Her soldiers were well armed and equipped, the muskets of her infantry all bearing the English Tower-stamp, and the cartridges being of the best British manufacture. Her troops were, in the main, magnificently uniformed, and we could say with literal truth that her “Cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold.” Her coast defences were provided with good armaments, her principal sea-port, Vera-Cruz, being guarded by the Castle of San Juan d’Ulloa, built of white coral rock, and mounting three hundred heavy guns. No country was better adapted by its topography for defensive warfare. Abounding with mountain ranges, and rocky hill-slopes, the true citadels of freedom, that commanded all practicable roads to the interior, while she had a formidable ally in the deadly climate of her coast, where the tropical sun, shining upon the ever-decaying masses of rank vegetation, breeds the fatal malaria which burns up the blood with fever, alternating with the icy “norther” that within an hour will often vary the temperature from summer’s heat to an almost Arctic cold. Three lines of operation against Mexico were now determined on: 1. General Taylor was to operate from Matamoras, along the line of the Rio-Grande. 2. A column under General Kearny was to conquer the Mexican territories of New Mexico and California. 3. A column under General Wool was to enter the Northern States of Mexico and conquer Chihuahua, and the adjacent country. In pursuance of this plan General Taylor advanced upon the Mexican Array, then in position at Monterey, on September 5th, 1846. His army numbered 6,600 of all arms, composed of 3,200 regular troops of the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th, infantry; 4 companies of the 2nd Dragoons, and 5 batteries (30) guns of field artillery, and 3,400 volunteers, consisting of the first regiments from Kentucky, Mississipi, Ohio and Tennessee, two Texas regiments commanded by Brig. Gen. Henderson, including Jack Hay’s famous Texas Rangers, and one battalion from Maryland and the District of Columbia. The Mexican force consisted of 7,000 regulars and 3,500 volunteers, with 84 pieces of artillery in strong works covering every approach to the city. Their principal works were designated as Forts Diabolo, Teneria, Soldado, Independence, the Bishop’s Palace and the Citadel. Our army attacked in three divisions, commanded respectively by Generals Worth, Twiggs and Butler of Kentucky. The enemy made a desperate resistance. The firing was incessant from the windows and flat roofs of the dwellings, and from barricades in the streets when our troops had entered the city after carrying all the outer defences by assault. The attack began on September 20th, and ended on the morning of the 23rd, with the surrender of the enemy. Our loss was about 950 killed and wounded.