Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 2.djvu/67

Rh the problem ahead; but the General, as if intoxicated by holding an independent command, ordered an assault made at daybreak the next morning. The Volunteer Division, consisting at present of two brigades, a feld battery and a squadron of cavalry, then arrived. Patterson, who led it, seemed, however, by no means eager to accept the responsibility of command, and, as no confidence whatever was felt in Pillow, the second in rank, he placed the entire force under Twiggs on the ground of illness. Pillow and Shields, who were thought no less willing than Twiggs to make a bid for glory at the expense of their men, then demanded a day for rest and preparation; and accordingly, about sunset on the thirteenth, orders for the attack were issued.

But the officers and solders, distrusting alike the information and the ability of their commander, now felt extremely depressed. The situation appeared hopeless, thought even Lieutenant U. S. Grant; and Captain Robert E. Lee described the Mexican position as an "unscalable"' precipice on one side and "impassable" ravines on the other. It seemed, wrote a third man, like a Gibraltar; and the idea of assailing it with Twiggs for leader inspired the deepest alarm. Everybody not selfishly ambitious desired to wait for the commander-in-chief; and vet Polk, in order to justify his depreciation of Scott, said with reference to this very situation, that our forces would be victorious "if there was not an officer among them." Suddenly, however, the faces of the men brooding round their bivouac fires lighted up, for news came that Patterson, in order to veto the project of Twiggs, had assumed the command, and ordered offensive operations to be suspended."

Scott, whose ideas of an army differed radically from those prevalent in Mexico, hardly believed that Santa Anna could place himself below Jalapa at this time with as many as 4000 men, even though reports of a larger number reached him; but he arranged to drop his work at Vera Cruz on the first news of serious opposition, and letters from Twiggs and Pillow, received late on April 11 led him to set out the next day. Ear'y on Wednesday afternoon, the 14th, he was at Plan del Río, doffing his old straw hat as the soldiers, who doubtless realzed that in taking Vera Cruz by siege instead of assault he had