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

Jerry felt hungry. The sun marked mid-afternoon already. There was very heavy gunfire in the southeast around the Belen gate. Clouds of smoke enveloped the gate. The Quitman column had stormed—officers with glasses were insisting that the gate had been forced and that the Mexicans were trying to drive the Quitman column out. But the First Division had its own work now.

“Colonel Garland!” Lieutenant and Aide-de-Camp Pemberton, from General Worth, was delivering orders. “By direction of the division commander you will kindly equip a sufficient detachment of your brigade with pickaxes and crowbars, advance your column by the right of the road to the first occupied building, and using your sappers hew a way straight through the line to the gate. The same methods as at Monterey, colonel. When you reach your objective break through the roof and open fire from above the gate. The Second Brigade will be doing likewise on your left.”

The First Brigade, which had been hugging the aqueduct arches, cheered the orders. The detachment of sappers was told off, and supporting the pick-and-crow men the Fourth Infantry, followed by the Second and Third Artillery, rushed for the first house. The skirmishers deployed, seeking cover behind walls and sheds while they busily popped at the Mexican red caps upon the roofs.

The sappers hacked holes through the side of the house; by squads the men dived in. Jerry stayed out with the rest of Company B, his eye again glued to Lieutenant Grant.

Through the houses, and behind walls and around corners, the First Brigade slowly traveled on. The houses stood more and more closely, so that the burrowers darted safely across the narrow spaces. The enemy atop was helpless to stop them—and had no time to attend to them anyway. Jerry soon overtook Lieutenant Grant, who had halted at one side and was gazing before from the angle of a garden wall.

He saw Jerry at his elbow.

“You’re here, are you, young bodyguard?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s all right. I can use you. Supposing some of us mounted a light gun in the belfry of that church yonder. We ought to do execution. What do you think?”