Part 11

The appeal was instantly answered by Colonel Butler, of the Palmettos: "Every South Carolinian will follow you to the death!" The cry was contagious, and most of the New Yorkers took it up. Forming at angles to the causeway, Shields led these brave men, under an incessant hail of shot, against the village of Portales, where the Mexican reserves were posted. Not a trigger was pulled till they stood at a hundred fifty yards from the enemy. Then the little band poured in their volley, fatally answered by the Mexican host. Butler, already wounded, was shot through the head and died instantly. Calling to the Palmettos to avenge his death, Shields gives the word to charge. They charge--not four hundred in all--over the plain and down upon four thousand Mexicans securely posted under cover. At every step their ranks are thinned. Dickenson, who succeeded Butler in command of the Palmettos, seizes the colors as the bearer falls dead; the next moment he is down himself, mortally wounded, and Major Gladden snatches them from his hand.

Adams, Moragne, and nearly half the gallant band are prostrate. A very few minutes more and there will be no one left to bear the glorious flag.

But at this very moment a deafening roar is heard in the direction of the tête de pont. Round shot and grape, rifle-balls and canister, come crashing down the causeway into the Mexican ranks from their own battery. Worth is there, the gallant fellow, just in time. Down the road and over the ditch, through the field and hedge and swamp, in tumult and panic the Mexicans are flying from the bayonets of the Sixth and Garland's brigade. A shout, louder than the cannon's peal; Worth is on their heels with his men. Before Shields reaches the causeway he is by his side driving the Mexican horse into their infantry, and Ayres is galloping up with a captured Mexican gun. Captain Kearny, with a few dragoons, dashes past, rides straight into the flying host, scatters them right and left, sabres all he can reach, and halts before the gate of Mexico. Not till then does he perceive that he is alone with his little party, nearly all of whom are wounded; but, despite the hundreds of escopetas that are levelled at him, he gallops back in safety to headquarters.

The sun, which rose that morning on a proud army and a defiant metropolis, set at even on a shattered, haggard band, and a city full of woe-stricken wretches who did nothing all night but quake with terror, and cry, at every noise, "Aqui viene los Yanquies!" ("Here come the Yankees!") All along the causeway, and in the fields and swamps on either side, heaps of dead men and cattle intermingled with broken ammunition-carts, marked where the American shot had told. A gory track leading to the tête de pont, groups of dead in the fields on the west of Churubusco, over whose pale faces some stalks of tattered corn still waved; red blotches in the marsh next the causeway, where the rich blood of Carolina and New York soaked the earth, showed where the fire of the heavy Mexican guns and the countless escopetas of the infantry had been most murderous. Scott had lost, in that day's work, more than a thousand men in killed and wounded, seventy-nine of whom were officers. The Mexican loss, according to Santa Anna, was one-third of his army, equal probably to ten thousand men, one-fourth of whom were prisoners, the rest killed and wounded. As the sun went down the troops were recalled to headquarters; but all night long the battlefield swarmed with straggling parties seeking some lost comrade in the cold and rain, and surgeons hurrying from place to place and offering succor to the wounded.

It would have been easy for Scott to march on the city that night, or next morning, and seize it before the Mexicans recovered from the shock of their defeat. Anxious to shorten the war, and assured that Santa Anna was desirous of negotiating; warned, moreover, by neutrals and others, that the hostile occupation of the capital would destroy the last chance of peaceable accommodation and rouse the Mexican spirit to resistance all over the country, the American general consented, too generously perhaps, to offer an armistice to his vanquished foe. It was eagerly accepted, and negotiations were commenced which lasted over a fortnight. In the mean time General Scott had the satisfaction of hanging several of the Irishmen who had deserted to the Mexicans, and, serving as the battalion of San Patricio, had shot down so many of their old comrades at Buena Vista and Churubusco. This act of justice was approved by the army and the nation. Early in September the treachery of the Mexicans became apparent. No progress had been made in the negotiations; and, in defiance of the armistice, an American wagon, proceeding to the city for provisions, had been attacked by the mob and one man killed and others wounded. Scott wrote to Santa Anna, demanding an apology, and threatening to terminate the armistice on the 7th if it were not tendered. The reply was insulting in the extreme; Santa Anna had repaired his losses and was ready for another fight.

