from Santa Fe, was in front, and Mr. Edwards began to get out its contents, the wagons putting themselves into form as they came up. The rapid advance of the enemy allowed no time for saddling horses, so the troops drew up across the road on foot, in a single line, determined to gain a victory as infantry. The enemy drew up at the top of a slight rise in the ground, in good order, with their cavalry on the right, and a small howitzer in the centre. Their left flank and body was composed of infantry. They made a gay ap pearance, particularly the cavalry. These were clad in bright scar BATTLE OF BRACITO. 417 et coats, with bell buttons and white belts, carrying sabres and carbines, and long lances, with red and green pennor 3. Their polished arms gave them quite a shining appearance, to which their brass helmets, with large black plumes, added not a little. Their whole force formed quite a contrast to the "rough, ready, and ragged" group opposed to them. When the Mexicans halted, a lieutenant came forward from their ranks, waving a black flag, with a skull and cross-bones worked upon it. The American interpreter, Thomas Caldwell, advanced to meet him. The lieutentant demanded that the American commander should come into his camp and have a parley. Mr. Caldwell replied, "If your general wants to see our commander let him come here." "We shall break your ranks, then, and take him there," was the retort of the Mexican. "Come and take him," said Mr. Caldwell; and the Mexican officer rode back, exclaiming, "a curse on you. Prepare for a charge. We give no quarter, and ask none." When he reached his lines, they opened their fire, advancing steadily. The charge was so handsomely made as to win the admiration of the volunteers, who looked on at their approach, and while they fired two volleys. The shot from their guns passed over the heads of the troops, but seriously incommoded Mr. Edwards's party at the wagons in the rear. They poured in their third fire at close pistol-shot, and wounded several of the Americans, who, as the smoke of the discharge lifted sufficiently to make a sure aim, poured' in two volleys from their rifles. At this moment, the Mexican dragoons were charging on the left of the line, but the heavy shower of balls turned them, and they wheeled, turned the flank and came down upon the wagon train. Mr. Edwards had about fifteen men under his command here, and seeing the enemy advancing, he ordered the party to shelter themselves behind the wagons, until the red coats were within ten yards, when each stepped out and gave them the contents of his piece. They fell back over a rising piece of ground, hotly pursued by fifteen mounted Americans. Just at the time of delivering the second volley, a part of the: Howard, company headed by Lieutenant Wright, took it into their heads to break the line, ran up to the Mexican cannon in front of them, and forcibly secured and dragged it into their own ranks. This act. daring and desperate, added to the perplexity of the Mexicans, who said they could not understand such a people. When their first fire had been given they saw the right wing of the Americans kneel down on the ground, and supposed them to have been swept away by their shot, and it was an incomprehensible mystery to them to find them sustain three volleys without returning one, and, when they were all shot down, to see fresh enemies jump up out of the grass. It was difficult to get more than two shots at them, though a few of the most fortunate had five or six. The Mexicans lost about two hundred men in killed and wounded, and left their arms, provisions, and stores, on the field of battle. They numbered about twelve hundred in all. Colonel Doniphan had but five hundred with him, and these were not all engaged. He had seven men wounded, but none killed. The Mexican women were gloriously represented in this fight. Two of them were engaged in the battle, serving at the cannon. One of them unfortunately was shot in the forehead, and the other, finding the battle lost, bravely bore her dying companion off the field. The dragoons, who had behaved so gallantly, met with a sad fate. The little squadron of American horse chased them into the mountains, where a hostile band of Navajos Indians, who had been watching the struggle in their concealment, set on them, and slew almost the whole of them for the sake of their bright uniforms and arms. Such was the first battle fought by the "Army of the West," called the battle of Bracito, from the bend of the river near which it was fought, which bears this name. It is remarkable on many accounts, besides that of being the earliest in the campaign. It was fought under every disadvantage for our countrymen. The surprise, the freshness of the troops, the scattered state of the force, the exposure of the train, were all against them. REINFORCEMENT FOR DONIPHAN. 419 L PASO, near which the battle of Bracito was fought, is a town of some three thousand inhabitants, on the high road from New Mexico to Chihuahua. No attempt was made to defend it by the dispirited Mexicans, and Colonel Doniphan entered it on the 27th of December. He determined to I wait here for the arrival of a reinforcement from Santa Fe. He had sent an express thither some time previously to Major Clarke, requesting that officer to come and join him, if possible, and at all events to send him Captain Weightman, with the battery, and thirty or forty men. Captain Weightman immediately started with six pieces of artillery, forty-five Laclede rangers, and sixty-five men of his own country, and made a forced march of three hundred and fifty miles in the dead of winter, with an endurance and perseverance almost unequalled in history. He was passed on the road by Major Clark, who hurried on to El Paso, and found that the Americans were expecting a night attack from the enemy [January 25.] He immediately sent back an express with twenty-eight fresh mules and information of the expected battle. Captain Weightman met the express, just as he was emerging from the fatiguing march over the Jornada del Muerto. He pushed forward twenty-two miles to Doña Ana, and there informed his command of the prospect of a fight, and of his intention to leave there all his baggage, and march at once with arms, ammunition, and as much food as they could carry ready cooked. He started at midnight on the 30th of January, and moved with such celerity as to reach El Paso at one o'clock in the next night, making a distance of sixty-one miles in one day, although the weather was so cold that they had to make fires every four or five miles, at which the men would stop a few at a time, to warm them. selves, and then hurry onward after the battery. Their sufferings on the march were not more remarkable than their chivalric devotion. Between Santa Fe and El Paso, they were obliged to ford the Rio Grande three times. On one occasion, the river was frozen over except in the middle, where masses of floating ice were whirled along by the current. The guns, caissons, and baggage were in grea danger of being lost by the ice and by quicksands. To save the artillery it became necessary to order a large detachment into the deep and chilling waters, and the orderlies produced their books and were about to name the men who should perform this duty, when a general shout burst forth from the gallant hearted men, and they rushed in a mass to perform the perilous duty, with the cry, are volunteers."* 66 we The applause of their comrades and Colonel Doniphan was liberally bestowed, and, with the approval of their own consciences, must have compensated them for their disappointment, when they discovered that they had been the victims of a false alarm. R UMOURS were brought while the troops were at El Paso, of preparations for resistance at Carrizal, a fortified place between them and Chihuahua. They learned that regular messengers were sent from El Paso to that place, and suspecting a priest named Ortiz, they laid a trap for him, which partially failed through the impatience of the officer in charge. He found a horse at the priest's house ready saddled and bridled, and, instead of waiting until his rider should have started, and then seized him, to ascertain what he carried, the officer surrounded the house, and politely knocked at the door. The priest and two gentlemen were brought to the colonel's quarters, and Ortiz was upbraided with treachery. He remarked that he did not consider the delivery of his country from a foreign enemy, by any means whatever, treachery. He proclaimed his enmity to Americans, but announced that his efforts to free the country of them would be open ones, and that he would not attempt to incite an insurrection because he knew it would be worse than useless. Colonel Doniphan admired his sentiments, but informed him that he would take care to prevent him from carrying them into effect, by keeping a strict watch over him. Ortiz had been at Bracito, and the colonel pithily concluded his address by remarking, that as he had seen how his countrymen had fought on ground of their own selecting, he would take him along southward, that he might have an opportunity of comparing it with their deeds when fighting was to be done on ground of the colonel's choosing. The holy father accordingly accompanied the expedition to Chihuahua.f * Conquest of California and New Mexico, by J M. Cutts, Esq. |