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

THE ENEMY INVITE A CAPITULATION. 315
lay down their arms and surrender that piece of artillery,
contrary to his orders and the interests of the whole detachment. Company A, certainly was not one to withdraw from
danger and thereby involve their comrades in greater peril.
The Mexican force in our front having been repulsed, and
now disposed to content themselves with random volleys of
escopetts from a distance, Captain Bradley was ordered to
march with eighty men, to the rear; unite his force with
Captain Keneally's and bring up the wagons collected there.
Just as Captain Bradley was about to set out, Captain
Keneally himself-cheerful and sprightly as usual —rode up
on a gaily caparisoned Mexican horse. He stated that his
company was surrounded, and that he had received under
cover of a flag the following communication, which was
written with a lead pencil on a mammoth sheet of foolscap.
T' The Colonel Langberg, offers to all the socdiers, life and
security, if you surrender yourself.
(Signed) G" EMELIO LANGBERG, Foreigyn Qicer.9
Captain Keneally also stated that upon receiving the note
he had requested an interview with Colonel Langberg; that
he had found him with a large force under General Romaro,
occupying an intermediate point of the road; and that Langberg, who spoke our language fluently, had remarked to him
that further resistance would be useless as the Mexican force
amounted -to sixteen hundred men and three generals.~
Keneally next inquired, if the remainder of the detachment
* I have no doubt but that this statement of the strength of the Mexican force at
Cerralvo is nearly correct. We were afterward informed by citizens of the town,
that all Urrea's troops, both regulars and rancheros, had been concentrated there,
as a suitable point for their operations; it being about equi-distant from our posts