by Drew McGunn
“I hope so, Captain. Let me know as soon as your boys are ready to fire.”
A few minutes later, Sherman’s six guns opened fire on the Mexican camp and the Battle of Candela began.
***
Will watched the sun rise over the crest of the mountain to the east. With any luck, Major Hays and his mixed command would open fire on Almonte’s rear. The men of Johnston’s brigade were positioned in shallow trenches less than a half-mile from the Mexican army’s left flank. McCulloch’s brigade, that which wasn’t with Hays’ flanking maneuver, faced the heavily entrenched Mexican right flank, along the slope of the same mountain that Hays was attempting to circumnavigate.
He went over again in his mind, for what seemed the thousandth time, the plan of battle. Once the flanking attack hit the encampment, Johnston would wait fifteen minutes for Almonte’s army to become focused on the threat to their rear, then the rest of Will’s artillery would open fire on the Mexican trenches before Johnston’s brigade would go forward, targeting the enemy’s extreme left flank, which was anchored against a steep hill. Unlike the mountain on the enemy’s right flank, this hill wasn’t fortified. Artillery couldn’t be positioned on its steep slope. A couple of artillery batteries were positioned on the Mexican left, along the valley where it bisected the road between Candela and Monterrey.
McCulloch’s brigade would advance up the slope far enough to engage the Mexican right. Their goal was to hold the soldados in place along the mountain slope, keeping them from lending support to their troops in the rear or on the left flank.
Once Johnston’s brigade broke through, then Seguin’s Cavalry would sweep forward, racing toward the encampment, with a goal of hooking up with Hays’ flanking force. With a lot of luck, Will hoped he would destroy Almonte’s army. The last thing he needed was to pursue the resourceful Mexican general sixty miles through the mountains to Monterrey.
The sun rose above the mountain. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky when Will heard the rumble of thunder. The battery of mountain howitzers had opened fire.
***
The ground reverberated under his feet as General Juan Almonte set the half-eaten tortilla down. His breakfast forgotten, he knocked over the fragile camp chair when he jumped to his feet. Outside the large pavilion, which served as his headquarters, soldados turned and looked to the north, toward Cerro Providencia, the mountain around which he had centered his defenses.
Across the valley, halfway up the slope, where the mountain merged with a smaller one to the east, he saw puffs of smoke. Several shells exploded hundreds of feet overhead. Part of his mind noted the premature detonations. Whoever commanded the enemy artillery had cut the fuses too short.
Apart from the artillery on the mountainside, he listened and heard no other sounds of attack. At least not yet. Turning, he called to an orderly, “Sound Officers call, now!”
A moment later a bugler belted out a melodic tune. A few minutes later, when shells started landing on the edge of the encampment, Almonte’s divisional commanders arrived, followed by several brigade commanders.
“Joaquin,” Almonte turned to the first divisional commander, “what word from the trenches?”
The major general in command of the first division said, “The latest is that there is no action from the Texian line.”
For the time being, that appeared to be good news. “What about the artillery on the mountainside?”
The other divisional commander said, “I’ve ordered a company of camp provost guards up the slope. There are riflemen downslope protecting the enemy artillery. I’ve ordered my reserve regiment to engage their infantry. With any luck, we’ll push their riflemen back against their guns.”
Almonte worried the general’s confidence was misplaced. The ground shook as a shell exploded nearby on impact. The Texian artillery officer had fixed his problem and was now using longer fuses.
“Take our reserve regiments and, if you’re able, turn them back,” Almonte told the divisional commander. He scanned the other officers until he found the brigadier in command of the army’s cavalry.
“General Sesma, how many lancers can you assemble behind our left flank?”
An officer in an elaborate red and green uniform looked thoughtful before he replied, “We’ve taken a beating, sir. I can probably move five hundred mounted men over there. If you’re worried about the Texians turning our line there, we’ll need more than my men. What about one of the Cazadores regiments?”
Orders were issued, and one of the Cazadores regiments was pulled back from the hillside fortified positions, and another regiment was moved forward, replacing it.
