Chapter IX: Part 9

Santa Fe at that time contained about six thousand inhabitants. After St. Augustine it was the oldest city within the limits of the United States. When the Spaniards founded it in 1582, it was built on the site of one of the old Indian pueblos, whose date went back to the earliest history of the country. The Spanish town--The Royal City of the Holy Faith, _La Villa Real del Santa Fe_, as they called it--was also full of the flavor of antiquity, with its low adobe houses, and its quaint old churches, built nearly three centuries before. These were of rude architecture and hung with battered old bells, but they were ornamented with curiously carved beams of cedar and oak. The residences were as quaint and old-fashioned as the churches, and the abundant relies of the more ancient Indian inhabitants gave the charm of a double antiquity to the place.

From Santa Fe as a centre General Kearney sent out expeditions to put down all reported risings through the province, one of the most important of these being to the country of the warlike Navajo Indians, who had just made a raid on New Mexico, driving off ten thousand cattle and taking many captives. The answer of one of the Navajo chiefs to the officers of the expedition is interesting.

"Americans, you have a strange cause of war against the Navajos," he said. "We have waged war against the New Mexicans for several years. You now turn upon us for attempting to do what you have done yourselves. We cannot see why you have cause of quarrel with us for fighting the New Mexicans in the West, while you do the same thing in the East. We have no more right to complain of you for interfering in our war than you have to quarrel with us for continuing a war we had begun long before you got here. If you will act justly, you will allow us to settle our own differences."

The Indians, however, in the end agreed to let the New Mexicans alone, as American citizens, and the matter was amicably settled. We may briefly conclude the story of Kearney's expedition, which was but half done when Santa Fe was reached. He was to continue his march to California, and set out for this purpose on the 25th of September, on a journey as long and difficult as that he had already made. He reached the Californian soil only to find that Colonel Fremont had nearly finished the work set for him, and a little more fighting added the great province of California to the American conquests. Thus had a small body of men occupied and conquered a vast section of northern Mexico and added some of its richest possessions to the United States.

THE SECOND CONQUEST OF THE CAPITAL OF MEXICO.

The ancient city of Mexico, the capital of the Aztecs and their Spanish successors, has been the scene of two great military events, its siege and capture by Cortez the conqueror in 1521, and its capture by the American army under General Scott in 1847, three and a quarter centuries later. Of the remarkable career of Cortez we have given the most striking incident, the story of the thrilling _Noche triste_ and the victory of Otumba. A series of interesting tales might have been told of the siege that followed, but we prefer to leave that period of mediaeval cruelty and injustice and come down to the events of a more civilized age.

One of the most striking scenes in the campaign of 1847 was the taking of the fortified hill of Chapultepec, but before describing this we may briefly outline the events of which it formed the dramatic culmination. Vera Cruz, "the city of the True Cross," founded by Cortez in 1520, was the scene of the American landing, and was captured by the army under General Scott in March, 1847. Then, marching inland as Cortez had done more than three centuries before, the American army, about twelve thousand strong, soon began to ascend the mountain-slope leading from the torrid sea-level plain to the high table-land of the old Aztec realm.

Sixty miles from Vera Cruz the American forces came to the mountain-pass of Cerro Gordo, where Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, awaited the invaders with an army of thirteen thousand men. The heights overhanging the road bristled with guns, and the lofty hill of Cerro Gordo was strongly fortified, rendering the place almost impregnable to an attack from the direction of Vera Cruz. Scott was too able a soldier to waste the lives of his men in such a perilous assault, and took the wiser plan of cutting a new road along the mountain-slopes and through ravines out of sight of the enemy, to the Jalapa road in the Mexican rear. An uphill charge from this point gave the Americans command of all the minor hills, leaving to the Mexicans only the height of Cerro Gordo, with its intrenchments and the strong fortress on its summit.

On the 18th of April this hill, several hundred feet in rugged height, was assailed in front and rear, the Americans gallantly climbing the steep rocks in the face of a deadly fire, carrying one barricade after another, and at length sweeping over the ramparts of the summit fortress and driving the defenders from their stronghold down the mountain-side. Santa Anna took with him only eight thousand men in his hasty retreat, leaving three thousand as prisoners in the American hands, with forty-three pieces of bronze artillery and a large quantity of ammunition. Within a month afterwards Scott's army marched into the city of Puebla, on the table-land, sixty-eight miles from the capital. Here they rested for several months, awaiting reinforcements.

On August 7 the army resumed its march, now less than eleven thousand strong, the term of several regiments having expired and their places been partly filled by untried men, none of whom had ever fired a gun in war. On they went, up-hill still, passing the remains of the old city of Cholula with its ruined Aztec pyramid, and toiling through a mountain region till Rio Frio was reached, fifty miles from Puebla and more than ten thousand feet above the level of the sea.

A few miles farther and the beautiful valley of Mexico lay suddenly revealed before them like a vision of enchantment. It was a scene of verdant charm, the bright green of the fields and groves diversified with the white walls of villages and farm-houses, the silvery flow of streams, and the gleaming surface of winding lakes, while beyond and around a wall of wooded mountains ascended to snowy peaks. It was a scene of summer charm that had not been gazed upon by an invading army since the days when Cortez and his men looked down upon it with warm delight.

