7. Ten days after the battle of Resaca de la Palma General Taylor captured Matamoras, and in August laid siege to Monterey. On the 21st of September the Americans carried the heights in the rear of the town. The Bishop's Palace was taken by storm on the following day. On the 23d the city was successfully assaulted in front. The American storming parties charged into the town; hoisted the victorious flag of the Union; turned upon the buildings where the Mexicans were concealed; charged up dark stairways to the flat roofs of the houses; and drove the enemy to a surrender. [Illustration: John Charles Fremont.] 8. General Santa Anna was now called home from Havana to take the presidency of Mexico. A Mexican army of twenty thousand men was sent into the field. General Taylor again moved forward, and on the 15th of November captured the town of Saltillo. Victoria, a city in the province of Tamaulipas, was taken by General Patterson. 9. In June of 1846 the Army of the West, led by General Kearny, set out from Fort Leavenworth for the conquest of New Mexico and California. After a wearisome march he reached Santa Fé, and on the 18th of August captured the city. With four hundred dragoons Kearny continued his march toward the Pacific coast to find that California had already been subdued. [Sidenote: Conquest of California.] 10. For four years Colonel John C. Fremont had been exploring the country west of the Rocky Mountains. In California he received dispatches informing him of the war with Mexico, and began to urge the people of California to declare their independence. A campaign was begun to overthrow the Mexican authority. Meanwhile, Commodore Sloat had captured the town of Monterey, on the coast. A few days afterward Commodore Stockton took San Diego. Before the end of summer the whole of California was subdued. On the 8th of January, 1847, the Mexicans were decisively defeated in the battle of San Gabriel, by which the authority of the United States was completely established. [Sidenote: Buena Vista.] 11. General Scott now arrived in Mexico and ordered the Army of Occupation to join him on the Gulf for the conquest of the capital. This left Taylor and Wool in a critical condition at Monterey; for Santa Anna was advancing against them with twenty thousand men. General Taylor was able to concentrate at Saltillo an effective force of but four thousand eight hundred. At the head of this small army he chose a battlefield at Buena Vista. On the 23d of February the battle began. Against tremendous odds the field was fairly won by the Americans. The Mexicans, having lost nearly two thousand men, made a precipitate retreat. [Sidenote: Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo.]