Kearny's March

by Winston Groom

  On the American right more Mexican columns came on but were slowed by a patch of thick chaparral that they undertook to pick their way through. Whenever they formed and raised their rifles to the ready, the order “prepare to squat—squat!” was given by U.S. commanders and the rounds sailed overhead. The Mexicans, believing that the squatting Americans had actually fallen from their volleys, advanced thusly through the chaparral, stopping five times to fire more volleys and shouting “Bueno! Bueno!” until they came to within sixty yards of the First Missouri line, whose first rank suddenly rose up and blasted them in the face with a deadly sheet of fire, hitting dozens. The next U.S. rank quickly rose and fired, a rabble of Missouri coon hunters and squirrel barkers,‡ facing down the haute-coutured ranks of Mexican regulars and volunteers who outnumbered them three to one, until they, too, began to drop their weapons and flee back toward the pass. The enemy center also caved in, and an American party took their howitzer and turned it on them as they fled.

  Then the whole American line quickly formed and, cheering, advanced onto the rise where the Mexican army had first appeared and took and held this ground for symbolic sake. Meantime, Captain Reid and his cavalry returned to report that he had chased the Mexicans into the mountains, along roads “marked by streams of blood” from carrying off their wounded, adding that a band of Apaches who had been watching the proceedings from afar had begun to swoop down upon the Mexican stragglers.

  The whole Battle of the Brazito had taken no more than thirty minutes. Doniphan’s people counted forty-one dead Mexicans and enemy documents later acknowledged that another 150 had been wounded. Seven of the First Missouri had flesh wounds. At last, after all the marching down the trail and waiting at Santa Fe and the Camino Real, they’d been bloodied and had acquitted themselves well. It was a crushing victory for the Americans.

  Before dark they had collected a great amount of booty that the Mexican army had left in its flight—in addition to small arms and ammunition, blankets, horses, tack, and other military accoutrements, there were kegs of wine and cigars and stores of bread and beans. Doniphan and his fellow officers returned to their game of three-card loo, only to discover that the fabulous white stallion had run off in the confusion of battle. As night fell the men gathered around their fires beside the river and celebrated Christmas with dinner amid the chaparral and dead Mexicans. Private Robinson set the scene in his diary. “We ate their bread, drank their wine, and went to bed as comfortable as if no Mexicans were near.”

  Next morning the First Missouri took to the trail once more, half expecting a fight when they reached the pass. Instead, they were greeted by a man bearing bread, wine, and a white flag. He was the alcalde of El Paso del Norte, who begged Doniphan not to destroy his city. It was an easy request to grant, as it was not the practice of Americans to destroy cities, and as the regiment entered El Paso, “the people came from their houses giving us apples, pears, grapes, &c,” said Jacob Robinson. “We encamped in an old corn field amid plenty of burrs and sand. These Mexicans are a singular people; but yesterday, up in arms against us—today, every man said omega [amigo], or friend.”

  Doniphan had the Stars and Stripes hoisted over the town’s official building and settled his regiment in to await the arrival of his artillery. The slaves who had fought in the battle came to Doniphan with a request that they be allowed to form a company of their own in case of future fighting. The request was granted and as captain they elected the personal servant of one of the lieutenants.

  An important addition to the expedition was the arrival outside of El Paso of a fifty-four-year-old Scots-Irishman named James Kirker, described as “an unprincipled opportunist of legendary proportions.” For decades Kirker had lived on the frontier as a trapper and trader, known for shady political dealings and shiftable allegiances. In recent years he had been employed by the authorities in Chihuahua as an Apache hunter “at the rate of $40 per scalp, and half price for squaws and children,” and it was generally acknowledged that “he had succeeded in ridding at least the more populous areas of the state of Apache annoyance.”

  Kirker now offered his services to Doniphan as guide, if the Americans intended to march on Chihuahua City, the state capital, as he had intimate knowledge of the terrain and Mexican military capability. Kirker explained his duplicity by saying that the governor of Chihuahua had not paid him for a number of Indian scalps he had turned in. Doniphan agreed to take him on—somewhat reluctantly, for Kirker’s reputation had preceded him—but told his lead company commander to shoot the Irishman dead at the first sign of treachery.

