Later
I have just been going over the map with Captain Burnside, and we have been tracing the slow and sure advance of the rebels. They are down as far as San Luis Potosí, not more than fourteen hours from here. They manage to isolate the Federal detachments, one after the other, cutting the railroad lines in front and in the rear. There is a good deal of that northern march where one can go a hundred kilometers without finding a drop of water.
I was reading Mme. Calderon de la Barca’s letters—1840-1842—last night. She was the Scotch wife of the first Spanish minister after the Mexican independence, and her descriptions of political conditions would fit to-day exactly, even the names of some of the generals repeating themselves. She speaks of “the plan of the Federals,” “the political regeneration of the Republic,” “evils now arrived at such a height that the endeavors of a few men no longer suffice,” “a long discussion in Congress to-day on the granting of extraordinary powers to the President,” “a possible sacking of the city.”... Our history here. She goes on to say that they (the brigands) are the growth of civil war. Sometimes in the guise of insurgents taking an active part in the independence, they have independently laid waste the country. As expellers of the Spaniards these armed bands infested the roads between Vera Cruz and the capital, ruined all commerce, and without any particular inquiry into political opinions robbed and murdered in all directions. And she tells the bon mot of a certain Mexican: “Some years ago we gave forth cries—gritos (referring to the Grito de Dolores of Hidalgo). That was in the infancy of our independence. Now we begin to pronounce, pronunciamos (a pronunciamiento is a revolution). Heaven only knows when we shall be old enough to speak plainly, so that people may know what we mean.”