by Drew McGunn
He removed the tarpaulin from the wagon bed and dragged the long, heavy box from the bed, and lowered the end to the ground. He grabbed the rope handles from the end still resting on the wagon’s tailgate and gently lowered the other end of the box.
He grabbed a crowbar and began prying open the box as he muttered, “It’s not stealing it. I just want to see if Coston’s idea really works.”
As the nails squealed as they were wrenched from the box, Gatling thought back to the day he was sitting at his desk in the building housing the Treasury Department. The north wind rattled the window pane and he tied the scarf around his neck to keep warm. It seemed almost daily he received correspondence from inventors from the United States, filing the paperwork to have their inventions registered in Texas.
When he had unfolded the application from Benjamin Coston, he perused it. Coston’s application was for a naval flare. As Gatling read, he realized the potential went far beyond using flares at sea to signal at night.
He had read accounts of Dickinson’s stand at the Alamo the previous year and about General Woll’s predawn assault. Had the defenders had flares, they would have been able to launch them and see the enemy before the attack. It might not have made a difference, Gatling conceded. However, it might have. It was that “however” that led the young inventor, who ran Texas’ patent office, to stand alone, next to a box of flares he had built using Coston’s design, in the Texas hill country.
He pulled the heavy, iron pipe from the box and used a small shovel to dig a hole. He filled it back in once he placed the pipe at the base of the hole. He eyed the long, thin stems atop which sat the flares.
As he waited for the sun to go down, he figured if the test was successful, he would reach out to Coston and request a license for permission to manufacture the flares. Making the flares hadn’t been difficult. It was tedious work making them according to the patent application’s specifications, because each had been made by hand.
He looked to the west and, as the light retreated from the sky, he pulled a matchbox from his pocket and lit a match. He leaned in toward the flare and lit the fuse. He stepped away to the other side of the wagon and waited.
A few seconds later, with a whoosh, the flare shot into the night’s sky, angling away from him. A couple of hundred feet above, a dazzling red light turned the ground below into something Gatling would have imagined from Dante’s Inferno as the ground was bathed in an eerie red glow.
Instead of plunging back to earth, the red glowing flare drifted across the sky until, spent, it went dark. Had anyone seen him, they would have thought Gatling had lost his mind as he danced across the prairie. “The flare may be all of Mr. Coston’s design, but thank you Leonardo Da Vinci for your idea of a parachute.” There was no one to hear him, but that didn’t keep Gatling from laughing as he lit the second flare.
Chapter 9
7 April 1843
The mountain howitzer’s stubby barrel was more than two feet shorter than the 6-pounders which made up the majority of Texas’ field artillery. But Bill Sherman didn’t care. His guns could, if the demands of the campaign required it, be carried nearly anywhere the army required. “Carry them over a mountain pass? No problem. I’ll get it done.” Sure, most of the artillery could throw their shells upwards of a mile, and his battery’s range was only a little more than half of that.
The young captain stood beside the stubby bronze barrel, his hand affectionately resting on it. Most of the army’s guns were designed to fire their projectiles at a nearly flat trajectory. But his guns could lob shells over and behind the enemy’s position. Soon enough, he would know if the last six months’ training had paid off.
Behind the line of guns, the army of Texas was encamped. On one side of the San Antonio Road Johnston’s brigade was spread out across the South Texas prairie, and on the other was McCulloch’s brigade, respectively the army’s 1st and 2nd brigades. Tents covered the ground in a blizzard of white canvas. In the short time in which Bill had served in the United States army before coming to Texas, he had never seen so many soldiers as had assembled behind him. More than six thousand men were encamped across the prairie.
More than once he had wondered how the Republic’s government was managing to keep so many men in the field. It had to be horribly expensive. Between the guns, carriages, caissons, and horses, Texas must have spent several thousand dollars just for his battery, and that was before a single soldier received his pay. And there were another five batteries with the army in addition to his. He shook his head. How President Zavala and congress were juggling the bills was definitely above his paygrade. But since he arrived in Texas the previous year, the army’s payroll had been regular as clockwork.
