that the country had never before been so free from highway robbery.[1]
In the south, Vera Cruz, a state of mountains, gorges, thickets and forests threaded with blind paths, was the chief home of the guerilla, and it looked as if Scott's line of communication might be virtually destroyed. Not only many hardy, hot-blooded and unscrupulous natives, but a great many desperadoes hailing from Cuba were ready to enlist. After the fall of Vera Cruz, and still more after the battle of Cerro Gordo, a large number of regular officers, to say nothing of privates, could scarcely find bread, and some men, like the ex-divinity student, ex-Carlist, Jarauta whose small, close beard, fierce black eyes, braided jacket, graceful cloak and goldlaced sombrero gave him a romantic air had acquired in Spain a taste for this adventurous, reckless life; but a vastly greater number were prosaic felons, liberated from prison under a pledge to rob and murder. Nominally J. C. Rebolledo, a fine looking man of rather humane instincts, was the chief in this district, but the 800 or so persons belonging to many small bands, while occasionally acting more or less in concert, were mainly independent. The decree under which all goods coming from points occupied by the Americans were lawful booty opened possibilities of large gains, and Rebolledo's capture of ten loaded wagons in April, 1847, set the people aflame with cupidity.[2]
Brevet Colonel Mclntosh and his inexperienced officers, who left Vera Cruz for the interior it will be recalledabout the first of June, 1847, with a well-advertised convoy including a large amount of specie, dependent on wild mustangs under raw, half-mutinous drivers largely ignorant of English, received the full benefit of this ambitious feeling. Near Tolomé and at Paso de Ovejas he lost men, wagons and pack-mules; and at the national bridge there was a genuine skirmish, in which a number of Americans were killed or wounded. Out of about 130 wagons twenty-four had to be abandoned in the low country; and a little way above Jalapa, though strongly reinforced, the troops had to fight again. General Pierce, who left Vera Cruz about six weeks later than McIntosh, had similar experiences. Early in August Major Lally set out from the coast with a few more than 1000 soldiers,
