AUGUST–SEPTEMBER 14, 1847
Santa Anna arrived back at the Palace of the Montezumas in Mexico City early on the afternoon of August 20, “possessed of a black depair from the unfortunate events of the war.”1 All around him, confusion and disillusionment enveloped the population of the city. Less than ten days earlier, their National Guard had occupied El Penon amid flowery speeches and stirring martial music. Even the day before, the people had felt secure in the belief that the hated Scott, overextended, was doomed. Now, in the course of less than twenty-four hours, their world had been shattered.
But Santa Anna’s usual resilience made itself felt again. Even as the gringos were mopping up the convent at Churubusco, Santa Anna was assembling his ministers of government to decide what to do next. He had an answer: a truce. With some respite, he hoped, he might still reorganize his troops and present an effective defense of the city. Some of the more realistic ministers urged immediate surrender, but Santa Anna was finally able to form a consensus: a truce should be negotiated through either the Spanish minister, Bermudez de Castro, or the English consul general, Edward Mackintosh.
De Castro, on being approached, quickly refused, but Mackintosh accepted, and by the evening of the same day Mackintosh and Edward Thornton were on their way to San Agustín to visit Scott. Their purported reason for the visit was to ask for a safeguard for British subjects to leave the city, but the real reason, the Americans suspected, was to “prepare the way for peace.”*
Scott paid little heed to that visit, and the next morning he moved his headquarters forward to Coyoacán, preparing for an assault on the vulnerable city. Before the attack could be launched, however, General Ignacio Mora y Villamil, the Mexican chief of engineers, arrived with a sealed packet for Trist containing a note from the Mexican foreign minister, J. R. Pacheco, to Buchanan—an answer to the note Trist had delivered several months earlier. Pacheco’s note haughtily declared that he was now ready to “receive” Trist, and that he would consider whether Buchanan’s proposals were consistent with Mexican “honor.” The note also proposed a year’s truce, to be observed while a permanent peace was being negotiated.2
Pacheco’s note was, of course, an exercise in futility, but Mora, an astute individual, advised Scott informally that Santa Anna would happily settle for a short truce, to take place immediately. Scott and Trist consulted. Certainly, a truce seemed desirable. Scott believed that he could seize the city forthwith; but if he did so, he might “scatter the elements of peace, excite a spirit of national desperation, and thus indefinitely postpone the hope of accommodation.” He therefore set aside his summons for Santa Anna to surrender the city, and substituted a conciliatory note proposing a truce. The army, he reported to Marcy, “very cheerfully sacrificed … the eclat that would have followed an entrance—sword in hand—into a great capital.”3
Winfield Scott was a great soldier—one of the greatest—but as a letter writer, he had not learned from his previous mistakes. Living as he did in a world of Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, he seemed unable to predict the way his lofty wording would be received by lesser mortals. That fault had nearly confined him to Washington the previous May and had delayed the development of his friendship with Trist. In this case, Scott’s effort to be conciliatory ruffled some feathers by his first sentence: “Sir: Too much blood has already been shed in this unnatural war between the two great republics of this continent.”4 The problem lay in the two words, “unnatural war.” The Spanish translation of the harmless term was inexact, and to some of the Mexicans it was indelicate;† to more practical men, such as Santa Anna, the tone of the whole letter, including the questionable phrase, indicated weakness. But regardless of the wording, Santa Anna had what he wanted, a truce, and he accepted it immediately. At the same time he kept his troops under arms and frantically placed them in advantageous defensive positions, positions that they could occupy during the truce.‡
On Sunday, August 22, commissioners from both sides met at Mackintosh’s home in Tacubaya. Generals Mora and Benito Quijano sat for the Mexicans; Quitman, Persifor Smith, and Pierce for the Americans.§ After a long discussion they reached a truce. It was a remarkable document by modern standards, for it provided for a great deal of normal intercourse between the two belligerents. It forbade either side from indulging in any military activity, such as the building of fortifications within a range of ninety miles of Mexico City, and it prohibited the Americans from interfering with normal traffic in and out of the city. In return, Americans were allowed to draw supplies from Mexico City itself. Prisoners were to be exchanged and the wounded cared for. The civil rights of the Mexicans in occupied territories would be respected. The truce could be terminated by either side with forty-eight hours’ notice.5
