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CEXERAL ALEXANDER HAYS

i

i

LIFE AND LETTERS

OF

ALEXANDER HAYS

Brevet Colonel United States Army

Brigadier General and Brevet Major General

United States Volunteers.

EDITED AND ARRANGED WITH

I NOTES AND CONTEMPORARY HISTORY BY

(

GEORGE THORNTON ^LEMING

FROM DATA COMPILED BY

GILBERT ADAMS HAYS

"Above the dust of the beloved dead Who passed to immortality this way,

We bare our head and reverently tread, And tenderly our heartfelt homage pay.

PITTSBURGH, PA. 1919.

./

DEDICATION.

To the Soldiers of Alexander Hays, living and dead, who followed their dauntless leader under the Red Patch and the Blue Trefoil, 1861- 1864.

^tl' 10(S/Q

Copyright, 1919. By Gilbert Adams Haya.

'^CiAJ^^OOHl ^ iV

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V

INTRODUCTION

Nearly fifty-five years have passed since General Alexander Hays, in the zenith of his career, fell in the tangled thickets of the Wilderness. Conscious that they ai'C nearing the age when the expectation of life shortens, his children have determined to publish a biography of their honored father, and show to all the world who may care to know, what manner of man he was.

Treasured as precious memories throughout the long years, the family have preserved the letters he wrote from the front during the three years in which he gallantly served, until that fatal day when he fell as a soldier often falls, in action, on the advanced line.

Alexander Hays was a plain man, a man of simple tastes, a man of action rather than words. He was thoroughly averse to ostenta- tion, and wanted no eulogies. He was therefore a modest man. Modest, though dignified in bearing, he sought not praise. He went his way to duty and performed that duty well, whatever it may have been. Large of frame and large of brain, Alexander Hays had all the charactristics of the true soldier. Endowed with a liberal education, he was therefore a man of refinement and education. Schooled in the grim school of war, he knew the value of obedience, and the necessity of discipline. Obedience to authority and courage in the hour of danger are the main attributes of a soldier, and the men that Alexander Hays led possessed these characteristics in common with their chief, and the laurel has been placed upon their tattered standards, and history has written their deeds in the records of the great war.

Had General Hays lived to read his own biography he would have cut out all superlatives — "illustrious son of Pennsylvania," "gallant hero," "brilliant commander." Such phrases would not have ap- pealed to him; and why speak of loyalty, patriotism and allegiance to duty? Are these not imposed on all citizens? "Courage, sagacity and discrimination," — these are mer^ attributes of a successful com- mander. Alexander Hays would never have consented to be written down as a military genius. He preferred that his deeds should speak, and they do speak, and in the subsequent pages the man as well as the soldier will be considered, the gentleness of the man at home as well as the man of arms in the din of battle and amid the crash of guns.

In the career of Alexander Hays there is much that is incentive to the young men of our land — much in his character worthy of commendation and emulation. The story of his life can be made a, simple and unpretentious chronicle, or there can be used the

VI

adjective with liberality. The written story has been aimed to be true to the man. We find him in early life in a country home, struggling to obtain even the rudiments of an education and early overcoming obstacles. We note his prominence in boyhood sports and athletic feats; his excellence as a marksman, and his marvelous horsemanship. We hear of his academy and college career, where always manly and popular, he goes next to the great Military Academy at West Point. And here he is the classmate and fellow- student of those whose names have been written in the history of the world for all time, and with whom when Valor and Genius were placing the unfading laurel, some fell also upon himself. We find him a subaltern in Mexico, dauntless and tireless, serving through that war. We behold him in California in the days when the real- ism of the times has faded any romance of the most brilliant novelist in the intensity of action, and in the marvelousness of truth. And he had crossed the trackless West, too, and won the title of "Argonaut." We see him return to his own fireside and engage in the pursuits of civil life. We observe him in the bosom of his happy family. We see him a pioneer in railroad development, a builder of railroads, the great civilizers of the greatest century since the dawn of time. We hear the boom of the Sumter's portentous guns, and the great Lincoln calls, and Alexander Hays puts his love of home away, and his great work away, and springs to arms among the first. His title is Major now, literally great and greater he became. He goes to the very front. He stays there and dies. At Pair Oaks he has sprung into prominence. At Gettysburg his name is indelibly written upon the "High water mark of the war." In the Wilderness he falls — and his name is henceforth written on his . Country's fiag, but in deeds, not letters.

Pennsylvania furnished the Union many distinguished names, and not a few of these died as did Alexander Hays. They are known. Their services have long since been appreciated and their deeds marked by statue and embellished in story and song.

"Micat inter omnes," is a simple Latin sentence, and when all those who struggled through the four years of desolating war are considered it can be truthfully written of Alexander Hays. "He shines among them all."

Pittsburgh, Pa., January, 1919. G. T. F.

VII

CONTENTS

Chapter Pag^

I. Boyhood, School and College 1

II. Cadet Hays, U. S. M. A 8

III. Some Fellow Cadets 16

IV. The West Point Class of 1844 32

v. Lieut. Alexander Hays, U. S. A 41

VI. Alexander Hays' Own Story of First Service and Some

Letters 53

VII. Lane's Brigade in Mexico 66

VIII. Across the Plains 98

IX. Before Sumter 113

X. Letters from Camp. The 12th Regiment Pennsylvania

Volunteers. Three Months' Service 121

XI. The 63rd Pennsylvania Volunteers. Around Washington. 137

XII. The Peninsular Campaign 198

XIII. Letters from the Field. Harrison's Landing to Second

Bull Run 247

XV. Gettysburg 401

XIV. After Gettysburg. Efforts for Promotion 470

XVII. When Grant Came 557

XVIIL The Wilderness 596

XIX. Honors to the Fallen 610

XX. Alexander Hays in Song and Story 626

XXI. Monuments 640

XXII. Some Testimonials 652

XXm. Immortelles 672

XXIV. Conclusion 678

Appendices 681

VIII

INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

Portrait General Alexander Hays Frontispiece •■

Lieutenants U. S. Grant and Alexander Hays, Camp

Salubrity, La 50 ^

Victory Monument, West Point Military Academy 120

Memorial Tablet, Cullum Hall, West Point 200

General Hays' Headquarters, Winter, 1863-4 ^. . . .270

Soldiers' Monument, Franklin, Pa 350

Gettysburg Battlefield Monument 450

AVilderness Battlefield Monument 650

Grave and Monument, Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh 650

/

Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

CHAPTER I.

BOYHOOD, SCHOOL AND COLLEGE

ALEXANDER HAYS was born at Franklin, Venango County, Pennsylvania, July 8, 1819. He was the fifth child and the fourth son of Samuel Hays and Agnes Broadfoot Hays. This worthy couple had six children, viz. : Eleanor, John Broadfoot, David Brown, Samuel B., Alexander (the subject of this memoir), and James P. Mrs. Agnes Hays, the mother of these children, died in November, 1839, when the future general was in his 21st year, and about to enter the Military Academy at West Point. Samuel Hays, the father, died at his home in Franklin, July 6, 1868, in his 85th year, surviving his illustrious son four years and two months.

Samuel Hays, known in his home community as General Hays from his commission and service as such in the early Pennsylvania militia, was a man of high standing. Born in County Donegal, Ireland, September 10, 1783, at the age of seven, with his mother, Mrs. Eleanor Hays, he emigrated to the United States and located in Venango County, Pennsyl- vania, then an almost unbroken forest just opening to settle- ment. Eleanor Hays died in 1822. A sketch of the life of General Samuel Hays will be found in the appendices.^ Suffice it to say here that General Samuel Hays served as treasurer and sheriff of Venango County and in both branches of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, and was elected to the

1 Vide Appendix A.

2 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

Twenty-eighth Congress of the United States, entering that body in 1843. He later served as United States marshal for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and was associate judge of Venango County, and all these positions he filled with honor and integrity.

On his maternal side Alexander Hays was of Scotch line- age, the Broadfoot family having come to Pennsylvania early in the last century, and they, too, found a home in its north- western corner. The family name is chiefly known and localized in Wigtonshire, though frequently met with in other parts of Scotland. The Broadfoots were a numerous family that came from a distinguished Scotch ancestry, of which they were very proud.

Alexander Hays grew up in a wild and picturesque region where he passed a happy boyhood. Beautiful today, the scenery around the now thriving and handsome little city of Franklin, was in Alexander Hays' boyhood even more beau- tiful and inspiring. A century of progress has tamed its rugged nature, but the native beauty of the river and hills cannot be taken away. One can speculate on the relation of environments to the development of character, and he who knows the upper Allegheny region must believe such environ- ments are an inspiration, even to this day. What then were they ere modern improvement came in the march of progress, when hill and valley were yet unmarred? Could anyone say that the magnificent outlook up the river from Franklin to the lower blufT, crowned with the changing colors of the deciduous trees and the dark-hued evergreens, the stately pine and the towering hemlock, the gently flowing waters, or the torrent's rush of the river below, were not an inspira- tion and an incentive to higher things? In the pure air of these everlasting hills Alexander Hays saw their verdure and their flowers come and go, and the autumn tint the leaves, and the snows fall and melt, but the beauty and glory of the region was ever present though the seasons changed. Such a wealth of natural beauty could not fail to appeal to the youthful imagination and find response in a youthful heart such as his, so there grew in the young Alexander Hays a love of the true and the beautiful and an appreciation of the sublime, that ever characterized his utterances and were manifest in his letters both to family and friends— and throughout his whole career this is true. At school and in

Boyhood, School and College 3

war, as an "Argonaut," a designer, or a constructor, the aesthetic nature of the man was always apparent.

Young Alexander Hays was a robust child. He was cheerful and companionable, strong and decided in his likes and dislikes. In following his subsequent career in whatever situation, condition or emergency he was placed, this charac- teristic was marked. He was a courteous and well-behaved boy, and a dutiful son.

Into all boyish sports and the athletic exercises of that day he entered with zest and enthusiasm. In these he in- variably excelled, and always by force of his own will and character, and generally in these boyish diversions he was the recognized and logical leader, and hence the unanimous choice of his classmates and associates.

Alexander Hays early evinced a liking for good books and developed a taste for reading. Standard literature as recognized, the classics, history, poetry, military science, and the stories of heroic achievements appealed to him with equal strength. Reading makes a ready man — and the early im- pressions were strengthened and his boyish propensities increased as he grew, and even under unfavorable circum- stances, oft fortuitous and unforseen, and conditions that were disheartening, his ready mind could call up a precedent and furnish a fit and appropriate quotation from some favorite author.

The youthful Hays was from young boyhood a lover of flowers and this trait was prominent throughout his life and many floral mementoes are cherished yet among his children, sent from the battlefield and the plains, and far ofif California and Mexico. When the story of his life has been developed, these traits now adverted to and others as noticeable and com- mendable, will be taken up more in detail in the final estimate of his character, after his life had been given to his country, along with encomiums of those who knew and loved him long and well and were thus qualified to speak of him as they have.

Two accomplishments of Alexander Hays seemed to have come to him naturally and with little effort on his part. When yet a boy he was a "dead shot" with pistol or rifle, and he could ride any horse, and both accomplishments stood him in good need frequently throughout his eventful life.

Another inspiration which came to young Hays was that which arose from hearing the oft-told tales and legends

4 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

of his Scottish ancestors, as he sat at his Grandmother Broad- foot's and his mother's knees. These near and dear ones he loved with all the afifection of his nature, and their stories of heroism and adventure were such as would sink deep into the soul of any boy.

To sum up the boyhood of Alexander Hays, it can be said — he was always manly and popular, he was studious and looked on the beautiful in nature with keen admiration. He was a reader of the best thoughts of the world's greatest writers, and a lover of the sublime in poetry and art. He was obedient and filial. Strong in frame and contented in mind, he drank deeply the traditions and glory of his ancestry and exulted in their truth, and hence was true to himself and his teachings. When through with the training of a gentle home and his preparatory education had been completed, he entered upon the higher education with a superb young man- hood and a gifted mind, and that one was a poor prophet who could not predict his rise.

Young Alexander Hays' opportunities for a rudimentary education were the same as those of any of his associates. The school system of Pennsylvania, previous to the adoption of the present system in 1835, was not a generous one. Sub- scription schools were common, that is, each head of family subscribed for as many pupils as he would send, and paid the pro rata cost of their teaching. Thus, early in Samuel Hays' family life, in the history of Venango County he is listed as one of the subscribers to such a school and for one pupil only. John Broadfoot, Marcus Hulings and Samuel Plumer are down also for one pupil each. Broadfoot, (the maternal grandfather of Alexander Hays,) Plumer and Hul- ings, are well known Venango County families to this day. The teacher of this school was Alexander McCalmont (who married Margaret Broadfoot, Alexander Hays' aunt) also one of the first board of trustees of the Venango Academy in which Alexander Hays was enrolled as a pupil previous to going to IMercer to a like institution.

The Venango Academy, in its checkered career of more than fifty years, represented a system of educational work long since relegated to the past. It dated back to 1815 and was part of a general plan of higher instruction, wherein each

Boyhood, School and College 5

county had its academy to which state aid was directed, the greater sources of revenue being local. With the introduction of the so-called "free school system," these academies passed out of existence.

The exact date that Alexander Hays went to Mercer to live cannot be given. Judge Pearson tells all that is known of his young brother-in-law's stay in Mercer in a letter to Alden F. Hays, of Sewickley, under date of August 27, 1883, when the venerable judge was in his 83rd year:

"Alexander Hays, your father, lived with his sister Ellen and myself in Mercer, I think in 1832 or early in 1833, and went to school there (Old Mercer Academy) for perhaps two or three years, when he went back to Franklin to his father's, and soon after went to college in Meadville (Allegheny Col- lege) where I think he remained until he graduated."

Judge Pearson is in error as to the graduation, for the records of Allegheny College show that Alexander Hays did not graduate, but was so keen to enter West Point, he left college in his senior year, as soon as he received his appointment.

"Mr. Pearson," says Dr. Eaton, a local historian, "was one of our best citizens and ablest attorneys. He married Ellen, a daughter of General Samuel Hays, and after some years removed to Mercer, thence subsequently to Harrisburg, where he died."

In 1849 he was appointed by Governor Johnston to the office of president judge of the twelfth judicial district, com- posed of the counties of Dauphin and Lebanon, the duties of which he discharged continuously for a period of thirty- three years, having been frequently re-elected without opposition. During his residence in Mercer he was twice elected to ofifice, first to the Congress of the United States, and afterward to the Senate of Pennsylvania for the counties of Mercer and Beaver, three years of which term were spent as chairman of the judiciary committee. Judge Pearson's second marriage was solemnized with Miss Mary H., daughter of Joseph and Caroline Briggs, of Harrisburg. Politically he was for many years an ardent Whig, and later, in 1856, he joined the newly-formed Republican party, with which he remained identified until his death in the spring of 1888.

6 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

Alexander Hays entered the freshman class in Allegheny College in 1836, in his 17th year.^

The curriculum of Allegheny College was similar to all colleges of the time. It was divided into the usual two courses; Classical and Scientific. The Classical included the old time Latin and Greek classics, most of which are custom- ary and accepted as standard today; present day text books, however, have English notes instead of Latin.

Upon the registry of students of old Allegheny, 1836- 1840, there are few names familiar to this generation. Ap- pearing as seniors in 1839 occur Patrick A. Farrelly and Jonathan Hamnett, of Pittsburgh, and Francis H. Pierpont, of Middletown, Va. Patrick Alden Farrelly, a grandson of the celebrated Timothy Alden, was a step-brother of Miss Annie McFadden, afterward the wife of Alexander Hays. Farrelly followed him to West Point, entering in 1841 and graduated No. 20 in the class of 1845. ^

Other familiar names of students when Alexander Hays attended college are his eldest brother, David B. Hays, a junior in 1837-1838; Samuel Griffith, of Mercer; Frederick C. Bierer, of Greensburg; Alexander Hays' lifelong friend, John S. McCalmont, of Franklin, a freshman in 1836-1837, of the West Point class of 1842, first colonel of the loth Pennsyl- vania Reserves, and later judge of Common Pleas in Venango and adjoining counties; John Fleming Dravo, of Pittsburgh, and John Wesley Fletcher White, a sophomore in 1839-1840, registered from Washington County, Pennsylvania, whom old Pittsburghers will recall as Judge White of Common

iThis class graduated in 1840, and was as follows:

Martin B. Atkins, A. E. S. Bailey, John H. Bailey, Benjamin Bassel, Jr., Gordon Battelle, James Porter Brawley, Moses Crow, Darwin A. Finney, Francis A. Hall, J. B. Johnson,

William A. Kelly. Johnson Pearson,

M. G. (or M. J.) Porter, Sawell J. Stewart, J. J. Sykes,

Crawford County, Pennsylvania.

Watertown, N. Y.

Perry, N. Y.

Harrison County, Va. (nowW. Va.)

Newport, O.

Crawford County, Pennsylvania.

Smethport, Pa.

Rutland County, Vermont.

Lima. N. Y.

Meadville. Pa. (also registered

from Pittsburgh). Venango County, Pennsylvania. Mercer, Pa. (also registered from

New Castle). Venango County, Pennsylvania. Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Ogdensburg, N. Y.

2 For memoir. Vide Appendix B.

Boyhood, School and College 7

Pleas Court No. 2 of Allegheny County. Ephraim Buffing- ton, freshman, 1838-1839, registered from Kittanning, has a homehke sound. Alfred B. McCalmont, of Franklin, was a freshman that year, a boyhood companion of Alexander Hays.

Of Alexander Hays' classmates of 1840, Rev. Moses Crow, D. D., died in Geneva, N. Y. in 1859; Gordon Battelle died in 1863, a chaplain in the Union Army; Darwin A. Fin- ney, registered from Rutland County, Vermont, spent his after life in Meadville and was a member of the Fortieth Congress. Ridgeley J. Powers, of the class of 1843, was for many years a practicing attorney at the Allegheny County bar and noted for his resemblance to Abraham Lincoln.

While a student in Meadville, Alexander Hays boarded with a family named Kennedy. Thomas Rustin Kennedy, a member of this family was on General Hays' stafif during the former part of 1863.

CHAPTER II.

CADET HAYS, U. S. M. A.

THERE came a day when the schoolboy dreams of Alex- ander Hays were realized. July i, 1840, he reported to the adjutant and went through the preliminaries for admission as a cadet to the United States Military Academy at West Point, in four years to become graduate No. 1225, in the class of 1844, there taught by famous professors and fellow cadet with future makers of history ; soldiers of fame tri- umphant, soldiers immortal.^

Alexander Hays' appointment came to him at the hands of Judge Thomas Henry, of Beaver, then member of Congress from the Mercer and Beaver district, of Pennsylvania, who served in the Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth and Twenty- seventh Congresses. Young Alexander Hays passed a creditable entrance examination. He was leaving Allegheny College, 21 years old, and in superb physical condition. He entered upon the entrance examination without preparatory study. The examination was not rigid then as now, but all nominees for entrance were compelled to undergo it. Dr. Coppee states that it included the common branches only — arithmetic through decimals and that Grant's scholarship was respectable and no more and Grant admits it. Alexander Hays, however, was well prepared.

One of Grant's biographers gives an amusing and suc- cinct account of Grant's experience when first a plebe at the

1 The official register of Cadet Hays is as follows: "Admitted July 1, 1840. Age at date of admission, 19 years and 11 months. Legal residence, Mercer, Mercer County, Penn- sylvania. Father's name, Samuel Hays. Place of residence of parents, Franklin, Venango County, Pennsylvania. Where born, Pennsylvania. Time and manner of leaving the Academy, promotion brevet second lieutenant. Fourth Infantry, July 1, 1844."

There is an error of one year here in the general's age; how occurring, not known.

8

Cadet Hays, U. S. M. A. 9

old Academy. ^ Grant was quiet and serious. He might even have been termed docile. He had no remarks to hand back. Then Grant was small in statue and rather sluggish in nature. Alexander Hays was in striking contrast, of heroic mold, six feet in height and of magnificent physical proportions. Alexander Hays was quick, impetuous, even fiery. If any- thing in the code of cadet etiquette in the way of convention- alities in the reception and treatment of plebes, ever made life a burden to Alexander Hays and caused a weariness of the flesh, as Hamlin Garland avers in Grant's first year, the story has not come down to the Hays family. One must re- member here that Grant and Alexander Hays were subse- quently chums. ^

Little is known now of Alexander Hays' Academy days in the matter of his most intimate associates, or even his roommates and little is accessible. Grant's roommate was Rufus Ingalls, later Frederick T. Dent, and his intimates, Isaac F. Ouinby, Charles S. Hamilton, James Longstreet and William B. Franklin. These, however, were upper class- men to Alexander Hays. Yet Grant's friends were Flays' friends, and Allen Norton, class of 1842, was very dear to Alexander Hays. Some years ago a fire at West Point de- stroyed many early records. Had this biography been at- tempted in the life of General Hancock or other of Alexander Hays' classmates as interesting story as Grant's no doubt would have been easily forthcoming. Nevertheless some facts have drifted down the years concerning student life in those delightful days, and some days that were not so.

Hamlin Garland in his Life of Grant in the chapter en- titled "The Trials of a Plebe" has most graphically told about all that could be told of the making of a cadet in the first stages in those years. He quotes General William B. Frank- lin to corroborate the story, and the general's evidence is strong. There were few compensations the first year. "Arise summer, 5 a. m. ; winter, 6. Every hour busy until 7:30 p. m. The cadet scrubbed his room floor; made his bed; kept his gun, room and uniform in order, and obeyed everybody but his fellow plebes."

1 Garland.

2 "Ulysses S. Grant, His Life and Character," Garland; P. 33.

10 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

The second year brought a great change. There was the entering class to bully, and of course it had to be done or the class would never make good soldiers. If you had been a cadet in those days, you would have been permitted to swagger around doing corporal duty ; and the next year your lot was even lighter for you had two classes to bully. You could wear a red sash around your waist on parade to show your standing as a cadet officer, and in the last year you were permitted to do most anything you pleased ; in fact, the very things you kept your subordinates from doing in the second year.

Alexander Hays came one year after Grant, and as a yearling most likely was a "fag end" in a manner. In the curt, over-expressive language of the Academy, a "beast." ^

Those who knew Alexander Hays can well believe no one ever went too far with fagging, for he would fight and did fight. Many letters written from West Point by Alex- ander Hays, after being treasured and sacredly preserved for over two score years, are now missing and their fate is un- known. Longstreet in his book touches but lightly on his Academy days,- and Hancock's biographers are almost as slight. Grant's generally confine their story to the individual. Grant in his "Memoirs" passes quickly over his cadet days and Dr. Coppee, who was a fellow student, in his book, does likewise. After the statement that the entrance examina- tions were simple, he tells us that there were no options afterwards. The cadet took the required course and passed the examinations or he got out. Many indeed fell by the wayside.

