Somewhere southwest of San Antonio de Bexar
The crest of the hill is no more than a man’s height above the surrounding flat but it affords a decent view of the scattered plots that once marked a town. The burned out ruins give no trace of a name nor are there any inhabitants present more vocal than the fox and the vulture.
One man is wiry and grizzled with several days of beard beneath a broad-brimmed, non-regulation hat. He switches his chaw of tobacco expertly from one cheek to another and spits. “Damn,” he says. The voice is flat, toneless, uninflected. The single word sums up the scene more perfectly than volumes could. “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir.”
The second man is also mounted. His horse twitches as the tobacco stream arcs in the harsh sunlight. He is young but he effortlessly gentles the mare with body language: knees so, heels so, reins just so. “I still don’t understand why Mexican troops would burn out the houses of their own people,” he mutters, half to himself.
“Mex don’t get paid much, sir. Or so I heard from the folks in San ‘tone,” the first man – a sergeant - drawls. “If’n you don’t pay men, they loot. And then they burn to cover it up. Don’t matter a man much who owned the bottle of likker he stole so long as
he gets to drink it.” There was a clear warning in the homily that what Mexican troops could do, Americans soldiers might also like to try. The young man – a lowly second lieutenant – had always known why the Army was fanatical about discipline. But he realized for the first time not in his head but in his heart why Army discipline was both relentless and brutal. Pointless as it might seem in camp, the constant punishments would be worthwhile if they helped prevent… this.
Another rider canters up, tall in the saddle with the same military bearing as the first two, but dressed in dusty civilian clothes rather than US army powder-blue. Except for the dull star pinned to his vest he could be any frontier rancher, down to his sweat-stained hat and Colt revolver at his belt.
“Mornin’, sir.” The sergeant offers. Buford, the lieutenant, shoots him a look. The Texas Ranger grins, teeth white against a deep tan. “Retired a decade ago, Sergeant Rourke, as you should well know. You were there, after all. Mornin’, Lieutenant. I’m Albert Johnston, Texas Rangers.”
“West Point,” Buford says, “Class of ’27? I’m John Buford, class of ’48. Good to make your acquaintance, Mister Johnston.”
“1826, actually. Welcome to the Army, Lieutenant; it is a pleasure to meet you as well. Rourke will see you right, so long as you can smell the bull-shit before you step in it.” Johnston smiles, but it slides off his face as he looks at the blackened shells of houses. “What do you want to do about the scum that did this?”
Buford shrugs. “That’ll be up to the Captain, I suppose.”
Johnston shakes his head in a quick negative. “Captain Cooke is miles behind and the rest of his troop is spread out over half of the county. If you send back to ask permission we’ll lose half a day, and I know PSG Cooke will tell you to make your own decision anyway. I was in the same class as Philip. ‘
You ah on poynt, Seh-cun Loo-tennan. Puh-haps you may cun-sent to ac-shu-ly lead us from that po-si-shun?’” Johnston’s deadly-accurate imitation of Cooke’s courtly Virginia accent brings a knowing chuckle from the other two.
Buford shrugs agreement and then looks across the horizon. “I’d like to see every one of these bandits hang but I don’t know how many there are, or their present location, or see how we could catch them short of the river. You have some suggestions, Mister Johnston?”
Johnston looks at Rourke, who shrugs and moves his lips in a faint approving smile. “Right. Dan Murton is one of my men. He’s been out in front with some Lipan scouts. They say there’s sign for over a hundred horses, call it sixty men or so – a full troop of lancers, headed west. If we catch them and hit them they’ll just break for the border. What we need to do is show them a small force so that they’ll stand and fight.”
“While a detachment rides around and takes them in the flank?” Buford interjects. Johnston smiles again, the anticipatory grin of a carnivore. “Very well, Mister Johnston, let us see what we can accomplish. Sergeant Rourke, please send a rider back to present my compliments to Lieutenant Bragg, or to George Thomas if he can’t find Bragg. Ask them if they can get a couple of guns up to help us. Where do you think the Mexicans might be, Mister Johnston?”
