Comrades and gentlemen.—To-day, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, where a few of our comrades may be found they are gathered like ourselves, enjoying the brief moments in the recollections of our campaign of 1847 and 1848 in Mexico, a campaign fraught with so much importance to the progressive age of the nineteenth century. Neither the war of the Rebellion, (let its sad memories be for ever buried in the depths of oblivion, is my wish), nor any other war of ancient or modern times has accomplished so much to promote the present and future prosperity of the civilized world, as did the brief conflict between the Republics of Mexico and the United States of the North in 1846 and 1848. There is no part of the globe where civilization prevails, or where Christianity is taught and respected, but has experienced the beneficial effects, moral, physical, and financial, resulting from the magnificent and surprising campaigns of that eventful period, in which our countrymen will ever feel a pardonable pride. The impetus given to the gigantic spirit of enterprise, by the acquisition of nearly a million square miles of territory, and the almost simultaneous discovery of vast fields of gold and silver, completely revolutionized all the channels of human industry, and quickened into life the dormantenergies and the inventive genius of the world. With colossal strides, our beloved country overtook the governments of the old world in the race for excellence, and to-day she proudly holds her place in the front rank, the youngest and the strongest, and the most hopeful of reaching the goal, and distancing the field, because of her illimitable resources as yet untouched.I am a old New Yorker, as you know, having no feeling of animosity with citizens of any other part, portion, or section of our common country. When thePalmetto Regiment of South Carolinamarched side by side with the New Yorkers, in front of the enemy in Mexico, there was a rivalry, to be sure, but it was a proper spirit of emulation—ésprit de corpseach trying to out-do the other, but both having the general interests of their common country at heart. There was noNorthor noSouth, in the offensive sense, that entered into the general spirit of “go-ahead!” That contest on a foreign soil showed what the American people are capable of doing, when united under the old flag of their fathers—whether they hailed from the North or the South, East or West.In the war of the Rebellion I commanded a New York regiment on the side of the Union, but I never for a moment forgot that I was a soldier, or that the foe with whom we were contending was entitled to my respect as fellow-countrymen.
Comrades and gentlemen.—To-day, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, where a few of our comrades may be found they are gathered like ourselves, enjoying the brief moments in the recollections of our campaign of 1847 and 1848 in Mexico, a campaign fraught with so much importance to the progressive age of the nineteenth century. Neither the war of the Rebellion, (let its sad memories be for ever buried in the depths of oblivion, is my wish), nor any other war of ancient or modern times has accomplished so much to promote the present and future prosperity of the civilized world, as did the brief conflict between the Republics of Mexico and the United States of the North in 1846 and 1848. There is no part of the globe where civilization prevails, or where Christianity is taught and respected, but has experienced the beneficial effects, moral, physical, and financial, resulting from the magnificent and surprising campaigns of that eventful period, in which our countrymen will ever feel a pardonable pride. The impetus given to the gigantic spirit of enterprise, by the acquisition of nearly a million square miles of territory, and the almost simultaneous discovery of vast fields of gold and silver, completely revolutionized all the channels of human industry, and quickened into life the dormantenergies and the inventive genius of the world. With colossal strides, our beloved country overtook the governments of the old world in the race for excellence, and to-day she proudly holds her place in the front rank, the youngest and the strongest, and the most hopeful of reaching the goal, and distancing the field, because of her illimitable resources as yet untouched.
I am a old New Yorker, as you know, having no feeling of animosity with citizens of any other part, portion, or section of our common country. When thePalmetto Regiment of South Carolinamarched side by side with the New Yorkers, in front of the enemy in Mexico, there was a rivalry, to be sure, but it was a proper spirit of emulation—ésprit de corpseach trying to out-do the other, but both having the general interests of their common country at heart. There was noNorthor noSouth, in the offensive sense, that entered into the general spirit of “go-ahead!” That contest on a foreign soil showed what the American people are capable of doing, when united under the old flag of their fathers—whether they hailed from the North or the South, East or West.
In the war of the Rebellion I commanded a New York regiment on the side of the Union, but I never for a moment forgot that I was a soldier, or that the foe with whom we were contending was entitled to my respect as fellow-countrymen.
Colonel Murphy was asked to give his recollections of the war.
COLONEL CHAS. J. MURPHY
COLONEL CHAS. J. MURPHY
The Chairman, on introducing the Colonel said it would not be out of place here to give a brief sketch of his career. He is the youngest man now living who served in the Mexican War. In the War of the Rebellion he was one of the only two commissioned officers who were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in the first general battle of the war, Bull Run, where 50,000 men were engaged on each side. The other officer was Major-General Adalbert Ames, of the 5th U. S. Artillery, now living at Lowell, Mass. He was one of the only two regimental staff officers of the same rank who won this distinction during the war. The otherofficer was first Lieutenant John W. Clark, R.Q.M., 6th Regiment Vermont Infantry.
Our medal of Honor ranks with that of the cross of the Legion of Honor of France, and the Victoria Cross of England, and only 1,400 were awarded a distinction greater than can be conferred by any potentate in Europe, because granted to so few of the two million seven hundred and fifty thousand men who were mustered into the armies of the United States between 1861-65.
Colonel Murphy, after resigning from his regiment, and while awaiting his commission in the regular army, which appointment was tendered him by President Lincoln, was engaged in the battle of Fair Oaks, and all through the seven days’ battles on the peninsula, from Gaine’s Mill to that of Malvern Hill, as a volunteer aid, and this without rank or pay.
He erected the first field hospital for the army of the Potomac at Harrison’s Landing.
