Lame Cherry: a traitor's death

What is a traitor's death
Breathing their last breath
The short rope and a long fall ending hope in Judgment's call
What is a traitor's death

As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.

How far America has strayed from the path of Justice.

The Hanging of the Legion of San Patricio

The “Legion of Saint Patrick” was organized from the Irish deserters from our army. At one time they numbered over seven hundred men, regular desperados, who fought with a rope around their necks. Their commander was the notorious Riley, a former Sergeant in the 4th Infantry now holding the commission of a Colonel in the Mexican Army. They fought like Devils against us at Buena Vista, and at Contreras the Battallion held the Convent and fortified walls of a Hacienda two hours after the Mexicans had run away. Nearly one hundred of the Patricios were captured. They were tried by a Court Martial, fifty sentenced to be hanged, the rest to dig the graves of their executed comrades, and “to receive two hundred lashes on the bare back, the letter D to be branded on the cheek with a red hot iron, to wear an iron yoke weighing eight pounds with three prongs, each one foot in length, around the neck, to be confined to hard labor, in charge of the guard during the time the army should remain in Mexico, and then to have their heads shaved and be drummed out of camp.”

Riley having deserted previous to actual hostilities, received the last sentence, served out his sentence, and married a wealthy Mexican lady, and lived respected—by the “greasers.” Of those doomed to the halter sixteen were hanged on the 9th of September, 1847, at the village of San Angel; on the following day four were hanged at Mixcoac, and on the 13th thirty more were strung up at the same place, fifty in all!

The execution of the last number was attended with unusual and unwarranted acts of cruelty. The day selected was the one on which the Fortress of Chapultepec was to be stormed, and the gallows was erected on a rising piece of ground just outside of the charming little village of Mixcoac, in full view of the attack on the Castle. Colonel Harney, on account of the proficiency he had acquired as an executioner in hanging Seminoles in Florida, was selected to carry out the sentence. The man who “had ravished young Indian girls at night, and then strung them up to the limb of a live oak in the morning” was certainly well fitted to carry out the barbarous order: “To have the men placed under gallows with ropes around their necks, to remain until the American flag was displayed from the walls of Chapultepec, and then swing them off.” A long beam supported by four uprights formed the gallows, from which dangled thirty lariats. As General Pillow’s division moved forward to the assault, the Patricios were brought out with their arms and legs tied, seated on boards laid across waggons, and faced to the rear. When twenty-nine had been brought the Surgeon informed Harney that the other one was dying, having lost both legs at Contreras.

Harney replied, “Bring the d-—d s——n of a b——h out! My order is to hang thirty and by G——d TII do it!”

So the dying man was brought out and laid in a waggon and hauled to the gallows. When the order of execution was read to them, these reckless and desperate men, many of them wounded, made it the subject of mirth. One said, “If we won't be hung until yer dirty ould rag flies from the Castle, we will live to eat the goose that will fatten on the grass that grows on yer own grave, Colonel.”

Others cheered for “Old Bravo,” +! the Mexican commander in the fortress. While the fight raged in the dense grove at the foot of Chapultepec and the result seemed doubtful, they became more reserved, but when our troops appeared beyond the copse driving the Mexicans up the hill their levity returned. One said, “Colonel! Oh colonel dear! Will ye grant a favor to a dying man, one of the old Second, a Florida man, Colonel?” When Harney asked what he wanted, the Irishman replied, “Thanks, thanks, Colonel, I knew ye had a kind heart. Please take my dudeen out of me pocket, and light it by yer eligant hair, that’s all, Colonel!”

The red headed Colonel struck the jester a dastard blow on the mouth with his Sabre hilt, knocking some of his teeth out. As the poor wretch spit out blood he cried out, “Bad luck to ye! Ye have spoilt my smoking intirely! I shan't be able to hold a pipe in my mouth as long as I live.”

The battle raged for hours, with varying fortune, before Chapultepec was won. When Harney saw our flag flung to the breeze from the highest tower of the Castle, he gave the order for the waggons to start up, and thirty bodies hung whirling, swinging, kicking and rubbing against each other in a fearful Dance of Death. Just as their legless comrade died, one of the desperados cried out, “Oh, ye old brick top, is it kind ye are to make Murphy dance on nothing, now that he has lost his legs!”

Such was the miserable end of the infamous Legion of San Patricio