And what does this have to do with me and Don Juan Riley, you must wonder.
I shall answer that question, Señor Periodista, and tell you of our adventures as propagandists to the enemy. But at this time, I must get myself back onto the road of penitence. There are yet days of traveling on my knees. See, the old pilgrims crawl by us even as we sit and drink. ¡Vamonos!
And you, too, should be on your knees, Gringo. You Norteamericanos all should come down here and crawl to Our Lady of Guadalupe to atone for your sins in that last war, before you dare to march against each other in this present one.
Now watch this, how nimbly I dismount from a bench!
PADRAIC QUINN’S DIARY
Fort Texas, Rio Grande April 2, 1846
I LEARNED THIS tonight: if you prowl at night, nothing is more scary than finding another prowler!
Sure and I’m a prowler. I live by errands, and some of them are wildcat errands. Soldiers are no saints, and they will want what they’re not allowed to have. If they don’t want to be shot by a sentry for going after it themselves, they’ll send for it by an errand boy. And I dare go about in the night, for if caught, I’d not be shot as a deserter, for I’m not a soldier, just a camp boy. I smuggle liquor into camp, if I’m asked, and collect my pay, which might be in pennies, or in a dram of the contraband. There’s my confession: sure I’m a bootlegger, in my own wee way.
A corporal sent me this evening to a bootlegger outside the camp. As I was returning, with two jugs muffled in sacking, edging through the willowbrake along where the river sentries are, damn if suddenly I wasn’t face-to-face and not two arm’s lengths from someone faint and light as a haunt! He was no bigger than I. Even with no moonlight, for it was foggy and cloudy, I saw that he was coming from the fort, mere yards from the pickets. Plainly a Mexican lad, in those cotton breeks & shirts they wear. He dropped something. Sure and I near strangled to keep from yelping aloud. Being sure he was Mexican, I backed off in case he’d be for carrying a knife at the least. It was awhile we stood looking at each other, and if his heart was pounding like mine, I should have heard it. Or the sentries should have. Just that heartpounding of mine, and the sound of the river water running, and some faint string-and-rattle music from the town beyond. You really hear keen when it’s too dark to see much.
It was soon enough we both saw that each of us was too furtive to accost the other. He sort of raised his hand to his temple like a little salute, and began to edge away. He must have been too scared to pick up what he dropped. He vanished toward the river. After a while I started worrying more about the sentries than about him. I picked up what he had dropped. Just a cotton bag with a strap. Mostly empty, but some scraps and torn-off corners of paper in the bottom.
I can use a bag like that, so I kept it. Delivered the jugs to the corporal, who gave me not just ten cents, but a good sip from the contraband, for he said I looked very pale and needed some blood in my face.
I didn’t mention the person I’d encountered down by the river, hardly knew what to say anyway. For all I know, the Mexicans themselves might be bootlegging.
Anyway, I know now that I am not the only one sneaking about an army fort, and I hope I don’t come onto one that’s got a cutthroat knife like the officers say Mexicans all do.
I can use this bag to tote bottles and contraband in. On the other hand, I could sure use it to make patches for sewing up my clothes. In the old times my Ma never let me be seen raggedy.
Fort Texas, R. Grande April 4
THAT DEARTH OF paper I have lamented, it’s been relieved, by an unexpected deluge of good paper suddenly arriving in our camp, thanks be to the enemy, I guess I’d have to say.
I write this on the back of a document that showed up in thousands of copies. I bet every soldier has a copy. I got myself about fifty. Sure and I’ll be for using every piece!
You can see what it is by turning over this page. It is a handsome pamphlet, all neat and well printed as a newspaper. It’s written in grand English, adorned with signatures and seals and escutcheons. From what we’ve been told about Mexicans, one wouldn’t think they could produce such an elegant thing. A body wouldn’t think they could write so well, either. It is highflown language that makes a body get to thinking, “do something.”