Colonel Murphy was one of the first three officers who escaped from Richmond after Bull Run. The history of this remarkable escape was very graphically described by John S. C. Abbot, the historian, in “Harper’s Magazine” of January, 1867. Colonel Murphy was one of the old forty-niners of California, having arrived in San Francisco on the ship South Carolina in June, 1849, the first sailing ship to arrive with passengers for the mines from New York, after a short passage—for those days—of 156 days.
Of the 300 passengers on board, the only lady was Mrs. John White, the mother of the late U.S. Senator White now living in San Francisco, who wrote two years ago that she was not aware of any living survivors of those passengers except herself and Colonel Murphy, who were the two youngest people on the ship.
He went from California to Shanghai, China, and established the first commercial house at the mouth of the Yang Kin Pang River, opposite the foreign quarter at Shanghai, and loaded the first vessel that carried Chinese agricultural products to San Francisco.
Colonel Murphy has done more than any other man in the way of introducing the products of California in Europe, and secured the first gold medal for the grand wines of that State at the Antwerp Exposition.
He has done yeoman service in making known the splendid fruit of the golden State, and it was mainly through his efforts while in the service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that the California wines and fruit are now on sale in nearly all the grocery and wine houses of Northern Europe.
It was through his initiative work that the exports of our Indian corn was so largely increased from 24,000,000 bushels the year he commenced the propaganda to over 213,000,000 last year.
If he had devoted the last fifteen of the best years of his life with the same enthusiasm and energy that he has given to this work in any legitimate business, he might have been a well-to-do man to-day.
Colonel Murphy spoke as follows:—
Comrades of the Mexican war:I am asked to give some recollections of the Mexican War, but little remains for me to say after the comprehensive and eloquent history of that war by Judge McKay, of South Carolina.It would be presumptuous of me, after what we have just heard from the Judge and Colonel Hungerford, to say another word. Larger gatherings this magnificent Hotel Continental has often had within its walls, for time has thinned the ranks of the Mexican veterans even more woefully than did Mexican shot and shell, but it may be doubted whether caravansary ever sheltered a party with more enthusiasm than is shown here to-night in Paris, the gay capital of France, by the few comrades gathered here to celebrate victories in which we were humble participants nearly 50 years ago.The thought of the days of 1847 helps me to feel young again, and brings vividly to my mind the gay, rollicking little army that marched out of Puebla on that bright Augustmorning (alas! how many never to return), when General Scott left Puebla with his little army of 10,000 men to fight an army of 35,000 veteran troops of Mexico, in trenches, in mountain gorges, fortified cities, surrounded by impassable marshes, your base, if you had any, hundreds of miles away, you faced the men that had showed the quality of their mercy at Mier and the Alamo. You felt that defeat meant death. ’Tis not becoming in soldiers to boast, but who, among all of you that assemble on this glorious anniversary, will not straighten up an inch taller when he says, “I was one of that little army.”Where is there one whose eyes will not flash when the glorious 20th of August is mentioned; when that little army fought five distinct battles—among them Contreras, San Antonio, Churubusco, San Puebla. Then came the 8th of September, that proud but sorrowful day, when you lost 900 out of 4,000 engaged. Then came Chapultepec, and the crowning event—our flag waving over the National Palace. The cathedraled City of Mexico at our feet; Popocatépetl, with its venerable summit of eternal snows, 18,000 feet above the sea, looks down upon us as it did upon Cortez three hundred years before, only its breezes kiss the folds of the new flag of America in place of the old flag of Castile. These memories are dear to us all, and I can think of no happier way of passing one day in the year than the old veterans meeting together and fighting their battles over again.Now, allow me to turn to what occurred under General Taylor, who commanded the little army of occupation on the northern line of operations. I will only refer to the Battle of Buena Vista, which was a glorious victory, and the last general battle and crowning glory of this brave little army. It will be recollected that General Santa Anna was so certain of a victory that he wrote to General Taylor saying, “you are surrounded by 20,000 men, and cannot in any human probability avoid suffering a rout and being cut to pieces with your troops, but as you deserve consideration and particular esteem, I wish to save you from a catastrophe,” and gave one hour from the arrival of his flag of truce to General Taylor to surrender. Old “rough and ready” did not require allthe hour to respond. He wrote his memorable, but brief dispatch, “I decline acceding to your request.” But think of the situation; an army of 20,000 veteran soldiers, Santa Anna at their head, General Alvarez Chief of Cavalry, Lombardine of Infantry, Requena of Artillery, Villarnil of Engineers, with Vasquez, Torrejou, Ampudia, Andrade, Minon, Pacheco, Garcia, Ortega, Mejia, Flores, Gusman, Mora, Romero, and other dashing general officers, and to resist all this less than 5,000 American regulars and volunteers, and of regulars less than 500.On the morning of 22nd February, 1847, the Mexican cohort appeared on the distant hills, dense squadrons of horse, with glittering lances and gay pennons, forming the advance serried files of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, column after column in apparent endless massiveness followed, but it was Washington’s birthday, and General Taylor declined to surrender, and that meant hard fighting. The line of battle was formed by General Wool, General Taylor held Colonel Jefferson Davis (his son-in-law) with his Mississipi Rifles,Lieut.