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

173 BUTLER AND MITCHELL WOUNDED.
General Butler and Colonel Mitchell having been borne
wo8ounded from the street, and the regiment being more than
decimated, General I-lamer decided to withdraw it to a less
exposed position. Indeed there was no prudent alternative,
as nothing could be gained by prolonging a contest with such
odds. And since the capture of Fort Teneria, the ground
was of no value to us, certainly it was not worth the lives
it would have cost to maintain it.
Those persons who have read the official dispatches, are
aware that General Butler at one time intended to storm
Fort Diabolo with our regiment alone.' It was, however,
wisely unattempted. Admitting the possibility of organizing
a general assault by our scattered companies in the midst
of the confusion which prevailed, it must yet have been the
most hopeless of all forlorn hopes. I do not believe that
it of its religious character. It was most fortunate for the valiant General, who
had thus hoped to sanctuarize himself, that the church was bomb-proof, for the
accomplished Webster, aided by his brave and skillful Lieutenants, Donaldson and
Bowen, visited it with a heavy and searching fire. The only damage it sustained,
however, was in one of the towers, where a large bell was splintered into fragmesnts.
* "A very slight reconnoissance sufficed to convince me that this (El Diabolo)
was a position of no ordinary strength. Still, feeling its importance, after consulting with part of my staff as to its practicability, I had resolved to attempt carrying
it by storm, and was in the act of directing the advance when I received a wound
which compelled me to halt. Colonel Mitchell was at the same time wounded at
the head of his regiment. The men were falling fast under the converging fires
of at least three distinct batteries, that continually swept the intervening space
through which it was necessary to pass. The loss of blood, too, from my wound,
rendering it necessary that I should leave the field, and I had discovered at a
second glance that the position was covered by a heavy fire of musketry from other
worlks directly in its rear, that I had not seen in the first hasty examination. There
is a possibility that the work might have been carried, but not without excessive
loss, and if carried, I feel assured that it would have been untenable." —Extract
2i;' l, ]ajor G'll' ral Butler's Reort.l