St. Patrick Battalion

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  The sergeant is a fine soldier, as fine as there is. Folks say if he’d not been born Irish he’d be a colonel or a general by now. I wrote some about him awhile back in this diary so I won’t repeat it all here. I drew a portrait of him a few days ago. He didn’t “sit” for me, but I drew it when he wasn’t looking.

  Well, to go on, the hero’s here by the Rio Grande. Some of the Protestant officers think he’s too proud, and torment him like other Irishmen, though not quite so much, because he is a hero by repute, and of course a sergeant. He’s as severe on our Irishmen as the officers themselves, almost, but for a different reason, being that he wants Irishmen to be respected, not scorned, and says they have to earn it the way he did. By being better soldiers than anybody. Some soldiers claim they owe their pride to him.

  Today for some reason his attention fell on me. I was moping along between errands. It was near the parapets facing Matamoros and maybe he saw that I was more over there than here. Which I suppose was plainly so.

  Well, he’d never said anything to me ever before, and I’m sure no soldier, but he yells, Paddy! and I turn and see the famous Mick Maloney crooking a finger at me and his eyes staring into me.

  There was nothing for it but to go to him. I was no little reluctant, though, as a body is when his woolgathering’s disturbed. I stood before him almost like a soldier expecting a scolding, but I was surprised and maybe feeling honored that he knew my name.

  He looked over my head toward Matamoros, and said to me, “Lad, what d’ye make of those people over the river?” I said, “How should I know, sir, as I never met any Mexicans.” “Mexicans hell!” said he, “I mean those deserters!” I told him I was sorry to see good men leave us, that some of them had been good to me, but he pointed at me and stopped me with a loud curse. “Good, hell! They’re low, they’re a disgrace to the Mother Country! They are everything people say bad about Irishmen! Goddamned traitors and cowards! That John Riley’s the worst of them!”

  Those words hit me like a pole ax! Someone I look way up to was damning somebody I hold even higher!

  Sure and I was so mad for a moment, I couldn’t see. But of course a whiffet like me does not talk back to a big sergeant major like Maloney, so I kept my mouth shut and let him go on, which he sure did.

  “Every Irish scut who sneaks away from duty, he earns us all the slurs we get back in the States!” said he. I admit I saw it could be so. But I knew the other face of it, too, and so I piped up & said, “Sir, don’t you feel some of them were driven off? By these officers here?” I saw in his face that he caught my drift, but he didn’t pause for it. “M’lad,” said he, “I am now twelve years in this Army and every day of those years I have pinched my nose and swallowed their shit, and given them better soldierin’ than they deserve. I owe it to myself as an Irishman. It’s raised me to a sergeant major, and I mean to come out of this war an officer, God willin’ I come out alive. I don’t like shit, but the shame’s theirs, for givin’ it. But I would have shame for betrayin’ my oath to the Army. Now, m’lad, I know about the charms of Private Riley and that pretty Mexican town yonder, and being true to the Faith, and scornin’ the motive of the President and the slavemasters for this venture. Sure and it’s no better than houndin’ the Indians in their swampland. But I swore to do my duty and I do it. Riley ate officer shit less than a year. Then he gave up and betrayed all his fellow Irishmen and gave the officers cause to feed us more of it! I say this, lad, mind who y’r heroes are!”

  Then he walked off, for to leave me thinking more confused than I was. Either one of those gents is a hero by my lights.

  And yet they’re opposite in what they think and do.

  If this gets to be a war, they might well kill each other.

  Now am I to be on one side or another?

  Thank the Lord I’m not old enough to soldier. I’d scarce know which way to aim my gun!

  CHAPTER IX

  PADRAIC QUINN’S DIARY

  Ft. Texas, R. Grande April 28, 1846

  DIARY NEGLECTED A few days because of alarms and fracases hereabouts. A goodly number of Mexican soldiers crossed the river upstream and caught a unit of our dragoons in ambush. They shot 14 dead and captured the rest, about 40 or so. Killed a lieutenant. Captured the captain, a Marylander named Thornton. Got our officers in a state of fury.

