Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

TAYLOR ADVANCES ON VICTORIA. 251
tilities when he pleased, and that he would duly correspond
to them. This note met General Taylor at Saltillo, which
city he had entered without opposition on the 16th of 1N'ovember, at the head of Worth's division. He at once, in a
second communication, vindicated his government from the
imputation of a want of faith, and concluded by expressing
the hope that the august Mexican Congress would find it for
the interest and honor of the nation, to enter upon an amicable negotiation for the settlement of existing difficulties.
General Santa Anna, in reply, courteously submitted to General Taylor's better judgment of the armistice; but assured
the American General, that neither the Congress nor any
IfeMxican (the words in italics were probably intended to
clear his own garments from the smell of treason) could
ever listen to any proposition for peace, until the forces
of the United States had withdrawn from the national territory.
General Taylor leaving Worth and twelve hundred regular
troops at Saltillo, now our advance post, with Wool at the
head of twenty-four hundred men, on his flank at Parras,
returned to Monterey and prepared next to occupy Victoria,
the capital of Tamaulipas. That city was not only an important point, politically, but being situated at the debouchee
of the Tula pass, a strong force there would threaten the
flank of the Mlexican army should it attempt to advance upon
Saltillo. Accordingly on the 13th of December, the commander-in-chief, having previously ordered Patterson's division which had been left in reserve upon the Rio Grande, to
meet him at Victoria, marched eastward with the brigades of