The principal lakes visible were Lake Chalco, with the long, narrow lake of Xochimilco near it, and seven miles to the north Lake Tezcuco, near the western shore of which the city of Mexico was visible. Between Chalco and Tezcuco ran the national road, for much of its length a narrow causeway between borders of marsh-land. Near Lake Xochimilco was visible the Acapulco road. Strong works of defence commanded both these highways.

ON THE BORDER OF LAKE CHALCO.

Scott chose the Acapulco road for his route of approach, the national road being commanded by the lofty and strongly fortified hill of El Penon, precipitous on one side, and surrounded by marshes and a deep ditch on the other. The Acapulco road was defended by strongly garrisoned fortresses at Contreras and Churubusco, but seemed more available than the other route. Still farther north and west of the capital was a third approach to it over the road to Toluco, defended by works at Molino del Rey and by the fortified hill of Chapultepec. It was evident that the army under Scott would go through some severe and sanguinary fighting before the city could be reached.

It is not our purpose to describe the various engagements by which this work was accomplished. It must suffice to say that the strong hill fort of Contreras was taken by a surprise, being approached by a road leading to its rear during the night and taken by storm at sunrise, seventeen minutes sufficing for the important victory. The garrison fled in dismay, after losing heavily.

An advance was made the same day on the nearby Mexican works at San Antonio and Churubusco, and with the same result. The garrison at San Antonio, fearful of being cut off by the American movement, evacuated the works and retired upon Churubusco, hotly pursued. The Americans, inspired by success, carried all before them, taking the works at the bridge of Churubusco by an impetuous charge and soon putting the enemy to flight. Meanwhile, General Shields attacked the Mexican reserve, consisting of four thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, whose line was broken by a bayonet charge.

The whole Mexican force was, by these well-devised movements, forced back in terrible confusion, and was quickly fleeing in panic. The fugitives were cut down by the pursuing Americans, who followed to the immediate defences of the capital, where the pursuit was checked by a heavy fire of grape-shot. Thus in one day the Americans, nine thousand strong, had captured three strong positions, held by three times their number, the Mexicans losing in killed, wounded, and prisoners over six thousand men, while the American loss in killed and wounded was less than a thousand.

Negotiations for peace followed, but they came to nothing, the armistice that had been declared terminating on the 7th of September. The problem that now lay before General Scott was a very different one from that which Cortez had faced in his siege of the city. In his day Mexico was built on an island in the centre of a large lake, which was crossed by a number of causeways, broken at intervals by canals whose bridges could be removed.

During the centuries that succeeded this lake had disappeared, low, marshy lands occupying its site. The city, however, was still reached by causeways, eight in number, raised about six feet above the marsh level. In these ended the five main roads leading to the city. A large canal surrounded the capital, and within its circle were smaller ones, all now filled with water, as this was the rainy season. The problem of bridging these under fire was one of the difficulties that confronted the Americans.

General Scott decided to approach the city by the causeways of San Cosme, Belen, and Tacubaya, which were defended by formidable works, the outermost of which was Molino del Rey, a fortified position at the foot of a slope beyond which a grove of cypresses led to the hill of Chapultepec. It consisted of a number of stone buildings, some of which had been used as a foundry, but which were now converted into fortresses. This place was carried by storm in the early morning of September 8, and the stronger position of Casa de Mata, a quarter of a mile from Chapultepec, was captured by a fierce assault the same day. Only Chapultepec now lay between the Americans and the Mexican capital.

The stronghold of Chapultepec, of which the places just taken were in the nature of outworks, remained to be captured before the city could be reached from that quarter. Chapultepec is an isolated rocky hill, about one hundred and fifty feet in height, and was surmounted by a large stone building which had been used as the bishop's palace, but was now converted into a strong fortress. It was well prepared for defence in guns and garrison, and was the most difficult to win of the fortifications of the capital. The western side was the most accessible, but the face of this, above the grove of cypresses which covered its base, presented a steep, rocky, and difficult ascent.

To deceive the enemy, a feigned advance upon another section of the city was made on the 12th of September. The two divisions engaged in this returned that night to Tacubaya, near Chapultepec, though a force still threatened the southern causeways. Four batteries had been posted within easy range of the castle of Chapultepec during the night of the 11th, and all next day they kept up a steady fire upon it, driving its defenders back and partly wrecking the walls. On the morning of the 13th the batteries resumed their fire, while the forces chosen for the assault approached the hill from different directions through the fire of the enemy.

Two assaulting columns of two hundred and fifty picked men each, from Worth's and Twigg's divisions, advanced with scaling ladders, while the batteries threw shot and shell over their heads to drive the defenders from the walls. Major-General Pillow led his division through the grove on the east side, but he quickly fell with a dangerous wound, and General Cadwalader succeeded him. Before him was a broken and rocky ascent, with a redoubt midway in its height. Up the steep rocks climbed the gallant stormers, broke into the redoubt with a wild cheer, and put its defenders to flight. On up the steep they then clambered, passing without injury the mines which the Mexicans had planted, but which they could not fire without killing their own men. In a few minutes more the storming party reached the summit and climbed over the castle wall with shouts of victory, driving back its defenders. Soon the United States flag was seen floating over the ramparts, a roar of cheers greeting the inspiring spectacle.