  Doniphan kept the First Missouri in El Paso for six weeks, the length of time that it took for Major Clark to struggle his artillery out of the mountains and rejoin the regiment. During their stay the men had thoroughly enjoyed themselves, so much so that Doniphan had been obliged to outlaw gambling and drinking in the public streets. Three of the soldiers even took the time to marry Mexican señoritas, but another was convicted of “ravishing a woman.”

  On the eighth of February 1847, to use the descriptive words of Lieutenant Hughes, “The whole army, the merchant, baggage, commissary, hospital, sutler, and ammunition trains, and all the stragglers, amateurs, and gentlemen of leisure, under flying colors, presenting the most martial aspect, set out with buoyant hopes for the city of Chihuahua.”

  When final confirmation came that General Wool was not, and would not be, anywhere near Chihuahua, it was a bold decision for Doniphan to abandon his lines of communication and press forward, even if, with the reinforcements, his command now numbered twelve hundred. Scouts belonging to the Scots-Irishman Kirker reliably informed Doniphan that an army of about 3,500 Mexicans—regulars and militia, artillery and cavalry—had gathered in Chihuahua, rallied by Governor-General Angel Trias, who had informed them by proclamation that, among other unpleasant things, the American soldiers intended to “abolish the church, molest the women, and brand the men’s faces with the mark of Cain.”

  But Doniphan had his orders, and Kearny had said for him to go to Chihuahua City and meet up with Wool. Chihuahua City was 250 miles south, with two other jornadas to cross, the first sixty miles long, but much harder than the earlier one, and with many canyons, drifts, and hills where they might be subject to surprise attack. Doniphan therefore employed several mounted companies as cavalry to screen, reconnoiter, and report on enemy activity.

  They were taking all the traders with them, the Magoffins included, in 325 wagons. To provide additional firepower, 150 of the traders were organized into a battalion of two civilian infantry companies, plus the company of slaves. These men elected as their leader Doniphan’s old friend Major Samuel C. Owens. They were well supplied: while in El Paso the regiment had liberated some 20,000 pounds of gunpowder, lead and cartridges, cannon cartridge, grape and canister shot, four pieces of artillery, and various small arms—plus abundant stores of food, all properly bought and paid for in chits payable on the U.S. Quartermaster.

  Thus combobulated, they entered the first jornada and right away ran into trouble. The sand was so thin and powdery that the mules sank up to their knees and the wagon wheels to their hubs, so the men had to roll the wagons by hand. The pace was excruciating; over days they dumped out 8,000 pounds of flour and barrels of salt but the animals were still breaking down or dying from exertion and thirst and the going was so slow that consideration was given to abandoning the mission. Then, providentially … Well, let us turn once more to the lavender-tinged pen of now Captain Hughes: “But the God who made the fountain leap from the rock to quench the thirst of the Israelitish army in the desert now sent a cloud, which hung upon the summits of the mountains to the right, and such a copious shower of rain descended that the torrents came rushing and foaming down from the rocks, and spread out upon the plains in such quantities that both the men and the animals were filled. Therefore they stayed all night at this place where the godsend had blessed them, and being much refreshed, next morning passed out of the desert
.”

  On the eighteenth the regiment entered a country of such strange rock formations that the men speculated it must have been formed by the Great Flood of the Bible. It featured an exotic spot called Ojo Caliente, with a large natural basin where the troopers, including Colonel Doniphan, and later the women of the traders’ wagons, could at last wash away the dust and grime of the prairies and desert. The pool of the gushing natural spring was about 75 by 120 feet and a little above waist deep, with “crystal clear” water and a sparkling sandy bottom, and to top it off the water was geothermally heated “to about blood temperature,” which made for a perfect bath.

  It was just as well because next day they entered the second desert jornada, forty-five miles long, ringed in by snowcapped mountains and “containing neither wood, water, or grass.” As they pushed on, Doniphan’s reconnaissance, including Kirker’s men, reported large bodies of Mexican soldiers concentrating to meet them.

