win Howe, who died while in service at Fort Leavenworth, March 31, 1850, were the next two graduates. Lafayette Boyer Wood, of Virginia, was the twenty-fifth graduate. He is no longer connected with the service, having resigned several years before the rebellion. The next graduate was Charles S. Hamilton who, for some time commanded, as major-general of volunteers, a district under General Grant, who at that time was chief of the Department of the Tennessee. Captain William K. Van Bokkelen, of New York, who was cashiered for rebel proclivities, on May 8, 1861, was the next graduate, and was followed by Alfred St. Amand Crozet, of New York, who had resigned the service several years before the breaking out of the civil war, and Lieutenant Charles E. James, who died at Sonoma, Cal., on June 8, 1849. The thirtieth graduate was the gallant General Frederick Steele, who participated in the Vicksburg and Mississippi campaigns, as division and corps commander under General Grant, and afterward commanded the Army of Arkansas. The next graduate was Captain Henry R. Selden, of Vermont, and of the Fifth U. S. Infantry. General Rufus Ingalls, quartermaster-general of the Army of the Potomac, graduated No. 32, and entered the mounted rifle regiment, but was found more valuable in the Quartermaster's Department, in which he held the rank of major from January 12, 1862, with a local rank of brigadier-general of volunteers from May 23, 1863. Major Frederick T. Dent, of the Fourth U. S. Infantry, and Major J. C. McFerran, of the Quartermaster's Department, were the next two graduates. The thirty-fifth graduate was General Henry Moses Judah, who commanded a division of the Twenty-Third Army Corps during its operations after the rebel cavalry general, John H. Morgan, and in East Tennessee, during the fall of 1863. The remaining four graduates were Norman Elting, who resigned the service October 29, 1846; Cave J. Couts. who was a member of the State Constitutional Convention of California during the year 1849; Charles G. Merchant, of New York; and George C. McClelland, of Pennsylvania, no one of whom is now connected with the United States Service. It is very interesting to look over the above list to see how the twenty-first graduate has outstripped all his seniors in grade, showing plainly that true talent will ultimately make its way, no matter how modest the possessor may be, and notwithstanding all the opposition that may be placed in its way by others. It will be seen how General Grant came to command a larger force and a greater extent of country than all his thirty-eight class-mates put together, and has risen higher in the military scale than any in his class, notwithstanding the fact that he did not seem to possess the same amount of apparent dashing ability. His Scotch blood, however, gave him a pertinacity of character that enabled him to push forward against all difficulties, and this stubborn perseverance even in the midst of disappointments has characterized the whole of his life, civil, military and executive. When, however, he found he was on the right track he kept to it without turning aside for even a moment, and so ultimately became successful. War was now waving her torch along our frontiers. The surcharged clouds were lowering on the southwestern horizon. Her birds of ill-omen, snuffing the carnage afar, were gathering in from every side. Lines of bristling bayonets were confronting each other on opposite banks of the Rio Grande. He marched with the army, March 8, 1846, to Fort Brown, and "flashed the sword," which the Government had taught him to wield when Ringold's battery first struck the staggering line of Mexicans in that prairiethicket which gives to the earliest action in the Mexican war its name. When, on the next day, the stricken, but undemoralized enemy rallied reinforcements on a stronger position, and it became apparent, as the sun was declining, that cannon could not, as on the previous day, decide the contest, Lieutenant Grant was deployed as a skirmisher, with his regimental comrades, towards the natural ditch in which the foe was intrenched; and he was on the lead when the gallant Fourth leaped into the "ravine of palms" and cleared it of every hostile bayonet! When the Mexicans rallied again, Grant charged with that unwavering line of steel, which finally broke them into fragments and scattered them on the river. This occurred May 9, 1846. On the 18th of the same month, Grant crossed the Rubicon-that is the Rio Grande-and occupied Matamoras with General Taylor's column, while the haggard and sullen remnant of the hostile army was creeping slowly southward. General Grant's First "Baptism in Blood"-The American Col- On the 20th of August, 1846, Grant finds himself on that abrupt eminence which commands a prospect of Monterey from the east. At his feet lies a cultivated valley, tessellated with the varied green and yellow of orange and acacia groves, and waving fields of corn and sugar-cane, which stretch up to the very bastions of the easternmost works of defense. Beyond the forts, the sunbeams glance on the marble-like stucco of the cathedral and dwellings of the city, which seems to be veiled even from the profane gaze of the northern barbarians by the luxuriant foliage of flowering tropical trees. 66 Behind all, rise heavenward the Saddle and Mitre Mountains with their tremendous peaks, abruptly compared to "giants guarding the lovely bower at their feet and prepared to roll enormous rocks from their summits upon the adventurous assailants." The morning of the 21st breaks clear and resplendent ; and Major Mansfield, who is in the front, reconnoitreing, sends back word that he has discovered a point where that foremost fortification-Fort Teneria-is assailable. In a moment Colonel Garland, with two infantry regiments, Bragg's battery, and the Baltimore battalion, is descending the slope, followed by the rapt attention and palpitating hearts of their comrades on the hill. Before they had reached the point designated by Mansfield, the citadel enfilades them with its fire, and a masked battery in front showers them with shot and shell. Fort Teneria meantime is silent but frowns like grim death. On they advance, until they can see the eyes of the gunners, when, presto, the fort opens, and the assailing Amer ican columns, torn to pieces, are hurled into the suburbs of the city, to be massacred piecemeal by musketry from walls and housetops. Meanwhile the Fourth Infantry, to which Grant was attached, had been ordered to march by the left flank towards the point of attack; but ignorant of the fate of their comrades, they moved directly against the fort, when the same destructive fire sweeps from the earth two thirds of their number, and scatters the survivors in dismay. Fortunately for the success of the day, two companies of Colonel Garland's discomfited storming-party find shelter on the roof of a tannery, within musket-range of Teneria, and, with the sure aim of the rested rifle, pick off, one by one, the Mexican gunners. Under the cover of repeated and overwhelming volleys from this "coigne of vantage," the Tennessee and Mississippi volunteers rush across an. intervening space of a hundred yards, and, with a deafening war-whoop, pour like angry billows up the slope, over the parapet and through the embrasure. The work at the east end is over for the day, and the Fourth Infantry bivouac in Teneria for the night. We have been thus particular in detailing this affair, because it was Grant's first encounter with war "in all its terrors clad" and because, from his experience there in both of its vicissitudes, and from its frightful slaughter, it may be said to have terminated his martial novitiate by a "baptism of blood." Grant discovers at morning reveille, that Fort Diablo has been evacuated during the night, and is now occupied by the Mississippi Volunteers; and the cheering news reaches him at breakfast, that General Worth, by a succession of impetuous assaults, has carried every fortified position on the western acclivities. The guns of the Bishop's Palace are now turned upon the devoted town from the |