The regiment arrived at Gen Taylor’s camp at Monterey, and reported themselves ready for duty. They were prepared to go with the hero of Buena Vista to San Luis Potosi, or Zacatecas, or the city of Mexico. They regarded not their fatigues nor the approaching expiration of their term of service. “But unhappily,” says Mr. Benton, “the conqueror of Palo Alto Resaca de la Palma, Monterey and Buena Vista, was not exactly in the condition that the Lieutenant General, might have been, intended him to be. He was not at the head of 20,000 men! he was not at the head of any thousands that would enable him to march! and had to decline the proffered service. Thus the long marched and well fought volunteers—the rough, the ready, and the ragged—had to turn their faces towards home, still more than two thousand miles distant.”
The last nine hundred miles of the land march from Chihuahua to Matamoras was made in forty-five days with seventeen pieces of artillery, eleven of which had been taken from the enemy. During all their long march this regiment of hardy soldiers received from the Government not a dollar of pay; they furnished for the most part their own supplies and forage and clothing, and yet brought back nearly their whole number. “You marched farther than the farthest,” says Mr. Benton, “you have fought as well as the best, left order and quiet in your train, and cost less money than any.”
Col. Doniphan made an eloquent address in reply to the oration of welcome, and towards the close of it, he turned to his men, the companions of his toils and dangers, and said:
“You have endured much toil and hardship. It is now about to terminate. You have arrived once more in the land of civilized society, and again we are citizens mingling with our fellow-citizens. Your lot has been a hard one in many respects.
“Before reaching New Mexico, by two hundred miles, you were on half rations, and never afterwards, for a single day, during our long and arduous march to Saltillo, did you receive full rations. Yet all this you have borne, and you have borne it with fortitude. The order which you received to march in Major Gilpin’s command, with a large column, over the Sierra Madre, covered with perpetual snow—proceeding on your march on shortened allowance, without tents or transportation, and many other comforts, because the Government was unable to furnish them; yet you bore it all, and were ready to resume your march in two days on the city of Chihuahua. You have travelled over five states of Mexico, and five very large ones, in point of territory.
“Perhaps the citizens of St. Louis do not know what a Bonava is, but I will answer for every man in my command, knowing what they are. I may assure you, had you crossed them, you too, would have known what they are. The shortest one that we crossed was fifty miles and one ninety-five miles, which we crossed in three days in December, without wood, without water, without tents, at an elevation of 7000 feet above the Atlantic ocean. In sending expresses to the distance of 600 miles, when I was unable to furnish them with the means of carrying provision and other comforts with them over immense sand prairies covered with snow, I have never made a detail, but all were volunteers, or when I have sent out parties for the purpose of watching the enemy who have had to starve for days, I never made a detail in this column, but all were volunteers, and I am proud to say it.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.