From across the river a motion caught his eye. A tiny, blue-clad figure had climbed above the earthen fortifications south of the Mexican town and waved a banner of some kind. It must have been a signal. A moment later dozens of guns opened fire. Bill was tempted to retrieve his new model field glasses to better see where the guns were firing, but as he watched, plumes of earth were flying into the air along Fort Moses Austin’s southern ramparts, he could see where the shot and shell were landing without the aid of field glasses.
From the fort his attention was drawn to the town of Laredo, where he could see buildings crumbling under the relentless bombardment. Bill hoped the citizens of the small town had already evacuated. A company of Rangers was still in town. They were there in the event that the Mexicans attempted to cross at the ford, to supplement the six companies of infantry stationed in and around the fort.
Some of the rounds thrown into town were shells, and the resulting explosions set wooden structures afire. From the town, Bill saw more than a half-dozen riders galloping away. Each was guiding a string of mounts behind him.
As more buildings in town burned, a thin line of men in their butternut uniforms fell back. Bill was only passingly familiar with the small unit tactics General Travis had trained the army to use, but he recognized small teams of four men each, acting in concert with each other, as the small company retreated toward a trench extending from the earthen fort. Bill figured it had been too dangerous in town for the Rangers to hold there, when most of the buildings had either been knocked flat by Mexican solid shot or were raging infernos.
As Laredo burned, the whole of the Mexican artillery shifted their fire to the fort’s earthen ramparts. Occasionally, shells would detonate over the fort, sending a hail of shrapnel raining down on the men inside. He wondered if they had taken the time to build bunkers protecting against such danger.
A noise behind him brought Bill from his reverie of watching the barrage fall on the Texian fort, and he turned and saw Lt. Colonel Carey’s adjutant, Lieutenant Orion Wells riding toward his battery. When the officer arrived, he sketched a hurried salute before handing Bill a folded piece of paper. Bill had barely unfolded it before Wells was already kicking his horse into a gallop, racing toward the next battery.
Bill scanned the note. Every battery was to open fire at the bottom of the hour. A hurried look at his pocket watch showed he had less than five minutes to prepare. Fortunately, the guns had been positioned in a firing line when deployed earlier in the morning, with an ammunition chest set up around twenty feet to the rear of each gun. Bill shouted orders and his men leapt into action, as gunpowder charges were rammed down bronze tubes, followed quickly by shells with fuses set for six hundred yards.
Glancing at his watch, he saw his men had finished loading their guns in about a minute. They had done it faster in timed exercises during training. He made note of it.
When the long hand reached the six on his pocket watch, Bill stepped behind the battery and yelled, “Number one gun, fire!”
On his order, the entire battery fired, one gun after another, like a rolling thunder across the prairie. As soon as the number one gun fired, the gunner shouted, “Load!” and one of the loaders stepped to the mouth of the gun and sponged out the barrel. Steam hissed as
he retracted the rammer. Others sprang into action in turn, until the gun was reloaded.
Bill was holding his pocket watch, and when the number one gun was ready to fire, he made note. Just under a minute. Not a record, but it was acceptable. He strode back and forth, behind the battery, directing the gunners to targets along the fortified hill south of the river. At one point, he glanced into the sky. The sun was directly overhead. It was going to be a long day.
***
“What I would give to trade places with Esteban,” the young officer thought as he peered over the edge of the trench. The ground before him was pockmarked and gouged from the shot and shell the Texian artillery had thrown at their counterparts in the Mexican artillery the previous day. Had the enemy limited their response to just the Army of the North’s artillery, the ground before his trench wouldn’t have been turned into a pockmarked wasteland.
He glanced down the hill, into what remained of Nuevo Laredo. Not even the church had been spared. Despite the thick adobe bricks, solid shot had pulverized walls and even toppled the church’s bell tower. Despite his youth, Javier Morales tried to remain philosophical. The town of Laredo was in even worse shape as tendrils of smoke still climbed into the sky nearly a day after Mexican artillery had turned it to kindling.
