by Mike Blakely
Another Ranger brought an open canteen and trickled some water into Gillespie’s mouth. Other Texans crowded around as Gillespie’s eyes locked on to Walker’s.
“The Comanche give us worse than that at Sisters Creek, Ad. You and me, both run through with spears. You hear me?”
Gillespie smiled and nodded a time or two.
“This don’t hardly liken to that none at all, Ad. You rest now and we’ll patch you up.”
Gillespie’s eyes rolled as he coughed a final spray of blood and slumped, his body quivering, so that it put Walker in mind of a sleeping dog dreaming of some chase.
Some U.S. soldiers had clawed Fort Libertad’s Mexican flag down from its staff. A cheer rose among them as the Stars and Stripes replaced the Eagle and the Snake. But the men from Texas remained silent, gathered around Captain Ad Gillespie, as Walker gently eased his eyelids closed.
Shouts down the hill caught Walker’s attention. He stood and looked over the sandbags to find four infantrymen using ropes to laboriously drag the heavy bronze tube of a twelve-pound howitzer up among the boulders. Farther below, he could see pieces of the dissembled gun carriage being lugged upward, along with crates filled with ammunition and fuses.
“Help those men drag that cannon up here,” he said to the Rangers who had gathered around their fallen comrade, “and we’ll fire a fittin’ salute to Captain Ad Gillespie. If some Mexican happens to get in the way of it, I don’t think Ad will mind.”
Walker himself scrambled back over the sandbag to help Lieutenant Roland of Duncan’s battery heave on one of the ropes tied to the tube. He found Roland and his men completely covered with mud and almost too exhausted to accomplish the final few yards of the climb with their heavy burden.
As regulars hastened to reassemble the howitzer, the first Mexican round of solid shot fired from the Bishop’s Palace hit the hilltop short of the Americans, bounced, and flew over their heads.
“There’s your warning shot, Lieutenant,” Walker said to Roland. “Best get that piece put together before they range this ground.” He turned to his men. “Boys, take them sandbags and build some cover in front of this howitzer!”
With impressive rapidity, the U.S. troops slapped the howitzer pieces together and rammed a load down its muzzle. Walker witnessed the first round fired at the palace—the salute to Ad Gillespie. Its shell exploded over the high stone walls of El Obispado, blasting an enemy sharpshooter from the rampart. The unfortunate defender fell to his death and landed in front of the large wooden palace gates.
At this moment, Walker saw the double gates open wide. Scores of foot soldiers streamed out. Lancers came swarming around the outside walls of the castle. They began forming up by companies, then by regiments. They were going to use their superior numbers to counterattack.
He heard Colonel Hays shout and found Jack waving for him to join a council of war with Major Vinton of the regular army and Captain Blanchard of the Louisiana Volunteers. Walker sprinted in that direction as more artillery fire flew from the palace.
“Sam, we’re going to show these boys some Injun strategy.” With a dried yucca stalk he held in his hand, Hays gestured toward a crude battle map he had traced in the mud with the same stalk. “You’ll sneak your company around the left flank, staying below the rim rock, out of sight of the enemy. I’ll take the rest of the Rangers to the right flank, also hidden over the edge. Captain Blanchard’s company will advance in full view of the enemy and fire, then retreat. You know the lancers will pursue him. Infantry, too. When they do, your men and mine will close behind them, with Major Vinton and Captain Blanchard in front of them.”
Walker nodded. “We’ll cut a fair number of them down and storm the castle before they can get the gates closed.”
“That’s the idea,” Hays said, a wry smile flashing across his face. “We must go quickly, before they form up. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Roland will harass them with that howitzer.”
* * *
Within minutes, Walker had his men in position on the left flank. Alone, he peered between two boulders, watching the enemy battalions move into position. He had ordered his men to stay behind him, out of sight.
Walker marveled at Jack Hays’s strategies and wondered why the American officers didn’t have the good sense to employ similar tactics. The West Pointers liked to march large bodies of men directly at enemy emplacements, over open ground. Hays, on the other hand, had learned from renegades and bandits how to feint and retreat, ambush and counterattack.
