by Drew McGunn
Sergeant Julio Mejia, the ranking non-commissioned officer since Sergeant Leal’s departure the previous day, stood on the platform with the captain, looking through the same opening in the fort. After staring through the spyglass, the captain handed it over to his sergeant. “’Twas considerably nice of yon Mexican general to announce his war yesterday with his wee artillery barrage.” Neill’s soft lowlands Scots brogue was thick with emotion, knowing his little command had endured the first day without casualties.
Mejia squinted, looking through the spyglass, sweeping the device along the river. “Yes sir. But Madre de Dios! I wish they had stayed on their own damned side of the river.”
He watched a long column of infantry a mile or more upriver of the fort, waiting for a couple of flat barges to haul the soldados across the river. Too deep to ford, except at the crossing between the two towns, the Mexican general had decided to build rafts and cross over upriver.
Neill laughed, a tinge of bitterness to it. “At the very least, they could have had the decency to cross at the ford, where they would have been inside the range of our rifles.”
Below them, most of the other seventy men within the fort, sheltered along the interior walls, which faced the river. A half-dozen stood sentry duty, keeping a watchful eye on the Army of the North, as it crossed into Texas, too far out of range for the handful of men to contest the invasion.
***
In hindsight, spending the previous day attempting to compel the surrender of the fort with his artillery was likely a mistake. Too much powder and shot had been consumed that might have been better used later in the campaign. After more than a quarter century practicing the art of war, a victory won without casualties was much preferred to one in which his own army bleeds. Joining the advanced brigade on the northern side of the river, Adrian Woll stood under the canvas command tent observing the crossing. Each transit of the two boats unloaded another fifty men.
As he sat under the tent, he saw the brigade commander approaching, “Luis, will you join me for lunch? My cook is preparing a brace of chickens donated by the good people of Nuevo Laredo. In celebration of crossing the Rio Bravo, I’m opening a special bottle of wine from one of my favorite vintners in Bordeaux.”
Brigadier General Luis Guzman sat on a camp stool opposite from Woll. “Thank you, Adrian. I would be obliged. A good wine might improve my mood.” Woll watched his subordinate, who sipped the fine French wine while watching the flat bottom boats ferry his men across the Rio Bravo.
“They’re not going to get into position any earlier by willing it to be so, Luis. We’ll take the remainder of the day to position your brigade around the fort. Tomorrow morning, we’ll give the norteamericano pirates the opportunity to surrender. If they refuse, then we’ve brought up some shells from Monterrey. One way or the other, we’ll bring them to heel.”
Guzman set the empty glass on the camp table between the two, and ruefully chuckled. “Was I that transparent? I’m eager to have this little stretch of the Rio Bravo behind us. San Antonio is the real objective.”
Woll nodded knowingly. “And we’ll get there in good time, my friend. Did you know I have been receiving regular reports from patriots still living among the Anglos and the Mexican traitors there and we are catching them with their pants around their ankles, Luis. General Travis and all but one of his companies is out west. Let your mind dwell on that. When we get to San Antonio, we’ll find but a single company of regulars to oppose our entire army.”
After accepting another glassful of wine, Guzman said, “I have heard they are foolishly trying to capture Santa Fe. A bunch of bastard pirates have scant hope of seizing our jewel of the north.”
Feeling the effects of the wine, Woll waved his glass before his subordinate. “Don’t be too quick to gainsay these pirates. You weren’t there when they defeated his Excellency six years ago. I was. General Travis is an able opponent. It wouldn’t surprise me if we wind up trading towns with the Texians. The thing is, San Antonio is far more important to these so called Texians than Santa Fe is to Mexico.”
The advanced brigade and a battery of artillery were across the river by twilight and the fort was barricaded off from the north. Wary of the Texian rifles, the three regimental commanders placed their loose cordon a half mile around the Texian fort.
