XIII
SALTILLO, PARRAS, TAMPICO
August — December, 1846
For men supposed to have won a splendid victory, Taylor and his army seem to have been rather low in their spirits after the capture of Monterey. Taylor admitted that his forces had been "greatly reduced." Learning that a part of the Second Infantry had arrived on the Rio Grande, he described this trifling reinforcement as "most welcome." The Texas troops Wished to go home and were discharged. To replace them he counted on the Tennessee and Kentucky horse; but these regiments, having been ordered to San Antonio, were long in reaching the front. October 15 he estimated his aggregate effective strength as less than 12,000.[1] Chills and fever, a depressing malady, was extremely prevalent; and a strong tendency to desert appeared to indicate a generally unsatisfactory state of things.[2] Not only priests hut Mexican officers remaining at Monterey to convalesce or to care for the sick, stimulated this tendency; and about the middle of November all such officers, not indispensably needed by the sick and Wounded, received peremptory orders to go south. A little later, it was reported, the alcalde was imprisoned for the same offence. Moreover bands of Mexicans, not dismayed by the American triumphs, hung upon Taylor's lines to rob and kill.[3]
The General had other troubles also. There was a plan at Washington, promoted by reports of his inefficiency and by letters from certain ambitious officers left in the rear, to put in his place one of the new brigadier generals. Scott, however, protected his interests, and by having him assigned to duty with his brevet rank, threw a great obstacle before the schemers. They encountered other difficulties as well, and finally Polk sent him word confidentially that he need have no fear of dis-
262
