VIII
PALO ALTO, RESACA DE LA PALMA
May, 1846
The Mexico of 1845 had an elaborate military organization. In addition to the comandantes general—regularly one in each department or state—there were six generals at the head of the six military Divisions in which the political divisions of the country had been grouped. The college at Chapultepec provided a full course of instruction for officers; and though it seemed hardly worth while to spend three years there in order to become a second lieutenant, when one could leap at once into a captaincy or something better by acting as the tool of a revolting general, there were never less than one hundred students.[1]
At the head of the army stood a sort of general staff called the plana mayor; but the duties of this inefficient body fell mostly to the engineers, some of whom possessed excellent qualifications, while others—admitted to the corps for political or personal reasons—did not. The artillery, which included nominally four brigades with fourteen batteries, suffered from this all-pervading evil and also from defects of its own. Many of the guns had come down from olden times, though a large number of the field pieces equalled any the United States possessed; not a few were honeycombed; and the carriages were mostly of the old Gribeauval pattern. To convey ammunition, carts had to be obtained when needed. For the transportation of ordnance, mules or oxen were usually hired by contract; and, as the drivers had no acquaintance with artillery drill and tactics, battery evolutions were out of the question, and guns could be moved but slowly, if at all, during an engagement.[2]
The so—called Permanent infantry consisted substantially of three Light (Ligero) and twelve Line regiments, and there
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