Phil and his comrades had nothing to do with this combat except to sit still and listen.
"They are merely feeling for a position," said Bill Breakstone. "They want a good place from which they can crash down on our left flank in the morning, but I don't think they'll get it."
Already the sun was gone in the east, and its rays were dying on the mountains. Then the night itself came down, with the rush of the south, and the firing from both cannon and rifles ceased. Ampudia had failed to secure the coveted position, but presently the two armies, face to face in the darkness, lay down to rest, save for the thick lines of pickets almost within rifle shot of one another. Once more the night was heavy with chill, but Phil did not feel it now. He and his comrades looked to their horses and secured places for rest. The General, still deeply anxious about his rear guard at Saltillo and fearing a flanking movement by Santa Anna, around the mountain, rode back once more to the town, under the escort of Jefferson Davis, leaving the army, as before, under command of Wool. In this emergency an officer past three score showed all the physical energy and endurance of a young man, spending two days and two nights in the saddle.
Phil slept several hours, but he awoke after midnight, and did not go to sleep again. He, Arenberg, and Breakstone were under the immediate command of Middleton, who allowed them much latitude, and they used it for purposes of scouting. They crept through gullies and ravines and along the edges of the ridges, the darkness and the stone projections giving them shelter. They passed beyond the outermost American pickets, and then stopped, crouching among some bushes. All three had heard at the same time low voices of command, the clank of heavy wheels, and the rasping of hoofs over stones. The three also divined the cause, but Breakstone alone spoke of it in a whisper:
"They are dragging artillery up the side of the mountain in order that they may rake us to-morrow. That Santa Anna calls himself the Napoleon of Mexico, and he's got some of the quality of the real Napoleon."
By raising up a little they could see the men and horses with the guns, and they crept back to their own camp with the news. The American force was too small to attempt any checking movement in the darkness, and that night Santa Anna dragged five whole batteries up the mountainside.