Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/504

 498 Queretaro is an ancient city, having been founded in 1531, on the site of a still more ancient Indian town. It is delightfully situated in a fertile valley shut in by mountains on every side, and has a temperature combining the warmth of the hot country with that of the temperate region, as it lies at an altitude of 6,365 feet above the sea. Not only is it celebrated as the point where the empire of Maximilian was finally, overthrown, but as that where the treaty with the United States, in 1848, was ratified by the Mexican Congress.



On the 19th of February, Maximilian reached Queretaro with reinforcements, received by the army and by the populace with enthusiasm. With the subsequent addition of another army under Marquez, the force at the command of Miramon was increased to nearly nine thousand men. The Liberal army has been estimated as high as thirty thousand, as the whole northern country contributed its quotas, and was under the command of General Escobedo, a valiant patriot, who had received his schooling in the war with the United States, and in various revolutions. The