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 Cera 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

How they all panted, and what a sight they were, muddy and smeared with blood and sweat.

“Commence—firing!”

“Huzzah! Give ’em Yankee Doodle, boys!”

The darkly scowling faces of the rows of Mexicans behind the dike breastworks could be seen. Their white teeth flashed from their lips parted in the swarthy countenances flattened against the gunstocks. The musket muzzles belched smoke; so did the cannon of the bridgehead to the left. The soldiers in front of Jerry were aiming, firing, pausing to load—to tear their paper cartridges with their teeth, dump a little of the powder into the opened pan under the raised flint, pour the rest into the muzzle, ram the paper and the three buckshot and a ball home with the ramrod; aim, fire, and run again, loading.

The blue line was slowly moving in. The men worked like Trojans. Now the buttons of the rows of red-capped Mexicans were showing, so near were the trenches. Jerry stumbled along right behind Lieutenant Grant, who never ceased shouting, never ducked nor dodged, and somehow had not been hit yet.

The First Brigade advance had come to a standstill, while the ranks fired more rapidly. The Mexicans were leaking away—wounded and staggering, or running scot free. A tremendous cheer arose above even the other tumult. The Second Brigade was into the bridgehead! A torrent of blue blouses, firing and charging with the bayonet, the officers leading and waving, had crossed a wide ditch at its base on this side. The men were diving in through the battery embrasures or scaling the walls like cats. In they went—in by the road went the Sixth Infantry. The flags of the Eighth and Fifth disappeared over the top; soon the flag of the Sixth was dancing to meet them. Out boiled the Mexicans, artillery and infantry, and streamed in a tossing tide up the bridge and into the north, or else into the trenches on the west. The bridgehead had been taken by front and side.

“Now, men! On! Charge!”

“The bayonet, lads! The cowld steel!” shrieked old Sergeant Mulligan to Company B.

The drummers beat the charge; with a volley and a yell the Fourth Infantry and all the line ran for the dike. The Mexicans in it answered with one volley; out they bolted. Right through the canal, shoulder deep with mud and water, the men scrambled, and leaped over the other bank. The Mexican red-caps, throwing away muskets and knapsacks, were frantically crowding the built-up road where it crossed the lowlands beyond the bridge.

The bridgehead had been the key. The enemy’s left was emptied; the trenches along the dike west of the road were still fighting, but Duncan’s battery had come into action. It had been unable to advance through the cornfields; had continued by the road, under cover of a mass of abandoned wagons from San Antonio. It was firing from the road—never had guns been served faster. The four pieces made one continuous roar, cannonading the west trenches that reached all the way to the great stone church set in the midst of other field works.