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Rh on heavy arches and pillars of masonry. Owing to fine weather the road was unusually firm. A small number of troops, fleeing in the utmost confusion, could be seen upon it, but at only one point fortifications. Borrowing all of Pillow's troops except the Fifteenth Infantry, which remained to hold Chapultepec and guard the prisoners, he quietly gave orders that his men should assemble near the main gateway. At once the inspiring words began to circulate, "Quitman's division to the city!" and as soon as possible the Rifles, in their crimson sashes, were leading the march forward. About a mile on, a two-gun battery, with a field redan at its right on the marsh, blocked the way. For an hour or so Drum used a small gun upon it. Then the Rifles, after creeping along the aqueduct from arch to arch, took it by assault, and the march continued toward the fortifications at the garita.

As at the other garitas, no gates existed here, but a ditch and a parapet blocked one half of the causeway and a zigzag redoubt the other. Just at the north was the stone house intended for guards and customs officials, beyond which lay the wide Paseo (Promenade). South, on the Piedad road, were artillery and infantry that could fire through the arches. Inside the garita, buildings extending toward the east offered shelter, and in open ground a little more toward the north and about 300 yards distant, the extensive edifice called the citadel, protected with a wall and a wet ditch, constituted a serious obstacle.

Santa Anna, after acting like a madman when Chapultepec fell, came to this garita. General Terrés, a brave old Spaniard, commanded here with about 180 infantry and some artillerymen. Santa Anna gave him three guns of medium power, and stationed General Ramírez in the Paseo, Brevet General Argüelles on the opposite side, and General Perdigón Garay and Colonel Barrios in the rear with substantial reserves.

On approaching this formidable position, Quitman encountered a withering storm of bullets, grape and solid shot from both sides and the front, and suffered rather severely.