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Just beyond it General Valencia lay intrenched, with his fine division of about six thousand men and twenty-four guns, commanding the approach from San Augustin. A mile or more north of Contreras lay General Santa Anna, his force holding the main city road. Such was the situation of the respective armies at the date given, with the Pedregal separating them.
The Pedregal on the north and north-east, and the mountain on the south, made the passage by either flank of the enemy's defences difficult, for their work stood exactly between those natural bulwarks; but a road was completed during the day and night of the 19th, and troops were got to the north and west of the enemy.
Shields joined them at ten o'clock; and at midnight Captain Lee crossed the Pedregal, with a message from General Smith to General Scott, to say that he would begin the attack at daybreak next morning. It rained all night and the men lay in the mud without fires. Such pitchy darkness covered the face of the plain that Smith ordered every man to touch his front file as he marched.
There was little here to look at, and I hurried on and entered the south gate of the city, and soon arrived at the Hôtel de Paris, to which I had been directed. My poor old mustang here ended a twelve days' journey, over mountains and plains of pedregal, without a shoe to his hoofs.
To the south-west is the Pedregal the volcanic rock before spoken of over which cavalry or artillery could not be passed, and infantry would make but poor progress if confronted by an enemy.
He further ordered Colonel Mendoza to occupy with his regiment the edge of the pedregal, having in his front a detachment of infantry under Captain Solos, and beyond him a detachment of cavalry. To the left of Padierna was posted the corps of San Luis Potosi, to the right the brigade of Lieutenant-Colonel Cabrera, and on the ridge were the batteries and brigade of General Mejia.
Taking the lead, we soon struck the Pedregal, a field of volcanic rock like boiling scoria suddenly solidified, pathless, precipitous, and generally compelling rapid gait in order to spring from point to point of rock, on which two feet could not rest and which cut through our shoes.
The troops made their way with difficulty over a broken tract called the Pedregal, bristling with sharp points of rocks, and which is represented as having been the crater of a now exhausted and extinct volcano.
To the east was a morass, and beyond the morass were the blue waters of Lake Chalco; while to the west the Pedregal, a barren tract of volcanic scoriae, over whose sharp rocks and deep fissures neither horse nor vehicle could move, flanked the American line of march. The morass was absolutely impassable. August 19.
But who would not rather face a firing-line of infantry in full daylight than to venture alone in such a dark and stormy night as was this upon such a perilous and threatening region as the Pedregal, in which a misstep in the darkness would surely lead to wounds and perhaps to death.
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