  On February 25 they left the desert and entered a grassy plain featuring a large lake beside which they camped and were watering their stock when suddenly they were assailed by a shocking and dangerous prairie fire, “which came bursting and sweeping terribly over the summits of the mountains, and, descending into the valley, united with a fire on the margin of the lake.” Flames roared twenty feet high, boomed like cannon shot through the tall, dried grass, and “threatened to devour the whole [wagon] train.” In the panic to get away, teamsters lashed the mules and oxen and mounted troopers dashed ahead while infantry ran afoot, but the fire was gaining as a powerful wind blew the conflagration in the same direction the army was traveling.

  “The column of flame, displaying a front of many miles, steadily advanced, raging and sweeping like a wave, more terrible than an army with banners,” said the Bible-loving Captain Hughes.§ “The ammunition wagons narrowly escaped. The artillery was run into the lake.”

  Doniphan and his entourage attempted to build a firebreak by riding into the lake and then trampling down the grass with their dripping horses, “but the flames passed over and heedlessly swept along.” Captain Reid, meantime, had his mounted troopers gallop two miles ahead, dismount, and chop down the grass with their sabers, creating a break thirty feet wide. Then they set fire to the grass on the windward side, which burned until it met the advancing wall of fire and, with one great, last explosive burst, exhausted itself for lack of fuel.

  So passed this horrifying tick of fate; at least they would not have come all this way to be roasted alive by a phenomenon. The quick-thinking action of Reid’s saved the train and the army, and in their profound relief the people parked their wagons on the scorched and smoldering ground to pass a dreamlike night, shaking their heads in awe and wonder as other, larger fires raged, flared, and boomed up and down the valley and mountainsides all around them. The day after the prairie fire, Doniphan’s cavalry reconnaissance reported a 4,000- to 5,000-man Mexican army drawn up for battle in a narrow pass at the Sacramento River, about twenty miles north of Chihuahua City. The American horsemen had scaled a tall butte a mile or so away and scanned the enemy position with telescopes. The position looked to be dangerous, if not impregnable; the encounter would become known as the Battle of the Sacramento.

  • • •

  The Mexicans had constructed heavy fortifications of earth and logs, complete with redoubts and redans, to protect their infantry, and their artillery was composed of sixteen pieces, ranging from small culverins, or wall cannons, to large nine-pounders. About 1,200 Mexican cavalry were in and about the encampment, including several hundred lancers. The enemy commander, Major General José A. Heredia, had selected this spot to throw back the U.S. invasion because it was the strongest possible position on the El Paso–Chihuahua road and a perfect trap for the arrogant Americanos. The only problem was that to spring it would require the American commander to come down the Chihuahua road.

  Because the regiment was in broken country it made the wagon train vulnerable to surprise attack, and Doniphan had devised a defensive scheme that was more or less an updated version of Macbeth’s Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane. The train, including the army’s wagons, now included nearly four hundred prairie schooners. Doniphan arranged these in four columns of one hundred wagons each. He set his artillery marching between the two outer columns and the infantry between the inside ones, protected from, if not impervious to, long-range shot—the whole affair was almost Roman in character. The mounted troopers rode at the head and rear, so that the cavalcade now slouched down El Camino Real like a great creaking tortoise which, if attacked, could immediately draw itself in and lash out with blazing cannons and rifles while the cavalry rode round to flank the enemy. It was reported that during its march on the morning of February 28 an eagle overtook the column, “sometimes soaring aloft and sometimes swooping down amongst the fluttering banners, followed all day and seemed to herald the news of victory. The men regarded the omen as good.”

  Just as he was supposed to veer into General Heredia’s trap, Doniphan swung his entire force off to the right, tortoise train and all, west of the Chihuahua road and into a dry gulch, then up onto the mesa, arriving at an angle completely contrary to what the Mexicans had anticipated.

