About 860 officers and 9000 men gathered round Santa Anna that forenoon at Agua Nueva. Temporary supplies of food were available,[25] and the troops were at once reorganized by combining companies from different corps. Before the day was out Major Bliss arrived to propose an exchange of prisoners and suggest an end of hostilities.[26] To the former proposition Santa Anna acceded, but he rejected the latter; and, ordering the eyes of the American commissioner to be unbound, he exhibited to him an army prepared for battle. In general orders he stated that his purpose in retiring had been to draw Taylor upon ground where Mexican cavalry could operate; but, as the prospect of resuming the offensive was extremely slight, provisions were scanty, the dysentery had already broken out, and the presence of so many wounded men—more than 700 poor fellows in the most wretched condition—seemed liable to produce other diseases, a council of war decided the next day upon retreat, and February 26 in the afternoon the troops moved south.[27]
Now came their real defeat. Like Napoleon returning from Russia, Santa Anna hurried on in advance, and owing to complications there was actually no general-in-chief. Divisions and corps marched and lived as they could. Officers obeyed or disobeyed as they chose. Dysentery, typhus and all sorts of minor distresses prevailed. The condition of the troops was enough to make nature shudder, wrote an officer; and the march was “worse than three retreats from Matamoros put together.” Probably not less than 3000 men were lost in one way or another on the road; and when the miserable survivors—less than half the number that had left San Luis full of enthusiasm—began to arrive in that city, the sensation among the people was described by a witness as “most profound.” Santa Anna, however, had already been accorded triumphal honors there. By this time a wave of jubilation, soon to break in plaudits on the far-distant shores of Tabasco River, was in motion; and he took pains to ensure proper testimony by having a cross of honor decreed to every officer distinguished in the battle, and by distributing twenty-seven promotions in the three highest grades.[27]
For Taylor also the battle of Buena Vista had a sequel. Impressed, very likely, by the report of Bliss, he allowed his army to rest where it was for three days; but late on the twenty-seventh, having ascertained Santa Anna’s retreat through a reconnaissance, he reoccupied Agua Nueva, where he found a number of Mexican wounded, and on March 1—though his troops were not yet fresh enough to pursue the enemy or he did not think it safe to do so—he pushed a detachment on to La Encarnación with a like result. Provisions and surgical assistance were freely given to the disabled foemen, but their comrades were evidently beyond reach.[29]
Taylor’s rear, however, caused him rather serious trouble. The long shadow cast by Santa Anna’s army had spread alarm and confusion all over northeastern Mexico, and the approach of troops from Tula deepened it. Even the people of Monclova and Parras, despite their promises to be neutral, took up arms. The Americans were now to be driven across the Rio Grande and perhaps the Sabine, it was threatened. Preparations for defence were made at all our chief posts, and for this reason they were hardly molested; but the lines of communication could not be maintained, detachments en route were menaced or assailed, and on the day following the battle Urrea, a polished ruffian of the distinctive Spanish-American type, broke up a large wagon train with signal atrocity.[28] The rancheros coöperated eagerly in this profitable work, and the result of the battle had little effect upon them, for they had seen the Mexican army come and go at will, and doubtless thought it might appear again. Taylor therefore proceeded to Monterey about the eighth of March, and endeavored to restore order. On the twenty-eighth he reported that quiet had returned; but three weeks later, though he believed that Urrea and his regulars had withdrawn beyond the Sierra Madre, he admitted that bands of robbers were still very numerous.[29]
Nor was the panic limited to this region. Almost equal alarm prevailed in the United States. “The sympathy of every human being is elicited,” wrote Brooke at New Orleans; and the government itself, hurrying off recruits and authorizing Brooke to accept new volunteers, awaited in “painful suspense” the result of Santa Anna’s advance. The tidings of his failure, exaggerated of course into news of a brilliant and overwhelming triumph won by a general robbed of his troops, caused a tremendous rebound. Polk, holding that only Taylor’s blundering and violation of orders had created the peril, and that his brave men had rescued him from it, would not permit a general salute in the army; but the nation saluted, and the General’s nomination for the Presidency became inevitable.[29]