Source:Fleming-tacubaya
George T. Fleming. "Great battle at Tacubaya is thrilling: Mexican War history as given by Prof. Kelly tells of heroism: Few of many back." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Oct. 15, 1916, sec. 5, p. 4. Newspapers.com 85878359.
THE story of the service of the "Hibernian Greens" of Pittsburgh in the war with Mexico, 1847–48, as recorded by Bugler Robert H. Kelly, is completed today.
Last week's story ended with the brigade in which the "Greens" were serving on the march from San Angel for Tacubaya, three miles distant, the evening of September 11, 1847. Tacubaya is a village at the base of the hill, Chapultepec.
Bugler Kelly's story follows:
We left San Angel about 5 p. m. and by a circuitous route marched slowly until after dark, when the shades of night screened us from the enemy. We pushed on until about 11 o'clock, when we halted, and a guard was stationed on the road. The night was very cold. We were obliged to lie down on the damp ground without any kind of covering, no man being allowed to take either knapsack or blanket, as we knew not the moment we would be attacked.
I was peculiarly unfortunate this night, having stepped into a ditch about 10 feet deep and was completely immersed in water and mud. In this most beautiful and comfortable position I retired to my warm couch in the wet grass. I managed to sleep about half an hour, however.
About 4 on the morning of September 12 we started once more and at daylight entered Tacubaya, when the firing commenced from the castle and was warmly responded to by one battery. During the day two more batteries were planted by us, all doing great execution and throughout the whole day naught was to be heard save the roar of artillery, bursting of bombs and the rapid discharges of musketry from the sentries and pickets. Night at last brought a temporary cessation of hostilities, only to be renewed with greater slaughter and vigor at dawn of day.
During the night all were busily engaged in repairing the damages done to the batteries through the preceding day and in preparing to storm the castle early in the morning.
Day at length appeared and with it the strife again commenced, a scene which is folly to attempt to describe, the continual roar of artillery, "the bombs bursting in air" and upon the battlements of the castle, the uninterrupted discharges of musketry and the yells of our men, were all calculated to inspire feelings in our breasts which drove away from us every symptom of fear and, buoyed on by the assurance of certain victory we scaled the heights and planted the emblem of our country upon the castle with a small loss in comparison with that of the enemy.
We were now ordered to join our regiments and supply ourselves with ammunition, which being done, we were ordered to advance towards the city. We had not advanced over 100 yards when a round shot from the enemy in our front plainly told us we had another battery to take. We soon routed them from this and still another when they were driven within the Garita which was strongly protected by the Citadel. At this point the greatest firing was made and the greatest resistance offered by the enemy, but in vain.
About 2 o'clock we were inside the Garita and the firing continued until nearly dark. While we were sheltering ourselves under the city walls, the firing was so heavy that the stones were leaping from the top of the walls every moment and our lives momentarily in danger from the crumbling ruins continually falling among us.
Night at length came and gladly was it welcomed by us all. We now commenced erecting a battery and after working hard all night with nothing to eat for three days and marching, working and fighting we all felt ready to sink under the fatigue of the next morning but at daybreak a white flag was sent out to Gen. Quitman, offering the surrender of the city under certain conditions, but this he did not think proper to accept and nothing would be accorded to save that which was compatible with the honor and dignity of the American Army which was now upon the eve of entering the capital.
The garita was a fortified gate, this one the Beelen Gate. Chapultepec is an isolated, rocky hill. On its summit was a stone building of imposing size. This was originally the bishop's palace, but had been converted into a strong fortress, heavily armed and garrisoned, rendering it the most formidable defense in all the fortifications about the capital. Previous to the battles at Molino del Rey and the Casa Mata, there had been an armistice between Nicholas Trist on the part of the United States, and the Mexican commissioners, which failed. This armistice ended September 7.
Prof. Kelly's story reads on:
We were informed that Santa Anna had left the city about 2 that morning for parts unknown, taking with him his valiant army. Gen. Quitman immediately started for the Grand Plaza accompanied by a guard of dragoons, and with his own hands ran up the Stars and Stripes upon the National Palace on the morning of September 14.
