Читать книгу Last in Their Class - James Robbins - Страница 16

CHURUBUSCO

“TWO SUCH BATTLES UNDER ALL THE circumstances have never been fought in the United States,” Wyche wrote from Fort Brown, two days after Resaca de la Palma and three after Palo Alto. “They are really glorious victories, and I have no doubt they will be appreciated as such by the country at large.” He was right. The opening battles of the Mexican War were remarkable triumphs, psychologically as well as militarily. In the weeks leading up to the conflict, few foresaw a favorable outcome, and most commentators predicted disaster, a fact that magnified the impact of the Mexican rout. The battles were celebrated in song, and Zachary Taylor was courted by Whig politicians as a potential presidential candidate. May’s charge had made him a national hero and he received two brevet promotions. His feat became the basis for the design on the shield of the Second Dragoons’ coat of arms, and his order, “Remember your regiment and follow your officers,” became their motto. The United States formally declared war within days, copying the text from the declaration of war against Britain in 1812.

Nevertheless, the war was not universally popular. Congressman Abraham Lincoln opposed it and later participated in a Whig effort to have it declared unnecessary and unconstitutionally begun. The American Whig Review called the war “as gross an outrage on our part as was ever committed by one civilized nation on another.”¹ Henry David Thoreau went to jail rather than contribute taxes to support it, and he wrote the tract “Civil Disobedience” in which he characterized the Mexican War as “the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.”² But the majority opinion was echoed by Walt Whitman, writing in the Brooklyn Eagle: “Let our arms now be carried with a spirit which shall teach the world that, while we are not forward for a quarrel, America knows how to crush, as well as how to expand.”³

Mexican politics mirrored American volatility. There was substantial debate over whether outright war was necessary, and a response to the war declaration was not issued until July 1. A month later, General Paredes was deposed, and on August 16, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna reached Vera Cruz in the ship Arab, returning from exile in Cuba. He was given free passage through the American blockade, in the belief that he would be more amenable to a peaceful solution. Santa Anna marched on the capital to great acclaim, as Napoleon had in returning from Elba. By the end of the year he would be both president and commander in chief of the Mexican forces; but he would be no more disposed to peace than Paredes.⁴

The opening battles in Texas were a windfall to the Regular Army soldiers, and to the West Pointers in particular. The outnumbered Americans defeated the enemy with dash and bravery, helping to dispel the image of the West Pointer as a lazy intellectual who was either unwilling or afraid to get into a hard fight. Furthermore, the officers were finally able to put their training in conventional warfighting to use. As well, they did without the participation of the militia, so there would be no question as to who was responsible for victory, as there had been in previous wars. The regulars were conscious of this fact even before the battles began. Three days before Palo Alto, George Meade wrote,

We are all anxious to give [the Mexicans] a sound thrashing before the volunteers arrive, for the reputation of the army; for should we be unable to meet them before they come, and then gain a victory, it will be said the volunteers had done it, and without them we were useless. For our own existence, therefore, we desire to encounter them.⁵

Ephraim Kirby Smith echoed this sentiment afterwards, saying, “It is a glorious fact for the Army that there were no volunteers with us.”⁶ The validation of West Point was the one aspect of the war that pleased the Whig critics. In the same piece that denounced the conflict in harsh terms, the American Whig Review stated: “West Point has nobly vindicated herself from the attacks of [its critcs], and her brave sons that lie on those fierce fought battlefields shall forever silence their slanderous tongues.”⁷

Congress voted to increase the size of the Army to prosecute the war effort, and veterans of the opening battles were dispatched on recruiting duty, heroes from the front who could inspire others and tell stories of the heroism they had witnessed and participated in firsthand. Nathaniel Wyche Hunter was sent out as a recruiter, wrapped in the glory of the Second Dragoons, and he took the opportunity to marry Sarah Golding on August 18. William Logan Crittenden went to Philadelphia, and George Meade asked him to pay a visit to his family and give a detailed account of the two battles.⁸ Volunteer regiments began forming across the country, many of them led by West Pointers. When the war commenced, 523 USMA graduates were on active duty and nearly equal that number returned to the colors, most of them with militia regiments from their home states. John Taylor Pratt, the first Goat, was a major general in the Kentucky militia and commander of the state’s Third Division when the war broke out. He petitioned to lead forces in Mexico, but the governor would not grant him a command. “I was so unfortunate as to be a Democrat,” he wrote, “[and] of course had no favor in a Whig governor’s eyes.” He resigned his commission “in disgust” and was reelected to the Kentucky House of Representatives.⁹ Franklin Saunders, the Goat of 1837, who had served one year with the Second Dragoons in Florida before resigning, returned for a year as a captain in the First Kentucky Volunteers. George C. McClelland, the Goat of 1843, resigned from active duty while in Texas, a week before the opening battles. He returned as a private in the First Pennsylvania Volunteers, fighting in several battles, being recommissioned, and ultimately cashiered for “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” and “drunkenness on duty.”¹⁰

