General Shields has all the dashing and enthusiastic bravery peculiar to the Irish race. There is no braver man in our army. Since entering the military service he has assiduously studied his profession, and is fast rising as a military man.
November 2. Yesterday and to-day have been festival (All Saints’) days. Word came from Colonel Childs that General Lane on the 29th set out from Puebla with a column to meet the train, and that General Patterson left Vera Cruz with five thousand men. There is still an impression that General Patterson will assume the command, and that General Scott will be recalled. But I discredit it entirely. Very few cases of stabbing now occur.
On the departure of Major Smith, with whom I have messed nearly the whole time I have been in the country, I find myself entirely alone. Colonel Watson (in command of Shields’s brigade) and staff occupied adjoining rooms, and we made a very pleasant little circle. Colonel Watson is a candid, sensible, and good man. I esteem him highly. Lieutenant Baker is a gentleman of much intelligence, considerable acuteness, and of the most friendly feelings. They are now all gone, and I am now installed in Colonel Watson’s apartment. I am in a spacious room, with three large windows hung in damask looking on the street, and having at one extremity a raised platform, carpeted, and canopied with damask. Here I have my bed, my table, and my armchair, as comfortable as all the world. Indeed, I now very much feel as if I were in the halls of the Montezumas. My brother officers have most kindly offered to do all they can for me.
November 3. Since the departure of the train the weather has been beautiful. Captain Naylor this morning very summarily dispelled my dreams of luxuriating in the halls of the Montezumas by saying that the room I now occupied was needed for a commission, and that he must ask me to remove to my old quarters. As they were exceedingly damp and uncomfortable, and totally unfit for an invalid, Captain Lee referred the matter to General Smith, the governor of the city, who decided that I should not be moved till a suitable room could be provided.
Captain Naylor is an enthusiast on the subject of the regeneration of Mexico through American intervention. As superintendent of the archives, he avails himself of his opportunities to understand this people. They are undoubtedly degenerating. The cities are falling into decay; the mechanic arts do not improve; misrule and anarchy have long been the every-day experience of this unfortunate people. In the City of Mexico not a new house has been built for years, and many structures are crumbling into ruins.
November 4. My friends, Captains Lee, Power, and Hardcastle, give glowing accounts of the scenic representations at the Santa Anna theatre,—more perfect in the mechanical contrivances, and more splendid in effect, than anything to be seen in our own country. I regretted to learn that Captain Lee’s man Peter was murdered in Ayotla after the arrival of the train on the evening of the 1st instant.
The officers are hard at work at their drawings, and hope to finish them against my going down in the next train.
November 11. During the past few days I have been ill and well again,—a bad cold and the wound inflamed. The doctor, however, still confines me to my room. He considers that rest is necessary to prevent my foot’s inflaming.
Information has come that General Patterson, on the 27th ultimo, left Vera Cruz. He will probably require twenty days to reach Puebla, and some twelve days more to make his arrangements there and his journey to Mexico. I shall not, therefore, look for a mail before the 17th instant.
November 14. Nothing of interest has occurred in the city. Anaya is said to have been elected provisional president. A piece of leather of the size of half a tlaco came from my wound to-day. It was cut out of my shoe by the ball and carried into my foot.