On the evening of September 7th Worth and his officers were gathered in his quarters at Tacubaya. On a table lay a hastily sketched map showing the position of the fortified works at Molino del Rey, with the Casa Mata on one side and the castle of Chapultepec on the other. The Molino was occupied by the enemy; there was reason to believe it contained a foundry in full operation, and Worth had been directed to storm it next morning. Over that table bent Garland and Clarke, eager to repeat the glorious deeds of August 20th at the tête de pont of Churubusco; Duncan and Smith, already veterans; Wright, the leader of the forlorn hope, joyfully thinking of the morrow; famous Martin Scott, and dauntless Graham, little dreaming that a few hours would see their livid corpses stretched upon the plain; fierce old M'Intosh, covered with scars; Worth himself, his manly brow clouded, and his cheek paled by sickness and anxiety. Each officer had his place assigned to him in the conflict; and they parted to seek a few hours' rest.

At half-past two on the morning of the 8th the division was astir. 'Twas a bright starlight night whose silence was unbroken as the troops moved thoughtfully toward the battlefield. In front, on the right, about a mile from the encampment, the hewn-stone walls of the Molino del Rey--a range of buildings five hundred yards long, and well adapted for defence--were distinctly visible, with drowsy lights twinkling through the windows. A little farther off, on the left, stood the black pile of the Casa Mata, the arsenal, crenelled for musketry, and surrounded by a quadrangular field work. Beyond the Casa Mata lay a ravine, and from this a ditch and hedge ran, passing in front of both works, to the Tacubaya road. Far on the right the grim old castle of Chapultepec loomed up darkly against the sky. Sleep wrapped the whole Mexican line, and but few words were spoken in the American ranks as the troops took up their respective positions: Garland, with Dunn's battery and Huger's 24-pounders, on the right, against the Molino; Wright, at the head of the stormers, and followed by the light division under Captain Kirby Smith, in the centre; M'Intosh, with Duncan's battery, on the left, near the ravine looking toward the Casa Mata; and Cadwallader, with his brigade, in reserve.

Night still overhung the east when the Mexicans were roused from their slumbers by the roar of Huger's 24-pounders, and the crashing of the balls through the roof and walls of the Molino. A shout arose within their lines, spreading from the ravine to the castle; lights flashed in every direction, bugles sounded, the clank of arms rang from right to left, and every man girded himself for the fray. With the first ray of daylight Major Wright advanced with the forlorn hope down the slope. A few seconds elapsed; then a sheet of flame burst from the batteries, and round shot, canister, and grape hurtled through the air. "Charge!" shouted the leader, and down they went, with double-quick step, over the ditch and hedge, and into the line, sweeping everything before them. The Mexicans fell from their guns, but soon, seeing the smallness of the force opposed to them and reassured by the galling fire poured from the azoteas and Molino on the stormers, they rallied, charged furiously, and drove our men back into the plain. Here eleven out of the fourteen officers of Wright's party, and the bulk of his men, fell killed or wounded. All of the latter who could not fly were bayoneted where they lay by the Mexicans.

Captain Walker, of the Sixth, badly shot, was left for dead; he saw the enemy murdering every man who showed signs of life, but the agony of thirst was so insupportable that he could not resist raising his canteen to his lips. A dozen balls instantly tore up the ground around him; several Mexicans rushed at him with the bayonet, but at that moment the light division, under Kirby Smith, came charging over the ditch into the Mexican line and diverted their attention.

Garland meanwhile moved down rapidly on the right with Dunn's guns, which were drawn by hand, all the horses having been wounded and become unmanageable. These soon opened an enfilading fire on the Mexican battery; and some of the gunners flying, the light division charged, under a hot fire, and carried the guns for the second time. Their gallant leader was shot dead in the charge. But the enemy could afford to lose the battery. From the tops of the azoteas, from the Casa Mata and the Molino, a deadly shower of balls was rained crosswise upon the assailants. Part of the reserve was brought up; and Dunn's guns and the Mexican battery were served upon the buildings without much effect at first. Lieutenant-Colonel Graham led a party of the Eleventh against the latter; when within pistol-shot a terrific volley assailed him, wounding him in ten places. The gallant soldier quietly dismounted, pointed with his sword to the building, cried "Charge!" and sank dead on the field.

