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

8 6 DIFFICULTY OF OBTAINING INFORMATION.
cerning the designs of the enemy, or even of the country beyond the points to which he had pushed his reconnoitering
parties. On the eve of marching for Camargo, and but two
weeks before he fought the battle of Monterey, he remarked
in a letter to the government, "We have no very recent
intelligence from the interior, nor have I yet satisfactory
means of judging whether our occupation of Monterey and
Saltillo will be disputed."
Such indeed had been the barbarian policy of the Mlexican
government, and the plundering habits of the Mexican people, that travelers and traders had been discouraged from visiting the country; and but few of our citizens knew more of
its interior than what colld be seen along the great thoroughfaLre between Vera Cruz and the city of Mexico. Though
lying immediately upon the borders of the nmost enterprising
and inquisitive nation under the sun, Mexico had remained,
up to the commencement of the war, almost a terra ilcognzitc. The great wall of China could not have offered a more
effectual barrier to Tartarean invasion, than Mexican legislation, insolence, and intolerance have presented to American
industry and genius. The reader, therefore, will not perhaps
be surprised to find the quarter-master general (who, like the
surgeon general, found it necessary to vindicate his official
conduct,) writing as follows, in reply to one of General Taylor's letters: ". As to the complaint in regard to the want of
land transportation, it is proper to remark, that there was no
information at Washington, so far as I was informed, to enable me or the War Department to determine whether wagons
could be used in Mexico."