Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
September 8 Three days later the position of Molino del Rey, garrisoned
by the choicest of the Mexican troops, was
stormed at dawn. But the enemy had benefited by his respite. The
fighting was desperate. 800 Americans were killed and wounded before
the intrenchments and strong buildings were finally carried; and
although the Mexicans again lost 3,000 men, including two generals,
their spirit of resistance was not yet wholly crushed.
Driven from their outworks, they had fallen back on a still more
formidable line. Behind the Molino del Rey rose the hill of
Chapultepec, crowned by the great castle which had been the palace of
Montezuma and of the Spanish viceroys, now the military college of the
Republic and the strongest of her fortresses. Three miles from the city
walls, the stronghold completely barred the line of advance on the San
Cosme Gate. Heavy guns mounted on the lofty bastions which encircled
the citadel, commanded every road, and the outflanking movements which
had hitherto set at nought the walls and parapets of the Mexicans were
here impracticable. Still, careful reconnaissance had shown that, with
all its difficulties, this was the most favourable approach for the
invading army. The gates of Belen and San Antonio were beset by
obstacles even more impracticable. The ground over which the troops
would advance to storm the fortress was far firmer than elsewhere,
there was ample space for the American batteries, and if the hill were
taken, the Mexicans, retreating along two narrow causeways, with deep
marshes on either hand, might easily be deprived of all opportunity of
rallying.
On the night of the 11th four batteries of heavy guns were established
within easy range. On the 12th they opened fire; and the next morning
the American army, covered by the fire of the artillery, advanced to
the assault.
September 13 In the victory of Molino del Rey, Magruder’s battery had
taken little part. Jackson, posted with his section on the extreme
flank of the line, had dispersed a column of cavalry which threatened a
charge; but, with this brief interlude of action, he had been merely a
spectator. At Chapultepec he was more fortunate. Pillow’s division, to
which the battery was attached, attacked the Mexicans in front, while
Worth’s division assailed them from the
north. The 14th Infantry, connecting the two attacks, moved along a
road which skirts the base of the hill, and Magruder was ordered to
detach a section of his battery in support. Jackson was selected for
the duty, and as he approached the enemy’s position dangers multiplied
at every step. The ground alongside was so marshy that the guns were
unable to leave the road. A Mexican fieldpiece, covered by a
breastwork, raked the causeway from end to end, while from the heights
of Chapultepec cannon of large calibre poured down a destructive fire.
The infantry suffered terribly. It was impossible to advance along the
narrow track; and when the guns were ordered up the situation was in no
way bettered. Nearly every horse was killed or wounded. A deep ditch,
cut across the road, hindered effective action, and the only position
where reply to the enemy’s fire was possible lay beyond this obstacle.
Despite the losses of his command Jackson managed to lift one gun
across by hand. But his men became demoralised. They left their posts.
The example of their lieutenant, walking up and down on the shot-swept
road and exclaiming calmly, “There is no danger: see! I am not hit,”
failed to inspire them with confidence. Many had already fallen. The
infantry, with the exception of a small escort, which held its ground
with difficulty, had disappeared; and General Worth, observing
Jackson’s perilous situation, sent him orders to retire. He replied it
was more dangerous to withdraw than to stand fast, and if they would
give him fifty veterans he would rather attempt the capture of the
breastwork. At this juncture Magruder, losing his horse as he galloped
forward, reached the road.
The ditch was crowded with soldiers; many wounded; many already dead;
many whose hearts had failed them. Beyond, on the narrow causeway, the
one gun which Jackson had brought across the ditch was still in action.
Deserted by his gunners, and abandoned by the escort which had been
ordered to support him, the young subaltern still held his ground. With
the sole assistance of a sergeant,
of stauncher mettle than the rest, he was loading and firing his
solitary field-piece, rejoicing, as became the son of a warrior race,
in the hot breath of battle, and still more in the isolation of his
perilous position. To stand alone, in the forefront of the fight,
defying the terrors from which others shrank, was the situation which
of all others he most coveted; and under the walls of Chapultepec,
answering shot for shot, and plying sponge and handspike with desperate
energy, the fierce instincts of the soldier were fully gratified. Nor
was Magruder the man to proffer prudent counsels. A second gun was
hoisted across the ditch; the men rallied; the Mexican artillery was
gradually overpowered, and the breastwork stormed. The crisis of the
struggle was already past. Pillow’s troops had driven the enemy from
their intrenchments at the base of the hill, and beneath the shadows of
the majestic cypresses, which still bear the name of the Grove of
Montezuma, and up the rugged slopes which tower above them, pressed the
assaulting columns. A redoubt which stood midway up the height was
carried. The Mexicans fell back from shelter to shelter; but amid smoke
and flame the scaling ladders were borne across the castle ditch, and
reared against the lofty walls were soon covered with streams of men.
The leaders, hurled from the battlements on to the crowd below, failed
to make good their footing, but there were others to take their places.
