Soldiers of Conquest

by F. M. Parker

  Six hundred men were digging a road sunken below the level of the sand dunes and leading from the mortars back to the beach. The road would be a mile and a quarter long and wide enough to allow the passage of a six-mule team, and sufficiently deep that a loaded wagon could navigate it without being seen from the city. The road would be used to bring the guns and the tons of powder and balls that would be required for the bombardment, and for the coming and going of the relays of artillerymen. To prevent the enemy from discovering what the Americans were doing and open up on them with scores of big guns, all work was preformed at night and with the least noise.

  The laboring soldiers cursed and complained that the wind was blowing the sand back into the trenches as fast as they could shovel it out. Lee knew there was much truth in their complaints. He and the infantry officers that were helping him command the men were constantly moving among them prodding and ordering the shirkers and laggards to bend to their shovels.

  The wind fell into a lull and the air became clear and Lee could see the lights of Veracruz. In the quietness he heard the sound of a band playing, as if no enemy waited just beyond the walls. On the previous day, Scott had notified Matson, the British naval commander that the traffic of small boats back and forth between the ships and the shore would soon be cut off, and to notify Consul Giffard of this fact. Further that Giffard should notify the consuls of the other neutral nations. The skirmishing between the Mexicans and the Americans was about to end and true war began.

  *

  In the dim night of the waning moon, the three hundred soldiers, divided into squads of thirty, labored and sweated in the sultry heat. They grumbled, but in a low voice for they knew the danger if they should be heard by the Mexicans. The enemy was awake and alert and now and again fired blindly into the night with their heavy mortars. The cannon balls bursting out of the darkness caused concern among the men for one might fall upon them regardless of where they sought safety.

  Each squad pulled on one of the two long ropes fastened to the carriage transporting a 10-inch mortar to its prepared firing site. The loose sand made it impossible for the men to gain solid footing. Further multiplying the effort to move the guns, the iron rimmed wheels of the carriages cut deeply into the sand.

  A sergeant walked ahead of each gun and led the way through the darkness lying thick as ink in the bottom of the sunken road. Periodically he called a rest period and the men flopped down on the sand to catch their breaths.

  Lee led the procession of men wrestling the seven mortars through the sand. These guns would be the first weapons emplaced. Though he felt sad for the plight of the men, the order by Scott to use them as draft animals had been necessary. Scott had grown short tempered as the days passed with the wind blowing almost endlessly and often forcing the unloading of the ships to stop. When Lee and Beauregard reported the sites were ready for the emplacement of the cannon, Scott sourly recounted his problems. The War Department had failed him. He had but half of the soldiers he had been promised, none of the powerful siege weapons had arrived, and he must try to hammer down the enemy’s strong walls with light field artillery, and lastly not one of the big draft horses needed to move the artillery was on hand. The general was caught between two forces that could destroy his effort to defeat the Mexicans, the lack of men and proper weapons, and his greatest bugbear the rapid approach of the time of yellow fever. He had declared to his officers, “We can’t wait longer. Our soldiers must be the horses.”

  Reaching the nearest prepared gun site along the sunken road, Lee directed the lead squad of soldiers how to position their mortar. The men finished the task, and then stumbled away along the backside of the sand hill and fell down to rest in the darkness. Lee moved to the next site and waited for the next mortar to arrive.

  *

  “Three minutes remaining,” Lee said and snapped shut the front of his watch. He felt his nerves tighten up a notch. He had counted forty-two Mexican cannons that were within range of the American batteries. Also there were the big guns of Fort San Juan de Ulua that could reach them with their shells. The Mexicans didn’t yet know the location of the American guns, but when they did, all hell would break loose.

  Captain Bouchard, artillery commander of the batteries, nodded agreement with Lee’s comment without taking his eyes off Veracruz. Lee noted the man’s face was strained with thoughts of the coming artillery duel and hoped his didn’t show such concern.

