A Gallant Little Army
Page 11
Leading the reconnaissance and at the vanguard of the entire forward movement were Captain Joseph E. Johnston of the Voltigeurs and Lieutenant Zealous B. Tower of the engineers sent out by Twiggs to gather and relay information about enemy positions. From local inhabitants, Johnston learned of the strong enemy position in and around Cerro Gordo, and upon communicating such to Twiggs, he was instructed to push forward and get a closer look. Johnston’s scouting party, however, got too close, and when Mexican pickets spotted it, they opened fire. Johnston fell to the ground, severely wounded, and three Mexican soldiers were killed in the skirmish that followed. Four Americans rushed to the captain’s aid, laid him on a blanket, and, each grabbing a corner, carried the suffering Johnston to the rear. Doctors removed two musket balls, one from his arm and the other from just above the hip, and ordered a couple of weeks of bed rest. It would not be the last time Johnston would be wounded in the line of duty.7 Had the Mexicans waited until the Americans were well into the gorge, they might have destroyed Twiggs’s division with a devastating fire from three sides. Among the seven companies designated to attack the Mexican works was that of Joseph Smith, whose dramatic prayer the night before might indeed have been his last. As it was, Santa Anna’s gunners fired prematurely, thus surrendering the element of surprise and allowing Twiggs to avoid a potential disaster.
With the reconnaissance party driven back, and with his appreciation of the strength of the Mexican position enhanced, Twiggs ordered his division back. He sent out more scouts in the afternoon of April 12 to get a better picture of what he was up against and to provide time for Major General Patterson’s volunteer division to arrive at Plan del Río. Patterson’s subordinate officers worked tirelessly to bring up the division. Israel Uncapher recorded in his diary on the evening of April 12: “Started early & travelled fast. The road was . . . very dusty . . . very hot.” The arrival of the volunteers would have ordinarily put the whole force at hand under Patterson’s charge, because he was the superior officer, but he had reported sick, leaving Twiggs in command. Accordingly, “Old Davy” Twiggs made plans to attack at 4:00 A.M. next morning. But Patterson’s men were tired and “much broken down” from the march, so his brigade commanders, Gideon Pillow and James Shields, requested that Twiggs give the volunteers time to rest. Therefore, Twiggs postponed the attack twenty-four hours, or until the morning of April 14.8
With the Americans idle on April 13, Twiggs fortunately used the day to gather additional intelligence. Lieutenant Pierre G. T. Beauregard (attached to Patterson’s division) and other engineer officers led several companies around to the north through rough terrain to try to ascertain the strength of the Mexican left flank. The topography on the north side of the road consisted of endless hills and ridges as far as the eye could see. For a while the engineers followed what appeared to be a mule trail, and as they went, they dropped off troops along the way to guard the route. The trail eventually disappeared, which slowed their progress, but the reconnaissance party pressed on, probing for a passage to the enemy flank and rear. At length Beauregard reached the base of a hill called La Atalaya, and, leaving the remainder of the party there, he and a few sharpshooters crept to the top to take a look around.
For over an hour, Beauregard scanned the surrounding countryside, but what most attracted his attention was an adjacent hill to the southwest called El Telégrafo or Cerro Gordo (Fat Hill), which commanded a long stretch of the road leading into the town of Cerro Gordo. The bases of the two hills very nearly met, while their peaks, standing roughly equal height at about six hundred feet, were perhaps four hundred yards apart. From this distance, Beauregard could see that several dozen infantry and four cannon occupied the top of El Telégrafo. He also perceived that he was on the extreme left flank of the Mexican army—that, in fact, El Telégrafo anchored this end of the enemy line, and with but a few infantry and a scant four guns, was very lightly defended. He was about a mile behind the forwardmost Mexican position on the south side of the road, and capturing these hills would put the whole enemy line in jeopardy.9
La Atalaya as seen from El Telégrafo. Courtesy of the author.
From El Telégrafo looking southeast at the three ridges running parallel to the National Road. Courtesy of the author.
