Footnotes
[1] The flat roof on the convent and most of the buildings in Mexico afforded strong positions for defense, being surrounded by parapets, known as azoteas, formed by carrying the walls some four feet above the roofs. The convent azotea was lined with infantry.
[2] The hill of Chapultepec, famed as the ancient country-seat of the Montezumas, rose some two miles outside the city, and was crowned by a strong castle. An extensive grove of huge and hoary cypresses clothed its slopes and stretched half a mile westward, the whole surrounded by a solid wall of masonry. Molino del Rey, the King’s Mill, a group of stone buildings, stood at the foot of the grove, and the Mexican line of defenses extended thence to a strong work, the Casa Mata, and far beyond it. It was reported that the enemy had a gun foundry in Molino, and General Scott determined to capture it.
[3] Lander, it seems, was an inveterate horse-killer, and almost always returned from his trips with his animal badly used up. Buffalo chips are the dried dung frequently used on the plains as a substitute for fuel where there is no wood.
[4] The town of Missoula is seated at the entrance to Hell Gate. The Bitter Root River is now known as the Missoula, the name Bitter Root being transferred to a branch of Clark’s Fork. The Bitter Root or St. Mary valley is likewise now known as the Missoula valley.
[5] Fort Owen occupied the site of the Flathead village and Catholic mission of St. Mary, which had been recently abandoned in consequence of the incessant forays of the Blackfeet.
[6] One of the lines of the Northern Pacific Railroad now crosses the Cœur d’Alene Pass on Governor Stevens’s route, to the vicinity of the Mission, running thence south of the Cœur d’Alene Lake to Spokane.
[7] Pacific R.R. Reports, vol. i. pp. 622–624.
[8] Major George T. Clark.
[9] Bancroft’s Pacific States, vol. xxvi. p. 88.
[10] Governor Stevens’s own statement. See Bancroft’s Pacific States, vol. xxvi. p. 117, note.
[11] Commissioner of Indian Affairs’ Report for 1899, pp. 301–303, 612.