Burning the Supplies at Agua Nueva

As Mexican troops neared Agua Nueva, the forward position of the American army, Taylor decided to pull his forces back to the more defensible area known as Angostura (the Narrows), south of the rancho Buena Vista. The Arkansans were left in the rear guard to help evacuate the supplies they could, and burn whatever was left. A regular army officer described the scene as such:

"The noise of the falling timbers, the roar of the flames, the huge column of ascending smoke, the appearance of armed and mounted men moving between spectator and the fire, with brilliant light flashing here and there on burnished arms and glittering appointments,—taken in connection with scattered shots interchanged between still other of our advanced parties and those of Ampudia, the heavy rumbling of our rapidly retreating train of wagons, intermingled with the distant trumpet…—all conspired to render that cold, deep midnight one that could never be forgotten."