Next there were breastworks, bloodied and trampled. The Mexicans had already been driven out of these. Scrambling inside, Jerry almost stepped upon a drum—a drum, drumsticks, cross-belt harness and all. It was a Mexican drum, but differing little from a United States outfit except the Mexican eagle instead of the American eagle upon the brass plates. So he grabbed it up quick, and lugging it on, trying to sling it, he pursued the line.
The slope continued. A breeze was wafting away the smoke; the stars and stripes and the regimental flags of the stormers had advanced far; and the blue ragged line, rushing, resting, and rushing again, pressing after the streaming folds and after a single figure, who, sword flashing, kept in the lead.
The drum bothered Jerry. When he had slipped into the cross-belts they were so long that the drum struck his shins, and the best that he could do was to carry it in his arms. His own battle line had forged well ahead of him; and when, dipping into a hollow, and clambering up out, still following Company B, he might glimpse the stormers again, he heard a hearty burst of cheers and yells.
Huzzah! Huzzah! The hurrying First Division was cheering—echoing the cheers from the top of the hill. From the stone tower above a blue regimental flag was flying—and the stars and stripes; the Mexican flag had come down. The American soldiers were springing upon the breastworks just beyond, wielding their bayonets as they disappeared—other American flags had been planted—the red caps of the Mexican defenders surged backward, and eddying and tossing broke into numerous rivulets flowing tumultuously across the hill, to the south, for the road below.
X
JERRY JOINS THE RANKS
El Telegrapho Hill—Cerro Gordo, the Big Hill—had been taken. When Jerry, lugging his precious drum, joined the Fourth Infantry the blue coats were swarming over the flat top, taking prisoners, and the Mexican rout was tearing down in the south making for the Jalapa road.
From the northwest edge of the hill another storming column had entered. This was the Second Infantry and Fourth Artillery, under Colonel Bennet Riley, of the Second Brigade, who had been ordered to make a half circuit. But they had arrived too late. Colonel Harney, the dragoon, and his Third and Seventh Infantry and First Artillery had captured the hill themselves. Those were the flags of the Third, the Seventh and the First. The flag of the Seventh had been raised first. Quartermaster-Sergeant Henry, of the Seventh, had been the man who had hauled down the Mexican flag from the flagpole on the stone tower, and the Seventh’s color-bearers had instantly raised their own standards.
The battle was won, but not all over. Colonel Riley at once launched his column in pursuit of the fleeing Mexicans. General Shields’ Volunteers—the Third and Fourth Illinois and the New Yorkers—were attacking in the west, to seize the batteries there and cut in to the Jalapa road. Cannon were booming in the south, where General Pillow’s Tennesseeans and Pennsylvanians and a company of Fourth Kentuckians were being held at bay still. But the hill of Cerro Gordo commanded all the country; it was the key, and in the Mexican batteries around white flags were being hoisted. Detachments were sent by General Worth, who was senior officer here, to take possession. The firing died away.
On the top of the hill all was excitement. The dead and wounded were thick. The Rifles came up from the ravine where they had checked a charge of the Mexicans to turn Colonel Harney’s left; their band was bringing a lot of prisoners, to the tune of Yankee Doodle. The men of the storming columns were loud in their praises of Colonel Harney. It was he who had led, bare-headed and sword in hand. The fifteen hundred of them had taken the hill, defended by breastworks and the stone tower and six thousand Mexican soldiers. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!