Robert Lewis Dabney, Life and Commands of Lieutenand- General Thomas J. Jackson

[47] Castle of Chapultepec, at first perhaps a monastery, was built upon an insulated and lofty hill overlooking the plain which extended up to the gates of the city, and commanding both the causeways by which the Americans aimed to approach them. The level country about the base of the mount was covered in part with corn, and in part with groves, and intersected with deep ditches, formed by the farmers for drainage and irrigation, impassable for artillery, and nearly so for infantry. As a previous examination of these was made impossible by swarms of sharpshooters, they only disclosed themselves to the advancing columns, when they arrived upon their brinks, shrouded as they were by the luxuriant grain, or by hedges of the thorny cactus. The castle was manned with a garrison, and around its base the remains of the Mexican army was posted in entrenchments, with batteries of cannon prepared to sweep every road which approached. The Americans, cut off at the time from their distant ships, found that the urgent want of supplies, which the city alone could furnish them by its surrender, compelled them to seek the reduction of this fort by some more speedy means than a regular siege. It was determined to storm it by several detachments, directed against its different sides, on the morning of September 13th. Major-General Pillow, to whom Magruder's battery was assigned, was directed to attack its west side, while Worth, the most skilful of Scott's lieutenants, was to march by a circuit beyond Pillow, and assail the north. Magruder was ordered by his general to divide his battery, and send one section forward, under Jackson, towards the northwest angle, while he assailed another part. Two regiments of infantry, under Colonel Tronsdale, accompanied the former section.. The columns of attack advanced to the charge; the artillery, at every practicable point, striving to aid their approach by pouring a storm of shot upon the Mexican batteries. When