 | I.—THE CRUSADE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Legends of Mexico |  |
1. I.—THE CRUSADE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
“Ho! for the New Crusade!”
It was in the spring of 1846, that this cry, thundering from twenty-nine
states, aroused a People into arms, and startled Europe, its Kings and
Slaves, into shuddering awe.
It was in the dawn of the year, when the blossoms of spring were upon
the trees, and the Promise of a golden harvest on the fields, that a fiery
blast came from the far south, scattering the blossoms of battle over the
hills of our land, and darkening the sky with clouds of lurid grandeur—
clouds that gave Promise of a harvest of blood.
In the spring of 1846, from the distant south, there came echoing in
terrible chorus, a Cry, a Groan, a Rumor! That Cry, the earnest voice
of two thousand brave men, gathered beneath the Banner of the stars in a
far land, encompassed by their foes, with nothing but a bloody vision
of Massacre before their eyes. And the Cry, wrung from two thousand
manly hearts, said the People of the Union.—We are in danger, but the
Banner of the Stars floats above us. An army, twice our number surrounds
us, Assassins hung like vultures, in the shadows of our camp, a
Plague broods in the poisonous air, of the swamp and chaparral. Come
—help us—fight with us! Or if you cannot fight, Come, and behold us
die, for the flag of Washington!'
That groan! It was the incoherent yell, of the first American soldier,
who with the knife in his back, and the hot blood gurgling from his
throat, fell at the Assassin's feet on the shores of Rio Grande.
The Rumor! Like the hurricane of the tropics it came. First, a small
cloud in a serene sky, far on the horizon it was seen, and no one wondered
to behold it. Then darkening up the zenith, it shut the southern
sky in a wall of ebony, and flashed its quivering lightnings far over the
snow mountains of the north. And it rolled on, that brooding Rumor, and
it gathered, and it grew, until its shadow darkened the Nation, and its
thunder and lightning spoke to the hearts of fifteen millions people.
For that Rumor spoke of a battle, fought by American soldiers, amid
the sands and thorns of the hot chaparrel; it spoke of hideous charges,
made through the darkness of yawning ravines, by men heroic to despair;
it spoke of a contest, lengthening its bloody trail over the course of two
long days; of a brave foe, fighting while there was a hope, and then
crowding in heaps of wounded, through the lone desert, and choking the
calm river with their mangled dead.
As thunder at once, convulses and purifies the air, so that Rumor did
its sudden and tempestuous work, in every American heart. At once,
from the People of twenty-nine states, quivered the Cry—
“To Arms! Ho! for the new crusade!”
Never since the days of Washington, had an excitement, so wild and
universal, thrilled in the souls of freemen. From the mountains of
Maine—they are yonder, rising ruggedly in their stern grandeur, with
snowy mantles, bound about their granite brows—to the prairies of the
Texas—blossoming for hundreds of miles, a wilderness of flowers—that
cry startled a People into action, and sent the battle-throbs palpitating
through fifteen millions hearts.
Long after we are dead, History will tell the children of ages yet to
come, how the hosts gathered for the Crusade, in the year 1846.
From the mountain gorges of the north, hardy birds of freemen took
their way, turning their faces to the south, and shouting—Mexico! In
the great cities, immense crowds assembled, listening in stern silence, to
the stories of that far-off land, with its luxuriant fruits, its plains of flowers,
its magnificent mountains overshadowing calm lakes and golden cities,
and then the cry rung from ten thousand throats—Mexico! The farmhouses
of the land, thrilled with the word. Yes, the children of Revolutionary
veterans, took the rifle of '76 from its resting place, over the
hearth, and examined its lock, by the light of the setting sun, and ere
another dawn, were on their way to the south, shouting as they extended
their hands toward the unseen land—“Mexico!”
Even now I see the panorama of that wild excitement spread varied
and bewildering before me. I see the workshop, give forth its hardy Mechanic—I
see, the sturdy mountaineer, come from his gorge—the embrowned
farmer from his fields—the pale student from his desk—and all
join the army of the New Crusade, and pour with arms glittering and
banners waving upon the plains of Mexico.
The world beheld the sight and wondered. Old Germany, festering
under her chains, looked up in awe, at this strange spectacle—an every
day people suddenly transformed into a disciplined army. France, saw
it too, and sighed as she turned her eyes to the grave of Napoleon. But
England, hypocritical and ferocious, at once the fox and the hyena, crouching
on her trophies,—the skulls of Irish starvation and the corses of Hindoo
Massacre—England, whom we hurled from our shores in the Revolution,
that Carthage of Modern History, brutal in her revenge and Satanic in her
lust for human flesh, behold the American People, in arms, with trembling,
and recognized their victorious march to the south, with niggardly praise.
