held in reserve at Molino del Rey. In a whirlwind of fire from cannon and musketry, that swept down the hill, which was everywhere ablaze with the flashing guns, our men pressed upward, and onward, our artillery, in the road below, firing shot and shell over their heads as they advanced.

Another desperate rush, and their bayonets sparkled at every breach, and soon the flag of the First New York volunteers, the first to crown the castle, floated out above the battlements with its inspiring motto “Excelsior,” and proclaimed that Chapultepec was ours!

The presence here to-night of one of the gallant survivors of that heroic regiment, Colonel Daniel E. Hungerford who is on my left, and Colonel Charles J. Murphy who is on my right, a soldier of another regiment, leads me to recall two incidents of that battle, one of which moves me deeply with a sense of personal gratitude and bereavement.

The Colonel of that Regiment, Ward B. Burnett, who proved himself worthy to lead it, was severely wounded at Cherutusco, and the command devolved upon its Lieutenant-Colonel Baxter, who was killed while most gallantly leading it at Chapultepec. Its brave Major Burnham then assumed command, but was soon temporarily disabled by a glancing shot or a flying fragment of rock.

At that critical moment, when the Regiment was nearing the breaches under a galling fire, Captain Daniel E. Hungerford, then but in his twenty-fifth year, though not entitled to command it, sprang to the front and cheered the regiment forward with his voice and waving sword.

As to the incident which touches me personally. I recall the forlorn hope of my regiment composed of thirty men under the command of Lieutenant Ralph Bell, third Lieutenant of my company and the youngest officer of the Palmetto Regiment, being only in his twenty-first year. Those who knew him well remember his tall, lithe but soldierly figure, his light hair and gentle blue eyes, and his face almost feminine in its delicate beauty.

[Pg 20]

Most vividly does he come back to my memory, as he sprang forward leading that forlorn hope, as cheerily as if he were going to meet his bride, and with the blood trickling from a wound upon his right cheek, pointing upward to the castle with the hilt of his sword, its blade having been shivered by a grape shot. But only two years later, he passed away among strangers in (California) far distant from his home, and his eyes closed in a strange land in death by the brotherly ministrations of his old comrade-in-arms Colonel Charles J. Murphy, who was himself a gallant actor on that field, though but a youth of seventeen years. Well indeed has the poet written,

“The bravest are the tenderest.
The loving are the daring.”

But to continue my cursory narrative of events that would require a volume to detail them fully.

Worth’s division pressed the enemy closely on his line of retreat to the eastern or San Cosmo gate of the city. General Scott decided to make his main attack at that gate, deeming it the most vulnerable point. With that view he ordered General Quitman with his division, to make a feint, and occupy the attention of the enemy at the Garita de Belén on the west.

Quitman’s command moved rapidly along the causeway leading to the city near the margin of the lake, carrying several batteries of the enemy, he having determined to convert the intended feint into a real attack and win a victory in violation of orders.

Far to the front the New York volunteers, the Palmetto Regiment, and Captain James Stewart’s company of regular rifles sprang from arch to arch of the great stone aqueduct, firing with rapidity as they advanced.

Drum’s battery galloped rapidly to the front, and opened an effective fire, which was at once replied to by the enemy, with at least twenty heavy guns. In a few minutes nearly every officer and man of the battery was killed or wounded. Its chivalric commander lay in the road with both thighs[Pg 21] shattered by a cannon ball, but true to the line of his duty, living and dying, he called out to the Infantry in the arches, “For God’s sake save my guns!” They quickly responded, and met the advancing foe with the bayonet, driving them back, and following them into their works, and the last sounds that reached the ears of the noble captain Simon Drum, were the victorious shouts of his comrades at the gate.

The magnificent Infantry of P. F. Smith’s and Pierce’s Brigades, were also at this time delivering a destructive fire at the enemy on our flanks.

The Mexican troops were soon driven from all their positions near the gate, and at twenty minutes past one o’clock on the afternoon of September 13th, 1847, the Palmetto flag of South Carolina was planted on the wall of the City of Mexico,—the first foreign ensign that had waved over that spot since Fernando Cortez had there unfurled the royal standard of Spain on August 13th, 1521.

Our further advance that day was checked by the fire of the citadel, a work with ten guns, about 600 yards from the Belén gate.

About six in the afternoon its commander, General Flores, offered to surrender, on the novel condition that General Quitman should give him a receipt for all his ordnance, quartermaster and commissary stores.

He was informed that receipts on such occasions were written with the sword, but his demand was acceded to, and the citadel surrendered the next morning, September 14th, at sunrise.

The main body of the army under General Worth drove the enemy from every position at the San Cosmo gate, and on the night of the 13th bivouacked within the walls of the city.

