were fortified and the whole intervening region flooded from the aqueduct and irrigating ditches. Twelve thousand Mexicans had been allowed to work for three days, undisturbed, in full sight of the American army, when it was well known that every lick they made rendered the approach to the city more difficult.

On the 11th Scott called a council of all the chief officers, omitting Worth, and laid his plans before them, and asked their opinions. In this council it became very evident that Scott had, after all, concluded that Chapultepec would have to be taken. The delay after the great battle of the 8th, and the utter absence of any effort to turn it to any advantage, had much broken the spirit of the troops, and dissatisfaction among the officers was apparent. However, in the excitement and activity that followed, the annoyances of the moment were lost sight of. General Scott gave his orders for the taking of Chapultepec, and much of the night of the 11th was spent in placing batteries and taking positions for the coming conflict, which would decide the fate of the small army before Mexico. Chapultepec was the name given to a considerable inclosure of land within two miles of the City of Mexico. It was mainly surrounded by high irregular walls of masonry, not proof against heavy guns.

Through and around it ran several ditches. A small cultivated field or two lay within it; much of the land was soft and marshy; and an old cypress grove stood in it towards Molino del Rey. Within

the inclosure was the Mexican Military School, in a strong stone building now well fortified. But the most important object was a hill rising a hundred and fifty feet above the marsh level, with its sides mainly almost impassably steep and rocky. On the summit of this rock was a castle of irregular form but considerable military pretensions. This was the rock and castle of Chapultepec, which was now considered by General Scott the key to the Capital of Mexico.

CHAPTER XXI.

WAR WITH MEXICO-CAPTURE OF CHAPULTEPEC-THE CITY OF MEXICO IN THE HANDS OF THE INVA

DERS GENERAL SCOTT'S REPORT—

SANTA ANNA WHIPPED AND

DRIVEN INTO RETIRE

MENT.

ON

N the night of the 11th four batteries were placed in favorable positions, and early on the morning of the 12th these opened on Chapultepec. Molino del Rey was also reoccupied by the Americans, Santa Anna strangely enough, having entirely neglected it after the defeat of his army there on the 8th. This day was mainly spent in cannonading the fortified hill, but little was accomplished by it, more than to show that it would have to be stormed. During the night storming parties were formed and scaling ladders prepared for the purpose.

By noon on the 13th, after one of the most wonderful battles on record, the stars and stripes waved from the Castle of Chapultepec. A running battle on the causeways and before the walls of the city then ensued until night closed upon the dreadful scene, with Quitman before the Citadel at the gate of Belen, and Worth actually within the city at the San Cosme gate a few squares from the great plaza.

Before midnight Santa Anna with his army quietly withdrew from the city, and at one o'clock the city council sent to General Scott to notify him that the way was open into the great city, and asking some privileges which he refused to grant. On the morning of the 14th Quitman took possession of the Citadel, and moved on to the Plaza, where he hoisted the flag of the United States on the president's house and the public building. Before leaving the capital Santa Anna had caused all the prisoners of every kind to be set loose. The American army suffered from this criminal horde for several days, and only after the severest discipline had been established, and some of the houses giving shelter to these cut-throats had been battered down and other steps taken to bring the city to order and safety, was there any relief.

The following is General Scott's report to the Secretary of War touching most important general points since the army entered the valley of the great city:

:

"HEAD-QUARTERS OF THE ARMY, "National Palace of Mexico, Sept. 18, 1847.

SIR,-At the end of another series of arduous and brilliant operations of more than forty-eight hours' continuance, this glorious army hoisted, on the morning of the 14th, the colors of the United States on the walls of this palace.

"The victory of the 8th, at the Molino del Rey, was followed by daring reconnoissances on the part of our distinguished engineers-Captain Lee, Lieutenants Beauregard, Stevens, and Tower-Major Smith, senior, being sick, and Captain Mason, third in rank, wounded. Their operations were directed principally to the south towards the gates of the Piedad,

San Angel (Nino Perdido), San Antonio, and the Paseo de la Viga.

"This city stands on a slight swell of ground, near the center of an irregular basin, and is girdled with a ditch in its greater extent a navigable canal of great breadth and depthvery difficult to bridge in the presence of an enemy, and serving at once for drainage, custom-house purposes, and military defense; leaving eight entrances or gates, over arches, each of which we found defended by a system of strong works, that seemed to require nothing but some men and guns to be impregnable.

"Outside and within the cross-fires of those gates, we found to the south other obstacles but little less formidable. All the approaches near the city are over elevated causeways, cut in many places (to oppose us), and flanked on both sides by ditches, also of unusual dimensions. The numerous cross-roads are flanked in like manner, having bridges at the intersections, recently broken. The meadows thus checkered are, moreover, in many spots, under water or marshy; for, it will be remembered, we were in the midst of the wet season, though with less rain than usual, and we could not wait for the fall of the neighboring lakes and the consequent drainage of the wet grounds at the edge of the city-the lowest in the whole basin.

"After a close personal survey of the southern gates, covered by Pillow's division and Riley's brigade of Twiggs's-with four times our numbers concentrated in our immediate frontI determined on the 11th to avoid that net-work of obstacles, and to seek, by a sudden diversion, to the southwest and west, less unfavorable approaches.

"To economize the lives of our gallant officers and men, as well as to insure success, it became indispensable that this resolution should be long masked from the enemy; and again, that the new movement, when discovered, should be mistaken for a feint, and the old as indicating our true and ultimate point of attack.

"Accordingly, on the spot, the 11th, I ordered Quitman's division from Coyacan, to join Pillow by daylight, before the southern gates, and then that the two major-generals, with their divisions, should, by night, proceed (two miles) to join me at