by John Jakes
Billy liked the color and bustle of New York. Being a Yankee, he was at home there. Yet he felt that his heart now lay in the South. He hoped his next posting would take him in that direction. To Cockspur Island in the Savannah River, for instance. Or—even better—to the fortifications in Charleston harbor. To his regret, the Army’s mysterious bureaucracy chose to move him halfway across the country, to follow in the footsteps of a giant.
Not quite twenty years earlier, the man still considered the Army’s foremost soldier and Scott’s likely successor had been sent to St. Louis with one clerk and orders instructing him to do something about a problem on the Mississippi River. The river was silting up along the west bank and slowly ruining navigation near the St. Louis waterfront.
Robert Lee of the Corps of Engineers had decided the solution lay in long dikes. He built these at the upstream and downstream ends of Bloody Island, a long, cottonwood-covered shoal on the Illinois side. Two and a half years of his life were devoted to this and other river improvements in the vicinity. When he was finished, the well-planned dikes diverted the current so that it scoured out accumulated sand and satisfactorily deepened the steamboat channel on the city side.
Lee’s work earned him the gratitude of the St. Louis business community, and then his heroism in the Mexican War turned him into something of a legend. Now Brevet Lieutenant Hazard, again with one clerk, was being posted to St. Louis to effect repairs on the dikes—a job considerably easier than Lee’s had been, but no less lonely.
Billy wrote Brett that he felt he was being banished to the remote frontier. One good thing could be said: he was still banking part of his pay each month. The marriage fund, they called it in their frequent and highly sentimental correspondence. Brett promised to visit him in St. Louis, provided she could persuade Orry to chaperone her.
Despite the 1855 expansion program which had created four new regiments, the U.S. Army was still small. Hence it was not at all unlikely for a young officer to be posted to a place where the Marble Model had served—or even to be assigned to his command, which turned out to be the case with Charles.
Charles graduated third from the bottom of the class of 1857. He ordered uniforms with yellow facings, pinned on the insignia of the mounted service, and went home on furlough. He had been ordered to duty with the Second Cavalry in Texas. The Second was one of the new regiments. There were so many Southerners from West Point in it that the unit was called Jeff Davis’s Own. The term was not always complimentary.
When Ashton heard of the assignment, her reaction was similar to Billy’s: “Why, that’s the end of the earth. Nothing there but dust, niggers, and red savages.”
“Nonsense, Ashton. There are Texans, Spaniards—and the best mounted regiment in the Army. Bob Lee’s in command now. He moved up when Albert Johnston was reassigned. Lee has written friends at the Academy, and he says Texas is beautiful. He keeps a garden and a pet rattlesnake. I think I’ll do the same.”
“I always knew you were crazy,” she said with a shudder.
43
A STEAMER FROM NEW Orleans delivered Charles to Indianola on the Texas Gulf coast. From there he traveled by stagecoach up to San Antonio, the headquarters of the regiment and the Department of Texas, which Lee was also commanding temporarily.
Texas was a new experience for Charles, a new kind of landscape. Neither mountainous like the Hudson Highlands nor overgrown and dank like some sections of the low country, but flat or gently rolling, open to the burning sun and scouring winds, subject to brutal summer heat and miserable winter chill. Something in him responded instantly to the space and the freedom. The land produced a feeling that here a man could live to the full, unhampered by the traditions and trivial rules that forced behavior into a rigid pattern in more settled parts of the country.
Charles had been happy to leave the East and all the sectional hostility there. In March the Supreme Court had decided the case of Dred Scott, the slave who had sued for his liberty on the grounds that he had become a free man the moment his owner took him into free territory. Charles didn’t understand all the complexities of the case, but the heart of the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Taney was a judgment that Scott had no right to sue because slaves were not citizens, not legal persons in the constitutional sense. Hence they could not seek justice in American courts. The decision had enraged people on both sides of the issue and provoked a score of nasty fights at West Point during the spring.
Charles doubted that he would completely escape such quarrels out here, but maybe they would be fewer. Frontier or not, Texas still belonged to the slaveholding South.
San Antonio spread beside the river of the same name. The city was an odd but delightful blend of three cultures that first became evident to Charles in the architecture. As the stagecoach bumped through the outskirts, he saw neat single-story homes of square-cut white limestone, each with its small painted sign identifying the owner. German names, mostly. Later, on narrow Commerce Street, he sauntered past shops with signs in German as well as in English. The American colony lived nearby, in solid brick residences two or three stories high, with picket fences surrounding them.
And, of course, there were the adobe houses, distinctively square and flat-roofed. All in all, he liked the look of the town as much as he liked the look of the state. The people seemed friendly, acting as if they believed life had treated them well and given them reason to be confident about the future. Charles saw a good many raffish plainsmen, heavily armed, and he was particularly charmed by the dark-skinned Spanish girls.
Before reporting to Lee, he took pains to brush the dust from his pale blue trousers and tight-fitting dark blue jacket. He polished the brass eagle ornament and plumped up the two black ostrich plumes on his Hardee hat—the cavalry’s version of a precedent-breaking full-brimmed hat of gray felt introduced in the Army in 1855. The left brim of the Hardee hat was turned up and held by the claws of the metal eagle.
After Charles handed his papers to Lee’s aide, a cheerful Pole named Lieutenant Radziminski, he was received by the regimental commander. Lee ordered him to stand at ease, then invited him to sit. September sunlight flooded the white-painted room. The open windows admitted dry, bracing air.
