by Drew McGunn
Using his pistol to direct the men in his company, the young officer crouched low and shouted, “Pour it on the side of the hill, boys! Suppress their fire!”
West bit his lip until he tasted blood. The fool of a lieutenant was going to get his men killed if they stayed put. Suppressing his anger, West thought, “I’ll deal with him later. Right now, we’ve got to get out of these ruins.”
He dodged several gaping holes and craters in the ground as he raced across what had once been a street and reached the young officer. “Lieutenant, I need you take a message back to Captains Simmons and Cooper. Tell them to move our way as soon as the 4th is in position.”
It was a meaningless order. The two captains knew exactly what to do when the 4th arrived. But the young officer was a liability.
Gulping in air, the lieutenant glanced briefly at the fortified positions south of the river before he sketched a salute and raced off to find the two companies. For a moment West watched the lieutenant race away before he turned and looked at the men around him. This company should have already been across the river. “If we both survive I’m going to have a long talk with that boy.”
More men from the next company had made their way forward. Among them was the battalion’s color sergeant, carrying the flag of the Republic. West called out, “Do you see that flag, there? That flag and I are going to go take those trenches away from the Mexicans. Who is with me?”
From the throats of several hundred men, a roar of anger and rage boiled forth. West drew his pistol and stepped next to the color sergeant, “I’ll see you on top of that hill or in Hell when this is done. Up and at them!”
West raced for the river. Bullets flew by as he reached the water and splashed across. He looked to his left and saw the color sergeant keeping step. Behind him the blue, white, and red banner with its single lone star flapped noisily. Despite punishing counterbattery fire from the Texian artillery, a few Mexican guns fired into the wave of Marines racing across the river. A dozen men were swept from their feet when a cannister slashed into the charging men.
No sooner had his feet reached dry ground than West pointed toward the riflemen from the 1st Infantry who were hunkered down in the ruble. “Up, men! Up! Do you want to live forever? Join us!”
A Tejano with the diamond insignia of first sergeant on his sleeves picked himself up from where he had sheltered and joined him as they raced through the town. Nearly every other rifleman picked themselves up and ran after their sergeant.
Most of the lead element of his battalion had already stormed past as he directed the riflemen from the 1st Infantry forward. Behind him, splashing through the shallows of the Rio Grande, were more Marines as well as more men from the 1st and 2nd Infantry Battalions.
The rubble, that a few days earlier had been Nuevo Laredo, took only a minute to run through, and when West arrived at the other side, he saw his Marines firing and advancing up the hill. The rain of gunfire from the trench full of Cazadores had knocked down dozens of men, but still they advanced. The chaos of the battle had broken the cohesion of the rifle teams. But pride swelled within him as he watched individual Marines and riflemen claw their way toward the Mexican line.
He snapped a shot toward the trench, then directed more men forward. Fire and advance. Each foot was gained with bloodshed. But even though it took longer than he thought it should, he watched a squad of Marines leap into the first trench. Their rifles were tipped with their bayonets and a murderous melee broke out as the Cazadores reacted by turning their rifles into clubs or drawing their knives.
A line of riflemen who had formed nearby stopped firing at the trench as more soldiers and Marines poured into it “Forward boys.” West waved toward the lines with his pistol. “We’re not stopping until we get to Monterrey!”
***
General Juan Almonte looked down at the Cazadores’ trench. A thick haze of gun smoke hung over it. Rifle fire echoed up the hill as the battle below hung in the balance. Through the haze, he saw a banner waving as it was carried forward, toward the trench line. The lone star left a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He turned to his aide-de-camp, “Ernesto, starting on both ends of our line, I want our guns on the road to Candela within the hour.”
Between the earthen fortifications on the crest of the hill and the trenches below, ran a communications trench. Since the attack began shortly after dawn, a steady stream of updates and wounded riflemen had flowed along its narrow channel. But now, as the Texians reached their position, what had been a trickle turned into a flood as the blue and red jacketed Cazadores retreated from the hard-hitting onslaught.
