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Halls Of Montezuma

Despite the drama of the Californian campaign, the Mexican War was to be won in Mexico proper. Tampico, captured by Perry's expedition in November 1846, was selected as the base from which to launch Scott's assault on vera Cruz. Scott's army of 8,600 men, including Edson's Marines, who were attached to the 3rd Artillery Regiment, landed south of vera Cruz on March 9, 1847. The city surrendered on March 27.

The units serving in Scott's army, however, were largely composed of volunteers who had enlisted for one year, and that one-year enlistment was nearly up. To compensate for the impending reduction in forces, Congress authorized the raising of another 10 regiments and a wartime increase in the size of the Marine Corps of 12 officers and 1,000 men. Commandant Henderson, as he had done during the Creek uprising, again volunteered to raise a Marine regiment to serve alongside the Army. President Polk welcomed Henderson's offer, and the Secretary of the Navy approved its deployment on May 21, 1847. A new battalion of 22 officers and 324 enlisted men sailed for Mexico, where they would join the Marines embarked with the Navy in the Gulf of Mexico. Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Watson, a 35-year veteran, was chosen to lead the 6-company battalion. The Marines arrived in vera Cruz on July 1.

In the meantime, Edson's unit of Marines, attached to Perry's squadron, continued to see action. On April 18, the squadron captured the port of Tuxpan. In May, the squadron occupied Coatzacoalcos and Carmen unopposed. And in June, Perry decided to seize San Juan Bautista again, because the Mexicans were receiving supplies from Central America through it.

Perrys expedition made an amphibious landing at Seven Palms a few miles south of San Juan Bautista. The Mexicans had reinforced San Juan Bautista since Perry's earlier visit, but the fortifications proved to be insufficient defense against Perry's 1,173 men, who managed to seize the city by mid-afternoon. Only five men were wounded.

Perry's success instilled in him a certain confidence at continuing such amphibious assaults. Indeed, his desire to conduct further amphibious assaults led him to refuse the release of Edson's Marines to the command of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Watson, to the great frustration of Commandant Henderson. Nevertheless, Watson's battalion, meagerly reinforced as it was, set off on July 16 for Puebla, where Scott had been awaiting reinforcements since rnid-May. Watson arrived in Puebla on August 6, and Scott assigned his battalion to the 4th Division and attached it to the 2nd Pennsylvania volunteers, forming a brigade of which Watson was given command. Major Levi Twiggs, a veteran Marine who had fought in the War of 1812 and the Seminole War, was given command of the Marine detachment.

Scott's army marched from Puebla on August 7 and arrived just south of Mexico City 10 days later. The 4th Division was initially assigned to guard the baggage train and so saw no action in the first three assaults on the city. On September 10, however, Scott ordered a full-scale assault on Chapultepec Castle on the west side of Mexico City.

Chapultepec Castle was an impressive fortification. Originally, it had been designed to house the Spanish viceroys, but now was the site of the Mexican military academy. It sat atop a volcanic ridge some 200 feet high and 1,800 feet long. High stone walls enclosed the castle and the ridge. It was the key to the assault on Mexico City as it guarded two causeways that led to the city's San Cosme and Belen gates. The assault would be a dangerous one. Scott's forces had been reduced by casualties to 7,200 men. General Santa Anna, commanding the defending forces, had approximately three times that many men at his disposal. But General Scott had planned well: In preparation for the assault, the American artillery would bornbard the ridge for an entire day. The bombardment would be followed by a two-pronged assault. Brigadier General Gideon Pillow's 3rd Division would attack from the west while Brigadier General John Quitman's 4th Division attacked from the south. Major Levi Twiggs would lead the 4th Division accompanied by a 40-man storming party under Captain John Reynolds. The Marines would lead the assault on Chapultepcc Castle.

The bombardment began on September 12, and at 8 the next morning, the American forces began their advance. Major Twiggs, armed with his favorite double-barreled shotgun, led the advance toward Chapultepec's outer wall, but the Marines encountered fire from one of the castle's cannon batteries and were forced to take cover in a ditch. Quitman ordered Watson's brigade to hold its position while a unit of Pennsylvania Volunteers veered off to the left and a brigade from the 2nd Division veered to the right. Twiggs's storming party and the Marines continued to exchange fire with the Mexican soldiers in the castle for some time, until Twiggs, frustrated by the stalled assault, climbed out of the ditch and was shot through the heart. Reynolds dragged the dead Twiggs behind a wall where he found Watson. Reynolds urged Watson to renew the advance.