The truce was probably a wise effort, based on what Scott understood of the Mexican situation. Wise or not, proposing it was certainly well motivated on Scott’s part, and, according to his friend Hitchcock, Scott had always considered stopping short of the city itself as a means of securing peace without completely humiliating the Mexicans.‖ But Scott was deluding himself if he believed, as he had reported, that his men were cheerful about stopping short of the city. They were not. The “eclat” of occupying a major capital was not what they wanted—soldiers rarely worry much about such things—and they knew that Santa Anna, if given time, could fortify the capital, making its capture far more costly in lives. Kirby Smith, the articulate pessimist, was writing for many: “We are in a strange situation—a conquering army on a hill overlooking an enemy’s capital, which is perfectly at our mercy, yet not permitted to enter it, and compelled to submit to all manner of insults from its corrupt inhabitants.”6
But wise or not, the truce failed. On the very first day an American supply train was turned back at a garita of Mexico City. Santa Anna apologized quickly, but similar incidents followed. On the morning of August 27 a train of a hundred wagons entered the city to draw provisions in accordance with the convention. Mobs shouting “Let the Yankees die” threw stones. Then, when the lancers appeared to restore order, the people called their own troops “cowards” and exhorted the Almighty to visit instant death not only upon the Americans but even more on Santa Anna, who had made such arrangements.7 Far more serious were the military violations. Santa Anna, not surprisingly, made full use of the time to rebuild his force, as he had always planned. And though his activities were hidden as well as possible, the Americans knew. Beauregard, Kirby Smith, and Hitchcock, among many others, were outraged at the fact that Scott was observing the truce whereas Santa Anna was not. Smith even reported evidence in writing to Scott, who declared Smith’s informant a “liar.”8
What finally brought the truce to an end, however, was the failure of the peace negotiations. For over a week, until September 2, Trist and Scott still held some hope for success in the talks between Trist and the Mexican commissioners. But on that day, with no progress concerning future boundaries in prospect, Trist presented them with an ultimatum and both sides agreed to adjourn until the sixth. By the time the sixth arrived Scott had learned that Santa Anna, in grand council, had decided, on receiving Trist’s notice, to recommence overt fortification of the city. Consequently, Scott sent a note accusing Santa Anna of violating the 3d Article of the convention—the article forbidding military activity.9 He further gave notice that if he had not received “full satisfaction” on these matters by noon of the next day, he would consider the armistice at an end. Scott was not concerned with the forty-eight-hour restriction on terminating the truce; Santa Anna, in Scott’s mind, had terminated it three days earlier.
The same day, Santa Anna answered that he would “repel force by force, with the decision and energy which my high obligations place upon me.”a
Hostilities had now officially recommenced, and Scott, with his usual thoroughness, began a study of the approaches to Mexico City before attacking it. As always, the burden of the scouting fell on the shoulders of Scott’s engineers, now headed by Lee during the sickness of his senior, Major Smith. In a sense the problem was simple. The fields between the causeways—some marsh, some inundated—were impassable, certainly for artillery, so Scott’s decision was limited to simply selecting which of the causeways to use. Confinement to these elevated roadbeds made Scott’s problems difficult because they were narrow, and if defended by determined troops could be very strong, as they could not be outflanked. However, the defending troops bunched up on a causeway would be vulnerable to American artillery. The problem, therefore, was far from insoluble.b
On the south and west of Mexico City—the only approaches under consideration—six of these causeways led up to the garitas, solid square buildings that ordinarily served as tollgates. Two led from the west: the San Cosme and the Belen. Both of these, however, originated under the strong castle of Chapultepec, so Scott first considered the four to the south, which were, left to right, (a) the Piedad causeway, which joined the Belen causeway at the Belen garita, (b) the Niño Perdido causeway, that led from the Niño Perdido garita southwest to San Angel, (c) the San Antonio causeway, which ran also from the San Antonio garita due south to Churubusco, and finally (d) the Paseo de la Viga, to the east. The main Mexican fortifications outside the city were the Castle of Chapultepec, the Molino del Rey (King’s Mill) a mile to the southwest of Chapultepec, and the Casa de la Mata, beyond Molino del Rey.
