 | VI.—MONTEREY. Legends of Mexico |  |
6. VI.—MONTEREY.
They tell me that Monterey is beautiful; that it lies among the snow-white
mountains, whose summits reach the clouds.
It sleeps beneath us now.
While the moon, parting from the white mountain tops, sails in the
serene upper air, we will stand among the trees of the Walnut Grove,
and behold the slumbering city.
These trees, beneath whose leaves we stand, speak of the ages that
are gone. So massive in their trunks, so wide-spreading in their branches,
so luxuriant in their foliage. The moonlight trembles through the quivering
leaves, and reveals the rich garniture of the soil. It blooms with
tropical fruits and flowers. Around the giant columns of Walnut, the
jessamine and the wild rose, the lily and the orange blossom, spread their
tapestry of rainbow dyes. The air is drowsy with excess of perfume.
And from the shadows, flash the mountain streams, singing the midnight
anthem, ere they plunge below.
It is the Grove of the Walnut Springs in which we stand; a grand
Cathedral of Nature, whose pillars are Walnut trees, five hundred years
old, whose canopy is woven leaves and vines, whose baptismal font is
the pure mountain spring, whose incense is perfume, that intoxicates
every sense, and whose offerings are flowers, that bewilder the gaze,
with their fresh, their virgin beauty.
And from the grove, by the light of the moon, we gaze upon the city,
that Amazon Queen, who reclines so royally among her warrior mountains.
It is a city of singularly impressive features, that reposes yonder. To
the north, to the south, to the west, the mountains rise, girdled with tropical
fruits and foliage, and mantled on their brows, with glittering snow.
On the east, green with cornfields, and beautiful with groves of orange
trees, spreads a level plain.
Those orange groves, seem to love the city of the Royal Mountain.
For they girdle her dark stone walls, with their white blossoms, and hang
their golden fruit above her battlemented roofs. From this elevated grove,
toward the south, around the sleeping city, winds the beautiful river of
San Juan, now hidden among pomegranate trees, now sending a silvery
branch into the town, again flashing on, beside its castled walls.
Below us, with its roofs laid bare to the moonlight, we behold each
tower and dome, of the mountain city. It is a place of narrow streets,
and one storied houses, with walls and floors of stone. Above each level
roof, rises a battlement, breast high; the streets are crossed by huge piles
of masonry, and the whole town, presents the appearance of an immense
gloomy with towers of rock and steel.
Far to the west, a huge steep, crowned with a mass of stone, varied
with cannon, casts its heavy shadow,—a long belt of blackness—over the
town. That is the Bishop's Palace.
Here, before us, east of the city, their outlines seen above the river,
and the groves of orange blossoms, these castleated mounds, rise clearly
in the air. Yonder, on the north, glooms the massive citadel. Thus
girdled by defences of stone, iron and steel, thus sheltered by its mountains
of fruit and snow, the city of the Royal Mountain, may well seem
impregnable.
Yonder, toward the south, among its homes of stone, you behold an
open space; the grand Plaza of Monterey. There rise the cathedral
towers, heaving above their peaks, and domes of stone, the golden cross
into the midnight sky. Look! How it glitters above the town, smiling
back to heaven, the beams of the rising moon.
It is impregnable, this mountain city. No arms can take it; no
cannon blast its impenetrable walls. The Bishop's Palace on one side,
the three forts on the other, the citadel on the north, the river on the
east and south; it is shut in by stone, by water, by iron and by flame.
And yet, not many months ago—sit by me, while the moon shines over
the city, and I will tell you the story—there came to this grove, an old
man, mounted on a grey charger, and clad in a plain brown coat. On
the mountains that frown toward the east, through the ravines, that darken
there, he came followed by six thousand men. He encamped in this
grove of walnut trees, and the arms of his soldiers shone gaily, from the
white waste of orange blossoms. He stood, where now, we stand, he
gazed first upon his men, his horses, his cannon, and then upon the city,
which though it smiles to us, in the light of the morn, gloomed in
his face, by the beams of day—from every roof, and rock and tower—
with one deadly frown.
The old man saw it crowded by nine thousand armed men. He saw
every roof transformed into a castle, formidable with its death array of
cannon and steel, the Cathedral, with its cross, and image of Jesus, converted
into a magazine of gunpowder—a silent volcano, that only wanted
the impulse of a single spark, to make it blaze and thunder.
And yet the old man, after his silent gaze, turned to his brother heroes,
among whom Butler and Twiggs, and Worth of the Waving Plume,
stood prominent, and said in his quiet way:
“The town is before us. We will take it.”
