every gun is aimed at you; and after that you don't care."
"You've been in other battles, Hannibal?"
"I should rather say! We're all veterans, in this division. We were with Old Zach—he's General Zachary Taylor—when he licked the dons at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma in Texas last May, and we helped take Monterey in September. We'd have been licking 'em again if we hadn't been sent here with Old Fuss and Feathers."
"But General Taylor's been licked since, hasn't he? At Buena Vista?"
"He? Old Zach? Do you believe that story? It's just a Mexican lie. I wasn't there, but the New Orleans papers say he wasn't licked at all. There can't anybody lick Old Zach. He just wears his old clothes and sits his horse sideways, and tells the men: 'The bayonet, my hardy cocks!' When we joined Old Fuss and Feathers we knew he was all right, too, but we expected to have to dress up and shave. I tell you, there was hustling. Regulations say that officers' and men's hair has got to be cropped—cut short, you know; whiskers can't grow lower than the ears and nobody except the cavalry can wear moustaches. Old Davy—that's General David Twiggs of the Second Division of Regulars—he had a white beard reaching nearly to his waist, and he shaved it all off and cut his hair. Looked funny, too. But the regulations aren't being enforced, after all. We're in Mexico to fight. Wait till you see General Worth's side-whiskers. But let's climb a hill, farther front, and lie down, and I'll show you things. No! Wait a minute. Listen to that cheering. I guess there's news. Come on."
