Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/492

436 theatre, and General Taylor remained strictly on the defensive.In his letter to General Gaines, before alluded to, dated November 8th, 1846, General Taylor avowed himself in favor of withdrawing the American troops to a defensive line, extending from some point on the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific, and at the same time enforcing a rigid blockade of the Mexican ports, as the surest mode of conquering a peace. The same idea was advocated by Mr. Calhoun, of South Carolina, in the Senate of the United States, during the session of 1847-48; propositions for a large increase of the army being then before Congress. The Hon. Joel R. Poinsett, formerly Minister to Mexico, and Secretary of War, also approved of that policy, in a letter addressed to Mr. Butler, a senator in Congress from South Carolina, dated on the 12th of December, 1847, and published in the National Intelligencer on the 22nd of January following. Mr. Poinsett instances, in support of his argument the failure of the Russian government permanently to enforce her authority over the Caucasians. But the two cases are hardly analogous. The Caucasians are wild, fierce, and intractable, while the Mexicans are indolent, cowardly, and treacherous, — tyrannical as masters, but slavish as subjects; the former have few or no towns, and when driven from them, they regarded the deprivation as of little consequence, while the latter looked upon their capital, and their principal cities, as their main dependence and reliance; and, more than all, Russia desired to make a permanent conquest, which, of itself, was well calculated to arouse an untiring and undying spirit of hostility.

Had Mexico been inhabited by any other race, except people descended from a Spanish stock, perhaps the defensive policy would have been the most desirable. Such a policy, however, would have been of little or no avail against the Mexican guarilleros. It was the offensive measures adopted by the American commanders, and those alone, which

Early in July, Colonel Gates, of the 3rd artillery, the commanding officer at Tampico, received information that a number of American prisoners, entitled to liberation, were at or near Huejutla, over one hundred miles in the interior of Tamaulipas, where General Garey had established his head-quarters, with a force from twelve to fifteen hundred strong. Being anxious to liberate them as soon as possible, Colonel Gates ordered Colonel De Russey, of the Louisiana volunteers,