  The gunnery sergeant nearest Lee petted the thick iron barrel of the mortar beside him and spoke loud enough for Lee to hear. “You know, I’m glad the Mexs didn’t run up the white flag right off for I like to hear the bark of my faithful bulldogs. After they hear its song, they’ll cry uncle.”

  At first light, General Scott had sent an ultimatum to General Morales demanding the surrender of Veracruz and Fort San Juan de Ulua or face immediate bombardment. Scott had promised safe passage out of the city for all noncombatants. Morales had rejected the ultimatum. Upon receiving the Mexican’s reply, Scott sent orders to the waiting gun crews to begin firing upon the city at 2 o’clock.

  Lee hadn’t expected the Mexican general to surrender. No commanding officer behind Veracruz’s strong walls with scores of big cannons, and with mighty Fort San Juan de Ulua with its powerful cannons supporting him would surrender to a demand from an enemy that had yet to prove its strength.

  Lee had been ordered to assist the artillery officers in aiming the guns because he had overseen the selection of the battery sites, the placement of the mortars, and knew the location of the targets by the use of the map Giffard had provided. The accuracy of the fire from the mortars would not be great due to the relatively short-barreled nature of the weapons shooting high arcing shells from a distance of nearly half a mile. Rounds would go wild and some would without doubt strike unintended targets killing innocent citizens, or foreigner businessmen, or some of the foreign consuls. Lee had nothing against any of these people, yet he would have major responsibility for killing them with solid balls or exploding shells.

  The first targets of the three batteries of mortars would be the barracks of the infantry and cavalry and the forts within range. Scott had learned Fort San Agustin was being used as the main ammunition depot of the Mexicans. For that reason, Lee would stay with the battery that would fire on the fort.

  He raised his field glasses and swung it slowly over Veracruz. The city with its beautiful white buildings lay serene on the shore of the blue sea. Airy palm trees were visible over the walls. To the right of the city, the splendor of the white beach could be seen, and the bright sails of fishing boats. In the middle distance was a forest of masts and spars of merchantmen, and beyond was the dark bulwark of Ulua set against the vast blue gulf beyond. He faintly heard shouts coming from the city as if people there were engaged in some kind of party or friendly sport. What would the city’s citizens think had they known that less than half a mile away American cannons were primed to fire upon them?

  “Light your slow-matches,” Captain Bouchard called.

  Shortly Lee could smell the fumes from the burning solution of saltpeter that fueled the cotton cords of the slow-matches.

  *

  “Fire your weapons,” commanded Bouchard.

  The glowing red ends of slow-matches touched the powder holes of the seven mortars. The guns roared and belched flame, and smoke, and iron balls. Shells went howling toward their targets in Veracruz. Standing off a mile seaward from Fort San Juan de Ulua, Admiral Conner’s warships with their big guns began a furious cannonading of the fort to knock out some of its big guns. A chorus of joyous shouts erupted from the gunners and powder boys.

  Every Mexican cannon in the forts and embrasures and redoubts of Veracruz and within range of the Americans, blasted away with return fire. A sheet of flame capped the walls. Shot and shell and rocket sped toward the Americans whose location was marked by the smoke of their guns. Several cannons at Ulua firing past Veracruz, opened up on the Americans.

&nb
sp; A storm of iron burst upon Lee and the men at the batteries. Fragments of hot metal whizzed about. Shells exploded close by and dug holes in the sand big enough to bury several men. Others landed in the chaparral and shredded it and sent splinters flying like darts. The larger balls could be seen as they slowed at the end of their trajectory. The new recruits cringed and ducked. The veterans smiled hard smiles and cursed and shouted at the recruits to stay at their stations.

  Lee saw the three powder boys of the battery hunkered down by the crates of gunpowder. They were frightened and trembling for this was their first taste of battle. He hurried to them and catching them by their thin shoulders drew their quaking bodies to him. They were about the same age as his son Rooney and he felt sorry for them. ”Do your jobs, lads, as you’ve been taught. Grab the powder and run it to your gun.” He hugged the boys close for a second and then released them. “Go!” he ordered.

