Arizona republican., 1913-12-16
The Mexican War.

he MeTIcan War.
 At the time of it's opening our
 forces in Texas numbered only 3,554 men. notwithstanding that war had fer some tune seemed to be inevit- able. There had been efforts to get congress to increase the regular army, and suggestions had been made to call out volunteers and-ornilitia, but these efforts and suggestions were
 barren of result; hence General Tay-
 Tor met, on May s, 1S46. 5000 of the
 enemy at Palo Alto, and shortly after,
 aL Resaca Ie la Palma, with an army
 of 2,222. General Gaines in Mississ-
 ippi had Illegally raised and sent to
 General Taylor over 5000 troops, en-
 listed for six months; but so lack
 ing were these in equipment and
 training that they remained in idle
 hess, and were discharged at the expiration of their enlistment without
 having fired q shot On May Il, 1S46, congress authorized the raising of 5O,- OOO volunteers. Another act of the
 same date authorized the President
 to increase the companies of dragons,
 artillery and infantry to 100 men each. Under these and other laws, an aggregate of 31,024 officers and
 men were enlisted in the regular
 army and 73,26O in the volunteers. These forces were not organized into
 brigades and divisions at the be-
 ginning of the war, though such organizations were necessary and were made later.
 In spite of the experiences of for mer wars, many of the men were enlisted for such short periods as to
 interfere ~seriOusly with the military operations, thus causing prOlOnga- ton of the war with additional loss Of life and cost. To illustrate by one example: After several months delay owing to lack of equipment, transportation, etc, General Scott captured Vera Cruz, and on April s began his march to the City of Mexi- co. On April IS he defeated the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo so decis- rely that, in his own words, "Mexi- co had no longer an army" The road t. the capital lay open before him, and the war should have been brought to a speedy end. But was this the case? The inherent defects of our military system stopped Scott's progress at the very time any proper system should have been ready to aid it. The law had provided for en- | Hstments of twelve months, and the greater part of this time was spent in recruiting. assembling and train ing raw men, and in obtaining of supplies equipment and transporta- ticn for the army, so that on April IS the terms of enlistment of the vol | unteers were about to expire. With ! the certainty of ending the war almost at once with the force he then had, l Scott was obliged to send home the | bulk of volunteers from Pueblo on 1 May i, and remain on the deIensiNe 1 at that place, in the heart of the | enemys country, cut off from all sup i plies, for over three months with l little army of regulars, and with a 1 few volunteers who had reenlisted. 1 in all 5,S2O men. At the end of three l months, fresh COntingents had ar l rived but by that time the enemy | had raised q new army greatly su- i peTior to that of Scott, and the war | dragged on for eight more months, ! iu the series of bloody battles dur ! ing which we suffered our heaviest 1 losses.
 l Tn this war there were called into
 service 31 ,O24 regulars and 73, ,534 vol
 unteers q total of 1O6 558. If we con | slider the number of troops the gov l ernment was able to bring on the | field of battle we see that of this large number only small proportion | was ever actually present.
 The Battle of Monterey was fought