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colonel in the Mexican war.

They landed at Morillo in the Vuelta Abajo. Here the forces were
divided; one hundred and thirty under Crittenden remained to guard the
supplies, while Lopez with the rest pushed on into the interior.

There had been no disguise in the United States as to the object of this
expedition. Details in regard to it had been freely and recklessly
published, and there is a lesson to be learned even from this
comparatively trivial attempt to obtain freedom as to a proper
censorship of the press in time of warfare.

The Spanish government was fully informed beforehand as to all the
little army's probable movements. The consequence was that Lopez was
surrounded and his whole force captured by the Spanish.

The expected uprising of the Cuban people, by the way, had not taken
place.

Hearing no news of his superior officer, Crittenden at first made a
desperate attempt to escape by sea, but, being frustrated in this, he
took refuge in the woods.

At last he and his little force, now reduced to fifty men, were forced
to capitulate.

The United States Consul was asked to interfere in the case of
Crittenden, but refused to do so. It was said at the time that there
were two reasons for this: First, there was no doubt whatever as to the
nature of the expedition, and secondly, the consul, who does not appear
to have been particularly brave, was alarmed for his personal safety.

The trial, if trial it can be called, and condemnation followed with the
utmost, almost criminal, celerity.

In batches of six, Crittenden and his fifty brave surviving comrades
were shot beneath the walls of the fortress of Alara.

When the Spaniards ordered Crittenden, as was the custom, to kneel with
his back to the firing party, the heroic young Kentuckian responded:

"No! I will stand facing them! I kneel only to my God!"

It is stated that the bodies of the victims were mutilated in a horrible
manner.

There was no inconsiderable number of Cubans who sympathized with Lopez,
but, held as they were under a stern leash, they did not dare to
intercede for him.

He was garroted at Havana, being refused the honorable death of a
soldier. Some others of his comrades were shot, but most of them were
transported for life.

The sad fate of Crittenden aroused the greatest indignation and
bitterness in the United States, but the tenets of international law
forbade anything to be done in the case.

During the administrati