A Sinister Splendor

by Mike Blakely

  “Yeah, me too,” Chamberlain said, sliding his saber back into the scabbard. “I hope Captain Washington recognizes us as friends and don’t blow the hell out of us coming up the narrows.”

  His mount slipped, and he looked below to see rivulets of blood running down the rutted road. Next he rode among the bodies of courageous Mexican soldiers who had charged, wave upon wave, into the muzzles of Washington’s artillery. The dozens of bodies turned to scores, then hundreds, as the riders approached the battery anchoring the U.S. right flank. The corpses lay in heaps, along with the carcasses of horses. In places they blocked the road and had to be trampled upon by the dragoon mounts.

  I’m getting used to looking at piles of dead men.

  Washington’s gunners were hailed, and the dragoons returned to the American side without having fired a shot or bloodied a blade on the Saint Pats. As Rucker led the men back toward their former position, a lightning bolt flashed and cracked. Thunder rumbled, mocking the lowly man-made ordnance. A northerly gust whipped through Soldan’s mane as Chamberlain rode into a wall of icy rain. It refreshed him at first, but quickly began to chill him. He had thrown aside his greatcoat at the onset of the attack on the Irish battery and now wished he had it to wear.

  “The Lord is on our side!” Hastings proclaimed. “That cold rain is drivin’ right into the face of the enemy!”

  The firing of small arms and cannon soon ceased on both sides as dragoon horses plodded through the downpour and flinched at the occasional thunderbolt. By the time the drenched cavaliers reached General Taylor’s position, the rainstorm had blown south, revealing the most beautiful rainbow Chamberlain had ever seen. It rose beyond the Sierra Madre, arched across the clearing sky in a riot of colorful ribbons, and plunged into the canyon to the southwest.

  “I’ll take that as a good omen,” Chamberlain said.

  “I told you the Lord was on our side.”

  Tell that to the dead and wounded men in American uniforms.

  At that moment, the Mexican artillery opened up on the American line again, and U.S. gunners returned the compliments.

  Taylor noticed that Lieutenant Rucker had returned with his dragoons.

  “Well, Lieutenant, it seems the deserters are still shelling us. Report!”

  “We found the ground in front of the hill impassable, sir. I searched for better ground around to the rear of the hill, but ran into a division of infantry. They opened fire on us and we retired through the narrows.”

  “Very well, Rucker. Report to Colonel May’s command. Perhaps he can find some ground more to your liking.”

  “Yes, sir!” Rucker replied, with just a touch of insolence in his voice.

  Chamberlain rode with his dragoon company back toward Hacienda Buena Vista, where May’s command awaited orders from General Wool. Throughout the chaos of this day, May had collected regular army and volunteer troopers that now numbered close to five hundred sabers.

  Boss Hastings leaned in close to speak to Chamberlain. “What an honor to serve under the hero of Resaca de la Palma,” he said sarcastically.

  “The great captor of General de la Vega,” Chamberlain added.

  Soldan had rested for a few minutes, when May’s dragoons spotted a brigade of lancers riding along the base of the mountain around the U.S. left flank.

  “They’re going to attack Buena Vista!” Lieutenant Rucker said. “Our supplies.”

  “The Arkansas and Kentucky cavalries are there,” May said.

  “They are outnumbered,” Rucker snapped.

  “Here comes a courier from General Wool,” May replied. “We’ll see what he says.”

  Chamberlain watched as May wasted time conversing with the courier. He could see that, by now, the lancers were closer to the Rackensackers and the Kaintucks than May’s dragoons were.

  “We done lost our chance to save those boys’ asses again,” Hastings muttered.

  Finally, May ordered a charge on the attacking lancers. For the sake of the volunteer cavalries, the bugler condescended to blow the signal. Soldan cantered toward the village, the supplies, and the volunteer horse soldiers soon to fall under attack. As he rode headlong, Chamberlain saw confusion among the volunteers from Arkansas and Kentucky. They failed to form a skirmish line as the lancers bore down on them.

  “They look like sittin’ ducks!” he yelled at Hastings.

