Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/186

 alarm. I guess those smart officers will quit calling us 'rascally drummer boys.' Anyhow, hope we beat the Second Division into Puebla. There's no use in this whole division sitting here, only ten miles out. We don't need the Second."

The restless General Worth decided the same thing. The scouts who reconnoitred reported that all Santa Anna's forces in Puebla had vanished on the road to the City of Mexico; the mayor of Puebla sent the same word. Before noon the First Division and the Quitman two regiments of Mohawks marched for Puebla. The day was May 15.

A short distance out of Puebla the mayor and city council met General Worth to escort him in. There was to be no fight. The road changed to a magnificent paved highway leading between pillars of shining stone like colored marble.

"Close order—march!"

Those were the company orders. The ranks closed up and the men took to the cadenced step, all feet moving to the taps of the drums.

"Column, close in mass—quick—march!"

Each company closed in upon the company before, so that there was a solid column of platoons, every musket at a right shoulder shift, every foot planted in unison with the other feet.

"Guide—right!"

This did not prevent the men from glancing aside, as they marched shoulder to shoulder. The tune for the fifes and drums was Yankee Doodle but the regimental bands played Washington's March.

The paved road led through a broad gateway in the city wall. The top of the wall had been crowded