"From September until June the cadets are in barracks, studying, riding, and fencing in the riding hall, and in fine weather drilling in the afternoon at infantry. From June to September, they encamped upon the plain, their time entirely employed in drills of every kind, guard duty, pyrotechning and practical engineering.

"The daily duties were varied and interesting, especially during the summer months, when, in addition to the severe

'- Consult "Ulysses S. Grant, His Life and Character," Garland, Chapter V., et seq. ; also, "West Point in the Early Sixties," General J. P. Farley; P. 37.

2 "Manassas to Appomattox;" Chapter I.

Cadet Hays, U. S. M. A. H

studies of the class rooms, the cadets were practically exer- cised in the art of war. The encampment, with its sentinels, gave the effect of the tented field, with its drills, manoeuvres and discipline. There were the artillery drills, during which the athletic young men rattled the heavy field pieces about like so many playthings, loading, firing, swabbing, attacking and repelling with as a great degree of accuracy, rapidity, precision and skill as could be exhibited in active warfare."' At the cavalry exercises in the riding school, feats of horse- manship were performed that made the lady spectators shud- der with fright, and that rivaled in daring and skill some of the classical performances of the ancient circus. Then forti- fications would be laid out, fascines would be made, and bridges would be built out in the river on pontoons, launched from their w^agons. The art of war was exemplified.^

"Sam" Grant excelled in horsemanship. Alexander Hays too was a most excellent horseman from his youth. A rider in fact that dared that which any one else did. Coppee pictures Grant wearing an old torn coat and obsolescent leather gig top loose riding pantaloons with spurs buckled over them, with clanking sabre, riding at full speed in the riding hall. Riding jackets had not yet been issued and the cadets always wore their seediest rigs into the sweat and dust of the riding drill. Cadet Hays can likewise be seen in retrospect, and there were other seedy riders in those days who subsequently rode to fame and death.

The discipline at the Academy was very strict, and in addition to daily marks for deficiencies at recitations, by which the relative standing of each cadet was ascertained at the end of the academic year, demerit marks were given for offenses against the regulations. These were given for what would seem a trivial nature, but they formed part of the system of discipline. Demerits were given for delinquencies that would not be noticed in other schools, for instance, a collar not neatly put on or a coat unbuttoned, shoes not properly blacked, not neatly shaved, or with hair too long at inspection, and when a cadet received more than a hundred

1 "Life and Public Services of Ambrose E. Burnside," Ben Per- ley Moore, P. 36.

2 "Ulysses S. Grant, His Life and Character," Garland; P. 52.

12 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

demerits in six months, he was dismissed. Leniency, how- ever, was shown to the "plebes" by striking off one-third of their demerit marks. It will be readily seen that class stand- ing therefore was not altogether a matter of scholarship. De- merits commonly called black marks, Grant says, were given for almost nothing, and two hundred received in one year brought dismissal.^

The cadet uniform of Alexander Hays' days was the shade of gray cloth which had been adopted by General Win- field Scott for uniforming the troops with which he won the battle of Chippewa. It was trimmed with black braid, and ornamented with a profusion of brass ball buttons. In the winter the gray cloth, and in summer white drilling panta- loons were worn. The full dress hat was of leather, with woolen pompon, with a leather bellows-topped cap for un- dress. The trousers were poorly made of white stuff that would shrink. The gray uniform still holds at the Academy, but the style of the '40s had long since gone its way. Cadets' buttons in those years were highly prized by the belles who visited West Point, who secured them as trophies of war, wherein the theatre of operations was hearts — a changing field, no doubt.

In a letter to a cousin, McKinstry Griffiths, of Batavia, Ohio, under date of September 22, 1839, Grant tells of his first months at the Academy and has a word of description concerning his uniform. He says :

"If I were to come home now with my uniform on, the way you would laugh at my appearance would be curious. My pants set as tight to my skin as the bark to a tree, and if I do not walk military — that is, if I bend over qujckly or run — they are apt to crack with a report as loud as a pistol. My coat must always be buttoned up tight to the chin. It is made of sheep's gray cloth, all covered with big round but- tons. It makes one look very singular. If you were to see me at a distance, the first question you would ask would be, 'Is that a fish or an animal?' "

Imagine how the six feet tall Alexander Hays looked — dressed likewise.

The "plebe year" of Cadet Alexander Hays passed quietly enough, according to traditions in the Hays family.

1 "Ulysses S. Grant, His Life and Character," Garland, P. 41.

Cadet Hays, U. S. M. A. 13

Of the fifty-four who remained at the close of the year, Cadet Hays was No. 30 in order of general merit, 29 in mathematics, 31 in French. His standing in conduct was 167 out of 219 cadets in attendance. His scholarship and standing were fair, when it is considered that there was sometimes but a slight fraction between cadets' marks to determine these standings, and not having the marks to guide us, it is only just to consider that some of the commanders of the civil war who were high in academic standing and conduct at West Point, were such poor generals that they made as much history as successful generals, great commanders, who were medium or low in standing as cadets. Instances can be readily called to mind.

Other statistics of Alexander Hays' West Point days are : Enrollment, June 1842, 217; June 1843, 223; June 1844, 211. Cadet Hays' scholarship was about the same ; his order of general merit sometimes as high as 14. His best standing in conduct was in his fourth year, 112, of 223. Coppee says "Grant's scholarship was respectable;" so was Alexander Hays'. Coppee's, however, was great. W^hen the war came between the States, scholarship did not do much successful fighting. Of the so-called "high men," Sherman was among the foremost and his number at graduation was 6. The world has rated him No. i in results.

During his cadet years, the records of the Academy show that Alexander Hays served as cadet lieutenant from June 24, 1843, until June, 1844, and that this was the only office he ever held in the corps of cadets. The course of study at the Academy was severe. An outline can be given as follows, the curriculum being during the years 1840-1847 : Engineer- ing, natural philosophy, including optics; astromony, mathematics, including surveying; drawing, French, chem- istry, mineralogy and geology, tactics (military), English and rhetoric, geography, history, ethics, including law.

The class of "plebes" that entered in 1840 numbered nearly one hundred ; in June, 1841, fifty-four remained ; in June, 1842, forty-four; June 1843, thirty-four; and at gradua- tion, July I, 1844, twenty-five, as noted.

The rigidity of the examinations can be given as the most potent cause of this falling ofif, and anyone who grad- uated at the Academy, even at the tail end of the class, could

/"

14 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

justly lay claim to scholarship, and class standings were often determined by the fractions of one per centum.

It will be seen that Alexander Hays entered the famous Academy under favorable circumstances, and came under the tuition of some of its most noted professors — Church, Bart- lett and Mahan being especially so. Alexander Hays came to know and was associated with many cadets who were destined to become famous soldiers and live in history, to shine as few American soldiers' names had ever shone, and for whom the laurel has been most unsparingly used — Grant, Hancock, Re3molds, Lyon, Rosecrans, Longstreet, A. P. Hill, Jackson, Pickett, these are but a few of a long line of illus- trious soldiers recorded on the class records of the Academy and referred to in later chapters.

Looking over the register of the Academy for the four years, 1840-1844, one is astonished at the brilliant galaxy of since familiar names, and becomes cognizant of the fact that there were many good men who fell in Mexico and much hard fighting in that little war.^

It has been stated that Alexander Hays fought with fists — while a cadet — and it was not on his own account, but for a little classmate.

When Alexander Hays entered, he lacked a few days of his majority; Hancock, however, was only sixteen and Gen- eral F. A. Walker says that he was not mature, in fact, but half grown. "Hancock's large frame and powerful physique, his unfailing flow of animal spirits, and his impulsive dispo- sition required a longer period in the preparatory stage." -

At the time of General Hancock's candidacy for the presi- dency (1880), this paragraph was printed:

ALEXANDER HAYS AND WINFIELD S. HANCOCK.

"General W. S. Hancock and General Alexander Hays, deceased, of this city were classmates at West Point. At their graduation, Hancock stood No. 18 in the class, and Hays No. 20. General Pleasanton, who stood No. 7 in the same class, tells the following anecdote of Hays and Hancock : 'Hancock was the smallest boy in the class, hence in the event of a fight with any one of the boys, he was at a considerable

1 Consult Cullum's "Register;" also "History of the Mexican War," Cadmus M. Wilcox, Appendix C; P. 609, et seq.

2 "Great Commanders, Hancock," Walker; PP. 12, 13, 14. "Life of W. S. Hancock — Personal, Military, Political," Junkin and Nor- ton; P. 16.

Cadet Hays, U. S. M. A. 15

disadvantage. One time a big bully in another class, named Crittenden, had treated Hancock very meanly, and Alexander Hays, a big honest fellow, not afraid of anything, took up the quarrel for his little classmate. He challenged Crittenden to fight him at the Kosciusko Monument, in a secluded part of the grounds. Here the two men fought very hard and long, Hays coming out victor, and using his opponent up so badly that he was compelled to keep to his bed for several days.' "

This incident is strictly true, and fully illustrates the chivalrous spirit that ever animated Alexander Hays. Captain David Shields, an aide on his stalT, of whom General Hays will have much to say in his letters from the front, often heard the story of this celebrated fight from officers who had either witnessed the affair, or were at the Academy at the time, or soon after, and the captain states that the versions he heard, concur in the declaration that it was a battle royal, and that the men fought for hours and at the finish both were down, but Alexander Hays got up first and was not put to bed, while Crittenden was, hence Hays was the victor and his prowess was fully established.

To those who knew Hancock in the subsequent years, the description of him as a small boy will appear most strange, but General Pleasanton surely knew. Crittenden will be men- tioned later in these pages. Crittenden was a brave man, as brave as Marshal Ney. He died as Ney died.

General Simon B. Buckner, of the class of 1844, gave many most interesting details of those West Point days, and there was a strong and lasting friendship between him and Alexander Hays, and the old general speaks most reverently of his classmate Hays, just as Longstreet does of Grant. Strong friendships were formed at the old Academy, regard- less of geographical lines, and the class of 1844 had its chuminess distributed, as the others.

The Crittenden-Hays fisticuffs is authenticated in a per- sonal letter from General Hancock to Mrs. General Hays in 1865 after the general's death. In the same letter General Hancock also pays deserved tribute to a gallant soldier who was so intimately connected with his own brilliant career.^

1 For letter Vide Chapter XXII.

CHAPTER III.

SOME FELLOW CADETS

WHEN the Civil War was progressing Alexander Hays was brought face to face with many cadets he had known at West Point, some of whom obtained high rank. He met in the service two commanders in chief; one of the armies of the United States and the other of the Army of the Potomac — Ulysses S. Grant and George B. McClellan. As one reads the class rolls there will appear who of Alex- ander Hays' fellow cadets were antagonists and on what fields. When Burnside was in command of the Army of the Potomac, Alexander Hays was incapacitated for duty by reason of wounds received in battle. Hooker was of the class of 1837. Both Hooker and Burnside were in service in Mexico. Meade,^ of the class of 1835, was with Taylor in the Military Occupation of Texas, and participated in the battles on Texan soil, in which Alexander Hays saw his first active field service and received his "baptism of fire," a phrase dear to some modern soldiers. Hooker commanded a division in Heintzelman's corps on the Peninsula of Virginia, in which corps Alexander Hays served in General Charles S. Ham- ilton's division.

With the closing of his first year at the Academy, Alex- ander Hays saw a large class graduated and promoted brevet second lieutenants in the Army of the United States — in com- mon parlance — "The Regular Army."

CLASS OF 1841

Fifty-two young officers went forth from the old Academy in 1841, and if one were to be selected to tower above all the rest, whose name has gone down the years and for whom

1 Life and Letters of Major General George G. Meade, Vol. I., P. 25, et seq., Mexican War Letters, "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide," P. 144, et seq.

16

Some Fellow Cadets 17

"All time is the millenial of his glory/' beyond question there must be written, John Fulton Reynolds, whose first war service came with Taylor's Military Occupation of Texas as an officer of artillery, and he was "engaged in the heroic defense of Fort Brown. Texas, May 3-9. 1846," while former plebe, Alex- ander Hays, and second classman U. S. Grant, of Reynolds' Academy days, were second lieutenants with Taylor's suc- coring army at Palo Alto, and the Palm Ravine, Resaca, near by. Reynolds, "killed," the record closes, "July i, 1863, aged 42." The echi^es of Gettysburg yet startle us.

In 1841 Zealous B. Tower was No. i, and Horatio G. Wright, No. 2, the latter the successor of the lamented John Sedgwick as commander of the Sixth Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Amiel W. Whipple, No. 5 — "killed at Chancel- lorsville," was a division commander under Sickles in the Third Corps of the same army, in which corps Alexander Hays first commanded a regiment. Albion P. Howe, Sixth Corps division commander, Nathaniel Lyon, "killed at Wilson's Creek" for whom we lay the laurel lovingly for all time ; "General Israel B. Richardson, killed at Antietam," and Don Carlos Buell were of this class, also William T. H. Brooks, whom old citizens of Pittsburgh and vicinity will remember as commander of the military district of the Monongahela in 1864, with headquarters in that city.

There were some who fought well in the Ci\ il War, but not under the Stars and Stripes ; among them Robert S. Garnett, "killed at Carrick's Ford, Va.. July 13, 1861," one of the first conspicuous losses of the Confederates, the other Garnett, Richard B., "Dick," who went to his death July 3d, 1863, ^t Gettysburg, close to, almost in front of Alexander Hays' victorious guns — at the "high water mark of the war" and John M. Jones, "killed May 10, 1864, at Spottsylvania," five days after Alexander Hays. A famous class was 1841 and Alexander Hays had reasons to remember them all, and espe- cially those who fell in battle in Mexico. Ayres, Burbank and Gault, the latter first in the assault on Chapultepec, where he fell "leading and pressing forward with daring intrepidity a company of stormers."

In this class of 1841 there w^as one graduate from Pitts- burgh, Simon S. Fahnestock, No. 20, of a prominent Pittsburgh family, who resigned from the army in 1850 after service in Mexico, became a hardware merchant in Pittsburgh until 1865

18 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

and in later life an official of the Patent Office in Washington for many years. ^

The class of 1841 is so famous that General Farley in his book takes it as a model class in high individual standing, whose records are admirable materials for history, having furnished sixteen generals, with fourteen of the class killed in battle.2

CLASS OF 1842

The class of 1842, numbering 46, was known for two years to Alexander Hays. At its head was Henry L. Eustis of Massachusetts whose highest rank in the Civil War was brigadier general of volunteers, in later years, a distinguished scholar; first as assistant professor of engineering at West Point, then a professor in Harvard University, and lastly as dean of the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge, Mass., until his death in 1885.

John Newton was No. 2, and William S. Rosecrans, No. 5. John Pope, Seth Williams, and Abner Doubleday are noted names who have overshadowed the scholarly Eustis.

Williams was adjutant at West Point from 1850-1853, when Robert E. Lee was commander, and adjutant general of the Army of the Potomac. Doubleday, who commanded a battery of artillery at Fort Sumter, when the opening gun of the great war was fired, wrote a history of the Battle of Gettysburg and left out Brigadier-General Alexander Hays.^

There was also Napoleon J. T. Dana, who was prominent in affairs in the southwest in command of the Thirteenth Corps, and George Sykes, who commanded the Fifth Corps at Gettysburg and after.

Then, too, in this notable class was John S. McCalmont, Alexander Hays' townsman at Franklin, and boyhood friend, colonel of the loth Pennsylvania Reserves in 1861-1862, pre- viously president judge of the Eighteenth Judicial district of Pennsylvania, comprising JefTerson, Clarion, Venango, Forest and Mercer counties, 1853-1861.

Judge McCalmont's service after graduation was very brief — only one year in garrisons in Florida, 1842-1843. He

1 Quotations from Cullum's Register of West Point.

2 "West Point in the Early Sixties," J. P. Farley; P. 11.

3 "Chancellorsville and Gettysburg;" first edition.

Some Fellow Cadets 19

was the devoted friend of the Hays family throug-h life, having reached an advanced age.

Then there was also Allen H. Norton of Ohio, so dear to Alexander Hays' heart that he named a deceased son, Allen Norton Hays. Allen H. Norton's military history is pathetically brief; verbatim it is:

"Brevet second lieutenant, First Infantry, July i, 1842; second lieutenant. Fourth Infantry, September 13, 1842; served on frontier duty at Fort Snelling, Minn., 1842-1843, Fort Scott, Kan., 1843; escorting Santa Fe traders, 1843; and at the Military Academy as assistant instructor of infantry tactics, July 28, 1844 to November 2.y, 1844; first lieutenant, Fourth Infantry, October 12, 1846. Drowned November 27, 1846, aged 25, in the wreck of the Steamer Atlantic at Fisher's Island (near Stonington, Ct.), Long Island Sound." ^

Through all his remaining years, Alexander Hays spoke earnestly of his friend Norton, and always in words of rever- ence. It will be noted that although officers of the same regiment, the Fourth Infantry, owing to the diflference in as- signments, the two were not together with the regiment. When Norton lost his life, Lieut. Hays was on recruiting service after returning home wounded from Texas.

Of the class of 1842, there were some who became noted Confederate generals and the greatest name in the history of the Confederate armies and likewise of all the graduates of West Point who joined the Confederacy, except Lee and Jackson, is unquestionably James Longstreet, No. 54, two only lower. Longstreet was a fellow lieutenant with Grant and Alexander Hays at Natchitoches, La., in the Fourth In- fantry in 1844-1845 ; and then transferred, as was Alexander Hays, to the Eighth Infantry.

Then there was that really great soldier of the Confed- eracy, Daniel H. Hill, and LaFayette McLaws, a division commander under Longstreet, graduating only four numbers ahead of his famous corps commander; Earl Van Dorn, re- minding one of Pea Ridge and Corinth ; Alexander P. Stewart, a corps commander in Bragg's army ; and more scholarly than famous, Mansfield Lovell, No. 9, commander of the Confed- erate forces at New Orleans when that city was surrendered in 1862.

Some of these graduates of 1842, who fell in Mexico, were comrades in the Fourth and Eighth Infantry of Alexander

1 "Cullum's Register," Vol. II.; P. 58.

20 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

Hays at Natchitoches and were engaged in the early battles of Taylor's army. There were Jenks Beaman, Fourth Infantry, who died at Tampico, May 6, 1848, after hard service with Scott to the captured city ; John D. Clark, transferred from the Fourth to the Eighth Infantry, adjutant to May 2, 1847, likewise in all the battles to the City of Mexico, brevetted cap- tain, and "drowned August 2, 1848, in the Mississippi River, near Helena, Ark.;" Christopher R. Perry, Fourth Infantry, died at sea, October 8, 1848; and James O. Handy, second lieutenant, Eighth Infantry, vi'ho died at Corpus Christi, Sep- tember 26, 1845. during the Military Occupation of Texas.

Only a few of the graduates of the class of 1841 were assigned to either of the two regiments in which Alexander Hays saw service. Benjamin A. Berry, second lieutenant, Fourth Infantry, was killed by an explosion of the boilers of the Steamer Dayton in Aransas Bay. Tex.. September 12, 1845 — during the Military Occupation of Texas; Charles F. Morris, first lieutenant of the Eighth Infantry, died in the City of Mexico of wounds received at Molino del Rey. Sep- tember 17, 1847, before Alexander Hays joined that regiment; John G. Burbank. first lieutenant in the Eighth, and died of wounds received in the same battle; John Beardsley. second lieutenant, Eighth Infantry, returned home with Alexander Hays on recruiting service after the first battles on the Rio (jrandc. in which Morris, Burbank, Hays and he participated. Morris, Burbank and Hays were wonnded at Resaca, and Beardsley severely at Molino del Rey. Beardsley, promoted to first lieutenant, was Alexander Hays' superior on Hays' transfer to the Eighth Infantry.

CLASS OF 1843

The class of 1843 fell off in numbers. Only 39 were pro- moted into the army that year, and these were three-year Academy mates of Alexander Hays. William B. Franklin was No. I and George Deshon No. 2. Deshon was assistant professor of experimental philosophy in 1844- 1845 at West Point, and later in 1851, after serving as assistant professor of geography, history and ethics at the Academy, was assigned to duty at the Allegheny Arsenal at Pittsburgh, and resigned while there to become a Roman Catholic priest. No. 3 was Thomas J. Brereton of Pittsburgh, who attained the rank of captain and became a son-in-law of the Hon. Harmar Denny,

Some Fellow Cadets 21

a member of Congress from Pittsburgh in tlie 'I'vventy-first to the Twenty-fourth Congresses. Capt. Brereton and Alex- ander Hays were frequently in touch in Pittsburgh in the decade preceding the Civil War.

Isaac F. Ouinby, Christopher C. Augur, Charles S. Ham- ilton, Frederick Steele, Frederick T. Dent, brother-in-law of Ulysses S. Grant, Henry M. Judah and Rufus Ingalls form a gallant array of Civil War generals on the side of the Union. Tngalls, while quartermaster general of the Army of the Potomac, held close and most friendly relations with Alex- ander Hays. Part of their fame is to have been enrolled alongside of Ulysses Simpson Grant, No. 21, to have studied with, marched in the cadet battalion, recited in the same class, or served in the same company and regiment with the great commander.

There were noted names on this class roll who went v.itli their States in 1861, and were arrayed against class- mates, schoolmates, and comrades in the dark days of 1861- 1865. There were Roswell S. Ripley, a native of Ohio, ap- pointed from New York, author of the "History of the War with Mexico," Samuel G. French, born in New Jersey and appointed from that State, who could not take Allatoona when John W. Corse held that famous fort in October, 1864 and Franklin Gardner, another man of Northern birth, ap- pointed from Iowa, who surrendered Port Hudson when his classmate and fellow lieutenant. Fourth Infantry. Grant, marched triumphantly into Vicksburg and opened the great river, never to be closed again during the war.

There were some comrades of Alexander Hays in the class of 1843, who fell in battle in Mexico, or died from wounds received in battles on Mexican soil ; 2nd Lieut. Theo- dore L. Chadbourne, Eighth Infantry, most gallantly dis- tinguishing himself fell at the head of his ccmimand at Resaca, only 23 years old. 2nd Lieut. George Stevens, Second Dra- goons, was in service during the Military Occupation of Texas, engaged at Palo Alto and Resaca. and was drowned on the passage of the Rio Grande, May 18, 1846, aged 25. This was a historical occasion which will be fully noted in another chap- ter.^ 2nd Lieut. Robert Hazlitt, a native of Pennsylvania, was a comrade of Alexander Hays in the Fourth Infantry, at Camp

1 Vide Chapter V.; P. 49.

22 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

Salubrity, La., in the Military Occupation of Texas, and in all the battles with Taylor's little army to Monterey, where in an assault upon the enemy's entrenchments he was killed, September 21, 1846, with the morning of life still bright for him ; only 25 years old.

