Ahead of the Army
Page 2
AHEAD OF THE ARMY
CHAPTER I.
FAR-AWAY GUNS
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The long surges of the Gulf of Mexico were beating heavily upon thesandy beach of Point Isabel, but the dull and boding sounds were not theroar of the surf. There came a long silence, and then another boom. Eachin succession entered the white tents of the American army on theupland, carrying with it a message of especial importance to all whowere within. It was also of more importance to the whole world than anyman who heard it could then have imagined. It spoke to the sentries attheir posts, and compelled them to turn and listen. It halted allpatrolling and scouting parties, making them stand still to utter suddenexclamations. More than one mounted officer reined in his horse tohear, and then wheeled to spur away toward the tent of General ZacharyTaylor, commanding the forces of the United States upon the Rio Grande.
In one small tent, in the camp of the Seventh Infantry, the first boomstirred up a young man who had been sleeping, and he may have beendreaming of home. He was in the uniform of a second lieutenant, and inone respect he was exactly like all the other younger officers and mostof the men of that army, for never before had they heard the sound of ahostile cannon. War was new to them, and they were not aware how many ofthem were now entering a preparatory school in which they were to betrained for service in a war of vastly greater proportions and for thecommand of its contending armies, on either side.
Up sprang the young lieutenant and stepped to the door of his tent. Hewas short, strongly built, and his alert, vigorous movements indicatedunusual nerve, vitality, and muscular strength.
"Grant, my boy," he muttered to himself, "that comes from the fort! TheMexicans are attacking! It's more than twenty miles away. I didn't knowyou could hear guns as far as that, but the wind's in the rightdirection. Hurrah! The war has begun!"
He was only half right. The war had been begun long years before byaggressive American settlers in the Spanish-Mexican State of Texas. Now,at last, the United States had taken up the same old conflict, and onlyabout half of the American people at all approved of it.
Grant did not linger in front of his tent. He walked rapidly away towhere stood a group of officers, hardly any of them older than himself.
"Meade," he demanded of one of them, "what do you think of that?"
"I think I don't know how long that half-finished fort can hold out,"responded Lieutenant Meade, and half a dozen other voices instantlyagreed with him as to the perils surrounding the small besiegedgarrison.
It was hardly possible, they said, that it could hold out until thearrival of the main army. This, too, would have to fight all the wayagainst superior numbers, but that was a thing which it could do, andthey were all wild with eagerness to be on the march, in answer to thesummons of those far-away guns.
There were no railroads to speak of, and only the first small beginningsof telegraphs in the year 1846. The news of the first fighting wouldtherefore be slow in reaching the President and Congress at Washington,so that they might lawfully make what is called a formal declaration ofwar. Much had already been taken for granted, but the Americangovernment was at that hour anxiously leaning southward and listeningfor the expected roar of Mexican cannon. It came, as rapidly as GeneralTaylor could send it. A swift despatch-boat, with all her canvas up,went speeding across the gulf to New Orleans. Thence, in the hands ofspecial couriers, it would gallop all the remaining distance. Meantime,the struggle at the Rio Grande frontier would continue, just as if allthe legal arrangements had been made, but it would be weeks beforeEurope could be advised of what was going on. All this, too, when thisfight over the annexation of Texas was about to lift the Republic into aforemost place among the nations. It was to give her all the Pacificcoast which she now has, except Oregon and Alaska, with the gold ofCalifornia and the silver of the mountains. Among its consequences wereto be the terrible Civil War, the abolition of slavery, the acquisitionof the Sandwich Islands, and many another vast change in the history ofour country and in that of these very European nations which were thenignorantly sitting still and thinking little about it, because they hadno ocean cable telegraphs to outrun the swift clipper ships.
There were couriers racing inland in all directions to tell the peopleof Mexico, also, that war had come, but the despatches of the generalcommanding their forces on the Texas border were carried by a swiftschooner from Matamoras, on the coast, directly to Vera Cruz. Amessenger from that port had before him a gallop of only two hundred andsixty miles to the city of Mexico. President Paredes, therefore, hadfull information of the attack on the American fort sooner than didPresident Polk by a number of very important days.
These were bright May days, and during all of them there were otherthings going on which had a direct relation to the cannon-firing and thesiege. For instance, all the commerce between Mexico and the rest of theworld was deeply interested, and so were all the warships of the UnitedStates, which were prepared to interfere with that commerce pretty soon,and shut it off. There were merchant vessels at sea to whose captainsand owners it was a serious question whether or not cruisers carryingthe Stars and Stripes would permit them to reach their intended portand deliver their cargoes. Whatever may have been the case with all therest of these vessels, one of them in particular appeared to be rushingalong in a great hurry at the very hour when Lieutenant Grant woke up sosuddenly and walked out of his tent.
