Although it may have been true, as indeed was the fact, that a of the surviving soldiers of the Revolutionary conflict found homes a brief season in this county, and a larger number of those who taken part in the succeeding Indian Wars and the struggle of 1812 had planted their stakes in our fertile soil; yet, war was become, even to them, only a memory, a performance hard to execute in its time, but, to the survivors, rather pleasant than otherwise, in the retrospect so that to the great mass of� dwellers in� Delaware, war had, a stern and sad reality, come to be well-nigh unknown. Indian hostility had ceased long before the settlement of the county. Until the civil war of 1861, only one national contest had engaged the attention of our people�the war against Mexico, in1846-48.� In that, Delaware County took but a small part, of which however, fortunately, we are�able to give a very clear and full account.

One of the few who went to Mexico is still living in the vicinity� George W. Parkinson, then and now of Yorktown. He is an intelligent and influential citizen, and from him has been obtained a reliable statement in detail as follows:�

STATEMENT OF GEORGE W. PARKINSON

At the outbreak of the Mexican war, a large portion of the people of Delaware, and of other counties as well, thought the war to be wrong, and, hence, were unwilling to assist in carrying it on. A movement was made,however, by Hon. David Kilgore, with some others and in August 1846, a company was organized at Muncie, consisting of fifty-nine�men. They chose their officers�David Kilgore, Captain and William J. Brady, Orderly Sergeant (others not remembered). Great efforts were made to secure the acceptance of the company at Indianapolis. Mr. Kilgore went to the capital on horseback, riding all night, it is said, in his hurry to reach the place. But he was too late. The regiment was already full, and the project was dropped.� The next spring, another Indiana regiment was formed; and several joined it from DelawareCounty.� Measures had been taken, chiefly�in Madison and Grant Counties, Ind, to raise a company, which had its place of rendezvous at Anderson (town) and on the 21st of April 1847, three men started on foot from Yorktown, Delaware County, for Anderson, to enlist for Mexico. They found already there, nine others from Delaware County, as also three from Randolph County. The names of the twelve are herewith given: William T. Collins, Firman V. Carmichael, Abel Gibson, James Halsted, Joseph E. Hurd, Samuel Macum, James Moore, George W. Parkinson, William S. Reeves, JosephSecrist, William Sutton, Alexander Williamson.

From Randolph County, Cain, � Neff and William D. Stone, since Captain in the Union army. Two others from Delaware County joined a regiment formed afterward�William Simmons and Jesse Sheary. Nine, and perhaps eleven, of the fourteen from Delaware County are now dead.

The company consisted of about one hundred men, mostly from Madison and Grant Counties, with twelve from Delaware, three from Randolph, and, possibly, a few from other localities. The officer�s chosen were, Captain, John M. Wallace, of Marion; First Lieutenant, Decatur Carey, of Grant County; Second Lieutenant, John W. Dodd, of Grant County; -Third Lieutenant, Nineveh Berry, of Madison County.

The company marched to Edinburg, south of Indianapolis.� There they took passage on the cars on the Madison & Indianapolis Railroad, which had just been completed to Edinburg. For most of the company, these cars were the first they had ever seen. They went by rail to Madison, and by steamer to Jefferson, at which place the regiment was�organized and mustered into service. The company from Anderson and Grant Counties became Company A, in the Fourth Indiana Volunteer Infantry.� Willis A. Gorman was made Colonel, and Ebenezer Dumont, Lieutenant Colonel. Both of these gentlemen have since been prominent in the civil war, and otherwise in the service of the State.�

The regiment was composed of companies madeup from various localities. Col. Gorman recruited one from his region, Lieut.Col. Dumont one from his section. The company from Grant County, etc, made three, and the others came from elsewhere. After remaining at Jeffersonville about four weeks, the regiment went by steamer to New�Orleans stopped there two weeks, thence proceeding in two divisions, and in different steamers, on its way to the scene of war.