Then every soldier in that army of six thousand men, took his comrade
by the hand and said: “If I fall, swear that you will bury my
corse!”
For every heart felt that the contest must be horrible and deadly.
The heroes of the prairie, the Men of Palo Alto and Resaca De La
Palma, were there. Mingled with these iron soldiers, you might see the
men of Mississippi and Louisianna, Maryland, Tennessee and Ohio,
Kentucky and Texas. The farms and the work-shops of the American
Union, had heard the cry, which shrieked from the twin-battle-fields of
Palo Alto, and Resaca De La Palma, heard it, and sent forth their beardless
boys, their grey haired men, to the rescue. The sugar and the cotton plantations
of the south, the prairies of the north, the mountains of Pennsylvania,
the blue-hills of Kentucky, that dark and bloody ground, the massacre
fields of Texas, all sent their men to swell the ranks of the New Crusade.
The same Banner that waved over Bunker Hill, and Saratoga and
Brandywine, from the Walnut Grove, flashed the light of its stars over
Monterey.
The fight began on the Twenty-First of September, 1847, and tracked
its bloody course, over the Twenty-Second, and did not cease its howl
of murder, when the sun went down, on the Twenty-Third.
You may be sure that it was horrible, this battle of street and square,
of roof and cliff, of mountain and gorge. It was a storm—hurled from
the mouths of musquets, cannon and mortar, wrapping cliff and dome in
its dark pall, and flashing its lightning in the face of Sun, Moon, and
Stars, for three days. You may be sure, that the orange groves, mowed
down by the cannons blaze, showered their white blossoms over the
faces of the dead. That the San Juan, sparkling in the moon, like silver
now, then blushed crimson, as if in shame, for the horrible work that
was going on. That nothing but shots, groans, shouts, yells, the sharp
crack of the rifle, the deep boom of the cannon, was heard throughout
those three days of blood. That in the battle trenches, lay the dead men,
American and Mexican, their silent groups swelled every moment by new
corses, looking with glassy eyes into each other's faces. That many a
beautiful woman, nestling in her darkened home, was crushed in her white
bosom by the cannon ball, or splintered in the forehead, just above the
dark eyes, by the musquet shot.
And amid the fight, whether it blazed in volumes of flame, or rolled in
waves of smoke, you may be sure two objects were distinctly seen—the
white plume of the chivalrous Worth, and the familiar brown coat of stout
Zachary Taylor.
It was on the morning of the Twenty-First, when the rising sun shone
over the groves of orange and pomegranate, the fields of corn, and the
girdle of rocks and waves, encircling the mountain city, that suddenly,
a mass of white smoke heaved upward from the ravines, yawning about
the Bishop's Palace, and rolling cloud on cloud, wrapt those towers in its
folds, and stretched like an immense shroud along the western sky.
Beneath that smoke, Worth and his Men were commencing the Battle
of Monterey, on the West of the town.
At the same moment, around these forts on the east, a cloud of smoke
arose, it swept away toward the citadel, and soon melted into the cloud
on the west.
Under its pall, Taylor and his men were advancing upon the town from
the north and east. Thus the city of the Royal Mountain, was girdled by
a pall of battle-smoke, and thus, from opposite sides of the town, Taylor
and Worth fought their ways of blood, toward each other, driving nine
thousand Mexicans, with Ampudia at their head, into a centre of death
and flame.
Night came and went and came again, and still the fight went on. One
by one, the three batteries on the east, fell before the arms of Taylor.
Over the impregnable heights of the Bishop's Palace, waved the Banner
of the Stars. The city saw not a glimpse of blue sky, for in the air hung
a canopy of battle-cloud, and over the roofs the gunpowder spread its pestilential
mist. There was neither food, nor shelter anywhere. God pity
the women then, who, shuddering in cellars and burrowing in dark rooms,
clutched to their breasts the children of their love! In the Cathedral no
prayer was spoken, no mass sung the deep anthem, or waved from censers
the snowy incense. The Image of Jesus was wrapt in the battle-cloud:
that divine face, for once, seemed to frown. Mild Mother Mary, above
the altar, was clad in a robe of smoke, and her sad and tender face grew
livid, ghastly, with gleams of battle flame.
There was no rest for the sole of human foot, no slumber but the slumber
of the bloody ditch, or dark ravine. None slept but the dead.
