A Sinister Splendor

by Mike Blakely

  “Hello, General,” Davis said.

  “Oh, thank God, Jeff. I had heard you were killed.”

  Davis chuckled. “I heard that myself.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Just my foot, sir. Shot in the heel this morning.”

  “My poor boy. I wish you were shot in the body. You would have a better chance of recovering soon. I do not like wounds in the hands or feet. They cripple a soldier awfully.”

  He immediately regretted saying it. What was he thinking? Exhaustion must have addled his mind. But Davis only chuckled at him.

  “It hurts like hell, but the surgeon said I’ll probably keep my foot. The bullet carried some pieces of iron from my spur into my heel, so he’s a bit concerned about blood poisoning.”

  “You look pale. Maybe it’s just the moonlight.” He glanced up to see clouds slicing wildly in front of a bright moon, two-thirds full.

  “I lost a boot-full of blood.”

  Taylor leaned his elbow on the sideboard of the wagon. He felt weary.

  “General, I’ve heard that Henry Clay was killed. Please tell me it’s not true.”

  “I am sorry, Jeff, but it is true. I know the two of you graduated West Point together. I am told he died gallantly.”

  Davis groaned and shifted in the wagon bed.

  Taylor sighed, half in relief and half in regret. “I have come to rely upon you and your Mississippi Rifles, Jeff. I saw with my own eyes how you saved the battle for us twice today.”

  Davis shrugged and winced. “I did my duty. Nothing more.”

  Taylor patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll go find someone to get you out of this wagon and into a bed.”

  “No, I asked to sleep here,” Davis said.

  “Why the devil would you do that, Jeff?”

  “So they can haul me back to the battleground before dawn. I will mount my horse and continue to lead my regiment.”

  Taylor shook his head. “It’s getting cold out here.”

  “My friend, Captain Eustus, is in the cathedral right now, looking for a blanket. He will sit up with me tonight.”

  Taylor smiled. “Very well, Jeff. You have a good view of the towers of Santiago in the moonlight.”

  “General, have all the regiments called roll?”

  “Yes. They have all reported.”

  “What were our losses today, sir?”

  “Six hundred and fifty-nine casualties.” It sounded like someone else’s voice when he heard himself speak.

  “How many killed?”

  “Two hundred seventy-two. There will be more, of course.” He heard a scream of pain inside the chapel.

  “No word from Santa Anna?”

  “None. But his casualties must have been twice that of ours.”

  “What do you expect he’ll do, General?”

  “I imagine he will attack us in mass at dawn.”

  The two men fell silent for a long moment as soldiers moaned inside the cathedral.

  “Jeff…” Taylor began. “I have regrets … There are things I should have … I know you did not cause my daughter’s death, Colonel. I should have said so long ago. It was not your fault.”

  His forearm rested on the sideboard.

  Jefferson Davis placed his cool palm over the back of Taylor’s wrist and gripped it firmly. “We both lost someone. It was hard to handle.”

  Taylor placed his weathered palm over the back of Davis’s hand. “Yes. Even harder than this day.”

  “I didn’t know what to do, so I just ran away from it. To Cuba, New York. I should have visited you and Mrs. Taylor to explain what had happened, but I lacked the courage to face you.”

  Taylor pulled his palm away from Davis’s hand and placed it on his shoulder. “Your courage is now forevermore unquestionable. My daughter was a better judge of a man than I.”

  Captain Abram Eustus bolted from the cathedral doors and trotted to the wagon with a blanket. “All right, Davis, you lazy slacker,” he joshed. “I’ve come to tuck you in!” He stopped when he recognized the commander of the army. “General! My apologies. I did not see you there.” He saluted.

  “As you were, Captain. I’m going in to see the wounded men. Take good care of Colonel Davis.” He patted Davis’s shoulder.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Taylor plodded toward the huge, carved double doors of the sanctuary. He stopped short and took a few breaths of fresh mountain air. He then set his jaw and entered the cathedral.

  Private

  SAMUEL CHAMBERLAIN

  Buena Vista

  February 24, 1847

  He woke with a start, feeling himself about to fall from the saddle. Pulling himself upright on Soldan, he blinked at the moon-washed landscape and shook his head like a hound flapping its ears, as if that would help him stay awake. He had never felt so weary in his life.

