Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/202

184 was barely able to garrison Mexico and Chapultepec. December 4 his army included only about 8000 privates, of whom a quarter were sick. During the next three weeks Generals Patterson, Butler and Gushing, Colonel Hays, Lieutenant Colonel Johnston and Major Lally, each with troops, arrived; and the forces then numbered about 11,000 effectives and 3000 sick.

Scott therefore announced, with no doubt a strategic purpose as well as a rhetorical flourish, that our army was "about to spread itself over and to occupy the Republic of Mexico." What he really intended was to take possession successively of the principal mining regions those of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí and the capitals of such important states as lay within easy reach. Even for the former purpose, however, two columns of some 5000 effectives each were needed, and the men as well as clothing for them could not be provided. The only immediate operations, therefore, aside from the establishment of new posts on the road to Vera Cruz, were the peaceful occupation of Pachuca, a mining town about fifty miles northeast of Mexico, Toluca, about thirty-eight miles distant in the opposite direction, and Cuernavaca, the key to the Acapulco region, a little farther away toward the southwest.

February 6, 1848, an expedition of more consequence marched, by Scott's orders, from Vera Cruz. Most of the guerillas who infested the road to the interior lived and found a market at or near Córdoba, a city about sixty-five miles to the southwest, and Orizaba, sixteen or eighteen miles beyond it in the same direction; and Bankhead was instructed to occupy those towns. Very different from Lane's rough trips on the plateau was this march. Near Córdoba flourished such genuine tropical wonders as the bread tree, the butter tree, the milk tree, and a kind of palm called "the traveller's friend," which covered the wayfarer's head with a tent, and quenched his thirst with abundant sap. Going on, one found enormous masses of vegetation thick, matted, boundlessly prolific -moulded into astonishing yet harmonious forms by the bays and promontories of the rapidly mounting foothills; terraces of luxuriant foliage piled on sheer cliffs, castles on the terraces, and cathedrals on the castles; verdure,