There was a pause in the conflict, as if the two combatants, like gallant boxers, stopped a moment to take breath and survey each other with looks of defiance. The enemy's left had been driven back in confusion; and, as their cannonade ceased, the road remained free for the advance of our eighteen-pounders close to the first position that had been occupied by the Mexican cavalry. This was promptly ordered by General Taylor who caused the first brigade to take a new post on the left of that formidable battery. The fifth was also advanced to the extreme right of our new line, while the train was moved accordingly to suit the altered front. As the battalion of artillery advanced slowly over the field it came up to a private of the fifth, a gallant veteran of the old world who had escaped the fires of Austerlitz and Waterloo to die at Palo Alto. He was one of the first who fell in the action, and as his fellow soldiers paused a moment to compassionate his sufferings, when they saw the blood gushing with each pulsation from his shattered limbs--he waved them onward--"Go on companions, regardless of me,"--shouted he,--"I've got but what a soldier enlists for,--strike the enemy;--let _me_ die!" Such were the exclamations of Napoleon's soldiers, at Marengo, when the advancing squadrons of cavalry hesitated to leap over the heaps of wounded Frenchmen: "Tread on _me_ comrades; make a bridge of my body! Long live France! Vive la liberte!" The romantic fervor of warlike enthusiasm deprives battle of half its horrors, and makes death on the field a glorious exit from the sufferings of humanity. * * * * * The movements we made in changing our line were answered by corresponding alterations of the Mexican front, and, after a suspension of action for nearly an hour the battle was resumed. The effect of these changes was to edge our right flank somewhat nearer Matamoros, and to enable our forces to hold the road against the Mexicans who rested their lines on the thickets in their rear.