Sure and one would think the Mexican General who wrote it was reading the minds of our Catholic soldiers!
If I can gather another bundle of these, I’ll bind them with twine and make me a diary book of some considerable thickness.
Turning this page over shows what that Mexican boy was delivering when we met in the dark by the riverbank.
THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE MEXICAN ARMY TO THE SOLDIERS UNDER THE ORDERS OF THE AMERICAN GENERAL TAYLOR:
Know ye: That the Government of the United States is committing repeated acts of barbarous aggression against the magnanimous Mexican nation; that the government which exists under the flag of the Stars is unworthy of the designation of Christian. The American Government is provoking to a rupture the war-like people to whom it belongs, President Polk boldly manifesting a desire to take possession, as he has already done Texas.
Now then, come with all confidence to the Mexican ranks, and I guarantee to you, upon my honor, good treatment, and that all of your expense shall be defrayed until your arrival in the beautiful capital of Mexico.
Irishmen, Germans, French, Poles, and individuals of other Catholic nations! Separate yourselves from the Yankees, and do not contribute to defend a robbery and usurpation which, be assured, the civilized nations of Europe look upon with utmost indignation. Come, therefore, and array yourselves under the tri-colored flag, in confidence that the God of Armies protects it, and it will protect you, equally.
General Pedro de Ampudia Francisco R. Moreno,
adjutant of the Commander-in-Chief
April 2, 1846
Composed upon the Road to Matamoros
Fort Texas Rio Grande April 6, 1846
FAITH, WHAT THAT Mexican boy smuggled in to our Irish soldiers, it was sure as intoxicating as what I had been bringing! And will be for causing more trouble than any booze, I can see it coming.
I was around the 5th Infantry today, and I could see slips of paper everywhere. Not that they were lying about loose in plain view, indeed not. But every man seemed to have one about him, either taking it out of a pocket or putting it slyly back in. And wherever a gaggle of soldiers stood, or sat, there in the middle was someone with that sheet of paper in his hands, reading or talking, in whispers or low-voiced, looking out over his shoulder. You could just feel something in the air, all about the place. Some of that was the usual bitter fury these Irish gents have in them all the time, for the way the officers treat them, but this of the papers is a thing not so much sullen but like to make your hair raise up.
I kept my eye on Private Riley himself mostly. For as I said before, he was the center of that company, regardless of rank. Today the man was different from his usual demeanor, I mean he was scowling like a thunderstorm. Usually when a soldier’s deep in the miseries, John Riley will buck him up with some clever words and a warm hand on his arm. But today he looked short-necked and thin-mouthed, and there was lightning in his eyes. I soon enough heard why. A West Point artillery Lt. named Bragg, one of those southern slavemasters, hooked him out in passing and called him to attention for not saluting him briskly enough, then proceeded to impugn the good soldier for the dastardly crime of being Irish-born, for having naught but snot and earwax in his Irish head, and for worshipping a Gilded Poobah in Rome instead of the proper Anglican God who rules in any civilized whiteman’s Heaven. The harangue continued a half an hour, witnesses said, and in all that time Pvt. Riley stood at strict attention, not even moving his eyeballs in any response, until the lieutenant apparently grew hoarse and thirsty from his tirade, and having been unable to provoke one flicker of insubordination that would justify corporal punishment, strutted away to his own unit, which is reputed to be one of the unhappiest in the
whole army, with him in charge of it.
