The Shasta courier., 1861-10-12
Incidents Of the Mexican War.
BY vIDETTE.


''It is the fate of war, that the leaders, if
they survive the battle win the laurels of vic
tory, and if they fall, are honored with a re-
QUEEN, a monument and place on the endu-
ring rolls of history While the brave hearts
and strong arms that obey their commands,
giving and receiving the death dealing blows,
and dying almost unnoticed on the field they
have won, are unremembered except in the
homes made desolate by their fall"
On the l4th day of September, 1S47, the
American army entered the city of Mexico
the long talked of, the long looked for-the
Mecca of all our hopes and desires. The
Halls of the Montezumas were ours We bi-
vouacked in the grand Alameda, one of the
most beautiful parks at that time on the
Western Continent, planted with the most
choicest flowers of the tropics, all in full
bloom, and ornamented with splendid foun-
tains interspersed among grand old sycamore
trees, and ii tall, slender and graceful pop
lars that towtred an hundred feet towards
heaven; this lovely place seized full hold of
our northern imaginatious.
Two days had elapsed since the fighting,
and we were enjoying ourselves with great
gusto, finding consolation in some good old
wine and brandies captured from large
store hard by, when my ear caught a not un-
familiar sound which instinctively told me
that danger was near. 1t was the peculiar
cat-like tramp of Mexican cavalry. Our bu-
glers sounded the assembly, and we were at
our posts at the guns before the last bugle
note rang out, while the drivers silently but
rapidly harnessed the teams and hitched in.
Twas but squirt of squadron of cavalry
that had entered the city by an unguarded
street in the hopes of capturing something.
or damaging US in some way A volley was
fired into them from the infantry guard and
the cavalry retreated as rapidly as they had
entered though with many an empty saddle,
but not without cutting off, however, several
of our men who, victims of propensity u.s.
ual on such occasions, went off without per-
mission, intent on foraging. Our Captain
ordered the roll to be called, and after obey
ing the order, had to report one man absent
Sam Stanley, the favorite of the Company
was missing. A detachment was immedi-
ately sent in search of him, and we found
him but few hundred yards off, lying
against stone wall with an ugly cash in his
side-hs discharged pistol lying near him,
and grasping tight in his hands a long Mex
ican lance with which he had been wounded.
Near him in the street lay two Mexican dra-
goons, the one shot, and the other pierced
after he had been dragged from his horse by
Stanley-both dead.
Poor Sam had been attacked by numbers
he fought bravely, but had received his death
wound, and his hours were numbered We
carried him as carefully in our arms as if he
were little child, to place of shelter from
the hot sun, and took turns in cooling his
feverish lips with the Juice of the most de-
licious fruits but still he sark, and as his
last moments approached, he begged of me
to carry that lance, blood stained as it was,
to his old home, and give it to his mother,
dying, with a smile on his countenance, he
uttered the words.
need not tell you how religiously exc
cuted his dying request, nor of the sorrowful
scene of its delivery to that poor old white
haired woman. The blow was heavy to her.
and but a few months elapsed ere she follow.
ed her darling boy. rs she called him, to that
elysium where soldiers who die in battle go.*
We determined to place the remains of STAN
ley in secret grave, where the Eandal foe
would not find him when our backs were
turned upon the city of the Aztecs. So we
waited till night drew her curtain around us,
and then by the moons pale beams we car
ried him in silence to the Alameda, and laid
him in the grave that we had secretly prepar-
ed for him amid a cluster of rose bushes be-
meath sycamore tree. There was no officers
there to perform the lastsad %es. and we re-
luctantly omitted all re-. ceremony.-
Not one of those wcre<-xs fe whom the
dead soldier had, with his brave heart and
stout arm, aidad to carve a name in the his
tory of our country. There wero none but
his comrades in battle to heave sigh, per-
chance to shed tear, over the grave of the
dead soldier
In passing through Mexcico in 1919, WIS.,
tied the grave of my old comrade, and as the
gaily dressed cavallcros and senortas faun-
ted by within few feet of the grave, looking
with curious wonder at the stranger standing
there with his head uncovered. Perhaps they
thought to them the compliment was raid
The grave had remained untouched, and the
grand old sycamore still stood sentry over
him and like guardian angels, the beautiful
roses. nodding their heads in the breeze watt
ed by, seemed to say to me, we watch him
well-no harm shall come.n
If the name of Sam Stanley, a good, hon.
est, brave soldier, is rescued from entire OBJ
livion for this is his only epitaph,) by this
little sketch, the object of the writer has
been accomplished. Sleep on, brave COM
rade our next meeting, perhaps, will be
joyful one-the time approachers rapidly.
$ 1t is an old and beautiful superstition amongst
the common soldiers of almost every army that the
spirit of the soldier slain battle is Immediately
waited by angels to the realms @. eternal bliss.-Po
lice Gasette.