Scott discussed the options with his generals and other subordinate officers, and some of them were opposed to a siege. Upon learning of Scott’s intentions, Worth expressed dismay over the amount of time that would be wasted with such a plan. “We took Monterey in three days, a stronger place than this,” he told Hitchcock. Captain William Walker wrote home to his wife, stating, “I . . . feel that we could with very little loss batter down the walls and charge into the city.” Then, with a tinge of sarcasm, he added, “The Great Men think not however. Old Zack in my opinion would have been sitting in the city to day. . . . He would have lost troops but that is to be expected in war.” These expressions of sentiment for Old Zack and his army were reinforced by the news that had been circulating within the army of Taylor’s victory at Buena Vista less than three weeks earlier. Although Old Rough and Ready, as he was sometimes called, lacked Scott’s finesse, he was nevertheless a take-charge general, and his men knew that he got the job done on the battlefield. It would be inaccurate to characterize him as a commander who displayed recklessness with the lives of his men, however; he was more of a “feel-as-you-go leader,” as one historian described him, not “a thinking man, a planner” like Scott.32
By March 11, Patterson’s division was in place in the center of the American line of investment that ran southwest to west of the city. Pillow’s brigade occupied the area closest to Malibran, where it had skirmished with Mexican troops the previous day. There he had posted men of the Second Pennsylvania along the Alvarado Road to guard this passageway into the city. However, his military inexperience revealed itself in that he positioned them on both sides of the road such that if enemy reinforcements tried to gain entry into the city, the Pennsylvanians would be compelled to fire in each other’s direction. Realizing the potential danger, Pillow ordered everyone to get on the same side.33 As elements of Twiggs’s division passed by on their way to take their position on the northern end of the siege line, they came upon some of Pillow’s men who occupied the captured magazine. The volunteers boasted of their valor during the skirmish of March 10, and they exhorted the regulars to do likewise. But Lieutenant Hill of the Fourth Artillery sardonically noted in his diary that they had not injured any of the Mexicans during the battle, while three of the volunteers had been wounded by their own men—an assertion that, if true, Patterson left out of his March 14 report to Scott.34
Extending the line north was a difficult affair. Walking through the sand proved unusually tiring, and thick patches of chaparral, prickly pear, and thorny mimosa had to be cleared and a path cut for soldiers and supplies. Occasional sand hills also provided little valleys where pools of stagnant water stood, not fit to drink but providing additional obstacles to the weary soldier. “More horrible ground I have never seen,” thought Captain Lee. And while these activities went on, Mexican artillery continued its sporadic, unpredictable, but mostly ineffective fire at the Americans—except during the afternoon of March 11, when the pace of enemy fire increased and some of their rounds found targets. One cannonball struck within the lines of Twiggs’s division and took off Captain William Alburtis’s head. The captain was admired and respected by his men, and he had won promotion a few years earlier for gallantry in the Seminole War. Twenty-two-year-old Lieutenant Edmund Kirby Smith of Twiggs’s Seventh Infantry “heard with fearful foreboding the heavy fall of shot in front,” and when he reached the spot, he passed by Alburtis’s body. Two others from Twiggs’s division were wounded during the investment, one slightly and the other seriously. The seriously injured man was named Miller of the Mounted Rifles, and he was badly wounded in the leg when he and a few others slipped away from the main body to investigate a location where Mexican officers had been spotted. Thick chaparral and sand hills dominated the area. As they crept up a hill, the hidden enemy soldiers opened fire. A ball hit Miller in the leg, breaking the bone, and for a while, it appeared that he would lose the leg. Although other accounts, both primary and secondary, refer to the soldier’s leg being amputated, doctors actually saved it.35 Other casualties accrued that day. A drummer boy had his arm “carried off” by a round, and several volunteers, perhaps five, also were killed while standing on a hill.36
