SEPTEMBER 1846
Captain John R. Kenly, a company commander in the Baltimore-Washington Battalion, was proud of his unit. Not only was it to be “brigaded” with a regular army regiment in Twiggs’s 1st Division, but it had also been issued blue army uniforms, regular style, which set it apart from the other volunteer units. Kenly credited this special recognition to the influence of Colonel William H. Watson, the battalion commander.
Kenly regarded the Baltimore Battalion, as the unit was commonly called, as “a little different.” It had developed a reputation for disorderly conduct off-duty, but Kenly attributed that failing to the sophistication of its worldly-wise members, former sailors or members of prestigious fire companies and fishing clubs who, in their “regular” army uniforms, tended to “lord it over” their less favored comrades. But in military matters Kenly considered his men “more soldier-like” than the rest.1
As the Baltimore Battalion was preparing to leave Camargo on September 1, 1846, Colonel Watson notified his company commanders that they must go through one last ritual: each company must elect from its ranks one additional second lieutenant. Although Kenly questioned this method of selecting officers, he was confident—justifiably, as it turned out—that the man he wanted would be elected. The procedure delayed departure by one day.
The next day, as the battalion fell out to move, Kenly watched fascinated as the Mexican arrieros (muleteers) loaded up the mules.* He admired the competence of these humble men as they performed a job that required patience, good humor, and skill. “You have but to know,” he later wrote, “that tents, tent-poles, kettles, mess-pans, axes, picks, coffee-mills, boxes of ammunition, etc., were to be daily put on and off a mule’s back, to be safely carried over hill and dale, through thicket and through flowing water for miles and miles of toilsome march, to appreciate the knowledge requisite to do the work well.” He had developed an affection for both the mule and its keeper, “despite the many annoyances incidental to this species of army transportation.”2
The Fourth Brigade, of which the Baltimore Battalion was a part, marched out of Camargo by night. By September 4 they had passed Mier, and at Puntiaguda, which they reached on the sixth, they paused to await the rest of Taylor’s army. Taylor himself soon arrived, and the brigade covered the last fifteen miles to Cerralvo on September 9. From that point on, the prospect of hostile action would be more immediate, so the army would march by division, not by individual brigades.†
Nuevo León provided a delightful change from the Rio Grande area. Here was well-cultivated country, with clear running streams, gardens and fields blooming with figs and pomegranates. The air was refreshing, and the water that ran from mountain brooks was cool and clear. The roads were good, a welcome change to men who had been “driven in confusion through the lagoons and mire, over sandy deserts and burning plains, from the Gulf to the banks of the San Juan.”3 Spirits were high.
• • •
Not so lucky was the 1st Ohio Regiment, of Hamer’s Brigade, Butler’s Division, scheduled to march four days after the Baltimore Battalion. Things went awry from the first moment, when the mules failed to show up on time. The delay stretched into hours, forcing the unit to set out in the sweltering midday.4 The broiling sun made all metal objects impossible to hold, and the inexperienced troops drank the day’s ration of water too quickly. Some men soon became feeble from thirst, and at every turn of the road they hoped they would find water, any kind, even “if only in some foul mud-hole.” Once, when they sighted a solitary rancho up ahead, all semblance of discipline disappeared. The troops broke and ran for the well beside the hut. “Ah!” Giddings wrote, “deceitful hope! transient pleasure! The house was deserted, and the well contained not ‘a drop to moisten life’s all gasping springs.’ ” Each man ran up, refusing to believe the reports of the first, and each stared unbelieving into a dry well.5
All order was now lost as the units became intermingled. And after the guides became lost, causing the first companies to double back for two extra miles, only one half of the 1st Ohio arrived at camp before dusk. The rest, with the exception of two, straggled in during the night.6
Meanwhile, Captain William Henry, 3d U.S. Infantry, was enjoying a respite at Puntiaguda, having arrived there early on September 5. Henry was not much impressed with this dilapidated town of four hundred souls, but he did appreciate the friendliness of the townspeople, who had been hospitably inviting the visiting American officers to two fandangos a week. So one evening Henry joined a party headed for town. On the way they passed through a crowd of happy Mexican boys, who ran up around his horse, crying merrily, “Fandango! Fandango! Bonita señoritas!” But Henry and his friends were doomed to disappointment that evening. A rain began just before the opening time of 10 P.M., so the fandango was called off. Henry contented himself with observing a little gambling in the town, and returned to camp.7
Such entertainments represented the only form of recreation the Americans enjoyed on this march. But as Taylor’s men progressed farther southwest toward Monterrey, they noticed a change: the people became less friendly. With increasing frequency the locals, when asked about fandangos, would look hostile and say meaningfully, “Sí! Mucho fandango a Monterrey!” Obviously the fandango they had in mind would be not a dance but a fierce battle.
