The First Division spent the night at the King’s Mill. The Cadwalader
brigade joined its comrade brigade of the Third Division, and General
Pillow moved down to the mill also, in readiness for the assault by the
west slope of Chapultepec rock.
Before the First Division companies had been dismissed for the night,
by orders of General Worth two hundred and fifty men and ten officers
had been told off as a storming party to serve with the Third Division
in attacking Chapultepec. Captain McKenzie, of the Second Artillery,
was to be the commander.
Old Sergeant Mulligan figured among the happy ones accepted.
“Hooray! Thirty years I’ve worn the uniform, an’ to-morrow’ll be the
best day o’ my life. Ah, boys! I’d climb that hill by meself wid only a
shilaly, rather’n stay below.”
“You have the luck of the mess, sergeant,” they admitted. “Now,
couldn’t you sneak a few of us along with you?”
“Faith, mebbe there’ll be work for you the same. Not into the city we
are yet. But I’ll have a grand view of it from atop the big buildin’
high on yon rock.”
Except for the two hundred and sixty as storming column, the First
Division was to remain below in reserve. That was a disappointment.
Jerry heard himself growling about it with the others. Hannibal
had not got in on the attack either――but Hannibal had been with the
storming column of September 8, when the mill and Casa-Mata had
yielded, and he ought to be willing to give place to somebody else.
Captain Gore, and Lieutenant Smith, and Lieutenant Grant had missed out
also. The Fourth Regiment had supplied Lieutenants Rogers and Maloney;
and Company B had supplied Sergeant Mulligan, the “top” sergeant of the
whole division.
Jerry cogitated. The column had been made up――was under orders to
report to General Pillow before the engagement in the morning. There
seemed no hope for the rest of them.
The night was rather noisy, with considerable skirmishing by outposts,
and a constant movement upon the hill, as though the enemy was getting
ready, too, for the morrow.
In the pink of the morning the bombardment by the heavy batteries
reopened. General Twiggs’ guns, on the roads from the south to the city
gates, likewise went into action. The Mexicans were trying to reinforce
Chapultepec again, and they had occupied a long trench behind the wall
at the foot of the cypress grove just east of the mill.
The two heavy batteries here, one in the mill and one south of it,
were firing away upon Chapultepec, but General Pillow made other
preparations. He stationed two pieces from Magruder’s First Artillery
battery, under Second Lieutenant Thomas J. Jackson, to watch the same
cavalry column that had threatened in the northwest at the battle of
September 8 and now seemed inclined to come in[2]. And he directed
that two of Lieutenant Reno’s mountain howitzers (of the Callender
battery which had won fame at Contreras) be placed to shell the Mexican
long trench.
[2] Second Lieutenant Thomas J. Jackson became the celebrated
“Stonewall” Jackson, Confederate general in the Civil War.
The storming column of the First Division stood formed, carrying
scaling ladders, fascines or bunches of fagots for filling ditches,
pickaxes and crowbars. The Voltigeurs and the Ninth and Fifteenth
Infantry under General Cadwalader were to support the storming column.
The Eleventh and the Fourteenth were to support Lieutenant Jackson’s
battery section and head off the cavalry gathered in the northwest. The
other regiment of the Third Division, the Twelfth Infantry, and the
Third Dragoons had been left to guard Tacubaya and one of the supply
bases south.
Soon after breakfast another American column appeared, marching in
for the south side of Chapultepec. It was the General Persifor Smith
brigade of General Twiggs’ Second Division: the First Artillery, the
Third Infantry, and the Mounted Rifles afoot. The Quitman Fourth
Division of Volunteers and Marines and the Smith brigade were to
assault the rock of Chapultepec from the south and the southeast, while
the Pillow men assaulted it from the west. The Colonel Riley brigade of
the Second Division――the Fourth Artillery, the Second Infantry and the
Seventh Infantry, with Taylor’s First Artillery battery and Steptoe’s
battery of the Fourth Artillery――were to hammer the south gates as a
blind.
