I do not believe that this inferiority of the Mexican arises so much from the superior bravery of the Americans; almost any male animal will fight on small provocation; your Mexican male, as well as your American, on as small provocation, and as desperately. But the American soldier was always well armed, furnished with every thing that modern science makes terrible in war; well clad, well fed, well paid, he went voluntarily to the work. The Mexicans were ill armed, ill clad, ill fed, often not paid at all, and sometimes brought to fight against their will. The difference does not end here: the main reliance of the Mexican government, the regular soldiers, the Presidiales, were men who seemed to have most of the vices of old garrison soldiers, with most of the faults of new recruits; or, as another has said, himself a soldier in the war, "All the vices engendered in a garrison life; all the cowardice which their constant defeats by the Indians had created; all the laziness contracted in an idle monotonous existence, and very little military skill." The new levies came unwillingly, and were often only "food for powder." On the American side was a small body of veteran soldiers, low and coarse men--it is the policy of America to have the rank and file of our army in peace composed usually of such--but full of brute courage; accustomed to all sorts of hardships and exposure; under a discipline rigorous and almost perfect; wonted to danger, and weaned from fear; careless of life almost to desperation; full of confidence in their commander, and of contempt for their foe. The volunteers brought with them the characteristic ardor of Americans, their confidence of success, their contempt of toil and of danger; familiar with fire-arms from their youth, they soon learned the discipline of the camp.