A Sinister Splendor

by Mike Blakely

  A rumble of hooves approached. The staff looked south to see Lieutenant Thomas Crittenden and his escort returning at a gallop, having discarded their white flag. This did not look good to Taylor. The truce party drew rein and slid to a stop, kicking up mud that spattered Taylor’s coat and face.

  “What the devil happened, Colonel?” General Taylor demanded, wiping spots of mud away from his cheek.

  “It was a ruse, sir. While we were negotiating on the plateau, the enemy regiment that we had trapped in that canyon slipped out under the protection of the white flag and formed up to surrender. A Mexican courier rode up to them, and suddenly they all bolted for their camp. Then the Mexican negotiators threw down their white flag and disappeared at a gallop into a ravine, leaving us there like a bunch of fools.”

  General Taylor took the palm leaf hat from his head and threw it angrily onto the muddy ground. Major Bliss swooped in to pick it up. He used his sleeve to wipe some grime from it.

  “That goddamned old lying dog Santa Anna!” Taylor railed. “From here forward, Major Bliss, let it be known that no flag of truce from the Mexican side will be honored!”

  “Yes, sir,” Bliss said, handing the general’s hat back to him.

  A shell from the Saint Patrick’s Battalion exploded dangerously nearby. The U.S. batteries of flying artillery answered immediately, and the battle resumed.

  “Bill!” Taylor shouted.

  “Here, sir.”

  “Order Hardin’s First Illinois to the main spur of the plateau in the middle of our line. Send the Second Illinois and the Second Kentucky in right after them. Then get word to Jeff Davis to move his men to the main plateau as well.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bliss said as he scribbled on his pad of foolscap with his stub of a pencil.

  “Where’s the nearest artillery, Bill?”

  “Lieutenant O’Brien’s battery, sir.” Bliss pointed to a pebble.

  Taylor shot a puzzled glare at Bliss. “I heard he got the hell pounded out of him this morning.”

  “Yes, sir, but he acquired two serviceable six-pounders from Captain Washington at the narrows. He put together a new crew of gunners and went back to the front. He’s been shelling the Mexican right all afternoon.”

  Taylor nodded. That was the kind of fighter he needed now in the middle of his line. “Send in O’Brien’s Bulldogs to support the First Illinois.”

  General Taylor looked far to the east and saw Lieutenant Rucker’s dragoons riding back from the left flank, where they had trapped the lancers in the canyon for a spell.

  “When Rucker’s dragoons get here, I will order him to support O’Brien and the infantry. Then, Major Bliss, you and I and our staff will shift our headquarters to that locale ourselves. By the grace of God, we can finish this little game of checkers by sundown.”

  Lieutenant

  JOHN PAUL JONES O’BRIEN

  Buena Vista

  February 23, 1847

  Astride a fresh mount, Lieutenant John Paul Jones O’Brien trundled his new battery of Bulldogs—two six-pounders—up onto the fingertip of the main spur of the plateau. Ahead, he saw Colonel John J. Hardin’s First Illinois Volunteers emerging from the barranca on the left to meet the oncoming assault of General Francisco Perez’s rested reserves. Colonel Hardin led the men forward on his chestnut warhorse.

  “Halt!” O’Brien yelled, arriving out in front of the First Illinois’s line of march. The Illinoisans nearest to him saluted or nodded in respect. They had witnessed his heroic stand on the left flank earlier in the day. He looked around at his new crew. His old familiar gunners were all dead or in the surgeon’s tent, but these soldiers knew how to man a gun equally well.

  O’Brien dismounted. “Unlimber and load grapeshot! Take the horses down into the ravine!”

  Looking to the northwest, he noticed that this long spur of the plateau pointed directly toward the narrows, in view of Washington’s batteries. He felt sure that he could count on his company commander, Captain John M. Washington, for supporting fire if he and the First Illinois needed it.

  By the time O’Brien’s Bulldogs were loaded and ready to fire, Colonel Hardin’s Illinois command had marched halfway to the next ravine. Hardin dashed all along the front of the line on his sleek chestnut mount, shouting encouragement to his men. Then the Saint Patrick’s Battalion dropped an exploding round in their path. Immediately after the blast, a shout arose from the gully in front of the First Illinois and a host of fresh Mexican foot soldiers sprang from the arroyo. Musket fire ripped into the volunteers.

