Down Mexico Way

by Drew McGunn

  Will frowned at Almonte. Well over a thousand men had been killed, wounded or taken ill over the previous months. Those were men that Texas could ill afford to lose.

  Almonte continued, “You see, General, before taking responsibility for the army of the North, I had served my country as Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States. During that time, naturally I learned everything I could about the changes you were making in Texas. Copies of your training manual are available for a price there and I had some idea of the kind of army you were building. But your army is a hungry beast, and Texas is too fragile a host to sustain it. Aside from a miracle from the blessed Virgin, it was unlikely my army would defeat yours in battle, but time favors Mexico. Before long, your nation’s economy will collapse under the weight of your army.”

  Will was stunned to hear Almonte give voice to his own nightmares. The steady stream of letters from the government in Austin counseled a quick victory because of those very issues. That Almonte surmised the truth shocked Will.

  Almonte gazed across the small camp table at Will, “For reasons of his own, His Excellency, Santa Anna, chose to rid the army of my services and in doing so, revoked my orders regarding the treatment of prisoners.”

  Despite the oppressive summer heat, a chill wind cut through Will’s heart. Even before the revolution, Santa Anna had ignored the rule of law when it came to his treatment of prisoners. When he had crushed other revolts in the mid-1830s, he had dealt harshly with those captured. Sometimes lots were drawn and a portion of those found in rebellion were killed and other times, all captive rebels were executed. Even though Will and the revolutionary government of Texas had forced upon him a treaty in 1836, Santa Anna had repudiated it.

  No government which had taken power in Mexico City over the past seven years, and there had been many, recognized Texas’ independence, but Santa Anna took it to an extreme. He had no sooner returned to power than he confirmed the Tornel Decree was still in effect. The decree condemned to death any foreign-born person on Mexican soil captured under arms.

  “The state of our economy and our army are not related, General Almonte,” Will said. It was a weak lie, but one the Mexican general, standing before him, requesting asylum, was in a poor position to question. “Unlike Santa Anna and his bloodthirsty vendetta, there is only one Mexican that I will bring to justice. If he is coming here, then we’ll greet his excellency with a very warm welcome.”

  ***

  27 June 1843

  The ridgeline ended abruptly, and he pulled the reins, stopping his mount a few feet from where the ground fell away sharply into the valley below. David Crockett gazed westward. At the end of the valley he saw the walls of the presidio gleaming gold in the setting sun.

  A wry smile played at his lips. It was a fool’s gold. He knew from scouting reports the walls of the presidio were the same adobe that constituted dozens of other small Spanish outposts across northern Mexico. Crowding around the presidio walls were scores of small houses. The same scouts informed him a few hundred souls populated the area surrounding the presidio. The population was a mixture of mestizos, creoles, and Kumeyaay Indians, who had lived in the area since time immemorable.

  Crockett wasn’t worried about the populace. “Hell, I’m not even worried about the soldados,” he thought. The presidio was garrisoned by less than a dozen men. So said the intelligence he had received. He turned to the source of his intelligence, Juan Bandini. Despite being more than a dozen years younger than Crockett, his salt-and-pepper hair was more salt than pepper.

  Bandini had appeared the previous day along with a few riders, men who worked his land grant. He was Peruvian born, but of Spanish parents. It hadn’t taken long for Crockett to discern Bandini’s motives were largely financial. Under the Mexican government, the town and presidio of San Diego was dying on the vine. The provincial capital in Monterey was more than four hundred miles to the north. As if to confirm Crockett’s thoughts, Bandini said, “I have your promise the Texas government will respect Spanish and Mexican land grants, Colonel?”

  “I gave my word once, Señor Bandini. Giving it again ain’t gonna change the answer. There ain’t no doubt I can lay claim to Alta California for Texas with this here army. Whether we keep it once a treaty is written is another thing. If President Zavala don’t give it back to Santa Anna, then we’ll respect your property rights.”

