by Drew McGunn
Almonte jerked his head toward the river, a scant quarter mile away, when he heard the deep-throated roar of field artillery added to the cacophony of gunfire. He turned and saw their eight artillery pieces. He swore as it dawned on him what this meant, “Damn!” He thought, “Those rebels we’ve been chasing ran us straight into their main army.”
He walked to the edge of the camp, looking to the north, as the sound of gunfire died away. One of the few remaining officers of the Jimenez Battalion joined him, “Sounds like General Cos has run into trouble, General. Shall I assemble the battalion?”
Almonte looked toward his Excellency’s headquarters tent. Santa Anna was deep in a conversation with his new aide-de-camp and appeared to ignore the sounds of battle. He thought of approaching his Excellency and asking for permission, but as he looked to the north, he dismissed the idea and nodded to the young officer, and said, “Yes, Major Chavez, gather the men.”
Almonte’s focus was fixed on the ominous silence from the Nueces River. With a course of action now set, he found the captain commanding the remnants of the Matamoros battalion and told him to assemble his unit to the right of the Jimenez. He briefly considered finding Colonel Morales, but since the battle at el Rio Bravo del Norte, he thought Morales’ men had been less diligent in their duties and desertions were high. As men broke from the tree line, streaming back toward the camp, Almonte set the thought aside and rushed to where Major Chavez was forming both regular infantry battalions to either side of their regimental standards. Maybe 250 men, Almonte figured.
The three battered battalions streaming back from their attack on the Nueces were not simply returning to the camp, beaten. They were looking over their shoulders and, it seemed to Almonte, running even faster. He glanced at his Excellency, who finally stopped talking to his aide-de-camp and was now yelling at the men who were streaming back into the camp, to stop and assemble. A few, Almonte noted, listened to Santa Anna, and stopped their flight, but others, babbling about the gates of hell being unleashed behind them, continued their headlong flight through the encampment.
The remnants from the Aldama, Toluca, and Zapadores battalions had not yet finished crossing the field when Almonte saw the protracted line of rough-looking infantry emerge from the tangled mesquite woods. He yanked his sword from his sheath and found Major Chavez standing between the two regular battalions of the Vanguard Brigade.
Looking to his right and left, Almonte despaired when he saw his line was scarcely more than fifty yards long. To the left of his truncated brigade, his spirits were buoyed as he watched more than a score of Mexican artillerists unlimbering their cannons and carrying ammunition from their caissons. From behind, he heard running feet and turned and saw dozens of men from the San Luis Potosi Battalion running forward, and adding themselves to his line. As he waited for the Texians to advance, he felt encouraged, knowing he and his men were not alone.
***
Less than two hundred yards separated the Texian riflemen from the Mexican camp. Will took a moment to watch the Mexican gunners rushing around their cannon, unlimbering the gun carriages from their caissons. While time was of the essence, he felt a nudge from Crockett as the frontiersman said, “Say something to the boys, they expect it.”
As he stepped forward a few feet, he felt both silly and vulnerable as he raised his voice and shouted, “Men of Texas! I call on you in the name of liberty, patriotism, and everything that is dear to the American character to fight with me this day! The Lord is on our side! Victory or death!” As the men cheered, Will felt an overwhelming sense of pride as he returned to his place near Crockett.
“Not bad, Buck.” Crockett practically shouted the words to be heard over the yelling of their riflemen. Will smiled sheepishly. He had borrowed a line from the letter penned by William B. Travis during the final days of the siege of the Alamo in a world now existing only in Will’s mind. A look across the field showed the artillerists had decoupled their cannons from the caissons and were loading them.
“It’s time,” Will said to Crockett, pointing toward the cannons a couple of hundred yards away. The Tennessean stepped up to the line of riflemen, raised his rifle and sighted down the barrel. Will watched in fascination as Crockett held his breath then fired his rifle. Gunfire rippled up and down the line of marksmen. As soon as a sharpshooter fired, a reloader thrust a loaded rifle into his hands.
