Page:History of the War between the United States and Mexico.djvu/344

294 however, and after twenty-five rounds were fired from the batteries, the Mexican cavalry were routed, and disappeared among the hills. Some prisoners were taken, and ninety-eight of the enemy were killed or wounded. Late at night Santa Anna reached Puebla with his discomfited troops, and evacuated it early on the following day. Having been joined by General Quitman's brigade, General Worth entered the town in the morning of the 15th, Without meeting any further resistance, and on the ensuing day took possession of the adjacent heights of Loretto and Guadaloupe, and planted a battery on the hill of San Juan.

History presents few instances of the display of daring and boldness which deserve to be compared with the entrance of the American soldiers into the city of Puebla. But little more than four thousand men, weather-beaten, jaded, and wayworn, with the dust of many a weary day's journey "on their sandal shoon," in the gray fatigue-dress of the service, and unaccompanied by the gay paraphernalia of war, marched through the midst of a hostile population of sixty thousand souls, stacked their arms in the public square, posted their guards, and, when the night-watches came, lay down to sleep without one emotion of fear or alarm. The citizens were evidently chagrined and disappointed; for they had prepared themselves for the approach of warriors of swelling port and proud hearing, all glittering in purple and gold. Fierce and lowering looks were cast upon the soldiers defiling through the streets, from the crowded pavé and balcony, and from behind the vine-covered lattices along their route; but those who marked them well, saw in the kindling eye, the rigid muscle, and the stern lip, that dauntless courage and unconquerable self-reliance, of far more worth than