By daylight on the morning of the 8th, the troops to be engaged at Molino were all at the places designated.  The ground in front of the Mills, to the south, was commanded by the artillery from the summit of Chapultepec as well as by the lighter batteries at hand; but a charge was made, and soon all was over.  Worth’s troops entered the Mills by every door, and the enemy beat a hasty retreat back to Chapultepec.  Had this victory been followed up promptly, no doubt Americans and Mexicans would have gone over the defences of Chapultepec so near together that the place would have fallen into our hands without further loss.  The defenders of the works could not have fired upon us without endangering their own men.  This was not done, and five days later more valuable lives were sacrificed to carry works which had been so nearly in our possession on the 8th.  I do not criticise the failure to capture Chapultepec at this time.  The result that followed the first assault could not possibly have been foreseen, and to profit by the unexpected advantage, the commanding general must have been on the spot and given the necessary instructions at the moment, or the troops must have kept on without orders.  It is always, however, in order to follow a retreating foe, unless stopped or otherwise directed.  The loss on our side at Molino del Rey was severe for the numbers engaged.  It was especially so among commissioned officers.

I was with the earliest of the troops to enter the Mills.  In passing through to the north side, looking towards Chapultepec, I happened to notice that there were armed Mexicans still on top of the building, only a few feet from many of our men.  Not seeing any stairway or ladder reaching to the top of the building, I took a few soldiers, and had a cart that happened to be standing near brought up, and, placing the shafts against the wall and chocking the wheels so that the cart could not back, used the shafts as a sort of ladder extending to within three or four feet of the top.  By this I climbed to the roof of the building, followed by a few men, but found a private soldier had preceded me by some other way.  There were still quite a number of Mexicans on the roof, among them a major and five or six officers of lower grades, who had not succeeded in getting away before our troops occupied the building.  They still had their arms, while the soldier before mentioned was walking as sentry, guarding the prisoners he had surrounded, all by himself.  I halted the sentinel, received the swords from the commissioned officers, and proceeded, with the assistance of the soldiers now with me, to disable the muskets by striking them against the edge of the wall, and throw them to the ground below.

Molino del Rey was now captured, and the troops engaged, with the exception of an appropriate guard over the captured position and property, were marched back to their quarters in Tacubaya.  The engagement did not last many minutes, but the killed and wounded were numerous for the number of troops engaged.