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270 and unite in making preparations to meet the invaders.

A more warlike spirit was soon manifested. The clergy of the archbishopric of Mexico bound themselves to furnish the government with the sum of one and a half million of dollars, payable in monthly instalments; plans for fortifying the city were adopted; and the public journals devoted their columns to articles designed to encourage the timid, and arouse the faint-hearted. At the head of 8,000 troops, 5,000 of whom had constituted the flower of the army, at San Luis Potosi, Santa Anna again ventured forth to try his fortunes on another field. While on the road to check the advance of General Scott, he was joined by a large body of national guards from the State of Puebla; at Jalapa he was reinforced by 2,000 men; and numbers of the jarochada, or lower class of peasantry and laborers, of the State of Vera Cruz, were also pressed into his service. With these additions his army numbered little short of 15,000. After leaving Jalapa, he advanced to the pass of Vaechi, or near the Rio del Plan, which had been the scene of one of his most brilliant efforts during the revolution, and was regarded as being almost impregnable.

About sixty miles from Vera Cruz, and over thirty from Jalapa, the national road crosses the Rio del Plan and the wide rocky plain on its northern bank,