September 17, 1845 Article 1

 

   

The Army of Observation. — We abridge from an official statement in the Union, some information in regard to the force under Gen. Taylor, prepared when the latest dates from the camp at Corpus Christi were the 26th ult.  It appears that Gen. Taylor has, at no time since his arrival at Aransas Bay, felt any solicitude for the safety of his command, or the necessity of calling for auxiliary force, even from Texas.  The two gallant companies of artillery which, with such promptness and patriotic spirit, volunteered to go to Texas from New Orleans, under the belief that their country stood in need of their services, have arrived at Gen. Taylor’s camp.  As there has not been, and probably will no be, any emergency requiring them, they will not, probably, be long detained from their homes.  It is the General’s intention to discharge them as soon as a few more of the regular artillery, now on the way to Texas, shall have arrived, unless things on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande shall assume a more threatening aspect.

 


 

Tho mos reliable accounts represent that there were, near the middle of August, only about 500 regular Mexican troops at Matamoros, and that Gen. Arista was to leave Monterey on the 4th of that month, for the former place, a distance of 300 miles, with 1500 more troops, 500 of them cavalry, but there was no news of his arrival at Matamoros.  It is not known or believed that there are regular Mexican troops at any other point on the Rio Grande.  It was probably the original intention to employ these troops in carrying out the threat of Mexico to take possession of Texas; but the presence of the United States army, and the preparations in Texas to meet and repel their advance, have caused this design to be abandoned – for the present, at least.  The regular troops of the United States now in Texas, and those on the way there, are deemed sufficient to keep in check the Mexican forces assembled, or likely to be assembled, on the Rio Grande.  General Taylor’s attention has not been exclusively confined to the Mexicans; he has had an eye to the Camanches, and taken measures to guard the country from their incursions.

 

Source: The Daily Picayune, September 17, 1845, p. 2, col. 2.


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