CHAPTER III.
Army marches from Corpus Christi—Taylor prepares the Mexicans for his advance—Description of the march—Beautiful prairie and desolate sand wilderness—Rattlesnakes—Chapparal—The Arroyo Colorado—First hostile demonstrations of the Mexicans—Expected fight—Cross the Colorado—Worth and Taylor separate—True nature of discipline—Characters of Mexican and American soldiers contrasted.
On the 8th of March, 1846, the joyous news ran through the American camp, at Corpus Christi, that the tents were at last to be struck. The worn out soldiery had nothing to regret in quitting a spot where their eyes were only relieved by looking from the dreary sea in front to the desolate prairie in the rear. General Taylor had already taken means to prepare the Mexicans for his advance, although he scarcely expected resistance. Respectable citizens from Matamoros had frequently visited his camp; and to all of those who were represented as possessing influence at home he proclaimed the unhostile feelings of our government towards their country, and that when our army marched southward it would not pass the Rio Grande unless Mexico provoked war. He invariably apprized these strangers of his resolution to protect the peaceful inhabitants in all their rights and usages, as well as to pay for every thing needed by his forces instead of plundering the country for support.
Accordingly, on the morning of the 8th of the month, the advanced guard, composed of the cavalry and Major Ringgold's light artillery,—the whole under the command of Colonel Twiggs, and numbering twenty-three officers and three hundred and eighty-seven men,—took up its line of march towards Matamoros. This corps was succeeded by the brigades of infantry, the last of which departed on the 11th followed immediately by the commander in chief with his staff. The weather was favorable; the roads in tolerable order; the troops in good condition notwithstanding the winter's hardships; while a general spirit of animation pervaded the whole body, inspired as it was with the hope of adventure in the neighborhood of an enemy. All, therefore, departed on this day from Corpus Christi by land, except the command of Major Monroe, who was to reach the Brazos de Santiago in transports under convoy of the United States brig Porpoise and the Woodbury. This officer was to embark with a siege train and field battery, in season to reach his destination when the army would be in the vicinity of Point Isabel.
The last adieus of our forces to their dreary winter quarter were by no means tearful, as with colors flying and music playing, they crossed the sandy hills that concealed it forever from their sight. The first day's march passed through alternate patches of prairies and timber to the Nueces; but, on the two next, these sad wastes were exchanged for splendid fields blossoming with flowers of every hue. A delicious fragrance filled the air, and the whole surface of the earth as far as the eye could reach, seemed covered with a beautiful carpet. The edge of the horizon, in every direction, was crowded with wild animals. On one side thousands of mustangs curvetted over the gentle elevations of the rolling prairie; on another herds of deer might be seen standing for a moment filled with wonder at the unwonted sight of human beings, and then bounding off until they were lost in the vast distance. Beautiful antelopes, nimble as the wind, were beheld in countless numbers, while pecarys and wild bulls rushed in droves across the path of our men. But, on the fourth day of the march, this scene of enchantment suddenly vanished. Uncultivated prairies and immense herds of savage beasts had already testified the abandoned state of the country; yet the region our forces now entered disclosed the frightful "nakedness of the land." The water became exceedingly bad, and there was scarcely fuel enough for culinary purposes. The blooming vegetation of the preceding days was exchanged for sands through which the weary men and cattle toiled with extreme difficulty. Salt lagunes spread out on every side. At each step the fatigued soldier plunged ankle-deep in the yielding soil, while a scorching sun shone over him and not a breath of air relieved his sufferings. At times, a verdant forest loomed up along the heated horizon, fringed by limpid lakes, and our wearied columns moved on gaily, cheated, again and again, by the hope of shade and water. Suddenly the beautiful groves dwindled into jagged clumps of thorns or aloes, and the fairy lakes changed to salt and turbid lagunes. "The wormwood star had fallen on every thing and turned the waters to bitterness." The plant whose piercing spines and sword-like leaves have entitled it to the name of the "Spanish bayonet," was the hermit shrub of this dreadful Zaharah. Around its roots the snakes lurked and crawled. Whenever the soldiers' path was unimpeded by these annoyances, scarifying his limbs as he advanced, the ground seemed heated and sinking like the scoriæ of Vesuvius. Man and beast sank exhausted and panting on the earth. The want and value of delicious water are never known till we pass a day like this under the burning rays of a tropical sun, toiling on foot over a scorched and arid soil without refreshment! At length the word ran along the line that it was approaching a lake whose waters were not salt. "Under the excitement of hope the faint and exhausted infantry pressed onward with renewed life, while, some miles ahead, the artillery were seen to halt enjoying the luxury of water. As the soldiers reached it all discipline was forgotten; their arms were thrown down, and they rushed boldly in, thrusting their heads beneath the waves in their desire to quench the thirst that was consuming their vitals."[98]
Such is the natural aspect and character of the desolate region between the Nueces and the Rio Grande,—a chequered wilderness of sand and verdure,—fit only for the wild beasts that inhabit it, and properly described in former days, as a suitable frontier between the great republics of North America.
On the 21st of March, all our forces concentrated on the Arroyo Colorado,—a salt stream or lagune nearly one hundred yards broad, and so deep as to be scarcely fordable,—situated about thirty miles north of Matamoros. Had the enemy attacked us here his assault would have been formidable, wearied as were our troops with the distressing marches of previous days. Bold, bluff banks, twenty or thirty feet high, hem in the stream, whose borders, on both sides, are lined, for a considerable breadth, with impervious thickets of chapparal. These thorny groves are to be found in all sections of the south, varying in size from a few yards to a mile in thickness, so closely interlaced and matted with briers and bushes as to prevent the passage of animals larger than a hare. They are the sorest annoyances of travellers in Mexico, and often force the wayfarer to make a long circuit to pass their limits, though they reward him for his trouble by supplying an abundance of the tuna—a luscious fruit of the prickly pear,—which grows luxuriantly on these natural and impenetrable walls.
Such, with the barrier of the stream, was the fortification nature had interposed for the safe guard of Mexico at the Arroyo Colorado. But the inert natives seemed indisposed to take advantage of those rare defences, though not without some hostile demonstration which the resolute conduct of Taylor soon overcame.