Soldiers of Conquest (27 page)

Scott led the group directly to the war room in headquarters and closed the door behind them. He turned to Thornton. “Now, Mr. Thornton, your news.”

“General Santa-Anna's go-between contacted us at our embassy and told us the general had been unable to convince any of the legislators to consider your peace proposal. That was three days ago and I've brought his answer as quickly as I could ride here. It seems the general and those he might have convinced to go along with the negotiations suddenly recalled the law recently passed by their legislature that to talk with an American about peace was a treasonous act and meant execution.”

“What about the ten thousand dollars?”

“I'm afraid Santa-Anna has kept that.”

“I've a suspicion that he never had any intention to carry through,” Scott said. “This may be just another one of his tricks.”

“I'm not sure that's it,” Thornton replied with a thoughtful shake of his head. “The law had some bearing on his decision for he has enemies who would like nothing better than to see him stood up before a firing squad. Also I believe he's convinced his new army can defeat you. I want to assure you that Minister Bankhead and I have done all we could behind the scenes to broker a meeting between you and the Mexicans officials.”

”I'm certain that you did,” said Scott. “What's the state of the city's defenses?”

“The general brags he has an army of thirty thousand men and many cannons in the city. And he may well have that number. As you will find out the city has many strong outer defensive works, and should those be breached, it is surrounded by marshes with access only by easily defended narrow, raised causeways.”

Scott straightened to his full height and turned to his officers. “We have tried to end this without more fighting and bloodshed and failed. Now we have no option but to pursue the Mexican army to its capital and defeat it there.”

In the gray dawn of August 7 in the broad plaza of Puebla came the tramp, tramp of American infantrymen wearing boots made by Mexican cobblers of Mexican cowhide and uniforms of Mexican cotton, and the sharp clatter of iron-hoofed cavalry forming ranks.

The noise ceased as the men were called to attention and “Old Davey” Twiggs rode up on his big roan horse and stopped in front of his assembled division. He jerked off his hat and waved it above his head with its mass of white, brushpile hair.

“Give me a whoop like you did at Cerro Gordo,” Twiggs bellowed out in his bullhorn voice.

His 2800 men let go with a shout that caused the windows of the surrounding buildings to rattle, made the hundreds of Mexicans flinch that stood watching, and sent hundreds of roosting pigeons into frightened flight.

Lee with his company of engineers, now reduced to forty-one due to illness, enthusiastically joined in with the shouting. Twiggs had a way with men and Lee was pleased to march with him.

Twiggs's division had been chosen to lead the advance upon Mexico City. He would take with him Colonel Harney and his three regiments of Dragoons to scout ahead and also guard the rear. Lee's engineers would build road and bridges and construct artillery sites and help place the cannons when the battle came.

General Franklin Pierce, former governor of New Hampshire and former U. S. Senator and another of Polk's civilian generals, had arrived at Puebla the day before with 2500 volunteers, a long wagon train of badly needed ammunition, medicines, and other supplies. He had been struck six times by large forces of guerrillas but had fought through. Scott's army now consisted of 14,000 men, counting infantrymen, Dragoons, artillerymen, Marines, and Texas Rangers. However a large number of his men lay wounded or ill and unfit for duty, some 1,800 at Puebla and another 1,400 at Veracruz. By actual count the general had 10,738 men able to fight. Five hundred of them would stay behind at Puebla to guard the sick against any force Santa-Anna might send to attack. The remaining men would march into the heart of Mexico to capture a city of a quarter million citizens and defended by a large Mexican army.

Scott had divided his force into four divisions, with Generals Twiggs, Quitman, Worth, and Pillow commanding them. Twiggs would march out first. Then on successive days, Quitman would leave accompanied by Scott and his entourage, followed by Worth, and lastly Pillow. Lee knew Quitman would have been a better choice for the lead division, but Twiggs outranked him. Worth being in third position to move forward was due to his lack of judgment and excitability. Pillow's bringing up the rear was right for he was a coward and lacked a grasp of military tactics. Also these last two men had no loyalty for Scott, and he knew it.

