onted
him. There was not the least reason for haste on the march, for it was
known that it would take weeks to assemble shipping enough at the point
of our embarkation to carry the army, but General Worth moved his
division with a rapidity that would have been commendable had he been
going to the relief of a beleaguered garrison. The length of the
marches was regulated by the distances between places affording a supply
of water for the troops, and these distances were sometimes long and
sometimes short. General Worth on one occasion at least, after having
made the full distance intended for the day, and after the troops were
in camp and preparing their food, ordered tents struck and made the
march that night which had been intended for the next day. Some
commanders can move troops so as to get the maximum distance out of them
without fatigue, while others can wear them out in a few days without
accomplishing so much. General Worth belonged to this latter class. He
enjoyed, however, a fine reputation for his fighting qualities, and thus
attached his officers and men to him.

The army lay in camp upon the sand-beach in the neighborhood of the
mouth of the Rio Grande for several weeks, awaiting the arrival of
transports to carry it to its new field of operations. The transports
were all sailing vessels. The passage was a tedious one, and many of
the troops were on shipboard over thirty days from the embarkation at
the mouth of the Rio Grande to the time of debarkation south of Vera
Cruz. The trip was a comfortless one for officers and men. The
transports used were built for carrying freight and possessed but
limited accommodations for passengers, and the climate added to the
discomfort of all.

The transports with troops were assembled in the harbor of Anton
Lizardo, some sixteen miles south of Vera Cruz, as they arrived, and
there awaited the remainder of the fleet, bringing artillery, ammunition
and supplies of all kinds from the North. With the fleet there was a
little steam propeller dispatch-boat--the first vessel of the kind I had
ever seen, and probably the first of its kind ever seen by any one then
with the army. At that day ocean steamers were rare, and what there
were were sidewheelers. This little vessel, going through the fleet so
fast, so noiselessly and with its propeller under water out of view,
attracted a great deal of attention. I recollect that Lieutenant Sidney
Smith, of the 4th infantry,