338 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



to the building up of monarchy in the United States. 

 This impudent publication was not suppressed, but was 

 treated with deserved and silent contempt, until it died 

 for want of nourishment. 



But when the war closed in 1865 the empire in Mexico, 

 upheld by French bayonets, was in existence, in defiance 

 of the Monroe Doctrine. It was not in peaceable posses- 

 sion, for the Mexican people had risen in arms in every 

 state, and Benito Juarez was making a manly fight for 

 the independence of his country. 



It was my good fortune at the close of the war, in June, 

 1865, to be sent to the Rio Grande on the Texas side, as 

 an adjutant-general of the Army of Observation of forty 

 thousand men, sent there by General Grant. The pur- 

 pose of this army was readily understood by the French 

 and Austrians in Mexico. Such a force drawn up along 

 the narrow river which separates the two countries creat- 

 ed a great sensation among the European invaders. I 

 well remember a letter of General Grant, written to Gen- 

 eral Steele, who commanded that army. They had been 

 classmates at school and the General wrote with a frank- 

 ness different from ordinary communications between 

 military men. I have no copy of that letter, and I do not 

 find that it has ever been published. The letter instruct- 

 ed the general commanding the Army of Observation of 

 the Rio Grande as to the course to be taken in relation 

 to the Confederate forces under General Dick Taylor. 

 It referred to the fact that cavalry would be sent into the 

 interior of Texas, and other details of a possible cam- 

 paign west of the Mississippi. It then approached the 

 subject of the diversion in favor of Mexico, using this 

 language : 



As to affairs in Mexico, you will observe a strict neutrality be- 

 tween the hostile forces; by neutrality, however, I mean the 

 French and English acceptation of that term. 