  Crockett eyed the Spaniard as the other man gave a perfunctory nod. He had been a public official for most of his life and had learned to read other men. Bandini was a big fish in the small pond that was San Diego. Co-opting him went a long way toward securing this part of California. Unconsciously, he looked back the way he and his tiny army had come and swallowed hard. Bandini didn’t need to know how badly Crockett needed to secure San Diego. Even though he held Tucson, supplies from the east remained nonexistent. His army needed the provisions available in the countryside surrounding San Diego.

  A few days later, Crockett smiled as his step-grandson, Charlie Travis, escorted Bandini and a gray-haired Mexican officer into the alcalde’s office in the presidio. He grinned at the two men. Things had gone well. The garrison had surrendered without a fight. There had been an even score of soldados garrisoning the citadel. He had found the twenty men to be ill-equipped. Apparently, the aging lieutenant had agreed. After Crockett had paraded the men of the 9th Infantry in the valley before the presidio, the town had surrendered, without firing a shot.

  Now, as he watched the two men settle into their chairs across the desk from him, he waved Charlie to one side of the room.

  The lieutenant spoke first, in Spanish, which Bandini translated. “Colonel Crockett, on behalf of my men, thank you for paroling them. I doubt were the situation reversed I would be given such latitude.”

  Crockett leaned back in the high-back chair, listening to the legs creak beneath his weight. “That’s the difference between me and Santa Anna, Lieutenant. He wants to govern you through fear. Me, I’d rather be your friend. Friends get more done than peons, wouldn’t you say?”

  While the Mexican constitution banned racial slavery, Crockett had seen there were many shades of citizenship under the government in Mexico City. In San Diego the impoverished Kumeyaay Indians labored under the weight of wage peonage, scarcely a step above chattel slavery.

  Crockett glanced at Charlie as he thought of the boy’s father. Buck had strong views about slavery, views which were growing on Crockett. But his own concern was more practical. He needed a secure supply line, and if he was to have it, he had to build it in San Diego. Bandini said, “About our property, Colonel…”

  Crockett wondered if the Spaniard held any of the Kumeyaay in debt peonage. He forced a smile onto his face before interrupting. “All done, Señor Bandini. Your rights are secure. But I need something from you and yours,” he paused only a moment before continuing. “I need wagons and supplies from this region.”

  The color faded from Bandini’s face. “But we’re poor, Colonel. Would you have us starve our children?”

  Crockett allowed his eyes to grow hard. “Not so poor as you make yourself out to be, Señor Bandini. But I’m not a hard man. How many Kumeyaay make their homes nearby?”

  The question caught Bandini by surprise. He said, “Around the presidio, maybe a couple of hundred.”

  “How many in the surrounding countryside?”

  “Maybe as many as three thousand.”

  Crockett nodded. “I know they’re a poor lot, but they’re all the poorer because the Mexican government has taken their land away from them. We can hammer out the specifics later, but I want you and the alcalde to parcel off some land nearby for the tribe. We’ve worked out arrangements with both the Cherokee and the Apache that is proving mutually beneficial. I believe that with your help, we can do something similar with the local Indians.”

  Bandini wore an incredulous look. “what does that have to do with supplies?”

  Crockett laughed, “By God, man, don’t you get it?
I’m willing to move heaven and earth to recognize your property rights. If I scratch your back, I expect you’ll scratch mine. Why would the Kumeyaay be any different? If I recognize they have property rights, too, they’ll look to Texas to respect their rights. I’d think you’d see that between the townsfolk in San Diego and the Kumeyaay working the outlying farms, that supplying my army is in your best interests, Señor Bandini.”

  Bandini looked thoughtful, weighing Crockett’s words. Finally, the Texian colonel reached into his vest pocket and lay a stack of Texian commodities certificates on the table. “Did I forget to mention we’re willing to pay?”

  ***

  June 1843

  The chair scraped the wooden floor as Gail Borden returned to his seat. The journal was open to where he had left off writing. Dipping the ink into the well, he wrote,

  By washing the gun-cotton in a water-based solution for several days and allowing it to dry in the shade of my laboratory, I have found it far less likely to self-combust. A discovery I am very happy to have made. Now, I can only hope my eyebrows grow back soon.

