Scott was in fact advancing. On the morning of Saturday, the seventh, his camp was astir early. The base of Popocatepetl seemed black, and the slopes a pale, silvery blue; but its top, almost 18,000 feet above the sea, was a “Blazing Star,” as some of the Indians named the mountain, and appeared like an omen of victory. The Second Division was soon ready. Twiggs faced it, waved his hat round his white head, and cried in the voice of Ajax, “Now, my lads, give them a Cerro Gordo shout!” A simultaneous hurrah from twenty-five hundred iron throats was the response; and at six o’clock, preceded by the cavalry and the engineer company and followed by the siege train—while his band, mounted on splendid white horses, played our national airs—he began the eventful march. One day apart, Quitman, Worth and Pillow followed him. Though it was announced that no man unable to do three marches could be permitted to go, hundreds of convalescents unequal to the effort insisted upon trying, and, gradually falling out, rejoined the garrison of Puebla. Feeble in numbers[13] for such an enterprise, but confiding in their quality, their leader and their prestige, the 10,738 men and their officers pressed boldly forward.[15]
For a time the dust proved extremely annoying and the sun scorched; but soon mountain air began to be felt, and the troops entered a wide, blooming and scented valley, full of rich fields, grazing herds, noble hacienda houses that were almost palaces, and trim white churches that seemed like stragglers from the great host at Puebla. In the rear shone Orizaba and the nearer pyramid of Malinchi. On the left Popocatepetl and his consort, the Sleeping Woman (Iztaccihuatl), deeply blanketed in fleecy white, looked hardly a stone’s throw distant; and after the sun had set, the air grown cold, and the valley—now less open—filled with shadows, their purple tops glowed like interplanetary lighthouses.[15]
Soon after passing the ugly little town of San Martín, twenty miles from Puebla, the troops began to ascend more rapidly. Eleven miles more brought them to a mountain river, Tesmelucan, where the elegant aërial bridge that spanned the abyss made them almost feel they were flying. The scenery now became Alpine. Deep chasms, answered to peaks, and lovely glens to precipices; and the cedar, the oak and the ash, as well as pines of extraordinary height and straightness, reared themselves on the slopes. At Río Frio, about thirty-six miles from both Puebla and Mexico, where an icy stream dashed foaming down the rocks, the mountains closed in on the left, and their crest, lined with deserted parapets, almost overhung the road.[14] Then a stiffer climb of about five miles placed the troops on a narrow plateau which formed the summit; and they were now 10,500 feet above the sea.[15]
A few miles down the steep descent on the other side their prospect opened, and below, girt round with singularly bold mountains—rough, dark and purplish, but softened here and there with a wisp of shining vapor—lay the Valley of Mexico, which the pellucid atmosphere, transmitting colors and outlines undimmed, brought wondrously nigh. Ten small volcanoes, that had been crumbling for ages untold, stood clothed in luxuriant verdure nearly to the summit. Six broad lakes now laughed under the brilliant sun and now brooded in the shadows of passing clouds. Velvet champaigns—cut with ash-colored roads, gleaming canals and straight lines of poplars, and studded with walled haciendas, rambling towns and cozy-looking villages—were further variegated with highly cultivated fields of many crops, with groves and orchards from which peered steeples and bell-towers, with villa roofs of tiles, red and cheery, and with whitewashed cottages that shone like silver. Every possible hue of green and every possible tone of light and shade blended into one harmonious effect. And in the midst of this wonderful scene, as the climax of the stillness and beauty, the focus of all eyes, the aim of all desires, untarnished by smoke, seemingly without stain, bright with sunshine, begemmed with many a palace, park and lofty church, slumbered the capital of Mexico, Venice-of-the-Mountains. Not one of the fascinated soldiers but held his breath; and not one, testified the commander-in-chief, but said to himself or his neighbor, “That splendid city shall soon be ours!”[15]
Along this part of the route almost 13,000 trees had been cut down for barricades, and some of them had been placed in the road; but the Americans were not materially hindered, and in crossing the lower slopes they found little to do except admire the wondrous variety and profusion of the wild-flowers. On the eleventh, seeing Mexicans ahead for the second time, Twiggs waited for Quitman; but a few hours later, after passing a cross-road, he went on about four miles, and occupied the adobe village of Ayotla, half-buried in olive trees, while Harney’s cavalry took post at San Isidro, a mile and a half in advance, and Quitman camped in the rear. The next day Worth’s division turned to the left by the cross-road, marched three miles and a half to the squalid little town of Chalco, simmering at the margin of the shallow, marshy lake bearing that name, and finally halted a little distance beyond; and Pillow camped at Chimalpa, not far beyond Worth.[15]