Butler’s division joined the rest of Taylor’s army at Cerralvo on September 10. Little time was left for the troops to enjoy this smiling little town, with its white limestone houses and sparkling mountain stream, for their commanding general had more weighty things to think about. His army was now located about halfway to Monterrey, in increasingly hostile territory.
Meanwhile, in the wake of Arista’s disgrace and Mejía’s incompetence, Pedro de Ampudia was reinstated as Mexico’s general-in-chief, Army of the North. As at Matamoros, Ampudia took up command with visions of glory dancing in his head. He knew, of course, that Santa Anna would assume command eventually, but that change would be a long time off. Before that day, Ampudia dreamed that he could defeat Taylor at Marin, twenty-five miles north of Monterrey, and as a result be hailed as a hero throughout Mexico. The numerical odds certainly did favor Ampudia. Three brigades of regulars had just arrived from Guadalajara, and that addition would bring his total strength (as of September 10, 1846) to seven thousand regulars and three thousand rancheros, considerably more than Taylor would have.8
On Friday morning, September 11, 1846, Ampudia rode up to Marin to inspect the terrain and meet with Anastasio Torrejón, whose cavalrymen had been hovering around Taylor’s army ever since it left Camargo. Two days later he held a council of war, but found to his dismay that his brigade commanders shared none of his zeal to take the offensive; they were, in fact, determined to remain behind the fortifications of Monterrey. As Ampudia could not override them all, he was forced to give in. At least he would have a strong position behind which he would be facing a smaller army.9
The city of Monterrey was a veritable fortress. Its buildings were made of stone, with flat-topped roofs and straight streets, making each house a strongpoint. On the west the rugged Independence Hill‡ overlooked the city, and as long as Ampudia could retain possession of it, he could ensure protection of his supply line, the Saltillo road, which ran westward behind it. The city was further protected on the south and on the east by the winding Santa Catarina River, which, while fordable, made any attack from either direction difficult. Behind the Santa Catarina on the south rose the majestic Sierra Madre, whose first detached ridge, known as Federation Hill, ran parallel to Independence Hill.
Taylor would inevitably approach Monterrey on the Marin road, which ran northeast from the city. To defend that approach, Mexican engineers had constructed two forts, the Tenería (Tannery) in front and Fort Diablo (Devil’s Fort) slightly behind.
The entire area was dominated by a monster fortification known as the Citadel. This solid pile of masonry located about a thousand yards north of the city had been built on the foundations of an unfinished cathedral. But it now bore no resemblance to a cathedral; its walls stood thirty feet high, enclosed in a quadrangular, bastioned earthwork, capable of holding thirty guns and four hundred troops. Nearly unassailable, its eight guns could rake the Marin road; in fact they could reach almost any point north or east of the city. It had a dark, menacing look. The Americans quickly—and respectfully—dubbed it the Black Fort.§
Ampudia’s position, which appeared impregnable at first glance, actually suffered from a glaring weakness: the individual positions, from Federation Hill to Independence Hill to the Black Fort to the Tenería, were too far apart to make them mutually supporting. Therefore, since Ampudia had decided to man all of them at one time instead of holding part of the army in reserve, he lacked a mobile force with which to reinforce any individual strongpoint that came under heavy attack. So long as he conceded all the territory between bastions to Taylor, Old Zack would be free to pick off each position, one by one, with relative impunity.
Ampudia adopted this tactic—so opposite from attacking Taylor at Marin—because he and his veterans of the Resaca were nervous. And the inhabitants of Monterrey were nervous also. Some fled the city to escape the coming terror, and the ones who remained were anxious to help prepare barricades in the streets and at the surrounding forts. This cooperation from the populace gave the soldiers a touch of confidence. What soldiers and citizens sensed, but did not yet know, was that the weakest link in the chain around Monterrey was the commander himself.
For Ampudia, despite his soldierly appearance—large, straight, with a handsome mustache and goatee—was no more popular in Monterrey than he had been at Matamoros because it was generally perceived that his courage—or lack of courage—ranged from bravado to terror. His weakness and vacillation cost expensive time in building and tearing down positions such as the Tenería. But the soldiers and citizens stoically kept working as the fateful hour approached.
