by Mike Blakely
“I have but one request before I answer the call to arms for my beloved country,” he had told the welcoming committee on the outskirts of Mexico City.
“What is it, General?” the leader of the delegation replied cautiously.
“Erect my statue again!”
The committee had conferred briefly and agreed to the demand.
“Bueno!” Santa Anna had said, cajoling the functionaries sent to woo him. “Now you must urge the government to take action! Gather troops and supplies at San Luis Potosi, where I will train the new army! Every day that passes without fighting at the north is a century of disgrace for Mexico!”
And so new troops arrived at San Luis Potosi, but the commissary did not. Nevertheless, he set his officers to work, drilling the starving recruits, who survived only through the kindness and patriotism of the citizens of San Luis Potosi who fed them and patched their tattered uniforms. Dry firing their muskets, they practiced marksmanship without gunpowder or bullets.
Worse yet, the newspapers had learned of his secret deal with President Polk to slip through the naval blockade. His political opposition now claimed that Santa Anna was a traitor who had conspired with the enemy to regain power. When asked about it by journalists, he laughed it off.
“My partisan opponents invent the most ridiculous scenarios! They will stop at nothing to vilify me! Next they will claim that President Polk came to a cockfight in Havana to purchase my loyalty. The people of Mexico will soon see by my actions that my loyalties forever lie with Mexico!”
Somehow, he toiled on. The federal government sent little in the way of funds for the army. The state governments sent even less. The church made a loan of two million pesos, but Santa Anna chose to spend most of this on uniforms and medals while his soldiers grumbled for meat and bread.
Finally, he made the ultimate sacrifice. He mortgaged his own estate to obtain a loan for half a million pesos and made sure the government and the newspapers knew about it. In November, he received news that a congress had come together and selected him as the new president of Mexico. His vice president, Gomez Farias, would serve as acting leader of the nation while President Santa Anna led in the field.
President once again! His hopes swelled along with his ego. Then, another stroke of luck. He learned of the existence of ninety-eight bars of silver hidden in a mine near San Luis Potosi. He seized these for the public defense and had them minted into silver coins, some of which purchased long-awaited gunpowder and hardtack.
By January the public was demanding that he march against Taylor in the north. But Santa Anna was now aware of a pending invasion of Veracruz. The new U.S. commander, General Winfield Scott, had foolishly bragged about the plans to the press. Veracruz was closer than Saltillo, but Santa Anna chose to attack Taylor instead of defending Veracruz. He felt safer in the north, away from the seat of government, where hotheads might conspire with his army to overthrow him. He knew Taylor’s army had been stripped of its best fighters so that they might serve under Scott. Almost all of Taylor’s troops were now untested volunteers—amateur soldiers.
Santa Anna knew he needed a victory. Taylor’s army was his obvious target. A U.S. courier had been killed and useful intelligence acquired regarding Taylor’s plans. General Minon’s lancers had captured two careless companies of volunteer U.S. cavalry, further weakening Taylor’s force. It was time to march.
He left San Luis Potosi on a sunny day in early January. A band played “Adios” as senoritas blew kisses and citizens cheered the parade out of town. But the music and adulation soon faded as the march became a grueling three-week trek across 250 miles of hell. The high deserts of northern Mexico did not beckon travelers in the winter. Days could be scalding hot, only to release cloudbursts of driving sleet and snow. Nocturnal sandstorms chewed tents into useless netting. Icy nights killed starving men, who huddled together and shivered to death in their tattered clothes.
Then began the desertions. By the hundreds—then the thousands—hungry, frostbitten recruits melted into the mountains by dark of night. By the time he dragged his exhausted army out of the desert, he had lost thousands of men to death or desertion. This decreased his numbers to some fourteen thousand fighters, but he still outnumbered Taylor’s force of about six thousand men. Even this force was divided. Taylor held La Angostura with just 4,500 men. The other 1,500 guarded his rear, nine miles away, in Saltillo.
