[March] 23rd. Firing continued from our mortars steadily—fire of enemy by no means so warm as when we opened on the day before. Our mortar platforms were much injured by the firing already. The 24 pounder battery had to be re-revetted entirely—terreplein levelled. During this day and night the magazine was excavated, and the frame put up. Two traverses made—the positions of platforms and embrasures determined. Two platforms laid and the guns run in—the embrasures for them being partly cut. One other gun was run to the rear of the battery.
[March] 24th. On duty with Captain Saunders again—could get no directions so I had the two partly cut embrasures marked with sand bags and dirt, and set a party at work to cover the magazine with earth as soon as it was finished. During this day the traverses[42] were finished, the platforms laid, the magazine entirely finished, and a large number of sand bags filled for the revetments of the embrasures. The “Naval Battery” opened today, their fire was fine music for us, but they did not keep it up very long. The crash of the eight-inch shells as they broke their way through the houses and burst in them was very pretty. The “Greasers” had had it all in their own way—but we were gradually opening on them now. Remained out all night to take charge of two embrasures. The Alabama Volunteers, who formed the working party, did not come until it was rather late—we set them at work to cut down and level the top of parapet—thickening it opposite the third and fourth guns. Then laid out the embrasures and put seven men in each. Foster had charge of two, Coppée of two, and I of two. Mine were the only ones finished at daylight—the Volunteers gave out and could hardly be induced to work at all.
[March] 25th. Mason and Stevens relieved Beauregard and Foster—but I remained. I had the raw hides put on—and with a large party of Volunteers opened the other embrasures. This was done in broad daylight, in full view of the town—yet they had not fired more than three or four shots when I finished and took in the men. The battery then opened. We then gave it to Mexicans about as hotly as they wished. We had ten mortars—three 68s, three 32s, four 24s, and two eight-inch howitzers playing upon them as fast as they could load and fire. Captain Anderson, 3rd Artillery, fired on this morning thirty shells in thirty minutes from his battery of three mortars (No. 1).
As I went to our camp I stopped at Colonel Totten’s tent to inform him of the state of affairs—he directed me to step in and report to General Scott. I found him writing a despatch. He seemed to be very much delighted and showed me the last words he had written which were “indefatigable Engineers.” Then we were needed and remembered—the instant the pressing necessity passed away we were forgotten. The echo of the last hostile gun at Vera Cruz had not died away before it was forgotten by the Commander in Chief that such a thing existed as an Engineer Company.[43]
Facsimile reproduction of a pencil sketch by McClellan.
Church at Camargo, seen from the Palace.
The superiority of our fire was now very apparent. I went out again at 3 P. M.—met Mason carrying a large goblet he had found in a deserted ranch. Found Captain Lee engaged in the construction of a new mortar battery for four mortars, immediately to the left of No. 1—in the parallel. There was a complete cessation of firing—a flag having passed in relation to the consuls, I think. The platforms of this battery were laid, but not spiked down. A traverse was made in boyau between Nos. 1 and 2, just in front of the entrance of the large magazine of No. 1, it being intended to run a boyau from behind this traverse to the left of the new battery. I laid out a boyau connecting Stevens’s communications with the short “parallel” of No. 2, then Captain Lee explained his wishes in relation to the new battery and left me in charge of it. I thickened the parapet from a ditch in front—inclined the superior slope upward, left the berm, made the traverses, had the platforms spiked, etc. The mortars were brought up and placed in the battery that night. Captain Saunders sent me to repair the embrasures of the 24 pounder battery—doing nothing himself. He then sent me to excavate the boyau I had laid out.
About 11.30 the discharge of a few rockets by our rocketeers caused a stampede amongst the Mexicans—they fired escopettes and muskets from all parts of their walls. Our mortars reopened about 1.30 with the greatest vigor—sometimes there were six shells in the air at the same time. A violent Norther commenced about 1 o’clock making the trenches very disagreeable. About three quarters of an hour, or an hour after we reopened we heard a bugle sound in town. At first we thought it a bravado—then reveillé, then a parley—so we stopped firing to await the result. Nothing more was heard, so in about half an hour we reopened with great warmth. At length another chi-wang-a-wang was heard which turned out to be a parley. During the day the terms of surrender of the town of Vera Cruz[44] and castle of San Juan de Ulua were agreed upon, and on 29th of March, 1847 the garrison marched out with drums beating, colors flying and laid down their arms on the plain between the lagoon and the city ... muskets were stacked and a number of escopettes ... pieces of artillery were found in the town and ... in the castle.
After the surrender of Vera Cruz we moved our encampment—first to the beach, then to a position on the plain between our batteries and the city. Foster was detached on duty with the other Engineers to survey the town and castle. Smith and myself were to superintend the landing of the pontoon and engineers trains, and to collect them at the Engineer Depot. Between the Quartermasters and Naval Officers this was hardly done when we left. I dismantled the batteries, magazines etc.—then amused myself until we left, with the chills and fever.
J[immie] S[tuart] being too sick to go on with his regiment came over to our camp and stayed with us. Instead of being sent on in our proper position, at the head of Twiggs’s Division, we were kept back and finally allowed to start on the same day that Worth started[45]—we received no orders to move, merely a permission. Our teams (6) were the worst I ever saw—they had just been lassooed as they swam ashore, and neither they nor their teamsters had ever seen a wagon before. We left Vera Cruz on the 13th [April]. By dint of applying some of the knowledge I had acquired under Guy Henry’s parental care, I succeeded in getting four teams to Ve[r]gara (Twiggs’s headquarters during the siege). As Smith and Foster did not come up I rode back to see what was the matter and found that they had arrived at a point opposite the middle of the city, broken down two sets of teams, got one teamster’s arm and hand badly kicked—and the devil to pay in general. At last they got on, and by leaving half the loads by the roadside we managed by hard swearing to get to within one-half mile of El Rio Medio by dark.