by Mike Blakely
Captain Fry was no West Pointer. He was a simple country lawyer and a small-town mercantile owner. But he knew he had almost witnessed one of the biggest military blunders in American history. And it wasn’t over yet.
General
ZACHARY TAYLOR
Buena Vista
February 23, 1847
He galloped Old Whitey down the Saltillo road, then veered left toward the fingertip end of the main plateau. His adjutant, Major William Bliss, rode at his side. Other staff members followed closely behind.
Nearing the ravine where the Illinois and Kentucky volunteers had been trapped and decimated, he saw a wagon and team standing idle at the mouth of the barranca and cantered up to it to investigate. He found a bloody man lying, unconscious, in the wagon. The man’s shirt had been opened. The wound to his belly revealed his intestines and pieces of broken ribs.
“I’ll be damned,” Bliss said.
“Not as damned as this poor soldier,” Taylor replied.
“No, look, General. In the trees up in the gully.”
Taylor tore his eyes away from the wounded man and saw a familiar figure in a royal-blue skirt, still wearing her barroom apron. Sarah Borginnes carried a bullet-riddled man in her arms as a mother would cradle a baby. The man, who was quite a bit smaller than her, was conscious but seemed unaware of what was happening.
“Stand aside, gentlemen!” she ordered as she approached the wagon.
Taylor and Bliss backed their mounts away from the dropped tailgate of the rig.
A shell whistled through the air, hit the rim of the plateau, exploded, and sent a shower of gravel clattering onto the wagon.
“Mrs. Borginnes,” Taylor said, “you are in danger here.”
She gently placed the wounded man on the wagon bed. Behind her, a sergeant and a few privates trailed out of the ravine, all carrying wounded men.
“This sergeant needed help with the wounded, and I can drive a team with the best of ’em,” she said, wiping her bloody hands on her apron.
“You are a true patriot and brave woman, Mrs. Borginnes.”
“Thank you, General. Open the gates of hell on ’em for doing these things to our boys.”
He nodded and reined away. His spurs coaxed every morsel of speed from Old Whitey as he climbed up the rocky grade to the northern point of the main plateau. Emerging over the crest, he saw, ahead on the mesa, Major Braxton Bragg’s battery of three six-pounders taking a pounding from enemy muskets and artillery but firing methodically into three advancing columns of Mexican infantry.
The First Illinois and the Second Kentucky had been almost destroyed in the ravine to his left, but for the artillery skills of Lieutenant O’Brien and Captain Washington. Bragg had rushed forward to shore up the weak spot in the line, and Taylor had ordered the Second Illinois and Jeff Davis’s red shirts to move in as well.
But the Mexicans had rallied, sounded bugles, and begun yet another assault. In the face of this new onslaught, Major Bragg remained exposed, under fire, without infantry support. For now, his three guns were all that held back the next wave of hardened Mexican veterans who were advancing in three columns toward the untrained regiments of raw volunteers.
Galloping up to the little battery, Taylor drew rein on Old Whitey and shouted down at Bragg, “Did I not promise you that Major Bliss and I would support you, Bragg?”
Bragg’s face, weary and grimy, looked up, his eyes wild. “That you did, General.”
Taylor felt shrapnel tear through the sleeve of his duster as a shell from the Saint Patrick’s Battalion exploded overhead. A bullet ticked his hat brim. He threw his right leg over his saddle pommel and gazed out toward the approaching enemy phalanx, coming in three huge columns. A bullet from the ravine to his right tore a button off of the general’s duster.
“What are you using, Major? Grape or canister?”
“Canister, General!”
“Single or double?”
“Single,” Bragg replied.
“Well, double-shot your guns and give ’em hell, Bragg!”
“Double-shot canister! Load!” Bragg ordered.
As gunners loaded their six-pounders, Taylor noted that the embattled volunteers from Kentucky and Illinois were now managing a respectable musket fire from the left-hand ravine.
“General Taylor,” Bliss said. “Look to the rear! Sherman is coming with his flying battery!”