Even now, the Texians occasionally fired one of their guns at the Mexican lines. The trench on the slope above the remains of Nuevo Laredo was a favorite target. The young lieutenant ducked below the earthen lip when he saw the puff of smoke a half-mile away. The round shot churned the ground below the trench. He shook his head and wondered how a courier from Mexico City had been placed in command of a platoon of Cazadores, in one of General Almonte’s light infantry companies.
He had arrived in Nuevo Laredo late in the spring the previous year. He had expected to deliver his dispatches then start the long, grueling ride back through Tamaulipas, to Vera Cruz. He was beyond shocked when General Vasquez informed him that he was being reassigned to the Army of the North. It hadn’t been too bad. He had been quick to adapt to carrying messages between the encampment along the Rio Bravo del Norte and the general’s headquarters in Monterrey.
As another shot tore into the ground before the trench, he ducked down even further. He would have been happy to have continued carrying messages. But following General Vasquez’s unfortunate death in February, General Almonte transferred him to the Cazadores regiments formed from the light infantry companies previously assigned to each of the army’s infantry regiments. Almonte had unusual ideas about how to use the army’s rifle armed Cazadores. That was how Lieutenant Javier Morales had gone from courier to commander of a platoon of riflemen. Officers learned how to use the British Baker rifles, the same as their soldiers. And what Morales found even more unusual, he had been using a Spanish translation of the enemy general’s manual to drill his riflemen.
“Lieutenant, look!” one of his riflemen called out. Morales stood and looked over the edge of the trench. Something was happening on the Texian side of the river. Passing through the line of artillery pieces, a thin line of infantry was deploying.
As he watched the long, thin line of men in mud-colored uniforms approach in their dispersed, open order, everything in the manual he had read made sense. He focused on a small group that was part of the larger advance, and sure enough, he saw the same teams of four he had been training his own riflemen to become. As he studied the slow advance, he saw that each rifle team was part of a larger squad, which was part of an even larger platoon. He drew his focus out, and saw the platoons were part of their companies. It looked like they were sending only a small part of a regiment forward.
“To arms, boys!” Morales’ own captain called out. His own two dozen men formed on either side of him, resting their rifles on the edge of the trench, waiting. He had heard the new model rifles the Texians carried could shoot further than four hundred yards. That was a concern. The Baker rifle was designed to be accurate out to two hundred yards. Although a few of his men had shown they could hit a target at ranges of three hundred yards or more.
Soon, he would see how well his men would perform. Once the Texian riflemen were inside three hundred yards of the river, he watched them use whatever cover they could find even as they advanced. Moments later wisps of smoke appeared. Reflexively, Morales ducked. Like a deadly rain, bullets began to pepper the dirt piled in front of the trench. Down the line, he saw a Cazadore tumble to the ground, struck in the head.
Without waiting for the captain’s order, Morales cried out, “Aimed fire, boys!”
The battle joined, he tried to shake off his anxiety, and unslung his rifle. He leaned against the earthen wall, pointed his rifle downrange and fired at a flash of light on the edge of the ruins of Laredo. As his men fell into a routine of loading, aiming, and firing, he watched the Texians infiltrate the ruins. Their teamwork kept a steady, yet deadly rain on the trenches. A wailing yelp came from nearby and Morales tore his eyes away from the Texians and found one of his men clutching at his head. Rivulets of blood seeped through his fingers, where he grasped the side of his head.
When the soldado pulled his hand away, Morales saw the top of his ear had been torn off. As he pushed the injured man toward the communication trench running between the forward line and the main fortifications at the top of the hill, he marveled at how much blood could leak from a torn ear. But at least the wound wasn’t fatal, and while inexperienced, Morales was conscientious about the well-being of his men.
