e of it to strengthen their fortifications, did not wait so
long. He now had about 8,500 men fit for duty, and sixty-eight guns.
Hostilities were renewed September 7th, by the storm and capture,
costing nearly 800 men, of Molino del Rey, or "King's Mill," a mile and
a half from the city.

Possession of the Molino opened the way to Chapultepec, the Gibraltar of
Mexico, 1,100 yards nearer the goal. As it was built upon a rock 150
feet high, impregnable on the north and well-nigh so on the eastern and
most of the southern face, only the western and part of the southern
sides could be scaled. But the stronghold was the key to the city, and
after surveying the situation, a council of war decided that it must be
taken. Two picked American detachments, one from the west, one from the
south, pushed up the rugged steeps in face of a withering fire. The
rock-walls to the base of the castle had to be mounted by ladders. This
was successfully accomplished; the enemy were driven from the building
back into the city, and the castle and grounds occupied by our troops. A
large number of fugitives were cut off by a force sent around to the
north.

[Illustration: The Plaza of the City of Mexico.]

[1848]

To pierce the city was even now by no means easy. The approach was by
two roads, one entering the Belen gate, the other the San Cosme. General
Quitman advanced toward the Belen, but at the entrance was stopped by a
destructive cannonade from the citadel itself. Those fighting their way
toward the San Cosme succeeded in entering the city, Lieutenant U. S.
Grant making his mark in the gallant work of this day. The city was
evacuated that night, and on the 15th of September, 1847, was fully in
the hands of Scott.

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848. It
established the Rio Grande as the boundary between the two countries,
and New Mexico, of course including what is now Arizona and also
California, was ceded to the United States for $15,000,000. The United
States also assumed, to the sum of $3,250,000, the claims of American
citizens upon Mexico. For Gadsden's Purchase, in 1853, between the Gila
River and the Mexican State of Chihuahua, we paid $10,000,000 more. Our
territory thus received in all, as a consequence of the Mexican War, an
increment of 591,398 square miles.

Inseparable from the politics of the Mexican War is the Oregon question,
since Oregon's re-occupation and "fifty-four forty or fight"