And still, from the west, the cannon of Worth hurled their message to
Taylor on the east, and evermore the cannon of Taylor thundered their
reply. Nearer grew those sounds to each other, and closer in the fiery
circle, Ampudia and his Mexicans were hemmed. Over the roofs, through
the battered houses, beyond their battered barricades, they were driven
by Worth and Taylor, until the battle gathered to one point, and above
the main plaza where the moon shines so calmly now, on Cathedral and
Cross, hung the accumulated cloud of three day's agony.
And to this grove of the Walnut Springs, where at this hour, the moon
breaks in tender light, on each massive tree and perfumed flower, the
battle mangled were brought to bleed and die. The sod, spreading so
thick with blossoms all around us, grew purple with a bath of blood.
Hearts, that had once quivered to the pressure of a woman's bosom, were
frozen in this grove, and eyes, that had looked tenderly into the eyes of
Wife, Mother, Child, grew glassy beneath the walnut leaves.
But amid all the horror of the fight, the Mountains yonder,—like calm
Demons, impenetrable to the yell of slaughter, or the howl of agony,—
lifted their snowy tops, and shone on, whether lighted by the sun, or
moon, or stars, or battle-flash.
Crouching in a darkened chamber, two Mexican girls flung their arms
about each other's necks, and buried their faces in their flowing hair.
Through the small window toward the west, half-covered with vines, a
few wandering gleams of sunlight shone. Ever and again, a red flash
bathed the room in crimson light. It was a spacious room, with stone
walls, hidden in purple hangings, and a marble floor, strewn with the
wrecks of books and harps and flowers.
In one corner stood a small couch, its ruffled pillows, yet bearing the
outlines of those two virgin forms.
From that couch they had darted suddenly, and with their half-naked
forms quivering with affright, flung themselves on the marble floor, near
the window, where a Cross glittered in its shadowy recess.
And now, as their white shoulders and uncovered feet glowed in the
feeble light, their faces were hidden on each other's breasts among their
luxuriant hair.
You may see their limbs quiver, you may see the scanty robe, which
but half-conceals each virgin form, move tremulously with each movement
of their bodies, but their faces you cannot see.
It is now near sunset, on this fearful Twenty-Third of September, 1846.
For three days, these girls have awaited the return of their father from the
battle. Three days ago, they saw him go forth on his grey war-horse,
an old but muscular man, whose olive cheek, seamed with wrinkles, and
dark hair mingled with the snowy flakes of age, were shadowed by plumes
of fiery crimson. They saw him, in his costume of national green, dash
from the door of their home toward the battle. By his side, their brother
rode; a manly boy of nineteen, whose jet-black hair, gathered in thick
curls around his young forehead, while his sinewy arm waved his sword
in the morning air.
So gallantly, from their garden-encircled home of Monterey, they went
forth together, the father and son, their uniform flashing back the light,
from every star of gold, while the necks of their steeds proudly arched,
their plumes fluttering in the breeze, their figures quivering with the impulse
of the fight—all gave omen of a bloody battle and a certain triumph.
For three days the maidens had waited for them, but they came not.
For three days and nights, the roar of the fight swelling afar, had startled
slumber from their eyes. But now that roar grew nearer; it deepened
into thunder; it spoke more plainly. Quivering in every nerve, as they
knelt on the floor, they could distinctly hear the separate voices of the
battle—now the rifle's shriek, now the musquet's peal, now the cannon's
thunder shout.
And the storm grew nearer their house; it seemed to rage all around
them, for those terrible sounds never for one moment ceased, and the red
flash poured through the narrow window, in one incessant sheet of battle
lightning.
Still the Father, the Brother came not!
Hark! That crash, which shakes the chamber, like an earthquake!
The girls lift their faces, from among their flowing hair, and you may
read the volume of their contrasted loveliness.
This, with her warm, voluptuous bosom, and the rich brown cheek,
shadowed by the raven hair—Ximena. The other, with the fair cheek,
and snowy breast, and large eyes, that remind you of the deep azure
of a starry midnight, the hair that floats, in curls of chesnut brown—
Teresa.
Their beautiful tresses twining together, in mingled dyes of light and
shade, the full, luxuriant form of Ximena, contrasted with the more delicate
figure of Teresa, those dark eyes, swimming in tears, the maidens
half-starting from their knees, presented a picture of touching loveliness.
Around them strewn, their torn books, broken harps and withered
flowers; before them, smiling from its dark recess, that solitary
cross!
Again that crash, again that red light streaming through the window!
With one bound the girls sprang to their feet, and gazed upon the door,
whose panels you may distinguish yonder, among the purple curtaining.
“They come!” shrieked Ximena, and gathered her Sister to her heart.
