Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/372





return, from the theatre of these military operations on the shores of the Pacific, to the valley of the Rio Grande and the headquarters of General Taylor. The armistice at Monterey had ceased by the order of our government, and the commander of our forces, leaving Generals Worth and Butler at Monterey and Saltillo which had been seized, hastened with a sufficient body of troops to the gulf for the purpose of occupying Tampico, the capital of the state of Tamaulipas. But he did not advance further than Victoria, when he found that Tampico had surrendered to Commodore Conner on the 14th of November.

In the meanwhile the political aspect of Mexico was changed under the rule of Santa Anna who had returned to power, though he had not realized the hopes of our president by acceding to an honorable peace. A secret movement that was made by an agent sent into the country proved altogether unsuccessful, for the people were aroused against this union, and would listen, willingly, to no advances for accommodation. Santa Anna, cautiously noted the national feeling, and, being altogether unable to control or modify it,—although he studiously refrained from committing himself prior to his return to the capital,—he resolved to place himself at the head of the popular movement in defence of the northern frontier. Accordingly, in December, 1846, he had already assembled a large force, amounting to twenty thousand men, at San Luis Potosi, the capital of the state of that name south of Monterey, on the direct road to the heart of the internal provinces, and nearly midway between the gulf and the Pacific.

The news of this hostile gathering which was evidently designed