Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/318

Rh utterly wretched that in blind fury they sometimes raved and cursed like maniacs. Out of one hundred fine horses belonging to Battery A sixty had perished. Yet in places there had been cool breezes, carpets of brilliant and spicy flowers, great herds of buffalo, curious mirages, and inspiring glimpses of Pike's Peak, the towering outpost of the Rockies.

At length on July 29 Kearny escorted by Doniphan's regiment gained the rendezvous, a grassy meadow on the Arkansas about nine miles below the Fort. There within a few days the Army of the West assembled, and two additional companies of the dragoons, which had made an average of twenty-eight miles a day from Fort Leavenworth, joined their regiment. Nor were the troops alone. Several merchants had left Independence about the first of May. Notified by order of the government that war had begun, they had stopped here; and the Colonel found under his protection more than four hundred wagons and merchandise worth upwards of a million.

Armijo, for his part, had received ample warnings. In March the central government informed him that war might be expected, and authorized him to make preparations for defence. By June 17 news of the coming invasion reached Santa Fe, and nine days later the first caravan of the season confirmed it. Manuel Alvarez, the American consul, endeavored now to persuade Armijo that it would "be better for himself and the people under his government to capitulate, and far preferable" to become Americans than to be citizens of a country so disordered and so impotent as Mexico; but while his advisers and subordinates fancied they could obtain offices under an elective system, and "were rather easily won over," the governor himself probably could not believe that people so long robbed and oppressed would choose the wolf as their shepherd. Besides, he doubtless had some national spirit and some desire to justify his gratuitous title of general. After confirming the news further by a spy, he sent south on July 1 an appeal for aid — representing the Americans as 6000 in number — and began to prepare for defence. A letter from Ugarte, the comandante general of Chihuahua, stating that he Could set out on a moment's notice with five hundred cavalry and as many infantry, seemed encouraging, and no doubt