row of buildings before most of the defenders even saw him. He completed his ride winded but unscathed, only to learn that his effort had been wasted. Before the needed ammunition could be sent forward his comrades had been compelled to fall back.
The Americans on the western side of the city had better luck. Their commander, GeneralWilliam Worth, ordered them to advance not through the streets but through the houses. The Americans would enter a house, drive out its defenders, and then with picks and axes cut holes through the wall into the adjoining house. They would hurl grenades through the holes, forcing the Mexican troops backward long enough to climb through and secure that dwelling. Slowly but inexorably they chopped and blasted their way to within a short distance of the plaza.
At the end of the third day the Mexican commander,Pedro de Ampudia, concluded that his position was hopeless. He dispatched an emissary to Taylor to negotiate a truce. Taylor, with the momentum of battle on his side, initially demanded a surrender of the city and ofAmpudia’s army. Ampudia rejected the demand, pointing out that Taylor might capture the city and the army by force but only at great additional cost to the Americans. He offered to surrender the city but not his army, which would withdraw across the mountains. Taylor, not wishing to lose any more men, accepted the compromise.
The Mexicans evacuated the city the next day. Grant and the other Americans for the first time got a good look at their foes. “Many of the prisoners”—they weren’t actually prisoners but seemed so to Grant—“were cavalry, armed with lances, and mounted on miserable little half-starved horses that did not look as if they could carry their riders out of town. The men looked in but little better condition. I thought of how little interest the men before me had in the results of the war, and how little knowledge they had of ‘what it was all about.’ ”
5
O NE OF G RANT’S COMRADES AT M ONTERREY WAS T HOMAS H AMER , the Ohio congressman who had nominated him for West Point. Hamer had volunteered for service upon the outbreak of the war, and he joined Taylor’s army at Camargo. He was a generation older than Grant and a major to Grant’s second lieutenant, but the two Ohioans spent spare time together, as Hamer observed in a letter home. “I have found in Lieutenant Grant a most remarkable and valuable young soldier,” Hamer wrote. “I anticipate for him a brilliant future, if he should have an opportunity to display his powers when they mature. Young as he is, he has been of great value and service to me. Today, after being freed from the duty of wrestling with the problem of reducing a train of refractory mules and their drivers to submissive order, we rode into the country several miles, and taking our position upon an elevated mound, he explained to me many army evolutions; and, supposing ourselves to be generals commanding opposing armies, and a battle to be in progress, he explained suppositious maneuvers of the opposing forces in a most instructive way; and when I thought his imaginary force had my army routed, he suddenly suggested a strategic move for my forces which crowned them with triumphant victory, and himself with defeat, and he ended by gracefully offering to surrender his sword! Of course, Lieutenant Grant is too young for command, but his capacity for future military usefulness is undoubted.”
Hamer survived thebattle of Monterrey only to fall ill afterward. He died within days, leaving Grant to console the widow. “He died as a soldier dies,” Grant wrote, “without fear and without a murmur. His regret was that, if death must come, it should not come to him on thefield of battle. He was mindful the last of all of those at home who would most suffer.… Personally, his death is a loss to me which no words can express.”
Years later Grant mused on how things might have happened had Hamer lived. “Hamer was one of
The Americans on the western side of the city had better luck. Their commander, GeneralWilliam Worth, ordered them to advance not through the streets but through the houses. The Americans would enter a house, drive out its defenders, and then with picks and axes cut holes through the wall into the adjoining house. They would hurl grenades through the holes, forcing the Mexican troops backward long enough to climb through and secure that dwelling. Slowly but inexorably they chopped and blasted their way to within a short distance of the plaza.
At the end of the third day the Mexican commander,Pedro de Ampudia, concluded that his position was hopeless. He dispatched an emissary to Taylor to negotiate a truce. Taylor, with the momentum of battle on his side, initially demanded a surrender of the city and ofAmpudia’s army. Ampudia rejected the demand, pointing out that Taylor might capture the city and the army by force but only at great additional cost to the Americans. He offered to surrender the city but not his army, which would withdraw across the mountains. Taylor, not wishing to lose any more men, accepted the compromise.
The Mexicans evacuated the city the next day. Grant and the other Americans for the first time got a good look at their foes. “Many of the prisoners”—they weren’t actually prisoners but seemed so to Grant—“were cavalry, armed with lances, and mounted on miserable little half-starved horses that did not look as if they could carry their riders out of town. The men looked in but little better condition. I thought of how little interest the men before me had in the results of the war, and how little knowledge they had of ‘what it was all about.’ ”
5
O NE OF G RANT’S COMRADES AT M ONTERREY WAS T HOMAS H AMER , the Ohio congressman who had nominated him for West Point. Hamer had volunteered for service upon the outbreak of the war, and he joined Taylor’s army at Camargo. He was a generation older than Grant and a major to Grant’s second lieutenant, but the two Ohioans spent spare time together, as Hamer observed in a letter home. “I have found in Lieutenant Grant a most remarkable and valuable young soldier,” Hamer wrote. “I anticipate for him a brilliant future, if he should have an opportunity to display his powers when they mature. Young as he is, he has been of great value and service to me. Today, after being freed from the duty of wrestling with the problem of reducing a train of refractory mules and their drivers to submissive order, we rode into the country several miles, and taking our position upon an elevated mound, he explained to me many army evolutions; and, supposing ourselves to be generals commanding opposing armies, and a battle to be in progress, he explained suppositious maneuvers of the opposing forces in a most instructive way; and when I thought his imaginary force had my army routed, he suddenly suggested a strategic move for my forces which crowned them with triumphant victory, and himself with defeat, and he ended by gracefully offering to surrender his sword! Of course, Lieutenant Grant is too young for command, but his capacity for future military usefulness is undoubted.”
Hamer survived thebattle of Monterrey only to fall ill afterward. He died within days, leaving Grant to console the widow. “He died as a soldier dies,” Grant wrote, “without fear and without a murmur. His regret was that, if death must come, it should not come to him on thefield of battle. He was mindful the last of all of those at home who would most suffer.… Personally, his death is a loss to me which no words can express.”
Years later Grant mused on how things might have happened had Hamer lived. “Hamer was one of
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