Wednesday, Nov. 18. The horses which the Californians were endeavoring to reach in their rencounter on the river, were all preserved. Their loss would have been irretrievable in this campaign. The twenty men with whom they were left, declared they would perish to a man sooner than give them up. Rash as this resolution may seem, it would, had the emergency occurred, have been terribly realized. The American engaged in this war puts his life on the die. He must prevail or perish. If there shall be a general engagement between the forces now in the field, it will be one of the most frightful on record. The Americans are outnumbered three to one,—still they are determined to hazard the issue; and would, probably, were the odds much greater. As horsemen, the Californians excel them; but they are greatly their superiors in the use of the rifle and in maneuvering artillery. And these, after all, are the weapons and engines that must decide a hot engagement. Neither party has any veteran cuirassiers to hew their way to triumph through the cloven crests of the foe. The most terrific encounters on the field of Waterloo were between those who wielded the glaive. With them, at least,
“An earthquake might have passed unheededly away.”
Thursday, Nov. 19. How strangely the lights and shadows of life are blended! As I passed this evening the house of Capt. de la T——, a light strain of music came floating out from the corridor upon the silent air. It was the daughter of the captain whose hand swept the guitar which accompanied the modulations of her melodious voice. Her father and her uncle are both in the ranks of the Californians, leading a forlorn hope, after having broken their parol of honor, and forfeited their lives. And yet she is gay as if her father were only out hunting the gazelle. Just list the numbers as they break from her thoughtless heart:—
Fly not yet, ’tis just the hour
When pleasure, like the midnight flower,
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night,
And maids who love the moon!
And yet that moon before it wanes may gleam upon her father’s grave. But she knows it not. She thinks this war will end as other Californian wars—in smoke. But it is a tempest-cloud charged with bolted thunder.
Friday, Nov. 20. A German complained to me this morning that one of the volunteers, a countryman of his, under Col. Fremont, had stolen from him a pair of valuable pistols. He strongly suspected the person who had taken them. I sent for him; he confessed the act, delivered up the pistols, and begged me, as this was his first offence, not to expose him. He was a youth of eighteen or so, slightly built, and with a fair and remarkably ingenuous countenance. I told him he must take heed, as one offence often paves the way to another; but as he was in the campaign, and might soon be on the field of peril and death, his error should rest in silence with his own conscience. The tears stood in his eyes.