During the few days’ camp at Perote Jerry got his uniform and equipment—regulation cap, sword and buckles included—and felt privileged to strut like a drummer boy indeed. Swapped companies with Sykes, too. Took occasion to parade before Pompey, who scoffed at him.
“Gwan, white boy. Who you? All stripes an’ no rank, dat what you be!”
The outfit had come to him only just in time. The First Brigade was to march on by itself at once. General Quitman had arrived at Jalapa from Vera Cruz; the Second Brigade was to wait for him and his detachment of Volunteers, while the First Brigade pushed ahead to open the country farther.
It was said that General Worth had received instructions from Old Fuss and Feathers to proceed and seize the large city of Puebla, one hundred miles westward and only ninety from the City of Mexico. Puebla had sixty thousand people. Whether the First Brigade was to do this nobody in the ranks knew, but the men all were ready to try.
“If you fellows need help send back for us,” proffered Hannibal, whose regiment, the Eighth, remained to help hold Perote and to wait for the Quitman Mohawks.
“We don’t figure on needing help, boy,” Jerry retorted. “Next time I see you maybe it’ll be in the Halls of Montezuma.”
The First Brigade set out gaily; General Worth and staff; Company A, engineers, with Acting Captain George W. Smith, Lieutenant J. C. Foster and the sprightly Lieutenant McClellan; Light Battery A and Companies B, C, D, F, G, H, I and K, Second Artillery; Companies B, G and K, Third Artillery; A, B, C, D, E and I, Fourth Infantry. They marched up the National Road through fields of grain, around the base of dark Pizarro Mountain (a lone peak higher than Perote Peak), and had covered eighteen miles when halt was made for the night at a homely mud village.
The country again grew better, displaying fruit orchards and green ranches. A fight was rather expected at the pass of El Pinal, where the road threaded a third narrow gorge in a range of bare, granite hills; but although rocks had been heaped in readiness to be rolled down upon the heads of any enemy, nobody was here to roll them.
Beyond El Pinal the road issued upon a high, flat ridge. The column suddenly forgot its weariness. Another stately view unfolded. In the west there uplifted two splendid mountains. The highest, shining with snow, was the famous Popocatepetl, or Smoky Mountain, three miles high. The other, its comrade on the north of it, was—well, a jaw-breaker: Iztaccihuatl. It, too, was a famous peak. The two of them overlooked the City of Mexico.