Taylor slipped his right foot back into his stirrup and turned his mount to the rear as projectiles continued to tug at his clothing.
A Saint Pat’s shell fell nearby and burst, shattering the knee of one of Bragg’s gunners.
Through the smoke, Taylor caught sight of Sherman wheeling from column into battery. “That’s the spot, Sherman!” he yelled, though he knew the captain would not hear him.
All at once, he felt lifted above the fray to a place in the sky. Looking down, he saw the three enemy columns plodding onward, Sherman and Bragg hurling lead into them, the muskets of volunteers firing from the ravine. It was not enough to hold back the Mexicans. He needed more. He blinked and found himself astride his warhorse.
“Where the hell is Jeff Davis?” he said to Bliss.
“Colonel Crittenden rode to find him with your orders to move to the right.”
“I pray the good colonel gets through. We need those Mississippi Rifles!”
Colonel
JEFFERSON DAVIS
Buena Vista
February 23, 1847
He lay on his belly, peering over the brink of the ravine. His mount stood tied nearby, should his command receive orders to move.
For a couple of hours he had held this spur of high ground that had now become known as the Northern Plateau. His red-shirted Mississippi Rifles had spread along the ravine’s edge as skirmishers and held off repeated probes by Mexican soldiers. The bloodiest part of the battle had now shifted to the middle of the U.S. line, on his right. There, on the main plateau, musket and rifle fire and booming artillery punctuated the screams of men and horses.
“Colonel Davis!” The shout came through the underbrush from across the ravine he held. “Are you there?”
“Yes, I am here! Who are you?” He could not see a thing through the brush and lingering rifle smoke.
“It’s me, Colonel Crittenden. General Taylor orders your command to the right! March west and attack the enemy’s flank at once!”
“Very well! I am on the way!”
He rolled over and grabbed the long, straight limb his adjutant had found for him to use as a crutch.
“Captain Griffith!” he shouted as he laboriously drew himself to a standing position, feeling the blood squish about in his right boot. “Bring my horse and help me mount.”
Within minutes his Mississippi Rifles, along with the Third Indiana Volunteers, had begun a double-quick trot to the west. They crossed the Northern Plateau and plunged into the next ravine. They climbed out of that gully and onto a narrow, uninhabited finger of the plateau.
“We are close now!” Davis shouted to his men as they filed past his mount. “We will meet the enemy on the next branch of the mesa.”
Down he rode, leading his battalion into the last barranca between him and the enemy. The din of battle now rattled his teeth and battered his eardrums. Spurring his mount up the rock-strewn bank, through small trees stripped of foliage and limbs by artillery blasts, he arrived on the main plateau.
Assessing the situation, he saw General Taylor several hundred yards to the west, sitting on Old Whitey, watching Bragg’s artillerymen work their guns like madmen. Nearer to him—three hundred yards away—he witnessed a column of Mexican infantry marching toward Taylor and Bragg. Beyond them, through drifting smoke, he thought he could make out a second and even a third enemy column, also bearing down on Bragg’s position. Now he saw a muzzle flash from another battery beyond Bragg’s. Probably Sherman’s.
“Captain Griffith,” he said, seeing his adjutant emerge from the gully on foot. “Lead
the men out onto the plateau. Form a skirmish line. We will charge that column’s flank and commence firing. Quickly, before they reach our batteries!”
The red shirts led the way onto the mesa, followed by the Third Indiana Volunteers and Colonel Bowles’s handful of Second Indianans.
“Forward!” Davis yelled. “Guide center! March!”
His men started forward in an almost perfectly straight line. He rode behind them, gauging their progress, reining in his mount to match their speed. The grand scope of the scene before him suddenly struck him with such awe that for a moment he could not feel the roaring knife points of pain stabbing his wounded heel. The odors of smoke, horse sweat, and damp earth; the din of ordnance and musket fire; the spectacle of flashing muzzles, glinting blades, men marching toward danger …
At this speed, he could see that he would not arrive within range of the Mexican flank before it overwhelmed Bragg’s battery.
“Double-quick! March!”