Among the West Pointers who volunteered for service in Mexico, perhaps the most distinguished was Jefferson Davis. He had only recently reentered public life. In 1835, he had married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of Zachary Taylor, who at the time was his commanding officer. He resigned his commission to become a cotton planter in Mississippi. Sarah died three months later, and Davis went into seclusion for almost a decade. In 1844, he ran for Congress as a Democrat and won, serving from March 1845 to June 1846. Representative Davis then resigned his seat to command the First Regiment of Mississippi Riflemen. He joined Taylor’s army as it moved deep into northern Mexico. There followed a series of battles, most significantly at Monterey in September 1846, and Buena Vista in February of 1847. At Buena Vista, Davis and his Mississippi Rifles plugged a hole in the American line at a critical moment, backed up by artillery under Captains Thomas W. Sherman and Braxton Bragg. Davis was wounded in the process, but became a national hero.¹¹

Taylor believed he could continue his march through the whole of Mexico, but political pressures stayed his advance. The seat of war moved to the south and to a new commander. On March 9, 1847, U.S. forces under General Winfield Scott made what was then the largest amphibious landing in history south of the port city of Vera Cruz, near the spot where Cortes had landed in 1519. After a twenty-day siege the city fell, opening the way into Mexico. The Americans began to move inland, along the great national road leading to Mexico City. The line of march was ripe with defensive possibilities, but Santa Anna made only one serious stand, at the town of Cerro Gordo. Here the Americans won an unexpected victory. Most of the credit went to Brigadier General William J. Worth, of Seminole War fame, who was the operational commander; Lieutenant Colonel William S. Harney, another Florida hero, who headed the assault force; and topographical engineer Captain Robert E. Lee, whose personal reconnaissance deep into the enemy’s positions made possible the bold flanking maneuver that carried the day. Captain George W. Patten of the Class of 1830, a poet, was severely wounded in the battle, and his friend Kirby paid a visit to “Poet Patten” afterward. “All his left hand but the forefinger and thumb having been carried off by a grape shot,” Kirby noted. “He was doing well and is very cheerful. I consoled him with the fact that though he could no longer play the guitar he might write better poetry than before.”¹²

The victory at Cerro Gordo created even greater political turmoil in Mexico and hampered efforts to mount an effective defense against the American column as it wended its way towards the capital. Two days after the battle, the Mexican government made proposing peace an act of treason, but the May 15 elections showed significant gains for the peace party headed by former president Joaquin Herrera, causing Santa Anna (called “the Great One-Legged” by the American troops) to threaten resignation. The internal dissension and continual political gamesmanship hampered Mexican ability to resist the small American force moving into the interior.

Vera Cruz was the supply head for the American Army, but communications were tenuous. The Mexican population was not cooperative, guerillas and banditti prowled along the road, and soldiers were murdered if caught alone in towns or the countryside. Stragglers were especially in danger, and those who fell sick and could not keep up with the column were in bad straits. Supply trains were raided and patrols ambushed. “The guerilla system is already in operation,” Kirby wrote along the march. “It is dangerous to go about alone or unarmed, indeed the orders are that no one shall leave his quarters without arms.”¹³ Eventually General Scott decided that attempting to maintain supply from Vera Cruz was untenable, and he chose to live off the land, requisitioning supplies along the way. “‘Forward’ is the word,” Kirby wrote, “the ‘Halls of the Montezumas’ our destination.”¹⁴

The march into the interior of Mexico went through some of the most picturesque terrain in the world. The main road ascended steadily, and the route was overlooked by high, snow-capped volcanic mountain peaks. At one point Kirby was so overcome by the view that he dropped to his knees “to breathe a prayer and a thanksgiving to a good God who made such a glorious world.”¹⁵ The column passed through areas showing evidence of the older Spanish civilization that had been flourishing in the Americas a century before the rudimentary settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth. Kirby made bivouac at an old palace, a marble-columned hacienda long abandoned, with trees growing in some of the rooms. “It was probably erected by some of the Spanish nobles who came to this country soon after the conquest by Cortes,” he wrote. “Here knights have armed for the battle and celebrated their victories on their return. Here blushing beauty has listened to the amorous tale breathed in her ear by her warrior lover. Where are they all now? The beauties have mouldered in the tomb forgotten. The very memory of the knights is gone.”¹⁶