-Col.May’s Dragoons, the light batteries of Captains Sherman and Bragg, and Captain Steers’ squadron in reserve. General Lane moved forward with a section of Washington’s battery to arrest the advance of the army, but that enemy seemed invincible; before night the Mexicans had occupied the sides and scaled the summits of the Sierra Madre. That night our little army lay on their arms without fires, and long before daybreak were aroused from their slumbers to the tug of war; the day dawned bright, and beautiful skies unclouded, and mountain bathed in sunlight. Ampudia commenced the battle early, and at 8 o’clock Santa Anna had his main column in motion, at 11 he summoned General Taylor to surrender; the fortunes of the day seemed against us. Lieutenant O’Brien, whose name is so indelibly written on Buena Vista, maintained his ground until all his cannoniers were killed or wounded. Eight regiments of Mexican infantry fell upon the 2nd Illinois, and they were forced to take shelter. Braggs’ and sections of Sherman’s batteries had been ordered to their relief. Immense hosts of Mexican troops poured along the base of the mountain to the rear ofthe American line. Colonel Jefferson Davis hastened to meet them, the Mississipi Rifles went into action in double quick, and fired advancing, the front lines of the enemy seemed to melt before them: in the thickest of the fight Captain Bragg sent to Taylor for a supporting party, Taylor sent back the answer, “Major Bliss and I will support you.” He galloped to Braggs’ support, and there gave the celebrated order, “A little more grape, Captain Bragg.” The American line had been turned in the morning, but before night it was recovered. In the success of the battle Colonel Jefferson Davis justly claims a conspicuous part. Our little army of less than 5,000 men for more than 12 hours sustained this terrible fight against 20,000 Mexican troops, and thus closed one of the most memorable battles of modern times.Mexico has fallen, the Stars and Stripes fly above the “Halls of the Montezumas”—a nation has been conquered. History records no deeds of greater daring, no triumphs of arms more brilliant. Empire was added to empire, 1,000,000 square miles of territory were acquired—three and a half times the area of France—a dwelling place for 100,000,000 of freemen, won by half a hundred thousand. Until then much of the territory of the Mississipi-Missouri belonged to Mexico. Now the whole valley of one million five hundred thousand square miles, the river, with thirteen hundred navigable branches, running from its source five hundred miles to the north, cutting through its magnificent mountain gateway turning to the sea, running through territories and states, until sweetened by the breath of the olive and the orange, and finally received into the warm embrace of the tropical gulf, 5,000 miles from the land of the pine to the land of the palm, long enough to reach from the mouth of the Hudson to the mouth of the Nile. Add the empire drained by the Colorado, crown these with California—and all is ours, and won under the flag that now protects it.Judge McKay’s reference to Colonel A. W. Donophan and his famous march from Missouri to Mexico with Colonel Sterling Price reminds me of the ever-to-be-remembered passage from Brazos Santiago to New Orleans on the old Mississipi River a tow-boat of six hundred tons, the “MaryKingsland,” on which I was one of the invalid passengers. We had crowded on that small vessel nearly 900 men of Colonel Donophan’s regiment, over 800 men of the 2nd Indiana (Colonel Bowles) and over 100 sick men of other commands. Many of these men were down with yellow fever, of whom ten died during the five days’ passage, and were buried at sea. You may talk of the Black Hole of Calcutta, but I do not think it was any worse than the lower hold of that steamer, where we were obliged to lie packed together like sardines on square blocks of iron used as ballast, where the foul, stenchful bilge water came oozing up between these iron blocks. Then to add to our discomforts we had nothing to eat but the hardest kind of ship-biscuit that was impossible to masticate, and rotten, green measly pork and Rio coffee served out in the green bean. The stuff was so vile that we were often obliged to vomit after each meal, as we could not retain the putrid meat on our stomachs.The Government, no doubt, paid for sound pork, but in those days the Government contractors were principally gentlemen from the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, located at Cincinnati, who were not over scrupulous as to the kind of meat they supplied providing they got the money.I will never forget the horrors of that five days passage, and to add to our trouble, we experienced one of those terrible storms they called “northers” in that latitude, during which we very nearly foundered. You can imagine a small paddle-wheel river-steamboat of 600 tons loaded down with nearly 2,000 men, 16 pieces of brass cannon, and thousands of Mexican lances, besides the rotten pork, Rio coffee, and the hardest kind of tack. The cannon and lances were captured by Colonel Donophan’s regiment at the Battles of Sacramento and San Jacinto, and comprised all the artillery the Mexicans had at these two fights.I am confident if this war occurred at the present day, we would have had a harder task to perform, as Mexico is possessed now of a well-disciplined army, splendidly officered and of very different materials, and trust we will always live in peace and friendly intercourse with ourMexican brothers, as should become all near-by neighbours and friends.Sherman and others, returning from the shores of our Western sea, joined in another march, from Atlanta, to our Eastern sea, and but for these, who can tell what would have been the result of our experiment of self-government, or where the boundary lines of the States of freedom would be drawn to-day. Milton says:“Peace hath her victoriesNo less renowned than war,”and the men of peace who remained fought battles in the material world, with equal dangers requiring equal courage, and with results as supremely grand. The difficulties, dangers, and cost incident to the construction of the Central Pacific Railway were such as scarcely to be comprehended by men of to-day; its obstacles were simply appalling. The art of railway construction at that time was so far removed from its present advanced state that engineers looked upon the project with amazement, and capitalists with derision, its conception was so bold, so grand, so stupendous, so startling, as to fill the incredulous even with admiration. Bonaparte’s crossing of the Alps with his army and artillery is dwarfed into tameness when compared with the achievement which made this the highway of nations and the “rapid transit” of the world’s commerce. In the autumn of 1849, the very month that California was organised as a territory, a Pacific Railroad Convention was held. On May 1, 1852, the Legislature of California passed “an Act granting the right of way to the United States for a railroad to connect the navigable waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the purposes of national safety in the event of war, and to promote the highest interests of the Republic, pronounced one of the greatest necessities of the age.” A Senator, upon the floor of Congress, said: “I look upon the building of the railroad from the waters of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean, at the time particularly in which it was built during the war, as perhaps the greatest achievement of the human race on earth.” Let us honourthe builders with a simple moment’s consideration. Engineer Colonel O. M. Poe, in his report to General Sherman, said: “An army of workmen were employed, 25,000 men and 6,000 teams, and the route presented a busy scene. The woods rang with the strokes of the axe, and the quarries with the click of steel; the streams were bordered with lumbermen’s camps and choked with floating logs, and materials, supplies, and equipment for the Central Pacific were scattered from New YorkviaCape Horn and San Francisco to the end of the track advancing eastward.” The base of supplies of the Central Pacific from the Eastern Rolling Mills, by the way of Cape Horn to the track layers, was equal to the circuit of the globe on the parallel of the road. This distance was so great as to keep materials to the value of millions