As of September 7, when the truce ended, Scott was with Worth’s division, at Tacubaya, only about a mile from Chapultepec; Twiggs was at San Angel, Pillow at Mixcoac, and Quitman still back at San Agustín.10 Scott and his engineers were examining the three direct approaches to the city from the south.
On the afternoon of September 7, 1847, word came to Scott that a large body of Mexican troops had been detected in the vicinity of Molino del Rey, “within a mile and a third” of Scott’s headquarters at Tacubaya. Molino del Rey was a “huge pile of stone buildings, 200 yards long,” which housed a flour mill and, in former times, a cannon foundry.11 The report went on to say that large deposits of powder were located nearby and that many church bells were being sent out to the Molino for casting as guns. Scott therefore paused. Since his main force would not be ready to assault the city for a couple of days, he now believed that a minor action to take the Molino would be a sensible move. As the action seemed to require only one reinforced division, Scott selected the one nearest, Worth’s, located at Tacubaya.c To give added strength, Scott attached Cadwalader’s brigade from Pillow’s division and 270 dragoons under Major E. V. Sumner.12
Worth moved out the morning of September 8 with his 3,500 men, guided by James Mason and James Duncan, who together had previously scouted the area. He saw before him a well-defended position, with two strong points, the Molino on the right and the Casa Mata about six hundred yards to the left. Though the Mexican artillery was located between them, the two strongpoints presented the main problem.
Worth employed his division admirably. In the center he placed Duncan’s battery to neutralize the enemy artillery and pound the Molino. Then, on his right, he sent Garland’s brigade, with Huger’s battery, to cut off possible reinforcements from Chapultepec and attack the Molino from the east. Clarke’s brigade he sent to reduce the potent Casa Mata, and Sumner’s 270 dragoons to hold off any cavalry raids from the west. To assault the Molino, he organized a storming party, under Major George Wright, of five hundred men picked from the various regiments.13 These assault troops, though selected soldiers, had no personal loyalty to the makeshift unit; they were strangers to their teammates.d
The plan deserved better results. As it was, Santa Anna had become aware of Scott’s order to Worth, and he was ready. He placed five brigades, supported by artillery, in the Molino, and stationed four thousand cavalry, under Alvarez at Los Morales, to Worth’s west, in position to charge and destroy his rear and flank.14 Strangely, he put nobody in overall charge of the defense; each unit fought on its own. But the result was a major battle, not the skirmish that Scott and Worth had expected.
At the start the spotlight was on Wright’s storming party. Huger’s guns raked the Molino in support as Wright’s men went forward under heavy Mexican artillery and musket fire. Outside the Molino Wright overran the Mexican infantry and artillery at the point of the bayonet, turning the guns on the fugitives. But soon the fleeing Mexicans discovered that Wright was leading only a small party. They thereupon turned around and counterattacked, bringing him again under withering fire. Eleven out of Wright’s fourteen officers were struck down, Wright among them. The rest of the Americans broke, but were rescued by the success of Garland’s brigade and Huger’s battery as they surged into the Molino from the west. Wright’s men dispersed, released to find their own regiments. Back with their units, they uniformly performed well for the rest of the battle.15
Garland had taken the Molino, and Worth could now concentrate on the Casa Mata. Duncan’s and Huger’s batteries were turned in that direction while Clarke’s 2d Brigade, under the command of McIntosh, soon discovered that the position was a stone fortress, not the mere earthen revetment previously supposed. Though the Americans surrounded the old Spanish position, they were repulsed by the heavy fire. As they paused they could see defenders come out of the Casa and murder their wounded comrades. It was an expensive crime; the Americans would remember.
At this point, Worth detected large Mexican reinforcements—Alvarez’s cavalry and infantry—beyond a ravine to the west. Duncan’s battery arrived on that flank, however, and its fire dissuaded Alvarez from attacking. In the meantime the intrepid Sumner, with his handful of dragoons, crossed the ravine and defied Alcaraz in his own territory. No cavalry engagement took place; Sumner’s losses came from the Casa Mata.