Meanwhile, army engineers ventured out in front of the lines, especially at night, to chart the topography and gather intelligence. Lee went out every day, sometimes “near enough to see their guns & batteries quite distinctly.” During one such reconnaissance, Lee captured a young man, brought him back to camp, treated him well, and obtained from him “the most valuable information we have yet recd.” Lieutenant McClellan brought back equally valuable news from one of his missions when he located an aqueduct. The pipes that he found ran from a lake several miles away and outside the American lines, and they carried water into the city. McClellan reported his discovery to the chief of engineers, Colonel Totten, who promptly issued orders for the destruction of this valuable conduit.37
On Friday, March 12, a norther blew in and lasted all day—actually, while the winds subsided in the evening, the weather remained bad for several days. The strong winds kicked up “clouds of sand,” preventing Twiggs’s division from completing the investment on the northern end of the line. The sand and dust were so thick that visibility was limited and it was difficult to walk. The men held handkerchiefs over their faces to try to keep the grit out of their mouths and noses, and if a soldier lay on the ground, he was soon covered with sediment. Hats and blankets caught in a gust sailed in the air as far as one could see without touching the ground. The cold wind made it impossible to perform the simplest of tasks, like setting up a tent and cooking food, and it blew sand not only into eyes, hair, and clothes, but also into equipment, provisions, and cooking gear. Before the storm subsided late in the day, it had beached dozens of vessels that were bringing supplies ashore and cut off communication between the army and navy.38
That evening, McClellan and fellow engineer Lieutenant Gustavus W. Smith went out and cut the aqueduct that McClellan had found the previous day. They broke the pipes near the lake and away from the American army so as not to flood its encampments. When they returned, Colonel Totten congratulated them, telling them that they were the only officers to provide such valuable service since landing. The two men celebrated late into the night as a result of such accolades.39
On March 13, Twiggs’s men finally reached the coast at a small town called Vergara north of Veracruz, thus completing the encirclement. The division had skirmished with small bodies of enemy troops along the way, but at no time had its push north been seriously impeded. As they entered the village, the panicked inhabitants fled, and many of the hungry soldiers “dashed into the deserted ranchos” in search of food. The officers tried to restore order, but the scene was chaotic. Lieutenant Kirby Smith, sword drawn, confronted a soldier leaving one of the houses, and just as he was about to reprove him for his lack of discipline, the infantryman held up a bag of sugar and asked, “Will the Lieutenant take some?” It was an offer Smith could not refuse. He lowered his sword, relaxed his “ferocious look,” and took some of the delectable treat. The lieutenant then instructed the boy to return to his unit, after which he divided the sugar with one of his superior officers. Here at the northern end of the line ran the National Road from the coast west to Jalapa, Perote, Puebla, and all the way to Mexico City. Upon arriving in position, Twiggs thought that his men were too close to the city, and he wished to pull them back. However, because of Mexican attempts to herd cattle and mules into Veracruz from the north, he was ordered to move in closer, close any gaps in his line, and extend all the way to the beach itself. One of Twiggs’s artillery officers, the opinionated Lieutenant Hill, believed that his superiors had completely mismanaged the march and that the investment should have been completed two days earlier. Furthermore, Hill thought that his division commander was both a coward and incompetent.40
When completed, the siege line ran roughly in a northwesterly direction from Collado Beach below the city to Vergara six m
iles away and above the city. This shifting, zigzag line of trenches varied from about a mile to a mile and a half away from the city. Scott made his headquarters at the southern end, where Worth’s division was encamped. The brigades of Lieutenant Colonel John Garland and Colonel Newman S. Clark constituted Worth’s division. Patterson’s volunteer division occupied the next place in line and was composed of the brigades of Colonel James Shields and Brigadier General Gideon J. Pillow. On the northern end, Brigadier General Persifor F. Smith and Colonel Bennet Riley commanded the brigades in Twiggs’s division. Much more war matériel had to be brought ashore in the days ahead, but in four days, the Americans had successfully wrapped a noose around Veracruz, and in the days ahead, they would slowly tighten it.41
chapter two
Veracruz
The Slow, Scientific Process
When we take this place, . . . the Mexicans will begin to think matters are becoming serious.
