Monterey
Charles Fenno Hoffman
Sept. 19-24, 1846
The assaulting American army at the attack on Monterey numbered six thousand six hundred and twenty-five; the defeated Mexicans were about ten thousand.
We were not many—we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day;
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if but he could
Have with us been at Monterey.
Now here, now there, the shot it hailed
In deadly drifts of fiery spray,
Yet not a single soldier quailed
When wounded comrades round them wailed
Their dying shout at Monterey.
And on—still on our column kept,
Through walls of flame, its withering way
Where fell the dead, the living stept,
Still charging on the guns which swept
The slippery streets of Monterey.
The foe himself recoiled aghast,
When, striking where he strongest lay,
We swooped his flanking batteries past,
And, braving full their murderous blast,
Stormed home the towers of Monterey.
Our banners on those turrets wave,
And there our evening bugles play;
Where orange-boughs above their grave
Keep green the memory of the brave
Who fought and fell at Monterey.
We are not many—we who pressed
Beside the brave who fell that day;
But who of us has not confessed
He’d rather share their warrior rest
Than not have been at Monterey?