  His company had once again, unfairly, been ordered to stand guard as vedettes through the night. Within ten minutes he had fallen asleep in the saddle. Now he had awakened to realize that he was no longer at his guard post on the plateau. Looking around, he found himself back at the Hacienda Buena Vista, where Soldan was drinking from the water trough fed by natural springs. He had slept right through his mount’s walk to the trough.

  “Shit!” he hissed. “Damn you, Soldan!”

  He was more than a mile from his assigned duty station. This was the sort of thing that could get a sentry bucked and gagged for leaving his post. Returning to the front, he had passed numerous corpses, many of which had been stripped by the Mexicans. In the moonlight he saw wolves and coyotes dashing through the killing zone and heard them fighting over the human meat.

  He reached the ravine he had been ordered to guard to find his messmate, Boss Hastings, asleep on his horse. The Texans had mastered the art of sleeping in the saddle without falling off. He reckoned he was getting pretty good at it himself. No one had even missed him. He noticed a picket line of lancers mounted on white horses, about two hundred yards away. He could hear them humming. One of their songs sounded like a mournful version of “Love Not.”

  He dozed off and on through the night.

  * * *

  When he awoke, he noticed the eastern sky around the crown of the mountain taking on a slate-gray glow. He shivered. Stars faded in the east. Dawn approached. The lancers who had straddled the white horses were nowhere to be seen.

  “Wake up, Boss,” he said, lashing Hastings lightly with the end of a rein.

  His friend groaned as he looked blankly over his surroundings. “Are they comin’?”

  “Not yet.”

  Looking across the mesas and barrancas, he expected to see and hear more activity from the Mexican Army. Had not the time for reveille come and gone? He squinted. The campfires that had been kept burning all night long in Santa Anna’s camp had dwindled to orange specks. Why would they let their fires burn down? Was this not the hour for brewing coffee?

  “Hey, Boss.”

  “What?”

  “It’s quiet over there. No ‘Viva Mexicos’ or ‘Viva Santa Annas’ this morning.”

  Hastings blinked hard, twisted his face, looked up at the sky. “The moon has set. It’s nigh to dawn. You’d think they’d be beating the long roll about now to come whip our asses.”

  They sat, listening to a breath of wind passing through the timber down in the ravine. Chamberlain cupped his hand behind his ear. Nothing.

  “We gotta go find General Taylor,” he said.

  “Damn tootin’,” Hastings replied.

  They reined their tired mounts northward and trotted across the high ground. Coming around the head of a ravine to the Northern Plateau, Chamberlain saw a cluster of men under an American flag, the headquarters tent, and the colors of May’s dragoons.

  “That looks like Taylor and Wool, both,” Hastings said.

  “Yeah, and Taylor’s whole staff.”

  They passed the first of the commands stationed in order of battle on the line. Chamberlain took note
of the battle flags of the Arkansas Volunteers—blue fields with white lettering. One said “Rackensack Is in the Field,” the other “Extend the Area of Freedom.”

  As he bounced along on Soldan under a gradually brightening sky, he happened to recognize the big, square boulder he had leaned against the day before yesterday, while sketching the terrain. He scarcely recognized the place now. Craters from artillery blasts pockmarked his surrounds. Wheel ruts left by gun carriages, limbers, and caissons crisscrossed the plain. Down in the gorges, flying lead had stripped branches of foliage as if a cyclone had passed through them.

  They trotted by nervous-looking volunteers from Indiana, Kentucky, and Illinois, all standing in line of battle, waiting for the Mexicans.

  As they approached Taylor’s headquarters, Chamberlain looked over his right shoulder to judge the rosy glow of the sky. Arriving within shouting distance, he saw Major William Bliss setting up a field desk, preparing for the day’s battle.

  He dismounted, enjoying the feeling of his own feet on the ground for a change. “Major Bliss, sir!” he said.

  Bliss looked up.

  Chamberlain saluted. “Private Chamberlain, Second Dragoons, reporting from guard duty, sir.”