—George G. Meade, Topographical Engineers
With his army now settled into position, Scott sent a message into Veracruz under a flag of truce addressed to the foreign consuls. He offered them safe passage out of the city before the fighting started, but none of them seized the opportunity. Some residents of the city, however, did leave before the shooting began. Eleven days after the American landing and two days before the bombardment started, Tennessee Colonel William Campbell informed a relative that many of the women and children had left the city. In addition to offering a protected evacuation of diplomats, Scott also considered the safety of his own troops once the conflict started in earnest. His primary objective was to force the surrender of the city as soon as was practical so he could start his inland march before the end of April.1
His correspondence with the War Department indicates that he anticipated the battle of Veracruz to occur in two stages. He hoped that a bombardment would bring about a relatively quick surrender of the city’s garrison, but Veracruz could not be immediately occupied because of the artillery located in San Juan de Ulúa. Lieutenant George Meade thought that the castle was such a source of pride to the Mexican people that they would capitulate quickly in order to prevent a fight that might destroy it. Scott did not think it would be quite that easy. He envisioned the capture of the castle as a second phase wherein he would constrict his line by half and move in closer while maintaining a safe distance from the enemy offshore batteries.2 He knew that he could starve the castle garrison into submission, but doing so would likely protract his operations into the yellow fever season. To accomplish all that he needed to and then get his army off the coast before the disease hit would require perfect timing.
As soon as the encirclement was completed, Scott drafted specific orders to ensure the army’s security. The day after Twiggs’s division reached Vergara, he ordered each brigade to send one or two companies forward to drive all Mexican skirmishers, pickets, guards, and other scattered troops inside the city walls. These advance companies were to hold their advanced positions several hundred yards forward but in a safe location, usually behind sand dunes. Every twenty-four hours, they would rotate with other companies under cover of darkness. In addition to observing and sounding an early warning if danger approached, these units, by keeping the enemy at bay, deprived them from seeing what the Americans were doing. Being only about eight hundred yards from the city walls, soldiers on such duty were not only in range of the Mexican guns, but they were also close enough to “distinctly hear all of their noises, [and] challenging of sentinels.” A line of sand hills, however, provided them with ample protection. As Captain James R. Smith of the Second Infantry Regiment recorded, “we lie so close behind the sand ridges that I do not believe they suspect an enemy so near them.”3
Castle of San Juan de Ulúa. Courtesy of the author.
Engineers already had been busily engaged both day and night reconnoitering to detect enemy strengths and, most importantly, to locate favorable positions for artillery emplacements. Night missions into no-man’s-land were particularly perilous because of the possibility of being fired upon not only by enemy gunners, but also by nervous American sentries. Mexican scouts occasionally ventured outside the city walls at night conducting their own observations, and sometimes when they approached too close to the American lines, they drew fire. Thus, the greatest fear for an American officer when returning from such missions was that he might be mistaken for enemy scouts. And regular officers believed the chances of being shot at by friendly troops increased when they were engaged in reconnaissance in front of a volunteer unit. One night Lee and Beauregard slipped out into the darkness in front of the American lines, and upon their return, one of them stumbled and attracted the attention of a picket. The sentinel shouted a challenge, but without waiting for a response, he fired his musket at the shadowy figures. Both Lee and Beauregard were stunned and temporarily blinded by the muzzle flash that went off ten feet from their faces, but neither man was hit, and they were able to grab the soldier and disarm him.4
