Fort Texas, Rio Grande March 22, 1846
WAS OVER TO 5th Infantry again. Got newspapers from Lt. Grant.
That Private John Riley of K Company sure has given me a lift in my spirits. He’s the one who said I favor his boy over in Ireland, and by heaven he treats me as kindly as if it were so. Invites me to sit nearby to him at the fire, and asks my opinion of things just as if I were a man. Asks me to talk of the Swamp War sometimes, for him and those of his company who weren’t in it. Sure and he makes me feel like I’m a veteran myself, and doesn’t mock me the way Harney’s dragoons always did. John Riley would not let me get drunk and buggered like they did.
He himself doesn’t drink, though he’s Irish in every other regard. He knows I do, but I don’t do it when I go to visit him. I know he’d likely wean me of it, if I was just in his company only. His own men do taste the spirits, and he doesn’t condemn them for it, but when they’re gathered with him, for whatever occasion, the drinking is but a wee part of it. Whether he’s got them in a debating match or a boxing match or wrestling or footraces, they have a good time liquor or no.
And those debates are really something, I mean to say! Those educated lieutenants and captains, up in their area, don’t have any better sense of the world, or of our peculiar situation in it, than John Riley and his immigrant soldiers have got. What he learns from the journals and papers, they get from him, in turn, and do they have their talks! When officers hear the voices and the laughing, and come around, why then his men all pretend like they’re dumb as donkeys who never had a thought more interesting than a pot of ale, or how to keep a musket dry on a rainy night. As Mister Riley confided to me, the officers don’t believe an Irishman can think, and would be alarmed to find out that one did.
Some of these fellows have soldiered in parts of the world that their West Point “superiors” have only read of in a geographical book. Mister Riley told me, they’ve been everyplace Marco Polo ever went, but since they didn’t learn to read and write, they can only talk and sing. And he let them know that his young friend Paddy Quinn could write like a bard, and that I would write home to their families for them, and that if they couldn’t afford the few pennies for my service, he’d pay it himself. He tells them, I don’t make any more soldier’s pay than the rest of you, but I don’t drink my wages away, and one thing I will pay for is a letter home!
So he’s helped my business. And even gave me a name for it. He said “Paddy, you are the amanuensis of Company K.” He taught me what the word means, one who writes for others, a most important position in any field, and he taught me how to spell it.
And I told him, why, sir, I’ve been an amanuensis for several years, and didn’t even know what I was!
So all those fine rough fellows around laughed and came to shake my hand, and I did feel bigger than I was accustomed to. Thanks to him.
Fort Texas on R. Grande April 4, 1846
A SENTRY EARLY this morning shot a deserter in the river trying to swim over to Matamoros. He went down and wasn’t seen after he sank.
This is getting to be a problem for our Army. Several soldiers have left their units. Some have been seen swimming over and shot at but got away.
Hearsay is that the deserters are losing their heads over the Mexican girls who wash and swim naked over there in plain sight of our fort. There might be truth in that. I hear soldiers talking about that all the time. Hear them gibe each other about “climbing the flagpole” all night, which means stroking their cockstands. There has always been plenty of that in the tents, but never like this now.
Those girls and women might have something to do with it, but there are other causes. The meanness of the officers is one, sure it is. Maybe the main cause, though, is the church bells. This Army doesn’t have one Catholic chaplain, even though near a half the soldiers are Catholic. Those people over in Matamoros are all Catholics. It was something I heard those soldiers murmuring about to Pvt. Riley, that maybe they’re in the wrong army.
I made $3.28 last week writing letters home for soldiers, $1.03 in other errands. Best money for the effort though is in fetching liquor in from Little America. Of course this has to be done at night, and past sentries. I’m developing my skills at sneakery. Some of the things I learned from the Seminole War prove useful. But I know this could get me in real trouble. Made $4.05 smuggling bottles.
I determined one thing about Pvt. John Riley, that he may well be the only Irishman in 5th Regt. who doesn’t imbibe. One reason may be he sends every penny he can send home to support his little boy in Ireland. The one he said I look like.
Across the river the Mexicans keep building emplacements for troops and guns outside the town, by the river, facing us. We see new earthworks when we get up in the mornings. Means they have the commonsense to work at night when it isn’t so hot.
As for our defense, a moat around Fort Texas has been finished. Most of our cannon emplacements are dug in, guns covering Matamoros.
Many Mexican soldiers over there, sure and it’s a bigger Army than ours here. But it’s a town, and our place is a fort. Pvt. Riley said it angers him, seeing cannons pointed at a civilian town. He said he recalls that the English Redcoats went to Ireland and drove Irishmen out of their homes at gunpoint for the good of the landlords. And when he was a Redcoat, he had to aim guns at native villages in their own countries. That was when he decided not to reenlist as a Redcoat. Said he didn’t mean to join the United States Army to go on being a damned Redcoat pointing guns at towns full of people.
