The Indian-fighting captains ranged through the thick border monte, or brush. They laid ambushes in the ebonal. They popped in and out of the chaparral; they cut Union communications and supplies. Ford had the advantage of position, and greater mobility. Too much of the Union army was sweating, bluecoat infantry, fighting in a burning, almost tropical country. The Union cavalry—Davis's small force, and Vidal's partisans, the last deserters from the gray—fought well, but were both outnumbered and outclassed.
In April, torrential rains fell. This did not at once improve the grass, but it turned the Rio Grande Valley into a steaming hell. Wet and hungry, tired and sodden, Ford's cavalry lived in the brush; for ten solid days of rain they pushed their way toward Ringgold Barracks. They took Los Angeles, Los Ojuelos, and Comitos. The Federals evacuated Rio Grande City without a fight.
Now, Ford consolidated, while a cavalry screen protected his front and eastern flank. He rode into Mexico to make sure his other flank was secure. He seized cotton he found and sold it for coin. The silver bought food. He established working relations with Mexican commandants around Camargo, and thus closed the border to Vidal's raiders, who used the river as a shield. He put liaison officers with Cortinas, including a man who had served as a lieutenant colonel in Juárez's army. He employed another officer to purchase guns from Union deserters south of the border. With Granville Ouray, he visited Matamoros personally and dickered with Cortinas for cannon.
During this time, he got no support from the Confederacy. A thread of discord is visible even after a hundred years. The Confederate establishment had arms, men, and supply in south Texas; Waul's Legion, under Steele, ran an encampment at Gonzales. But Ford got nothing from Duff, or Bee, or Slaughter, except trouble.
The establishment issued orders taking some of his troops away. He had Magruder's sanction, but Magruder could not make his own brigadiers like Ford, or help him. The brigadiers detested Rip Ford and his whole ragtag army.
Troubles in consolidation and supply immobilized the Cavalry of the West for six weeks. Ford took the field again in June. He was burning with fever and reeling in the saddle. At Ringgold Barracks his old malaria returned.
The next weeks required a superhuman will. Ford held on; he not only held on, but he won the hearts of all the common soldiers in his command. Carrington, a captain in his service, wrote that the troops respected their colonel, and would follow him to Hell. Many of Ford's officers, educated men, seem to have been less enthusiastic.
By June 21, Ford was about thirty miles west northwest of Brownsville. He had rolled the Federals back almost two hundred miles. But he had to clear Brownsville and Fort Brown, the principal port of entry, the key prize. Then, on a red-dawn morning, the Cavalry of the West struck Davis's 1st Texas at Las Rucias ranch house. Captain James Dunn, leading the vanguard, was enveloped by the 1st Texas's Companies A and C. Under heavy fire, Dunn led a charge directly into the enemy. Showalter's men, with Cater and Refugio Benavides, went in with him. The engagement became general, in a sodden downpour.
The Union cavalry fought desperately. They believed that the Texans, considering them renegades, would show no mercy. They were outnumbered by the approximately 250 Confederates engaged, and bent back across the adobe brick ranch headquarters. Just before Giddings's battalion came up, they broke and ran. Many were cut down, about thirty captured. Others dashed to the border and swam to safety in Mexico. The victory was complete; only eight Union cavalrymen escaped to report to General Herron. Ford took horses, saddles, wagons, guns, food. He lost three dead, including the gallant old Ranger, Dunn.
Ford waited for Herron to retaliate, but nothing happened. Apparently, the enemy infantry was not going to sally into the brush.
Ford now pulled in his whole command, assembling about 1,500 men. He had new supplies and guns, and bullet pouches filled with shiny lead. On July 19, the Cavalry of the West moved toward Brownsville again. Ford could not make it to his saddle without help, but once astride, he stayed. He led a grim, gray, ragged, but now thoroughly dangerous army east.
His ranks were full of fifteen-year-olds and old men. But this was a frontier-raised generation; its boys were lean and tough, with muscles developed early. Some of them were sick, but if Old Rip Ford could sit in his goddam saddle, so could any man. On July 22, they struck the Yankees again, this time at Ebonal. They went into the enemy with a shrieking, rebel roar.
They drove the Union screening forces precipitously back into the Brownsville city limits.