Only 20 percent of Scott’s heavy guns and mortars had arrived by the time the investment had been completed, but this unexpected shortfall, this unfortunate friction of war, could not be allowed to delay the conduct of the campaign. Scott would make do with what he had. Colonel Totten, Captain Lee, and Captain Gustavus Smith were the principal engineers engaged in selecting locations for the artillery that was on hand. The sites chosen were south of Veracruz and within a half mile of the city wall—close enough to the Mexican guns to be dangerous. For more than a week after the siege line was established, engineers supervised the construction of trenches that zigzagged their way in advance of the American lines and toward the city. These trenches served as passageways to the front where the batteries were to be built, but the demanding work caused dissension. Lieutenant Isaac Stevens complained that it was only with great difficulty that the volunteers could be made to work in the trenches; they instead preferred to sleep or get drunk. Also a disagreement arose on about March 16 regarding the site chosen for the first battery. Colonel Totten ordered Beauregard to take a group of sappers forward and dig a trench, as specified by a profile previously laid out for the battery. When he arrived at the designated spot, he instantly felt reservations, so he climbed a tree and, with a glass, carefully surveyed the area and concluded that the location could be easily enfiladed by enemy artillery. With some trepidation, the young lieutenant refused to start work on the battery, and he returned to his superior officer and told him of his conclusion. After a brief clash, Totten agreed to go forward and reexamine the ground, and when he did so, he discovered that indeed Beauregard had been correct. The battery was moved to a safer location.5
This incident may have been a contributing factor to D. H. Hill’s opinion that Totten “betrays imbecility every day.” The young Hill viewed Totten as “a book man without practice and practical judgment”—hardly an attitude one would expect to encounter regarding a man with Totten’s experience. He was the tenth graduate of West Point in 1805 and a veteran of the War of 1812. He became the army’s chief engineer precisely because of his extensive and varied experience, and he fulfilled that role until his death in 1864. He was also one of the founding regents of the Smithsonian Institution. In Mexico, Scott relied on him heavily and deferred to his many recommendations. Totten did not disappoint, and during the entire campaign, he sought to give to the corps of engineers high-profile assignments that met high expectations. Hill, on the other hand, was quick to pass judgment, and after only a few days at Veracruz, he had already grown frustrated, calling his superiors “old fogies” and condemning the operations as “most shameful.”6
While Hill complained, the work continued. The day after Totten’s and Beauregard’s confrontation, Captain Smith found a new and much better place for Battery One only a few hundred yards away, near a cemetery. At the new site, “the conformation of the ground constituted almost a natural parapet for a six gun battery—requiring but little work to complete it for use. It afforded immedia
te shelter for men and guns.” When the trenches were completed and the battery locations identified, work parties of twenty men each ventured forward every day to construct the gun emplacements. Armed with picks, shovels, and axes and laboring under the supervision of engineer officers, the work crews went about their tasks under orders to “observe profound silence” so as not to “attract the shot or Shells of the enemy.” They did much of their work under cover of darkness. When practical, the batteries were cut into the sides of hills, and the men dug parallels to connect one battery to another and to allow for communication. They also had to dig earthen magazines so that the ordnance could be stored underground, where it would be relatively safe from enemy fire. As the work progressed, it became impossible to shield work parties from exposure to enemy fire. Mexican artillery continued to fire sporadically at the American lines, but even with the occasional exploding shell nearby, the labor continued with hardly a wince from the soldiers.7
Inside the American lines, soldiers had to grow accustomed to daily boredom punctuated by brief episodes of excitement. Companies took turns deploying forward among the sand hills, and their presence on the picket line resulted in occasional skirmishes with Mexican infantry and lancers. On the night of March 19, one large work party skirmished with about fifty lancers who were patrolling in front of the city walls. The intermittent enemy cannon fire prompted Captain Robert Anderson to conclude that the Mexicans “act very foolishly, throwing shot and shells at small bodies of men at distances so great as to make the chances almost nothing of their killing us.” Nightly patrols continued, and during one of them, members of the Fourth Artillery captured a courier trying slip out of the city with dispatches. While working their way back into their own lines, startled guards shouted a challenge to them then fired into the group, wounding two men, one of them mortally. From the captured letters, Americans learned that supplies were beginning to run low in the city, and this after less than a week of siege. Lieutenant Edmund Kirby Smith, in a letter home, referred to the intercepted letters and how they tell of “the great terror of the inhabitants and of their want of provisions.” The Americans also learned of political turmoil in Mexico City and the fear that reinforcements would not be sent to relieve the city.8
A Gallant Little Army Page 5