During the night, another norther blew in and continued through the next day, not only disrupting Vinton’s burial but also damaging trenches and gun casements. The wind blew so hard that sand pricked the men’s faces. Next morning, despite the ongoing storm, officers dispatched work parties to repair the trenches, but the sand blew back into them as fast as they could shovel it out. The bad weather also caused other, more serious problems. It halted the landing of artillery ordnance, which would have repercussions in the days ahead, and it delayed the completion of additional battery placements. The norther caused damage to Battery Four, a six-gun battery that was not yet operational, and impeded work on Battery Five, the Naval Battery. Construction on this battery, now entering its third day, had proceeded at an impressive pace, and it was scheduled for completion in one more day. As per Scott’s order, the movement of the three-and-a-half-ton navy guns was to be done at night, but when the last gun was being pulled into place, General Gideon Pillow, who supervised the project, violated Scott’s order and moved it the final distance in daylight. Everyone knew that Pillow was inexperienced when it came to military affairs, but this was simply a case of insubordination, something to which Pillow was prone. Because of his relationship with Polk, he took liberties that would in time create disharmony within the army.25
On the second day of the bombardment, March 23, Scott received intelligence that a Mexican force was a few miles away, probably probing for a point through which it could enter the lines and reinforce the city garrison. Accordingly, Twiggs ordered a company of regulars to reconnoiter in the direction of a bridge called Puente del Media. On their way, they spotted some Mexican sentries along the road, seemingly confirming that an enemy force was in the vicinity. As the unit approached the stream, the company commander, Lieutenant Roberts, halted his men in a safe place, sent ten of them into the chaparral along the right of the road, and took eight with him on toward the bridge.26 When Roberts turned a bend in the road just as it descended down to the water, he discovered some enemy officers on the bridge. They immediately raised a white flag and asked to meet with him. The lieutenant approached alone and walked around a “strong abbatis” that was across the road and onto the bridge. Only then did he notice on the other side of the river what he estimated to be 250 Mexicans soldiers who had been concealed in a “strongly entrenched line,” and he immediately suspected a trap. He boldly asserted that he commanded a strong force nearby and was there to demand their surrender, wherewith one of the Mexican officers instructed about thirty of his men to march onto the bridge. As they did, half of them filed down one side of Roberts and the other half down the other, then turned inward to face the American. Then as the lieutenant reached out to take a weapon from a Mexican soldier, a shout came up from the trenches: “No! No! Los Americanos rendes les Armes.” Both sides obviously intended to be the captor.
At about that time, the ten-man detachment that had moved off to the right came out of the chaparral and, after crossing the stream, marched up to block the far end of the bridge between their lieutenant and the Mexican trenches. When one of the Mexican officers asked for an interpreter, Roberts and his men made their escape, telling the Mexicans that they would return with one soon. The lieutenant rejoined the main body of his company, which had been waiting several hundred yards away, formed them in a defensive position, and sent a runner back to camp to bring up reinforcements. General Persifor Smith immediately dispatched a portion of the Rifle Regiment, and when it arrived, a sharp skirmish ensued. Some of the Mexicans had crossed the stream and were ensconced among the chaparral to the right. Roberts wheeled his company to the right and plunged into the thickets to attack. For a half hour, these two forces exchanged musket fire, which gave way to hand-to-hand grappling. One American private successfully engaged three Mexicans but lost three fingers while holding up his weapon to fend off saber blows. Next the rifle companies opened on the trenches across the stream then charged the bridge, sending enemy soldiers in “every direction.” In this skirmish, the Mexicans lost seven killed and forty wounded; American casualties consisted of four wounded.27
For several days, as engineers and work crews completed additional batteries, the American bombardment intensified. They fired at the city around the clock, but the rate of fire always increased in the daylight hours, with the Mexicans returning fire with their superior number of guns. On Wednesday, March 24, Batteries Four and Five opened, adding a dozen guns to the American arsenal and markedly increasing the magnitude of the artillery duel. The navy’s big guns had a devastating effect as its heavy, solid shot smashed into the masonry and rock fortifications. During the course of the day, it disabled several enemy cannon. Manned by sailors from the Potomac and the Saint Mary, including Lee’s brother, Lieutenant Sidney Smith Lee, who commanded one of the gun crews, the Naval Battery maintained an impressive rate of fire all day, and at one point, the crews had to stop to prevent the guns from overheating. By chance, one shot severed the flagpole over Fort Santa Barbara, and a second lucky shot scattered debris over the two Mexican soldiers who attempted to reattach it to the end of the broken staff. The Mexican defenders also accelerated their rate of fire on Wednesday, with results. They scored a direct hit on a mortar, throwing it twenty feet into the air and fifty feet to the rear. However, they concentrated their efforts on the navy guns. One shell from the castle landed just behind the battery, igniting casks of powder, and other rounds hit close enough to damage the battery’s embrasures. During the course of the day, four sailors were killed.28
