Custer at the Alamo (7 page)

With my small detachment, we went back up to the nearest bend and plunged into the cold river. Crossing any river can be difficult, especially one as wide as the Rio Grande. The water buffeted us harshly, and for a moment, I was worried we might be washed downstream. Fortunately, our mounts found footing most of the way, and we were only forced to swim a short distance.

Once we reached the opposite shore, we travelled west a good half mile before turning south, seeking to avoid Mexican patrols. The land here was rolling prairie prone to occasional flooding. Stringy trees and prickly bushes sprang up in pockets. The Comanche Indians were known to roam these badlands before disease and war with the Texas Rangers whittled down their numbers. As far as I was concerned, the Comanche could have it back.

We soon reached a shallow ravine north of the Mexican column, dismounting in a dip fifty yards from the old Spanish road. While Butler and Cooke kept the horses quiet, I went alone to scout the new position. One of the 12-pounders was finally across the river, the raft pulled up on the muddy shore. The long iron cannon must have weighed fourteen hundred pounds, making it hard to manage. Several soldiers were untying the carriage wheels so it could be rolled to higher ground. The other raft was nearly on the embankment.

I noticed a second freight wagon had been floated to the eastern shore. More than fifty smaller wagons, filled with sacks of beans and supplies, were impatiently waiting their turn to cross. The enemy looked exhausted, ready to make camp. A colonel in a smart blue uniform was issuing orders, a plumed helmet on his head and a gleaming saber at his side, but most of the Mexicans appeared armed with old-fashioned muskets and lances. Their clothes were soiled, some almost in rags. I assumed many were peasants, not considered worthy of the regular army.

“What are you thinking, General?” Cooke asked, always more respectful of my rank when the shooting was about to start.

“I was recalling that time back in 1866, when President Juarez offered me command of the Mexican cavalry, but Grant refused to let me accept the appointment. He claimed that an American officer serving the Mexican revolution would set a bad precedent.”

“You wouldn’t have been the first officer to accept a foreign appointment. John Paul Jones did,” Cooke said, though such accommodations are rare.

“I think Grant was jealous, afraid of the glory I’d win defeating the French. Had he decided differently, I’d have whipped the Mexican army into shape and overthrown Maximilian in three months.”

Though I did not reveal my thoughts to Cooke, I have often wondered what might have happened next. Would I have remained in Mexico? Become a general and entered politics? Certainly under my guidance, this army of peasants crossing the river would not be such a rabble.

“What’s our plan, sir?” Cooke asked, his Winchester held ready.

Bouyer had his old buffalo gun, Butler carried the Sharps. The Indian lads carried muskets and arrows. Combined with my Remington hunting rifle, we could boast a good punch.

“Tom and Keogh will be the hammer. We are the anvil,” I announced, the cold rattling my teeth.

Bouyer looked at me with an expression bordering on insubordination, then looked at Cooke, Butler and the two young braves.

“Gen’ral, we sure is one mighty small anvil,” he said, spitting from a chaw of tobacco.

“Be sure to make every shot count,” I replied.

It was really only a guess, but I’d used this plan against the Rebs in the Shenandoah. Not with just six soldiers, of course. I was hoping for similar good fortune now.

After digging into our new position, I studied the Mexican army as they boarded rafts and attached logs to help float the remaining wagons. A dozen long ropes were keeping the rafts from floating away as soldiers on the far shore pulled the lines in. All was quiet on the hill beyond the river, which was good. Tom was waiting to strike with maximum advantage, and I expected nothing less from him. Keogh would arrive soon and need no explanations. He had once raided deep behind enemy lines with General Stoneman. Though fond of drink, as are all the Irish, Keogh was not a drunk like Reno.

“Something’s happening, Gen’ral,” Butler said, having taken the forward position.

I crawled up to the edge of the draw but didn’t need my field glasses, for the river was less than a hundred yards to my left.

“The second cannon is finally up on the sand,” I observed. “Looks like the officers will make camp once the freight wagons are over.”

