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

200 THE FIGHT IN THE CITY.
a few moments before had resounded with the wild tumult of
war. For about an hour the din of battle and fierce shouts
of the combatants.were hushed, and then were with greater
violence renewed. The Mexicans, soldiers and citizens, animated with the energy of despair, boldly ascended to the
azoteas, where, armed with heavy old English muskets, they
were no match for our dextrous riflemen. If, as I am inclined
to believe, our loss was greater than that of the enemy on
the first day of the battle, the account was more than balanced on the third. The Americans being now as well sheltered as the Mexicans, took a more deliberate aim than when
exposed in open ground to the fire of artillery. They availed
themselves in this singular combat, waged as it were, in midair, of every possible stratagem to deceive or provoke the
enemy into committing some fatal blunder or exposure. The
Mexican who dared to show himself above the parapets challenged certain death. From every angle and aperture they
showered their balls upon the enemy; and even the spouts,
which in Mexican houses resemble the scuppers of a ship,
poured forth streams of fire. Ampudia's troops continued to
yield before the valor of our intrepid men. The Texans,
whom the sight of a Mexican always inflamed to madness,
were conspicuous and furious in their assaults. Driven back
by inches, the enemy at nightfall found himself confined to
the vicinity of the grand plaza, which had been barricaded
for a final and desperate resistance.
In some of the newspaper narratives of the battle of the
23d, the women of Monterey are represented as actively participating in the defense, and hence the pen of fiction has