The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1914-05-15
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CAPTURE OF VERA
CRUZ IN 1847.
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New York Press

In the parlor of Harlem apart
ment an old man sat in the sunshine
streaming through the Southern win
dow, and sketched out on the back of
a rumpled newspaper map of the
operation at the siege of Vera Cruz in
1847.
"Worths division held our right,
Twiggs' with Patterson and the bat
teries, were in the CENTER" he said.
81 took out the first shovelful of earth
from the trenches where lay our
mortars that dropped ten-inch shells
into the city and killed thousand
Mexicans."
He paused and there was silence,
save for the creak of the pencil on
paper. In the next rooms his daugh-
ter, herself an elderly woman, was
moving quietly about, preparing din
ner.
"That was real fighting" he went
on presently, when Winfield Scott
was our leader-Winfield Scott, and
before him old Rough-and-Ready
Zach Taylor To be sure, it was
long time ago. | am an old man now
most ninety years-but | will never
forget the day-the 29th of March it
was, in 1847-when General Morales
and his men marched out OF the Gate
of Mercy and stacked their arms at
| the edge of the hills behind the city,
and how we went down there to the
/ old castle and the forts to look over
the destruction our shell had done"
Old jeremiah Albee shook his white
head. He was one of the few living
veterans of the Mexican War-one OF
| the very few-for a man to have
| fought in the campaign of Ga years
ago must, if still alive, must be close
to the age of 80. Time has touched
lightly the head of Mr.. Albee. Only
| the snow and the wrinkles and the
/ high tremOlo voice bear testimony to
/ it's ravages.
When General Patterson took his
! division of New York volunteers to
the front in 1916 Albee marched in
| the ranks as a private. One of the
youngest men in the regiment, he
fought at the siege of Vera Cruz, and
shortly after received wound that
sent him home on a furlOugh that
lasted longer than the war.
+: Despite his years his faculties are
still keen, his eyes bright and his
J memory of the events of his service
at the front is unimpaired. In char
acteristic manner he told of the land
ing of the United States troops on
Callado Beach, near Vera Cruz, and
cOntrasted that invasion with the re-
cent one when Admiral Fletcher's
blue jackets pulled ashore in the face
of the Mexican Mausers.
1T was different when we landed
n
sailors went ashore last week." he
said. I'VE drew no fire when we
were loaded into whaleboats, 65 men
to boat, and rowed into the beach
that hot March day. 1t was only
when we tried to take the city that
we met with the heroic resistance
which characterized the stand of
J eneral Morales and his men in that
first siege. 1t seems to me that the
nexlcans are degenerating race.
Their cowardly manner of warfare,
! which has been so much in evidence
of late, in no way resembles the Spir-
| les. There were two stone forts, FIT.
ed when we first pushed into thier
country SO many years ago. Then
firing from housetops, like Indians.
1--WE had come down to Vera Cruz
harbor on transports and warships,
about 10000 of us, to take the city,
which was then one of the most
heavily forfeited of the Mexican cit
les. There wree two stone forts, FIT.
Conception and FIT. Santiago, besides
the Castle of San Juan de Ulloa. All
were equipped with big guns, and
were strongly Acknowledgement
Scott was at the head of the army