It must be confessed that the great national excitement of 1846, this
transformation of a plain working people, into a formidable, yes, an unconquered
army, struck the tyrants of the old world with awe. The Man
who sits upon the Russian throne, worshipped as a God, and yet never
for one moment secure from the assassin's steel, beheld the wondrous
sight, and reviewed his armies of slaves, with new anxiety, asking from
his satraps an explanation of that magic word—“The People!”
And while the world wondered, the “People” of America rushed to
arms, and marched by tens and twenties, by hundreds and thousands, by
companies, by legions, by armies, to that golden land, which rose to their
vision, rich with the grandeur of past ages.
Standing on the mountain tops, the Crusaders of the Nineteenth Century
beheld it—that golden and bloody land of Mexico.
A land rich in the productions of every clime, where the fruits are more
luxuriant, the flowers more rain-bow like in their dazzling dies, the birds
more radiant in their plumage, than in any other land on the wide earth
of God. A land where monuments arise, mysterious and awful, with the
history and religion, of those solemn ages which melt away in the abyss
of time. A land, where every stone bears some tokens of the lost nations
and the dead people of ten thousand years.
A land, where in the course of forty-eight hours, you can ascend from
the hot plains of the tropics, festering with plague, to the mild clime of
eternal spring, strewn with the fruits of the temperate zone; to the snow-clad
mountains, frozen as with the ice of the Polar waste, and with the
volcanoes throbbing with their breasts, like hearts of fire, beneath shrubs
of snow! A land, no less beautiful with its flower-framed lakes, than
magnificent with its cathedrals, with images and shrines of solid gold, no
less gorgeous with its panorama of mountain, pyramid and valley, than
bewildering with its City of Cortes and Montezuma, that dream of gold
and blood, which men call—Mexico.
“Ho! for the new crusade!”
Yes, against this land, so burdened with awful memories, the American
People, marched in deadly and determined crusade.
Why was this?
Because the infant Texas had felt the rude grip of Mexican Massacre?
Because the homes of that virgin soil, had been desolated, the men butchered
and the women dishonored, by the hordes of military chieftains,
trained to kill from childhood, and eager to kill, for so much per day?
Why this Crusade?
Was it because the Alamo, still cried out for vengeance? That gory
the blood of five hundred mangled bodies—the bodies of brave Texians
cut down by Mexican bayonets and pierced by Mexican balls, and hacked
by Mexican knives?
Why this Crusade?
Was it because the American People, having borne for a series of years,
the insults and outrages of Mexican Military despots, and seen their brothers
in Texas, butchered like dogs, at last resolved, to bear insult and
outrage no longer, at last, determined to take from the Tomb of Washington
the Banner of the Stars, and swore by his Ghost, never to stay their
efforts, until it floated over the City of Mexico!
These are some of the reasons of this new crusade, but not all. Here
is the truth of the matter—
From the dark cloud of battle was stretched forth the hand of Almighty
God, and even from the shock of carnage, an awful voice spoke out: `I
speak to Man in the thunder storm, I speak to him, in the Plague. Now,
I speak to him, in the breath of war, and write my lessons in the blackness
of the battle-field!'
Is this false? Does not Almighty God, lead the Nations to civilization,
through the reeking Golgothas of War?
But have a care, brave People! The same tide of war, that now sweeps
over the vallies, and mounts the pyramids of Mexico, may roll back upon
your American land. What Prophet shall dare to read the meaning of yonder
portentous Future? While we write our record of the war, that War is
still in the hey-day of its tempestuous career. The events that we chronicle,
have not yet reached the consummation. They ripen into history,
even as we write them down.
Strange and bewildering events!
First we hear of the Battles of the Wilderness, those glorious struggles
of the desert and chapparal, where a few hardy Americans beat back and
trampled into dust the bravery and chivalry of Mexico. Two battles,
fought on two successive days, under a burning sun, the Americans fighting
with the certainty of Massacre in case of defeat: the Mexicans looking
forward, first to triumph, then to butchery!
Next comes thundering on our ears, the story of a three days' fight,
fought by the children of Washington, against walls and bars and bolts,
and legions of armed men, a battle which for dogged perseverance and
sullen courage has no comparison in history; that glorious battle of the
city and mountain, which the Sierra Nevada beheld, and Monterey felt to
her most sacred home!
Then, another battle of three days, fought amid the snows of winter,
on the desert plain, by the Hero and his Crusaders, against the Mexicans
and their leader: a terrible triumph, which drew more tears from the
war.
Linked with this battle, in the same breath of glory, comes the story
of the conquered fort and the bombarded city, and last of all, the history
of the bloody route when the mountains of Cerro Gordo, could scarce
afford a hiding place to the dismayed leader of the Mexican legions.—
Take it, all in all, such a Crusade of a civilized People, against a semibarbarous
horde of slaves, has no parallel in history.