Generals Augur and Judah were second lieutenants in the Fourth Infantry when Alexander Hays was assigned to that regiment. LaFayette B. Wood and Charles G. Merchant, of this class, were holding the same rank in the Eighth when Lieut. Hays was transferred to that regiment and all four were in service with Taylor's army in the Rio Grande up to the battle of Monterey.

CLASS OF 1845

The class of 1845 contained forty-one and among these are some famous names — living, burning, thrilling names, three-year Academy mates of Alexander Hays.

William H. C. Whiting, of j\Iississippi, was No. i, a famous engineer, captured at Fort Fisher, a work which he had built and of which he was in command, and where severely wounded he became a prisoner of war and died at Governor's Island, N. Y., March 10, 1865, only a month before the fated Confederacy collapsed.

William F. Smith, better known as Major General "Baldy" Smith, commander of the Eighteenth Corps in the Petersburg campaign of 1864, Thomas J. Wood, that famous loyal Kentuckian of the Army of the Cumberland, Charles P. Stone, No. 7, around whose name is written a story of pathos and wrong, after the war Stone Pasha in Egypt, and Fitz John Porter, No. 8, are four generals who have furnished pages of American history and all were cadet subordinates of Alexander Hays. General Wood was with Taylor on the Rio Grande, a second lieutenant in the topographical engineers.

The renowned Henry Coppee, LL. D., soldier and scholar, was of this class, serving with Scott's army in active service from Vera Cruz to the capture of the city, afterwards professor in the ^lilitary Academy, his alma mater, and the University of Pennsylvania ; then president of Lehigh Uni- versity. Lieut. Coppee, a brilliant man of letters, a logician and an author, was "brevetted captain for gallant and meri- torious services in the battles of Contreras and Churubusco."

Some Fellow Cadets 23

Patrick Alden Farrelly, No. 20, of Pennsylvania, ap- pointed at large, was perhaps of all the West Point school- mates the closest to Alexander Hays, with the possible ex- ception of John S. McCalmont. McCalmont, Hays and Far- relly had been chums at Allegheny College, and had entered West Point in the order above, Farrelly graduating from Allegheny College in the class of 1839. He was a second lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry from July i, 1845, and in the Military Occupation of Texas, with Taylor until after ]Mon- terey, thence with his new assignment, the Fifth Infantry, in Scott's army until the taking of the City of Mexico, and w^as severely wounded at Churubusco. His family connection with Alexander Hays will be subsequently related.^

Gordon Granger, brings to mind Chickamauga, the Army of the Cumberland and its great commander George H. Thomas.

Henry B, Clitz, is a most interesting name. He was one of the garrison at Fort Brown, with John F. Reynolds, when Alexander Hays was with Taylor's small and gallant succor- ing army. Clitz served through Scott's campaign to the City of Mexico and after the war at the JNIilitary Academy as assistant instructor of military tactics. When the Civil War came, he was active on the Peninsula in the same battles with Alexander Hays ; twice wounded desperately at Gaines' Mills, a prisoner in Richmond, paroled for exchange, Lieut. Colonel Clitz on partial recovery was assigned to West Point as commandant of the corps of cadets and instructor of ar- tillery, infantry and cavalry tactics. General Charles King, who was a plebe in 1862, in his "Story of West Point During the War," says : ^ "There was to be no more battle for gallant Harry Clitz. He was crippled for all time and came to us like his predecessor, General Kenner Garrard, a victim of Twiggs' treachery in Texas, a paroled prisoner whose heart was with his comrades at the front." Brevetted brigadier general. United States army, for gallant and distinguished services. General Clitz continued in the service until retired. His fate has never been known. He disappeared at Niagara Falls, October 30, 1888, and no man has seen or heard aught of him since.^

1 Appendix B.

2 Sunday Magazine Articles, by General Charles King, 1910.

3 Cullum's Register, Vol. II.; P. 244. A touching tribute.

24 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

David A. Russell, was a comrade of Alexander Hays in the Fourth Infantry, in Texas, and in service with him also in the expedition of (iencral Joseph Lane to the City of Mexico. Some Mexican battles and skirmishes recorded in General Russell's record are also in Hays', viz. : in defense of the convoy at Paso Ovcjas, the engagemcnls at the National Bridge, Las Animas, and at Huamantla. Like his illus- trious comrade Hays, of the same rank. David A. Russell, brevet major general fc)r gallant and meritorious services at the battle of the Opequan, fell on that bloody field, on the advance line, going down to an instant and appalling death before the almost annihilating force of a cannon ball. "Of the same rank" has been stated — with the distinction, Hays of volunteers — Russell, United States army. The sameness of rank was in the command — both division generals command- ing volunteers and both honored by promotion after death.

Thomas G. Pitcher, 2nd lieutenant, Eighth Infantry, was in Mexico with that regiment in Scott's army. General Pitcher was disabled by wounds received at Cedar Mountain August 9, 1862, and was superintendent of the Military Academy from 1866 to 1870, by special act of (^ongress the first oflficer thus serving not of the corps of engineers.

The last man. No. 41, was William L. Crittenden, of Kentucky, the cadet with whom Alexander tlays had the fistic encounter previously noted. ' Crittenden and his former antagonist Hays saw their first active service together in the Military Occupation of Texas. Crittenden in the Fifth Infan- try was engaged in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca and served gallantly. lie was on duty at \'era Cruz and in the City of Mexico, and resigned from the army in 1849, about a year later than Alexander Hays. Crittenden became in 185 1 a colonel in General Lopez' second filibustering expedition against Cuba, which being unsuccessful, he w^ith his party, in an attempted escape in launches were captured by a Span- ish man-of-war and shot August 15, 1851. at the Castle of Atares, Havana Harbor, aged 28. Crittenden's was the fate of an adventurer, in striking contrast with that of Alexander Hays, his old antagonist, and David A. Russell, his class- mate, and those more obscure of his comrades who went to soldiers' deaths in Mexico and during the Civil War. When the captured of this ill-fated expedition were lined up to be

1 Vide Chapter II.. P. 14; also Chapter VII.

Some Fellow Cadets 25

shot, the Spanish officer in command, ordered them to kneel. Crittenden did not obey and when distinctly ordered to kneel, gave to the world a reply that has rendered his name im- mortal : "Sir," he said, "An American kneels to none but (iod, and always faces an enemy." A volley followed, and Crittenden's body fell — "a lump of clay." and thus a mis- guided but brave and chi\alr()us soldier went to an ignoble end.

Including Whiting, six of the class of 1845 "joined in the rebellion against the United States," as Cullum's Record always puts it, only one of whom became prominent — Bernard E. Bee, of South Carolina, "killed July 21, 1861, at the battle of Bull Run, Va."

Bee served in the Military Occupation of Texas, and in Taylor's army on the Rio Grande, and Thomas G. Rhett, No. 6, of South Carolina, was one of the beleaguered garrison of Puebla when Alexander Hays reached there with General Lane's relieving;- command.

CLASS OF 1846

The cla.ss of 1846 had been two years at the Academy when Alexander Hays went forth to active service. Fifty- nine brevet second lieutenants, July ist of this year. C. Sea- forth Stewart, of New Jersey, was No. i and after him comes a name, perhaps oftener mentioned in the aimals of the Civil War than any others, unless we except always Lincoln and Grant, and in the later years of the war, Sherman and Sheri- dan, and that name is George Brinton McClellan, born in Pennsylvania and appointed from Pennsylvania. General McClellan in command of the .\rmy of the Potomac and Alex- ander Hays, then a colonel of volunteers, met on the F*enin- sula of Virginia early in 1862. The references to that meet- ing in Colonel Ma}s' letters home are most interesting.^

It may be noted in passing that McClellan, like Hays, after his resignation from the army was engaged in railroad construction. Before the Civil War McClellan was chief engineer of the Illinois Central Railroad, and at the outbreak of that war was president of the St. Louis and Cincinnati Railroad.

John (i. Foster, subsequently brevet major general, U. S. A., and one of the garrison of Fort Sumter in April 1861. was No. 4 of this class.

' Vide Chapter XIIT.

26 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

No. 7, George H. Derby, awakens no martial history, yet Lieut. Derby, of the topographical engineers served gallantly in Mexico and was severely wounded and disabled at Cerro Gordo. He served with the engineers until his death, May 15, 1861, at which time he had obtained the rank of captain. Capt. Derby's military record is known to few, but in literature under the nom de plume of "John Phoenix," he was a noted humorist. His "Phoenixiana" of "Sketches and Burlesque" published in 1856, and his "Squibob Papers" in i860, were laugh producers in those troublesome ante bellum days. Derby was the forerunner of Artemus Ward, a humor- ist of a somewhat dififerent type and almost contemporaneous. Capt. Derby had long service on the Pacific coast, arriving however, after Alexander Hays' return from California, and was one of the many of the West Pointers including Hays, Halleck and Sherman, who were there in the hurley-burley and glamour of those exciting days.

Jesse L. Reno, a townsman of Alexander Hays at Frank- lin, was No. 8; "Born in Virginia," the record says, "ap- pointed from Pennsylvania" and the reader here mentally ob- serves "Killed at South Mountain. September 14, 1862" and this was three weeks after Colonel Alexander Hays had re- ceived a disabling wound at Second Bull Run. The loved and chivalric Reno completed his brilliant record by a glori- ous death, and but preceded the dashing and intrepid Hays. On the Soldiers' monument in the beautiful little city of Franklin, Pa., that commemorates the heroic dead of Venango County, Jesse L. Reno's and Alexander Hays' names are side by side, their records in brief, identical — told in six words : "Dead on the Field of Honor."

Edward C. Boynton, served in Mexico under both Scott and Taylor. When the Civil War began he was professor of chemistry, mineralogy and geology at the University of Mississippi, where he had been from January 12, 1856. Sep- tember 12, 1861, he was dismissed for "Evincing a want of attachment to the government of the Confederate States." During the war, Boynton was adjutant at West Point. He is the author of the "History of West Point and the Origin and Progress of the United States Military Academy," pub- lished in 1863, and other works. Boynton was severely wounded at Churubusco, and probably did not feel physically

Some Fellow Cadets 27

able for field service as he declined the command of both the Second and Sixth Vermont regiments in 1861.

The class of 1846 furnished its full quota of illustrious soldiers. On the Union side : Darius N. Couch, commander of the Second Army Corps, preceding Hancock ; Truman Seymour, one of the famous garrison of Fort Sumter in April, 1861 ; Charles C. Gilbert, of Buell's army ; Samuel D. Sturgis, George Stoneman, the cavalry leader; James Oakes, of Penn- sylvania, vv^ho died in 191 1; with the exception of General Buckner, most probably the last of Alexander Hays' fellow cadets; Innis N. Palmer, Alfred Gibbs, George H. Gordon, and DeLance}^ Floyd-Jones, a fellow lieutenant of Alexander Hays in the Fourth Infantry.

Of the Confederates in this class, No. 17, Thomas Jon- athan Jackson, is going down the ages as "Stonewall." Brig- adier General John Adams, of Mississippi, was killed at Franklin, Tenn., November 30, 1864, having been with his horse shot from the top of Schofield's earthworks, upon which he had ridden in one of Hood's desperate charges. Dabney H. Maury was a former professor at the Military Academy and was dismissed before he availed himself of the opportunity to resign. Cadmus M. Wilcox was for one year a brevet second lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry ; in the Civil War a brigade and division commander under his old com- rade, Longstreet, attaining the rank of major general. Gen- eral Wilcox died in Washington, D. C, December 2, 1890.^

Samuel Bell Maxey, No. 58, a Kentuckian, (a name that comes down to our own political da3's) was with Scott in Mexico and entered the Confederate service from Texas, where he had located after leaving the army. He served as United States Senator from Texas from 1875 to 1887. Gen- eral Maxey died in 1895.

But next to Jackson, the most famous Confederate of the class of 1846 was the tail-ender, No. 59, George E. Pickett, a name still resonant of Gettysburg and glory — the glory of his great charge properly known in military history as "Longstreet's assault on Hancock's line at the Union right center." In this assault Cadmus M. Wilcox com- manded the right supporting column. Pickett served most

1 A most valuable, and voluminous book is General Wilcox's "History of the Mexican War," a posthumous work in one volume edited by his niece, Mary Rachel Wilcox.

28 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

gallantly in Mexico in Scott's army, first a brev^et second lieutenant in the Eighth Infantry, then in the Second and Seventh Infantr}- for brief periods, returning to the Eighth within the year. It is worthy of note that Pickett, a Vir- ginian, was appointed to the Academy from Illinois, at the personal request of Abraham Lincoln.'

Nine in all of 1846 entered the Confederate armies, none except as named, attaining any special distinction.

CLASS OF 18 47

The class of 1847 numbered but 38. These were the plcbes during Alexander Hays' first class period : John C. Symmes, a loyal Kentuckian, was No. i, and Henry Heth, a cousin of Pickett's, No. 38, and Heth made much more history than the more scholarly Symmes, who retired in November, 1861, for disability resulting from disease and exposure in his fourteen years service. It is evident Alexander Hays' acquaintance and association with these graduates was nec- essarily brief. There are some names, worthy of special mention, and one John Gibbon, No. 20, a native of Pennsyl- vania, appointed from North Carolina, was most closely -associated, more so than any others, by reason of command- ing divisions in the Second Corps. Their relations were especially close at Gettysburg. Gibbon, however, ranked Alexander Hays.

Eighteen forty-seven's roll includes a commander of the Army of the f^otomac, Ambrose E. Burnside, No. 18. Alex- ander Hays, during Burnside's brief term, was in the hospital at Washington recovering from wounds received at Second Bull Run. He speaks kindly, however, of Burnside in his let- ters home, and evinces pity and sympathy for Burnside's unhappy experience."

But there are other notable names in the history of the Civil War from this class; Orlando B. W'illcox, a lawyer of Detroit, who returned to the army and arose to the command of the Ninth Army Corps; John S. Mason, of Steubenville, Ohio, first colonel of the 4th Ohio in the Civil War, at Gettysbtirg and after one of Hays' regiments in the Third Division of the Second Corps, after Mason's promotion ; James B. Ery, best known for his faithful, meritorious and dis-

1 "Pickett and His Men," LaSalle Corbell Pickett; P. 126. -' Vide Chapter XIV.

Some Fellow Cadets 29

tinguished services in the provost marshal generars office during the Civil War; Horatio G. Gibson, a Pennsylvanian, before and after the v^ar famous in his adopted state, Ohio; Romeyn B. Ayres. of New York, and Charles Griffin, of Ohio, names recalling the fame of the Maltese cross, bringing up also Governeur K. Warren and the Fifth Corps of the Army of the Potomac; Thomas II. Neill. serving in the iMiurth In- fantry in Mexico; colonel of the 23d Pennsylvania Volunteers, Birney's Zouaves in the Civil War; William W. Burns, an- other Ohio man, participating in all the battles of the Penin- sula cami)aign, in which Alexander Flays was engaged ; Egbert L. \'iele. whose most notal)le position after retirement from the army was enginecr-in-chicf of Central Park, New York: Augustus H. Seward, son of William H. Seward, secre- tary of state under President Lincoln, who served in Mexico in the Eighth Infantry; all these were soldiers of merit and worthy of more sjjecific mention.

Of the four who followed the fortunes of the Confederacy, Ambrose P. Hill, of Virginia, was most intimately associated with Alexander Mays by reason of service together under General Lane in Central Mexico, Lieut. Hill being actively engaged with Capt. Taylor's battery of the Third Artillery at Huamantla and Atlixco and in both these cond)ats Alexander Hays was a i)articipant. Hill resigned from the United States army March i, 180 1. and his war record, heightened by the dying words, both of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, closes with the capitalized line usual in such cases in Cullum's Register: "Killed April 2. 1865, near Petersburg, Va., age<l 40" — only one week before Appomattox. Heth was a division commander in Hill's Confederate Corps, and his men under General J. J. Pettigrcw were directly opposed to Gen- eral .Alexander Hays at Gettysburg. n"he other two Confederates of this class, Blake, of South Carolina, and Beltz- hoover, a Pennsylvanian, for six years professor of mathe- matics in Mount St. Mary's College at Emittsburg. attained no especial distinction. In the war days these would have been called just ordinary rebels.

.\ sad record of this class is that of Otis H. Tillinghast, No. 13, a Union soldier, mortally wounded at First Bull Run ; killed in the first crash of cattle. The morbid may see adverse fate in his class number.

How many of tlicse classes, 1845- 1847, were well known

30 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

to Alexander Hays by reason of Hays' office of cadet lieu- tenant from June, 1843, to June, 1844, cannot now be stated, but there were many. Mention has been given in detail of some cadets of Alexander Hays' Academy days by reason of association here and afterwards. In the classes, 1841 to 1847, occur the names of the most famous of American com- manders, and many others, some low in rank but ideal types of the American soldier. In the perusal of these class lists there can be found sufficient incentive to glorious deeds, and worthy exemplars for all time.

18 40 AND PREVIOUS

On the day that Alexander Hays entered the old Academy, there went out other famous soldiers, and among these two shine more brightly than any others of that year, and they shine for all ages: William T. Sherman and George H. Thomas, Nos. 6 and 12, respectively. It will be sufficient to mention how closely Alexander Hays came to being associated with the great leaders as he was with Grant, Hancock and Longstreet. Then, too, Richard S. Ewell and Bushrod R. Johnson were of this class. Johnson, a noted Confederate general, was with Taylor's little army in the Military Occupa- tion of Texas and in the battles along the Rio Grande and there is evidence that Alexander Hays knew Ewell well before the Civil War, for he speaks of him as "Old Dick." ^

There was also George W. Getty, a name familiar to all those Pittsburghers who served in the Sixth Corps of the Army of the Potomac, in the support of whose hard pressed lines on the Brock Road, May 5, 1864, in the Wilderness, Alexander Hays went to a soldier's death.

Then there was William Hays, a native of Virginia, loyal and brave, like his classmate and fellow Virginian, George H. Thomas, and he is the Hays who gave Alexander Hays some unhappy hours by reason of similarity of names, when William Hays was in brief command of the Second Corps after Hancock's disablement at Gettysburg. The two Hayses were in service together in Taylor's army.

It will be noticed that many distinguished soldiers on the side of the Union, and some noted Confederates are not men- tioned in Alexander Hays' West Point days. Sheridan, Warren, Slocum, Howard, Schofield, McPherson, Gilmore,

1 "Recollections Grave and Gay," Mrs. Burton Harrison; P. 111.

Some Fellow Cadets 31

Stanley, A. McD. McCook, and others — all came in later years. In fact during the four years of Alexander Hays' term there was a galaxy of brilliant names unprecedented in the preced- ing years, and not recurring again in so great numbers. In 1848, among the graduates, the plebes who entered the day Alexander Hays went out, only one name appeals, John Buford, whose cavalry fired the first shots at Gettysburg.

There were other prominent Civil War generals, gradu- ates of West Point, but previous to 1840, with whom Alexander Hays was associated in his military career. First to mention is Samuel P. Heintzelman, class of 1826, with whose battalion Alexander Hays went up to the City of Mexico, and who served also in two corps commanded by Heintzelman in the Civil War, the Third and the Twenty- second, in the latter commanding a brigade in the division of General Silas Casey, also of the class of 1826. This was Alex- ander Hays' first general command.

Henry W. Halleck's graduation preceded Alexander Hays' entrance to the Academy one year, Irwin McDowell's two, and Joseph Hooker's three ; McDowell and Hooker had been adjutants at the Academy when Alexander Hays was there. Hooker preceding. It is interesting to note here that Alex- ander Hays served but three days in the Army of the Potomac while Hooker was in command. Meade's service with Hays has been mentioned. In the same class as Meade was Marsena R. Patrick, provost marshal general of the Army of the Potomac during General Hays' latter years in that army.

Students of our Civil War history will find much thought in the perusal of the class rolls appended. The associations that are indicated are in themselves history.^

The old mess hall of Alexander Hays' days, erected in 1815 was demolished in 1852. With the chapel, academy build- ing, observatory and library, it is described and pictured by Capt. Boynton in his history of the Academy. Therein will also be found full accounts of Superintendents Delafield and Brewerton's incumbencies, a description of the Kosciusko Monument, reference to the entrance examinations, cadet life and the cadet battalion. ^

1 Appendix C.

2 Vide "History of West Point," PP. 256, 259; 225 and 257; 287; 266, 267; 304, 305; and 269. Ben Perley Moore, referred to on page 11, footnote, quotes Boynton on cadet life almost verbatim.

CHAPTER IV.

THE WEST POINT (^.ASS OF 184 4

THIS class was graduated July ist and twenty-five cadets were promoted to the United States army as brevet second lieutenants in the various branches of the service. Alexander Hays was No. 20 in the class; the illustrious Hancock but two numbers above him. The great commander, Ulysses S. Grant, was No. 21 in the class of '43, so that between these "comrades," Grant and Hays, honors are easy and Hancock is almost with them. The full roster of the class (standing in the order named), is as FdIIows:

ROSTER

1. William G. Peck, appointed from Connecticut.

2. Joseph H. Whittlesey, appointed from New York.

3. Samuel Gill, appointed from Kentucky.

4. Daniel M. Frost, appointed from New York.

5. Asher R. Eddy, appointed from Rhode Island.

6. Francis J. Thomas, appointed from Maryland.

7. Alfred Pleasanton, appointed from District of C'olumbia.

8. Thomas J. Curd, appointed from Kentucky.

9. Augustus Cook, appointed from Kentucky.

10. John Y. Bicknell, appointed from Tennessee.

11. Simon B. Buckner, appointed from Kentucky.

12. John Trevitt, appointed from Ohio.

13. Rankin Dilworth, appointed from Ohio.

14. Erastus B. Strong, appointed from Arkansas.

15. William T. Burwell, appointed from Virginia.

16. W'illiam Read, appointed from Delaware.

17. Joseph S. Woods, appointed from Pennsylvania.

18. Winfield .S. Hancock, appointed from Pennsylvania.

19. James M. Henry, appointed from District of Columbia.

20. Alexander Hays, appointed from Pennsylvania.

21. George Wainwright, appointed from Massachusetts.

22. Henry B. Schroeder. appointed from Maryland.

23. Joseph P. Smith, appointed from New Hampshire.

24. John J. C. Bibb, appointed at large. ^

25. George W. Hawkins, appointed from North Carolina

1 ("ladet Bibb was a Kentuckian.

