by Mike Blakely
“Let’s go save them Kaintucks’ and Rackensackers’ asses!” Boss Hastings blurted.
“First Sergeant!” Steen yelled. “Form a column of fours!”
Within a minute, Chamberlain found himself galloping toward the musket-toting Mexican infantry advance, Soldan’s mane whipping in the wind like the crimson pennons on the enemy lance shafts.
“Draw sabers!” Captain Steen ordered.
Chamberlain drew his blade as he sped onward. By God, if the boys back in Boston could see me now, they wouldn’t believe this shit!
A canister shell burst in Captain Steen’s path, sending a ball through his thigh and into his mount’s lung. The beast stumbled, throwing the captain to the ground before he reached the Mexican line. The charge faltered as Steen’s dragoons milled about in confusion. Chamberlain pulled rein and looked down to see Steen put his palm over the bullet hole in his leg to stanch the flow of blood.
“Lieutenant Rucker, you are in command! Carry on!” Steen ordered, grimacing in pain.
Lieutenant D. H. Rucker wheeled to address the dragoons. “Form up in a column of platoons!”
The moment the men had fallen back into their places, the lieutenant shouted the order: “Charge!”
Within a few leaps, Soldan plunged in among the Mexican soldiers and Private Chamberlain brandished his saber. Many of the attackers were reloading their Brown Bess muskets as they steadily pressed on toward Buena Vista, but a few shot into the galloping dragoons. Most reeled aside to avoid the sabers and let the Americans pass through. Chamberlain got close enough to one enemy soldier to take a swipe at his head, but he only sliced the top of his hat off as the man ducked.
As quickly as he had entered the Mexican column, he was out of it, continuing to gallop up the slope toward the Arkansas and Kentucky skirmishers. The skirmishers now saw the dragoons coming to their rescue and gave up their position, running down the mountain on foot, toward their picket line of mounts. But they could not outrun the Mexican lancers, who pursued them, harassing their flanks, swerving in to skewer a few of the unfortunate volunteers with their glinting lance blades.
As he galloped forward, Chamberlain felt his anger begin to boil as he saw Americans taken out by the spears, again and again. One volunteer had stumbled and fallen, perhaps wounded, and was now on his knees, begging for mercy. The lancer nearest to him tendered none, driving the razor-sharp steel point into the fallen man’s chest and pinning him to the ground, where he writhed in the throes of death.
But now the surviving Arkansas and Kentucky cavalrymen, who had been fighting on foot for almost twenty-four hours, reached their mounts, tucked away at the head of a gully. Private Chamberlain and the Second Dragoons dashed past them as they mounted, continuing the charge upon the hated lancers.
Too late to save, but soon enough to avenge, Chamberlain thought, thinking of his book.
“Use your carbines first,” Lieutenant Rucker ordered. “Then your pistols and sabers!”
Private Chamberlain sheathed his saber and unhooked his Hall carbine from the ring on his saddle. Now in range of the lancers, he took aim as best he could from his galloping sorrel.
“Fire at will!”
He pulled the trigger and saw the horse stumble under the man at whom he had aimed. He rehooked his carbine to the saddle and drew his pistol from the pommel holster. The Mexican lancers had not faltered in their charge, though several in their front ranks had fallen to the Americans’ carbines. The two bodies of horse soldiers galloped closer together, rumbling the mountain slope with a thousand hooves.
Chamberlain aimed his pistol. The lance tips were almost in his face when he fired. He saw the lancer in his sights roll backwards over the cantle of his saddle. Soldan dodged the next spear point, and Chamberlain used his pistol as a club, hitting the enemy rider in the face as Soldan carried him forward. He heard his own voice unexpectedly wailing a battle yell as shouts and gunshots rang out all around him.
He dropped his pistol and drew his saber. To his astonishment, Soldan continued charging headlong into the Mexicans, dodging spear thrusts as if he did this sort of thing all the time. Chamberlain witnessed a lancer bearing down on one of his fellow dragoons and swept in to catch the enemy rider off guard. With the power of Soldan’s weight pushing him forward, he made a slash with his saber under the right arm of the lancer. He felt the resistance of flesh and bone through his hilt as human blood splattered his horse, his uniform, and his face.
