Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/60

42 of Scott's triumph at Vera Cruz, there was little ammunition or money, and the bridge could not be held. In view of Santa Anna's adjuration Canalizo promised to make another effort, but he soon ordered La Vega to abandon the position. The light fortifications recently built were demolished, and as wagons to carry the guns away could not be obtained, they were spiked and pitched into a ravine.

Observing at La Hoya that virtually nothing had been done, Santa Anna ordered Engineer Cano to fortify the pass, and then went on to his great hacienda of El Encero, eight miles below Jalapa, where he arrived on the fifth. Two days later, in company with Lieutenant Colonel Robles, he passed Corral Falso, five miles farther down the highway, and the hamlet of Cerro Gordo, nearly five miles beyond that, and finally, making a steep and circuitous descent, he came to Plan del Río, about five miles from the hamlet. Near the first of these three positions the highway passed through a narrow, craggy defile, that could not be turned; but Santa Anna decided to make a stand at the second, because according to the country people and the traditions of both the Spanish régime and the revolutionary war, it was equally unassailable on the flanks, and holding it would force the Americans to remain within reach of the yellow fever, winch ceased to be terrible just above Plan del Río.

Very little work had been done at Cerro Gordo, but the position seemed admirable. About half a mile below the hamlet the descending highway entered a ravine, which rapidly deepened. On the left of this rose a hill named El Telégrafo, which, though low and easily ascended from the direction of the hamlet, was five or six hundred feet high on the opposite side and extremely steep. To the right of the ravine the grade of the hamlet continued for more than a mile, ending finally in three tongues, just south of which the plateau was cut, approximately east and west, by a precipitous canyon of rock more than five hundred feet deep, the channel of a small stream called the Rio del Plan. The tongues, which may be designated from south to north as A, B and C, were parallel to the highway and more or less fully commanded it. Near the head of the ravine, at a spot that may be called D, a road branched off from the highway toward the tongues, and there was a low eminence, E, in this vicinity.