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Mexican–American War · 1847 Members · from $3

Chapultepec, 12–14 September 1847

On 12–13 September 1847 General Winfield Scott's army stormed Chapultepec, a fortified hill and castle housing Mexico's Military College on the western edge of Mexico City. After a day's bombardment, columns under Gideon Pillow and John Quitman carried the walls by escalade in about an hour and a half. The same day Quitman broke through the Belén gate and William Worth fought his way along the San Cosme causeway, where a young Lieutenant Grant put a howitzer in a church belfry. Santa Anna abandoned the capital that night. For Mexico, the cadets who died defending the castle became the Niños Héroes, honoured every 13 September; for the U.S. Marines, Chapultepec gave the 'halls of Montezuma' to their hymn.

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The Storming of Chapultepec (James Walker)
The Storming of Chapultepec (James Walker) — James Walker, 1857–58 — public domain

The battle, stage by stage

  1. 12 September 1847, 7 AM – dusk

    The guns on the hill

    Five days after the costly victory at the Molino del Rey, General Winfield Scott chooses to break into Mexico City from the west, through Chapultepec, rather than against the fortified southern gates. Chapultepec is a rocky hill about 200 feet high crowned by the old viceregal palace, now the Colegio Militar. General Nicolás Bravo holds it with, by various counts, roughly 830 to 1,000 men and a handful of guns. All day the American siege batteries pound the castle. Pillow's division waits at the Molino del Rey to the west with Worth's division behind; Quitman's division is on the Tacubaya road to the south.

  2. 13 September, 8 AM

    Into the cypress grove

    The bombardment resumes at dawn; at about 8 AM Scott orders the assault. From the west Pillow's men advance through the Molino and the old grove of ahuehuete cypresses — Joseph E. Johnston's voltigeurs on the right, Andrews's voltigeurs with the 9th and 15th Infantry in the centre, Trousdale's 11th and 14th along the road to the north, where Lieutenant Thomas J. Jackson works his guns against a Mexican battery. Captain Samuel Mackenzie leads a storming party of about 250 picked volunteers. Pillow is wounded in the foot early. From the south Quitman's column, headed by a second storming party and Marines, hits barricades and a battery on the Tacubaya road.

  3. About 9 – 9:30 AM

    Ladders against the walls

    The scaling ladders arrive late and the stormers crouch under the walls before swarming up. Quitman's men, with the New York and South Carolina Palmetto regiments, climb the south-eastern side. The San Blas Battalion, fighting on the lower slopes, is all but destroyed and its commander, Lt. Col. Felipe Santiago Xicoténcatl, killed. Six young defenders — Lt. Juan de la Barrera and cadets Agustín Melgar, Juan Escutia, Vicente Suárez, Francisco Márquez and Fernando Montes de Oca — die and become the Niños Héroes; the story of Escutia leaping with the flag is a later tradition. Bravo surrenders and the American flag is up by about 9:30. Miles to the south, at Mixcoac, 30 captured men of the San Patricio Battalion are hanged, reportedly timed to the raising of that flag.

  4. Late morning – 1 PM

    Two roads into the city

    The attack splits along the two causeways that lead east from the hill. Quitman, meant only to feint, drives his whole division down the Belén causeway, where the arches of the aqueduct run down the middle of the road; the Mounted Rifles and the Palmettos dash from arch to arch under fire. Worth takes his division and Cadwalader's brigade north up the Verónica road toward the San Cosme causeway, beating off a charge by Mexican cavalry on the way.

  5. About 1:20 PM

    The Belén gate

    Quitman's men storm the Garita de Belén, held by General Andrés Terrés, and are inside the city's edge by early afternoon. The Rifles' flag goes up on the gate, but they can go no farther: guns of the Ciudadela, a few hundred yards ahead, sweep the ground, and the gunners Captain Simon Drum and Lieutenant Calvin Benjamin are killed working captured pieces. Santa Anna arrives, by one account in a fury, and relieves Terrés. To the north Worth's column reaches the place where the aqueduct turns east along the San Cosme causeway and runs into a gun and riflemen on the rooftops.

  6. About 4 – 5 PM

    A howitzer in the belfry

    Worth fights east along the San Cosme causeway house by house — Garland's brigade along the south side, Clarke's along the north — his men tunnelling through walls with crowbars and picks and firing from the roofs. Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant finds a church just south of the road, a few hundred yards from the gate; his party hauls a dismantled mountain howitzer up into the belfry, and its fire drops among the defenders behind the gate. Worth, delighted, sends a second gun, though the belfry has no room for it. Navy Lieutenant Raphael Semmes runs a gun up the road on the north side.

  7. About 6 PM

    San Cosme falls

    At dusk Worth's men burst through the Garita de San Cosme; General Rangel's defenders fall back into the city. Both western gates are now in American hands, and Worth's mortar sends a few shells toward the centre that night. Scott plans for a house-to-house fight in the morning.