  Sporadic gunfire sputtered from the volunteers, but it wasn’t enough to slow the lancers. The hard-riding Mexicans lowered their lance tips and thundered into the helpless Arkansans and Kentuckians.

  Chamberlain was near enough now—as he galloped onward with May’s five hundred—to see the horrors of the Mexican assault. In the confusion and lack of leadership, he witnessed most of the Rackensackers and Kaintucks turning tail for Buena Vista under the onslaught. General Archibald Yell—a former governor of Arkansas whom Chamberlain knew as an old dueler, a smooth-talking politician, and a hard drinker—drew his saber and charged the Mexicans. His blade hacked down or drove aside several lancers until one grizzled veteran ran his spear point into Yell’s mouth and through the back of his head, unhorsing him most violently in a spray of blood, while another lancer stabbed the general through the chest.

  Captain Porter of Arkansas and Adjutant Vaughn of Kentucky also died charging with Yell.

  May’s command was just seconds away from clashing with the flank of the Mexican cavalry brigade. Chamberlain drew his saber and joined the rolling “Hurrah!” of the dragoons, taking the lancers almost completely by surprise. Soldan used his body to slam into the first horse and rider he came to, knocking them down to be trampled underfoot by hundreds of American mounts. He swiped his saber downward onto the next lancer, hacking through the man’s hand, where it held the lance shaft. All around him, hundreds of cavaliers wrought similar barbarities as voices screamed and blood spewed.

  The Mexican column was cut in two, the front half circling around behind Buena Vista, toward the valley, as the trailing half curled back up toward the mountain. Sharpshooters from the supply train poured musket and rifle balls into the scattered lancers, unhorsing many of them. Thomas Sherman’s flying artillery unlimbered two six-pounders and slung canister and spherical case shot into the group of lancers in the valley, driving them toward a distant mesa.

  Along with the rest of May’s men, Private Samuel Chamberlain pursued the back half of the divided column into the mountains. The emboldened dragoons chased the demoralized lancers into a canyon, where the Mexicans suddenly blundered into another regiment of Mexican cavalry, which had been riding to their aid.

  Reining in Soldan to look over the edge of the canyon rim, Chamberlain saw the two groups of lancers milling in a state of chaos. He also noticed a large number of Mexican infantry in the canyon—probably driven there earlier by the Mississippi Rifles.

  “Now who’s the sittin’ ducks?” Boss Hastings said, unhooking his carbine.

  Orders came for number twos to hold the horses while the rest of the men dismounted and lined the bluffs overlooking the box canyon, or blocked off its access trails. Chamberlain and Hastings carried their Hall carbines and found a rocky crag that would protect their vitals while they fired down on the lancers. They nestled into position and awaited the order to fire.

  Instead, an American artillery piece dropped a shell perfectly into the canyon, raining shrapnel among the trapped lancers. Another followed, and the Mexicans—seeing that they were surrounded and trapped—began waving white flags of surrender.

  “Hold your fire!” Lieutenant Rucker yelled.

  One of the Mexican cavaliers was allowed to ride out of the canyon and wave a white flag tied to the end of his lance pole, so that the U.S. artillerymen would see it and cease firing while negotiations were made for their surrender.

  “Hot damn!” Hastings railed. “I thought we was gonna shoot some fish in a barrel!”

  Chamberlain leaned back against the rim rock, where he could look over the entire field of battle. From
his lofty perch on the extreme left flank, he gazed down upon the opposing lines stretched out to the west. The battlefront seemed feathered with plumes of gunpowder smoke that drifted toward the enemy side. The sun hung two fists above the horizon.

  “We’ve ridden all over this bloody ground today, Boss.” He pointed down at the landmarks below. “From the middle, to the left, then across to the deserters’ battery, up through the narrows on the far right, and now we’re back on the left again.”

  Hastings spat over the rim of the canyon. “It’s been a dandy little trot.”

  “We’ve saved the left flank, Boss. We did it. And captured a few hundred lancers, to boot.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re still fightin’ like hell in the middle. Look down at all them greasers massed on the Mex side.”

  “You reckon they’ll trot us back down there next?”

  “Hell, I hope so. I ain’t had my fill of killin’ yet.”

