XIX
BEFORE THE BRISTLING CITY
Before supper was finished the clouds had gathered;
darkness set in early, with every prospect of
rain again; the men were still too excited to lie down—they
collected in groups around the campfires and
talked things over.
Jerry simply had to find Hannibal and compare notes. On his way to the Second Brigade he met him coming on. They returned together to the campfire line of the Fourth Regiment and squatted there.
The Fourth Regiment would never be the same again. Just how many it had lost in killed and wounded was not yet known, but in Jerry's own little mess Corporal Finerty was greatly missed. He and Drum Major Brown had been put in hospital back at Churubusco, it was said, and were due to recover.
All agreed that of the Regulars the First Division had suffered the most severely. In the Second Division, which attacked the church from the open, the First Artillery had lost five officers; the Second Infantry had lost four; reports from the Third and Seventh Infantry were not in.
There was much praise for the new Third Regular Division, and the Mohawks, of the Fourth Division. In the Cadwalader brigade of the Third, which supported the First Division against the bridgehead, Lieutenant J. F. Irons, aide-de-camp to General Cadwalader, had been killed. General Franklin Pierce, leading the other brigade in the
