by Mike Blakely
As new regiments arrived through the autumn months, Grant began to hear many foreign accents among the rank and file—chiefly Irish and German. This development had given rise to an ugly side of the army’s corps of young officers, some of them West Point chums of Grant’s. He had been aware of the anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic nativist movement among civilians back in the Eastern states. He had read newspaper accounts of the riots between native-born Protestants and immigrant Catholics in Boston and Philadelphia. But he had had no idea how vehemently some of his fellow officers had embraced the bigotry of the movement.
Grant himself singled out no soldier on account of nationality, but he had no authority to countermand the extreme punishments doled out by officers who had bought into the movement. Some of the immigrants had served in foreign armies and had seen more combat than most of the young officers in the Army of Occupation. The idea that green second lieutenants fresh out of West Point would abuse these experienced warriors based on their foreign accents alone was not only distasteful to Grant but also militarily unwise. When hostilities indeed commenced, the war-wise immigrants would prove invaluable, in his opinion.
As the size of Taylor’s army grew over the winter, so had the village of Corpus Christi, now boasting a population of about a thousand civilians, most of them engaged in nefarious endeavors such as gambling, whoring, and whiskey peddling. Drunkenness had become such a problem that General Taylor had placed the camp under curfew after dark. Taylor had maintained strict discipline over his troops. The few bad examples of violence directed toward civilians had been quickly dealt with. By and large, the local citizens admired Old Rough and Ready, especially because he paid premium prices for goods and services needed to keep his army functioning.
Even so, as tents, blankets, and uniforms wore threadbare and sand dunes chewed leather boots to shreds, the coldest weeks of the winter came on. The few American locals at Kinney’s Ranch claimed that the winter of forty-five and forty-six had been the coldest in memory. Along with cold and hunger came sickness. The ranks grew at the infirmary, as did the number of graves in the camp cemetery.
So, as an attempt to improve morale and give the soldiers something to do besides drink, whore, and gamble, Grant and several fellow officers had built, at their own expense, a crude theater that would hold an audience of eight hundred men. The officers themselves acted in the plays they produced. Charging just pennies at the door, they soon recouped their investment. In the long run, however, the theater only succeeded in attracting yet another depraved set of civilians to Corpus Christi: professional actors.
But now the time had come to leave all this behind and get on with the campaign. Resolving to rise and start this momentous day, he threw his blanket aside, pulled his boots on, and crawled out of the tent. A swath of crimson clouds far out to sea painted the eastern horizon. He took a long moment to admire the scene as he urinated on a patch of prickly pear cactus.
Throwing his jacket over his shoulders, Grant walked toward the campfire for a cup of coffee. Jacob, the black cook, saw him coming and filled an iron cup from the pot hanging over the campfire.
“Mornin’, Lieutenant Grant, sir.” Jacob had seemed uneasy in Grant’s presence since the cook accidentally let the officer’s three mustangs escape back to the wild. Riding one of the horses bareback while leading the two others to water, Jacob had been pulled from his mount when the two led horses spooked at some sight, sound, or smell. He had been dragged for some distance through mesquite and cactus before losing his grip. The horses hadn’t been seen since.
“Thank you, Jacob,” Grant said, taking the steaming cup of coffee.
“Sir, I’m sorry about them horses,” Jacob said, repeating his apology for the umpteenth time. “I wish I’d’ve held on to just one for you to ride south on today.”
“I’m an infantry officer, Jacob. It is well that I should march with my men.”
“It happened all of a sudden, sir.”
“It was an honest mishap that could have befallen anyone. I don’t want to hear about it again. What’s for breakfast?” Grant, whose own father had never so much as scolded him, usually treated the men under his own charge with leniency, sometimes to the point of drawing criticism from his fellow officers.
“Fatback and biscuits, sir. Best I could rustle up.”
“That will do.”
