The Man Who Saved the Union by H.W. Brands Read Free Book Online Page B

thick walls.”
    The Americans pitched camp north of the city at a place they called Walnut Springs, apparently mistaking pecan trees for walnut. Taylor’s plan was to strike the city from three directions at once. The American general dispatched one division to the west to cut the road to Saltillo and then advance on the city from that direction. A second division would attack from the east, first reducing some gun emplacements at the edge of town and subsequently fighting toward the central plaza. A third division would close from the north, beginning with an assault on a structure called the Black Fort, which guarded the road by which the Americans had approached.
    Preparations for the attack began during the night of September 20 when American soldiers established an artillery battery within range of the Black Fort. At dawn the next day the battery opened fire on the fort, whose gunners responded in kind. The sound of the barrages rolled back to the camp at Walnut Springs, where Quartermaster Grant remained with the reserves while the rest of the Fourth Infantry moved forward. “My curiosity got the better of my judgment,” he explained afterward, “and I mounted a horse and rode to the front to see what was going on.” He was watching the exchange of salvos when the Fourth received the order to charge. “Lacking the moral courage to return to camp, where I had been ordered to stay, I charged with the regiment.”
    The Americans raced forward, straight into a murderous fire from Mexican artillery and muskets. To Grant’s left and right his comrades fell by the dozen. Realizing their mistake, or rather their commander’s mistake, the regiment retreated to the east of the Walnut Springs road, where the terrain offered momentary shelter.
    Grant was one of the few Americans on horseback, and a superior commandeered his mount. Grant looked about until he saw a subordinate on horseback and claimed that man’s animal in turn. He and the others sought better cover in a canebrake northeast of the city. There he learned that the officer who had taken his horse had been killed.
    The other prongs of the attack went better. American troops gained the eastern edge of the city and climbed to the roofs of some of the houses there. From this elevation they fired down into the Mexican batteries and drove the gunners out. They turned the Mexican guns against other Mexican positions and began advancing toward the plaza. West of the city the Americans severed the Saltillo road and captured fortificationsnearby. By the end of the day Monterrey had been cut off from the outside world.
    The Americans and Mexicans spent the next twenty-four hours consolidating their positions. For the Americans this meant resupplying forward troops and reinforcing the positions they had taken. For the Mexicans it entailed abandoning the least tenable of the buildings and streets they still held.
    What the Americans hoped would be the final thrust began on the morning of the third day. Grant joined the forces fighting in from the east, against stiff resistance. The Mexicans had mounted artillery on rooftops from which they poured punishing fire upon American troops trying to advance along the streets. The Third Regiment lost nearly half its officers; Grant’s Fourth fared only a little better, although Grant himself escaped injury.
    The Fourth had almost reached the central plaza when the ammunition ran short. The commanding officer asked for a volunteer to return to the rear with a message for help. Grant tightened the girth on his saddle and offered to go. “I adjusted myself on the side of my horse furthest from the enemy,” he explained afterward, “and with only one foot holding to the cantle of the saddle, and an arm over the neck of the horse exposed, I started at full run.” He was most vulnerable at the intersections of streets, where dozens of Mexicans had clear shots at him. Yet he dashed across at such a gallop that he was behind the next