***
The next morning dawned gray, a light drizzle falling. The men inside the fort took shelter under tent halves and waterproof tarps. Captain Neill had managed a few hours of sleep during the night, but any further thoughts of rest fled when he saw Sergeant Mejia crouching beside him. “I’ve been up on the parapet this morning, sir, and it’s about what we saw last night. The Mexicans have us surrounded.”
Neill scrambled from beneath the damp woolen blanket and hurried over to a ladder, which led to a narrow parapet facing north, into Texas. He saw the early morning campfires burning in the distance. Mejia followed and as the two looked to the north, he said, “A word with you, sir.”
Neill buttoned his jacket up to the collar, trying to keep the damp chill at bay. “Is it about the men?”
Mejia turned away from the Mexican encampment and sagged against the wall. “Yeah. They’re pretty unhappy to be trapped behind these walls. If it comes to a battle, they know we’ll be overrun. There must be more than a thousand men on the other side of these walls. A battle will only have one outcome.”
Neill shot him a disapproving look. “No doubt that’s so. While there might only be two courses of action available to us, Sergeant, we’re Texas’ first line of defense. It’s true, when whoever is in command of the Mexican army over there gives terms, we could take them and become prisoners. We’d be the first Texians captured by Mexico since Texas crushed Santa Anna’s army back in ’36. The other choice, is to sell our lives and bleed the Hell out of Woll’s army.”
As though in agreement with Neill’s assessment, the weather remained overcast and gray even after the light rain passed. The Texians in the fort stayed below the walls, as a brisk north wind knifed through wet clothes. Neill looked heavenward, and thought the weather summed up his command’s hopeless position as an outpost of his country’s sovereignty.
The sky had been lightening for more than an hour when from the Mexican line an officer approached, in his red and green lancer uniform. Had the sun been shining, no doubt it would have gleamed off his polished buckle and buttons, Neill thought. Instead, as the officer approached, his black handlebar mustache drooped, and he appeared miserable, still wet from the earlier rain. A white flag was tied to his sword. He stopped around a hundred feet from the fort.
In passable English, he shouted, “You norteamericanos, you are invaders, interlopers in a land that does not belong to you. By order of Major General Adrian Woll, you are ordered to lay down your arms and surrender. If you do so, he guarantees your lives. You will be taken to Veracruz and repatriated to the United States. Failure to accept these conditions, and any survivors may find mercy in short supply.”
Mejia’s rifle rested on top of the earthen wall and he looked toward Neill. “Let me put a bullet between his cocky, Centralist eyes, Captain.”
Neill wagged his finger in front of his sergeant, “We’re not going to start killing anybody under a flag of truce, Sergeant,” then he softened his voice, “as tempting as it may be.”
He turned back toward the Mexican officer and called back, “Ten minutes! We’ll give you an answer in ten.”
Hearing that, the officer wheeled around and galloped back across the wet field to the Mexican encampment.
Neill climbed down into the center of the fort, he called for the soldiers to assemble around him. Every eye was fixed on him, waiting to hear what he had to say. “They want us to surrender, boys. I don’t know much about this General Woll, but it could be that he’s an honorable man. But we know what kind of man Santa Anna is, and he’s the head honcho of Mexico again. We saw how he treated prisoners when he crushed the revolts in Mexico back in ’36. Woll p
robably would attempt to honor any surrender today. But what about tomorrow? If I could be sure we could all march out of here and be free to go back to the States, I might be tempted to do it, even if it meant I’d never be able to hold my head high again.”
The men surrounding him nodded in agreement. Despite the air of forlorn hopelessness, there was a palpable fear of what would be said of them if they left.
Neill’s smile was sad and matched the desperateness they felt. “What’s it to be, boys? Do we stand and fight or do we take General Woll up on his offer?”
From more than seventy throats there was a roar of agreement, “We fight!”
Neill led his men back onto the fort’s parapets, where they stood protected by the earthen walls, waiting for destiny. Fifteen minutes after riding away, the officer rode back across the field. When he was three hundred feet away, Neill turned to Mejia, “Give him our answer, Sergeant.”