The Mexicans in the Casa Mata were in a hopeless position, without artillery and with walls crumbling. They might have surrendered if they had only been pounded a little longer. But the impetuous Worth ordered McIntosh to assault. McIntosh obeyed—and quickly fell, as did his second and third in command. The brigade dropped back, and only some time later, under the shells of Duncan’s artillery, did the garrison of the Casa Mata flee, leaving it in Worth’s hands.16
The entire battle of Molino del Rey took only two hours.17 But fighting had been fierce, and Worth, though successful, could have been destroyed. As it was, the cost to his division was frightful: 116 dead, among them Lieutenant Colonel Scott, commanding the 5th Infantry (which lost 38 percent of its effective strength),18 and Captain Kirby Smith, temporarily in command of the light infantry. Among the 671 wounded, many of them severely, were not only Colonel McIntosh but also Major Waite, commanding the 8th Infantry.e These casualties exceeded those of Taylor at Monterrey—and they came from a force half of Taylor’s size.
Ironically, Worth found no evidence of a foundry at Molino del Rey. His bloody attack had accomplished nothing more than to deliver a blow against an already low Mexican morale. Scott observed the capture of Molino del Rey on September 8, though he allowed Worth to conduct the battle without interference. The next day, again ready to concentrate on the approaches to the city, he took Lee with him to the Niño Perdido road. There they could look to the east at the San Antonio garita, which was vulnerable because it stuck out far to the south of the other gates. Meanwhile, Beauregard, Tower, and I. I. Stevens went to the right, up the Paseo de la Viga, where they could scrutinize the same San Antonio garita from twelve hundred yards to the east. From what they could see, both the San Antonio and the La Viga approaches were rapidly being built up. They estimated that each gate held eleven artillery pieces but could hold many more.19 Obviously, there was no time to lose in attacking.
Scott, nevertheless, spent two more days checking the ground. Then, late on September 11, he called a council of war in the little church at La Piedad. Present, as usual, were his general officers and his staff, the most visible of whom were his engineers. By now he had reduced his problem to a single decision: Should he secure the fortress of Chapultepec before attacking the city, or should he bypass it, concentrating on the San Antonio garita? He lacked the resources to sustain a failure; therefore this decision would be crucial.
Scott’s procedure was unusual. He began by stating his own preference, to seize the hill of Chapultepec. He had been advised, he said, that Chapultepec was not really so strong as it appeared; perhaps it could be demolished by a one-day bombardment. And with its fall the Mexican government was likely to come to terms without an assault on the city itself. Having thus stated his views, Scott then—and only then—requested the views of his staff.
Fortunately, despite his pompous ways, Scott did not intimidate his officers, and they spoke their pieces freely. First came Lee, acting senior engineer, who recommended approaching the city from the south, taking the San Antonio garita first. Three other engineers, as well as four of the generals, agreed with him. But one engineer had not been heard from. Scott, pointing to the corner, asked a previously silent Beauregard his opinion. Beauregard sprang to his feet and presented a long, technical argument in favor of the Chapultepec attack. Rather than feint from the west and attack from the south, he reasoned, the army could probably convince Santa Anna that the attack would come at the San Antonio garita—and then attack Chapultepec. So persuasive was Beauregard that Franklin Pierce, one of the conferees, changed his vote. Only one vote counted, however, and that was Scott’s. He chose to reduce Chapultepec.
