Decisive Battles of America

by Unknown

CHURUBUSCO

Santa Anna considered it the key to the city, and awaited the attack in perfect confidence with thirty thousand men. The defences were of a very simple description. On the west, in the direction of Coyacan, stood the large stone convent of San Pablo, in which seven heavy guns were mounted, and which, as well as the wall and breastworks in front, was filled with infantry. A breastwork connected San Pablo with the tête de pont over the Churubusco River, four hundred yards distant. This was the easternmost point of defence, and formed part of the San Antonio causeway leading to the city. It was a work constructed with the greatest skill—bastions, curtain, and wet ditch, everything was complete and perfect—four guns were mounted in embrasure and barbette, and as many men as the place would hold were stationed there. The reserves occupied the causeway behind Churubusco. Independently of his defences, Santa Anna’s numbers—nearly five to one—ought to have insured the repulse of the assailants.

By eleven—hardly seven hours having elapsed since the Contreras camp had been stormed, five miles away—Twiggs and Pillow were in motion toward the San Antonio causeway. Nothing had been heard of Worth, who had been directed to move along the east side of the Pedregal on San Antonio; but it was taken for granted he had carried the point, and Scott wished to cut off the retreat of the garrison. Twiggs was advancing cautiously toward the convent, when a heavy firing was heard in advance. Supposing that a reconnoitring party had been attacked, he hastily sent forward the First Artillery, under Dimmick, through a field of tall corn, to support them. No sooner had they separated from the main body than a terrific discharge of grape, canister, and musketry assailed them from the convent. In the teeth of the storm they advanced to within one hundred yards of that building, and a light battery under Taylor was brought up on their right and opened on the convent. Over an hour the gunners stood firm to their pieces under a fire as terrible as troops ever endured; one-third of the command had fallen before they were withdrawn. Colonel Riley meanwhile, with the stormers of Contreras, had been despatched to assail San Pablo on the west, and, like Dimmick, was met by a murderous rain of shot. Whole heads of companies were mowed down at once. Thus Captain Smith fell, twice wounded, with every man beside him; and a single discharge from the Mexican guns swept down Lieutenant Easley and the section he led. It was the second time that day the gallant Second had served as targets for the Mexicans, but not a man fell back. General Smith ordered up the Third in support, and these, protecting themselves as best they could behind a few huts, kept up a steady fire on the convent. Sallies from the works were constantly made and as constantly repulsed, but not a step could the assailants make in advance.

By this time the battle was raging on three different points. Worth had marched on San Antonio that morning, found it evacuated, and given chase to the Mexicans with the Fifth and Sixth Infantry. The causeway leading from San Antonio to the tête de pont of Churubusco was thronged with flying horse and foot; our troops dashed headlong after them, never halting till the advance corps—the Sixth—were within short range of the Mexican batteries. A tremendous volley from the tête de pont in front and the convent on the flank then forced them to await the arrival of the rest of the division. This was the fire which Twiggs heard when he sent Dimmick against the convent.

Worth came up almost immediately; and, directing the Sixth to advance as best they could along the causeway in the teeth of the tête de pont, despatched Garland and Clarke’s brigades through the fields on the right to attack it in flank. Every gun was instantly directed against the assailants; and, though the day was bright and clear, the clouds of smoke actually darkened the air. Hoffman, waving his sword, cheered on the Sixth; but the shot tore and ripped up their ranks to such a degree that in a few minutes they had lost ninety-seven men. The brigades on the right suffered as severely. One hundred men fell within the space of an acre. Still they pressed on, till the Eighth (of Clarke’s brigade) reached the ditch. In they plunged, Lieutenant Longstreet bearing the colors in advance—scrambled out on the other side—dashed at the walls, without ladders or scaling implements—bayoneted the defenders as they took aim. At last officers and men, mixed pell-mell, some through the embrasures, some over the walls, rushed or leaped in and drove the garrison helter-skelter upon their reserves.

The tête de pont gained, its guns were turned on the convent, whence the Mexicans were still slaughtering our gallant Second and Third. Duncan’s battery, too, hitherto in reserve, was brought up, and opened with such rapidity that a bystander estimated the intervals between the reports at three seconds. Stunned by this novel attack, the garrison of San Pablo slackened fire. In an instant the Third, followed by Dimmick’s artillery, dashed forward with the bayonet to storm the nearest bastion. With a run they carried it, the artillery bursting over the curtain; but at that moment a dozen white flags waved in their faces. The whole fortified position of Churubusco was taken.

