ATTACK UPON THE CASA MATA
Toned lithograph. D. Appleton & Co., NY. 1851.
While the American right was still engaged in the attack on the molino, Gen. Worth ordered the Brigade on his left, under Col. McIntosh, to assault the Casa Mata. This print depicts that final assault.
Instead of being "an ordinary stone house" as engineers thought, it was a citadel, surrounded with bastion entrenchments, and impassable ditches, an old Spanish work recently repaired and enlarged. Situated in low ground, portions were hidden by dikes and maguey plants. Mexican Gen. Francisco Pérez and a fresh force of regulars laid completely hidden behind the banks of the ditch in front of the building. In reserve was a large body of Mexican cavalry under Gen. Juan Álvarez. The figure on horseback in the center of the picture is Col. McIntosh as he was first struck. In the foreground is Duncan's artillery, masked by infantry. At far left, in the middle, a body of dragoons under Maj. E. V. Sumner moves past the Casa Mata toward Álvarez's position. Sumner lost nearly one-fourth of his men as they swept down the slope and one-third of his horses. Before it was over, McIntosh's second had also been killed, and his third in command severely wounded. In the background lies Mexico City and the Castle at Chapultepec, on the hill to the right. Although the American's first assault was rebuffed, the battle soon turned. Duncan pushed his guns in close and began bombarding the Casa Mata with a vengeance. Álvarez's men, seeing that the molino had fallen, slipped out the rear of the Casa Mata and fell back toward Chapultepec.
