Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/338

Rh horses had been carefully inured to explosions of powder. Now swords were filed, rifles loaded afresh, straps tested, and even the linch-pins of the wagons inspected; and by daybreak the command set out. To make it compact, ready for attack from any quarter and perplexing to hostile observers, the wagons were formed in four well-separated columns of about one hundred each; the artillery and most of the troops marched between these columns, and the companies of Reid, Parsons and Hudson — regarded as proper cavalry and not simply mounted men — rode in front as advance guard and screen; and in this formation, with banners and guidons flaunting to impress the enemy, it rolled forward through a valley about four miles wide, bounded on each hand by a massive, barren cordillera, until at about half-past one the troops, coming in sight of the Mexican works, noticed a quick, sharp flash there: the Mexican cavalry drawing their sabres.

Doniphan and his principal officers now galloped ahead, and at a distance of two or three miles reconnoitred most carefully with glasses the Mexican position. It looked impregnable; and when the command was about a mile and a half distant from it, the Colonel — first ordering his cavalry screen to keep on advancing — turned the main body sharply to the right, intending to cross the Arroyo Seco higher up, and gain the plateau there. It was a brilliant scheme but perilous. Good troops, not encumbered with artillery or baggage, might undertake such a manoeuvre even in the face of the enemy, but with four hundred wagons, most of them extremely heavy, it seemed impossible for untrained volunteers to cross the Arroyo, and mount the high bank of the plateau; yet not only was it a chief part of the soldiers' business to protect the wagons, but it looked as if the wagons might soon be needed to protect the soldiers. Hence this desperate attempt had to be made. Heredia observed it immediately; and, concluding that the Americans were aiming, as a last hope, to avoid his works and follow the Torreón route,'he instructed Garcia Conde, the chief cavalry officer, to hold them in check until the artillery and infantry could arrive and finish them.

But these Americans were no ordinary men; and while they had little fear of death, it was their belief that defeat would mean dungeons and torture. After marching for some