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

We have not the slightest doubt of our sure and ultimate success, and it is supposed that it will not occupy more than four or five days to take the town; the castle will be a work of time, and in my opinion it will only be reduced by starvation. The length of time it will require to do this depends upon the amount of supplies they may have on hand.

So much for our operations. Now for Mexican reports. Through the medium of the officers of the English men-of-war stationed at Sacrificios, who have constant intercourse with the town, we are supplied with the daily files of the ‘Locomotor,’ a paper published in Vera Cruz. The number the day we reached here was full of patriotic bombast as to the defense they were going to make, and gave an account of a young women's procession, in which all the young and beautiful creatures of the place had turned out with shovels to work on the fortifications. The Englishmen say they had but about six thousand men in town and castle, though La Vega, with two thousand men, was near, and daily expected. With this small force they cannot make very great resistance, for we shall have, when all are landed, between thirteen and fourteen thousand, and have forty heavy guns, and as many mortars, with which we shall soon make the place a little too hot for them.

But the most interesting information in the newspaper is the official report to the Supreme Government of Santa Anna, announcing a two-days' fight with General Taylor, near Saltillo. He says he found General Taylor strongly posted at a pass in front of Saltillo; that he attacked him on the 22d of February; that they fought all that day and the next, on the evening of which (the 23d) he was writing; that the field remained to his army, and he was only prevented from routing General Taylor by the great strength of his position; that he captured three pieces of artillery and two standards; that he, himself, has lost one thousand in killed and wounded, General Taylor having lost two thousand; and after recounting all these successes and General Taylor's great loss, he says that the necessity of giving proper attention to his wounded will compel him to retire upon Agua Neuva, nine miles distant, and if he there finds the supplies he has ordered up, he will renew the attack. This is about the sum and substance of his report, with the addition of much bombast about the heroism and courage of his soldiers, and the great sacrifices they have undergone, and the impossibility of expecting such conduct unless they are properly fed and paid.