FIRST OPERATIONS AT MONTEREY
At once American reconnoitring parties accompanied by engineers hurried out (September 19), and both ends of the city were examined. Despite the fire of the citadel, particular attention was paid to the western fortifications, for the idea of turning them had already presented itself. By ten o’clock that night Brevet Major Mansfield, the chief engineer, returned to camp with five prisoners to be questioned and with satisfactory evidence that the Saltillo road could be gained in spite of the forts; and then a council decided to make the attempt.[1]
BATTLE OF MONTEREY DETAILED PLAN
Evidently, however, this meant a severe struggle. Going three quarters of a mile west from the main plaza of Monterey by the Saltillo route, passing a cemetery, and keeping on about a mile and a quarter farther, one found on a low eminence at the right a dilapidated but massive stone building known as the Bishop’s Palace, close below which stood now a half-moon battery facing and commanding the town. Beyond this redoubt, called La Libertad, the eminence became an ascending ridge, and some three hundred yards from the Palace the ridge ended sharply as the summit of an extremely steep height known by the Americans as Independence Hill (Loma de Independencia), where a small sand-bag redoubt had been constructed. Immediately west of this hill, what was known as the Topo road left the Saltillo highway and struck off toward one’s right, and near the farther edge of this road a spur of the mountain began to ascend. On the other side of the highway flowed the Santa Catarina, passing by the city and joining the San Juan some distance below. Farther to the left and parallel to the river rose a high, bristling hill named Federation Ridge. At the western end—the summit—of this ridge, which extended some distance beyond La Libertad, stood a redoubt occupied by some eighty men; and about six hundred yards to the east, in a depression of the ridge, was a substantial masonry fort called El Soldado, armed with two 9-pounders, which were dragged, before the fighting began, to the redoubt on the summit.[2]
Meantime the Mexicans also were observing. It was generally believed that Taylor had thirty guns, which meant a hard fight; but the soldiers were excited and ready for battle. “The enthusiasm is great, the determination greater, the desire to sacrifice ourselves for the sacred rights of the nation unbounded,” wrote the comandante general of Nuevo León. But Ampudia—“the Culinary Knight,” as Worth called him, who had fried Sentmanat’s head—already trembled. We have food for barely twenty days, he reported to the government; the troops at San Luis Potosí are few in number and little inclined to advance; through spies the enemy are aware of these facts; they will gain the pass between here and Saltillo, and from that position “it will be almost impossible to dislodge them.”[3]
Sunday morning all was bustle in the American camp, and at length, a little before two o’clock, Hays and about 400 mounted Texans rode away. A long sky-blue line of infantry followed them, and then another line of men in dark-blue jackets and trousers with a red stripe down the leg—Lieutenant Colonel Childs’s Artillery Battalion. Blanchard’s Company of Louisiana volunteers, dressed in every sort of clothes and carrying every sort of weapon, and Duncan’s and Mackall’s batteries with their gleaming pieces and clattering caissons completed the detachment, which included some 2000 men, all told. The rest of the army watched their departure with keen interest, for their design looked well-nigh desperate, and yet the fate of the campaign was believed to depend upon it.[4]
Especially they watched the commander. In the usual undress uniform but on a splendid horse, which he managed with consummate address, rode Worth. He was a man of average height but noticeably strong, with a trim figure and a strikingly martial air. Conversing easily with his staff he seemed the elegant gentleman; but his face was stern, and his restless dark eyes flashed. In war he found his element; and at present behind his natural ardor burned a new flame. His withdrawing from the army in April had injured both his prestige and his relative position, and his motto now was, “A grade or a grave.” His orders were to turn Independence Hill, occupy the Saltillo highway, and so far as practicable carry the works in that quarter; and no doubt he intended to do more rather than less.[4]
Soon taking leave of the road, this command plunged into cornfields and chaparral. Progress was difficult and slow. For the benefit of the artillery, ditches had to be bridged or filled and brush fences opened. The enemy promptly observed and understood the movement, and a body of cavalry embarrassed it somewhat. Once they nearly surrounded the General and his staff, who were some distance in advance; but after a time, fearing his artillery, they withdrew to the citadel. Ampudia himself rode to Independence Hill, watched the blue line a while, ordered one hundred infantry to the summit, and had a 12-pounder and a howitzer planted there.[5]