The men were fairly safe. Their muskets taught most of the enemy to keep down behind the parapet. The rest of the Mexicans fired very badly, and the Americans near the wall could not be reached by the cannon. But the attack was making no progress. Time passed—five, ten, fifteen dreadful minutes, and still no ladders could even be seen. The American batteries, which had been firing over the heads of our troops, could no longer do it safely. The ardor of battle was cooling. Low mounds that looked like graves, but in reality were the mines, lay under our men, and a Mexican lieutenant of engineers had orders to fire them at the right moment. Santa Anna with perhaps 4000 or even 5000 reserves so near—might he not come round the hill? Scott’s whole gazing army, back even to Lieutenant Mayne Reid at Battery No. 2, was seized with a horrible fear. Pillow, lying at the foot of the hill painfully hurt in the ankle, sent for the whole of Worth’s division, which was supporting him as a reserve, and begged Worth to make “great haste” or it would be “too late.”[17]
There was, however, a nearer source of help. When the signal for attack was given, Quitman’s division—preceded by forty pioneers under Captain Reynolds of the Marines, Casey’s forlorn hope, and 120 stormers from the volunteer division led by Major Twiggs of the Marines—advanced on the Tacubaya causeway until about 200 yards from the gateway batteries. To support it, repel a body of Mexicans on its right, ward off any force that might approach from the city, perhaps turn those batteries, and if possible gain the Mexican rear, General Smith struck off into the meadows and pushed on despite the ditches; and Captain Drum and Lieutenant Benjamin, each with a single gun, and Lieutenant Hunt with two of Duncan’s pieces advanced by the road, firing on those batteries or at the hill and fort as opportunities offered.[17]
On each side of the causeway ran a ditch that was almost a canal and cramped the troops not a little; and a terrible fire of artillery and musketry from the meadows, the front, the wall of the rectangle and the fort on the hill-top greeted them. Quitman had reconnoitred here the day before, and thought he understood the problem; but the Mexicans had made further preparations afterwards, and when he ordered a charge, it was checked, and Twiggs and Casey fell. Ahead of him, partly enfilading the road, blazed at least five guns, and some of the best soldiers in the Mexican army—commanded by General Rangel—occupied the stone buildings near them, while others fired from behind the wall near the gateway. Under this concentrated and awful storm the Americans recoiled, and sheltered themselves near a bend in the road by lying down, getting into the ditches or occupying some houses. Here, too, the offensive was blocked; the attack failed.[17]
But “the issue of battle lies in the hearts of men,” and the will of every American heart was Victory. Lieutenant Reid, hurrying over from the battery with two companies, dropped on the slope, but his men went forward. By Quitman’s order the New York and the Second Pennsylvania regiments left the Tacubaya causeway, under a heavy fire waded the ditches on the left and rear to the redan (B), and charged through the opening, while the Palmettoes, finding a break in the same wall, made a little farther east by an American cannon, enlarged it with their bayonets and squeezed through. Shields and the commanders of the New York and Pennsylvania regiments were wounded, but the troops kept on. Clarke’s brigade, sent forward by Worth, hastened up the western slope, and when Lieutenant Longstreet of the Eighth fell, Lieutenant Pickett seized the colors. For some reason the mines failed to explode; and at last the ladders came up.[17]
Shouting and yelling, the Voltigeurs, the Ninth and Fifteenth, some of McKenzie’s and the foremost of Quitman’s men, all closely intermingled, and brilliant with flags and the sparkle of arms, crowded to the fosse. The first ladders, with all the bold fellows upon them, were thrown down, but in a moment so many more were placed, side by side, that fifty could go up abreast. The blue Voltigeur flag, now full of holes, was planted on the parapet. A tide of brave Americans overflowed the fort. Resistance was vain. A little before half-past nine Bravo gave up his diamond-hilted sword, and the tricolor, that had been waving placidly amidst the uproar, came down with a jerk.[17]
Fire was opened then upon the Mexicans at the gateway below, and fearless Captain Roberts of Casey’s storming party, at the head of all the troops on the causeway and supported by General Smith’s brigade, carried the gateway batteries. Many from Quitman’s and Smith’s commands rushed to the summit, dealing with flying enemies as they went. Scott himself came up—the hero of Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane. The men pressed round him. He told them how glad he was, and how proud of them; and how proud their country, their wives, their sisters and their sweethearts would be; and it seemed as if such cheering had never been heard, anywhere in the world, before.[17]
Exultant but weary, the soldiers now looked about them as they took breath. From this eyrie the whole wonderful Valley of Mexico could be surveyed. All round the west the great wall of rugged mountains closed it in, and two vast, snowy peaks guarded its portal on the east. As if reluctantly the mountains gradually subsided into verdant hills and a wide plain, enamelled in a thousand soft hues. The broad, smooth lakes gleamed like molten silver. The gold of ripening grain, penciled lines of pale-green maguey, cottages radiant in the sun like the sails of distant ships, country-houses and villas half hiding in foliage, and many straight, converging avenues, lined with trees, delighted the eye. In the midst, clear-cut as a medallion, lay the city of Mexico, the capital, its roofs and towers black with people; and there, just yonder, stood the Halls of the Montezumas, the Jerusalem of these ardent young crusaders. Unfortunately breastworks, redoubts, cannon and a Mexican army were still to be reckoned with. Santa Anna had probably lost not more than 1800 killed, wounded and missing this day, and apparently Scott’s loss had been about one fourth as great.[18]
QUITMAN’S OPERATIONS
But the Americans quickly prepared to advance—first of all, Quitman. Naturally a certain discretion had been given to the commanding generals, and he intended to make the most of it. Looking from the hill along the Belén causeway, he saw a wide avenue divided through the middle by a stone aqueduct some eight feet wide and fifteen feet high, resting on heavy arches and pillars of masonry. Owing to fine weather the road was unusually firm. A small number of troops, fleeing in the utmost confusion, could be seen upon it, but at only one point fortifications. Borrowing all of Pillow’s troops except the Fifteenth Infantry, which remained to hold Chapultepec and guard the prisoners, he quietly gave orders that his men should assemble near the main gateway. At once the inspiring words began to circulate, “Quitman’s division to the city!” and as soon as possible the Rifles, in their crimson sashes, were leading the march forward. About a mile on, a two-gun battery, with a field redan at its right on the marsh, blocked the way. For an hour or so Drum used a small gun upon it. Then the Rifles, after creeping along the aqueduct from arch to arch, took it by assault, and the march continued toward the fortifications at the garita.[19]