Will’s attention stayed on the artillerymen, whose cannons could easily hit the Texian line with deadly canister fire or grapeshot. As he imagined the guns firing and tearing gaping holes in the Texian line, Will saw that his riflemen had similar fears as bullets struck several of the men attempting to load the Mexican field pieces. The Mexican infantry, to the right of the artillery, were loading their muskets as fast as they could, their officers screaming at them to hurry. Will guessed a couple of dozen men along the Mexican line had already fallen to the Texian marksmen when the line of Mexican infantry pointed their muskets and the line disappeared behind a wall of smoke as two hundred or more musket balls flew down range. The range was extreme for a musket, but Will saw a few of his men pitch backward, as they were struck. He was thankful that the volley was not more effective. Along the Mexican line the gun powder smoke quickly dissipated in the breeze, as the Texian marksmen picked off even more of the defenders.
The regular soldados of the Vanguard Brigade stood bravely against the aimed fire from the Texians for a few minutes. As the number of men still standing shrank, their ineffectual volleys fell silent and the remnants, with no officers still standing, turned and ran. Will thought now was the time to press the victory home. He stepped forward, and with his sword raised high, shouted, “For Texas and Victory! Charge!” His booted feet crashed into the dry soil as he raced across the field. A quick glance showed that nearly all the Texians were charging right behind him. But Crockett, with his rifle now in the crook of his arm, strolled leisurely behind the men, whistling a tune.
As he reached the remnants of the Mexican line, only a few soldados remained on their feet. Their weapons were scattered on the ground before them, but rather than simply flinging their arms into the air, that brave handful of men attempted to cover wounded comrades with their own bodies. This act of selfless courage reminded Will of the urgency to keep things from descending into blood-filled anarchy. He shouted at the top of his voice, “Round ‘em up boys! If they surrender, take ‘em prisoner!” As the Texians rushed over the few, huddled survivors along the Mexican line, the defeated soldados were battered to the ground, but left nursing the biting sting of defeat.
While most of the Texians rushed through the camp, Will saw two blue-jacketed soldados attend to a wounded officer, a sharp smell of iron filled his nose as he saw blood flowing freely from a head wound. The officer was dressed in a finely embroidered blue jacket over a white silk shirt. He was too young to be Santa Anna. In broken Spanish, Will asked, “Who is?”
With an air of resignation, one of the soldados replied, “General Juan Almonte.”
Nodding at the Mexican soldado, Will heard the plaintive cries of the wounded. It was impossible to separate the injured from the dead by simply looking. Will guessed more than half the men from the Vanguard Brigade who tried to stand against Crockett’s riflemen were able to fall back or surrender. To his left, Will saw several men from the Dolores Regiment fleeing on their horses, bareback, away from several of Seguin’s cavalry. The Tejanos spurred their horses, galloping behind the lancers, pistols ablaze.
Crockett walked up, with Colonel Grant trailing behind. Following the two officers, marched Colonel Ward’s men and their own artillerists, led by Captains Dickinson and Carey. Crockett nodded at Will, “Not bad, Buck, if I do say so myself. It looks like we may have bagged the whole passel of Santa Anna’s army.”
A fierce grin lit up Will’s face as it sunk in; they had won a major victory. Crockett smiled in return, “What next, Buck?”
Will replied, “Get as many of our riflemen as you can, Dav
id. Let’s figure out how many men have surrendered and how many wounded we’ll need to take care of.” Then, turning to Grant, Will pointed down the road. “Meet up with Seguin and his mounted men. Take him and his men along with all of your reserves. We need to get your companies and our cavalry down the road a far piece, and capture as many of the retreating Mexicans as we are able. If they regroup, let me know and we’ll reinforce you.”
As the sun set in the western sky, Will and Crockett sat in the large, spacious tent which previously belonged to Santa Anna. They were joined a short time earlier by Colonel Grant, who had burst into the tent and exclaimed, “We bagged the rest of his damned army, Colonel Travis!”