The army for action numbered about seven thousand. The Mexicans were
supposed to be defending Chapultepec with seven batteries and seven
breastworks, manned by two thousand to six thousand troops. And Santa
Anna had fifteen or twenty thousand troops in reserve.
The wait proved very long. The heavy batteries thundered, sprinkling
the castle of Chapultepec and the entrenchments with solid shot and
shell. The Lieutenant Reno howitzers paid especial attention to the
wall at the foot of the hill and the ditch behind it. The roof-tops of
Tacubaya and of all the buildings extending along the Tacubaya road to
Chapultepec were black with spectators; the walls and roofs of the City
of Mexico were crowded like the seats of an amphitheater.
The sun was high when, at a quarter to eight o’clock on this morning of
September 13, two aides galloped out from General Scott’s headquarters
in Tacubaya. Down they came, the one straight for the Quitman column,
the other for the mill. They paused an instant to say something to the
heavy batteries, and continued at full speed.
“General Pillow! The commander-in-chief’s compliments, and he directs
that when the batteries cease firing, in a few minutes, you will at
once proceed with your column to the attack.”
General Pillow faced his troops.
“Attention! We are about to storm the hill, my lads. We shall take it
with the bayonet in thirty minutes, remember.”
“Huzzah!”
Suddenly every battery was quiet. The silence fell like a blanket.
“Voltigeurs, forward! Run!”
In two detachments, led by Colonel Andrews and Lieutenant-Colonel
Joseph E. Johnston, the eight companies of Voltigeurs or Light Riflemen
sprang out, rifles at a trail.
“Ready, Captain McKenzie. Ready, General Cadwalader.”
Lieutenant-Colonel Johnston’s detachment had charged on the right for a
break made by the howitzers in the wall. The Colonel Andrews detachment
charged straight ahead. So quick they all were that they had received
only one volley from the ditch at the edge of the cypresses before the
Johnston men were through the break and inside the defenses, and the
Andrews men were scrambling over the wall itself. The ditch had been
enfiladed in a twinkling; the Mexican infantry dived out and scampered
into the trees.
The howitzers changed fire to the trees; one gun limbered up to advance
by rushes――
“Stormers and infantry, forward! Double time!”
General Pillow dashed on with them upon his horse. The storming column,
bearing their fascines or fagot bundles and ladders――two men to a
ladder――passed close to the Fourth Infantry. Without a word Jerry
darted from place (he simply could stand still no longer) and beating
his drum ran to the head of the platoons.
He thought that he heard shouts――angry shouts; but he did not care. His
heart was thumping and the heavy batteries had opened again, deluging
Chapultepec; so he may _not_ have heard.
Captain McKenzie espied him.
“What’s this? What are you doing here?”
“You’ll need a drummer, sir.”
“Who sent you in?”
“Nobody, sir.”
“Then go back immediately. Fall out!”
Jerry stepped aside; the column hurried by. He heard another voice. It
was that of Sergeant Mulligan.
“Sure,” said the sergeant, with a wink, “we’ve no time to waste
argufyin’. Wance in the trees, an’ nobody’ll see ye.”
Captain McKenzie was before and busy; probably had forgotten all about
the matter. The other officers also had eyes and ears mainly for the
front. The Cadwalader regiments were close behind. In the scramble over
the wall there was a mixup. Jerry stuck. Worming on again he made for
the storming column once more.
Rifles and muskets were cracking ahead. The Voltigeurs, searching
the trees, yelled and fired; the enemy replied. The storming column,
outstripped in the race, pressed faster. Assuredly in this hubbub no
one would bother about a drummer boy.
General Pillow on his horse pushed to the fore. The Mexican skirmishers
and the infantry from the ditch could be glimpsed, scurrying out of
the timber for shelter higher up. The howitzers were coming――they tore
through, horses tugging, cannoneers shoving, and from above the Mexican
guns were throwing grape and shell down the hill into the wood. The
boughs of the trees cracked and slithered; the twigs flew.
