operations. Santa Anna would not break up his general plan by sending strong detachments from the southern line; and consequently Scott's march was merely annoyed by a few hundred irregulars, who fired at intervals, rolled great stones down the slopes, and cut ditches in the road, but broke from cover and fled like scared rabbits when C. F. Smith's corps of light infantry ran leaping and shouting across the hillsides. Thus ended the second chapter of Santa Anna's hopes.[1]
Meantime a precipitate rearrangement of the Mexican forces took place. The President, after reconnoitring the American advance, hastened to place himself between San Agustín and Mexico. Troops were despatched from the Peñón to various points on the southern front, and Valencia was ordered to proceed by the way of Guadalupe Hidalgo to the same quarter. But the former status could no more be restored than one could put back the smoke of an exploded shell. The strongest fortifications had been turned and rendered useless; and any one could see that on the side now threatened, where a number of causeways approached the city, the defence of it would almost necessarily be weakened by a division of the garrison. After such enthusiasm and such impatience to meet the enemy, retirement unadorned with laurels or with even the stains of combat produced a humiliating reaction in all hearts.[2]
At Mexico the returning soldiers found empty streets, untenanted balconies and bolted windows; and the silent, sombre, fearsome aspect of a besieged city enveloped and oppressed them. Doubts as to Santa Anna's competence or loyalty, which had slept but not died amidst the recent glorification and his confident promises of "a splendid triumph," awoke. People recalled that precisely when the enemy were moving against Vera Cruz, the Mexican army had been led off into the northern deserts; and they hotly demanded why the engineers, the laborers, the troops and the cannon had been massed at Old Peñón, where Scott could nullify them all by a turn of the wrist. As if in answer, it was publicly stated that an outpost had found a treasonable communication addressed by the President of Mexico to the American commander; and so ended Chapter III of Santa Anna's hopes.[3]