Kirby’s letters home show the familiar thoughts of the soldier between battles—of family, the local conditions, when the next battle would be, or perhaps when peace would break out. Like others, he discussed the brevet promotions being awarded for bravery, which were very controversial. In those days, there were no medals; they were considered a European custom unsuited to the American democratic culture. But brevetting created the same strains and jealousies. Whenever promotion lists came out, complaints were raised that not all who got them deserved them, and that many of those who deserved them were overlooked. “I have just seen the villainous order of promotions and brevets in which the Fifth is entirely neglected,” Kirby wrote his wife at one point. “I am utterly disgusted with the service and were it not for you and the dear children would resign at once, but for your sakes I must continue to endure. . . . It is too frequently the sycophant who flatters the foibles of his commanding officer, he who has family political influence, of whom some accident makes conspicuous, who reaps all the benefits of the exposure and labor of others. . . . Success is a lottery and government rewards are by no means dependent on merit.”¹⁷

Kirby wondered how the war would progress, and whether the United States should have been harsher in its prosecution. Perhaps, he mused, the Americans should not have been so accommodating, paying for supplies and protecting the inhabitants where they could, but should instead have laid waste to the land and “carried fire and sword to the heart of their country,” treating them with contempt—perhaps then would the war have ended sooner and “peace on advantageous terms been offered? . . . Now we must fight it out with but little hope of a termination of the struggle in many years.”¹⁸ A year had passed since he was first under fire, and despite the string of victories the Americans had enjoyed, Kirby felt a creeping pessimism:

Our prospects in the Army, I think, grow more gloomy every day. Not only does peace seem to be more distant, but when it does come we are in danger of being disbanded. I almost envy the old and disabled officers, and wish that a respectable wound would enable me to quit the field. I should like to spend the remnant of my days in the bosom of my beloved family, in the quiet of some neat country place raising my own cabbages à la Van Buren! . . . I ought not, however, to complain. For twenty years I have worn the sword without facing an enemy. A few years of war will only fit me for a respectable old age, or put to rest my unquiet spirit forever.¹⁹

The column halted at the town of Puebla, where Scott reorganized his forces and awaited reinforcements. Diplomatic initiatives were under way, prompted by the arrival of Nicholas P. Trist, chief clerk of the State Department, bearing three million dollars to help smooth the negotiations. Trist was a native of Louisiana who had been a leading member of the USMA Class of 1822, but resigned in his final year to study law under the tutelage of Thomas Jefferson. Stories of imminent peace were rampant, but Kirby was not impressed. “I see no result but an armed occupation, colonization, and years of guerrilla warfare,” he said.²⁰ “Madame Rumor” was rife; one story held that Santa Anna had been killed, another that Mexican troops had opened a civil war and the capital was undefended. But Kirby did not believe them. “The thousand lying rumors which are constantly circulated with regard to the enemy have ceased to excite the slightest attention,” he said. “Lying is so universal here that I am almost afraid I shall fall into the habit myself.”²¹

At Puebla the officers and men got a chance to interact with the locals, to sample Mexican cuisine and drinks such as mescal. The women, at least those of the established families, were generally not permitted to associate with the Americans. Assistant Surgeon Richard McSherry, USN, noted that “the most trivial acts of civility or courtesy are jealously watched by prying eyes; and the poblana who once nods her head to an American, is marked by a fierce and cowardly mob for future insult.”²² And the Americans were short on currency, which limited their carousing.

One day, Second Lieutenant William M. Gardner was hailed by his classmate George Pickett: “Gardner, would you like a julep?” It was a fine offer, since the junior officers were usually in want of money, and those who came into a sum were expected to share. The two went to a fonda that was full of young officers awaiting a similar invitation. Pickett and Gardner stood at the bar awkwardly for some time, not wanting to drink in front of their thirsty comrades, but lacking enough money to buy a round for the house. The other officers watched hopefully as Pickett reached into his pocket and withdrew a half dollar. He tossed it onto the bar and addressed the crowd.

