A Sinister Splendor

by Mike Blakely

  Suddenly, the newly brevetted Major May dashed up and leaped from Black Tom, seizing the prisoner that the bugler had captured.

  “Get back to the front line, Private Wonsell! I’ll take this prisoner to General Taylor!”

  Wonsell, the bugler, fumed but could only release his captive to May and turn back to the fray. Major May led General de la Vega and Black Tom to the rear.

  Past the captured Mexican battery, Smith saw his screaming men now clashing with a superior number of enemy soldiers with bayonets, down in the brushy ravine. He jumped over the body of a dragoon who had been pulled from his horse and stabbed to death. Spotting a Mexican soldier trying to reload a musket behind an agarita bush, Captain Smith lunged, leading with the point of his saber. The soldier jumped aside and jabbed menacingly with his bayonet point.

  “Run, you devil!” Smith yelled.

  But the man did not run. He plowed mindlessly through the spiny leaves of the agarita bush, pushing his bayonet point ahead of him. Smith just managed to parry the sharp point aside with his saber, then desperately hacked at the man, his sword chopping halfway through the enemy soldier’s neck.

  He did not look back at the man he had slain. He squatted to catch his breath and gather his wits. All around him, semi-obscured by the wicked woods of the chaparral, men clashed in screaming, bloody knots. He saw one U.S. private beating in the head of a Mexican soldier with a rock. He knew his soldiers were outnumbered, yet he felt the Mexican line falling back, inch by inch.

  “Captain…”

  The voice had come from nearby, weakly. Smith looked about to find a man dragging himself out of the underbrush. The man had lost his hat, and shocks of gray hair stood out from his balding head. Remarkably, his distinctive spectacles were still in place on the bridge of his nose.

  Smith recognized his regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel James S. McIntosh. “Sir!” he said, stumbling toward his commander. He reached the sixty-year-old McIntosh and noticed the blood-soaked fabric of his tunic where a bayonet had run him through from his belly to his back. He found another wound, where a bayonet had entered his mouth and come out the back of his neck.

  Smith knew that his colonel had been severely wounded more than thirty years ago in the War of 1812. He wondered if it had been this bad. He propped the old warrior up, fearing that he might well be dying.

  “Sir, is there anything I can do?”

  McIntosh spit out some blood and glared through the lenses of his spectacles. “Yes, Captain. Give me some water and show me my regiment.”

  As Smith clawed at the canteen on his belt, a wave of soldiers from the Eighth Infantry came pouring down into the brush-choked ravine, their battle cries stirring his blood. Then the first volley of the Mexican cannon—captured and turned upon their former masters—roared over the Resaca de la Palma and sent hailstorms of grapeshot denouncing Mexico’s claim to this coveted, bloodstained soil.

  Lieutenant

  SAM GRANT

  Resaca de la Palma

  May 9, 1846

  If anyone had asked him beforehand, he would have said that the chaparral was impenetrable. Yet here he was, penetrating it—albeit with great difficulty. He twisted and ducked through the thorn-infested shrubbery. Briars clawed his skin and ripped his uniform as he pressed forward with his company.

  The Fourth Infantry had been ordered to attack the Mexicans’ left and to flank them if possible. The battle for Resaca de la Palma had been raging for some time up ahead and to his left. He was doing his best to join the conflict, but the thicket was so dense that he could only keep a few of his men in view as they pressed forward.

  His ominous responsibility as acting company commander weighed heavily upon him. He had seen only one battle—yesterday—and had scarcely taken part in it. Now he was expected to lead the company. With no landmarks to be seen in that forest of spines, thorns, and stinging thistles, he had only the sound of the battle to guide him. Was he leading his men in the right direction? The percussion of the artillery and the crackle of muskets seemed to be getting louder, so he pushed on through undergrowth that would discourage a javelina.

  Suddenly, enemy projectiles hissed all around his ears, followed by a deluge of shattered branches raining from above.

