“Through misinformation, it was currently reported that Lieutenant Mayne Reid, whose gallant behaviour at the battle of Chapultepec called forth a merited compliment from General Scott in one of his late dispatches, had died of his wounds. We are informed by one of our returned officers that although wounded severely by an escopette ball in the left leg above the knee, he has since recovered, and intends to remain. Of course he will be promoted.”
In the National Gazette of Philadelphia was printed:—“We perceive in the list of wounded in the recent battles in Mexico, the name of Lieutenant Mayne Reid, of New York. If we mistake not, the gentleman named is favourably known throughout the country as a writer, and a contributor to our leading magazines. For several years he resided in Philadelphia. While in this city he won for himself many friends, as well as a high literary reputation. His first essays appeared as the compositions of the ‘Poor Scholar.’ Lieutenant Reid is a ripe scholar as well as a ready writer.”
The following paragraph appeared in the Pittsburgh Daily Dispatch, in March, 1848:—“Lieutenant Mayne Reid, whose death was reported some time since, is about to be married to Signorina Guadaloupe Rozas, a beautiful lady, daughter of Senator Rozas, and said to be the wealthiest heiress in the Valley of Mexico. He formerly resided here, and was known as the ‘Poor Scholar.’”
This report was untrue. Mayne Reid had not yet “met his fate.”
He was equally distinguished in love and in war, and by some fair Mexicaines was entitled the “Don Juan de Tenorio.”
An American journal describes the gallant Captain as a “mixture of Adonis and the Apollo Belvidere, with a dash of the Centaur!”
He possessed a faultless figure, and the grace of his manner was very captivating.
It was one of Mayne Reid’s duties in Mexico to protect the inmates of a convent, and the nuns frequently sent him little delicacies in the shape of sweetmeats, made by their own fair hands, with his initials in comfits on the top. In a letter he wrote:
“During the campaign in which I had taken part, chance threw me into the company of monks of more than one order. Under the circumstances that gave me entrée of their convents, and an intimate acquaintance with the brethren, even to joining them in their cups—these consisting of the best wines of Spain and her colonies, Xeres, Canario, Pedro Ximenes, with now and then a spice of Catalan brandy, opening the hearts and loosening the tongues of these cloistered gentry—I can speak to the character of the present monks of Mexico as Friar Guage spoke of their fraternity more than a century ago.”