of dollars, and sufficient for nearly a year’s construction, constantly in transit. In cutting the Sierras, miles of snow and rock were tunneled; snow slides and avalanches destroyed many lives and large amounts of property. To hasten the work of piercing the Sierras, three locomotives, forty cars, rails, and track material for forty miles of railroad were hauled on sleds by oxen and horses over the summits of that Alpine range and down into the cañon of the Truckee River. This over a pass in which the annual average snowfall was forty feet and the depth of hard settled snow in midwinter was eighteen feet on the level. Who at this distance appreciates the stupendous work of these Titans? From the Truckee to the Bear River in Utah, the inhabitants did not average one to each ten miles. With the exception of a few cords of stunted pine and juniper, all the fuel had to be hauled from the Sierras. For over five hundred miles there was not a tree that would make a board or tie. Fortunes were expended in boring for water and in laying pipes, in some instances over eight miles in length, to convey water to the line of the road.Upon this desert stretch, as far as from Boston to Buffalo, there was nothing that entered into the superstructure of a railroad, not even good stone, and water for men and animals was hauled at times for forty miles. The cost of supplies was fabulous; oats and barley for the animals cost from $200to $280 per ton, and hay $120. But, as with Grant at Vicksburg and at the Wilderness, the work went on, the road was completed, and it was California Pioneers who did it, and who made the road they built their monument, and “success” their epitaph. Senator Benton said his dream was “to see a train of cars thundering down the Eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, bearing in transit to Europe the teas, silks, and spices of the Orient.” His dream is practically realised, as there are seven trans-continental lines bearing this commerce to the Atlantic.The Pioneer has left other material legacies to the nation. The great American Deserts you knew will soon be blotted from our maps. By the science of civilization large tracts of these have been made to “blossom like the rose,” rivers that ran to waste now work the mine, turn the wheel, and then with the artesian flow irrigate the desert wastes, until fruitful gardens have grown like sweet dreams along the trail where comrades of ours died of damning thirst.We all love the sweet flowery land we knew as territory, then as the new, and now the dear old State. We remember with becoming pride our first votes. California came into the Union a Free State. How controlling this action was none knew, nor when viewed in the light of the history of the Rebellion can it be measured. California became a gem in the Federal coronet. The pen of Bishop Berkley must have pointed toward it when he wrote his epigrammatic expression, “Ho! westward Empire takes its way.” It is a sunny land, and merits the sobriquet, “Italy of America,” with its clear skies, charms of climate, wonderful soils, wealth of mines, fabulous products and enchantments of scenery, crowned with the Yosemite Falls, the highest in the world, descending in three leaps 2,500 feet, or one-half a mile, from the glaciers and eternal snows of the Sierras to the valley below, a very Eden of sublimity and loveliness, perhaps the most wondrously grand and beautiful spot on the earth. To stand for an hour upon a summit crest of the Sierras, the grandest of America’s Alpine ranges; to live a day amid their icy homes; to descend their western slopes; to trace their long summit lines of snow-clad peaks that linkOregon to Aztec Mexico; to walk where a single step takes you from the glacier ice to Spring’s resurrection, where the violets greet you with sweetest smiles through dewy tears of joy, born on the spot where the snows of yesterday were melted by the morning’s sun; the great pines and sequoia gigantea, those wonders of the world’s forests, in whose branches the birds chorused their matin songs centuries before the Christian era, towering below you; the silvery lines of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers mirroring hundreds of miles of the great central valley, reaching far North and South from the Bay of San Francisco; the Coast Range alone curtaining the Pacific Sea, with stern old Mount Diablo standing as the sole sentinel guarding the Golden gate—these are alone worth crossing a continent to see—and recall the words of Tom Moore, who, after visiting the mountains of New England, the rivers and lakes of New York, theSt.Lawrence and grand old Niagara, wrote to Lady Charlotte Rowdon, saying:“Oh, Lady, these are miracles which man,Caged in the bonds of Europe’s pigmy plan,Can scarce dream of, and which the eye must seeTo know how beautiful this world can be.”Pity he could not have seen and sung of our lands of the Yellowstone, the Columbia, and the Yosemite,—what words would these have inspired his poet pen to write.Among the gentlemen who have honored us with their presence here to-night as one of our guests I notice my friend the Honorable Felix Campbell, Member of Congress from Brooklyn, and who is now the Dean of the delegation to the Congress of the United States from the great State of New York, and who has been honored with many many re-elections to that body; his presence here to-night is particularly welcome to us old soldiers of the Mexican War, for we all remember the active part he took in helping to secure the passage of our pension bill a few years ago.I must also not forget to mention the name of my old friend and fellow forty-niner of California, James Phelan, Esq.,of San Francisco to whose generosity we are mainly indebted for this splendid entertainment to-night, whose patriotic spirit and warm-hearted nature always come to the front on such occasions. May his shadow never grow less, and that he may never die till I kill him.As allusion has been made to the war of the rebellion, in which comrade McKay took a most prominent part on the side of the South, and Colonel Hungerford and myself serving in the Union Army. AlthoughSouth CarolinaandNew York troops fought side by side in the same brigade under the gallant General Shields in Mexico, we found ourselves,unfortunately, arrayed against each other in later years in our own country, andno man who is a manwill frompoliticalorpersonalmotiveskeep alive the passions of the war, or by fanning the embers of sectional hatred forpoliticalorpartisan effect, subject our people to the charge of vindictive malignity. I trust we have long since forgotten the bitter memories of our Civil War, and that we only remember thegallant actsanddeedsofboth armies.I have hoped for years back that the time would come, and it is happily now at hand, when the brave soldiers of the society of the army of Northern Virginia, who fought under the gallant Lee, will meet side by side at the annual reunions with the soldiers of our society of the army of the Potomac, who fought under McClellan, Grant, Meade, and Sheridan, and at other festive meetings of our various army gatherings and organizations of old soldiers, where I have never heard a word said against, but the highest praise accorded to our gallant but misguided southern brothers for their bravery and daring on the battlefield.
