The End of The War

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front,
And now instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

Shakespeare

Ten days later Molina-del-Rey, Casa-de-Mata, and Chapultepec had
fallen! The United States forces occupied the city of Mexico, General
Scott was in the Grand Plaza, and the American standard waved above the
capital of the Montezumas!

Let those who have a taste for swords and muskets, drums and trumpets,
blood and fire, describe the desperate battles and splendid victories
that led to this final magnificent triumph!

My business lies with the persons of our story, to illustrate whom I
must pick out a few isolated instances of heroism in this glorious
campaign.

Herbert Greyson's division was a portion of the gallant Eleventh that
charged the Mexican batteries on Molina-del-Rey. He covered his name
with glory, and qualified himself to merit the command of the regiment,
which he afterwards received.

Traverse Rocke fought like a young Paladin. When they were marching
into the very mouths of the cannon they were vomiting fire upon them,
and when the young ensign of his company was struck down before him,
Traverse Rocke took the colors from his falling hand, and crying
"Victory!" pressed onward and upward over the dead and the dying, and
springing upon one of the guns which continued to belch forth fire, he
thrice waved the flag over his head and then planted it upon the
battery. Captain Zuten fell in the subsequent assault upon Chapultepec.