Screams of horses and men—wounded and dying—filled the air, along with the ringing of saber blades and a few latent pistol shots. The lancers, staggered by the furious onslaught of the U.S. dragoons, reeled back, their bugler sounding a retreat.
“Halt!” Lieutenant Drucker yelled. “Let them go! Our orders are to escort the skirmishers. Pick up our wounded! About-face! Retire and rally at the supply train!”
Chamberlain felt his lungs heaving with excitement as he glanced around the battlefield. Blood ran in rivulets down the slope. Smoke drifted. The stench of some poor horse’s ruptured paunch made Chamberlain gag, and he feared he would vomit. To his surprise, he found that no dragoons had been killed, though a handful of wounded men were mounted double behind messmates.
The Mexicans had carried away at least a dozen dead men.
As he bounced back toward the bloody battle, overtaking the skirmishers he had helped to rescue, he thought about the soldier he had killed with his saber. Private Chamberlain himself was only sixteen, and he judged the man he had sliced open like a melon at no more than twenty. The tough-looking, brown-faced kid had never seen him coming.
He thought about whether he should relate the horrible deed he had done in his book. But no. He did not care to relive it. It was better off forgotten, though he knew he would never shake the memory of that sinister moment and the sickening feel of his blade slicing through the body of a living man.
He cleared his head and took stock of his situation. Below, the battle raged all along the line. In the ravines, thousands upon thousands of brightly uniformed enemy attackers crept toward the plateau held tenuously by the Americans. The U.S. left flank had swung back half a mile, almost to Hacienda Buena Vista, where the supply train waited like bait for Santa Anna’s army. He knew that left flank was weak, though U.S. troops were swarming toward it to prevent disaster.
From his vantage high on the mountain slope, he saw Lieutenant John Paul Jones O’Brien returning to the front with two new six-pounders and a fresh crew of gunners. He had already been overrun by Mexican infantry once but had not had enough.
“You’d better toughen up, Sam Chamberlain,” he muttered to himself.
Glancing to his right, along the mountain ridge, he saw a new regiment of lancers sweeping far around to the east, out of artillery range. He knew their objective had to be the supply train.
Where the hell are the reserves? We are outnumbered! Overwhelmed!
Looking back downhill, he happened to catch sight of a white horse ridden by a man in a broad palmetto hat. Taylor was coming from Saltillo on Old Whitey! The general had brought May’s company of dragoons with him. Next came the red shirts of Colonel Jefferson Davis’s battle-tested Mississippi Rifles—heroes of Monterrey.
Chamberlain thought it odd how the presence of that old Indian fighter, Taylor, bolstered his courage. He felt hopeful. This battle could be won yet. This is why he had enlisted, was it not? He felt an urge now to get back into position. Soldan sensed it, tossed his head, and released a defiant snort.
SARAH BORGINNES
Saltillo, Mexico
February 23, 1847
Even from within the thick adobe walls of the American House, Sarah Borginnes could faintly hear the artillery, six miles away to the south. She expected she would listen to it rumble all day.
General Zachary Taylor had come in for breakfast early this morning. He had sat at his favorite table in the back with Major Bliss, Lieutenant Colonel May of the dragoons, and Colonel Jefferson Davis of the Mis
sissippi Rifles. Other officers—those tasked with holding the city of Saltillo—had come and gone through the morning to consult with Taylor and receive their orders. Finally, Taylor and his men had decided to ride south and join the battle.
“Godspeed to you, Zach,” she had said when he left. “I know the men fighting at Buena Vista will be glad to see you and Old Whitey.”
He had smiled and taken her hand in his. “Sarah, they will be much happier to see you than me, once this battle is won.” He had winked and walked out.
Now, some thirty minutes later, Borginnes felt sure that Taylor would have arrived at the battlefield by this time. If she knew Old Rough and Ready—and she did—he would use Santa Anna’s hind end for a bootjack before this day was over.