The experienced men of the first division, bloodied in the campaign into Texas the previous year, stood to along the well-placed trenches which zigzagged across the hilltop. As little as eighty yards separated them from the battle on the hillside below. But they held their fire. The smoke and haze reduced visibility. Also, Almonte was clear in his instructions. Until his riflemen were clear of the trenches below, they were to hold their fire.
As General of the army, Almonte’s position was in the rear of the fortifications, orchestrating the defensive line. Leaning forward against the earthen wall, staring down at the battle in the trenches below probably wasn’t the smartest thing for him to do, but those were his Cazadores down there, dying, slowing down the Texian advance.
The communication trench was close by, and he turned and watched his riflemen stream out of it. A few hurried away, beaten. But most carried their rifles and while their expressions showed the exhaustion they felt, these were not beaten men. An officer, wearing the piping of a lieutenant on his shoulders, stumbled out of the communication trench, supporting an injured rifleman. Both his rifle and that of the injured soldado were slung on the young officer’s back.
Curious about what was happening behind the young officer, Almonte stepped over to the young man. “Lieutenant, what’s happening back there?”
The young man looked up and when he saw who was addressing him, his eyes grew wide. “General Almonte, sir. My apologies, I would salute, but…” His arms were full, supporting the injured rifleman.
Almonte waved away the remark, “Never mind that, Lieutenant.”
A couple of riflemen, who came from the trench, reclaimed their companion from their platoon leader and the young officer came to attention, “Sir, we’re pulling back. The Texian Marines are within our trenchworks and they’re pushing us hard. Things are confusing, several of our senior officers are down. I saw my own captain killed with a bullet in his head.”
It was as he expected. The fact that most of his Cazadores were retreating in good order pleased him. “What’s your name, son.”
“Javier Morales, sir.”
Almonte wrapped a fatherly arm around the young officer and guided him away from the flow of retreating riflemen. “Javier, I want you to get back to your men. All our riflemen need to be on the road to Candela as quickly as possible. Do you understand me, Captain?”
Morales blinked in surprise, “Captain?”
Before he could say anything, Almonte held up a hand, “Brevet, of course. But men that fight like your men are worth a thousand others. I need men ready to resist this invasion and that’s men like you. Now, get moving.”
He watched the young officer hurry away down the side of the hill where he passed through the men of the 2nd division, held in reserve at the bottom of the slope. As the gunfire behind him grew into a raging crescendo, Almonte decided the best that could be hoped for was to hold the line for the remainder of the day. The 2nd Division would serve the needs of the army by setting up a line a few miles to the rear. He found one of his couriers and scribbled a note, sending the man galloping toward the 2nd division’s headquarters.
The Cazadores returning through the communication trench dropped to a trickle. The colonel in charge of the section of the line brought up his reserve company. The last of the Mexican riflemen came through the communication trench then sand bags, gabi
ons, and broken boxes were thrown into it, blocking the zigzagging trench.
A soldado fell near Almonte’s feet. The Texians had wasted no time in following behind the retreating Cazadores through the communication trench. A few men leapt forward, aiming their muskets down the blocked trench, and fired into the hazy smoke. Almonte’s staff officers reacted, pulling him away from the fortified line.
Many hours later, General Almonte watched the sun slide below the western horizon. The haze of smoke in the air gave it a red hue. It seemed fitting. Hundreds of men had fallen, but at the end of the day, Almonte’s command still held their fortifications on the heights overlooking the Texians below. As a testament to the hard-fought battle, dozens of men were splayed in death in the no-man’s land between the two sets of trenches. Nearly all of them wore the butternut uniforms favored by the Texians, or the dark blue jackets of their formidable Marines.