On the southeast Quitman's column of assault was making like progress, while Smith's brigade captured two batteries at the foot of the hill on the right, and Shield's brigade crossed the meadows under a hot fire of musketry and artillery and swept up the hill to the support of the stormers.

Thus the castle of Chapultepec, the last and strongest citadel of the Mexicans, had fallen before an impetuous charge up a hill deemed inaccessible, in the face of a hot fire, and the city itself lay at the mercy of the invaders. The causeway which it defended formed a double roadway on each side of a great aqueduct, with stone arches and pillars. Shields charged impetuously along this causeway, towards the city, two miles distant, while Quitman pursued the fleeing enemy along the neighboring causeway of Belen.

An aide sent by Scott came riding up to Shields to bid him halt till Worth, who was following the San Cosme causeway, could force its defences. The aide politely saluted the eagerly advancing general and began, "General Scott presents his compliments

"I have no time for compliments just now," roared out Shields, and spurred briskly onward to escape the unwelcome orders which he felt were coming. Soon he had led his men into the suburbs of the city, while Worth and Quitman charged inward over the neighboring causeways with equal impetuosity.

A strong force was quickly within the streets of the city, assailed by skirmishers firing from houses and gardens, who could be reached only by forcing a way in with pickaxes and bars. Two guns were brought in by Worth's column and planted in position to batter down the San Cosme gate, the barrier to the great square in the city's centre, and which fronted the cathedral and palace. Quitman and Shields had to fight their way through as hot a fire, and as they charged inward found themselves before the citadel, mounting fifteen guns. At this point a severe loss was sustained, but the assailants held their own, mounting guns to attack the citadel the next morning.

These guns were not used. Before daylight a deputation of the city council waited on General Scott and announced that the army had evacuated the city, and the government officials had fled. It was not long afterwards before the Stars and Stripes were floating over the National Palace and in the great plaza.

Fighting continued for a day longer between the Americans and about four thousand soldiers and liberated convicts, who fought with desperate fury for their country and were not put down without considerable loss. On the morning of September 16 the army of the United States held undisputed possession of the famous old capital of Mexico. Fighting continued, however, elsewhere for some months later, and it was not till the 2d of February, 1848, that a treaty of peace was signed.

WALKER THE FILIBUSTER, AND THE INVASION OF NICARAGUA.

On the 15th of October, 1853, a small and daring band of reckless adventurers sailed from San Francisco, on an enterprise seemingly madder and wilder than that which Cortez had undertaken more than three centuries before. The purpose of this handful of men--filibusters they were called, as lawless in their way as the buccaneers of old--was the conquest of Northwest Mexico; possibly in the end of all Mexico and Central America. No one knows what wild vagaries filled the mind of William Walker, their leader, "the gray-eyed man of destiny," as his admirers called him.

Landing at La Paz, in the southwestern corner of the Gulf of California, with his few companions, he captured a number of hamlets and then grandiloquently proclaimed Lower California an independent state and himself its president. His next proclamation "annexed" to his territory the large Mexican state of Sonora, on the mainland opposite the California Gulf, and for a brief period he posed among the sparse inhabitants as a ruler. Some reinforcements reached him by water, but another party that started overland was dispersed by starvation, their food giving out.

Walker now set out with his buccaneering band on a long march of six hundred miles through a barren and unpeopled country towards his "possessions" in the interior. The Mexicans did not need any forces to defeat him. Fatigue and famine did the work for them, desertion decimated the band of invaders, and the hopeless march up the peninsula ended at San Diego, where he and his men surrendered to the United States authorities. Walker was tried at San Francisco in 1854 for violation of the neutrality laws, but was acquitted.

This pioneer attempt at invasion only whetted Walker's filibustering appetite. Looking about for "new worlds to conquer," he saw a promising field in Nicaragua, then torn by internal dissensions. Invited by certain American speculators or adventurers to lend his aid to the democratic party of insurrectionists, he did not hesitate, but at once collected a band of men of his own type and set sail for this new field of labor and ambition. On the 11th of June, 1855, he landed with his small force of sixty-two men at Realijo, on the Nicaraguan coast, and was joined there by about a hundred of the native rebels.

Making his way inland, his first encounter with the government forces took place at Rivas, where he met a force of four hundred and eighty men. His native allies fled at the first shots, but the Americans fought with such valor and energy that the enemy were defeated with a loss of one-third their number, his loss being only ten. In a second conflict at Virgin Bay he was equally successful, and on the 15th of October he captured the important city of Granada.

These few successes gave him such prestige and brought such aid from the revolutionists that the opposite party was quite ready for peace, and on the 25th he made a treaty with General Corral, its leader, which made him fairly master of the country. He declined the office of president, which was offered him, but accepted that of generalissimo of the republic, an office better suited to maintain his position. His rapid success brought him not only the support of the liberal faction, but attracted recruits from the United States, who made their way into the country from the east and the west alike until he had a force of twelve hundred Americans under his command.