  Then we couldn’t believe our eyes when a Mexican ambulance wagon came to the fort and brought Capt. Thornton’s wounded dragoons back to us! They said the Mexicans had been real kind to them after the skirmish was over. Don’t know what to think of that. Maybe it’s true what we hear of them being decent folk. But sure that won’t matter. This is sure to help President Polk get his war declared. Half of our officers say this was American blood shed on American soil, but others argue it’s Mexican land here and we shouldn’t be here. Lieutenant Grant is one arguing on that side of the issue.

  I don’t know just how they palaver in Congress, but I expect that the argument there sounds just like the argument here. Most of the officers spoiling for war are southern.

  By the time of that skirmish, there’d been about two hundred Irish soldiers and some Catholic Germans deserted. More sharpshooters are being posted on the parapets facing the Rio G. to shoot deserters dead in the water. But most get away.

  Mister Riley gets blamed for inspiring most of them. Many of them get across alive by going at night. But some I guess have more fear of going into dark water than being shot at in daytime. One thing is pretty certain, they’re getting plenty of help and encouragement from the Mexicans. And rumor is that the deserters who already went over are helping them, too.

  Something big is going on here in the camp and I can’t make out what it is. Officers are packing their stuff. I’ve got the fluvial shits too bad to go a-finding out.

  Fort Texas, Rio Grande May 2, 1846

  STILL GOT THE spews. I could call this the Diary of Diarrhea. But I found out what the big stir was all about, and it’s dreadful.

  This fort is almost empty. Gen. Z. Taylor marched most of the Army back to the coast three days ago when he got a rumor that the Mexican troops were going up there to destroy our supply depot at Port Isabel, which would ruin us for sure. Took more than ¾ths of the army and left only the 7th Infantry and Lt. Bragg’s artillery to guard this Fort. All the camp followers are in the fort now, scared pale. Maj. Brown of the 7th in charge here now. He is an 1812 veteran of the Battle of New Orleans and a real solid officer, as good as anyone could ask for. But here we are with only 500 men, and no sooner was Gen. Taylor out of sight than here came scouts saying the Mexican army’s crossed the Rio G. upstream from us. We don’t know whether Gen. Taylor’s chasing the Mexican Army or it’s chasing him. It could be both. The Mexican force around Matamoros is big enough it could be both ahead of Gen. Z. Taylor and behind him.

  I get all this from the yammering of the officers in the 7th, but am trying to think for myself on it, too.

  Twice today, officers claim they saw Mr. Riley over there go from battery to battery. I wish I had a spyglass.

  Judging by the sounds, the people in Matamoros are much happier than we are here. Some of the troops are joking that this fort might be the next Alamo, and wouldn’t that be an honor.

  Think I finally have conquered the flux. But any bite of these rancid rations could start me going again. And a look in the latrine tells me any number of us have got worms.

  Would rather be just about anyplace other than here. If I’d stayed in New Orleans my Ma might have caught up with me by now.

  I can hardly remember what it was like to have somebody looking after me, instead of looking down on me. I remember it could be a comfort. I could use some comfort.

  AGUSTIN JUVERO

  SPEAKING TO THE JOURNALIST

  ON THE PILGRIMAGE ROAD

  General Arista continued to use my mother’s house as a command post after he replaced General Ampudia. It was plain even to me as a boy that he was more bold. One could sense más energía.
His predecessor went out sullen but General Arista was polite to him and listened respectfully to his advice. He had scribes in the house writing everything down. Like General Ampudia he kept sending the propaganda across the river to the unhappy immigrant soldiers of the enemy force. He had me continue my work as a courier of those pamphlets. He assured me he would honor the arrangement by which I might be admitted as a cadet in the Colegio Militar as a reward for my service and to prepare me to be an officer. My mother gave the impression that this would be an honor, but I could see in her eyes a fear of it. She was a woman of good education, and such women do not like to see their sons become soldiers. Later we spoke of it in private and I told her that although I did not wish to be a soldier, I could learn in the Citadel the science of engineering, and could then become an engineer instead of a soldier. That seemed to cheer and comfort her, and she urged me to ask if I could return to Ciudad Mexico with General Ampudia’s party when he departed. Thus I would be far from Matamoros if the war began here.