The supports came thronging up; the enemy, assailed in front and flank,
drew back disheartened, and after a short struggle the American
colours, displayed upon the keep, announced to the citizens of Mexico
that Chapultepec had been captured. Yet the victory was not complete.
The greater part of the garrison had fled from their intrenchments
before the castle had been stormed; and infantry, cavalry, and
artillery, in wild confusion, were crowding in panic on the causeways.
But their numbers were formidable, and the city, should the army be
rallied, was capable of a protracted defence. Not a moment was to be
lost if the battle was to be decisive of the war. The disorder on
Chapultepec was hardly less than that which existed in the ranks of the
defeated
Mexicans. Many of the stormers had dispersed in search of plunder, and
regiments and brigades had become hopelessly intermingled in the
assault of the rocky hill. Still the pursuit was prompt. Towards the
San Cosme Gate several of the younger officers, a lieutenant by name
Ulysses Grant amongst the foremost, followed the enemy with such men as
they could collect, and Jackson’s guns were soon abreast of the
fighting line. His teams had been destroyed by the fire of the Mexican
batteries. Those of his waggons, posted further to the rear, had
partially escaped. To disengage the dead animals from the limbers and
to replace them by others would have wasted many minutes, and he had
eagerly suggested to Magruder that the guns should be attached to the
waggon-limbers instead of to their own. Permission was given, and in a
few moments his section was thundering past the cliffs of Chapultepec.
Coming into action within close range of the flying Mexicans, every
shot told on their demoralised masses; but before the San Cosme Gate
the enemy made a last effort to avert defeat. Fresh troops were brought
up to man the outworks; the houses and gardens which lined the road
were filled with skirmishers; from the high parapets of the flat
house-tops a hail of bullets struck the head of the pursuing column;
and again and again the American infantry, without cover and with
little space for movement, recoiled from the attack.
The situation of the invading army, despite the brilliant victory of
Chapultepec, was not yet free from peril. The greater part of the
Mexican forces was still intact. The city contained 180,000
inhabitants, and General Scott’s battalions had dwindled to the
strength of a small division. In the various battles before the capital
nearly 3,000 officers and men had fallen, and the soldiers who
encompassed the walls of the great metropolis were spent with
fighting.[11] One spark of the stubborn courage which bore Cortez and
his paladins through the hosts of Montezuma might have made of that
stately city a second Saragossa. It was eminently defensible. The
churches, the convents,
the public buildings, constructed with that solidity which is
peculiarly Spanish, formed each of them a fortress. The broad streets,
crossing each other at right angles, rendered concentration at any
threatened point an easy matter, and beyond the walls were broad
ditches and a deep canal.
Nor was the strength of the city the greatest of Scott’s difficulties.
Vera Cruz, his base of operations, was two hundred and sixty miles
distant; Puebla, his nearest supply-depot, eighty miles. He had
abandoned his communications. His army was dependent for food on a
hostile population. In moving round Lake Chalco, and attacking the city
from the south, he had burned his boats. A siege or an investment were
alike impossible. A short march would place the enemy’s army across his
line of retreat, and nothing would have been easier for the Mexicans
than to block the road where it passes between the sierras and the
lake. Guerillas were already hovering in the hills; one single repulse
before the gates of the capital would have raised the country in rear;
and hemmed in by superior numbers, and harassed by a cavalry which was
at least equal to the task of cutting off supplies, the handful of
Americans must have cut their way through to Puebla or have succumbed
to starvation.
Such considerations had doubtless been at the root of the temporising
policy which had been pursued after Churubusco. But the uselessness of
half-measures had then been proved. The conviction had become general
that a desperate enterprise could only be pushed to a successful issue
by desperate tactics, and every available battalion was hurried forward
to the assault. Before the San Cosme Gate the pioneers were ordered up,
and within the suburb pick and crowbar forced a passage from house to
house. The guns, moving slowly forward, battered the crumbling masonry
at closest range. The Mexicans were driven back from breastwork to
breastwork; and a mountain howitzer, which Lieutenant Grant had posted
on the tower of a neighbouring church, played with terrible effect, at
a range of two or three hundred yards, on the defenders of the Gate.
By eight o’clock in the evening the suburb had been cleared, and the
Americans were firmly established within the walls. To the south-east,
before the Belen Gate, another column had been equally successful.
During the night Santa Anna withdrew his troops, and when day dawned
the white flag was seen flying from the citadel. After a sharp fight
with 2,000 convicts whom the fugitive President had released, the
invaders occupied the city, and the war was virtually at an end. From
Cerro Gordo to Chapultepec the power of discipline had triumphed. An
army of 30,000 men, fighting in their own country, and supported by a
numerous artillery, had been defeated by an invading force of one-third
the strength. Yet the Mexicans had shown no lack of courage. “At
Chapultepec and Molino del Rey, as on many other occasions,” says
Grant, “they stood up as well as any troops ever did.”[12] But their
officers were inexperienced; the men were ill-instructed; and against