Yes! His men leaned forward with eagerness, mounting a long trot, like wolves on the prowl. The Mexican column had now moved to his right to the point that he could see the rear of the column. The enemy seemed unaware of his approach. The timing would be dangerously close, but he felt he could get within rifle range and fire into the Mexicans before they bugled their three columns to charge Bragg’s and Sherman’s guns.
“Company … Halt!” he ordered.
The men stopped some 120 yards from the enemy flank.
“Prepare to fire … Take aim … Fire!”
A staccato ripple of smoke plumes licked the air in the direction of the enemy column. The effect on the Mexican flank and rear stunned Colonel Jefferson Davis with its military effectiveness and mortal inhumanity. Dark blue tunics dropped in waves as survivors stared down at their comrades, wondering what evil had wrought such death.
“Reload!” Davis yelled. Sensing a fleeting advantage, he watched his men ram loads and fix percussion caps. He ordered another double-quick advance, another halt, and another volley, this time even closer to the enemy column, hard upon its damaged right flank.
When the barrage flew, the Mexican infantrymen broke and stampeded into the column to their left, creating a shock wave of fear that spread through the middle column and into the left column. Within a minute, all three prongs of the Mexican advance had fled in a terror-stricken retreat, against all the urgings of their officers to stop and fight.
“Advance firing!” Davis yelled. “Rally on Bragg’s battery!”
As he rode along slowly behind his men, he pulled his slouch hat down low to shade his eyes. Ahead, the sun approached the horizon, signaling a coming end to this hideously glorious day. Though the Americans had not yet won, they had been spared defeat—at least for the day. What would tomorrow bring? How long could this battle go on? Could he remain conscious to lead his men another day?
Davis shrugged off the unending throb of misery down in his boot. It now seemed like a natural part of him, like breathing or blinking. As he rode across the plateau toward Taylor’s position, he looked at the dead and wounded men strewn over the sanguine ground. So many had met their maker. Even more would carry scars for a lifetime. He knew he was one of them, though his scars from today would not show. One was in his boot. The other was carved through the center of his soul.
Captain
JOHN RILEY
Buena Vista
February 23, 1847
Thrice today Captain John Riley had thought he had witnessed the defeat of Zach Taylor’s cursed army. This morning, from his vantage point on this hill, he had seen the American left flank collapse, only to be reclaimed. More recently he had seen the middle of the U.S. line retreat into a perfect trap down in a bloody barranca, where he pounded the hell out of them with shell and shot. But Santa Anna’s infantry had been driven back by Yankee twelve-pounders. And just now he had watched in screaming denial as red shirts and flying artillery somehow scattered three columns of veteran Mexican foot soldiers into a rearward rout.
“Has God Almighty forsaken Mexico!” he had railed. “What more can we hurl at the bloody bastards?”
What would come next was obvious to an experienced artillerist like Riley. Now that the Mexican infantry had retired in disgrace, the U.S. guns would have one target left to fire upon: the hilltop battery of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion.
All day he had followed the orders of Colonel Francisco Moreno and slung loads at targets all over the battlefield. But at times when Moreno left him to his own devices, he had sought out his own targets: Bragg and Sherman. Now Moreno had left the hill to confer with Santa Anna about the devastating turn of events on the largest spur of the mesa. Captain John Riley had just two targets in mind. The two most abusive nativist officers in the U.S. Army. Braxton Bragg and Thomas Sherman. And they were within range of his twenty-four-pounders on the big mesa.
“What are your orders, sir?”
Riley turned to look at the soot-blackened face of Lieutenant Patrick Dalton. “We’re about to take a pounding, Lieutenant. You take command of the three guns on the left and destroy Sherman’s battery on the mesa. I’ll train the right half of the battery on that bastard Bragg.”
“Load canister!” Dalton shouted.
Riley grabbed him by the sleeve to hold him back. “I heard a story from a priest who slipped among the Americans at Monterrey. He said when they were camped at Bosque de San Domingo—the stupid Americans called it Walnut Springs—some of Bragg’s own men, immigrants no doubt, tried to kill him. They rolled a howitzer shell with a short fuse into his tent in the dark of night. He somehow avoided a journey to hell from the explosion.”