  8. 14 September 1847

    The halls of Montezuma

    In the night Santa Anna takes what is left of his army out of the city to the north, and before dawn city officials come out to surrender. Quitman sends Lt. P. G. T. Beauregard to take over the Ciudadela, then marches his men to the Grand Plaza, where the Marines raise the flag over the National Palace; Scott rides in later that morning. American losses on 12–13 September are usually given as about 130–140 killed and some 700 wounded; Mexican losses are far less certain. The occupation and street resistance follow, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the war in February 1848.

Weapons

Mexican army

India Pattern "Brown Bess" musket

India Pattern "Brown Bess" musket

Flintlock smoothbore musket · 1797-1850s

At Chapultepec: Much of the Mexican army carried surplus British India Pattern muskets, bought in quantity after independence; many were worn, and Mexican powder was often poor.

First made for the British East India Company, the India Pattern was a simpler, shorter Brown Bess that Britain adopted as its standard infantry musket during the French wars. It was produced in huge numbers, and surplus guns were supplied to allies and later sold abroad, including to Mexico. Rugged but inaccurate, it was meant for massed volleys at close range.

Calibre
.75 in
Barrel
39 in (990 mm)
Effective range
About 100 yards
Rate of fire
2-3 rounds per minute
Photo: Smithsonian Institution (NMAH) · Public domain

U.S. Army

Springfield Model 1842 Musket

Springfield Model 1842 Musket

Smoothbore percussion musket · 1844-1865

At Chapultepec: The U.S. regulars and volunteers mostly carried smoothbore Model 1842 or older flintlock-converted muskets. The storming parties went up the walls on scaling ladders with musket and bayonet.

The first U.S. musket built with fully interchangeable parts and a percussion lock, the Model 1842 was the standard infantry arm before the rifle-musket. Thousands were still in armories in 1861 and went to both armies. Its 'buck and ball' load, a round ball plus three buckshot, was brutal at close range but inaccurate much beyond 100 yards.

Calibre
.69
Effective range
About 100 yd aimed (smoothbore)
Rate of fire
2-3 rounds per minute
Photo: Smithsonian Institution (NMAH) · Public domain
Socket bayonet

Socket bayonet

Edged weapon (musket attachment) · c. 1690s-1860s

At Chapultepec: Scott wanted the castle taken quickly and at close quarters; the assault parties carried the walls with the bayonet once the ladders went up.

The socket bayonet slipped over the outside of the musket barrel and locked in place, turning every musket into a short pike without blocking the muzzle. It made the pike obsolete and let infantry defend themselves against cavalry and finish an assault at close quarters. For a century and a half, a determined bayonet charge often decided fights that musketry could not.

Length
Triangular blade, about 17 in on the Brown Bess
Use
Fitted over the muzzle so the musket could still be fired
Photo: Rama · CC BY-SA 2.0 fr

Paintings and photographs

The Storming of Chapultepec (James Walker)
The Storming of Chapultepec (James Walker) James Walker's painting of the assault on the western walls, 13 September 1847; Walker was in Mexico City during the war. James Walker, 1857–58 — public domain · source
Pillow's attack (Nebel)
Pillow's attack (Nebel) Carl Nebel's 1851 lithograph of Pillow's division storming the castle from the west. Carl Nebel, 1851 — public domain · source
Quitman's attack (Nebel)
Quitman's attack (Nebel) Nebel's view of Quitman's column attacking along the Tacubaya road at the south-east corner of the hill. Carl Nebel, 1851 — public domain · source
Altar a la Patria
Altar a la Patria The Altar a la Patria (1952) at the foot of the hill, where the Niños Héroes and Col. Xicoténcatl are buried. Mario Luna — CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Sources and method

Chapultepec and the gates of Mexico City, 12–14 September 1847. The castle, the Niños Héroes markers and the Altar a la Patria are placed from the Historical Marker Database (hmdb.org); the Molino del Rey from the Mexican government marker on the site. The Garita de Belén is placed at Av. Chapultepec and Bucareli, and the old Belén, Verónica and San Cosme causeways follow Av. Chapultepec, Melchor Ocampo and Ribera de San Cosme; the Garita de San Cosme is placed a few hundred yards east of the church of San Cosme (Serapio Rendón 5) following Grant's and Worth's accounts, and is approximate. Events and units follow the U.S. Army Center of Military History's Mexican War campaign series (The Occupation of Mexico, May 1846–July 1848), Justin H. Smith, The War with Mexico (1919), vol. 2, U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs (1885), ch. 11, the period survey maps of the Valley of Mexico (Maj. J. L. Smith and Lt. M. L. Smith, Corps of Engineers, 1847–48; Lt. Hardcastle's survey of the Molino del Rey and Chapultepec ground), and the Wikipedia articles 'Battle of Chapultepec' and 'Battle for Mexico City'. Strengths and losses vary between accounts; unit traces on the slopes and causeways are interpretive. Images from Wikimedia Commons.

Where the positions come from

Approximate locations