For about half this distance the road was little more than a narrow lane, with a lake—or more properly a watery marsh—on the right and bold foothills close on the left. Spaces of firm ground there were. At one time venerable olive trees formed an arch over the road; once the troops camped in a fine grove, and some ledgy, rocky spurs had to be crossed. But for much of the way, although the weather had been remarkably dry for the midst of the rainy season, the story, as Scott had anticipated, was “mud, mud, mud.” Now and then a man would slip and sink to his waist in a bog-hole; in places the track was quite overflowed; the chilly, torrential rains of almost every afternoon increased the difficulties; and the labor of getting several miles of wagons and heavy guns along such a route was almost incredible. Besides, the troops had to be ready at all hours for attack—frontal, rear or flank. But early in the afternoon of the seventeenth Harney and Worth’s advance reached San Agustín, a delightful place full of handsome gardens and orchards; and the next day the rest of the troops joined them—“ready,” as a soldier put it, “for anything except a thrashing.”[18]
TO SAN AGUSTÍN
But again, where were the Mexicans? With so many works to construct, Santa Anna could hardly be censured for leaving unfortified—especially as both an inner and an outer line were made ready against any forces using it—a route that seemed to be quite impracticable for an army train; but he might have placed upon it a few light guns and a body of skirmishers, who could have embarrassed the Americans greatly. This, however, with his usual over-confidence and faulty judgment, he neglected to do. Yet he was not idle. On the fourteenth he knew the Americans were talking of a march to San Agustín; and though he suspected this language might be a blind, he not only sent additional forces to that quarter, but ordered Alvarez to follow Scott, should such a movement occur, and be ready to fall upon him bravely should he attack a fortified position; and when the movement actually began on the following day, though Santa Anna misinterpreted its aim, he promptly took further defensive steps on that line.[18]
One result was a slight brush between Alvarez and Twiggs after the latter moved from Chalco on the sixteenth; but Alvarez soon found so many difficulties in the road pursued by the Americans and so little food or pasturage left in their rear, that he once more abandoned his appointed field of operations. Santa Anna would not break up his general plan by sending strong detachments from the southern line; and consequently Scott’s march was merely annoyed by a few hundred irregulars, who fired at intervals, rolled great stones down the slopes, and cut ditches in the road, but broke from cover and fled like scared rabbits when C. F. Smith’s corps of light infantry ran leaping and shouting across the hillsides. Thus ended the second chapter of Santa Anna’s hopes.[18]
Meantime a precipitate rearrangement of the Mexican forces took place. The President, after reconnoitring the American advance, hastened to place himself between San Agustín and Mexico. Troops were despatched from the Peñón to various points on the southern front, and Valencia was ordered to proceed by the way of Guadalupe Hidalgo to the same quarter. But the former status could no more be restored than one could put back the smoke of an exploded shell. The strongest fortifications had been turned and rendered useless; and any one could see that on the side now threatened, where a number of causeways approached the city, the defence of it would almost necessarily be weakened by a division of the garrison. After such enthusiasm and such impatience to meet the enemy, retirement unadorned with laurels or with even the stains of combat produced a humiliating reaction in all hearts.[19]
At Mexico the returning soldiers found empty streets, untenanted balconies and bolted windows; and the silent, sombre, fearsome aspect of a besieged city enveloped and oppressed them. Doubts as to Santa Anna’s competence or loyalty, which had slept but not died amidst the recent glorification and his confident promises of “a splendid triumph,” awoke. People recalled that precisely when the enemy were moving against Vera Cruz, the Mexican army had been led off into the northern deserts; and they hotly demanded why the engineers, the laborers, the troops and the cannon had been massed at Old Peñón, where Scott could nullify them all by a turn of the wrist. As if in answer, it was publicly stated that an outpost had found a treasonable communication addressed by the President of Mexico to the American commander; and so ended Chapter III of Santa Anna’s hopes.[19]
XXVI
CONTRERAS, CHURUBUSCO
August, 1847
While grievously disappointed by the collapse of his efforts at Old Peñón, Santa Anna felt by no means despondent regarding his new line. Toward the south ran the great highway of Acapulco—along which numberless cargoes of silks, teas and spices had approached—guarded at about a mile from the city by the gateway or garita of San Antonio Abad. Three miles and a half beyond that garita the highway crossed a bridge over Churubusco River, here practically a drainage canal running between high embankments planted with maguey, with Mexicaltzingo about a mile and a half distant at the left. On the farther side of the river, a fifth of a mile southwest of the bridge, stood a massive convent and church, skirted by the rambling hamlet of Churubusco. Passing the church at a distance of three hundred and fifty yards the highway veered slightly toward the east, and some two and a quarter miles from the river came to a great feudal hacienda named San Antonio, adorned with trim silver poplars and Peruvian pepper trees along the front of its buildings. A scant mile then brought one to the similar but far less pretentious establishment of Cuapa; and two scant miles more to San Agustín.[1] At the Churubusco bridgehead and convent and at San Antonio, where the erection of defences had begun some time before, laborers could now be seen working—particularly at San Antonio—like bees; and with all possible haste guns, as well as troops, were brought over from the Peñón. Here, said the President, he “desired to have the battle fought.”[4]