They pored over the reports flowing into the tent and as the afternoon wore on, the magnitude of the victory won slowly sank in on the assembled officers. The three regiments from the Operational Army’s First Brigade that Santa Anna had sent chasing after Will’s rearguard, had gone into battle with eight hundred men. Along the banks of the river more than a hundred men lay dead. Another eighty were dead within the Mexican Camp. Over three hundred were wounded once the camp had been secured. Two hundred were captured. The Vanguard Brigade was almost in as bad a shape. General Almonte’s valiant attempt to protect the camp had resulted in more than forty killed. An additional thirty-five died throughout the camp. Almonte’s brigade suffered around a hundred men wounded. More than three hundred were captured.
Will grimaced as he read the reports. Around two hundred fifty dead and more than four hundred wounded, in total. Will’s little army captured between five and six hundred in addition to the wounded. “It’s good that war is so terrible, lest we grow fond of it,” Will said, borrowing a phrase from a world that would never be.
Crockett stood from the cramped camp stool, his back popping with age, “Truly, Buck. It was a terrible defeat we gave Santa Anna. Against only twelve of our own dead and a score more wounded, it’s shocking.”
Crockett was about to continue, when the tent flap was opened and Juan Seguin strode into the tent, pushing a tall Mexican in a plain blue infantry jacket. The man had dark-brown hair and fair skin. He arms were tied behind him. The expensive silk pants that the soldado wore looked starkly out of place compared to the coarse weave of the single-breasted, faded blue infantry jacket. Seguin’s eyes shown bright in the reflection of lamp light, a look of triumph written on his face. He forced his captive into a camp chair across the table from Will and said, “Allow me to make introductions, Colonel William Barrett Travis and Congressman David Crockett, allow me to introduce you to El Presidente Antonio López de Santa Anna!”
Chapter 13
Will glared across the table, watching the Mexican dictator sulk, slouching in the rickety camp chair, while one of his elbows leaned on the stout table. Looking at the dictator, who was a couple of inches shy of six feet, Will was a little aghast by the calm demeanor affected by the man who in another world ordered the execution of hundreds of Texians. Will amended the thought as he looked down at Juan Seguin’s translation of Santa Anna’s orders, where hundreds of men had been executed in Zacatecas and Chihuahua on the dictator’s orders.
Seguin sat at one corner of the table, reviewing piles of correspondence, setting aside those he intended to translate. Crockett paced along the back wall of the tent, casting frequent glances at their unperturbed prisoner. Will sat across from Santa Anna, shifting his eyes from the translated words to the exceedingly average looking man before him. “Well, General Santa Anna, what do you reckon we should do to you? Treat you like the butcher you are?” Will jabbed his index finger in his prisoner’s direction, while holding the orders of execution with his other hand.
Santa Anna’s demeanor shifted and he appeared uncomfortable as Will pointed across the table. However, when he replied, he spoke in a steady and calm voice, “I am simply the servant of the people and congress in Mexico City. I was charged to bring this army north and subdue rebellions within the republic of Mexico.”
Crockett strode over to the tent flap, and flung it open, allowing the four men to see Texian riflemen guarding hundreds of prisoners. Crockett’s harsh tone betrayed how troubled he was by Santa Anna’s calm demeanor, as he pointed toward the prisoners, “How in the blazes is that working out for you, General?”
Will shared the Tennessean’s frustration as the dictator replied with a casual shrug and said, “What we want and what we get are sometimes at odds with each other, Congressman Crockett.”
Shaking his head, Crockett let the flap close. He returned to the table and looked down at the prisoner, “Why don’t you answer Colonel Travis’ question? Why shouldn’t we shoot you and be done with it? Can you honestly say, you’d do things differently were the boot on the other leg?
Where Will’s ire had not ruffled the dictator’s feathers, Crockett’s sharp words caused Santa Anna’s calm veneer to crack, and for a moment, fear flickered across his face before being replaced by a nervous calm. Finding his voice, the dictator replied, “Why do something as imprudent as that?” He paused as he looked up searching for something in the frontiersman’s eyes, “After all, you still need to negotiate with the legal government of Mexico. And at the moment, that government is sitting before you.”