Now, Ford had outrun his supply line again; it was upriver. Cortinas, playing his own scrupulous game, refused to do business within reach of Federal guns. But he did do business some miles northwest. Ford waited, throwing out a cavalry screen. He had no intention of charging into Union trenches and big guns.
On July 25, he advanced again, this time with Showalter's Arizonans leading the way on foot. Contact was made, but little damage was done on either side. A sort of impasse arose. Ford had no intention of charging into the deadly Union cannon, while the Federal officers refused to sally beyond the protection of their own guns.
At this time, civilians began to cross the river to fight with Ford. One old man was a veteran of San Jacinto.
Then, on July 30, Dan Showalter made a reconnaissance and found Brownsville strangely quiet. The Cavalry mounted and rode in. They found the town in possession of a group of armed Confederate civilians; the Federals had gone. A trail of scattered equipment led toward the coast from Fort Brown.
Ford detached a force to pursue and harass; these horsemen drove the Union rearguard in upon the retreating main body before breaking off. The Union army reached the Gulf and splashed across Boca Chica to Brazos Island, a sand strip some four miles long. Without fighting a mass engagement, with only one pitched battle and with few casualties, John Ford had driven a superior force from the Rio Grande. The Union army embarked, leaving only about 1,000 soldiers under Colonel H. M. Day to hold Brazos Island.
Ford saw the Stars and Bars lofted over Brownsville on July 30. That night he collapsed in a dead faint. He was to be so sick he could not even sign his name to orders for many days. Ill as he was, he ran the Cavalry of the West from his bed. He had to—his senior lieutenant colonel, Dan Showalter, was dead drunk, along with his chief of staff.
The Cavalry had to be dispersed again, for forage. A force was thrown out to watch the enemy; several companies were stationed north for courier service to Gertrudis and the King Ranch. Benavides and most of his clan rode westward to Laredo. The 4th Arizona was placed under an officer named Fisher until Showalter recovered, because it was dispatched to screen Day at the coast.
The first official communication Ford received from his superiors was a complaint from General Thomas Drayton, district commander. Drayton was angry because many of Colonel Duff's state troops were deserting, saying they were going to the border to fight with Old Rip Ford. A few such leave-takers did show up, but most kept going until they were on the far side of the Rio Grande. When the Confederate government offered full pardons to deserters in
Mexico—there were large numbers from both sides—who returned, and allowed returners to join any unit, many who came back chose Ford. The Cavalry was not only colorful, it was not going to leave the West. This hardly improved Rip Ford's popularity with the Confederate brigadiers.
Meanwhile, the Mexican situation was volatile and more dangerous to Ford than the remaining Yankee threat. A powerful French squadron arrived at the mouth of the river and seized Bagdad, or Boca del Rio, the mushrooming port city that the cotton trade had made on the marshy flats on the Mexican side. A strong Imperialist army moved north under General Tomás Mejía, a devout Mexican Indian who was Maximilian's most able officer. Ford worried much about a change in power to the south. Cortinas was now cooperating fully with the Confederates, but neither Cortinas nor Ford could trust the other. The Imperialists were an unknown quantity. In August, Ford sent Colonel Fisher and Major Waldemar Hyllested to confer with naval
Captain A. Véron, the French commander at Bagdad.
Véron not only received the Confederate officers with respect, he stated that "all persons and property covered by the flag of their nation" would be protected by the French. This was tantamount to recognition of the Confederacy and meant that the cotton trade would go on. Ford was jubilant.
But as French and Cortinistas began skirmishing between Matamoros and the Bagdad enclave, Showalter's troops could not be restrained from sniping at the Mexicans. Showalter held Palmito Hill, a rise in the Palo Alto coastal plain, about a dozen miles southeast of Brownsville and overlooking the river. This small rise dominated the approach to Brownsville from Brazos de Santiago.
At this same time, Leonard Pierce, the U.S. Consul at Matamoros, entered into a conspiracy with Cortinas, who was casting about for plans to escape the Imperialist net. Cortinas was offered a brigadier's commission in the U.S. Army if he would seize Brownsville from the Confederates. Apparently he agreed, or seemed to agree. A troop of about 600 Mexican soldiers moved west, to cross the river above the city, while Cortinas wheeled his artillery into position facing Brownsville, and closed the Rio Grande to all Confederate traffic. Colonel Day, commanding the 91st Illinois at Brazos Island, was supposed to support with an assault overland. This Day did, moving strongly against Showalter at Palmito.