She carried an American flag, somewhat tattered, and she was spreadingquite as much canvas as a prudent skipper might have considered safeunder the strong gale that was blowing. She was bark-rigged, of aboutfour hundred tons burden, and was headed westward in the NicholasChannel, off the northerly coast of the Island of Cuba. There was a highsea running, but the ship stood up well, and the few men who were ondeck could get about easily. Even a boy of apparently not overseventeen, who came to a halt near the mainmast, managed to keep hisbalance with some help from a rope. That he did so was a credit to him,and it helped to give him a sailor-like and jaunty air. So did his bluetrousers, blue flannel shirt with a wide collar, and the sidewise pitchof his tarpaulin hat. He might as well have remarked aloud that he wasone of those boys who are up to almost anything, and who think smallpotatoes of a mere storm at sea. Near him, however, stood a pair of men,either of whom might have felt as much at home under another flag thanthe one which was now fluttering its damaged bunting above them. Theshorter of the two was a very dark-faced gentleman of perhaps forty,with piercing black eyes. In spite of his civilian dress, he wore anexpression that was decidedly warlike, or soldierly.
"Captain Kemp," he said to his companion, "will you be good enough totell me why we are in the Nicholas Channel?"
"No, Senor Zuroaga," growled the large-framed, roughly rigged andgrim-looking sailor. "I'm cap'n o' this ship, and I don't giveexplanations. We've had gales on gales since we left port. One course isas good as another, if you're not losing distance. We'll reach Vera Cruznow three or four days sooner than we reckoned. All those war insurancerisks were paid for for nothing."
"I'm not so sure of that," was slowly and thoughtfully responded. "Notif one of Uncle Sam's officers should get a look into the hold of thisship."
"You're a Mexican, anyhow," said Captain Kemp, surlily. "You know enoughto keep your mouth shut. You don't really have to know anything aboutthe cargo. Besides, it was peace when we sailed. We shall make a safelanding,--if nothing happens on the way."
"Captain," said the Mexican, "it does not take long to make adeclaration of war when both sides are determined to have one."
"You're wrong there, Senor Zuroaga," replied the captain, emphatically."Mexico doesn't want a brush with the States. She isn't strong enough.The Yankees can whip her out of Texas any day."
"That is not the point at all," replied Zuroaga, sadly. "The fact is,the Texan Yankees want a war for revenge, and the American party inpower would like to annex a great deal more than Texas. PresidentParedes needs a war to keep himself in power and help him put on acr
own. Old Santa Anna wants a war to give him a chance to return fromexile and get control of the army. If we ever do reach Vera Cruz, weshall hear of fighting when we get there."
"Perhaps," said the captain, "but it will be only a short war, and atthe end of it the United States will have stolen Texas."
"No, senor," said Zuroaga, with a fierce flash in his eyes. "Alleducated Mexicans believe that Texas or any other of the old Spanishprovinces has a right to set up for itself. Almost every State hasactually tried it. We have had revolution after revolution."
"Anarchy after anarchy!" growled the captain. "Such a nation as thatneeds a king of some kind, or else the strong hand of either England orFrance or the United States."
"Mexico! A nation!" exclaimed Senor Zuroaga, after a moment of silence."We are not a nation yet. Within our boundaries there are severalmillions of ignorant Indians, peons, rancheros and the like, that areowned rather than ruled by a few scores of rich landholders whorepresent the old Spanish military grants. Just now President Paredes isable to overawe as many of these chiefs as he and others have notmurdered. So he is President, or whatever else he may choose to callhimself. The mere title is nothing, for the people do not know thedifference between one and another. Now, Captain Kemp, one sure thing isthat the Yankees have taken Texas and mean to keep it. They will fightfor it. One other sure thing is that General Antonio Lopez de Santa Annawill come back if he can, to carry on that war and supersede Paredes.If he does so, there is danger ahead for some men. He will settle withall his old enemies, and he loves bloodshed for its own sake. When hecannot be killing men, he will sit in a cockpit all day, just for thepleasure of seeing the birds slaughtering one another. I believe he hadmy own father shot quite as much for love of murder as for theopportunity it gave him for confiscating our family estates in Oaxaca."
"You seem to have enough to hate him for, anyhow, and I don't blameyou," replied the captain, as he turned away to give some orders to thesailors, and all the while the boy who stood near them had beenlistening.
"Well, Ned Crawford," he muttered to himself, "that's it, is it? Fatherdidn't seem to believe there would be any war. He said there would beplenty of time, anyhow, for this old _Goshawk_ bark to make the roundtrip to New York by way of Vera Cruz."
A great lurch of the ship nearly swung him off his feet just then, andhe was holding on very firmly to his rope when he added:
"He said I'd learn a great deal all the way, and I shouldn't wonder ifI'm learning something new just now. What do they mean by thatdangerous cargo in the hold, and our being captured by American ships ofwar? That's a thing father didn't know anything about. I guess I can seehow it is, though. Captain Kemp isn't an American, and he'd do almostanything to make money. Anything honest, I mean. How it does blow! Well,let her blow! Father said he was putting me into a first-rate commercialschool, and here I am right in the middle of it."
Ned was indeed at school, and he seemed likely to have unexpectedteachers, but so is every other wide-awake young fellow, just likeUlysses Grant and his crowd of young associates in their hot weather warschool over there on the Texas border.
Senor Zuroaga also had now walked away, and Ned was left to hold by hisrope, looking out upon the tossing sea and wondering more and more whatsort of adventures he and the _Goshawk_ might be so swiftly racing oninto.