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

242 CAPTAIN RIDGELY.
moth Cave, have lost the organs of vision from the absence
of light.
On the way to camp, after the visit to Monterey just mentioned, I rode over the battle-field, and was shocked to perceive that the dogs and wolves had opened many of the
shallow graves. The glacis, thrown across the gorge of the
Teneria after its capture, and in which many of the enemy
had been buried, was a promiscuous mass of bones and rags.
The remains of our own soldiers were afterward more carefully interred. The officers who fell in the battle, were
buried together in a little cemetery on the border of the
wood of San Domingo, over which a cross was erected in the
hope that it would protect the hallowed spot from desecration.
Many Mexicans have as little regard for the sanctity of the
grave of an heretical Yankee, as the hyena itself; and there
have been instances in which dying foreigners have been
compelled to profess the Catholic religion in order to secure
even the privilege of burial.
Among the gallant officers whom death released from the
service in the autumn of 1846, were Captain Randolph
Ridgely, of the Artillery, and Brigadier General Thomas L.
Hamer. The former possessed one of those dauntless spirits
that revel in danger as if it were their natural element; and
by his conspicuous courage and skill in battle had already
gained a brilliant reputation. After the death of Major
Ringgold at Palo Alto, he had succeeded to the command of
the " Flying Artillery,"-a post for which he was eminently
fitted. In battle, he seemed to bear a charmed life; but
though shielded in the midst of so many perils, it was not