Ford was worried about Colonel Showalter's performance; on one occasion, due to his "illness" he had allowed a whole Union wagon train to escape. Ford therefore sent Giddings's Battalion to reinforce Palmito Hill.
Day struck Showalter on September 6, 1864. As the Federal attack developed, Cortinas's artillery suddenly hurled shells into the Confederate ranks. This surprise fire from Mexico caused the 4th Arizona to panic, primarily because Showalter, as the subsequent courts-martial revealed, was in no condition to command. Once too often he had tried to wash away unpleasant memories in alcohol.
George Giddings came up behind Palmito to find the Confederates "flying in confusion." He relieved Showalter on the spot, and finally stabilized a defense several miles to the rear. Major F. E. Kavanaugh assumed command of Showalter's battalion. Heavy rains immobilized Day before he could exploit his capture of Palmito.
Cortinas did not move on Brownsville. Servando Canales, his ranking colonel, bitterly opposed the attack and refused to allow his regiment to go against Ford. This allowed Giddings, now a colonel, to counterattack Day and roll him back to the sea. Ford estimated Union casualties at 550, which was certainly too high, but the Rio Grande was once again free.
Giddings found that some of his Union prisoners were Mexicans—members of Colonel Echarzetta's Corps of Cortinas's army. Day sent word that these men were regularly enlisted U.S. volunteers. Despite much Texan sentiment for hanging them as brigands or pirates, Ford accepted them as legitimate prisoners of war.
Cortinas surrendered Matamoros to the Imperialists on September 29, 1864. He also temporarily renounced Juárez. Some of his officers rebelled at this and crossed over to Brownsville with their men. They sold their arms to Colonel Ford and were granted political sanctuary.
Now, the Confederate authorities decided to regularize the peculiar situation on the Rio Grande. Ford was still only an auxiliary officer, with no rank. His successes, military and diplomatic, were ignored. Lieutenant Colonel Matt Nolan was authorized by the District of Texas to muster Giddings's unit, now a regiment, into Confederate service, and take enough troops from the Cavalry to raise Santos Benavides's regiment to a brigade. Benavides had been offered a generalcy in the Union Army earlier because of his influence with Mexicans along the border; now the Confederacy, for similar reasons, wanted to do the same.
Ford, who quarreled with Benavides, was caustic with Nolan. He told Nolan that any attempt to do these things would destroy the Confederate military stance at Brownsville and reopen the region to invasion. Nolan then rode with Ford to Giddings's camp, when the ranks volubly refused to serve under any commander except Rip Ford. Nolan forgot his orders at this point.
However, Brigadier James E. Slaughter arrived in Brownsville and established his Western Sub-District Headquarters in November 1864. Slaughter divided the border area into three divisions, letting Ford command the one at Brownsville. The relationship with Slaughter was complex and uneasy. The general was no warrior, and Ford retained the loyalty of his men.
With Mejía's entry in to Matamoros, actual warfare on both sides of the river waned. Ford admired the loyal Mejía personally, although he despised his cause. Cotton was flowing again. The border enjoyed its greatest boom.
Brownsville swelled to about 25,000, and Matamoros to 40,000.
Bagdad on the Rio exploded to 15,000. The population was polyglot, with peddlers, merchants, deserters, gamblers, swindlers, undercover agents, and whores from a dozen nations. Times were flush; a number of merchants made immense fortunes from the cotton trade. Common laborers earned $5 to $10 daily, paid in good silver, when hourly rates were then an unprecedented 20 cents in St. Louis. Lightermen could make $40 a day. There is no record of how much prostitution and swindling paid. But millions in gold passed through all three towns.
Belgian, Austrian, and French troops visited Brownsville; half the Confederate population preferred to remain in Matamoros. Both cities thrived in flush times. Citizens in Matamoros began construction of an opera house, to welcome an expected visit from Maximilian and his Empress. Ten stages ran daily from Brownsville to Matamoros, then down to Bagdad on the Mexican side. Through all this prosperity the Cavalry of the West rode threadbare on picket duty; Ford and his men went unpaid; they had never been paid since they left San Antonio.
