Breakstone sat up and looked at the six sleepers. The blankets of two of them had shifted a little, and he pulled them back around their necks. Then he glanced down the valley where the lights of Santa Anna's army flickered, and it all seemed wonderful, unbelievable to him. Yet it was true. They had beaten off an army of more than twenty thousand men, and had inflicted upon Santa Anna a loss far greater than their own. He murmured very softly:
"Dreadful was the fight,
Welcome is the night;
Fiercely came the foe,
Many we laid low;
Backward he is sent,
But we, too, are spent.
I believe that's about as true a poem as I ever composed," he said, "whatever others may think about the rhyme and meter, and to be true is to be right. That work well done, I'll go back to sleep again."
He lay down once more and, within a minute, he kept his word. Phil and his comrades were awakened just at the break of day by Middleton. Only a narrow streak of light was to be seen over the eastern ridges, but the Captain explained that he wanted them to go on a little scout toward the Mexican army. They joined him with willingness and went down the southern edge of the plateau. A few lights could be seen at the points that Phil had marked during the night, and they approached very cautiously. But they saw no signs of life. There were no patrols, no cavalry, none of the stir of a great army, nothing to indicate any human presence, until they came upon wounded men, abandoned upon the rugged ground where they lay. When Phil and his comrades, belief turned into certainty, rushed forward, Santa Anna and his whole army were gone, leaving behind them their dead and desperately wounded. Tents, supplies, and some arms were abandoned in the swift retreat, but the army itself had already disappeared under the southern horizon, leaving the field of Buena Vista to the victors.
They hurried back with the news. It spread like fire through the army. Every man who could stand was on his feet. A mighty cheer rolled through the Pass of Angostura, and the dark gorges and ravines of the Sierra Madre gave it back in many echoes.
The victory, purchased at so great a price, was complete. Mounted scouts, sent out, returned in the course of the day with the information that Santa Anna had not stopped at Agua Neva. He was marching southward as fast as he could, and there was no doubt that he would not stop until he reached the City of Mexico, where he would prepare to meet the army of Scott, which was to come by the way of Vera Cruz. The greatness of their victory did not dawn upon the Americans until then. Not only had they beaten back a force that outnumbered them manifold, but all Northern Mexico lay at the feet of Taylor. The war there was ended, and it was for Scott to finish it in the Valley of Mexico.
The following night the fires were built high on the plateau and in the Pass of Angostura. Nearly everybody rested except the surgeons, who still worked. Hundreds of the Mexican wounded had been left on the field, and they received the same attention that was bestowed upon the Americans. Nevertheless, the boy soldiers were cheerful. They knew that the news of their wonderful victory was speeding north, and they felt that they had served their country well.
Phil did not know until long afterward that at home the army of Taylor had been given up as lost. News that Santa Anna was in front of him with an overwhelming force had filtered through, and then had come the long blank. Nothing was heard. It was supposed that Taylor had been destroyed or captured. It was known that his force was composed almost wholly of young volunteers, boys, and no chance of escape seemed possible.
In the West and South, in Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, the anxiety was most tense and painful. There, nearly every district had sent some one to Buena Vista, and they sought in vain for news. There were dark memories of the Alamo and Goliad, especially in the Southwest, and these people thought of the disaster as in early days they thought of a defeat by the Indians, when there were no wounded or prisoners, only slain.
But even the nearest states were separated from Mexico by a vast wilderness, and, as time passed and nothing came, belief settled into certainty. The force of Taylor had been destroyed. Then the messenger arrived literally from the black depths with the news of the unbelievable victory. Taylor was not destroyed. He had beaten an army that outnumbered him five to one. The little American force held the Pass of Angostura, and Santa Anna, with his shattered army, was flying southward. At first it was not believed. It was incredible, but other messengers came with the same news, and then one could doubt no longer. The victory struck so powerfully upon the imagination of the American people that it carried Taylor into the White House.