The General Quitman Fourth Division had arrived at last from San Augustine: Brigadier-General Shields’ New Yorkers and South Carolinans, and Lieutenant-Colonel Watson’s Marines and Second Pennsylvanians! Now the only troops left in the rear were General Persifor Smith’s brigade of the Second Division, being the First Artillery, the Third Infantry, and the dismounted Rifles. But Taylor’s light battery of the First had come up, it was said, and so had General Twiggs.
There was another suspicious sight. During the night batteries had been emplaced down in front of Tacubaya and facing Chapultepec. They seemed to be four sections, in pairs. One pair, about to open up, was located on the right of the hill slope, near the Quitman division and the road leading from Tacubaya to the eastern foot of Chapultepec. The other pair, not yet quite ready, was located near the King’s Mill and the Pillow brigade. The engineers and the artillerymen had worked all night planting the batteries.
It was Sunday morning, but—
“Boom! Boom-m-m!” The heavy reports jarred the breakfast cups and platters, and rolled back from the castle and the city walls and the mountains. Everybody sprang up to see the shots land.
“Boom! Boom! Boom-m-m!” They were two eighteen-pounders and an eight-inch howitzer of Captain Huger’s ordnance—a twenty-four-pounder. Dust from the pulverized stone and mortar floated above the castle of Chapultepec—dirt and rock spurted from the breastworks of the hillside—the Mexican soldiers were ducking and scampering. The men cheered.
“Now let ’em tend to their own funerals, and we’ll play ’em Yankee Doodle.”
The other battery joined. The bombardment of Chapultepec continued steadily. The Riley brigade of General Twiggs remained in the east upon the first main road from the south there, which entered the gate in the southwest corner of the city wall—the Belen gate. Old Davy’s two batteries, Taylor’s, and Steptoe’s Third Artillery detached from the Fourth Division, were peppering the gate and also firing upon the Mexican batteries protecting the Contreras and Churubusco roads, still eastward. The ringing of musketry faintly chimed in with the loud booming of the cannon.
And this was Sunday!
Just what General Scott had “up his sleeve” nobody among the rank and file knew. The officers refused to talk. Matters looked as though Chapultepec was to be shaken first, and when it had been well battered, then of course there would be an assault. But where? Perhaps upon the southern gates, in defiance of the weakened Chapultepec.
From the hill of Tacubaya the bombardment was pretty to witness. The American guns poured in their shot and shell with perfect aim, so that after every discharge the stones and dust and dirt were lifted in showers. From half a mile the citadel replied lustily, at first with ten pieces, but the firing was wild. Gradually the guns were being silenced; the garrison was drifting out for safety, and a large body of reinforcements from the city had halted part way to the hill, waiting for a chance to enter.