y begun was still a puzzling question
in the mind of Captain Kemp, but he would have had no doubt whatever if
he had been with General Taylor and his remarkable gathering of young
students of the art of war. They all obtained several important lessons
that day. One of these was that it is both difficult and dangerous for
an advancing army to push on through dense bushes and high grass in hot
weather, with Mexican lancers ready to pounce upon them among the lanes
of the chaparral. It was found, not only before but after the short,
sharp collision with the Mexican forces at Resaca de la Palma that a
number of valuable lives had been lost in the bushy wilderness.

The American army moved slowly forward, and before nightfall the long
lines of its blue uniforms went over the prairie rolls in full sight of
the fort. The Stars and Stripes were still flying above the badly
damaged ramparts, and cheer after cheer went up from thousands of
throats, including those of the rescued garrison. They had not really
lost many men, killed or wounded, but among the killed was their
commander, Major Brown, after whom the fort was now named. In later
years, a town grew up around the site of the frontier fortress, and it
is called Brownsville. General Taylor's men had triumphantly cut their
way through the difficult twenty miles from the sea to the siege, but
perhaps any individual hero among them might have safely quoted the wise
remark of Lieutenant Grant, as he looked at the fort and recalled his
exploits of the day.

"Well, after all," he said to himself, "I don't know but what the battle
of Resaca de la Palma would have been won just as well if I had not been
there."

Long years afterward, it was to be said of a number of other battles
that they would not have been won just as well if he had not been there
to win them, and the same would be equally true of several of his young
companions, as inexperienced as himself, and as ignorant of the great
things before them in the far future.

Their army went into camp near the fort; and the Mexican forces, for the
greater part, were believed to have retreated across the Rio Grande.

It is said that after every storm there comes a calm, but it was not a
pleasant calm in the neighborhood of the American camp. There were all
the while strong parties of Mexican lancers hovering around in all
directions, on the lookout for imprudent stragglers, and a sharp watch
had to be kept to guard against su