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 UPON MONTEREY. 45
In the month of July the remnant of that unlucky army
was united with fresh troops at Monterey,-a city situated at
the base of the Sierra Madre, near the entrance of the principal pass leading up to the table lands of the interior. The
Mexican government, learning the disastrous result of the
conflicts at Palo Alto and Resaca, and desiring, as usual, to
throw the blame upon the unsuccessful general, deprived
Arista of the command of the army of the North. Hie was
succeeded by General Mejia. Soon afterwards, however, the
Central Government was itself overthrown, and Mejia was in
turn superseded by Ampudia, who undertook, as " Governor
General-in-chief,"9 the defense of Monterey.
Meantime the American regulars had occupied Matamoros,
While the tents of the rapidly arriving volunteers dotted the
banks of the river, at various points, between that town and
the Gulf. In the latter part of July, General Taylor began
to push forward the regular troops to Camargo, a town situated near the head of steamboat navigation on the San Juan,
a tributary of the Prio Grande. To that point, by water, it
was no difficult matter to transport men and supplies. But
beyond it, in consequence of the limited resources of the
country, but a small force could be taken with our inadequate
means of land carriage. Yet such was the anxiety of the
government to hasten operations, that General Taylor determined to march from Camargo upon Monterey with but six
thousand men,- half regulars and half vol3unteers, —unproColonel Ramsey, of the 11th United States Infantry. In that book, to which the
reader's attention will occasionally be invited in the following pages, the fiightful
disorders and hardships of the retreats from Matamoros and 1Buena Vista are vividly portrayed.