Soldiers of Conquest (38 page)

Thunderous applause exploded from the ranks of the soldiers. Scott waited for the tumult to end. He looked directly at General Quitman, standing straight and motionless before his troops.

“General Quitman, you and your men, and General Worth and his men put Santa-Anna's army between two mighty hammers and brought an early end to the battle. You are both to be commended. You are also to be congratulated upon being first into the city.”

Scott pivoted about and with his spurs jingling, walked up the stone steps and entered the National Place of Mexico.

*

At the graveyard near Tacubaya, Grant stood in ranks with some two hundred officers and waited for the burial ceremony for those men killed during the fighting at Chapultepec Castle and the San Cosme and Belen Garitas. The wooden caskets were laid out beside the graves that were dug in perfectly straight rows across the meadow, and adjacent to the graves of the dead from the fighting at Molino del Rey. El Molino had cost the little American Army 789 wounded and killed; Chapultepec – 450; the garitas – 833; and in the three days and nights of rioting after the city fell -226. Grant didn't like funerals, and this one was especially bad because the corpses of his friends Calvin Benjamin and Sidney Smith lay in two of the coffins.

General Scott with a somber voice and his usual flowery words lauded the bravery of the men and the honor they had bestowed upon the army. The chaplain spoke and consigned the men into the care of the Lord. A bugle sounded a short lament, the honor guards fired their muskets in salute, and six field guns fired their tribute one after another.

Following the order to “fall out” Grant went to his wagon train of seventy vehicles drawn up for departure after the ceremony. Cavallin soon arrived with his company of Rangers, Hazlitt with his company of infantrymen, and Lieutenant Townsend with a company of Dragoons. In total Grant had some four hundred fighting men. The caravan moved off with Grant intending to go to the north side of the valley where there had been no fighting and the foraging for provision for his hungry men should be most productive.

Lee reined in the black pacer and halted the buggy in front of the home of Edward Thornton, British Consul in Mexico. He climbed down from the buggy that had been seized by one of the American patrols during the days of riots in the capital and went up the long walk to the house.

Ten days had now passed since the surrender of Mexico City and the social life was in full swing. The opera was again holding plays, and the foreign nationals residing in the city were throwing festive parties in their lavish homes with wine, food, and dancing. The stated reason was to celebrate the end of the war without the destruction of the capital. Lee knew there was another reason for he sensed a pent up excitement among the young foreign women, the daughters, sisters, and other close relatives of the men. Those women now had more than two hundred and fifty American officers to choose among for escorts. Some two thirds of the officers were unmarried. Many romances and liaisons had already blossomed.

He rapped on the carved wooden door with the knocker that carried an English Coat of Arms that he couldn't interpret but must belong to the Thornton family. The Britisher had brought this piece of England with him to inform those people that came to his door that he was a citizen of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth. Lee smiled at that. After the conquering of Mexico by the Americans, the British standing in the world might be in doubt. The door opened to the hand of a ruddy-faced man in the uniform of a butler.

“Welcome, Mr. Lee,” said the man.

“I wish to see Miss Thornton,” Lee said.

“Yes, sir, Miss Thornton is expecting you. Please come in. She will be down shortly and asks you to please wait.”

Lee doffed his hat and stepped through the doorway. He had advanced but a few steps when Elizabeth Thornton came hurrying into sight on the far side of the large room. She was tall, slender, quite fair skinned and with black hair in ringlets. Her sparkling blue eyes showed intelligence. She had a trilling laugh that delighted Lee. She was dressed in a summery blue dress that matched her eyes and wore a jeweled pendant around her neck, and for gaiety wore a pair of bracelets on one wrist where they tinkled pleasantly together as she moved.

“Robert, I'm so glad to see you,” she called out gaily and hastened to take his hand.

