Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/414

Rh about eleven o'clock he sent Dr. Vanderlinden, his chief medical officer, to General Taylor, who had now returned from Saltillo, with a note inviting him, on the ground that he was now surrounded by more than 20,000 Mexicans, to lay down his arms, and probably with secret instructions to amuse the American commander as long as possible. Very likely, as he intimated later, he would have been glad to retire from what he called a Pass of Thermopylæ, and operate strategically; but the American retreat had in effect lured him on, his provisions were scant, and at this point therefore the issue had to be decided at once.

With good reason Santa Anna disliked the field of battle selected by Wool, for it strongly favored the defence. Running north along the western side of the road there was.a creek, which had excavated near La, Angostura an amazing network of gullies with almost vertical banks twenty feet or so high, that practically vetoed the passage of troops; and west of this obstruction the ground rose more and more steeply until it became a line of high hills, parallel to the creek, which resembled a huge wave ready to break. On the other side, between the road and the sierra, there was a space varying from three quarters of a mile to a mile in width, and this was roughly divided by two east-and-west ravines — the more northern of which may be called the long and the more southern the broad ravine — into three parts: the north field, as we may name it, extending to Buena Vista, the middle field or plateau, and the south field extending to La Encantada.

Of these divisions the plateau was the most distinctive. Along the base of the sierra there were two or three benches, presumably made of débris from the mountain; and lighter débris had been washed almost down to the road, forming a stony plain seamed by a number of minor ravines — torrents during the rainy season — which grew deeper as they progressed, until at the western edge of the plateau they descended to the floor of the valley as ragged gulches, leaving between them several tongues or spurs, extremely steep and about forty or fifty feet high. The longest, highest and bluntest of the spurs, which may be called the first of them, was at La Angostura; and a space of only some forty feet, through which passed the road, intervened between its point and the