With gloves of steel,

And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred.'

THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.

LAST Summer the wild and lonely banks of the Upper Arkansas beheld for the first time the passage of an army. General Kearny on his march to Santa Fe, adopted this route in preference to the old trail of the Cimanon. When we came down, the main body of the troops had already passed on; Price's Missouri regiment, however, was still on the way, having left the frontier much later than the rest; and about this time we began to meet them moving along the trail, one or two companies at a time. No men ever embarked upon a military expedition with a greater love for the work before them than the Missourians; but if discipline and subordination be the criterion of merit, these soldiers were worthless indeed. Yet when their exploits have rung through all America it would be absurd to deny that they were excellent troops. Their victories were gained in the teeth of every established precedent of warfare; they were owing to a singular combination of military qualities in the men themselves. Without discipline or a spirit of subordination, they knew how to keep their ranks and act as one man. Doniphan's regiment marched through New Mexico more like a band of free companions than like the paid soldiers of a modern government. When General Taylor complimented Doniphan on his success at Sacramento and elsewhere, 1

VOL. XXXIII.