For more than a month after the incidents related, were we of the invading army compelled to endure a semi-seclusion, within cuartels neither very clean nor comfortable.
We should have far preferred the billet; and there were scores of grand “casas” whose owners richly deserved it.
But the thing was out of the question. To have scattered our small force would have been to court the rising we had reason to apprehend.
Our division-general had the good sense to perceive this; and, against the grumbling of both officers and men, insisted upon his injunction—to stay within doors—being rigorously observed.
To me the situation was irksome in the extreme. It gave too much leisure to brood over my bitterness. An active life might have offered some chance of distraction; but inside a barrack—where one grows ennuyed with always seeing the same faces, and tired of the everlasting small talk—even the ordinary routine is sufficiently afflicting. What was it in the heart of a hostile city? What to me, suffering from the humiliation I had experienced?
Only for the sake of excitement did I desire to go out on the streets. The Calle del Obispo had lost its attractions for me; or, rather should I say, they were lost to me. As for visiting the Callecito de los Pajaros, I am sorry to record: that my wounded amour propre was more powerful than my sense of gratitude. I felt more inclined to shun, than seek it.
A month, and there came a change. The streets of La Puebla were once more free to us—by night as by day.
It was caused by the arrival of three or four fresh brigades of the American army: now concentrating to advance upon the capital.
The tables were turned, and the hostile Poblanos were reduced—if not to a state of friendship, at least to one of fear.
They had cause. Along with our troops came a regiment of “Texas Rangers”—the dread of all modern Mexicans—with scores of nondescript camp-followers, by our enemies equally to be dreaded.