ground. The batteries of Sherman and Bragg did much execution, not only in front, but particularly upon the masses which had gained the rear. Washington's battery on the right had also opened its fire, and the artillery now made the columns of the enemy to roll too and fro like ships upon the ocean. The action was at this time terrible. The battle raged along the entire line of both armies, causing the vollies of artillery to reverberate through the mountains like the thunder of their own storms. Twenty-five thousand men were then engaged in a dark and fearful struggle for death or victory.

The Mexican cavalry still pressed on the left, and threatened a charge upon the Mississippi riflemen, who, under Colonel Davis, had been ordered to support the Indiana regiment. The Colonel immediately threw his command into the form of a V, with the opening toward the enemy. In this position he firmly awaited the advance of the cavalry, who came dashing on at full speed. The Americans reserved their fire until they could take aim at the enemy's eyes, and then poured forth a volley from both lines, which broke the opposing ranks, overthrowing horse and rider in promiscuous slaughter.* This retarded but did not stop their progress, and in a little while they rallied for a renewed attack.

About this time a portion of the enemy's infantry had become detached from the main body and were suffering such terrible slaughter, that General Taylor thought proper to send Lieutenant Crittendon with a flag of truce to the Mexican commander in order to demand their surrender.

The Mexican officer, pretending not to understand the character of his mission, insisted that he should be blindfolded, according to the rules of war, and thus had the lieutenant carried into the camp of Santa Anna himself. This was a ruse to extricate the Mexican cavalry from their dangerous position, and pending this truce, they were all drawn off by a different road from that by which they had gained this position.

Lieutenant Crittenden was conducted blindfolded to the tent of the Mexican general-in-chief, which he found a long distance from the scene of action, and in a situation which he thought the safest place he had been in during the whole day. As he approached Santa Anna's tent, he was greeted with a most tremendous flourish of trumpets, which might have been heard a mile off, but produced no very great terror in the mind of the Kentuckian. His blind was taken off, and he found himself in the presence of the famous Mexican chief, surrounded by a brilliant staff of bedizened, gilded, and moustached officers. Santa Anna &pologized to the lieutenant for the act of his officers in having him blindfolded, saying that so far from having any desire to conceal his situation, he was desirous of exhibiting to General Taylor the utter folly of resisting so powerful an army as he had under his command. To which the lieutenant replied, that his simple message was to demand his [Santa Anna's] immediate surrender to General Taylor,

In the meanwhile the third Indiana regiment under Colonel Lane, supported by a considerable body of horse, was ordered to join Colonel Davis. At the same time Lieutenant Kilburn with a piece of Captain Bragg's artillery, was directed to support the infantry there engaged. The action now recommenced with redoubled vigor, and every inch of ground was contested with obstinacy. Several charges were made by the enemy, both with cavalry and infantry, but they were resolutely met, and the Mexicans repulsed with heavy loss. Meanwhile all the regular cavalry and Captain Pike's squadron of Arkansas horse, had been placed under the orders of brevet Lieutenant-Colonel May, with directions to hold in check the enemy's column, which was still advancing to the rear along the base of the mountain; and this he effected in conjunction with the Kentucky and Arkansas cavalry, under Colonels Marshall and Yell.

Meanwhile the left, which was still strongly threatened by a superior force, was further strengthened by a detachment of Captain

When this extraordinary demand was translated to the Mexican, he raised his hands and eyebrows in utter astonishment at the temerity and presumption of such a message, and replied, that he would expect General Taylor to surrender in an hour, or he would destroy all his forces. Lieutenant Crittenden's reply, which we have already given-" General Taylor never surrenders!”—terminated the interview, and the battle recommenced, and was continued until night. In connection with this affair, the following humorous anecdote is related of Colonel May. He was on the very eve of charging the detachment with his dragoons, when Lieutenant Crittenden passed with his white flag. The colonel rode out across the path and inquired the object of the mission. "I am going," replied Crittenden, "to tell those fellows to surrender in order to save their lives." "Wait till I have charged them." Impossible; the old man has sent me, and I must go on." "But my good fellow," said May, entreatingly, "for God's sake just rein up for five minutes and give us a chance at them." "Would do any thing to oblige you, colonel, but I have the old man's orders, and there is no help for it."

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He dashed forward, while the colonel returned to his squadron in the worst of all possible humors against flags of truce.—N. O. Bulletin.

Colonel May had been manœuvring for an hour and a half to bring these 6000 Mexicans into a ravine where they might have been utterly destroyed. It was his intention to pour in a discharge of grape shot from Bragg's battery, which was under his command, and then having thus thrown them into confusion, to charge them with two regiments of dragoons. They would have been annihilated. As it was, they escaped. General Taylor's motive was undoubtedly pure humanity-a desire to spare the unnecessary effusion of blood. The reader will observe the high compliment paid by the general to the military talents of Colonel May, by supposing that if he should attack this body of Mexicans, their utter destruction, annihilation, was a matter of dead certainty.

Bragg's, and a portion of Captain Sherman's batteries. The concentration of artillery fire upon the masses of the enemy at the base of the mountain, and the determined resistance offered by the two regiments opposed to them, had created confusion in their ranks, and some of the corps attempted to effect a retreat upon their main line of battle. In order to prevent this the squadron of the first dragoons under Lieutenant Rucker was ordered up the deep ravine which they were endeavoring to cross, with orders to charge and disperse them. The lieutenant proceeded to the point indicated; but being exposed to a heavy fire from a battery established to cover the retreat of those corps, he could not accomplish his object.

While this was going on, the American baggage train was observed winding along the Saltillo road. At sight of it the lancers formed, evidently with the design of making an attack upon a part of the army likely to offer but little resistance; but at this important moment Lieutenant Rucker rushed along, giving them a sweeping fire, which scattered a part of them with the loss of many killed and wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel May with two pieces of Sherman's battery, under Lieutenant Reynolds, was also ordered to defend the hacienda of Buena Vista, where the train and baggage of the army were deposited. In the mean time the scattered forces near the hacienda, composed in part of the commands of Majors Trail and German, had partly organized under Major Monroe, chief of artillery, with the assistance of Major Morrison, volunteer staff, and were posted to defend the position. Before the American cavalry had reached the hacienda, that of the enemy had made an attack. The latter were far more numerous than their antagonists; but their fierce charge was successfully resisted by the Kentucky and Arkansas cavalry under Colonels Marshall and Yell. In the conflict the Mexican column was divided, one portion sweeping by the depot where it received a destructive fire from the force collected there, and then gained a mountain opposite under a fire from Lieutenant Reynolds's section. The second portion gained the base of the mountan on the left. In the charge at Buena Vista, Colonel Yell and Adjutant Vaughan, of the Kentucky cavalry, were mortally wounded. They were officers of much promise.*

* Colonel YELL was born in Kentucky in 1797, and with his father's family