“Gentlemen,” he said impressively. “We will attack by the western gates. The general officers present here will remain for further orders—the meeting is dissolved.”f
Santa Anna had far more troops on his rolls than did Scott, but since he was uncertain about Scott’s plans, he decided to distribute nearly all his men among the garitas. To encourage Santa Anna’s uncertainty, Scott organized a feint to be executed in the area of the San Antonio causeway. To do this, he ordered Quitman to move up from his present position at Coyoacán and join Pillow at La Piedad. The march was to be made in daylight in hopes that Mexican scouts would observe them heading in that direction. Then, after dark, both divisions were to withdraw to Tacubaya. Pillow would then move up to Molino del Rey, from which he would attack Chapultepec from the west while Quitman would prepare to attack the southeast corner from Tacubaya. The two regular divisions—worn out—were to follow up. Twiggs was to demonstrate with Riley’s brigade at Piedad; P. F. Smith’s brigade would start out in reserve at San Angel. Worth was to follow Pillow, support him, and pass through to Mexico City once Pillow had seized Chapultepec.20
But Scott still hoped to reduce Chapultepec by artillery fire alone, even hoping that the city might surrender without the suffering and bloodshed of an assault. Accordingly, Scott placed one battery (Drum) at the Hacienda Condesa, along the road from Tacubaya to the city; the second (Hagner) near the road from the Molino, facing the southwest corner; and two others (Brooks and Anderson) in a third position just south of the Molino itself. Recent captures had trebled the power of his siege pieces: available in place were sixteen-pound siege guns, eight-inch howitzers, a ten-inch mortar and a twenty-four pounder.21
The batteries opened up at 5 A.M., September 12. The fire was light at first. Then the walls of the castle began to be pierced, and the roof was partly destroyed. Even while the bombardment was going on, however, Mexican engineers were attempting to make repairs. At about noon Santa Anna visited Chapultepec and found old Nicholas Bravo, hero of the 1821 Mexican revolution, calmly eating his breakfast, “the balls and bombs crashing about him.” During the day the bombardment grew heavier. The Americans were now keeping a projectile in the air at all times. “In the corridor, converted into a surgical hospital, were found mixed up the putrid bodies, the wounded breathing mournful groans and the young boys of the College,” of whom fifty were remaining. Medical supplies were gone. Too late Santa Anna and Bravo realized that they could have placed most of their infantry troops at the bottom of the hill, thus preventing many needless deaths. Bravo, with no intention of giving up hope, still requested reinforcements, but Santa Anna refused to send any until the attack should begin.22
The die was cast: the assault would come the next morning.
The morning of September 13, 1847, promised to be a beautiful day, the skies a deep blue, as one might expect at an altitude of a mile and a half in the days before industrial smog. The air would be warm. But for Scott’s troops it was a day of foreboding. The victories they had won had been dear—the Molino, in particular. The army was greatly reduced, opposing an enemy of overwhelming numbers. There was gloom among the officers as well. As they left the final meeting the night before, even Worth had said privately, “We shall be defeated.” And Scott himself had said to Hitchcock, “I have my misgivings.”23
Chapultepec, with its enclosure, was a position about three-quarters of a mile long and about a quarter mile wide, the length running roughly east to west. The north and east sides were too precipitous to be scaled; of the other two, by far the gentler slope would be on the west, the direction of the Molino, though the approach led through a cypress swamp. Pillow’s division, assembling at the Molino, would make the main assault with Pierce’s brigade leading. Pierce’s men would scale the walls of the extensive gardens, advance past the ancient cypresses, and slosh through the half mile of mud to attack the castle.
Quitman, on Pillow’s right, would follow the causeway that led from Tacubaya to the southeast corner. There he would scale the walls of the gardens and seize control of the steep, winding pathway that led upward to the base of the walls. Once Chapultepec was taken, Quitman’s men would be able to continue on the Belem Causeway eastward to Mexico City.
To assault the walls, Scott had organized scaling parties similar to that used previously at the Molino. A party of 265 selected officers and men (another “forlorn hope”) had been provided by Twiggs to lead Quitman’s division; a similar party, provided by Worth, was to lead Pillow’s.24 The assaulting troops, including a detachment of forty marines, would all be regulars.
Chapultepec was actually not so formidable as it appeared. Though it stood nearly two hundred feet above the level of the marsh, that height included the hill leading up. And since the walls were precipitous, its defenders were unable to deliver aimed fire at their base. The building could hold only 260 Mexican troops, including the group of young Military College cadets who, at their own insistence, had been allowed to remain. Santa Anna stationed another six hundred troops outside the castle to defend the walls around the courtyard, some of them sharpshooters in the trees.
