Southern shield., 1847-01-09


 Nor forid prose, nor honied lines of rhyme,
 Can blazon evil deedS or consecrate crime"
 [BYRoN.
 The saying is trite one, bat not less true than trite, that the every day occurrence of life develope events of fact-but of fact more strange and startling than were ever conceived by the tnind of hcton CT Drougnt forth by the dreams of rom ance. Of this, the career of the subject of the sublolned sketch adds one more to the many proofs which have long since established the pro position as truism. To the victors of Monterey the glory of the battle was not without it's leaven of grief. The gallant among the most gallant had fallen-the bravest among the most brave lay wrlthng under the pain of ghastly wounds. The living looked around and saw their com rades of the camp lying lifeless among the masses of miscellaneous dead.
 If it was thus with the victors how felt the vanquishedl Their defences, believed to be invulnerable, battered down-ther streets, through which but few days be- fore they walked in conscious security, strewn with their dying and dead. And they. the living remnant of their army preserved orIy from total annihiation by a proposition of surrender, and an appeal to the compassionate feelings of the foe, when they found further resistance unavaling. Humilating as they must have felt their condition to be-crushed as must have been their spirits, bowed thelr pride and sorrow-frighted their feelings. Yet how calm, how placid, how serene must have been tue reflections of the most keenly sensitive among them, when compared with the torture, superinduced by a sense of his own turpitude, treachery and base treason. which must have racked the mint of the degenerate Lieut.. Y, as in suller dejection and with shameful, averted look he skulked from a recognition of those comrade-soldiers whom he had known if his better and purer days; and as he shrunb from that flag of his country, which he hac recreantly periled his life to disgrace, bu which now waved in triumph above him But leaving him to ruminate on his faller fate let us to our sketch of his transition from station of confdence--his pride O. place ito his den of dishonor.
 Some years ago, when there was a con siderable military force stationed at For Leavenworth, young officer, whose tai ents and integrity had secured the unboun ded confidence of the Government and hl superior officers, so as to obtain for hin the office of Commissary and Paymaste at that station, appeared before the Com mander of the garrison with the complain that he had been robbed. He declares that his pocket-book had been taken an chest had been broken open, and iafg amount of his own and of the Governmen funds taken therefore. When asked whon he suspected, he said that his lst Sergean had disappeared, and as he had p ace great confidence in him, and allowed hr free access to his room, he strongly sas pected that he was the thief
 The Colonel immediately ordered se' eral officers and men to take difierer routes and pursue and arrest the fugltlv Sergeant. They were soon on his tracl though from the start the deserter had ( them, there was but little hope of his arres The Lieutenant who had been robbed als