Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[56] There were very few men on that side, and not a single gun, to take advantage of the obstacles that Nature has placed there. Only a few muskets were fired to cover the retreat of Santa Anna. Notwithstanding his defeats, he could go out of the capital he had so ably defended with head erect, nor had he yet given up the game. His sudden attack upon Puebla is an evidence of his daring and of the resources of his genius, and it was only after the conflict at Huamantla that, forsaken by his most trusty companions, he was compelled to submit to the decrees of fate.

In the battles fought around the capital, the American army took thirty-seven hundred prisoners, thirteen of whom were generals and three ex-presidents; and among its trophies were found seventy-five cannons. The army itself lost in those conflicts twenty-seven hundred and three men, or the fourth part of all its effective force; so that, notwithstanding the genial climate of those high table-lands, the sound constitution of the soldier, inured to military life, and the precautions which saved them from much sickness, their number was reduced to about six thousand men when they occupied Mexico.

But this small body of troops, composed of the élite of the American forces, had acquired, together with the consciousness of its prowess, an experience in the art of war which proved beneficial to all the regular army, and which was not lost in the great struggle of 1861. It was among the young generation who learned their trade so well under Scott, that both Federals and Confederates sought the leaders to whom they confided the control of their respective armies. Thus, to mention some names we shall find again presently in every page of this narrative, it was at the siege of Vera Cruz that Lee, McClellan, and Beauregard, all three officers of engineers, made together their debut in arms. Lee, who, through his ability as a staff officer, soon afterward gained the entire confidence of General Scott, directed at Cerro Gordo and Contreras the construction of the roads which secured the victorious movements of the army. After his name, which was destined to a much greater celebrity, those of Sumner and of Kearny, both serving in the small corps of dragoons which had such a hard task to perform throughout that campaign, were the most frequently mentioned by their commanders. Sumner,