Johnston points southwest. “A dozen miles or so, that-a-way. There’s another village on a creek, right about where that smoke goes down to the ground.”
“Ah. You think we can catch them?”
“If the Indians say the Mexicans don’t know we’re here then you can believe them; no Indian will have anything to do with the Mexican army, and you can’t scout in this country without Indians. Once they burn out that town they’ll probably do just what they did here: settle down for a day or so to drink and eat whatever they plundered and finish burning the rest. If they do that, we can catch them.”
Buford nods, face set hard. “Sergeant, send another rider back with word for Captain Cooke. Tell him that if the artillery will come along we are going to rid Texas of some vermin.”
Lieutenant George Thomas sighted along the barrel of the six-pounder cannon and nodded sharply before stepping back and to the side. “We will wait a minute more, Watcomb. Our best target is the mass they make just before they start forward.” Around him was the organized bustle of men carrying out preparations they had practiced a hundred times before, though never carried out in battle.
He had four guns of the six-gun battery of horse artillery – Captain Bragg was presumably bringing up the other two, if the courier had reached him. They were atop a low rise far enough from the burnt-out village that the cannon had been pointed to maximum elevation to drop salvos of shell atop the somnolent Mexicans. He had ceased fire when the lancers came boiling out of the village; now that he had their attention he had only to hold this position until the cavalry came up from the south.
As he looked around he made marks on his mental checklist. The gunners were trenching and turfing to improve the position. The caissons were below the crest of the hill, hopefully out of the way of stray bullets. So far he had seen no sign of Mexican artillery, but you couldn’t be too careful. The long strings of horses were down the hill with the caissons, enough horses to pull the limbered cannon and mount every artilleryman, too. There was plenty of ammunition, some piled conveniently by each gun. He nodded to himself.
“Watcomb, we will give them two salvos of roundshot and hold the grape in readiness.” The Mexicans were still preparing, so there was time for a sip of water. He wanted to pour the canteen over his head but that would be unseemly behavior for an officer and a gentleman. It was blazingly hot and the morning was only half gone. The men looked steady. Should he say something? He eased his shoulders under the blue wool coat and cast about for something suitably inspirational.
Watcomb spoke first. “Loaded and ready, sir.”
He spoke without thinking. “Throw them a ball, Watcomb, and let us see if they know how to dance!”
Buford was sweating hard and swearing under his breath. Despite the Lipan Apache guides the route the flanking force had taken was rougher and longer than he had been told. A band of Indians might be able to trot through this scrub without trouble, but the US Dragoons were finding it heavy going. They were an hour late already.
“Mary, Mother of God,” the man beside him swore. Johnston clapped him on the shoulder and grinned. “We promised you could kill some Mexicans, Harris. And there they are!”
Clearly the scouts had missed something. Perhaps more troops had come up from the south or west to join the lancers in the town. At any point there were many more horsemen forming up on the plain than he had expected, perhaps as many as a battalion. The only pieces of luck so far were the speed and accuracy of the artillery and the failure of the Mexican commander to get his men organized and moving forward. One group of fifty lancers had tried early on to ride over the guns but they had found more than the one gun they had expected. More than a dozen horses had gone down and Johnston had seen more than one man crawl from cover to put the poor screaming horses out of their misery.
Around him were a dozen Rangers and a few volunteer Texans. On either side were a half-dozen dismounted cavalry. Behind them, higher up the little hill, were the guns, situated to fire through the gaps between the cavalry and the Rangers. And that was it; enough to hold up a hundred lancers or so, but five hundred cavalry could probably ride right over this thin little line.
And here they came, front line shaking out in a walk. One of the six-pounders barked and he saw the black dot of the cannonball ricochet off the iron-hard earth, bowling into the oncoming lancers. A horse went down, and another in the second line, but none in the third. It was time for Buford’s men to come in from the south, but Johnston could see no trace of dust, no tell-tale glitter of bright-work. Perhaps they were just well-disguised. Johnston sent up a fervent prayer of his own as the cavalry went to a trot.
