him, formed a new right, and continued to advance. The British line was now drawn nearly square across the plain. Opposed was a battalion under McNeill, which faced his right obliquely, and another under Leavenworth, which opposed his left in the same manner. Scott's line, thus formed, and supported by Towson's artillery on the right, continued to advance, fire, and halt, until it was within eighty paces of the enemy, when McNeill's and Leavenworth's battalions, almost simultaneously, charged with the bayonet. This shock was decisive; the British army broke and fled, pursued nearly to its intrenchments, in complete rout. The American loss was three hundred and twenty-seven, the enemy's five hundred and three; while the Amercans engaged numbered only one thousand nine hundred, and the British two thousand one hundred. Three of the enemy's regiments, the Royal Scots, the Queen's Own, and the Hundredth regiment, were esteemed the best troops in the British army.

Much gloom was cleared from the public mind by this battle; it atoned for many disasters, and the country was taught, when it needed most to know it, that American soldiers, in proper hands, were equal to those whose skill and discipline had been acquired in the hard-fought fields of the Peninsular war. Brigadier-General Scott," said General Brown in his official report, "is entitled to the highest praise our country can bestow."

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With Scott's brigade still in the van, the American army passed over the Chippewa two days after the battle, and the British army retreated before it. But to mask a movement against Burlington Heights, a feigned retreat was almost immediately made. Should this fail to draw the enemy out, it was intended to use the twenty-fifth of July as a day of rest, and force an action on the twenty-sixth; but on the twenty-fifth word came that a portion of the enemy's force had crossed the Niagara, and Scott was sent forward to attack the remainder thus weakened. His force consisted of four small battalions of infantry, Towson's battery, and a detachment of cavalry, one thousand three hundred men in all. About two miles from camp he came upon the enemy drawn up in line of battle on Lundy's Lane. No British troops had crossed the Niagara, and Scott was now in front of the same army he had beaten on the fifth, swelled with a heavy reënforcement which had come up unknown Retreat must have a bad effect on the force to him only the night before. behind him; to stand fast was impossible, as he was already under fire; he therefore advanced, determined to hold the enemy in check, if possible, till the whole American army should come up. The battle began a little before sunset, and continued into the night. Major-General Brown arrived upon the field, and assumed command at nine P.M. Then the enemy's right, in an attempted flank movement, had been driven back with heavy loss; his left was

cut off and many prisoners taken; his centre alone remained firm, covered by a battery on a hill, which was finally carried by the bayonet.

Scott received a severe wound in the side early in the night, and at eleven o'clock was disabled by a musket-ball in the left shoulder, and borne from the field.

For his gallant conduct in these two battles, Scott was breveted MajorGeneral, received a gold medal from Congress, and was tendered a position in the Cabinet as Secretary of War, which he declined in favor of his senior. While yet feeble from his wounds, he went to Europe by order of the Government, for the restoration of his health and for professional improvement. He returned home in 1816, and in March of the following year was married to Miss Maria Mayo, daughter of John Mayo, Esq., of Richmond, Virginia.

Ordered to the command of the forces intended to act against the savages in the Black Hawk war, in May, 1832, General Scott reached Prairie du Chien the day after the Battle of Bad Axe, which ended the war, and in time only to assist in the preparation of the treaties thereupon made with the various tribes. From the Western frontier, he arrived in New-York in October, 1832, and was at once ordered to Charleston, S. C. Nullification had there agitated the community since the passage of the revenue act of 1828, and in 1832 a State convention provided for resistance to the objectionable law. President Jackson pronounced the resistance thus proposed incompatible with the existence of the Union; and the Governor of the State called out twelve thousand volunteers. General Scott's duty at Charleston was to examine the forts in the harbor, and strengthen and reënforce them if he deemed it necessary; and he was ordered to act subordinately to the United States civil authorities in all that he did, but to prepare for any danger. Every part of this duty was discharged with an admirable forbearance and delicacy, which tended greatly to soothe, and did much to allay the angry excitement; and SouthCarolina, thus firmly met, rescinded her nullification ordinance.

