About five hundred men, the pick of the Mexican army, had collected
round a knot of staff-officers, and were making a most gallant
defence. General Houston had attacked them with three hundred of our
people, but had not been able to break their ranks. His charge,
however, had shaken them a little, and, before they had time to
recover from it, I came up. Giving a wild hurrah, my men fired their
pistols, hurled them at their enemies' heads, and then springing over
the carcasses of the fallen, dashed like a thunderbolt into the broken
ranks of the Mexicans.

A frightful butchery ensued. Our men, who were for the most part, and
at most times, peaceable and humane in disposition, seemed converted
into perfect fiends. Whole ranks of the enemy fell under their knives.
Some idea may be formed of the horrible slaughter from the fact, that
the fight, from beginning to end, did not last above ten minutes, and
in that time nearly eight hundred Mexicans were shot or cut down. "No
quarter!" was the cry of the infuriated assailants: "Remember Alamo!
Remember Goliad! Think of Fanning, Ward!" The Mexicans threw
themselves on their knees, imploring mercy. "_Misericordia! Cuartel,
por el amor de Dios!_" shrieked they in heart-rending tones but their
supplications were not listened to, and every man of them would
inevitably have been butchered, had not General Houston and the
officers dashed in between the victors and the vanquished, and with
the greatest difficulty, and by threats of cutting down our own men if
they did not desist, put an end to this scene of bloodshed, and saved
the Texian character from the stain of unmanly cruelty.

When all was over, I hurried back to the place where I had left the
Alcalde with Bob--the latter lay, bleeding from six wounds, only a few
paces from the spot where he had helped me up the breastwork. The