‘On their peculiar terms.’
‘Damned effective terms they were,’ Old Rough-and-Ready snapped. ‘Kill Mexicans.’ Then he added, in gentler tones: ‘Before we took them into the Union they had half the nations of Europe invitin’ them to join their empires, didn’t they?’
‘Granted, but now we’re talking about bringing them into the regular army, and frankly, sir, I don’t think they’d fit.’
‘Why not? If we swear them in and place reliable officers over them, like yourself, Cobb, they’ll do fine.’
‘But their clothes! They’re a rabble.’
‘Cobb, haven’t you noticed? I often go without a military uniform.’
‘Please, sir! Don’t encourage the Texans. They think they’re still a free nation. They’re dickering with us on the terms under which they will provide us with men.’
‘They’re what?’
‘The state government wants to negotiate.’
‘What in hell do you mean?’ Taylor thundered, and Cobb explained: ‘It says it may be willing to let you have two full regiments, but only on its own conditions.’ He summarized the limiting conditions under which all volunteers joined the regular army, plus a few galling things which Texas had added: ‘Variable terms of enlistment. Their own rate of pay. It’s just as if Prussia were offering us units, on Prussian terms.’
‘We’ll have none of that!’
‘Then you’ll have no Texans.’
‘You mean that at the end of three months, maybe, they could go home?’
‘They’d insist upon it. That’s the way they’ve always served.’
A colonel from Mississippi explained: ‘They’re farmers. They like to get back home to tend the crops. Of course, they’ll come back to the army when the crops are in … if they feel like it.’
Cobb added: ‘Nor do they wish to wear our uniform. Or use our horses. Or use our rifles. Each Texan feels he knows more about fighting than any man from New York possibly could, and he insists upon doing it his way, dressed in whatever makes him feel comfortable.’
Taylor grew impatient with the wrangling: ‘Don’t you suppose I know they’ll be troublesome?’ For some minutes, which he would in months to come remember ruefully, he toyed with the idea of rejecting them as ungovernable, but in the end he growled: ‘We’ll take the two regiments,’ and then he added words which Cobb would also remember with bitterness: ‘And since you seem to know so much about them, Persifer, you can serve as my liaison.’
It was under these slippery conditions that thirty-six Rangers of Captain Garner’s Company M joined General Taylor’s army of regulars, and their arrival caused Persifer Cobb only grief.
In these years the United States Army roster listed many soldiers bearing the unusual first name of Persifor, also spelled Persifer, and what accounted for its sudden popularity, or even its genesis, no one could say, but there was General Persifor Smith and Colonel Persifer Carrick and a smattering of Major Persifors This and Captain Persifers That. Ordinary privates bearing the name have not been recorded.
The Persifer Cobb serving under General Taylor came from a noble cotton plantation which comprised most of Edisto Island off the coast of South Carolina. He had been a tense, proper young gentleman of twenty when his father announced: ‘Any self-respecting Southern family ought to have a son in the army. Persifer, off to West Point!’ In that austere environment he had conducted himself honorably, and upon graduation into the regular service he strove to exemplify in thought and action the best of Southern tradition. He spoke with an excessive drawl and defended in both mess and field the highest traditions of Southern chivalry. But now, on the dusty fields of Texas, he was not a happy man.
The first source of his discomfort was that irritating adjective which preceded his rank. He was a colonel, one of the most proper in the national force, but he was not yet a full colonel; he was only a lieutenant colonel, rightfully convinced that he merited higher rank. The special nature of his displeasure manifested itself in his first letter home to his younger brother, who was overseeing the Edisto plantation during the colonel’s absence:
Rio Grande
30 April
Dear Brother Somerset:
General Taylor and his troops are encamped at a new fort on the north bank of this river opposite Matamoros, and we would be well prepared to meet the Mexicans had we not been joined recently by a civilian muster out of Texas, and a more disgraceful, unruly and downright criminal element I have rarely seen. They call themselves Texas Rangers, although I am informed that not more than ten percent have previously served in that informal service. They wear no uniform, no badges of distinction, so that we regular army men cannot separate a captain from a private, and discipline they know not.