Comrades of the Mexican war:
I am asked to give some recollections of the Mexican War, but little remains for me to say after the comprehensive and eloquent history of that war by Judge McKay, of South Carolina.
It would be presumptuous of me, after what we have just heard from the Judge and Colonel Hungerford, to say another word. Larger gatherings this magnificent Hotel Continental has often had within its walls, for time has thinned the ranks of the Mexican veterans even more woefully than did Mexican shot and shell, but it may be doubted whether caravansary ever sheltered a party with more enthusiasm than is shown here to-night in Paris, the gay capital of France, by the few comrades gathered here to celebrate victories in which we were humble participants nearly 50 years ago.
The thought of the days of 1847 helps me to feel young again, and brings vividly to my mind the gay, rollicking little army that marched out of Puebla on that bright Augustmorning (alas! how many never to return), when General Scott left Puebla with his little army of 10,000 men to fight an army of 35,000 veteran troops of Mexico, in trenches, in mountain gorges, fortified cities, surrounded by impassable marshes, your base, if you had any, hundreds of miles away, you faced the men that had showed the quality of their mercy at Mier and the Alamo. You felt that defeat meant death. ’Tis not becoming in soldiers to boast, but who, among all of you that assemble on this glorious anniversary, will not straighten up an inch taller when he says, “I was one of that little army.”
Where is there one whose eyes will not flash when the glorious 20th of August is mentioned; when that little army fought five distinct battles—among them Contreras, San Antonio, Churubusco, San Puebla. Then came the 8th of September, that proud but sorrowful day, when you lost 900 out of 4,000 engaged. Then came Chapultepec, and the crowning event—our flag waving over the National Palace. The cathedraled City of Mexico at our feet; Popocatépetl, with its venerable summit of eternal snows, 18,000 feet above the sea, looks down upon us as it did upon Cortez three hundred years before, only its breezes kiss the folds of the new flag of America in place of the old flag of Castile. These memories are dear to us all, and I can think of no happier way of passing one day in the year than the old veterans meeting together and fighting their battles over again.
Now, allow me to turn to what occurred under General Taylor, who commanded the little army of occupation on the northern line of operations. I will only refer to the Battle of Buena Vista, which was a glorious victory, and the last general battle and crowning glory of this brave little army. It will be recollected that General Santa Anna was so certain of a victory that he wrote to General Taylor saying, “you are surrounded by 20,000 men, and cannot in any human probability avoid suffering a rout and being cut to pieces with your troops, but as you deserve consideration and particular esteem, I wish to save you from a catastrophe,” and gave one hour from the arrival of his flag of truce to General Taylor to surrender. Old “rough and ready” did not require allthe hour to respond. He wrote his memorable, but brief dispatch, “I decline acceding to your request.” But think of the situation; an army of 20,000 veteran soldiers, Santa Anna at their head, General Alvarez Chief of Cavalry, Lombardine of Infantry, Requena of Artillery, Villarnil of Engineers, with Vasquez, Torrejou, Ampudia, Andrade, Minon, Pacheco, Garcia, Ortega, Mejia, Flores, Gusman, Mora, Romero, and other dashing general officers, and to resist all this less than 5,000 American regulars and volunteers, and of regulars less than 500.
On the morning of 22nd February, 1847, the Mexican cohort appeared on the distant hills, dense squadrons of horse, with glittering lances and gay pennons, forming the advance serried files of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, column after column in apparent endless massiveness followed, but it was Washington’s birthday, and General Taylor declined to surrender, and that meant hard fighting. The line of battle was formed by General Wool, General Taylor held Colonel Jefferson Davis (his son-in-law) with his Mississipi Rifles,Lieut.-Col.May’s Dragoons, the light batteries of Captains Sherman and Bragg, and Captain Steers’ squadron in reserve. General Lane moved forward with a section of Washington’s battery to arrest the advance of the army, but that enemy seemed invincible; before night the Mexicans had occupied the sides and scaled the summits of the Sierra Madre. That night our little army lay on their arms without fires, and long before daybreak were aroused from their slumbers to the tug of war; the day dawned bright, and beautiful skies unclouded, and mountain bathed in sunlight. Ampudia commenced the battle early, and at 8 o’clock Santa Anna had his main column in motion, at 11 he summoned General Taylor to surrender; the fortunes of the day seemed against us. Lieutenant O’Brien, whose name is so indelibly written on Buena Vista, maintained his ground until all his cannoniers were killed or wounded. Eight regiments of Mexican infantry fell upon the 2nd Illinois, and they were forced to take shelter. Braggs’ and sections of Sherman’s batteries had been ordered to their relief. Immense hosts of Mexican troops poured along the base of the mountain to the rear ofthe American line. Colonel Jefferson Davis hastened to meet them, the Mississipi Rifles went into action in double quick, and fired advancing, the front lines of the enemy seemed to melt before them: in the thickest of the fight Captain Bragg sent to Taylor for a supporting party, Taylor sent back the answer, “Major Bliss and I will support you.” He galloped to Braggs’ support, and there gave the celebrated order, “A little more grape, Captain Bragg.” The American line had been turned in the morning, but before night it was recovered. In the success of the battle Colonel Jefferson Davis justly claims a conspicuous part. Our little army of less than 5,000 men for more than 12 hours sustained this terrible fight against 20,000 Mexican troops, and thus closed one of the most memorable battles of modern times.