* * *
After breakfast, Sam Grant packed his belongings and ordered a couple of privates to carry them to the nearest wagon in the supply train. The soldiers assigned as teamsters were harnessing mules, so Grant decided to get a look at the mule team that would pull the wagon containing his personal effects. This would help him find his possessions later, as each wagon master tended to select animals of similar colors and sizes for his five-mule team.
Besides, it was always entertaining to watch the men hitch the ill-tempered Mexican mules. He stood back some distance as a sergeant picked a big, reddish mule from the picket line—a rope stretched taut between two stout mesquite trees. Two privates approached the mule cautiously, ready to avoid hooves or teeth. Each man put a lariat loop around the mule’s neck, then untied the animal from the picket line.
With the beast lunging this way and that, the two privates managed at length to lead it to the wagon, where two other soldiers cautiously fitted it with its harnesses. Then, after pulling and prodding the mule up to the left side of the wagon tongue, they hitched the mule’s harness leather to the wagon rigging. Just when they finished, the mule reared up in protest, then kicked the front of the wagon, tangling for a time in the straps and chains.
“You son of a bitch!” the sergeant yelled.
“Yeah, you son of a bitch!” a private echoed, holding to the rope around the mule’s neck.
“I wasn’t cussin’ the mule!” the sergeant shouted. “Keep a tighter hold on that animal, private!”
Grant chuckled, standing akimbo, the sun rising to his back, finally warming his shoulders. He himself knew how to hitch a team. He had grown up working with gentle draft horses on his father’s farm. But these wild mules represented an altogether different challenge. It took an army to harness these hell beasts.
He continued to watch as another red mule was hitched to the right of the wagon tongue, under similar exertions. With the wheel mules in place, the swing mules were hitched ahead of them. Finally, the lead mule was harnessed and placed ahead of the two swing mules.
“Well done, men,” Grant said, realizing that the same struggle he had just witnessed had occurred, simultaneously, alongside scores of other supply wagons getting ready to disembark on this morning—not to mention the wagons drawn by oxen. The whole army wasn’t leaving today. This was just the second wave. A vanguard of dragoons had left yesterday. Tomorrow and the next day, the third and fourth groups would depart. Scouts had determined that the few natural springs along the smuggler’s road could not furnish water for all of Taylor’s troops and their animals at once, so the Army of Occupation had been divided into four segments for the trip to Matamoras. In all, Grant figured that General Taylor’s Army of Occupation included 307 wagons, eighty-four of which were drawn by oxen, the others by mules.
As the Fourth Infantry awaited orders to march, Grant saw his company commander, Captain George A. McCall, riding toward him at a trot. A slender man, handsome and well coifed, McCall represented the epitome of the U.S. Army officer.
“’Morning, Captain,” Grant said.
“Grant, I’ve found you a mount.” He pointed. “There is a horse for you.”
Grant looked toward the beach and saw one of the black servants who traveled with the regiment holding a three-year-old bay with black points—a fine-looking mustang.
“Thank you, sir, but I’ve decided to march with the men,” Grant explained.
“Grant, I want you to buy that colt. That colored boy purchased it for three dollars and he said he’d sell it to you for five. That is the only mount available for sale between here and Matamoras. Th
e price is reasonable. I’ll loan you the five dollars if I have to.”
“Captain, I have five dollars. It’s just that I thought it appropriate for an infantry officer to march afoot, like the men.”
McCall rode nearer and spoke in a lower voice. “It’s not appropriate for an officer in my company to march afoot when my own servant in my employ rides my spare mount. Now, if you don’t buy that colt, I’m going to have to unhorse my servant and order you to ride my other mount in his stead.”
Grant thought about the servant having to walk all the way to Matamoras because of him. “Well, sir, if I must ride, I might as well ride my own horse. I’ll purchase the colt.”
“Good. Carry on, Grant.” McCall rode on down the line, inspecting the wagons assigned to his company.
Grant pulled a five-dollar gold piece from the pocket of his tunic.
“Sir!” said the sergeant in charge of the wagon that held Grant’s possessions. “Let me take that half eagle and I’ll lead your new colt over here for you. The men will help you get your tack out of the wagon.”