Deep shouts were heard, the tramp of armed men, resounding through
a narrow passage—another crash! The door gave way, and the red
battle light rushed into the place. The door gave way, and as it clanged
upon the floor, a dying man fell backward upon its panels, the broken
sword, firmly clutched in his hand, the blood, pouring in a stream from
the wound in his chest.
His throat bare, his dark hair sprinkled with silver, hanging damp and
clotted above his wrinkled brow, he glared upward with his glazing eyes
—made an effort to rise—and fell back, writhing in his death agony.
Above him, the foremost of a band, attired in blue, stood a slender, but
athletic form, his upraised arm, still waving its sword, red with the blood
of the prostrate enemy. His face, was very pale, but his hazel eye,
shone with the mad light of carnage.
At a glance, the girls behold the form of that dying man, the figure of
Murderer—and a shriek, that made his blood grow chill, though it raged
with the battle fever—filled the place.
The American, in the doorway, felt his nerveless arm drop by his side.
Even as the sword dripped its red tears upon the floor, he beheld those
girls, kneeling beside the dying man, and heard one word quiver from
their lips—
“Father!”
It was in the Spanish tongue, but he read its meaning in their extended
pressed against the bleeding chest of his foe.
They looked up into his face; they raised their eyes to this young
pale brow, and spoke once more—
“Our Father!”
The young American felt his fingers stiffen, heard his bloody sword
clatter on the floor.
“His pistol it was, that shot my comrade by my side, even as we came
charging up the Plaza, his—”
He shrieked these words, driven to madness, by their accusing looks,
but he could say no more. For he too had a grey-haired father, he too,
among the hills of Pennsylvania, in the old farm house, at the end of
the lane, where mill-stream wind among the woods, had two sisters!
That father blessed him when he left home for the wars, those sisters
pressed their warm kisses on his lips, as they gasped farewell!
Now, upon the threshhold of the Mexican home he stood, the dying
father, writhing before his eyes, while his daughters, with their bared
bosoms, sought to staunch the flowing of the blood, which hissed, warm
and smoking from his heart. There, he stood, the Murderer, in presence
of his victim, with the eyes of those beautiful sisters upon his face!
The sight was two much for him.
Waving his comrades back—they were all young men, like him, unused
to scenes of blood, their veins fired for the first time, with the lust of carnage—he
flung himself upon the floor, and with his hands, pressed over
the wound, madly endeavored to stop the blood, that glided through his
fingers, and dashed into his face.
But the dying old Mexican, with distorted features and glazing eyes,
muttered a curse with his livid lips, and feebly endeavored to withdraw
himself, from the touch of the American.
Those half-clad maidens, with frenzy in their eyes, tore their glossy
hair, and beat their breasts with their clenched hands, as they felt, that
there was no longer a hope for the old man, their father.
The American, on his knees, beside them, saw the unspeakable agony,
written on each face, and knew himself, a guilty and blood-stained man.
“He shot my comrade,” the words came faintly from his lips—“My
blood was up—I pursued him—we fought—fought on over heaps of dead,
to the door—and—but I did not think of this! To stab an old man,
on the threshhold of his home, in the presence of his children!”
Again he sank beside the dying man, but those lips, now changed to a
clayish blue, only moved to curse again. With extended arms, he fell
before the maidens, but their looks of horror, as they shrank from him
with outspread arms, gave no hope of forgiveness.
At last he rose, and standing among the curtains, near the doorway,
scene.
Here Ximena, chafing with her warm palms the chilled hands of her
father, her hair, streaming wildly over her shoulders, stained with the
warm blood of his heart; there, Teresa, with the head of the dying man,
on her lap, her fingers pressed upon his clammy brow, her blue eyes weeping
their tears like rain, on his glassy eye-balls.
“It cuts my heart like a dagger”—the American forced the words between
his set teeth—“I have a father too, away in Pennsylvania, and
sisters too, that resemble these girls.”—
He could bear it no longer. Scarce knowing what he did, only wishing
to turn his eyes away from that sight, he plunged among the hangings,
and found himself at the foot of a narrow stairway. A moment had not
passed, when he emerged upon the flat roof, with its battlement of stone.
His cheek was pale as death—before the battle he had suffered much with
fever—and the emotions, fast crowding round his heart, gave an unnatural
gleam to this eye.
He approached the battlement, and started away. The scene beneath,
was at once horrible and sublime. That roof, commanded a free view of
the Plaza of the city and all the avenues leading to it. Again he approached,
and gazed upon the Last Fight of Monterey.
