t
time to shift guns--our previous captures had left him, (p. 331)
comparatively, but few--from the southern gates.

Within those disgarnished works, I found our troops engaged in a
street fight against the enemy posted in gardens, at windows, and
on house-tops, all flat, with parapets. Worth ordered forward the
mountain howitzers of Cadwallader's brigade, preceded by
skirmishers and pioneers with pickaxes and crowbars, to force
windows and doors, or to burrow through walls. The assailants
were soon in an equality of position fatal to the enemy. By eight
o'clock in the evening, Worth had carried two batteries in this
suburb. According to my instructions, he here posted guards and
sentinels, and placed his troops under shelter for the night.
There was but one more obstacle, the San Cosmo gate,
(custom-house,) between him and the great square in front of the
cathedral and palace, the heart of the city; and that barrier it
was known could not, by daylight, resist our siege guns thirty
minutes.

I had gone back to the foot of Chapultepec, the point from which
the two aqueducts begin to diverge, some hours earlier, in order
to be near that new depot, and in easy communication with Quitman
and Twiggs, as well as with Worth.

From this point I ordered all detachments and stragglers to their
respective corps, then in advance; sent to Quitman additional
siege guns, ammunition, intrenching tools; directed Twiggs'
remaining brigade, Riley's from Piedad, to support Worth, and
Captain Steptoe's field battery, also at Piedad, to rejoin
Quitman's division.

I had been, from the first, well aware that the western or San
Cosmo, was the less difficult route to the centre, and conquest
of the capital, and therefore intended that Quitman should only
manoeuvre and threaten the Belen or southwestern gate, in order
to favor the main attack by Worth, knowing that the strong
defences at the Belen were directly under the guns of the much
stronger fortress, called the citadel, just within. Both of these
defences of the enemy were also within easy supporting distance
from San Angel (or Nino Perdido) and San Antonio gates. Hence the
greater support, in numbers, given to Worth's movement as the
main attack.

These views I repeatedly, in the cour