miles distant, where we arrived on the 30th. Both here and at Monterey we were treated kindly by several Europeans [141] who visited us in our prison. Upon our arrival at Saltillo, we were first quartered at a miserable, filthy cavalry barracks, against which we protested in the strongest terms, when we were moved to an infantry quartel not much better. At this quartel we found Captain Archibald Fitzgerald, Mr. George Van Ness, Thomas Hancock, Norman Woods, Miblem Harrell,1 and John Higgerson: the three former were taken at San Antonio on the 11th of September previous, and detained at San Fernando as Santa Fé prisoners, by order of the government, to be shot; but, through the intercession of General Woll, were pardoned, and sent on with the three latter, who were badly wounded at Captain Dawson's defeat on the 18th of September. We found these men, and particularly Woods, in a bad condition, but by giving him warm clothes and good nursing he rapidly recovered. He must have died very soon without such assistance.2 Upon application to the governor, Van Ness was permitted to accompany our party as interpreter, and the other five turned in with our men, who arrived here on the 5th of February under charge of Colonel Barragan.

Captain Fitzgerald, Van Ness, and Hancock informed us that, while they were detained as Santa Fé prisoners at San Fernando, by order of the government, to be shot, the first news which they received of General Somerville's movements was from Henry Clay Davis, late of Kentucky, and a man by the [142] name of M'Beth, who were put in the same prison with them. These two men had taken leave of us at Laredo, to return, as they said, to San Antonio, but instead of which deserted to the Mexican army at San Fernando, 140 miles north, carrying the Mexican commander letters from the alcalde of Laredo, and giving information of the Texian movements. General Reyes, the Mexican commander at that place, always doubting of treachery, incarcerated these renegades in the same prison with the above-named gentlemen, where they were kept eleven days, until he was assured of their fidelity by again hearing from the alcalde of Laredo and Colonel Bravo, the Mexican commandant at that place. Upon this information General Reyes released them, and gave Davis a ball, at which his health was drank as one who had seen the error of his ways by deserting the "Texan adventurers" and giving in his allegiance to the "magnanimous" Mexican nation. We have alluded to this circumstance as the first and last instance in our whole revolution where an American, born and raised in the United States, ever deserted our standard to join that of our Mexican enemy, and it should be a warning to others against a too intimate Mexican association; for, as ministers plenipotentiary are subject to be Mexicanized, so are humbler individuals. These young men had lived some time in San Antonio, and had acquired much of Mexican habit, with a consequent corresponding sympathy which outbalanced their Texian patriotism.3