Business was understandably slow at the American House today. Still, a few off-duty soldiers and officers seeking lunch were scattered around the saloon. Five ladies of easy virtue were laughing at the far end of the bar. Sarah Borginnes stood at the opposite end, near the door, so she could greet customers as they walked in. She was taking advantage of the lull in business by sorting through her stock of dishes, cups, and bowls to determine how many new vessels needed to be commissioned with the local potter. Breakage was common here at the American House.
The door flew open and a private from one of the volunteer regiments burst in, hatless.
“General Taylor is whipped!” he screamed. “The whole army is cut to pieces! The Mexicans are coming!”
She was only a few steps from the door, and by the time the private got to “Mexicans,” she had made a fist of her right hand. She punched the private between the eyes hard enough to stagger him back to the door.
“You damned son of a bitch!” she yelled. “There ain’t enough Mexicans from here to Veracruz to whip old Taylor! Now get your sorry jackrabbit ass back to the front lines and fight like a man or I will see you branded a coward!”
The man pointed south. “But—”
She raised her fist.
“All right, I’ll go back,” he said timidly, now looking at the scowls of the soldiers in the bar. He turned to leave, his head held low.
Sarah pushed him out through the doorway and watched him mount a lathered horse he had ridden from the front. She made sure he pointed that horse south before she shut the door.
“Angelina!” she shouted to her most trusted employee. “Have one of the boys saddle my horse. I’m going to the front!”
Major
WILLIAM BLISS
Buena Vista
February 23, 1847
Approaching the battleground from the north, it had become obvious to Major William Bliss that General John Wool’s defense plans had gone awry. He had encountered scores of demoralized soldiers drifting toward Saltillo, telling tales of the left wing collapsing under a huge wave of Mexican infantry and cavalry. General Taylor had ordered all such fugitives to return to the battle and had hastened forward at a canter.
Now Bliss could see a regiment of Mexican cavalry on the mountain ridge to the east, threatening to flank or encircle the U.S. Army. He could hear and sense great confusion on the left: the rattle of muskets, the screams and shouts of men, the squealing of wounded horses.
“It doesn’t sound good, does it, Major?” General Taylor asked.
“No, sir.”
“Let’s ride up to high ground on the plateau and look things over.”
Bliss spurred forward at Taylor’s side, angling off the road to the southeast. Behind them, Lieutenant Colonel Charles May and Colonel Jefferson Davis followed. They rode up a steep, eroded slope to the plateau and reined to a stop on an elevated roll that afforded a view of the entire battlefield.
“Well, the right flank looks solid,” Taylor said, “but what the hell has happened on the left?”
“The left has collapsed back almost to the supply trains, sir.” Bliss struggled to emulate the calm demeanor of his commander. He looked on in horror as Mexican lancers speared wounded American men unable to flee and Mexican infantry soldiers bayoneted every fallen enemy in their path.
“Colonel Davis!” the general called out over his shoulder.
Taylor’s former son-in-law spurred forward. “At your service, General.”
“Look across the plateau between those two ravines, Jeff.” Taylor pointed. “Do you see?”
“I see it clearly, sir. Looks like a battalion of infantry forming up there, flanked by cavalry. They intend to crush our left flank.”
“Those damned muskets and spears are no match for your Whitney rifles. March your men double-quick to that point. Use the ravine on the left for cover until you are within rifle range. I will send artillery and the Third Indiana to support you. Stop that advance! Do it for Old Mississippi!”
“Yes, sir!” Davis wheeled away to fulfill his orders.
“Bill, where is Wool? Do you see General Wool?”
Bliss had already located Wool, dashing back and forth on a tall bay horse. “There!” He pointed back toward Buena Vista. “With the Second Illinois.”
Taylor spurred Old Whitey to a canter, and Bliss stayed a neck behind. May followed, waving for his company of dragoons to catch up, apparently eager for orders. General Wool saw them coming and spun his horse to report.
“General!” Wool blurted. “We are whipped!”
Bliss was shocked at the outburst.
“That is for me to determine!” Taylor snapped. “Pull your wits together, John. The volunteers do not know that they are whipped. Let them alone. We’ll see what they can do.” Taylor turned to Wool’s adjutant, Captain Lincoln. “Make yourself useful, Captain, and order the Third Indiana to support the Mississippi Rifles on the plateau.” He pointed.
