This afternoon orders were issued to the regiments of the First Division to prepare to break camp in the morning. That was good news to everybody. Hannibal was as jubilant as the rest. There were all kinds of rumors but they sifted down to the one fact: that General Santa Anna, who had been so badly defeated by General Taylor on Washington’s Birthday last February, at Buena Vista in northeastern Mexico, had moved his forces eight hundred miles across the mountains and deserts clear to the City of Mexico, had rallied another large army of Regulars, National Guards and Volunteers, and was now fortified two hundred miles east of the city—and all in time to confront the army of General Scott!
The First started the next morning, April 13, accompanied by the engineers and a detachment of the Second Dragoons. Light marching orders was the word—but at that, what with the muskets which weighed fourteen pounds, and the cartridge boxes which weighed eight pounds, and the haversacks and knapsacks and blanket rolls and heavy belts, the canteens of water, bayonets in scabbards, and so forth, every man carried about forty pounds not including his woollen clothing. The tents and the extra clothing were left at Vera Cruz; Lieutenant Smith and Lieutenant Grant left their chests and spare outfits—and Jerry rejoiced, for he now had little to guard. He could do about as he pleased, except he had to tend camp when necessary. But everybody took three days’ rations.
Thereupon he boldly marched beside Company B, Lieutenant Grant’s company.
Only General Quitman, with the South Carolinans, the Georgians and the Alabamans and most of the Tennessee horse, remained in Vera Cruz.
The column of cavalry, artillery and infantry stretched long. The canteens and the tin cups clinked, the heavy shoes clumped, the dragoon horses clattered, the artillery and the wagons rumbled, and the dust rose in a white cloud.
Trudge, trudge, trudge, with the bands and the fifes and drums playing marching tunes—“Yankee Doodle,” “Will You Come to the Bower” (the Texas battle song of independence, that), “Turkey in the Straw,” “Hail, Columbia!”, and so on, and the men marching at will. The dragoons and General Worth and staff headed the column, the guns of Colonel Duncan’s flying battery came next, the sturdy infantry and the artillery serving as infantry followed, the wagon train toiled in the rear. And midway Jerry, clad in an old cut-down pair of army trousers, and an old army shirt, with a ragged straw hat on his crown and no shoes on his feet, ambled beside Company B, keeping as close to Lieutenant Grant as he dared. Pompey was somewhere, probably stealing a ride in one of the wagons.
The road was a poor road for one called “National,” the main road to the capital. It was ankle deep in sand. Soon the soldiers were sweating and panting. When a halt was made about three miles out, at a stream, they began to overhaul their knapsacks and haversacks, and throw things away. Presently the route was strewn with stuff, although the wise ones hung to their blankets and great-coats and rations, if nothing else.
Trudge, trudge, clinkity-clink, all that day, and all the next day, while the mountains gradually loomed higher and higher before. On the third day they had arrived at the Puente National, or National Bridge, where the road crossed the Antigua River. Now the mountains and the Plan del Rio were only sixteen miles onward.
General Worth ordered camp here to rest the division. He himself went forward to consult with General Scott. This day of April 16 was a nervous day in the bivouac. The men all were held together, forbidden to wander from the lines. But the dragoons who reconnoitred ahead said that they had seen the Twiggs and Patterson divisions encamped and waiting down near Plan del Rio village beside the Rio del Plan, at the foot of the mountains—probably right under the Mexican army.