Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/172

Rh for the General to take, should the Mexicans launch a raid at San Antonio, was known there even less. It would have required about a month to send information and receive orders based upon it. Authority to occupy such a post as might seem necessary, in View of the ground, the vicinity and the news, had to be given Taylor understood that Corpus Christi, which belonged to Texas by the same right of effective occu- pation as Nacogdoches or Galveston, satisfied the terms of the order; the government accepted that interpretation; and the country acquiesced.

Gradually his forces assumed rather formidable proportions. Some of the troops had to come from Detroit, and some from Florida; but it was feared in all quarters that a heavy Mexican body might cross the Rio Grande any day, and the reinforce- ments made quick time. October 13 the army included General W. J. Worth’s command, called the first brigade, which comprised the Eighth Infantry and twelve-companies of the so-called artillery consolidated as a battalion; the second brigade, consisting of the Fifth and the Seventh Infantry under Lieutenant Colonel J. S. McIntosh; the third brigade under Colonel William Whistler, which included the Third and the Fourth Infantry; the Second Dragoons, commanded by Colonel D. E Twiggs; some United States and New Orleans field artillery, and the Texas rangers. In all, officers and men, there were about 3900.

Taylor, accustomed to frontier conditions, described his troops as healthy, remarkably well-behaved and very comfortable. But in reality the tents could scarcely keep out a heavy dew; for weeks together every article in many of them was thoroughly soaked; and much of the time water stood three or four feet deep in some. The weather oscillated sharply between sultry heat and piercing northers, so that one lay down gasping for breath and woke up freezing. As hardly enough wood could be obtained for the cooks, camp-fires were usually out of the question; and only brackish drinking water could be had. At one time nearly twenty per cent of the men were on the sick list, and half of the others more or less ill. Taylor knew so little of military evolutions that he could not get his men properly into line, and few of his chief officers excelled him very much. Despite orders from the President,