by H. H. Knibbs
In his cell, a surge of renewed confidence took hold of Ben Thompson as he recalled his skill at hitting the pecans in the air. His compelling thought now was to get out of the cell. And with that resolution, he was making a little pyramid of the bits of wood and cloth that had been markers for the passing days. He placed a lighted candle to them, and edged the flame toward the straw pallet and blanket. In a moment they were blazing, and soon after, the flames licked at the wood of the door. Might as well be dead from suffocation as locked up and rotting in this hell hole!
Ben struggled as far from the flames as his leg-irons would permit. He felt the hot blasts against his clothing, and the flush of the skin beneath. The smoke enveloped the cell and billowed through the little window to the outside.
Through the swirling clouds he heard the clank of the bolts on the door—then Smitty’s voice. And he was dimly aware of being dragged from the cell through the corridor outside. He dropped to the freshly watered verandah, and drank in great gulps of air. His leaden eyelids drooped against his efforts to keep them up. Ben fell into a sleep that seemed to be carrying him deep, deep down, like the whirlpool in the Colorado River swimming hole, the boys’ favorite spot for dares.
Ben awoke in a hospital tent. A doctor was feeling his pulse and saying he would be all right.
After a few days, Ben felt his strength returning. In a week he was sitting up, and the prospect of his trial or his escape loomed ever nearer. But the possibility of a quick trial faded when Smitty brought news that the regiment had been ordered on a forced march to the Rio Grande. Reinforcements were badly needed there for the undermanned garrisons, to cope with the increasing forays across the border and the Indian depredations.
The troops moved out of camp in a dusty column of horses and wagons. About twenty or thirty men were left behind, in the tents near Ben’s. He was still under technical arrest, and expected to be put back into the guardhouse. Meanwhile, the word got around that some of the men were left because of smallpox. The patients and those caring for them stayed on.
Smitty took sick, and Ben offered to nurse him. The captain agreed to spare him the return to the guardhouse in exchange for his volunteered services, even though he was still technically a prisoner. The camp now was more like a field hospital. Supplies were short, and there was no effort to enforce military discipline. Smitty’s illness turned out to be chickenpox instead of smallpox; his recovery was rapid, and he and Ben made plans to escape and get back to the fighting.
It was a simple matter. Nobody seemed to care much about what was happening in the deserted camp. Half the men were ailing. Ben and Smitty took a stroll from the camp one night toward a nearby stream, where they sometimes went for water.
They found the two horses they had staked out in a clump of cypress and willow trees. A blur of moonlight struck across the saddle-horns as Ben and Smitty mounted. They heard an owl hoot sadly in the dark as they turned their horses on a slow walk into a trail winding through a mesquite thicket, and headed for the San Antonio road. There Colonel Tom Green was forming a regiment of Texas Mounted Volunteers to serve with H. H. Sibley’s Brigade in East Texas and Louisiana.
CHAPTER 7
Ben Thompson fell in love with San Antonio at first sight. His encounter with New Orleans had fascinated him, and had filled him with unexpressed longings. Still, there had been something in the European flavor of the city that was beyond his frontier-life comprehension.
San Antonio held the same soft charm, and with it, a vigorous heartiness, a bluff, almost crude, cow-town energy. They seemed to mate perfectly with the mellowness of two hundred and fifty years as an outpost of the Spanish Conquest in North America.
And now, in the second year of the War Between the States, San Antonio was an established trading center and coach and freight terminal. It was glutted with the overflow of cotton diverted westward by the seacoast blockades; it was filled with piled-up merchandise, munitions, medicines, and hospital supplies brought up by oxcart and mule-team from the Rio Grande, after being landed on the Mexican shore of the Gulf.
So, there was plenty of money changing hands in San Antonio, and not all of it was Confederate currency. The buyers and sellers of Mexican and European wares demanded gold and silver. They paid in the same hard coin for the cotton they bought. Hundreds of South Texas ranch families had moved into town, seeking shelter from the unending raids of guerrilla bands. The cattlemen took to trading in the city while their herds, ever-multiplying, roamed unfenced, unbranded, and unnumbered. The cattle’s home range stretched over boundless millions of acres through the brush country no-man’s land that lay between the Brazos and the Rio Grande.