We were quartered in the citadel for a few days, but were not permitted to walk about the city, as many of our men had been shot from the tops of the houses or assassinated in the streets by the greasers or leperos. We were next moved to the National Museum, where we were quartered for some time, and then to the tobacco warehouse, where we remained until December 19, when we were removed to San Angel.
When Gen. Santa Anna fled from the capital he appeared with his army before Puebla, then garrisoned by a small American force under Col. Thomas Childs, U. S. A., and having in the hospitals 1,800 sick American troops. Six companies of the First Pennsylvania Regiment formed part of the garrison. Included in the six were the "Jackson Blues" and the "Duquesne Greys" of Pittsburgh. A siege ensued which was ended by the appearance of Gen. Joseph Lane's brigade October 17, which fought its way into the city. In this brigade Lieut. Alexander Hays, U. S. A., subsequently brevet major general in the Civil War, served as assistant adjutant general. The detachment of the First Pennsylvania was under command of Lieut. Col. Samuel W. Black of Pittsburgh.
In the hard fighting in the streets of Puebla 19 men of the "Greys" were killed and 12 wounded.
Prof. Kelly says:
On the morning of October 4 we had quite a shock of an earthquake, causing considerable alarm not only among the soldiers but also the natives who all immediately fell upon their knees. Many buildings sustained considerable damage.
Christmas and New Year"s [sic] passed off quietly with us at San Angel. February 13, my birthday, I was presented with a new bugle by the company. February 22 was invited to a supper given by Company A, First Pennsylvania Volunteers, and passed a very plelasant [sic] evening with all the luxuries the market could afford spread out before us.
Company A, First Pennsylvania, was the "Jackson Blues" of Pittsburgh, commanded by Capt. James O'Hara Denny.
Prof. Kelly tells of another banquet:
March 17 a St. Patrick's Day supper was given by the company (the "Greens"), a very creditable affair. Guests from the five volunteer regiments were present. After we all had satisfied ourselves with the tempting eatables upon the table the cloth was removed and Col. John W. Geary was called to the chair. Lieut. Col. Brindle and Lieut. William Rankin were made vice presidents and O. H. Rippey and John Hamilton were secretaries.
Col. Geary made a very neat and appropriate speech and reverted to the battles of Contreras, Chapultepec and the Garita del Belen, passing the highest encomiums upon the company for bravery and prompt obedience to orders.
Col. Geary, later governor of Pennsylvania, had been promoted to the colonelcy, vice Col. Roberts, deceased, and Maj. Brindle had succeeded to the lieutenant colonelcy.
Mr. Kelly continues:
Lieut. Col. Brindle was next called upon for a speech and spoke to the same effect. Capt. Brooks of the South Carolina Regiment was next called upon. Lieut. O'Ragan of the Massachusetts Regiment and others followed. Toasts and songs filled up the interim. All passed off very pleasantly. About 2 in the morning we adjourned, all very well pleased with the Irish Greens' Saint Patrick's Day supper.
Lieut. Brooks who spoke at the banquet was Preston Smith Brooks of the Palmetto Regiment of South Carolina, subsequently a member of Congress from that state and notorious for his felonious assault upon Charles Sumner May 22, 1856. Brooks died in Washing [sic] in January, 1859. Brooks resigned his seat but was unanimously re-elected and in the South was a popular hero. Senator Sumner was a sufferer the remainder of his life, and for a year was incapacitated. Brooks struck him on the head with a heavy cane while Sumner was seated at his desk in the Senate. This episode was typical of the rancorous ante-bellum politics of the times.
Prof. Kelly continued:
April 1—We are all looking with anxiety for peace. Nothing is seemingly though [sic] of or spoken of but peace, peace, peace, and what is the news today? Are we going to have peace or more war? is heard from the lips of almost everyone.