But at what cost? Almonte turned and looked into the twilight, hospital wagons were laden down with the day’s wounded as they trundled to the south. He turned and walked down the hill. The army’s encampment was a ghost town now. The tents were gone and only the detritus common to an army camp remained. His staff were mounted, waiting for him. As he climbed into the saddle, he asked, “Alejandro, what’s the status of our Cazadores regiments?”
His aide-de-camp said, “Forty-two dead or missing and seventy wounded, General. Per your orders, they’ll stop for the night about ten miles south of here where the 2nd division is positioned.”
Although the firing had finally tapered off, it would be some time before each of the nine regiments of the 1st Division would be able to confirm their casualties, but Almonte was no stranger to combat, and he had a clear idea the division had likely sustained as much as ten percent casualties. But they had held the Texians for the entire day.
As he led his staff southward, he shook his head, sadly. Historians would look back on this battle as a defeat for his army, but he remained convinced, had he obeyed his excellency’s orders to the letter, that his army would have been shattered somewhere north of Laredo. Against that scenario, where the remnants of the Army of the North would be streaming south, leaving the way clear for Travis to sweep in with his army and take Monterrey with hardly a fight, this was far better.
True, his army was battered, but as he watched, the remaining regiments of the 1st division were pulled from the line, one by one, and put on the road southward, toward the next line of defense. Despite the gloom of the night, his soldados held their heads high. To them, this wasn’t a defeat, it was simply the first battle in the defense of northern Mexico.
Chapter 11
Private Jesse Running Creek inched forward, poking his head over the rocky hill as he clutched the binoculars in his hand. Two other Rangers crouched next to him, studying the long column of Mexican infantry marching southward. The column leapt into view when Jesse put the lenses to his eyes. For an army that had taken it on the chin five days previous they were in remarkably good spirits, he thought as he heard faint voices singing across the desert.
The Ranger to Jesse’s right said, “How bad we gotta whip them before they act like they’ve been beaten?”
Jesse shook his head in response. “Enough lollygagging. The major wants to know where they’re going.”
The three men slipped back down the hillock and returned to their mounts where another Ranger was holding the reins. They mounted and rode south, swinging wide around the retreating infantry column.
As their horses kicked up dust, Jesse said, “Corporal, any chance we’ll run into any lancers this far south?”
“Heaven help us if we do, Running Creek. With any luck, Almonte is using all his cavalry screening his retreating column from Gen’ral Travis’ infantry. The plan was to stick to Almonte’s army like a tick on a dog.”
Jesse glanced north. The arid ground to the northwest was where the Chihuahuan desert gave way to brown, loamy soil. Were it not for the raids by the Apache and the Comanche the land through which the Mexican army retreated would see more farms. As it was, the four Rangers hadn’t seen anyone apart from the relentlessly marching column since detaching from Hays’ command the previous day.
“We’re only a couple of hours away from Candela. Let’s see if we can find Almonte’s next fallback position.” With that, Jesse dug his heels into his mount’s flank. The other Rangers followed him at a gallop.
A couple of hours later, Jesse found himself in the branches of a cypress tree, balancing on a thick limb while holding his binoculars to his face. The village of Candela zoomed into view. From below a voice called out, “What’s it look like, Running Creek?”
He looked down at his corporal. “It ain’t nothing but a one-horse town, where the horse has died.”
He climbed down the tree and when he landed on the ground, he said, “There’s a few soldados on the streets, but nothing of note. I saw a few wagons, along with a company of infantry marching through it. My guess is that they’re heading south. A few miles from here, the road runs through a narrow valley. If Almonte is going to make a stand before he gets into the mountains, that’s where he’ll do it.”
To the young Ranger, whose ideas of hills were those found in East Texas, the hills rising in the distance were veritable mountains, rising twenty-five hundred feet above the valley. The road from Candela to Monterrey ran between two peaks before snaking its way around smaller hills, then disappearing to the south.
