IX
THE HEIGHTS OF CERRO GORDO
"The general's gone, as I suppose you know,
Grant," Lieutenant Smith remarked to Lieutenant
Grant, at dinner this noon.
The day was April 12. The camp was much smaller than it had been throughout the week following the fall of Vera Cruz. Early in the morning of April 8 the Second Division had marched away, with the fifes and drums and the bands playing Yankee Doodle. Preceded by the two horse companies of the Mounted Rifles the long column had wound out over the National Road for the City of Mexico, two hundred and seventy-five or eighty miles westward, as the road ran.
General Scott had been growing impatient with the delays in the arrival of wagons and animals. He wished to move all the troops to Jalapa, at least, which was in the mountains about seventy miles west. There they would be free of the dreaded vomito.
So on the next day, April 9, the General Patterson Third Division of Volunteers had started. General Patterson himself was on sick list, and General Pillow commanded in his place. The Mohawks had stumped gaily out, singing and shouting.
The general orders had directed that each division take a wagon train carrying six days' rations for the men and three days' oats for the animals. There would be little forage on the way to the City of Mexico until Jalapa had been reached, in the high country. After the Mohawk division had left, there