  Boss Hastings saluted beside him. “Private Hastings, too, sir.”

  Bliss strolled over to the two troopers. He returned the salutes. “What have you to report?”

  “Sir,” Chamberlain began, “last night the Mexicans’ fires were burning bright. But this morning they’re burnt down to coals.”

  Bliss narrowed his eyes. “That’s your report?”

  “Major,” Hastings said, “we haven’t heard a peep out of them greasers in hours.”

  “A peep?” the adjutant said, seeming a bit annoyed.

  “Or a ‘viva’ or a jackass braying,” Chamberlain said.

  “Santa Anna’s fightin’ cocks ought to be crowin’ their asses off right now.” Hastings pointed to the reddening east.

  “Not a bugle, not a drum, not a whinny,” Chamberlain added.

  “Sir, we haven’t seen a soul, either. No lance points, no fancy feathered hats, no crossed white shoulder straps.”

  Bliss looked from one private to the other. “Stay right here.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

  Bliss marched swiftly to his mount and pulled his telescope from his saddle pouch. He peered through it toward the south for several long seconds.

  “General Taylor!” he said.

  Taylor turned away from General Wool. Both of the old warhorses looked grim, and none too confident, to Private Chamberlain.

  “What is it, Major?”

  “Sir, the Saint Patrick’s deserters have withdrawn from their hill.”

  Taylor judged the light in the predawn sky. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, sir. Positive.” He still had the optics to his right eye. “Sir, there’s movement over the far ridge on the road to San Luis Potosi!”

  “Movement?” Taylor said. “More of the enemy coming?”

  “No, sir. The movement seems to be filing away from us, not toward us.”

  Taylor and Wool looked at each other, astonished.

  The drum of hooves from a single galloping rider approached from the Saltillo road.

  “Here comes the heroic Colonel May,” Chamberlain said sarcastically to Boss Hastings.

  “Taylor must have sent him out to scout the enemy lines,” Hastings replied.

  Black Tom bounded to a stop in front of the generals and Lieutenant Colonel Charles Augustus May leaped from the saddle, saluting as he ran up to Taylor. To Private Sam Chamberlain, May’s eyes seemed about to bug right out of his head. And he was smiling.

  “Lieutenant Colonel May reporting, sir!”

  “Report!” Taylor demanded.

  “Sir! The enemy is gone! They have packed up and retreated, sir! They are marching south. They’re whipped!”

  Taylor spread his arms and turned to Wool. “By God, we whipped ’em, John!”

  The two old veterans fell together in a spontaneous embrace and patted each other’s backs as if beating on drums. Around them, Taylor’s staff erupted in joyful hurrahs.

  “Great day in the mornin’!” Hastings said to Chamberlain. “I never in my born days thought I’d see two generals hug!”

  Chamberlain threw his hat into the air and turned to the nearest boys from Illinois. “The Mexicans retreated!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “We’ve won the fight!”

  All down the line—through Hoosiers, Kaintucks, and Rackensackers—cheers arose and caps flew into the air like leaves in a whirlwind. Batteries fired salvos at nothing, and musket shots peppered the sky.

  Chamberlain patted Soldan on the neck. “It’s over, ol’ hoss!”

  The dread that had clutched him the past two days released its grip and allowed a flood of euphoria to envelop him in its stead. He filled his lungs with cool mountain air, turned his face to the morning sky, and let go the nearest thing to a Mexican grito that he could muster. It joined forces with some four thousand like ululations that echoed across the ridges and ravines and soared away up high, where Sam Chamberlain thought even the spirits of lost heroes could hear it, feel it, breathe it, and ride aloft on it—all the way to heaven’s heralded reward.

  Lieutenant

  SAM GRANT

  Gulf of Mexico

  March 1, 1847

  Grant stood at the prow of the three-masted packet ship, his hands firmly gripping the gunwale of the vessel. He took peculiar pleasure in the cold spray that splashed in his face and stung his eyes as the ship crashed into wave after wave on the rough Gulf of Mexico.