The storming column, laden with the ladders and fascines and tools, did
not move as rapidly as the light riflemen. Jerry, excited to his finger
tips, scarcely knew what he was doing, but he wished to get out of that
awful mess of falling trees and blinding smoke. Soon he found himself
up with the Voltigeurs, as they emerged into the rock-strewn open at
the farther edge of the wood.
Now there was a redoubt or system of fortified entrenchments halfway
on to the castle. That it was which was pouring out the canister and
shell to sweep the slope below it. General Pillow’s horse reared and
turned, while the general tried to control it and shout his orders.
The Voltigeurs, leaping from boulder to boulder, taking what shelter
they could get, left a wake of dead and disabled. This fire from above
was fearful――a constant stream of lead and iron. Was the attack to be
stopped? Where were the stormers and the two regiments of infantry?
Toiling up as fast as they could.
General Pillow toppled free from his horse, which bolted. Jerry reached
him where he had half set up bleeding from a grape shot through his
chest, and supported by an aide.
“The reserve, quick!” he gasped. “Where’s Worth’s aide? Tell him to
have Worth bring up his whole division and make great haste or he’ll be
too late.”
The group scattered. Jerry, legging recklessly, as luck would have it
met Lieutenant Wood, General Worth’s aide, galloping in.
“Lieutenant Wood! Here, sir. General Pillow asks help. The whole
division, sir. Quick!”
“Did he say so?” demanded Lieutenant Wood, reining short.
“Yes, sir. He’s wounded.”
“Who are you?”
“Jerry Cameron, sir; drummer, Company B, Fourth Infantry.”
Lieutenant Wood whirled his horse and sped down for the mill. Jerry
panted back for General Pillow, but the general had not waited. The
Voltigeurs were acting as if crazy. They were shouting “Vengeance!
Vengeance!” and were charging the redoubt, a squad of them carrying
General Pillow on a stretcher of rifles and a blanket. He had refused
to be taken rearward.
The rocky slope below the redoubt was alive with the riflemen,
yelling, firing, stooping and rushing. But they slowed up――they took
to cover――they could not outface the blast of musketry and grape. What
next? Huzzah! Here was the support at last: the storming column and the
Fifteenth Infantry. With a cheer and a volley the Fifteenth charged,
bayonets leveled, straight for the redoubt, while the two howitzers,
hauled by their cannoneers, unlimbered against the north angle, and the
Voltigeurs rallied to storm from the right.
On went Jerry behind the gallant Fifteenth. The Fifteenth piled in, the
Mexicans broke in flight to the north and the city. Jerry piled in.
A Mexican officer had stooped to touch a slow-match to the fuse of a
mine, but the musket balls hurled him aside, wounded.
The redoubt had been seized. What now? The ranks looked small, the
castle wall was far above. The charge had advanced only half distance
to it. The storming column had dropped their ladders in their mad race
to join the fighting. Here came General Cadwalader to take command,
his horse afoam. While waiting for the ladders with which to scale the
castle walls, the men distributed themselves as best they could for
shelter from the plunging fire of the castle. They and the howitzers
replied briskly. But here came the panting, cheering Ninth, bringing
the ladders.
The heavy batteries in the valley were still bombarding the castle.
“The enemy’s weakening, men! Forward!” General Cadwalader shouted. He
may not have been heard; the men knew, anyway. The Voltigeurs, led on
their left by Colonel Andrews, on their right by Lieutenant-Colonel Joe
Johnston, plunged into the open, to fight up the steep slope to the
castle.
The storming column was hot after; deploying, the Ninth and the
Fifteenth followed hard. Jerry, shouting and beating his drum
regardless of tune, ran with the rest. They were not going to wait for
the reinforcements from the First Division. Off to the south another
battle raged, where the Quitman men were busy.
The front line worked its way clear to the outer wall of the castle.
There the Colonel Andrews Voltigeurs crouched in holes and behind rocks
and picked off the gunners and sharpshooters upon the parapets. The
detachment under Lieutenant-Colonel Joe Johnston filed rapidly to the
right for the southern face of the wall. Cheers drifted up from below.
