At four in the afternoon we reached water at a Mexican Ranche. The children were nearly famished from thirst, as they had been twenty-four hours without water. And here we struck the lost road again, twenty-eight miles from Rio Grande City, on the Rio Grande, called Ringgold Barracks during the Mexican war with the United States, named for Major Ringgold, who was killed there.
We passed down the river on the Texas side with a fresh team, crossing it by ferry, at Edinburg, and then we took the stage on the Mexican side, one hundred and fifty miles to Matamoras. We made that distance on the finest road we ever saw, in just twelve hours. The next stage that came through was captured, and robbed by the cut-throat Cortinas, who is dignified in the military world with the title of General. The splendid stage line was thereby compelled to haul off, to the great annoyance and detriment of the traveling public.
We will here record a tragic incident to illustrate the savage character of this half-breed semi-barbarian Cortinas. But it is quite enough to mantle with patriotic shame the American cheek, to know that a high Federal officer was _particeps criminis_ in the foul play.
Don Manuel G. Rejon was a Spanish gentleman, of fine personal appearance, in whose veins ran the pure Castilian tide, an eminent lawyer, and a member of the Mexican Congress. In April, 1864, owing to the political disturbances which occurred in the States of Nueva Leon and Coahuila, he fled to Brownsville, Texas, and thought himself secure under the protection of the United States flag.
Jose M. Iglesias, one of President Juarez's Ministers, was at this time in Matamoras, and solicited the extradition of Rejon. General F. J. H., commanding the Federal forces on the lower Rio Grande, turned him over to the Mexican authorities.
The surrender of a political refugee like Rejon, that he might be put to death by his enemies, never occurred before in the United States. The famous, or rather infamous, Cortinas was then Governor of the State of Tamaulipas, and in obedience to the arrogant orders of Minister Iglesias, caused him to be shot. A father's prayers, a woe-stricken wife's tears, and the piteous wailings of his children, did not avail to save the unfortunate Rejon.