The stocky Tejano sergeant cocked the rifle’s hammer back and checked the percussion cap. The rifle was ready. He raised it to his shoulder, aimed and fired. The bullet kicked up dust only a few inches in front of the officer’s mount. They watched as the horse, startled by the bullet smacking the ground, bucked and nearly threw the officer. An accomplished equestrian, he dropped his sword and used both hands to bring his mount back under his control. He patted the horse on the neck, as he glared at the walls of the fort. Sweeping down, he grabbed his sword from where it fell in the grass and untied the white flag from the weapon, letting the cloth flutter to the ground, as he trotted back to the Mexican encampment.
***
When the rider returned to the camp, the Army of the North stirred to life. Woll waited for his orderly to bring his horse to him, certain that from the fort, the bevy of activity must look like an ant mound that had been disturbed, soldiers rushing about. But out of the apparent chaos, the three regiments of the first brigade assembled. Each regiment had a company of Cazadores, or light infantry assigned to it. Woll ordered them deployed ahead of his infantry. They were there as a precaution. He couldn’t imagine the soldiers sallying from the fort, but he’d learned not to take things like that to chance.
The soldiers of the first brigade were his men, and he wouldn’t casually throw their lives away with a frontal assault across a half mile. Not when he had a battery of field artillery. Sitting in the saddle, Woll called to the artillery officer, “You may begin.”
The officer saluted and returned to his guns. After a few minutes, Woll heard his cry, “Fuego!” The gun recoiled, and the shell flew across the distance. It exploded short of the fort. A couple more ranging shots were fired from the Mexican line and they, too fell short. Woll ordered his Cazadores forward, to screen the artillery, as they too moved closer to the fort.
Once the guns were moved forward a couple of hundred yards, they were reloaded, and they fired at the fort.
***
The first few rounds fired toward the fort had detonated short of the walls. Captain Neill watched the light infantry advance in a thin skirmish line while the field pieces were rolled forward by the gunners. As the enemy reloaded the guns, several riflemen sniped at the Cazadores. At more than five hundred yards, it was an extreme range.
As the gunners raced to reload their guns several hundred yards away, Neill cringed. He feared, these rounds wouldn’t fall short of their target. The first shot screamed toward the fort. He ducked behind the earthen rampart, and felt the earth shake as the shell exploded against the embankment. The next couple of shells flew over the fort, plunging into the Rio Grande.
Another shell sent dirt skyward as it gouged a small hole into the earthen wall. Mejia joined him at the embrasure, “We gotta do something, Captain. They’ll eventually get lucky and if they get lucky enough, we’re done for.”
Neill nodded agreement when another shell exploded above the embankment, sending a rain of iron fragments raining into the dirt. Mejia scampered down the ladder, returning a few minutes later, dragging one of the company’s newer recruits. Neill noticed the newness of the soldier’s uniform. The butternut jackets his soldiers wore, as they aged, tended to fade to brown. His black, wide-brimmed hat was unfaded. When he and Mejia joined Neill, the young soldier lifted the brim of his hat, to get a better look at the enemy’s guns. The soldier’s strawberry-blonde hair and freckled face made him look younger than his years.
Neill pointed toward the artillery, “Do you think you can shoot any of those gunners, Smith?”
Private Jarvis Smith, a recent immigrant from Kentucky, leaned against the embrasure and studied the gunners servicing their field pieces in the distance. With an open smile on his face, he whistled. “Hot damn, Captain. That’s a far piece.”
Another shell exploded against the wall, closer than Neill would have liked, and dirt showered down on the three men. Neill pointed toward the guns, “All you can do is try.”
He watched the young soldier as he leaned against the embrasure and aimed his rifle through the wide opening. He swept his hat from his head and sighted downrange. Then he picked up a handful of dirt and let it fall, gauging windspeed. He adjusted the aim, fixing a spot several feet above his target. Ready, he aimed, holding his breath. Slowly he exhaled then fired. Neill stared intently through the spyglass and jumped when he saw the bullet strike a ramrod one of the loaders was holding.
