Monterey
By Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806 � 1884) |
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We were not many--we who stood
Before the iron sleet
that day;
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half
his years if but he could
Have with us been at Monterey.
Now here, now there, the shot it hailed
In deadly
drifts of fiery spray,
Yet not a single soldier quailed
When wounded comrades round them wailed
Their dying shout
at Monterey.
And on--still on our column kept,
Through walls of flame, its withering way
Where fell the
dead, the living stept,
Still charging on the guns which
swept
The slippery streets of Monterey.
The foe
himself recoiled aghast,
When, striking where he
strongest lay,
We swooped his flanking batteries past,
And, braving full their murderous blast,
Stormed home the
towers of Monterey.
Our banners on those turrets
wave,
And there our evening bugles play;
Where
orange-boughs above their grave
Keep green the memory of
the brave
Who fought and fell at Monterey.
We are
not many--we who pressed
Beside the brave who fell that
day;
But who of us has not confessed
He'd rather share
their warrior rest
Than not have been at Monterey? |
By Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806 � 1884)
Listed
July 6, 2012 |
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Note: (September 19-24, 1846)
The assaulting American army at the attack on Monterey
numbered
six thousand six hundred and twenty-five;
the defeated Mexicans
were about ten thousand.
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