While Beauregard and the others scouted the countryside, Scott, escorted by cavalry under Captain Philip Kearny, hurried to catch up to the head of his army. Having received word from Twiggs on April 12 of the enemy encounter, the commanding general had left Veracruz and traveled all day on April 13. Always scrupulously jealous of his title and authority, Scott was not inclined to look favorably on a subordinate officer who exceeded instructions or initiated a battle without his approval. Besides, Scott was dubious of Twiggs’s ability and may have put him in the lead position because he did not expect a battle before the army reached Jalapa. Indeed, Scott thought Twiggs ill-suited “to command an army—either in the presence, or in the absence of an enemy.” But a fight is what Twiggs wanted, and on April 13, he seemed determined to bring one on. Meanwhile, Worth, stuck on the coast without adequate transportation and ordered to bring up the rear, cautioned that the enemy should not be attacked until the entire American army arrived. Worth did not want to be absent when a general engagement took place.10
Two days of reconnaissance, however, began to reveal the strength of the enemy position, bringing the location of Mexican forces into clearer focus. Santa Anna and his chief engineer, Lieutenant Colonel Manuel M. Robles, had been busy for days studying the topography and issuing orders for the construction of defensive works. Robles had an eye for detail, and he had earlier reported that, while the Cerro Gordo Pass was an ideal place to harass the Americans, it was not the best place to make a determined stand. The position could be flanked easily, Robles thought, and, in his opinion, Corral Falso a little farther west was more defensible. The engineer reported his assessment to General Valentín Canalizo, but Santa Anna, intending to bring about a decisive battle at Cerro Gordo, unwisely dismissed Robles’s concerns. Not only was Santa Anna’s position faulty, but also his finances were lacking. From Cerro Gordo, he wrote back to officials in Mexico City stating that unless the government could send money at the “velocity of lightning,” there was little hope of stopping the American advance, and, he continued, if the government did not meet the army’s financial and supply needs, he would “in no way consider myself responsible for any bad result.”11 Even before the battle commenced, the crafty generalissimo was shifting the blame elsewhere should things go badly.
Despite certain weaknesses, the Mexican position was not unimpressive. Santa Anna had roughly 12,000 men with which to defend the Cerro Gordo Pass, an ample number. Despite having only limited time to prepare defenses, Robles had wasted no time. What he had accomplished in just a few days was laudable. To defend the positions that his engineer had prepared, Santa Anna deployed his army as follows. On the western end of the gorge, just before the road reached the town and near the base of El Telégrafo, he posted half a dozen pieces of artillery and 1,400 supporting infantry, all protected by breastworks. This force anchored the center of the Mexican line and was favorably positioned to seal the western end of the pass while raining a sheet of grape and musketry onto the road. The south side of the road, or the Mexican right flank, was protected by the Río del Plan and by three ridges that ran parallel to each other between the road and the river. At the eastern tip of each ridge, the Mexicans erected breastworks to protect artillery—nineteen guns in all, supported by nearly 2,000 infantry. It was here that Santa Anna fixed much of his attention in preparing for the Americans’ arrival. This southernmost position was forward of the other defensive works, and it commanded a stretch of the road in the eastern half of the gorge. In this area, they had cut down trees east of the ridges and along the road to give their gunners an open field of fire.12
The weakest point of the line was the left flank or northern end. However, the terrain was so rugged north of the road with hills, ri
dges, and gullies, not to mention thornbushes and underbrush, that Santa Anna considered it impassable for even a rabbit, let alone wagons and cannon. Such a natural geographic barrier did not warrant much attention, thought the Mexican commander. So he posted four 4-pound cannon and about a hundred infantry on El Telégrafo, not to protect his left flank from attack, but because it overlooked the road, and from there, one could see the entire area. This was the scant collection that Beauregard had observed from atop La Atalaya. On the slightly rounded summit of El Telégrafo, there was perhaps no more than an acre of defensible terrain before the ground began its steady downward slope. Here the Mexicans dug breastworks that enclosed the remains of an ancient stone-and-concrete tower. In centuries past, the old tower had been part of a series of signal stations used to relay messages from the coast to Mexico City—thus the hill’s name.13 Here also they had cleared brush to provide a field of fire. The location was an excellent observation post, but, as Beauregard discovered, it was too lightly manned to withstand a determined attack.14
This the young engineer reported to General Twiggs on the afternoon of April 13: the Mexican left was inadequately defended and could be taken with a flank attack. Armed with a fairly accurate description of the enemy line, Twiggs, despite being outnumbered about two to one, decided to attack the Mexicans in front and flank simultaneously, and accordingly, that evening he sent his orders to officers in the two divisions present. Next morning, Patterson’s division would attack in front while Twiggs’s division, led by Beauregard, would swing around to the north and hit the Mexicans in flank. The plan worried the young lieutenant, who saw this as a violation of one of the basic maxims of warfare: never divide your force in the face of a superior foe. Furthermore, with the Americans attacking on the outside of an imaginary arch, the enemy would enjoy the advantage of interior lines. Beauregard was skeptical of the plan and of the commander, as was the rest of the army.
