General Scott's plan of assault upon the city seems now to have been matured, though it required several days for full development according to the reconnoissances of his engineers. He designed to make the main assault on the west and not on the south of the city. Possessing himself suddenly of the Molino del Rey and the adjacent grounds he was to retire after the capture without carrying Chapultepec, the key of the roads to the western garitas of San Cosmé and Belen. The immediate capture of Chapultepec would have been a signal to Santa Anna to throw his whole force into the western defence of the city; but by retiring, after the fall of the Molino or King's Mill, and by playing off skilfully on the south of the city in the direction of the garita of San Antonio Abad, Scott would effectually divert the attention of the Mexicans to that quarter and thus induce them to weaken the western defences and strengthen the southern. At length, at the proper moment, by a rapid inversion of his forces from the south to the west, he intended to storm the castle-crowned hill, and rush along the causeways to the capital before the enemy could recover his position.
*****
In pursuance of this plan, an attack upon El Molino del Rey and La Casa Mata was the first great work to be accomplished, and as soon as Santa Anna's reply closing the armistice was received on the 7th the advance towards that place was ordered for the following morning. This important work was entrusted to General Worth, whose division was reinforced by three squadrons of dragoons; one command of 270 mounted riflemen under Major Sumner; three field pieces under Captain Drum; two twenty-four pounders under Captain Huger, and Cadwallader's brigade 784 strong. The reconnoissances had been completed; at three o'clock in the morning of the 8th of September the several columns were put in motion on as many different routes, and when the gray dawn enabled them to be seen they were as accurately posted as if in midday for review. Colonel Duncan was charged with the general disposition of the artillery, while the cavalry were under Major Sumner.
At the first glimmer of day Huger's powerful guns saluted the walls of El Molino and continued to play in that quarter until this point of the enemy's line became sensibly shaken. At that moment the assaulting party, commanded by Wright of the 8th Infantry, dashed forward to assault the centre. Musketry and cannister were showered upon them by the aroused enemy, but on they rushed, driving infantry and artillerists at the point of the bayonet, capturing the field pieces and trailing them on the flying foe, until the Mexicans perceiving that they had been assailed by a mere handful of men suddenly rallied and reformed. In an instant the reassured and gallant foe opened upon the Americans a terrific fire of musketry, striking down eleven out of the fourteen officers who composed the command, and, for the time, staggering the staunch assailants. But this paralysis continued for an instant only. A light battalion which had been held to cover Huger's battery, commanded by Captain E. Kirby Smith, rushed forward to support, and executing its bloody task amid horrible carnage, finally succeeded in carrying the line and occupying it with our troops. In the meanwhile Garland's brigade, sustained by Drum's artillery assaulted the enemy's left near the Molino, and after an obstinate contest drove him from his position under the protecting guns of Chapultepec. Drum's section and Huger's battering guns advanced to the enemy's position, and his captured pieces were now opened on the retreating force. While these efforts were successfully making on the Mexican centre and left, Duncan's battery blazed on the right, and Colonel Mackintosh was ordered to assault that point. The advance of his brigade soon brought it between the enemy and Duncan's guns, and their fire was of course discontinued. Onwards sternly and steadily moved the troops towards the Casa Mata, which, as it was approached, proved to be a massive stone work surrounded with bastioned entrenchments and deep ditches, whence a deadly fire was delivered and kept up without intermission upon our advancing troops until they reached the very slope of the parapet surrounding the citadel. The havoc was dreadful. A large proportion of the command was either killed or wounded; but still the ceaseless fire from the Casa Mata continued its deadly work, until the maimed and broken band of gallant assailants was withdrawn to the left of Duncan's battery where its remnants rallied. Duncan and Sumner had meanwhile been hotly engaged in repelling a charge of Mexican cavalry on the left, and having just completed the work, the brave Colonel found his countrymen retired from before the Casa Mata and the field again open for his terrible weapons. Directing them at once upon the fatal fort he battered the Mexicans from its walls, and as they fled from its protecting enclosure he continued to play upon the fugitives as relentlessly as they had recently done upon Mackintosh and his doomed brigade.