  The boys snatched up cloth wrapped packets of gunpowder, each containing the correct charge and ran for the gun he tended.

  The American cannons boomed. The earth shook with the explosions of American shells landing within the city’s walls, and Mexican shells exploding around the Americans. Large clouds of gun smoke hid the guns of both the defender and attacker. Columns of smoke rose from burning houses in the town.

  Lee moved out of the battery’s gun smoke and looked at Veracruz. He saw an amazing, frightening thing. A cannon ball was coming straight at him. It grew rapidly in size. By instinct he ducked. A swoosh of air fanned the side of his head as the cannon ball passed but inches away.

  He stayed bent to the side for a few seconds, and then slowly straightened. How strange it was to see a cannon ball coming at him. Still the danger had come and gone and he was no less willing than before to be a soldier, and to assume risks that were the steppingstones to distinction and gaining rank.

  CHAPTER 11

  From the crest of a sand hill baking under a hot, yellow sun, Grant watched the American and Mexican gunners dueling furiously with their cannons. The Americans had hurled shells at the city for a full day and throughout the night and now into early afternoon. He estimated that at least sixty buildings were burning among the homes and businesses within Veracruz. The smoke from the fires, rising and mingling with the gun smoke from the Mexican cannon, shadowed the city with a dark gray pall. The citizens now knew the horror of war, of the pain and death an exploding shell could bring in a blinding flash.

  Grant lowered his field glasses with a grunt of disgust. Try as he might, he couldn’t determine what damage, if any, the Americans had done to the walls and forts of the city.

  He looked up at the sky where the high arcing shells of the contending sides, passing in mid-flight, were marked against the sky by the smoke trails left by the burning fuses. The hundreds of ribbons of smoke had been woven by the slow wind into an arching gray dome that stretched from the walls of Veracruz to the cannons in the dunes.

  Grant stowed the field glasses way in its leather case. He would have to go closer. He came down from the hill and went toward the battery where the cannons bucked and roared and spewed their metal balls. Lee and Beauregard, and McClellan saw him approaching. Beauregard moved away from the noisy guns to meet him.

  Beauregard called out ahead. “Hello, Sam. What are you doing way out here?”

  “I wanted to see the damage you’re doing to the walls,” Grant replied.

  “So do I. But you can’t tell from here, too much heat waves in the air.”

  “I think I’ll go for a closer look.”

  “Better get permission from the captain before you go out beyond the lines.”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  The two lieutenants drew near Lee, who seeing them coming, ceased working with the chief gunner to aim one of the cannons and walked out from the gun to meet them.

  Grant saluted and spoke. “Captain, I’d like to go forward and take a good look at the walls of the city. See how much damage that’s been done to them.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ll go with you to keep you out of trouble,” said the black eyed Beauregard. He turned to Lee. “With your permission, captain.”

  Lee nodded agreement. “That house out there should provide a good view point.” He pointed at the structure situated two hundred yards closer to the city. “I’ll join you there when I’m finished here. Keep out of sight of the Mexican gunners for they’ll drop a cannon ball on you.”

  Lee watched the two younger, smaller men go swiftly off through the dunes, Beauregard with a swagger, and Grant with his usual slouched shouldered movement.

  *

  Grant and Beauregard darted from dune to dune as above their heads the screaming shells of the Americans and Mexican cannons ripped the air. They reached the house Lee had indicated, a building with thick adobe walls painted a pale yellow. Though they believed the house would be abandoned with the occupants scared away by the cannonading, they entered warily with pistols drawn. They went quietly thought the four rooms, each with all its furnishings still in place. The house waited silently for the return of its owners.

  “We’re all by our lonesome” Grant said to Beauregard, and hoping no hostile eyes had spotted them crossing the dunes.

  He holstered his pistol, took his glasses out of its case, went to a front window, and focused on the fifteen-foot tall walls of Veracruz. Beauregard came up with his glass to the window on Grant’s right.

