by Drew McGunn
“Do you think they’ll make an attempt today, sir?”
Johnston tore his eyes away from the sight. “They’ve got at least eight more hours of light, Captain. If I were Santa Anna, I’d be doing whatever was necessary to turn our flanks. Let’s hope he prefers a more direct approach.”
Sherman found the general’s words prophetic. The sun was still high in the sky when several regiments surged from the Mexican position, marching toward the middle of the valley. A quick look with the binoculars revealed at least a brigade was marching directly toward his own redoubt. The green, white, and red Mexican flags flew above the advancing line.
Sherman failed to suppress a grin when the longer-ranged six-pounders opened fire. Unlike his howitzers, they had a range of nearly a mile. The valley floor was sunbaked and dry. The first guns to fire hurled solid shot. When the heavy, round balls landed, they skipped across the packed earth, and plowed into the densely packed line of soldados, knocking them over like a petulant child angrily scattering his toy soldiers. Only these soldiers bled and died. At fifteen hundred yards, Sherman could only imagine the cries and screams as bodies were torn apart.
But the line of soldados never wavered. The officers and NCOs closed the ranks and pressed forward.
When the advancing line was within eight hundred yards, Sherman turned to the nearest gunner, leaned forward, and said, “Open fire.”
The round screamed down range. Unlike the guns which fired solid shot earlier, this shell flew over the advancing Mexican line and detonated overhead, sending fragments of iron raining down on the unprotected heads of the advancing soldados.
Still the line didn’t waver. The tattoo of drummers reached the walls of the redoubt and Sherman could hear them beating out a quick march. Whisked along by a light breeze, the acrid-smelling smoke dissipated before the men had reloaded their guns. At six hundred yards, he didn’t need the binoculars to see the men advancing across the valley. The forward-moving regimental lines were not quite as well ordered as they had been. Scores of men had fallen from the incessant artillery barrage.
Despite the steady booming of the guns, Sherman became aware of the rising din of rifle fire. The front two angles of the redoubt extended no more than four hundred feet. Six artillery pieces were comfortably arranged along those two sides. Filling every spare foot of space between the guns, hundreds of the fortification’s defenders lined the walls. When the range fell below four hundred yards, they opened fire.
“Switch to cannister!” Sherman cried out. The Mexican line had shifted just enough so that there was no doubt where they intended to come straight at his redoubt, and Sherman was going to kill as many of them as possible before they closed the distance.
The advancing line focused on one redoubt, preventing the riflemen in any of the others from helping. But, nearly half of the Texian artillery was able to direct their fire at the advancing line of infantry and shot and shell tore gaping holes in the advancing ranks.
At two hundred yards, the Mexican line, with gaping holes in it, surged forward in a mad dash toward the redoubt.
The gun next to Sherman recoiled as flames shot from the barrel. He watched as dozens of men were knocked from their feet as scores of metal balls struck them. Still, the blue-jacketed soldados raced across the ground, eager to reach the redoubt.
“Gunners! Cease fire!” Sherman called out. The attack had carried the enemy under the guns.
Hundreds of men leapt into the dry moat. Sherman involuntarily ducked as he felt a bullet buzz by his head. He shook his head in wry amusement. “You don’t hear the one that gets you,” he thought.
Men who fell were dragged away from the firing line atop the redoubt’s wall. When one fell away, another rushed forward, replacing him.
Despite the steep slope, soldados dug their fists into the dirt and climbed. With the howitzers unable to fire into their midst, Sherman drew his revolver and joined the crowded firing line. The ground below was covered with the fallen even as men surged up the steep incline. He snapped off round after round until the hammer landed on an empty chamber.
Twenty feet might as well have been two hundred. None of the soldados reached the top of the embankment. Those still on their feet fell back, still under fire. Sherman’s guns remained silent, cooling as the sun dipped below the western mountains. Where had the day gone? To Sherman, it felt as though only a couple of hours had passed. But twilight would soon fall, ending any further attempt for another attack until the next day.
