There was no refuge for the Democrats after the Whigs had adopted Taylor as their especial hero, since Scott was also a Whig and an original opponent of the war. His victories, on account of the apparent ease with which they were gained, have never received the credit justly due them. The student of military history will rarely meet with narratives of battles in any age where the actual operations coincide so exactly with the orders issued upon the eve of conflict, as in the official reports of the wonderfully energetic and successful campaign in which General Scott with a handful of men renewed the memory of the conquest of Cortes, in his triumphant march from Vera Cruz to the capital. The plan of the battle of Cerro Gordo was so fully carried out in action that the official report is hardly more than the general orders translated from the future tense to the past. The story of Chapultepec has the same element of the marvelous in it. On one day the general commanded apparent impossibilities in the closest detail, and the next day reported that they had been accomplished. These successes were not cheaply attained. The Mexicans, though deficient in science and in military intelligence, fought with bravery and sometimes with desperation. The enormous percentage of loss in his army proves that Scott was engaged in no light work. He marched from Pueblo with about 10,000 men, and his losses in the basin of Mexico were 2703, of whom 383 were officers. But neither he nor Taylor was a favorite of the Administration, and their brilliant success brought no gain of popularity to Mr. Polk and his Cabinet.