47. A Young Officer in the War
By SECOND LIEUTENANT ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT (1847)
I WAS with the earliest of the troops to enter the Mills. In passing through to the north side, looking towards
Chapultepec, I happened to notice that there were armed Mexicans still on top of the building, only a few feet from
many of our men. Not seeing
any stairway or ladder reaching to the top of the building, I took a few soldiers, and had a cart that happened to be
standing near brought up, and, placing the shafts against the wall and chocking the wheels so that the cart could not
back, used the shafts as a sort of ladder extending to within three or four feet of the top. By this I climbed to the roof
of the building, followed by a few men, but found a private soldier had preceded me by some other way. There were
still quite a number of Mexicans on the roof, among them a major and five or six officers of lower grades, who had not
succeeded in getting away before our troops occupied the building, They still had their arms, while the soldier before
mentioned was walking as sentry, guarding the prisoners he had surrounded, all by himself. I hatted the sentinel,
received the swords from the commissioned officers, and proceeded, with the assistance of the soldiers now with me,
to disable the muskets by striking them against the edge of the wall, and throw them to the ground below.
During the night of the 11th, batteries were established which could play upon the fortifications of Chapultepec.
The bombardment commenced early on the morning of the 12th, but there
was no further engagement during this day than that of the artillery.
Later in the day in reconnoitring I found a church off to the south of
the road, which looked to
me as if the belfry would command the ground back of the garita San Cosme. I got an officer of the voltigeurs, with a
mountain howitzer and men to work it, to go with me. The road being in possession of the enemy, we had to take the
field to the south to reach the church. When I knocked for admission a priest
came to the door, who, while extremely polite, declined to admit us. With the little Spanish then a my command, I
explained to him that be might save property by opening the door, and he certainly would save himself from becoming a
prisoner, for a time a least; and besides, I intended to go in whether he consented or not. He began to see his duty in the
same light that I did, and opened the door, though he did not look as if it gave him special pleasure to do so. The gun was
carried to the belfry and put together. We were not more than two or three hundred yards from San Cosme. The shots
from our little gun dropped in upon the enemy and created great confusion. Why they did not send out a small party and
capture us, I do not know. We bad no infantry or other defences besides our one gun.
The effect of this gun upon the troops about the gate of the city was so marked that General Worth saw it from his
position. He was so pleased that he sent a staff officer, Lieutenant Pemberton, to bring me to him. He expressed his
gratification at the services the howitzer in the church steeple was doing, saying that every shot was effective, and
ordered a captain of voltigeurs to report to me with another howitzer to be placed along with the one already rendering
so much service. I could not tell the General that there was not room enough in the steeple for another gun, because be
probably would have looked upon such a statement as a contradiction from a second lieutenant. I took the captain
with me, but did not use his gun.
