Nor was there much practice in this war in the use of military bridges, for, with the exception of the Rio Grande, our armies had no important rivers to cross. We must not, however, omit to note the important fact that General Taylor was unable to take advantage of the victories of Palo Alto and Resacade La Palma to pursue and destroy the army of Arista, because he had no pontoon equipage to enable him to follow them across the Rio Grande. It should also be remarked that even a very small bridge equipage would have been of very great use in crossing other streams and ravines during the operations of this war. One of our cavalry officers writes:—
"On our march from Matamaras to Victoria and Tampico, in 1846
and 1847, we had infinite difficulty in bridging boggy streams (there
being no suitable timber), and in crossing ravines with vertical banks;
a few ways of the Birago trestles would have saved us many days and
a vast amount of labor. In the operations in the valley of Mexico, our
movements, checked as they so often were by impassable wet ditches
and sometimes by dry ravines, would have been rendered so much more
free and rapid by the use of the Birago trestles, that our successes
could have been gained at far less cost, and probably with more rapidity