General Corral, who had treated with him for peace, was soon to pay the penalty for his readiness to make terms with an invader. He was arrested for treason, on some charge brought by Walker, tried before a court-martial at which the new generalissimo presided, sentenced to death, and executed without delay.

The next event in this fantastic drama of filibusterism was a war with the neighboring republic of Costa Rica. Both sides mustered armies, and a hostile meeting took place at Guanacaste, on March 20, 1856, in which Walker was worsted. He kept the field, however, and met the foe again at Rivas, on April 11. This time he was victorious, and the two republics now made peace.

His military success seemed to have made the invader securely the lord and master of Nicaragua, and he now threw aside his earlier show of modesty and had himself elected president on June 25. He had so fully established himself that he was recognized as head of the republic by President Pierce, on behalf of the United States. But he immediately began to act the master and tyrant in a way that was likely to bring his government to a speedy end.

Money being scarce, he issued currency on a liberal scale, and by a decree he restored the system of slavery which had been abolished thirty-two years before. Not content with these radical measures within the republic itself, he was unwise enough to create for himself a powerful enemy in the United States by meddling with the privileges of the Vanderbilt Steamship Company, then engaged in transporting the stream of gold-hunters to California over a Nicaraguan route. Walker revoked their charter and confiscated their property, thus bringing against his new government a fire in the rear.

His aggressive policy, in fact, made him enemies on all sides, the Central American states bordering on Nicaragua being in sore dread of their ambitious neighbor, while the agents of the Vanderbilt Company worked industriously to stir up a revolt against this soaring eagle of filibusterism.

The result was a strong revolt against his rule, and he soon found himself confronted by a force of patriots in the field. For a short time there were busy times in Nicaragua, several battles being fought by the contending forces, the war ending with the burning of Granada by the president. Finding that the whole country was rising against him and that his case had grown desperate, Walker soon gave up the hopeless contest and surrendered, on May 1, 1857, to Commodore C. H. Davis of the United States sloop-of-war "St. Mary," who took him to Panama, where he made his way back to the United States.

Thus closed the conquering career of this minor Cortez of the nineteenth century. But while Walker the president was no more, Walker the filibuster was not squelched. The passion for adventure was as strong in his mind as ever, and his brief period of power had roused in him an unquenchable thirst for rule. In consequence he made effort after effort to get back to the scene of his exploits, and rise to power again, his persistent thirst for invasion giving the United States authorities no small trouble and ending only with his death.

In fact, he was barely at home before he was hatching new schemes and devising fresh exploits. To check a new expedition which he was organizing in New Orleans, the authorities of that city had him arrested and put under bonds to keep the peace. Soon after that we find him escaping their jurisdiction in a vessel ostensibly bound for Mobile, yet making port first in Central America, where he landed on November 25, 1857.

This effort at invasion proved a mere flash in the pan. No support awaited him and his deluded followers, and in two weeks' time he found it judicious to surrender once more to the naval authorities of the United States; this time to Commodore Paulding, who took him to New York with his followers, one hundred and thirty-two in number.

His fiasco stirred up something of a breeze in the United States. President Buchanan had strongly condemned the invasion of friendly territory in his annual message, but he now sent a special message to Congress in which he equally condemned Commodore Paulding for landing an American force on foreign soil. He decided that under the circumstances, the government must decline to hold Walker as a prisoner, unless he was properly arrested under judicial authority. At the same time Buchanan strongly deprecated all filibustering expeditions.

The result of this was that Walker was again set free, and it was not long before he had a new following, there being many of the adventurous class who sympathized warmly with his enterprising efforts. This was especially the case in the South. Thither Walker proceeded, and, inspired by his old enthusiasm, he soon organized another company, which sought to leave the country in October, 1858. He was closely watched, however, and the whole company was arrested at the mouth of the Mississippi on the steamer on which passage had been taken.

President Buchanan had issued a proclamation forbidding all such expeditions, and Walker was now put on trial before the United States Court at New Orleans. But the case against him seemed to lack satisfactory evidence, and he was acquitted.

Desisting for a time from his efforts, Walker occupied himself in writing an account of his exploits, in a book entitled "The War in Nicaragua." But this was far too tame work for one of his stirring disposition, and in June, 1860, he was off again, this time making Honduras the scene of his invading energy. Landing at Truxillo on the 27th, he seized that town and held it for eight weeks, at the end of which time he was ordered to leave the place by the captain of a British man-of-war. The president of Honduras was rapidly approaching with a defensive force. Walker marched south, but his force was too small to cope with the president's army, and he had not gone far before he found himself a captive in the hands of the Honduran government. Central America had by this time more than enough of William Walker and his methods, and five days after his capture he was condemned to death and shot at Truxillo.

Thus ended the somewhat remarkable career of the chief of filibusters, the most persistent of modern invaders of foreign lands, whose reckless exploits were of the mediaeval rather than of the modern type. A short, slender, not especially demonstrative man, Walker did not seem made for a hero of enthusiastic adventure. His most striking feature was his keen gray eyes, which brought him the title of "the gray-eyed man of destiny."

