Remembering their brave comrades at Molino del Rey, to whom no quarter was given, they mowed the Mexicans down without mercy. The New York, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania volunteers, however, by crossing a meadow, under a tremendous fire, and mounting swiftly to the castle, were in time for the assault. A detachment of New York volunteers, under Lieutenant Reid, and another of 2d infantry, led by Lieutenant Steele, were foremost on the ramparts. The former, cheering his men on, was the first to scale the heights and the wall. He was at length wounded, but refusing to retire, limped on his way, advancing still higher and higher towards the Mexican banner that waved above him. At length he reached it, and tearing it down with his own hands, fainted beside it. It was gallantly, nobly done.

The spectacle presented to Scott as he turned with his staff to ascend the hill filled his heart with joy and exultation. Those walls and ramparts which a few hours before bristled with the enemy's cannon, were now black with men, and fluttering with colors of his own regiments, while a perfect storm of hurrahs and cheers rolled towards heaven. As he passed up he saw his troops shooting down the helpless fugitives without mercy. He could not blame them, for he knew they were avenging the death of their brave comrades, to whom no mercy was shown at Molino del Rey, but unable to endure the inhuman spectacle, he rode up to the excited troops, and exclaimed, "Soldiers, deeds like yours are recorded in history. Be humane and generous, my boys, as you are victorious, and I will get down on my bended knees to God for you, to-night."

As he reined up on the summit in the view of all, the very hill shook under their acclamations. It was a time for exultation to him, and he shared in the high enthusiasm of his troops. He had conquered-the day begun in anxiety was ending in glory. The capital was at his mercy, and as he stood on the top of that castle and looked off on the domes and towers of the city crowded with spectators, and down on the fugitive army fleeing towards its walls for shelter, he resolved at once to march on the gates and carry them by storm. Two causeways, starting from the base of the hill,

diverged as they crossed the marsh, and again contracted in approaching the city. Over these the Mexican host was streaming, infantry and artillery in wild confusion, pressed hard after by Worth and Quitman. But arches and gateways occurring at intervals, presented points for making vigorous stands against their advance, so that the battle had only rolled down the hill-not ended.

Behind these, the Mexicans again and again rallied and fought bravely. Fighting under the walls of their capital, they struggled desperately to save it from becoming the spoil of the victor. Worth pressed fiercely against the column before him, toward the San Cosmo gate, while Quitman was forcing his way along the San Belen aqueduct. To a spectator from the top of Chapultepec, the scene below at this time was indescribably fearful. The Americans appeared like a mere handful amid the vast crowds that darkened the causeways in front of him. But the clouds of smoke that wrapped the head of each column and the incessant explosions of cannon revealed where the American artillery was sternly mowing a path through the swaying masses for the victorious troops behind. The living parapets were constantly falling along the edges of those causeways, while the shouts and yells of the struggling thousands rose up from the mingled din and crash of arms like the cries of a drowning multitude, heard amid the roar of the storm. Scott surveyed at a glance this wild scene, and seeing what tremendous odds his brave troops below were contending against, hurried up reinforcements to their help. Officers were seen swiftly galloping from division to division, and soon Clarke's and Cadwallader's brigades moved rapidly over one causeway to the help of Worth, while that of Pierce took the other, on which Quitman was struggling. Crushing every obstacle in their path, those columns slowly, but steadily advanced. As they came near the city, where the causeways again approached each other, Worth sent an aide-de-camp to Scott, begging that Quitman might cease firing on the Belen gate, and turn his artillery on the column he was pushing before him. A few raking discharges on its flank would have rent it into fragments. Scott, knowing that the San Cosmo gate presented

the weakest defences, had determined to enter by it, and sent word again and again to Quitman to employ the enemy, rather than attempt to force the Belen gate. But that brave officer had remained in idleness at San Augustine long enough, while the rest of the army was covering itself with laurels. Through the deadly fires that smote him both from front and flank batteries, over every obstacle that opposed his progress, he still urged on his bleeding column till the gate was reached, when the gallant rifles dashed forward with a loud shout and carried it. The entrance was won, and Quitman stood within the city. Here he stubbornly maintained his position from two o'clock in the afternoon till night, under a galling fire from the guns of the citadel.

Worth, in the meantime, had advanced steadily towards the San Cosmo gate. Scott, after having seen to the prisoners of war and the wounded, hastened down the hill of Chapultepec and joined him in the hottest of the fire. Here, while in the act of handing an order to an officer, the horse of the latter was shot by his side. After giving directions to Worth, he returned to the foot of Chapultepec, and taking his station where the two causeways parted, directed the movements of both columns and sent forward help where it was most needed. By 8 o'clock, Worth was in the suburbs, and there, around two batteries which he had carried, rested his exhausted troops for the night.

Another night had come, giving repose to the weary soldier. The tumult and carnage of the day had ceased, and silence rested on the city, and our army under its walls. Quitman's troops, sleeping in heaps under the arches of the causeway, and Worth's by the San Cosmo gate, presented a striking contrast to these same soldiers a few hours before. What a day's march that army had made, and what a track it had left behind it! Two paths, lined with the dead, marked its passage up the slippery heights of Chapultepecscattered masses of the slain showed where the tumultuous flight and headlong pursuit had swept like a loosened flood down the slope, while the two causeways, shattered and blackened, and streaked with blood, revealed the course its fiery footsteps had last taken in the road to victory.

The morning of the 14th of September had not yet fully dawned when the army was in motion. A deputation from the city council in the mean time waited on the Commanderin-chief, announcing that Santa Anna, with the remnant of his army, had fled the city, and demanded "terms of capitulation in favor of the church, city, and the municipal authorities." Scott refused to grant any terms; the city was in his power; he was resolved to enter it sword in hand, and plant his triumphant banner on its walls by the right of conquest alone.

Slowly and cautiously, to guard against treachery, the columns proceeded in the early dawn towards the great public square. Quitman's division first approached it, and his troops, rushing with shouts upon it, hoisted their flag on the walls of the National Palace. Worth's division followed, and that little army of six thousand men stood in the heart of the capital, while long and deafening shouts proclaimed the joy of the conquerors. About nine o'clock a sudden bustle was seen in one corner of the square to which one of the streets led, and the next moment a long, loud hurrah broke forth. The troops had caught sight of the waving plumes and towering form of their commander, slowly advancing in the midst of a body of cavalry. As he entered the plaza, the whole army shouted as one man. Again and again that loud, frenzied hurrah swelled over the city, and swords flashed in the air, and caps waved, and drums rolled. It was a wild, enthusiastic welcome, worthy of their chief. -J. T. HEADLEY.

idency to his

heroism displayed at Buena Vista. He was nominated in spite of misgivings on the part of the wisest leaders of his party, and proved a better president than might have been anticipated. He was the second

president that died during his term of office.

Zachary Taylor was born in Orange County, Virginia, September 24, 1784. His father, Colonel Richard Taylor, had served under General Washington during the Revolutionary struggle, and had proved himself a gallant soldier. He removed to Kentucky in 1785. Zachary, his third son, received such an education as a new settlement afforded. His early desire was to enter the army, and on May 3, 1808, he was commissioned first lieutenant in the Seventh Infantry by President Jefferson. He first reported for duty to General Wilkinson, then stationed at New Orleans. On June 18, 1810, he married Miss Margaret Smith, of Calvert County, Md.

When, on the 19th of June, 1812, war with Great Britain