  This is a major improvement in the process for creating the gun-cotton, I believe. It does not solve the problem brought to me by Andy Berry, who continues to insist the powder is much too powerful for any gun that the gun works can produce. Having seen the parts of the rifles blown up by the granulated gun cotton, I cannot disagree with his assessment.

  Borden’s pen was poised to continue putting his thoughts on paper when the ground shook. A moment later he heard an explosion in the distance. He dropped the pen and stepped over to the door and looked out. Above the tree line to the south, he saw a plume of smoke. It was in the direction of West Liberty.

  Several men ran out from the gun works. They pointed toward the rising cloud of smoke. Several hurried down the wagon road and Borden joined them. If something had exploded in town, perhaps he could help.

  Long before he and the workers from the gun works would have reached the town, the road broke through the trees and passed through a field. In the middle of the field a tree burned, sending tendrils of black smoke curling into the air. In front of the burning tree Borden saw someone hopping around. He and the workers ran across the field towards the figure. As they neared, Bordon recognized the figure as Andy Berry. The younger son of John Berry wore a large grin on a face blackened with soot. As the men approached he yelled, “Eureka!”

  The tree behind Berry crackled, fire consumed it as Bordon reached the young man. “Alright, Archimedes, what have you discovered?”

  In front of the tree, Berry pointed to a jagged hole in the ground. Translucent wisps of white vapor rose from it. “I might have found a dozen ways to break a rifle using your dashed gun-cotton, Mr. Borden, but by God, on my first try, I used it to take out a huge stump of a tree.”

  Borden stepped over to the hole. It was true, he could see bits of the root system sticking out from the dirt. Berry came up beside him and looked down. The explosion had gouged a hole deeper than a man was tall. The young man, still grinning, said, “Even if we can’t tame the gun-cotton to fire from one of our rifles, Mr. Borden, imagine using this to clear fields of roots or to blast out a mine.”

  Bordon nodded absent-mindedly as Berry talked. In his mind, he saw its use on the battlefield, blowing up soldiers with a power gunpowder simply couldn’t provide.

  As he walked back to the gun works with the younger Berry, Borden wondered what he had created.

  Chapter 22

  1 July 1843

  The dust cloud leapt into view as Will fumbled with the focusing knob on the binoculars. He shook his head. It was a big dust cloud. Almonte’s information on Santa Anna’s army appeared to be correct. Although still too far away, he imagined the long columns of men it took to create such a cloud. “Twenty thousand men kick up an ungodly amount of dust,” he thought.

  He turned away from the sight and let his eyes sweep over the narrow valley in which his army would make a stand. It was three miles at its narrowest. With less than five thousand men in the ranks, Will knew he didn’t have enough men to fortify the entire width of the valley. Instead, he and Sidney Johnston had created four redoubts positioned across the valley.

  Since arriving at Saltillo three weeks earlier, it had been clear this was the place to stop Santa Anna. Each redoubt was five sided and had trenches surrounding the earthen ramparts. Guns poked through wooden-framed embrasures.

  Will’s attention was diverted by the noise of boots kicking the ground behind him. He turned and saw Major Jack Hays, whose jacket hung from his shoulders. One glance confirmed the young man was still adjusting to the loss of his left arm. His linen shirt sleeve was pinned up at the elbow. He scowled as he saw the distant cloud.

  “I’m ready to return to duty, sir. We’ve got one hell of a fight coming our way and I can’t do damn all here.”

  Will returned the scowl. “The hell you say. I talked with Doc Smith earlier today and you’re lucky I’m letting you stay in the redoubt here. By all rights, you should be resting back in Saltillo.”

  With his good hand, Hays gestured southward. “And miss this shindig?”

  Will saw his gaze slip. Hays knew the army was facing its greatest challenge since the revolution. The young officer leaned against the rampart, “We’re taking a mighty big risk, General. We’re depending on four redoubts to stop Santa Anna, and they’re spread across the valley.”

