Page:Notes of the Mexican war 1846-47-48.djvu/641

Rh do lie; and I (looking around the room) alone am here of our company to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the battle of Cerro Gordo.

"Oh! comrades, think of it, how fast we are thus passing away; and 25 years hence, few of us will be left to tell any of the glorious victories that took place in the Mexican war of 1846-1847-1848. (Applause.)

"I was going to say something of our late rebellion, but I shall not lift the curtain from the bloody streams of the bloody fields of strife. Oh, no! on the contrary, I feel more like closing my eyes to that dreadful carnage. Our own vacant chair in my father's and wife's household, and the over 300,000 men who fell throughout our land under our flag, that our country may live, serve to remind us of the fearful cost of preserving the unity of this nation.

"Thank God! we are now at peace with the whole world. Let our prayer ever go up that we shall never again see or hear the thundering of artillery, the cracking and snapping of shells over our heads, and the rattling of musketry against our fellowmen; that we shall forever have but one country and one flag, and the peace we now enjoy may be perpetual. (Applause.)

"Thanking you, comrades and friends, for your enthusiasm and the kind attention you have given to my first unexpected and unprepared speech."

Mr. Marvin Scudder, Jr., late of Co. K, Fourth Regiment Illinois Volunteers, now of Juniata, Neb., writes quite a historic sketch of Mexico in the "Vedette," of Washington, which meets with my hearty approval and deserves to be quoted.

We find Mexico before the war a vast domain, claiming, it is true, to be a republic, but having hardly one attribute belonging to a true republican government. Cortez made his conquest, and at the same time the civilization of old Spain,