As Monterrey braced its defenses, Taylor came inexorably on. By September 11, 1846, he was ready to leave Cerralvo, unimpressed by the news that Santa Anna had arrived at Veracruz. His final days at Cerralvo were devoted to finding shoes for his horses and mules, a task that had to be accomplished, for his scouts had confirmed that henceforth the road would consist of sharp stones.10 His troops, for their part, were less interested in logistics than in the possibility of a hard fight at Monterrey. They knew quite a bit about the area. Henry, for one, clinically pondered the advanced batteries (Tenería and Diablo), enfilading fires from the Citadel, and “all sorts of fire from the Bishop’s Palace.” Reports of such prospects, he observed, made “even the old regulars open their eyes, to say nothing of the volunteers.”11 Kenly, by contrast, based his concern on information about Ampudia’s army provided by one of the arrieros, who had assured him that Ampudia would fight hard. “I could not disbelieve the positive statements of this man,” Kenly wrote, “his truthfulness was stamped on every lineament of his honest countenance.”‖
Taylor’s formal march order specified that the army would continue to march by divisions. Troops would carry eight days’ rations and forty rounds of ammunition each.a On September 12, Taylor’s advance party of about two hundred menb set out to prepare the roads for the heavy trains. And on September 13 Twiggs’s 1st Division marched off, followed on the fourteenth by Worth’s 2d Division and on the fifteenth by Butler’s Field Division.12
From Cerralvo the next major stop would be at Marin, which the head of Taylor’s column reached on September 15. Kenly’s company of the Baltimore Battalion, still in Twiggs’s division, was in the lead. As he was nearing the last crest overlooking Marin, Kenly was allowing his mind to wander to the beauty of the area when his reverie was suddenly interrupted by the sound of horses’ hooves coming up from the rear. Kenly turned; it was General Taylor, with a small escort. Dismounting, Taylor extended his hand with a pleasant smile, and recalled their first meeting weeks before, at Matamoros. This friendliness shown by his commanding general flustered Kenly, but he managed to report that his advance guard had seen no living being since leaving camp that morning.
Taylor stopped and gazed down the valley, saying nothing for a minute or two. Then he turned and said, “Captain, move forward cautiously, and if you can, continue your march into that town, and halt on the other side until the column gets up.”13
Kenly’s command was on the march immediately. As it approached the town Kenly could sense that Marin was abandoned. Oppressed by the lonely atmosphere, his men huddled silently together, utterly quiet. The tread of their feet reverberated from the stone walls.
Kenly, in the lead, suddenly came upon a Mexican lying in a pool of blood, feet in a doorway. He was obviously dead, probably just killed, but by whom and why? No clues presented themselves, so after a moment’s pause Kenly began leading his men forward again, cautiously. When they finally reached the other end of town, all heaved a sigh of relief that they had not encountered snipers in the town. But out there before them, about three-fourths of a mile away, stood a body of Mexican cavalry.14 It was Torrejón, who had been dogging Taylor’s steps all along the route. As Kenly watched, the horsemen hesitated, “irresolution apparent in their actions,” and then they slowly trotted on.
Kenly remained where he was until the lead battalion of the army came up behind him. It took several hours for the last of Twiggs’s stretched-out division to close in for the night.15
Taylor paused at Marin, waiting for the divisions of his army to close in. Disappointingly, Henderson’s Texas mounted regiments, a thousand men, did not arrive as Taylor had hoped and expected. Perhaps they had gone back to Texas because their enlistments were up; perhaps they had run into trouble. Or perhaps they had set off on a mission of their own. Taylor had no way of knowing. On September 17 he reported that Torrejón’s one thousand cavalrymen had been constantly on his front, engaged principally in driving off Mexican citizens and looting their own people. Taylor had always been doubtful whether Ampudia would attempt to hold Monterrey—and he still was.c
Marin was the last location where the army could relax in pleasant surroundings. But thoughts were on the future. The enterprising William Henry, for example, rode into Marin one morning, climbed a spiral staircase up the masonry tower of the cathedral, and surveyed the breadth of the San Juan Valley, about fifteen miles across. Though twenty-five miles away, he could see the town of Monterrey, and even, he thought, the Bishop’s Palace itself.16
“At dawn on the 18th of September, the slumbering camp was aroused by the gay notes of reveille from drum and bugle. In a few minutes, the thousand tents which had checkered the verdant little valley disappeared, the morning meal was eaten, and the foremost troops began to cross the stream and march towards Monterey, still eight leagues distant.”17 Torrejón’s cavalry still lurked up ahead, and the prospect of impending battle was making the arrieros fearful of capture by their own countrymen. Some of them tried to escape, but the ubiquitous Kinney, now head of the mule train, quickly brought them back.18 The army covered eighteen miles that day, and when they arrived at the farm of San Francisco, Taylor was happy to find Henderson’s Texans waiting, totally unapologetic for their unauthorized absence. Their presence under any circumstances was welcome; they would make a difference at Monterrey.
