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

BIVOUAC AT PAPAGALLOS. 305
from the mass of putrefaction tainted the atmosphere to the
summits of the hills bordering the valley. The road was marked
for a considerable distance with the dead bodies of men, the
carcases of mules and pieces of the wagons, which had been
broken up and partly burned to avoid detection and recovery.
The fugitives had evidently been hotly pursued and some of
them were slain far from the train. At one place even
beyond the valley, I saw the half of a human head, which
bad been cleft from the crown downward, lying in the road
at a great distance from any corpse. The face was upturned
to tile sun, and the shrunken and ghastly features, caused some
stanch old horses of the passing escort to snort and tremble
with fright.
Altogether the scene was one of the wildest savagery; and
the terrible bloodshed it provoked, of which the reader will
be informed at the close of this chapter, may perhaps, to
some minds, "' prove but a jest," when " exampled by this
heinous spectacle."
It has been stated that we bivouacked the second night of tle
march at Papagallos. As at Agua Frio, the ground was
carefully selected, and the camp a strong one,-the wagons
being parked around a low but steep conical hill, to the commanding summit of which the artillery was dragged by hand.
others. They passed from Tula to the State of BNew Leon, making marches and
countermarches to surprise detachments of the enemy. On the 24th of February,
1847, they attacked a convoy and captured 121 wagons loaded with clothes and
provisions; and 137 mules also loaded with clothes, besides leaving many killed,
wounded, dispersed and prisoners taken; breaking up the force that accompanied
the train which exceeded 300 men. War made systematically by guerrillas,
appears to us would in the long run have ruined the enemy and given success to
the Republic."