MAXIMILIAN OF AUSTRIA AND HIS EMPIRE IN MEXICO.

It is interesting, in view of the total conquest and submission of the Indians in Mexico, that the final blow for freedom in that country should have been made by an Indian of pure native blood. His name was Benito Juarez, and his struggle for liberty was against the French invaders and Maximilian, the puppet emperor, put by Louis Napoleon on the Mexican throne. In the words of Shakespeare, "Thereby hangs a tale."

For many years after the Spanish colonies had won their independence the nations of Europe looked upon them with a covetous eye. They would dearly have liked to snap up some of these weak countries, which Spain had been unable to hold, but the great republic of the United States stood as their protector, and none of them felt it quite safe to step over that threatening bar to ambition, the "Monroe Doctrine." "Hands off," said Uncle Sam, and they obeyed, though much against their will.

In 1861 began a war in the United States which gave the people of that country all they wanted to do. Here was the chance for Europe, and Napoleon III., the usurper of France, took advantage of it to send an army to Mexico and attempt the conquest of that country. It was the overweening ambition of Louis Napoleon which led him on. It was his scheme to found an empire in Mexico which, while having the name of being independent, would be under the control of France and would shed glory on his reign.

At that time the President of Mexico, the Indian we have named, was Benito Juarez, a descendant of the Aztec race, and, as some said, with the blood of the Montezumas in his veins. Yet his family was of the lowest class of the Indians, and when he was twelve years old he did not know how to read or write. After that he obtained a chance for education, and in time became a lawyer, was made governor of his native state, and kept on climbing upward till he became secretary of state, president of the Supreme Court, and finally president of Mexico.

He was the man who had the invaders of his country to fight, and he fought them well and long. But the poor and undisciplined Mexicans were no match for the trained troops of France, and they were driven back step by step until the invaders were masters of nearly the whole country. Yet Juarez still had a capital and a government at San Luis Potosi, and all loyal Mexicans still looked on him as their president.

When Napoleon III. found himself master of Mexico, he looked around for a man who would serve him as a tool to hold the country. Such a man he found in Ferdinand Joseph Maximilian, the brother of the emperor of Austria, a dreamer rather than a man of action, and a fervent believer in the "divine right of kings." This was the kind of man that the French usurper was in want of, and he offered him the position of emperor of Mexico. Maximilian was taken by surprise. The proposition was a startling one. But in the end ambition overcame judgment, and he accepted the lofty but perilous position on the condition that France should sustain him on the throne.

HOUSE OF MAXIMILIAN AT QUERETARO.

The struggle of the Mexicans for freedom was for the time at an end, and the French had almost everywhere prevailed, when in 1864 the new emperor and his young wife Carlotta arrived at Vera Cruz and made their way to the city of Mexico. This they entered with great show and ceremony and amid the cheers of many of the lookers on, though the mass of the people, who had no love for emperors, kept away or held their peace.

The new empire began with imperial display. All the higher society of Mexico were at the feet of the new monarchs. With French money to pay their way and a French army to protect them, there was nothing for Maximilian and Carlotta to do but enjoy the romance and splendor of their new dignity. On the summit of the hill of Chapultepec, two hundred feet above the valley, stood the old palace which had been ruined by the American guns when Scott invaded Mexico. This was rebuilt by Maximilian on a grand scale, hanging gardens were constructed and walled in by galleries with marble columns, costly furniture was brought from Europe, and here the new emperor and empress held their court, with a brilliant succession of fetes, dinners, dances, and receptions. All was brilliance and gayety, and as yet no shadow fell on their dream of proud and royal reign.

But the shadow was coming. Maximilian had reached Mexico in June, 1864. For a year longer the civil war in the great republic of the north continued; then it came to an end, and the government of the United States was free to take a hand in the arbitrary doings on the soil of her near neighbor to the south.

It was a sad blow to the ambitious schemes of Napoleon, it was like the rumble of an earthquake under the throne of Maximilian, when from Washington came a diplomatic demand which, translated into plain English, meant, you had better make haste to get your armies out of Mexico; if they stay there, you will have the United States to deal with. It hurt Louis Napoleon's pride. He shifted and prevaricated and delayed, but the hand of the great republic was on the throat of his new empire, and there was nothing for him to do but obey. He knew very well that if he resisted, the armies of the civil war would make very short work of his forces in Mexico.

Maximilian was strongly advised to give up his dream of an empire and leave the country with the French. He changed his mind a half-dozen times, but finally decided to stay, fancying that he could hold his throne with the aid of the loyal Mexicans. Carlotta, full of ambition, went to Europe and appealed for help to Napoleon. She told him very plainly what she thought of his actions; but it was all of no avail, and she left the palace almost broken-hearted. Soon after Maximilian received the distressing news that his wife had lost her reason through grief, and was quite insane. At once he made up his mind to return to Europe, and set out for Vera Cruz. But before he got there he changed his mind again and concluded to remain.

