comandante general at Chihuahua, yielded to Santa Anna's views.[1]
Trias, however, did not abandon hope. The resources of the state were scanty indeed. The effective colonial method of protecting the border had long since been given up, and Indian raids, beginning about 1831, had fast impoverished the haciendas. During the past year, perhaps because the savages believed the Mexican troops would be required for the war, these incursions had been worse than ever before. A single party of Comanches had numbered more than eight hundred. It was indispensable, therefore, to employ some of the military forces in the protection of the settlements; but more than 10,000 men were enrolled in the National Guard, and Trias felt sure that Chihuahua state was inherently strong enough to defeat Doniphan, whose approach was duly reported.[2]
The chief needs were money and armament. Artillery had been practically unknown in that region, but it was found possible to cast and mount a number of pieces, and infantry soldiers learned to use them. Arms were gathered and repaired; ammunition and clothing were manufactured; and by dint of local borrowing the expenses were met. Santa Anna finally had 255 men sent from Durango; and in the end nearly 1200 mounted troops (many of them Presidials), some 1500 infantry including about seventy regulars of the Seventh Regiment, 119 artillery, probably more than 1000 rancheros armed with long knives (machetes) and rude lances, ten brass cannon ranging from 4-pounders to 9-pounders, and nine musketoons on carriages appear to have been assembled.[3] The men were enthusiastic and eagerly obedient, and the leaders — Heredia for chief and Trias as second in command — felt proud of their army. As for the Brazito affair, which had caused much discouragement, it seemed now like a bad dream.[4]
February 10 a portly, handsome officer arrived at Chihuahua. This was General García Conde, and the next day he and the other chiefs, after reconnoitring the pass at the Sacramento River, fifteen or eighteen miles to the north, decided to make a stand at that point. It was a wise decision. The stream, running here toward the east, was crossed at a ford by the route from E] Paso, which had a north and south direction. Rather more than two miles north of the river