Slowly, he became aware of the weak cries coming from the injured in the ditch below. From where he stood, it looked as though a hundred men, dead and badly wounded, clogged the trench. He and the other men in the redoubt had shattered one of Santa Anna’s brigades. Even so, Sherman looked south; Santa Anna had more brigades, a lot more.
As he took a swig from his canteen, he heard one of his men talking to another, “What do you mean that was half our ammunition?”
***
First Sergeant Julio Mejia was jostled awake. “Sergeant! There’s movement to our front!”
His eyes slammed open as he reached for his rifle, thoughts of sleep swept aside. Apart from a few lanterns burning in the redoubt’s parade ground, it was still dark. His hands fumbled in his vest pocket until he withdrew a small pocket watch. Since his promotion to first sergeant the previous year, his responsibilities had grown exponentially. Knowing the time came in handy, he thought, and investing some of his increased pay in a watch had already paid off more times than he could count. Enough lantern light illuminated the watch’s face to see the time. Dawn was near.
He followed the sentry up the dirt ramp. Another rifleman, standing guard with his weapon pointing into the inky darkness, waited for his companion’s return. Sure enough, in the distance, he heard feet scuffling and leather creaking. “Sounds like all of Santa Anna’s army is moving about,” one of the guards said. In the darkness of predawn the moon had already set, and visibility was, at most, a couple of hundred feet. Mejia feared the soldier was right.
Moments later, Lieutenant Hiram Oats jogged up the ramp and joined them along the ramparts. Oats commanded the company since Captain Edwards’ injury at the Battle of the Rio Grande.
The lieutenant said, “Sergeant Mejia, let’s not make a ruckus of it, but roust the boys. I want the entire company on the wall, now.”
On his way across the courtyard, Mejia saw General Travis come from his tent. While he was loath to deviate from his orders, it would only take a moment. When he reached the general, Travis was taking a tin cup full of coffee from an orderly. “Sorry to bother you, sir. But there’s movement coming from the Mexican camp. A lot of it by the ruckus they’re making.”
He watched the army’s commander take a sip of the coffee before grimacing and handing the cup back to his orderly. Mejia saluted and hurried away. When Mejia arrived back on the wall, riflemen were packed between the artillery pieces.
From behind, Mejia heard a loud pop. He turned and watched a trail of smoke leave the ground and arc into the sky, trailing sparks and flames. Hundreds of yards away, high in the predawn sky, an explosion briefly turned night to day.
Mejia’s eyes followed the flare as it arced toward the ground. His eyes grew wide as he saw, standing barely a thousand feet away the Mexican army. “Madre de Dios,” he whispered.
The flare, as it fell to the ground, faded. The light hadn’t disappeared across the valley when Mejia heard another loud pop from behind, and seconds later, another flare exploded over the Mexican army. Lieutenant Oats cried out, “Open fire!”
More lights flickered above the valley as the other redoubts launched flares into the sky, and Mejia watched as the Mexican army began marching across the valley. From his vantage, Mejia swore again. In addition to the line advancing toward his own redoubt, he could see dense formations advancing on the redoubts to either side of his own. Evidently, Santa Anna was determined to push through the Texians’ fortified positions.
The largest part of him wanted to force his way to the firing line and kill the enemy who were surging across the artificially lit battlefield. As first sergeant, he clamped down on the desire. His job was to monitor the riflemen standing in front of him on the parapet.
The ground shook under his feet when the nearest 6-pounder fired. Mejia coughed as he tasted the bitterness of burnt gunpowder. Smoke hung in the air, obscuring their view of the advancing Mexican army. Despite the smoke, the rate of fire from his riflemen didn’t fall off.
Before the gun fired again, Mejia saw scores of men carrying ladders as part of the assault. The steep embankment made climbing by hand difficult. If the Mexicans could throw the ladders against the embankment, scaling it would be much easier. “Kill the men carrying the ladders!” he called out.
Despite the incessant, punishing rifle fire, punctuated by the steady booming of the guns, the flares overhead revealed the soldados were nearing the trench surrounding the redoubt. Mejia was an experienced soldier. But seeing the mass of soldados streaming into the ditch sent a cold shiver up his spine. “I’ve been in tighter spots than this,” he thought. The heavy odor of gunpowder in the air reminded him of a road outside of Reynosa where he had barely escaped a massacre with his life.