Now the time had come to rise from his bed and attack. Militarily, he had prepared well and had confidence in his strategy. He had sent General José Minon on a road looping far around to the east to surround Taylor’s reserves in Saltillo and cut off Taylor’s retreat. The rest of Minon’s cavalry, infantry, and artillery had already taken up strategic positions in order of battle, facing the American front here at La Angostura. He knew this battle meant everything to his future. To retain power he had to achieve a victory. He had to.
He relished a last, warm whiff of Consuela’s ambergris perfume. He wondered if he should pray. If God even existed, would He listen to a man praying in bed with a whore?
Bastante! He threw the blankets aside and sat up on the edge of his bed.
“Juanito!” he shouted.
“Si, General?” came the groggy reply from his manservant, sleeping outside.
“Come light the lantern and get this whore out of my tent! Where in devil is my leg?”
“Coming, General!”
* * *
By dawn, he was mounted on the chestnut, attired as he had planned. He rode before regiments of cavalry and infantry, the mustang prancing under him.
“This horde of heretics from the north has invaded the sacred soil of Madre México,” he railed, “and must be punished with vengeance, swift and merciless!”
Bands played up and down the front line but would fall silent when His Excellency came near so that the men could hear him.
“They have raped and murdered their way from Matamoros to Monterrey!” He scowled fiercely at his fighters and could see their ire begin to boil at the red-hot rhetoric he spewed.
“They have brazenly torched our cathedrals, clothed themselves in the ornaments of the altars, and thrown upon the ground the body of Jesús Cristo! They have made themselves drunk by drinking from sacred vessels and washed the blood of your brothers from their hands in holy water!”
Priests followed him with incense and crucifixes to absolve the warriors of their sins should they die on this day. They strode methodically, swinging ornate copper censers that streamed with the smoke of burning incense. The general caught a whiff of acrid smoke that seemed to fill him with a sudden reverence for everything sacred.
God, give us victory, he thought.
As the priests passed in front of the massed regiments, the infantry soldiers would kneel. The cavalrymen would doff their shakos and lower their lances. The lancers looked particularly formidable on this day. By the general’s order, the men of each regiment rode horses of the same color. This gave each corps a uniform appearance and also would help Santa Anna identify the regiments from a distance so he would know whom to reward and whom to blame.
Thinking over all of this, he had not ceased in his diatribe. The words came to him without effort. The rhetoric was part of his very being and lived in his brain, even in his dreams.
“Today we will rid our country of this scourge of vermin and pestilence. Follow me, brave citizens of Mexico! Take up your arms and slaughter these foreigners who come to take what is rightfully ours!”
He had reached the east end of the line and found himself in front of General Santiago Blanco’s division of infantry.
“General Blanco! Prepare to attack up the road and through La Angostura!” He drew his saber and held it above his head. “Bugler! Sound the advance!”
The clarion notes converted the entire line into a throng of cheering men who, at this moment, had forgotten about hunger and exhaustion and only desired revenge.
“Forward!”
He watche
d as General Blanco’s men surged bravely into what Santa Anna knew would be almost certain death. But this attack on the American right was necessary to divert attention away from the real assault on the U.S. left.
Now General Antonio López de Santa Anna spurred his mount to the east and galloped before the advancing thousands all along the line. He smelled campfire smoke on the cool wind in his face, felt the power of the noble steed beneath him.
“Take up your arms! Advance!”
He pulled rein behind the hill upon which the San Patricio battalion awaited orders to commence firing.
“Fellow Catholics!” he yelled up to the hilltop. “Your moment has arrived to retaliate against the Protestant usurpers who have violated your honor with their oppression!”
Peering up at them, the general chuckled at the peculiar howls and gesticulations of the pale-skinned foreigners, many of them red-haired and ruddy-faced.
“Rain hell down upon the bastards! Fuego!”
