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Updated: May 18, 2025
The noble army of stragglers and bummers led the advance then the roar of battle grew nearer and louder and more general, then came galloping officers and all kinds of wagons, then a brass twelve-pounder swung round close to him, unlimbered, fired one shot, and whipped off again then came the routed infantry, artillery, and cavalry, all mixed together, all on a full run, and strewing the ground with muskets and equipments.
Alone down there by the Robinson House, and Ricketts and Griffin Regulars by the Lord! and the devil knows how many batteries beside playing on us with Parrotts and twelve-pounder howitzers like all the fountains at Versailles! The ground looks as though it had been rooted by hogs! No support, and no orders, and on the turnpike a bank of blue massing to rush my guns!
The artillery was generally six-pounder brass guns throwing only solid shot; but General Taylor had with him three or four twelve-pounder howitzers throwing shell, besides his eighteen-pounders before spoken of, that had a long range. This made a powerful armament. The Mexicans were armed about as we were so far as their infantry was concerned, but their artillery only fired solid shot.
Her bow-gun was fired, and its shot, only a twelve-pounder, richochèd until it fairly passed our fore-foot, distant a hundred yards, making its last leap from the water precisely in a line with the stem of the Dawn. This was unequivocal evidence that the game could not last much longer, unless the space between the two vessels should be sensibly widened.
On the second day after the discovery of this second tunnel, Tabb had a platform built on the northwest corner of the stockade, and another on the opposite side, upon each of which he mounted a twelve-pounder brass-piece.
The weather-beaten old quartermaster on our forecastle applies the match to his brass twelve-pounder, awaking a whole broadside of echoes among the mountains, the big chain rushes swiftly through the hawse-hole, and the ship swings at her anchor in the middle of the picturesque bay. A boat was promptly secured with which to land at this ancient city, founded by Velasquez.
There were two lines of battle, each of three regiments of infantry, the first some two hundred yards in advance of the second. In the space between them lay two four-gun batteries, one of them brass twelve-pounder "Napoleons," and the other rifled Parrotts. To the rear of the infantry were the recumbent troopers and picketed horses of a regiment of cavalry.
Wet, foul, bleeding, with hardly strength enough to climb into the boat, we were safe at last for a time. As we cleared the shoal, the schooner hauled by the wind, and opened fire from a nine-or twelve-pounder; but we were at long range, and the firing was wild. With a fair wind we soon opened the distance between us.
In the first place, it appeared that the remainder of the gun's crew had continued to work the twelve-pounder, and, after firing away a perfectly ruinous quantity of ammunition, had actually succeeded in disabling one of the two remaining Spanish guns; soon after accomplishing which feat, the twelve-pounder itself had been dismounted and put out of action by a shell which had completely destroyed the carriage and at the same time had slain four of the gunners.
The artillery was generally six-pounder brass guns throwing only solid shot; but General Taylor had with him three or four twelve-pounder howitzers throwing shell, besides his eighteen-pounders before spoken of, that had a long range. This made a powerful armament. The Mexicans were armed about as we were so far as their infantry was concerned, but their artillery only fired solid shot.
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