  “Fire!” Colonel Hardin yelled, and the Illinois Volunteers returned the deadly salute.

  The firing became general and men dropped along both lines, some screaming, some silent as oblivion.

  O’Brien checked the trajectory of his guns, nodding in approval. “Prime … Ready … Fire!”

  The Bulldogs tore two holes into the enemy line, but more defenders of Mexico kept coming. O’Brien now recognized the colors of Mexico’s Eleventh Regiment and the Battalion of León—both seasoned units attacking green American volunteers.

  “With canister, load!”

  Behind him, in the brushy ravine, he could faintly hear the bugles of the Second Illinois and the Second Kentucky signaling the advance. He hoped they’d hurry.

  “Viva México!”

  The cry, to his left, surprised him. He looked that way to see a wave of Lombardini’s hard-bitten veterans clambering over the brink of the ravine, bayonets gleaming in the evening sun. He felt his eyes widen and his mouth drop open.

  “Oh, Holy Christ!” his sergeant shouted.

  “Shut up, Sergeant, and turn that gun to the left!”

  O’Brien watched as Lombardini’s column swung across the plateau to effect an enfilading fire on the Illinois Volunteers—and on his battery of Bulldogs.

  “Prime! Ready! Fire!”

  The Bulldogs bucked backwards and a dozen of Lombardini’s men crumpled. But now the Saint Pats dropped a round of canister in front of O’Brien. The invisible balls of lead from the explosion rattled against metal, wood, and skulls. He lost two men from his new crew and had to take up a lanyard from one of the fallen men.

  “With double-shot grape, load!”

  As his gunners endured near misses and flesh wounds from muskets, he glanced behind him. The Illinoisans were falling back, but steadily, firing as they retired toward the ravine to the rear. Colonel Hardin rode behind them as they methodically withdrew, warning them not to turn tail.

  “God Almighty, Lieutenant!” his new sergeant yelled. “There’s no end to the bastards!”

  O’Brien looked left to find Lombardini’s entire division marching down on him. His instinct told him to limber and retire, but his guts told him the entire day’s struggle would be lost if he did so. He had to cover the First Illinois until they reached the cover of the ravine behind them. He had to hold generals Lombardini and Perez back as long as he could or else, he feared, the American center would collapse.

  “Fire at will, men! Give them hell!”

  Canister from the Saint Pats roared through his battery again, taking three men down. In the midst of such chaos, he could not tell whether Captain Washington was firing into the Mexicans from his battery at the narrows.

  “Sergeant, get some boys from the infantry to serve these guns!” he said as he rammed a load of canister down the hot muzzle of a bronze six-pounder.

  “Yes, sir!”

  The sergeant brought a few infantry soldiers to man the Bulldogs, but musket balls and shrapnel continued to decimate his crew. The injuries to the bodies, heads, and limbs were ghastly, but he had no time to aid the wounded or mourn the dead. The Mexicans continued to shoot, load, and march his way, though his Bulldogs blasted hellish breaches in their lines.

  “Lieutenant,” his sergeant shouted, “they’re going to capture our guns if we don’t limber and fall back!”

  “Not until the volunteers make it to the cover of the ravine!” He glanced
toward the Illinois line and saw them almost to the gully. But they had left many bodies behind on the plateau. To his anguish, he watched Mexicans bayoneting numerous wounded Americans, some of whom were pleading for their lives.

  A projectile ripped through the neck of his first sergeant, almost decapitating him. He could see now that he had neither the time nor the manpower to prevent his guns from falling into enemy hands.

  I have not yet begun to fight … I have not yet begun to fight … I have not yet begun—

  “One more volley, men! Double up on the powder and the grape! We’ll blow the Bulldogs up in their faces!”

  He served one of the guns himself as the nearest Mexican foot soldiers sprinted toward him in a deadly race to capture the artillery before he could fire one last volley.

  “Give me the lanyards and run for the ravine!”