Mexico has fallen, the Stars and Stripes fly above the “Halls of the Montezumas”—a nation has been conquered. History records no deeds of greater daring, no triumphs of arms more brilliant. Empire was added to empire, 1,000,000 square miles of territory were acquired—three and a half times the area of France—a dwelling place for 100,000,000 of freemen, won by half a hundred thousand. Until then much of the territory of the Mississipi-Missouri belonged to Mexico. Now the whole valley of one million five hundred thousand square miles, the river, with thirteen hundred navigable branches, running from its source five hundred miles to the north, cutting through its magnificent mountain gateway turning to the sea, running through territories and states, until sweetened by the breath of the olive and the orange, and finally received into the warm embrace of the tropical gulf, 5,000 miles from the land of the pine to the land of the palm, long enough to reach from the mouth of the Hudson to the mouth of the Nile. Add the empire drained by the Colorado, crown these with California—and all is ours, and won under the flag that now protects it.
Judge McKay’s reference to Colonel A. W. Donophan and his famous march from Missouri to Mexico with Colonel Sterling Price reminds me of the ever-to-be-remembered passage from Brazos Santiago to New Orleans on the old Mississipi River a tow-boat of six hundred tons, the “MaryKingsland,” on which I was one of the invalid passengers. We had crowded on that small vessel nearly 900 men of Colonel Donophan’s regiment, over 800 men of the 2nd Indiana (Colonel Bowles) and over 100 sick men of other commands. Many of these men were down with yellow fever, of whom ten died during the five days’ passage, and were buried at sea. You may talk of the Black Hole of Calcutta, but I do not think it was any worse than the lower hold of that steamer, where we were obliged to lie packed together like sardines on square blocks of iron used as ballast, where the foul, stenchful bilge water came oozing up between these iron blocks. Then to add to our discomforts we had nothing to eat but the hardest kind of ship-biscuit that was impossible to masticate, and rotten, green measly pork and Rio coffee served out in the green bean. The stuff was so vile that we were often obliged to vomit after each meal, as we could not retain the putrid meat on our stomachs.
The Government, no doubt, paid for sound pork, but in those days the Government contractors were principally gentlemen from the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, located at Cincinnati, who were not over scrupulous as to the kind of meat they supplied providing they got the money.
I will never forget the horrors of that five days passage, and to add to our trouble, we experienced one of those terrible storms they called “northers” in that latitude, during which we very nearly foundered. You can imagine a small paddle-wheel river-steamboat of 600 tons loaded down with nearly 2,000 men, 16 pieces of brass cannon, and thousands of Mexican lances, besides the rotten pork, Rio coffee, and the hardest kind of tack. The cannon and lances were captured by Colonel Donophan’s regiment at the Battles of Sacramento and San Jacinto, and comprised all the artillery the Mexicans had at these two fights.
I am confident if this war occurred at the present day, we would have had a harder task to perform, as Mexico is possessed now of a well-disciplined army, splendidly officered and of very different materials, and trust we will always live in peace and friendly intercourse with ourMexican brothers, as should become all near-by neighbours and friends.
Sherman and others, returning from the shores of our Western sea, joined in another march, from Atlanta, to our Eastern sea, and but for these, who can tell what would have been the result of our experiment of self-government, or where the boundary lines of the States of freedom would be drawn to-day. Milton says:
“Peace hath her victoriesNo less renowned than war,”
and the men of peace who remained fought battles in the material world, with equal dangers requiring equal courage, and with results as supremely grand. The difficulties, dangers, and cost incident to the construction of the Central Pacific Railway were such as scarcely to be comprehended by men of to-day; its obstacles were simply appalling. The art of railway construction at that time was so far removed from its present advanced state that engineers looked upon the project with amazement, and capitalists with derision, its conception was so bold, so grand, so stupendous, so startling, as to fill the incredulous even with admiration. Bonaparte’s crossing of the Alps with his army and artillery is dwarfed into tameness when compared with the achievement which made this the highway of nations and the “rapid transit” of the world’s commerce. In the autumn of 1849, the very month that California was organised as a territory, a Pacific Railroad Convention was held. On May 1, 1852, the Legislature of California passed “an Act granting the right of way to the United States for a railroad to connect the navigable waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the purposes of national safety in the event of war, and to promote the highest interests of the Republic, pronounced one of the greatest necessities of the age.” A Senator, upon the floor of Congress, said: “I look upon the building of the railroad from the waters of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean, at the time particularly in which it was built during the war, as perhaps the greatest achievement of the human race on earth.” Let us honourthe builders with a simple moment’s consideration. Engineer Colonel O. M. Poe, in his report to General Sherman, said: “An army of workmen were employed, 25,000 men and 6,000 teams, and the route presented a busy scene. The woods rang with the strokes of the axe, and the quarries with the click of steel; the streams were bordered with lumbermen’s camps and choked with floating logs, and materials, supplies, and equipment for the Central Pacific were scattered from New YorkviaCape Horn and San Francisco to the end of the track advancing eastward.” The base of supplies of the Central Pacific from the Eastern Rolling Mills, by the way of Cape Horn to the track layers, was equal to the circuit of the globe on the parallel of the road. This distance was so great as to keep materials to the value of millions of dollars, and sufficient for nearly a year’s construction, constantly in transit. In cutting the Sierras, miles of snow and rock were tunneled; snow slides and avalanches destroyed many lives and large amounts of property. To hasten the work of piercing the Sierras, three locomotives, forty cars, rails, and track material for forty miles of railroad were hauled on sleds by oxen and horses over the summits of that Alpine range and down into the cañon of the Truckee River. This over a pass in which the annual average snowfall was forty feet and the depth of hard settled snow in midwinter was eighteen feet on the level. Who at this distance appreciates the stupendous work of these Titans? From the Truckee to the Bear River in Utah, the inhabitants did not average one to each ten miles. With the exception of a few cords of stunted pine and juniper, all the fuel had to be hauled from the Sierras. For over five hundred miles there was not a tree that would make a board or tie. Fortunes were expended in boring for water and in laying pipes, in some instances over eight miles in length, to convey water to the line of the road.
