ot proposed to make a permanent road for the benefit
of Mexicans.

Captain Swift being sick in hospital, the foregoing instructions were
given to me, as Commander of the company, by Major McCall, who, in the
capacity of Adjutant-General of the forces under General Patterson,
accompanied him on this march.

Under orders from General Taylor, the company of engineers, reduced to
two officers and forty-five enlisted men for service, marched from
Matamoros on the 21st of December, 1846, with a column of volunteers
under General Patterson, to join General Taylor's army at Victoria. We
arrived at the latter place on the 4th of January, 1847. A great deal of
work had been done by details of volunteers and the engineer company in
making the road practicable for artillery and baggage wagons. Without
dwelling upon daily operations, the following statement of the manner in
which we made our way across a difficult stream may be of interest.

About noon one day I was informed by Major McCall, who had ridden ahead
of the working party, that there was an exceedingly difficult
"river-crossing" about one mile in front, and that he feared we would be
detained there for, perhaps, two days. I galloped forward to the place
designated. It looked ugly. The banks of the stream were something more
than 100 feet high and quite steep. Guiding my horse down to the water's
edge, I crossed the river which was from two to three feet deep, and
about one hundred yards wide. The bottom was fair enough, until within a
few yards of the opposite shore, where it was soft mud. Getting through
this with some difficulty I rode to the top of the bank on the far side.

To make an ordinary practicable road across that stream would require
two or three day's work of several hundred men. It seemed a clear case
for the free use of drag-ropes to let the wagons down into the stream on
the near side, and haul them up the opposite bank.

It was plain to me that with a working party of two hundred men--which
was the greatest number we could supply with tools--a straight steep
ramp could be cut on both banks in six or eight hours hard work. The
greatest difficulty would be encountered in getting out of the stream on
the far side.

Returning quickly to where I had left Major McCall, I asked him to give
me a working party of about 800 men, told him I would find use for that
number and that in my opinion, with that force, the wagon train could be
put across the stream b