  His men obeyed the order as he yanked both lanyards at once, ripping his attackers to pieces just steps away from the muzzles. To his astonishment, the bronze tubes of the Bulldogs failed to burst. He turned to run, but a ball hit his left thigh, spinning him to the ground. He stood and hopped away on his right leg, knowing that he could not outdistance the enemy. He decided to turn and face the Mexicans rather than take a bayonet in his back.

  Spinning back toward his battery, he witnessed the sickening sight of enemy soldiers swarming all around his precious Bulldogs. Suddenly he felt arms grabbing him, dragging him to the brink of the ravine. Two of his men had come back to spirit him away through a fusillade of lead.

  “We’ll get you to the doctor, Lieutenant,” one of the men said.

  They lugged him down into the temporary shelter of the barranca, over rocks and through ocotillo cacti. Numerous cactus needles lodged in his thigh. He thought how he would have cussed on any other day, but today it was nothing.

  He glanced left and right and saw both men bleeding. “Looks like we could all use a doctor, boys.”

  “Scratches don’t count, sir.”

  “Where are our horses?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Run off or rode off.”

  He helped by using his good leg as they rushed him to the rear. He saw the Second Kentucky Volunteers streaming into the ravine, coming to the aid of the First Illinois. They streamed through a gap in the rim rock on the opposite side of the gorge. The gap appeared to be the only place to get into or out of the ravine from that side. O’Brien’s rescuers dragged him toward the gap, but they had to wait for the Kentucky regiment to file in and vacate the narrow fissure in the bluff before they could climb out. When the gap cleared, O’Brien limped up and out of the ravine, his arms across the shoulders of his two stout gunners.

  Emerging onto the next spur of the plateau, he found the Second Illinois marching to join the battle, now sounding like roaring, screaming hell down in the ravine he had just escaped. He hobbled onward toward the rear and the gruesome specter of the hospital tent, wondering if the volunteers could hold back the professional Mexican fighters.

  Strangely, his wounded leg did not hurt much. Yet …

  He had lost his guns and most of his men but had prevented the annihilation or capture of an entire regiment of infantry. He didn’t know whether he would get court-martialed or promoted. That depended on which army won this battle. And right now, it might go either way.

  Captain

  SPEED SMITH FRY

  Buena Vista

  February 23, 1847

  He was a small-town lawyer and a mercantile operator. What the hell had he gotten himself into? He didn’t belong here. No human being ought to witness such carnage. This was the valley of death he had read about in the Bible.

  Captain Speed Smith Fry, commander of Company D, Second Kentucky Volunteers, stood in the ravine and watched his men fall around him. Privates Hamilton, Montgomery, and Vanfleet—dead. Their bodies interlaced with others, limb upon limb, on the blood-soaked ground.

  A few minutes earlier they had stormed into this ravine through a narrow gap in the rim rock, but the Mexicans had spotted them from the opposite brink and were now firing relentlessly down into the volunteers from the plateau. They could not charge forward into the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. They could not retreat because the bank behind them was rimmed with a vertical bluff, except for the one gap, and that had already been swarmed by flanking Mexican infantry.

  Suddenly he realized—with bullets humming and snapping branches all around him—that standing and doing nothing meant death.

  “Move down the ravine!” he shouted to the men of his company. “Retire to the road and rally under the guns of Washington’s battery!”

  Now he at least had his men moving, but the fire from the old Brown Bess muskets continued from the rim of the plateau on his left.

  “I’m going ahead to get orders from Colonel McKee! Follow as quickly as you are able!”

  Musket balls ricocheted off rocks near him as he dodged boulders and yuccas, leaping over the bodies of the dead and wounded. He ran until he saw his regiment’s commander, Colonel William R. McKee. He hoped the thirty-nine-year-old West Pointer would know what to do, as he ran up to him.

  “Colonel! Captain Fry reporting!”

  Colonel McKee, saber in hand, looked at him as if he were daft. A second later, a host of balls ripped bloody holes in the commander’s tunic and he fell onto his back, his eyes staring vapidly upward, his hilt still in his hand.

  An anguished yell erupted from Fry’s lungs. He looked for second-in-command Lieutenant Colonel Henry Clay Jr., the son of Henry Clay, who was the founder of the Whig Party and the most famous politician in America. That didn’t count for much now, in this hollow of death. But Colonel Henry Clay Jr. was a West Point graduate, too, and ought to know what to do.

