8o Audubon s Western Journal 



steamer came to take us back; for two days we 

 were quite determined to take the voyage home- 

 wards, but with returning health the men began 

 to feel encouraged, and I thought perhaps I ought 

 to make another efifort to go on. I consulted all I 

 could on the subject, and of course had varying 

 opinions. Captain McCown said:. "Go back, no 

 one can do anything with volunteers, you have no 

 power to compel obedience; now you go back 

 honorably, and you don't know what you will have 

 to endure on a march through Mexico." Lieut. 

 Caldwell urged me to go on, said "it was military 

 education never to give up, so long as there was 

 any possibility of the original idea being carried 

 out." 



Slowly I walked along thinking. I had not found 

 the men disobedient, and I believed the cholera 

 was the chief cause of discouragement, and the fact 

 that Col. Webb had left the men in their distress 

 the source of the anger against him. I decided 

 that I could go on, and determined to make one 

 more effort. That evening while sitting under an 

 ebony tree, about eight o'clock, in the darkness 

 which follows so rapidly on the short southern 

 twilight, I heard a song from one of our company, 

 and in a few minutes a chorus, good spirits seem to 

 have returned, and leaving my seat I went over to 

 Armstrong's Hotel. 



On the counter of the bar-room lay Lieut. 