As fiercely raged the battle at the other wing where Duncan and M'Intosh had driven in the enemy's right toward the Casa Mata. M'Intosh started to storm that fort, and, in the teeth of a tremendous hail of musketry, advanced to the ditch, only twenty-five yards from the work. There a ball knocked him down; it was his luck to be shot or bayoneted in every battle. Martin Scott took the command, but as he ordered the men forward he rolled lifeless into the ditch. Major Waite, the next in rank, had hardly seen him fall before he too was disabled. By whole companies the men were mowed down by the Mexican shot; but they stood their ground. At length some one gave the word to fall back, and the remnants of the brigade obeyed. Many wounded were left on the ground; among others Lieutenant Burnell, shot in the leg, whom the Mexicans murdered when his comrades abandoned him. After the battle his body was found, and beside it his dog, moaning piteously and licking his dead master's face.

At the head of four thousand cavalry, Alvarez now menaced our left. Duncan watched them come, driving a cloud of dust before them, till they were within close range; then opening with his wonderful rapidity, he shattered whole platoons at a discharge. Worth sent him word to be sure to keep the lancers in check. "Tell General Worth," was his reply, "to make himself perfectly easy; I can whip twenty thousand of them." So far as Alvarez was concerned, he kept his word.

On the American right the fight had reached a crisis. Mixed confusedly together, men of all arms furiously attacked the Molino, firing into every aperture, climbing to the roof, and striving to batter in the doors and gates with their muskets. The garrison never slackened their terrible fire for an instant. At length Major Buchanan, of the Fourth, succeeded in bursting open the southern gate; and almost at the same moment Anderson and Ayres, of the artillery, forced their way into the buildings at the northwestern angle. Ayres leaped down alone into a crowd of Mexicans--he had done the same at Monterey--and fell covered with wounds. Our men rushed in on both sides, stabbing, firing, and felling the Mexicans with their muskets. From room to room and house to house a hand-to-hand encounter was kept up. Here a stalwart Mexican hurled down man after man as they advanced; there Buchanan and the Fourth levelled all before them. But the Mexicans never withstood the cold steel. One by one the defenders escaped by the rear toward Chapultepec, and those who remained hung out a white flag. Under Duncan's fire the Casa Mata had been evacuated, and the enemy was everywhere in full retreat. Twice he rallied and charged the Molino; but each time the artillery drove him back toward Chapultepec, and parties of the light infantry pursued him down the road. Before ten in the morning the whole field was won; and, having blown up the Casa Mata, Worth, by Scott's order, fell back to Tacubaya.

With gloomy face and averted eye the gallant soldier received the thanks of his chief for the exploits of the morning. His heart was with the brave men he had lost--nearly eight hundred out of less than thirty-five hundred and among them fifty-eight officers, many of whom were his dearest friends. All had fallen in advance of their men, with sword in hand and noble words on their lips. 'Twas a poor price for these to have stormed Molino del Rey, and cut down nearly a fifth of Santa Anna's fourteen thousand men. Sadly the General returned to his quarters.

The end was now close at hand. Reconnoissances were carefully made, and, the enemy's strength being gathered on the southern front of the city, General Scott determined to assail Chapultepec on the west. By the morning of the 12th the batteries were completed, and opened a brisk fire on the castle, without, however, doing any more serious damage than annoying the garrison and killing a few men. The fire was kept up all day; and at night preparations were made for the assault, which was ordered to be made next morning.

At daybreak on the 13th the cannonade began again, as well from the batteries planted against Chapultepec as from Steptoe's guns, which were served against the southern defences of the city in order to divert the attention of the enemy. At 8 A.M. the firing from the former ceased, and the attack commenced. Quitman advanced along the Tacubaya road, Pillow from the Molino del Rey, which he had occupied on the evening before. Between the Molino and the castle lay first an open space, then a grove thickly planted with trees; in the latter, Mexican sharpshooters had been posted, protected by an intrenchment on the border of the grove. Pillow sent Lieutenant-Colonel Johnston with a party of voltigeurs to turn this work by a flank movement; it was handsomely accomplished; and just as the voltigeurs broke through the redan, Pillow, with the main body, charged it in front and drove back the Mexicans. The grove gained, Pillow pressed forward to the front of the rock; for the Mexican shot from the castle batteries, crashing through the trees, seemed even more terrible than it really was, and the troops were becoming restless.

