Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/109

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PROCEEDINGS OF CONGRESS.

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very short time a considerable force was mustered into the service of the United States, equipped and provided, and on their way to the seat of war.

Congress was still in session, when the information that hostilities had commenced on the Rio Grande reached Washington. A special message was received from the President, on the 11th of May, communicating the dispatches of General Taylor, and recommending the most energetic measures for the prosecution of the war. Two days were occupied in the deliberation and discussion of the subject, and on the 13th, an act was passed, with great unanimity, declaring that a state of war existed "by the act of the republic of Mexico," and authorizing the President to accept the services of ﬁfty thousand volunteers. The sum of ten millions of dollars also was appropriated to carry on the war.

Energy and activity were at once infused into every department of the public service. Consultations were held between the President, the Secretary of War, and General Scott,^[1] the general-in-chief of the army. Memoranda were furnished to the different staff ofﬁcers and heads of bureaus. Quartermasters, commissaries, and medical purveyors, were busily engaged in making calculations, preparing estimates, and providing the

the War Department had been warned by General Taylor; but he could not see a brother ofﬁcer in supposed peril, without volunteering to aid him. When he heard the sound of cannon, he knew it was time to ﬁght, as Napoleon said, "without waiting for orders."

↑ Major General Winﬁeld Scott is so well known, as the Hero of Chippewa and Niagara, that it is almost superﬂuous to refer to his military history. He entered the army, with the rank of captain, in 1808, and in March, 1814, at the age of twenty-eight, was made a brigadier general. In the same year he was brevetted a major general, for his distinguished services on the Niagara frontier, and on the 25th of June, 1841, he was appointed General in Chief of the Army, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of General Macomb.

[1] Major General Winﬁeld Scott is so well known, as the Hero of Chippewa and Niagara, that it is almost superﬂuous to refer to his military history. He entered the army, with the rank of captain, in 1808, and in March, 1814, at the age of twenty-eight, was made a brigadier general. In the same year he was brevetted a major general, for his distinguished services on the Niagara frontier, and on the 25th of June, 1841, he was appointed General in Chief of the Army, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of General Macomb.

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