serves me, but
one small steamer to transport troops and baggage when the 4th infantry
arrived. Others were procured later. The distance from Shell Island to
Corpus Christi was some sixteen or eighteen miles. The channel to the
bay was so shallow that the steamer, small as it was, had to be dragged
over the bottom when loaded. Not more than one trip a day could be
effected. Later this was remedied, by deepening the channel and
increasing the number of vessels suitable to its navigation.

Corpus Christi is near the head of the bay of the same name, formed by
the entrance of the Nueces River into tide-water, and is on the west
bank of that bay. At the time of its first occupancy by United States
troops there was a small Mexican hamlet there, containing probably less
than one hundred souls. There was, in addition, a small American trading
post, at which goods were sold to Mexican smugglers. All goods were put
up in compact packages of about one hundred pounds each, suitable for
loading on pack mules. Two of these packages made a load for an
ordinary Mexican mule, and three for the larger ones. The bulk of the
trade was in leaf tobacco, and domestic cotton-cloths and calicoes. The
Mexicans had, before the arrival of the army, but little to offer in
exchange except silver. The trade in tobacco was enormous, considering
the population to be supplied. Almost every Mexican above the age of
ten years, and many much younger, smoked the cigarette. Nearly every
Mexican carried a pouch of leaf tobacco, powdered by rolling in the
hands, and a roll of corn husks to make wrappers. The cigarettes were
made by the smokers as they used them.

Up to the time of which I write, and for years afterwards--I think until
the administration of President Juarez--the cultivation, manufacture and
sale of tobacco constituted a government monopoly, and paid the bulk of
the revenue collected from internal sources. The price was enormously
high, and made successful smuggling very profitable. The difficulty of
obtaining tobacco is probably the reason why everybody, male and female,
used it at that time. I know from my own experience that when I was at
West Point, the fact that tobacco, in every form, was prohibited, and
the mere possession of the weed severely punished, made the majority of
the cadets, myself included, try to acquire the habit of using it. I
failed utterly at the time and for many years afterward; but the
majority acc