Legends of Mexico (Classic Reprint)

Ho !for theN ew Crusade !I twas in the spring of 1846, that this cry, thundering from twenty-nine states, aroused a People into arms, and startled Europe, its Kings andS laves, into shuddering awe. It was in the dawn of the year, when the blossoms of spring were upon the trees, and the Promise of a golden harvest on the fields, that a fiery blast came from the far south, scattering the blossoms of battle over the hills of our land, and darkening the sky with clouds of lurid grandeur clouds that gave Promise of a harvest of blood. In the spring of 1846, from the distant south, there came echoing in terrible chorus, aC ry, aG roan, a Rumor !T hat Cry, the earnest voice of two thousand brave men, gathered beneath theB anner of the stars in a far land, encompassed by their foes, with nothing but a bloody vision of Massacre before their eyes. And the Cry, wrung from two thousand manly hearts, said the People of the Union. We are in danger, but theB anner of theS tars floats above us. An army, twice our number sur rounds us, Assassins hung like vultures, in the shadows of our camp, a Plague broods in the poisonous air, of the swamp and chaparral. Come help us fight with us !O rif you cannot fight, Come, and behold us die, for the flag of Washington !T hat groan !I twas the incoherent yell, of the first American soldier, who with the knife in his back, and the hot blood gurgling from his throat, fell at the Assassin sfeet on the shores of Rio Grande. The Rumor !L ike the hurricane of the tropics it came. First, a small cloud in a serene sky, far on the horizon it was seen, and no one won dered to behold it. Then darkening up the zenith, it shut the southern sky in a wall of ebony, and flashed its quivering lightnings far over the snow mountains of the north. And it rolled on, that brooding Rumor, and it gathered, and it grew, until its shadow darkened theN ation, a
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)