Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/247

 of the First Division officers could scarcely be heard, here half a mile away from the battle.

"Column, attention! Forward—march!"

The cannon balls tore in more and more viciously. The musketry of the bridgehead also opened. Men were falling.

"Column, right half wheel—march!"

In column of companies they left the road and descended into the muddy cornfields again on the right. One company stayed upon the road. It was the gallant Sixth Infantry, advancing alone, moving very steadily, the men gripping their muskets at right shoulder shift. The bluff old Major Bonneville, that bald-headed veteran who, on leave of absence in 1832, had been a fur hunter across the Rocky Mountains, commanded the Sixth. He was a Frenchman, but had graduated from the Military Academy in 1813, so he was no new hand at the fighting game.

The Cadwalader Voltigeurs had been stationed in reserve. The two other regiments—the Eleventh and Fourteenth—had joined the Second Brigade. The First Brigade, Colonel Garland leading a-horse, swung out wider to the right, and on through the corn, at the double, came the Second Brigade, to march between the First Brigade and the road.

Unless the Garland brigade hurried, the Clarke column would strike the bridgehead first, on the shorter inside track.

The Sixth Regiment was drawing the bridgehead fire. The companies were rushing forward, muskets at a ready, but they met such a storm of iron and lead that they crumpled, stopped, and firing furiously, took shelter along the sides of the road.