Source:Fleming-fierce-fights/content
THERE are two streets in the Buena Vista plan on the North Side that have not received consideration. These are Monterey and Buena Vista, commemorating battles fought by Gen. Zachary Taylor in Northeastern Mexico.
However, as Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania were not represented by any volunteers in Taylor's army no local significance can be found in these battle names other than the desire of Gen. William Robinson, the owner of the land, to commemorate in his plan the brave deeds of United States soldiers in our war with Mexico.
Necessarily to complete the story of that war, insofar as to present sufficient facts in regard to these battles and Pittsburgh's part in the wonderful campaign of Gen. Winfield Scott from Vera Cruz to the capture of the City of Mexico, some further history must be given brief mention.
We pronounce Monterey as the Spaniards do, but give an English pronunciation to Buena Vista. In Spanish this is Bwanah-Veestah, the letter "e" in the Spanish word having the long sound of "a" as in day. Palo Alto we pronounce Paylo Alto, giving the initial letter of the second word the sound of "a" as in at.
In both words the letter should be given a broad sound or as "a" in all. The word Resaca is pronounced Raysaca, with the broad "a" in second and last syllables.
Gen. Taylor, as we know, crossed the Rio Grande May 18, 1846. He occupied Matamoros on that date and remained there until August. He then received reinforcements and orders from Washington.
Then, with 6,000 troops, many of them raw recruits, he moved on Monterey, defended by Gen. Ampudia with more than 9,000 men.
Monterey was a strongly built town at the foot of the great Sierra Madre. Taylor began a siege which commenced September 21, 1846, and ended with the capture of the place September 24.
Gen. Wool was left behind in Texas to muster and prepare for service the volunteers rapidly (?) mobilizing. By July Wool had 12,000 mustered into service. Of these he sent 9,000 to reinforce Taylor.
Gen. Wool went up the Rio Grande with 3,000 men, crossed at Presidio, marched to Monclova, 70 miles from Monterey, pushed on to Coahuila, where he obtained ample supplies for Taylor's army.
Meanwhile Taylor had agreed to an armistice which our government ordered ended November 13.
Taylor left Gen. William O. Butler in command at Monterey and marched to Victoria with the intention of attacking Tampico. Gen. Worth with 900 men had taken possession of Saltillo.
Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh troops had no part in the movements. Even Lieut. Alexander Hays, Fourth Infantry, U. S. A., was in Western Pennsylvania and later at Buffalo, N. Y., on recruiting service by reason of a disabling wound. But he was not yet a resident of Pittsburgh.
In the crossing of the Rio Grande on May 18, 1846, Lieut. Alexander Hays, Fourth Infantry, with 10 select men and Capt. Samuel H. Walker of the Rangers were the first troops across. These were a reconnoitering party whose orders were to ascertain and report the number and position of the enemy if near the river.
Their report being favorable the infantry began crossing, followed by the artillery and the dragoons or cavalry. Once across, Taylor's army was a real army of occupation. It was then unmistakably in Mexican territory—actually an army of invasion.
In this first momentous step Alexander Hays was conspicuous. Those who knew him well and those who served under him in the Civil War, 1861–65, will readily believe that he was among the first to set foot on Mexican soil.
Alexander Hays, remember, plotted the Buena Vista plan of lots for Gen. Robinson. After Hays' resignation from the Army at the close of the Mexican War he was a gold seeker in California, crossing the plains in 1850 and remaining in California about two years. He then returned to Pittsburgh and followed the profession of civil engineering until the breaking out of the Civil War.
The crossing of the Rio Grande was not without peril. One young officer, Lieut. George Stevens, was swept from his horse by the rapid current and drowned. He was a classmate of U. S. Grant and three years a fellow-student of Alexander Hays at West Point.
Capt. Samuel Walker, Lieut. Hays' companion in the reconnoisance [sic], was killed in the battle of Huamantla October 8, 1847. In this combat Alexander Hays was conspicuous for bravery.
Something of the battle of Monterey is pertinent, since we have the town commemorated in our North Side street.
