382 



scott's advance. 



exasperating to the people and difficult of accomplishment, refrained 

 from the exercise of a right which invaders have generally used in 

 other countries. Our officers, accordingly, paid for the supplies 

 obtained from the natives. Nor did they confine this principle of 

 action to the operations of the military authorities alone whilst act- 

 ing for the army at large, but, wherever it was possible, restrained 

 that spirit of private plunder and destruction which too commonly 

 characterizes the common soldier when flushed with victory over a 

 weak but opulent foe. When the ports of Mexico, however, had 

 fallen into our possession and the blockade was raised, they were at 

 once opened to the trade of all nations upon the payment of duties 

 more moderate than those which had been collected by Mexico. 

 The revenue, thus levied in the form of a military contribution from 

 Mexican citizens upon articles they consumed, was devoted to the 

 use of our army and navy. It was, in effect, the seizure of Mexi- 

 can commercial duties and their application to our necessary pur- 

 poses, and thus far, only, was the nation compelled to contribute 

 towards the expense of the war it had provoked. 



Early in August, General Scott had been reinforced by the arrival 

 of new regiments at Puebla, and on the 7th of that month, he re- 

 solved to march upon the capital. Leaving a competent garrison in 

 that city, under the command of Colonel Childs, and a large num- 

 ber of sick and enfeebled men in the hospitals, he departed with 

 about ten thousand eager soldiers towards the renowned Valley of 

 Mexico. 



In the same month, three hundred and twenty-eight years before, 

 Hernando Cort6z and his slender military train, departed from the 

 eastern coasts of Mexico, on the splendid errand of Indian con- 

 quest. After fighting two battles, with the Tlascalans who then 

 dwelt in the neighborhood of Puebla, and with the Cholulans whose 

 solitary pyramid, — a grand and solemn monument of the past, — 

 still rises majestically from the beautiful plain, he slowly toiled 

 across the steeps of the grand volcanic sierra which divides the val- 

 leys and hems in the plain of Mexico. Patiently winding up its 

 wooded sides and passing the forests of its summit, the same grand 

 panoramic scene lay spread out in sunshine at the feet of the Ameri- 

 can General that three centuries before had greeted the eager and 

 longing eyes of the greatest Castilian soldier who ever trod the 

 shores of America. 



In order to comprehend the military movements which ended the 

 drama of the Mexican war, it will be necessary for us to describe 



