Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

96 SPIRIT O' THE VOLUNTEERS.
The volunteer army assembled at Camargo was composed
chiefly of young men, who had just attained the age at
which the enthusiasm of youth and vigor of manhood are
united.-' The " Young Guard" of Napoleon did not contain in its ranks more energy, valor, and daring, than was to
be found in that youthful mass. There were soldiers in
various regiments whom I had known when " we were boys
together," who contemplated the prospect of an arduous
campaign with more pleasure than they ever did a recitation
in Thucydides or Juvenal. To many of them, a battery was
a more agreeable object than a black-board, and I am convinced that some of my old school-mates would have -assaulted a bristling tete de pont with more alacrity than they
had aforetime evinced in demonstrating the oon8 asinorum.
stomach, and promise to promote the health of the body politic to a degree surpassing the most sanguine expectations of those who expected most from the measure."
In the admirable speech from which the above is quoted, the eloquent Senator is
particularly severe upon the press and people of' Great Britain for their Pharasaical
pretensions, and justly denounces the inconsistency with which, after acquiring
empires by the sword, on the most frivolous pretexts, they presume to arraign this
country for its rapacity.
* " The volunteers of Mexico, were the picked men of the nation, who, devoting themselves to a service more than a thousand miles from home, went to it under the strong impulse of adventure and love of martial glory. They consisted of'
the young, the ardent, and the brave, who, for the time, renounced all domestic
pursuits and marched to the field, animated by the hope of distinction, and disen
thralled from all civil cares and engagements. Thus fortified by resolve, stimulated by love of the profession, cheered by loud acclamations of friends, unimpeded
by domestic solicitude, and filled with the ardor and courage of the national character, they more resemble the chivalry, which a few centuries ago, assembled
around Gonsalvo de Cordova, or Gaston de Foix, in their descents upon the fields
of Italy, than they do any army of modern times. The skill, concert, impetuous
valor and persevering labor of their assaults, will be the theme of commendation
from military critics in cen turies to come, while the brilliancy of their victories
over such disproportioned numbers, and the rapidity of their conquest of the
strongholds of Mexico, will be regarded as the marvels of the age in which they
were achieved." —flo. J. P. Kennedy.