The earth shook again as thirty guns along the Texian front opened fire. Almonte resisted the urge to groan. General Travis was expanding his attack.
***
Brevet Captain Javier Morales knelt beside two of his riflemen. His company had been pulled from the fortified line earlier and force marched across the plains behind the army’s front line, until arriving at their current position, a half mile behind the army’s left flank. Most of the army’s remaining cavalry were deployed in front of his riflemen. Even so, he could see smoke rising from the trenches, where Mexican soldados were firing on advancing Texian riflemen.
He knew things were going badly when several men leapt from the trench and threw away their muskets as they ran away from the oncoming Texians.
The retreating soldados raced by the lancers, and Morales waited to see if General Sesma would order the cowards ridden down. The lancers held their position. A look back to the trenches showed dozens of men retreating now. What started as a trickle of men was turning into a torrent. Through the haze of gun smoke, he saw the lone star flag waving, before whoever carried it leapt into the trench.
A thin line of soldados maintained an orderly withdrawal from the trenches as the Texians captured the earthworks. They faced the trenches from which they had just been driven. They might have continued their orderly retreat, except even that island of order broke down when Texian riflemen lined up along the back side of the trench and fired. Several soldados fell and the remainder turned and fled.
Nearly eight-hundred yards separated the Cazadores regiment from the trenches. The Texians extended their hold by ejecting the demoralized soldados from the remaining section of the trenchworks in the valley. Only where the trenches angled upwards to the heavily fortified positions on the slope of Cerro Providencia, did the line hold.
There was activity directly to Morales’ front in the trenches as men in butternut uniforms scurried around. Seconds later, He saw them laying heavy boards across the trench. Moments after that, cavalry thundered across the planks.
Morales expected General Sesma’s lancers to attack as soon as the Texian cavalry appeared, but Sesma waited to see what the enemy horsemen would do. By the time several hundred horsemen had crossed over the trenchworks, it was clear to even the inexperienced Morales the Texians intended to move toward the camp.
General Sesma must have come to the same conclusion. Piercing notes from a bugle rose above the din of combat. Morales watched the lancers surge across the open ground, intent to take the enemy cavalry in the flank.
“Captain Morales!” He turned and saw the Lt. Colonel in charge of the ad-hoc regiment of riflemen. “Get your men moving. We’re to support General Sesma’s counterattack.”
With his rifle in one hand, Morales waved his other toward the backs of the lancers and urged his men from their hastily dug defensive positions.
***
The sun was setting. A rivulet cut across the narrow valley. One of his Cazadores dipped a canteen into the well churned, muddy water. His men had been without fresh water after they had retreated through the remains of their camp nearly ten hours before. Morales looked around him. When the day had been young, he commanded nearly thirty riflemen. He still commanded nearly thirty riflemen, but he couldn’t find any joy in the thought. The regiment was under the command of a senior captain and had been
consolidated into three remaining companies.
In his exhaustion, the young captain felt moisture building at the corner of his eye. The worst of the battle had not been when the regiment attacked the Texian cavalry’s flank. No, that had slowed the attack, and had allowed nearly the entire brigade still in the trenches on the slope of the mountain to slip away, back toward the camp.
Nor had the worst come when his men had stepped over the dead soldados who had charged up the slope toward the guns the Texians had used to flank the army. The worst hadn’t been seeing his men cut low when canister shot had crashed into them when they charged the howitzers.
Once the army had broken itself on the slope of the backside of the mountain, the only concern had been to save as much of it as possible. He had been sure his men were beaten as they retreated down the slope. Then General Almonte had ridden up to them.
Even now, hours later, the general’s voice echoed in his head. “Men of Mexico! My valiant brothers in arms! Do not despair. The battle is not lost.” He had paused, looking at the Cazadores, who had stopped streaming by and listened to their army’s commander.
“We are victorious as long as our army yet lives. Today is only a setback, brothers! We will make the enemies of our homeland pay for every foot between here and Monterrey.”
