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Updated: June 16, 2025
On the 7th of May the wagons were all loaded and General Taylor started on his return, with his army reinforced at Point Isabel, but still less than three thousand strong, to relieve the garrison on the Rio Grande. The road from Point Isabel to Matamoras is over an open, rolling, treeless prairie, until the timber that borders the bank of the Rio Grande is reached.
It is built on a plain two thousand feet above tide water, where the air is bracing and the situation healthy. On the 19th of August the army started for Monterey, leaving a small garrison at Matamoras. The troops, with the exception of the artillery, cavalry, and the brigade to which I belonged, were moved up the river to Camargo on steamers.
After nearly half an hour, General Cortinas, with his escort, rode up to where we were waiting for him. Then I asked him, 'Is the road safe between us and Matamoras? He replied: 'Perfectly; you can go on without any fear, and as safely as you would in your own country. Then, bidding us 'good morning, he rode on, not even inquiring about or examining any of our baggage.
The Mexicans, profiting by Taylor's long stay at Matamoras, had gathered in great force at Monterey, and had strongly fortified every position. Scott in Mexico.% Meantime, General Winfield Scott was sent to Mexico to assume chief command. He reached the mouth of the Bio Grande in January, 1847, and called on Taylor to send him 10,000 men.
Therefore, having completed our arrangements, we started for Matamoras, some three hundred miles distant, on the 19th of March, the wives of the two men accompanying their husbands, making our party six adults and one child; the brethren in Cadereita promising to pray daily for our safety.
The army remained at Matamoras until sufficiently reinforced to warrant a movement into the interior. General Taylor was not an officer to trouble the administration much with his demands, but was inclined to do the best he could with the means given him. He felt his responsibility as going no further.
Campbell should, as soon as he could get his baggage off the Susquehanna, return to Matamoras, and thence proceed to Monterey, to be received by Juarez in person as, the accredited Minister of the United States to the Republic of Mexico. Meantime the weather off the coast was stormy, and the Susquehanna parted a cable, so that we were delayed some days at Brazos; but in due time Mr.
Among the troops that joined us at Matamoras was an Ohio regiment, of which Thomas L. Hamer, the Member of Congress who had given me my appointment to West Point, was major. He told me then that he could have had the colonelcy, but that as he knew he was to be appointed a brigadier-general, he preferred at first to take the lower grade.
Besides the streams, there were occasional pools, filled during the rainy season, some probably made by the traders, who travelled constantly between Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande, and some by the buffalo. There was not at that time a single habitation, cultivated field, or herd of domestic animals, between Corpus Christi and Matamoras.
In two weeks I reached the city of Matamoras, in the State of Tamaulipas, quite destitute of funds, after parting with almost every disposable article belonging to my wardrobe, &c.
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