The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address | Page 7

he planted his troops on the Rio
Grande opposite Matamoros. Soon after this, and near this place, a
small detachment of General Taylor's forces, under Captain Thornton,
was cut to pieces by a party of Mexicans. Open hostilities being thus
commenced, and General Taylor being constantly menaced by Mexican
forces vastly superior to his own in numbers, his position became
exceedingly critical. Having erected a fort, he might defend himself
against great odds while he could remain within it; but his provisions
had failed, and there was no supply nearer than Point Isabel, between
which and the new fort the country was open to, and full of, armed
Mexicans. His resolution was at once taken. He garrisoned Fort Brown
(the new fort) with a force of about four hundred; and, putting himself
at the head of the main body of his troops, marched forthwith for Point
Isabel. He met no resistance on his march. Having obtained his supplies,
he began his return march, to the relief of Fort Brown, which he at first
knew would be, and then knew had been, besieged by the enemy,
immediately upon his leaving it. On the first or second day of his return
march, the Mexican General, Arista, met General Taylor in front, and
offered battle. The Mexicans numbered six or eight thousand, opposed
to whom were about two thousand Americans. The moment was a
trying one. Comparatively, Taylor's forces were but a handful; and few,
of either officers or men, had ever been under fire. A brief council was

held; and the result was the battle commenced. The issue of that contest
all remember--remember with mingled sensations of pride and sorrow,
that then American valor and powers triumphed, and then the gallant
and accomplished and noble Ringgold fell.
The Americans passed the night on the field. The General knew the
enemy was still in his front; and the question rose upon him, whether to
advance or retreat. A council was again held; and it is said, the General
overruled the majority, and resolved to advance. Accordingly, in the
morning, he moved rapidly forward. At about four or five miles from
Fort Brown he again met the enemy in force, who had selected his
position, and made some hasty fortifications. Again the battle
commenced, and raged till nightfall, when the Mexicans were entirely
routed, and the General, with his fatigued and bleeding and reduced
battalions, marched into Fort Brown. There was a joyous meeting. A
brief hour before, whether all within had perished, all without feared,
but none could tell--while the incessant roar of artillery wrought those
within to the highest pitch of apprehension, that their brethren without
were being massacred to the last man. And now the din of battle nears
the fort, and sweeps obliquely by: a gleam of hope flies through the
half-imprisoned few; they fly to the wall; every eye is strained; it is--it
is--the Stars and Stripes are still aloft! Anon the anxious brethren meet;
and while hand strikes hand, the heavens are rent with a loud, long,
glorious, gushing cry of Victory! Victory!! Victory!!!
Soon after these battles, General Taylor was brevetted a Major-General
in the United States Army.
In the meantime, war having been declared to exist between the United
States and Mexico, provision was made to reinforce General Taylor;
and he was ordered to march into the interior of Mexico. He next
marched upon Monterey, arriving there on the nineteenth of September.
He commenced an assault upon the city, on the twenty-first; and on the
twenty-third, was about carrying it at the point of the bayonet, when
General Ampudia capitulated. Taylor's forces consisted of four hundred
and twenty-five officers, and nine thousand two hundred and twenty
men. His artillery consisted of one ten-inch mortar, two

twenty-four-pound howitzers, and eight field batteries of four guns, the
mortar being the only piece serviceable for the siege. The Mexican
works were armed with forty-two pieces of cannon, and manned with a
force of at least seven thousand troops of the line, and from two to three
thousand irregulars.
Next we find him advancing farther into the interior of Mexico, at the
head of five thousand four hundred men, not more than six hundred
being regular troops.
At Agua Nueva, he received intelligence that Santa Anna, the greatest
military chieftain of Mexico, was advancing after him; and he fell back
to Buena Vista, a strong position a few miles in advance of Saltillo. On
the twenty-second of February, 1847, the battle, now called the Battle
of Buena Vista, was commenced by Santa Anna at the head of twenty
thousand well-appointed soldiers. This was General Taylor's great
battle. The particulars of it are familiar to all. It continued through the
twenty-third; and although General Taylor's defeat seemed inevitable,
yet he succeeded by skill,