50

Gordo, the key of the whole position, in the rear; and at the same time cut off the retreat of the enemy to Jalapa. This was Scott's preliminary order of battle, omitting only his directions to the artillery and cavalry reserve, to Worth,- to follow and support the operations of Twiggs, and the directions for the vigorous pursuit of the foe after his intrenchments were carried.

The performance corresponds with the programme, except that Twiggs, being annoyed by a party of skirmishers in executing his movement, throws off to his left a detachment to scatter them, which unexpectedly carries the cone-shaped Atalaya, and, encouraged thereby, scales Cerro Gordo in front, and turns to flight one division of Santa Anna's Mexican army before Twiggs's left, on the march, has reached the Jalapa Road to intercept it. Such was Grant's first participation in a flanking movement. There is another man in this army who will one day recall it. Robert E. Lee is serving on Scott's staff as captain of engineers.

"The plan of attack," says Scott in his report, "sketched in General Orders, No. 111' herewith, was

1 The first division of regulars (Worth's) will follow the movement against the enemy's left at sunrise to-morrow morning.

As already arranged, Brig.-Gen. Pillow's brigade will march at six o'clock to-morrow morning along the route he has carefully reconnoitred, and stand ready, as soon as he hears the report of arms on our right, or sooner if circum-as he may select. Once in the rear of stances should favor him, to pierce the enemy's line of batteries at such point the nearer to the river the betterthat line, he will turn to the right or left, or both, and attack the batteries in reverse, or, if abandoned, he will pursue the enemy with vigor until further orders.

Wall's field battery and the cavalry will be held in reserve on the national

finely executed by this gallant army before two o'clock, P.M. yesterday. We are quite embarrassed with the results of victory, - prisoners of war, heavy ordnance, field batteries, small-arms, and accoutrements. About three thousand men laid down their arms, with the usual proportion of field and company officers; besides five generals, several of them of great distinction, — Pinson, Jarrero, La Vega, Noriega, and Obando.

road, a little out of view and range of the enemy's batteries. They will take up that position at nine o'clock in the morning.

The enemy's batteries being carried or abandoned, all our divisions and corps will pursue with vigor.

This pursuit may be continued many miles, until stopped by darkness or fortified positions, towards Jalapa. Consequently, the body of the army will not return to this encampment, but be followed to-morrow afternoon or early the next morning by the baggage-trains of the several corps. For this purpose, the feebler officers and men of each corps will be left to guard its camp and effects, and to load up the latter in the wagons of the corps. A commander of the present encampment will be designated in the course of this day.

As soon as it shall be known that the enemy's works have been carried, or that the general pursuit has been commenced, one wagon for each regiment and battery, and one for the cavalry, will follow the movement, to receive, under the direction of medical officers, the wounded and disabled, who will be brought back to this place for treatment in general hospital.

The surgeon-general will organize this important service, and designate that hospital, as well as the medical officers to be left at it.

Every man who marches out to attack or pursue the enemy will take the usual allowance of ammunition, and subsistence for at least two days.

GENERAL ORDERS, No. 111.- The enemy's whole line of intrenchments and batteries will be attacked in front, and at the same time turned, early in the day to-morrow, probably before ten o'clock, A.M.

tu

al

be

The second (Twiggs's) division of regulars is already advanced within easy ning-distance towards the enemy's left. That division has instructions to ve forward before daylight to-morrow, and take up position across the nationroad in the enemy's rear, so as to cut off a retreat towards Jalapa. It may re-enforced to-day, if unexpectedly attacked in force, by regiments — one two-taken from Shields's brigade of volunteers. If not, the two volunteer riments will march for that purpose at daylight to-morrow morning, under ig.-Gen. Shields, who will report to Brig.-Gen. Twiggs on getting up with m, or to the general-in-chief if he be in advance.

The remaining regiment of that volunteer brigade will receive instructions the course of this day.

52

A sixth general, Vasquez, was killed in defending the battery tower in the rear of the line of defence; the capture of which gave us those glorious results."

Worth's division of four thousand men, to which Grant's regiment was attached, is immediately pushed on to the fortress of Perote, which was captured without a struggle; and from thence they quietly march upon Puebla, and stack their arms in the Grand Plaza of a city of eighty thousand inhabitants. Here, at an elevation of seven thousand feet above the sea, which tempers the climate to a perpetual summer, in the centre of a valley of unrivalled fertility and beauty, which annually produces two abundant crops, Grant passes the months of July and August in the year 1847. The landscape is continually enamelled with all the cereals and all the grasses of the temperate The apple, peach, apricot, and pear trees are always in perennial fruitage or blossom. Orizaba stands as a gigantic sentinel upon the horizon, and the towering peaks of Malinche and Popocatapetl guard the outskirts of the valley.

zone.

EDUCATION.

ΟΝ

--

CHAPTER IV.

MEXICAN WAR. - CERRO GORDO TO MEXICO.

N the 7th of August the order is given to advance; and, with a "Cerro-Gordo cheer," the troops, overloaded with their arms and knapsacks, begin to climb the Cordilleras, quenching their thirst at the same mountain-streams which the invading Spaniards had drunk two hundred years before. The great features of Nature remain unchanged for ages; and, when the foremost ridge of the Rio Frio is reached, the landscape which struck the bewildered gaze of Grant was the same which had enchanted Cortez and his companions, when, like Moses on Pisgah, they cried out, "It is the promised land!" Well might the mind be filled with admiration and awe. Ten thousand feet higher than the summit on which they stand, "the hill which smokes" seems near enough to be touched by hand. "Stretching far away at their feet were seen noble forests of oak, sycamore, and cedar; and beyond, yellow fields of maize, and the towering maguey, intermingled with orchards and blooming gardens: for flowers, in such demand for

th

h

eir religious festivals, were even more abundant in is populous valley than in any other part of AnaIn the centre of the great basin were beheld the lakes, occupying then a much larger portion of

uac.

54

6

its surface than at present; their borders thickly studded with towns and hamlets, and in their midst -like some Indian empress with her coronal of pearls the fair city of Mexico, with her white towers and pyramidal temples, reposing, as it were, on the bosom of waters, the far-famed Venice of the Aztecs.' High over all, rose the royal hill of Chapultepec, the residence of the Mexican monarchs, crowned with the same grove of gigantic cypresses which at this day fling their broad shadows over the land. In the distance, beyond the blue waters of the lake, and nearly screened by intervening foliage, was seen a shining speck, the rival capital Tezcuco; and still farther on the dark belt of porphyry, girding the valley around like a rich setting which Nature has devised for the fairest of her jewels.

"Such was the beautiful vision which broke upon the eyes of the Spaniards. And even now, when so sad a change has come over the scene; when the is stately forests have been laid low, and the soil, unsheltered from the fierce radiance of a tropical sun, in many cases abandoned to sterility; when the waters have retired, leaving a broad and ghastly margin, white with the incrustation of salts; while the cities and hamlets on their borders have mouldered into ruins, - even now that desolation broods over the landscape, so indestructible are the lines of beauty which Nature has traced on its features, that no traveller, however cold, can gaze on them with any other emotions than those of astonishment and rapture." 1

1 Aug. 10, the leading division, Worth's, with which I marched, crossed