“You look lovely,” Lee said. He clasped Elizabeth's hand and tenderly squeezed it, feeling the slender bones inside their covering of soft skin and flesh. It gave him much pleasure just to touch the woman. She reminded him of a butterfly every time he saw her. Her movements were fluid and graceful and she always wore brightly colored dresses and a touch of rouge upon her cheeks and lips. He liked the fact that her face didn't have the sculpture of a perfect beauty. But pretty she was with a mouth that spoke gently and the lips that teased to be kissed. She was thirty and had been married to an army officer named Chadwick that had been killed in the fighting to subdue an uprising against the English in India. After that she had gone to live with her father and had traveled with him on his assignment to this foreign land.

“Give me three minutes and I shall be ready to go,” Elizabeth said

Lee bowed his acceptance of the waiting and watched the woman hurry away. He felt the urgent now of wanting a woman, wanting one to the center of his manhood. He thought married men used to having a woman when he desired her had a more difficult time doing without their presence than did a bachelor. But he didn't want a whore, which were readily available in any number of brothels. This was the woman he desired.

Lee had met Elizabeth at the first party he had attended and she had flirted and then danced with him. He had been a willing participant and they had found each other most agreeable companions. This was the fourth time they had spent the evening together. Lee justified his association with Elizabeth with the thought that a grain of lawlessness, of lust, especially in a soldier in a conquered land, was after all normal and a useful characteristic of a fighter.

Lee had much free time on his hands for his military duties were not difficult and were quite to his liking. He had been directed by Scott to prepare drawings of the fortifications at Churubusco, El Molino, Chapultepec Castle and the garitas San Cosme and Belen. Scott would include them in his report of the battles to President Polk and the Secretary of War Marcy.

The Americans now held total control of the capital. Following Scott's orders to proceed with vigor against those guilty of rioting and looting and attacking Americans, all criminal and guerilla bands had been subdued. Santa-Anna had surrendered his Presidency of Mexico and Luis de la Pena now held that office in a temporary manner until an election was held. On information provided by the spy Dominguez, Scott knew that Santa Anna was at Guadalupe reassembling his army.

Elizabeth returned hurrying and smiling. Lee drove them to a fine restaurant overlooking one of the many canals that served as roads for large sections of the city. Lee asked Elizabeth to make the selection of food, and she chose squab roasted in a delicious sauce, with a variety of side dishes, deserts, and wines. They ate leisurely and talked on unimportant topics, simply enjoying each other's company. Without a word having been said, both knew that tonight something special would occur.

*

October 8. Grant slept in the saddle as he rode through the darkness of the Mexican night lying thick on the National Highway. The long hours on horseback and the clop, clop of the mounts of the 380 Dragoons and Rangers riding four abreast behind him had put him to sleep. He awoke when his horse stopped. Around him riders were dismounting from their steeds. He also climbed down and stretched to get the kinks out of his weary body.

He could see mountains silhouetted against the sky off to the right. Closer to him on the left was a sleeping villages with a few yellow lights burning in windows. He looked up at the half moon, high in the sky and surrounded by a hazy ring. There were two stars visible within the ring. If he had been back in Ohio, he would consider the ring with its stars as a sign that it would rain within two days. Perhaps that old farmer's tale wouldn't apply here in Mexico. He felt a deep longing to be back in the States.

The day just past, a messenger from Colonel Childs, who with a garrison of 400 men held Puebla and guarded the 1,800 men in the hospital there, had arrived at Scott's headquarters to report that he was under heavy attack by a large number of Mexican irregulars. Within an hour thereafter, the spy Dominguez had appeared and informed Scott that General Santa-Anna had marched south from Guadalupe toward Puebla two days earlier with an army of 6,000. Scott knew General Lane had arrived at Veracruz with a division of 2,500 volunteers and should now be approaching Puebla. Putting the information together, Scott reasoned that Santa-Anna planned to crush Lane's army of untested recruits with overwhelming numbers and then capture Puebla. A major defeat loomed, and the wounded Americans from Cerro Gordo now in a hospital in Puebla were in danger of being massacred. Scott had immediately ordered Colonel Sumner and Colonel Hays with all their available men to ride at once to warn Lane and help him to defeat Santa-Anna and hold Puebla. Grant and seven other officers that weren't part of the Dragoons or Rangers had requested permission to accompany Sumner. Knowing the importance of every man to the small force, Scott had given his approval. Dominguez rode with them as scout and interpreter.