“Yes, sir!” Lincoln shouted, charging away on his mount.
“Colonel May!”
“Here, sir!” May spurred forward on his battle horse, Black Tom.
“Get on the other side of Buena Vista ranch and cut off those damned lancers trying to gain our rear. Secure our commissary and keep it secure. Ride like the devil, Captain, and give them hell!”
“Fours right-about wheel!” May’s high-pitched voice sang.
Bliss watched the dragoons’ snakelike column canter away toward Buena Vista.
“Come now, Bill,” Taylor said to Bliss. “Let us have a word with Major Bragg.”
Old Whitey bounded to an instant gallop as Bliss spurred to catch up. Bliss noticed Major Braxton Bragg’s flying artillery rolling northwest toward Buena Vista. Taylor veered left to cut Bragg off.
“Halt, Bragg!” the general ordered. “Where are you going?”
“To support the commissary, sir. I was told the volunteers buckled.”
“I need you elsewhere—”
A shell shrieked into the path of Bragg’s halted advance and exploded, sending shrapnel whistling in every direction.
“By God, General,” Bragg yelled, “that one would have hit us square if you hadn’t halted us! Those damned Irish deserters have got a grudge on me!”
“I wonder why, Major. Now, listen. Can you hear me?”
Bragg nodded and cupped a hand behind his ear.
Taylor pointed. “You see the red shirts of the Mississippi Rifles?”
Bragg glanced. “Yes, sir.”
“Advance and unlimber near enough to support their line!”
“Yes, sir. Who will support me, sir?”
Taylor scowled at the artillerist. “Major Bliss and I will support you! Advance!”
Bragg led his gunnery crew toward his new position.
“Let’s move, Bill! I feel another round coming from the deserters!”
Bliss cantered along beside the general, back toward General Wool’s position on the collapsed left. As they departed, a shell fell on the ground they had recently occupied with Bragg.
“Son of a bitch!” Taylor yelled as projectiles hummed past him. “Are you hit yet, Major?”
“By the grace of God, no, sir! Not yet!”
Returnin
g to General Wool’s position on the buckled left flank, Bliss looked northward to Buena Vista and the supply train. He saw that waves of Mexican infantry and swarms of lancers had been stalled by U.S. defenders using the supply wagons and the buildings of the rancheria for cover.
“The boys who bolted from the Second Indiana have found some sand left in their craws,” Wool said. “They are holding the commissary.”
“I’m more interested in the Mississippi Rifles right now,” Taylor said calmly, his spyglass to his eye.
Bliss shifted his gaze southward. Through the smoke he could make out Jefferson Davis’s red-shirted riflemen rushing out of the ravine to form a skirmish line in a precariously advanced position. Only 368 men strong, the Mississippians prepared to take on a brigade of infantry and a battalion of cavalry marching to finish off the American left. Bliss saw the Illinois Volunteers moving double-quick to support Davis, but they were not yet close enough to help. Fortunately, Major Bragg’s flying artillery had pulled within range. His gunners were preparing to open fire on the Mexican position opposite Davis’s red shirts.
“Steady, boys,” General Taylor said, watching Jeff Davis through his telescope. “Steady for the honor of Old Mississippi!”
Seemingly innocent little puffs of smoke erupted all along the Mississippi line, and the leading ranks of Mexican infantry collapsed under the heavy fire of the Whitney rifles. The Mexican advance faltered. By the time the smoke cleared, the red shirts had reloaded. Bliss watched in awe as the Mississippi Rifles charged the overwhelming numbers of the enemy ranks.
“Well done, Jeff!” General Taylor shouted. “Hurrah for Mississippi!”
Bliss and the troops nearby raised a cheer. The Third Indiana Volunteers continued to advance toward the red shirts while Major Braxton Bragg released his first salvo of spherical case shot into the Mexican front.
“Zach!” General Wool cried. “May is riding out to attack the lancers at Buena Vista.”
Bliss watched May on his big black horse leading a saber charge into the flank of the Mexican cavalry column. The furious onslaught, aided by musket fire from Buena Vista, routed the lancers and sent them curling back up the mountain.