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

“Listen to dem guns talk! Oof! Talkin’ a way right through dem walls, laike the horn ob Jericho. Mebbe to-morrow Gin’ral Scott wave his sword, an’ Lieutenant Smith an’ me an’ all the rest de ahmy, we fix bagonets an’ go rampagin’ ’crost dat patch ob lebbel ground an’ capture all dem Mexicans. What you gwine to do den?”

“Go, too, I guess,” said Jerry.

“We don’t ’low no nuncumbatants along when we-all charge,” Pompey asserted. “Ob co’se I got to stay with Massa Smith. I’se part the ahmy. But when dose cannon balls come a-sayin’ ‘Hum-m-m, where dat little white boy?’, what you gwine to do den?”

“I’d dodge ’em,” said Jerry.

“Wha’ dat? You dodge ’em? Now you talk foolish. Guess you nebber fit a battle yet. We-all am vet’rans. We-all belong to the Fo’th Infantry. We-all fit under Gin’ral Taylor. The Fo’th Infantry done licked dem Mexicans out o’ Texas an’ clyar into Mexico till dar warn’t any more to lick; den Gin’ral Scott, he said: ‘I got to have dat Fo’th Infantry to whup Santy Annie an’ capture the City ob Mexico.’ If you gwine to jine the Fo’th Infantry, boy, you meet up with a heap o’ trouble. We don’t dodge cannon balls. We hain’t time. We jest let ’em zoop an’ we keep a-goin’.”

“All those cannon balls don’t hit somebody,” said Jerry.

“Um-m-m. How you know? You talk laike you’d been sojerin’. Where you hide yo’self, after you leave Very Cruz? ’Way back on the beach?”

“No. I’ve been in the naval battery.”

“Wha’ dat?” Pompey’s eyes stuck out. “Out dar, with dose big guns? You lie, boy. How you get dar?”