Upon this desert stretch, as far as from Boston to Buffalo, there was nothing that entered into the superstructure of a railroad, not even good stone, and water for men and animals was hauled at times for forty miles. The cost of supplies was fabulous; oats and barley for the animals cost from $200to $280 per ton, and hay $120. But, as with Grant at Vicksburg and at the Wilderness, the work went on, the road was completed, and it was California Pioneers who did it, and who made the road they built their monument, and “success” their epitaph. Senator Benton said his dream was “to see a train of cars thundering down the Eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, bearing in transit to Europe the teas, silks, and spices of the Orient.” His dream is practically realised, as there are seven trans-continental lines bearing this commerce to the Atlantic.
The Pioneer has left other material legacies to the nation. The great American Deserts you knew will soon be blotted from our maps. By the science of civilization large tracts of these have been made to “blossom like the rose,” rivers that ran to waste now work the mine, turn the wheel, and then with the artesian flow irrigate the desert wastes, until fruitful gardens have grown like sweet dreams along the trail where comrades of ours died of damning thirst.
We all love the sweet flowery land we knew as territory, then as the new, and now the dear old State. We remember with becoming pride our first votes. California came into the Union a Free State. How controlling this action was none knew, nor when viewed in the light of the history of the Rebellion can it be measured. California became a gem in the Federal coronet. The pen of Bishop Berkley must have pointed toward it when he wrote his epigrammatic expression, “Ho! westward Empire takes its way.” It is a sunny land, and merits the sobriquet, “Italy of America,” with its clear skies, charms of climate, wonderful soils, wealth of mines, fabulous products and enchantments of scenery, crowned with the Yosemite Falls, the highest in the world, descending in three leaps 2,500 feet, or one-half a mile, from the glaciers and eternal snows of the Sierras to the valley below, a very Eden of sublimity and loveliness, perhaps the most wondrously grand and beautiful spot on the earth. To stand for an hour upon a summit crest of the Sierras, the grandest of America’s Alpine ranges; to live a day amid their icy homes; to descend their western slopes; to trace their long summit lines of snow-clad peaks that linkOregon to Aztec Mexico; to walk where a single step takes you from the glacier ice to Spring’s resurrection, where the violets greet you with sweetest smiles through dewy tears of joy, born on the spot where the snows of yesterday were melted by the morning’s sun; the great pines and sequoia gigantea, those wonders of the world’s forests, in whose branches the birds chorused their matin songs centuries before the Christian era, towering below you; the silvery lines of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers mirroring hundreds of miles of the great central valley, reaching far North and South from the Bay of San Francisco; the Coast Range alone curtaining the Pacific Sea, with stern old Mount Diablo standing as the sole sentinel guarding the Golden gate—these are alone worth crossing a continent to see—and recall the words of Tom Moore, who, after visiting the mountains of New England, the rivers and lakes of New York, theSt.Lawrence and grand old Niagara, wrote to Lady Charlotte Rowdon, saying:
“Oh, Lady, these are miracles which man,Caged in the bonds of Europe’s pigmy plan,Can scarce dream of, and which the eye must seeTo know how beautiful this world can be.”
Pity he could not have seen and sung of our lands of the Yellowstone, the Columbia, and the Yosemite,—what words would these have inspired his poet pen to write.
Among the gentlemen who have honored us with their presence here to-night as one of our guests I notice my friend the Honorable Felix Campbell, Member of Congress from Brooklyn, and who is now the Dean of the delegation to the Congress of the United States from the great State of New York, and who has been honored with many many re-elections to that body; his presence here to-night is particularly welcome to us old soldiers of the Mexican War, for we all remember the active part he took in helping to secure the passage of our pension bill a few years ago.
I must also not forget to mention the name of my old friend and fellow forty-niner of California, James Phelan, Esq.,of San Francisco to whose generosity we are mainly indebted for this splendid entertainment to-night, whose patriotic spirit and warm-hearted nature always come to the front on such occasions. May his shadow never grow less, and that he may never die till I kill him.
As allusion has been made to the war of the rebellion, in which comrade McKay took a most prominent part on the side of the South, and Colonel Hungerford and myself serving in the Union Army. AlthoughSouth CarolinaandNew York troops fought side by side in the same brigade under the gallant General Shields in Mexico, we found ourselves,unfortunately, arrayed against each other in later years in our own country, andno man who is a manwill frompoliticalorpersonalmotiveskeep alive the passions of the war, or by fanning the embers of sectional hatred forpoliticalorpartisan effect, subject our people to the charge of vindictive malignity. I trust we have long since forgotten the bitter memories of our Civil War, and that we only remember thegallant actsanddeedsofboth armies.
