During the night, Santa Anna and the officers of the Government fled from the city, but not until they had turned loose from the prisons 2000 convicts, to fire upon the American army.  On the following morning, before day-dawn, a deputation came forth from the city to beg for mercy.  This time the messengers were in earnest; but General Scott, wearied with trifling, turned them away with disgust. “Forward!” was the order that rang along the American lines at sunrise.  The war-worn regiments swept into the beautiful streets of the famous city, and at seven o’clock the flag of the United States floated over the halls of the Montezumas.  It was the triumphant ending of one of the most brilliant and striking campaigns of modern history.

The American army, as compared with the hosts of Mexico, had been but a handful.  The small force which had left Vera Cruz on the march to the capital had lost considerably by battle and disease.  Many detachments had been posted en route to hold the line of communications, and for garrison duty in places taken from the enemy.  The army had thus dwindled until, after the battles of Churubusco and Chapultepec, fewer than six thousand men were left to enter and hold the capital.

The invasion had been remarkable in all its particulars.  The obstacles which had to be overcome seemed insurmountable.  There were walled cities to be taken, fortified mountain passes to be carried by storm, and frowning castles with cannon on the battlements to be assaulted by regiments whose valor and impetuosity were their only protection and warrant of victory.  Yet the campaign was never seriously impeded.  No foot of ground once taken from the Mexicans was yielded by false tactics or lost by battle.

The army which accomplished this marvel, penetrating a far-distant and densely peopled country, held by a proud race, claiming to be the descendants of Cortes and the Spanish heroes of the sixteenth century, and denouncing at the outset the American soldiers as “barbarians of the North,” was, in large part, an army of volunteers—­a citizen soldiery—­which had risen from the States of the Union and marched to the Mexican border under the Union flag.

VICKSBURG.

The story goes that on a certain occasion some friends of General Grant, anxious to make him talk about himself—­something he would hardly ever do—­said:  “General, at what time in your military career did you perceive that you were the coming man—­that you were to have the responsibility and fame of the command-in-chief and end the war?” For little while the General smoked on, and then said, “After Vicksburg!”

Certain it is that the star of Grant, long obscured and struggling through storm and darkness, never emerged into clear light, rising in the ascendant, until after the capture of the stronghold of the Confederates on the Mississippi.  After that it rose, and rose to the zenith.