Soldiers of Conquest

by F. M. Parker

  Grant, in the belfry spoke to his squad of artillerymen and Marines. “You did good work. Now go and find your outfits.”

  The men filed away down the stairs from the belfry. Grant remained behind looking out across the land where a cloud of dense gray gun smoke had formed and stretched off over the valley. To the east at the Belen Garita, the thundering of the cannon and popping of musketry were ending in a ragged tailing off. To the west a blood-red sun was settling onto the horizon. The end of the day being so near surprised Grant for in the intensity of the fighting along the road and in the houses, he hadn’t noticed the passing of time. The battle wouldn’t be decided today.

  He wiped at the sweat on his face and wearily went down the stairs and out of the church to sit on the pavement against the garita wall with the men of his Fourth Infantry. They had been marching and fighting all day, had had a terrible loss of comrades, and now it was time to rest and give thanks for still being alive.

  A group of horsemen caught Grant’s sight. On the road not a quarter mile away, Scott and nearly a dozen officers were making their way toward the garita. It’s safe for you to come now thought Grant. Behind the horsemen came the ambulance wagons picking up the wounded. The dead must wait for tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 42

  Lee rode with Scott and half a dozen command officers on horseback through the litter of blue uniformed bodies lying dead or wounded on the San Cosme Road. The horses advanced by delicately placing their hooves so as not to trod upon the men. Both the San Cosme Garita and the Belen Garita had been taken. But God! Their capture had been a deadly affair for the soldiers. Worse yet, the enemy wasn’t beaten. He must surely have thousands of fresh fighters to meet the invaders tomorrow as they continued their drive into the city.

  Lee noticed movement from the wounded as Scott passed through them. Those that could stand did so; those too badly hurt to rise brought themselves to a sitting position. All of the men watched the general with their pain filled eyes. With their gray faces holding an expression of pride of what they had done, of the bravery they had shown, of the wounds they had taken on his orders, they saluted their general. Scott raised his hand in salute to the men, and rode on with his hand to his brow. ‘Yes indeed, general’, Lee thought, ‘they deserve your full respect.’

  Lee began to shake as the full weight of his exhaustion and the weakness caused by the wound swept over him. An infinitely dense blackness settled upon him. He reached out to catch hold of the pommel of his saddle. In the blackness he couldn’t find it. He leaned to the side, then still further, and fell from the saddle and landed hard on the pavement.

  *

  As the thickening dusk became black night, Grant walked back along the road and entered one of the bigger houses he had fought his way through. He found a candle, lit it, and searched about and located a little food and a bottle of wine. He ate by himself in the abandoned house, and for some unexplainable reason was glad that he was alone.

  Carrying the half empty wine bottle with him, he found a bed on the second floor. Ah, what a grand sight the clean, neatly made-up bed was. He drank again from the bottle, corked it, and sat it on a nearby table. He dropped down on the bed with his dirty clothes on, and placing his weapons within reach, closed his eyes.

  From outside the house on the road came the rumble of the heavy wheels of Huger’s big siege cannons. Tonight there would be little rest for the artillerymen because the guns must be positioned to support the final assault on the city. Grant heard the big 10-inch mortars fire five shots into the city as a good night message to Santa-Anna. That should make the Mexican general consider what was coming his way tomorrow.

  Grant lay recalling the day’s battle and what the morrow could bring. He knew first hand from the fighting with General Jackson at Monterey how dangerous combat was on the streets and among the houses of a city. Thoughts of Noah Grant came, what did that old man, no he would have been a man even younger than Grant was now, think as he lay resting after a hard fight during the battle for independence and faced another equally hard one in the morning. He would like to have known that man whose blood he carried in his own veins.

  He reached for the wine bottle and took a long drink. He held it in his mouth for a moment, savoring the taste, and then let the fine liquid slowly slide down his throat. He was asleep by the time the last drop had left his mouth.

  *

  Lee awoke with someone gently shaking him by the shoulder. Beauregard sat beside his bed and watching him with a concerned expression.

  “You all right, major?” Beauregard asked.

  “Let me check,” Lee said. He was still tired, his wound was painful, and he ached in other places when he moved. “I think I’ll live,” Lee said with a slight smile. “But I do ache here and there.”

  “I’m glad to hear that you’ll live.”

  “What time is it?”

