The tete de pont gained, its guns were turned on the convent, whence the Mexicans were still slaughtering our gallant Second and Third.  Duncan’s battery, too, hitherto in reserve, was brought up and opened with such rapidity that a bystander estimated the intervals between the reports at three seconds!  Stunned by this novel attack, the garrison of San Pablo slackened fire.  In an instant the Third, followed by Dimmick’s artillery, dashed forward with the bayonet to storm the nearest bastion.  With a run they carried it, the artillery bursting over the curtain; but at that moment a dozen white flags waved in their faces.  The whole fortified position of Churubusco was taken.

Meantime, however, a conflict as deadly as either of these was raging behind the Mexican fortifications.  Soon after the battle commenced, Scott sent Pierce’s and Shields’s brigades by the left, through the fields, to attack the enemy in the rear.  On the causeway, opposed to them, were planted Santa Anna’s reserves—­four thousand foot and three thousand horse—­in a measure protected by a dense growth of maguey.  Shields advanced intrepidly with his force of sixteen hundred.  The ground was marshy, and for a long distance—­having vainly endeavored to outflank the enemy—­his advance was exposed to their whole fire.  Morgan, of the Fifteenth, fell wounded.  The New York regiment suffered fearfully, and their leader, Colonel Burnett, was disabled.  The Palmettos of South Carolina, and the Ninth under Ransom, were as severely cut up; and after a while all sought shelter in and about a large barn near the causeway.  Shields, in an agony at the failure of his movement, cried imploringly for volunteers to follow him.

The appeal was instantly answered by Colonel Butler, of the Palmettos:  “Every South Carolinian will follow you to the death!” The cry was contagious, and most of the New Yorkers took it up.  Forming at angles to the causeway, Shields led these brave men, under an incessant hail of shot, against the village of Portales, where the Mexican reserves were posted.  Not a trigger was pulled till they stood at a hundred fifty yards from the enemy.  Then the little band poured in their volley, fatally answered by the Mexican host.  Butler, already wounded, was shot through the head and died instantly.  Calling to the Palmettos to avenge his death, Shields gives the word to charge.  They charge—­not four hundred in all—­over the plain and down upon four thousand Mexicans securely posted under cover.  At every step their ranks are thinned.  Dickenson, who succeeded Butler in command of the Palmettos, seizes the colors as the bearer falls dead; the next moment he is down himself, mortally wounded, and Major Gladden snatches them from his hand.

Adams, Moragne, and nearly half the gallant band are prostrate.  A very few minutes more and there will be no one left to bear the glorious flag.