32

The West Point Class of 1844 33

A brief military and civil history of each of Alexander Hays' classmates seems naturally in place.

William G. Peck's name has a most familiar ring when memories of Peck's mathematical series come trooping up and many who now read of him will recall Peck's "Ganot's Physics" and his other works of brainracking character.

After graduation, Lieut. Peck entered the Topographical Engineers Corps, took part in Fremont's third exploring expe- dition through the Rocky Mountains in 1845 ; served as professor of natural and experimental philosophy at \\^est Point the next year ; served next in the war with Mexico at- tached to the "Army of the West" under General Stephen W. Kearney. In 1847 ^^ came again to the Academy as first assistant professor of mathematics for three years, and then 1851-1855, principal assistant professor of mathematics. Pro- fessor Peck resigned in 1855, and though elected professor of mathematics and engineering in Kenyon College, he declined, but took the chair of physics and civil engineering at the University of Michigan, where he remained two years. He became adjunct professor of mathematics in Columbia College, and later, professor of mathematics and astronomy, and re- mained for many years. The degrees of A. M. and LL. D. were conferred on Lieut. Peck by Trinity College. To have been a classmate of Dr. William G. Peck was in itself no small honor. Dr. Peck was a native of Connecticut.

Joseph II. Whittlesey, No. 2, a New Yorker, entered the Second Dragoons July i, 1844, as brevet second lieutenant; took part in the Military Occupation of Texas ; served on frontier duty with the First Dragoons and through the Mexican War; was brevetted first lieutenant for gallantry at Buena Vista and after the war saw severe and fatiguing service in what is now Arizona and New Mexico, becoming a captain in 1854, and in November, 1861, we find him major of the Fifth Cavalry at Fort Dalles, Ore. He served through the "War of the Rebellion" with the Army of the Potomac on the Peninsula; then at W'inchester, Va., where he was made a prisoner of war and on exchange, was on detail duty organizing volunteers at Harrisburg, Pa., Concord, N. H., and Madison, Wis. He was retired from active service November 30, 1863, for disability resulting from long and faithful service and from disease and exposure in the line of duty. After the war, Major W'hittlesey was on recruiting service and was-

34 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

active in establishing military instruction in several colleges. He died August i, 1886, at Seattle, Wash.

Samuel Gill, No. 3. entered the Second Artillery on grad- uation, served in the Army of Occupation in Texas, and in the war with Mexico, participating in the battles of Monterey and Cerro Gordo, and also in the siege of Vera Cruz. He resigned May 29, 1847, as first lieutenant, Fourth Artillery. General Cullum says, during the Civil War, Gill was not prominent, but on the Union side, "served as member of the military board of his native state, Kentucky, for the organization of its quota of volunteers for the suppression of the rebellion." In the interval before the war he was engaged as a civil engi- neer of construction and superintendent of the Lexington and Frankfort Railroad. He died January 18, 1876, at Cincin- nati, O.

Daniel M. Frost, No. 4, entered the First Artillery ; was engaged in Mexico, having been transferred to the Mounted Rifles ; was at Vera Cruz and in action at Cerro Gordo and Churubusco; served with his regiment through the vicissi- tudes of border service until 1853, when he resigned with the rank of first lieutenant, having previously been promoted for "gallant and meritorious conduct at Cerro Gordo." He became a planter and manufacturer near St. Louis and although a New Yorker by birth and appointed from that state, his record as far as West Point goes, closes with the once omin- ous words — "joined in the rebellion of 1861-1866 against the LInited States. He attained some mention in May, 1861, while in command of Governor Jackson's state troops in St. Louis, which were captured by General Lyon.

Asher R. Eddy, No. 5, of Rhode Island, was a comrade of his classmate Frost in the First Artillery during his first service but did not get into the Mexican War as during the four years, 1846-1850, Lieut. Eddy was assistant professor of mathematics at West Point. Before and during the Civil War he was on duty with the quartermaster's department in vari- ous parts of the field of active operations, winding up in 1865 as principal depot quartermaster at Nashville, and then chief quartermaster of the Army of the Cumberland, attaining the rank of brevet colonel for faithful and meritorious services during the war, after which he remained with the regular army, his rank being major in the quartermaster's depart- ment in 1866.

The West Point Class of 1844 35

Francis J. Thomas, No. 6, a Virginian, lieutenant, first in the Third Artillery, then the Second, then back to the Third ; served in Mexico and was in action at Monterey and in the attack on San Antonio Garita of the City of Mexico ; and after the war saw hard service in New Mexico and in campaigns against the Apache Indians. Lieut. Thomas resigned in June, 1852, and engaged in railroad construction. For two years, 1855-1856, he was a resident of Allegheny County, Pennsyl- vania, as superintendent of the Montvue Mining & Manufac- turing Company. In this the record may be wrong, and refers likely to Allegany County, Maryland, for Lieut. Thomas is next at Clarksburg, W. Va., as superintendent of a coal works, and a merchant in Baltimore when the Civil War broke out, when he joined the forces of the South, and was killed at the first battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861, aged 37.

Alfred Pleasanton, No. 7, born in and appointed from the District of Columbia, has been heard of more frequently than any member of the class unless it may have been Hancock, Buckner or Alexander Hays. Pleasanton entered the First Dragoons, was on the frontier and in the Military Occupa- tion of Texas, and served through the Mexican War. He was engaged at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma and was brevetted for gallant and meritorious conduct in those battles. He continued his services in the regular army in active duty on the plains and in various parts of the country, and at the outbreak of the great war, was a captain in the Second Cavalry. His record in that war would take a volume. At its close, Capt. Pleasanton was mustered out as major general of volunteers and had attained the brevet rank of major gen- eral, United States army. His life and services are w^ell known. He died in Washington, D. C, February 17, 1897.

Thomas J. Curd, of Kentucky, No. 8, brevet second lieu- tenant, First Artillery, was w^ith the army in the Military Occupation of Texas and with the next higher rank, served in the Fourth Artillery. He distinguished himself in the war wnth Mexico, participating in the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma and Monterey, and resigned in 1847 to become professor of mathematics in the College of the Holy Cross at Worcester, Mass., where he remained two years. Lieut. Curd is next a novitiate at St. Ignatius, Frederick, IMd., w^here he died February 12, 1850, aged 25.

36 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

Augustus Cook, a Kentuckian also, No. 9, has the shortest record of the class, so very brief indeed that it is startling, to-wit : "Brevet second lieutenant, Second Dragoons, July i, 1844; on frontier duty at Fort Jessup, La., 1844-1845; and in the Military Occupation of Texas, 1845. Died November i, 1845, ^t sea, aged 24."

John Y. Bicknell, Xo. 10, a Tennessean, was in active service in Mexico with the Second Dragoons at the siege of Vera Cruz, at La Hoya. Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Key, and in the operations before and at the capture of the City of Mexico. After the war, Lieut. Bicknell was for a year on frontier duty, and on the march through Texas and died at Maryville, Tenn., November 11, 1849, aged 28.

Simon Bolivar Buckner, No. 11, was one of the most celebrated generals of the Confederacy. His first service was in the Second Infantry and then he was for a year professor of geography, history and ethics at West Point. He served through the war in Mexico; in the march through Coahuila, and with Scott's victorious column to the gates of the City of Mexico, and was in the assault there and entered the city with Scott's army at its capture. He was wounded at Churu- busco and was twice brevetted during the war for gallant conduct at Contreras, Churubusco and Molino del Rey. lie was quartermaster of the Sixth Infantry at the end of the war when he returned to West Point, this time as assistant instructor of infantry tactics for two years; then on frontier duty. He resigned after three years" service in the commis- sary in New York city, in March, 1855, as captain and located in Chicago where, in 1858, he recruited and was made colonel of the First Illinois Volunteers for service in Utah, but this regiment was not mustered into the service. Capt. Buckner then returned to his native state and was engaged in farming near Louisville when he joined the forces of the Confederacy, (ieneral Buckner became a lieutenant general in the Confed- erate service and served through the war. His name is indissolubly linked with that of IHysses S. Grant, his old chum at West Point, in the story of Fort Donelson where the star of Llysses S. Grant rose far enough above the horizon for the world to take note and ever keep in sight. General Buckner's career after the war is well known. Grant had a sincere regard, yea more, a strong friendship for Buckner. which was reciprocated, and the dying chief in 1885 selected

The West Point Class of 1844 37

his old antagonist as one of his pallbearers in which capacity General Buckner acted. Two years later General Buckner was elected governor of Kentucky and served as such two terms, 1887- 189 1. His personal relations with Alexander Hays were close and each held the other in highest esteem. Their friendship was as strong as Grant and Longstreet's and Grant and Buckner's. General Buckner died in the home in which he was born near Munfordville, Ky., January 8, 1914. He was born April i, 1823. He was four years the junior of Alexander Hays.

John Trevitt, of Ohio, was No. 12 in 1844. He, too, was in the Second Infantry for first service; was in the war with Mexico at Monterey but not in active field operations there- after during the war, but afterward saw long and arduous service in Texas and New Mexico until 1861 when he resigned and located at Mt. Vernon, N. H., his boyhood home, and there following the occupation of a farmer, did not enter the armies of the United States again in any capacity.

Rankin Dilworth, No. 13, also an Ohioan. was slain in Mexico. His military career is told by Cullum in seven lines — "Brevet second lieutenant. First Infantry, 1844; served in garrison Fort Atkinson, Iowa, 1845-1846; Jefferson Barracks. Mo., 1846, and in the war with Mexico, being engaged in the battle of Monterey as second lieutenant. First Infantry, Sep- tember 21, 1846, where he was mortally wounded by a twelve pounder cannon ball while storming the enemy's entrench- ments and died of wounds September 22, 1846, aged 24."

Erastus B. Strong, No. 14, has almost a similar record. He was a native of Arkansas ; appointed from that state. His first service was in the Seventh Infantry and he took part next in the Occupation of Texas in the defense of Fort Brown, in the battle of Monterey, was present at the siege of Vera Cruz, was promoted to second lieutenant May 18, 1846, in the Fifth Infantry ; was at the capture of San Antonio, in the battles of Churubusco and Molino del Re}' ; "where while rallying his men to make another charge upon the enemy's entrenchments, which he had approached within a few yards, he was killed September 8, 1847, aged 24."

William T. Burwell, No. 15, a Virginian, fell on the same day as his classmate and friend, Strong, and in the same battle a second lieutenant in the Sixth Infantry. He was in action previously at Cerro Gordo, and through the succeeding battles

38 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

to his death. His age was 27 and his record closes thus : "After being wounded and still fighting gloriously on the battlefield he was, by the enemy, within a few yards of the entrenchments of Casa Alata, bayonetted to death September 8, 1847."

William Read, of Delaware, No. 16, first saw actual service in the field with the Sixth Infantry with his slain classmate Burwell. After a brief frontier service, Lieut. Read was in active service in the Mexican war, on the march through Coahuila and at the siege of Vera Cruz, and on the Orizaba expedition in 1848, and after two years frontier serv- ice, resigned in 1850 and became a professor in the Kentucky Military Institute at Frankfort for two years, and then entered the Patent Office at Washington where he remained eight years. In 1861 he became a farmer in Montgomery County, }vlaryland, just outside of the Capitol, and had no Civil War record. He died April 29, 1884, at Washington.

James S. Woods, a Pennsylvanian, No. 17, was another hero of the war with ^Mexico having been killed outright at Monterey. He was a second lieutenant, first in the Fourth Infantry at Natchitoches, Camp Salubrity, La., 1844-1845 with his classmate. Brevet 2nd Lieut. Alexander Hays, and his Academy mate, Ulysses S. Grant, of the same rank. Lieut. Woods served during the Military Occupation of Texas and was first engaged at Palo Alto as second lieutenant in the Second Infantry, then at Resaca de la Palma, having been brevetted for gallant conduct in those battles, and then came Alonterey, where he went down to a soldier's death in storm- ing the enemy's entrenchments, September 21, 1846, the same day that his classmate Dilworth, in the same assault, was almost torn apart by a huge missile of the enemy. Lieut. Woods was but 22, perishing in the glory of the sunlight of victory and at the dawn of a noble manhood.

Winfield S. Hancock, of Pennsylvania, No. 18, was a brevet second lieutenant, July i, 1844, Sixth Infantry, with his classmates Read and Burwell, and a major general, LTnited States army, July 26, 1866. General Hancock served on fron- tier service as heretofore indicated with all young officers, and through the war with Mexico to the gates of the city and within its walls. His biography is known to the world, and his relations with Alexander Hays will appear as they occur

The West Point Class of 1844 39

in the history of the latter. General Hancock died February 9, i886, at Governor's Island, N. Y.

James M. Lake Henry of Kentucky graduated as James M. Henry, No. 19. He first was in the Seventh Infantry, then a second lieutenant in the Second Infantry; he took part in the Military Occupation of Texas, was in active service at Fort Brown, and then on recruiting service, later being transferred to the Fourth Infantry, after the war. He resigned from the army at Fort Columbus, N. Y., in 1852 and entered the Patent Office in the same year, where he remained as an examiner and principal examiner until 1861, when he retired to a farm in Prince George County, Maryland, and had no Civil War record. He died July 4, 1881, at Washington. Alexander Hays, No. 20, was followed by George Wain- wright of Massachusetts, whose army career was cut short by death, August 2, 1848, at Brooklyn, N. Y., in his 28th year. He served first in the Eighth Infantry, was in Texas during the Occupation; became a full rank second lieutenant June 18, 1846, after Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, in both of which he participated ; then Monterey where he was severely wounded. He was present at the siege of Vera Cruz; in action at Cerro Gordo, San Antonio, Churubusco, and Molino del Rey, where he was severely wounded, and then placed on recruiting service, and death came, though not distinctly stated, but most probably as a result of his wounds.

Henry B. Schroeder, No. 22, was a Marylander, entering the Third Infantry at graduation. In service in Louisiana, as was Alexander Hays, in the Military Occupation of Texas in like manner. In Mexico, where he participated with great gallantry at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Oka Laka, Con- treras, Churubusco, and after the war at various places on the frontier, resigning in 1861 when a captain in the Third Infantry since 1857, and became a farmer in Frederick County, Maryland, and had no Civil War record.

Joseph P. Smith, of New Hampshire, No. 23, went into the Fifth Infantry July i, 1844; was first on duty in Michigan, then in Texas during the Military Occupation. He partici- pated in the battles of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, the siege of Vera Cruz, capture of San Antonio, the battles of Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and at the storm- ing of Chapultepec he fell — "when near the ditch, having gone back a pace or two to get a ladder, he was struck by a fatal shot, September 13, 1847, aged 28."

40 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

John J. C. Bibb, a Kentuckian, No. 24, went into the Third Infantry with his classmate Schroeder and had the same service excepting that he participated in the battle of Monterey, and resigned December 31, 1846, and from 1849 served as clerk in the office of the solicitor of the Treasury Department at Washington, and died in that city in Septem- ber, 1854, aged 33 years.

George W. Hawkins, No. 25, a North Carolina man, was appointed to the First Infantry on graduation. Was on duty in the Northwest until the war with Mexico broke out when, with his regiment, then the Mounted Rifles, he entered upon active service in the field of operations ; was at the siege of Vera Cruz, thence on recruiting service, and after the war Lieut. Hawkins was in General Joseph Lane's escort to Oregon where Lane served as governor. Hawkins was dis- missed from service in 1853 under the law of January i, 1823, and became a farmer in Warren County, North Carolina, where he is supposed to have died the next year, aged 34.

It is rather a remarkable fact that of this small class of 25. five were from Kentucky, of whom three were dead when the Civil War came. It is also remarkable that the two sur- vivors divided in allegiance.

The assignments of the class was one to the topographi- cal engineers, five to the artillery, four to the dragoons, 15 to the infantry.

It will be seen that of the 24 who graduated with Alex- ander Hays, when the great war burst upon the nation, 12 were dead, of whom Dilworth, Strong, Rurwell, W^oods and Smith died soldiers' deaths in Mexican battles, and W'ain- wright, as result of that war, and Curd, Cook, Bicknell and Bibb from natural causes. Five had resigned : Peck, Gill, Trevitt. Henry and Schroeder, who did not participate in the war between the states ; three. Frost, Thomas and Buckner, "Joined in the Rebellion," as Cullum curtly puts it, of whom Thomas was killed. Hawkins went down under a cloud and was also dead, leaving five of the class, Whittlesey, Eddy, Pleasanton, Hancock, and Alexander Hays, to battle for the old flag and win the laurels under its victorious folds, of whom the three latter certainly made history and across the pages of their martial records have long since been written words that forever shine — honor, devotion, loyalty, fame.

CHAPTER V.

LIEUT. ALEXANDER HAYS, U. S. A.

UPON graduation July i, 1844, Alexander Hays was promoted, the records say, to the brevet rank of second lieutenant and assigned to the Fourth In- fantry, then on duty, since May of that year, at Camp Salu- brity, La., near the town of Natchitoches and he remained here in service with the regiment until the Occupation of Texas. The Fourth Infantry was commanded by Colonel J. H. Vose. whom Ulysses S. Grant describes as an old gentle- man who had not commanded on drill for a number of years, and who was not a man to discover infirmity in the presence of danger. When it appeared that a war was imminent, it naturally occurred to the old colonel that he must "brush up on his tactics." When the regiment was settled in its new barracks at New Orleans preparatory to sailing for Corpus Christi, Colonel Vose took command of the regiment at a battalion drill. When two or three evolutions had been gone through, he dismissed the battalion and turning to go to his own quarters, dropped dead. He had not been com- plaining in any way, and had undoubtedly died of heart dis- ease. General Grant further described him as a "most estim- able man, of exemplary habits, and by no means the author of his own disease;" and thus, before the Fourth Infantry had left for the seat of war, a tragedy had taken away its commander, Alexander Hays' first colonel. ^

Gradually the Army of Occupation assembled at Corpus Christi. and a small army indeed. Altogether it con- sisted of seven companies of the Second Dragoons, four com-

1 Personal Memoirs, Vol. L; P. 60. Army of Occupation; vide Gen. Meade's Mexican War Letters, 1845-1847;" "Life and Letters," Vol. I.; P. 25, et seq. Vide "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide," Part in., "Longstreet on the Fields of Mexico;" P. 127, et seq.

41

42 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

panics or batteries of light artiller}^ five regiments of infantry, the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh and Eighth, and one regi- ment of artillery acting as infantry, all regular soldiers, and in number about three thousand under command of General Zachary Taylor. The rank and file were composed of men who had enlisted in time of peace to serve for seven dollars a month. The officers, from the highest to the lowest, were educated in their profession, and were mostly graduates of the West Point Academy. General Grant says that a more efficient army for its numbers and armament never fought a battle, and he will be accepted as good authority.

The story of Lieut. Alexander Hays' identity with the Fourth Infantry's service in these preliminary movements, and the battles on Texas soil, is most graphically told by General Grant in his memoirs. ^

General Grant was then a brevet second lieutenant in Capt. George A. INIcCall's company C, that sterling old regu- lar and gallant Pennsylvanian, endeared to memory as the first commander of the division of the Pennsylvania Reserves, with whom, in 1862, Alexander Hays, was to have contem- poraneous service on the Peninsula. Mention of Camp Salu- brity will be found also in General Longstreet's book,- and in the same chapter a rapid resume of General Taylor's prelim- inary movements and his two battles in Texas. General Longstreet was then a lieutenant in the Eighth Infantry, Company F, having previously served in the Fourth.

El Palo Alto, "The Tall Trees," a point six or more miles from the besieged garrison at Fort Brown, now Browns- ville, Texas, was the place of Alexander Hays' first battle; Grant's likewise and Grant's story of this battle and that of Resaca de la Palma on the succeeding day are to be found in his memoirs. The artillery battalion was commanded by Lieut. -Colonel Thomas Childs, a West Pointer of the class of 1 814, who had served in the war with Great Britain that year and the next, and he is the same Childs who so bravely defended Puebla against the Mexicans under Gen- eral Rea during the long siege, until relieved by Lane's Brigade to which was attached Capt. S. P. Heintzelman's

1 "Personal Memoirs," Chapters IV. to VII., inclusive. Vide also "Ulysses S. Grant, His Life and Character," Hamlin Garland; P 64, et seq.

2 "From Manassas to Appomattox," Chapter I.

Lieut. Alexander Hays, U. S. A. 43

battalion of regulars and Lieut. Alexander Hays returning to his new assignment with the Eighth Infantry.

Upon the death of Colonel Vose, Colonel William \Vhist- ler took command of the Fourth Infantry, July 5, 1845. John Garland was lieutenant-colonel, W. H. Cobbs, major, and Henry Prince, adjutant.

Alexander Hays was assigned to Company K, of which George W. Allen was then captain, John H. Gore, first lieu- tenant, and Henderson Ridgeley, second lieutenant.^

The colonel of the Eighth Infantry was William J. Worth, a veteran of 1812-1815, later commanding a division in Taylor's army, then Governor of Vera Cruz, and again with his division under General Winfield Scott on the march up to, and at the capture of the City of Alexico. Those were the days of long incumbencies, for Worth had been colonel of the Eighth since July 1838, and old Hugh Brady of the Second Infantry since 1812.

Around the first service of Alexander Hays was thus thrown a halo of heroic deeds of days long since, and their inspiration was undoubtedly supreme. The war with Mexico was a little, and is now an almost forgotten war ; a few facts are told in the school histories, the main ones only, passing by the thrilling deeds of ideal and ever victorious American soldiers, both officers and men, who many times went up against seeming impossibilities, but hung on and won. It may be said they were fighting Mexicans, Spanish Americans,, nevertheless the casualty lists tell a tale of slaughter as well as heroism.

' General Longstreet had prepared in the rough quite an elaborate history of the Mexican War, the publication of which was forestalled by the book of General Cadmus M. Wilcox, neither knowing of the other's work. In Mrs. Helen D. Longstreet's book entitled "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide," she has used many of the incidents and historical

1 At the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca, Capt. Allen promoted major, Second Infantry, commanded the regiment. Cullum's Register gives Adjutant Prince commissioned as such, November 21. 1846, five months after Alexander Hays' transfer to the Eighth Infantry. However the names above were obtained from the War Department. Vide "An Account of the Organization of the Army of the United States," Fayette Robinson, Vol. II.; P. 36. Wilcox's roster of the army in Mexico gives Francis Lee, major Fourth Infantry, and Allen major of the Second Infantry, promoted from captain, Fourth In- fantry. "History Mexican War," Wilcox, Appendix C.