  And so we made that suggestion to General Arista, but he said no, he wanted me to remain as a courier and a translator. That was more danger for me and my mother was displeased, but she acquiesced. An educated person understands that it is dangerous to protest what generals want. Even widows of soldiers are to obey orders.

  And so it was, Señor, that I continued to cross the river with my brigada. We called ourselves with pride Los Serpientes del Rio Bravo. Or as you Yanquis would say, the Water Moccasins.

  It must seem most unlikely to you now, Señor, as you see this poor hobbling wreck of a pilgrim laboring along the road to Our Lady of Guadalupe, that in another time I was a runner and a swimmer, a fencer, a wrestler, un atleta of uncommon swiftness and suppleness. But in those times I could run like a deer, swim like an eel, and go anywhere without fear.

  In the days following, many more of your Irish and German soldiers came across, and more slaves of your officers. Many of the soldiers, General Arista made available to Teniente Riley, and they reunited with a beautiful heartiness. He trained them at once in the maneuvers and firing of his swift artillery, the “flying battery.” Those who already knew gunnery became corporals and sergeants at his request, and those were ranks they would not have achieved in the Yanqui army because of your officers’ prejudice against Catholic immigrants. It gave them splendid spirit, and they responded with alacrity. They were also overjoyed with the welcome they received from our soldiers, and our citizens, and in particular the young women.

  There was an excitement among our young women because of the sense of danger and the suspense of coming war. They were curious about the big Irishmen and Germans, so tall and fair and deep-voiced. These men were being treated like saviors, come to help defend Matamoros. Some had curly red and golden hair, and magnificent side-whiskers and coppery mustaches. Many had blue eyes and pale skin, traits like those of the hidalgo class in Mexico. When they were fitted with the dark blue coats of the Mexican army, they all seemed like officers. They were less reserved than most of our officers, and laughed among themselves with a great sort of camaraderie. And of course they could not keep their eyes off the girls, who were most flattered by such overt attention. When Teniente Riley’s cannoneers were not out in the field training, flirtation was strong in the air like springtime. And when they were out in the field, wheeling about in formations of horse-drawn cannons and caissons, creating clouds of dust, then firing their rows of cannons at targets, estampido, trueno, ¡boom! ¡retumbar!, with the billowing smoke and the fire flashing from the cannons’ mouths, and shells bursting like blooming flowers in the air, so much power and thunder, all the townspeople would go to that side of the town to admire them, especially the young women. Though women love peace, they are excited by force, and the cannoneers were the very image of force.

  And in the evenings, the Irishmen sang songs from their Mother Country. They were so happy to be free to sing without being stopped and scorned by their officers! They sang most often “Green Grow the Lilacs O.” A beautiful sound, but so unlike the sound of our songs. “Green grow,” they would sing. And our people would smile and say to each other, “¡Gringo!” They would laugh. “¡Está balada de los Gringos!” It was their joke and they never tired of it. The war was almost always in their minds, the dread, the anger, and they loved the joke because they feared and hated the Gringos across the river, but loved these Gringos who had, by coming over, shown the enemy Gringos their backside.

  The deserters were in heaven. Suddenly they were praised and adored, after being reviled and punished. The young women they had seen bathing across the hostile river were now close enough to speak with, to touch. It was springtime, also, the season of rising desires. With the danger of war looming, passions were even more urgent. As you may imagine, Señor, many a romantic dream was fulfilled in those short days before the shooting began along the Rio Bravo del Norte—the Rio Grande, as you know it.

  General Arista was considering two large matters. The first was the removal of General Zachary Taylor’s army from the Mexican land between the Nueces and the Rio Bravo. The other was the well-being of the people of Matamoros, and their safety when the Yanqui soldiers and guns came to bear on the town. Always beyond the window of my mother’s house there loomed those huge dirt walls of your fort, like a bank of dark storm clouds building.

