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

204 THE FIRING CEASES.
The Colonel was introduced to General HIamer, who imimediately provided him with an escort to head-quarters at San
Domingo. I was with IHamer at the reception of Marino,
and was surprised as well as pleased at the assumed indifference and tranquility maintained by all who were within earshot when he announced his business, though we were no
sooner relieved of his presence than congratulations were
joyfully exchanged.
A cessation of fire was agreed upon, while commissioners
arranged the terms of capitulation, and we set about getting
breakfast in the captured Forts Teneria and Diabolo. We
were usually pretty well provided with provisions of some
sort, but it must be confessed that the table of the St. Charles,
in New Orleans, was rather better than ours on that particular
morning. A tin cup full of a thick liquid facetiously called
coffee, and made from the berry of that name, slightly
bruised with the butt of a musket, a slap-jack, weighing a
quarter of a pound to the square inch, and a crawfish, which
had that morning been dashed upon the wall of the Teneria
by the explosion of a shell in the ditch, constituted my
repast. But the stomach of the soldier is not often dainty,
and the appetite, which for somne days past had been scarcely
alike to the Mexican troops and nation, will prompt me to make those terms as
liberal as possible. The garrison will be allowed, at your option, after laying
down its arms, to retire to the'interior, on condition of not serving again during the
war, or until regularly exchanged. I need hardly say that the rights of non-comnbatants will be respected. An answer to this communication is required by 12
o'clock. If you assent to an accommodation, an officer will be despatched at once,
under instructions to arrange the conditions. I am sir, very respectfully your
obedient servant.
"Z. TAYLOR, Major-General U. S. A., commanding.
"Senor Don PEDno AMrPUDIL, General-in-chief, Monterey."