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

214 THE APPEARANCE OFf OUR ARMY.
A large number of the inhabitants, including nearly all
the most respectable citizens, retired with the army, scowling
hatred and defiance on us as they marched out. The:Mexican historian says —" When the inhabitants of Monterey
saw the last of our army depart, they could not resolve to
remain among the enemy, and many of them abandoning
their houses and business, carrying their children, and followed by their wives, traveled on foot behind the troops.
1Monterey was converted into a vast cemetery. The unburied
heaps, the dead and putrid mules, the silence of the streets,
all gave a fearful aspect to the city." The people who
lingered behind were, at first, exceedingly sullen and shy,
certain " gentlemen in black," having inflamed their minds
against us "' outside barbarians," representing the volunteers
as the scum of the United States, and destitute both of honor
and courage.
And in sooth, the spectacle that some of us presented on
entering the city was not very well calculated to undeceive
them, though I believe we had the advantage of Falstaff's
army, and could, perhaps, boast more than'6 a shirt and a
half' to each company. But our jackets looked exceedingly
shabby, and a pair of whole trowsers was a rarity. Our
beards and hair too, had grown to a great length, so that our
personal appearance must have been rather savage and grotesque. Some of the Monterey people, in their letters to
the newspapers of the interior cities, described us as " a set
of ragged vagabonds, nearly resembling the Camanche
Indians, in manners, ferocity, and appearance." Complimentary, certainly! But may we not be permitted to write