Arriving at Guadalajara on May 10, Wood and his companion found the town "in a high state of agitation" owing to the reception there of the news of the battles between American and Mexican forces at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, on the Rio Grande. The surgeon immediately wrote a dispatch to Sloat at Mazatlán, and it was delivered in five days – an exceptional occurrence in those days. His message that hostilities with Mexico had actually commenced was the first tidings of that nature that Sloat had received.