The vessel on which was embarked the right wing of the regiment, to which Company A belonged, soon after passing out upon the gulf, exploded one of her boilers, apparently disabling the boat. Several men were killed, among them Firman V. Carmichael, one of the soldiers from Delaware County; sixty-five of them, went to the shore in three boatloads. The firstboat carried the remains of their dead comrade to the land for burial.� While they were performing that mournful service, the two other boats came, and those who were in them said that the wholebody were coming on shore; but, for some reason unknown to those who had been landed, the steamer found means to go on her way, and left that company of sixty-five men to their fate! There they were, in the Louisiana swamps, without food and with no suitable water, and perhaps two days� journey from any settlement. But the boys would never say die, and off they tramped, two days� journey, to Sabine City, at the mouth of Sabine River�Louisiana and Texas line, fasting as they went. At that place they stayed a week. In some way, Mr.Parkison says, a man went from Sabine City on horseback, to Galveston to carry the news. Word came to Galveston what a plight these men were in, and an old schooner, the Lone Star, was sent to hunt them up. They were found at SabineCity and taken to Galveston, at which place they rejoined their comrades. There they "boarded" the Robinson Crusoe for Brazes do Santiago, near the mouth of the Rio Grande; went on thence up the Rio Grande to Camp Mier, perhaps two hundred miles, and reported to Gen. Taylor. He ordered them to Vera Cruz, and so back they marched to the mouth of the river, whence they were taken to Vera Cruz and sent forward into the heart of Mexico. At Vera Cruz had lately arrived the Fourth Ohio, five companies from Pennsylvania, and a cavalry company from Louisiana, Capt. Walker. By the army thus formed was fought the battle of Huamantla, in front of Puebla, midway between Vera Cruz and the city of Mexico, in October, 1847. Gen. Scott had taken Vera Cruz, fought Cerro Gordo (SierraGorda), captured Puebla, and gone forward to fight and gain the terrible battles around the capital city. But the Mexican forces had turned back and were�laying siege to Puebla, defended by the gallant Gen. Childs, with his handful of men. Just then the little army from the coast came up, fought and won the battle of Huamantla, scattered the swarming foe, raised the siege and saved the city and its garrison. They went no further, but stayed in the vicinity of Puebla for several months, having some skirmishes mad street conflicts, but no heavy fighting. Peace was made, and the soldiers came home. The men from Delaware County arrived at Indianapolis the last of July (or August), 1848. Except Carmichael, killed by the explosion, all the "Delaware Squad" survived. William Sutton was nearly blind, and the severe sunshine made him worse, so that he could scarcely see at all, and he was discharged early, but all the others "went the rounds," and came home again safe and sound.

William D. Stone, a member of the same company, who enlisted from Randolph County, has furnished an account, which is so graphic that we reproduce portions of it in this sketch:

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM D. STONE

In the Gulf of Mexico, when our part of the regiment was onboard the steamer Ann Chase, one of her boilers exploded and the boat was thought to be helpless. Sixty-five men were sent in boats and on rafts to the Louisiana shore, nine miles away, near the mouth of the Calcasien River. The vessel managed to "rig up" in some way, and, without warning or waiting, or trying get us back on board, and with-out sending us any supply, the steamer went on its way, and there we were, in the wilderness. We "footed" it sixty-five miles, through Louisiana swamps and jungles, without food for two days and nights, till we reached Sabine City, a tramp, for men in our case, severe enough. Here our party stayed a week.

At this point, thousands of Texas cattle used to pass over the river. The cattle had to swim, and, as they were crossing, the alligators would catch them. Every little while a bullock would give a spring and a plunge, and that would be the last of him; an alligator had him.� We tried hunting alligators. Four of us took a skiff, with only one gun to supply the crowd, and rowed out into the river. Presently, along came an alligator, and some one said,� "Let�s lasso him." So they fixed a rope fast to the skiff, and threw it over his head. The moment he felt the rope, quick as a flash the monster started for the gulf at full speed, He dragged the boat half a mile on the "double quick." The boys tried to get him to shore. � They worked him into about four feet of water, when one of the men�Brewer by name a big stout, burly fellow, sprang from the boat into the river, to pull on the rope to help land him. The beast "took for" Brewer, and there was some lively splashing just then through that water. However, he was hauled to the shore at last, and one of the boys shot him. He was seven or eight feet long. Mr. Parkison says he was nine feet long, and blew with a great bellowing in the water, and that, as he was out on the sand, the creature�raised his enormous carcass up on his fore feet and opened his cavernous mouth as if he would swallow the whole group of them alive.�������

