Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/451

Rh the meadows. Still as they retreated they fought courageously, and as our men approached the walls, the fresh troops in the neighborhood poured their volleys from behind parapets, windows and steeples. Nevertheless, Santa Anna dared not withdraw all his forces in the presence of Twigg's threatening division on the south.

Meanwhile Worth had seized the causeway and aqueduct of San Cosmé, while Quitman advanced by the other towards the garita of Belen. The double roads on each side of these aqueducts which rested on open arches spanning massive pillars, afforded fine points for attack and defence. Both the American Generals were prompt in pursuing the retreating foe, while Scott, who had ascended the battlements of Chapultepec and beheld the field spread out beneath him like a map, hastened onward all the stragglers and detachments to join the flushed victors in the final assault.

Worth speedily reached the street of San Cosmé and became engaged in desperate conflict with the enemy from the houses and defences. Ordering forward Cadwallader's brigade with mountain howitzers, preceded by skirmishers and pioneers with pick-axes and crow bars to force windows and doors and to burrow through the walls, he rapidly attained an equality of position with the enemy; and by 8 o'clock in the evening, after carrying two batteries in this suburb, he planted a heavy mortar and piece of artillery from which he might throw shot and shells into the city during the night. Having posted guards and sentinels and sheltered his weary men, he at length found himself with no obstacle but the gate of San Cosmé between his gallant band and the great square of Mexico.

The pursuit by Quitman on the road to the gate of Belen had been equally hot and successful. Scott originally designed that this General should only manœuvre and threaten the point so as to favor Worth's more dangerous enterprise by San Cosmé. But the brave and impetuous Quitman, seconded by the eager spirits of his division, longing for the distinction of which they had been hitherto deprived, heeded neither the external defences nor the more dangerous power of the neighboring citadel. Onward he pressed his men under flank and direct fires;—seized an intermediate battery of two guns;—carried the gate of Belen,—and thus, before two o'clock, was the first to enter the city and maintain his position with a loss proportionate to the steady firmness of his desperate assault. After nightfall, he added several new defences to the point he had won so gloriously, and sheltering his men as well as he was