Deeply impressed with this danger, and remembering our mission, to conquer a peace, the army very cheerfully sacrificed to patriotism, to the great wish and want of our country, the éclat that would have followed an entrance, sword in hand, into a great capital. Willing to leave something to this republic, of no immediate value to us, on which to rest her pride, and to recover temper, I halted our victorious corps at the gates of the city (at least for a time), and have them now cantoned in the neighboring villages, where they are well sheltered and supplied with all necessaries.
On the morning of the 21st, being about to take up battering or assaulting position, to authorize me to summon the city to surrender, or to sign an armistice with a pledge to enter at once into negotiations for peace, a mission came out to propose a truce. Rejecting its terms, I dispatched my contemplated note to President Santa Anna, omitting the summons. The 22d, commissioners were appointed by the commanders of the two armies; the armistice was signed the 23d, and ratifications exchanged the 24th.
All matters in dispute between the two governments have been thus happily turned over to their plenipotentiaries, who have now had several conferences, and with, I think, some hope of signing a treaty of peace.
There will be transmitted to the adjutant-general reports from divisions, brigades, etc., on the foregoing operations, to which I must refer, with my hearty concurrence in the just applause bestowed on corps and individuals by their respective commanders. I have been able, this report being necessarily a summary, to bring out, comparatively, but little of individual merit not lying directly in the way of the narrative. Thus I doubt whether I have, in express terms, given my approbation and applause to the commanders of divisions and independent brigades; but left their fame upon higher grounds, the simple record of their great deeds and the brilliant results.
To the staff, both general and personal, attached to general headquarters, I was again under high obligations for services in the field, as always in the bureau, I add their names, etc.: Lieutenant-Colonel Hitchcock, Acting Inspector General; Major J. L. Smith, Captain R. E. Lee (as distinguished for felicitous execution as for science and daring), Captain Mason, Lieutenants Stevens, Beauregard, Tower, G. W. Smith, George B. McClellan, and Foster, all of the Engineers; Major Turnbull, Captain J. McClellan, and Lieutenant Hardcastle, Topographical Engineers; Captain Huger and Lieutenant Hagner, of the Ordnance; Captains Irwin and Wayne, of the Quartermaster's Department; Captain Grayson, of the Commissariat; Surgeon-General Lawson, in his particular department; Captain H. L. Scott, Acting Adjutant-General; Lieutenant T. Williams, Aid-de-Camp, and Lieutenant Lay, Military Secretary.
Lieutenant Schuyler Hamilton, another aid-de-camp, had a week before been thrown out of activity by a severe wound received in a successful charge of cavalry against cavalry, and four times his numbers; but on the 20th, I had the valuable services, as volunteer aids, of Majors Kirby and Van Buren, of the Pay Department, always eager for activity and distinction, and of a third, the gallant Major J. P. Gaines, of the Kentucky Volunteers.
I have the honor to be, Sir, with high respect, your most obedient servant,
Winfield Scott.
General Scott to the Secretary of War.
Headquarters of the Army,
Tacubaya, near Mexico,
September 11, 1847.
To the Honorable
William L. Marcy,
Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.