Published in 1851, this book is a firsthand report, in both words and images, of the first offensive war fought by the United States. It contains a brief history of the war, written by George Wilkins Kendall, the editor of the New Orleans Picayune newspaper and the first true wartime correspondent, who engaged with soldiers on the battlefield and corresponded back to his newspaper. While Kendall accurately discussed the war by successive events, the book also includes 12 hand-colored lithographs of the scenes and a lithographic map of the region. Kendall asked the German artist Carl Nebel to draw images to accompany his text that portray the 12 major clashes of the war. In Kendall’s preface, he notes that the drawings were made “on the spot by the artist…So far as regards the general configuration of the ground, fidelity of the landscape, and correctness of the works and buildings.” However, unlike Kendall, Nebel was not there at the specific time of the battles but reviewed the various places after the war. The watercolor drawings Nebel produced were subsequently transferred to lithographic plates and printed in Paris, the great center for the lithographic technique at that time.

In August 1847, after the two defeats at Contreras and Churubusco, the Mexican Army fell back to a defensive position only two miles from the gates of Mexico City, which included Molino del Rey (the King’s Mill), an iron foundry on the southwestern edge of the capital and possibly a factory for manufacturing cannons for the Mexican Army. These were fortified stone buildings half way between the castle of Chapultepec and the earthwork fort, Casa Mata, 2,000 yards to its west. On September 8, U.S. General William J. Worth attempted to take these strong holds of the Mexican Army by a frontal assault. Worth’s 3,400-man division advanced in two columns against the Molino, with Brevet Brigadier General John Garland leading his brigade on the right against the Molino del Rey. The advance that Worth had intended as a reconnaissance in force soon became a bloody nightmare. Brigadier General Antonio León unleashed a storm of artillery and small arms that resisted the Americans and sent them back in disorder. The U.S. troops, reinforced by the Voltigeurs and some of Cadwalader’s men, made another run at the position and managed a breakthrough. Eventually the steady success of the regulars on their right carried the Mexican position, but only after Worth had lost nearly one-in-four of his attacking soldiers. Approximately 800 American casualties occurred here and this number was the highest for any single battle during the Mexican-American War.