General Worth was appointed military governor of Vera Cruz; another honor for the First Division. General Quitman’s brigade of Mohawks was put in as garrison.
The men were granted leave, in squads, to go into Vera Cruz. And Vera Cruz was a sad sight, as Jerry found out when he and Hannibal strolled through. The bombs from the mortars had crashed through the tiled roofs of the buildings, burst the walls apart, and had made large holes in the paved streets. It was dangerous to walk because of the loosened cornices of the roofs. The beautiful cathedral had been struck; it now was a hospital, containing hundreds of wounded soldiers and civilians.
But the most interesting thing to “military men” was the wall on the side of the city toward the naval battery. The sixty-eights and thirty-twos had hewed two openings—had simply pulverized the coral rock laid twelve feet thick; and a wagon and team might be driven through either gap. The bastions, also, and the outlying batteries, had been knocked to smithereens.
Yet it was astonishing how quickly American rule was bringing order. The streets were being rapidly cleaned up by squads of soldiers and by the Mexicans who were hired. Shops were doing a big business—the soldiers, especially the Volunteers, were gorging themselves with fruits and vegetables and cakes. The harbor was again crowded with masts, of American transports and merchantmen flying many flags. The sea-wall was a regular market, piled with bales and boxes and crates for the army, and thronged with people white, yellow and black, who set up stalls, or crowded around the huge naval guns hauled there to be placed back upon the ships of Commodore Perry’s squadron. A new wharf was being built, extending out clear to the coaling depot that had been erected upon the reef near the castle, at the entrance to the harbor.
Assuredly old Vera Cruz was being Americanized. But although everything was under strict martial law, and one negro camp follower who had frightened a Mexican woman had been promptly tried and hanged, Jerry never caught a glimpse of the two Manuels among all the Mexicans who stayed in safety.
He was not now afraid of the two Manuels. They had cuffed him and had sneered at the “gringos”—but here the gringos were, unbeaten! And Vera Cruz belonged to the Mexicans no longer.
In a short time the camp was moved again, to the plain between the city and the sand hills. The men had been rested; they were set at work drilling. As soon as horses and mules and wagons arrived from the United States, the march for the City of Mexico would be begun.
“Let’s go over to the Volunteer camp and watch the foot Mustangs drill,” Hannibal proposed, one afternoon. “That’s great fun.”
So they went to the Third Division camp. A number of companies were being put through their drill, according to the tactics of General Scott. The Kentuckians (a regiment newly arrived) were exercising in the manual of arms.
“Eyes—right!”