but mine, being new and not well trained, refused; two others balked, and their riders started down the ravine to turn the breastwork where the rest of the troop had entered.  I made another attempt to clear the guns with my horse, turning him around—­feeling all the time secure at thinking the guns discharged—­I put his head toward them and gave him spur, but he again balked; so turning his head down the ravine, I too started to ride round the breastwork.

“As I came down, a lancer dashed at me with lance in rest.  With my sabre I parried his thrust, only receiving a slight flesh-wound from its point in the arm, which felt at the time like the prick of a pin.  The lancer turned and fled; at that moment a ball passed through my horse on the left side and shattered my right side.  The shot killed the horse instantly, and he fell upon my left leg, fastening me by his weight to the earth.  There I lay, right in the midst of the action, where carnage was riding riot, and every moment the shot, from our own and the Mexican guns, tearing up the earth around me.  I tried to raise my horse so as to extricate my leg but I had already grown so weak with my wound that I was unable, and from the mere attempt, I fell back exhausted.  To add to my horror, a horse, who was careering about, riderless, within a few yards of me, received a wound, and he commenced struggling and rearing with pain.  Two or three times, he came near falling on me, but at length, with a scream of agony and a bound, he fell dead—­his body touching my own fallen steed.  What I had been in momentary dread of now occurred—­my wounded limb, which was lying across the horse, received another ball in the ankle.

“I now felt disposed to give up; and, exhausted through pain and excitement, a film gathered over my eyes, which I thought was the precursor of dissolution.  From this hopeless state I was aroused by a wounded Mexican, calling out to me, ‘Bueno Americano,’ and turning my eyes toward the spot, I saw that he was holding a certificate and calling to me.  The tide of action now rolled away from me and hope again sprung up.  The Mexican uniforms began to disappear from the chapparal, and squadrons of our troops passed in sight, apparently in pursuit.  While I was thus nursing the prospect of escape, I beheld, not far from me, a villainous-looking ranchero, armed with an American sergeant’s short sword, dispatching a wounded American soldier, whose body he robbed—­the next he came to was a Mexican, whom he served the same way, and thus I looked on while he murderously slew four.  I drew an undischarged pistol from my holsters, and laying myself along my horse’s neck, watched him, expecting to be the next victim; but something frightened him from his vulture-like business, and he fled in another direction.  I need not say that had he visited me I should have taken one more shot at the enemy, and would have died content, had I succeeded in making such an assassin bite the dust.  Two hours after, I had the pleasure of shaking some of my comrades by the hand, who were picking up the wounded.  They lifted my Mexican friend, too, and I am pleased to say he, as well as myself, live to fight over again the sanguine fray of Resaca de la Palma."