Dalton brandished his fist toward the U.S. line. “I wish they had killed the bloody fucker.”
“I offer a hundred thousand prayers of thanks to God that they didn’t kill him. I desire that pleasure for my own.”
“Faith,” Dalton said, “may your aim hold true.”
“Man your guns, Patrick. They are lifting their muzzles as we speak. We will promptly find ourselves in a true and deadly artillery duel.”
His warning was punctuated by a howitzer shell that exploded in the gully in front of his hill. Seeing his men ready, with lanyards in hand, he ordered the eighteen-pounder nearest to him to fire on Bragg’s battery. Looking through his spyglass, he could see that the shot fell short.
“Turn the screw one time and load!”
He stepped over to the next cannon, a twenty-four-pounder. But before he could order a round fired, he heard the shriek of an incoming shell. It hit the hill at the base of his sandbagged parapets and exploded on impact, tossing a spray of sand into his eyes.
“Private!” he roared. “Pull the lanyard and destroy that goddamned trifling sixer!”
The twenty-four-pounder thundered and shook the hill beneath his feet.
“Did you strike home, lad?” he asked, still trying to blink sand from his eyes.
“I shot long, sir! I’ll adjust!”
“See that you do! Next! Ready! Fire!”
His guns, and Dalton’s, kept up a steady barrage, until they began to land shots dangerously close to Bragg and Sherman. But Bragg, Sherman, and Washington were now striking equally near to the hilltop.
“Lieutenant! We will fire in battery at our targets. Are you loaded and ready?”
“Ready, sir!”
“Make ready! Fire!”
Six mighty weapons simultaneously spewed smoke, spark, and projectiles toward Bragg and Sherman. But before Riley could judge his accuracy, a volley from one of his sworn enemies hit the carriage of a twenty-four-pounder, killing two of his crew and disabling the gun. Knocked onto his back by the blast, he looked up at the silken banner of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion, now riddled by shrapnel.
“Fight!” he screamed, springing to his feet. “Load, fire, and fight for the glory of the Auld Sod!”
As the sun sank, his men continued to hurl insults and ammunition at the American batteries, damaging but no
t destroying the flying artillery units under Bragg and Sherman. He lost another man, dead, and three more wounded. Finally, after dark, Colonel Francisco Moreno rode up onto the hill and ordered the Irishmen to cease firing.
“Captain Riley, I suggest you come with me. His Excellency Santa Anna has called for council of war. Plans for tomorrow will be formed.”
“What plans, sir? We fight to the death! We fight until the enemy limps back to his slave plantations and his filthy city slums!”
“Careful, Riley. I suggest you hold your tongue and listen to El Presidente. He will decide the course for the morrow. And you will follow orders.”
Riley spat on the ground but did not argue.
“Lieutenant Dalton, you are in command in my absence. I am going to receive our orders from the president.”
We will crush them at dawn, he thought. They have been battered to a pulp all day long. One last assault will baptize this ground with their blood!
General
ZACHARY TAYLOR
Buena Vista
February 23, 1847
He had made up his mind to go to the hospital and find out for himself. Rumor had it that Jefferson Davis was among the officers killed.
“I’ll never believe it,” he had said to Major Bliss. He heard himself repeat it over and over, as if he couldn’t stop saying it. “I’ll never believe it … I’ll never believe it…”
“I’m trying to determine whether or not it’s true, sir. I don’t yet know exactly where Colonel Davis is.”
“I am going to find him myself.”
With a troubled mind, he had ridden Old Whitey through the dark to Santiago Cathedral, which now served as a hospital for the wounded soldiers. Stepping down from the saddle, he noticed a wagon in front of the old Spanish church. It looked like the one Sarah Borginnes had used to transport wounded soldiers. He walked to it, curious, and peered over the sideboards. To his surprise he found a man lying in the wagon bed, missing a boot, his foot propped up on a folded piece of tent canvas. Not just any man, but his former son-in-law, Colonel Jefferson Davis.