Now, before the Mexican defenders could advance up the slope toward the Americans, Captain Albert Gallatin Blanchard led his so-called Phoenix Company, of the Second Louisiana Infantry, double-quick toward the palace. Walker frowned as he watched them halt out of effective musket range, but he couldn’t say that he blamed Captain Blanchard for not getting too close. Blanchard’s job was to provoke a counterattack. His foot soldiers would have to outrun the Mexican cavalry and would need a good head start.
Blanchard’s fifty men raised their rifles. Blanchard yelled, “Fire!” Fifty musket balls hit the dirt in front of the Mexicans, and Blanchard’s men turned to run back up the slope, where Major Vinton waited with the rest of the regulars and volunteers.
The affront created the desired result. A Mexican cavalry officer harangued his lancers and advanced at a trot, followed by the infantrymen who had streamed out of the castle. Walker studied El Obispado as the Mexicans marched past his hiding place. He saw a few sentries atop the palace walls, but he would be beyond their musket range when he led his men out into the open atop the hill.
When the rear of the enemy formation had marched by, Walker looked down at his Rangers and tossed his head toward the sloping summit in a subtle invitation for his men to follow him. His company climbed to the open ground and quietly walked into position behind the Mexicans. Across the slanted mountain slope, he saw Jack Hays and his men coming from the right flank to cut off the enemy’s escape route back to the castle. Hays strode nonchalantly toward Walker, until they met in the middle. Their Rangers had spread out across the battleground, their numbers far inferior to the Mexicans but with superior rifles, Colt revolvers, and the element of surprise in their favor.
“When the shooting starts, let’s watch a spell,” Hays suggested.
Walker nodded. “Time comes, we’ll know to cock our hammers.”
Like spectators, they looked on as Major Vinton’s infantrymen fired a deadly volley into the lancers. Blanchard’s troops, having reloaded, added a second hailstorm of lead that ripped into the enemy riders. Horses screamed and fell; others galloped, riderless, through the enemy infantry, back toward the palace. Walker wished, briefly, that he might catch one to ride. The Mexican foot soldiers tried valiantly to advance through the melee that the cavalry had become, until the U.S. howitzer fired a round of grapeshot into the middle of the enemy line.
Hays elbowed Walker. “That ought to do it.”
Walker nodded. “Cock your hammers, boys!” he shouted.
“Don’t fire until I do!” Hays added.
A shout went up among the regular army troops on the summit, and Walker knew the U.S. charge had begun, though he could no longer see the maneuvering through the smoke. There was so much smoke, in fact, that Independence Hill now resembled a volcano. The Mexican brigade faltered and surged to the rear, back toward the supposed refuge of the Bishop’s Palace, only to find a hundred or more Rangers standing in their way.
Walker drew both Colts and looked at Hays. Jack would wait until the Mexican bayonets were just paces away. On came the lancers, charging back through their own infantry. Seeing that they would have to fight their way back into their castle, the riders lowered their lance tips and galloped headlong down the slope.
Hays touched off a shot, followed by a hundred well-aimed bullets. The mountaintop shook as tons of men and horseflesh slammed into the rocky earth. Walker fired four more rounds from his right-hand Colt.
“Let us part ways, Sam, and let them pass between
us on their way back to their castle. We’ll catch them in our cross fire.”
Hays turned to lead his men in a sprint toward his original position on the right flank as Walker, too, withdrew to the left, waving his men back toward the rim rock. The two wings of Rangers served to funnel the enemy riders and foot soldiers into a stream that flowed between them. Then the Texans opened fire again.
Walker used his five rounds from his left-hand Colt and began to remove the barrel from the revolver to insert a new cylinder loaded with five more rounds. His Rangers had withdrawn to the edge of the mountainside, where they could use the rim rock for cover as they methodically reloaded and fired. Lancers dropped from their saddles by the dozens. Infantrymen tripped over their own dead and wounded. And now the U.S. regulars and volunteers raised a yell that would almost rival that of a Comanche raiding party, as they pressed hard upon the rear of the Mexicans’ chaotic retreat.
“Hold your fire and reload, boys,” Walker ordered as he replaced the barrel on his left-hand Colt and reached for the matching weapon. He could disassemble a revolver without looking at it, so he kept his eyes trained on the Mexican retreat as he worked. “Let the army chaw their tail till they pass us by.”