Imagine a space, two hundred yards square, walled in by houses, one
story high, frowning with battlements. This space is packed with one
dense mass of infuriated soldiers, half naked, their faces scarce distinguishable
beneath the stain of powder and blood. They shout, they yell,
they roll to and fro, like the waves of a whirlpool. Here you may distinguish
the American, there the Mexican uniform.
From every battlement, lined with frenzied Mexicans, pours the blaze
of musquetry, hurling the death, alike on friend and foe. Beneath, bayonet
to bayonet, and knife to knife, over the pavement, slippery with blood,
the contest is maintained. As the ranks of the battling legions, move
aside, or part for a moment, you may behold, the cold faces of the dead,
amid their fiercest roar, you hear the deep piercing yell of the wounded.
Over this scene, glooms the Cathedral, its towers only half seen amid
the clouds of smoke which toss around them.
That cross glitters in the setting sun, but all below is dim, dark, bloody.
Just as you have seen, a mist hover above a summit, so that thick cloud,
glooms over the grand Plaza of Monterey, its edges tinted with sunset
gold, while all beside is dark.
And toward this Plaza, like separate streams of blood, rushing from
north and south and east and west, toward one great lake of carnage, the
three days battle rolls by every street and avenue, along these roofs, and
through yonder smoking ruins.
Yonder to the west, far over the heads of advancing Americans cast
in the battle light. Worth is there! Like a cavalier of old he rides to
battle, his graceful and commanding figure, clad in full uniform, his head
placed proudly on his shoulders, his broad chest, thrown forward, as if in
defiance of the danger and the death, around him.
To the east, turn your eye! Down, this avenue, where the cannon's
blaze their fire, into the faces of the recoiling Mexicans, where the clouds
now come down like Night, and now roll away, leaving the scene, to the
warm glow of the setting sun, down this lane of blood, amid the charging
squadrons, you behold a warrior, on a grey horse, with a brown coat,
thrown back from his broad chest, while a plain cap, surmounts his
bronzed face and flashing eyes. Taylor is there!
They hear each other's shouts, the Men of Worth and Taylor, charging
from east and west, toward the Grand Plaza, their cannon balls encounter
each other, in the ranks of the foe; crushing men and horses,
firm masonry and battlemented walls before them, they fight on,
toward the centre, where gleams the Cathedral cross over masses of
cloud!
This was the scene, which the young American, sick of the battle, and
thinking of his dear Pennsylvanian home, beheld, but it was not all! No
—no!
Between the rolling clouds, the sky smiled so calmly down upon him;
beneath in the bloody Plaza, the dead looked so ghastly up in his face!
Not twenty yards from the place where he stood, a dead woman lay, her
mangled breasts, clotted with blood, while her frozen features, knit so
darkly in the brow, and distorted along the lips, told how fierce the struggle
in which she died.
O, it would have made your blood dance, to stand there, and see how,
wave on wave, the Americans rolled their flood of bayonets toward the
Plaza, how flash on flash, their cannon lighted up the battle, whirling
around the cathedral, how yell on yell, the stern hunters of the west, with
clenched bowie knives, in their brawny arms, came rushing on, to the last
act of the three day's drama of blood!
At last, as if the day light was sick of the scene, the night fell—a starless,
moonless night—and in the darkness, the fight went horribly forward.
Then, through the pall that hung above the Cathedral, a mass of fire,
came blazing on, like the bloody moon in the Book of Revelations, blazing
on, with its fiery mane, flung far along the sky.
It comes from the mortar of Worth, and hisses down, among the Mexicans,
in front of the Cathedral. Old Zachary, gazing from the east, sees
that bomb, as it flashes on its meteor way, and knows that the end of the
battle is near.
Weary of the darkness and the blood, the young American tottered,
had left the sisters and their dying father.
A darkness, so dense, that it seemed to press upon the eyeballs, lay upon
the place.
The American soldier, stood among the purple curtains, listening in awe
for the faintest sound.
It was still—terribly still. To the excited fancy of the battle-worn
Volunteer, it seemed a death vault, gloomy with the darkness of ages.
The very atmosphere seemed thick with Death.
He advanced—a single step—and then, even as he could distinctly hear
the beatings of his heart—he spread forth his arms, sank on his knees,
and felt his way, through that darkened chamber.
His extended hands touched the cold face of the dead. There was
something so loathsome, in that clammy pressure, which left his fingers,
wet with clotted blood, that he started back, and remained for a moment,
motionless as the dead, as if rooted to the stone, on which he knelt.
Then, dashing forward with trembling hands, he felt the cold face
again, and another, and yet one more clammy brow. He was alone in
that room, with the dead. Three corses lay on the stone floor, beside the
kneeling man.