Jesse and his companions had given Candela a wide berth, stopping a mile or so away from where the road passed between two hills. Jesse retrieved his binoculars and looked southward. “Hellfire, Corporal, there’s a little trench dug between those two hills yonder, and it looks like the Mexicans have placed some cannon across the road but check out them hills. It makes what Almonte built on the Rio Grande look like child’s play.” The glasses were passed around until the corporal grumbled, “The major needs to know about this. I figure we’ve seen all that’s worth seeing for now.”
With a backwards glance, Jesse saw a large green, white, and red Mexican flag hoisted above the fortifications on the taller hill. The gun emplacements left little doubt in his mind where most of the enemy’s field artillery were now entrenched. He turned, urged his horse to a canter as he hurried to catch up with his companions.
The light had left the sky before Jesse and his companions found Major Hays. He and a company of Rangers were making camp in a dry arroyo a few miles west of the Mexican line of retreat. Several fires burned in the dry creek bed, obscured from any Mexican patrols. Then they heard a voice call out, “That’s far enough now. What’s the password?”
The corporal gave the password and led Jesse and his other teammates into the flickering light of the campfire. The major was leaning into the light, writing in a journal. When he finished, Hays turned to the them, “Well, how bad is it?”
The corporal nudged him, nodding for Jesse to give the report. The young Cherokee Ranger cleared his throat and said, “We found what must have been a brigade of infantry a few miles outside of Candela, sir, marching that way. The town itself, General Almonte doesn’t seem to have any concern for. There were a few soldados there, but nothing to indicate they intend to hold it. But, almighty God, Major, they’re making up for it with what they’ve built where the mountains start.”
“Are you going to tell me about it or just stand there with your mouth catching flies, Ranger?”
Flushing, Jesse continued, “They’ve fortified the valley, from peak to peak. It looks like they put a battery of artillery where their trench line crosses the road. But that’s not all. On the hill to the left of the road, they have fortified it with more trenchworks and cannons. Where I come from I’d call that a mountain, it’s got to be at least two thousand feet high at its highest. It makes the fortifications along the Rio Grande look like a Presbyterian camp revival.”
Hays cocked an eyebrow, “I guess Cherokee do their camp revivals different than what I’m used to.”
The flash of a smile disappeared. “How many men would you say Almonte has moved into those positions?”
Jesse thought about the positions he had seen through the binoculars. There had been plenty of men along those positions, he thought. “I’d guess he’s probably got most of one of his divisions already in place. I’d guess his second division is mostly still on the road. Any word from the main force about bringing them to battle?”
Hays grimaced. “Almonte is willing to throw his lancers away, I think to keep us from engaging his infantry. Every time we get within a stone’s throw of the rear guard, up come those lancers. General Seguin’s cavalry sweep ‘em aside, but by that time, Almonte’s rear-guard has slipped away. If we can’t find a way around the Mexican lines, we’ll pay our pound of flesh to push them off those hills.”
***
12 April 1842
The former president held the squalling infant in outstretched hands as he turned, searching for his daughter. “Becky, I’d appreciate it, if you’d stop palavering with your momma and take back David here. I don’t reckon he’s quite developed an appreciation for his grandfather’s stories yet.”
Laughing at her father’s discomfiture, Becky Travis stepped across the main room of the house and rescued the baby from her father. “I thought you had kissed enough babies to have this down pat, Pa.”
David Crockett pretended to scowl at his daughter. “I always had better luck with Whig babies than Democrat babies. Promise me you’ll not be raising a Democrat, here.”
His wife, Elizabeth laughed. Even after more than a quarter-century of marriage, her laughter was music to his ears. “Leave it to your pa to talk politics even a year after leaving office. Becky, you can take the man out of politics, but you can’t the politics out of the man.”
Becky lifted the infant into the air, turning his tears into squeals of joy. “If you men would exercise the good sense that God gave you, you’d realize that if women could vote we’d have things fixed right shortly.”