  This required the Mexican commander to shift positions, forcing many of the units to come from behind their fortifications, which unsettled the soldiers. Leave it again to Hughes to set the scene: “Nothing could exceed in point of solemnity and grandeur the rumbling of the artillery, the firm moving of the caravan, the dashing to and fro of horsemen, and the waving of banners and gay fluttering guidons, as both armies advanced to the attack on the rocky plain.”

  About noon the Americans reappeared from behind a cerro in full view of the Mexican army, including a gallery of an estimated thousand spectators, “women, citizens, and rancheros—perched on the summits of the adjacent hills, watching the events of the day.” The opening gambit was a full-scale cavalry attack by General Pedro García Conde’s 1,200 horsemen, certainly an intimidating stratagem. But when they closed within a thousand yards, the artillery batteries of Major Meriwether Clark and Captain Weightman lashed out with such scathing fire that it destroyed the head of the column and the rest fled, leaving heaps of dead horses and the bodies of soldiers on the field.

  Next the Mexican guns opened up, beginning an artillery duel that was unquestionably won by the Americans. Even though they were badly outweighed in artillery, the batteries of Clark and Weightman managed to fire a relentlessly accurate combined twenty-four rounds per minute, which, according to an astonished Doniphan, actually “drowned out the sound of the Mexican guns.” Many of the First Missouri’s horses and mules were killed, and one man had both legs broken by a cannonball, but it was nothing compared to the carnage in the Mexican ranks where more than a hundred were killed and wounded.‖

  General García Conde at last pulled his army back behind its fortifications, whereupon Doniphan immediately ordered an attack by his entire force led by, of all things, the artillery, which was run out to the front escorted by cavalry. This textbook no-no worked like a charm, as the American guns began reducing one Mexican battery after the other into silence.

  In the meantime, a force of some three hundred lancers suddenly appeared in the rear of the American columns, among the traders’ wagons.a They were gallantly beaten back, however, by the merchants’ battalion and company of slaves, which then marched to the front to join in the attack on the main enemy position.

  This took place directly when Doniphan gave the order and about eight hundred of the Volunteers began an uphill march to close with the enemy. Normally, the force that commands the heights has a distinct advantage, but not in this case because the steepness of the ground prevented the Mexicans from depressing their remaining artillery pieces low enough to sweep the field. At one point a trooper who had been detailed to hold horses out of the range of fire threw down the reins of his seven mounts and grabbed his sword and rifle, exclaiming, “Hell, I didn’t come here to hold ho
rses—I can do that at home!” before rushing off to join the battle.

  When the First Missouri was within a quarter mile of the Mexican positions Doniphan ordered a cavalry charge by three companies of horsemen on a key enemy bastion, intended to break the enemy lines. About halfway there, however, the horsemen ran into such a heavy crossfire that the regimental adjutant ordered a halt. But the ubiquitous Captain Reid, “either not hearing, or disregarding the order, leading the way, waving his sword and rising in his stirrups,” roared, “Will my men follow me?” and with that the entire company charged up the hill at the gallop and took the battery and silenced the guns.

  They were too weak to hold the position, though, and a strong Mexican counterattack drove them off with several casualties, including Doniphan’s friend Major Owens, who was killed instantly along with his horse. Reid’s horse was shot from under him but he remounted and was about to escape when a deadly volley of American rifle fire coupled with grapeshot and canister from the U.S. artillery cleared the enemy redoubt and this time it was taken for good.

  Now the American troopers began pouring over the enemy entrenchments and a great slaughter commenced with bayonets, gun butts, knives, rocks, fists, gouging fingers, and strangling hands. General Heredia pitchforked more soldiers into the fray but it was useless; the Mexican army was beaten and no amount of encouragement or threat could rally them. Soon a general retreat turned into a rout in which the Americans “beat the Mexicans from their strong places and chased them like bloodhounds,” until nightfall put an end to it.

  When the butcher’s bill was tallied, 303 Mexicans lay slain on the field of battle and at least that many had been wounded, of which about a third later died. Fifty prisoners had been taken, including a brigadier general. The Americans suffered two killed and seven wounded, of whom three later died. It was one of the most lopsided victories in U.S. military history.