I remember writing that Mister Riley seems like a keg of gunpowder with a lit fuse a-burning to it. There’s power waiting in a keg of powder; who can calculate how much? What matters is the length of the fuse, and whether it gets snuffed out before it blows the powder. I reckon that Mr. Riley’s fuse is long. I’m not sure why that is so, but I suspect it’s because he’s a long-seeing sort of a man. He said that he enlisted in the American Army with the long goal of attaining such rank of sergeant as he’d held in the Redcoats before, or even becoming an officer. He believes that should come if you’re a competent soldier, and he holds himself to be such a one. Mister Riley does not get harassed quite so often as the average Irish soldier, for he’s an exemplary soldier and seldom gives an opening, even to an officer looking for a body to torment. His comrades look to him to see whether he will suffer it or explode, and from what I hear, many would like to see him explode, as it would ignite themselves and give them release to their seething angers. He is doing the Army a service with his forbearance, I’d wager, but of course the officers haven’t a notion that it’s so. A few days ago, by what I hear, Mister Riley had quietly dissuaded some fellows from knifing Lieutenant Bragg some dark night. Two days later that same Bragg, not knowing that Pvt. Riley had likely saved his life, cursed him out as a Mick moron.
I’ve heard it said, some of the officers conspire to provoke good Irish soldiers like Pvt. Riley and Sgt. Maloney till they blow up. That would prove all Irish are bad as they say. It seems much of the endless drilling is little more than a means of tormenting the Sons of Eire that they’ve got at their mercy. How they come to hate us so much I don’t know, but I guess any man has got to be able to look down on somebody, and we Irishmen have been given more chance than just about anybody to squint up into everybody else’s nostrils. As I wrote when I first started up this diary, that’s the curse of being Irish.
The way Riley is today might be on account of that Lt. Bragg who humiliated him so roundly. But that little printed sheet of paper from Mexico that he is keeping on his person, I suspect it is more on his mind than any particular West Pointer.
Ft. Texas, R. Grande April 9, 1846
I HOPE NEVER again to see a man be burnt like a steer with a branding iron. I saw it today and once is too much for me.
He’s an Irishman, what else? Three times before, he had been punished for drunkenness, made to stand all day on a barrelhead in the middle of the parade ground, and that had not cured him. Nothing cures us of it. Liquor is the only escape from our misery here that we can obtain, and of course the obtaining is easy. It’s the business and the concern of most everyone here, meself included. The officers themselves are a lot of drunken jackanapes in their own right, but of course they never get punished for it. I’ve seen their own debauches.
The poor sot they branded is Hanley by name, a nice, droll fellow who is as foolish sober as when he’s drunk. If you said Hanley is drunk, somebody could reply, How can you tell? His signature remark is, I’m thirsty clear down to my breeks. He first said it, and now it’s in the lingo.
I delivered the bottle to Hanley last night. I rue my part in it. I expected he’d be lucky enough to have no more punishment than his usual shakes and aches, or, at worst, a day spent groaning and tottering on the barrelhead. But this morning he was too ruined to turn out. He was dragged to the drill field. A little fire was built, a branding iron heated red, and poor Hanley was held down to the dirt by one soldier on each limb. A soldier with near as many drunk offenses as Hanley himself was ordered to apply the iron to Hanley’s forehead. When he balked at the deed, he was threatened with the same iron, and saw fit to comply.
Though I’ve been my whole life around soldiers, I can’t fathom the deliberate inflicting of pain and mutilation on helpless people. These dandy officers, who profess to be the Army’s gentlemen, are in general the most heartless class of people I have ever seen. Soldiers like Mister Riley, who formerly served in the British Army, complain that only American officers torture soldiers in the name of discipline. There was much harsh discipline in the British Army, but malicious torment was not done. Even Pvt. Morstadt, a veteran of Prussian service which is famously brutal, said Prussia didn’t have many officers as vicious as these. The victims are just about all immigrants. The officers seem to hate them for having been born on Irish soil, as if it had been their choice to get born in the evil Green Isle, as I heard an officer call the Old Country. As for the branding:
The soldier was gingerly with the brand; he was weeping, and he made a quick touch on Hanley’s brow with it, and jerked it back at the sound of Hanley’s first scream. The lieutenant snatched the brand from him and knocked him a-sprawling. “Damn you, I’ll show you how to mark a drunkard!” the lieutenant yelled, and he put his boot on Hanley’s throat for to hold him still and pressed the glowing brand—HD for Habitual Drunkard—down hard as if to push it through his head, and O God but it hissed and smoked. Hanley thrashed so hard he upset two of the soldiers who were holding him down. I smelled the roast skin and burnt hair. The expression on that lieutenant’s face was something like a demon. If I’d had a gun I’d have shot him dead, I do believe. There, I’ve put it in ink: a homicidal thought from my own head. And if a thought is as bad as its deed, here is the evidence that I would gladly have killed an officer of the United States Army. I looked across at the ranks of Irishmen in that company, all a-standing there with their muskets, and I was thinking, There you all stand letting him do that to your own countryman! Any one of you stout lads could break that popinjay’s neck with your bare hands! Why do you just stand there?
