Sketches of the Campaign in Northern Mexico, in Eighteen Hundred Forty-Six and Seven (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 edition. Excerpt: ...in its rear saluted us with a terrible discharge of grape. A few men of the leading companies were killed or disabled, and our colors riddled and cut down by this first discharge. We were now evidently "in for it." There, within sixty yards of us, were some of the olive-colored gentlemen with whom an interview had been so long and earnestly sought. The appearance of the regiment. in the square was followed by startling explosions from every house and battery in that part of the town. There, and then, by that bloody baptism, did the 1st Ohio regiment obtain a name to which no pen has yet done justice. Never will the writer forget the gallant bearing of those courageous and obedient young troops at that place and period of the battle. There was no hesitating or wavering, no turning, or even looking to the right or left. A few of the foremost files discharged their pieces at the enemy, and then the whole corps made a dash at the wall, determined to dislodge the foe with the bayonet. No orders were heard in that indescribable din and uproar. The officers, first among whom were Generals Butler and Hamer, led, and the soldiers followed, as American volunteers I trust will never fail to do. One had but to look at their countenances, their set teeth and expanded nostrils, to be assured that those men so recently taken from the gentle pursuits of peace, were now ready for the wildest work of war. The enemy's fire was, in my inexperienced judgment, particularly heavy. The guns of Fort Diabolo belched forth an unintermitting sheet of flame and smoke as we advanced, but owing to the short distance, overloading, or the excited haste of the cannoneers, they overshot as at times so widely, as, to cut off the highest branches of some...