The Mexicans had retreated to a redoubt half way up the hill; the voltigeurs sprang up from rock to rock, firing as they advanced, and followed by Hooker, Chase, and others, with parties of infantry. In a very few minutes the redoubt was gained, the garrison driven up the hill, and the voltigeurs, Ninth, and Fifteenth were in hot pursuit after them. The firing from the castle was very severe. Colonel Ransom, of the Ninth, was killed, and Pillow himself was wounded. Still the troops pressed on till the crest of the hill was gained. There some moments were lost owing to the delay in the arrival of scaling-ladders, during which two of Quitman's regiments and Clarke's brigade reenforced the storming party. When the ladders came, numbers of men rushed forward with them, leaped into the ditch, and planted them for the assault.

Lieutenant Selden was the first man to mount. But the Mexicans collected all their energies for this last moment. A tremendous fire dashed the foremost of the stormers into the ditch, killing Lieutenants Rogers and Smith and clearing the ladders. Fresh men instantly manned them, and, after a brief struggle, Captain Howard, of the voltigeurs, gained a foothold on the parapet. M'Kenzie, of the forlorn hope, followed; and a crowd of voltigeurs and infantry, shouting and cheering, pressed after him, and swept down upon the garrison with the bayonet. Almost at the same moment, Johnston, of the voltigeurs, who had led a small party round to the gate of the castle, broke it open and effected an entrance in spite of a fierce fire from the southern walls. The two parties uniting, a deadly conflict ensued within the building.

Maddened by the recollection of the murder of their wounded comrades at Molino del Rey, the stormers at first showed no quarter. On every side the Mexicans were stabbed or shot down without mercy. Many flung themselves over the parapet and down the hillside and were dashed in pieces against the rocks. More fought like fiends, expending their breath in a malediction, and expiring in the act of aiming a treacherous blow as they lay on the ground. Streams of blood flowed through the doors of the college, and every room and passage was the theatre of some deadly struggle. At length the officers succeeded in putting an end to the carnage; and the remaining Mexicans having surrendered, the Stars and Stripes were hoisted over the castle of Chapultepec by Major Seymour.

Meanwhile Quitman had stormed the batteries on the causeway to the east of the castle, after a desperate struggle in which Major Twiggs, who commanded the stormers, was shot dead at the head of his men. The Mexicans fell back toward the city. General Scott, coming up at this moment, ordered a simultaneous advance to be made on the city, along the two roads leading from Chapultepec to the gates of San Cosme and Belen, respectively. Worth was to command that on San Cosme, Quitman that on Belen. Both were prepared for defence by barricades, behind which the enemy were posted in great numbers. Fortunately for the assailants an aqueduct, supported by arches of solid masonry, ran along the centre of each causeway. By keeping under cover of these arches, and springing rapidly from one to another, Smith's rifles and the South Carolina regiment were enabled to advance close to the first barricade on the Belen road, and pour in a destructive fire on the gunners. A flank discharge from Duncan's guns completed the work; the barricade was carried; and without a moment's rest Quitman advanced in the same manner on the garita San Belen, which was held by General Torres with a strong garrison.

It too was stormed, though under a fearful hail of grape and canister; and the rifles moved forward toward the citadel. But at this moment Santa Anna rode furiously down to the point of attack. Boiling with rage at the success of the invaders, he smote General Torres in the face, threw a host of infantry into the houses commanding the garita and the road, ordered the batteries in the citadel to open fire, planted fresh guns on the Paseo, and infused such spirit into the Mexicans that Quitman's advance was stopped at once. A terrific storm of shot, shell, and grape assailed the garita, where Captain Dunn had planted an 8-pounder. Twice the gunners were shot down, and fresh men sent to take their places. Then Dunn himself fell, and immediately afterward Lieutenant Benjamin and his first sergeant met the same fate. The riflemen in the arches repelled sallies; but Quitman's position was precarious, till night terminated the conflict.

Worth meanwhile had advanced in like manner along the San Cosme causeway, driving the Mexicans from barricade to barricade, till within two hundred fifty yards of the garita of San Cosme. There he encountered as severe a fire as that which stopped Quitman. But Scott had ordered him to take the garita, and take it he would. Throwing Garland's brigade out to the right and Clarke's to the left, he ordered them to break into the houses, burst through the walls, and bore their way to the flanks of the garita. The plan had succeeded perfectly at Monterey, nor did it fail here. Slowly but surely the sappers passed from house to house, until at sunset they reached the point desired. Then Worth ordered the attack. Lieutenant Hunt brought up a light gun at a gallop, and fired it through the embrasure of the enemy's battery, almost muzzle to muzzle; the infantry at the same moment opened a most deadly and unexpected fire from the roofs of the houses, and M'Kenzie, at the head of the stormers, dashed at the battery and carried it almost without loss. The Mexicans fled precipitately into the city.