This was the work of War! War on the battle field, where the yell
of the dying, rings its defiance to the charging legions, wears on its bloodiest
plume, some gleam of chivalry, but War in the Home, scattering its
corses, beside the holiest altars of life, and mingling the household gods,
with bleeding hearts and shattered skulls—this, indeed, is a fearful thing.
As the American, sank back, shuddering and cold—for he, too had a
father, he too, had sisters—a glare like lightning, illumined the chamber,
laying bare, every nook and crevice, and tinting every object, with its
red and murderous light. In a moment it died away, but that moment of
sudden light, revealed this battle picture, to the eyes of the American
soldier:
The Father, dead, upon the prostrate door, his distorted features, scowling
curses, even as he lay, with his hands, clenched over his mangled breast.
By his side, two forms, their arms about each other's necks, their lips
close together, their young faces, even in that battle light, wearing a smile,
serene, as a cloudless heaven. It was the Brother and his Sister, sleeping
their last sleep. One bullet, had pierced their skulls through the temple—she,
with her glassy blue eyes and brown hair, lay with her cheek
to his, as the brother's lip, darkened by a slight mustache, was curved in
a joyous smile.
So, by their dead father, the dead children lay, crushed into eternal
silence, even as they had embraced each other, over his lifeless body.
It was evident that the young Mexican, came home from the fight, without
a wound, and died in the act of consoling his fatherless sisters.
But Ximena—where is she?
Look, beside the bodies of the dead, and tremble, as you behold that
kneeling woman, gazing fixedly, upon the three corses, her eyes dilating,
until the white circle, is seen distinctly, around each burning pupil, while
her death-like face and uncovered bosom, are darkly relieved by the volume
of her luxuriant hair.
Was she dead?
A convulsive quivering of the lip, alone bore witness, to the miserable
life, that still dwelt, in her maddened brain, a slight—almost imperceptable
heaving of her white bosom—told that her torn heart, still throbbed on.
For a moment the American saw this picture—only one of the thousand
horrible sights, which the light of battle, revealed in the Homes of
Monterey—and the darkness, fell like a pall, upon the living and the dead.
It was on the Twenty-Fourth of September, when the battle clouds had
rolled away, and the setting sun, shone over the wreck of the devastated
city, that Ampudia, surrendered into the hands of the old man in the
brown coat, his sword, and saw the Banner of the Stars, float into heaven,
from every dome and peak of the city.
In a town, that resembled one immense castle, hemmed in by fortified
mountains, and defended by forty-two pieces of cannon, with at least nine
thousand, brave men, under his command, he had been conquered by this
plain warrior, on the old grey horse, who had only six thousand men,
one mortar, two howitzers and four light field batteries.
History does not tell of many deeds like that!
Well might the old man gaze proudly round him, as he felt the sword
of Ampudia in his grasp! For encircled by his own gallant officers—
Worth of the Waving Plume was foremost there—he saw the mountains,
with their white tops, glittering in the setting sun. He saw the Cathedral
Cross, shining like a point of flame, as the Banner of the Stars, floated
around its dome. The orange groves, whose white blossoms, could not
conceal the dead, the River of San Juan, red with blood, the gloomy
Bishop's Palace, frowning under the victorious flag, the city, littered with
corses,—he saw it all, that scene, where he had fought and won!
Gaze upon the old man, as he stands triumphant, among the wrecks of
Monterey, the glow of the setting sun, upon his bronzed face, the sword
of Ampudia in his hand. His Army—his People, not his Slaves—are
there, with their tried bayonets, shining on every side. There are taller
warriors, who wear gayer uniforms, and go to the fight, in more elegant
costume, but this familiar man, in that unadorned attire, wears his battle
jewels, in the hearts of six thousand men.
And as he stands before us, the object of ten thousand eyes, yonder,
far away, in the City of Washington, the pismires of Faction, are already
busy with the Mound of his Fame. That Mound, built of the trophies
blood of at least one thousand heroes.
Toil on, heroic Insects of the Cabinet and Council! For work like
this, you were born; it is your destiny, to gnaw holes in the drapery
of greatness, and burrow hiding places, for your mighty insignificance,
beneath the Monument of Genius. Toil on! In the olden times, Pismires,
as brave as you,—although not born in the miasmatic air of caucus
and convention—swarmed over the drapery of a man, called Washington,
and went terribly to work, beneath the granite mountain of his
fame.
Where are they now? Where will you be, ten years hence?