At noon on September 14th the entire army was united in the Plaza Mayor, or great square of the city of Mexico, the site of the ancient Tenochtitlan of the Aztec empire, nearly eight thousand feet above the level of the sea.

The stars and stripes were soon unfurled above the Palace[Pg 22] of the Cortes, (Congress), and six thousand five hundred American soldiers stood triumphant in the capital of Mexico, with its hostile population numbering one hundred and fifty thousand souls.

The subsequent operations of our army, though brilliant, were but of a minor character. Early in October, Santa Anna laid siege to our garrison at Puebla which consisted of the First Pennsylvania regiment of volunteers, under Colonel Childs. He summoned the garrison to surrender, stating, with his usual mendacity, that he had routed the army of General Scott. Col. Childs occupying Fort Loretto, in the western suburb of Puebla, repelled four desperate assaults of the enemy, 5000 strong, and Santa Anna drew off his forces on the approach of General Joseph Lane who was advancing from the coast, with needed reinforcements for Scott’s army. The last engagement of the war was fought by Brig. General Sterling Price at Rosales, New Mexico, on March 15th, 1848. He there, with but 300 Missouri Volunteers, defeated a Mexican force of 1000, capturing their commanding General, and eleven pieces of artillery.

The war ended by a treaty of peace, concluded at the Hacienda of Guadeloupe Hidalgo on February 2nd, 1848. Peace was formally announced in a proclamation by the President of the United States, on July 4th, 1848.

In this necessarily imperfect sketch of the salient events of the Mexican war, I have had to omit even the name of many an unforgotten hero.

It was no holiday war. It was replete with toilsome marches, with blistered and bleeding feet, through hot sands, under a tropical sun, and over jagged rocks, and snowy mountain ranges where horses and riders perished with cold. It abounded with nameless tragedies, both on bloody fields near many a battery’s smoking guns, and in the deep gloom of fever stricken hospitals. In that memorable war of two years, we fought seventy battles and engagements without the final loss of a single gun or American ensign.

Engaged always against heavy odds, we bore the honor of our great republic triumphantly, on our ever advancing swords and bayonets.

[Pg 23]

Blended with this patriotic reflection, we proudly recall the fact that we marched nearly three thousand miles through the country of an enemy, alien to us in race and language, and performed no act to wound the modesty of woman, or to sully the sanctity of her person.

The flames of no defenceless homestead lighted up our line of march, and no matin hymn or vesper bell was silenced by our coming. We were always merciful in the hour of victory, and our army, while vindicating the prowess of our country, also illustrated its civilisation. What have been the material results of that victorious war? It acquired for us the vast territories of California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Idaho, Arizona, and Utah, thus adding one million square miles or 640,000,000 of acres to the United States, nearly doubling its area.

According to authoritative statistics, there have been taken from the mines and rivers of the region thus acquired since 1848, gold and silver of the value of three thousand millions of dollars. Averaging the soldier at 140 pounds, this amount is sufficient to award to every soldier engaged in the battles of Mexico, were even all now living, his weight in pure gold.

But the enterprising men, who developed that imperial domain that had so long lain stagnant under a semi-barbaric rule, were more than mere delvers in mines, and gold-washers in river-sands. They were the builders of empire, the raw material, the muscle and the mind of great civilised States, whose industrial products have even exceeded in value during the past thirty five years, all the precious metals that have been taken from their rocks and streams.

Time, with its wide arch of forty years, has spanned many memorable events in our country, since we bore its flag in triumph over the smoking guns of hostile batteries on fields afar.

Within thirteen years after we had entered victoriously the capital of Mexico, the capital of the United States was itself menaced by a hostile army.

Through four years of internecine war the republic, founded by Washington, battled for its existence against[Pg 24] armed legions that challenged its rightful supremacy within the State where Washington was born.

That war embraced within its theatre of operations more than 2,700,000 men, and was signalized by more than one thousand battles and engagements. Soon after its termination, every American State, through its duly elected representatives, answered to the roll call beneath the dome of the Nation’s Capitol.

The magnanimous victors in that mighty war deserved victory, and they neither abridged the rights, nor wounded the self-respect of the vanquished.

Hence, to-day, all American citizens dwell together in loyal unity beneath the benign rule of our indestructible Union. And I can attest, as a Southerner, through five generations “native and to the manor born,” that if my comrades in arms of the Confederate army ever dream of future wars, it is with the sincere hope, that they may aid in bearing the flag of the Union among a people who have never looked upon its starry folds, and into lands that have never felt the power of its eagle’s beak.

TOASTS.

“The day we celebrate.” Responded to by Judge McKay of South Carolina.

“The President of the United States.”

This toast was received with great applause and drank standing.

Colonel Murphy in reply to the toast said:

Mr. Chairman and comrades of the Mexican war, and Gentlemen.—I feel highly honoured, at being called on to respond to this patriotic toast, in the presence of this important and representative assemblage, gathered here to-night, to unite in common with our countrymen at home, in celebrating this anniversary.

