the division hurried down and camped near the Third Division, soldier talk explained matters.
The Second and Third Divisions had been here two or three days, lying low and wondering how to get past Cerro Gordo. When the Third had joined the Second, General Twiggs had decided to storm Cerro Gordo, anyhow, and had given instructions to General Pillow. He was a fighting man, this General Twiggs. But General Patterson had heard and had galloped forward from his bed to take command and veto the orders. Being a major-general, he outranked Old Davy, who was only a brigadier. The men had been rather glum at the idea of storming Cerro Gordo from the road—that looked like a sure-death job; and when they learned that nothing would be done until General Scott came in, they felt mightily relieved.
General Scott had arrived on the fourteenth. He immediately sent Captain Lee of the engineers out to examine the country. Captain Lee reported that by following a deep brushy ravine around to the northwest, if the guns and men could be got through then Cerro Gordo might be flanked and attacked from the rear. Santa Anna faced the road, of course, thinking that the principal attack would be made from that. The Americans were not goats or rabbits; they would have to march by the road. And Cerro Gordo and the other batteries (quite a number) commanded all the zigzags and switchbacks by entrenchments and breastworks two miles in length. His artillery and his muskets, manned by twelve or thirteen thousand soldiers, would simply pulverize that road.