Toil on, heroic Insects, of the Cabinet and Council! But be very
careful how you annoy heroes like Washington or Taylor—a single flutter
of their drapery will scatter you; a solitary pebble, falling from the Monument
of their fame, crush you, into dust.
These Politicians, who scheme in dark holes, while brave men, do
heroic deeds, in the face of day, are interesting personages.
Behold them, in the Continental Congress, lay their plans and weave
their plots, against one Washington, now battling hunger, cold and pestilence
among the hills of Valley Forge! Yet this same Washington,
with the ant-hills of party reared all about him, to block his way and precipitate
him into the dust, comes forth serenely from Valley Forge, and
fights the Battle of Monmouth.
Behold them, after the Battle of Monterey, sever old Zachary Taylor
from his tried veterans, leave him at the City of his Conquest, with only
six hundred men, which at last are swelled by new recruits, into four
thousand. Immortal Insects! What matter if the old man and his four
thousand are massacred?
The whole Union palpitates with quivering anxiety for the old man and
his soldiers. Superseded in his command, stripped of his veterans, he is
left among the mountains, with only four thousand, while Santa Anna
seeks for him, with twenty thousand men, eager for the fight, and confident
of victory.
Who cares for old Taylor? Let him retreat; he has won glory enough;
we Insects of Politics are afraid of his fame. Let him retreat or die.
And, even as the Insects talk thus, there came a Rumor that the old
man has discovered a path through the very dangers which threaten him,
a Beautiful Prospect through the very clouds which frown upon his head,
or to speak it in Spanish, a—Buena Vista.
Toil on heroic Pismires of the cabinet and council!
Still we stand in the shadows of the Walnut Grove, gazing by the light
of the moon, on slumbering Monterey. To see it sleep so calmly, in the
embrace of its warrior mountains, who would dream that it had ever been
Palace towers, but its guns are voiceless now. Beautifully through the
night, the silvery San Juan gleams, but its waves no longer blush with
blood. The orange groves are there, with their golden fruit mantled in
snowy blossoms; there, the cornfields waving their long emerald leaves
and tossing their silver tassels on the breeze, there the homes of stone,
with battlemented roofs, framed in gardens of flowers—Beautiful Monterey!
From the Cathedral tower, the Cross glitters through the night, emblem
of that Faith—though clouded by priests and creeds—which says forever,
“All men are alike the children of God.” Over the Bishop's Palace
waves the Banner of the Stars, symbol of that Democratic truth, which
never for a moment ceases to speak, “This Continent is the Homestead
of free and honest men. Kings have no business here. Hasten to possess
it, Children of Washington!”
—While the moon rises over Monterey, let me take you to the fireside
of yonder distant Home, in the land of Penn, among the mountains.
There is snow upon the ground, not only on the summit of the hill,
but in the deep gorges, and chasm-like ravines. Over the mantle of snow,
a ray of light quivers like a flaming arrow. It comes from yonder window;
you see it, with its deep frame sunken in the thick walls of the old
farm-house. With leafless trees around it, that pile of dark stone, with
steep roof and many chimneys, breaks on your eye. The barn is near,
one of those massive structures, which speak of glorious harvests, and
shame the Slave House of the Factory into nothingness.
By the light of the fireside, which sends its flaming arrow through the
window, into the dark night—like a ray from heaven, blessing a dark
world—behold this picture of Christmas Night.
A spacious room, its floor and ceiling white as snow, and a wide hearth,
smoking and blazing with huge hickory logs. Above the hearth, a Rifle
hangs, which blazed in the Revolution at Germantown. Altogether, this
hall of the old farm-house, with its ancient furniture, its heavy rafters, and
joyous hearth, appeals to your heart: it is such a picture of Home.
Near the fire, on one of those oaken arm-chairs, sits an old man, with a
rosy-cheeked damsel on either side. They clasp his hands and smooth
the white hairs aside from his wrinkled brow,—their fresh young faces
contrasting with his aged visage—but the old man, with his grey eyes
fixed on the fire coals, bends his head and does not breathe a word.
It is the Christmas Night, and the Christmas Fire lights his face, but
there is one absent from its glow. He is thinking of the absent one,
picturing among the fire-coals, the image of his manly form, and repeating
to himself, the last words which he said, ere he left his home:
“Father, I will come back covered with glory. I will bring you a
trophy from the fields of Mexico?”
Now, it may be, he lies writhing with battle wounds or dying in the
slow agonies of the tropical fever.