The Mexicans were now driven from the field at every point. La Casa Mata was blown up by the conquerors. Captured ammunition and cannon moulds in El Molino were destroyed. And the Americans, according to Scott's order previous to the battle, returned to Tacubaya, with three of the enemy's guns, (a fourth being spiked and useless,) eight hundred prisoners including fifty-two commissioned officers, and a large quantity of small arms, with gun and musket ammunition. Three thousand two hundred and fifty-one Americans, had on this day, driven four times their number from a selected field; but they had paid a large and noble tribute to death for the victory. Nine officers were included in the one hundred and sixteen of our killed, and forty-nine officers in the six hundred and sixty-five of our wounded. The Mexicans suffered greatly in wounded and slain, while the gallant General Leon and Colonel Balderas fell fighting bravely on the field of battle. [75]
*****
The battle was over by nine o'clock in the morning. The Americans, after collecting their dead and wounded, retired from the bloody field, but they were not allowed to mourn over their painful losses. They had suffered severely, yet the battle had been most disastrous to the Mexicans. The fine commands of Generals Perez and Leon and of Colonel Balderas, were broken up; the position once destroyed, could not serve for a second defence, and the morale of the soldiers had suffered. The Mexicans were beginning to believe that mere formidable masses, if not directed by skilful chiefs, were, in truth, but harmless things, and not to be relied on very confidently for national defence. The new levies, the old regular army, and the volunteers of the city, had all been repeatedly beaten in the valley both before and since the armistice. Nevertheless, Santa Anna, in spite of all these defeats and disasters at the Molino and Casa Mata, caused the bells of the city to be merrily rung for a victory, and sent forth proclamations by extraordinary couriers, in every direction, announcing the triumph of Mexican valor and arms!
On the morning of the 11th, Scott proceeded to carry out the remainder of his projected capture of the capital. His troops had been already for some time hovering around the southern gates, and he now surveyed them closely covered by General Pillow's division and Riley's brigade of Twigg's command, and then ordered Quitman from Coyoacan to join Pillow by daylight, before the southern gates. By night however, the two Generals with their commands were to pass the two intervening miles between their position and Tacubaya where they would unite with Worth's division, while General Twiggs was left, with Riley, Captain Taylor and Steptoe, in front of the gates to manœuvre, threaten, or make false attacks so as to occupy and deceive the enemy. General Smith's brigade was halted in supporting distance at San Angel, in the rear, till the morning of the 13th, so as to support our general depot at Mixcoac. This stratagem against the south was admirably executed throughout the 12th and until the afternoon of the 13th, when it was too late for Santa Anna to recover from his delusion.
In the meanwhile preparations had been duly made for the operations on the west by the capture of Chapultepec. Heavy batteries were established and the bombardment and cannonade under Captain Huger, were commenced early on the morning of the 12th. Pillow and Quitman had been in position, as ordered, since early on the night of the 11th, and Worth was now commanded to hold his division in reserve near the foundry to support Pillow, while Smith was summoned to sustain Quitman. Twiggs still continued to inform us with his guns that he held the Mexicans on the defensive in that quarter and kept Santa Anna in constant anxiety. Scott's positions and strategy perfectly disconcerted him. One moment on the south—the next at Tacubaya—then reconnoitering the south again—and, at last, concentrating his forces so that they might be easily moved northward to Chapultepec or southward to the gate of San Antonio Abad. These movements rendered him constantly sensible of every hour's importance, yet he would not agree with the veteran Bravo who commanded Chapultepec and was convinced that the hill and castle would be the points assailed. During the whole of the 12th the American pieces, strengthened by the captured guns, poured an incessant shower of shot into the fortress until nightfall, when the assailants slept upon their arms, to be in position for an early renewal on the 13th.
At half-past five in the morning the American guns recommenced upon Chapultepec; but still Santa Anna clung to the southern gates while Scott was silently preparing for the final assault according to a preconcerted signal. About 8 o'clock, judging that the missiles had done the work, the heavy batteries suddenly ceased firing, and instantaneously Pillow's division rushed forward from the conquered Molino del Rey, and overbearing all obstacles, and rapidly clambering up the steep acclivities, raised their scaling ladders and poured over the walls. [76]