BATTLEOFBUENA VISTA
A
CAMPAIGN IN MEXICO.
BY
“ONE WHO WAS THAR.”
“Variety is the spice of life.”
PHILADELPHIA:
JAMES GIHON.
AND FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS AND COUNTRY MERCHANTS
SOUTH AND WEST.
1850.
PREFACE.
In thus bringing myself before the public as an author, I offer noapology. I make no pretensions to literary merit. The followingpages were written in the confusion and inconvenience of camp,with limited sources of information, and without any expectation offuture publication. I offer nothing but a faithful description of myown feelings, and of incidents in the life of a volunteer. To suchas may be interested in an unvarnished relation of facts, connectedwith the duties, fatigues and perils of a soldier’s life, I respectfullysubmit this volume.
B. F. SCRIBNER.
New Albany,
Indiana.
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.
To the interest of a simple personal narrative, this volume addsthe value of a faithful description of that part of a soldier’s duty inthe camp and field, which is necessarily excluded from official accountsor general histories. It attracted in manuscript the attentionof the publishers, as a work similar in spirit and purpose to Dana’s“Two Years before the Mast,” although necessarily less varied inincident, and less comprehensive in information than that verypopular production.
The map of the field of Buena Vista by Lieutenant Green, ofthe 15th infantry, is presented as the most accurate yet published,having been approved by many distinguished officers as a true representationof the ground, and of the relative positions of the corpsof the American and Mexican armies, on the day of the battle. Acareful examination of the map and references, will afford a cleareridea of the movements of both, and of the progress of the action,than any of the descriptions which have yet appeared.
[Pg 11]
INCIDENTS
OF A
CAMPAIGN IN MEXICO.
July.—We left the New Albany wharf, July 11th, 1846, at oneo’clock A.M., and are now winding our way to New Orleans, onthe noble steamer Uncle Sam, en route to the wars in Mexico. Iam wholly unable to describe my thoughts and emotions, at leavingmy native home, with its endearing associations, and embarkingupon a venturesome career of fatigue, privation, and danger. Istood upon the hurricane deck, and could see by the moonlightcrowds of my fellow townsmen upon the bank, and in the intervalsof the cannon’s roar, returned their encouraging cheers. As weglided down, the last objects that met my lingering gaze, were thewhite dresses and floating handkerchiefs of our fair friends. Howfew of us may return to receive their welcome!
I am becoming more and more