“Forward march,” Twiggs commanded.

The snare drums rolled and two of Harney's Dragoon regiments led off. The regimental bands struck up “The Girl I Left Behind Me”. Lee and his engineers moved out. Then Twiggs and his staff, the heavy siege train, the two brigades of infantry, and in tail-end position the large supply train guarded by a regiment of Dragoons. The division, stretching for five miles along the National Road, began a hard, chilly, uphill march into the heart of the Sierra Madres. The waiting was over and the Halls of the Montezumas lay but seventy miles ahead.

*

Lee was mounted upon his horse and close by General Scott when the division broke camp and rode into a clear, cold day in the high reaches of the Sierra Madres. They forded the snowmelt water of the Rio Frio, a powerful mountain river dashing foam flecked down its boulder-choked channel. After a stiff climb of four hours, the lead element came out on the rocky summit of the mountain range at 10,500 feet. There they halted to catch their breath in the thin, cold air.

Scott brought his horse to a stop beside Lee's mount. “Major, that's our objective, the reason for all out labor and fighting,” Scott said.

“Yes, sir,” Lee replied and raised his field glasses to look.

A feeling of awe and exhilaration came over Lee as below him 3,400 feet and twenty miles away the great city of Mexico came into focus. This must be how Cortez had felt when he reached this very point. The Americans had shown the same boldness as had the conquistador, cutting themselves off from their source of supplies and deciding to triumph over their foe or die in Mexico.

The remarkable clarity of the view made details visible. The city lay in the center of a green, bowl-like basin some forty miles across. He saw six broad sheets of water gleaming like pendants; the remnants of a great lake that was said to have once covered the whole valley. Though they could not be seen from his distance, Lee knew that within the city were many canals used as avenues of transportation, and the city was often called the Venice Of The Americas. There were large areas of marshes outside the city and randomly spaced about were ten small extinct volcanoes. A dozen or more white satellite villages showing like pieces of silver surrounded the main city. Sunlight glinted off the spires and domes of the churches and other large buildings, some peering out of the foliage of trees. Closer to him, individual fields of many crops, groves and orchards could be made out. At the foot of the mountain below the Americans were the miniature figures of horsemen. Lee thought they would be Lancers watching the Americans.

Lee swung his view back to the city bright with sunshine, and even with his field glasses, he could see no smoke, no tarnish, just its beauty. That magnificent place was to be the site of the final battle for the nation. Scott's advance had been one of conducting a moving siege against entrenched fortifications, and from all appearances would continue to be so to the very end. Sadness came over Lee for because of the Mexican's stubborn refusal to negotiate, he might have to direct cannon fire to destroy their grand capital.

“That splendid city shall soon be ours,” Scott said, his eyes hard and determined.

“Either victory or a soldiers grave,” said Twiggs who was riding up and heard Scott's words.

“Exactly so, General Twiggs,” Scott said. He lowered his field glasses and stowed it away.

“General Twiggs, let us ride down and find a fitting place for our headquarters.”

“Yes, sir. And see if they'll come out from their fortifications and fight.”

“Not until the rest of our army arrives,” Scott said.

Twiggs gave a signal to march and Harney moved out ahead and down the mountain road with his Dragoons. The two generals and their staff officers fell in with Lee riding at the head of his engineers. With the grade steep, the artillerymen and wagon drivers rode the breaks of their vehicles hard to prevent a runaway, creating a cacophony of screeches as break pads ground against iron rimmed wheels.

An hour later and rounding a turn of the road with the floor of the basin near at hand, Lee saw nearly a regiment of Lancers had gathered. Harney formed up his two regiments of Dragoons and rode steadily on. The Mexicans sat their horses and watched the Americans approach for a few minutes longer. Before the Americans were within carbine range, the Lancers reined their mounts about and faded away along the roads and through the orchards toward the city. Within the city a cannon boomed alerting the citizenry that the hated Yankees had arrived.