But said he feels like a Redcoat again. But now without the sergeant’s chevrons.
CHAPTER IV
AGUSTIN JUVERO, IN 1861,
SPEAKING TO THE JOURNALIST
ON THE PILGRIMAGE ROAD
YOU HAVE BETTER luck than you know, Señor Periodista. I have in me much of the knowledge you would like to obtain about those temas melancólicos from the last war.
So it seems that you came and found me so that I might tell you about the last battle. Sí, I can tell you that. I was among the doomed cadets, Los Niños Héroes, in the Citadel. I can tell you of that day because, unlike some of them, I did not quite die there. Yes, I shall tell you, perhaps, if you demonstrate proper respect, if you do not irritate me with stupid Yanqui statements—and if you keep me from becoming too thirsty—I shall describe for you that day of wrath and shame.
But the reason I say you are lucky is because I know not only the last day of that unholy war, I also know it from the first day—yes, even before the first day.
Your other realm of inquiry seems to be of the San Patricios. The newspapers of your country, in that time, condemned them as vilest traitors. And in particular Don Juan Riley, the more they spoke of him, the more they relished the vitriol on their tongues. This is a trait I have observed in you Norteamericanos: the more unspeakable you deem a thing, the more you love to speak of it.
So, Señor the Periodista, let me tell you how fortunate you are to find me, Agustin Juvero, the sawed-off hero. Now the surprise:
I can state in all truth that Don Juan Riley—¡Viva Riley!—came to abet the holy cause of the defense of Mexico in part because of me. I am personally a part of that great man’s glorious history in my nation.
You are startled to hear that, no? I see in your face that you do not believe me, not at all. You do not even put your pencil to paper to write the most remarkable thing I have said, because you think that I made it up to enlarge myself in your story. ¡Oye! The people of your country think Mexicans don’t tell the truth, because what we say is so unlike the lies you tell yourselves. Or you believe, perhaps, that since Yanquis lie, everyone must be lying also.
I am making you angry. Bueno, ¿y qué? If I make you angry, maybe you will go away and leave me alone. I could bear that with ease. And then perhaps, as they do, another journalist will find his way to me, one who does believe me, and then the story will be in that journalist’s name, not yours, and in his periodical, not yours. It is all the same
to me, your story or another man’s story, or no story at all. If no one believes me, no matter. Just as if you do believe me, and write the truth I tell you, that will do me no good, either, unless you pay me well for what I know and tell you. I will not have my legs restored to walk on, even if you write a good and true story.
¡Como! So you do want to listen? You do, eh? Is it worth a bottle of the best tequila to hear of my peculiar insights?
Then come back, Señor, with such a bottle. Also, por favor, go to the fruit seller in the street and get lemons. When you return, we will share the lemons. But if you want to drink tequila with me, you should buy a bottle for yourself, and we shall each drink our own.
Ah, you are back with tequila and lemons! Gracias, Señor, for this bribe. Here, in my satchel, I have a silver cup for each of us. On a peregrinación, one must be prepared.
I raise my cup to the memory of our great compadre, Coronel Riley. ¡Viva Riley! Or will you, a Yanqui, drink to the worst traitor in all your historic memory? Worse even than Benedicto Arnold of your guerra de independencia! I see you are surprised that I know the name of Señor Arnold, eh? But in the military academy we studied the heroes, and the traitors, as well, of all nations. We took especial relish in reading of Yanqui traitors, for they troubled your armies. And the great Riley not only troubled your army, he did it in our cause. ¡Viva!
Señor, I shall tell you that true story of that Irishman and me, including a part of the story that only I know: an element of romantic love! The readers of your periodical will hunger for that part.
Prepare your little desk, then. What a clever device it is, with its little clamp to brace it to yourself. You must have devised that for yourself? Yours is a nation of such clever mecánicos.
Now, Señor, here is the way it was from the beginning. It was in Matamoros. One of the towns where I had lived when I was a boy. I had lived in many towns, for my father was an army officer before he was killed fighting your Texans. I was a boy living with my mother in a small house when your General Zachary Taylor arrived on the other bank of the Rio Grande—the Rio Bravo del Norte, we call it—to build his fort, to threaten us. We were angry and alarmed. We held that the Nueces River was the border between Mexico and Texas, and when your general crossed it and came down to the Rio Bravo, with cannons and wagons and regiments, what then could that be but another Yanqui invasion? Many of the people in Matamoros were refugees who fled ahead of your army when you burned their coastal village of El Fronton. My mother gave some of the refugees shelter in our house. It was crowded and difficult to care for so many.
They could not stay in our house long. When General Ampudia marched to Matamoros with his troops, he put his headquarters in our house because it gave a fine view of your fort.