General Taylor has made no secret of the fact that he did not want any Texas volunteers, but Texas, as you know, is now a state, having been an independent republic, and since its citizens, having once been members of a free nation, carry an exalted opinion of their own importance, local politicians forced their native sons upon us.
Well, the Texas Rangers are among us, and their presence must give the Mexican generals hope, for a more worthless collection of men one rarely sees. What purely galls us regular army men who have slaved in the colors for years to gain our promotions is that when the Texans come slouching into camp, they, like all volunteers, immediately hold an election, an election, mind you, to choose their company officers, and yesterday a Texan with never a day at military school rode into our camp announcing that the state of Texas had appointed him full colonel, and now he brazens his way about camp superior to me. I, a graduate of West Point with twelve years of arduous service behind me in all military specialties and all geographical areas, must take orders from a man who last week was herding cattle and has never heard of Hannibal or Marshal Ney.
I was requested by General Taylor, and of course accepted, to take under my charge the Company M of Rangers who are to serve as my scouts, and it will suffice to describe three of them to you. Captain Garner—captain, mind you, who was never lieutenant, just mysteriously captain—is enormously tall, enormously thin, with great flowing mustaches and a leather belt six inches wide. He wears whatever comes to hand, including a jacket which once served the Mexican army, for he says he took it from an officer he shot along the Rio Grande. Taciturn, mean-spirited, grimly silent when reproved, he stalks about like an avenging angel, taking orders from no one and always wanting to lead his men off to some foray under his own direction. In our regular army he would not last through sunset of the first day.
His chosen assistant, a lieutenant perhaps, but without rank, for the Rangers care little about such distinctions, is a slight young man of no more than twenty, although he claims twenty-six. I know him only as Otto, but he is unforgettable: small, not more than a hundred and forty, wiry, blond, silent, and with the brightest blue eyes. He never smiles, just looks right through you, and the other men consider him the best Ranger of the lot. What makes him stand out more than anything else is that he wears a garment they call in these parts a duster, a very light coat of linen and cotton which reaches from neck to boot top with only three buttons to fasten it en route. Otto’s is a pale white in color and is supposed to keep the dust off during long rides, but when he walks about our camp the duster makes him look like a little lost ghost, for his small feet seem scarcely to move under it as he steps. On his first day in camp I told him, rather sternly: ‘We do not wear clothes like that in this camp,’ and he replied: ‘I do,’ and off he waddled, looking so much like a duck that I had no further desire to discipline him.
The third Ranger is like no one you have ever encountered on Edisto. He calls himself Panther Komax, because of the panther-pelt hat he wears with the tail hanging over his left ear, and where he comes from no one can tell me, least of all he. When I asked, he said: ‘People get finicky if I bust another man over the head with an ax handle and run off with his horse and his wife.’ He would put the horse first. H
e mentions Georgia, Massachusetts and Missouri without actually claiming to have lived in any of them. I think of him mostly as hair, for he has a huge head of it, coal-black, which he grows long, tying it matted behind his ears with a deerskin thong. He wears a beard which almost hides his face, has heavy, menacing eyebrows and long black hairs growing out of the backs of his hands. He is over six feet tall, heavyset, and with the meanest look in his eye I have ever seen. It is appropriate that he should call himself Panther, because he really is an animal. He carries an enormously heavy rifle and a knife with a twelve-inch blade. The other Rangers tell me he was a member of that ridiculous Mier Expedition of 1842, when a rabble of Texans invaded Mexico, thinking they could defeat the entire Mexican army. Outnumbered ten to one, they were tricked into surrendering, and the disaster would have been long forgotten except that the Mexican general, Santa Anna, about whom I wrote you when we were in camp in Mississippi, ordered one Texas prisoner in every ten shot, and the decimation was to be determined by drawing beans from a clay pot. White bean, you lived. Black bean, you were shot on the spot. I asked Panther Komax if he had drawn a bean, and he said: ‘Yep, white.’ I then asked him if he had served time in Perote Prison, an infamous place somewhere deep in Mexico, and he said: ‘Yep, killed two guards and escaped.’ He is a frightening man, capable of anything, and when I asked him why he wanted to go back into Mexico with us, he said: ‘They is certain individuals down there as I would like to meet again.’
