Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/75

Rh the Mississippi, to the west side of which they were preparing to cross in bark canoes made on the spot. That purpose was foiled by the accidental arrival of a steamboat with a small gun on board. The Indians took cover in a willow marsh, and there was fought the battle of the Bad Axe. The Indians were defeated, and dispersed, and the campaign ended. In the mean time, Gen. Winfield bcott, with troops from the east, took chief command and established his headquarters at Rock Island, and thither Gen. Atkinson went with the regular troops, except that part of the 1st infantry which consti- tuted the garrison of Fort Crawford. With these Col. Taylor returned to Prairie du Chien. When it was reported that the Indians were on an island above the prairie, he sent a lieutenant with an appropriate command to explore the island, where unmistakable evidence was found of the recent fresence of the Indians and of their departure, mmediately thereafter a group of Indians ap- peared on the east bank of the river under a white flag, who proved to be Black Hawk, with a remnant of his band and a few friendly Winne- bagoes. The lieutenant went with them to the fort, where Col. Taylor received them, except the Winnebagoes, as prisoners. A lieutenant and a guard were sent with them, sixty in number — men, women, and children — by steamboat, to Rock Isl- and, there to report to Gen. Scott for orders in regard to the prisoners. Col. Taylor actively par- ticipated in the campaign up to its close, and to him was surrendered the chief who had most illus- trated the warlike instincts of the Indian race, to whom history must fairly accord the credit of having done much under the most disadvantageous circumstances. In 183G Col. Taylor was ordered to Florida for service in the Seminole war, and the next year he defeated the Indians in the decisive battle of Okechobee, for which he received the brevet of brigadier-general, and in 1838 was ap- pointed to the chief command in Florida. In 1840 he was assigned to command the southern division of the western department of the army. Though Gen. Taylor had for many years been a cotton-planter, his family had lived with him at his military station, but, when ordered for an in- definite time on field service, he made his family home at Baton Rouge, La.

Texas having been annexed to the United States in 1845, Mexico threatened to invade Texas with the avowed purpose to recover the territory, and Gen. Taylor was ordered to defend it as a part of the United States. He proceeded with all his available force, about 1.500 men, to Corpus Christi, where he was joined by re-enforcements of regu- lars and volunteers. Discussion had arisen as to whether the Nueces or the Rio Grande was the proper boundary of Texas. His political opinions, whatever they might be, were subordinate to the duty of a soldier to execute the orders of his gov- ernment, and, without uttering it, he acted on the apophthegm of Decatur : " My country, right or wrong, my country." Texas claimed protection for her frontier, the president recognized the fact that Texas had been admitted to the Union with the Rio Grande as her boundary, and Gen. Taylor was instructed to advance to that river. His force had been increased to about 4,000, when, on 8 March, 1846, he marched from Corpus Christi. He was of course conscious of the inade- quacy of his division to resist such an army as Mexico might send against it, but when ordered by superior authority it was not his to remon- strate. Gen. Gaines, commanding the western department, had made requisitions for a sufficient number of volunteers to join Taylor, but the sec- retary of war countermanded them, except as to such as had already joined. Gen. Taylor, with a main depot at Point Isabel, advanced to the bank of the Rio Grande, opposite to Matamoras, and there made provision for defence of the place called Fort Brown. Soon after his arrival, Am- pudia, the Mexican general at Matamoras, made a threatening demand that Gen. Taylor should withdraw his troops beyond the Nueces, to which he replied that his position had been taken by order of his government, and would be maintained. Having completed the intrenchment, and being short of supplies, he left a garrison to hold it, and marched with an aggregate force of 2,288 men to obtain additional supplies from Point Isabel, about thirty miles distant. Gen. Arista, the new Mexican commander, availing himself of the opportunity to interpose, crossed the river below Fort Brown with a force estimated at 6,000 regular troops, 10 pieces of artillery,and a considerable amount of auxiliaries. In the afternoon of the second day's march from Point Isabel these were reported by Gen. Taylor's cavalry to be in his front, and he halted to allow the command to rest and for the needful disposi- tions for battle. In the evening a request was made that a council of war should be held, to which Gen. Taylor assented. The prevalent opinion was in favor of falling back to Point Isabel, there to in- trench and wait for re-enforcements. After listen- ing to a full expression of views, the general an- nounced : " I shall go to Fort Brown or stay in my shoes," a western expression equivalent to " or die in the attempt." He then notified the officers to prepare to attack the enemy at dawn of day. In the morning of 8 May the advance was made by columns until the enemy's batteries opened, when line of battle was formed and Taylor's artillery, inferior in number but otherwise superior, was brought fully into action and soon dispersed the mass of the enemy's cavalry. The chaparral, dense ' copses of thorn-bushes, served both to conceal the position of the enemy and to impede the move- ments of the attacking force. The action closed at night, when the enemy retired, and Gen. Taylor bivouacked on the field. Early in the morning of 9 May he resumed his march, and in the afternoon encountered Gen. Arista in a strong position with artillery advantageously posted. Taylor's infantry pushed through the chaparral lining both sides of the road, and drove the enemy's infantry before them ; but the batteries held their position, and were so fatally used that it was an absolute neces- sity to capture them. For this purpose the general ordered a squadron of dragoons to charge them. The enemy's gunners were cut down at their pieces, the commanding officer was captured, and the infantry soon made the victory complete. The Mexican loss in the two battles was estimated at a thousand ; the American, killed, forty-nine. The enemy precipitately recrossed the Rio Grande, leaving the usual evidence of a routed army. Gen. Taylor then proceeded to Fort Brown. During his absence it had been heavily bombarded, and the commander, Maj. Brown, had been killed. The Mexicans evacuated Matamoras, and Gen. Taylor took peaceable possession, 18 May.

The Rio Grande, except at time of flood, offered little obstacle to predatory incursions, and it was obviously sound policy to press the enemy back from the border. Gen. Taylor, therefore, moved forward to Camargo, on the San Juan, a tributary of the Rio Grande. This last-named river rose so as to enable steamboats to transport troops and supplies, and by September a sufficiently large