During this first day that the Naval Battery was in action, one of the openings through which the guns fired (embrasures) “became so badly choked that it could not be used.” Officers concluded that the opening had been made too small and would have to be enlarged after nightfall. Apparently during construction of the battery site, a disagreement had arisen between engineers Lee and Gustavus Smith over the size of the embrasures, and when they called Totten in to settle the dispute, the chief of engineers sided with Lee and his recommendation for the smaller size. With one of the guns out of operation, Smith asked Lee what he now thought of the embrasures’ dimensions, to which Lee responded, “They must be made greater.”29
Also on this day, American rocketeers under Lieutenant George H. Talcott began to use frightening projectiles known as Congreve rockets. These missiles had a three-foot explosive charge wrapped in metal casing and a guide stick that added another thirteen feet to the rocket’s length. They looked rather like a giant bottle rocket. The Congreve rocket, named for its inventor, an officer in the British army, William Congreve, had been around for decades. Their shrill, whistling sound and long tail of fire gave them an ominous appearance while in flight, but their notorious inaccuracy meant that they were prone to land most anywhere, inflicting both fear and unexpected civilian pain. It was their image streaking across the night sky that caused Francis Scott Key to write about “the rocket’s red glare” during the War of 1812. A curious observer at Veracruz thought the rockets looked like meteors. Talcott’s rocket company fired forty Congreves at Veracruz on Wednesday, and the next day, they loosed ten of the more modern, improved Hale rockets. Named for another British officer, William Hale, these new models no longer had the guide stick, and their spinning motion gave them better accuracy. Both types had a range of two thousand to three thousand yards.30
The escalated artillery duel also created an intense panorama for the soldiers to behold, especially after dark. “Every second a shell or a round shot is in the air either from our cannon or theirs,” wrote William Walker to his wife. Lieutenant Theodore Laidley described to his father what he saw: “The air was rent with the whistling of balls, the roaring of our own mortars, and the bustle and confusion incident to such an exciting time.” Another soldier named Bradford reported that at times he saw as many as five American shells in the air at one time, rendering few areas of the city safe. “At night the spectacle was grand,” remembered Kirby Smith, “the air being filled wit
h shells crossing each other in every direction their tracks marked by the burning fuses. The havoc was terrible, the crash of buildings, the shrieks and moans of the poor creatures within the walls could be plainly heard at night within our lines.” Smith believed that the Veracruz example would make the conquest of other Mexican cities easier as the army marched inland, but regarding this tremendous display of firepower, he wrote that the shelling of Veracruz was “a horrid business” with its “shower of iron falling upon the . . . city.” It was “justifiable by the usages of war,” he assured his correspondent, but “I desire never to witness another bombardment.”31
A young lieutenant from Virginia named Thomas J. Jackson, who had graduated from West Point the previous year, experienced his first action at Veracruz. Not for fourteen more years would Jackson acquire the nickname “Stonewall” for his stubborn stand on the First Bull Run battlefield, but even at this early stage of his career, he left such an impression that fellow officer and former West Point instructor Captain Francis Taylor believed that “Jackson will make his mark in this war.” Before landing on Collado Beach, Jackson, in a frank conversation with his future brother-in-law, D. H. Hill, wondered what it was really like to be in combat and how it felt to handle troops in the heat of battle. “I really envy you men who have been in action,” he admitted to Hill. Then with a smile, he said, “I want to be in one battle.” Assigned to Company “K” of the First Artillery, he helped man one of the batteries during the bombardment and got his wish. On one occasion, as he informed his sister, “a cannon ball came in about five steps of me.” Those around him took note of his calm demeanor during the noise and confusion of combat, and his superiors were impressed with the ability he displayed in fighting his guns. One soldier commented that Jackson was “as calm in the midst of a hurricane of bullets as though he were on dress parade at West Point.”32
One indication that the increased rate of fire was having an impact in the city came in the form of a note dated March 24 and delivered to General Scott, requesting a cease-fire to allow foreign consuls, along with Mexican women and children, to leave the city. Scott responded in the negative, saying that the American guns would stop firing only when the city’s garrison surrendered, and he reminded them that they had rejected an opportunity to leave the city before the bombardment began. By one account, the American officer who allowed the letter bearer in the camp without Scott’s approval was arrested.33
Critics have contended that Scott should have yielded to the request and allowed one day for the evacuation of foreign consuls, women, and children and that his justification for not doing so, the approach of yellow fever season, was disingenuous because he did not start his march away from the coast until three weeks after the city’s surrender. Such criticism falls short on several counts. Although modern-day historians know that the city garrison capitulated three days later, they apparently assume that Scott also knew the date that the surrender would occur, knew that the siege would not extend into April, and knew that he would have a short respite before the onset of yellow fever. But he knew none of these things. Besides, he wanted to march inland immediately, but could not do so for lack of transportation. Those who wish to censor Scott also fail to mention that he had previously offered safe passage out of the city for all foreign diplomats, allowing them several days to evacuate. Also citizens had had almost two weeks to leave, and some had. Furthermore, a consideration for the safety of the civilians works both ways. The Mexican commander, while clearly feeling an obligation to defend the city’s inhabitants, nevertheless chose to use the city itself as a fort rather than fight outside its confines.
