upon the Mexican batteries protecting the Contreras and Churubusco roads, still eastward. The ringing of musketry faintly chimed in with the loud booming of the cannon.
And this was Sunday!
Just what General Scott had "up his sleeve" nobody among the rank and file knew. The officers refused to talk. Matters looked as though Chapultepec was to be shaken first, and when it had been well battered, then of course there would be an assault. But where? Perhaps upon the southern gates, in defiance of the weakened Chapultepec.
From the hill of Tacubaya the bombardment was pretty to witness. The American guns poured in their shot and shell with perfect aim, so that after every discharge the stones and dust and dirt were lifted in showers. From half a mile the citadel replied lustily, at first with ten pieces, but the firing was wild. Gradually the guns were being silenced; the garrison was drifting out for safety, and a large body of reinforcements from the city had halted part way to the hill, waiting for a chance to enter.
The First Division men off duty began to sift down nearer to the batteries to get, as Corporal Finerty remarked, "a smell o' powder." Jerry, Fifer O'Toole and Hannibal caught up with the corporal on the Tacubaya road. They four stood behind battery Number 1, which was the two eighteen-pounders and the twenty-four-pounder howitzer, commanded by Captain Drum, of the Fourth Artillery.
A group of the Palmettos was here. It was good
