Mohave County miner., 1883-01-21
STORMING CHAPULTEPEC.
4 Thrilling Story of the Mexican War-Captain Maine Tseid'S Account of How He Led
 the StOrmers Who
 Took tine Castle

The famous novelist, Capt. Mayne
 Reid, a native of the county Antrim,
 Ireland, now resident in England,
 has been compelled to correct certain
 misrepresentations indulged in by
 ambitious correspondents, relative to
 the part he took in the Mexican War,
 especially at the storming of Chapul-
 tepec Castle, which commanded the
 Capital on the morning of Septem
 Der 13, 1046. In letter to a news paper recently published, the gallant
 Irish soldier gives tHe following
 straightforward and stirring account of the famous and decisive assault:
 On the day when Chapultepec was stormed Sept. 13, 1847,) I was ID
 command of the grenadIer company
 of the Second New York Volunteers my own-and a detachment Of
 United States marines acting with us
 as light infantry; my orders being
 to stay by and guard a battery we
 built on the southern side of the
 Castle during the night of the 11th
 and which did good work on the 12th. It was about 1000 yards from and
 directly in front of the Castles main
 gate, through which our shot went
 crashing all that day. The final as
 sault had been fixed for the morning of the 18th, a storming party of 5UO men, or "forlorn hope" as 1t was called, having volunteered for this dangerous duty. They were not ex
 clusively regulars, as the letter writer asserts, but of all arms of the service, a Captain of regular infantry having
 charge of them, with a Lieutenant of Pennsylvania volunteers as his sec ond in command. At an early hour the three divisions of our army Worth's, Pillows, and Quitman's- closed in upon Chapultepec, our skir mishers driving the enemy's outposts before them, some of these retreating up the hill and into the castle, others passing around it and on towards the city. It was now expected that our stormlng party would do the work assigned to it, and for which 1t had volunteered. Standing by our battery, at this time necessarily si lent, with the artillery and engineer officers who had charge of it-Lieu- tenants Huger and Hagner-we three watched the advance of the attacking line, the pufs of smoke from mus ketry and rifles indicating the exact point to which it had reached. Anx iously we watched 1t, l need not say, nor add that our anxiety became ap- prehension when we saw that about half way up the slope there was a halt-something impeding its for ward movement. Now, sir, for tbe motive that led me to act as l did, and which the newspaper correspon- dent has so much misconshued. ] l knew that if Chapultepec were not taken neither would the city be, and, failing in this, not a man ofus migu! ! ever leave the Valley of Mexico alive. 1 Worth's injudicious attempts upon the intrenchments of Moline del Key ito give if no harsher name-our first retreat during the campaign had greatly demoraized our men, while reversely affecting the Mexi cans, inspiring the latter with cour. age they had never felt before. And there were 30,000 soldiers of them to our 10,0O0-three to one-to say nothing of a host of rancheros in the country around and leperos in the city, all exasperated against us, the invaders. We had become aware, moreover, that Alvarez, with his spot ted Indians (Pintos), had swung around in our rear and held the passes behind us, so that retreat upon Pueblo would have been This was not my belief alone, but that of every intelligent officer in the army, the two who stood beside me feeling as sure of 1t as my self, And this certainty it was, com bined with the slow progress of the force, which determined me to take part Tn the assault-that and nothing else. As the senior en gineer officer outranked me, it was necessary should have his leave to forsake the battery-now needing no further defense. Leave was freely and instantly given with the words: ''Go, and God be with you"
 The Mexican flag was still waving l,,,,tlv, ,y-o,, +ba cacflo and tha