George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Major-General United States Army
George Gordon Meade, Ed.

Opinions are again becoming contradictory as to the reception we are to meet with at Monterey, many thinking they will make a desperate stand then, others that we shall occupy the place without a shot. My own opinion is, that they will make a stand at some point of our march, and that point will be fixed by their ability to reinforce their people at Monterey. If Paredes can throw into Monterey a large force of regulars before we reach it, they will fight there; if not, those that are now there will retire before us, till they meet the army from the interior, and give us battle at some favorable point, after they have effected a junction. I do not join in the general opinion of their carrying on a desperate guerilla war. Though descended from the Spaniards, they are a very different race from the hardy mountaineers of Spain. Their mixture with the Indian and negro race, and the effect of climate enervating them, render them a listless race, destitute of the energy necessary for a war which is solely one of enterprise. Then again, the people in the interior are ignorant, utterly so, of the use of arms, the Government having prohibited their keeping them, from the fear of their being used against it. Indeed, it is universally conceded that their most warlike provinces are these we are now occupying, where the necessity of defending themselves against the Indians, and latterly the Texans, has compelled the Government to allow them arms, the use of which they have acquired; and yet, when we lay opposite Matamoras for a month, and they had, besides their regular force, some two thousand rancheros, they never even attempted any enterprise against us, though we afforded them all the opportunities it was possible to give them. From hence I infer that in the interior we shall meet with no such determined resistance from the people; and as to their regular soldiers, they are no better fitted for guerilla fighting than are ours. My only apprehensions as to success arise from the constitution of our own force. I fear our volunteers will not only prove inefficient themselves, but will prove a serious obstacle to our efficiency, by impeding our progress. I fear the glory we have acquired at the Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma will be somewhat dimmed by our apparently tardy operations succeeding them. People who are accustomed to read of campaigns in Europe and elsewhere, where armies march over thickly settled countries, producing all that is required for the subsistence of the army, and where towns are daily occupied for