The bombardment began at dawn, as planned, pouring shot and shell into the castle until 7:30 A.M., at which time muzzles were lowered to rake the defenders of the walls surrounding the grounds. After thirty minutes the firing stopped; the time for the attack had come. Pierce’s brigade poured out of the Molino del Rey, went over the walls, and, meeting little resistance at first, waded through the cypress marsh. But soon resistance stiffened and Pierce’s men took casualties. Colonel T. B. Ransom, commanding the 9th Infantry, received a rifle bullet through the forehead. Pillow was taken out of action early with a wound in the ankle. In pain but conscious, Pillow called for Worth, exhorting him to “make great haste.”25 Meanwhile the artillery and mortar fire concentrated once more on the walls of the castle.
Quitman’s advance party, on the Tacubaya causeway to the south, was held up.g But one regiment, Joseph E. Johnston’s gray-coated Voltiguers, struggled over the south wall and fell in on Pillow’s (Pierce’s) right. Persifor Smith’s brigade was sent by Twiggs to help Quitman.
Smith made an unsuccessful effort to turn the Mexicans in Quitman’s area, whereupon Quitman sent the New York and Pennsylvania volunteers off the causeway, across the ditches, and around the redan in the garden wall. An opening was made, and the South Carolina Palmetto Regiment followed, along with Clarke’s brigade (Worth) that had also been sent to Quitman’s assistance. Lieutenant James Longstreet, of the 8th Infantry, was wounded; George Pickett, of the same regiment, seized the colors Longstreet had been carrying.26 Soon troops from Quitman’s, Pillow’s, and Worth’s divisions were intermingled at the foot of the Chapultepec wall.
There the advance halted; the scaling ladders had not yet come up. For a long fifteen minutes Pierce’s and Johnston’s infantrymen crouched at the castle’s base, below an exchange of blazing fire, in temporary safety. Sharpshooters kept Mexican heads down. Then a few ladders came. The first in place were toppled, the daring assault troops with them. But soon enough ladders arrived to allow fifty men to climb simultaneously. They moved swiftly, and the defenders at the walls fell back.
By 9:30 A.M., only two hours since the beginning of the action, the flag of Johnston’s Voltiguer Regiment flew above the east walls of Chapultepec, and the hand-to-hand slaughter throughout the castle began. The Americans, thirsting to avenge the cruel and needless slaughter of their wounded comrades at Molino del Rey, killed Mexicans unmercifully. General Bravo survived to surrender his bejeweled sword, but not six of the young cadets who chose to die rather than surrender. One of these young boys met his doom by plunging off the wall with the Mexican flag clutched in his arms.h
On a small hillock below Chapultepec thirty doomed men stood on mule carts, nooses around their necks. These members of the San Patricio Battalion of deserters, captured at the Convent of Churubusco, had since been tried and condemned. When the American flag appeared above the walls of Chapultepec, the mules would be whipped, and the deserters would dangle in the air.
Scott would have preferred to show mercy. Indeed, of the sixty-nine captured, those who had deserted before hostilities began on April 26, 1846, had been spared, though lashed, imprisoned, and sometimes branded. Had the war been over, Scott said privately that he would have granted mercy to all of them. But the failure of negotiations during the truce had sealed the prisoners’ fate. Scott could not allow a precedence of clemency in an army bound to suffer severe casualties in the fighting ahead.27
The deserters, rough men in a rough age, accepted their lot with a sardonic humor. One of their number had lost his legs in the fighting at Churubusco. His fellows found it amusing that he would be able to dance in the air as well as the rest of them. The flag went up, whips snapped, and the mules lurched forward.
Chapultepec had fallen. All in all, Santa Anna lost 1,800 men that morning. Scott lost one-quarter as many. Hardly had the mopping up been completed—Scott had just arrived—than two commanders, Quitman and Worth, ordered their forces to rush down the causeways toward Mexico City itself. They encountered resistance, but by the end of the day Worth (who had passed through Pillow) was in possession of the San Cosme garita on the northwest corner of the city; Quitman had the Belen garita on the southwest corner.
During the night Santa Anna decided to evacuate the city and allow his army to rest. Sporadic fighting would go on the next morning but by midday, September 14, 1847, General Scott himself rode triumphantly through the City Square amid the deafening cheers of what was left of his army.