44 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

data in the General's unpublished history of that war, under the sub-title "Longstreet on the Fields of Mexico." The general did not forget his former comrade Alexander Hays

in his stor}-. He says:

"In the I'ourth, among Longstreet's earlier official and social intimates at Jefferson Barracks and Camp Salubrity, were Capt. George A. McCall, Lieutenants Augur, Grant, Alexander Hays and David A. Russell, all afterwards dis- tinguished Union generals. Capt. McCall was then forty- three years old, was graduated from West Point in 1822, just twenty years ahead of Longstreet's class." ^

The other infantry regiments of General Taylor's army, the Third, Fifth and Seventh, were commanded by Colonels James B. Many, George M. Brooke and Matthew Arbuckle. As Colonels Arbuckle, Brooke and Worth commanded brig- ades at the time of the first battles in Mexico, the Fifth In- fantry was in command of Brevet Colonel Mcintosh, the Seventh. Lieut. -Colonel Joseph Plympton, and the Eighth by Brevet Colonel Belknap ; Lieut. -Colonel Garland was at times in command of the Fourth Infantry and later of a brigade.

The colonel of the First Dragoons was the celebrated W illiam S. Harney, who died but a decade ago, aged eighty- nine years. Charles A. May, captain of the Second Dragoons, brevet major and lieutenant-colonel; Capt. Samuel Ringgold of the Second Artillery, killed at Palo Alto, and his kinsman, Lieut. Randolph Ridgeley who fell at Monterey, were all well known to the young lieutenant, Alexander Hays, in his first service, and were types of soldier that could elicit naught but admiration, and could not fail to arouse a spirit of fond emulation.

The battle of Resaca de la Palma or the Ravine of the Palm Trees, was fought the day after Palo Alto, and its results are known, and the relief of Fort Brown also, too late to save its gallant commander. Major Jacob Brown, of the Seventh Infantry, who had been wounded and died on the morning of the 9th of May, the day of the battle of Resaca. There is another name for this celebrated ravine ; it is Resaca del Guerrero, "The Ravine of the Warrior," and it seems a most proper one in the light of history.

It must be remembered that General Taylor's infantry

1 "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide;" P. 129.

Lieut. Alexander Hays, U. S. A. 45

was armed with flint lock muskets, and paper cartridges were used, which were loaded with powder, buckshot and ball ; "Buck and ball" they were called. The first troops in the "War of the Rebellion" will have a vivid remembrance of "Altered Harper's Ferry muskets" that shot "buck and ball" in the proportion of three and one. These were close range guns, and to be effective, the whites of the enemy's eyes had to be not far away. The Mexican infantry were armed like- wise, but their artillery fired only solid shot. General Taylor had the advantage of artillery, having some twelve pound howitzers throwing shell, and some eighteen pounders that had a long range.

It is not surprising that a soldier, destined as Alexander Hays was, should early receive mention, not only in the re- ports, but in history. Shortly after the close of hostilities in Mexico, the following was published, the facts being yet fresh in mind : ^

"When the Third and Fourth regiments charged the chapparal, they became of course scattered, and almost every officer was thrown on his own resources. Here Capt. Buchanan and his subaltern (Hays) distinguished themselves. At this point (across the ravine), Hays charged knee deep in water, and seized the mules of a gun the enemy were seeking to carry ofif, while another subaltern (W'oods), seized a hand- spike and gave, by main force, such a direction to the wheels that they became entangled in the trunk of a tree, so that the gun remained with the Fourth. The Mexican cavalry then charged these officers, when Barbour of the Third came to their rescue and charged the Mexican horse with the bayonet.

"Capt. Buchanan, with what men he could rally of the Fourth, and Lieut. -Colonel Mcintosh, with the same of the Fifth, then charged the chapparal into which the Mexicans had been driven. Colonel Mcintosh's horse was shot and the colonel, before he could be extricated, received three fearful bavonet wounds and was borne, half dead, from the field.2

"After May's charge, the two lines had become so in- volved that Lieut. Ridgeley's battery was forced to suspend

1 "An Account of the Organization of the Armies of the United States, with biographies of officers of all grades, in two volumes, by Fayette Robinson, late an officer of the army." E. H. Butler & Co., Philadelphia, 1848. Vide Vol. II.; P. 43.

2 Col. Mcintosh recovered. He was again wounded at Molino del Rey, and died of his wounds September 26, 1847.

46 Life and Letters of General Alexander Havs

its fire. Capt. Duncan now came up with his command, and with some of Capt. Charles F. Smith's light infantry, were thrown across the 'Resaca.' Capt. Ker's dragoons also came up, and just as the infantry above had passed the chapparal and JMcIntosh was wounded, the battle became a pursuit and Lieuts. Woods, Hays, Cochrane and Augur,^ with a few men of each regiment engaged, found themselves unexpectedly at the headquarters of General Arista, the Mexican commander, and these officers and men took possession. A iSIexican officer, having reconnoitered, charged this little band at the head of a body of lancers. They were given a volley, but still came on. The Americans took refuge in the thicket. Lieut. Coch- rane remaining alone in the pathway through which the enemy came. He fell dead, pierced with seven lance thrusts. The enemy were gradually driven from the few isolated positions they endeavored to maintain, and their route became com- plete."

In an earlier book, Lieut. Alexander Hays and his class- mate. Woods, received full credit for their daring, thus :

"At Resaca de la Palma, Lieut. John A. Richey,- who in a subsequent service fell a sacrifice, took part in a daring ad- venture, which he thus described in a letter: 'A short time after the battle began, several of us became separated in the brush, and started forward, with the few men we could collect at the moment, to take a battery of the Mexicans that was blazing upon us. We dashed forward into the ravine, across the stream which ran through it, and clambering up the op- posite bank, rushed across the openings of the chapparal towards the battery. \Vhile passing through, I got separated for about ten minutes from Lieuts. Woods and Hays; when I rejoined them, they had captured the cannon ; they had dashed onward upon the enemy attended by only one man. The cannoneers immediately turned and fled. Before doing so they had set fire to the priming-tube, the gun being loaded. The match was about to ignite the powder when Lieut. Woods knocked the priming ofiF with his sword. In the meantime some Mexicans ran to the mules attached to the piece by a long pole, and endeavored to drag it oflf. Hays, perceiving their intention, sprang forward and snapped his pistol at them. At the same moment Woods caught hold of the driving reins. By this time our party was reinforced, and moved forward along the road, firing all the time and driving the enemy be- fore us. We proceeded in this way with about 20 men.

1 All of the Fourth Infantry.

2 2nd Lieut. John A. Richey, Fifth Infantry, after serving gal- lantly at Monterey, was killed by the Mexicans while bearing dis- patches at Villa Gran, January 13, 1847. He was a graduate of West Point, class of 18 45, and served a year with Alexander Hays in the Fourth Infantry.

Lieut. Alexander Hays, U. S. A. 47

Woods now separated from us, and we were joined by Lieuts. Augur and Cochrane of the Fourth. Our little party was composed of men belonging to every regiment in the army. We advanced a great distance in front of the main body and were surrounded on all sides by the Mexicans.'

"Capt. Barbour soon joined this bold party. It was on this occasion that Lieut. Cochrane fell, when immediately afterwards it was charged by the lancers. Corporal Chisholm shot the colonel who led the charge. As the officer fell, the corporal was seen to hand him his canteen of water — and but a moment afterwards, Chisholm himself was lying dead." ^

Of the above subalterns, that is lieutenants, Woods was James S. Woods, a classmate of Alexander Hays, but four numbers ahead of him, and these comrades had been together since graduation. Woods was, like Hays, a Pennsylvanian, and was brevetted first lieutenant for gallant conduct in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca. This gallant youth fell at the storming of the enemy's entrenchments at Monterey on September 21, 1846, at the early age of 22.^ Lieut. C. C. Augur, classmate of Ulysses S. Grant, became Major-General Chris- topher C. Augur during the Civil War. He was then a second lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry.

Fifth Corps men of the Army of the Potomac will at once say that Capt. Buchanan, commanding a company in the Fourth Infantry was the veteran and rugged Colonel Robert C. Buchanan commanding a brigade of the division of regulars in the Fifth Corps during the war 1861-1865 on the Peninsula and up to and after Fredericksburg. General Buchanan was lieutenant-colonel of the Fourth Infantry in 1861, and had attained the rank of brevet major-general, United States army, v,'hen the war closed. His real rank was colonel in command of the First Infantry. He was a graduate of West Point, class of 1830.

In his official report General Taylor refers to the episode as follows :

1 "A Life of General Zachary Taylor, etc.," by J. Reese Fry, Philadelphia, 1847; P. 155.

- "In the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, Lieut. Hays captured, in connection with Lieut. Woods, likewise a Pennsyl- vanian, the first gun wrested from the enemy. In this engagement he received a wound in the leg, and in recognition of his gallantry in these actions, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant." Vide also "Under the Red Patch," P. 436, "Great Commanders; General Taylor," by General O. O. Howard; P. 121. Evidently a re- print from Fry's "Life of Taylor."

48 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

"The light companies of the Inrst Brigade, and the Third and Fourth regiments of infantry, had been deployed on the right of the road where, at various points, they became briskly engaged with the enemy. A small party under Capt. Buchanan and Lieuts. Woods and Hays, Fourth Infantry, composed chiefly of men of that regiment, drove the enemy from a breastwork which he occupied, and captured a piece of artillery. An attempt to recapture this piece was repelled by Capt. Barbour, Third Infantry. The enemy was at last com- pletely driven from his position on the right of the road, and retreated precipitately, leaving baggage of every description. The Fourth Infantry took possession of a camp where the headquarters of the Mexican general-in-chief were established. All his official correspondence was captured at this place." ^

Lieut. Alexander Hays was destined to meet distinguished soldiers in Mexico, among them Capt. Samuel H. Walker, associated with him in a memorable event. Of Walker, more anon.^

On the i8th of May, 1846, (ieneral Taylor's little army crossed the Rio Grande and Lieut. Alexander Hays was the first across. Early in the morning the east bank was defended by two eighteen-pounders, and three batteries of artillery, and the crossing commenced under their protection. Colonel Twiggs ordered the bands to strike up "Yankee Doodle," and with these cheering strains the light companies went over first, followed by the volunteer and the regular infantry.

"Lieut. Hays, of the Fourth Infantry, and ten select men, with Capt. Walker of the rangers, first crossed the river, with orders to ascertain and report the number and position of the enemy, if near the river. Immediately after Lieut. Hays had crossed, the Hank comj^anies of the Third, Fourth and iMfth Infantry were thrown across, commanded by Capts. Buchanan and Larnard. After these commands, Capt. Smith, of the artillery battalion crossed with two companies, followed by Capt. Ker's squadron of dragoons. After these, Ridgeley's artillery was dismounted and taken o\er in parts. In the meantime the infantry already over had advanced and occu- ])ied the hedge fence covering the crossing. After occupying this position some hours a civil deputation from Matamoras presented itself, and requested to see General Taylor. The deputation was sent over the river in charge of an officer, to

1 Fry's "Life of General Taylor;" P. 144. Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca; General Meade's account is pertinent here. Vide his "Life and Letters," Vol. L; Page 78, 79, et seq.

2 Concerning Walker, vide Meade's "Life and Letters," Vol. I; P. 75. Also vide "Life of General Taylor," J. Reese Fry; P. 147.

Lieut. Alexander Hays, U. S. A. 49

meet the general who had not yet crossed. The object of the deputation was to inform General Taylor of the abandon- ment of Matamoras by the Mexicans under Arista and to inquire what treatment the city might expect from him. General Taylor finding this report true, ordered that portion of the American forces that had not crossed, to return to Fort Brown and cross there." ^

Matamoras was surrendered by the civil authorities and a small guard of American soldiers was established to keep the peace.

Once across the Rio Grande, Taylor's army was in truth the "Army of Occupation," and in this most momentous step Lieut. Alexander Hays was conspicuous. But a single inci- dent marred the events of that historic day. 2nd Lieut. George Stevens, of the Second Dragoons, of the West Point Class of 1843, Alexander Hays' Academy mate for three years, was swept from his horse by the rapid current while crossing and drowned. Lieut. Stevens, who was from Vermont, was a young officer of high promise. He had been on duty at Fort Jessup, in the Military Occupation of Texas, and in all the service identical with Alexander Hays'. Lieut. Stevens was No. 18 in his class, three numbers ahead of Ulysses S. Grant.

Lieut, Alexander Hays remained on duty with his com- pany for nearly two weeks after the battle of Resaca up to the time of the crossing of the Rio Grande.^ It will be noticed that Alexander Hays had plenty of good fighting company in Mexico, but he did not escape unscathed. Wounded in the leg at Resaca and having been thus unfitted for duty, he was sent on recruiting service and was in charge of recruiting offices in Buffalo, N. Y., and in various points in Western Pennsyl- vania, and very successful in this duty, returned to the army with a battalion of 200 men, and arrived in Vera Cruz just about the time Brigadier-General Joseph Lane was to start for the City of Mexico, and that general, appreciating an officer who would enter into any martial movement with heart

1 Fry's "Life of Taylor;" P. 169.

2 Consult "History of the Mexican "War," Wilcox; for maps, details and movements of Taylor's army, consult Chapter IV.; P. 44, et seq. Also "History of Mexico," H. H. Bancroft, Vol. V., PP. 351- 354; for campaigns on the Rio Grande, Matamoras and Point Isabel, and maps, see a recent work, "The United States and Mexico," Geo. L. Rives (1913); P. 150.

50 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

and soul, appointed him assistant adjutant general of the brigade. Lieut. Alexander Hays had been appointed a full second lieutenant from June i8, 1846, and had been transferred to the Eighth Infantry, then with General Worth's division in the advance under Scott, and Hays had also been brevetted a first lieutenant for gallant conduct in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma.

Joseph Lane is a name famous in American history. Sol- dier and pioneer, statesman and candidate for vice president in i860 with John C. Breckenridge, Lane's was a name very common in the papers of that day. He was a man of rugged mould and a fighter. He was not a West Pointer' but one of the political generals, or such appointed from civil life. Among others were Robert Patterson, John A. Quitman, Gideon J. Pillow, James Shields, Franklin Pierce, Caleb Gush- ing, and William O. Butler (a candidate for vice president in 1848 with Gass against Taylor and Fillmore), all of whom acquitted themselves well.-

On the i6th of June, 1846, the Pittsburgh papers printed the of^cial report of General Taylor, giving the story of the two battles on the Rio Grande and the news chroniclers state that Pittsburgh simply went wild. There also appeared the following news item under date of June 27th :

ARRIVALS FROM THE SEAT OF WAR

"Twelve ol^cers of the regular army, all of whom had taken part in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, eight of whom were more or less seriously wounded, arrived here by boat from New Orleans, bound for Washington. The party was made up as follows: Gapt. Governour Morris, I-'ourth Infantry; Gapt. W. R. Montgomery, Eighth Infantry; 1st Lieut. Randolph B. Marcy, Fifth Infantry; ist Lieut. Daniel Ruggles, Fifth Infantry; ist Lieut. Isaac V. D. Reeve, Eighth Infantry; 1st Lieut. Collinson R. Gates, Eighth In- fantry; 1st Lieut. Robert P. Maclay, Eighth Infantry; ist Lieut. J. G. Burbank, Eighth Infantry'; ist Lieut. John Breeds- ley, First Infantry; ist Lieut. Gharles F. Morris, Eighth In- fantry; 2nd Lieut. Gharles D. Jordan, Eighth Infantry, and Lieut. Alexander Hays, Fourth Infantry.

J Joseph Lane — Vide Wilcox's estimate of liim. "General Lane, plain in appearance and manner, but full of energy and courage, unquestioned integrity and kind hearted, generous and chivalric, etc." "History of the Mexican War," Wilcox; P. 527.

2 "History of the Mexican War," Wilcox, Appendix D. ; P. 653.

Brevet Second Lieutenants Ulysses S. Grant and Alexander Hays,

4th Infantry at Camp Salubrity, Louisiana, 1845.

(From an old Daguerreotype)

Lieut. Alexander Hays, U. S. A. 51

"Maclay, Burbank and Charles F. Morris died of wounds received in these eng^agements.

"While here, the returning heroes were tendered a re- ception and banquet by citizens, but were obliged to decline the invitation for want of time."

Lieut. Morris of the West Point class of 1841, died in the City of Mexico, September 17, 1847, from wounds received at Molino del Rey and his classmate, Burbank, wounded in the same battle, died September 10th, two days after the battle. Both belonged to the Eighth Infantry, Alexander Hays' new assignment, and both had served with the regiment at Palo Alto and Resaca, where both had been wounded.

Lieut. Robert P. Maclay of the class of 1840, did not die of his wounds received at Resaca. He was on sick leave and recruiting service during most of the war. He, too, belonged to the Eighth Infantry and became a captain. A native of Pennsylvania, and appointed from Pennsylvania, a classmate of Sherman, Thomas, and George W. Getty, he remained in the regular service until i860, when he resigned and became a planter in Louisiana and when the war came, with his class- mates and comrades in Mexico, Richard S. Ewell, and Bush- rod R. Johnston, he joined the forces of the Confederacy and became a brigadier-general.

Of the" other ofificers who journeyed with Alexander Hays from the seat of war, none attained any great prominency except General Randolph B. Marcy, father-in-law of George B. McClellan, whose long services and writings are widely known. Ruggles of Massachusetts went with the South ; Jordan broke down in the service of the Union in 1863, and retired ; Montgomery of the class of 1825 at West Point, in command of the Eighth Infantry in the two battles, who had been dismissed in 1855, became colonel of the ist New Jersey Infantry and later brigadier-general of volunteers, and served three years without field service. Gates, of the class of 1836, returned to the army, served most gallantly through the Mexican service with his regiment, and died at its close.

Reeve returned to Pittsburgh, October 13, 1864, and re- mained over a year in charge of the Draft Rendezvous. He was then colonel of the Thirteenth Infantry, William T. Sher- man's old regiment. Colonel Reeve was a captain in 1847 in the Eighth, and thus a superior of Lieut. Alexander Hays. Capt. Morris was not an Academy man. Colonel Reeve was

52 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

one of the victims of General Twigg's treachery in Texas in 1861, Reeve at the time major of the First Infantry. All these visitors to Pittsburgh in 1846 and fellow voyagers with Alex- ander Hays, on the long trip from Mexico, were typical officers of the old army.

The name "Breedsley" should be Beardsley, of the West Point class of 1841, who came back on recruiting service. Upon his return he was severely wounded and disabled at Molino del Rey. Beardsley was colonel of the Ninth New York Cavalry during the Civil War. He was Alexander Hays' immediate superior in Company F, of the Eighth In- fantry. Beardsley resigned from the regular service Decem- ber 31, 1853, and re-entered the army as colonel of Volun- teers in November 1861, and resigned April 8, 1863. His subsequent history is unknown.^

The date of transfer of Alexander Hays to the Eighth Infantry is June 18, 1846. He was then enroute to Pitts- burgh. The Eighth was commanded by Colonel William J. Worth, with Thomas Staniford, lieutenant-colonel, and Carlos A. Waite, major, John D. Clark, West Point class 1842, was adjutant to May 20, 1847, succeeded by James Longstreet from June 8, 1847 to July 1849. Alexander Hays was assigned to Company F, of which Thomas P. Gwynne was captain to February 16, 1847, succeeded by George Lincoln. ^

Alexander Hays and Longstreet had been associated in both regiments. Like Longstreet, Hays was promoted and transferred from the Fourth to the Eighth, though upward of a year subsequently. Grant never left the Fourth until he resigned as captain, about seven years after the Mexican War. Hays and Grant had been friends at West Point, though not classmates, and very chummy afterwards while subalterns in the old Fourth Infantry. The official personnel of General Taylor's army, scant three thousand men, was so small that it was like a family. Everybody knew everybody else.^

1 Cullum's Register, Vol. II.; P. 29.

2 Roster of the field and company ofllcers of the Fourth and Eighth United States infantry. Vide Appendix E.

3 Vide "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide," Part III.; "Long- street on the Fields of Mexico;" P. 130.

CHAPTER VI.

ALEXANDER HAYS' OWN STORY OP FIRST SERVICE AND SOME LETTERS.

TO CONVEY a correct and a concise idea of the life of a soldier during a period immediately preceding and the eventful campaigns of the war with Mexico, the following able paper prepared and completed by General Alex- ander Hays in 1861 is quoted verbatim from the original manuscript, and is now for the first time published.

It is graphic and thrilling, and conveys a good idea of Alexander Hays' literary style. It was written presumably for some magazine.

THE ARMY OF OBSERVATION, OCCUPATION, AND INVASION.

The old soldier will tell you, that the most irksome periods of his service, are the days of garrison duty, a monoto- nous round of parades, and drills, fife playing, and stacking. All alert, for the faintest rumor of an order to march, he engages a willing auditory around the mess table (although his character for truth and veracity on other subjects, be none of the best), who can announce a rumor of expected orders, to where, no one cares to inquire? But when such an order is officially announced, satisfaction beams in every face, and the barrack becomes a human bee-hive, on the point of swarming. A soldier's trunk is readily packed. He chafes to hear the fife and drum strike up "The Girl I Left Behind Me," and, with a buoyant heart, and a quick step, he goes forth to find a new home, and new excitement, leaving all care, if he have any, to moulder in the straw of his deserted bunk.

Years of diplomacy have failed to secure to our people redress of grievances, for wrongs unnumbered, and running far back into the lapse of time. It was in the Spring of A. D., 1844, that an intimation was given to our neighbors of the

53

54 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

"Sunny South" that forbearance had been blotted out from the catalogue of our national virtues, and to carry conviction M'ith the fiat, several regiments were ordered to our southern frontier, constituting our "Army of Observation."

Our military service was then at the lowest ebb of popular favor, for former services had been forgotten, and congres- sional demagogues had lately thundered forth to the nation their ignorance of "epauletted loafers." Time has defiantly hurled in their teeth the wilful and malignant aspersions of as noble a band of men as ever trod the earth. May God, in His mercy, have accorded equal forgiveness to the honored dead and the traducers of their fame.

Never, perhaps, since its organization, had our army at- tained such efficiency in everything that is essential to make an army irresistible, l^eace, as a general rule, is not conducive to perfection in military art, but our army has never been suffered to spend time in listless inactivity. A very extended frontier, and constantly recurring subjects for adjustment among our Indian tribes, keep up, at least the "mimicry of war," and entails upon the soldier his supreme disgust, inces- sant marching. Garrison life is equally exacting upon his time, with repetition drills, which insure for him effective use of his arms, and from these there is no appeal.