There is a deeper reason, in all this, than meets the superficial eye.
Beneath the bloody foam of battle, flows on, forever, the serene and awful
current of Divine truth.
Do you ask the explanation of this mystery? Search the history of
the North American People, behold them forsake the shores of Europe,
and dare the unknown dangers of the distant wilderness, not for the lust
of gold or power, but for the sake of a Religion, a Home.
An Exodus like this—the going forth of the oppressed of all nations
to a new world—the angels never saw before. All parts of Europe,
sent their heart-wounded, their down-trodden thousands to the wilds
of North America.
The German and the Frenchman, the Swede and the Irishman, the
Scot and the Englishman, met in the wild, and grouped around one
altar—Sacred to the majesty of God and the rights of man. From this
strangely mingled band of wanderers, a new People sprung into birth.
A vigorous People, rugged as the rocks of the wilderness which
sheltered them, free as the forest which gave them shade, bold as the
red Indian who forced them to purchase every inch of ground, with the
blood of human hearts. To this hardy People—this people created from
the pilgrims and wanderers of all nations—this People nursed into full
vigor, by long and bloody Indian wars and hardened into iron, by the
longest and bloodiest war of all, the Revolution, to this People of Northern
America, God Almighty has given the destiny of the entire American
Continent.
The handwriting of blood and fire, is upon British America and Southern
America.
As the Aztec people, crumbled before the Spaniard, so will the mongrel
race, moulded of Indian and Spanish blood, melt into, and be ruled
by, the Iron Race of the North.
You cannot deny it. You cannot avoid the solemn truth, which glares
you in the face.
God speaks it, from history, from the events now passing around
us, from every line of the career of the People, who followed his smile
into the desert.
As the People of the old Thirteen states, rose like one man, against
the Juggernaut of government, the British Monarchy, so the serfs of
the battle-field plant the olive tree of peace and freedom.
Thanks be to God, the time comes, when Niagara, will no longer extend
from a free land to a British despotism. Before many years that
awful cataract will sing the anthem of a free Continent.
God Almighty has given the destiny of the Continent, into the hands
of the free People of the American Union.
Not the Anglo-Saxon race, for such a race has no existence, save in
the brains of certain people, who talk frothily about immense nothings.
You might as well call the American People, the Scandinavian race, the
Celtic race, the Norman race, as to apply to them, the empty phrase,
Anglo-Saxon. This ridiculous word, has been in the mouths of grave
men, who should know better, for years: it is high time, that we should
discard it for some word, with a slight pretence to a meaning.
We are no Anglo-Saxon People. No! All Europe sent its exiles
to our shores. From all the nations of Northern Europe, we were formed.
Germany and Sweden and Ireland and Scotland and Wales and England,
aye and glorious France, all sent their oppressed to us, and we
grew into a new race.
We are the American People. Our lineage is from that God, who bade
us go forth, from the old world, and smiled us into an Empire of Men.
Our destiny to possess this Continent, drive from it all shreds of Monarchy,
whether British or Spanish or Portugese, and on the wrecks of
shattered empires, built the Altar, second to the Brotherhood of Man.
Then come with me, and look upon our Banner of the Stars, as it goes
in glory and gloom over the Continent, freedom's pillar of cloud by day,
her pillar of fire by night. Our fathers loved that Banner in the days of
old. Its stripes were painted with the blood of martyrs. Its stars flashed
through the clouds of Bunker Hill and Brandywine, and Saratoga, and
came shining out in the cloudless sky of Yorktown. Let us follow it
then, and bid God's blessing on it, as its stars gleam awfully through the
bloody mists of Mexico.
Let us not heed the miserable cant of the traitors among us, who advise
the Mexicans to give the American soldier a bloody and hospitable
grave. Though these traitors increase like vipers under a hot sun, though
they poison our air, in the Senate and the Press, let us pass them by, with
a simple prayer, that God will be very merciful to the pitiful dastard,
who—under the cloak of British or Mexican Sympathy—would turn
traitor to a land like ours.
Washington, you all remember, sate in his Camp at Cambridge, in
September, 1775, his eyes fixed upon the map of the Continent, his finger
laid upon Curada, while his unsheathed sword, reached from Labrador to
Patagoria. In the silence of night, even as he planned the conquest of
to the free.
Let us follow then, the American Banner, and while our souls are
awed by the thunder flash of battle; while the horrible world of carnage
with its shrieks and groans, its dead armies and butchered legions widens
and crimsons around us, let us never for one moment forget, that mysterious
Symbol of our destiny—the unsheated sword of Washington
resting upon the map of the New World.
| I.—THE CRUSADE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Legends of Mexico | |