* Ramón Alcaraz, The Other Side, p. 301. Santa Anna’s selection of the British consul general rather than the minister is interesting. Perhaps he desired to picture the negotiation as a local affair, and therefore turned to the consul, who was accredited to the city. But perhaps it was because Mackintosh, being a large property owner in Mexico, had an extra incentive to promote peace. When Mackintosh was spied in the party conferring with Scott, a reporter from the New Orlean Picayune, who knew Mackintosh, reportedly exclaimed, “It’s no use, we’re humbugged—Mackintosh is among them!” Charles Dufour, The Mexican War, pp. 257–58.
† Alcaraz, p. 301 n, writes, “The original English says ‘of nature’… Now, to Spanish delicacy, a war against nature is a perfect novelty, not only disgusting, but a deadly insult.… adding a new species to what was punished in the sodomites of scripture.…”
‡ Alcaraz (p. 302) says that Santa Anna personally ordered one unit into the garita of Candelaria at 2 A.M. on the twenty-first.
§ Scott was cautious in his selection of representatives; all were lawyers and all were Democrats.
‖ “Just before he left Puebla … General Scott wrote a memorandum, one of the most remarkable ever penned by any commander in any campaign on record.… [He] stated that he would advance upon the capital, and would either defeat the enemy in view of the city, if they would give him battle, or he would take a strong position from the enemy, and then, if he could restrain the enthusiasm of his troops, he would halt outside of the city and take measures to give those in the city an opportunity to save the capital by making a peace.” Hitchcock, letter, January 23, 1848, in Exec. Doc. No. 65, Pillow court-martial, p. 524. Italics in the original.
a Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 355, 361. Santa Anna made an eloquent case for the breakdown: “… I cannot be blind to the truth, that the true cause of the threats of renewing hostilities, contained in the note of your excellency, is that I have not been willing to sign a treaty which would lessen considerably not only the territory of the republic, but that dignity and integrity which all nations defend to the last extremity. And if these considerations do not have the same weight in the mind of your excellency, the responsibility before the world, who can easily distinguish on whose side is moderation and justice, will fall upon you.
b “Each of these routes (an elevated causeway) presents a double roadway on the sides of an aqueduct of strong masonry, and great height, resting on open arches and massive pillars, which, together, afford fine points for attack and defense. The sideways of both aqueducts are, moreover, defended by many strong breastworks at the gates, and before reaching them. As we had expected, we found the four tracks unusually dry and solid for the season.” Scott report, September 18, 1847, Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 381.
c Not everyone considered the forthcoming operation “minor.” Captain E. Kirby Smith wrote home that evening, “I have just learned that the plan of attack is arranged. A forlorn hope of five hundred men commanded by Major G. Wright is to carry the foundry and blow it up. At the same time an attack from our artillery, the rest of the first division and Cadwalader’s brigade is to be made upon their line and Chapultepec, our battalion forming the reserve. This operation is to commence at three in the morning. Tomorrow will be a day of slaughter. I firmly trust and pray that victory may crown our efforts though the odds are immense. I am thankful that you do not know the peril we are in. Good night.” Kirby Smith, To Mexico with Scott, p. 217. Those were the last words that Smith ever wrote.
d Such storming parties were not uncommon. They had a wry nickname, the “forlorn hope.”
e Douglas Freeman, R. E. Lee, p. 117; Worth report, September 10, 1847, Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 362–64. Total Mexican losses were estimated at 700 captured, 2,000 killed and wounded, 2,000 deserters. Justin Smith, The War with Mexico, vol. II, p. 147.
f Justin Smith, The War with Mexico, vol. II, p. 149. The author cannot help wondering how much this decision was affected by a desire to justify the blunder of the attack on Molino del Rey by utilizing that route.
g Quitman’s “forlorn hope,” under Captain Silas Casey, was supplemented by a detachment of forty marines under Captain John G. Reynolds, USMC, and 120 volunteers under Major Levi Twiggs, USMC. Both Casey and Twiggs were killed.
h The six would be immortalized in Mexico as Los Niños Heroicos (heroic children). They are memorialized by an impressive monument at the foot of Chapultepec today.