Notwithstanding a protracted peace, at the date referred to, numerous files in the ranks bore the chevron of service, the badge of honor, distinguishing "the old soldier," and the lounger around the camp fire would be entertained with thrill- ing recitals of the "Black Hawk War," or of scouts in the Everglades of Florida, perhaps — but rarely, with a legend of 1812. The majority of the rank and file, however, had been manufactured to order, from raw material, imported (duty free) and entirely innocent of the killing properties of gun- powder. Chrysales became full-fledged butterflies not unfre- quently. With these, the military bearing, and manly salute, marked to the practiced eye the trained and disciplined soldier of fortune from the armies of the old world, exiles from their native land voluntarily, or from force of circumstances.

If time had thinned the ranks of veterans it had apparently dealt more leniently with the commissioned officers, for these were well preserved specimens from Lundy's Lane, Chippewa, Bridgewater, Queenstown and Fort Erie, and the command was vested in the old Spartan "Who never surrendered."

Alexander Hays' Own Story of First Service 55

Lower in grade, veteran captains, and grey-haired lieu- tenants whiled away the intervals of duty, with reminiscences of wars, glories, in impenetrable hummocks, which none but amphibious constitutions could have survived. Withlacoo- chie and Okechobee were fought again in descriptions of those who had fought them indeed, until the listener would seem himself to hear the yells of Tustenugge and Osceola, inciting their tawny warriors to the harvest of death.

"Dade's massacre, where the noble command save three fell without a chance to retreat," and the devoted friendship which led others into "Gaines' Pen" to undergo similar hard- ships, but who happily were not destined to so gloomy a fate, were resurrected from the dusty files of official record, and re- cited in living words, which sank into the soul of the auditor, working up the fountains of grief for their sufferings, and sad fate, and admiration for their unparalelled heroism, or the theme would glide into the eulogistic biography of some long-lost companion, once beloved by all for his virtues and manly qualities, and still treasured in memory around some hearth, once happy in his existence, but long since desolate— of one who was the victim of an inglorious Florida skirmish, in which, after the forfeiture of his own life, and the defeat of his small party, the hand of the savage was stayed upon the scalping knife, and the unrelenting enemy of his race decently performed the last sad rite which each and all require but once.

The long array of superiors between the young subaltern and the commander-in-chief, might well cause the former to call in question the fairness of military aspirations, and the scriptural allotment of life to man. Promotion was a rugged mountain spring at the base, summer midway, and eternal snow at the top ; for in those days "none resigned and few died."

Eighteen months of camp and cantonment duty under the genial skies of Western Louisiana, had improved not only the morale, but physique of the troops, and this time had brought about another phase in the aspect of affairs, requiring another move upon the political chessboard.

Joy was unsuppressed when orders arrived to "strike tents," and bright visions of a terrestrial paradise to be found in Texas, floated through the imagination of each soldier. Texas — the land to him of tradition and romance was the sole

56 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

theme, mingling in his dreams in sleep, and cheering the musings of his lonely watch.

Steamers breasted the dark waters of the Red River, and cheers greeted "The Father of Waters," which was to bear him to a reunion with old companions in arms. Rumor had been busy with her thousand tongues, that Mexican war steamers would intercept the transports, but there were no misgivings on board to mar the general satisfaction, as vessel after vessel, with its full complement of men, glided past the Balize into the blue waters of the gulf, bearing to its destina- tion, at Corpus Christi, "The Army of Occupation."

In consequence of our extended dominions, as a matter of necessity, our small army had been scattered to all points of the compass, with rarely an opportunity of combining two regiments. It is a fact established by long experience, that masses of men without government, though each individual composing the mass be personally brave to a fault, are but mobs at best; and the greater the mob the greater the in- efficiency.

Discipline was not required by the "Army of Occupation," but consolidation was essential, and in this delightful locality, time and opportunity were afforded to perfect its organization by combining all its effective, but hitherto scattered elements. Nature can afford no fairer panorama for the pencil of the artist, than Corpus Christi, with its placid bay and sky rival- ing the blue of Italy — lately reposing in almost primitive peace, now resounding with war's wild roar. Far along the beach, curving inland in graceful sweep, and glistening white with native shells, the still white line of tents mark the en- campment of the enemy. The bay foams with the arrival and departure of vessels, bearing the material of war, while land- ward regiments are mustering into brigades, and brigades into divisions. A thousand beasts of burden hitherto "by spear and bridle undefiled," are plunging across the plain in vain resistance to the orders of the quartermaster's department, all presenting a scene of wild confusion, not easily described, but soon to be reduced to perfect order, constituting that "Pyrrhic phalanx," that never met the enemy but to conquer, and which though afterwards dismembered, served as yeast to leaven the other armies and gave that prestige to our arms, which planted our banners on the Halls of the Montezumas as though the feat had been a mimic play.

Alexander Hays' Own Story of First Service 57

The Winter glided away in active preparations, for each succeeding day gave more ominous tokens of coming events. When Spring came, and with it orders to advance, each man felt that the uncertainty was over, and "smelled the battle afar ofif." No longer in detachments but in mass, as one man — the desert country lying south of the Nueces River was left behind. It was a toilsome march, with few incidents of in- terest, but the toils were forgotten as the column debouched from the dense chaparral, and deployed upon the left bank of the Rio Grande, in full view of the city of Metamoras and its guardian forts.

A large force of the Mexican army had already concen- trated in the city, and their formidable looking batteries commanded the ground selected for the encampment of our army. A protest couched in no very courteous terms, with an expressed determination to open fire, was received in answer to our demonstration. Nevertheless, for want of a better substitute, a wagon tongue did the extempore duty of a flag staff, and the Stars and Stripes flaunted as gallantly that day as they did from the dome of our Capitol. Guns were stacked and the soldiers partook of their evening fare

"With far less inquietude

Than courtiers at a banquet would."

Military assurance, v^'hich is proverbial, certainly had never been carried to a greater extreme. Romance, so con- genial to the nature of a soldier, threw her mantle around everything connected with his operations, and the sons of the rugged North found themselves transported to a new exist- ence. Within gun-shot of the camp, beautiful gardens bloomed with every production of the tropics. Every wander- ing step crushed wild flowers, which would have ornamented any parteere. Birds unsurpassed for music and plumage, sprang from every tree — but woe to the stranger beneath the flower whose beauty and fragrance attracted him, the serpent darted his fatal sting and the loiterer, to dear God's own music from the bush, became a victim to the murderous, and unspar- ing ranchero. Affairs could not long remain in this position. Acts of aggression were committed by the enemy upon our side of the river by the capture of our dragoons — assassination of straggling officers, and men. Impressed with its import- ance the general commanding issued the order for the construc- tion of the field works, afterwards so nobly baptized, and

58 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

christened Fort Brown. The condition of actual war was to exist henceforward. Incessantly by day, but with alacrity, our troops plied the pick and shovel, while in view across the plains of Matamoras squadrons of gay-decked lancers and masses of infantry performed their evolutions. Nights were passed by our army in the ditches, resting upon their arms. Alarms were frequent, for the enemy w'ere not idle. L^ntimely peals of bells, and the barking of dogs, followed by the more ominous rumble of artillery, as it rolled over the pavement, broke the quiet of the distant city, and roused our soldiers from their unrefreshing slumbers. Rockets, like meteors, pierced the blackness of midnight, and the glare of port fires through the embrasures of the opposing forts proclaimed meditated attacks by the enemy.

The first of May, 1846, completed I''ort Brown, and as the sun sank behind the western horizon, the troops excepting the small force intended for its garrison, were withdrawn from the work, already fatigued with a long day's labor. Their toil was not to terminate, but their indomitable energy was equal to the task impressed upon them. The order was read, and without a cheering note from fife and drum, but in silence, the head of the column was directed towards Point Isabel, our depot of supplies. Space will not permit an extended description of the march, but no one who made it will forget the almost Egyptian darkness, as the column now formed in squares for protection against hovering troops of the enemy's lancers, toiled its slow way across the prairie, inter- sected by sloughs, and bristling with formidable cactus. At midnight, 18 miles had been passed over, and as the command, *'halt," passed along the line, each soldier, excepting guards, sank upon the ground where he stood and exhausted nature found a brief repose. The reveille of 4 o'clock next morning -aroused him again, but with daylight the intervening miles to Isabel were soon accomplished.

The morning of the third broke bright and tranquil, as though nature would teach to man a lesson of peace and good- will to all his kind. As the sun appeared, a distant booming followed by others in rapid succession in the direction of Fort Brown sent a thrill through every heart in our encampment. To the music of the cannon's roar the w^ork of a few days placed Isabel in a defensible position for the few who were to maintain it. The seventh gave the commanding general's

Alexander Hays' Own Story of First Service 59

order to the troops, announcing the bombardment of Fort Brown, the hostile attitude of the enemy, and his determina- tion to succor our beleaguered garrison, enjoining it upon the infantry that his main dependence would be in their bayonets. The aggregate force of our marching army little exceeded 2,000 men, but with an extended train of wagons loaded with provisions formed a long procession. There were no tokens of the coming storm excepting the continued reverberations of the cannonade, wafted on the pulses of the air from the Rio Grande, across the prairie, as the column resumed its march on the eighth. In open order with "route step," and "arms at will." our troops gave no evidence to an inexperi- enced eye, of their thorough training. Confidence begets confidence, and so unlimited had it become between officers and men, that many privileges and liberties were permitted in the ranks, not recognized in the school of the soldier, in no way impairing the requirements of strict discipline; yet conducing to the comfort and gratification of the men. The military etiquette of West Point would have been shocked at dress of which a description would have been sought for in vain in army regulations; and the exhaled fumes from numerous "dunderees" might have suggested that tobacco and pipes were items of military stores. Silence was an order not enjoined and amusing were the speculations on coming events, expressed with perfect confidence in themselves, in each other, in their oflficers generally, but most especially in "Old Zack's luck."

No particular emotion was exhibited as the march moved steadily onward, until it was announced from the vanguard that the enemy were in advance. The announcement was electric. Without word or signal, the ranks formed in close order. Every gaze was directed across the plain, and as the long, dark line of the enemy, drawm up in order of battle, far off upon the verge of the prairie, came more distinctly into the field of vision each eye in the ranks caught a fierce, almost unearthly expression seen for the first time, never to be for- gotten. Instinctively all superfluities were thrown aside, and the disengaged hand sought the securing strap of the knap- sack in preparing disembarrassment for the anticipated conflict. A short distance in advance lying between the two armies, were several ponds of excellent water, of which our men stood in great want, and which, by some unaccountable

60 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

oversight, the enemy had failed to occupy. These were secured and in order to preserve the formation of the column companies were alternately detached, to replenish the empty canteens, with the enemy now distinctly visible.

Our train was parked with a sufficient guard for its pro- tection and now refreshed, the column was deployed in line of battle, and moved forward to the attack. Our light artillery rapidly gained position within range and the firing became general. The main body of our army passive spectators of this game of "long ball," but not without partaking of its dangers. Round and grape shot plowed the ground in every direction, and though partially sheltered by a less elevated position than the artillery, with occasional opportunities of dodging; still the ricochet shot of the enemy as it came whirl- ing and skipping across the surface of the plain, would make frequent obeisance into our ranks summarily striking files forever from the muster roll.

No marked result upon the enemy's ranks was apparent from our position, probably in consequence upon the range being too extended for the calibre of the guns which had, as yet, been brought to bear upon him. There were, in our armament, two 24-pounders, destined to make the the most striking incident of the day. Large bodies move slowly espe- cially if the traction be ox-power. Anxiously, but patiently, we had waited the arrival of these engines. Slowly through the yielding soil of the prairie, they approached our line, and slowly wheeled into the position reserved for them.

Thus far our troops had stood unflinchingly, the most try- ing test, to which the soldier is ever subjected. No exclamation or word except commands of officers, had been uttered. Intense interest had concentrated on the 24-pounders. As the signal to fire is given, every eye is strained to mark the effect, and as the double charge of heavy grape goes tearing and plowing through the enemy's lines, opening wide a path for death to enter in, and sweeping far behind through the masses of his reserve, back to the tall timber still behind —

"At once there rose so wild a yell. As all the fiends from Heaven that fell Had pealed the banner cry of hell!"^

1 "Lady of the Lake," Canto; XVIL

Alexander Hays' Own Story of First Service 61

Such a demonstration, so unusual, was entirely unpremedi- tated. It was not the faint cheer of a single throat, but simultaneously from thousands, in a perfect unison, as if it had been the lesson of a daily drill, instead of an exception. The physical effect, acting reversely on the two armies, was distinctly manifest. Rapidly the heavy guns continued to deliver their iron shower, greeted each round, by the almost frantic cheers from our line, while confusion and consternation appeared fast demoralizing our opponents.

The diversion created had enabled the light artillery to advance within shorter range, and accident alone intervened to prolong the battle.

The firing had ignited the dry grass of the prairie, and sheets of flame, driving obscuring clouds of smoke, swept over the field enveloping our army, and intercepting our view of the enemy. Our line was deployed into columns, and broken into regiments, each of which maintained the day, in various engagements, with different corps of the enemy, until night closed and our army rested upon the battlefield of Palo Alto.

Linton, January 15th, 1861.

Linton was the Hays home at the date mentioned, and is frequently referred to in his letters from the field during the rebellion. It was on the Morningside Road in the then Collins Township, now Morningside Avenue, in the City of Pitts- burgh.

Although of a personal nature, it may not be inappro- priate here to also give in full the following characteristic letters written by Lieut. Alexander Hays to immediate relatives during his service in the Army of Observation, Occupation and Invasion, and his most active service in Mexico afterwards. The letter to his brother James breathes a deep tenderness showing the feelings of the young soldier compelled to leave his recent bride, and his longings, aims and ambitions and his resolve to lead an upright life and win for his little family and self an honorable name.

Alexander Hays and Annie Adams McFadden were mar- ried on Thursday morning, February 19, 1846, at the McFadden home then at No. 58 Penn Street (now avenue). This residence of John B. McFadden was immediately opposite the historic Boquet Block House, which then could not be seen from Penn Street. According- to the custom of the times and the

62 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

custom for many years afterwards, the Pittsburgh newspapers announced the w^edding thus :

MARRIED. On Thursday morning, 19th inst., by the Rev. Francis Herron, D. D., Lieut. Alexander Hays, U. S. A., to Annie, daughter of John B. McF'adden, Esq., of this city.

The wedding trip was to Bufifalo, N. Y., in a sleigh with stops at Mercer to see the Pearson family and at Franklin to the "Old Home."

The honeymoon was brief as the letter to James P. Hays is dated March 16, 1846, and Lieut. Hays is on his return to his regiment.

Dr. Herron was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh. 1811-1851. It was through Lieut. P. A. Farrelly, the bride's step-brother, that Alexander Hays and his wife first met.

ALEXANDER HAYS TO HIS NIECE, ANNA PEARSON.

DAUGHTER OF JUDGE JOHN J. PEARSON,

OF MERCER, PA.

"Division Del Norte, General en Gefe,

"Camp near Fort Brown (Texas)

"May 17, 1846. "Dear Anna : —

"I have just finished writing to your father, and write this in hope it will draw some return from you. Remember I am far from home, and that a letter would be most equal to seeing your dear little face. Aunt Annie^ writes often, and in her last letter said she expected you to visit her. which I hope your father will permit you to do soon.

"I need not tell you all the hardships of a poor soldier's life, for it will not afiford you interest, but if you feel any. ask father to read you my letter.

"If I had time 1 might give you some account of this country, which would be interesting, for it is truly "a land of sun and flowers.' but you will find hereafter and feel with me that 'there's no place like home."

"I think of you often and wish you to remember me. Do you ever write to Alf,^ and does he write to you? Give him my love and tell him he must write to me.

"Give my love to mother, grandmother. Aunts Susan, Marg. and Margaret, and to all my friends. Good bye.

"Your uncle,

"Alex."

1 Mrs. Annie McFadden Hays, the bride of February.

2 Alfred Pearson.

Alexander Hays' Own Story of First Service 63

ALEXANDER HAYS TO HIS BROTHER, JAMES P. HAYS.

"Steamer 'El Dorado,' March i6, 1846. "Dear Brother ; —

"I will not offer anything to extenuate my gross neglect of you for the last year. Family failings are sometimes difih- cult to overcome, and I will only promise that the future shall make amends for the past.

"1 have never told you, although you have heard it, that I am in the army. After leaving West Point I was ordered to Red River, La., where I remained until last June. We were then ordered to Texas where, under exposures of different kinds, I was broken down, and went to what we called the 'United States.' Instead of remaining in Louisiana to recruit my health, I passed up to 'old home,' and at Pittsburgh took unto myself a wife — one Annie A. McFadden, now Annie A. Hays, and daughter of John B. McFadden, Esq. (jeweler) of said city. No doubt this will all be old news to you, when you receive this, but it is intended as a mere introduction to what follows. You cannot deny me some judgmeiit in female character ; and what everybody says must be true — therefore you will find in your sister Annie one of the kindest, sweetest, most interesting young ladies you ever met. I took her to Mercer, where she even pleased sister Mary and Miss Lydia

Eliza Louisa P , although the latter was as jealous of

her as bricks.

"It would, of course, have been all one to me as far as the act of marriage was involved, whether my relatives were pleased or not ; but now since it is all over, and they are pleased, it is no small gratification, I assure you. I think father feels as I do, that Annie will be all to him that he could desire, in such case I only fear she would be carried to extremes in her anxieties.

"In getting married, I have reasons few imagined. I felt like some of my brothers before me, that I was 'Prone to wander,' and the necessities of a turn 'Now or never.' The consequence was a wife, and there will be a thorough reform- ation. Further intentions I will give you before I am done. I ask it, as a particular favor, that you will write to Annie as soon as possible. You can send it through father, and you will gratify her very much. I feel the poor girl will feel quite lonesome, but still more, that she will attempt to join me should she hear a report of sickness or distress from me. I may not see her again for a year, certainly not before we leave Texas.

"I am uncertain where I shall be obliged to go until I reach New Orleans. I left my regiment at Corpus Christi, but they have since received orders to march to somewheres on the Rio Grande. I am well pleased with the country, and would be willing to remain there if we had any accommoda- tions. It is, however, perfectly wild and it will be sometime

64 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

before it becomes settled. The climate is unequaled, and there is almost perpetual summer. At times the thermometer stands at 105 and 106 degrees, but the gulf breeze has a tend- ency to overcome the oppressive heat. Game, fish, flesh and fowl abound in myriads through all parts. Altogether, it is the greatest country under the sun. My sickness had no local cause but arose from excessive exposure alone. For two months I was confined to the hospital with fever, and serious apprehensions were entertained for my recovery.

"I would like to give you some account of our landing and passage to the interior, but will not have space I fear. Previous to going there, I had been put upon extra duty for sometime and after we arrived, the old general made it per- manent by selecting me for every expedition, sometimes act- ing as captain of a steamboat, sometimes as skipper of a yawl. On another expedition I was sent to purchase cattle for 'Uncle Sam.' I had no money, only my sweet honest face and that three hundred miles from the army where I was totally unknown. I succeeded in obeying my orders, not without considerable difficulty, and returned, after a month's absence, with eighty yoke, pronounced to be 'the finest lot of cattle ever collected.' Without giving me any rest, I was sent again and again until finally, 'exhausted nature could endure no more,' and I was laid up.

"I am now on my return, I suppose to work all over again, since they have taken the idea that I can do these things better than others. Yes, sir ! Even when unwell, I ha^^e been requested to take charge of a crew of laborers where there were twenty young men doing nothing, and better paid that I was. Some say I ought to feel flattered. Well, I was, but I found that poor pay and if ever I work as hard again as I have, for 'Uncle Sam' or anvone else, may I be .

"Be sure to write soon, through father, and he will be aware of my whereabouts. I will not forgive you if you do not write to your widowed sister Annie.

"Your brother,

"Alex." "To J. P. Hays, Esq."

This item was clipped from the "Pittsburgh Leader" of July 2Z, 1885 :

GENERAL ALEXANDER HAYS AND GRANT AT MEXICO

"This morning Gilbert A. Hays, of Sewickley, son of the late Major-General Alexander Hays, presented the Leader with a photograph of General Grant and General Hays, taken

Alexander Hays' Own Story of First Service 65

at Camp Salubrity, Louisiana, in 1845, when on their way to the Mexican war. General Grant and General Hays had graduated the year before from West Point, and each with the rank of second lieutenant, were on their way to the front when the daguerreotype was taken. The picture shows the two men dismounted. General Hays holding his horse by the bridle and Grant with his right arm thrown carelessly over the neck of his charger. Both are dressed in the regulation uniform of that day, General Hays wearing shoulder straps and General Grant the stripes on the coat sleeve denoting his rank. Boyish in appearance he has a soldier-like bearing, his military cap setting well down on his big high forehead. The caps worn at that time were unlike the military cap of today, being high with a brim that projected downward over the e3^es instead of straight forward as now worn. His face is smooth without the sign of a beard. The photograph is a copy of a daguerreotype now in the possession of General Hays' family. General Hays and General Grant, as before stated, were cadets together at West Point. General Hays was killed at the battle of the Wilderness, May 5, 1864."

It is quite evident that when the future generals were "At Mexico," they were at a very large place. The item is erroneous also in the date of graduation of the distinguished soldiers. The reader already knows that Grant was of the class of 1843, and Hays. 1844. General Longstreet in the chapter entitled "The Ante-bellum Life of the Author" in his book, "From Manassas to Appomattox," states that the Third and Fourth Infantry regiments were ordered from Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, to Fort Jessup. Louisiana, in May 1844, a few weeks prior to Alexander Hays' graduation. Here General Taylor's little "Army of Observation" was organized, which became the "Army of Occupation," July 25, 1845, at Corpus Christi.

CHAPTER VII.