In January, 1836, Scott was ordered to Florida, and opened a campaign against the Indians there, which, from the nature of the country, the climate, inadequate stores, and the insufficiency of his force, proved entirely fruitless. Greater success crowned his efforts against the Creek Indians in the same year, and all went on 'well until, in July, he was recalled, that inquiry might be made into his first failure. Upon full deliberation, the court of inquiry pronounced his Seminole campaign "well devised, and prosecuted with energy, steadiness, and ability." Yet he took no further part in the Florida war, though it employed the Government for six years longer.

Canada became, in 1837, the scene of great political excitement, and all along the northern frontier the American people sympathized with the patriot

party over the line, and their sympathy became active. Navy Island, in the Niagara River and within the British line, was occupied by some hundreds of Americans, who kept up communication with the American side by the small steamer Caroline; and this steamer, while at the wharf on the American side, was cut loose at night by a British force, fired, and sent over the Falls. Great excitement spread through the whole country with the news. General Scott was ordered to the point January fourth, 1838. Through the remainder of the winter he was occupied in the organization of a regular and volunteer force; but at the same time he exercised everywhere a great influence for peace, and mainly through his noble exertions in this direction the war-cloud passed by.

Again he was ordered to the Canada line in the next year. Hostile movements were then on foot in the Maine boundary dispute. Congress had appropriated ten millions of dollars, and authorized the President to call and accept volunteers. British troops were in motion toward the disputed territory; the Maine militia was ready to move, and correspondence between the two governments had come to an end. Yet Scott, from his first appearance, became a mediator. He was met in a similar spirit on the other side by Sir John Harvey, of the British army, with whom he had had not dissimilar relations in the campaign of 1814; and the correspondence begun between the two veterans brought about a peaceful solution of the whole difficulty.

In June, 1841, upon the death of Major-General Macomb, General Scott became Commander-in-Chief of the entire army of the United States.

War with Mexico having resulted upon the annexation of Texas, General Scott was ordered to that country in November, 1846, and reached the Rio Grande in January, 1847. The battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, had then been fought, and the town of Monterey taken.

General Santa Anna was at San Luis Potosi, with twenty thousand men. Taylor was at Monterey with eighteen thousand, and Scott had with him only a small portion of the force with which it had been arranged that he should act against Vera Cruz. Government, busied only with the attempt to supersede him by the appointment of a civilian to the post of Lieutenant-General, virtually abandoned Scott to his fate. Santa Anna knew that Vera Cruz was to be attempted, and how he would act was doubtful. Scott, in this juncture, drew from Taylor's force enough regular infantry to swell his own force to twelve thousand. With this number he moved forward and invested Vera Cruz March twelfth; on the twenty-second the bombardment was begun. Arrangements were made to carry the city by storm on the twenty-sixth, but on that day overtures of surrender were made by the Governor, and were completed on the twenty-seventh. Ten days later the army, eight thousand strong, took the road to the City of Mexico,

defeated the Mexican army, fifteen thousand strong, under General Santa Anna, at Cerro Gordo, April eighteenth, entered Jalapa the day after, occupied the strong castle and town of La Perote, April twenty-second, and the city of Puebla, May fifteenth. Only thirty-four days had elapsed from the investment of Vera Cruz, and there were already taken ten thousand prisoners of war, ten thousand stand of arms, seven hundred cannon, and thirty thousand shells and shot.

When he reached Puebla, Scott had left, capable of the march on the City of Mexico, but four thousand five hundred men; but at Puebla he was detained by negotiations for peace, which proved futile. Meantime reënforcements arrived, and the army, increased by these to the number of ten thousand, again moved forward August seventh.

