Regulars were eager to start. The Volunteers—the Second Pennsylvanians, the New Yorkers and the South Carolinans—gallantly proclaimed that they wished to "see the elephant" beyond those next mountains. These fighting Mohawks were bound to go through, and compared with the new Regulars, they were veterans.
Colonel Childs, from Jalapa, was to remain in Puebla with the sick and a garrison of five hundred. The majority of the First Pennsylvanians stayed at Perote to hold that. Counting out teamsters and the like General Scott had, after all, only about ten thousand seven hundred officers and men, with whom to advance against General Santa Anna's thirty thousand.
"We might better have chased right along with what we had after the battle of Cerro Gordo, and reached Mexico as soon as Santa Anna," Hannibal complained. "He's had time to make ready for us, and we're cut loose from our base—haven't men enough to garrison a single place, except Perote, between here and Vera Cruz, and the whole road is worried by guerillas. Old Fuss and Feathers says he's thrown away the scabbard and is advancing with the naked sword. It's do or die. Well, anyhow, the Second Division starts to-morrow. Those fellows have the luck again. Hope we aren't far behind."
This was August 6, the day of General Pierce's arrival. The army had been re-apportioned into four divisions instead of three.
The First Division was about the same as before: Second Artillery, Third Artillery, Fourth Infantry,
