The Abbeville banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1847-1869, 1847-03-24

son and thirty chosen men taken, equally
from Milam's, Pennington's and Clay's
companies, and travelled about eighty miles
towards this place on the Palomas road, and
finding no enemy and hearing nothing OF
him, l bore westward and passed the noun
tain into the plain, through which the Aqua
Nueva road passes, which / struck between
the hacienda Incarnation and San Salvador.
At this place l met with many Mcxicans,
who gave me the most positive assurances
that to their knowledge there was no Mexi-
can army in the neighborhood, and it being
late in the evening of the third day of recon-
moisonce, and my men being very tired and
hungry, determined to go to the hacinda,
about ten miles distant, and spend the night.
At this place met with Major Borland,
of the Arkansas cavalry, with about forty
ting the arrival of an additional force, to ena-
BILE him to attack detachment of the enc
my, two hundred strong, then said to be at
the town of Salado, about forty miles dis
tant. Our united forces we considered
equal to the undertaking; and on the fol-
lowing evening, little before night, we
started on this enterprise. After travelling
about twelve miles we met with some Mex
leans, who assured us there were no Mexi-
can soldiers at Salado, and that the distance
was at least sixty miles. We had no guide,
and the night was very dark, and a tremen-
dous storm was coming up. These facts,
together with the information given us of the
non-existcnce of the enemy in the neigh
borhood, determined us to return to the ha-
cienda. Had we continued our route one
or two hours longer we should have met
Gen. Minon with 5000 cavalry.
On the following morning we found our
selves completely encompassed by this force,
and little after sunrise their bugles SCUM
dcd on all sides, which VIC answered with
our solitary buglc and three cheers well
told. The troops approached on one side,
and white flag upon another. We rcqui-
red their troops to retire previous to any cofi-
ference, which being complied with, the
flag approached, and the result was, that
in one hour we would answer their admo-
milton to surrender. We had sixty-six men
and six officers, with about twenty rounds
of ammunition each-no water, no bread,
no meat. They said they had 5000 men
present, and the demonstrations around us
left but little room 10 doubt its truth substan-
TALLY. The result of our deliberation was,
that we would hear proposition from them,
in answer to which they proposed to send
in an officer of equal rank with myself,
whilst l repaired to their camp. This be-.
ing done, rode out, received the proposition
of the General. returned, and stated them
to our officers, who agreed to them; again
returned to the General, and about IL
o'clock we surrendered as prisoners of war
the terms being that we were entitled to
the most liberal and extended privileges to
which prisoners unders any circumstances
are entitled.
Notwithstanding the great disparity of
numbers-abou. forty-four to one-our
men exhibited a thirst for the fight truly
ual who felt the slightest disincllnation to
the conflict, it could not be detected, and
many, very many, actually shed tears at
the necessity of surrender. To have al
lowed them to fight under the circumstances
would have subjected them to inevitable
destruction, without rendering any valua-
BILE services to their country. Whatever
may be though, Of this misfortune by our
countrymen, all we ask is, that they will
be slow in passing censures until they can
hear from US more in detail.
We left the hacienda incarnation the
day after our capture for this place, and on
the evening of that day Capt. Henrie of the
Arkansas volunteers made his escape, and
has not since been heard of. He is the son
of Major Arthur Henrie, formerly of the
Pearl-st., House, Cincinnati
His escape was the occasion of some
occurrences on our route which it is unne-
cessary to repeat here, bu, which were far
from agreeable to us.
On our route here, we met the renowned
Gen. Santa Anna, in large clumsy carri-
age drawn by eight mules, two behind, two
in front and four in the centre. had a
short conference with him, in which, after
asking me few questions concerning our
army and generals, and the purpose of my
expedition TO Incarnation, he gave me assu-
RANGES of good treatments whilst prisoners,
told us we would be sent from this to
the city of Mexico, and he hopea shortly to
our own country His appearance made