On a broiling July day in 1862, Ben and other gray-uniformed troopers strolled around San Antonio on a special holiday. News had come of McClellan’s defeat and surrender. The hopes of the Confederacy welled high amid the tolling bells and the intermittent pistol shots marking the rejoicing. The word spread like a dry-grass fire, crackled through the mud-caked and dusty plazas, south and west of the crumbling stones of the Alamo. They talked of little else that day along Commerce and Houston streets, crisscrossed by the glistening, gushing spring waters of the San Antonio River. The stream snaked through a city dotted with wagons and carretas and burros piled high with pale green roasting ears and flame-colored tomatoes and chile peppers. In Military Plaza the dust particles sparkled like millions of stars through the slanting glare of the late afternoon sun. Salty vapors rose from the horses and burros, the oxen and the goats. Chickens and dogs cluttered around the butcher stands, and flies swarmed over the strips of venison and cabrito hanging on strings alongside the plucked wild turkeys. The blue smoke from the brazier fires curled over the men’s gold and silver tasseled sombreros, and around the festive varicolored fringe of the women’s dark rebozos.
Ben Thompson, Jack Harris, and two other Confederate troopers turned from the narrow lane of Dolorosa Street into the spaciousness of Military Plaza. Ben breathed deeply of the cloud of smells that besieged his nostrils. Then the odors floated in separately on the breeze and he recognized them, one by one: the spicy, forest fragrance of burning mesquite wood, and the carbon monoxide of charcoal; the pungent and peppery steam from pots of cooking meats and vegetables and frijole beans; the bitter smell of black tobacco, blending with the sweet smoke of cornshuck; the aromatic vapor of coffee mixed with chicory; and the dampness of corn dough toasting on the hot metal sheets where tortillas were being baked.
In the center of the busy square, the Chile Queens of San Antonio were setting up their open-air food stands for the night. The lights flickering from hundreds of candles and small oil lamps caught the shadows of the flare-skirted women bustling about them, and the shadows rolled across the squatting burros loaded with firewood. Ben heard the plaintive chant of the candy vendors floating across the plaza, and the soft, sad strumming of guitars. Here, Ben tasted enchiladas—meat with chile sauce, rolled into tortillas and browned with onions and melted cheese—and he liked them.
Here, too, Ben Thompson had met Jack Harris, whose family had hopes that the war might turn that young man’s fancy away from the sporting life that held him in its spell. And Ben met many another Texan here, against whom he could measure himself as a man. One he came to admire was young Leander H. McNelly, a fellow-member of Tom Green’s outfit. Later, as a Texas Ranger, McNelly achieved renown as a fearless man-hunter. His prowess was always on the side of the law. Ben was an independent operator.
With Jack Harris and a couple of the other boys, Ben learned much about San Antonio that did not show on the surface: the faro and monte games in the back rooms upstairs over the saloons; the keno halls, where players lined up grains of corn on a card marked with numbers corresponding to those on small wooden balls drawn from a gourd-shaped container known as a “goose.” He became acquainted with the operations of the various “parlors” in which the private entertainment was on a level approaching
that of New Orleans sophistication. The practitioners there had carried their arts to high refinement, far beyond the ken of the home talent in the sprawling tangle of weather-beaten shanty cribs of the red light district across Alazan Creek.
During his layover in San Antonio, Ben utilized the opportunity to cultivate the skills that would fit him better for a professional career as a gambler. In addition, he directed his enterprise to supplying his fellow troopers with whisky, on the cuff. This arrangement blended neatly as a sideline with his offering of cash-on-the-barrelhead entertainment in the form of “bucking the tiger” at the card layouts.
