It is vain to predict what might have been the result had the advice of the gallant and prudent Gaines been adopted; yet it cannot be doubted that a well equipped body of twenty-five or thirty thousand men would have marched to the city of Mexico and dictated peace at the cost of one fourth the blood and treasure that were subsequently expended. A lingering policy of hesitation together with the acknowledged inefficiency of Mexico, may palliate the errors of our cabinet; but wise politicians will not henceforth fail to be impressed with the necessity of military preparation which this conflict has taught us. A war which was originally supposed to be one exclusively of defence, was suddenly changed to an aggressive conflict, and is, perhaps, an additional excuse for our unpreparedness. Most of the events in this narrative derive peculiar interest from the fact that it is the first and only offensive war into which we have been forced. With every known principle of defence we had been long acquainted; for, in the school of Washington, we acquired a sound, practical knowledge, which subsequent experience, under the most perfect system of self-government, enabled us to improve. But it is to be hoped that many years will elapse before our volunteers will be again called from their peaceful duties to take part in an aggressive war, and especially against a government whose theory of rule is the same as our own. NOTE.--General Gaines, who commanded the western division, was censured by the War department for having made a requisition on the governor of Louisiana for State troops to be sent to the army in Texas under Taylor's command, at the moment of apprehended danger described in this chapter. General Taylor, for more than a year previous to September, 1845, commanded one of the brigades of Gaines's division, and the latter never knew _by authority_ that the former had been disconnected from him, except upon temporary service, until advised by the secretary of war on the 13th of September. He never received a copy of the authority given to Taylor to go to Texas until after the date of his requisition for Louisiana volunteers, on the 15th of August, 1845; consequently he _then_ considered himself responsible for the strength and support of one of his own brigades, and bound to succor it speedily when he believed it to be in imminent danger.--See Senate doc. No. 378, for his correspondence, and especially p. 48. FOOTNOTES: [70] Almonté's report. Kennedy's Texas, chap. 1. [71] Senate doc. 341, 28th cong. 1st sess. p. 56. [72] Kennedy's Texas, chap. 1. [73] Senate doc. No. 341, 28th cong. 1st sess. p. 76. [74] An account of the army of observation and occupation, written by one of its officers, in the Southern Quarterly Review for April, 1846. [75] S. Q. Review, _ut antea_, p. 442. (April, 1846.) [76] Kennedy's Texas, chap. 2d.