Our house became headquarters. Thus I met General Ampudia, and the General Arista, and General Mejia. So many generals! General Ampudia took notice of me. He spoke of the military academy, and offered to arrange for me to go there as a cadet, if I were a good reader and a brave boy. I read for him from one of my schoolbooks to show him how well I could do that. I told him that I thought myself brave, but how does one know? The general told me there was a way to learn how brave. I remember, as he told me that, the general sat on a bench in our house, very splendid with gold and silver braid and epaulets on his dark blue coat, a man of much presence, and he leaned close to me with some kind of bright fire in his eyes, like a priest’s eyes when he is doing sacraments. He had silky mustaches, and a small beard, shaped like an arrowhead, just on the point of his chin, and I must have been staring right at his mouth as he told me how I could prove my courage, so that no word would escape me.
What an intense and important memory it is, that moment when a general of the army is speaking directly to a boy on the matter of courage.
“Niño,” the general said to me, “you can do very good service for Mexico, in this troubled time, if you are not afraid to go across the river to the Norteamericanos’ camp and their fort, like a secret messenger. One your age could go safely near them, while a grown man, if he were seen, might be shot or captured. Do you know the river and its shores well?”
“I have lived here long enough,” I told him.
He said: “Do you swim well?”
I told him I was a strong swimmer. It was true, then. Now I would be no swimmer, no more than a piece of floating debris going where the river took me, because of what your Yanqui soldiers did to me. Then, though, I swam well. And I was able in boats, also.
I was excited by what the general was saying, but mystified. What messages I would be taking to the Yanqui side I could not yet imagine. And to whom would I give messages? And then General Ampudia asked, “Niño, do you know why the government of the United States is coming against Mexico? It is for two reasons, and you should understand them. First, they want land, to make new states where they can own and sell slaves. They have a law that they cannot have slave states north of a certain line. And their other reason is religion. That government is against the pope, and against the Catholicism of Mexico, the true religion, against the Virgin Mother. Did you know those reasons?”
I had not understood why the Yanquis were invading. I told him that I thought those to be bad reasons for them to hate us or come and threaten us. The general agreed that those were very bad reasons. He told me that many of the people of the United States also knew it was wrong and were opposed to the president for invading Mexico. The general knew quite well about your United States, eh, Señor? Then the general went on and told me:
“Many of the soldiers on that side of the river, building that fort, about half of them perhaps, are Catholic soldiers. Many of them are new immigrants to the United States, from Ireland, and some from Germany. We believe that they would not want to come and invade a Catholic country, a country of their own sacred religion, if they thought about it very much at all.
“Therefore,” said the general to me, looking straight into my eyes, “we want to make them think about it very much, very seriously. Before war actually begins, we must propagate in them a great reluctance to attack their fellow Catholics. If we can turn their minds thus, it might weaken their resolve to serve their officers, who are nearly all herejes and mockers of La Santisima Virgen. We would like to encourage them to desert that cause, which is not their own cause. Most of them are not even citizens of the United States! We expect it should not be difficult to entice them to desertion, if not mutiny, to come and live with us, even to fight for the peace and honor of Catholic Mexico! Here, niño,” the general said to me with great fervor, “here is the way you, and other brave boys like you, can help do that:
“On the march here from Mexico City, I wrote a broadside in English language, for the Yanqui soldiers to read. It implores them not to come and make war on people of their own faith. It reminds them of the old affection between Mexico and Ireland. It offers them pay, and land, and citizenship, if they come to us.”
Señor Periodista, it was stirring and convincing, what General Ampudia told me, sitting on that bench in my mother’s house. I could never forget it. I know not how it sounds to you, a Gringo.
The broadside was on a printing press at that moment, and thousands of copies were being made. I was to find boys in Matamoros who would want to help carry those leaflets across the river, where the soldiers could find them and read them. He said that we who delivered them would be paid in centavos, but also in honor and the gratitude of our country. Some of us who so served might be admitted to the Colegio Militar.
“There is some danger, a little,” he said. He said Yanqui sentries might shoot, not knowing we were children. And if we were caught carrying such propaganda, we might expect to be whipped. But danger is a reasonable expectation in the patriotic service of one’s country.
And so there you have that part of the story, Señor. You have yourself seen, I am sure, the leaflets, of which we delivered many thousands in enthusiastic and ingenious ways. Your General Zachary Taylor’s army was n
ot great in numbers. We estimated five or six thousand at that time, and a half of them were not United States citizens, but alien immigrants who were in your army because they could find no other work in your country due to the terrible prejudice against Irishmen and Catholics. From the walls of Matamoros we could see scores of those poor soldiers being punished on the parade ground by your Protestant West Point officers. It did seem reasonable to believe that we could reduce your army considerably with the appeal of words and truth. And the town of Matamoros itself set about enticing your soldiers across the Rio Bravo. Church bells, music, parades! And the usual religious processions moved in the north part of town into your soldiers’ view. Nuns strolled, and the women of Matamoros, they never sang as much as they sang in those days, even though their hearts were dark with dread of the Yanqui army . . .
St. Patrick Battalion Page 5