But what had the enemy been doing? The people along the route, who were to have stung the Americans day and night, recognized the difference between them and the Mexican irregulars, welcomed them cordially, and gave them all possible assistance. Canalizo—who seems to have been cowed by the disaster of Cerro Gordo, and some time before this had fled from San Martín, with six hundred men at his back, on seeing an American officer, detailed to arrange an exchange of prisoners, approach with a small escort—felt no desire to fight, besides which most of his troops revolted or deserted; and Governor Isunza not only failed to assist him with men and means, but flatly refused him a particular corps, expressly demanded by the Executive at Mexico.[16]
Alvarez, well-nigh a brigand, had always fought for his own advantage, knew that all the other chief leaders were doing this now, and, in addition to cherishing resentments against Santa Anna, probably felt no craving to play a strictly inferior part. Though he did not have all the men for whom he seems to have been drawing rations, his force was important, and in three particulars he obeyed his orders. He stationed himself at the designated point on the flank of San Martín, kept beyond the reach of Scott’s artillery, and scrupulously refrained from attacking the Americans on unfavorable terms; but while he made excuses bravely, and proposed valiant operations that Santa Anna forbade as inconsistent with his general plan, he retired some ten miles from the route on the plea that his exhausted horses required pasturage. For probably similar reasons Valencia quibbled and shirked; his train of heavy guns—which, though needed in the fortifications, he would not give up—impeded his movements; and so the only hostilities were a trifling skirmish with irregulars, in which one American trooper fell a victim to his own rashness. Thus ended, to his deep disgust, the first chapter of Santa Anna’s hopes.[16]
THE APPROACH TO MEXICO
Four lines of advance now offered themselves to Scott. By taking the cross-road to the right he could have skirted Lake Texcoco, passing the village of that name, and approached the north or the northwest quarter of Mexico. But the route would have been long, deficient in water and fuel, and circuitous; it was defended by Valencia with an ample supply of artillery; a movement in that direction would have made surprise or even sudden attack impossible for him; at a pass near Guadalupe Hidalgo stood fortifications; and a march round these would have involved another long circuit on exposed and unknown ground. This route, therefore, was not seriously considered. On the other hand, after the most thorough investigation, Scott had planned before leaving Puebla to take the cross-road to the left, march along the southern shores of Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco, and reach San Agustín, some ten miles to the south of Mexico; and it was for this reason that he placed Worth, who was to lead the movement while Twiggs was to menace Old Peñón, near Chalco.[17]
On reaching the ground, however, unfavorable reports about this road were given by Mexican spies; and the General, partly for that reason and partly to mystify the enemy, reconnoitred the Peñón and also a fourth route, which led to the village of Mexicaltzingo, about five miles from the city. In regard to the Peñón his engineers—who pushed their investigations with the utmost intrepidity, studied every foot of the red ledges dripping with crimson gravel, and even penetrated behind the hill—decided that it could be carried, but only at a severe loss; while the evidence concerning the fourth possibility led to a substantially similar conclusion, supported by the additional objection, that apparently success would place the Americans on difficult and unknown ground. At about the same time Scott obtained further information regarding the Chalco route, which seemed to justify the opinion formed at Puebla. Consequently the orders to attack Mexicaltzingo—issued either because at the time Scott thought he should march that way or because he desired to mislead the cunning Mexican spies, who even gained the confidence of high American officers—were suddenly rescinded in the night of the fourteenth, and the next day, though Twiggs continued to threaten the Peñón until the morning of the sixteenth, all the rest of the army, headed by the cavalry and Worth’s division, set out for San Agustín, distant from Chalco some twenty-five miles.[17]