Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/362





Wool, who had been for a long period inspector general of the United States army, was entrusted with the difficult task of examining the recruits in the west, and set forth on his journey after receiving his orders on the 29th of May, 1846. He traversed the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi, and, in somewhat less than two months, had journeyed three thousand miles and mustered twelve thousand men into service. This expedition of a hardy soldier exhibits, at once, the powers of a competent American officer, and the facility with which an efficient corps d'armée, may at any urgent moment, be raised in our country.

Nearly nine thousand of these recruits were sent to Taylor on the Rio Grande, while those who were destined for the "Army of the Centre," rendezvoused at Bejar, in Texas. At this; place their commander Wool joined them, and commenced the rigid system of discipline, under accomplished officers, which made his division a model in the army. He marched from Bejar with five hundred regulars and two thousand four hundred and fifty volunteers, on the 20th of September, and passed onwards though Presidio, Nava, and across the Sierra of San Jose and Santa Rosa, and the rivers Alamos, Sabine, and del Norte, until he reached Monclova. He had been directed to advance to Chihuahua, but as this place was in a great measure controled by the states of New Leon and Coahuila which were already in our possession, he desisted from pursuing his march thither, and, after communicating with General Taylor and learning the fall of Monterey, he pushed on to the fertile region of Parras and thence to the headquarters of General Taylor, in the month of December, as soon as he was apprised of the danger which menaced him at that period.