Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/297

268 through bottomless mud, churned by about 500 wagons going and returning, was an almost inconceivable task. Though excessive rains had been falling, the troops, marching under an August sun, were tormented by thirst; an occasional bunch of delicious grapes or slice of prime venison could hardly solace them for the abundance of rattlesnakes, tarantulas, scorpions and centipedes; and sleep was broken by the screaming of panthers and howling of wolves — positively unearthly when near, one of the soldiers wrote, and resembling, when distant, the wail of some terrible monster gasping for life. In spite of hardships and labors, however, men and wagons finally reached San Antonio, and on August 14 Wool himself arrived at that point.

Here the troops had time to rest, and they found much of interest. The old Mexican town — where one could still see now and then a fig tree spreading itself in the patio (courtyard) of a crumbling house, or gaze at the heavy, earth-brown or moss-covered walls of the Alamo, pitted by Santa Anna's cannon balls — looked in their eyes like some ancient oriental city "just dug up," as one of them said; and the cactus, the live-oaks, the mocking-birds, the pellucid river and the many varieties of grapes extinguished soon the memory of past fatigues.

For Wool, on the other hand, there was no repose. Now, as always during the Mexican war, operations were unspeakably embarrassed by the necessity of drawing supplies from so great a distance and by sea, and naturally San Antonio, a town of only some 2000 persons, could furnish much less than cities like Vera Cruz or even Matamoros. Each particular article that would be necessary on the expedition had to be provided now; and departmental errors, like delaying arms and misdirecting parts of wagons, were therefore peculiarly unfortunate. But the greater difficulty was disorder The command was a chaotic mass like that on the Rio Grande, turbulent, impatient, insubordinate. Wool, however, attacked the problem without shrinking, and what a soldier called "the iron hand" of military discipline soon began to set things right.

Highly unfortunate, therefore, in this as well as in other regards, was an escapade of Brevet Colonel Harney, a mall