Niños Héroes
During the attack on Chapultepec he was a lieutenant in the military engineers (sappers) and died defending a gun battery at the entrance to the park.
Records show he was admitted to the academy as a cadet on 8 September 1847—five days before the fateful battle—but his other papers were lost during the assault.
A note included in his personnel record says his body was found on the east flank of the hill, alongside that of Juan Escutia.
He was the son of Esteban Melgar, a lieutenant colonel in the army, and María de la Luz Sevilla, both of whom died while he was still young, leaving him the ward of his older sister.
[4] Fernando Montes de Oca was born between 1828 and 1832 in Azcapotzalco, then a town just to the north of Mexico City and now one of its boroughs.
[5] The narrative of the Niños Heroes has played an important role in shaping historical memory in Mexico since 1847, a source of pride at the bravery of the martyred boy cadets in defending Mexico's honor, but in the mid-twentieth century, they have also been a means by which the Mexican and U.S. governments have come to a more harmonious relationship.
[6] However, monuments to the boy martyrs were not built until Mexico had fought the War of the Reform (1857–69) and expelled the French-backed Second Mexican Empire (1862–67).
A group of former cadets formed the Association of the Military Academy and succeeded in 1881 in erecting a cenotaph of modest size (pictured) at the foot of the hill on which Chapultepec Castle sits.
The cenotaph had the names of the fallen cadets and those who were captured and became a site of commemoration by the association that erected it as well as for Mexican officials and ordinary citizens.
"[7][8] As the centennial of the war approached, there were calls to recover the remains of the cadets, so that a memorial that was also a burial site could honor their bravery.
Six bodies were officially identified as belonging to the six deceased cadets of 1847, but a later investigation "alleged that the sappers found numerous skeletons but removed only the smallest from the soil.
"[9] Mexico City newspapers proclaimed that the bodies of the cadets had been found, but the Mexican government convened a panel of scientists to confirm the identities of the bones.
[11][12] On September 27, 1952, after many public ceremonies, a monument was inaugurated in the Plaza de la Constitución (Zócalo) with an honor guard from the several military academies of the Americas.
The six cadets are honored by an imposing monument made of Carrara marble by architect Enrique Aragón and sculptor Ernesto Tamariz at the entrance to Chapultepec Park (1952).
[13] At the castle itself, in 1967 Gabriel Flores painted a large mural above the stairway depicting Escutia's leap from the roof with the Mexican flag.
