C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806–1884)

WE were not many—we who stood

Before the iron shot that day;

Yet many a gallant spirit would

Give half his years if he but could

Have been with us at Monterey.

Now here, now there, the shot is hailed

In deadly drifts of fiery spray;

Yet not a single soldier quailed

When wounded comrades round them wailed

Their dying shouts 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 at 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 our turrets wave,

And there the 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?