Early in September, 1846, Gen. Taylor moved on Monterey the advance led by the division of Gen. William J. Worth. Monterey was strongly fortified and held by Gen. Ampudia with 9,000 men.
When all of Taylor's forces were up he encamped about three miles from the town. His army consisted of about 7,000 men, largely volunteers untried in action.
Taylor's camp was at Walnut Springs, and a most beautiful prospect was before his troops—real grandeur on all sides.
Monterey is situated in a valley with lofty and inspiring mountains on the north, east and south, and open to a plain on the east. The town was fortified in the Spanish fashion of former centuries, with all the accompaniments of ditches and bastions. Lowering upon the United States forces were many deep-mouthed cannon.
It was plainly to be seen also that the flat-roofed stone houses of the town had been converted into fortifications. Every street was barricaded and every housetop filled with troops. The "Bishop's Palace" on a height was a strong fort. Many well-manned redoubts loomed up, and in the rear of all was a river.
Such was the Mexican city destined to fall after three days' desperate fighting with the surrender of its garrison, its castles, redoubts, cannon and munitions of war.
The attack was made on the morning of September 2 [sic] and began with a well-sustained artillery fire upon the citadel. Gen. Worth gained a position on the Satillo [sic] road and cut the enemy's line of communications.
From this position Worth carried two heights in succession and turned the captured guns upon the Bishop's Palace.
September 22 passed without active operations, except artillery firing and the capture of the Bishop's Palace. During the night the enemy evacuated nearly all his defenses in the lower part of the town.
The next day the assault became general. Gen. Quitman's brigade first entered the town, followed by the Texas Volunteers dismounted, and gradually all the troops became engaged, mainly in the streets.
The men advanced from house to house, from square to square, until they reached a street one square in the rear of the main plaza where the enemy's forces were chiefly concentrated.
The artillery was all the time active. Gen. Worth, finding the enemy had evacuated his works in the front, proceeded to occupy them and proposed a combined assault on the town.
In the meantime, night having come on, Taylor withdrew Quitman's brigade and placed Gen. Hamer's brigade in the advanced position.
Gen. Hamer was the Ohio congressman who appointed U. S. Grant a cadet at West Point. In Mexico Gen. Hamer was a volunteer. He died during the war of disease incurred in the service.
Everything ready for a combined assault on the 24th, Taylor was surprised to receive a communication from the Mexican commander asking for a truce and proposing to evacuate the town. The truce was granted until noon. Ampudia having sent word by Gen. Worth that he desired to meet Taylor personally, his wishes were granted.
Taylor would give no terms but absolute surrender, which Ampudia was obliged to accept.
Upon occupying the place Taylor was surprised at its strength. It was naturally a fortress and its approaches had been carefully and strongly fortified, rendering it almost impregnable.
The spoils were 42 cannon with ammunition, 7,000 regular Mexican troops and 2,000 to 3,000 irregular troops. Taylor's report shows that his Army contained 425 officers and 6,220 men. His artillery consisted of one 10-inch mortar, two 24-pounder howitzers and four light field batteries of four guns each. It will be noted by military men that the single mortar was the only piece suitable for siege operations.
Taylor's losses were 12 officers and 108 men killed, 31 officers and 337 men wounded. The enemy's losses were not reported, but they were known to have been heavy.
Among the killed was Lieut. James S. Woods, Fourth Infantry, classmate of Alexander Hays at West Point. Woods was from Pennsylvania and a young officer of great promise but 22 years old.
In the perusal of the official reports of Gens. Taylor and Worth a striking characteristic is the mention of officers and men for distinguishment during the battle. Among them are to be noted names of many officers who became prominent during the Civil War.
Lieuts. Meade and Pope of the Topographical Engineers find mention by both the brigade and the general commander. Civil War veterans will recall Gens. George G. Meade and John Pope.
On the Confederate side during the Civil War we find mention at Monterey of Lieut. James Longstreet, Capt. Braxton Bragg and Col. Jefferson Davis, the latter commanding the first Mississippi Volunteers.
The commissioners to the terms of capitulation on the part of Gen. Taylor were Gen. Worth, U. S. A.; Maj. Gen. J. P. Henderson, Texas Volunteers, and Col. Jefferson Davis.
