CHOOSES HIS BATTLE-GROUND.

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The army of Santa Anna was admirably equipped. It was composed of the flower of the Mexican nation, and numbered more than four to one of the army which it came to conquer. Hope and dire necessity both urged them to victory. Those who remembered that the American arms had triumphed at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterey, well knew that the regular soldiers, who had contributed so largely to those victories, had been ordered to distant fields of operations; and that even courage and enthusiasm, without discipline, are unavailing against multiplied numbers.

The commander, Santa Anna, had well considered the advantages he would derive from this movement, if successful, and all the chances were in his favor. Could he have driven General Taylor from his position at Buena Vista, he would have swept down to Comargo, and over the whole valley of the Rio Grande. All the munitions of war, provisions, camp equipage, and public property of every description would have fallen into his hands, and the American troops would have been driven from every inch of ground which they occupied in the Mexican territory.

If defeated, Santa Anna well knew that his moral power over his army would be broken. The desert in his rear, and over which he had just passed, could not be traversed by a retreating and dispirited army without great loss and suffering. The fate of his country seemed suspended on the issue of a single battle. His own fame, his place in history, were both to be decided in the coming conflict.

On the 22d of February, a day memorable in American history, General Taylor saw the Mexican host approach

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the narrow mountain-pass which he had selected as the Thermopyla of his army.

The position of the two armies at, and soon after the commencement of the battle, is shown by the map. The enemy's right, opposite to our left, is concentrated in columns of attack behind a spur of the mountain, and his riflemen are on the side of the inaccessible mountain firing across a deep gully at our riflemen on the same mountain. A small eminence and spur of the mountain between them is unoccupied by either party. On our extreme left is the 2d Indiana regiment, supported by three pieces of artillery, one of which was lost in the onset of the morning; next, is the 2d Illinois regiment, with a piece of artillery on either flank; next, two pieces of artillery and a squadron of dragoons; next, two pieces of artillery and the 2d Kentucky foot; next, four companies of the 1st Illinois regiment on a spur of the plateau, at the foot of which is a parapet across the road, behind which are four pieces of artillery and two companies of the 1st Illinois regiment. A little to the rear is the 3d Indiana regiment on an eminence, behind which is a squadron of dragoons; and still further to the rear, near the rancho of Buena Vista, is the 1st Mississippi regiment, and one piece of artillery just arrived from Saltillo under General Taylor. In rear of our extreme left, on the edge of the plateau, are the Kentucky and Arkansas cavalry.

General Taylor, in reviewing his army, could not but recollect that the troops which formed his first encampment at Corpus Christi, and had shared with him the toils and triumphs of the campaign of 1846, were not in his line of battle. New men had come to replace them. Would these, as those, stand firm amid sheets of

flame, the roar of artillery, and the impetuous rush of the charge? Were they worthy successors of the old guards, who would die at their posts, facing the enemy? These are questions which must have agitated the mind of the commander on the eve of that great battle. Fortunately for the country they have been all rightly answered. His own great example appears to have supplied the want of discipline, and inspired the troops with heroic enthusiasm. The volunteer is changed into the regular soldier; the citizen of yesterday becomes the veteran of to-day; and the American arms are everywhere triumphant.

The solid Mexican phalanx of twenty-two thousand men, armed and equipped for victory, have melted away before the steady fire of the artillery, and the deadly aim of the American rifle. When the last struggle for victory is made, and Santa Anna rallies his broken columns for a final charge; when the American regiments occupying the advance yield to superior numbers and fall back in confusion on the reserves, and the day seems lost; the commanding general hurries to the point where the battle is to be decided, orders the artillery to face about and unlimber, and gives the emphatic order, "A little more grape, Captain Bragg!" This saves the day. The Mexican columns now waver and halt. The curtains of night close down over the battle-field; the wounded and the dying rest in their gory bed; and the wearied officer and exhausted soldier sink together to repose.

The importance of this victory to the American arms cannot be exaggerated. It secured the whole frontier of the Rio Grande, and struck terror and dismay into the hearts of the Mexican nation. It was, in fact, the first great turning point of the war.