In the meantime, however, the 3rd and 1st Divisions had made headway to the west and were assaulting Chapultepec Castle. Furthermore, the Pennsylvania Volunteers had advanced and were entering breaches in the outer wall of the castle, and the brigade on loan from the 2nd Division had made a sweep to the right and was threatening to envelop the Mexican artillery batteries to the south of the castle.

Quitman ordered the storming party to charge. Captain George Terrett, leading a company of Marines, heard the order intended for the storming parry and ordered his own company to charge-while the rest of the Marine battalion maintained its position, offering covering fire as it had been ordered. Terret's company overran one of the artillery batteries, and the rest of the Marines stormed Chapultepec Castle.

Curiously, Scott had laid no plans for an attack on Mexico City proper after the capture of Chapultepec Castle, and it took some time for the American Army to prepare its assault on the city itself. Captain Terrett, however, had not waited for Scott and the rest of the American Army and had led his company of Marines, and a few other small Army units, on to the Calzada de la Verbnica and began advancing toward Mexico City.

Two causeways ran from Chapultepec Castle to the city: the Calzada de Belen, which ran to the Garita de Belen, a fortified police and customs station; and the Calzada de la Veronica, which ran to the Garita de San Cosme farther north. Eventually, Quitman's 4th Division, now expanded to include two regiments from the 3rd Division whose commander, Brigadier General Gideon Pillow, had been wounded during the assault on Chapultepec, and which included the attached Marine battalion, advanced across the Calzada de Belen and attacked the Garita de Belen. The 1st Division, now also expanded to include a brigade from the 2nd Division, followed Terrett's advance along the Calzada de la Veronica.

After heavy fighting, the 4th Division was able to occupy the Garita de Belen in the early afternoon. Six Marines were killed and two were wounded during the occupation of the gate. On the Calzada de la Veronica, Terrett's company supported a small artillery unit in repulsing a Mexican counterattack and then pushed forward until they were stopped at the San Cosme road by Mexican cannon firing from rooftops. Some soldiers from the Army's 4th infantry led by First Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant joined them there.

Grant quickly realized that the American forces could outflank the Mexican emplacement by sweeping to the west around a small walled garden. Grant led the flanking maneuver while Terrett's Marines and soldiers led a charge to the front. The Mexicans retreated, and the Americans were able to push halfway down the San Cosme road and overrun a barricade not far from the Garita de San Cosme. According to Marine traditions, Terrett's company then attacked and occupied the Garita de San Cosme, becoming the first Americans to set foot in Mexico City before the bugles sounded a withdrawal and the gate was abandoned. Unfortunately, this account is most likely exaggerated, and the Army's assault, including Terrett's company of Marines, probably advanced no farther than the barricade. At some point, possibly exacerbated by the quick withdrawal, the barricade must have been confused with the Garita de San Cosme itself.

In any case, the 1st Division captured and occupied the Garita de San Cosme later in the evening. The Mexican army withdrew that night, and the Americans occupied the city on September 14, 1847. General Quitman was appointed military governor. One of his first actions was to send the Marine battalion to restore order to the ciry, specifically to deal with looters raiding the Palacio Nacional. Thus, it was that Marine Second Lieutenant A. S. Nicholson became the first man to raise the American flag over the Halls of the Montezumas.

The Mexican War came to an end officially with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. Mexico ceded Texas with the Rio Grande boundary, New Mexico, and California. The United States assumed the claims of American citizens against the Mexican government and paid Mexico an additional $15 million. From the land acquired after the Mexican War ernerged the present-day states of California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Nevertheless, some radical expansionists denounced the treaty because it had failed to secure all of Mexico.

On March 10, 1848, the U.S. Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as it was. The war had cost the U.S. Marine Corps 11 men dead and 47 wounded. More than half of these casualties had been suffered during the storming of Chapultepec Castle. Twenty-seven Marine officers were awarded brevet promotions, including fourteen for the storming of Chapultepec Castle. Archibald Gillespie received two such promotions for the defense of Los Angeles and San Gabriel. Upon their return, the citizenry of Washington presented the Marine Corps with a new flag bearing an eagle and an anchor and the motto, "From Tripoli to the Halls of the Montezumas."

In the decade after the Mexican War, the Marine Corps engaged in operations akin to those in which it had engaged before the war. Marines were involved in more than 20 landings between 1848 and 1859. Most of these occurred overseas.

Walter J. Boyne, USAF (ret.) Series Editor, Clifton G. Ganyard. The Halls of Montezuma: The Mexican and Indian Wars. Alpha Bravo Delta Guide to the U.S. Marine Corps. Alpha. June 3, 2003.

First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps Legendary Marine General Brute Krulak deftly blends history with autobiography to touch the very essence of the Corps.

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