At the end of January, 1867, the French army, which had held on until then, with one excuse after another, left the capital city, which it had occupied for years, and began its long march to the sea-shore at Vera Cruz. Much was left behind. Cannon were broken up as useless, horses sold for a song, and the evacuation was soon complete, the Belgian and Austrian troops which the new emperor had brought with him going with the French. Maximilian did not want them; he preferred to trust himself to the loyal arms of his Mexican subjects, hoping thus to avoid jealousy. As for the United States, it had no more to say; it was content to leave this shadow of an empire to its _loyal_ Mexicans.

It cannot be said that Maximilian had taken the right course to make himself beloved by the Mexicans. Full of his obsolete notion of the "divine right of kings," a year after he had reached Mexico he issued a decree saying that all who clung to the republic or resisted his authority should be shot. And this was not waste paper, like so many decrees, for a number of prisoners were shot under its cruel mandate, one of them being General Orteaga. It has been said that Maximilian went so far as to order that the whole laboring population of the country should be reduced to slavery.

While all this was going on President Juarez was not idle. During the whole French occupation he had kept in arms, and now began his advance from his place of refuge in the north. General Escobedo, chief of his armies, soon conquered the northern part of the country, and occupied the various states and cities as soon as they were left by the French.

But neither was Maximilian idle. Agents of the Church party had finally induced him to remain, and this party now came to his aid. General Miramon, an able leader, commanded his army, which was recruited to the strength of eight thousand men, most of them trained soldiers, though nearly half of them were raw recruits.

With this force Maximilian advanced to Queretaro and made it his head-quarters. Juarez had meanwhile advanced to Zacatecas and fixed his residence there with his government about him. But the president and cabinet came very near being taken captive at one fell swoop, for Miramon suddenly advanced and captured Zacatecas by surprise, Juarez and his government barely escaping.

What would have been the result if the whole Mexican government had been taken prisoners it is not easy to say. Not unlikely, however, General Escobedo would have done what he now did, which was to advance on Queretaro and invest it with his army. Thus the empire of Maximilian was limited to this one town, where it was besieged by an army of Mexican patriots, while, with the exception of a few cities, the whole country outside was free from imperial rule.

Soon the emperor and his army found themselves closely confined within the walls of Queretaro. Skirmishes took place almost daily, in which both sides fought with courage and resolution. Provisions grew scarce and foraging parties were sent out, but after each attack the lines of the besiegers became closer. The clergy had made liberal promises of forces and funds, and General Marquez was sent to the city of Mexico to obtain them. He managed to get through the lines of Escobedo, but he failed to return, and nothing was ever seen by Maximilian of the promised aid. Such forces and funds as Marquez obtained he used in attacking General Diaz, who was advancing on Pueblo. Diaz besieged and took Pueblo, and then turned on Marquez, whom he defeated so completely that he made his way back to Mexico almost alone under cover of the night. It was the glory gained by this act that later raised Diaz to the presidency, which he held so brilliantly for so many years.

The hopes of Maximilian were dwindling to a shadow. For two months the siege of Queretaro continued, steadily growing closer. During this trying time Maximilian showed the best elements of his character. He was gentle and cheerful in demeanor, and brave in action, not hesitating to expose himself to the fire of the enemy. Plans were made for his escape, that he might put himself at the head of his troops elsewhere, but he refused, through a sense of honor, to desert his brave companions.

Daily provisions grew scarcer, and Maximilian himself had only the coarse, tough food which was served to the common soldiers. Day after day Marquez was looked for with the promised aid, but night after night brought only disappointment. At length, on the night of May 14, General Lopez, in charge of the most important point in the city, turned traitor and admitted two battalions of the enemy. From this point the assailants swarmed into the city, where terror and confusion everywhere prevailed. Lopez had not intended that the emperor should be captured, and gave him warning in time to escape. He attempted to do so, and reached a little hill outside the town, but here he was surrounded by foes and forced to deliver up his sword.

Juarez, the Indian president, was at length full master of Mexico, and held its late emperor in his hands. The fate of Maximilian depended upon his word. Plans, indeed, were made for his escape, but always at the last moment he failed to avail himself of them. His friends sought to win for him the clemency of Juarez, but they found him inflexible. The traitors, as he called them, should be tried by court-martial, he said and abide the decision of the court.

Tried they were, though the trial was little more than a farce, with the verdict fixed in advance. This verdict was death. The condemned, in addition to Maximilian, were his chiefs in command, Miramon and Medjia. The late emperor rose early on the fatal morning and heard mass. He embraced his fellow victims, and as he reached the street said, "What a beautiful day! On such a one I have always wished to die."

He was greeted with respect by the people in the street, the women weeping. He responded with a brief address, closing with the words, "May my blood be the last spilt for the welfare of the country, and if more should be shed, may it flow for its good, and not by treason. Viva Independencia! Viva Mexico!"

In a few minutes more the fatal shots were fired, and the empire of Maximilian was at an end.

MACEO AND THE STRUGGLE FOR CUBAN INDEPENDENCE.

