“The general’s gone, as I suppose you know, Grant,” Lieutenant Smith
remarked to Lieutenant Grant, at dinner this noon.
The day was April 12. The camp was much smaller than it had been
throughout the week following the fall of Vera Cruz. Early in the
morning of April 8 the Second Division had marched away, with the
fifes and drums and the bands playing Yankee Doodle. Preceded by the
two horse companies of the Mounted Rifles the long column had wound
out over the National Road for the City of Mexico, two hundred and
seventy-five or eighty miles westward, as the road ran.
General Scott had been growing impatient with the delays in the arrival
of wagons and animals. He wished to move all the troops to Jalapa, at
least, which was in the mountains about seventy miles west. There they
would be free of the dreaded vomito.
So on the next day, April 9, the General Patterson Third Division of
Volunteers had started. General Patterson himself was on sick list, and
General Pillow commanded in his place. The Mohawks had stumped gaily
out, singing and shouting.
The general orders had directed that each division take a wagon train
carrying six days’ rations for the men and three days’ oats for the
animals. There would be little forage on the way to the City of Mexico
until Jalapa had been reached, in the high country. After the Mohawk
division had left, there were plenty of wagons but few animals
remaining for the First Division. The Mexican horses and mules were
small, poor creatures. Beside them the American animals were giants. A
siege train of six heavy guns was being prepared also. And the First
Division had had to wait.