It is significant of the ardent patriotism of our people, that however varied may be the character of our meetings, this toast to the President of the United States is always drunk with enthusiasm and unanimity. And you will, I am sure, agree with me, that the able and high-minded gentleman,[Pg 25] who now presides over the destinies of the Republic, is a worthy successor to those who have gone before him in his exalted office. It is a matter of patriotic pride to us all that the pages of history have never yet been sullied by the misdeeds of an American President, and the representatives for the highest office in the gift of a free people have always been honored at home and respected and admired abroad.

We can justly claim that our Presidents form an unbroken line of wise and capable rulers, that leave indelible marks for good on the progress of civilization in the path of liberty, justice, and freedom. As for the present occupant of the White House, none can gainsay his devotion to duty, his ability and character, and his conscientious endeavour to serve faithfully the interest of our common country at home and abroad. Whoever our chief magistrate may be, we may be as Americans, sure that the national honor is always secure, and that our flag, the glorious “Stars and Stripes” will always be among the foremost standards among the nations of the earth. It can be truly said that our President is at the head of a happy family. Differences may divide us on election day, but at all times, love and reverence for our institutions, and liberties animate us, the fires of patriotism, obliterating the petty distinctions of politics, burn as brightly to-night in the North, South, East and West, of a united and prosperous country, as well as in the breasts of those around this board this evening. The public utterances of the President mark him as a statesman, who appreciates to the full the grandeur of our country, and the greatness of our people. In visiting through the several states last summer, the brave men of the South vied with the men of the North, in giving him an enthusiastic welcome, and proving to the world that, when the occasion calls for it, the spirit of loyalty and patriotism, and naught else, will be found in every American heart.

It is a pleasing spectacle to us, and a source of surprise and admiration to foreigners, that our President comes and goes, as an ordinary citizen; respect for his office and person being as general among our 75 million inhabitants that we[Pg 26] need not even the slightest display of force to with-hold his authority or strengthen his public acts. This is indeed an impressive fact, perhaps unparalleled in the history of any country, and a tribute to the stability of our institutions, supported by the people’s will and dominated by a spirit of justice and intellectual power. We have weathered a terrible storm, but the timbers of the ship of State have stood the strain. Our past has been glorious, and if we are true to our trust, we may look forward with optimism and faith to the future of our country, now the light of the world, and a beacon of hope to the oppressed of every land.

This elbow touch of cordiality and enjoyment with fellow-Americans on foreign soil is a most happy occasion for us all, but the grandest sight in this hall is our American flag, that symbol of beauty and glory, the red, white and blue, which recalls to our minds so much that is dear to our hearts, home, friends and native land.

I know I express as the feelings of all when I say we are better Americans for having travelled abroad. American citizenship is a title the proudest might envy, and it confers a distinction of inestimable value on its possessor. Let us assimilate all we can of the art and learning of the world, we freely draw from the treasures of her historic past, but let us always cherish and strengthen those grand principles of liberty, which the Fathers of the Republic fought for, and for the successful working of which we pledge ourselves.

May we all take part in many more festivities, and may our children’s children gather in like similar joyous meeting, to celebrate the anniversary of this day, for the blessings God may vouchsafe to our beloved country, glorious and united, under as wise and capable a President, as now resides in the White House at the National Capital.

“The President of our great sister Republic, France,” for whom three rousing cheers were given, and the song of the Marseillaise sung in French with great spirit, by Colonel Murphy.

“In memory of our dead comrades.”

Col. C. J. Murphy,
of Brussels.

[Pg 27]

The Press,

Responded to in a happy manner by Mr. Marshal of the N. Y. Paris Herald, followed by reminiscences of the Mexican War.

I will now call on our comrade, Colonel Daniel E. Hungerford, who commanded the 36th Regiment New York Volunteers, and served with great distinction all through the war of the Rebellion. He was the youngest captain in his regiment, the 2nd New York Volunteers, in the Mexican War, and was the officer who first hoisted the American flag over the Castle of Chapultepec. Time will not permit me to mention the many heroic deeds of valour performed by Colonel Hungerford in the Mexican, as well as in the Civil War. Colonel Hungerford, of Rome, Italy, will now address you, which he did in the following words:—

Colonel Murphy was asked to give his recollections of the war.

COLONEL CHAS. J. MURPHY

The Chairman, on introducing the Colonel said it would not be out of place here to give a brief sketch of his career. He is the youngest man now living who served in the Mexican War. In the War of the Rebellion he was one of the only two commissioned officers who were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in the first general battle of the war, Bull Run, where 50,000 men were engaged on each side. The other officer was Major-General Adalbert Ames, of the 5th U. S. Artillery, now living at Lowell, Mass. He was one of the only two regimental staff officers of the same rank who won this distinction during the war. The other[Pg 29] officer was first Lieutenant John W. Clark, R.Q.M., 6th Regiment Vermont Infantry.