  “You’re preaching to the converted, Jack,” Will said. “There’s around twelve hundred yards between each of the redoubts. How far out can your best rifleman shoot? Four, five hundred yards? That leaves a few hundred yards between each position covered only by our artillery. That’s why the two middle redoubts have two batteries each. With a bit of luck and a lot of canister and grapeshot, we’ll turn the ground between the redoubts into a no-man’s land.”

  Hays nodded, “You know, my Rangers are just a couple of hundred yards away, I could go and conduct a brief inspection, get back here in three shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  Will laughed. “Don’t even think of it.” He had set up his headquarters in the left-most redoubt. The 4th and 7th Infantry battalions were stationed there along with a battery of artillery. Patrolling between the redoubt and the rocky crags of the nine-thousand-foot-high mountain to the valley’s east were the Rangers. The terrain they patrolled was ill-suited for anything other than light infantry. In addition to Hay’s two remaining companies of specialized Rangers, six more companies from the frontier battalion were acting as dragoons, taking a defensive position in the naturally occurring ravines.

  Faint music wafted on the breeze. Will and Hays turned to the south. To the naked eye, smaller than ants, the lead elements of Santa Anna’s army appeared.

  It was time. Will called over an orderly and moments later, a signal flag rose above the ramparts. Over the past few weeks, the Texian army had camped in the valley between the redoubts and Saltillo. At the flag’s signal, the soldiers broke camp and streamed into the fortifications’ rear-facing sally ports. Before long the battle would be joined.

  ***

  Captain Bill Sherman set his pen down. His letter to Ellen would have to wait. He closed the leather-bound writing journal and placed it in the folding table he used for paperwork. He saw the signal flag rising above the redoubt. It was time. The earthen fort was pentagonal in shape. The rear was a wide wall with a narrow gate. He heard the drawbridge slamming in an upright position against its frame. The men in the redoubt were cut off from the rest of the army. The trench around the walls was eight to ten feet deep. Anyone trying to assault the position, first had to cross through the dry ditch before scaling the embankment’s steep slope, which rose nearly twenty feet from the bottom of the ditch.

  The five-sided structure came to a narrow point, facing south. His battery was responsible for two sides, while another battery was positioned along the other two forward-facing sides. The fifth side faced the rear. No guns faced that direction although a few
embrasures had been constructed, so if the need arose, guns could be wheeled from their current positions.

  Sherman hurried to his number one gun facing directly south, toward the Mexican army. Even without his orders, his men were already loading the gun. Confident his men knew their duty, he looked down into the redoubt’s small plaza and saw General Johnston climb down from his saddle. He would directly command more than a thousand men of the 1st and 3rd Infantry battalions, as well as the two batteries of artillery in the redoubt.

  Sherman knew General McCulloch oversaw a similar setup in the next redoubt over, where the 5th Infantry and Lt. Colonel West’s Marine battalion were situated. The last redoubt was garrisoned by the 2nd Infantry and the 8th Infantry. Sherman glanced to the west, imagining the men of the Cherokee Rifles taking up position in the last redoubt. He found it impossible to not appreciate the ability of the riflemen from the civilized tribe after watching them fight their way through Monterrey the previous month.

  A team of men raced by, carrying shells and bags of gunpowder, forcing Sherman against the earthen wall. He turned towards the first redoubt, where General Travis was headquartered. Beyond it were the Rangers. Sherman offered up a prayer that if the Mexicans tried to turn the army’s flank, the two hundred men hunkered down in gullies worn in the mountainside would be able to turn the enemy back.

  Thoughts of what was happening beyond the walls of his own redoubt fled when Sherman became aware of a voice calling from below. General Johnston was looking at him, “Captain, what’s the range on the Mexican advance?”

  Lifting his binoculars to his eyes, Sherman quickly focused on the lancers who were in the vanguard. They were still well beyond the range of his howitzers. “Looks like they’re still more than a mile away, sir!”

  Moments later, Johnston ran up the ramp from the parade ground. “God in heaven, Captain. That’s an army!”

  Sherman could only agree. Filling the entire width of the valley’s entrance, the Mexican army spread out like a blue and red blanket, carpeting the valley.