This was the last night before Taylor’s first major battle, a time for thinking and musing. Most thoughtful men expected the Mexicans to put up a stubborn fight. “Mucho Fandango at Monterey! I confess that these words were continually ringing in my ears.…”19 wrote one. And another: “To all ranks, particularly to us raw volunteers, the proximity of our enemy, and the certainty of combat, was strangely exciting. How anxiously did the mind at that hour contemplate the future! How busy, too, was memory of the past! How ineffably pleasing to the aroused senses were all the works of nature then! For ourselves … the earth and its ‘majestic roof, fretted with golden fire,’ seemed more beautiful than ever before.”d
The next morning, September 19, Zachary Taylor’s Army of Occupation broke camp for its march to Monterrey. At about 9 A.M. the suspense was broken. Taylor, riding with the Texans, spotted a body of lancers between him and Monterrey, which was now about three miles distant. The Texans were eager to charge, but Taylor, well aware that a further advance would place them under the guns of the Citadel, firmly held them back.
The Black Fort then spoke, reverberating from mountain to mountain. Men who had been lagging from the heat were startled. Two more reports resounded. But the missiles, though dangerous enough, were only solid-shot cannonballs, not explosive shells. When the third ball struck in front of Taylor and bounced over his head, he and his staff trotted slowly back. He would camp where his men were waiting, at a welcoming grove of pecan trees, Spanish moss, live oaks, and gushing springs. The soldiers immediately—and inaccurately—dubbed the area Walnut Springs. Though misnamed, Walnut Springs would provide a congenial place on which to base the battle that was now upon them.e
* Two of these animals were assigned to company headquarters to carry the officers’ belongings; through the rest of the company they were allocated on the basis of one per eight men. This amount of transport fell far short of what the army considered usual.
† John Kenly, Memoirs of a Maryland Volunteer, pp. 81–83, Luther Giddings, Campaign in Northern Mexico, p. 108. A concentrated division could defeat any anticipated attack. An isolated brigade might be wiped out.
‡ Referred to by the Mexicans as the Mountain of Obispado (Bishop’s Palace), after the structure at its east end.
§ Justin Smith, War with Mexico, vol. I, p. 233. Eight guns was all the Mexicans installed out of a total capacity of thirty. Eight would be enough.
‖ Kenly, p. 84. Given Kenly’s professed admiration for the arrieros, his statement is probably sincere.
a “All surplus arms and accoutrements, resulting from casualties on the road, will be deposited with Lieutenant Stewart … who will give certificates of deposit.…” Taylor, Orders No. 115, Cerralvo, September 11, 1846. Quoted in Luther Giddings, Campaign in Northern Mexico, pp. 119–20.
b Ninety pioneers, protected by one hundred dragoons and twenty-five rangers. At Papa-Gallos they encountered a group of about six hundred Mexican cavalry, who only observed them.
c Taylor to TAG, September 17, 1846, Exec. Doc. No. 60, p. 422. Meade was not so sanguine. On the same day, he wrote, “Well, here we are within twenty-five miles of Monterey, one day’s forced march, and two easy ones, and really know no more of the nature of the reception they will give us, or of their defenses, or of the number of troops they have, than we did at Matamoras, three hundred miles distant.” George Meade, Life and Letters, p. 130.
d Giddings, p. 149. He also wrote (pp. 148–49): “… there were but few persons in the army who could regard with indifference such a trial as was then at hand. Officers high in rank … may see bright rewards glittering in the dark and dangerous future. In their ears, the weird sisters may whisper mystic promises of the Presidency, the Senate, and Foreign Missions. But life is their stake also, and considering the responsibilities as well as the rewards attending rank and station, it is doubtful whether their minds are as much at ease on the eve of battle, as those of the nameless soldiers, abused in the particular, and applauded in the aggregate, who are destined to die unwept, or live unhonored.”
e William Henry, p. 190. Giddings (pp. 139–40) substantiates this account. The official name of this grove, a favorite recreation area for the Mexicans in peacetime was “Bosque de San Domingo,” though it was never anything but “Walnut Springs” to the Americans.