Grant realized that the sergeant must have overheard the conversation with McCall and appreciated an officer who was willing to march with his men, even if he wasn’t allowed to do so. “Very well,” he said. He tossed the coin to the sergeant.
Returning with the colt, the sergeant said, “I asked the colored boy, sir. He said nobody’s ever throwed even a blanket on this hoss, so my boys will ear him down for you and we’ll get him saddled.”
“I appreciate that,” Grant replied. He stepped over to the wagon and pulled out the bosal he had purchased from a caballero in the village of Corpus Christi. Made by hand from leather and woven rawhide, with reins of braided horsehair, it was the Spanish version of a hackamore, used for training young horses. Fixing no bit in the mouth, it instead controlled the mount by means of the rawhide band over the nose, above the nostrils, which would effectively limit the amount of air flowing to the animal’s lungs, affording the rider some control over the untrained horse.
Next, he and a private muscled the Ringgold saddle out of the wagon bed. Grant admired the Ringgold’s graceful lines, the pleated seat, the brass trim. Designed by Major Samuel Ringgold of the flying artillery, this was the most comfortable and serviceable saddle Grant had ever ridden. He had borrowed a spare from the flying artillery with the understanding that he would return it, should Ringgold’s company need it back.
By the time the enlisted men had adorned the three-year-old bay with Grant’s bosal and saddle, a shout could be heard coming down the line of supply wagons. A sergeant up ahead turned to pass the order down through the ranks: “Wagons, forward, ho!”
“You boys hold on tight, so the lieutenant can mount up,” said the sergeant.
“Point him toward the dunes,” Grant said. “I don’t want him running among the mules.” When the men had turned the colt west, Grant put his left foot in the stirrup, stepped up, and swung his right leg over the high cantle. He settled into the saddle as deep as he could and nodded at the soldiers to release the bay’s ears.
The colt bolted forward and began to buck but soon got into sand deep enough to hinder his gyrations. Though he jolted along in the saddle, Grant held a tight rein and felt confident that he could stay in the middle. Even should the bay fall, the soft sand would help prevent a disaster.
The real catastrophe, in fact, seemed to be back at the wagon. Still atop his crow-hopping colt, Grant nonetheless saw the lead mule lunge ahead so suddenly that it pulled the breeching up tight against the rumps of the wheel mules, causing them to sit down like pet dogs. Meanwhile, the swing mules were bucking harder than Grant’s colt, tangling harnesses.
As his new pony tired, Grant glanced up the line of wagons and witnessed other teams of mules making similar protestations as the entire supply train somehow began to lurch unevenly southward. He kept his mustang plodding through the deep sand, hoping to tire the beast before he got on the solid ground above the dunes. He had little control over the direction his mount took, but the colt seemed to want to follow along with the mules, so Grant went along for the ride.
Time seemed to slow down, and the sounds around him diminished, leaving him in a momentary state of enlightenment. His modicum of control over his new colt and the halting progress of the supply train made a rare and unexpected sensation well up in Grant’s interior regions, ranging from his guts to his heart to his brain. He felt a glow of pride within, never before sensed.
The regular soldiers in this little army were largely refugees from American slums or immigrants from foreign cities. Few had ever hitched a team before joining the army. The impossible idea that this many wagons might be harnessed to wild Mexican mules by these previously inexperienced enlisted men and actually driven in a chosen direction with any amount of success amazed him beyond his ability to comprehend the odds overcome.
It was something to remember—something to consider again, in the future, in times of dire necessity. Ranks of disciplined men under able leadership could accomplish what twice their number acting individually could ever hope to do. These average men, through training and military pride, were somehow achieving the unthinkable.
Grant’s reverie faded when that Amazon laundress attached to the Seventh Infantry trundled past, driving a cart behind a burro, all her equipage piled around her. Grant remembered her real name—Sarah Bowman—but couldn’t help thinking of the nickname she had acquired here at Corpus Christi. The men had begun to call her “the Great Western.” He found this amusing. The famous vessel the SS Great Western was the biggest, most beautiful steamship in the world. Both big and beautiful, the woman seemed to fit the name and, in fact, sometimes called herself by the moniker.