LANE'S BRIGADE IN MEXICO

THE victorious army of General Scott entered the City of Mexico September 14, 1847. On the 19th, the brigade of Brigadier-General Joseph Lane left Vera Cruz for the capital in charge of a long train of supplies. The brigade was made up of two regiments of volunteer infantry, the 4th Ohio, Colonel Charles H. Brough, and the 4th Indiana, Colonel Willis A. Gorman; a detachment of regular recruits under Capt. Seneca G. Simmons, Seventh U. S. Infantry ; ^ a five-gun battery of the Third U. S. Artillery, Capt. George Taylor, ist Lieut. Horace B. Field ; a section of two guns of the Second U. S. Artillery, ist Lieut. Henry C. Pratt, and a com- pany of Louisiana mounted volunteers, Capt. Lorenzo Lewis. This force was augmented, when ready to move, by another detachment of regular recruits under the command of Capt. Samuel P. Heintzelman, Second Infantry, with whom was Lieut. Alexander Hays, Eighth Infantry. Lieut. Alexander Hays found among his new comrades many who subsequently obtained national distinction. Col. Brough was a brother of John Brough, one of Ohio's war governors ; Colonel Gorman, governor of Minnesota (1857-1858), was colonel of the ist Minnesota Volunteers in the Civil War, obtaining the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers ; Lieut. -Colonel Augustus Moor, 4th Ohio, was colonel of 28th Ohio Volunteers in that war and was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers and 2nd Lieut. Thomas J. Lucas, 4th Indiana, colonel of the i6th Indiana (1861), was brevetted major-general of volunteers — both for gallant and distinguished services. Lieut.-Colonel Ebenezer Dumont, 4th Indiana, was colonel of the 7th Indiana in the Civil War and early a full brigadier-general of volun- teers.

Then there was Capt. George E. Pugh, 4th Ohio, later a celebrated attorney in Cincinnati, a representative in Con- gress, and United States Senator from Ohio.

1 Capt. Simmons, West Point Class 1834, was killed at Glen- dale, Va., June 30, 1862, then colonel Fifth Pennsylvania Reserves.

66

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 67

Several other officers under Lane attained distinction in the Civil War, with the rank of colonel of volunteers.^

General Lane fully appreciated Alexander Hays, recog- nizing his worth and capacity, and Alexander Hays had ever a kindly word for "Joe" Lane. In a biographical sketch of Alexander Hays, published soon after the Civil War, the statement is boldly made that a distinguished officer once remarked that while on General Lane's staff, Alexander Hays made a military reputation for his chief that afterwards sent him to the United States Senate. Unfortunately the name of this observing officer has not been handed down. Those who followed Alexander Hays in the Civil War will readily believe that wherever Lane led, Alexander Hays was close up.^

General Lane, however, is best known in history from his political life. A native of North Carolina, he was naturally a pro-slavery man and his candidacy with Breckenridge in i860 was not strange. Of a certainty Lane's Mexican War service was brilliant.^

The story of Lane's brigade has been charmingly told by a noted officer of the United States army * and this work tells also the story of Alexander Hays' services in Mexico after his return from recruiting service.

Letters home in those war days as well as those from the Civil War are now of inestimable value. The daughter of General Robert Anderson of Fort Sumter fame has recently published his letters from Mexico. Going over the same route as Lane, these letters are especially pertinent.^

Always a ready writer, Alexander Hays wrote lengthy and interesting letters to his young wife, and these she loyally

1 First lieutenants, A. G. Brackett, O. H. P. Carey, Benjamin F. Hays, 4th Indiana; John C. Groom, 4th Ohio Volunteers.

2 "Disaster, Struggle, Triumph," Mrs. Arabella P. Willson, Albany, 1879 — The history of the 126th New York Volunteers. Vide P. 337, Ibid.

3 General Lane died in Oregon, April 19, 1881, aged 80.

* Colonel Albert Gallatin Brackett, U. S. A., serving with Lane as a lieutenant in the 4th Indiana in 1850, published "Lane's Brigade In Central Mexico." Colonel Brackett died in Washing- ton, D. C. in 1897. In this little book Lieut. Alexander Hays re- ceives deserving mention.

5 "An Artillery Officer In Mexico," Robert Anderson, captain. Third Artillery. "Notes of the Mexican War," J. J. Oswandel, Com- pany C, 1st Pennsylvania Volunteers.

68 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

preserved, and treasured as most precious in memory, and unpurchasable. A suitable tin box was made their receptacle and for years they were safe ; but alas ! in one of the movings of the Hays family, some despicable thief, presuming from the appearance of the box that it contained valuables, appro- priated it and finding its contents useless, with vandal hands destroyed them. No such thief ever makes restitution ; to do so would be to invite apprehension ; safer to destroy. Thus Alexander Hays' letters from Mexico, graphic and realistic, terse in diction, were lost to the world, hence even at this late date, the boyish effort of Colonel Brackett comes as a mine of real wealth.'

Lane left many sick behind and there had been numerous deaths mainly from yellow fever. The first day's march was especially fatiguing. The road lay through sand ridges almost verdureless and was full of deep cuts. The artillery carriages were pushed up the steep ascent by the soldiers. After pass- ing the scene of Harney's fight at the Medelin River the column toiled on to the ruined village of Santa Fe. Only seven miles had been made and the tired men gladly lay down on the soft prairie grass to sleep. ^

At sunrise of what turned out an intensely hot day. the column moved without any music, Brackett says, except that made by the swarms of parrots along the road. Many of the recruits and unseasoned soldiers threw away their belong- ings and accoutrements and had cause to lament later. About noon the advance of the long column had an engagement with guerrillas, who were routed by the cavalry. The brigade went into bivouac at night near a creek where many men became most desperately sick from eating strange fruits, and a most miserable night was passed, but fortunately no one died.

September 2ist the column marched 15 miles to the Paso de Ovejas. called by the Americans, "The Robbers' Bridge." "I'his day. too, was oppressively hot. and no incidents worthy of mention occurred, except a needless alarm in the evening. The train was a mile in length, the men concentrating in the village resting the animals until the evening of the 22nd. when they again advanced. The 4th Indiana considerably

1 Colonel Brackett. when serving in Lane's brigade, was but 18 years old.

2 "An Artillery Officer In Mexico." Anderson; P. 133.

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 69

in the lead, was attacked by a large body of guerrillas. The train was halted and the lines formed, and Lewis' cavalry charged into the valley below and up a nearby hill, losing their lieutenant, killed instantly, but the cavalry were unable to reach their enemies. A six-pounder cannon, however, which had been unlimbered, sent a charge or two of grape- i-hot into them, and effectually settled the Mexican appetite for battle.

The way now led over the ancient road, the air sweet with fragrance of unknown plants, and filled with songs of unknown birds, the plain and slopes covered with a wild growth ; mimosas, cactuses, acacias, vines with gaudy blos- soms trailing among shrubs and the maguey. Ruined churches and haciendas, deserted and ivy-covered, stately and solemn, decked in coronals of flowers, were common and frequent sights, sad evidences of an uncanny desolation.^

Advancing a few miles, the column was surprised to meet Colonel Hughes,' who had come to Lane's relief on hearing of the attack upon him, but reinforcements were not needed.

Early in the afternoon the marching troops commenced to descend along the hard limestone rock, high hills on each side of the road, and soon the east end of the famous Puente Nacional is in sight, formerly "Puente del Rey," the name changing with the republic to the "National Bridge." Going down the road, two dried-up bodies were discovered, and strips of clothing left no doubt of what they once were. On the ends of bayonets, the putrid bodies were tossed over the rocky declivity, it being impossible to give any other burial.

The grandeur of the scenery about the bridge is unequalled in Mexico. Midway between the east and west ends of the bridge there is a high, rocky eminence on which a fort had been erected. In the surrounding mountain fast- nesses, and in the defiles near the bridge, were ample hiding places for guerrillas, and even small armies, and in the revo- lution which gave Mexico its independence, many combats took place in the vicinity. Previous to the arrival of Lane's brigade, four fights had occurred here, with General Cad- wallader, June loth ; General Franklin Pierce, July i6th :

1 General Anderson notes this profusion of flowers. "An Artil- lery Ofliicer In Mexico," Robert Anderson; P. 134.

2 With the Maryland and District of Columbia Volunteers.

70 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

Major Lally, August 12th, and Colonel Hughes had carried the fort on the point of the bayonet September 9th. Nearby — on a hill was a beautiful hacienda, once the property of Santa Anna. Lane's men were not slow to avail themselves of the comforts of the buildings and those of the neighboring deserted village.

Lane was obliged to send back part of his train for pro- visions and more ammunition and this reduced his force materially, as a strong guard was needed anywhere in Mexico. The little army was not faring sumptuously by any means ; hard tack and fresh beef without salt was the daily diet and once for four days, fresh beef and water alone.

Lane pushed on to Jalapa with the whole brigade, except part of the 4th Indiana left to guard the train, but before starting he held a review, a most picturesque and warlike spectacle, with the surroundings of the sublime in nature and the wonderful in engineering, for the bridge was indeed a wonder; finished in 1776, its massive arches spanned the Rio Antaigua, a swift stream rising at the base of Mount Orizaba. Colonel Hughes was left to guard the bridge and garrison the fort.

The road to Jalapa was fearfully rough. The men were hungry, some having only mouldy and sour Hour with which to make a few cakes. Along the ascending road filled with loose stones, the column toiled, and a tedious and disagreeable march it was. The march led around the Broken Bridge at Plan del Rio, a single arch span which had been blown up to impede the progress of the Americans, but always resource- ful, they had built a road around it and waded the small streams, and pressed on, passing the battle ground of Cerro Gordo, like the National Bridge, capable of being made a modern Thermopylae.

Mementoes of the battle were plenty, the usual debris of a battlefield everywhere in sight. A few bones lay here and there along the road and the long line of abattis still stretched down the hill to the left. Over a steep precipice the bodies of the dead had been thrown, in lieu of burial. Thus Lane and his men pushed their way along the Camino Nacional, that famous road of centuries, and the country now begins to ascend, the road having struck boldly into the mountain side, and the tall slopes of the Sierras have long been in view in bold and inspiring masses. The road winds slowly and

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 71

roughly around the scant sides, which have been hewn and notched to receive it, the mountains towering majestically above. Mountainous walls on one side, impenetrable abysses below, immensely deep and rugged ravines, wooded heights in places rising thereout, hemmed in by other eminences; a boundary of rocks and forests through which vision cannot penetrate — such was the scenery and such the journey along the Camino Nacional. At length Jalapa is reached with the lofty Cordilleras in the west to be crossed, and more priva- tions and strenuous work ahead.

The city and department of Jalapa are in the State of Vera Cruz. In beautiful Jalapa Lane's troops obtained a most enjoyable rest. They entered in the midst of a drizzling rain with the sorrowful music of wet drums, and moodily flapping colors, but with the cessation of the rain stout hearts and brave spirits revived, and the troops made a better appearance.

At Jalapa, Major Lally, Ninth U. S. Infantry, was found, after his stirring march up from the coast, during which, out of 1,200 men he had lost 105, and been badly wounded him- self. Lieut. Alexander Hays was fortunate to fall in with Capt. Benjamin Alvord and Lieuts. Henderson Ridgeley and David A. Russell, of his old regiment, the Fourth Infantry. Capt. Alvord was acting adjutant general of Lally's com- mand.^

Lane's stay in Jalapa was brief — only long enough to repair his baggage wagons and obtain mules to take the place of those who had literally laid down and died from fatigue. Colonel Childs was starving and fighting at Puebla and Lane hastened on. The country around was sufficiently floral to arouse the most intense interest in Alexander Hays, and he certainly improved his opportunities. The maguey we know as the century plant — the American aloe. Miles of fence of this wonderful plant were common enough in Mexico. The convolulus, the source of our drugstore jalap — a long creeping vine with handsome white and blue flowers ; the bananas, pineapples, cocoanut trees, oranges and lemons, all found admiration and use, but botany does not thrive amid war's disturbing features and sober thoughts prevailed among the rank and file as well as the officers of Lane's brigade, for all

1 Brevet Major-General Russell, Sixth Corps, killed at the battle of the Opequan, September 19, 1864.

72 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

knew the command was cut oflf from all succor and under- stood plainly they must work out, fight out their own safety^ Lane left Jalapa October ist. A drenching rain soaked everything — torrents of rain that inundated the face of the country like a great lake ; in some places on the road, water was a foot to i8 inches in depth. One can imagine such campaigning. The men, marching sullenly along, shielding their muskets as well as they could with their short jackets and blankets, but the cavalrymen were a pitiable sight, thor- oughly soaked and dripping wet without the opportunity of keeping warm by marching on foot.-

With night comes the steep ascent, for they are now at the foot of the Cordilleras. With increasing altitude comes increasing cold. Only the sounds of the vehicles — the rough jolting of the artillery and the clinking of accoutrements, break the silence. It is no time for talk. Darkness comes on suddenly in those latitudes, demanding a halt. The night is spent without fires, the men partaking of their four days' rations and then, tired, wet and cheerless, they wrap their wet blankets around them and lie down in the mud and water with chills running through their bones, and rolling thunder reverberating in their ears in their oft awakening.

The march was now through a volcanic region. The first camp on this day was at La Hoya. the scene of a fight on June 20th. All day there had been a dense fog which lay close along the mountain tops and left no opportunity to dry out. the command being kept wet. and chilly, but at La Floya the men were gi\en a good ration of beef from con- fiscated Mexican cattle.

The next day. after another restless night, the long train a great encumbrance, the command pursued the march. On this day some soldiers who had gone to a road-by spring, were fired upon by lurking guerrillas and three were killed. The cavalry immediately charged the retreating foes and left five stretched upon the ground on their return. At night a

1 General Winfield Scott was impressed with the grandeur of the scenery en route to the capital. Vide his "Autobiography;" PP. 457. 467, Vol. II. General Anderson also speaks of the natural beauty of this place, the richer soil and Orizaba in plain view. "An Artillery Officer In Mexico;" P. 143.

2 As to rains, "Whilst it rained it came literally in torrents, 'a cantaros, a chuzos,' " in the language of the country — "pitch- forks, bucketsful." "History of the Mexican War," Wilcox; P. 311.

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 73

halt was made at Cruz Blanco, and Lane remained here over night and many baggage wagons with camp utensils having broken down, a poor supper awaited the tired men, but the next day the sun shone clear and bright and a more level road served also to gladden, and there was cheer enough for the musicians to get out their instruments, and the command, to the inspiring notes of "Yankee Doodle," marched briskly into Perote, at about ii A. M. Perote, an adobe built town, with its splendid castle, commanding the country for many miles, a relic of the Spanish days back to 1776, and garrisoned by Major F. L. Bowman of the ist Pennsylvania Volunteers. The castle had been turned into a hospital and many wounded men, with amputated limbs, from Cerro Gordo, still lay help- less within its solid walls. ^

General Lane, having received information that Santa Anna was concentrating to attack him, to strengthen his force all he could, took the four companies of the ist Penn- sylvania along, the other six, under Lieut.-Colonel Samuel W. Black of Pittsburgh, being with the beleaguered garrison at Puebla. Lane also took along that sturdy ranger, Capt. Samuel H. Walker, and his Mounted Rifles and it proved to his death.

Lane's force now amounted to 3.300 men with seven pieces of artillery, a formidable force, as American forces went in Mexico — a well drilled force, too, and ready for action at any moment. October 5th the command moved forward. The weather was now very hot, and the route was over an extensive sandy plain, a pack of Mexican wolves paralleling the moving column all day. This march was a most distres- sing one. the men and animals suffering the most intense thirst. In those days the canteens were of India rubber and the water in them became steaming hot, yet on this day, so great was the torture from thirst, that those who were fortu- nate enough to have any water could obtain as high as $5.00 for a single drink. Nevertheless, 30 miles were made, and when the town of Tepiacualca was reached, the regimental and battalion commanders were obliged to send back empty wagons to pick up those who had fallen from fatigue, and when the wagons returned, they brought back three soldiers

1 Perote — The plain less rich and few respectable looking houses. "An Artillery Officer In Mexico;" P. 145.

74 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

who would march no more, for that day's march had killed them.

Tepiacualca was a typical Mexican town — a few adobe houses, a plaza, and a stone church, but the people had departed and Lane's men tore down all the wooden parts of the houses for fires. A rigid guard was maintained this night, for a body of Mexican lancers had been plainly seen in the distance — a hard night's service after so fatiguing a day.^

On the 6th, the command had an issue of fresh pork, the men doing the "issuing" from a herd of 300 belonging to a Mexican. As this day had not been so hot and the men had been well fed, there was not so much suffering. Santa Anna, aware that he could not take Puebla, had come eastward to attack Lane, and to prevent him from joining Childs.

October 8th, the command halted for the night at the hacienda of San Antonio Tamaris and the train closed in close to the walls and cannon were planted. Three miles away was the village of Napaloucan and with its Vesper bells sounding sweetly, telling of repose and quiet. The men of Lane's brigade, after supper, dropped asleep and for not a few it was the last sleep. Arms had been stacked and fires kindled along the lines, and some comfort was obtained.

October 9th was an eventful day. The bivouac was broken at the sudden daybreak. The sun rose in glorious majesty and the entrancing beauty of its rays gilded the distant peaks, and all was calm and still "save the sounds of the drums and the bugles." A quick roll call, a hasty breakfast of hard crackers and coffee, the quick accoutering and "fall-in," and the line was formed and the advance began. Rumors were now thick — Santa Anna was close at hand, and his forces were "variously" estimated — always enough.

The 4th Ohio, Simmons' battalion and Pratt's section of artillery, were left to guard the baggage and all knapsacks. The command moved, Capt. Walker leading with his riflemen : next the two companies of Louisiana cavalry and the Georgia cavalry company, followed by the 4th Indiana and the four companies of the ist Pennsylvania, under Colonel Wynkoop,

1 General Anderson spells this, Tepeyahualco, and describes it as a miserable place where the nights were very cold and nothing but maguey plant in sight in the way of vegetation. "An Artillery Officer In Mexico," Capt. Robert Anderson, Third Artillery; P. 150. "a town built of mud houses," Oswandel.

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 75

then Lally's battalion, Capt. Heintzleman's battalion the rear guard; in all, about 2,000 men. Through the hot sands and the clouds of dust, the column marched about 10 miles when the cavalry dashed ahead and were soon lost to view. General Lane and staff rode along the line, and soon came the order for the infantry to move in double time, and in a fev/ moments more the exhilerating crack, crack, of the riflemen was heard and the combat of Huamantla had begun. A combat, in a military sense, is an engagement of no great magnitude or an engagement wherein the forces are not armies. Lane's forces were now in plain sight of the city, and a large force of Mexican lancers could be seen on the left going at full speed toward the city. "A beautiful sight," says Brackett, "the showy troops, magnificent in their red and green uni- forms, their long bright lances gleaming in the sun, flashed splendidly as they rode with perfect fury, their crimson pen- nons fluttering gracefully from their lances, and their national flag, a tri-color of green, white and red with the Aztec eagle in the center, rose above the pennons." There then began a race, each party striving to reach the city first, for if the Mexicans arrived first, with the immense disparity of numbers against them, the fate of Lane's small band of cavalry was easily foreseen. Lane's infantry tore through the maguey fields, blood gushing from many men's nostrils, and they strained every effort, but they cannot compete with horsemen, and the Mexicans reach the city, as a maddening cry of dis- appointment bursts from the enraged Americans, who slacken not their pace. The foot soldiers reached the upper end of a street leading to the plaza, where they were halted for breath, just as a mounted rifleman rode up bareheaded and dropped from his horse, dead, first having torn open his jacket with convulsive grasp, revealing not one, but many ghastly lance wounds, any one of them fatal. ^

At this point the Indiana men divided, one wing going forward into the plaza, and another to the suburbs, Wynkoop and his Pennsylvanians and the artillery moved to the east side of the town; Heintzelman's battalion to the right. Lieut. -Colonel Dumont and his battalion had come suddenly upon the lancers. Quick orders were given — "Ready, aim, fire" — in a flash the Indianians had emptied their muskets and the Mexican force was completely riddled, and men and horses

1 "General Lane's Brigade In Central Mexico;" P. 90.

76 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

rolled over in frantic confusion and many horses and riders never arose again, and as they looked upon the dead men who lay on the ground, the men in blue were awed, for they had been in their first battle, and the awe that was on them was the awe of death, and they themselves had not come out unscathed — nine had fallen, three dead, and one was missing. The Indiana men placed their colors on the arsenal in the plaza, the color guard killing some Mexicans who attempted to keep them out.

When Capt. Walker's cavalry charged into the plaza, he found a body of Mexican infantry and some artillery. In a brief, fierce encounter, the enemy were driven ofif, leaving three cannon in Walker's possession. Walker's men, suppos- ing the conflict over, were resting themselves, when 2,000 lancers, commanded by Santa Anna himself, charged into the square. The American cavalry, knowing they could not withstand so great a number, took refuge in a church yard with a high stone wall around it. The brave Walker, how- ever, in endeavoring to save the guns was made a target for the enemy's escopettes. two balls of large calibre striking him almost at the same moment, one passing through his head and the other through his breast. His death was instantane- ous, and his faithful slave was killed almost at his side. The Mexicans captured one gun, losing many men in the attempt. Capt. Besancon's company of Louisianians, under their impetuous leader, cut their way through the Mexicans like a whirlwind, but not without loss. When the enemy were no longer to be fought, all the houses in the town were searched and a number of prisoners were taken. Many fine houses were broken open and looted. A large amount of ammunition was found and destroyed. The beautiful fountain in the plaza had been filled with gunpowder, rendering the water unfit for use, and powder was scattered on the ground about, to the depth of several inches. This was the last battle Santa Anna fought against the Americans. He made his escape with a few lancers and retired to Tehuacan. One naturally feels like writing something of this notorious revolutionist, militair. agitator, demon, general, scoundrel — whatever he may be called, but let it suflfice to say that Santa Anna was a most timid soldier and justly, years back, had earned and still occu- pied a place in the front rank of the world's historic blackguards, and he who wishes to read the generalization of

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 77

his character will find it most thoroughly and truthfully done by Brantz Mayer, in the last pages of his first volume on Mexico,' and it is good reading, too. Lane and his men, how- ever, were not through with him as will appear.

October 9th, Lane assembled his different battalions at night in the plaza. 13 men were killed, 19 wounded, some mortally, and 10 were missing. After the engagement, when General Lane had moved on to Puebla, a number of Americans who remained behind in Huamantla intoxicated, were killed by the returning enemy.

Besides Walker, five of his men were killed, seven wounded and six were missing, nearly half the total losses in the brigade. The dead and wounded were carried back to San Antonio Tamaris the next day, Sunday, and buried with- out coffins. Capt. Walker lay side by side with his negro servant, for in death the color line had been wiped out, and the slave and the owner were mere humanity.