That evening, as word of the pending attack passed through the ranks, an air of gloom descended over the troops. They were reluctant to go into battle under Twiggs and also leery of initiating a major battle without the rest of the army or the commanding general on hand. Patterson, still incapacitated by illness, summoned Beauregard to his tent and asked his opinion of the battle plan. The lieutenant frankly expressed his belief that the army should not be divided as Twiggs intended, that the bulk of the army should be directed to attack the weak Mexican position at El Telégrafo. At Patterson’s urging, Beauregard went back to Twiggs that night and expressed his reservations, but Twiggs simply responded by saying that his orders had been sent, and it was too late to make changes. Then, as if he had second thoughts, he asked Beauregard, “Don’t you think we will succeed any how?” “Certainly Sir,” the dutiful young lieutenant replied.15
Patterson did not share his engineer’s optimism. Determined to stop Old Davy’s premature undertaking, he rose from his bed, removed himself from the sick roll, assumed command of the forces, and at 11:00 P.M. suspended Twiggs’s attack order. Pulling the rug out from under Twiggs in such fashion did little to enhance the relationship between the two generals. Patterson was not a professional soldier, and if he was known for anything, it was a penchant for being slow, which he would demonstrate fourteen years later at First Bull Run. However, he was a veteran of the War of 1812 and he possessed enough experience to understand the wisdom of waiting for the commanding general to arrive on the scene.
The next day, around noon, Scott did arrive. He took in all the information that had been gathered from Beauregard’s reconnaissance north of the road and Lieutenant Zealous Tower’s reconnaissance of the three ridges south of the road, and he opted not to adopt Twiggs’s plan for an immediate attack in front and flank. Such an approach, noted one soldier, “would sacrifice to much of the Army.” But he did see the value of Beauregard’s information regarding the weak Mexican flank and considered an attack north of the road a viable option. Before formulating his plan of attack, however, Scott wanted more definitive information from officers he knew and trusted. So on April 15 and 16, he directed his engineers to continue reconnoitering the Mexican positions.16
All of the scouting before and after Scott’s arrival provided the troops with four days of leisure time which they filled with foraging and exploring. Apple, peach, orange, banana, and lime trees grew around Plan del Río, and countless soldiers took the liberty to relieve some of the trees of their delectable fruit. Limes, they discovered, “make a very refreshing drink.” Some of the soldiers took the time to wash off the dust from days of marching by bathing in the Río del Plan and other clear springs in the vicinity. On April 14, about a dozen hungry Pennsylvania volunteers, being “pretty near starved,” decided that the minor infraction of plucking an occasional piece of fruit was not enough to satisfy their desires. So they slipped out of camp in search of beef. They found two cows in a corn field, and despite the owner’s presence, they shot both of them and skinned them. After quartering them, the men carried them back to camp “slyly,” making sure to stay off the road so as not to be spotted by a superior officer.17
Much of the activity around Plan del Río was legitimate contractors’ work. On one occasion, four wagons went out looking for forage and found six hundred bushels that farmers had just loaded on mules to carry to the Mexican army. From April 14 to 16, beef contractors busied themselves in the surrounding countryside searching for cattle to buy from the locals in a never-ending quest to provide the army with an ambulatory supply of food. On April 16, a group of Tennessee volunteers (Company “K” Mounted Infantry, or, as they were also known, the Knoxville Dragoons) escorted one of the beef parties on its search. Their activity took them from ranch to ranch until, at one point, they spotted a band of Mexican soldiers who fired at them and quickly bolted off the road and into the thick chaparral. The volunteers dismounted and pursued, leaving behind John Roberson and one other to guard the horses. Soon Roberson heard a rustling, then saw movement in the brush just off the road, but he held his fire for fear that it might be a comrade. His caution cost him his life, for it was a lone Mexican soldier who raised his gun and fired before disappearing in the thick undergrowth. The musket ball struck Roberson in the upper thigh, shattering the bone, and his companions had to carry him back to camp in one of the wagons. Roberson lingered in great pain for two days before dying.18
