Of the sixty guns found at Alvarado thirty-five were shipped as trophies and twenty-five were destroyed.
Midshipman Robert C. Rodgers had been captured by the Mexicans near the wall of Vera Cruz and was imprisoned in the castle of Perote as a spy. Though Scott wanted to be the sole channel of communication with the Mexican government, Perry claimed equal power in all that relates to the navy. He sent Lieutenant Raphael Semmes (afterwards of Confederate and Alabama fame) with the army for the purpose. Scott refused to allow him to communicate, but permitted him to remain one of the general’s aids. Semmes was thus enabled to see the battles of the campaign, the story of which he has told in his interesting book.
One of Perry’s favorite young officers at this time was Lieutenant James S. Thornton afterwards the efficient executive officer on the Kearsarge in her conflict with the Alabama.
| [18] | Letter of Captain Mayo to Commodore M. C. Perry, November 4th, 1848. |
| [19] | Isaac Mayo was on the Hornet, in her capture of the Penguin in the war of 1812. |
| [20] | Captain W. H. Parker’s “Recollections of a Naval Officer,” p. 105. |
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE NAVAL BRIGADE. CAPTURE OF TABASCO.
Commodore Matthew C. Perry was one of the first American naval officers to overcome the prejudice of seamen against infantry drill, and to form a corps of sailor-soldiers. Under his predecessor, the navy had lost more than one opportunity of gaining distinction because [they were] unable to compete with infantry, or to face cavalry in the open field. Perry formed the first United States naval brigade, though Stockton in California employed a few of his sailors as marines in garrison. The men of Perry’s brigade numbering twenty-five hundred, with ten pieces of artillery, were thoroughly drilled first in the manual of arms and then in company and battalion formations under his own eye. His first employment of part of this body was at Tuspan. Twenty-two days after the fall of Vera Cruz, and on the day of the battle of Cerro Gordo, the bar at the river’s mouth was crossed by the light ships, the fort stormed, and Tuspan “taken at a gallop!” Obliged to give up his marines to General Franklin Pierce, Perry drilled his sailors all the more, so that little leisure was allowed them.
The capture of Tabasco involved the problem of fighting against infantry, posted behind breastworks, with sailors. This was somewhat novel work for our navy. Hitherto all our naval traditions were of squadron fights in line, ship-to-ship duels, or boat expeditions. In the present case the flotilla was to ascend a narrow and torturous river to the distance of nearly seventy miles through an enemy’s country densely covered with vegetation that afforded a continuous cover for riflemen, and then to attack heavy shore batteries.