The Irish commander, Captain John Riley, echoed the command, and the entire battery of big guns roared in unison. The whistling shells filled Santa Anna’s charger with new spirit as he continued his gallop eastward. He sensed the beginning of his finest day as he plunged through the barrancas and up toward the higher ground of his right flank.
He galloped in front of General Julian Juvera’s cavalry, who saluted him by dipping their lance points as he passed. General Anastasio Torrejon’s lancers did the same, cheering him as he sliced the wind with his saber.
At the center of his line, he reined left and spurred his chestnut warhorse up onto a finger of the plateau, where he knew both his army and the enemy’s would see him. Vaulting up onto the prominence, he waved his sword and let his mustang walk in circles, catching some wind. The battle cries that arose from his men made his heart swell.
“Viva Santa Anna! Viva México!”
Looking north, he took note of the American batteries and located the headquarters tent of General Wool. He remained exposed long enough that American rifle balls began to hum past him and pepper the ground around him. He waved his blade defiantly. A U.S. six-pounder sent a shell crashing into the brush near him. He plunged his horse back into the ravine and continued east, encouraging the brigade of infantrymen marching under General Francisco Pacheco.
“The Lord Almighty commands you to kill these damned heathens without hesitation!”
He veered to ride in front of the line of march of General Manuel Lombardini’s hard-bitten foot soldiers.
“To spare any one of the enemy is to condemn a hundred of our women and children to degradation and brutal death!”
Now he heard the cannon on the American right flank open up and knew that General Blanco’s elite regiment of engineers and the famous Guarda Costa de Tampico was catching hell from grapeshot and canister. At the same time, he heard the old Brown Bess muskets of his infantry under General Ampudia taking shots at the Americans’ left flank on the steep mountainside. Because of Ampudia’s disgraceful surrender at Monterrey, Santa Anna had cast his command out on the flank, where he was leading a rabble of raw recruits.
He came to the head of a ravine and rode up to high ground where he could watch the battle commence. As planned, the Hussars of the Guard awaited him here. From this chosen spot, Santa Anna would watch the battle commence. The captain of the guard, Jesus Paniagua, would pen orders dictated by His Excellency. The hussars would ride as couriers, delivering his directives to the appropriate commanders.
“Help me down!” he ordered to the nearest hussar. “Walk my horse!”
As he shifted to test his balance on his wooden leg, he glanced over the broad American line. He saw the U.S. ranks spread thin across the spurs of the plateau, from the mountain on his right to the narrow pass far to his left. It was easy to locate the inexperienced volunteer units of the enemy army. They did not wear the sky-blue uniforms of the U.S. regulars. The amateur regiments all invented their own silly-looking costumes. These were the targets he intended to attack with the brunt of his army—the untested volunteers.
One of the hussars brought his jeweled walking stick to him. He gripped the solid silver eagle’s head and stabbed the tip of the cane into the rocky soil, as if planting a battle flag. He loved the way his fingers wrapped around the beak of that sculpted raptor’s head. It felt like a talisman that conjured curses to his enemies.
He heard another thundering volley from the whole San Patricio battery firing in unison. The deadly loads of canister sailed into the front lines of one of those hapless volunteer units near the American left flank. Men withered beneath the well-timed explosions.
Santa Anna laughed. “A perfect volley by los colorados! Captain, what regiment is that the San Patricios just hit?”
“The Indiana Volunteers, Your Excellency.”
“They are already falling back! Send a hussar to tell generals Lombardi and Pacheco to charge at once!” He pointed his staff down into the ravine to his left, where he could see the 7,500 men under Lombardi and Pacheco advancing slowly toward the Americans.
Another volley from Captain John Riley’s band of deserters killed or crippled a dozen more American volunteers.
“Hurry, Captain! Now is the time!”
The blue sky, the roar of ordnance, the odor of burned gunpowder on the bracing wind … it all stirred his soul. It had been a long while since he had presided over a proper battle. He could feel the soft center of the enemy line recoiling. He would hurl his thousands at their few!
“Never mind, Captain! Bring my mount! I will ride there and tell them myself!”