When he returned to the men along the firing line, several of the riflemen were crowded around one of his corporals. The NCO was holding his rifle and wearing a grin. One of the riflemen said, “Lieutenant, Gomez just got one of ‘em. Hit ‘em at over three hundred yards!”
Morales glanced over the wall and saw the steady flashing of rifles. “Alright, Corporal, show me it wasn’t just a lucky shot.”
The corporal traded rifles with one of his teammates. He hugged the side of the trench, keeping a low profile and aimed at a target in the ruins below. He fired the rifle and the men around him cheered and pounded him on the back. Another butternut-uniformed soldier had fallen.
Watching the corporal fire at the enemy below gave Morales an idea. “The best marksman from each rifle team shoots, everyone else reloads!” When he gave the order, he had no idea he was echoing the tactics used by the Texians seven years before, when they fought another battle on the Rio Grande.
With only six men firing down on the Texians, the volume of fire coming from his section of the trench dropped off, but the results below were telling. Before, for every few hundred rounds an enemy might have been hit. Now, he saw several men sprawled below, hit by his best marksmen.
When the captain came over to see how his platoon was performing, he spread the news to the other platoon, and they adopted a single shooter per rifle team, too. Like a slow fuse burning across the ground, the change in tactics spread across the entire regiment of Cazadores.
After an hour of taking the punishment meted out by the rifle-armed light infantry, the Texians withdrew. Their first effort to test the Mexican line had been turned back.
***
Will lowered the binoculars from his eyes after watching the soldiers slowing pulling back from the town’s shattered remains. He had ordered part of the 1st Infantry forward into the ruins of Laredo. The idea had been to establish a position near the ford where his riflemen could dominate the crossing. Against the musket-armed soldados he thought it a solid strategy. The use of the rifle-armed Cazadores in the Mexican forward trenches meant a different strategy was needed.
Will slammed his fist into the earthen berm. “Damn Almonte.” The expectation had been they would be facing General Vasquez. His intelligence on Vasquez had showed a more traditionally minded general. While his plans for the invasion had been to be as flexible as possible, he had expected to meet the Mexican army in an open battle. Defeating Vasquez, sweeping his army aside, and racing toward Monterrey had been a sound idea wh
en he and his officers began planning the campaign months earlier.
Who could have anticipated that Vasquez’ death would result in such a radical departure by the Mexican army? Putting trench works midway up the hill south of the ford had been smart. No other low-water crossings were as advantageous as the one at Laredo, at least not within a couple of days’ march. Forcing the crossing would have been an unpleasant experience, just facing the Mexican line regiments armed with their muskets but throwing their entire rifle-armed light infantry into their forward trenches was a stroke of brilliance. They had the range to make things interesting for his men before they could get to the ford.
Behind him, he heard someone clearing his throat. Still clenching his fist, Will turned and looked at the men crowding around the small camp table underneath the canvas pavilion. A. Sidney Johnston was crowded next to Ben McCulloch. They commanded the army’s two infantry brigades. Juan Seguin sat across the table from them. He commanded the army’s three battalions of mounted troops. Lt. Colonel William Carey, artillery commander, stood between the generals, studying the map on the table. The last officer present was Lt. Colonel Elliott West, commander of the Marine battalion attached to the 2nd brigade.
Seeing Will looking at him, Johnston spoke first. “We lost three men in the ruins, along with another seven wounded before pulling back from the town, General. Hadn’t expected to run into hundreds of their riflemen.”
Will took the one empty chair next to the table and sat. He scanned the map of Laredo and the surrounding land. “Yeah, Almonte isn’t singing out of Santa Anna’s hymnal anymore.”
There was chuckling around the room. “And here I thought we had left the witty comments of President Crockett behind us,” Juan Seguin was laughing as he continued, “but General, you’ve spent entirely too much time picking up your father-in-law’s knack for turning a phrase.”
“Heaven help y’all if that’s the case.” Will rejoined before he turned serious, “No, Almonte appears to be taking a page from our hymnal. Putting his riflemen along a front closest to the ford will require we change our strategy.”