“Column—forward—quick time—march!”
The Worth men might move in at last. The street was so blocked that the end files of the companies were obliged to brush the people from the way. In the plaza the Second Dragoons band was playing “Yankee Doodle.” The plaza also was crowded. There seemed to be hundreds of blanketed, dirty beggars under foot. The dragoons rode right and left, clearing the plaza with the flats of their sabers, but careful to harm nobody.
“Column, halt!”
Just as General Worth was about to give orders a volley burst from the top of a building; the balls pelted in, aimed at him and his staff; but they passed over. Colonel Garland clapped his hand to his side, and in Company B Lieutenant Sidney Smith sank limply.
As if the volley had been a signal other shots sounded; paving stones rained down. It looked like a trap. Here were five thousand Americans, almost the whole army, in the plaza and surrounded by buildings and two hundred thousand people.
The orders were quick. In an instant Duncan’s battery and the Reno howitzers galloped to the plaza corners; Steptoe’s and Drum’s and Taylor’s guns were being unlimbered. Aides from General Scott were spurring hither thither; skirmish squads were being told off, and ordered to search the streets and buildings. The dragoons galloped. The howitzers battered the building from which the first volley had issued. Now all around the plaza there echoed the clatter of hoofs, the thud of running feet, and the ringing reports of musket and rifle.
A number of leading Mexican citizens apologized to General Worth and General Scott, and offered help to put down the insurrection. The trouble-makers were two thousand convicts who had been set free by Santa Anna.
The firing in the streets continued throughout the day, while the reserves waited under arms. At night things had quieted somewhat. The First Division bivouacked in the Alameda. After strong outposts had been placed the men might talk again. What a two days, September 13 and 14, that had been! And this was the end of the campaign in the Halls of Montezuma.
The Riley men, quartered with the First, could tell the news from the Quitman column. They had been at Chapultepec, and upon the road to the Belen gate. The casualties were heavy. Major Loring, of the Rifles, had lost an arm. The Drum battery had been cut to pieces at the gate—Captain Drum and First Lieutenant Benjamin killed. Lieutenant-Colonel Baxter, commanding the New Yorkers, was dying; Major Gladden, commanding the Palmettos, was wounded. General Shields’ wounded arm was in bad shape. General Pillow would recover; was in the hospital at Chapultepec. The South Carolinans were holding the Belen gate; the Second Pennsylvanians were garrisoning the fort inside.