  “Get down!” he ordered. He did not have to give the order twice as he found himself staring at dirt. He noticed a trail of ants filing by as if this were just another ordinary day. He didn’t like this position. He could see no enemy soldiers from here, so he could not engage. The brush was too thick to charge through. He would lead his company into a massacre if he tried.

  Another volley of enemy artillery raked overhead.

  “Stay low!” he shouted to his men. What was he supposed to do now? He waited for another round from the Mexican cannon. When it came, it did no damage to his little section of chaparral. It soon became evident to him that the artillery fire was not even intended for him but for some other unit. The enemy did not even know he was here.

  He thought about withdrawing but knew he could not. He could never back up. Yet he could not go forward. He decided to go farther to the right. Perhaps he could lead his men around the enemy’s flank.

  “Right face!” he yelled. “We will look for more open ground to the right!”

  Men picked up their arms and veered toward the extreme right wing of the U.S. advance. Here he found the brush less dense, yet still formidable. At last he saw an opening—a mere goat trail—that led forward to a section of the resaca. Through the chaparral that laced the ravine, he could see enemy soldiers milling about on the opposite bank.

  He knew it was his duty to charge that position. “Halt!” he said, as his men came out of the brush into the small opening.

  The soldiers stopped and looked his way, many of them wild-eyed with fear.

  “Prepare to charge down that trail!”

  The soldiers checked their bayonets and cocked their muskets. Then they stared at him, some trembling but all standing their ground. Grant pulled his single-shot percussion pistol from his belt and drew the hammer back until it clicked into place.

  “Charge!”

  His long, slender legs carried him forward toward the resaca as enlisted men vied to pace him. They swarmed down the trail around him and poured into the gully. He felt the spring tension of his trigger on his finger as he led the way with his pistol muzzle. Across the ravine, enemy uniforms caught his eye. The Mexicans quickly threw their hands into the air.

  “Halt!” Grant shouted to his men. “Hold your fire! Keep a sharp lookout!”

  Now he realized that most of the enemy soldiers were wounded. The captured men included a colonel. He also saw dead Mexican fighters sprawled here and there on the ground. The realization came to him: he had just charged a position that had already been overrun by other U.S. infantrymen before him.

  He chose three privates near him. “Take these prisoners to the rear,” he ordered. The men were happy to have the assignment.

  “Lieutenant!” a private shouted. “Over here!”

  He looked up to see the man pointing at something, so he strode quickly over. “What is it, Private?”

  “Lookee there, Lieutenant Grant. I’ll be damned if that ain’t the top of a tent pokin’ up above the mesquites!”

  Grant saw the eagle-and-snake flag fluttering from a tent pole not more than a musket shot through the brush. “Let’s head that way,” he said.

  General

  MARIANO ARISTA

  Resaca de la Palma

  May 8, 1846

  He had sat at his desk—writing reports and sipping tea—while he listened to the snipers and sharpshooters across the resaca.

  Nothing more than a skirmish, he had thought. Taylor will not attack in full force today. He will not.

  Of this he felt so confident that he had ordered all the pack mules unloaded and all the teams unhitched from the supply wagons. The beasts needed to graze along the prairies that opened up toward the Rio Grande. He kn
ew his army would hold its ground today. Resaca de la Palma was simply impregnable.

  He had granted the honor of commanding the defense of the resaca on this day to General Romulo Diaz de la Vega. A veteran of the war for independence from Spain, the war against the Texas revolutionaries, and the French invasion of Veracruz, de la Vega could be trusted to guard the Matamoras Road until the real battle began, tomorrow. He was a skilled artillery officer and one of the men whose loyalty General Arista did not question.

  Arista took a last gulp of tea from his dainty, glazed cup and wondered at the incessant nature of the artillery fire. He could smell the smoke from burning powder wafting through his tent. He finished his regrettable letter to President Paredes, put his pen aside, and listened. Musket fire crackled sporadically. It didn’t sound like an all-out attack. But the artillery fire had rumbled constantly for some time. Was de la Vega wasting precious ammunition? Perhaps the Americans had brought up a battery to test the stronghold and harass de la Vega’s entrenched position.

