unlike Gen. Winfield Scott, deplores the war, but he obeys his commander-in-chief. As it becomes increasingly evident that the war is being lost by Mexico, Riley's men debate what to do. There is a difference between desertion and treason. Those who deserted before the war and are taken back to the U.S. will be lashed and branded; those who deserted after the declaration of war will be hanged as traitors. They decide to die as men fighting for freedom. When they finally lose, Cortina has escaped with many of his forces, and the Irish are taken prisoner. Many of them are still officially British citizens, having never yet been granted the U.S. citizenship they had first been promised for enlisting in the U.S. Army. General Winfield Scott utterly rejects the appeal of the Mexican Government, presented by Col. Nexor, to recognize Riley's men as Mexican citizens and prisoners of war; protests have come in from all the nations of the world denouncing their punishment as barbaric and an utter contradiction of the principles of the American Revolution. Scott is adamant: the deserters will be lashed and branded, and forced to watch those condemned as traitors hanged, whose heads will be forcibly faced in the direction of Chapultepec to watch the taking of that stronghold and the sight of the lowering of the Mexican flag and the raising of the Stars and Stripes, so that this will be their last sight—they will be hanged at that instant. On the day of their execution, in sight of the men on the scaffold, Riley is lashed with a cat-o-nine-tails: 50 strokes. He is then branded on his right cheek with a large letter D "just below the eye, so not to impair his vision." The soldier ordered to wield the red-hot brand is told to do it quickly, as "Riley must be conscious when it is done!". Visibly shaken, the soldier sears the brand into Riley's face upside down (backward). He is harshly reprimanded, then told to "do it right!", but he vomits and faints, and Riley is branded on his left cheek by the officer in charge of punishment. Riley is then forced to watch the executions ordered by Scott. He loudly cries out encouragement to them, who shout back as they are hanged. Some time afterward, while working in a stone quarry for military prisoners, Riley is told by his former