  Chamberlain had had his fill for the day, but he wouldn’t say so to Boss Hastings. Still, he was proud to have helped in the capture of the lancers and relieved that he didn’t have to shoot any more of them from the rim rock of this canyon. What he had earlier feared was a hopeless situation on the left flank had now been repaired. But the capture of a few hundred lancers hardly took a drop from Santa Anna’s bucket of soldiery. Taylor’s army was still profoundly outnumbered and lacking in the heavy artillery of the Mexicans. From this vantage point, above the battleground, even a sixteen-year-old private could see that the next big Mexican assault would soon hit the center of the U.S. line. Would it hold? Or would he be among the next to be captured or killed?

  Lord, let the sun set on this bloody day.

  General

  ANTONIO LÓPEZ DE SANTA ANNA

  Buena Vista

  February 23, 1847

  General Santa Anna’s chestnut warhorse stumbled while leaping off a small ledge but got his front legs back under him without tumbling. The rider felt the sting of branches whipping his cheeks as he dropped down into a barranca leading him eastward. Sweat now frothed the mustang’s fur as the general continued to spur his mount. He knew it was time to retire this horse for the day and straddle a fresh pony. But first he intended to enjoy the spectacle of Pacheco’s cavalry and Lombardini’s division of infantry crushing the American volunteers.

  All day he had dashed back and forth along the entire front line, urging his troops to repel the vainglorious invaders. Now he neared his right flank, expecting to find Pacheco and Lombardini advancing. Instead he arrived to see his soldiers falling back in disarray before a smaller enemy force led by the red-shirted Mississippi Rifles and supported by U.S. cavalry and artillery. He pulled rein and looked on in disgust as the chestnut heaved under him. His adjutant, Captain Jesus Paniagua, stopped beside him.

  Santa Anna knew that the red shirts had recently arrived from Saltillo. But how was this possible? General José Vicente Minon’s regiment of cavalry was supposed to have surrounded Saltillo to prevent the American reserves from reaching the battlefield.

  “What has happened to General Minon?” he snapped, glaring at Adjutant Paniagua.

  “Minon?” the captain said, reining in a prancing mustang.

  “I ordered him to invest Saltillo!”

  “Saltillo?”

  “Never mind! He has failed somehow! Come, Paniagua! We must rally the infantry!”

  “Si, General!”

  The president of Mexico charged to the east to get closer to the troops and goad his foot soldiers into a counterattack on the Camisas Colorados. As he approached the colors of General Lombardini’s division, he heard an artillery shell singing a familiar tune as it whistled its way from the American lines. He remembered that day on the pier at Veracruz.

  Not again, he thought. Not now.

  The percussion of the blast stunned him, and he instantly saw his noble mustang’s head explode, splattering him with equine blood as he hurtled toward a hard, rising patch of ground.

  * * *

  From a black field of nothingness, he regained consciousness and found himself propped against the warm rump of his dead horse. Captain Paniagua knelt beside him. A sound like that of a waterfall roared in his head. The stump of his left leg pained him terribly. When he looked at it, he found his peg missing.

  “Where is my leg?” he asked groggily.

  “The straps broke, Your Excellency. Are you hurt?”

  “What do you think, bufon? Of course I am hurt.” He felt as if his ribs were broken and his skull cracked. “Has Lombardini begun the counterattack?”

  “No, Presidente. There is problem. A battalion of lancers has retreated into the head of a canyon and they are now trapped there by the enemy. They have waved a white flag. They will be captured by the Yanquis if we don’t do something.”

  Santa Anna blinked through the throbbing in his head as a load of canister exploded not far behind him, sending one of the lead balls slamming into the belly of his dead horse. It sounded like a drumbeat when it hit. His eyes began to focus and he saw a number of officers gathered around him. He recognized the face of General Manuel Lombardini, a brave warrior of many conflicts.

  “General Lombardini, order three of your most clever officers to carry a flag of truce out onto the mesa.” His head throbbed and his own voice sounded like an echo to him. “Ask the Americans for a cease-fire. While negotiations are being arranged, the trapped lancers can slip out of that canyon. Then the negotiations will be terminated and we can get back to killing these unholy bastards who are trying to steal our country!”

