Captain Diaz had seen his first military service in the revolts against the notorious Santa Anna, of Alamo fame. He had the courage to sign a remonstrance against this usurper, and was compelled to fly for his life. Later, in the campaigns against Santa Anna, he was so successful that he had become almost a hero in the eyes of his fellow Oaxacans. At the beginning of the French invasion, the rank of general of a brigade had been conferred upon him at the early age of thirty-two years, and he was assigned to the defense of Puebla under General Zaragoza. It was due to his tactics more than anything else that the way was paved for the great victory of _Cinco de Mayo_, 1862, when an inferior force of Mexicans defeated a numerically larger army of veteran French troops. It was nearly a year later before the armies of the allied French and Austrians, greatly augmented by new arrivals, were able to capture Puebla after a two months’ siege, the ammunition of the Mexicans had been exhausted. General Diaz refusal to give _parol_ and was made prisoner but escaped after a short confinement. Because of the approach of the invading armies toward the capital, President Juarez had removed the seat of government to San Luis Potosi. He made General Diaz commander-in-chief of the armies south of the Valley of Mexico. Returning to his favourite haunts in Oaxaca, he soon gathered together an army and some money and marched forth on the offensive. By this time General Diaz had become such a formidable opponent that General Bazaine himself, later of European fame, leader of the French forces, took the field against this young leader with the determination to crush him. He finally shut him up in Oaxaca and captured that city in 1865. The French general had carefully laid his plans for this campaign, having transported a large number of guns, and was at the head of an army, Diaz claims, of sixteen thousand. The fame of this general and his large force created a panic among the troops of Diaz and his little army had dwindled to a few hundred. General Diaz was captured and taken to Puebla by his captors where he was prisoner for more than seven months in a former house of the Jesuits in that city. His escape is celebrated in Mexican annals, and his own account is as follows, although I have greatly abbreviated it:—