government, General Scott, who had removed his headquarters to Tacubaya, notified Santa Anna on the 6th of September, that, unless full satisfaction was given for the violation of the armistice, before twelve o'clock, meridian, On the following day, he should consider it at an end from and after that hour. The reply of the Mexican President, dated 0n the same day, but received on the morning of the 7th, was pronounced by General Scott to be "absolutely and notoriously false, both in recrimination and explanation."[1]
So careful had General Scott been in regard to infringing the armistice, that the engineer officers had suspended their reconnaissances, while his troops remained quietly cantoned in Tacubaya, and the neighboring villages. The city and its fortifications had, therefore, yet to be reconnoitred, before any definite plan of attack could be laid down. The enemy being reported to be manœuvring on the San Antonio causeway, on the morning of the 7th of September, Captain Lee was dispatched to observe their movements, but found all quiet in that quarter, and on the Niño Perdido and Piedad causeways, intervening between the San Antonio, and Tacubaya, or Chapultepec, causeways. Two days previous, General Scott had been informed, that a number of church-bells had been sent out from the city to El Molino del Rey, where there
- ↑ Senate Exec. Doc. 1, (pp. 355 359, 353,) 1st session, 30th Congress. Santa Anna charged the American army, in his reply to General Scott, with plundering the Mexican churches, and offering violence to their women. Nothing could have been more false or groundless. No disrespect was ever shown to the religion of the Mexican people, or to their places of worship, which went unpunished, if brought to the knowledge of the American officers; and at Vera Cruz, a soldier was hung for committing an outrage upon a Mexican woman, — General Scott firmly refusing to pardon the offence.