These are the men, the untrained ruffians, who are to be my scouts. I have not the slightest hope of disciplining them or converting them into regular army members. I do not look forward to leading such riffraff into Mexico, but just before starting this letter I saw my three chosen Rangers coming at me from a distance, lanky Captain Garner on the left, big, burly Panther Komax on the right, and little-boy Otto in his long, flapping duster in the middle, a head or more shorter than his companions, and as I watched them come at me I thought: God preserve the officer who attempts to lead those fellows, and God preserve doubly any Mexicans they meet, for I have learned an interesting fact from my orderly: ‘This kid Otto, his father and uncle was killed by Mexicans, his mother and aunt by the Comanche. He’s afraid of nothin’. Just starts comin’ at you and never stops.’
I am not happy in Texas and shall feel greatly relieved when we finally cross into Mexico.
Your brother,
Persifer
With his reconnaissance and cavalry problems solved, General Taylor was able to deploy his inferior number of troops into excellent arrangement, especially his heavy guns, and at Palo Alto on 8 May 1846 and Resaca de la Palma on the following day, gained crushing victories which sent the Mexicans fleeing in disarray back across the Rio Grande. Persifer Cobb, who was cited in dispatches for his personal bravery, gave most of the credit to his infamous Texans:
Somerset, there can be no glory like the smoke of battle on a hard-won field. General Arista, seeking to cut our supply lines, brought his troops deep into the Nueces Strip, where in a two-day battle involving thousands we taught him a lesson. I was commended for turning the enemy’s right flank in a hot and dusty business. Rarely have I known a day of such blazing sun and such constant sweat. It was no parade exercise, and had not our artillery provided a stout performance, we might have lost.
The Mexicans fought with a valor we had not expected, but what amazed me was the skill of my Texans, for I believe that they can, at full gallop, deliver a greater concentration of fire than any other troops in world. An officer on our staff who knows cavalry history told me: ‘I would choose these men above Rupert’s Cavaliers, or the best Cossacks, or the Turkish Mamelukes or even the Moss Troopers who used to surge out of the bogs of Scotland to ravage the English towns.’
At the height of the battle yesterday I understood what he meant, for I was riding with this boy Otto at my side, his white duster flying behind, and he was so skilled with his various arms that after we had routed the Mexican cavalry I talked with him. His name is Macnab, which means that he comes of good stock, which counts for something, I think. When we started our run at the enemy he had two rifles, two pistols, two daggers and two revolving pistols of a new make. He told me they were called Colts, of the Texas design, made in Paterson, New Jersey, and he showed me how they came completely apart into three separate pieces: barrel, a revolving cylinder containing five bullets, and stock.
This young fellow could fire ten shots with his two Colts while I fired one with my old-fashioned pistol, and he was so dexterous that he could reload without dismounting and then fire ten more times. When you have twenty such men at your elbow, you can turn any Mexican attack. Tonight I am not displeased with my Texans, except that when you see twenty of them dashing ahead, each on his own, each wearing his own outrageous interpretation of a military uniform, you do wish that they’d had some proper training.
Postscriptum: Macnab, the little killer, just came to me with an astonishing request. He wants to quit the army temporarily, and for what reason do you suppose? To get married! Yes, he told me shyly that he had known his intended for some years, a fine German lass. ‘And has she accepted your proposal?’ I asked, and he surprised me by saying: ‘I haven’t spoken to her yet.’ I asked if it wasn’t risky, riding so far to court a lady when the outcome was uncertain, and he astounded me by confessing: ‘I mean, we have never spoken.’ ‘Not one word?’ I asked, and he said: ‘Not one.’ I asked: ‘Then how do you know she’ll say yes?’ and he replied: ‘I know,’ but he did not explain how he knew.