At the conclusion of one of his buying trips, when he was returning after unauthorized leave from camp, Ben was surprised by a sentry. The sentry called out a patrol, and Ben spurred his frightened bay gelding. The horse reared soon after the pursuit began, and the sack full of quart bottles of whisky crashed to the ground. Ben lost his balance and dropped onto the splintering glass and ripped burlap. The horse slipped at the same time, and Ben got the impact of the animal’s rump across his left leg. The fractured leg put Ben out of active duty, and in the hospital for six weeks.
CHAPTER 8
While Ben Thompson was in the hospital at San Antonio, his regiment, the Fifth Texas Mounted Volunteers, moved on to East Texas. The outfit was under orders to join Kirby Smith’s command in the Red River and Louisiana campaign.
Ben’s leg was healing rapidly now. He had to use a crutch for walking, but he could ride a horse with some degree of comfort. There was a possibility of some fighting in Galveston, he heard, so one night he slipped away from the hospital, acquired a horse, and rode out toward the Gulf coast.
The second day out, Ben overtook the regiment camped on a little stream, awaiting orders for the Galveston rendezvous. Here he made friends with Phil Coe, the six-foot-four Austin man who insisted on going along with the troops to fight, but who refused to enlist.
The days in camp dragged on, and Ben and Phil were itching for a bit of excitement. They left one evening on an old horse. At the village of San Bernardo, they traded the animal for a gallon of whisky. They doctored the raw whisky with wild cherries, and had practically taken over the small town of Richmond, when the regiment caught up with them. The two were placed under arrest. Phil Coe was ordered conscripted, and Ben was placed in the rear among the sick. Phil departed unofficially, and Ben did not see him again until after the war.
Ben refused to stay in camp, and he rode again after the regiment, which was then approaching Galveston. A force of Union soldiers was preparing to come over from the island for a landing. There was no time for disciplinary measures. Ben went on with the cavalry that took part in the battle. The fighting ended with a Confederate victory, including the capture of the vessel, the Harriet Lane, the destruction of several others, and the routing of the Federals.
An incident a few days after the battle indicated that Ben was well on the road to recovery. After obtaining permission from Captain Tobin, Ben and another soldier went into the captain’s tent to write some letters. A sergeant-orderly entered and ordered them to remove themselves instantly.
When they refused, the sergeant tore into Ben’s friend, a much smaller man, and began beating him. In a moment, Ben had lifted the only weapon handy—his crutch—and smashed it against the sergeant’s head. The crutch broke, but part of it stayed in Ben’s hand and he continued using it as a club until the sergeant fled.
The reward for Ben’s gallantry in this action was confinement to the Galveston guardhouse. But two days later, the whole command was ordered to push on toward Louisiana, and the incident of the captain’s tent was forgotten. The drive to the Louisiana border was a forced march aimed at relieving the small garrison at Fort Griffin, guarding Sabine Pass at the Texas-Louisiana line.
There, an army of about four thousand Federal soldiers was attempting a landing. This was part of a planned invasion of Texas, which also had as its goal the cutting of Confederate communications and supply lines between Texas and Louisiana. The battle raged for almost an hour. The Confederates captured two gunboats and prevented the landing of the Union troopers who waited outside the bar on transports.
During this battle, Ben won a field commission of captain for his role in the action. Bad leg and all, he was such a good rider that he was cited for courage and daring in carrying dispatches through the enemy lines—a service vitally needed to co-ordinate the reinforcements with the men besieged in the mud fortress. In the Battle of Sabine Cross Roads, part of the general engagement, Ben had full opportunity to make use of his prowess with pistol and rifle, under circumstances which did not require his answering to the law on charges of homicide.
After the battle, the regrouped Texans pushed on to Louisiana, and there took part in the disastrous campaign which ended in the routing of Pyron’s regiment in LaFouche. The slaughter was great, and those who remained faced harried retreat, ambush, hunger, fatigue and undoctored wounds.
