Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/203

Rh the midst of the horrors of that terrible conflict, a Mexican woman was seen going about among the dead, regardless of her own danger, and making no distinction between friend and foe, as she proceeded on her errand of love, binding up the broken limbs, moistening the parched lips of the dying, and ministering to the comforts of the wounded. While thus engaged, while thus displaying the gentle virtues, the tenderness, and the unwavering fortitude of her sex, she was struck by a chance ball, and fell to the earth among the armed men who lay in heaps around her. The American soldiers knew how to appreciate such nobleness of heart, the magnanimity of such a sacrifice. They nursed her tenderly until she died, and on the following day they buried her, amid the constant ﬁre from the Mexican batteries. It was all they could do to testify their sympathy, but it will be long ere they forget the kind and tender-hearted being,

 "who found a martyr's grave, On that red field of Monterey."

The capture of Federacion hill and the Soldada, only rendered it more necessary that the possession of the hill of Independence and the Bishop's palace should also be secured. The party who stormed the former, had been nearly thirty-six hours without food, and to add to their hardships, a violent storm came up towards evening on the 215t. Without any covering to protect them from the pelting rain, they lay down with their arms upon the ground, to snatch a few hours sleep. At three o'clock in the morning of the 22nd, they were aroused to storm the hill Independencia. The execution of this enterprise was intrusted to Lieutenant