  Fry turned around, searching, until he saw Colonel Clay near the brink of the ravine, reloading his single-shot pistol. As Fry sprinted his way, the lieutenant colonel rammed home the charge, set the percussion cap, and cocked his hammer. Musket balls tore into him, knocking him backwards and sending him sliding down the steep ravine bank toward Fry.

  Fry watched on in horror as the bloody Clay raised his pistol and fired one last round into the Mexicans. Fry ran to him, pulled him behind a boulder.

  “Captain Fry…” the lieutenant colonel said, spitting out a mouthful of blood, “take my pistol home to my father.” The weapon fell from Clay’s grasp as his eyes turned to lifeless orbs.

  “Oh, dear God!” Fry screamed. He picked up the pistol, stood, and waved his men toward the opening of the ravine below—toward the Saltillo road, toward Washington’s battery, toward hope.

  “Follow me! Down the ravine!”

  He stormed through the bed of the gully and ran into the beleaguered Second Illinois Volunteers. There, he couldn’t help noticing their commander, the dashing Colonel John J. Hardin—clean-shaven, handsome, mounted on his beautiful chestnut charger. He was a former regular army general, veteran of frontier campaigns. As Fry looked on, he saw Hardin rallying his men for a charge into the Mexican lines.

  “Now is the moment!” Hardin yelled. “Let us seize the colors of the Hidalgo Regiment!”

  Hardin turned to lead his men up the ravine bank, when a .71-caliber sphere of lead slammed into his chest.

  Fry screamed like a tortured soul in limbo as he watched blood gush from Hardin’s torso, onto his white trousers. The colonel dropped his sword and fell dead from the chestnut.

  All the commanders are dead. I am now among the ranking officers in this pit of agony.

  “To the road! Down the ravine! Rally on me!”

  Men stumbled along behind him, tripping over their fallen friends. Ahead, through the undergrowth, he finally saw the open ground beyond the mouth of the ravine. From there, what was left of his regiment could run for Washington’s battery and make a stand. But then, to his terror, he saw the bright tunics—red, green, and blue—of the hated lancers. The damned lancers were blocking the mouth of the gully! There was no escape from this cursed ra
vine!

  Where is Taylor? Where is the flying artillery? Where are the reserves?

  “Take cover!” he screamed, though he knew not enough cover existed for the survivors. “Reload! Make a stand!”

  A shell screamed toward him and fell among the lancers at the mouth of the draw, exploding with deadly results for men and horses. Thank God! Washington had spotted the lancers!

  “Rally on me, boys! Take aim and fight!”

  Captain Washington’s accurate artillery fire pummeled the lancers into a retreat, then turned on the Mexican infantry that was still firing down on the remnants of Fry’s regiment. Canister, shell, and spherical case shot ripped through the ranks of Perez’s and Lombardini’s men on the mesa above. Captain Speed Smith Fry took hope for the first time since descending into this hellish gulch of death.

  As the Mexicans reeled back from Washington’s hail of steel and lead, the blistering fire from the plateau finally abated.

  “Advance to the rim of the plateau!” he ordered. “Use the cover of the bank and fire on the enemy!”

  Stunned soldiers crept upward with their weapons.

  “Move!” Fry yelled. “This is your chance to avenge your slain comrades!”

  He looked around and saw a man of the Illinois regiment, wearing sergeant’s stripes.

  “Sergeant, detail a platoon to take the wounded to the rear! Take only those that can be saved. The slightly wounded must stay here and fight.”

  “Yes, sir. What about the dead?”

  “Leave them for now. And get your platoon back here as soon as possible. The enemy will rally and attack us again. We need every man!”

  The sergeant began shouting the names of privates and ordering them to lift men bloodied by grievous injuries.

  Fry picked up a musket and took an ammunition pouch from a dead soldier. He climbed to the brink of the ravine as he watched the survivors of the bloodbath fire into the retiring Mexicans. He was amazed that this part of the line had held. If the Mexicans had only ordered a bayonet charge into the barranca, if Washington had waited a minute longer to train his guns on the enemy, this battle would have been lost.