The strain set back recovery of Ben’s leg, and he was hardly able to walk. In the retreat, Ben was with four other men, besides his brother, Billy. By the side of a road, they found an old two-wheeled cart; they scouted around and located an old mule and an old ox, and then hitched the two together as a team. In this bizarre transport, they headed for Texas.
The ride in the oxcart was slow, cold and harrowing, over roads softened by heavy rains. One night the Thompsons’ companions decided that four could do better than six. They cut loose the ox and mule and rode off, leaving Ben and Billy asleep in the cart, buried deep in a mud-hole. The next morning, Billy went off in a desperate search, and managed to find help. The Thompsons started off again, following the Texas coastline southward until they found the remnants of their reassembled command in camp near Galveston. In talking about the experience later, Ben used to say that he probably would have died if it hadn’t been for Billy’s help.
The strain of battle, the short rations, his bad leg, and the exposure and cold combined to make Ben completely unfit for further military service at the moment. He was given an indefinite furlough, and returned to Austin.
CHAPTER 9
Despite the lure of the sporting world, there was within Ben Thompson a strong pull toward the settled, sober, and quiet life. The conflict was never resolved, and may account in part for some of the more erratic episodes in his history. It is certain that he felt a deep loyalty to his mother. There was an urge, also, to prove himself as a journeyman, in the pursuits of everyday occupation, and to be regarded as a steady provider.
During his furlough the mood of conventional respectability was dominant. Ben on previous occasions had paid court to Molly Moore, the good-looking daughter of a well-known farmer, Martin Moore, whose place was located several miles outside the village. The Moores, with a solid place among the law-abiding and God-fearing folk of Austin, thought highly of young Ben Thompson. Now, Ben Thompson had asked for Molly’s hand, and he was accepted joyfully into the family.
A few months later, Ben’s Confederate-issue Spiller and Burr pistol cut loose in a memorable street-corner shooting involving his wife’s brother, Jim Moore. This fracas broke up the class in Mrs. Foster’s private school, and sent the pupils scurrying a block away to Pecan Street, to see what was going on. The source of the incident was a visit Ben paid to his mother-in-law’s house. He found her in tears. She told him Jim had stolen all her iron pots and lids and had sold them to the Confederate cannon factory in Austin. The factory, it seemed, had plenty of brass and copper for the cannons, but there was a shortage of iron for cannon balls, and they were paying a high price for iron. As Ben stormed out of the house, promising “to teach Jim a lesson,” the mother pleaded with him not to hurt her boy.
Ben and Jim met at a store corner. The words were few. Ben started shooting. Jim started running, shaking the chalky dust of Austin from his heels, with bullets bouncing close behind. People in Austin for the most part agree
d that Ben had made no effort to hurt Jim. Rather, he merely wanted to throw a scare into the boy. Bullets fired almost straight up were dug out of the building posts to prove that the blasts were for psychological effect, and that, if he had wished, a marksman such as Ben could have filled Jim full of lead as he ran. But even as far back as the Civil War, in the beginnings of Ben’s serious relationship with an explosive lead-dispenser, the tradition had become established and it persisted throughout his life: Ben Thompson would not shoot an unarmed man.
When the gambling urge again seized Ben, he found that the Austin of 1863 offered little encouragement to these ambitions. Hardly any loose currency was floating around seeking quick multiplication. The bulk of it was in the form of “Blue Williams,” the Confederate paper money, and this currency somehow had not achieved the robust acceptance more circumspectly, if less loyally, endowed upon what was known as “specie” or more commonly as hard-cash, gold and silver, whether in coins, bars, or dust.
By 1863, the merchandise in the stores had been almost depleted. The Yankee gunboat blockades had effectively bottled up the sources of replenishment. Such staples as flannels and calico had completely vanished. There was abundant raw cotton in the vicinity, and some homespun had begun to appear. Factory-made goods like pins and needles were not to be had at any price. The friendly Indians were doing a thriving business in deerskin moccasins, for shoes had long been worn down beyond repair and there were no manufactured replacements. All available leather had been channeled to army use—for boots, gloves, saddles, and the like.