“Don’t think so. The First Brigade has only seven hundred and fifty men; the Second had eleven hundred and fifty, so we’ll furnish the most stormers. You fellows will have enough to do, anyhow.”
With a “Good-by and good luck—see you later,” Jerry shook hands and hustled back for his company. But the men from the Fourth had already been picked.
Fortunately there was no rain this night. When Jerry, like the others, was aroused by the non-commissioned officers passing from mess to mess, the stars were shining brightly. The First Brigade formed by itself, under Colonel Garland, in the early morning gloom, and presently was marched down the slope by a road, as if straight for the King’s Mill. By the slight rumble of artillery wheels a battery (Drum’s battery, it was, from the Cadwalader brigade) followed. The other brigades might be heard, also moving, with creak of belts and cartridge boxes, dull tramp of feet, and low lurch and rattle of cannon carriages and caissons. Somewhere on the left cavalry equipment faintly jangled.
Colonel McIntosh, of the Fifth Infantry, was said to be commanding the Second Brigade; Colonel Clarke was ill. Major Wright, of the Eighth Infantry, commanded the storming column of five hundred men picked from all the regiments of the division. General Cadwalader commanded the Third Division regiments. Colonel Harney had supplied six companies of the Second Dragoons and one company of the Third, which with one company of the Mounted Rifles, were under Major Sumner. There were two twenty-four-pounder siege guns, under command of Captain Benjamin Huger, chief of ordnance, and three guns of Colonel Duncan’s First Division celebrated battery, which accompanied the Second Brigade.
At San Antonio the First Division had numbered twenty-six hundred officers and men; now it was down to nineteen hundred, or two thousand, when one included the Colonel C. F. Smith battalion of Light Infantry attached to the Second Brigade. General Cadwalader had brought about seven hundred and fifty in his three regiments; Major Sumner’s dragoons and Mounted Rifles numbered two hundred and ninety, the three batteries one hundred; so that General Worth was attacking the Mill and the Casa-Mata with some thirty-one hundred and fifty men.
After a march forward of about a mile down the hill slope from Tacubaya, the First Brigade was halted in line of battle.
“Lie down, men. Silence in the ranks.”
While they lay, the east brightened slowly over the City of Mexico and the citadel of Chapultepec. The towers and steeples of the city began to be outlined against the sky; Chapultepec caught the glow; all the east became gold and pink, with the mountain ranges black along the high horizon. Down here it was still chill and dusky. Colonel Garland, dimly seen from his horse, addressed the line.
“My men,” he said, “the First Division is going into battle as soon as there is light enough. General Scott has appointed us to brush the enemy from those buildings yonder. The First Brigade is to handle the mill, where the enemy’s left rests. The Second Brigade will assault the enemy’s right at the Casa-Mata. The general assault will be opened after the artillery has prepared the way by the Major Wright storming column, which will break the enemy’s center and cut the communications between the mill and that powder store-house. Our own job is to isolate El Molino and prevent aid from Chapultepec. So we must work fast. But once in there, you know very well that we can’t be driven out. No, no; don’t cheer. Silence! All I ask of you is to uphold the honor of the First Brigade and the American arms.”
The lower country was lightening, now. They all could see the arrangements for themselves. The First Brigade occupied right of line. Captain Drum’s battery section of three six-pounders was posted a little to the right of the brigade. Not far on the left, or west, were the two twenty-four-pounder siege guns of Captain Huger, with the Light Battalion drawn up behind them in support. Beyond, in the broken line that curved to the north so as to envelop the breastworks and the Casa-Mata, there were the five hundred men of the Major Wright storming column, crouched in column of platoons, and behind them the General Cadwalader brigade, in reserve. Farther on in the west there was the Second Brigade, and beyond it the Duncan battery section, waiting in front of the Casa-Mata. And away on the left of line in the northwest, there were the three squadrons of cavalry.