Capture of Captain Thornton.

all the feelings as if there were actual war. Fronting each other for an extent of more than two miles, and within musket range, are batteries shotted, and the officers and men, in many instances, waiting impatiently for orders to apply the matches, yet nothing has been done to provoke the firing of a gun or any act of violence." In the postscript to this letter, General Taylor adds, "since writing the above, an engagement has taken place between a detachment of our cavalry and the Mexicans, in which we are worsted. So the war has actually commenced and the hardest must fend off."

This significant language has reference to the defeat of Captain Thornton. General Taylor's scouts had brought in intelligence on the 23d, that twenty-five hundred Mexicans had crossed the river to the Texas side, above the American fort, and fifteen hundred below. A squadron of dragoons was despatched to each place of crossing to reconnoiter them and learn their position. The squadron ordered below was commanded by Captain Ker; that above, commanded by Captain Thornton, consisted of Captain Hardee, Lieutenants Kane and Mason, and sixty-one privates and non-commissioned officers. Captain Ker found that the report of the crossing below was false. Captain Thornton, however, proceeded up the country some twenty-six miles, where he fell into an ambuscade, and found himself surrounded by about two thousand five hundred of the enemy concealed in the chaparral. The command behaved with great gallantry, but the number of the enemy was so overwhelming that they surrendered as prisoners of war. Lieutenant George Mason, who was killed in the rencounter, is said to have maimed Romano Falcon for life, in

Captain Walker's defeat.

a close personal contest. He was a gallant young officerand his death is much regretted. Though the force which obtained this success was about fifteen to one, it filled the Mexican army with ecstacy, and General Arista addressed to General Torrejon an eloquent letter of congratulation on his great and glorious victory. The reserve they had hitherto manifested was now cast wholly aside. They came across the river in great numbers; all intercourse between General Taylor's camp and Point Isabel was cut off, and there was imminent danger of the fall of that place with all the military stores it contained. Nothing of interest had occurred at Point Isabel up to this time. Major Munroe, who commanded, had completed his arrangements for defense, and armed some five or six hundred men, among whom were fifty or sixty sailors, collected from the vessels in port. Captain Walker of the Rangers, and some small parties of Texans had arrived there, and was speedily engaged upon important duties. Some teams having returned to Point Isabel, on account of the obstructions of the roads by the Mexicans, Captain Walker went out on the 28th with a number of men to reconnoiter. He was driven back to Point Isabel with great loss, having been attacked when midway between that place and the camp, by an overwhelming force of the enemy. His raw troops fled in confusion, and he was obliged to retreat. He returned with only two men; seven afterwards came in. He estimated the force of the enemy at fifteen hundred, and thought that many of them must have fallen in the skirmish. Notwithstanding this repulse, Captain Walker volunteered to carry a message to General Taylor. Major Munroe having accepted the offer, he started on the

Taylor's march to Point Isabel.

evening of the 29th and, after encountering many imminent dangers, reached the camp in safety. As soon as General Taylor had received Major Munroe's statement, he determined upon a movement that would release him from the embarrassment of having the communicaticn cut off Accordingly, on the morning of the 1st of May, 1846, he took up the line of march for Point Isabel, with the main body of his army, leaving the seventh regiment of infantry and two companies of artillery under Captain Lowd and Lieutenant Bragg, to complete the works in the fort, and defend it if it was attacked. The whole was put under command of Major Brown. As the army passed out, the banks of the river on the Matamoras side were crowded with spectators of the departure of what they thought our discomfited army, whilst General Arista employed himself in announcing the "retreat" of General Taylor and his army to his government, taking care to pay to himself and his brave men the tribute so signal a triumph deserved.

The Mexicans, however, evinced great judgment by refraining from attacking him on the way to Point Isabel, as it afforded them an opportunity of attacking and trying to capture his fortified camp with a weakened garrison, by which, if successful, they would have a vast advantage over him when he returned, and also they would have more advantage and probability of success in annoying and harassing his forces, or in fighting a pitched battle on his return route, encumbered as he would be by two or three hundred loaded wagons.

The Mexicans were too sagacious to delay improving these advantages. On the morning of the 3d, a battery of seven guns placed in the town, opened a