Although not mentioned officially, Lieut. U. S. Grant performed a daring deed at Monterey. Grant was then serving in the Fourth Infantry, in fact all his service previous to the Civil War was in that regiment.
Garland's brigade of regulars, in which the Fourth Infantry was serving, in making progress towards the main plaza on the 23rd ran almost out of ammunition. Col. Garland did not wish to order any messenger to Gen. Taylor and called for a volunteer to go on this dangerous mission. Grant volunteered.
He adjusted himself on the side of the horse farthest away from the enemy and, with one foot clinging to the cantel of the saddle and one arm around the horse's neck, he started on the full run.
He was fired on repeatedly, shells burst near him but both himself and the horse were untouched.
It was a vain ride. Before the ammunition could be brought up Garland's men were compelled to fall back, fortunately with less loss than in going in.
After the capitulation of Monterey the place was garrisoned for a time by Gen. Worth's division, the remainder of Taylor's forces going into camp again at Walnut Springs.
When the news of the fall of Monterey was sent broadcast over the country the wonder was great and long continued. Recruiting for the war went on apace. The easy victories on the Rio Grande, supplemented by the feat of arms resulting in the capture of Monterey, portended but one result and that was the conquest of the Mexicans and the settlement of the war on the terms of the conqueror.
Monterey was an old Spanish city. At the time of the battle it was three centuries old. In area it was two miles long and about one mile wide, with streets running parallel, crossed by others at right angles.
The city really had three plazas—large squares. Upon the main one or Grand Plaza the principal Cathedral stood. This building was used by the enemy mainly as a storage place for gunpowder.
The houses in Monterey at the time of the battle were one-story in height, built in the ancient Spanish style, with walls of strong mason work 30 inches in thickness rising three and four feet above the roofs. These buildings, with such walls, offered the Mexicans a powerful means of defense.
Monterey, standing at the gorge of most romantic mountains, wonderfully upheaved here, command the only passes to the interior of Mexico and the capital from the north and east. Winding through the city and around it is a branch of the River San Juan, which added beauty to the spot and strength to its defenses.
It may be mentioned that there are many Montereys and Buena Vistas in the United States that did not exist prior to 1846. Also some Cerro Gordos and Montezumas.
We have Montezuma street in the East End, extending from Lyric street to Leamington avenue. There is some history in the word Montezuma, both ancient and modern.
Alexander Hays regretted the fortune of war that kept him out of the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista. He was reserved for higher rank and a greater degree of immortality than his slain comrades and classmates in Mexico, subalterns then like himself.
Five of Hays' class fell in Mexico, and one died after the war from disability on account of a severe wound received at Molino del Rey.
Brevet Second Lieut. Rankin Dilworth of Ohio, serving in the First United States Infantry, was mortally wounded in the assault on September 21 at Monterey and died September 27.
Lieuts. Strong and Burwell were killed at Molina del Rey and Lieut. J. P. Smith at Chapultepec.
Five out of a class of 24 is a large percentage of casualties. With Lieut. Wainwright , who died after the war, counted it is heavier.
All these mentioned were of the West Point class of 1844 and were admirable soldiers.
Number 1 of this class was the celebrated mathematician William G. Peck, who served in the Mexican War under Gen. S. W. Kearney. In the Civil War Alexander Hays, W. S. Hancock and Alfred Pleasanton obtained high rank on the side of the Union and S. B. Buckner on the Confederate side. All these served in Mexico. Woods, Strong, Smith, Pleasanton and Wainwright were with Alexander Hays at Camp Salubrity, Natchitoches, La., and all participated in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca.
Assembled at Corpus Christi, Taylor's little army was called the Army of Occupation. At Camp Salubrity it was the Army of Observation.
At Camp Salubrity young Hays found many officers who had been cadets with him at West Point, 1840–1844, among them Ulysses S. Grant, James Longstreet and others as mentioned in last week's article.