  He set his concerns aside. No messenger had brought him news of a major assault. He felt certain that Taylor would only test his defenses today and attack in earnest tomorrow.

  Mañana. Si, mañana.

  But now he heard men yelling, screaming. He picked out words as the voices came closer.

  “Ay de mi!”

  “Me ahorro, Dios!”

  Cries of desperation. Entreaties of abject horror.

  Next came musket fire from behind his camp! His army had been flanked!

  General Arista jumped up from his padded chair and leaped for the tent flap, dashing it aside. His soldiers were running, stumbling over one another, retreating in terror. Some of them stampeded through his very camp. Most of them had dropped their weapons.

  “Stop!” he yelled. “Stop and hold this ground!”

  The men just ran, some of them wounded and bloody.

  “Cowards! Stop!”

  Where was his aide-de-camp? What had happened? How could this be?

  Now he saw enemy soldiers advancing methodically on his headquarters through the chaparral—each man firing his musket, reloading, advancing again.

  Captain Berlandier came running to his tent, covered with blood.

  “Where have you been?” the general demanded.

  “At the field hospital, General! It happened so fast!”

  “What has happened?”

  “The Americans have taken the resaca!”

  Arista felt his anger begin to boil. “Where is General de la Vega?”

  “He was captured, sir! The men all say he was captured!”

  Damn de la Vega’s ego, he thought. He would not ask for reinforcements?

  Now Arista thought of his reserves. He had placed Ampudia’s brigade and the cavalry under Torrejon in reserve far to the rear. He was not ready to give up this ground so easily.

  “Pedro!” he cried to his trusted servant. “Bring my horse!”

  “Si, General!”

  “Sergeant Major!” he shouted to the leader of his personal guard. “Hold my headquarters!”

  “Si, General!”

  “Capitan!”

  “Si, General!” said the bloody Captain Berlandier.

  “Order General Ampudia to advance on the Americans now. Go quickly!”

  Berlandier ran for his horse, tethered nearby.

  Arista went back into his tent for his tunic, his saber, and his shako. When he stepped back out, he found his guard barely holding the enemy infantrymen at bay with their muskets. Pedro stood with his horse. He mounted while Pedro held the reins at the silver bridle shanks. From the saddle he could see more Americans coming. Dozens, scores, hundreds … They swarmed around three sides of the camp, leaving only one escape—south down the Matamoras Road.

  A musket round buzzed by and popped through the canvas of his tent, not far from his head. He glanced and saw four holes in the fabric from the standard-issue U.S. load—a bullet and three buckshot.

  “Leave the tent!” he ordered. “Fall back to Ampudia’s position!”

  Reining his mount away from the attackers, he galloped to General Torrejon’s brigade of lancers, situated beyond enemy artillery range, eight hundred varas to the rear. As he approached, he saw them mounting and forming up in a column of fours. He rode directly up to Torrejon.

  “Why have you not advanced?” he demanded.

  “We have been awaiting the orders of General de la Vega,” Torrejon said calmly.

  “De la Vega has been captured! The resaca has been overrun by the enemy.” The general drew his saber. “We must charge now!”

  Torrejon’s eyes widened as he drew his own sword. “Forward!” he shouted.

  The bugler blew the signal and the entire column moved ahead at a walk, with Arista leading the way up the Matamoras Road.

  “Trot!”

  The bugle signaled the quicker gait and the column responded.

  Another hundred varas and Torrejon shouted, “Gallop!”

  The bugle pealed and the rumble of hooves swelled.

  They passed through Ampudia’s reserve infantry marching toward the front line of the American assault. General Arista was now leading the charge through his retreating infantrymen who had been routed at the resaca.

  “Turn around, you cowards!” he yelled. “Return to the line and fight!”

