Page:Vol 5 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/378

358 the march. Parking the train on the field of Palo Alto under guard, and sending the wounded to Point Isabel, at one o'clock next day he broke up camp and followed the route of the Mexican army. As he approached the edge of the forest which bordered the road and the Resaca de la Palma, a body of the 4th light infantry, under command of Captain McCall, was thrown forward and soon discovered the enemy's position. At four o'clock Taylor came up with McCall. A battery of field artillery was at once advanced under command of Lieutenant Ridgely, the successor of Major Ringgold, who had been mortally wounded on the previous day. On either side it was flanked and supported by the 3d, 4th, and 5th infantry, deployed as skirmishers in the chaparral. The action immediately commenced and became general, the Mexican advanced troops gradually giving away before the steady progress of the Americans. It was dare-devil work, enough to try the nerves and courage of the steadiest, this fight in those dense thickets where the fire-flash of the musket became visible in the gloom; where man hunted man as he would fierce wild game, every step embarrassed by tangled briers and matted undergrowth. But there were here no hounds to rouse the game, no pointers to mark the spot where lurked a prey that waited and watched to rend the hunters. Inch by inch the assailants forced their way forward as best they could, fighting in independent groups unseen by each other. Often the men lost sight of their officers, and had none to direct them as they struggled onward in bands of five or six, firing irregularly. Apparently all was confusion; but general confidence produced harmony in the attack; the rattle of musketry along the whole line told each small party that their comrades in arms were not