Note 22 — XXIII CERRO GORDO April, 1847

I. I. Stevens, one of the engineer officers, 66reporting on May 7, stated in the most distinct manner that according to this plan El Telégrafo was not to be attacked before the highway in its rear should have been occupied in strength, and that insistence upon this point constituted the essential difference between this plan and the operations previously suggested by Beauregard. Scott wrote to Marcy (Sen. 1; 30, 1, p. 261) that he had intended to turn the Mexican position and attack in the rear. He clearly indicated as much in his Memoirs (ii, 432), and his orders for the battle were that Twiggs’s division, supposed to be already near the highway, should move before daybreak to occupy it, while the orders only contemplated an attack in front as likely to be made before 10 o’clock. It was well understood in the army that his plan was to bag Santa Anna’s army, and this implied—since some of the Mexicans were likely to retire early—that the way of escape must be cut off before a frontal attack should be launched. Stevens tried to reach the highway via the Mexican right, but was taken ill and had to return (Stevens, Stevens, i, 124).