He remembered watching military parades march down city streets, between throngs of onlookers. Well, this was one hell of a parade, all right, complete with screaming men and horses, gushing blood, shattered bones, and spilled guts. The surviving Mexicans were so focused on getting back into El Obispado that they had wildly fired only a handful of bullets toward the Rangers.
When Vinton and Blanchard had pushed the enemy past Walker’s position, Walker turned to his men. “You boys ever storm a castle before? Well, here’s your chance. Fall in with the regulars and push the enemy hard before they can barricade their gates.” He cocked his Colt and took off at a trot toward the palace. “Charge, Rangers!”
Ahead of him, Vinton’s men had trundled the howitzer down the slope to the formidable old palace. As the Mexicans tried to shut the rear gates of the palace, the sole American artillery piece fired a solid ball into the heavy wooden doors, blasting one of them to splinters. Blue-coated soldiers surged inside.
As he approached, Walker heard weird echoes ringing from inside the high stone palace walls. Gunshots, bayonets clashing with sabers, and screams of dying men raised a hellish din from within. Still Walker rushed ahead, pushing his way through the volunteers to get inside. Under the high, vaulted ceiling, the howls of war rang with an even more wicked timbre as horses whinnied crazily, bullets whirred off of marble arches, and a bugle attempted to rally the defenders. Smoke hung so heavy in the air that it stung Walker’s eyes and nostrils. He could taste it on his tongue and it whetted his appetite for blood. Yet he could not get beyond the army troops pressing ahead of him to join the battle.
Looking around, he saw a towering portrait of a saint, or some such personage, wearing a scarlet cape. The portrait must have been twelve feet tall. Next to it stood an arching passageway supported by carved columns. It occurred to him that he could climb the square base of the column—a solid block of stone three feet high. He ran to it and leaped upon its corner. Now he could see over the heads of the combatants. He saw dismounted lancers hacking at U.S. soldiers with sabers; a teenage American boy holding a Mexican sergeant to the floor by his throat as he used his bare fist to bloody the sergeant’s face; a Louisiana Volunteer using a piece of the splintered palace door as a club to beat back the hard-pressed Mexican defenders.
Walker aimed his Colt into the second rank of the Mexicans, shooting over the American fighters. His five rounds dropped five uniforms but drew attention. By the time he pulled the second Colt from his belt, he had musket balls chipping stone masonry all around his head. Still, he held his high ground and aimed with purpose. A distant escopeta fired a weak blast of shot at him, peppering his face. His eyes were spared, but one of the small projectiles lodged in his lower lip.
He dropped from the stone block and belted his Colt. He drew his sword from its scabbard and tried to push forward.
“Let me through!” he yelled. “Step aside, damn it!”
But the Mexican defense faltered at that moment and surged backwards. Soon, every able-bodied defender was on the run, out through the front door of the palace and down Independence Hill to the city of Monterrey. A cheer rose up among the Americans as they pursued the retreating throng through the palace.
Walker stepped over dead men he had shot down with his Colt just minutes before. He held his sword over his head and loosed a Comanche howl that startled even the hardened men around him. He passed among more paintings of saints, ornate arches, and gold crosses encrusted with jewels. Soon he was breathing the fresh mountain air outside the front of the palace. He looked down the slope and watched the Mexicans sprint to the houses of Monterrey, some of them tumbling head over heels in their haste to escape alive.
Colonel Hays stepped up to his side. “Those devils fight hard, but they’ve got no leadership.”
Walker grinned. “They got leaders. They just ain’t got no Jack Hays.”
Hays looked at him. “What happened to your lip?”
“Buckshot.”
“Let me see.” Hays grabbed him by the chin and prodded his lower lip with grimy fingers. “It’s not deep. I’ll squeeze it out of there. Brace up. It might smart.”
Walker dared not wince as the colonel manipulated a large pebble from his bloody lip.
Hays caught it in his hand and studied it. “That ain’t buckshot, Sam! That’s a little bitty rock.” He laughed. “They must be low on shot. They’re loading their blunderbusses with pea gravel!” He tossed the pebble aside and wiped his bloody hand on Walker’s sleeve.