  General Arista talked many strategies, there in that room. He spoke of drawing the Yanqui army away from Matamoros by going down to attack its supply base at Port Isabel by the Gulf. He talked of placing our force between Port Isabel and the fort, to cut them off from their supplies. Our army could ford the Rio Bravo upstream from the fort and surround it. I remember, too, that Teniente Riley proposed a bold plan to cross the river up there with a battery of artillery and emplace it close to the fort, to dominate the weaker northwest side of the fort. He knew the fort well, and said that a crossfire would create a severe demoralizing of all the Yanquis within. He also pointed out on the map that a battery in that place would guard the road from Port Isabel to the fort. None of the batteries based around Matamoros could even sight on that road, nor would their shells reach it from so far back. Being a bold officer, General Arista was zealous for Teniente Riley’s plan. He would tie it to his larger strategy. He would first try to decoy General Taylor’s army off on the road to Port Isabel, and then he would let Teniente Riley cross the river and build his battery. That is, after the force within the fort was too diminished to send out an assault against the battery.

  My mother, plainly to my eye, was distressed to hear of this plan, for all such reasons as would alarm a woman in her circumstances. If much of General Arista’s army did move away toward the coast, she feared, the Norteamericanos might be emboldened to come over and assault Matamoros. She feared that. And she feared that any movement of either army might precipitate the war, whereas sitting still might postpone it forever.

  But I was no naïve child, and I understood that what alarmed her most was the danger to Teniente Riley himself. Day by day since the moment of his arrival, I had seen and felt the passion building between those two. It could be felt, like lightning in the air before it flashes. My mother and the Irishman were in straits of propriety, however, and not free to indulge their desires like his soldiers and the girls of the town. They were in the presence of each other only when he was at our house, under the eyes of General Arista and all the high officers, and the officials of the town. She was of station, and the widow of a highly esteemed officer. Her virtue was guarded as if it were the sacred flag of Mexico. Señor Riley was esteemed, but only a teniente. And having come as a deserter, he was as if a man on parole, earning trust by the strictest protocols. There was longing, but only longing. I myself, Señor, was of mixed emotions. They were bewitched by each other, and I loved them both. But the honor of one’s own mother is sacred to a young gentleman. Perhaps you understand. Sometime when I am not in the process of a narrative of war, I shall ask you about how a Yanqui journalist deems the honor
of his mother. Ha, ha! Forgive me. I should not mock any man on that matter, not even a Gringo.

  My concern for my mother’s honor and happiness was a major pre-occupation for me. More than one might expect, as boys of that age think mostly of themselves only. But there was no other family. I remember her being a woman almost without fault. I have no memory of any unfair word or deed from her throughout my childhood. She was devout in her religion, and la Santisima Virgen must have been the example by which she guided herself.

  But she was not a nun, no. It was her nature to love a man, one who was worthy. His own Catholic faith was evident to her. It was observed by us that when his men were in the tabernas and the burdels, he was not with them, but in the catedral. Such information came to my mother through the women in Matamoros who saw and knew everything. She was known to disdain gossip, yet almost everything note-worthy came to her. For their reasons, good or malicious, they told her what they knew, and what they thought. But whatever she was told, she weighed its source. I remember she taught me, one must always understand why people say what they say. She was wise, my mother, la viuda de Juvero.

  There were Mexican officers there attending upon General Arista, caballeros, proud and vain, who gave my mother unwanted attention. They preened and flirted about her. She was merely polite with them, and they grew frustrated. She did not slight them but they felt slighted because she remained aloof. Certain of such gentlemen observed her demeanor in the presence of Teniente Riley, and their envy focused upon him. One of those, a Coronel Ramirez, began trying to plant seeds of suspicion about Teniente Riley. Subtly he raised doubts about the wisdom of letting him and his Irish gunners take a battery of valuable cannons across the Rio Bravo to the vicinity of the Norteamericanos. The coronel wondered if the Irishmen could be trusted not to turn those cannons over to General Taylor. How clever they would have been to come across the river in the guise of turncoats to steal cannons from our army! General Arista listened but said nothing about it. My mother had overheard, and she urged me to warn Teniente Riley that there was such intrigue. But I was not to tell him which officer had raised the doubt, for it could not be good to set one off against the other. The Irishman thanked me for the warning, and implored me to convey his thanks to my mother. He said only that, but in his eyes when he said it there was intensity that he did not try to hide from me. I could feel him restraining himself from saying more. Try to understand, Señor, how delicate were all our sentiments in that time when the Yanquis were in their fort and their cannons were pointed at our town.