Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/283

254 But the enemy, seldom visible, appeared to be everywhere. A large part of the groping Americans got in front of Purisima bridge, and went down fast under a rain of bullets from the tête de pont, while Captain Gutiérrez, who had now masked his gun on the opposite bank, poured grape and canister upon them at short range. Ridger came up and fired several times at the bridgehead, but without effect. Among our troops, as one of the surgeons wrote, "All was confusion." Smoke hid the outlook; and the Mexican shots, breaking the limestone, mortar and adobe, raised a blinding dust. The assailants did not know where to turn or what to do, Taylor, Butler, Hamer, Quitman and other officers shouted orders that few could hear amidst the uproar, and perhaps fewer could reconcile. It was proposed to cut through from house to house, but the necessary implements had not been brought. Ridgely's and Bragg's batteries and the captured Mexican guns fired on El Diablo, and finally the 24-pound howitzers were brought in; but nothing could be accomplished in that way. Many of the best and the bravest fell; and eventually, at about five o'clock, the Americans retreated from all of Monterey except the Tenería redoubt and a few adjacent buildings.

So the fight ended. It had been one long scene of gallantry, confusion, mistakes and waste. Lieutenant D. H. Hill, afterwards General Hill of the Confederate army, wrote in his journal on learning the details: "It seems that every sort of folly was committed." To pitch handfuls of infantry into an unknown maze of obstacles, fortifications and cannon as if they had been fighting Indians in a Florida swamp, and to send field batteries into narrow streets e in the suburb crooked, too — against heavy stone works and roofs filled with protected marksmen was extraordinary. And, it was credibly reported, Taylor did more. He ordered Ridgely out into the open to try conclusions with El Diablo. Ridgely was absolutely fearless To satisfy the General he went out himself and reconnoitred, but he would not lead his battery to destruction. The Tennessee regiment was needlessly taken back and forth six times within range of the citadel.

Now — to get shelter, food, ammunition — the troops had to march separately or in groups all the way to camp, exposed for a long distance not only to the citadel guns but also to the