April 6—Strange week. Last night Adjt. B. F. Dutton and Lieut. Isaac Hace of our regiment, Lieut. B. P. Tilden, Second Infantry, and John Laferty, a gambler, broke into a store in Calle de la Palma belonging to a Mexican for the purpose of robbing him, but the man, who was sleeping in the room where the money was, discovered them and was about to give the alarm when one of them shot him through the head, causing instant death. They then fled.
Hace was pursued and arrested in a gambling house. He refused to give himself up to the guard, when he was shot in the arm and taken prisoner. Dutton immediately started for San Angel. While standing in the door of his quarters he saw a body of dragoons coming up the road, and suspecting them to be a guard sent to arrest him, passed out the back way through the pulque bushes, but was arrested the same day in Mexico (city) by Capt. Brooks and placed in close confinement in irons. They now await their trials.
April 28—A man named Duffy belonging to the Massachusetts Regiment most brutally murdered his wife by stabbing her five times in the abdomen, causing her death almost instantly. He was arrested by the guard and now awaits his trial with a chain and ball to his feet. Liquor and jealousy caused him to commit the deed.
May 1—Spent the day very pleasantly in viewing the battle ground of Contreras and gathering mulberries. We have all kins of vegetables now, such as peas, beans, radishes, cabbages, turnips, watermelons, muskmelons and fruits, such as pears, apricots, plums, pineapples, etc.
The natives already have commenced harvesting corn, which at this time is from three to five feet in height.
Friday, May 20—The sentence of Dutton, Hace, Hilden and Laferty was this morning read to the regiment at dress parade, in substance as follows:
"That the court after mature deliberation of the evidence adduced find the prisoners guilty of burglary and robbery and sentence them to be hanged by the neck until they are dead, dead, dead, on the twenty-fourth of this month.
So much for gambling. Hace was a young man who stood pre-eminently high in the estimation of the regiment and had distinguished himself on several occasions for bravery. He was upon the eve of returning to his native land crowned with glory, but in an evil moment yielded to the damning influence and the deceitful words of its habitues, who had him completely entwined in their vile folds. I pity his unfortunate condition. But for Dutton he deserved the penalty the court imposed upon him.
May 29—Received marching orders, which were received with shouts of joy from all.
Here the journal ends abruptly. The Pennsylvania troops arrived in Pittsburgh via river. On account of the torrid weather the troops on their return rested through the day and marched only at night. They departed for New Orleans June 20, 1848.
On leaving Pittsburgh in January, 1847, one steamboat was required for two companies. The entire Second Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers was taken on the steamer Taglioni at New Orleans, which arrived in Pittsburgh July 10, 1848.
Company I of this regiment, the Hibernian Greens, left Pittsburgh with 76 men ready for duty. Of these and a few recruits 30 returned. From this record as a standard deductions can be drawn as to fatalities in other companies. The "Greens" were mustered out with the regiment July 18, 1848.
Lieut James Kane brought the body of Col. William B. Roberts to Pittsburg, the colonel having died in Puebla in October, 1847. There is no record available of the casualties in battle of the "Greens." Prof. Kelly tells of their services in action at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Chapultepec and the Beelen gate at the City of Mexico, and mentions no fatalities and names no wounded men.
Corporal Edward O'Brien later a resident of New Castle, Pa., was lieutenant colonel of the One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War and succeeded Col. Matthew Stanley Quay as colonel upon the latter's resignation in December, 1862.
Of the 88 names upon the roster of the Hibernian Greens in the "History of Allegheny County in 1876," with the exception of Bugler Robert H. Kelly and perhaps Capt. Robert Porter, there are none that are familiar to this generation. The following obituary of Capt. Porter appears in the Pittsburgh Gazette of Wednesday, February 18, 1863.
Capt. Robert Porter, a well-known citizen, died suddenly at his residence near Homewood station, P. R. R., on Monday. He had been absent from home during the day, returning in the evening, and after requesting his wife to make him a cup of tea repaired to an adjoining room. A few minutes later a little daughter found something unusual in his appearance and called her mother, who discovered he was dead. The deceased was the eldest son of the late Judge William Porter and served with honor through the Mexican War. He was a member of the Pittsburgh bar.
