danger of his command, of the lower country, and of the morale of the whole army, in the event of his defeat,—he exposed the error of the war department in his despatches to the adjutant general and secretary, so that history, if not arms, might eventually do justice to his discretion and fortitude.
The note of preparation preceded, for some time, the actual advent of Santa Anna from San Luis Potosi, and all was bustle in the American encampments which were spread from Monterey to Agua Nueva beyond Saltillo, in order to give him the best possible reception under the circumstances. Wool was encamped with a force at Agua Nueva, in advance on the road from Saltillo to San Luis, about thirteen miles from the pass of Angostura, where the road lies through a mountain gorge, defended, on one side, by a small table land near the acclivities of the steep sierra and cut with the channels of rough barrancas or ravines worn by the waters as they descend from the summits, and, on the other by an extensive net work of deep and impassable gullies which drained the slopes of the western spurs.