The reinforcements were nearing.
But the stormers and the Ninth and Fifteenth, with the ladders, arrived
first. The Voltigeurs had been halted by a wide deep ditch at the foot
of the wall. The bundles of fascines were passed forward and tossed
into the ditch by the stormers for pathways; squads of men rushed with
the ladders; fell; rushed again――Look! Lieutenant Armistead, of the
volunteer stormers from the Sixth Regiment, had planted his ladder!
Down he sank, wounded――his men swarmed up nevertheless――other ladders
were in place――some lurched aside or were hurled back――the Mexicans
upon the walls threw hand grenades, stabbed with swords and bayonets
and fired downward, but men were climbing to them hand over hand
like monkeys, paused for an instant to shoot and stab and club, then
disappeared. By tens and twenties the files mounted and leaped over,
faster and faster; and the next thing that Jerry knew he was inside,
himself.
Huzzah! The reinforcements had joined. They were the Clarke Second
Brigade――they bore the colors of the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Infantry.
Jerry dimly saw Hannibal in the ranks of the Eighth. There was a
company of the Quitman New Yorkers, also――and of Marines, who somehow
had got mixed in with the right of the brigade on the way up.
The space within the walls on the west and southwest of the castle
formed a large yard. All the yard fumed with smoke from the belching
castle and from the return fire.
The Reno howitzers had been dragged in, the captured guns of the outer
wall were being reversed. The storming squads with the ladders ran,
heads down, across the yard for the castle walls; the Voltigeurs and
the infantry regiments (the New York company and the Marines, too)
fired furiously from cover or in the open, helping the cannon drive the
castle defenders from parapets and windows. The clangor was prodigious.
Jerry seemed to see everything at once: the struggling flags, the
waving swords of the officers, the figures, rising, falling, rising and
charging on; the red caps of the Mexican soldiery and the pompons of
the boy cadets fringing the parapets and the windows; the cannon and
the muskets smoking, and the bodies now and then sprawling in a lax
heap.
Huzzah! Somebody was up――an officer in blue, his head bare, the flag
of the Eighth Infantry at his back. He was Second Lieutenant Joseph
Selden, of Hannibal’s company. A moment he stood, but for only a
moment. Down he fell, sweeping his party from the ladder. The wall had
been saved. Not for long, though! Huzzah! The great embroidered flag of
the castle had drooped; a grape shot had severed its staff. No――it was
hoisted again; a slender little fellow――a Mexican military cadet――had
wriggled up the staff and refastened the banner. Brave boy! The troops
cheered him.
Now there was another, louder cheer. The parapets were being occupied
by fighting blue coats. Two flags had been planted: a Voltigeur flag
and a New York flag, upon a terrace, by two officers. The Voltigeur
officer was Captain Barnard; the New Yorker was said to be Lieutenant
Mayne Reid. The men were battling their way through, everywhere――into
the doors and windows and over the portico and the cornices. Another
officer――Major Seymour, of the Ninth――springing high, tore down the
Mexican colors from the broken staff; the Stars and Stripes rose in
their place.
The Mexican soldiers were crying “Quarter!” or fleeing. Among them were
many of the cadets. There was another hearty cheer; the banners of New
York, South Carolina and Pennsylvania were tossing over a mass of blue
jostling through a breach in the out-walls on the south and southeast,
and charging into the yard. General Shields was here, his left arm
reddened.
The castle of Chapultepec had been taken, but heavy firing continued
in the east. The Marines and the General Persifor Smith brigade, of
the Second Division, were being held by batteries down toward the road
on that side. The cannon of the castle were turned in that direction;
they and muskets and rifles volleyed into the backs of the enemy. Now
the Marines were fighting hand to hand with the nearest battery. The
Mexicans burst from the breastworks, went streaming for the northeast
and the city. The Marines came on.
“Cease firing! Cease firing, men!” Officers were running around,
striking up the musket barrels with the flats of their swords. “It’s
all over. Don’t fight; cheer. Leave those poor wretches alone.”