en to my lot to follow General Huerta in
the field, so that I have had a fair chance to view some of his
soldierly qualities at close hand. I accompanied General Huerta during
his campaign through Chihuahua, in 1912, and was present at his famous
Battle of Bachimba, near Chihuahua City, on July 3, 1912--the one
decisive victory won by General Huerta against the rebel forces of
Pascual Orozco. Before this campaign I was in Cuernavaca, in the State
of Morelos, during the time when General Huerta had his headquarters
there in his campaign against Zapata's bandit hordes in that State
after the fall of General Diaz's government.

General Huerta then took charge of the last military escort which
accompanied General Porfirio Diaz on his midnight flight from Mexico
City to the port of Vera Cruz. During the ten hours' run down to the
coast, it may be recalled, the train on which President Diaz and his
family rode was held up by rebels in the gray of dawn, and the soldiers
of the military escort had to deploy in skirmish order, led by Generals
Diaz and Huerta in person; but the affair was over after a few minutes'
firing, with no casualties on either side.

Before this eventful year General Huerta had but few opportunities of
winning laurels on the field of battle. Having entered the Military
Academy of Chapultepec in the early 'seventies under Lerdo de Tejada's
presidency, Victoriano Huerta was graduated in 1875, at the age of
twenty-one, and was commissioned a second lieutenant of engineers.
While still a cadet at Chapultepec he distinguished himself by his
predilection for scientific subjects, particularly mathematics and
astronomy. During the military rebellion of Oaxaca, when General Diaz
rose against President Lerdo, Lieutenant Huerta was engaged in garrison
duty, and got no opportunity to enter this campaign.

After General Diaz had come into power and had begun his reorganization
of the Mexican army, young Huerta, lately promoted to a captaincy of
engineers, came forward with a plan for organizing a General Staff.
General Diaz approved of his plans, and Captain Huerta, accordingly, in
1879, became the founder of Mexico's present General Staff Corps. The
first work of the new General Staff was to undertake the drawing up of
a military map of Mexico on a large scale. The earliest sections of
this immense map, on which the Mexican General Staff is still hard at
work, were surveyed and drawn up in the State of Vera Cruz, wh