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 artillery has prepared the way by the Major Wright storming column, which will break the enemy's center and cut the communications between the mill and that powder store-house. Our own job is to isolate El Molino and prevent aid from Chapultepec. So we must work fast. But once in there, you know very well that we can't be driven out. No, no; don't cheer. Silence! All I ask of you is to uphold the honor of the First Brigade and the American arms."

The lower country was lightening, now. They all could see the arrangements for themselves. The First Brigade occupied right of line. Captain Drum's battery section of three six-pounders was posted a little to the right of the brigade. Not far on the left, or west, were the two twenty-four-pounder siege guns of Captain Huger, with the Light Battalion drawn up behind them in support. Beyond, in the broken line that curved to the north so as to envelop the breastworks and the Casa-Mata, there were the five hundred men of the Major Wright storming column, crouched in column of platoons, and behind them the General Cadwalader brigade, in reserve. Farther on in the west there was the Second Brigade, and beyond it the Duncan battery section, waiting in front of the Casa-Mata. And away on the left of line in the northwest, there were the three squadrons of cavalry.

Nothing had been heard from the enemy; not a movement had been sighted. Then, suddenly, a bugle pealed; drums rattled like a volley. The sound made everybody jump, but it was only the regulation Mexican reveille upon Chapultepec. Never had