Decisive Battles of America

by Unknown

CHAPULTEPEC

At daybreak on the 13th the cannonade recommenced, as well from the batteries planted against Chapultepec as from Steptoe’s guns, which were served against the southern defences of the city in order to divert the attention of the enemy. At 8 A.M. the firing from the former ceased and the attack commenced. Quitman advanced along the Tacubaya road, Pillow from the Molino del Rey, which he had occupied on the evening before. Between the Molino and the castle lay first an open space, then a grove thickly planted with trees; in the latter Mexican sharpshooters had been posted, protected by an intrenchment on the border of the grove. Pillow sent Lieutenant-Colonel Johnstone with a party of voltigeurs to turn this work by a flank movement; it was handsomely accomplished, and, just as the voltigeurs broke through the redan, Pillow, with the main body, charged it in front and drove back the Mexicans. The grove gained, Pillow pressed forward to the foot of the rock; for the Mexican shot from the castle batteries, crashing through the trees, seemed even more terrible than it really was, and the troops were becoming restless. The Mexicans had retreated to a redoubt half-way up the hill; the voltigeurs sprang up from rock to rock, firing as they advanced, and followed by Hooker, Chase, and others, with parties of infantry. In a very few minutes the redoubt was gained, the garrison driven up the hill, and the voltigeurs, Ninth, and Fifteenth in hot pursuit after them. Here the firing from the castle was very severe. Colonel Ransom, of the Ninth, was killed, and Pillow himself was wounded.

Still the troops pressed on till the crest of the hill was gained. There some moments were lost, owing to the delay in the arrival of scaling-ladders, during which two of Quitman’s regiments and Clarke’s brigade reinforced the storming party. When the ladders came, numbers of men rushed forward with them, leaped into the ditch, and planted them for the assault. Lieutenant Selden was the first man to mount. But the Mexicans collected all their energies for this last moment. A tremendous fire dashed the foremost of the stormers in the ditch, killing Lieutenants Rogers and Smith, and clearing the ladders. Fresh men instantly manned them, and, after a brief struggle, Captain Howard, of the voltigeurs, gained a foothold on the parapet. McKenzie, of the forlorn-hope, followed; and a crowd of voltigeurs and infantry, shouting and cheering, pressed after him and swept down upon the garrison with the bayonet. Almost at the same moment Johnstone, of the voltigeurs, who had led a small party round to the gate of the castle, broke it open and effected an entrance in spite of a fierce fire from the southern walls. The two parties uniting, a deadly conflict ensued within the building. Maddened by the recollection of the murder of their wounded comrades at Molino del Rey, the stormers at first showed no quarter. On every side the Mexicans were stabbed or shot down without mercy. Many flung themselves over the parapet and down the hillside, and were dashed in pieces against the rocks. More fought like fiends, expending their last breath in a malediction and expiring in the act of aiming a treacherous blow as they lay on the ground. Streams of blood flowed through the doors of the college, and every room and passage was the theatre of some deadly struggle. At length the officers succeeded in putting an end to the carnage, and, the remaining Mexicans having surrendered, the stars and stripes were hoisted over the castle of Chapultepec by Major Seymour.

Meanwhile Quitman had stormed the batteries on the causeway to the east of the castle, after a desperate struggle, in which Major Twiggs, who commanded the stormers, was shot dead at the head of his men. The Mexicans fell back toward the city. General Scott, coming up at this moment, ordered a simultaneous advance to be made on the city along the two roads leading from Chapultepec to the gates of San Cosme and Belen respectively. Worth was to command that on San Cosme, Quitman that on Belen. Both were prepared for defence by barricades, behind which the enemy were posted in great numbers. Fortunately for the assailants, an aqueduct, supported on arches of solid masonry, ran along the centre of each causeway. By keeping under cover of these arches and springing rapidly from one to another, Smith’s rifles and the South Carolina regiment were enabled to advance close to the first barricade on the Belen road and pour in a destructive fire on the gunners. A flank discharge from Duncan’s guns completed the work; the barricade was carried; and, without a moment’s rest, Quitman advanced in the same manner on the garita of San Belen, which was held by General Torres with a strong garrison. It, too, was stormed, though under a fearful hail of grape and canister; and the rifles moved forward toward the citadel. But at this moment Santa Anna rode furiously down to the point of attack. Boiling with rage at the success of the invaders, he smote General Torres in the face, threw a host of infantry into the houses commanding the garita and the road, ordered the batteries in the citadel to open fire, planted fresh guns on the Paseo, and infused such spirit into the Mexicans that Quitman’s advance was stopped at once. A terrific storm of shot, shells, and grape assailed the garita, where Captain Dunn had planted an eight-pounder. Twice the gunners were shot down, and fresh men sent to take their places. Then Dunn himself fell, and immediately afterward Lieutenant Benjamin and his first sergeant met the same fate. The riflemen in the arches repelled sallies, but Quitman’s position was precarious till night terminated the conflict.

Worth, meanwhile, had advanced in like manner along the San Cosme causeway, driving the Mexicans from barricade to barricade till within two hundred and fifty yards of the garita of San Cosme. There he encountered as severe a fire as that which stopped Quitman. But Scott had ordered him to take the garita, and take it he would. Throwing Garland’s brigade out to the right and Clarke’s to the left, he ordered them to break into the houses, burst through the walls, and bore their way to the flanks of the garita. The plan had succeeded perfectly at Monterey; nor did it fail here. Slowly but surely the sappers passed from house to house, until at sunset they reached the point desired. Then Worth ordered the attack. Lieutenant Hunt brought up a light gun at a gallop and fired it through the embrasure of the enemy’s battery, almost muzzle to muzzle; the infantry at the same moment opened a most deadly and unexpected fire from the roofs of the houses, and McKenzie, at the head of the stormers, dashed at the battery and carried it almost without loss. The Mexicans fled precipitately into the city.

At one that night two parties left the citadel and issued forth from the city. One was the remnant of the Mexican army, which slunk silently and noiselessly through the northern gate, and fled to Guadalupe-Hidalgo; the other was a body of officers who came under a white flag to propose terms of capitulation.