On the 24th of February, 1895, the people of Havana, the capital of Cuba, were startled by a report that rebels were in the field, a band of twenty-four having appeared in arms at Ybarra, in the province of Matanzas. Other small bands were soon heard of elsewhere in the island. A trifle this seemed, in view of the fact that Cuba was guarded by twenty thousand Spanish troops and had on its military rolls the names of sixty thousand volunteers. But the island was seething with discontent, and trifles grow fast under such circumstances. Twenty years before a great rebellion had been afoot. It was settled by treaty in 1878, but Spain had ignored the promises of the treaty and steadily heaped up fuel for the new flame which had now burst out.

As the days and weeks went on the movement grew, many of the plantation hands joining the insurgents until there were several thousand men in arms. For a time these had it all their own way, raiding and plundering the plantations of the loyalists, and vanishing into the woods and mountains when the troops appeared.

The war to which this led was not one of the picturesque old affairs of battles and banners, marches and campaigns. It displayed none of "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war;" forest ambushes, sudden attacks, quick retreats, and brisk affrays that led to nothing forming the staple of the conflict. The patriots had no hope of triumphing over the armed and trained troops of Spain, but they hoped to wear them out and make the war so costly to Spain that she would in the end give up the island in despair.

The work of the Cuban patriots was like the famous deeds of Marion and his men in the swampy region of the Carolina coast. Two-thirds of Cuba were uncultivated and half its area was covered with thickets and forests. In the wet season the low-lands of the coast were turned into swamps of sticky black mud. Underbrush filled the forests, so thick and dense as to be almost impassable. The high bushes and thick grasses of the plains formed a jungle which could be traversed only with the aid of the machete, the heavy, sharp, cutlass-like blade which the Cuban uses both as tool and sword, now cutting his way through bush and jungle, now slicing off the head of an enemy in war.

Everywhere in the island there are woods, there are hills and mountains, there are growths of lofty grass, affording countless recesses and refuges for fugitives and lurking-places for ambushed foes. To retire to the "long grass" is a Cuban phrase meaning, to gain safety from pursuit, and a patriot force might lie unseen and unheard while an army marched by. In brief, Cuba is a paradise for the bush-fighter, and the soldiers of Spain were none too eager to venture into the rebel haunts, where the flame of death might suddenly burst forth from the most innocent-looking woodland retreat or grass-grown mead. The soldiers might search for days for a foe who could not be found, and as for starving out the rebels, that was no easy thing to do. There were the yam, the banana, the sweet potato, the wild fruits of the woodland, which the fertile soil bore abundantly, while the country-people were always ready to supply their brothers in the field.

Such was the state of affairs in Cuba in the rebellion of 1895. For a time the rebels gathered in small bands with none but local leaders. But the outbreak had been fomented by agents afar, fugitives from the former war, and early in April twenty-four of these exiles arrived from Costa Rica, landing secretly at a point near the eastern end of the island.

Chief among the new comers was Antonio Maceo, a mulatto, who had won a high reputation for his daring and skill in the past conflict, and who had unbounded influence over the negro element of the rebellion. Wherever Maceo was ready to lead, they were ready to follow to the death if he gave the word, and he soon proved himself the most daring and successful soldier in the war.

He did not make his way inland with safety. Spanish cavalry were patrolling the coast to prevent landings, and Maceo and his comrades had a brisk fight with a party of these soon after landing, he getting away with a bullet-hole through his hat. For ten days they were in imminent danger, now fighting, now hiding, now seeking the wild woodland fruits for food, and so pestered by the Spanish patrols that the party was forced to break up, only two or three remaining with Maceo. In the end these fell in with a party of rebels, from whom they received a warm and enthusiastic welcome.

Maceo was a rebel in grain. He was the only one of the leaders in the former war who had refused to sign the treaty of peace. He had kept up the fight for two months longer, and finally escaped from the country, now to return without the load of a broken promise on his conscience.

The new leader of the rebellion soon had a large following of insurgents at his back, and in several sharp brushes with the enemy proved that he could more than hold his own. Other patriots soon arrived from exile,--Jose Marti, the fomenter of the insurrection; Maximo Gomez, an able soldier; and several more whose presence gave fresh spirit to the rebels. The movement, which had as yet been a mere hasty outbreak, was now assuming the dimensions of a regular war, hundreds of patriots joining the ranks of these able leaders, until more than six thousand men were in the field.

Almost everywhere that they met their enemy they were largely outnumbered, and they fought mostly from ambush, striking their blows when least expected and vanishing so suddenly and by such hidden paths that pursuit was usually idle. Much of their strength lay in their horses. No Cossacks or cowboys could surpass them as riders, in which art they were far superior to the Spanish cavalry. Many stories are told of women who rode in their ranks and wielded the machete as boldly and skillfully as the men, and in this there is doubtless much truth. Their horses were no show animals, but a sore-backed, sorry lot, fed on rushes or colla, there being no other grain, left standing unsheltered, rain or shine, but as tough and tireless beasts as our own bronchos, and ever ready to second their riders in mad dashes on the foe.

The favorite mode of fighting practised by the insurgents was to surprise the enemy by a sharp skirmish fire, their sharp-shooters seeking to pick off the officers. Then, if there was a fair opportunity, they would dash from their covert in a wild cavalry charge, machete in hand, and yelling like so many demons, and seek to make havoc in the ranks of the foe. This was the kind of fighting in which Maceo excelled.