Sumner had told the men that he meant to make a forced march all the way to Puebla within thirty-six hours, a distance of nearly seventy miles. Grant knew they would make it for the colonel had set a reasonable pace and was wisely halting at intervals to rest his men and horses.

“Mount up,” Sumner called out and the word moved like a fading echo down the column.

Grant pulled himself upon his horse. He set his rump just so in the saddle, anchored his feet in the stirrups, lowered his head, and glad for the soft, rocking chair step of the horse, went back to sleep.

*

October 9 was born with a hot sun that grew into a sweltering fireball as the day wore on and baked the Americans riding on the National Highway hemmed in between steep, brush covered hills. Choking dust rose from under the iron hooves of the horses in a dense brown cloud. The men and horses, wavering and indistinct and wrapped in streamers of dust, moved like misshapen ghosts.

Cavallin and Dominguez, spurring their horses, broke into sight ahead. The two men had been sent out in advance by Sumner to find General Lane. They sped up to Sumner and pulled their mounts to a halt on their haunches.

“We found the general,” Cavallin called. “He's got trouble. His mounted riflemen under Captain Walker are under siege at Humantla. Lane wants us to hurry forward and help Walker.”

“What's the story?” Sumner said.

”Walker was scouting ahead when he found and attacked guerillas at Humantla. He whipped them but couldn't get out of the town before Santa-Anna with his army caught and penned him in. Now Walker's taking a beating. Lane's infantry is about three miles back and will take some time to come up.”

“I know Walker,” Hays said. “He's a hell of a fighter but too damn reckless.”

“We'll go and help him,” Sumner said. He signaled his men and kicked his horse into a run along the road.

Cavallin reined his horse in beside Grant. “Here we go again,” he said and gave Grant his rakehell, battle smile.

Soon gunfire could be heard ahead of them. It grew loud as the column crested a rise and Humantla lay in front and below them. The town was long and narrow and strung out along the National Highway for half a mile. Four streets paralleled the highway, two on each side. Grant saw a brigade of Mexican cavalrymen in their red and blue uniforms, pennons flying, and a sea of lances was galloping along the streets and converging upon a giant building that appeared to be a warehouse on the southern end of the town. Companies of Mexican infantrymen were following behind.

“Walker must be near that big building for that's where those Mexicans are heading,” Sumner said to Hays. “We'll fight our way there and try to hold out until Lane comes up.” He twisted in the saddle and shouted out behind to the lieutenants. “We're outnumbered so stay together.”

The Americans charged along the narrow street. Musket fire poured from the buildings lining the street. The Americans fired back at the men on the housetops and in the windows. Grant shot a sniper who was aiming a rifle from a rooftop. He saved his second pistol for a more desperate time.

Two Dragoons were hit and clutched their saddle horns to keep from falling. A horse went down throwing its rider. Both lay unmoving on the pavement. The Dragoons' weapons fell silent, empty and useless.

The revolvers of the Rangers kept on cracking, hurling lead balls at the Mexicans. The immense fire of the Mexicans emptied two Ranger saddles. Grant saw two other Rangers clinging to their mounts. He glanced at Cavallin and saw blood dripping from a wound on the side of the face. His crooked battle grin was twisted fiercely. Cavallin aimed his colt up and shot a Mexican from a rooftop.

A bullet exploded the right ear of Grant's horse. The poor beast screamed, shook its head and almost tripped itself. Grant fired his last shot up at the rifleman and saw him tumble backward and out of sight on the roof.

The charging Americans broke through the ring of Mexican cavalry, and sped on to halt by Walker's men. They leapt down from their mounts. Speedily they began to reload their carbines. Then using the horses as protection and shooting over their backs, they added their fire to that of Walker's men.

The Mexicans, taking heavy punishment from the concentrated balls, reeled back. They regrouped in the mouths of several streets, and continued the fight with long range shots.

“Ration your shots. Make every one count.” Sumner called out. “Where's Walker?” he said to a rifleman nearby.