Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front,
And now instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
Shakespeare
Ten days later Molina-del-Rey, Casa-de-Mata, and Chapultepec had
fallen! The United States forces occupied the city of Mexico, General
Scott was in the Grand Plaza, and the American standard waved above the
capital of the Montezumas!
Let those who have a taste for swords and muskets, drums and trumpets,
blood and fire, describe the desperate battles and splendid victories
that led to this final magnificent triumph!
My business lies with the persons of our story, to illustrate whom I
must pick out a few isolated instances of heroism in this glorious
campaign.
Herbert Greyson's division was a portion of the gallant Eleventh that
charged the Mexican batteries on Molina-del-Rey. He covered his name
with glory, and qualified himself to merit the command of the regiment,
which he afterwards received.
Traverse Rocke fought like a young Paladin. When they were marching
into the very mouths of the cannon they were vomiting fire upon them,
and when the young ensign of his company was struck down before him,
Traverse Rocke took the colors from his falling hand, and crying
"Victory!" pressed onward and upward over the dead and the dying, and
springing upon one of the guns which continued to belch forth fire, he
thrice waved the flag over his head and then planted it upon the
battery. Captain Zuten fell in the subsequent assault upon Chapultepec.
Colonel Le Noir entered the city of Mexico with the victorious army,
but on the subsequent day, being engaged in a street skirmish with the
leperos, or liberated convicts, he fell mortally wounded by a copper
bullet, and he was now dying by inches at his quarters near the Grand
Cathedral.
It was on the evening of the 20th of September, six days from the
triumphant entry of General Scott into the capital, that Major Greyson
was seated at supper at his quarters, with some of his brother
officers, when an orderly entered and handed a note to Herbert, which
proved to be a communication from the surgeon of their regiment,
begging him to repair without delay to the quarters of Colonel Le Noir,
who, being in extremity, desired to see him.
Major Greyson immediately excused himself to his company, and repaired
to the quarters of the dying man.