Will struggled to overcome the image that Hollywood had imprinted on his mind versus the reality of the slender, swarthy man in his early forties, sitting before him. What had been envisioned, influenced by popular culture, and what he saw were starkly different. Will was quickly learning, when reality bumped against what he knew from history, he needed to let go of history and accept reality. In this case, it was true in more than one way. If he spared Santa Anna’s life now, then peace was within reach. “If it is to be as you say, Mr. President, then the first order of business is for you to order any troops already in Texas to leave and withdraw south of the Rio Grande, or as you call it, el Rio Bravo del Norte.”
Santa Anna blanched at Will’s demand. “But Tejas’ border is here at the Nueces River. You would claim lands that rightfully belong to Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo Mexico as your own?”
Will wagged his finger in Santa Anna’s face, “How so, General? If you had your way, your border would have been the Sabine River. When you lose a war you rather have to give up what you’d rather not, or as you said earlier, sometimes what you want and what you get are at odds.”
Santa Anna didn’t like the taste of his words when thrown back in his face, and his chocolate-colored eyes blazed with intensity as his growled, “You have beaten me at the moment, Mr. Travis, but the balance of my army is only days behind me!”
Before Will could respond, Crockett put a hand on his arm, leaving his retort to die in his throat. “Seems to me, General,” Crockett said, “that we can negotiate with you or we can negotiate with your successors in Mexico City. Do you think they’d give you a lovely state funeral with marching bands and pretty senoritas dressed in black to mourn their beloved and departed President?”
There was granitelike quality to Crockett’s voice that drew the other men’s attention like a lodestone, “Or negotiates with Texas a favorable treaty. Then return to Mexico and be president or dictator or whatever suits your fancy, if you can.”
Will watched Santa Anna, while the dictator glared at Crockett. Before he responded, Santa Anna weighed Crockett’s words, and drawing the same conclusion Will already had, bowed his head in defeat. “Congressman Crockett, you have the better of me at the moment. If you’ll provide me pen and paper, I shall order Generals Gaona and Urrea as well as any other federal troops to return to south of el Rio Bravo del Norte.”
***
Will stood on top of the chapel wall, watching the sun rise over the low walls of the Alamo on the 6th of March. He wore a grin larger than the one he wore after graduating from college, it seemed a lifetime ago. Never the most disciplined of armies, many of the six hundred men returning with him to San Antonio snaked through the gates of the Alamo into the large plaza with little military fla
ir. Sandwiched between the jubilant Texians were more than five hundred Mexican prisoners, who could march under their own power. Some of the men from Ward’s battalion were still a day behind as they escorted three hundred men whose wounds prevented them from keeping up.
From his perch atop the wall of the chapel, he watched several of his men escorting Santa Anna through the doors of the chapel where they locked him in the sacristy, a small room to the left of the doors of the nave. Except for the rooms off the main sanctuary, the chapel was open to the elements, never being completed since construction started in 1744. Will choked up as it dawned on him that today was the same day on which the Alamo fell in a world that would never be. Both he and Crockett were alive and well. Jim Bowie lay in the Alamo hospital, clinging to life, as disease ravaged his body. He was saddened to think that despite all the changes, Bowie’s course appeared set.
In this new world, people would not revere the hallowed walls of the Alamo, what he grew up thinking of as the shrine of Texas liberty. Instead of San Jacinto, people would talk about the Nueces. Will smiled ruefully, thinking, “Maybe in a hundred years they’ll build an obelisk down there to celebrate our victory.”
Down in the chapel he saw the wrought iron door behind which Santa Anna now reposed and thought back to the day following the battle. They took Santa Anna’s orders and sent General Castrillion to find General Urrea, who was marching north, along the gulf coast, to enforce Santa Anna’s order for withdrawal. Colonel Mora was sent south, retracing the army’s route along the Camino Real with Santa Anna’s general order to retreat.