The daughters read the sorrow written in the aged lineaments of their
father, and cast their tearful eyes upon the Christmas Fire. Mary, with
the soft brown hair, and bosom that swells beneath its 'kerchief covering,
dreams a half-waking dream of that golden and bloody land called Mexico,
and sees her brother toiling through the wastes of chaparral. Anna, with
hair golden as the beams of the setting sun, and a pale cheek, tinted with
a solitary rose-bud, also dreams, but in her vision beholds her brother's
brow, bathed with the red flush of victory.
And so they dream on, the father and his two mountain flowers, while
the dismal wind, howling through the deep ravines, only serves to render
more dear, more holy, the light, the blessing of that Christmas Fire.
At last a step is heard; through the opened door, a gust of wind and
sleet rushes toward the fire. With one bound, the old man and his
daughters start to their feet.
In the doorway, they behold a tall, slender form attired in a plain blue
overcoat; they see that pale face, lighted by the eyes that flash with vivid
light, they know those curls of chesnut brown, clustering beneath the
military cap, around the white forehead.
“My Son!” and the old man spreads forth his arms.
“Brother!”—the Sisters are clinging round his neck.
Wasted by the deadly fever, the young Soldier bore in his pale cheek
and scarred brow, the stern testimonials of Monterey. He stood in the
centre of the group, his heart too full for words, gazing now upon his
white-haired father, now into the faces of those blooming sisters. It was
not very singular, but still the door remained open, and the wind and sleet
still rushed upon the Christmas Fire.
“You've come back, Harry,”—the Father surveyed his son with a look
of pride—“You've seen hard fightin' I don't doubt! A terrible scrimmage,
that of Monterey! Come sit by the fire; the girls will get you something
to eat. An' as you eat, tell us all about it—what do you think of
the old man, Zachary Taylor?”
At that name the young soldier uncovered his head; the tears started
to his eyes.
“He is the Father, the Brother of his soldiers, as much as their General!”
he said, with deep emotion.—So I have seen, time and again, the
heads of returned soldiers uncover at the name of Taylor, while the tears
in their eyes, the tremor in their voices, told how deeply in their heart
the memory of the old man's kindness had taken root and flourished.
“But come,” said the Father—“The night is bitter cold; close the
door and sit near the fire—”
The Soldier did not move toward the fire, but stayed his father's hands
as they were extended to close the door.
“When I left for Mexico, I told you I would bring back with me a
Trophy of the War. That Trophy is here!”
Flinging the door yet wider open, he led the Trophy forward to the
light. Behold it! A young, a beautiful girl, whose voluptuous outline
of form, is not altogether hidden in her cumbrous dress of furs, whose
clear olive cheek, jet black hair and dazzling eyes, glow in the light, as
they are framed in the close-fitting hood.
The snow was upon her dress, and melted in pearl drops in her hair.
She stood gazing around the place with a half-frightened glance; then
raising her large eyes to her Husband's face, she came tremulously forward
and knelt at the old man's feet and kissed his hand. With one impulse,
the Sisters flung themselves beside her, and kissed the snow drops
from her raven hair.
“It's a long story, father—” gasped the Soldier, in a voice choked by
emotion—“But I saw her father, her sister, her brother—together—dead
upon the floor of their home, at Monterey. She was without a friend—
and I had killed—”
He abruptly paused, and turned his face away. As if his soul was in
his words, he gasped again—
“I can't tell it now father! But there she is, a true woman, who has
nursed me in sickness, and followed me from her land of orange blossoms
and flowers, into this land of winter and snow. She is my wife! Your
child, father! Your sister, my sisters! Be very kind to her, for she has
suffered much, and deserves all the love in your hearts! True, she
does n't understand English, but—”
There was a language which she understood! It spoke from her large
beautiful eyes, it heaved with the pulsations of her young bosom, it
wreathed in her red, warm lips, and shone in every blush of her glowing
countenance.
As though she had been a gift, sent to them from Paradise, the old man
and his daughters took that warm southern flower to their hearts, and from
that moment she grew there!
Beautiful Ximena! Shaking the glittering snow drops from her hair, as
it fell in dark masses from her raised hood, she advanced toward the
Christmas Fire, and its warm glow bathed her cheeks as with a blessing.
The old man looked smilingly into her face. On her right stood Mary,
taking her silently by the hand, on the left her other sister, Anna, threading
her jet-black hair with her fingers.
Somewhat in the rear, stood the pale Soldier, his arms folded on his
breast, his head downcast, his eyes flashing with deep emotion as they
rested on his wife.—That beautiful Trophy, from the battle-rent walls
of Monterey.
| VI.—MONTEREY. Legends of Mexico | |