Life and Letters of General W. H. L. Wallace

VI. Battle of Buena Vista.

CHAPTER VI. BATTLE OF BUENA VISTA. T HE battle occurred on February twenty-second. In a letter written a week afterwards to George Green, of Ottawa, Mr. Wallace gives a minute account of the battle: "Camp Taylor, 20 miles south of Saltillo, Mexico. "March 1, 1847. "DEAR GEORGE: "I've seen the elephant in every attitude, walking, running, at bay and fighting! You will doubtless, before receiving this, have seen full particulars of the battle of Buena Vista. "It is a terrible thing, this fighting. And until fortyeight hours before the enemy came in sight, I did not believe we should ever see them. On Saturday evening the twentieth, we were lying in camp just where we now are. Rumors of various kinds were afloat with regard to the Mexican army, but we had had plenty of that sort of thing, I did not cr.edit them until that time. A picket sent out thirty miles towards San Luis, reported that he had seen them in immense numbers. This was the first time they had been seen by white men, and for the first time I believed they were coming. It was not fear, and yet it was more like fear than anything I ever felt, during the heat of the action when bullets flew thick as rain around me. "On the twenty,..first we fell back to Buena Vista,. which is five miles this side of Saltillo. "The First Regiment encamped at a narrow pass on the road, where a deeply washed gully approached within a few feet of a considerable hill. That night we threw up a redoubt commanding the pass, which was the only practical road for artillery. On the morning of the twenty-second we commenced erecting a breastwork of stone and earth on the hill in front of our camp. About ten o'clock the head of [40] LIFE AND LETTERS OF GENERAL W. H. L. WALLACE the Mexican column appeared in sight. They moved up in immense numbers and formed on a hill two miles in front of us-(I send you a rough sketch of the country in the vicinity of Saltillo, also one on a larger scale of the scene of the engagement, to which last I refer you by numbers for a description of the fight.) "The head'of the Mexican column rested near the main Mexican battery. (No.1). They continued to move up and form on that height till sunset. About twelve M. three horsemen bearing a white flag rode up the road toward our lines. They were met by a like party from us with an interpreter . They met and in a moment one of our horsemen dashed off like a dart toward our lines, rode up to General Taylor, who, with his staff, was then standing by our battery at the pass. "The messenger brought a very polite note from the great Santa Ana himself, informing General Taylor that he had twenty-one thousand men and forty pieces of artillery , and as a means of sparing the effusion of human blood, he requested old 'Rough and Ready' to surrender! "To this modest request Old Zack replied, 'Come and take us!' The First Regiment was then in position at the 'breastworks' on the hill, that is six companies-two in the 'redoubt' supporting Washington's battery, six pieces of which were then drawn up in the valley at No.1, and two companies, A and I, were in Saltillo forming a part of the garrison of that place under Major Warren. "The top of the hill where the 'breastwork' was erected, is some three hundred feet above the valley, where the camp lay and a very steep ascent. From the 'breastworks' to the foot of the mountain on the east is a rise of about one foot in twelve and generally smooth, except where broken by ravines, as represented. "The point at the Mexican Battery, No.3, commands the whole plateau above the ravine. The ravines were deep near their mouths and grew less so as you advanced toward their heads. The ground broken by deep washes is one of the roughest, wildest scenes imaginable; and the Deep Gully running off to the west, opposite the Mexican Battery No.1, is thirty feet deep and impassable, so there [41] LIFE AND LETTERS OF GENERAL W. H. L. WALLACE was no danger of an approach from that...