  The freighter, called the Lassie, had been built for commerce, not for comfort. For this voyage, she had been contracted by the United States government to move troops from the roadstead of Point Isabel, Texas, at the mouth of the Rio Grande del Norte, to the harbor of Antón Lizardo, Mexico, south of Veracruz. She had no passenger cabins. Officers and men rode down in the hold like so much freight. Some of the immigrant soldiers compared it to the coffin ships that had brought them to America. On this day, the vessel’s skeleton crew had furled all but her mainsails and a storm jib, but still she hurled herself across the rough Gulf on a raging northwester.

  Lieutenant Grant was hoping the showers of sea foam would somehow cleanse him by dashing away grisly memories of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterrey. The images from those battlegrounds would come to him at odd moments, for no reason at all.

  The one that haunted him the most, even in his dreams, was the recollection of stumbling upon that makeshift hospital in Monterrey. Inside, he had found Lieutenant John C. Territt suffering from a horrible, gaping belly wound. He had promised Territt that he would send help. But before he could find General Taylor to report the room full of injured men, Taylor had ordered the withdrawal of the two regiments advancing on the east side of Monterrey. Lieutenant Territt and the other suffering souls had fallen into the hands of the Mexicans, and they had all died of their gruesome injuries.

  He had promised Territt. He had failed. He wondered how Territt had felt, waiting for rescue, only to see enemy soldiers enter the room. For all he knew, the Mexicans might have bayoneted him on the spot.

  At night, Territt came to Grant in his dreams, holding his bowels to keep them from spilling out of his wound.

  “You promised, Sam. You said you would send help. I waited. No one came. You promised … You promised … You promised…”

  Another icy wall of seawater slammed into his face. Someone grabbed his shoulder. Fully expecting to see the ghost of John C. Territt, he wheeled about and recognized the face of his friend Lieutenant Sidney Smith.

  “Sam, what in the devil are you doing up here?” Smith shouted over the roar of wind and waves. “Have you gone mad?”

  “Yes,” Grant admitted. “What but madness would lure a man here?”

  His friend smirked and shook his head. “How many days shipboard have we endured?”<
br />
  “Five,” Grant said, spitting out a mouthful of spray that had salted his tongue, “and each day stormier than the day before.”

  “Five days on soggy hardtack and salt-cured pork. I didn’t join the army to be a damned sailor.”

  Grant braced for the next rolling crest. “I think I should like to sail around the world one day.”

  “You have gone mad.”

  “Not just to sail, but to see foreign lands. I’ve always wanted to travel.”

  “Well, I hear Veracruz is lovely this time of year.”

  Grant chuckled. Smith’s dry wit always cheered him. “It won’t be lovely after we get through with it.”

  “We’ll have to take the city before the yellow fever season sets in. I’m afraid el vomito would ruin your world travels, Gulliver.”

  “This is no pleasure voyage, Sidney.”

  Smith patted him on the shoulder. “I’m going below. Meet me later on the poop deck for high tea.”

  Grant’s smile slid back into a frown as Lieutenant Smith left him. He swiveled back toward the bowsprit. He had not found a dry enough moment to write to Julia in the five days he had sojourned on this wretched vessel. Julia was going to worry. Since leaving White Haven Plantation, Lieutenant Sam Grant had managed to send at least one letter to his fiancée by each mail. He was still days from the end of his odyssey aboard the Lassie, and then the invasion of Veracruz would begin. Julia would surely think him dead if she did not receive a missive for two weeks.

  How he missed her. How he wished this war would end so he could return to marry her. There had been a moment of euphoria, during the surrender of Monterrey, when a rumor had spread, announcing an end to the war. A new U.S. ambassador was on the way to Mexico City, Grant had been told, to negotiate the terms of peace. But the story had turned out to be a ruse by General Ampudia to trick General Taylor into agreeing to more favorable terms of surrender.

  Later, when he heard of Taylor’s victory at Buena Vista, he refused to believe the renewed predictions of peace. He would not be fooled again. The Buena Vista news had come to Point Isabel via express riders and steamboats. Zachary Taylor had pronounced a great victory for the United States. But Mexican civilian sources reported that Santa Anna also claimed to have won and had two captured six-pounders and a U.S. battle flag to bolster his assertion.