Other fatalities occurred while the army was camped at Plan del Río. On the same day that Roberson was mortally wounded, Chauncey Sargent, purporting to be an eyewitness, wrote in his journal about another fatal result from one of the food searches. Not knowing what had happened, he simply recounted that “a Tennessean who was shot in seven places, . . . died a few minutes after he was brought to camp, he was out with a beef party, two of them getting separated from the rest were attacked by Lancers one was killed instantly.” Another incident of a different nature had equally tragic results. After loading his musket, a soldier enlisted the aid of a comrade to remove the charge from the barrel. While using the ramrod to try to dig the ball and powder out, the gun went off, shooting one of the men in the chest and killing him instantly, while the ramrod flew out and lodged in the neck of a nearby soldier.19
While engineers assessed the enemy position, the Mexicans worked to strengthen their defenses. Santa Anna on occasion mounted his horse and, with his staff, rode from location to location inspecting his lines. Given his disregard of his engineer’s advice, perhaps he felt a false sense of confidence. Some of the officers in his army were not so confident, and a few privately voiced their concern about “important defects in the general plan of defence.” Santa Anna had relatively comfortable quarters in Cerro Gordo, and he dined in the evenings with his aides and officers. Meanwhile, his soldiers became increasingly fidgety with each passing day, anxious to fight the Americans. And so was Santa Anna. Hoping to strike a blow against the invaders and growing impatient, he sent out units of his cavalry to ride through the narrow defile along the river in an effort to get
as close as possible to the American camp at Plan del Río. However, the terrain was so rugged that after losing several men and horses over cliffs, they turned back.20
Meanwhile, Scott’s engineers continued their observations of Mexican positions. On April 15, young Lieutenant George H. Derby, only one year out of the military academy, conducted a thorough reconnaissance of the three ridges south of the road. Working his way through cacti and chaparral for over four miles, he came to a spot behind the Mexican right flank where he counted the guns, estimated the strength of the troops, and drew a sketch of the area. The following day, Lieutenant Isaac Stevens did additional scouting in the area beyond the Mexican right. He earlier had seen several hundred lancers along the south bank of the Rio del Plan and assumed that their location indicated the presence of a nearby ford. Stevens secured permission to take fifty dragoons and push up the south side of the river to investigate. His reconnaissance lasted for several hours, but the unexpected return of an old groin injury forced him to return to camp that afternoon before he had completed his search.21
Also on April 15, Beauregard led Captain Robert E. Lee and three companies around to the north to take another look at the area that Beauregard had covered two days earlier. Again dropping off portions of their party as they went, Lee and a sergeant finally reached La Atalaya, from whence he was able to see the entire area. Lee spent the day lurking about on the Mexican left flank, pushing on beyond La Atalaya to see if he could find a path to the National Road behind Santa Anna’s army. At one point he was near a stream when he heard approaching footsteps and Spanish voices. He ducked behind a fallen tree, pressing himself as close to the ground and as far under the log as possible. There he lay for hours while enemy soldiers milled around, filled their canteens in the stream, and even occasionally sat on the log just above his motionless body. The seemingly endless procession of Mexican soldiers lasted much of the afternoon, and not until after dark was the shaken captain able to slip away and return to camp.22