Halt was made in the large plaza, in the very center of the city, bordered on one side by the great palace or governor’s house, six hundred feet long, and on another by the cathedral, covering a block. The Pueblans surrounded the plaza in dense ranks, staring and commenting. General Worth showed not the slightest hesitation. The division stacked arms here, cannon were placed at the corners, guards were posted, and the companies dismissed. It was a pleasant spot. The men comfortably stretched out. They were only three thousand Americans in the midst of sixty thousand Mexicans, with the whole Mexican army somewhere about; but in a few minutes two-thirds of them were sound asleep.
XIII
GETTING READY AT PUEBLA
“The ‘old man’ ’s coming!”
It was now May 27. The First Division and the Quitman Volunteers had been holding Puebla for more than a week and a half. There had been alarms. One day all the troops had stood under arms, from morning until night, with guns loaded and with three days’ rations in their haversacks, expecting an attack by Santa Anna; but Santa Anna had not appeared. General Worth seemed nervous—and little wonder.
Word had arrived at last from General Scott that he would be here to-morrow at noon. This was his custom: to send a warning ahead whenever he rode up the line, so that the regiments might be ready to turn out and receive him in proper style.
The Eighth Regiment (General Worth’s “own”) was selected to do the honors. This peeved Hannibal, but it let Jerry and the Fourth out to see things as they occurred. Luckily, the Fourth was quartered near the east gateway of the National Road from Vera Cruz and Jalapa, and a fellow could climb the wall here and look right down upon the road.
First, about half-past eleven, General Worth and General Quitman with their staffs, a-glitter in their full-dress uniforms of blue cloth and gold trappings, white plumes floating from their chapeaus, went trotting to meet the chief.
All came back together: General Scott, tall and massive, upon his prancing horse, in full uniform complete from his plume to his shining boots; General Worth on his right, General Quitman on his left, the staffs following; Captain Phil Kearny’s company of the First Dragoons and a detachment of the Second Dragoons in column of fours as escort. With only these two hundred and fifty dragoons General Scott had ridden ahead of the Twiggs division, clear from La Joya, one hundred and twenty miles.
The soldiers upon the wall at either side of the gate gave Fuss and Feathers a rousing cheer. That pleased him. He took off his chapeau and bowed right and left to his “boys.”