The proclamation to which we have alluded, and the rumors of vigorous hostility on the part of Mexico, produced great alarm in the United States, especially along our southern frontier. In New Orleans, indignation was openly expressed that our gallant men had been despatched on this forlorn enterprize without the amplest means of defence and attack, while our arsenals were filled with all the munitions of war. A large force of volunteers was, therefore, ordered out in the south, while two companies of artillery were immediately despatched to Taylor's succor under the command of Maj. Gally.
The report of Arista's progress, however, proved to be false, so that we were fortunately saved from attack. Yet the sufferings of our army did not cease with those military inconveniences. "Two thirds of the tents furnished our soldiers were worn out or rotten, and had been condemned by boards of survey appointed by the proper authorities in accordance with the army regulations. Transparent as gauze, they afforded little or no protection against the intense heat of summer or the drenching rains and severe cold of winter. Even the dews penetrated the thin covering almost without obstruction. Such were the tents provided for campaigners in a country almost deluged three months in the year, and more variable in its climate than any other region, passing from the extreme of heat to that of cold in a few hours. During the whole of November and December, either the rains were descending with violence, or the furious "northers" which ravage this coast were breaking the frail tent-poles or rending the rotten canvas. For days and weeks every article in hundreds of tents was thoroughly soaked; and during these terrible months, the sufferings of the sick, in the crowded hospital tents, were indescribably horrible. Every day added to the frightfulness of the mortality. At one time a sixth of the entire camp was on the sick list, and at least one-half unfit for service, in consequence of dysentery and catarrhal fevers which raged like a pestilence."[79] The camp was without fires, and, being situated on the edge of a vast prairie sparsely covered with muskeet trees, was but scantily supplied with wood even for the most needful purposes. The quarter-master's department furnished only the weak and stunted mustangs of the country; and the little and inefficient ponies, geared in the large harness made at the north for American horses, looked as if they would jump through their collars instead of use them for traction. With such teams only a sufficiency of wood could be drawn for cooking, and none for camp fires to comfort the sick and suffering soldiers. "As winter advanced, the prairie became a quagmire, the roads almost impassable, and as the mustangs died in large numbers, wood enough for cooking even, could not be procured. The encampment now resembled a marsh, the water, at times, being three or four feet deep in the tents of whole wings of regiments. All military exercises were suspended, and the bleak gloomy days were passed in inactivity, disgust and sullenness. The troops, after being thoroughly drenched all day, without fires to dry them, lay down at night in wet blankets on the soaked ground, as plank for tent floors was not furnished by the quarter-masters until the rainy season was over. At times the men, at tattoo, gasped for breath in the sultry night air, and, at reveille, found their moist blankets frozen around them and their tents stiff with ice. A portion of the men were kept without pay for six months, and the rest for four months, although the law strictly requires payment every two months.
"Officers and soldiers, destitute of funds, were compelled to borrow, upon the strength of pay due, of their more fortunate companions, or of the Shylocks, in search of victims, that polluted the camp. Sick soldiers, directed by their surgeons to return to the United States, had either to remain and die, or to submit to exorbitant exactions from unfeeling villains in their pension certificates and pay accounts, though the law requires the paymasters to cash them in specie.
"On the first landing of the 3d and 4th infantry at Corpus Christi, "Kinney's Rancho," though a lawless, smuggling town, under the vigorous sway of its martial proprietor, was as quiet and peaceful as a village in New England. But every fresh arrival of troops was followed by some portion of that vast horde of harpies, that are ever to be found in the train of all armies, ready to prey upon the simple and unsuspecting among the soldiers. In a short time, hundreds of temporary structures were erected on the outskirts of the "Rancho," and in them, all the cut-throats, thieves, and murderers of the United States and Texas, seem to have congregated. No sight could have been more truly melancholy than that of their bloated and sin-marked visages, as they lounged through the purlieus of this modern Pandemonium. The air, by day, was polluted with their horrid oaths and imprecations,—and the savage yells, exulting shouts, and despairing groans of their murderous frays, made night hideous. But, not content with confining their hellish deeds to their own worthy fraternity, they laid their worthless hands on the troops. Many of the soldiers, enticed to their dram-shops, were drugged with stupefying potions, and then robbed of their hard earnings, or murdered in cold blood."
General Taylor, looking to the probability of a movement against Mexico, warned the department that a ponton train was indispensable in a country wherein streams abounded and wood for bridges was scarce; but it was not despatched until after the next meeting of congress.
"Six months after the army had taken the field, there were not teams and wagons enough to transport one half of the troops; so that, in case of hostilities, had a forward movement been ordered, it could only have been effected by detachments, and, in consequence, that most fatal of all military errors would have been committed, of permitting the enemy to attack and beat in detail. The few teams furnished, it is natural to think, were the choicest to be found in the west. For, it had been said, that though the "Army of occupation" was small, the great celerity of its movements, from the superiority of the American horses, would contribute, as well as the greater bravery of its men, to make it more than a match for the largest Mexican force. Ninety yoke of oxen and several hundred mustangs were therefore bought, but not a single American horse!
"Three batteries of artillery were added to the one which, at length reached the company from Charleston. Horses were sent with two of them, to manœuvre them rapidly on the field of battle, and to transport them wherever the army might go. But the third came unprovided with cavalry.
"When the New Orleans volunteers left Corpus Christi, their artillery horses were turned over to the company from Charleston. This company, having always acted as infantry, had never even seen a flying artillery drill,—half of the men could not ride,—many had never ridden at all, and, in mounting for the first time, made Mr. Winkle's mistake as to which stirrup to use. It was certainly an original idea, to convert, in a single day, a company of foot into light artillery. However, as horses had at length been given to the company from Charleston, it was the ardent desire of the lieutenant commanding, to teach his men to ride and drive, and the sabre exercise. This the loyal quarter-masters resolved to prevent, and, at the same time, to show the world how economical they were. They, therefore, refused to purchase any more hay and told the dragoons and light artillery, that they, themselves, must cut and haul the dry and sapless broom straw of the prairie, and forage their horses on that."[80]