Samuel H. Walker was a native of Maryland. He had emigrated at an early age to the Republic of Texas and had served as a volunteer soldier in the Creek War and then in I'lorida. He had been with General Taylor in his battles, and had been previously captured in the Mier expedition but had escaped from the Mexicans at Tacubaya and after great hard- ships, had reached Tampico and New Orleans. While serving with Taylor he was in command of a company of Texan rangers, but on account of his reputation as a daring com- mander and drillmaster, had been appointed to the regular armv and assigned to the Mounted Rifles. He was a medium- sized man, light complexioned, and mild in his expression, a soldier though by nature, and a product of that type of soldier born of the strange tempestuous times. His body was buried in a separate grave, and after the war. removed to Texas. When the earth closed on him at San Antonio Tamaris. his men wept — rough men ; brave men ; men used to seeing human lives snuffed out in a moment — wept because their chief had fallen, and he had been a just chief as well as a gallant one. Colonel Wynkoop read the service, and a com- pany of Ohio volunteers fired the regulation volleys.^

1 "Mexico: Aztec, Spanish, Republican;" P. 431, et seq. Con- sult also Winfield Scott's "Autobiography," Vol. II.; P. 466. "His- tory of Mexico," Bancroft, Vol. V.; P. 533.

2 Capt. Walker was an old comrade of Alexander Hays'. Vide Chapter V.; P. 48. "History of Mexico," Bancroft, Vol. V.; P. 528.

78 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

A more recent historian of the Mexican War, H. O. Ladd, justly states that this war formed an epoch in the history of the United States, from which dates that heroic spirit of patriotism and those marvelous qualities of the American soldier of the last generation, which became so conspicuous in the Civil War, preparing for it some of the ablest officers and leaders. Professor Ladd in commendable admiration of the chivalric Walker, devotes several pages of his admirable little work to a description of the battle of Huamantla, and says of Walker: "No man in all the war died more regretted. None fell who combined so many qualities of the prompt, daring, energetic, yet cool and self-contained soldier in the hour of the greatest peril. The commanding general [Lane], in his report, said of Huamantla : 'This victory is saddened by the loss of one of the most chivalric, noble-hearted men that graced the profession of arms, Capt. Samuel H. Walker, of the Mounted Riflemen. Foremost in the advance, he had routed the enemy when he fell mortally wounded.' " ^

In the afternoon, Lane renewed his march, taking his wounded along. To have abandoned them would have con- signed them to a terrible death. The evening found the command at Napaloucan, only three miles from the hacienda. Strong guards were placed, and comfortable quarters found by all men not on duty. The guards were fired on this night and the men were under arms twice.

El Pinel was passed safely on the nth. This was a mountain pass and could have been effectually used to shut off any army, but Santa Anna was a weak strategist, and along the side of the mountain, a steep ascent on the left and a deep precipice on the right, Lane and his small fighting force, marched on without opposition only to be fired on from ambush when through the pass. The Ohio regiment was quickly deployed and scoured the side of the mountain nearest them, but without avail. The miscreants had escaped. They were generally safe before they ventured an attack.

1 "The War With Mexico," Horatio O. Ladd (University of New Mexico), 1883; P. 260, et seq. Consult also General Robert Anderson's mention of Puebla in his recently published letters, "An Artillery Officer In Mexico;" PP. 170, 183. History of the Mexican War, Wilcox; P. 498, Lane's report, ex. doc, Senate No. 1, Thirtieth Congress, first session. Vide also a recent work, "The United States and Mexico," Geo. L. Rives, Vol. IL; PP. 571-572; "History of Mexico," Bancroft, Vol. V.; P. 530.

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 79

The command toiled on until midnight, reaching Ama- soque at that hour, and were quartered in the various buildings, having made 30 miles during the day, and Puebia still 10 miles away. The men were very tired, so Lane decided to wait until morning and although a combat was expected, all slept.

October 12th was warm ; a few miles march and the broad valley of Puebia, locked in by towering mountains, burst upon the view, a charming landscape, a magnificent vision. Far away at the head of the valley could be seen the numerous spires of the city and above all, the more sombre towers oi the great cathedral. In front, 30 miles away, arose the gigantic forms of the twin volcanoes, their lofty crests, eternally white, lost in the ponderous day clouds. The con- vent of Guadelope lay on a hill to the right, and still further on was Fort Loretto. Clouds of smoke, wreathing and curl- ing in the distance every few minutes, left no doubt as to their origin, and anon the dull boom of the far-away cannon, hastened the marching feet, and by 9 o'clock the outskirts of Puebia were reached, but the treacherous enemy were awake, and passing a ruined church, a volley penetrated the ranks, and a private of the Ohio regiment fell dead. The fire was returned and without orders, the Ohio men rushed the church and killed and captured the remaining enemy.

In the disposition of the troops the 4th Ohio entered the city by the main road, Wynkoop's Pennsylvanians and Simmons' battalion supporting. The 4th Indiana proceeded further to the left and entered by another street; Major Lally's command by still another street. The enemy, secreted in the houses and on the house tops, poured many volleys into the advancing columns ; volleys even coming from houses where a white flag was displayed. The 4th Indiana picked off the treacherous foes from the house tops, firing by pla- toons. Lieut. -Colonel Dumont had a narrow escape, his life being saved by his horse rearing at the flash of the gun aimed at him, the ball grazing the gallant Dumont. The Mexicans were under the command of General Rea, and it took two hours of such fighting to drive him out of the city, and it was 3 o'clock before Brough's and Gorman's weary men entered the plaza. The great cathedral is at the left and the gov- ernor's palace at the right of the square and there was not a single Mexican in sight of a city of 80,000 inhabitants.

80 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

Lane's other regiments came up silently and halted in the square.

Puebla is 70 miles from the City of Mexico. General Scott had left Colonel Childs in Puebla in charge of 1,800 sick -and wounded of his army. Childs' men were few, a company of the Third Dragoons under Capt. Ford, Capts. Miller's and Kendrick's batteries, and Lieut. -Colonel Samuel \\ . Black with six companies of the 1st Pennsylvania, in all 393 men ; but during the siege, with some of the convalescents daily becoming tit for duty, Childs' effectives were augmented to about 1,400 and these were actively engaged from day to day. Childs' disposition of his troops was a garrison at the Cuartel San Jose, one in Fort Loretto, and one in the convent of Guadelope, which are about half a mile away from the Cuartel and connected with the city. San Jose was Childs' depot of supplies.

Everything about Puebla was quiet when Scott was thundering at the gates of the capital but the Mexicans, thor- fjughly whipped there, bethought themselves of Puebla and revenge. After various skirmishes in one of which 10 men out of 26 quartermaster's hands were killed, a large force of the enemy appeared at Puebla, September 14th, and a regu- lar siege commenced. Day and night Childs' little band was assailed and everything in the way of animals that would supply food was driven from the vicinity. Cuartel ' is a large square surrounded on three sides by barracks, and into this the wide-awake Americans had previously driven many cattle and sheep, and this act proved their salvation in one sense. The Mexicans, after many efforts, were unsuccessful in turn- ing the stream of water that supplied the garrison. Santa Anna appeared September 22nd and took command. On the 25th Major Iturbide, subsequently captured at Huamantla, summoned Childs to surrender, but Childs declined, stating that Americans were not generally of a surrendering nature.

Colonel Thomas Childs was not a beloved commander, but he was a thorough and trained soldier, and hemmed in on all sides, could only hold on. Mis men were proud of him, and when he stated he would die rather than yield to his treacherous enemy, the troops cheered him and resolved to die with him if it came to that. It will not do. in the limits

1 Also spelled "Quartel."

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 81

of this volume, to tell all the incidents of the siege of Puebla. Pittsburgh was represented there with her gallant soldier, the eloquent-tongued, the knightly "Sam" Black, who fell at Gaines' Mills, June 2^, 1862. The "Duquesne Greys" of Pittsburgh, Capt. John Herron, Company K of the ist Penn- sylvania Regiment were there, and Company A., the Jackson Independent Blues of Pittsburgh was in Lane's succoring brigade, Capt. Alexander Hay ^ originally, but succeeded soon after arriving in Mexico by ist Lieut. James O'Hara Denny* and he in turn by Capt. William A. Charlton, and this com- pany was particularly gallant at Huamantla.

Alexander Hays, thus found among the relieved garrison of Puebla many of his subsequent townsmen and warm friends. There were Richard C. Drum of Greensburg, a private in the Greys, promoted second lieutenant in the Ninth U. S. Infantry, who died a few years ago; in the great war assistant adjutant-general, U. S. A., and brevet brigadier-gen- eral, U. S. A. ; Third Sergeant Robert Anderson, colonel of the Ninth Pennsylvania Reserves ; Fourth Sergeant Charles W. Hambright, colonel of the 79th Pennsylvania Volunteers dur- ing the War of the Rebellion ; Private Norton McGiflfin, afterwards Lieut. Hays' superior officer as lieutenant-colonel of the I2th Pennsylvania Volunteers in 1861 ; Private James S. Negley, later Major-General James S. Negley, and in com- mand of the 5th Brigade, Pennsylvania troops in the three months service. Private John Poland, major of the 102nd Regiment, killed at Malvern Hill, was in the ranks with the "Greys," but Private Oliver H. Rippey, colonel of the 6ist Pennsylvania, who fell at Fair Oaks, had been detailed and had gone on with Scott's army, so that of the three Pittsburgh colonels of the 6ist, 62nd and 63rd Pennsylvania regiments, and all slain in the great war, only two met in Puebla when "Joe" Lane fought his way there. In the "Jackson Blues" there were also Pittsburghers destined to know and esteem Alexander Hays in higher rank. There were James C. Hull, fourth sergeant, a boy of 19, who was lieutenant-colonel of the 62nd Pennsylvania after the death of peerless Black, Hull, too, slain, at Laurel Hill, Va., May 8, 1864; and Private James T. Shannon, captain of Company C. 9th Pennsylvania Reserves, who fell at Second Bull Run.

1 Alexander Hay too often confounded by careless writers with Alexander Hays.

82 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

Pittsburgh furnished three other companies : The Hibern- ian Greens, Capt. Robert Porter, which was Company I of the 2nd Regiment under Colonel Geary with Scott's army. Capt. P. N. Guthrie's was in the nth U. S. Infantry and Capt. Thomas A. Rowley's company was assigned to Colonel Hughes' Maryland and the District of Columbia regiment and all of these troops lost heavily in the war.^

The companies of Capt. Small and Capt. Herron had been most gallant in the besieged citadels, making several sorties and driving the enemy. Shortly before the relieving column arrived, two companies of the ist Pennsylvania, Hill's and Herron's, under Colonel "Sam" Black, marched down the main street of Puebla to silence a well-sustained fire of the enemy, and join the battalion of the regiment coming up with Lane. Before the approach of Black's battalion a company of lancers were seen retiring. Capt. Herron was ordered to march around a square and cut off their retreat but another company of lancers was coming in his front, and with one in the rear, Herron was completely hemmed in. The "Greys" fired a quick volley into the foe, killing and wounding many, but the enemy immediately closed in. The loud clashing of the lances against the American bayonets at close quarters, brought Colonel Black and Capt. Hill's company to the rescue, but not before 13 out of 30 men in Herron's company had been killed and nine wounded, including the captain and but for the timely arrival of Black, fortunately nearby, the "Duquesne Greys" of Pittsburgh on that day would have been wiped out.

All of the glorious deeds of Childs' men cannot be mentioned. Colonel Black was in command at San Jose and Capt. Morehead at the convent of Guadelope. The siege of Puebla was the most protracted event in the war, and it is almost incredible that so small a force could hold out so long against such odds. Childs' little band had suffered to the extent of 87 before Lane came, and the enemy's losses were

1 For rosters vide "History of the Mexican War," C. M. Wilcox, Eleventh Infantry, P. 643; Pennsylvania regiments, P. 685; Mary- land, 672. Thomas A. Rowley was colonel of the 13th Pennsylvania Volunteers in 1861, in the three months service, later colonel of the 102nd Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, both of which he or- ganized in Pittsburgh. He commanded the Third Division, First Corps, at Gettysburg, on the first day, and attained the full rank of brigadier-general of volunteers. He died in Pittsburgh, May 14, 1891.

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 83

estimated at over 500. The gallant Childs perished six years later of cholera at Fort Brooke, Fla. He was brevetted briga- dier-general, U. S. A., for his services at Puebla.

Atlixco is the next name on the list of the Mexican engagements in which Lieut. Alexander Hays was present. Atlixco is a town in the State of Puebla and the engagement there is mentioned in Brantz Mayer's account of Lane's operations in Central Mexico previously referred to.^ This engagement took place October 19th, 10 days after Huamantla. The affair was an inspiriting one. The enemy had con- tested every practical position of the road leading to the town, and routed and driven from each of these with loss, by the cavalry under the command of Capts. Ford and Lewis, they lined the hedges and house tops on the outskirts of the town, and discharged repeated volleys of small arms as the head of the infantry column approached. Darkness coming on and the plan of the town being unknown to Lane, the enemy apparently being in force with artillery, the general with the concurrence and approbation of all his field officers near him at the time, ordered the artillery to open and continue firing until the enemy's musketry was silenced. Even under such circumstances the town was not surrendered until the Amer- icans entered in force. There was every evidence that the Mexicans made use of the churches and their appendent buildings as barracks and even concealed cannon in a church. The loss of the Mexicans commanded by General Rea in and around Atlixco was 219 killed and over 300 wounded, while Lane lost but 3 ; i private killed, i wounded and i missing. Lane returned to Puebla October 2ist.2

The siege of Puebla is officially mentioned by the com- mander-in-chief.'

1 "Mexico: Aztec, Spanish, Republican;" P. 422. "The United States and Mexico," Geo. L. Rives, Vol. II.; PP. 573,574- "Notes of the Mexican War," J. J. Oswandel; P. 366.

2 General Ripley deigned to notice this affair. He says: "Rea fled to Matamoras, 11 leagues distant, with two pieces of artillery" "War With Mexico," R. S. Ripley, Vol. II.; P. 508.

3 Vide "Autobiography of Lieut.-General Scott," Vol. II ; P 550; Vide Senate documents, Thirtieth Congress, first session; 471- 475; "War With Mexico," R. S. Ripley, Vol. II.; P. 491; "History of Mexico," Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol. V.; P. 528; "The United States and Mexico," Geo. L. Rives; PP. 570-574; "Notes of the Mexican War," Oswandel; PP. 248-346, a full account from a pri- vate's diary. "Mexico, etc.," History of Nations series. Lodge. Vol XXII.; PP. 272-273.

84 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

"Retiring from the capital, Santa Anna collected several fragments of his late army and laid siege to Puebla, the gar- rison of which being considerably less than was intended; for, although on advancing from that city I gave the strictest orders that all convalescents as well as the sick should be left behind, about 600 of the former imposed themselves upon their medical and company officers as entirely restored to health. For stationary or garrison duty they would have been fully qualified, but proved a burden to the advancing columns ; for they soon began to break down and to creep into the subsistence wagons faster than these were lightened by the consumption of the troops. The siege was prosecuted with considerable vigor for 28 days and nobly repulsed by our able and distinguished commander. Colonel Childs with his gallant but feeble garrison, at all points and at every assault. During these arduous and protracted operations the glory of our arms was nobly supported by officers and men. Colonel Childs especially commends by name — and no doubt justly — the skill, zeal and prowess of Lieut. -Colonel Black and Capt. Small, both of the Pennsylvania Volunteers ; and the highly accomplished Capt. Kendrick [now professor] L'. S. 4th Artillery, chief of that arm." ^

General Scott has not a word of Lane and his succoring brigade. Lane was a "hot Democrat," so to speak, and Scott a Whig. Scott did not love the administration, and says so in his autobiography.

With Lane there were over 4,000 American troops in Puebla of whom 1,000 were sick, leaving 3,000 effectives, so that Lane had opportunity to make expeditions and still leave a sufficient garrison.

October 29th, General Lane made a descent upon Tlas- cala.* Tlascala is a small city in the territory of the same name, in 1847 'i" independent territory. Here Cortez fought and conquered the Tlascalians who joined him thereafter in his conquest of the Aztecs. The action at Tlascala was fought November Qth and the troops engaged were 20 picked men from each company of the Ohio and Indiana regiments, 400 in all, under command of Lieut. -Colonel Dumont, and two companies of mounted men ; riflemen and cavalry, Gen- eral Lane accompanying. The object of the expedition was

1 Capt. Kendrick was professor of chemistry, mineralogy and geology at West Point during Alexander Hays' cadet course and again in 1857, where he remained for a number of years. His regiment, however, was the 2nd Artillery.

2 Mayer's spelling — Tlascala — West Point records and geograph- ers "Tlaxcala."

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 85

the recapture of a rich train belonging to Mexican merchants, taken by Rea. Some of Rea's men, having abandoned their horses on Lane's arrival in the tow^n, hastily hid in the houses, but were hunted out and there was much firing in the streets! most of the enemy as usual getting away, though a number were killed. Much live stock and 50 mustangs were captured, also some guerrillas. The Indiana troops lost two men in this affair. The combatants were vastly disproportionate but the boldness and promptness of the Americans won. The expedi- tion returned to Puebla on the nth of November.

Lane's forces were soon after reinforced by five companies of Texan rangers under command of the celebrated Colonel "Jack" Hays, between whom and Lieut. Alexander Hays a warm attachment sprang up. John CofTee Hays was about the same age as his friend Alexander Hays, having been born in 1818 in Wilson County, Tennessee. In 1837 he removed to Texas, and in 1840 became a major in the service of that republic and this service was on the frontier against the Indians. With Samuel H. Walker as lieutenant-colonel, he had fought bravely under Taylor, but only part of his regi- ment was under Scott, the balance having been left on the Rio Grande. After the war. "Jack" Hays joined the throngs hastening to California, where, in 1850, Alexander Hays speaks of meeting him in San Francisco, and in 1854 Brackett states he was surveyor general of the state, as he was by pro- fession a surveyor and had followed it at San Antonio, Texas, previous to his military career. He was a strict disciplinarian and had a characteristic and odd appearing command, without uniforms, armed with rifles, pistols and revolvers, and they could use them effectually. "Jack" Hays had an adventurous career previous to the war with Mexico. He once told Alex- ander Hays, in his quiet way. that of a company of 90 men in which he had served in the Texan revolution, at that time [1847], there were but three survivors.

Colonel "Jack" Hays' men thought particularly well of Alexander Hays, for they presented him with a handsome sword which is still in the possession of his children, yet a cherished souvenir of Mexico, and a proof of brave men's appreciation.

November 22nd, General Lane received information that the Mexicans were assembling in force at Matamoras in the State of Puebla, and on that evening he set out with 160

86 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

mounted men, rangers, riflemen and cavalry, Colonel "Jack" Hays', Capt. Roberts' company, and Lewis' Louisiana cavalry, and one cannon with a squad under Lieut. Horace B. Field. Though it was a rainy night, the distance, 54 miles, was accomplished by morning and a rapid and impetuous charge made into the town, carrying everything before it, killing the Mexican commander and some other officers, capturing three cannon and a large number of smaller arms and quantities of ammunition, and many horses, and releasing 21 American soldiers who were prisoners. Most of the ammunition was destroyed because it could not be taken away. On the return to Puebla the next day, the 24th, while moving with difficulty through the long mountain pass called Galaxara, about five miles from Matamoras, the small train being somewhat extended, the enemy, a heavy body of lancers, appeared in front. The rangers having got busy with their rifles and small arms, were charged by the enemy before they could reload, but they retired cooly. The affair was soon brought to an end by several discharges of grape and canister from the single cannon, fired by the general with a lighted cigar. Lane had four men killed and four wounded. Among the killed was Lieut. Henderson Ridgeley, Fourth Infantry, a Marylander, appointed from civil life, who was killed in a charge upon the enemy. In 60 hours energetic "Joe" Lane had traveled 120 miles, fought and defeated the enemy twice, and broke up their depots so that they abandoned Matamoras as they had Atlixco.

A similar expedition was made on the night of December 5th, consisting of four companies of the 4th Indiana with Lieut. -Colonel Dumont in command of the battalion, and Lewis' cavalry. Lane as usual accompanying the command, which marched seven miles towards Chohula to a hacienda where, in the midst of a fearful storm, a band of guerrillas were surprised and a hot fight took place in which Lieut. Brackett had a close call from being killed by a blow on the head which rendered him hors de combat for some time. The guerrillas were completely routed, 14 being killed, three wounded and seven captured. Two Indiana men were killed. Thirty horses, many lances, sabers and other arms were cap- tured in this guerrilla den. The Mexican dead were piled in a heap and everything inflammable about the ranch was put to the torch. Lane and his little band were back in Puebla

Lane's Brigade in Mexico 87

at 9 o'clock in the morning. This was a sample fight of dash- ing "Joe" Lane and his method of warfare.

In the voluminous and scholarly work of Brantz Mayer on Mexico, the expedition of Lane's brigade is succinctly told on a single page. But Historian Mayer could have said much more, for his brief page does Lane scant justice.^

There is yet in possession of the Hays family, a Mexican lance, captured by Alexander Hays himself and most probably here, where the conflict was close. It is of record that Lieut. Alexander Hays was in all these engagements ; wherever Lane was, Alexander Hays was close by.

For some weeks after the expedition of December 5th, afifairs in Puebla were quiet. Generals William O. Butler and Robert Patterson arrived with fresh troops and proceeded to the capital taking all of Lane's regulars with them. Lane himself went to the City of Mexico on December 14th and remained a month. A strong force was kept at Puebla. The city was infested with guerrillas who shot down Americans whenever opportunity presented. Such murders were fre- quent ; often in the streets. Summary measures failed to prevent these outrages.

Alexander Hays while at Puebla, had opportunity to making the acquaintance of the subsequently renowned Elisha Kent Kane, then a surgeon in the United States navy, who was lying wounded in Puebla, having received a severe wound in saving the life of the Mexican General Gaona, a prisoner in the hands of Colonel Dominguez and his "Contra guerrillas," a choice collection of cut-throats warring against their kindred and kind. Dominguez and his men had been assigned as a bodyguard for Dr. Kane, who was a bearer of dispatches to General Scott. For a time Kane's life was despaired of.^

On the i8th. General Lane moved out from the City of Mexico with four companies of Colonel "Jack" Hays' rangers, two companies of the Third Dragoons, and a company of mounted riflemen under Major William H. Polk of Tennes- see, a brother of the President — a secret expedition under special orders of General Scott. In numbers these troops were about 350 men. They reached Puebla on the 20th, Lieut.- Colonel Dumont and a few mounted soldiers of the 4th Indiana

1 "Mexico: Aztec, Spanish, Republican;" P. 422.

2 "Lane's Brigade in Central Mexico," Brackett; P. 222, et seq.

88 Life and Letters of General Alexander Hays

were allowed to join the expedition, also Capt. Pugh of the 4th Ohio, the latter serving as an aide-de-camp to General Lane, and among others of the staff was Lieut. Alexander Hays.