The Guerilla Chief, and Other Tales

“ Agua! por amor Dios, agua—aguita !” (Water! for the love of God, a little water!)
I heard these words, as I lay in my tent, on the field of Cerro Gordo.
It was the night after the battle bearing this name—fought between the American and Mexican armies in the month of April, 1847.
The routed regiments of Santa Anna—saving some four thousand men captured upon the ground—had sought safety in flight, the greater body taking the main road to Jalapa, pursued by our victorious troops; while a large number, having sprawled down the almost perpendicular cliff that overhangs the “Rio del Plan” escaped, unperceived and unpursued, into the wild chapparals that cover the piedmont of Peroté.
Among these last was the lamé tyrant himself, or rather should I say, at their head leading the retreat . This has always been his favourite position at the close of a battle that has gone against him; and a score of such defeats can be recorded.
I could have captured him on that day but for the cowardice of a colonel who had command over me and mine. I alone, of all the American army, saw Santa Anna making his escape from the field, and in such a direction that I could without difficulty have intercepted his retreat. With the strength of a corporal’s guard, I could have taken both him and his glittering staff; but even this number of men was denied me, and nolens volens was I constrained to forego the pleasure of taking prisoner this truculent tyrant, and hanging him to the nearest tree, which, as God is my judge, I should most certainly have done. Through the imbecility of my superior officer, I lost the chance of a triumph calculated to have given me considerable fame; while Mexico missed finding an avenger.
Strictly speaking, I was not in the engagement of Cerro Gordo. My orders on that day—or rather those of the spruce colonel who commanded me—were to guard a battery of mountain howitzers, that had been dragged to the top of the cliff overlooking El plan—not that already mentioned as the field of battle, and which was occupied by the enemy, but the equally precipitous height on the opposite side of the river.