“Fellows,” he said, “I have asked Gardner to take a drink, and I am simply bound to have one myself. Now if anyone can squeeze any more liquor out of that coin, let him step up and imbibe.” Juleps being twenty-five cents, that settled the matter.²³

In August, with diplomatic measures stalled, Scott moved to bring the war to a conclusion. His enlarged force left Puebla, taking three days to clear the town. They advanced towards Mexico City, up winding ways through mountain vales and passes, finally peaking at 10,700 feet above sea level. The road then plunged down into the Valley of Mexico, “a most glorious spectacle,” Kirby said, “which we beheld from the same point where Cortes first gazed upon it.”²⁴ The soldiers moved down into the valley towards the Mexican defenses, in high morale, confident in their leaders and themselves. Kirby grimly appreciated the fact that they were heading for the climactic battle. “Welcome the danger, welcome the toil,” he wrote, “welcome the fierce conflict and the bloody field, if it will but close the war.”²⁵

“The Day Will Be Ours!”

THE CITY OF MEXICO WAS well sited, being surrounded by lakes, marshes, and hardened lava flows known as pedregal. Santa Anna had incorporated the natural chokepoints into a system of interlocking defenses. General Scott had scouted the Mexican positions, much of the dangerous reconnaissance work done by Robert E. Lee and George McClellan. Scott attempted a flanking maneuver, around the western edges of Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco, towards the villages of Contreras, San Antonio and Churubusco. He opened his attack on August 20, carrying the first two objectives after a hard fight, and sending the Mexican forces into headlong retreat north towards the city. Santa Anna, hoping to stop the rout, sent reserve troops under Major General Manuel Rincón to hold the Franciscan convent of San Mateo and the nearby tête-du-pont, a fortified bridge over the Churubusco River along the line of retreat. The river, which at that point was walled like a canal, cut perpendicularly across the road, and a line of Mexican forces deployed along the stone banks between the two fortified positions. Scott ordered an immediate two-column assault against the convent and the bridgehead. The Americans were tired and in some disorder, but Scott pushed forward, hoping to outrace the retreating Mexicans. If he could cut the road at the bridge, he would have a substantial number of their troops in a bag.

The Mexican position at San Mateo was strong; the convent had high, thick adobe walls and was fronted with earthworks. Among its defenders was the San Patricio battalion of foreign mercenaries and American deserters, who fought furiously, knowing their fate should they lose. They beat back several waves of American attacks, inflicting heavy casualties. With the left flank stalled before the convent, it was up to Worth’s division to storm the fortress bridge. The road to the tête-du-pont was soggy from a drenching rain the night before, and heavy traffic from the Mexican retreat had created viscous mud that was impassable to artillery. However, seeing the disorganized mass of enemy troops, Worth was confident he could take the objective. He sent the Sixth Infantry regiment straight up the road. But the position was stronger than Worth expected, and the unit was twice repulsed with bloody losses. Among them was First Lieutenant John Danforth Bacon, the Goat of 1840, who fell mortally wounded, leading his platoon. Worth then deployed the two other regiments of the Second Brigade, the Fifth and Eighth Infantry, into the cornfields to the right side of the road to attempt to outflank the Mexicans.

Kirby Smith had yet to get into the fight that day. Earlier, he and the Fifth had bypassed the Mexican positions at San Antonio, seeking to cut off the retreat towards the strongpoints at Churubusco. For two hours the Americans raced across the rough, difficult pedregal, the enemy in column to their right, moving rapidly up the road towards the bridge, parallel to their line of advance, just out of musket range. North of San Antonio, the Fifth emerged from the pedregal, made a right oblique, and slammed into the Mexican column, starting a vicious mêlée. “It will be entirely impossible for me to give any lucid description of this terrible battle,” Kirby wrote to his wife. His company was a mile and a half behind the main action when he came to the road, “a broad stone causeway with corn fields and pastures on each side of it, divided by broad ditches filled with water from three to six feet deep, the corn very tall and thick.”²⁶ Rain had left the irrigation ditches full and the fields ankle-deep with mud. Kirby moved a mile up the road, then was ordered to assault the eastern flank of the Churubusco defenses. His men deployed in line in a field behind a tall stand of corn, then moved forward.

The corn was higher than the soldiers’ heads, and the men could see only a few files in front. Unseen officers shouted orders, sometimes contradictory, adding to the confusion. Soldiers lost sight of their regimental standards, and the units began to break up. Long-range Mexican cannonballs tore through the plants as they advanced, and there were sounds of a hot battle taking place in front of them. Kirby moved forward blindly, knowing only that he was headed for action. “Immediately in front of us, at perhaps five hundred yards, the roll of the Mexican fire exceeded anything I have ever heard,” he wrote. “The din was most horrible, the roar of cannon and musketry, the screams of the wounded, the awful cry of terrified horses and mules, and the yells of the fierce combatants all combined in a sound as hellish as can be conceived.”²⁷ The first waves of Americans had stumbled into the strongest Mexican defenses yet encountered in the war.

