ll grasses
touched the very muzzles of our guns, and for a while the armies were
concealed from each other in the mingled smoke of the recent battle and
of the burning field.

* * * * *

There was a pause in the conflict, as if the two combatants, like
gallant boxers, stopped a moment to take breath and survey each other
with looks of defiance. The enemy's left had been driven back in
confusion; and, as their cannonade ceased, the road remained free for
the advance of our eighteen-pounders close to the first position that
had been occupied by the Mexican cavalry. This was promptly ordered by
General Taylor who caused the first brigade to take a new post on the
left of that formidable battery. The fifth was also advanced to the
extreme right of our new line, while the train was moved accordingly to
suit the altered front. As the battalion of artillery advanced slowly
over the field it came up to a private of the fifth, a gallant veteran
of the old world who had escaped the fires of Austerlitz and Waterloo to
die at Palo Alto. He was one of the first who fell in the action, and as
his fellow soldiers paused a moment to compassionate his sufferings,
when they saw the blood gushing with each pulsation from his shattered
limbs--he waved them onward--"Go on companions, regardless of
me,"--shouted he,--"I've got but what a soldier enlists for,--strike the
enemy;--let _me_ die!" Such were the exclamations of Napoleon's
soldiers, at Marengo, when the advancing squadrons of cavalry hesitated
to leap over the heaps of wounded Frenchmen: "Tread on _me_ comrades;
make a bridge of my body! Long live France! Vive la liberte!" The
romantic fervor of warlike enthusiasm deprives battle of half its
horrors, and makes death on the field a glorious exit from the
sufferings of humanity.

* * * * *

The movements we made in changing our line were answered by
corresponding alterations of the Mexican front, and, after a suspension
of action for nearly an hour the battle was resumed. The effect of these
changes was to edge our right flank somewhat nearer Matamoros, and to
enable our forces to hold the road against the Mexicans who rested their
lines on the thickets in their rear.

The attack was recommenced by a destructive fire of artillery. Wide
openings were continually torn in the enemy's ranks by our marksmen, and
the constancy with which the Mexican infantry endured the in