Last in Their Class. James Robbins
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watched the same sight, as the banner of the Fifth Infantry was added to the display. San Mateo soon fell, netting General Rincón and most of the deserters. Rincón was one of eight generals captured that day, two of whom were also members of the Mexican Congress. In total, August 20 saw 4,000 Mexican casualties and 3,000 prisoners. The Americans lost 1,000 killed, wounded or missing.
The next day, Kirby was given command of the funeral parties, “a sad, a solemn service,” he wrote. “In our haste we performed no burial rites—paid no honors—but laid our dead in the earth in the bloody garments in which they died, most of them on the spot where they fell. Indeed many were so torn and mangled by the shot it was entirely impossible to move them.”29 Many were trampled in the mud, some so completely that it was difficult to tell if they were American or Mexican. The field was strewn with the debris of battle, dead horses and mules, muskets, swords, boxes, pieces of uniforms, and packs. “Immense damage appears to have been done to their music bands,” Henry Howe observed, “as prodigious quantities of musical instruments were scattered all over the field—drums, fifes, bugles, clarinets, trombones, ophicleides, etc.”30
General Scott might have made for Mexico City on the 20th; some of William Harney’s dragoons daringly rode up to the city gates before retiring under fire. But the troops were too tired and disorganized from the several victories they had already achieved that day. Instead, Scott agreed to an armistice, in hopes that a negotiated settlement could be attained without further loss of lives. The negotiators on the American side were Nicholas Trist and Major Abraham Van Buren, son of the former president and penultimate graduate of 1827, who had returned to service in 1846. Former president Joaquin Herrera led the Mexican negotiators. The Mexican delegation was instructed by its political leaders to “treat for peace as if we had triumphed!”
During the truce, neither side was supposed to reinforce or prepare for further conflict. The Americans were able to draw supplies from Mexico City, but were not allowed to enter the city in force. General Scott agreed to the armistice in good faith; whether Santa Anna planned it as a deception or was simply keeping his options open is debatable. Few held out hope for a diplomatic solution. Scott was not disposed to disrupt the negotiations, even as rumors reached him of Mexican violations, particularly of preparations for renewed battle. A resident of the city brought information of Mexican violations to Kirby, who forwarded them to Scott. The general dismissed the intelligence, calling the native source a liar. Nevertheless, by September 6 even Scott had to admit that the truce had been merely a ruse to allow the Mexicans to reestablish their defenses after the crushing defeats at Contreras and Churubusco. “Fatal credulity!” Kirby wrote his wife. “How awful are its consequences to us! By it, the fruits of our glorious victory are entirely thrown away.”31
The Americans were encamped in the shadow of the castle of Chapultepec, which stood atop a 150-foot natural mound just west of the gates of the city. The area was one of the most beautiful spots in the valley, a favorite of Montezuma, called by the Aztecs “Grasshopper’s Hill.” The castle was built during the Spanish period as the home of the viceroy, El Conde de Galves (after whom Galveston was named). In 1847, it was the home of the enemy’s military academy, the Mexican West Point. Most believed that Chapultepec would have to be taken before Mexico City could be conquered.
Yet before fighting that battle, Scott had prepared another mission. The general had received intelligence that the bells of the City of Mexico had been removed from the churches and were being made into cannon at the foundry at Molino del Rey (the King’s Mill), a massive stone-walled collection of buildings and houses outside the city gates, two-thirds of a mile west of Chapultepec. The powder for the guns was being stored at Casa Mata, a fortified magazine five hundred yards west of the Molino. The area was lightly defended, and Scott sought to seize the buildings and the weapons, destroy the foundry, and capture or blow up the powder. He believed this could be done quickly, with minimal forces, and he projected the casualties at about twenty men.
General Worth, whose division was to be the assault force, thought the position was stronger than Scott assumed, and last-minute intelligence arrived that the foundry was in fact nonoperational. The machinery had been moved inside the city the day after Churubusco, and Santa Anna was reinforcing the area, inviting attack. Scott, for whatever reason, chose to ignore this information. He envisioned a three-pronged attack. On the extreme right, a brigade under Lieutenant Colonel John Garland would approach the south and east sides of the Molino. In the center, a forlorn hope of five hundred men led by Major George Wright (USMA 1822) would pierce the Mexican defenses between the two strongpoints and wheel right into the Molino complex.32 On the left flank, the nine-hundred-man Second Brigade under the command of Colonel McIntosh, recovered from his wounds at Resaca, would storm Casa Mata. Kirby was given command of the Light Infantry Battalion, which would act as a reserve, backing up the forlorn hope should it be necessary.
Scott briefed his commanders on the evening of September 7. That night, Kirby retired to his tent to write to his wife. “In my opinion a much bloodier battle is to be fought than any which have preceded it,” he wrote. “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 you do not know the peril we are in. Good night.”33
AT SIX IN THE MORNING on September 8, as dawn broke over the valley of Mexico, the silence was cut by the sound of bugles blowing reveille at Chapultepec. Hours earlier, American troops had moved into their assault positions, and they listened to the cry of the horns as they waited for the battle to begin. As the bugle call echoed from the distant hills, the first rounds of American artillery were fired and the assault commenced. Captain William H. T. Walker, Immortal of 1837 and hero of Okeechobee, started across the 600-yard glacis towards the Mexican lines. It had taken two years for him to recover from the wounds he suffered in Florida. He had served gallantly with the Sixth Infantry at Churubusco on August 20 and had volunteered for the forlorn hope at Molino.
Walker led his men across the downward slope to the level plain two hundred yards from the walls, and soon they began to take scattered fire from Mexican artillery and light infantry. The order was given to march double-time, and the men moved ahead quickly. The weak fire did not slow them, and when they were within musket range, the Americans loosed a volley.
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