Meantime, however, a conflict as deadly as either of these was raging behind the Mexican fortifications. Soon after the battle commenced, Scott sent Pierce and Shields’ brigades by the left, through the fields, to attack the enemy in the rear. On the causeway, opposed to them, were planted Santa Anna’s reserves—four thousand foot and three thousand horse—in a measure protected by a dense growth of maguey. Shields advanced intrepidly with his force of sixteen hundred. The ground was marshy, and for a long distance—having vainly endeavored to outflank the enemy—his advance was exposed to their whole fire. Morgan, of the Fifteenth, fell wounded. The New York regiment suffered fearfully, and their leader, Colonel Burnett, was disabled. The Palmettos, of South Carolina, and the Ninth, under Ransom, were as severely cut up; and after a while all sought shelter in and about a large barn near the causeway. Shields, in an agony at the failure of his movement, cried imploringly for volunteers to follow him. The appeal was instantly answered by Colonel Butler, of the Palmettos: “Every South-Carolinian will follow you to the death!” The cry was contagious, and most of the New-Yorkers took it up. Forming at angles to the causeway, Shields led these brave men, under an incessant hail of shot, against the village of Portales, where the Mexican reserves were posted. Not a trigger was pulled till they stood at a hundred and fifty yards from the enemy. Then the little band poured in their volley, fatally answered by the Mexican host. Butler, already wounded, was shot through the head, and died instantly. Calling to the Palmettos to avenge his death, Shields gives the word to charge. They charge—not four hundred in all—over the plain, down upon four thousand Mexicans, securely posted under cover. At every step their ranks thinned. Dickenson, who succeeded Butler in command of the Palmettos, seizes the colors as the bearer falls dead; the next moment he is down himself, mortally wounded, and Major Gladden snatches them from his hand. Adams, Moragne, and nearly half the gallant band are prostrate. A very few minutes more, and there will be no one left to bear the glorious flag.

CHARGE OF THE “PALMETTOS” AT CHURUBUSCO
(From a print of the time)

But at this very moment a deafening roar was heard in the direction of the tête de pont. Round-shot and grape, rifle-balls and canister came crashing down the causeway into the Mexican ranks from their own battery. Worth was there just in time. Down the road and over the ditch, through the field and hedge and swamp, in tumult and panic, the Mexicans fled from the bayonets of the Sixth and Garland’s brigade. A shout, louder than the cannon’s peal—Worth was on their heels, with his best men. Before Shields reached the causeway he was by his side, driving the Mexican horse into their infantry, and Ayres was galloping up with a captured Mexican gun. Captain Kearny, with a few dragoons, rode straight into the flying host, scattered them right and left, sabred all he could reach, and halted before the gate of Mexico. Not till then did he perceive that he was alone with his little party, nearly all of whom were wounded; but, in spite of the hundreds of escopetas that were levelled at him, he galloped back in safety to headquarters.

The sun, which rose that morning on a proud army and a defiant metropolis, set at even on a shattered, haggard band and a city full of woe-stricken wretches who did nothing all night but quake with terror and cry at every noise, “Aqui viene los Yanquies!” All along the causeway, and in the fields and swamp on either side, heaps of dead men and cattle, intermingled with broken ammunition-carts, marked where the American shot had told. A gory track leading to the tête de pont, groups of dead in the fields on the west of Churubusco, over whose pale faces some stalks of tattered corn still waved, red blotches in the marsh next the causeway, where the rich blood of Carolina and New York soaked the earth, showed where the fire of the heavy Mexican guns and the countless escopetas of the infantry had been most murderous. Scott had lost, in that day’s work, over one thousand men in killed and wounded, seventy-nine of whom were officers. The Mexican loss, according to Santa Anna, was one-third of his army, equal probably to ten thousand men, one-fourth of whom were prisoners, the rest killed and wounded. As the sun went down the troops were recalled to headquarters; but all night long the battle-field swarmed with straggling parties, seeking some lost comrade in the cold and rain, and surgeons hurrying from place to place and offering succor to the wounded.

It would have been easy for Scott to have marched on the city that night, or next morning, and seized it before the Mexicans recovered the shock of their defeat. Anxious, however, to shorten the war, and assured that Santa Anna was desirous of negotiating; warned, moreover, by neutrals and others that the hostile occupation of the capital would destroy the last chance of peaceable accommodation and rouse the Mexican spirit to resistance all over the country, the American general consented, too generously perhaps, to offer an armistice to his vanquished foe. It was eagerly accepted, and negotiations were commenced which lasted over a fortnight. Early in September the treachery of the Mexicans became apparent. No progress had been made in the negotiations; and, in defiance of the armistice, an American wagon, proceeding to the city for provisions, had been attacked by the mob and one man killed and others wounded. Scott wrote to Santa Anna, demanding an apology, and threatening to terminate the armistice on the 7th if it were not tendered. The reply was insulting in the extreme; Santa Anna had repaired his losses and was ready for another fight.