Early in the morning of the 13th, Scott ordered Worth to support the movement of Pillow from our left. The latter soon called for that entire division, standing momentarily in reserve, and Worth sent him Col. Clark's brigade. The enemy in the road in front of Quitman's right, was receiving reinforcements from the city—less than a mile and a half to the east—and Worth, on our opposite flank, was ordered to return to Chapultepec with his division, and to proceed cautiously by the road at its northern base, in order, if not met by very superior numbers, to threaten or to attack, in rear, that body of the enemy.
Worth promptly advanced with his remaining brigade—Col. Garland's—Lieut. Col. C. F. Smith's light battalion, Lieut. Col. Duncan's squadrons of dragoons, under Major Sumner.
Having turned the forest on the west, and arriving opposite to the north centre of Chapultepec, Worth came up with the troops in the road, under Col. Trousdale, and aided by a flank movement of a part of Garland's brigade in taking the one-gun breastwork, then under the fire of Lieut. Jackson's section of Captain Magruder's field battery. Continuing to advance, this division passed Chapultepec, attacking the right of the enemy's line, resting on that road, about the moment of the general retreat consequent upon the capture of the formidable castle and its outworks.
There are two routes from Chapultepec to the capital—the one on the right entering the same gate, Belen, with the road from the south, via Piedad; and the other obliquing to intersect the great western, or San Cosme road, in a suburb outside of the gate of San Cosme.
Each of these routes (an elevated causeway) presents