I was thinking mutiny, plain enough. But no one did anything. Even John Riley stood there in the rank with his eyes aimed straight off at the Mexican horizon and not a hint on his face of what he was for a-thinking or a-feeling. That was what finally brought me down so low I began to cry and had to get away from there before I was seen at it. A good thing I wasn’t a soldier in ranks. They had to stand there and see it & couldn’t even turn their heads, for if they had, some little prancing fiend out of West Point would have branded them HT for head turner!
I needed to calm myself down after the branding. So I got around to finishing my portrait of Lt. Grant.
CHAPTER V
PADRAIC QUINN’S DIARY
Monday April 13, 1846 Fort Texas on the Rio Grande
JOHN RILEY HIMSELF is gone! For me this is more important and more distressing than the absence of one private soldier ought to be. The most part of his company is worried and sullen. Some go about looking fierce and smug.
Captain Chapman of the 5th Infantry recorded Mister Riley’s absence from muster this morning. The men already knew, by then. This afternoon Capt. Merrill told the assembled regiment that Pvt. Riley had left the camp yesterday morning with his permission to go to a Mass. There was a priest from Matamoros a-holding the Mass at a farm near here. The Captain signed Pvt. Riley’s pass because of his steady good conduct. The day passed and he didn’t return. It was cold and rainy all day and the men were out of their tents only for chores and mess. The rest of the day they stayed mostly in the tents, muttering and reading the Mexican leaflets. The officers and the Protestant soldiers, those who professed faith, went to services in the camp chapel. No Catholic soldiers go there.
The captain hasn’t yet said Mister Riley deserted. He is said only to be missing. It could be that Mexicans waylaid him out there. But there is suspicion. Captains Merrill and Chapman have been calling in some of Mister Riley’s messmates one at a time and questioning them. They come back and say they played ignorant. The captains asked them about the propaganda leaflets, and the soldiers pretended not to know about them. The captains must know that’s not true, as those papers are everywhere in the camp.
I think the soldiers know all the truth of him leaving. They don’t think he got lost or captured. They noticed that he didn’t leave much of his kit in the tent when he went away. He took his Bible and Miss
al, as a body might well do on going to a Mass, but also took his pen and pencil and notebook, his spare underclothes, mess tin, canteen, and his whole issue of cartridges and gunflints. They say he had his blanket over his shoulders against the cold rain, so he must have hid all his gear under it. They won’t say whether he told them if he would be back. But you can about see in their faces what they know. You can even see in their looks how they feel about him leaving. Some are glad for him, or envious, or resentful. Each man takes it his own way. But when the officers are about, you’d think every one’s a card sharper. No sign.
As for me, I’m not for appreciating his absence, and I sure would like to see him back here where he belongs. But I reckon Mr. Riley doesn’t think this is where he belongs.
Damn, but this upsets me something awful. It makes me have to think. If a man like him thinks it’s wrong to be here, why would lesser ones stay?
Ft. Texas, R. Grande April 15, 1846
IT GROWS MORE dreadful here. Any day, some petty thing could start the cannons a-shooting.
St. Patrick Battalion Page 6