Buford risked a quick sweep of the horizon with his telescope. The mass of Mexican cavalry left him breathless and tight in the chest. Dear God, we are supposed to charge into
that? This couldn’t be the first time the Mexicans had tried to ride over the guns; the slope of the hill was dotted with the dead and the thrashing bodies of wounded men and horses. Of the Texans and dragoons that should have been protecting the artillery he saw no sign, but the guns were still firing.
He thought about using his men for a charge and then decided against it. Dragoons were supposed to fight dismounted; very well, he would do so. They would ride hard for that little grove and dismount. From it they could pour an enfilading fire into the lancer’s flank. That should at least make the Mexicans draw back and regroup.
Johnston rolled the dead man over and took his revolver and cartridges. Not for the first time he blessed the name of Samuel Colt, whose nifty little invention was the preferred side-arm of every man in the Rangers. The Army issued it to their officers, and most of the dragoons had picked up a revolver or two for their own use, too. You couldn’t hit a barn unless you were standing alongside it, but the revolver could deliver a lot of shots in a few seconds, and for close-in work that was what mattered.
They had waited for the cavalry to lunge into a gallop before firing their muskets and going face-down. As the guns bellowed grape and canister, the men had opened up with revolvers and the Mexicans had turned back, unwilling to press the attack. More from surprise than actual losses, Johnston thought, but one should never discount the element of surprise in war. They had tried the same charge a second time, driving Rangers and dismounted dragoons back into the artillery in a furious but short melee. Short-swords and revolvers were better for that fight than a Mexican lance, but it was Thomas who saved the day. He and a few gunners hauled a six-pounder around and literally blew an officer and a standard-bearer to bits. That sent the Mexicans down the slope a second time, but the toll of dead and wounded Americans made it unlikely they could stand off a third assault.
The Mexican commander was too stupid, or too rigid, to try a flanking attack, and that was good. But he was stupid, or stubborn, enough to try his luck again. And that was very bad.
The lancers took longer to reform this time. Johnston could see the commander riding up and down their line waving his hat. No doubt they were going to come again. Once more the line shivered and came on at a walk. The horses had to be exhausted…
Johnston had moved his men behind the raised earthwork, alongside the guns. Scarcely half the men he had started with remained, even counting the seriously wounded. Then another body flopped in the dust beside him and Johnston turned to see the smoke-grimed face of George Thomas. “I’m ordering up the horses to move the guns. My men are bringing up your horses too.”
Johnston swore and tried to spit but nothing came out. If the red-legs wanted to call it quits he couldn’t stop them, but the lancers would slaughter anyone who tried to retreat. They’d have to abandon the guns! Thomas must have read his expression, for he grabbed the Ranger’s arm. “Look!” he wheezed. “There!”
Down the slope the cavalry were moving to a trot but the lines were so disordered as to be little better than a mob. A glitter from a grove of trees caught his eye – rifle barrels, moving from the shoulder to the level. Then a ripple of musketry caught the lancers from their right rear, crumpling the flank and sending riders in every direction. Still, the Mexican commander reacted more quickly than Johnston would have liked or expected.
Those dismounted dragoons were in the open, on the flat and level, unprotected by earthworks. A swift charge would roll over them like an ocean wave! No more than a hundred lancers could pivot and lunge, but it would be enough to shred less than two dozen dragoons. That small success would enable the Mexican commander to claim a victory, or regroup his men for another assault. It would be enough…
But here came the ear-splitting roar of one of those accursed cannon, from close-range and from an unexpected direction. Even Johnston could not believe how quickly the exhausted artillerymen could limber a piece, spur the horses to a gallop and then deploy the gun. On the heels of the cannon’s defiant blast Buford’s dragoons got off another volley, and with that the lancers had finally had enough.
Utterly exhausted, the Americans were unable to pursue. “Besides,” Johnston joked later, “they still out-numbered us four-to-one. If we had caught them, what ever would we have done?”
