Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/113

Rh at the margin of the shallow, marshy lake bearing that name, and finally halted a little distance beyond; and Pillow camped at Chimalpa, not far beyond Worth.

But what had the enemy been doing? The people along the route, who were to have stung the Americans day and night, recognized the difference between them and the Mexican irregulars, welcomed them cordially, and gave them all possible assistance. Canalizo — who seems to have been cowed by the disaster of Cerro Gordo, and some time before this had fled from San Martín, with six hundred men at his back, on seeing an American officer, detailed to arrange an exchange of prisoners, approach with a small escort- — felt no desire to fight, besides which most of his troops revolted or deserted; and Governor Isunza not only failed to assist him with men and means, but flatly refused him a particular corps, expressly demanded by the Executive at Mexico.

Alvarez, well-nigh a brigand, had always fought for his own advantage, knew that all the other chief leaders were doing this now, and, in addition to cherishing resentments against Santa Anna, probably felt no craving to play a strictly inferior part. Though he did not have all the men for whom he seems to have been drawing rations, his force was important, and in three particulars he obeyed his orders. He stationed himself at the designated point on the flank of San Martin, kept beyond the reach of Scott's artillery, and scrupulously refrained from attacking the Americans on unfavorable terms; but while he made excuses bravely, and proposed valiant operations that Santa Anna forbade as inconsistent with his general plan, he retired some ten miles from the route on the plea that his exhausted horses required pasturage. For probably similar reasons Valencia quibbled and shirked; his train of heavy guns — which, though needed in the fortifications, he would not give up — impeded his movements; and so the only hostilities were a trifling skirmish with irregulars, in which one American trooper fell a victim to his own rashness. Thus ended, to his deep disgust, the first chapter of Santa Anna's hopes."

Four lines of advance now offered themselves to Scott. By taking the cross-road to the right he could have skirted Lake Texcoco, passing the village of that name, and approached the north or the northwest quarter of Mexico. But the route would