Every practicable road to the city of Mexico, within the valley in which that city lay, was now held by parts of the Mexican army, and fortified with great skill. Contreras, San Antonio, and Churubusco, with ten batteries in all, must of necessity be carried, as they could not be turned, nor with safety left behind. General Valencia held Contreras with seven thousand troops, and twenty-two pieces of artillery, and Santa Anna had twelve thousand men in the woods behind it. After an indecisive action of three hours, August nineteenth, the United States troops stood to their arms all night in roads flooded by heavy rain that fell incessantly, and at daylight on the twentieth carried the place by storm. So rapidly was the latter attack made, that the division ordered to mask it by a diversion had not time to arrive; and the actual fight lasted only seventeen minutes.

By the capture of Contreras, Churubusco was taken in flank, and San Antonio in the rear. The troops were immediately moved forward to attack the latter place, when the enemy evacuated it. Churubusco only remained; its defences were a tete-de-pont on the main causeway, and a convent strongly fortified. After a fierce struggle, both these defences were taken, the tete-de-pont at the point of the bayonet. Upon this day the Mexican loss alone exceeded, by three thousand, the whole American army.

To the military possession of the City of Mexico, it was yet necessary that the castle of Chapultepec should fall. Molino del Rey and Casa de Mata, dependencies of Chapultepec, were carried by assault September eighth; heavy siege-guns were placed in battery September twelfth, and by the thirteenth had made a practicable breach in the walls of the Military College, which was stormed the same day. From Chapultepec, Mexico City is within range, yet it still resisted, and two divisions of the army skirmished all day at the city gates; but the same night Santa Anna marched out with the small remnant of his army, and the City of Mexico lay at the mercy of Major-General Winfield Scott.

About daylight of the fourteenth, the city council waited upon the General

to demand terms of capitulation for the church, the citizens, and the municipal authorities; to this the General replied, that the city was already in his possession, and that the army should be subject to no terms not self-imposed, or such as were not demanded by its own honor, and the dignity of the United States.

Winfield Scott, with his small and heroic army, had accomplished the object of the war; peace was concluded February second, 1848, and very shortly after, he received from Washington the order, dated previously to the conclusion of peace, by which he was suspended from command, and a court of inquiry was ordered upon charges preferred against him by brevet Major-General Worth. This court consisted of brevet Brigadier-General N. Towson, Paymaster-General, BrigadierGeneral Caleb Cushing, and Colonel E. G. W. Butler; thus a paymaster-general, a brigadier of volunteers, and a colonel of dragoons, were ordered to examine the conduct of the veteran commander upon the charge of a subordinate.

General Worth's charges were, that Scott "had refused to say whether he was the person referred to in a certain army order, and refused to forward charges against him to the War Department." Secretary Marcy virtually admitted that the conduct of the Government needed defence in this matter, by making an argument in its support. But the whole country was astonished, and the people did not sympathize with the cold indifference of formality. Scott relinquished the command, and appeared before the court, which sat, first in Mexico, and subsequently in Washington; but meantime the war terminated, the transactions of the Court were allowed to fall out of view, no decision was ever given, and General Winfield Scott resumed his position at Washington as Commander-in-Chief of the army.

In June, 1852, Winfield Scott was nominated a candidate for the office of President of the United States, by the Whig National Convention, at Baltimore. By a great portion of the people, this nomination was received with sincere joy; but it was reserved for the hero to receive his first great defeat at the hands of his countrymen.

Government, in 1859, with the desire to confer some additional mark of honor, bestowed upon the gallant veteran the brevet rank of Lieutenant-General; and to make it the more clearly a personal distinction, and not a mere addition to army grades, the brevet was purposely so framed that it should not survive him.

When the Southern rebellion began in 1860, General Scott adhered earnestly and uncompromisingly to the Constitution and Government of the United States, with whose history his life was identified, and for whose honor he had ever so consistently labored. With what pain he saw those dear to him for many years fall away from their allegiance, may be conceived; but he, a son too of that Virginia that has given so many soldiers to the country, felt that he was not so much a Southerner as a citizen of the United States. From the commencement he saw