Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-02-11
Written for the Iron County Register.
The Volunteers in Mexico.
BY AN OLD MEXICAN VETERAN.
Sold by all Druggists.

Now comes the funny part of my
| narrative. We had not been at work
| more than an hour, before Gen. Tay-
lor, who had been taking ride, came
along, and happening to be in one of
his funny moods, rode up to us, and
| with a broad grin on his face, COM
menced, as near as can remember,
the following conversation with the
prisoner:
"What are you doing here?"
digging up this stump"
"What for?"
"For whipping fellow"
"What did you whip him fore"
because he said that I crawled in
the ditch at the battle of Monterey"
ibid you?"
mo SIR"
"Well, what grounds did he have to
&C ,use you?'
because got behind SIR"
'How came you to get behind?"
my shoe came united and I stopped
down to tie it,"
Taylor then said to me: "Guard take
that man down to Col Campbell's
quarters" At this the General rode
on. aud soon saw from the direction
he was taking, he was also going to
the Colonel's quarters. He rode up on
"Old White"-as the boys called his
saddle horse, in front of Col. Campbell's
quarters, and after passing the time of
the day with the Colonel, named to
him that he had taken the liberty to
relieve one of his men from extra duty
in the way of punishment. For"
said the General, "any man who could
stop to tie his shoe in such storm of
shot and shell as we passed through
on the morning of the 21st, is the
bravest man in my army and must
not be punished, and rode on. Camp
bell merely said, "Go to your company
and behave yourself" Perhaps Tay-
lor had the right, as General in chief,
to liberate Alexander, but surely twas
none of his business. Yet think he
did it more for fun than anything else,
as it was plain. Judging from his looks
and the way he spoke) he did MT be-
lieve the shoe story. Alexander was
known after that as Taylor's aide.
must take the liberty to again con-
tradict history. I have seen it stated
in some histories that Gen. Taylor
moved on Saltillo from Monterey. This
is not true. The army left Monterey
on the Goth of November, bound tor
Victoria, nearly south of Monterey
| while Saltillo was north. The reason
that Taylor moved on to Saltillo...was
he had learned that President Santa
Anna was concentrating large army
at that place. Now Camargo was al
the head of water transportation, 18(
miles from Monterey, and all our sup
| plies had to be brought from Camarge
to Monterey, over one of the roughes
roads in the world. Victoria was near
er to Camargo than Monterey. The
three places bore the following relation
to each other:
The reader will readily see by this
diagram that Mexican army at Vic
toria could at any time break Tayior'f
| line of communication, aud cut of bis
supplies, which, Of course, would COM
pei him to fall back to the Rio Grande
And as he could not have subsisted his
army a single month at Monterey, had
ne been forced to depend on the ad'
joining country tor supplies, he did moi
| .im to leave large army in his rear
So. as before stated, on the Goth of Nov
ember we left Monterey and took UP
the line of march for Victoria, city
laboutl75 miles distant. The first five
or six days our route was through a
rough, mountainous country, and we
averaged only about ten miles day,
We had with us an immense wagon
train, together with a large train ol
pack mules driven by Mexicans. Our
regiment, the Mississippi and Balti.
more Battalion, with Ben McCullough's
Texas Rangers, composed Quitman's
brigade, but as Quitman commanded
Buffers division, (Butler being wound.
ed1, JEFF Davis commanded our Bri.
gade. There is but little to write OF
this long march. Only the same thing
lover again, every day. We started
early aud marched late, only to repeat
lit the next day. On the 9th or TtI