Kirby charged forward through the corn, emerging suddenly into the clear, and into a scene of horror. American dead and wounded lay across the field before the bridge, and those who were still able to fight were scattered, seeking cover in ditches or behind a nearby copse of trees. William M. Gardner had been in the first wave, and he lay seriously wounded at the edge of the corn stand. Many of his command had dropped in the first volley, and those who were not able to stumble back into cover were bayoneted by the Mexicans as they lay on the field. A storm of crossfire, both musket and grape, rained down on Kirby’s men as they emerged, its sheer volume knocking the men back into the concealment of the corn.

The soldiers dropped to the ground, seeking shelter from the balls whipping through the leaves. Kirby stood, trying to rally them, finally forming his company. He could see no other officers, and the battalion was collapsing. Kirby gave command to his second, Lieutenant Farrelly, and ordered his men to charge. They set out against the stronghold while Kirby sought to assemble the remaining companies. He formed another group and was about to lead them against the fortress when he heard a desperate cry rising from the left.

“We are repulsed!” Terrified officers and men appeared, rushing back through the corn, bowling over Kirby’s men, breaking his line. The American front was crumbling and panic had set in.

Kirby disentangled himself from the mass of retreating men. The battle hung on this moment. He drew to full height, placing himself in front of the panicking mass, and shouted:

“Men! We are not repulsed! Form up! Form up! Charge! The day will be ours!”

The rout slowed, then stopped. The men turned, encouraged each other, began to form. Colonel C. F. Smith appeared as the men rallied. Kirby shouted, “Forward! Forward!” The cry was echoed through the field and he and his men burst out through the corn, charging the Mexican defenses.

AROUND THIS TIME, ON THE EXTREME RIGHT flank of the American line, elements of the Eighth Infantry approached the tête-du-pont. The line moved over the fields to within 150 yards of the strongpoint, where concentrated fire stalled the advance, near one of the large irrigation channels. Some Americans struggled forward. The standard bearer of Company H came up to the ditch and fell, and the unit began to move back. Company commander Captain James V. Bomford (USMA 1832) picked up the colors and charged ahead with his junior officers, Lieutenant James Longstreet, and Second Lieutenants James Snelling (USMA 1845) and George Pickett.²⁸ The men of Company H, seeing their officers dashing towards the fortress, rallied, and the rest of the regiment began to follow.

Bomford reached the ditch, handed the colors to Longstreet and jumped in. He waded quickly across to the other side and clambered up the stone wall. Longstreet threw him the colors, and he, Pickett and Snelling navigated the passage under fire, with their men leaping in after them. Some were shot down by musket fire or grapeshot; some were wounded in midpassage and sank beneath the surface, drowning. But most made it across and followed the officers, who had raced up under the walls of the tête-du-pont. They probed for weakness in the fort as their men provided covering fire. Finally Bomford himself, standing on the shoulders of his men, forced an entry through one of the embrasures, with Longstreet and Pickett close behind, handing up the colors as they went. Other soldiers followed, and after a sharp hand-to-hand skirmish on the top of the fortress, the regimental banner was raised, to the cheers of the men below.

At this moment, Kirby and the Fifth regiment came charging onto the scene, emerging from the cornfield with a shout and running down the Mexican defenders outside the fort. The Mexicans inside panicked and tried to crowd out through the north entrance. Those who got out ran down the road towards Mexico City. Many were bayoneted or shot in the back as they fled. Pickett and Longstreet stood in the fort, watching the Mexican rout through the firing holes, hearing the cheers of their men, the regimental banner now joined by the Stars and Stripes. Outside, Kirby watched the same sight, as the banner of the Fifth Infantry was added to the display. San Mateo soon fell, netting General Rincón and most of the deserters. Rincón was one of eight generals captured that day, two of whom were also members of the Mexican Congress. In total, August 20 saw 4,000 Mexican casualties and 3,000 prisoners. The Americans lost 1,000 killed, wounded or missing.

