The Campaign in the Valley of Mexico
“Yes, sir. I see it. Can’t we take it like we took Cerro Gordo?”
“General Scott, I have been informed, would rather not try. El Peñon is stronger than Cerro Gordo was. You can see it from here. It consists of one steep hill; mounts fifty-one guns by batteries placed in terraces, and is surrounded by a ditch of water twenty-four feet wide and ten feet deep. The guns enfilade, or rake the length of the road for a long distance, and we cannot avoid them by leaving the road on account of marshes on either hand. To force El Peñon would cost three thousand men, and we would still be upon a narrow road, seven miles from the city, and unable to manœuvre. But southwest of El Peñon, and nearer the city, on a branch road or cut-off from the main road, you see another fortress called Mexicalcingo.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mexicalcingo is a fortified town, commanding the passage of a bridge through the marsh at the head of Lake Xochimilco, which is the lake extending into the northwest from Lake Chalco. Mexicalcingo is scarcely five miles from the City of Mexico, but otherwise it gives much the same problem as El Peñon. We might carry the batteries and the bridge, and then we’d still be on a narrow road, flanked by marshes for four miles, before we struck another main road to the city. General Scott is having both fortifications reconnoitred, I believe, but his spies have already posted him.”
“Then what can we do, sir?” Jerry asked.
“I’m not saying, although I am at liberty to have my own ideas. Anybody is permitted to think, but it’s against regulations to think aloud sometimes. I’m telling you these things as man to man. When you grow up you may be an officer yourself, with maps at your disposal. Well, if we can’t get at the capital from the east, there ought to be other ways. Napoleon laid down as a maxim of war: ‘Never do what the enemy expects you to do.’ Santa Anna expects General Scott to advance upon the city by the eastern approaches, and I understand that he has concentrated his batteries and men so as to defend these approaches. Now you’ll see by the map that beyond Mexicalcingo the cut-off road joins a main road from the south, named the Acapulco road. And that farther west there is still another main road from the south.”
“Yes, sir,” mused Jerry, pouring over the map and following the lieutenant’s finger.
“There is a way to strike the Acapulco road, or the other road, without reducing Mexicalcingo. An army might—I do not say it could—but an army of brave men might march around south of Lake Chalco, here, and away south of Mexicalcingo, over a very rough country, and reach the Acapulco road at the town of San Augustine, about thirty miles from where we now are. Thus we should avoid El Peñon and Mexicalcingo, and approach the city from an unexpected quarter, either the south or the west.”
“Maybe General Scott has thought of that, sir.”