CHAPTER V.
CAPTURE OF THE CITY OF MEXICO.
During the armistice, which was entered into just after the battle of Churubusco, and terminated on the 6th of September, the engineer company was quartered in the village of San Angel. On the 7th of September I received orders to move the company, its train, and the general engineer train of the army to Tacubaya.
Molino Del Rey. That night I was ordered to detail an officer and ten men of the engineer company to report to General Worth. Lieutenant Foster was placed in charge of this detail. He and his men were on the right of the storming party of five hundred picked men, of Worth's division, which led the attack against Molino Del Rey on the morning of the 8th. In that attack Lieutenant Foster was very severely wounded and disabled.
Chapultepec. On the 11th of September, I received orders to furnish details of men from the company to assist engineer officers in supervising the construction of batteries against Chapultepec. I was placed in charge of Battery No. 1, on the Tacubaya road, against the southern face of the Castle; and Lieutenant McClellan in charge of Battery No. 2, against the southwestern angle. On the night of the 12th, the details were all called in, and I was directed to furnish implements to the different storming parties which were to assault the castle of Chapultepec on the morning of the 13th.
San Cosme Garita. At 3 P. M., that day, I received orders to join the siege train, and report to General Worth whose column was to attack the city by the San Cosme route.
At 4 P. M., I reported to General Worth, who was then with his forces, in the suburbs of the city, on the San Cosme causeway, at the point where it changes direction, at an angle of nearly ninety degrees, and is then nearly straight for about six hundred yards to the fortified Garita in our front. He informed me that Lieutenant Stevens had just been severely wounded and this made me the senior engineer with Worth's division. He directed me to go forward in person, closely examine the condition of affairs at the front, endeavor to determine the best method of operating against the fortified Garita, and report to him the result of my observations as soon as possible. He directed me, particularly, to have in view the question whether it would be advisable to bring the siege guns forward against the embrasured battery at the Garita. Just as I was leaving him, he said: "If you find there are two different methods by which the Garita can be carried, one in a shorter time at a sacrifice of men, the other in longer time, but a saving of men, choose the latter". And he added: "There have been too many valuable lives, of officers and men, lost recently in my division, for nothing".
Though he did not specify the action referred to, he meant the battle of Molino Del Rey. Under these instructions, I proceeded to the extreme front, made the requisite examination of our position and that of the enemy, and soon came back. I reported that the houses on the left of the causeway were built up continuously to the battery at the Garita, we could easily break through the walls from house to house; and, under perfect cover, reach the top of a three-story building, with flat roof and stone parapet, within 40 yards of the battery. A fire of musketry from that roof would make the works untenable; and we could thus in a short time drive the enemy from the fortified Garita, and secure a good lodgement within the city, without material loss and without using the siege guns.