Gen. Grant tells briefly of affairs at Camp Salubrity in those years in Vol. I of his "Personal Memoirs," and Hamlin Garland in his book, "Ulysses S. Grant, His Life and Character," has given us some account also.
Gen. Longstreet in his book, "From Manassas to Appomattox," gives his reminiscences of this camp, and had worked for some years gathering matter which he designed publishing in a history of the Mexican War, but learning that his friend and former subordinate, Gen. Cadmus M. Wilcox, C. S. A., had such a history nearly completed, Gen. Longstreet's efforts were vain.
However, his widow in her little work, "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide," thought well to include a chapter of the old army days of the General, and especially those spent at Camp Salubrity and in the Mexican War.
This chapter is headed "Longstreet on the Fields of Mexico." In one place she says:
In the Fourth Infantry, among Gen. Longstreet's earlier official and social intimates at Jefferson Barracks and Camp Salubrity were Capt. George A. McCall, Lieutenants Augur Grant, Alexander Hays and David A. Russell, all afterwards distinguished Union generals. Captain McCall was then 43 years of age and was graduated from West Point in 1822 just twenty years ahead of Longstreet's class.
Grant was a second lieutenant then in McCall's Company C of the Fourth Infantry. Longstreet and the others mentioned had been fellow-cadets at West Point. Gen. Russell was killed at Winchester, Va., September 19, 1864, while commanding a division of the Sixth Corps, Army of the Potomac.
There are yet veterans in Pittsburgh who remember him and also some who knew and served under Gen. McCall, the first commander of that little army Gov. Curtin had ready in the summer of 1861, known to history later as the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps.
Judge McCalmont was a fellow-townsman of Alexander Hays, both born in Franklin, Pa., both fellow-students at Allegheny College, Meadville, and at West Point together for two years.
Judge McCalmont resigned from the Army two years after graduation, but re-entered military service in 1861 as colonel of the Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves. He was a lifelong friend of Gen. Hays and the Hays family and had returned these letters to the family.
From Gen. Hays' letter to him it can be inferred that the routine at Camp Salubrity was not altogether dull and that occasionally the young officers were out for a good time. This letter appeared in these columns July 16.
There are also some letters to Judge McCalmont written by Alexander Hays while he was on recruiting service after being sent North by reason of disability from a wound received at Resaca de la Palma.
Alexander Hays wrote from Buffalo twice. The first letter dated Buffalo, August 5, 1846, read in part:
Dear John:
* * * * *
I need not tell you of my rambles and scrambles since last we met, as they would not only be tiresome but personal. So far, I am safe and sound, but I cannot say that I am so well satisfied with my position of safety as my wife appears to be. I do not tell her so, but I am sighing to be with "mes braves" oce more. I am thinking it is my destiny at last to be a poor soldier. I have given up "castle building" of which I was so fond when a school boy, but still in my waking dreams I am occasionally carried back to the land of the Montzeumas [sic].
I can see the bayonets of "The Old Stone Wall" gleaming, as it lengthens out in passing through the mountain gorges and am forced to wish I was once more at the head of my Scouters. Sometimes I imagine I can see the battle raging on the plains of Monterey, and work myself up until I almost curse the lot which sent me here. I think I will return before many months but not to serve a grateful Republic. We have been not only used most shamefully, but abused, and there is no hope left. If I return and "Old Zac" retains command, I can get my old situation, and there fight on my own hook—either "a man or a mouse."
You have heard I was here, recruiting "K" Company of "The Old Wall." The business is new, still I am succeeding very well and have strong expectations of being able to carry back a better company than any recruiting officer sent from Mexico, thereby winning the wagers for my friends.
* * * * *
Your Friend,
A. HAYS.
Endorsement on back of letter:
John S. McCalmont, Esq.
Clarion, Clarion Co.
Penn'a.Post Office—
Buffalo, N. Y. Aug. 5.A. Hays, Aug. 5, 1846.
The "Old Stone Wall" was the Fourth Infantry and "Old Zac," Gen. Taylor.
These letters are in the usual form prevalent for many years, with no envelope but the letter folded in envelope form and sealed with was, and an impression, addressed on one side and endorsed on the back as above.
