Battle of Chapultepec

Battle of Chapultepec, an engagement of the Mexican-American War that occurred September 12–14, 1847. The fortified castle of Chapultepec, commissioned by Spanish Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez in 1785, sat on a rocky hill overlooking causeways leading to Mexico City’s two western gates. It was the last obstacle that U.S. Major General Winfield Scott had to secure before attacking the city, defended by the 15,000-man army of General Antonio López de Santa Anna.

To defend the castle, Santa Anna installed General Nicolas Bravo with 1,000 troops, fifty military cadets, and some artillery in buildings and supporting earthworks. Beginning on September 12, Winfield Scott’s artillery bombarded the castle; on September 13 he launched his main attack.

Two divisions advanced abreast from the west: Major General Gideon Pillow’s division, with Brigadier General William Worth’s in support, on his left; Brigadier John Quitman’s division approached from the south along a causeway. Pillow’s brigades fought through a grove of trees at the base of Chapultepec hill and up the slope, then faltered at the walls when the scaling ladders failed to appear. Quitman’s men were also stopped by artillery defending the causeway. He sent a brigade to flank the position and another with ladders to assist Pillow.

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Mexican-American War Events

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Battle of Palo Alto

May 8, 1846

Battle of Monterrey

September 20, 1846 - September 24, 1846

Battle of Buena Vista

February 22, 1847 - February 23, 1847

Battle of Cerro Gordo

April 1847

Battle of Contreras

August 19, 1847 - August 20, 1847

Battle of Chapultepec

September 12, 1847 - September 14, 1847

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When the ladders appeared, the U.S. assault surged over the walls. The troops from the three divisions became intermixed as they scrambled into the castle. By 9:30 AM, the castle was taken. Quitman then led a rush of infantry along the southern causeway to capture one gate, while Worth—with an artillery gun section—pushed forward and seized the other gate. By dusk, Worth’s and Quitman’s troops were in the city but had to halt as darkness fell. Early in the morning of September 14, a Mexican delegation told Scott that Santa Anna and his army had fled the city.

The battle is rich in lore. Five teenage military cadets who refused to retreat and who defended the castle to their death—one jumped from the castle with the Mexican flag wrapped around his body, so the Americans could not capture it—are widely memorialized in Mexico as “Los Niños Héroes,” or boy heroes. Thirty captured members of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion, formed of Irish immigrant deserters from the U.S. army who fought on the Mexican side of the war, were executed during the battle. U.S. Major General William Harney ordered the executions to occur at the exact moment the U.S. flag replaced the Mexican one on top of the castle. Additionally, the famed line in the U.S. “Marines’ Hymn” ("From the Halls of Montezuma . . .") was inspired by the Marines’ role in this battle (90 percent of the Marine officers who fought in the battle were killed) and on the attack on the city gates of Belén and San Cosmos that followed, leading to the fall and occupation of Mexico City by U.S. forces on September 14. Finally, although it actually predates the Mexican War, the scarlet “blood” stripe on the dress blue trousers worn by Marines has long been hailed as a commemoration of those who died at Chapultepec.

Ulysses S. Grant was one of many U.S. officers and soldiers who distinguished themselves at Chapultepec and who would later figure in the American Civil War in the ranks of both the Union and the Confederate military. Reflecting on what many Americans believed to be an unjust war of aggression in which Mexico’s lost territory became an object of contestation between the free and slave states before the Civil War, Grant remarked, “Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.”

Chapultepec Castle was renovated when the French army of Napoleon III invaded Mexico in 1862, and two years later it became the residence of Habsburg emperor Maximilian and his wife, the Empress Carlota. After Maximilian was overthrown and executed in 1867, the castle became Mexico’s presidential palace before being dedicated as the nation’s historical museum in 1939. Carefully restored, it is a major attraction in Mexico’s capital city today.

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Losses: U.S., 130 dead, 703 wounded, 29 missing; Mexican, at least 1,000 dead, wounded, or captured.