The Americans carried the redoubt at the point of the bayonet, and then a desperate battle raged about the fortified village and church. From behind their defences the Mexicans kept up a deadly fire on the Americans, but the latter never faltered. The Mexicans made repeated sallies from the convent, but were driven back every time. In their desperation the native Mexicans desired to surrender, but some deserters from the American army, known as the San Patricio companies, hauled down the white flag whenever it was put up. At length after a three-hours' struggle the convent and other defences were captured. In the rear of Churubusco General James Shields and General Franklin Pierce, afterward President of the United States, were hard pressed by an overwhelming force of Mexicans, and in some danger. Timely reinforcements sent by General Scott turned danger into victory, and the Mexicans, discomfited on every side, gave way, and retreated in utter disorder toward the city of Mexico, pursued by the triumphant Americans. It was the most glorious day since Yorktown for American arms. The Mexican loss was nearly 4000 killed and wounded, besides 300 prisoners, thirty-seven cannon and a large quantity of small arms and ammunition. The Americans lost 139 killed and 926 wounded.
Churubusco should have ended the war, and negotiations for peace were commenced, but were broken off through Mexican bad faith. Hostilities were resumed and the coup-de-grace was given to Mexico on the historic hill of Chapultepec. The storming of El Molino del Rey, of the Casa de Mata and the Castle of Chapultepec were among the boldest exploits of the war. Chapultepec had been an ancient seat of the Aztec emperors. Rising abruptly from the shore of Lake Tezcuco, crowned with a strongly fortified castle, supported by numerous outworks and with several massive stone buildings, each a fortress powerfully garrisoned, at the base, the hill of Chapultepec seemed a very Gibraltar guarding the entrance to Mexico's capital. El Molino del Rey and the Casa de Mata were carried by storm on the eighth of September, the Mexicans leaving 1000 dead on the field, beside 800 prisoners, and those who escaped death or capture either flying in dismay from the scene or retreating up the hill to the Castle of Chapultepec.
General Scott determined to batter down the castle with heavy cannon. Robert E. Lee, afterward commander of the Confederate armies, was one of the officers who placed the artillery in position. A continuous fire was kept up during the first day (September 12), the solid shot and shell crashing through the Castle and killing many of its defenders. Among these were about one hundred young boys, from ten to sixteen years of age, cadets in the Military Academy, which was situated on the hill of Chapultepec. Several of the boys lost their lives fighting the Americans with a valor that might well have put some of their elders to shame. About fifty general officers were also in the Castle, and the whole Mexican force engaged probably did not exceed 4000 men. It was the last stand made by Mexican troops, and it was a brave stand. The weak and the demoralized had slunk away from further conflict with an invincible foe. The bombardment was resumed on the thirteenth, and troops moved to the assault under cover of a heavy cannonade. The Mexicans fought desperately, but they were no match for their antagonists. The Stars and Stripes soon floated over Chapultepec, hailed with a mighty cheer by the American troops, nearly all of whom had taken some part in the conflict.
On September 14 the American flag was hoisted in the City of Mexico, and from the National Palace of that Republic General Scott issued a general order in which, with justifiable pride, he declared: "Beginning with August 10 and ending the fourteenth instant, this army has gallantly fought its way through the fields and forts of Contreras, San Antonio, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, Chapultepec and the gates of San Cosme and Tacubaya into the capital of Mexico. When the very limited number who have performed these brilliant deeds shall have become known, the world will be astonished and our own countrymen filled with joy and admiration." The triumphs of Scott and Taylor added lustre to American arms which time will not efface. They recalled the exploits of Cortes and Pizarro, save in the scrupulous honor and humanity which guided every step of the American invasion. No victors were ever more generous in their treatment of the conquered. "The soldiers of Vera Cruz," says a Mexican historian, "received the honor due to their valor and misfortunes. Not even a look was given them by the enemy's soldiers which could be interpreted into an insult." The Duke of Wellington, the conqueror of Napoleon, followed Scott's campaign with deep interest and caused its movements to be marked on a map daily, as information was received. Admiring its triumphs up to the basin of Mexico, Wellington then said: "Scott is lost. He has been carried away by successes. He can't take the city, and he can't fall back on his base." Wellington proved to be wrong. He had never met American troops.
The treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, concluded February 2, 1848, established the Rio Grande as the boundary between the United States and Mexico, and California and New Mexico, including what is now Arizona, were ceded to the United States for $15,000,000. The United States also assumed the payment of obligations due by Mexico to American citizens to the amount of $3,250,000, and discharged Mexico from all claims of citizens of the United States against that Republic. Strict provision was made for the preservation of the rights of the inhabitants of the ceded territory. The Gadsden Purchase, in 1853—so called from General James Gadsden, who conducted the negotiations in behalf of the United States—added 45,535 square miles of Mexican territory to the United States, for which this country paid $10,000,000, Mexico at the same time relinquishing claims against the United States for Indian depredations amounting to from $15,000,000 to $30,000,000. The American Republic thus received in all, as a consequence of the Mexican War, 591,398 square miles, and the Union acquired its present boundaries, exclusive of Alaska. The Mexican War gave to the United States the Pacific as well as the Atlantic seaboard, and completed the westward movement which had begun with the very birth of the Republic. It made the United States the great power of the American continent, seated between the two oceans, with a domain unequalled in natural resources by any other region of the world.
