"President Santa Anna, with Generals Canalizo and Ampudia, and some six or eight thousand men, escaped toward Jalapa just before Cerro Gordo was carried and before Twiggs's division could reach the national road above. I have determined to parole the prisoners--officers and men--as I have not the means of feeding them here beyond to-day, and can not afford to detach a heavy body of horse and foot, with wagons, to accompany them to Vera Cruz. Our baggage train, though increasing, is not yet half large enough to give an assured progress to this army. Besides, a greater number of prisoners would probably escape from the escort in the long and deep sandy road, with subsistence, ten to one, than we shall find again out of the same body of men in ranks opposed to us. Not one of the Vera Cruz prisoners is believed to have been in the lines at Cerro Gordo. Some six of the officers highest in rank refused to give their paroles, except to go to Vera Cruz, and hence, perhaps, to the United States. "The small arms and their accouterments being of no value to our army here or at home, I have ordered them to be destroyed, for we have not the means of transporting them. I am also somewhat embarrassed with the many pieces of artillery--all bronze--which we have captured. It would take a brigade and half the mules of this army to transport them fifty miles. A field battery I shall take for service for the army, but the heavy metal must be collected and left here for the present. We have our own siege train and the proper carriages with us. "Being occupied with the prisoners and all the details of a forward movement, besides looking to the supplies which are to follow from Vera Cruz, I have time to add no more, intending to be at Jalapa early to-morrow. We shall not probably meet with serious opposition this side of Perote, certainly not unless delayed by the want of the means of transportation. "I have the honor to remain, sir, with high respect, your most obedient servant, "WINFIELD SCOTT. "P.S.--I invite attention to the accompanying letters to President Santa Anna, taken in his carriage yesterday; also to his proclamation issued on hearing that we had captured Vera Cruz, etc., in which he says: 'If the enemy advance one step more, the national independence will be buried in the abyss of the past.' We have taken that step. "W.S. "I make a second postscript, to say that there is some hope, I am happy to learn, that General Shields may survive his wounds. One of the principal motives for paroling the prisoners of war is to diminish the resistance of other garrisons in our march. "HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY, JALAPA, _April 23, 1847_.