Another wave of cheering arose as the colors of the Louisiana Volunteers ran up the flagpole in front of the palace. A few miles away, across the Black Fort, General Taylor’s artillery fired a salute to Old Glory flying over El Obispado.
Walker slipped his sword into its scabbard. He looked to the south and gazed down upon the Saltillo road, where he had marched in chains four years before, on his way to a Mexico City prison. It felt good to be free, to conquer, to avenge. He thought about Ad Gillespie lying dead upon the hilltop.
He looked down on the city of Monterrey. He knew they would fight there next. This was not finished. Not even close.
“There is much more to do,” Hays said, as if reading his thoughts.
Lieutenant
SAM GRANT
East Monterrey, Mexico
September 23, 1846
Sam Grant crouched on the roof behind a parapet of sandbags, his eyes darting constantly, searching for enemy snipers atop the houses of Monterrey. A hundred yards away he caught a brief glimpse of a ramrod that appeared above the enemy battlements for a mere second. A Mexican defender was reloading.
“Look, Sarge,” he said to Sergeant Amos Abbot, the best marksman in his company. “On a line that runs just left of the cathedral, about a hundred yards away.”
“Yessir?” The sergeant swung his muzzle in the direction described.
“On the corner of that house that stands a little higher than the rest. Give him a moment. He’s tamping his load about now.”
“Sir, I’ll watch that corner,” Abbot said. “If you would kindly watch everywhere else, my gumption will hold.”
“You may rely upon me, Sergeant.”
Musket and rifle shots cracked away nearby and in the distance; then an artillery piece roared, as the two men on the roof waited.
Lieutenant Sam Grant had awakened before dawn in the camp General Twiggs had established to protect La Teneria, the captured Mexican redoubt on the east side of town. A council of war before breakfast had informed him that, during the night, the Mexicans had withdrawn farther into the city. Grant thought about how that order must have demoralized the brave Mexican defenders who had fought so hard to hold El Diablo and the Purisima Bridge two days ago. Still, he understood General Ampudia’s reasoning. He
would concentrate his forces around the town plaza and the cathedral, which, according to captured informants, had been filled with ammunition with the bishop’s blessing.
Ten companies of the Third and Fourth infantries—including Grant’s company—had advanced to test the Mexicans’ stronghold around the plaza. The fighting had been hard and bloody, but the Americans had advanced slowly, house by house, street by street, to within one or two blocks of the plaza.
Grant had seen enough of this strange, foreign land to know the layout of the typical Mexican town. Each city revolved around a centrally located plaza. Here in Monterrey, all the streets that led straight to the city’s main plaza were now protected by barricades and artillery. Any man who stepped into one of those through-streets risked eating a round of grapeshot from a twelve-pounder.
The cross streets were not perfectly safe, either. Mexican shooters lurked on the rooftops, behind sandbags, and sometimes shot from windows in the stone or adobe houses. But here the Americans had some advantage. Most of the defenders used ancient muskets. The U.S. invaders carried more modern muskets or rifled long arms.
Grant had been told that, of the dozen or so U.S. officers involved in this morning’s assault, five were already dead. He knew he might be next. He felt lucky that he had found time to write to Julia yesterday. For all he knew, that letter might be his last.
“There,” Abbot whispered.
Grant glanced back at the sandbagged corner a hundred yards away. The enemy sniper he and Abbott had taken this roof to locate was leaning over the sandbags, aiming downward toward some hapless U.S. soldier on the cobblestoned street.
Quickly, Grant thought, fearing for the unknown American infantryman in the sniper’s sights. Before he could finish the thought, Abbot’s rifle fired. Grant crouched so near that he could feel the percussion of the shot in his face. The Mexican sniper jerked grotesquely, slumped, and slid out of view.
“Let’s move!” Grant ordered.
He crab-walked across the packed-clay roof, through the trapdoor, and down the ladder into the adobe house. He passed the sneering inhabitants of the home—citizens who had been too poor to evacuate the town. Quickly, he ran out through the shattered wooden door that Abbot had kicked in a few minutes earlier.