No longer running away, the men of the Cazadores regiment cheered their general. Morales wiped away the moisture at his eye as he replayed that image in his mind.
The worst had come afterwards. Much of the army was in headlong retreat and the Cazadores were ordered to hold a narrow point in the valley. More than two hundred riflemen had dug in between two ridges along the valley and waited for the Texians to arrive. They drove back the cavalry who had come first. Then they fought wave after wave of riflemen. That had been the worst of it.
Only half the men who fought with him escaped from there. They retreated beyond the other Cazadores regiment until they found another narrow space to defend between the ridgelines through which the valley ran.
Now, as the sun fled from the western sky, the two Cazadores regiments were ghosts of their former selves, but they had held back the onslaught of the Texian army. Tomorrow when the sun arose, the one thing Morales knew for sure was the fight would continue. If General Travis wanted Monterrey, he would have to pay for it with the blood of his men. Morales shuddered as he considered it would be his riflemen paying in blood to hold back the Texian advance.
***
Lanterns burned bright, reflecting light on the canvas hospital tent. Will stood at the entry. Doctor Smith was extracting a bullet from a soldier’s shoulder. The tent was full of the wounded from the day’s battle. Will felt no elation seeing that most of the men waiting for the doctor’s attention wore the blue uniform of Mexico. All too many of his own men had passed through the doctor’s tent or were buried in a nameless Mexican valley.
He stepped away from the tent and saw both Sidney Johnston and Ben McCulloch coming his way. McCulloch spoke first. “Hell’s bells, Buck, Jack did us all proud. That flanking maneuver saved a lot of lives.”
Still thinking about the row upon row of bodies waiting for the doctor’s knife, Will held his peace as Johnston nodded. “It could have been a lot worse. We took less than a hundred casualties before the Mexican line. The boys from the 7th Infantry took the worst when they went into the trenches. About half our casualties came from when they took the trenchworks.”
Will couldn’t help but acknowledge that portion had gone as planned. “That’s true, Sid. Make sure that you pass along to your boys that they did a fantastic job. But damn it all. We needed to have bagged Almonte’s army. And the sad truth is, we came up short.”
McCulloch patted him on the back, “Buck, the army did a commendable job. Juan’s cavalry was handling those lancers just fine until those damned Cazadores hit them in the flank. I think it’s pretty clear Almonte was willing to sacrifice both his cavalry and his riflemen so that the rest of his army could escape.”
Will cursed, “We should have bagged his army, Ben. There’s no way that Almonte will allow himself to be brought to a pitched battle between here and Monterrey. Now we’ve got to clear his men out of the mountain passes and narrow valleys across the next sixty miles. Then we’ll have to dig his army out of Monterrey.”
Uppermost in Will’s mind was a nagging worry that the war needed quick resolution. For that to happen, Texas had needed a large enough army to invade Mexico. He amended his thought, capture enough of Mexico to get Santa Anna’s political allies to turn on him. He had convinced Crockett, when he had been president, and now Zavala, that a large army could quickly bring Mexico to the bargaining table. Texas was a land of no more than two-hundred thousand people and ten thousand of them were actively serving in the army. Another ten-thousand were in the militia. The cost to the treasury was more than the government could afford, especially if the war dragged on. In the world Will had left behind, the Republic of Texas had accepted annexation with the United States, and one of the reasons for it was because they had been unable to manage their own financial situation. If the war dragged on, did it increase the likelihood the economy would collapse? If so, would that strengthen the hand of hotheaded slaveholders like Robert Potter, who had been agitating for annexation since the revolution?
Johnston had been talking, and Will realized he had been woolgathering. “Why don’t you get Hays’ Rangers to see if there’s a way around this route to Monterrey? We flanked Almonte once. Maybe we can do it again.”
The idea of trying a flanking maneuver sounded good and Will said, “I’ll write up the orders tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll start on the road to Monterrey. With any luck, Jack will find a way around.”