  “About six thirty. I thought you might want to know what’s happened since you fell off your horse.”

  “I guess that’s why I hurt pretty much all over. What’s the news?”

  “The city might be ours without more fighting. Last night, or more accurately this morning about four o’clock city officials came to Scott and wanted to negotiate a surrender. They said Santa-Anna had left the city with his soldiers.”

  “And?”

  Beauregard grinned. “Our old general has had enough negotiating and told them that he had fought his way into the city and now intended to have it without any further talking. The city must be surrendered or he would begin bombarding it at first daylight.”

  “So he’s learned that it’s not a good strategy to talk with the Mexicans.”

  “It seems to me that they’re better at it than we are. Anyway, this morning at daylight, city officials brought a white flag to Quitman. Still Scott plans to enter the city in assault formation. Worth and Quitman are to advance at the same time, with Worth going to the Alameda, and Worth to the Grand Plaza and take possession of the National Palace. Scott will join Worth for the grand entry. The general sent me to find out if you’re able to ride along with him.”

  “Most certainly I am.”

  “I thought you’d be unless you were completely dead. You’ll need to be in full dress uniform for that’s the way we’re riding in.”

  Lee called out, “Connally, bring me my dress uniform.”

  “It’s already laid out for you, major,” Connally said and coming into the room, having obviously listened to the conversation. He chucked a thumb at the uniform draped over the back of a nearby chair. “And I’ve got a bath ready. Do you want me to shave you?” He nodded at Lee’s wounded arm.

  “I could use a little help in getting ready, that’s for sure.”

  *

  September 14, 1847. Under a yellow morning sun, Scott and Worth both on horseback took places side by side at the head of Worth’s division. With Harney’s Dragoons and Semmes Marines as escort, the division left the magnificent park Alameda amid the clatter of horses’ hooves upon the cobblestone. Harney’s regimental band struck up “Yankee Doodle” to lighten the steps of the men. General Worth wore his field uniform with its stains of the battle of yesterday. General Scott was resplendent in full dress uniform with saber and spurs, epaulets gleaming gold against his blue uniform and snowy plumes flowing from his cocked hat. He rode his superb bay charger, with all his staff officers following on horseback in prescribed uniforms and in prescribed order.

  The two generals guided a course along the broad avenue toward a towering white building in the center of the city. Both sides of the street were lined with silent brown-skinned people watching the lean, battle-stained Americans parade past.

  Grant marched with Hazlitt in front of his company of infantrymen. He had removed as much dirt from his uniform as possible and had scrubbed his face in a basin of water in the house where he had slept. Still he was dirty, but no more so than other soldiers and nobody seemed to mind. The rank and file and even the officers seemed to
regard the dirt, gun smoke stains, and crude bandages as badges of their fighting.

  Shortly the National Palace, a massive stone building with many balconies on the upper story, came into sight on the border of the Zocalo, the city’s Grand Plaza. A scarred American flag whipped about from the staff on top of the palace. The sidewalks, and the windows, balconies, and tops of the houses surrounding the Grant Plaza were thronged with thousand of silent, watchful townsfolk.

  In the center of the great square, General Quitman’s soldiers were drawn up in orderly ranks facing the palace. The general paced back and forth in front of his ragged, bloodstained troops. At the foot of the broad stairs leading up to the palace, Quitman had assembled those city and national government officials that he could find. They fidgeted and glanced with worried eyes at the terrible, savage Americans.

  Loud cheers sounded as Scott mounted on his charger came into sight of the soldiers assembled in the plaza. He spurred his mount to a gallop and swept into the plaza with Harney’s Dragoons, their swords drawn and leaning on their shoulders, galloping close behind him. Quitman’s regimental bands struck up “Hail Columbia.” Scott reined his big horse to a stop in front of the troops with their cheers drowning out the sound of the band.

  The general, splendid in his dress uniform and so different from his battle stained soldiers, listened another moment to the triumphant shouts. Then with a pleased expression upon his large face, he drew his saber and in a grand sweeping swing of the weapon saluted his men.

  Scott spoke, “Brave rifles, you have gone through fire and come out steel. You have fought a splendid battle and won a magnificent prize, one of the great cities of the world. No army has ever showed more courage. Never once did you falter in the long march from the sea and through the mountains to this far place.”

  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.

  CHAPTER 43

  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.