At one that night two parties left the citadel and issued forth from the city. One was the remnant of the Mexican army, which slunk silently and noiselessly through the northern gate, and fled to Guadalupe-Hidalgo; the other was a body of officers who came under a white flag, to propose terms of capitulation.

The sun shone brightly on the morning of September 14th. Scores of neutral flags float from the windows on the Calle de Plateros, and in their shade beautiful women gaze curiously on the scene beneath. Gayly dressed groups throng the balconies, and at the street-corners dark-faced men scowl, mutter deep curses, and clutch their knives. The street resounds with the heavy tramp of infantry, the rattle of gun-carriages, and the clatter of horses' hoofs. "Los Yanquies!" is the cry, and every neck is stretched to obtain a glimpse of the six thousand bemired and begrimed soldiers who are marching proudly to the Grand Plaza. On him especially is every eye intently fixed, whose martial form is half concealed by a splendid staff and a squadron of dragoons, as he rides, with flashing eye and beating heart, to the National Palace of Mexico. But six months before, Winfield Scott had landed on the Mexican coast; since then he had stormed the two strongest places in the country, won four battles in the field against armies double, treble, and quadruple his own, and marched without reverse from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico; losing fewer men, making fewer mistakes, and creating less devastation, in proportion to his victories, than any invading general of former times. Well might the Mexicans gaze upon his face!

(1847) FAMINE IN IRELAND, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy

From the fact that its immediate cause was the almost complete failure of the potato crop, due to the rot, the great Irish famine is known as the "potato famine." The crop that suffered so was that of 1845, and the famine began in the following year and reached its climax in 1847. It is estimated that by this calamity two hundred thousand persons perished. Many compensating features in connection with this appalling distress have been pointed out. Some writers friendly toward Ireland have declared that the famine proved one of the greatest blessings to the country; that it hastened free trade, better drainage of the island, and the passage of the Land Improvement Act; that it relieved the overcrowded labor market, led to more scientific farming, and in other ways produced changes that have been of lasting benefit. But though all this be true, the misfortune itself gave to modern history one of its most harrowing chapters.

The population of Ireland in 1845 is supposed to have been nearly nine millions. The manufactures were small, and the people depended on the potato crop, and had no other resource in time of scarcity. For several years the potato yield had been abundant, the country was comparatively prosperous, and the temperance movement led by Father Mathew promised a happier future. A great harvest was expected in 1845, but almost at a single stroke this expectation was blasted; for although the crop was large the greater part of it was destroyed in the ground, and the potatoes that were gathered "rotted in pit and storehouse." The farmers taxed all their means and energies to secure even a larger crop in 1846, but the blight of that year was even more fatal than the last. To pinching want was added discouragement, and the people sat in the shadow of a frightful catastrophe. In vain the British Government was called upon to give relief through Parliament, until, in the autumn of 1846, parliamentary authority was obtained to grant baronial loans. But these and every local endeavor to mitigate the suffering failed, and the destructive work of the famine continued, the number of victims increasing, to the end of that fatal year. The horrors of 1846 were more than equalled by those of the year that followed, and the woful picture presented by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, the distinguished Irish patriot, statesman, and historian, is but too amply justified by the accepted records of the time.

The condition of Ireland at the opening of the year 1847 is one of the most painful chapters in the annals of mankind. An industrious and hospitable race were in the pangs of a devouring famine. Deaths of individuals, of husband and wife, of entire families, were becoming common. The potato-blight had spread from the Atlantic to the Caspian; but there was more suffering in one parish of Mayo than in all the rest of Europe. From Connaught, where distress was greatest, came batches of inquests with the horrible verdict "died of starvation." In some instances the victims were buried "wrapped in a coarse coverlet," a coffin being too costly a luxury. The living awaited death with a listlessness that was at once tragic and revolting. Women with dead children in their arms were seen begging for a coffin to bury them.