Before he left camp I asked if I could rely upon his returning to duty, and he said rather grimly: ‘I have several scores to settle with Mexico. I’ll be back.’ Strange thing, Somerset, I already miss him, for I have found him to be a man I want at my side when the fighting begins.
One afternoon when the Allerkamps returned from a visit to Fredericksburg, Emil said a surprising thing: ‘They told me that one of the Rangers on leave from chasing Mexicans with General Taylor has taken a room at the Nimitz place.’
Mrs. Allerkamp happened to be looking at Franziska when this was said, and she noticed that her daughter stiffened, hands pressed close against her dress, and when Ludwig asked: ‘What young man?’ and Emil said: ‘His name is Macnab,’ Mrs. Allerkamp saw that Franziska blushed furiously, even though, to her mother’s knowledge, she had never even spoken to the young man.
The name Macnab caused Ernst, the now-and-then Ranger, to say: ‘What a wonderful fighter he is! Nothing scares him!’ Now Ludwig spotted his daughter’s extremely flushed face and asked her sternly: ‘Franza, what’s the matter?’
Sitting very straight, her little body drawn tightly together as if facing an assault, her hands in her lap, Franziska said softly: ‘He has come to marry me.’
Her statement created an uproar: ‘You’ve never met the man!’ ‘How do you know what he’s here for?’ ‘Who ever heard of such an idea?’
But now the great force of character which had been building in this quiet young woman—product of her bravery during the ocean crossing, of her ceaseless work around the farm, of her unwavering love for a young man to whom she had never spoken—manifested itself, and she fended off her entire family: ‘He’s come to marry me, and I shall marry him.’
This was a challenge which her father could not ignore: ‘Have you and he had some arrangement?’
She blushed even more at the suggestion, set her jaw more firmly, and said: ‘No. How could we?’
‘Then it’s true? You’ve never spoken to him?’
‘Never.’
‘Then how can you say such a thing? That he’s come to marry you?’
‘I know and he knows.’ She was so resolute that her father gave up, but now her mother took over.
‘Isn’t he Catholic?’
‘He is,’ Ernst interrupted. ‘But I think he did it only to get land.’
‘He’s Irish, isn’t he?’ Thekla asked.
‘Yes, but I don’t think all Irish have
to be Catholic’
‘I think they do,’ Mrs. Allerkamp said, and she looked fiercely at her wayward daughter.
Ludwig was not satisfied: ‘You still say he’s come here to marry you?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how can you possibly know that?’
Now Emil interrupted: ‘I heard that someone had taken papers on the land just west of ours.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ Ludwig snapped. This conversation was becoming too involved for his fatherly tastes.
‘Someone, I don’t remember who, said that papers from the land office in Austin had been forwarded.’
‘Do you think it could have been this Macnab?’
Emil broke in again: ‘He’d be a good man to have on our frontier against the Comanche. He knows how to handle them.’
Such talk disturbed Ernst and irritated Ludwig, who rose from the table, stalked out of the kitchen, saddled his horse, and rode in to town, for he was not a man to delay unpleasant obligations.
When he reached the wide and dusty main street of Fredericksburg, he reined in at the Nimitz place, where the family was building an extension to their small house in order to open a formal inn for the convenience of the travelers who would soon be coming this way. There he asked: ‘Have you a lodger named Macnab?’ Without waiting for permission, Allerkamp strode to the door, pushed it open, and stood face-to-face with Otto Macnab.
‘Are you Macnab?’
‘The same.’
‘You the one who rode with Ernst in the Nueces Strip?’
‘The same.’
‘And you’ve been with General Taylor at the big battles?’
‘I have.’
With both men still standing, Ludwig asked: ‘Have you come to marry my daughter?’
Otto had not intended that his proposal be broached in this abrupt manner; he had been in the vicinity three days, scouting his newly acquired land, satisfying himself that it abutted the Allerkamp acres, and learning to his relief that Franziska was not already married. With his courage increasing daily, he had decided that tomorrow he would let Ernst know he was in the vicinity and perhaps in a day or so he could meet Franziska herself. Speaking to her parents could come the following week. But here stood her father, far ahead of schedule.
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