leaving his men behind to fight. Some of General Somerville's friends have justified his so doing by saying that he acted under orders. If it be true that such were his orders, it is most certain that those orders were kept secret from the army, and he thereby permitted himself to be made a tool of by the President, to deceive that army and the country.15 If it be true that he received such orders [68] from the President as to break up the campaign without fighting the enemy, why did his adjutant-general, Chief-justice Hemphill, read to the army, day after day, volumes of patriotic orders of his "glory, honour, and liberty?" If, on the other hand, he received no such secret orders, then he is chargeable with the grossest disobedience of public orders, and the nation have a right to be redressed therefor. The late election for major-general shows that the nation has stamped it with their most decided disapprobation; for out of some fifteen thousand votes, though General Somerville was brigadier of the first brigade, and a candidate, he received some hundred.

It is again said by some who returned home with General Somerville, and who wish to excuse that return, that the army was disobedient and unorganized. Justice to the whole army, and especially the gallant men of Mier, require that we should notice particularly these charges. The former one we have already shown how groundless; and we again repeat, that there never was a more obedient citizen soldiery assembled, in all things save in the one of running home without fighting the enemy. That they should have been disobedient in this, redounds to their own and their country's honour. If the charge of being unorganized was founded in justice, whose fault was it? Where was General Somerville, and what was he doing from the entry of General Woll into Bexar, on the 11th of September, [69] up to the middle of December, when he left these men upon the Rio Grande? Was it not his duty to organize and discipline the troops, and did he make any attempt to do so? It is a well-known fact that he never, on the first occasion, drilled them, though he remained in Bexar weeks, and the men had nothing else to do. However, in our warfare, it is a popular mistake that our citizen soldiery should understand all the minutiæ of the regular army drill. It is important that they should understand how to keep in "close order," and to "wheel by column," and a few other important manoeuvres, which may be taught in a very few days. The most important of all manoeuvres we understand better than any other nation on the face of the earth, and that is, to "look through the double sights with a steady arm."

It is painful to be under the necessity to make reflections either against General Somerville or any other gentleman, but duty to the army, to the service, and to the country requires us to say all, and perhaps more than we have said; and we surely do so without personal unkindness to any, and especially General Somerville, whose general kindness of disposition and social habits would disarm any one of such feelings.16