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

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, and by the courage and devotion of his officers and men, in repulsing the overwhelming forces of the enemy, and throwing them back into the desert. This was the battle of the chiefest interest fought during the Mexican War. At the time it was fought, and for some weeks after, General Taylor's communication with the United States was cut off; and the road was in possession of parties of the enemy. For many days after full intelligence of it should have been in all parts of this country, nothing certain concerning it was known, while vague and painful rumors were afloat, that a great battle had been fought, and that General