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Anecdote.

St. Louis. While there, he acquired as wide spread a reputation for his tactics and severe discipline, as he had previously borne for coolness and composure under all circumstances. An anecdote related by Fayette Robinse, Esq., in his extremely valuable new work on the Amy of the United States, illustrates these qualities in the best manner. It is as follows:-" While stationed at Jefferson Barracks, General Kearny was drilling a brigade on one of the open fields near the post. The maneuver was the simple exercise of marching in line to the front. An admirable horseman, he sat with his face towards the troops, while the horse he rode, perfectly trained, was backed in the same direction, along which the command was marched. At once the animal fell, fastening the rider to the ground by his whole weight. His brigade had been drilled to such a state of insensibility, that not one of them came to his assistance, nor was it necessary. The line advanced to within about ten feet of him, when, in a loud distinct voice, calmly as if he had been in the saddle under no unusual circumstance, General Kearny gave the command, "Fourth company-obstacle-march.' The fourth company which was immediately in front of him was flanked by its captain in the rear of the other half of the grand division. The line passed on, and when he was thus left in rear of his men, he gave the command, 'Fourth company into line-march.' He was not seriously injured, extricated himself from his horse, mounted again, passed to the front of the regiment, and executed the next manœuver in the series he had marked out for the day's drill."

He was soon afterwards (1833) made lieutenant

Wounded at San Pasqual.

colonel of dragoons, and had to perform the onerous duty of forming a new arm of the service. The efficiency of his training is exhibited in the bearing of the dragoon regiments and the mounted rifles in the Mexican war. General Gaines has said that the first dragoons drilled by General Kearny were the best troops he ever saw. He served many years in the north-west, continually acquiring valuable information for the government by his expeditions, which at the same time impressed the Indians with a respect for the United States government. In June, 1846, he received the rank of brigadier-general, and was sent out from Fort Leavenworth on the expedition to New Mexico and California, the particulars of which we have before given. He exposed himself very much at the battle of San Pasqual, as he always does when there is danger. near. He was severely wounded with a lance, and would have been killed had not Lieutenant Emory of the topographical corps, rode up in time to shoot the enemy as he was about to make a second thrust.

A dispute as to rank and authority occurred between himself and Commodore Stockton in California, by which the interests of the country in some hands might have been compromised. As it was, however, private disagreements produced no public wrongs, and the question of rank is to be settled by the trial of Lieutenant-Colonel Fremont by a court martial, he having preferred to obey the commands of Commodore Stockton rather than those of General Kearny.

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COLONEL JOHN C. FREMONT.

HE services of Colonel Fremont in his celebrated expedition to Oregon, are too well known to require recapitulation here, and his exploits in California have already been narrated. We propose merely to give in this connection some illustrations of his character, and to express a hope that the result of a court-martial, before which he is now being tried, at Washington, for alleged offences, growing out of the dispute between Commodore Stockton and General Kearny, may not change his pursuit in life.

Pico, the brother of the governor of California, had been dismissed by the Americans on parole, and was recaptured in the act of breaking it. He was condemned by court-martial to death, and twelve o'clock was the hour fixed for his execution. The soldiers were clamorous for his death as a traitor, but the gallant colonel could not bear the thought of killing an enemy in any

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Humanity triumphant over discipline.

other way than on the battle-field, and he was meditating upon the matter with a heavy heart, when a company of ladies and children was led into the room, and on their knees begged the life of a husband and a father. The question was settled. Humanity triumphed over discipline and the laws of war. He raised the mother and exclaimed, "he is pardoned," and sent for the prisoner that he might learn his fate from the happy faces of his friends. He was overpowered with emo tion. He had learned his fate with all the pride and dignity of a Spaniard, but he could not bear the news of pardon. He threw himself at the colonel's feet, swore eternal fidelity, and begged the privilege of fighting and dying for him. How firm a friend he has since been may be apparent from the subjoined account of Colonel Fremont's ride, taken from the National Intelligencer. They passed over eight hundred miles in eight days, including two days detention and all stoppages. Don Pico is called by his Christian name Jesus, pronounced Haisoos.

The

"It was daybreak on the morning of the 22d of March, that the party set out from la Ciudad de los Angelos (the city of the Angels,) in the southern part of Upper California, to proceed in the shortest time to Monterey, on the Pacific ocean, distant full four hundred miles. way is over a mountainous country, much of it uninhabited, with no other road than a trace, and many defiles to pass, particularly the maritime defile of El Rincon, or Punto Gordo, fifteen miles in extent, made by the jutting of a precipitous mountain into the sea, which can only be passed when the tide is out, and the sea calm, and even then in many places through the waves

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