A gory track
leading to the _tete de pont_, groups of dead in the fields on the west
of Churubusco, over whose pale faces some stalks of tattered corn still
waved; red blotches in the marsh next the causeway, where the rich blood
of Carolina and New York soaked the earth, showed where the fire of the
heavy Mexican guns and the countless _escopetas_ of the infantry had
been most murderous. Scott had lost, in that day's work, more than a
thousand men in killed and wounded, seventy-nine of whom were officers.
The Mexican loss, according to Santa Anna, was one-third of his army,
equal probably to ten thousand men, one-fourth of whom were prisoners,
the rest killed and wounded. As the sun went down the troops were
recalled to headquarters; but all night long the battlefield swarmed
with straggling parties seeking some lost comrade in the cold and rain,
and surgeons hurrying from place to place and offering succor to the
wounded.
It would have been easy for Scott to march on the city that night, or
next morning, and seize it before the Mexicans recovered from the shock
of their defeat.
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