Lieutenant
JOHN PAUL JONES O’BRIEN
Buena Vista
September 23, 1846
He knew they were coming. He had watched thousands of enemy soldiers disappear into the barrancas, heading his way. Lieutenant John Paul Jones O’Brien fully expected to see at least a battalion of enemy infantry emerge from some stretch of ravine any minute now.
Proudly, he watched his men ram shells down the muzzles of his three guns—a twelve-, a six-, and a captured Mexican four-pounder. His artillerymen called any guns they manned “O’Brien’s Bulldogs,” and the name had caught on with the rest of Taylor’s army.
Another blistering volley came from the Irish deserters across the way—the so-called Saint Patrick’s Battalion.
“Take cover!” he ordered.
His men threw themselves on the ground, as did the green Indiana Volunteers supporting his battery. The exploding shells ripped into the volunteers, shrapnel flying everywhere, whirring off of cannon tubes, pulverizing human flesh. Men screamed in pain. Others died instantly and were now pain free.
Lieutenant O’Brien felt even more disgusted with the deserters than most soldiers in the U.S. Army. His name celebrated his own Irish blood, and he hated the damage the deserters had done to his heritage. But right now he had other concerns on his mind.
“On your feet! Man those guns! Make ready!”
He looked around at the Indiana Volunteers who were there to defend his battery. This was their first battle and they looked absolutely stunned.
He turned back to his gunners. “Fire!” he said, covering his ears.
The volley sailed toward his assigned target—a distant regiment of Mexican musketeers attacking the American left flank. His shots fell short. He wanted to get closer, yet his orders were to fire from this position in support of the Kentucky Volunteers, who had been holding that left flank on the mountain since yesterday.
“Load spherical case shot!” he shouted to his men. He turned to the Hoosiers. “You men stand your ground! You’ll have your chance to fight any minute now!”
In this claim, he had no doubt. He knew from his West Point training why the Saint Pats were targeting his battery and its supporting infantry. They were softening up this part of the American line for the main enemy assault. O’Brien knew the gray trousers and matching gray frock coats of the Indiana Volunteers set them apart from the sky
-blue uniforms of the U.S. regulars. Sly Santa Anna wanted to pit his troops against inexperienced volunteers.
He looked at his target again on the left flank. It’s too far away! Damn it, we have to get closer!
“Bring the horses up!” he shouted. “Limber the Bulldogs!”
His men sprang to obey the new order. Anything was better than waiting for the next artillery barrage from John Riley’s deserters.
“Where are we headed, Lieutenant?” asked his first sergeant, Tom Moore, who was sitting on the ground, binding a leg wound with a strip of cloth used as a bandage.
“Head that way!” O’Brien pointed toward the head of a ravine that would put him well within range of his assigned target on the left flank.
“You heard the lieutenant!” the noncom shouted, springing to his feet and limping into action. “Bring those horses, double-quick!”
Colonel Bowles, commander of the Indiana Volunteers, came stalking toward him, leading his horse.
“Are you daft, Lieutenant? You want to get closer? We must fall back, out of range of those big guns!”
O’Brien covered his sneer. As a West Pointer, he held respect for only a few of the volunteer officers, and Bowles was not one of them. The man had no military experience whatsoever. He had simply been elected colonel by his volunteers.
“Colonel,” he shouted, “I am under orders to support the Kentucky Volunteers and I cannot do so without getting closer to the enemy! I would appreciate the support of your regiment in this maneuver. You may follow us as closely as you choose.”
“We have no orders to advance!” Bowles complained.
The clamor of wheels on the rocky ground and the snorting of the artillery horses ended the conversation.
First Sergeant Moore trotted to him, leading O’Brien’s horse. “Sir, we’re ready to move, but what about our dead and wounded?”
O’Brien glanced at Colonel Bowles as he took the reins of his mount from the sergeant. “Colonel, I request your support in getting my wounded and dead moved to the rear.”