Free The Man Who Saved the Union by H.W. Brands

Grant pitched in, taking the swords from the officers and ordering his own men to disable the muskets the Mexicans carried.
    The Mexican forces withdrew from Molina del Rey to the fortress ofChapultepec, half a mile away. In retrospect Grant observed that an opportunity was lost by not pursuing the Mexicans at once. “No doubt Americans and Mexicans would have gone over the defenses of Chapultepec so near together that the place would have fallen into our hands without further loss,” he wrote. But Scott called a halt, believing that his army had sustained sufficient casualties for one battle.
    When the assault on Chapultepec did come, five days later, it cost the Americans heavily. An artillery barrage drove the defenders back from the walls long enough for the Americans to approach. With scaling ladders they climbed the walls and engaged the Mexicans in fierce hand-to-hand fighting. The first Americans to the top suffered grievously but provided an opening for those who followed. Within minutes they were inside the castle, where the carnage continued. Several hundred of the Mexicans were cadets, and though many were brave they were no match for the battle-tested Americans. Six of the cadets refused to surrender; five stood their ground and fought to the death, leaving the sixth to wrap himself in the Mexican flag and leap off the parapet in patriotic suicide.
    Chapultepec guarded the western gates of Mexico City; Grant’s part in the battle was to assault one of those gates, the San Cosme. He reconnoitered ahead of his division, discovered a way to outflank the gun defending the road to the gate, and led a company that captured the gun.Scouting forward again, he spied a church with a belfry that overlooked the San Cosme gate. He brought up a small howitzer and ordered some men to help him transport it, and they made their way across a field and through several chest-deep irrigation ditches to the entrance to the church. “When I knocked for admission a priest came to the door, who, while extremely polite, declined to admit us,” he recalled. “With the little Spanish then at my command, I explained to him that he might save the property by opening the door, and he certainly would save himself from becoming a prisoner, for a time at least; and besides, I intended to go in whether he consented or not.” The priest let them pass. They carried the howitzer up the stairs to the belfry, set up the gun and began dropping shells on San Cosme and the city behind it.
    Grant’s gun and the confusion it wreaked among the Mexicans attracted the attention ofWilliam Worth, Grant’s division commander. Worth sent one of his staff,John Pemberton, to see who was responsible. Pemberton brought Grant to Worth, who complimented him on his initiative and ordered a second howitzer sent to the same belfry. Grant was too respectfully timid to explain that the belfry was only large enough for one gun. The second howitzer was sent but not used.
    Grant’s regimental commander subsequently praised him for performing “most nobly” in the attack on San Cosme, which left the American force poised to enter the city. Santa Anna once again judged that discretion trumped continued resistance, and he evacuated the capital. On the morning of September 14 Grant joined the other Americans in marching victoriously into Mexico City.
    “M exico is one of the most beautiful cities in the world,” he wrote Julia. “And being the capital, no wonder that the Mexicans should have fought desperately to save it.” Yet they hadn’t fought well. “They have fought with every advantage on their side. They doubled us in numbers, doubled us and more in artillery. They behind strong breastworks had every advantage, and then they were fighting for their homes.” But still they had lost.
    The American performance didn’t escape Grant’s critical assessment. The battles of Molina del Rey and Chapultepec had cost the Americans dearly—and for no compelling