Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/281

Rh yet recovered from their weariness and exhaustion. An exchange of prisoners was negotiated on the 24th, and completed on the following day. On the 26th the Mexican army commenced a disastrous retreat, leaving large numbers of their wounded to be cared for by General Taylor's army. The Americans resumed their position at Agua Nueva on the 27th of February. Colonel Belknap was dispatched with a command to Encarnacion, on the 1st of March, and found the roadside strewed with the dead and dying of the discomfited host hurrying onward to San Luis Potosi, with a dark cloud of vultures hovering constantly on their track.

While the American and Mexican armies were contending on the field of Buena Vista, General Urrea and his cavalry made their appearance in the valley of the San Juan. They arrived before Marin at noon on the 23rd of February, and threatened an attack upon the force at that place, which consisted of three companies of the 2nd Ohio infantry under Lieutenant Colonel Irvin. Information was immediately sent to Monterey that the post was in danger, and Colonel Ormsby, of the Louisville Legion, then in command in that