Two months later, General Taylor again moved forward toward the City of Mexico, and on February 20 was before Saltilo. Santa Anna, the ablest of the Mexican generals, with the best army in the republic, numbering twenty thousand men, there appeared in front. Taylor could barely muster a fourth of that number, and for strategic purposes fell back to the narrow defile in front of the hacienda of Buena Vista, where, on the twenty-third, was fought the greatest battle of the war.

The conflict began early in the morning, and raged with varying fortunes over a line two miles long, until the middle of the afternoon when the furious roar of musketry from that quarter apprised General Wool that Santa Anna was making a desperate effort to break the American center. Colonel Davis was immediately ordered to support that point, and the Mississippians went forward at a double quick. As they came upon the field, the wildest disorder prevailed, and only Colonel Bowles’ Indiana regiment held its ground. After trying in vain to rally the fugitives of a routed regiment, Colonel Davis speedily formed his own into line of battle and rapidly pushed forward across a deep ravine to the right of the Indianians just in time to meet the shock of a whole brigade, which the two commanders succeeded in repulsing with great gallantry.

But the battle was not over. Under cover of the smoke, Santa Anna’s full brigade of lancers flanked the Americans, and now at the sound of their trumpets, the Mexican infantry advanced once more to the charge. Thus assailed on two sides by overwhelming numbers, the situation was truly critical, but Colonel Davis, forming the two regiments into the shape of a re-entering angle, awaited the assault.

The Charge of Colonel Davis’ Regiment at Buena Vista

With flying banners and sounding trumpets the gailey caparisoned lancers came down at a thundering gallop until a sheet of flame from the angle wrapped their front ranks and bore it down to destruction. Quickly recovering, the survivors, with the fury of madmen, threw themselves again and again upon those stubborn ranks, which, now assailed on two sides, refused to give an inch, and met every onslaught with a withering fire, which soon so cumbered the ground with the dead that it was with difficulty the living could move over it.

At last utterly demoralized by the awful carnage, the Mexican lines broke and fled from the field. The day was over. Buena Vista was won, and Colonel Davis had accomplished a feat which, when Sir Colin Campbell imitated it at Inkerman two years later, he was sent by England to retrieve her fallen fortunes in India.

Notwithstanding the fact that Colonel Davis’ right foot had been shattered early in the morning, he had refused to leave the field for aid, but now at the close of the action he fell fainting from his horse. The wound was a dangerous one, and as the surgeons were of the opinion that more than a year must elapse before he could hope to walk, as soon as he was able to travel, General Taylor insisted on his going home, and thus closed his career in the Mexican War.