en commenced, one
wagon for each regiment and one for the cavalry will follow the
movement, to receive, under the direction of medical officers,
the wounded and disabled, who will be brought back to this place
for treatment in general hospital.

The Surgeon-General will organize this important service and (p. 315)
designate that hospital, as well as the medical officers to
be left at it.

Every man who marches out to attack or pursue the enemy will take
the usual allowance of ammunition and subsistence for at least
two days.

By command of Major-General Scott.
H. L. SCOTT,
_Acting Assistant Adjutant-General_.

_____

_General Scott to the Secretary of War._

To the Honorable Headquarters of the Army,
William L. MARCY, Tacubaya, at the Gates of Mexico,
Secretary of War, Washington, D. C. August 28th, 1847.

Sir: My report, No. 31, commenced in the night of the 19th
instant, closed with the operations of the army on that day.

The morning of the 20th opened with one of a series of
unsurpassed achievements, all in view of the capital, and to
which I shall give the general name: _Battles of Mexico_.

In the night of the 19th, Brigadier-Generals Shields, P. F.
Smith, and Cadwallader, and Colonel Riley with their brigades,
and the 15th Regiment, under Colonel Morgan, detached from
Brigadier-General Pierce, found themselves in and about the
important position, the village, hamlet or _hacienda_, called
indifferently, Contreras, Ansalda, San Geronimo, half a mile
nearer to the city than the enemy's intrenched camp, on the same
road, towards the factory of Magdalena.

That camp had been, unexpectedly, our formidable point of attack
in the afternoon before, and we had now to take it, without the
aid of cavalry or artillery, or to throw back our advanced corps
upon the direct road from San Augustin to the city, and thence
force a passage through San Antonio.

Accordingly, to meet contingencies, Major-General Worth was
ordered to leave early in the morning of the 20th, one of his
brigades to mask San Antonio, and to march with the other six
miles, via San Augustin, upon Contreras. A like des