Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/270

Rh which extended some distance beyond La Libertad, stood a redoubt occupied by some eighty men; and about six hundred yards to the east, in a depression of the ridge, was a substantial masonry fort called El Soldado, armed with two 9-pounders, which were dragged, before the fighting began, to the redoubt on the summit.

Meantime the Mexicans also were observing. It was generally believed that Taylor had thirty guns, which meant a hard ght; but the soldiers were excited and ready for battle. "The enthusiasm is great, the determination greater, the desire to sacrifice ourselves for the sacred rights of the nation unbounded," wrote the comandante general of Nuevo Leon. But Ampudia — "the Culinary Knight," as Worth called him, who had fried Sentmanat's head — already trembled. We have food for barely twenty days, he reported to the government; the troops at San Luis Potosí are few in number and little inclined to advance; through spies the enemy are aware of these facts; they will gain the pass between here and Saltillo, and from that position "it will be almost impossible to dislodge them."

Sunday morning all was bustle in the American camp, and at length, a little before two o'clock, Hays and about 400 mounted Texans rode away. A long sky-blue line of infantry followed them, and then another line of men in dark-blue jackets and trousers with a red stripe down the leg — Lieutenant Colonel Childs's Artillery Battalion. Blanchard's Company of Louisiana volunteers, dressed in every sort of clothes and carrying every sort of weapon, and Duncan's and Mackall's batteries with their gleaming pieces and clattering caissons completed the detachment, which included some 2000 men. all told. The rest of the army watched their departure with keen interest, for their design looked well — nigh desperate and yet the fate of the campaign was believed to depend upon it.

Especially they watched the commander, In the usual undress uniform but on a splendid horse, which he managed with consummate address, rode Worth. He was a man of average height but noticeably strong, with a trim figure and a strikingly martial air. Conversing easily with his staff he seemed the elegant gentleman; but his face was stern, and his restless dark eyes flashed. In war he found his element;