Capt. Porter was born in Pittsburgh in 1820. Porter street on the "Hill" is named for the family, the Judge Porter farm extending from Wylie avenue, then Duncan street, to Webster avenue between Wooster and Lawson streets, with the homestead on Wylie above Kirkpatrick street, and still standing.
The late Prof. Theodore M. Barber, of the old Western University of Pennsylvania, now the University of Pittsburgh, was a brother-in-law of Capt. Porter, the husband of Cornelia Porter, also deceased.
Mexican War veterans in Pittsburgh are no more. John M. Boice, father of Theodore H. Boice, one of the editors of the Chronicle-Telegraph, was one of the last to die. William C. Winebiddle of the "Duquesne Greys" was the last. Both were upwards of 90. Mr. Boice furnishes the following brief biography of his father:
John M. Boice, a veteran of the Mexican War and the Civil War, died on August 12, 1914, at his home in Tarleton avenue, North Side, aged 89 years and 11 months. In 1847 he joined a company of Pittsburgh volunteers named the "Rough and Readies," commanded by Capt. (later Brig. Gen.) Thomas A. Rowley. Soon after organization the company boarded the steamer Diadem, at the Pittsburgh wharf, and proceeded down the Ohio to the Mississippi. At New Orleans these Pittsburgh soldiers were transferred to a small steamer named the Passion, and voyaged across the Gulf of Mexico to Vera Cruz, and while en route narrowly escaped death in a storm which lasted several days. In order to save the ship and its cargo of human souls, 48 horses and many detachable articles were thrown overboaord [sic]. The "Rough and Readies" served on garrison duty and fighting bandits and guerillas [sic] in the vicinity of Jalapa, which town they held until peace was concluded. Of the 100 members of the company who started away only 32 lived to return. In the Civil War Mr. Boice served as a member of the Fifth Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, recruited in and around Pittsburgh.
Gallant feats of arms have ever inspired poets. The brave deeds of Taylor's men at Monterey deserve and have been given an enduring place in verse. The following by Charles Fenno Hoffman rank high among "old favorites." They are applicable to any battle in Mexico. They were long popular and were especially pleasing to Gen. U. S. Grant. They were written soon after the battle.
These verses long filled a place in the school readers and were spouted by many a budding orator on Friday afternoons in many a "deestrict school." Grayhaired men today will recognize a recitation piece of school boy days.
We were not many—we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day;
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if he but could
Have been with us at Monterey.
Now here, now there, the shot it hailed
In deadly drifts of fiery spray;
Yet not a single soldier quailed
When wounded comrades 'round him wailed
Their dying shouts at Monterey.
And on, still on our column kept
Through walls of flame, its withering way;
Where fell the dead, the living stept
Still charging on the guns that swept
The slippery streets of Monterey.
The foe himself recoiled aghast
When striking where he strongest lay;
We swooped his flanking batteries past,
And, having full their murderous blast,
Stormed home the towers of Monterey.
Our banners on those turrets wave,
And there the evening bugles play,
Where orange boughs above their grave
Keep green the memory of the brave
Who fought and fell at Monterey.
We were not many—we who pressed
Beside the brave who fell that day;
But who of us hath not confessed
He'd rather share their warrior rest
Than not have been at Monterey.
The scenes depicted today were familiar to Prof. Kelly and his comrades, the Alameda fountain an especially inviting place to the American soldiers. This fountain was in a beautiful grove of forest trees in the western portion of the city.
The Passeo Nuevo was a broad avenue laid out tastefully amid the beautiful meadows that surrounded the city. It lay west of the city towards Chapaultepece [sic] and Tacubaya. The passeo was at times broken by fountains of stone and shaded by stately trees. The Passeo de la Viga was on the other side of the city towards Lake Chalco. These passeos and the Alameda were great recreation resorts.
The great square in the city is the one familiar to many as represented in the old school histories, showing the entrance of the victorious army of Gen. Scott—sometimes with the army drawn up on four sides with Gen. Scott and staff riding in review.