  As Grant studied the southeastern section of the city’s walls, the section at which the American cannon fire had been concentrated, his dismay grew. “Why, the walls are hardly hurt at all,” he exclaimed. “Just a stone missing here and there. Nothing serious at all.”

  “And the embrasures and forts aren’t damaged one bit,” Beauregard said. “Just as if we have been shooting feather pillows at them,” he added with disbelief.

  Both men froze at the abrupt sound of breaking roof beams and sheathing as a shell smashed down through the roof of the house and buried itself in the earthen floor.

  “It’s a bomb!” Grant shouted knowing instantly what had occurred. “Get down!”

  Grant hurled himself to the side, trying desperately to gain distance from the shell and get low to escape its blast of iron fragments when it exploded.

  The shell burst with a brilliant orange flash and a brain jarring concussion. The earthen floor leapt in an exploding brown geyser. A tremendous blast of wind and dirt caught Grant and flung him savagely across the room. He landed hard as a dropped stone and flat on his stomach with his face buried in the dirt of the floor near an outside wall.

  Huge pain ran through him, which told him he was still alive. Hurry! Get out of the house before another shell lands. Even as the thought came, a slab of the thick adobe wall collapsed upon him, and splintered roof beams fell on top of that, and the ton weight penned him to the earth.

  Grant twisted his head to the side to free his face and sucked at the air. He drew in a little air, and a lot of adobe dust. He heaved and strained to lift the broken pieces of house off him. His battered body ached and creaked and groaned with the effort, but the mass of debris on top of him didn’t budge. He was trapped and slowly suffocating. This was a damn poor way to die.

  Where was Beauregard? Had he been hurt? Killed? Why wasn’t he helping Grant get free?”

  Grant heard a dragging sound in the beams and blocks of adobe as someone moved part of them. Then through the ringing in his ears he heard Lee shout, “Grant, you alive?”

  “Just barely, captain. Get the house off me.”

  He heard the clatter of wood and adobe being thrown aside and felt the crushing weight easing. He thrust his back powerfully upward against the mass. It lifted and his head came free. He heaved again and rolled out from under the heavy chunk of adobe. He looked up into the concerned faces of Lee and Beauregard.

  “How bad you hurt?” Lee asked as he knelt down beside the bruised and dust covered Grant.

  “I believe
I’ll live. Good thing you weren’t far behind us.” Grant looked at Beauregard and found him equally dusty.

  “I’m okay,” Beauregard said with a wry smile. “I was farther away from it than you and flat on the floor when it exploded. But I think my hearings ruined for my ears are wringing like a hundred bells.” He looked steadily at Grant. “Thanks for your warning it made me act quicker than I would’ve otherwise.”

  Grant rose to his feet, and stood feeling shaky. “Thanks to both of you for pulling me out before I ate a lung full of dust.”

  “We can’t afford to lose a good quartermaster,” Lee said. “Now let’s get out of this place before they hit it with another shell.”

  Lee and Beauregard went out through a gap in the broken rear wall of the house. Grant followed, his head aching terribly, right shoulder feeling like it was half wrenched from its socket, and blowing dust out of his nostrils. He was a lucky fellow.

  Reaching a safe distance from the house, Lee halted them behind a dune. “I want to take a good look at the walls and forts,” he said.

  “You’ll find that almost no damage has been done,” Beauregard said.

  Lee stared at the city through his glass for a time. Finally he lowered the glass. “The range was too long for our light field artillery to damage either the walls or the forts,” he said sadly. “If our heavy siege weapons were here it would be a different story.”

  Lee looked to the east where Admiral Conner’s fleet of war ships was anchored a half mile offshore. “I know where there are guns that can destroy the walls,” he said.

  *

  Hidden and protected from the enemy cannons by the depth of the sunken road, Lee, Grant and Beauregard walked swiftly toward headquarters. Reaching the end of the sunken road at the seacoast they came upon Scott and Worth riding horseback in their direction. The three junior officers saluted the generals.