habitants, which surrendered to him without offering any resistance. Commodore Perry arrived on the 2nd with the squadron, but the towns on the river were already captured.[1]
The dreaded vómito would soon be on the coast, and General Scott could not linger at Vera. Cruz. Owing to unavoidable delays and accidents, but one fourth of the necessary road-train had arrived, yet he determined to escape the pestilence, as he expressed it, "by pursuing the enemy." Lieutenant Colonel Belton was left with a detachment in command of Vera Cruz and the castle. On the 8th of April, General Twiggs took up the march with his division, and was followed in a few days by the remaining columns of the army. General Scott and his soldiers were now upon the high road to the Mexican capital, confidently trusting — and they were not disappointed — to find it strewn with the laurels and paved with the trophies of victory. After a period of more than three hundred
- ↑ Lieutenant Hunter was tried by a court-martial, and sentenced to be dismissed from the squadron for transcending his orders in the attack on Alvarado. His bravery and zeal, ill-timed though they were, cannot be questioned; but the consequences of a disobedience of orders were never more signally illustrated. It was thought by the quarter-master's department, and that not without reason, that about two-thirds of the draught animals required for the use of the army under General Scott could be procured in Mexico. The country extending from Orizaba to Huasiqualeo, which was covered by Alvarado and Thlacotalpan, abounded in horses, mules, and cattle; which it was the object of the joint expedition under Commodore Perry and General Quitman to secure. Lieutenant Hunter was sent in advance merely to blockade the river. Ignorant of the intentions of his superiors, he ventured upon an attack. It was successful; but before General Quitman arrived in the rear of the enemy's towns, they had fled into the interior with their horses and cattle, and the very resources which were needed for the American army, were seized by Santa Anna and his officers — Annual Report of the Quarter-Master General, Nov. '31, 18-17.