Through 1895 the war went on with endless skirmishes and only one affair that could be called a battle. In this Maceo was the insurgent leader, while Martinez Campos, governor-general of Cuba, a man looked upon as the ablest general of Spain, led the Spanish troops. Maceo had caused great annoyance by attacks on train-loads of food for the fortified town of Bayamo, and Campos determined to drive him from the field. Several columns of Spanish troops were set in motion upon him from different quarters, one of these, fifteen hundred strong, led by Campos himself. On the 13th of July the two armies met, Maceo, with nearly three thousand men, being posted on a stock-farm several miles from Bayamo.

The fight began with a sharp attack on the Spaniards, intended to strike the division under Campos; but by an error it fell upon the advance guard, led by General Santocildes, which was saluted by a brisk fire from the wooded hill-sides. Santocildes fell dead, and a bullet tore the heel from the governor-general's boot.

Maceo, surmising from the confusion in the Spanish ranks that some important officer had fallen, now launched his horsemen upon them in a vigorous machete charge. Though Campos succeeded in repelling them, he felt himself in a critical situation, and hastily drew up his whole force into a hollow square, with the wagons and the dead horses and mules for breastworks. Around this strong formation the Cubans raged for several hours, only the skill of Campos saving his men from a disastrous rout. An assault was made on the rear guard early in the affray, Maceo hoping to capture the ammunition train. But its defenders held their ground vigorously, and fought their way to the main column, where they aided to form the square. Finally the Spaniards succeeded in reaching Bayamo, pursued by the Cubans and having lost heavily in the fight. They were saved from utter destruction by Maceo's lack of artillery, and Campos was very careful afterwards not to venture near this daring leader without a powerful force.

Maximo Gomez, one of the principal leaders in the earlier war, had now been appointed commander-in-chief of the Cuban forces, with Antonio Maceo as his lieutenant-general. He had made his way westward into the province of Santa Clara, and in November Maceo left the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba to join him. In his way lay the trocha, the famous device of the Spaniards to prevent the free movement of the Cuban forces. It may be of interest to describe this new idea in warfare, devised by the Spaniards to check the free movement of their rebel foes.

The word trocha means trench, but the Spanish trochas were military lines cut through the woods and across the island from side to side, and defended by barbed-wire fences, while the felled trees were piled along both sides of the roadway, making a difficult breastwork of jagged roots and branches. At intervals of a quarter-mile or more along this well-guarded avenue were forts, each with a garrison of about one hundred men, it needing about fifteen thousand to defend the whole line of the trocha from sea to sea.

Such was the elaborate device adopted by Campos, and by Weyler after him, to check the Cuban movements. We need only say here that, despite its cost and the number of men it tied up on guard duty, the trocha failed to restrain the alert islanders. Gomez had crossed it in his movement westward, and Maceo now followed with equal readiness. He made a feint of an attack in force on one part of the line, and when the Spaniards had concentrated to defend this point, he crossed at an unprotected spot, without firing a shot or losing a man.

Westward still went the Cubans, heedless of trochas and Spaniards. From Santa Clara they entered Matanzas province, and from this made their way into the province of Havana, bringing the war almost to the gates of the capital. Spain had now sent more than one hundred thousand troops across the ocean, though many of these were in the hospitals. As for the Cubans, the island had now risen almost from end to end, and their force was estimated at from thirty to fifty thousand men. It was no longer a rebel outbreak that Spain had to deal with, it was a national war.

By the end of the year the Cubans were firmly fixed in Havana province, many negro field-hands and Cuban youths having joined their ranks. They fought not only against the Spaniards, but against the bandits also, of whom there were many abroad plundering from both sides alike. These were hanged by the patriots whenever captured. Maceo was the active fighter of the force, Gomez being occupied in burning sugar-cane fields and destroying railroads, so as to deprive Spain of the sinews of war.

In January, 1896, a new movement westward was made, Maceo leading his men into the province of Pinar del Rio, which occupies the western end of the island. Here was the great tobacco district, one into which insurrection had never before made its way. Within a year rebellion had covered the island from end to end, the Spaniards being secure nowhere but within the cities, while the insurgents moved wherever they chose in the country. The sky around the capital was heavy with smoke by day and lurid with the flames of burning fields at night, showing that Gomez was busy with his work of destruction, burning the crops of every planter who sought to grind his cane.

Let us now follow the daring mulatto leader through the remainder of his career. General Weyler had now succeeded Campos, and began his official life with the boast that he would soon clear the provinces near Havana of rebels in arms. But he was hardly in the governor's chair when Maceo was back from the west and swooping down on the city of Jaruco, which he looted and burned.

Weyler sent troops into Pinar del Rio, where they found no one to oppose them, and he was soon able to inform the world by a proclamation that this province was pacified. But the ink was barely dry upon it when Maceo, having burnt the port of Batabano, on the southern coast, was back in the "pacified" province, where he made his head-quarters in the mountains and defied all the power of Spain.