The San Cosme suburb extended even beyond the English cemetery, where there was a formidable field-work sweeping the main Cosme causeway and the causeway from Chapultepec. At the gate, and two hundred yards without, were two batteries for two guns each.
Quitman pushed forward his command with unexampled vigor. The rifles and 1st artillery in advance, closely followed by the Palmettoes, marines, and the remainder of the volunteer division, were in close contact with the enemy till possession was effected of the garita at twenty minutes past one. In this contest Drum’s battery, assisted by Captain Winder’s company of the 1st artillery as a fatigue party, was served with a vigor and enthusiasm unparalleled in this war. The iron men of Drum pushed it into the very teeth of the enemy’s fire, and made it send forth an iron hail that drove the enemy from all his positions, even the garita itself. Drum paused not at the garita. With a sublime devotion, he marched boldly up to the very citadel itself, and fell mortally wounded, together with his gallant lieutenant, Benjamin, two thirds of his company being disabled. In command of a battery only three weeks, he fell universally lamented, the first artillerist of the army.
The temporary pause in the pursuit on the capture of the garita, considered indispensable to get the command in hand in order to proceed against the enemy, who was still in force, gave time to reassure the troops at the citadel, who were at one moment struck with a panic, and on the eve of evacuating the position. Notwithstanding the heroic conduct of Drum and the gallantry of the rifles and Palmettoes, the terrible fire which was soon opened from that work and the battery on the paseo compelled Quitman to withdraw his troops to the shelter of the garita, where they sustained the tremendous fire of the enemy till nightfall.
The command of Worth, on the fall of Chapultepec, boldly pushed forward to the San Cosme suburb, Garland’s brigade and Magruder’s battery in front. A smart encounter was had with a considerable body of the enemy’s lancers, who were charging down the causeway. Magruder was vigorously pushing forward his guns, ably supported by the troops, and the battery at the English cemetery was about to fall into our hands, when the whole command was halted. Worth, on arriving at a cross-road leading to the Tacubaya cemetery, was attracted by the tremendous contest going on there, and in consequence halted his command to be in condition to lend a hand to Quitman in case of his being sorely pressed. Timely assistance was rendered by Duncan’s battery, which contributed materially to Quitman’s success. Meanwhile a reconnoissance by the engineers showed that the enemy had no artillery in position at the cemetery, that the infantry force there was not formidable, and the lancers hanging on the flanks were not worthy of regard. Soon the order was given to charge the works. Our troops pressed in, driving the enemy before them and with little loss, and pressed forward to the batteries at the garita and in advance. Worth, on his arrival at the suburb about half past twelve o’clock, finding that a continuous row of stone buildings put it in our power to make a permanent lodgment, and reduce the contest to the crowbar and pickaxe without exposing the lives of the men, recalled the troops, and awaited the arrival of the ordnance and engineer trains.
A reconnoissance having shown that the first battery could easily be carried and with little loss, the enemy was driven from it, and Hunt’s section was put in position behind it, and made to open on the enemy’s battery of two guns at the garita. But he was soon compelled to put his battery under cover in consequence of the superior metal of the enemy.
At four the trains arrived, and immediately the troops, armed with the proper tools, commenced making their way from house to house. One party, headed by the engineer company, reaching the top of a high building, forty yards from the garita, opened fire upon the enemy at the guns at the very moment a similar fire was opened from a party on the other side of the street led by the gallant McKensie. The enemy was driven from the garita, but took away one of their guns. At nightfall Worth’s whole command was lodged in the suburb, his advance within twelve hundred yards of the Alameda.
During the night Quitman, in the erection of batteries and infantry covers, was making every preparation to renew the contest in the morning and to carry his attack into the heart of the city.
The enemy, however, withdrew their troops, and at seven o’clock Quitman’s command entered the citadel, and, pushing forward to the main plaza, the marines cleared the palace of the leperos, or thieves, who were infesting it, and hoisted the star-spangled banner from its summit.
General Scott, who had been the master spirit of the whole operations, originating the plan of attacking Chapultepec, giving the order when the time had come to make the assault, from the extended position of Chapultepec ordering the movements upon the causeways, supporting each by an adequate force, and on a lodgment being effected in the Cosme suburb ordering the resort to the crowbar and the refraining from the bayonet,—General Scott at eight o’clock issued his orders from the national palace announcing his occupation of the capital of Mexico.
Still, a desultory contest was kept up throughout the day from the houses of the city by an intermingled body of soldiers and leperos led on by officers of the army. Scott took the most decided means to stop it, and ordered every house to be blown up from which a hostile shot should be fired. At night the city was tranquil and in the undisturbed possession of our troops.