On March 6, 1865, the Union soldier-politician Lew Wallace, the later author of Ben-Hur, appeared at Brazos de Santiago. General Wallace came to try to make a truce on the Rio Grande, with Lincoln's approval. Wallace had concocted a fantastic scheme of getting the Confederates to surrender and reenter the Union, and then joining their army with Juárez in Mexico. Together, this force would drive the French and Imperialists out. The Rio Grande still inspired wild dreams.
On March 11, Wallace met Slaughter and Ford under a flag at Point Isabel. The $600 worth of "refreshments" Wallace brought to the truce tent seem to have contributed to "amity and concord," as a biographer of Rip Ford said. But after extended negotiations, nothing happened. Actually, both Ford and Slaughter understood the Confederacy was tottering and were willing to talk terms. Ford, particularly, found certain aspects of the deal fascinating. Everything collapsed, however, because dispatches on the discussions fell into the hands of Confederate Major General J. G. Walker, an officer of the "last ditch school." Walker reprimanded Slaughter and Ford, and the project fell through. Afterward, Ford mentioned this was a mistake. Lew Wallace, for all his schemes and hope of personal fame, offered Texas an honorable peace and reentry with honor. The Texas forces were to be permitted to keep their arms, for use in Mexico against the French. As Ford said, all this might have been treason to the Confederacy, but it was preferable to what actually occurred, in Reconstruction.
Although the talks fell through, Wallace and the Confederates agreed to a truce on the Rio Grande. Nothing that happened there would decide the war. For two months, then, as Lee endured his final agony in Virginia, a gentleman's agreement kept peace on the Palo Alto.
At this time, a new officer, Colonel Theodore H. Barrett of the 62d Infantry (Negro) commanded at Brazos de Santiago. Barrett had his own regiment, plus the 34th Indiana; the Morton Rifles, a New York regiment; and some Texas cavalry, commanded now by a Brownsville man, Jack Haynes. He was well supported with artillery. Barrett was a politically appointed officer, who had so far seen no combat service. As one of his officers wrote, and was published later in the New York Times, Barrett, like hundreds of other Northern officers, was looking forward to a political career. He felt he had "to establish for himself some notoriety before the war closed." He asked his immediate commander, General E. B. Brown, for permission to demonstrate against the Confederates.
The Union department headquarters, where this request went, told him to stay quietly on his sand hills. Despite his orders, and the vehement protests of Lieutenant Colonel Branson of the 34th Indiana, Barrett decided to do great things.
At sunup, May 12, 1865, he ordered his Negro regiment to march to Palmito Hill. About dusk, they were halted by Giddings's rifle fire. Giddings sent riders to Ford in Brownsville, and within the hour, Ford had couriers galloping through the brush. The Cavalry of the West was called in; Ford was angry at this breach of the truce, and determined to fight.
But in Brownsville, General Slaughter was demoralized. He ordered the wagons loaded; he had confiscated a carriage from a civilian and packed his personal gear. Slaughter was going to order a general retreat. At supper that night, Ford's blue eyes were deadly cold. He told Slaughter something that he obviously had been holding back a long time: "You can retreat and go to Hell if you wish. These are my men and I am going to fight!"
By eleven on May 13, Ford's horsemen were thundering in. He marshaled them on the parade ground at Fort Brown. He now had artillery—some fine French guns "loaned" him by Commandant Véron. Ford mounted, and the Cavalry of the West rode southeast, to the sound of Giddings's guns.
Four hours brought the column to Palmito Hill, now wreathed in powder smoke. Giddings was fighting steadily against a strong Federal skirmish line; Barrett threw his whole strength into a general advance. The Indiana and New York regiments, however, had been marched inland during the night at a forced pace; these men were already deadly tired in the humid heat.
Ford took his cavalry into a clump of thick brush that curved along the edge of the Palo Alto plain. He sent some infantry to annoy the Federals on the other flank, while his field pieces, under Lieutenant O. G. Jones, were unlimbered on Palmito Hill. Jones opened fire, with demoralizing effect.
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