Our medal of Honor ranks with that of the cross of the Legion of Honor of France, and the Victoria Cross of England, and only 1,400 were awarded a distinction greater than can be conferred by any potentate in Europe, because granted to so few of the two million seven hundred and fifty thousand men who were mustered into the armies of the United States between 1861-65.

Colonel Murphy, after resigning from his regiment, and while awaiting his commission in the regular army, which appointment was tendered him by President Lincoln, was engaged in the battle of Fair Oaks, and all through the seven days’ battles on the peninsula, from Gaine’s Mill to that of Malvern Hill, as a volunteer aid, and this without rank or pay.

He erected the first field hospital for the army of the Potomac at Harrison’s Landing.

Colonel Murphy was one of the first three officers who escaped from Richmond after Bull Run. The history of this remarkable escape was very graphically described by John S. C. Abbot, the historian, in “Harper’s Magazine” of January, 1867. Colonel Murphy was one of the old forty-niners of California, having arrived in San Francisco on the ship South Carolina in June, 1849, the first sailing ship to arrive with passengers for the mines from New York, after a short passage—for those days—of 156 days.

Of the 300 passengers on board, the only lady was Mrs. John White, the mother of the late U.S. Senator White now living in San Francisco, who wrote two years ago that she was not aware of any living survivors of those passengers except herself and Colonel Murphy, who were the two youngest people on the ship.

He went from California to Shanghai, China, and established the first commercial house at the mouth of the Yang Kin Pang River, opposite the foreign quarter at Shanghai, and loaded the first vessel that carried Chinese agricultural products to San Francisco.

[Pg 30]

Colonel Murphy has done more than any other man in the way of introducing the products of California in Europe, and secured the first gold medal for the grand wines of that State at the Antwerp Exposition.

He has done yeoman service in making known the splendid fruit of the golden State, and it was mainly through his efforts while in the service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the California wines and fruit are now on sale in nearly all the grocery and wine houses of Northern Europe.

It was through his initiative work that the exports of our Indian corn was so largely increased from 24,000,000 bushels the year he commenced the propaganda to over 213,000,000 last year.

If he had devoted the last fifteen of the best years of his life with the same enthusiasm and energy that he has given to this work in any legitimate business, he might have been a well-to-do man to-day.

Colonel Murphy spoke as follows:—

Colonel Murphy was called upon to respond to the last sentiment,—in memory of our dead comrades,—which he did, as follows:

It occurred to the compiler of this pamphlet that it would not be out of place to mention the name of Colonel Murphy’s son, Ignatius, a well-known journalist and editorial writer, who wrote the life of Colonel Hungerford (a book of nearly 400 pages). This gallant soldier recently died in Rome, Italy, at the home of his daughter, the Countess Telfener, at the Villa Ada, attaining the ripe age of seventy-five years. He passed peacefully away, surrounded by his affectionate wife, his daughter, the Countess, and his numerous grandchildren.

Ignatius Ingoldsby Murphy deserves more than a mere honourable mention in connection with the corn propaganda.[Pg 41] When his father commenced his missionary labors, in 1887, he was flooded with correspondence from all parts of Europe. This son, who was a third year naval cadet at Annapolis, resigned, and came over to Europe to assist his father, for which his knowledge of European languages eminently qualified him.

IGNATIUS INGOLDSBY MURPHY

CADET 1st CLASS, UNITED STATES

NAVAL ACADEMY, ANNAPOLIS, MD., U.S.A.

When his father was ordered from Berlin to Russia, by General Rusk, at the request of the Grand Duke Sergius, the uncle of the present Emperor, the Secretary of Agriculture appointed him as special agent and secretary to take his father’s place in Germany, and much of the success of this propaganda is fairly attributable to his valuable assistance, together with that of Colonel Murphy’s wife, who recently died in Brussels. This extraordinary and gifted woman gave the last fifteen of the best years of her life to this work; in fact her whole life, no less than her pen has been devoted to the welfare of others. The two daughters also worked together with the same energy and enthusiasm as their father, for no one man could have accomplished such phenomenal work in so short a time.

The exports of our American corn (maize) was only 24,000,000 bushels of 56 lbs. each in 1888, less than four per cent. of our production. The year after the commencement of this propaganda, which Colonel Murphy undertook on his own initiative and sole expense, unaided by anyone, the exports went up rapidly, and in 1901 were over 213 million bushels, and every acre of land on the corn belt has doubled in value in the last fifteen years. This result proves the value of the work done by this propaganda in showing the people of Europe the value of maize as human food, which was formerly only considered as fit food for animals. This family deserves a place on the roll of grateful remembrance.