and about noon on the second of March the steamer Massachusetts plowed through the fleet, dashing the spray from her bows, and set off in that direction. A blue flag with a red centre waving at her main-truck indicated that Scott was aboard, and when the noble figure of the commander-in-chief, standing with uncovered head on the deck, was observed, peal after peal of cheers resounded from ship to ship. The clanking of anchor chains followed them; the sailors broke into their hearty songs; the sails filled gracefully; and the fleet stood away.[1]
For two days its progress was not fast, but then a norther set in. Like a panorama, peak after peak on the lofty sky line passed rapidly astern; and finally Orizaba, the "mountain of the star," upreared its head superbly more than three miles above sea level not far inland. Then came Green Island, where the Albany and Potomac were on hand to give any needful assistance,[2] and the John Adams showed her black teeth to lurking blockade-runners; while in the distance the frowning bastions of Ulúa "castle" could be made out, and the sixteen domes of Vera Cruz appeared to be promenading along her white wall. Pitching and rolling on the huge billows of inky water, with foam leaping high over their bows, the transports threaded their way swiftly between the tumbling and roaring piles of surf that marked the reefs, and finally, on March 5, the swallowtail pennant of Commodore Conner and the flags of the American squadron were seen off Antón Lizardo. Cheers followed cheers as the transports dropped anchor one after another; and when the sun went down in a blaze of glory behind Orizaba, the spirits of the men, stimulated by so many novel, beautiful and thrilling scenes, by the approach of combat and the expectation of triumph, reached the very culmination of military enthusiasm. It was a good beginning — except that Scott arrived a month late, and the yellow fever usually came on time.[3]
"Heroic" Vera Cruz, the city of the "True Cross," was in form an irregular hexagon, with a perimeter some two miles in length, closely packed with rather high buildings of soft, whitewashed masonry. Although famous as the charnel house of Europeans, it was a rather pleasant place for those who could endure the climate. The little alameda, across which many a dandy strutted every day in tight linen trousers, a close blue jacket, gilt buttons and a red sash, and many a pretty woman