“Mierda,” he swore as the first ladder was thrown against the earthen wall.
***
Jesse Running Creek yelled, “More cartridges!” He levered the rifle’s breech closed and found another percussion cap in the box at his waist.
The sun had climbed over the eastern peaks, bathing the valley in golden light. It made killing the dismounted lancers easier, Jesse thought as he raised his rifle to his shoulder. A moment later, it kicked, and he saw a blue and red uniformed man tumble to the ground.
Out of ammunition, Jesse drew his bowie knife from its scabbard. The brass hilt had been modified, a ring had been inserted, allowing it to fit over the end of the rifle barrel. He locked it in place and edged over to one of his teammates. “You have any more cartridges?”
The Ranger nodded toward the rifle team’s corporal, who lay at the bottom of the ravine. His face was gone. Jesse looked away. It looked like a shotgun blast had ended his fight. More than a few lancers, forced to fight on foot, had fallen back on short carbines. Some used musket balls, others used small scraps of metal. The corporal apparently had been hit with the latter.
Trying not to stare at the face, Jesse scampered over to the dead man and flipped open his cartridge box. There was a tin of cartridges. He grabbed them, then unslung the haversack. In it, he discovered two more packets of cartridges.
He tossed one of the packets to his teammate and reloaded his rifle. Edging up to the lip of the ravine, he saw a few lancers retreating.
“Lord have mercy,” the other Ranger said. The slope in front of their ravine was sprinkled with dead lancers. A sob escaped his lips. Jesse knew how he felt. The dismounted lancers had arrived with the dawn, shortly after Santa Anna had sent his infantry against the redoubts in the valley below.
Thinking of the redoubts, he looked down in the valley. It was covered in a haze of smoke. But the deep booms from the artillery still echoed against the craggy heights and the steady staccato of gunfire confirmed that the battle still raged. From his vantage point, it appeared the redoubts were holding.
The right flank, three miles away, was defended by the rest of the cavalry, fighting dismounted, under General Seguin. Under normal circumstances, Jesse would have been able to see the slope they were defending, but not this morning. Hazy smoke blanketed the valley. Had more enemy lancers succeeding in turning that flank?
Rocks tumbled down the hill behind him, and Jesse spun around, keeping his rifle at the ready. An ordinance sergeant growled, “Point that damned thing somewhere else. You ought to be happy. I’m the man bringing you some more ammunition.”
Jesse lowered his rifle in time to catch several paper-wrapped arsenal packs, which contained ten rounds per pack. They also held a tiny tube of percussion caps. He divvied them up between himself and his teammate as the ordinance sergeant hoisted a box onto his shoulder and moved further up the ravine toward the next rifle team.
“Jesse, look sharp, there’s more a-coming.” Turning, he saw a thin line of soldados moving up the hill in skirmish formation. He broke open one of the packs and took a thin tube of percussion caps and dropped them into his cap box. He capped his rifle, aimed, and fired.
Chapter 23
Will, leaned against the earthen wall, coughing, as he tried to clear his mouth of the choking taste of gunpowder. Part of him was amazed he was still alive. For a little while it had been a close fought battle. The sun had already crested the eastern mountains when the Mexican regiments facing his redoubt attacked with everything they had. Dozens of ladders had been placed against the redoubt’s earthen walls, and soldados had swarmed up and onto the ramparts.
When it appeared to him the battle was hanging in the balance, he had led his own orderlies up the ramp and into the thick of battle. Only now did he look down and see his revolver in his left hand and his sword in his right. The sword was caked with drying gore. As he thought back over the past hour, he remembered parrying and thrusting. He was at a loss recalling how he had come through unscathed. There were dozens of men, sitting and leaning against the wall, whose injuries were not severe enough to drive them from their position. But when Will looked at the small parade ground within the redoubt’s walls, the ground was covered with the dead and dying of the two battalions.
He shook his head. His voice cracked, “Dear God in Heaven, another victory like this and we’re ruined.”