The Union in 1850—Comparative Population of Cities and Rural Districts —Agriculture the General Occupation—Commercial and Industrial Development—Growth of New York and Chicago—The Southern States— Importance of the Cotton Crop—Why the South Was Sensitive to Anti-Slavery Agitation—Manufactures—Religion and Education,—The Cloud on the Horizon.
Approaching that period of civil discord, followed by civil war, which has left its impress in every corner of the Union, and which was attended by radical changes in the Constitution and the institutions of our country, it may be well to review the material condition of the States when the forces of freedom and slavery began to gather for the great conflict, first in the forum and later in the field. In 1850 the United States had a population of 23,191,876, of whom 3,204,313 were slaves. Only 4,000,000 of the people lived in cities, towns and villages, and of these but 2,860,000 resided in 140 cities and towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants each. Of the total real and personal property in the United States more than two-thirds was owned by the rural population, and the value of manufactures was insignificant, compared with the products of agriculture. One leading aim of American statesmanship and enterprise had been, from a very early period, to connect the great lakes and the fertile valleys of the middle and western States with the cities and ports along the Atlantic seaboard; to improve navigation of the rivers, and thus bring into cultivation the valuable tracts of country along their banks; and, as a part of this great work, to connect with each other, by railways and canals, the towns and villages in the more densely-peopled and cultivated districts. To carry out the general design, vast sums were lavished and expensive works constructed, in many instances far in advance of any ascertained requirements of the country, and certainly with little prospect of an early return for the expenditure. But in the meantime the most apparently hopeless of these works conferred important benefits upon the mass of the community, by developing sources of wealth which might otherwise have been closed for years, and providing new spheres for the restless and indomitable energy of the American.
While the agricultural portion of the American people were extending the area of their location, and laying under the Constitution new and vast sources of wealth, the cities and towns also grew apace under the impulse of commercial and industrial development. No country in the world, Great Britain not excepted, succeeded more signally in directing its natural advantages to the promotion of commerce. The abundance of water power was utilized for manufactures of every description. Machinery of the most perfect kind was applied to every process, economizing labor, facilitating locomotion and aiding in surmounting those difficulties which had ever impeded the progress of young nations. Nowhere was the gigantic power of steam more abundantly and usefully employed—in the mine and in the mill, on the rivers and lakes, the canals and the railroads, doing the work of millions of hands and of human and animal sinews, without creating a vacuum in the market for labor, or diminishing the rewards of industry. From 1830 to 1840, a period of only ten years, the increase in the population of twenty of the largest cities in the United States, from New York to St. Louis inclusive, was fifty-five per cent, and this in face of the most disastrous commercial panic that had ever visited the country, and this marvelous rate of increase was fully maintained during the subsequent decade.
It is not remarkable that the cities and States of the Union which first took steps to connect the fertile regions lying beyond the Allegheny Mountains with the Atlantic should have made the greatest progress in importance and prosperity. It was the fortune of the State of New York to take the earliest step to effect this great desideratum, although Washington had perhaps first suggested its importance, in agitating a movement for the purpose of connecting the country adjoining the Great Lakes with his native Virginia. The construction of the Erie Canal placed New York in the very front of American communities. Before the canal was opened the cost of transit from Lake Erie to tidewater was such as to prohibit the shipment of western produce and merchandise to New York; and it consequently came only to Baltimore and Philadelphia. "As soon as the lakes were reached," says a Federal report, "the line of navigable water was extended through them nearly one thousand miles farther from the interior. The Western States immediately commenced the construction of similar works, for the purpose of opening a communication from the more remote portions of their territories with this great water-line. All these works took their direction and character from the Erie Canal, which in this manner became the outlet for the greater part of the produce of the West. Without such a work the West would have had no attractions for a settler, and have probably remained a waste up to the present time; and New York itself could not have progressed as it has done." In addition, however, to the formation of the Erie Canal, New York originated, in advance of most other States, lines of railway throughout its territory, in connection either with the canal, or between its various towns and settlements. It also connected itself by railroad with Lake Champlain, and succeeded in diverting a considerable portion of the transit trade of Canada from the St. Lawrence through these communications to the port of New York. The effect of this enterprise displayed by the people and by the State may be estimated by the fact that the population, which was, in 1830, 1,918,608, had increased in 1840 to 2,428,921, and in 1850 was 3,097,394. In 1830, the value of the imports at New York was $38,656,064; in 1840 it had reached $60,064,942, and in 1851, when the network of railway communications throughout the State had come into fairly complete operation, the value of imports was $144,454,616.