  His mount lunged and snorted as he encountered the first surprised Americans. He swiped at the nearest enemy with his saber, but the man leaped into the chaparral. Over his shoulder, he saw a lancer probing the thicket with his spear point, hoping to find the American. Then a musket blast tore the cavalryman from his saddle.

  Onward he charged into the resaca, toward the more open ground on the other side, where he hoped his lancers could hunt down the enemy with their ten-inch steel points. But enemy musket blasts tore into his mounted men from the brush on either side of the road. Across the ravine, he found his own cannon pointed at him. Beyond, the timber had been blown to flinders by the artillery of both armies. He rode right into what looked like two whole regiments of U.S. foot soldiers.

  One of his own captured artillery pieces tore a dozen lancers out of the column. Others fell around him in a hail of musket fire. Horses whinnied their shuttering death rattles and men screamed in terror and pain. It was lost. The battle … lost …

  “Retreat!” he ordered. The bugler was dead, but the riders needed no musical encouragement to withdraw. As the general fled, he knew he deserved a bullet in the back for this blunder, but somehow the enemy fire veered around him and struck soldiers ahead of him in the retreat. A corporal, hit in the shoulder, dropped his lance and listed to one side. Arista grabbed him and held him upright as their mounts galloped stirrup to stirrup out of the enemy phalanx.

  Lieutenant

  SAM GRANT

  Resaca de la Palma

  May 9, 1846

  By the time Grant closed in on the tent his soldiers had spotted, his company had been joined by hundreds of troops from his regiment and others. He had approached from the west, having unknowingly flanked the enemy lines. The Mexican soldiers were now fleeing en masse toward the river. He had seen the battalion of Mexican lancers attack, led by generals Arista and Torrejon, only to be repulsed by a withering American fire.

  Now he ran right up to what appeared to be General Arista’s headquarters tent, the enemy resistance having melted away to the south. He still had not fired his pistol, so he used its barrel to pull the tent flap aside, half expecting to find the general-in-chief himself. Instead, he found a writing desk strewn with papers, an inkwell nearby. Beside it he saw a silver tea service on a folding camp table.

  Rushing back outside, he located his company corporal. “Corporal Stewart!” he yelled. “Pick three men and guard this tent until General Taylor arrives. Disturb nothing!”

  “Yes, sir!” the corporal said, seemingly honored by the assignment.

  He was now down to about twenty men under his command. Some had been
sent back with prisoners. Others had gotten lost in the chaparral. But, to his knowledge, none had been killed or wounded. “The rest of you, come with me. We will continue to pursue the enemy and clear the road for the supply train.”

  As he marched his company southward along the road, his men began to mingle with soldiers from other regiments. He came to the supply train that Arista had been forced to abandon. Wagons had been unhitched, packs removed from mules. Arms, ammunition, provender, all manner of supplies had been left behind.

  “Sam!” He heard the familiar voice of Lieutenant Frederick Dent.

  “Frederick! Thank God.”

  “Are you all right, Sam?”

  “Yes.”

  Frederick Dent’s young face looked unusually grim. “Did you draw the claret?”

  Sam smirked. “Back home, I knew an old veteran of the 1812 war. I asked him once—a boyish question—if he had ever killed a man in the war. He said he charged the enemy once and cut a man’s leg off. I asked why he had not cut his head off instead. The old man said, ‘Because someone had done that before me.’”

  Dent shook his head, but chuckled. “You talk in circles sometimes, Sam.”

  “I never fired a shot today. Every position I charged had already been overrun by some other company.”

  Dent nodded, then gestured at the abandoned equipage all around them. “Well, we completely surprised them. They left everything behind.”

  They continued to march along in the chaos, toward Fort Texas.

  “Have you received any new orders?” Grant asked.

  “None.” He glanced back over his shoulder and grabbed Grant by the arm. “But look, Sam! There rides General Taylor down the road on Old Whitey!”

  Grant felt somehow relieved to see Taylor coming up from the rear. He could not imagine the responsibility that must have weighed upon the general’s shoulders on this day, yet Old Rough and Ready seemed to bear it with ease.