Then we started to
bury our dead. Our losses were terrible. So many boys from Illinois were
hearsed in this bloody soil. Colonel Hardin was killed; but we were
commissioned to bring his body back to Jacksonville.
This ended the war in northern Mexico. But meanwhile, as President Polk
could not buy California, he seized it. He ordered an American squadron
to take San Francisco and other harbors on the California coast. He sent
General Kearney with a cooperating force to this end. Kearney occupied
the city of Santa Fe and organized a temporary government for New
Mexico. The President also sent General Scott against the city of Mexico
and Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo. These were taken; but they were used only
as levers in the settlement.
What had been accomplished? We had fixed the Rio Grande as the Texas
boundary; we had added California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming,
and Utah to the American domain. With Oregon acquired Douglas'
ocean-bound republic was realized. Was it to prove his lasting triumph,
or his undoing?
I had been gone less than a year. I was eager to reach Chicago, but I
had to stop off at Jacksonville to help bury the body of Colonel Hardin.
We made his grave near the grave of my father and not far from
Lamborn's.
What had happened in my absence? How should I find the home that I had
left? If Dorothy should be dead, or Mother Clayton, or Mammy or Jenny?
I rang the bell.
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