An elaborate account of the American invasion is given in Mayer’s ‘Mexico.’ To those who do not care for details of military operations, there are still points of interest in the history. That ten thousand Americans should have been able to get through the mountain-passes, and to reach the capital at all, is an astonishing thing; and after that, their successes in the valley of Mexico follow as a matter of course. They could never have crossed the mountains but for a combination of circumstances.
The inhabitants generally displayed the most entire indifference; possibly preferring to sell their provisions to the Americans, instead of being robbed of them by their own countrymen. Add to this, that the Mexican officers showed themselves grossly ignorant of the art of war; and that the soldiers, though they do not seem to have been deficient in courage, were badly drilled and insubordinate. One would not have wondered at the army being in such a condition—-in a country that had long been in a state of profound peace; but in Mexico a standing army had been maintained for years, at a great expense, and continual civil wars ought to have given people some ideas about soldiering. We may judge, from the events of this war, that Mexico might be kept in good order by a small number of American troops. The mere holding of the country is not the greatest difficulty in the question of American annexation.
One thing that struck our friends at Tisapán, among their experiences of the war, was the number of dead bodies of women and children that were found on the battle-fields. A crowd of women follow close in the rear of a Mexican army; almost every soldier having some woman who belongs to him, and who carries a heavy load of Indian corn and babies, and cooks tortillas for her lord and master. The number of these poor creatures who perished in the war was very great.
We spent much of our time at Tisapán in collecting plants, and exploring the lava-field, and the cañada, or ravine, that leads up into the mountains