  “Si, General!” Lombardini sang, a grin on his face.

  “Also, order General Perez to bring his reserves up from the rear and prepare to attack the center of the enemy line.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency!”

  “You are now in command of the battlefield until I order otherwise.”

  “It is my honor, sir!”

  “It is only an honor if you succeed. If you fail, it is a disgrace. Those are my orders! See to it!”

  Lombardini saluted, turned, and marched away. His junior officers went back to their regiments.

  Santa Anna winced through the pain in his leg, his ribs, his head. Captain Paniagua looked blurry.

  “Paniagua, find a horse for me and take me back to my headquarters tent. I must lick my wounds and get my manservant to repair the peg before I return to the battlefield.”

  “Yes, El Presidente!”

  Paniagua trotted away to secure a mount from the cavalry, leaving the president alone for the moment. Santa Anna patted the sweaty rump of his dead horse.

  “I am glad you died quickly. You were a good warhorse and served your country well.”

  He reached into the pocket of his tunic and found a ball of chicle. He tossed it into his mouth and began to chew it. It made him think of his Hacienda Encero, in the state of Veracruz, where the evergreen sapodilla trees grew naturally. There, he employed a chiclero to slash the bark on the sapodilla trees and collect the sap—chicle—that oozed from the wounds. Like many Mexicans, he felt that chewing chicle helped him relax and see things more clearly.

  When one slashes a tree, it oozes sap. When a soldier slashes an enemy, he oozes blood. The sap can be useful. One can chew it. The spilt blood? Useless.

  He knew he was not thinking straight. Everything around him seemed peculiar.

  As he chewed his chicle, he sat on the rocky ground in the barranca and listened to the battle grind humans to sausage meat around him. This horrible thing he had brought to life now ravaged the mountains and mesas, beyond his control.

  He needed rest, a pull from a jug of fine añejo tequila, and a chaser of laudanum. Juanito would fix the peg. Perhaps Consuela could tend to his other needs. The battle was not over. He would be back in the saddle after siesta.

  Major General

  ZACHARY TAYLOR

  Buena Vista

  February 23, 1847

  General Taylor stood over a map of Angost
ura Pass, huddled there with Major Bliss and other members of his staff. The industrious Adjutant Bliss had established a battlefield headquarters complete with a tent, a picket line for the horses, and a desk made of stacked ammunition crates. The map was spread across the desk, four fist-size rocks holding down its corners. Small stones placed on the map represented horse, foot, and artillery units from both armies. Bliss had dabbed all the rocks representing the enemy regiments with ink from his quill pen.

  Minutes ago, a Mexican officer with a small escort had ridden out onto the plateau under a flag of truce. A courier had galloped to headquarters with a request from the Mexicans for a cease-fire to arrange for the surrender of some lancers trapped in a canyon by U.S. dragoons. Taylor had granted the cease-fire, sending riders galloping all along the front lines with the news. He had then sent Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Crittenden—a reliable Kentucky volunteer who served on his staff—to meet with Mexican representatives under white banners.

  For the moment, Taylor enjoyed the absence of gunfire. He hoped the Mexicans had endured enough carnage and desired some kind of honorable cessation of hostilities. Meanwhile, he listened to Perfect Bliss report to the staff.

  “We have received positive news from all along the front lines,” Bliss was saying. “The right flank remains solid. The left has been reclaimed. The commissary is now secure back at Hacienda Buena Vista.”

  “What about the middle?” Taylor asked.

  “Looks like trouble brewing there, sir. Messengers report a large body of Mexican infantry with cavalry support massing on the center of our line.”

  “How large?”

  “A brigade, or larger.”

  “Is that tricky bastard Santa Anna using this cease-fire to gain the advantage on us?” the general demanded.

  “I’m not sure, sir. A single eyewitness claimed that he saw General Santa Anna unhorsed by an artillery shell—perhaps injured or even killed.”

  Taylor shook his head and stared down at the pebbles on the map. “I don’t trust that damned tyrant to honor a flag of truce,” he growled.