Smith frowned. “I thought I had him. Wind must have kicked up.” He reloaded his rifle and went through the same ritual. This time he knocked the hat from the artillery captain’s head, causing the officer to scurry behind the line of guns. On the fourth round, he dropped a gunner, shot through the head, who had been bending over the sights on the cannon, sending a reddish mist into the air. Neill and Mejia jumped up and down, praising the shot and pounding the young soldier on the back.
As he reloaded, Neill yelled, “Not bad, Private Smith. Show me it wasn’t just luck!”
Three shots later, he dropped another gunner.
***
General Woll and his staff officers moved further back after the second gunner had been killed by the Texian sniper. Six hundred yards would have been an impossible shot for one of his own Cazadores with the English Baker rifles they carried. He could admire such skill. But that didn’t stop him from ordering all his guns to focus on that one point on the wall, from where the rifle was fired.
Two more men died serving their guns before a shell detonated on top of the embrasure.
***
His ears were ringing when he picked himself up from the ground. Sergeant Mejia had been watching Private Smith shoot, when the world turned upside down and he found himself flung to the ground in the center of the fort. Mejia tried standing but his leg was numb. He looked down and saw a thin splinter sticking out from his thigh, dying his pants with his blood. He hobbled to his feet and put pressure on the injured leg. The numbness was fading, replaced by intense pain. But he was relieved he could still stand on it.
As his hearing returned, he heard people shouting and noticed several soldiers huddled in a circle nearby. He limped over to them and saw what they were looking at. He frowned, shoulders sagging when he saw the broken body of Captain Neill, blood pooling around him, staining the ground on which he lay. One of the company’s lieutenants was throwing up, next to the lower half of a body, all that remained of Private Smith.
Neill’s second-in-command was Lieutenant Connors, a quiet unassuming officer who largely left the running of the first platoon to Sergeant Mejia. With Neill dead, Mejia knew the men needed to see the Lieutenant take firm command and restore order within the walls of the fort.
As he tottered over to the officer, the world seemed to come to an end, and he was violently thrown to the ground again. A shell exploded directly over the fort, throwing shrapnel across the fort’s interior. Mejia fell hard on his injured leg. He screamed in agony as the splinter dragged across the ground, nearly causing him to lose consciousness. He swallowed several gulps of air, trying to push the pain and nausea
away. His injured leg was soaked, and he grasped it, trying to find any more injuries.
He opened his eyes, and saw his leg was covered in red and gray matter. Lieutenant Connor lay at his feet, a fragment from the shell had clipped the top of his head, shearing it neatly off, as if cut by a surgeon’s blade.
Enraged, Mejia screamed, “Mierda!” At least a dozen men had been hit, and those who were injured were writhing in agony.
Torn between rage and grief, he looked around the fort’s interior. The officers were dead. He was the ranking non-commissioned officer. Could the men fight on? A few men were scrambling up ladders to the rifle platforms, but many were still shell-shocked from the explosion, and the wounded were bleeding, crying out in pain. Mejia staggered to his feet and saw less than half the men were in any condition to fight.
With every step toward the ladder, blood dripped from the splinter, still embedded in his leg. He moved slowly, as though in a fog, climbing each rung of the ladder, one at a time, his injured leg quivering with pain. When he reached the platform, he tied a white shirt around the barrel of a rifle and with tears streaming down his face, raised it into the air.
***
Across the south Texas plain the white banner fluttered in the breeze. General Woll turned to the artillery officer. “Cease firing, Captain.”
Woll beckoned the cavalry officer who had earlier delivered his ultimatum. “Return to them, Captain. I’m feeling magnanimous. If they surrender immediately, I will offer them the same terms as before.”
The officer warily stared at the General. “Sir, do you not worry that his Excellency, the president will countermand the orders?”
Woll snapped his fingers, “I am here, and he is in Mexico City. He can do nothing about my orders today.” When the cavalry officer’s scowl deepened, he clarified. “And if he changes the order later, I won’t be able to do anything about it then.”