Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/285

256 that both men and guns had been withdrawn; but other works not far distant were still held too strongly to be captured. Attempts were made to gain ground in various directions; and finally, an hour or two before noon, with assistance from the Second Texas regiment, dismounted, and the Third and the Fourth Infantry, extensive and well-supported operations began to be undertaken. In particular, a systematic plan of breaking through the continuous line of houses and firing from the roofs was adopted. At each cross-street vigorous fighting had to be done, for the Mexicans, though inferior as marksmen, resisted obstinately at every favorable point; and the musketry and artillery behind their barricades swept the approaches fiercely. Five out of the twelve commissioned officers of the Third Infantry were killed, says General Grant. Two sections of field artillery came up, but the gunners were shot down rapidly in spite of all precautions; and at length, finding the pieces too light for effective service, Taylor ordered them to retire. A gun at the Tenería redoubt was tried, but after a time the advance of the Americans made it dangerous to fire toward the plaza "

The infantry pushed on, however, and by three o'clock were only one square from the grand plaza. Here ammunition began to fail, and Lieutenant Grant, hanging over the side of his horse by an arm and a foot, dashed across the streets too swiftly to be fired at, and went in search of it. With a view to preparing for a. general assault, however, or for some other reason Taylor ordered the troops, now working safely inside the houses, to withdraw — under fire, of course. Reluctantly, though many of them had not eaten for thirty-six hours, they marched back to the redoubts and thence after dark to Walnut Grove; and the Ohio and Kentucky regiments went on duty at the captured redoubts.

Strangely enough, Taylor seems to have made no effort, after the storming of the Bishop's Palace, to arrange with General Worth for concerted action or to give him fresh orders, although he could easily have done so, and knew that all the work assigned to that division had been completed. Wednesday morning, therefore, after the long, deep slumber of exhaustion, Worth's men found themselves mostly in idleness, and a large part of them, concentrated near the Palace, gazed