Twelve miles deep into the basin at the village of Ayotla, where every citizen had fled and the houses stood empty, Scott made his headquarters in a fine adobe hacienda with a large patio and a roof of cherry red tiles and all surrounded and shaded by huge olive trees. Lee and his company of engineers chose several houses close by headquarters for he knew Scott might call him at any time to go out to reconnoiter the enemy's fortifications.

Harney's cavalry advanced another one and a half mile closer to the enemy and took up a defensive position at the village of San Isidro. General Quitman had marched his division hard and in the late hours of the day, came down the mountain road and into the basin and began to make camp at the rear of Twiggs. Soon there was a huge wagon and ordnance park, and more than a thousand worn, dingy white tents erected in neat rows across a wide swath of the green land. Scott now stood guard and waited for his last two divisions to arrive.

*

Lee halted with his escort of Dragoons just beyond the range of any gun a sniper might be aiming at him from the hill named El Penon. Lee had expressed his opinion to Scott that the hill would be Santa-Anna's first line of defense and heavily fortified. Scott had directed him to reconnoiter it and report back. At the same time Beauregard had been dispatched to scout an alternate route to the capital, one that was much longer running west past Lake Chalco and through San Augustin before turning north to the city.

El Penon, located some seven miles from Mexico City, sat beside the National Highway that approached the city from the east and ran between lake Texcoco on the north and lakes Xochimico and Chalco on the south. The hill was more than four hundred feet tall, and made of layers of crimson volcanic rock and cinders. As Lee had thought would be the case, stockades, breastworks, parapets, and guns bristled on the summit and sides of El Penon. Additional defensive works at the broad base of the hill and in advance positions commanded all approaches. All the works had been skillfully designed and constructed. He counted thirty pieces of artillery, with each well placed for clear avenues of fire. To create more difficulty for an attacker, the Mexicans had flooded the meadows on one side of the hill. The waters of Lake Texcoco lapped upon and guarded the remainder of the hill's base. Lee estimated there were six to seven thousand men occupying the works.

He made sketches of the hill and its fortifications and then turned to a broad view of the land and routes to the city. He saw the maps he had prepared at Puebla were substantially accurate. The Spanish and the Mexicans after them had built a mighty defense for their capital city. Every approach was along a narrow raised causeway running through wide tracts of marshland that no artillery, cavalry, or wagons could cross. A series of strongholds and complex fortifications guarded each road. Whichever route Scott chose to launch his attack upon would funnel the Americans onto a ribbon of road that required running a gauntlet of forts from which cannon and musket fire could rake them.

Lee spotted a horseman coming along the road from the city and approaching El Penon. When parallel to the hill, the rider waved up at the men staring down at him from their elevated positions. He rode brazenly on and crossed beneath the frowning cannons and the thousands of muskets.

As the horseman drew closer, Lee saw it was Dominguez, leader of the Spy Company. He called out a greeting and Dominguez replied with a lift his arm and a smile or recognition.

Lee turned to his escort of cavalry. “Any of you speak Spanish?”

“I do a little, major,” one of the men said.

“Then come up here and help me.”

The trooper brought his mount forward beside Lee.

“Ask Dominguez what he knows about El Penon.” Lee chucked a thumb at the hill.

The trooper spoke and Dominguez responded.

“He says he's heard there's seven thousand men on it, and it's under the command of General Santa-Anna himself.”

Lee nodded for he had heard the name Santa-Anna in Dominguez's answer. “Tell him to come with me to headquarters.”

Again the trooper and Dominguez spoke together.

*

“General Scott, we could shell El Penon and then most likely take it by storm,” Lee said. “But we'd suffer a fearful loss, one out of all proportion to what we'd gain.”

Lee had described what he had seen, told that Santa-Anna personally commanded the fortifications, and showed his drawings of the hill and the other defensive works to Scott and the several other officers who had gathered at headquarters.

“That's regrettable for it would be to our advantage to fight and defeat Santa-Anna himself instead of having to fight several battles with his subordinates,” Scott said. “However we can't sustain a large loss of men.” He studied the map Lee had prepared of the area and that was spread on the table before him. “That leaves the southern route by way of San Augustin for our advance,” Scott said and traced it with a finger. “I estimate the distance to be about twenty five miles.”