Sketches of the campaign in northern Mexico : in eighteen hundred forty-six and seven / by an officer of the First Regiment of Ohio volunteers.

154 WORKS ON TIHE WEST, SOUTIH AND EAST.
exterior line. Such were the defenses on the north side of
the city.
On the west were, the Bi8swp's Cc'stle, situated about
midway up the rugged slope of the hill of the Obispado,
Fiort nidepeqzdencia, crowning its summit, and forts Federacionr and Soldctda, on a spur of the Sierra Iadre, south of
the Saltillo road. These fortifications, with the citadel, were
the only military works observable from the plain. Naturally
strong, and occupied by the enemy in considerable force, they
seemed impregnable, and the troops selected to storm them
were generally regarded as enfcans erdus.'~
On the south and east, the walls of the city are washed by
a broad and rapid river, which flows from distant and almost
inaccessible ravines of the Sierra Madre. Its high and precipitous banks were defended by the redoubts, lca eneria,
Diabolo, i6bertad, with other smaller batteries, all so connected by houses and fleches of masonry, as to form a continuous line of defense on those two sides. In additon to
these works of the first, or exterior line, commanding all the
approaches to the city, there was a vast number of interior
street fortifications. Every square was defended by barricades, some ten or twelve feet in thickness, and many of
* These hights were, however, carried by General Worth's division, with such
trifling loss, that many persons, supposing it the weakest point in the enemy's
defenses, have suggested that our whole army should have attacked on the west.
But it was (naturally at least) the strongest section of the Mexican line, and its
cheap conquest is alike due to the admirable strategy of Worth, and to the extraordinary diversion, made in aid of his operations, by the ardent tr'oops under Taylor, on the opposite side of the city. Had the whole American army been thrown
upon the enemy's western defenses, it must be considered that, instead of meeting
the garrisons only of the forts stormed by Worth, it would certainly have encountered Ampudia's entire force on the Obispado hill.