This view, of  the south side, was drawn by John Allison, a private in Company H of the First Regiment of New York Volunteers.  He participated in the battle and likely returned to the battlefield shortly after the occupation of the city to record what he saw.  The view appears to be from the Tacubaya Causeway, at a point where General Quitman, advancing under heavy bombardment, ordered several volunteer regiments to turn to the left of the road and advance across a meadow that concealed a number of wet ditches.  The causeway led around to the southeastern side of the castle, just out of view to the right.  Generals Shields and Quitman are seen, left foreground, along with their staffs.  Shields wears a straw Panama hat and a sling around his left arm from a wound he had just received.  Quitman is the gray-bearded officer to his right.  In the right foreground is perhaps one of Captain Drum's guns, which were advanced along the causeway to support Quitman's division.  Infantrymen in the foreground wear shell jackets, forage caps, haversacks, and bayonet scabbards attached to their belts.  A drummer boy watches as the soldiers receive their instructions.  An unusual element is seen in the center, a regimental flag bearing a coat of arms, likely the artist's own New York unit.

At the base of the hill stretches the fifteen-foot high wall that constituted part of the works of Chapultepec; billows of smoke indicate the volleys from the Mexican infantry behind it.  Near the center are two breaches made by the American artillery.  At left, leading up the hill, is the ramped entry to the castle, also crowded by Mexican defenders.  At the base of the ramp is a circular redoubt, its top just visible above the trees in the far left distance.  Above the ramp are the western walls and timber and sandbag screens of the gun emplacements soon to be carried by Gen. Pillow's division.