Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/67

Rh asserted by an interventionist, to prevent the passage of the French, who defeated that purpose, the Mexicans retreating to Ixtapa. On the 2d of May the French army and the troops under Taboada reached Amozoc, and on the 4th pitched their camp in sight of Puebla, Lorencez resolving to assail the city on the next day.

The Mexican army had continued its retreat by way of Palmar, Acatzingo, and Tepeaca to Puebla, where it arrived on the 3d of May. On the 4th Arteaga's division, now under command of General Negrete — its own commander being incapacitated for active service by a wound — occupied the Guadalupe and Loreto forts. The other forces took up quarters in the city, while the French passed the night in Amozoc.

At 4 o'clock in the morning of the ever-memorable 5th of May, the Oajaca division, temporarily commanded by Porfirio Diaz, was stationed at the end of the street leading to Azcárate's brick-kiln, on the Amozoc road. The San Luis brigade was placed on the left of that division, excepting its corps of mounted carbineers, which was on the right in the rear of the brick-kiln. On the left of the Remedios chapel, and between it and the Guadalupe fort, the Toluca brigade under Berriozábal took its position. The squadron of lancers of this brigade joined the cavalry at the brick-kiln, under Colonel Alvarez. General Escobedo remained within the city in command of Tapia's brigade, whose commander had been appointed governor of the state. In front of the line formed by the Oajaca division and the Toluca and San Luis brigades