own. General Taylor, with his troops, left Corpus
Christi, March 8th to 11th, 1846, and entered the desert which
separates that place from the vicinity of the del Norte. On the 21st he
was encamped three miles south of the Arroyo, or Little Colorado, having
by the route he took marched 135 miles, and being nearly north of
Matamoras about thirty miles distant. He had on the 19th met a party of
irregular Mexican cavalry, who informed him that they had peremptory
orders, if he passed the river, to fire upon his troops, and that it
would be considered a declaration of war. The river was however crossed
without a single shot having been fired. In a proclamation issued on the
12th, General Mejia, who commanded the forces of the Department of
Tamaulipas, asserts, that the limits of Texas are certain and
recognized, and never had extended beyond the river Nueces, that the
cabinet of the United States coveted the regions on the left bank of the
Rio Bravo, and that the American army was now advancing to take
possession of a large part of Tamaulipas. On the 24th March General
Taylor reached a point on the route from Matamoras to Point Isabel,
eighteen miles from the former, and ten from the latter place, where a
deputation sent him a formal Protest of the Prefect of the Northern
District of the Department of Tamaulipas, declaring, in behalf of the
citizens of the district, that they never will consent to separate
themselves from the Mexican Republic, and to unite themselves with the
United States. On the 12th of April, the Mexican General, Ampudia,
required General Taylor to break up his camp within twenty-four hours,
and to retire to the other bank of the Nueces river, and notified him
that, if he insisted in remaining upon the soil of the Department of
Tamaulipas, it would clearly result that arms alone must decide the
question; in which case, he declared that the Mexicans would accept the
war to which they had been provoked. On the 24th of April, General
Arista arrived in Matamoras, and on the same day, informed General
Taylor, that he considered hostilities commenced, and would prosecute
them. On the same day, a party of sixty-three American dragoons, who had
been sent some distance up the left bank of the river, became engaged
with a very large force of the enemy, and after a short affair, in which
about sixteen were killed or wounded, were surrounded and compelled to
surrender. These facts were laid before Congress by the Pres