“There’s two hundred soldiers on the other side. Only a hundred left on our side. The rest are just helpers, not even armed,” Cooke said, always a good judge of such things.

“I’m surprised they’ve got so many women traveling in their train. Even old women. This is a small town, not a troop movement,” I observed with contempt. Not that wives occupying officers on campaign was unusual. Libbie had often traveled with me during the war. The rank and file were expected to leave their women home.

“Aim for the non-commissioned officers first,” I ordered.

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Sergeant Butler objected.

“War’s not fair, Jimmy. Especially this kind of war,” I replied.

Hardly a minute later, gunfire opened on the far side of the Rio Grande. I saw an officer in gold braid topple from his horse. Two sergeants went to his aid only to be wounded. Then another uniformed soldier dropped, the commonly dressed peons being ignored.

For just for a moment, the entire enemy army appeared to freeze. Birds had burst from the trees at the first shots, horses had bucked, and startled soldiers were looking in every direction. Then a young
soldado
shouted the alarm, echoed by a dozen others. Sergeants ran to their squads, tightening the chinstraps on their tall shako hats. Infantry reached for their muskets. Officers rushed to issue orders. The sandy riverbank became a mass of confusion.

As a full volley was fired from the low ridge, a troop of dragoons rode forward, drawing pistols. Their striking red jackets were trimmed in blue and highlighted by white cross straps. Most carried long wooden lances and wore silver helmets dressed with black plumes. For light cavalry, they made a marvelous spectacle, but forming as they did was not an effective tactic against rifles fired from a prepared position. The dragoon commander was shot from his saddle. Then the flag bearer was wounded, the banner fluttering to the ground.

“Guess they were surprised,” Cooke whispered, kneeling at my side.

“They’ll try to rally,” I said.

“Tom won’t give them time,” Cooke replied.

He was right. I watched as a junior officer ordered the bugler to sound recall, but when a second volley tore through their troop, the rest of the dragoons scattered, the majority attempting to regroup downriver.

The sudden withdrawal of the cavalry had the Mexican infantry scrambling, shaking mud off their muskets while looking for their sergeants. Most of the soldiers were dressed in blue tunics with white straps across their chests. Along with the tall shako hats, which appeared to be standard issue, they carried leather ammunition pouches on their wide black belts. Nearly all had long knives and bayonets. A few of the Mexicans knelt to fire at the ridge, the shots sporadic, but a return volley knocked several of them down.

There was just as much confusion on our side of the river. The wagons all came to a halt, the teamsters jumping from their seats. Skittish animals bucked, causing some of the carts to spin around. Women grabbed children, seeking shelter from stray gunfire, while old men desperately tried to pull their mules off the road. There was a great deal of noise and shouting.

The soldiers nearest our position knelt, looking toward the opposite shore, not sure where the shots were coming from as the entire ridge was bathed in gray smoke. Their officers acted more quickly, issuing orders while drawing swords. Slowly, fifty or so men started moving toward the riverbank, but their view of the fight was largely blocked by the dragoons splashing at the water’s edge. And there wasn’t much to see. Tom was keeping the men so low that even I couldn’t tell their numbers.

In the first few minutes of the fight, at least twenty of the enemy lay dead or wounded, but they didn’t give up easily. Nearly two hundred soldiers eventually responded to the orders of their officers, loading muskets and forming into units. I expected them to make a bayonet charge up the gentle slope, for Tom’s men were only seventy-five yards away. When I saw that Yates had arrived, I knew Tom had the firepower to discourage an attack, but if the Mexicans were determined enough, they just might carry the position with an all-out assault.

But to my amazement, the enemy did not charge. They formed into long ranks, like the Napoleonic armies of 1800, and prepared to return fire while waiting for their field artillery to be unlimbered. As such, they were merely targets.