Scott has also been charged with contradicting himself in his Memoirs in an effort to justify the continuation of the bombardment. On one page, he wrote: “Detachments of the enemy too were accumulating behind us, and rumors spread, by them, that a formidable army would soon approach to raise the siege.” Thus the need for haste in capturing the city. Yet half a dozen pages earlier, he wrote that Santa Anna “had returned to his capital, and was busy in collecting additional troops” with intentions to stop the invasion at an inland mountain pass.34 These two statements, however, are not contradictory. “Detachments” of enemy troops were indeed all about the countryside “accumulating,” and Scott nowhere implied that the “formidable army” that he feared might attack him from behind would be led by Santa Anna. He certainly knew that Santa Anna soon would march east from Mexico City with a sizable force, and that he might try to block a mountain pass, as he did at Cerro Gordo. Or if the siege continued indefinitely, the Mexican leader could have chosen to attack Scott at Veracruz—not Santa Anna’s most likely option, but one for which the city’s inhabitants certainly held out hope. In truth, Scott did not know what course his opponent would take, but any competent general must consider and prepare for all contingencies.
By March 25, some of Scott’s officers were becoming disenchanted with the “slow, scientific process.” By that time, the Americans had been ashore for over two weeks, and the city had been heavily bombarded for three days, with no results. Meade had grown tired of the idleness and wished that he had been present at Buena Vista the previous month. “My great regret now is that I was separated from General Taylor.” He was now convinced that Veracruz could “only be carried at the point of the bayonet.” Worth had also grown impatient. He had gained notoriety as a result of aggressive action during the assault on Monterey the previous fall, and he had been an advocate of attack since the landing on March 9. Despite his longtime friendship with Scott, he “condemned the operations at Vera Cruz as tedious.” Other officers, however, worried lest there be such ambition for glory among some of the generals “that they will be willing to make any sacrifice of human life to gratify their ambition.” Scott knew that many of his troops favored a quick, decisive victory through a head-on assault. He also knew that the general public back home would not appreciate the significance, would not understand the finesse of capturing the city without “a long butcher’s bill” as evidence of hard fighting. But he also knew that a bloody assault, although capturing the city, could effectively end the operation. With only 10,000 men, he could not risk a costly battle, especially at the beginning of a long, audacious campaign into the heart of enemy country.35
An attack was the last thing Scott wanted to consider, but that was exactly what circumstances forced him to contemplate by March 25. If he remained immobile on the coast, he would risk the effects of disease, which could kill more of his men than a frontal assault. An additional battery opened on that day as the rate of fire continued to increase, but because of the recent norther and the inability to bring supplies ashore, ammunition was running low. He had already ordered some of his guns to reduce their rate of fire to no greater than one round every five minutes. Commodore Perry also reported that within a few days, the Naval Battery would be out of ammunition with no possibility of resupply. With such news in hand, Scott decided that a direct attack might be necessary after all, but he would give the artillery one more day to see if a surrender might yet result. Accordingly, he sent orders to Batteries Four and Five to concentrate their fire in the same area the next morning. He told them to first knock out as many Mexican batteries as possible, then to train their guns on the same spot on the wall in an attempt to create a breach that infantry could charge through. If the city did not surrender on March 26, then Scott would prepare to storm the wall with his army from the land side and with Perry’s marines from the sea side.36
Meanwhile, another report came into headquarters that a body of mounted enemy troops had arrived outside the American lines and that they might attempt to break through and get into the city. Rumors abounded that Mexican troops were gathering to relieve Veracruz and that Santa Anna was on his way with several thousand soldiers. When a small number of Mexican troops attacked a beef party from the First Tennessee, Scott sent a hundred dragoons to investigate on the afternoon of March 25. They discovered about 150 Mexican troops entren
ched at a stone bridge nine miles behind the center of the American lines, which some sources refer to as the Medelline Bridge. General Patterson immediately dispatched eight companies of Tennesseans, two artillery pieces, and additional dragoons as reinforcements, and after a fast march, they found themselves at a lagoon in the midst of a thick chaparral. Their officers aligned them for combat, and they immediately opened fire on what appeared to be a hastily fortified Mexican position. The artillery opened with grape, and after about a dozen rounds, the enemy line began to crumble. The Americans surged forward, led by such officers as Captain Benjamin Franklin Cheatham, company commander of the Nashville Blues, First Tennessee, who had led the way in a charge at Monterey the previous year and would lead many Confederate charges in places like Shiloh, Stones River, and Franklin. Major William Hardee of the dragoons also distinguished himself. When the Mexicans broke and ran, a four-mile pursuit ensued, during which the dragoons overtook and killed several of the enemy. General Patterson, who had come up with the reinforcements and was overwhelmed with excitement, stood in his stirrups and shouted, “Hurrah for Tennessee!” The Tennesseans responded with loud cheers of their own. After the brief clash, and with the sun rapidly descending, the Americans strapped their two dead comrades over horses, put their nine wounded on litters, and started back to camp. Along the way, they looted and burned deserted ranch houses.37
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