Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

160 TH1i ENEMY OPEN THEIR FIRE.
in a distant conflict with the city, have overpowered the
guard and plundered the camp. The loss of our stores would
have resulted in great inconvenience and suffering, if, indeed,
it would not have placed the army fhors dc combat.
A march of twenty minutes brought us to the hill in front
of the town, where our columns were deployed; the Regulars
(Twigg's division) on the left of the line of battle, and the
Volunteers (Butler's division) on the right. The order and
calmness which characterized the movements of the former,
were in striking contrast with the excited step and irrepressible enthusiasm of the latter. A short time after our regimlent had taken its position in the line, and while every eye
was fixed upon the frowning citadel, whose time-worn
towers were deckced with many gaudy flags, a cloud of smoke
was seen to rise suddenly from its walls. The next moment,
a deafening roar broke upon our ears, and in the next, a
shower of round shot came bounding up the hill and crashing over our heads. Startled by this thrilling and unfamiliar melody, this piercing "music of the spheres," our
people, much to their subsequent amusemlent, made an
involuntary obeisance to the volley as it hurtled past. The
Mexicans managed the heavy guns of the citadel admirably,
and their practiced artillerists had been wise enough to obtain
the exact range of every part of the plain before our arrival.
They had one long and excellent piece, mounted on the
north-east bastion, which seemed to carry death in every discharge.'"That infernal barbette gun shoots like a rifle,")
said a friend to ume, as one of its balls thumped through the
side of an orderly's horse, a short distance fromn us. A few