The firing from the ridge paused. Tom was also surprised, but he only hesitated for a moment. Just as the enemy was about to fire, a fearsome volley was unleashed into the Mexican ranks. Whole groups of men fell where they stood, and before the enemy quite grasped what had happened, another volley cut down even more. Men were sprawled along the shore moaning in pain, torn open by .45 calibur bullets. There was so much blood it couldn’t soak into the ground, running down the beach in rivulets.

The Mexicans finally raised their muskets and returned fire, dust kicking up all over the slope, but if they hit anything it was a miracle. It seemed the enemy’s weapon of choice was the Brown Bess, a sturdy old smoothbore musket with a limited range of accuracy.

I had not even seen a Brown Bess since visiting the collection of old firearms at the New York Historical Society. To fire the ancient weapon, the Mexicans needed to stand upright, jam a powder charge down the barrel using a ramrod, drop in a lead ball, pack the charge with the ramrod again, and then put a spot of gunpowder in the musket’s firing pan before aiming and pulling the trigger. A long and clumsy process, even for a trained professional. Our Springfield 1873 carbine was a completely different creature. All we had to do was open the firing chamber, put in a bullet, close the chamber using the lever, and fire. A raw recruit could easily fire six or seven times for every shot fired by the Brown Bess.

Still another volley erupted from the ridge. Tom had his sergeants controlling the fire, taking their time to hit what they aimed at. The Mexicans began reloading as their non-commissioned officers shouted orders. But before they could raise their muskets and fire again, Tom’s next volley tore all along their line. Most of the enemy fire went wild.

At this point I expected the Mexicans to withdraw, spreading toward the flanks while keeping a small holding force behind the supply wagons. As such, they could use their superior numbers effectively. But for the next several minutes, nothing of the kind developed. The enemy stood their ground, reloading as best they could, reforming among the bleeding bodies of their comrades.

Upon the desperate orders of their officers, and Mexicans finally fired a full volley at the ridge, dirt bursting along the crest. And then there was a pause. Beyond the noise of frightened animals and crying children, the battlefield across the river hung in a strange calmness. A calmness that was soon shattered.

My personal guidon appeared atop the ridge, followed by the regimental stars and stripes, the banners flapping in the wind. Then sixty mud-streaked cavalrymen rose to their knees, taking careful aim, and unleashed a storm into the Mexican ranks. Two more explosions followed so quickly that the Mexicans never had time to reload, their formations crumbling. Even the officers realized their position was untenable, but there was no place on the beach for them to entrench. On my side of the river, the hundred or so soldiers who had rushed to the water’s edge were waiting for orders to fire. A young officer on horseback was watching but hesitant to act, fearing to hit his own men.

Just as the battered enemy was drawing back toward the ford using the supply wagons for cover, Keogh’s command suddenly appeared at the top of the hill with guidon flying. I could only see a few cavalrymen at first, then a dozen, and finally Keogh’s whole troop of forty. They looked like a hundred, filling the eastern horizon.

“Now!” I shouted, stepping up and firing at the closest blue uniform. My first shot hit him right between the white cross straps.

Cooke stood up beside me, levering his Winchester repeater and knocking out eight shots in a matter of seconds. Butler took an extra moment to sight his Sharps, killing a captain at eighty yards. Bouyer fired the buffalo gun, the bark so loud it sounded like a small cannon. The surprise flank attack soon caused the enemy to scatter.

“General, watch out!” Cooke shouted, hurrying to reload.

I glanced at Cooke, then saw a brave Mexican corporal kneeling twenty yards away, pointing an old smooth-bore pistol at me. There was no time to reload my rifle, so I reached for one of the Webley Bulldogs, though it appeared I had reacted too late. Suddenly Spotted Eagle jumped in front of me, raised his bow, and sent a shaft through the young corporal’s throat. The man’s hand jerked up, the shot fired wild, and he rolled backward, legs kicking in his death throes.

“Thanks, youngster,” I said, though I still had no intention of giving him one of my pistols. The young brave drew a knife, anxious to claim the corporal’s scalp. Bouyer came forward to explain that no trophies could be taken until after the battle.