I have hoped for years back that the time would come, and it is happily now at hand, when the brave soldiers of the society of the army of Northern Virginia, who fought under the gallant Lee, will meet side by side at the annual reunions with the soldiers of our society of the army of the Potomac, who fought under McClellan, Grant, Meade, and Sheridan, and at other festive meetings of our various army gatherings and organizations of old soldiers, where I have never heard a word said against, but the highest praise accorded to our gallant but misguided southern brothers for their bravery and daring on the battlefield.
Colonel Murphy was called upon to respond to the last sentiment,—in memory of our dead comrades,—which he did, as follows:
I am called on to say a word to the memory of our dear departed comrades. Would that I had command of language to do justice to our dead heroes. Father Time has fearfully thinned our ranks, and few of us can point to the comrade who was his file leader and marched shoulder to shoulderwith us nearly 50 years ago, and the death roll since the Mexican War has been frightful among the distinguished men of that army who have been called to their final account. I mention a few, Scott, Taylor, Pillow, Quitman, Twiggs, Duncan, Pierce, Kearney, Hancock, Shields. The last named general, and the last surviving general of that war, was a welcome guest at my house a few years ago when stricken with a fatal sickness when far away from his Western home and kindred. I well remember the gallant Lieutenant Ralph Bell of the South Carolina Regiment, mentioned by comrade McKay, and who, while wounded, led the forlorn hope at Chapultepec. He accompanied me to California in 1849, and his eyes I closed in death at Sacramento City the following year, and whose placid countenance looks down upon me here to-night. These are sad memories, and the tongue can but feebly express the feelings of the heart at this time; our own bent forms and fast becoming hoary locks admonish us that it will not be long before we too are called to tread the same path, and no matter what our former condition in life, there is no distinction then. The dead, how beautiful is the memory of the dead, what a holy thing it is in the human heart, what a chastening influence it has upon human life, how it subdues all the harshness that grows up within us in the daily intercourse with the world, how it melts our hardness and softens our pride, kindles our deepest love, and waking our brightest aspirations in the camp and by the wayside, in solitude or among our comrades, think sadly and speak lovingly of the dead.
I am called on to say a word to the memory of our dear departed comrades. Would that I had command of language to do justice to our dead heroes. Father Time has fearfully thinned our ranks, and few of us can point to the comrade who was his file leader and marched shoulder to shoulderwith us nearly 50 years ago, and the death roll since the Mexican War has been frightful among the distinguished men of that army who have been called to their final account. I mention a few, Scott, Taylor, Pillow, Quitman, Twiggs, Duncan, Pierce, Kearney, Hancock, Shields. The last named general, and the last surviving general of that war, was a welcome guest at my house a few years ago when stricken with a fatal sickness when far away from his Western home and kindred. I well remember the gallant Lieutenant Ralph Bell of the South Carolina Regiment, mentioned by comrade McKay, and who, while wounded, led the forlorn hope at Chapultepec. He accompanied me to California in 1849, and his eyes I closed in death at Sacramento City the following year, and whose placid countenance looks down upon me here to-night. These are sad memories, and the tongue can but feebly express the feelings of the heart at this time; our own bent forms and fast becoming hoary locks admonish us that it will not be long before we too are called to tread the same path, and no matter what our former condition in life, there is no distinction then. The dead, how beautiful is the memory of the dead, what a holy thing it is in the human heart, what a chastening influence it has upon human life, how it subdues all the harshness that grows up within us in the daily intercourse with the world, how it melts our hardness and softens our pride, kindles our deepest love, and waking our brightest aspirations in the camp and by the wayside, in solitude or among our comrades, think sadly and speak lovingly of the dead.
It occurred to the compiler of this pamphlet that it would not be out of place to mention the name of Colonel Murphy’s son, Ignatius, a well-known journalist and editorial writer, who wrote the life of Colonel Hungerford (a book of nearly 400 pages). This gallant soldier recently died in Rome, Italy, at the home of his daughter, the Countess Telfener, at the Villa Ada, attaining the ripe age of seventy-five years. He passed peacefully away, surrounded by his affectionate wife, his daughter, the Countess, and his numerous grandchildren.
Ignatius Ingoldsby Murphy deserves more than a mere honourable mention in connection with the corn propaganda.When his father commenced his missionary labors, in 1887, he was flooded with correspondence from all parts of Europe. This son, who was a third year naval cadet at Annapolis, resigned, and came over to Europe to assist his father, for which his knowledge of European languages eminently qualified him.
IGNATIUS INGOLDSBY MURPHY
IGNATIUS INGOLDSBY MURPHY
CADET 1st CLASS, UNITED STATES
NAVAL ACADEMY, ANNAPOLIS,MD., U.S.A.
When his father was ordered from Berlin to Russia, by General Rusk, at the request of the Grand Duke Sergius, the uncle of the present Emperor, the Secretary of Agriculture appointed him as special agent and secretary to take his father’s place in Germany, and much of the success of this propaganda is fairly attributable to his valuable assistance, together with that of Colonel Murphy’s wife, who recently died in Brussels. This extraordinary and gifted woman gave the last fifteen of the best years of her life to this work; in fact her whole life, no less than her pen has been devoted to the welfare of others. The two daughters also worked together with the same energy and enthusiasm as their father, for no one man could have accomplished such phenomenal work in so short a time.
The exports of our American corn (maize) was only 24,000,000 bushels of 56lbs.each in 1888, less than four per cent. of our production. The year after the commencement of this propaganda, which Colonel Murphy undertook on his own initiative and sole expense, unaided by anyone, the exports went up rapidly, and in 1901 were over 213 million bushels, and every acre of land on the corn belt has doubled in value in the last fifteen years. This result proves the value of the work done by this propaganda in showing the people of Europe the value of maize as human food, which was formerly only considered as fit food for animals. This family deserves a place on the roll of grateful remembrance.
Ear of corn