“Sir, what are your orders?” He turned and found an orderly waiting. The young man, barely twenty, had his head wrapped in a bandage, and a dried rivulet of blood ran down the side of his face. Will vaguely recalled his orderlies joining him during the earlier defense.
The two battalions who had defended the left most redoubt had been battered. But what of the Mexican army? Will scanned the valley beyond the redoubt’s walls. In the dry moat around his position, the ground was carpeted with dead and dying soldados. Beyond the ditch, perhaps another couple of hundred had fallen, and the ground was covered with the detritus of a defeated army. Muskets had been cast away, jackets and packs were scattered where they had been dropped.
But he could see, beyond extreme rifle range, companies here and there, still holding their formations. And beyond those companies, larger formations of regiments. They may have been shadows of their former size, but if even if a third of Santa Anna’s army had been shattered, there were still more than ten thousand men whom Santa Anna could rally, if given a chance.
With a heavy sigh, Will said, “Signal the other redoubts, I want ten companies from each to assemble and destroy the enemy formations. Also, signal the cavalry and Rangers on our flanks. They’re to mount up and support the infantry, and if possible, cut off the enemy’s retreat.”
As the signal flags were raised, Will found the battalion commanders and instructed each of them to assemble their five largest companies in the valley behind the redoubt. The colonel commanding the 4th battalion quickly assembled five of his ten companies. At full strength, each fielded three officers and seventy-two riflemen and NCOs. The war had taken a heavy toll. None of the companies fielded more than forty-five riflemen. Men were pulled from the rest of the battalion, so the five companies would field three hundred men. Together, the two battalions deployed six hundred.
Will choked back a sob. Even before the transference so many years before, he had considered himself a veteran, but nothing he had faced in Iraq prepared him for the loss of life his army had endured since this war began the previous year. He couldn’t help but wonder what these losses would mean for the republic. How many wives were widowed? How many children orphaned? And for what? So that Texas could lay claim to land disputed since the revolution?
“Enough,” Will muttered. If he could end the war here in the valley south of Saltil
lo, then those pressing issues could be more closely examined later.
“Ah-hem.”
Will spun around, surprised at the noise. Jack Hays wore a wry grin as though listening in on Will’s private thoughts. “Sorry, sir. Didn’t mean to come up on you unawares.”
Will gave a curt nod as his nerves relaxed. Hays wore his jacket with the left sleeve pinned at the elbow. At his belt he wore his pistol and bowie knife. The grin faded from his face as he said, “Let me join my boys, sir. I’m useless here. Me and my Rangers can fix Santa Anna’s flint, with your leave.”
Will’s eyes drifted toward the gate, where riflemen were pouring through, leaving the fortified position. Given the heavy losses the army had sustained throughout the battle, he wanted to protect Hays from further harm. The young major had nearly died during the push from Monterrey to Saltillo, and yet, he asked nothing more than to rejoin his men.
He wanted to refuse the request. Instead, he said, “Granted, Major.” Having ordered several thousand men out of the relative security of the redoubts, keeping Hays back seemed a coward’s way of keeping one man safe. He simply couldn’t do that.
As Hays galloped out the gate, Will said a silent prayer for his safety. Then, as he turned around, scanning the parade ground, he saw the broken and dying and added to the prayer. “Forgive me for all the men who have died following me.”
***
Jesse Running Creek fished a few loaded cylinders from the haversack of a dead Ranger and shoved them into his own pockets. When he looked up, he saw the soldados running away. Some, though, were assembling outside of rifle range as they tried to maintain unit cohesion. Jesse understood its importance. Major Hays had told them repeatedly, a man on his own is much easier to overcome than a group. The greater order among the men, the harder it would be to destroy their ability to fight.
He glanced over at his teammate, Jethro Elkins. He and Elkins were the only remaining men in their rifle team. The whole company was in bad shape. Hays’ special Ranger battalion had begun the campaign with one hundred twenty men. One company had been wiped out at a hacienda between Monterrey and Saltillo and the other two companies had fifty men between them. Fortunately, their flank had also been defended by six regular Ranger companies, although they were scarcely in any better shape.