“Hooray, boys! The march is reversed. The old First is to lead the way
wance more.”
That was the word from Corporal Finerty, at noon mess the next day in
the village of Chalco, on the eastern shore of Lake Chalco.
“An’ where do we go?”
“Sure, I ain’t been told yet, but you can figger for yourselves. It
won’t be by the main road, that’s certain, where the Twiggs lads are
ahead of us.”
The news set everybody on edge. The men only waited for orders. In
about two hours they came from Brigade Adjutant Nichols, speaking for
Colonel Garland.
“Beat the assembly, drum major.”
At the initial taps the Fourth Regiment slung haversacks and knapsacks
and grasped muskets. The other regiments were as alert. Drum Major
Brown signaled, and his drummers sounded To the Color.
There was brief inspection. Ranks were closed, platoons formed, the
First Division moved out into the south instead of into the north. That
was just as Lieutenant Grant had predicted.
The Pillow division was under arms, two miles on, but had not yet
formed for a march. The First trudged blithely by with good-natured
jokes, and left it.
When bivouac was made this evening in a cornfield eight miles from
Chalco the division was in fine spirits. Old Fuss and Feathers and
General Worth were up to something, nobody knew exactly what; but all,
including Santa Anna, would soon find out.
The next day’s march rounded the lake and turned into the west among
olive groves. Emerging from these the leading ranks broke into a cheer.
In the north, far beyond the lake, there might be seen El Peñon hill, a
dark, bulky mass, with the Mexican flag still flying defiantly from its
top. Across the head of another lake, in the northwest, Mexicalcingo
village was just visible with the Mexican flags marking its batteries
also. The division was side-stepping these forts out of range.
“Faith, they don’t see us at all, at all. They’re settin’ over their
traps, an’ prisently we’ll be lookin’ at their backs!”
The road was getting bad. It wound along the base of a bare mountain
range that extended ridges right into the new lake, Xochimilco. The
horses of Duncan’s battery had to be helped by hand; the baggage train
in the rear struggled with the steep ravines cut into the sharp rock
between ridges.
At ten o’clock in the morning another village, San Gregorio, was
reached. Here an aide came up with dispatches for General Worth; the
word spread that an attack had been made upon one of the columns
behind. The division was to wait for instructions.
Then, at evening, all Colonel Harney’s cavalry brigade, eight hundred
dragoons, trotted in. They said that a force of Mexican infantry and
lancers had tried to cut off the Second Division, back at Buena Vista
on the way from Ayotla to march around the lakes; but that Taylor’s
battery of the First Artillery had sent the red caps flying.
The Second Division and the Fourth Division were following the Third
and the First. The whole army was on the move, flanking El Peñon and
Mexicalcingo, aiming to strike the Acapulco road into Mexico City from
the south.
The road to San Augustine grew worse. In places there was scarcely
space for the column to pass between Lake Xochimilco and the mountain
slopes. The pioneers toiled. The Mexicans had hastened to cut ditches
and roll down logs; but the artillery and the wagons were hauled
through and over.
Captain Mason of the engineers rode ahead, out of sight, to reconnoitre.
When he returned it was reported that he had entered San Augustine
itself, and had found no soldiers.
“Column, attention! Close order――forward――march!”
With cavalry, infantry, four pieces of artillery and seventy-five
wagons the First Division marched into San Antonio on the afternoon of
August 17.
In camp this night many of the men thought that now the way was open to
the city. Remembering the map and his talk with Lieutenant Grant, Jerry
feared different. So did others.
“Not yet, not yet, my lads,” said Sergeant Mulligan. “We’ll have our
fights. You can rist sure that Santy Annie knows afore this what we’re
about. Ain’t the country full o’ spies for him? ’Tis a long nine miles
to thim Halls o’ Montezumy, an’ plenty o’ room for batteries acrost the
way. If I don’t miss my guiss there’ll be troops an’ guns a-hurryin’
already, ’round by the city an’ down to head us off. I hear tell that
not two mile north is the first o’ the trouble――a place called San
Antonio, bristlin’ wid guns; an’ Cherrybusco beyant, lookin’ the same.
An’ bogs, an’ outworks, an’ the city walls beyant that.”
“Weel,” quoth Private MacPheel, “may the bullets be distributed same as
the pay, an’ mony a braw fallow win through.”