Three or four hundred men were still on board the steamer when she went off and left us among the alligators and the rattlesnakes. At Galveston, they told how a part of the regiment had been put ashore, somewhere on the Louisiana coast, and perhaps that they were starving, or may be they were dead. An old schooner was sent forthwith to search�for us, and we were found at Sabine City. The soldiers went gladly on board the vessel, old hulk as it was, and thus got safe to Galveston.� From tha tport to Brazos de Santiago, most went by another old steamer, but fifteen (of whom I was one) chose rather to go some other way; so we took a yawl and undertook the trip in that. We rued our choice, but it was too late. We had to stick to the yawl, "sink or swim." When out on the Gulf, the crazy thing would dip and veer; now one side down, and now the other; and the men came many times near plunging overboard and drowning; but by God�s mercy we were spared.� Mornings and evenings, shoals of sharks would come prowling around, begging for some one to tumble overboard for their special benefit, but no man chose to gratify that friendly wish. There was not a gun on board, and the crowd had to take it out in simply wishing they had one with which to kill some of the voracious monsters. But we did one thing that was not "on the bills," nor was it "down in the play." It was an off-hand performance, entirely, and one for which our gallant Colonel was not especially thankful. He had ordered a large quantity of hams to be stowed away in the bottom of the yawl for transportation, and the "boys," for lack of something else to do, pulled out those hams�and pitched them overboard, one by one, to the sharks, to soften the feelings of the cruel savages, and to prove to them by actual trial how much better, salted and smoked hog-meat is than a live "human."� Those sharks ever after "hankered for ham," as do also their descendants in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, perhaps, to this day. Anyhow the ugly fellows got plenty of ham that time if they never did again! Whether the chaps on board saved their bacon by that means can never be known.

Col. Gorman, when the yawl came into port minus the "hams," did some heavy scolding (not to say �tall swearing,�) when be found his precious "hogs hind legs" were thrown overboard, but they were, every one, and "no mistake."

Brazos de Santiago was reached after awhile, and "our squad" (by their own special choice, for ill-luck seemed to stick to them), preferred to go to Vera Cruz in a sailing vessel, which was large, and seemed stanch and good. But she proved old and unsea worthy, and a terrible storm arose, which was likely to have sent them all to the bottom. Our heroes wished for the firm land, but no land was near, and they had to rough it through. When the regiment reached Vera Cruz, Gen. Scott had left that place and gone forward, had captured Puebla and his cannon were roaring and thundering around Mexico.

The Mexicans, meanwhile, had retraced their steps, doubled on Puebla, and re-invested the town; and Gen. Childs was trying to hold the city against a force far stronger than his own; Gen. Rhea, the Mexican Commander, having besieged it at the head of an army of�7,000 men. Our forces from Vera Cruz climbed the heights of the mountain land, approached the city of Puebla, fought the battle of Huamantla, defeated the enemy, and raised the siege. The next day the rescued city of Puebla was entered by the American forces once more in triumph. Our little army had fought every day, more or less, for twenty-ninedays, and at Huamantla, 1,500 men defeated 5,000 Mexicans.

But the war was mostly over. Gen. Scott had silenced the guns of San Juan de Ulloa, entered Vera Cruz, fought his bloody way up the rocky steeps of Sierra Gorda to the heights of the great Central Table Land, had taken the strong fortress of Perot, and the famous city of Puebla, and passe donward in his victorious career over the summits of the Colorado toward the renowned Mexican capital. He had about this time fought and won the fearful battles of Contreras, San Antonio, Churubusco, Molino del Rey and Chapultepecand had made his triumphal entry into the ancient imperial city of the Montezuma�s.� After the battle of Huamantla and the relief of Puebla, our regiment�fought the Mexican forces at Tlascala, to protect a tobacco train containing an abundant supply of that fragrant weed for the useof our soldiers. The bombardment of Atlixco on our march, though a cruel, was nevertheless a sublime, scene. The artillery were posted on the heights, and the town lay far down in the valley hundreds of feet below.� It was in the night, and the fiery track of the shells, as they sped on their destructive way, could be distinctly seen in the darkness of the evening sky. The shells would burst among the dwellings of the town, scattering death and ruin far and wide. The city could not long endure so unequal a contest, and surrendered at discretion. Gen. Scott was in possession of the city of Mexico, and the war had measurably ended. The army remained in the country for several months, till a treaty of peace had been made and agreed to, when the capital was evacuated, the other cities were also given up, and the army came home. It will be seen that the war was substantially done before the Fourth Indiana, and other regiments named, had reached the scene of action; Gen. Taylor had marched to the Rio Grande, had defeated the Mexicans at Palo Alto and Resaca de Palma, had stormed Monterey, had met and routed the foe at Buena Vista and Saltillo. Gen. Scott had ended his triumphal career, and was resting his wearied soldiers in the metropolis of the Mexican Empire, so that the Fourth Indiana Infantry and those that followed, witnessed but little of the dread realities of actual war. It was therefore the fact, that before 1861, war�s grim and fearful visage was a thing, which, by the mass of the people of Delaware County, had never been seen. Even military musters, and "training days" had�been discontinued so long that only the elders in the land had ever witnessed their mock display of martial show.