The next day, Kirby was given command of the funeral parties, “a sad, a solemn service,” he wrote. “In our haste we performed no burial rites—paid no honors—but laid our dead in the earth in the bloody garments in which they died, most of them on the spot where they fell. Indeed many were so torn and mangled by the shot it was entirely impossible to move them.”²⁹ Many were trampled in the mud, some so completely that it was difficult to tell if they were American or Mexican. The field was strewn with the debris of battle, dead horses and mules, muskets, swords, boxes, pieces of uniforms, and packs. “Immense damage appears to have been done to their music bands,” Henry Howe observed, “as prodigious quantities of musical instruments were scattered all over the field—drums, fifes, bugles, clarinets, trombones, ophicleides, etc.”³⁰

General Scott might have made for Mexico City on the 20th; some of William Harney’s dragoons daringly rode up to the city gates before retiring under fire. But the troops were too tired and disorganized from the several victories they had already achieved that day. Instead, Scott agreed to an armistice, in hopes that a negotiated settlement could be attained without further loss of lives. The negotiators on the American side were Nicholas Trist and Major Abraham Van Buren, son of the former president and penultimate graduate of 1827, who had returned to service in 1846. Former president Joaquin Herrera led the Mexican negotiators. The Mexican delegation was instructed by its political leaders to “treat for peace as if we had triumphed!”

During the truce, neither side was supposed to reinforce or prepare for further conflict. The Americans were able to draw supplies from Mexico City, but were not allowed to enter the city in force. General Scott agreed to the armistice in good faith; whether Santa Anna planned it as a deception or was simply keeping his options open is debatable. Few held out hope for a diplomatic solution. Scott was not disposed to disrupt the negotiations, even as rumors reached him of Mexican violations, particularly of preparations for renewed battle. A resident of the city brought information of Mexican violations to Kirby, who forwarded them to Scott. The general dismissed the intelligence, calling the native source a liar. Nevertheless, by September 6 even Scott had to admit that the truce had been merely a ruse to allow the Mexicans to reestablish their defenses after the crushing defeats at Contreras and Churubusco. “Fatal credulity!” Kirby wrote his wife. “How awful are its consequences to us! By it, the fruits of our glorious victory are entirely thrown away.”³¹

The Americans were encamped in the shadow of the castle of Chapultepec, which stood atop a 150-foot natural mound just west of the gates of the city. The area was one of the most beautiful spots in the valley, a favorite of Montezuma, called by the Aztecs “Grasshopper’s Hill.” The castle was built during the Spanish period as the home of the viceroy, El Conde de Galves (after whom Galveston was named). In 1847, it was the home of the enemy’s military academy, the Mexican West Point. Most believed that Chapultepec would have to be taken before Mexico City could be conquered.

Yet before fighting that battle, Scott had prepared another mission. The general had received intelligence that the bells of the City of Mexico had been removed from the churches and were being made into cannon at the foundry at Molino del Rey (the King’s Mill), a massive stone-walled collection of buildings and houses outside the city gates, two-thirds of a mile west of Chapultepec. The powder for the guns was being stored at Casa Mata, a fortified magazine five hundred yards west of the Molino. The area was lightly defended, and Scott sought to seize the buildings and the weapons, destroy the foundry, and capture or blow up the powder. He believed this could be done quickly, with minimal forces, and he projected the casualties at about twenty men.

General Worth, whose division was to be the assault force, thought the position was stronger than Scott assumed, and last-minute intelligence arrived that the foundry was in fact nonoperational. The machinery had been moved inside the city the day after Churubusco, and Santa Anna was reinforcing the area, inviting attack. Scott, for whatever reason, chose to ignore this information. He envisioned a three-pronged attack. On the extreme right, a brigade under Lieutenant Colonel John Garland would approach the south and east sides of the Molino. In the center, a forlorn hope of five hundred men led by Major George Wright (USMA 1822) would pierce the Mexican defenses between the two strongpoints and wheel right into the Molino complex.³² On the left flank, the nine-hundred-man Second Brigade under the command of Colonel McIntosh, recovered from his wounds at Resaca, would storm Casa Mata. Kirby was given command of the Light Infantry Battalion, which would act as a reserve, backing up the forlorn hope should it be necessary.

Scott briefed his commanders on the evening of September 7. That night, Kirby retired to his tent to write to his wife. “In my opinion a much bloodier battle is to be fought than any which have preceded it,” he wrote. “This operation is to commence at three in the morning. Tomorrow will be a day of slaughter. I firmly trust and pray that victory may crown our efforts though the odds are immense. I am thankful you do not know the peril we are in. Good night.”³³