Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

---

[40] position singularly perilous. General Wool, who had left Texas with a considerable force for the purpose of joining him, had failed to make his appearance. A mountain too steep for his train, the existence of which he had not known, had obliged him to abandon the direction of Chihuahua, and he had retraced his steps towards the encampments of Taylor on the lower Rio Grande. That general, weakened by the departure of his best troops for Vera Cruz, and himself greatly exposed, had detained him at Saltillo. Wool thus found himself at more than one hundred and fifty leagues from Doniphan, and utterly unable to effect a junction with him.

Isolated in a town of twenty-six thousand inhabitants, in the heart of a hostile country, having received neither succor nor a dollar since the commencement of the campaign, those eight hundred men, whose term of enlistment had only two months more to run, had some cause to fear that they might find themselves in some Mexican prison when their time of service expired. To beat a retreat would have been to acknowledge their weakness, and to draw upon themselves an adversary whose forces increased at the slightest indication of success. They settled down in the city with a degree of assurance which disconcerted their enemies, avowed or concealed. The traders unloaded their wagons and opened a fair. Strict police regulations, an entirely new thing in Chihuahua, were maintained by the Americans. Men and animals thus rested themselves for two months, and prepared for the new hardships they would have some time to encounter.

At last, one day some bold troopers who had succeeded in reaching the headquarters of General Wool brought back an order to rejoin the army of occupation at Saltillo. The column took up once more the line of march, leaving behind it the town of Chihuahua, where they had lived in peace and plenty, together with its listless population, which looked upon their departure with the same emotions with which it had witnessed their arrival, considering them as powerful travellers whose visit, if not too long, presented a curious spectacle, with opportunities of profit. After another march of one hundred and fifty leagues, they encamped near their comrades at Saltillo and Monterey; but their term of enlistment having expired, they proceeded towards the Rio