Chapter 15
27 April 1843
Shards of rock rained down on Jesse Running Creek’s head as he ducked behind a boulder. He swore as he wiped his face and saw streaks of red on his hand. His face stung where the bits of rock had cut him. His teammate, Jethro Elkins crouched beside him. He wore a sardonic expression. “You still think we’ll cut through the Mexican rear guard, Jess?”
Dabbing his face with a once-white handkerchief, the young Cherokee glowered at his fellow Ranger. “As I recall, I said that we’d make good time if Almonte’s army hightails it back to Monterrey. This don’t look anything like ‘hightailing’ it to me.”
Elkins pulled on his luxuriant, brown mustache and chuckled quietly. “If that ain’t an understatement, I don’t know what is.”
Jesse nodded. Six days had passed since the army had defeated the Mexicans at Candela. Six days and only thirty miles. Efforts to find a way around the Mexican line of retreat had, as of yet, gone nowhere. Major Hays had taken one of the other special Ranger companies and had yet to return from scouting a northern route.
He chanced a look around the boulder and saw a stone outcropping nearby. He checked his rifle and confirmed the percussion cap was still snugly set then he sprinted toward the outcropping’s shelter.
A puff of wind breezed by his face and bullets zinged off the rocky ground as he ran. Despite furtive glances down the rock-lined gorge, he couldn’t see where the shots were coming from. Seconds later, Elkins landed beside him. The other Ranger drew ragged breaths, matching his own labored breathing as they sheltered behind the stone outcropping.
He thrust his rifle around the ledge then jutted his head around in time to see a blue-jacketed soldado scampering across the stony ground. Jesse snugged the rifle butt against his shoulder and fired at the retreating figure. The bullet shattered against the gorge’s rocky wall, bathing the Mexican in a shower of stone shards. As Jesse reloaded, he felt no satisfaction at paying back the enemy rifleman in kind.
A pat on his shoulder warned him that Elkins was moving past, running across the uneven ground. He made it to the place where the soldado had disappeared. No bullets tore at the ground around the Ranger. Jesse exhaled noisily. The cat and mouse hunting between the Texian vanguard and the Mexican rearguard was
playing hell on his nerves.
He turned and called out, “Hey, Corporal! This vale is clear of Mexicans. Me and Ranger Elkins will move out and see if we can find the sons of bitches that have been shooting at us for the past hour.”
Without waiting for confirmation, Jesse bolted after Elkins. As his boots pounded down the rocky path, he had to admit to himself the tactics the army used were saving lives, even if the process was slow. His team of four Rangers were part of five rifle-teams made up of half a company of Rangers. Of the four men in his team, one was back a few hundred yards, holding the reins of their horses. The corporal was following behind him and Elkins.
Over the past year’s training, Jesse had come to admire the other men in his team. He knew if circumstances demand it, he’d readily risk his life for the other three men. He knew they’d do the same for him.
As he rounded the corner in the gorge, he heard the echoing shot from Elkins’ rifle. Before the gorge curved again a few hundred feet further in, he saw a blue-clad rifleman. Jesse had learned to hate the Cazadores since the Battle on the Rio Grande what seemed a lifetime ago. While there was no contest between the Texians’ breechloading rifles and the old Bakers rifles the Cazadores carried, the Mexican riflemen had been using similar tactics throughout the campaign across northern Mexico. It was as if they had read the Texian manual.
Elkins was reloading when Jesse arrived. “Any luck?”
The other Ranger spat a stream of tobacco juice, hitting a cactus leaf square in the center, “No. Scared them from where they were roosting, though.”
He moved past his companion as Elkins reloaded. They would leapfrog the rest of the way down this gorge, until the next time they came under fire from the wily Mexican Cazadores.
***
Captain Javier Morales lowered the captured binoculars from his face. He had found them after his regiment had hit the Texian cavalry in the flank. The binoculars had been tied to the saddle of a horse. The rider was nowhere to be seen, and he was happy to purloin the fancy glasses. They were more compact than the spyglasses that other officers used. The fact that he could use both his eyes to sweep the rocky valley below, he thought, increased his field of vision.