“That’s a right smart colt you’re riding, Lieutenant!” she said, tapping her burro’s rump with a stick.
“Thank you, Mrs. Bowman. I thought you would have sailed with the other laundresses down to Point Isabel.”
“You know I can’t let my boys go hungry on the march,” she said, referring to the officers for whom she cooked.
Grant suspected that she wanted to miss out on neither three weeks’ pay as a cook nor the adventure of driving south with the column. “Yes, of course. How’s your husband?”
“No better, but still alive. They put him on a ship yesterday to sail south.”
“I hope and pray for his recovery.” At this moment, Grant’s new mount decided to bolt ahead with such suddenness that he was unable to offer a proper farewell to the Great Western. At least the bay was running instead of bucking.
The trail led up the bluff past Kinney’s Ranch, then angled toward the Rio Grande, some 150 miles south. Loping over the brink, passing oxen and mules, Grant’s mount afforded him a view across the prairies and patches of chaparral alongside the old smuggler’s road. Up here above the dunes, the terrain rolled gently away, inland. From the back of a horse a man could see over the mesquite brush for miles and miles.
It felt good to be out here, riding this mustang. The chill of dawn was long gone, but the sea breeze still carried a crisp, springtime edge to his nostrils. On the open swaths of prairie ahead, Grant saw explosions of blue and orange wildflowers flowing in lavalike shapes, surrounding islands of white and yellow blossoms that added to the great, colorful patchwork quilt. As the bay loped on ahead, the lieutenant rode for a furlong through air so fragrant that he almost choked on it.
Passing the head of the column, out of the dust, his mount finally tired and slowed to a trot, then a walk. The road in front of him was cut deep by the wheels of wagons and the hooves of cavalry horses that had led the way south yesterday. Riding more than a rifle shot ahead of the column now, Grant suddenly began to feel vulnerable. Bandits and Indians were said to prey on smugglers along this road, and here he was alone. What if Mexican cavalry had outflanked the first wave sent south yesterday and now lay in wait over the next roll in the prairie?
“Whoa,” he said in a firm voice, pulling with s
teady pressure on the horsehair reins. The tired bay colt stopped, and Grant released the tension on the reins, rewarding the colt with air.
He imagined the eyes of enemies peering at him from the thorny chaparral. Clumsily, he felt for the hilt of his saber, then put his hand on the saddle holster containing his army-issue single-shot percussion pistol. He vowed to drill more with his weapons—to make himself familiar with the process of drawing them and using them, even at a full gallop. He thought he’d better wait here for the column to catch up, lest he should become the first combat casualty in a war that Mexico, or the U.S. Congress, or both, might already have declared, for all he knew.
* * *
Four days later, Lieutenant Grant found himself riding through an open prairie, along the windward side of the column. No one cared to ride on the downwind side of the wagons. Hooves and wheels stirred up a thick cloud of dust that mingled with ash from a recent grass fire. The fine particles of ash blackened the faces and knuckles of soldiers who had no choice but to drive their wagons through it. Grant surmised that the Mexicans had set fire to the grass to deprive the U.S. Army teams of graze.
Now, up ahead, he noticed the procession coming to a halt at the top of a high roll on the coastal plains. He decided to lope his pony forward to investigate. The bay colt, behaving quite properly after four long days of training, sprang to the task. Riding to the top of the rise, Grant saw the reason the column had halted. A few miles away, the open prairie crawled with horseflesh—a moving carpet of hides, manes, and tails—the great mustang herd of no-man’s-land.
“Look, Grant,” said Captain McCall, riding up next to the lieutenant. “That’s the very herd from which your colt was captured.”
“I wonder how far and wide it extends,” Grant said.
“There’s a vantage point a mile or so ahead, on that high open knoll.” McCall pointed toward the place.