While General Taylor was away with the bulk of his army, the little garrison up the river was besieged.  As we lay in our tents upon the sea-shore, the artillery at the fort on the Rio Grande could be distinctly heard.

The war had begun.

There were no possible means of obtaining news from the garrison, and information from outside could not be otherwise than unfavorable.  What General Taylor’s feelings were during this suspense I do not know; but for myself, a young second-lieutenant who had never heard a hostile gun before, I felt sorry that I had enlisted.  A great many men, when they smell battle afar off, chafe to get into the fray.  When they say so themselves they generally fail to convince their hearers that they are as anxious as they would like to make believe, and as they approach danger they become more subdued.  This rule is not universal, for I have known a few men who were always aching for a fight when there was no enemy near, who were as good as their word when the battle did come.  But the number of such men is small.

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.  This river, like the Mississippi, flows through a rich alluvial valley in the most meandering manner, running towards all points of the compass at times within a few miles.  Formerly the river ran by Resaca de la Palma, some four or five miles east of the present channel.  The old bed of the river at Resaca had become filled at places, leaving a succession of little lakes.  The timber that had formerly grown upon both banks, and for a considerable distance out, was still standing.  This timber was struck six or eight miles out from the besieged garrison, at a point known as Palo Alto—­“Tall trees” or “woods.”

Early in the forenoon of the 8th of May as Palo Alto was approached, an army, certainly outnumbering our little force, was seen, drawn up in line of battle just in front of the timber.  Their bayonets and spearheads glistened in the sunlight formidably.  The force was composed largely of cavalry armed with lances.  Where we were the grass was tall, reaching nearly to the shoulders of the men, very stiff, and each stock was pointed at the top, and hard and almost as sharp as a darning-needle.  General Taylor halted his army before the head of column came in range of the artillery of the Mexicans.  He then formed a line of battle, facing the enemy.  His artillery, two batteries and two eighteen-pounder iron guns, drawn by oxen, were placed in position at intervals along the line.  A battalion was thrown to the rear, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Childs, of the artillery, as reserves.  These preparations