Lee was punctilious, yet cordial. “It’s good to see you again, Lieutenant. You look fit. The Academy agreed with you, then.”
“Yes, sir. I liked it—though I confess I wasn’t much good in the classroom.”
“Out here, other qualities are just as important as scholarship. The ability to ride well and endure hardship. The ability to lead men of varying backgrounds.” He turned toward a large lacquered map of Texas hanging behind him. All the posts in the department were identified by pins with small ribbons on them. “Where you are being sent, the troops are composed chiefly of Alabama and Ohio men. Of course we have our quota of recent immigrants throughout the regiment. By the way—”
Having failed to satisfy Charles’s curiosity and name his destination, Lee faced forward again. “My nephew is serving with the Second.”
“Yes, sir, I know.”
“You and Fitz were friends—”
“Good friends. I’m looking forward to seeing him.”
Lee nodded, thought a moment. “For your information, General Twiggs will soon be arriving to assume command of the department. Major George Thomas will take over the regiment and transfer its headquarters back to Fort Mason. I’m returning to Virginia.”
Charles tried to hide his disappointment. “A new assignment, sir?”
Gravely, Lee shook his head. “My wife’s father passed away. I must take a leave to attend to some family matters.”
“My condolences, sir. I’m sorry to hear you’re leaving.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. I plan to return as soon as practicable. Meanwhile, you’ll find Major Thomas a very capable commandant. He graduated in the class of 1840.”
It was said as if to stamp Thomas with a mark of approval. Charles was learning that the m
ark united those officers who had gone through the Academy and separated them from those who had not.
Lee relaxed, grew more conversational.” Our work here is confined to just a few tasks, but each is important. Guarding the mail coaches and emigrant trains. Scouting. And of course suppressing an occasional Indian outbreak. The threat of Indian trouble isn’t as constant as our playwrights and novelists would have gullible Easterners believe. But neither is it imaginary. I think you’ll find the duty both interesting and challenging.”
“I know I will, Colonel. I already like Texas very much. There’s a feeling of freedom here.”
“We’ll see how you like it after you’ve lived through a norther,” Lee replied with a smile. “But I understand what you’re saying. Last year I read a book by a chap named Thoreau. One line stuck in my mind. ‘There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon.’ That certainly applies to the frontier: Perhaps it also explains why there is so much turmoil and disputation in our country. Ah, but I haven’t mentioned your post, have I?”
He stood up, faced the map, and indicated one of the ribbons pinned almost due north of San Antonio at what looked to be a distance of about 250 miles.
“Camp Cooper. On the Clear Fork of the Brazos. It’s two miles upstream of the Penateka Comanche agency and reservation. Your troop commander is also a West Point man recently transferred from Washington back to line duty here. His name is Captain Bent.”
Charles drew equipment and a fine horse, a roan, for the trip to Camp Cooper. He would ride north with the departmental paymaster and his party. On the night before his departure, he was on his way to find supper when he encountered Colonel Lee and Major George Thomas on the street. Lee asked him where he was going, and when he answered, the colonel said that he and Thomas were on their way to dine at the Plaza Hotel, and why didn’t he join them? Lee again made reference to the Academy background the three of them shared, and that overcame Charles’s hesitation. He thanked the senior officers for the invitation and fell in step beside them.
Hot, humid weather had produced a new crop of flies and mosquitoes—overnight, it seemed. In the hotel dining room, little black boys with palm fans stood by the tables to shoo the insects away. A touch of home, Charles thought with a twinge of conscience. Though he remained a loyal Southerner, four years at West Point had exposed him to new ideas and changed some of his thinking. He had begun to feel that the South’s economy was built on a rotten foundation, one that could not help but collapse eventually—if it were not swept away by outside forces first.
Lee and Thomas chatted in a convivial way about a variety of things. The Indian problem. Major Bill Hardee’s new infantry tactics, which were replacing those authored by General Scott. A horse race won by another South Carolinian in the regiment, Captain Nathan Evans of Marion. He commanded Company H and still went by his West Point nickname, Shanks.
The talk turned to the weather. “Texas brings out the mettle of our military Shadrachs and Abednigos,” Lee said. “Wait till you patrol in this kind of heat for twenty or thirty days at a stretch.”
“While trying to find ten thieving Comanches in a thousand square miles,” Thomas added. Heavier than Lee and more reticent, the major was forty or so. His quiet demeanor suggested a strong will, as did the occasional flash of his silvery blue eyes. Like the commandant, he was a Virginian.
“If most of the Comanches are cared for on reservations, why do they steal?” Charles asked.
Lee answered the question in a roundabout way. “We’ve tried to turn the southern Comanches into farmers, but I don’t believe they’re temperamentally suited for it—and beyond that, for the last year or so, the weather’s been against us. Nothing but drought. So their crops have failed, which means they have no money. Yet, like all human beings, they have wants. Tobacco, knives, strouding. Certain unscrupulous traders are willing to deal with them and supply those things. The traders are Choctaws, mostly, down from Indian Territory. A few are Comancheros from New Mexico.”
Still puzzled, Charles said, “But if the Comanches don’t have cash crops, what do they trade?”
“Horses.”
“Stolen horses,” Thomas clarified. “Colonel Lee’s predecessor believed in what he called rigorous hostility toward the Indians. Patrol, pursue, punish—that was the strategic concept. Lately, however, Washington has followed a somewhat more passive policy. We are under orders to stand pat until there’s an outbreak, until the Comanches descend on some white settler unfortunate enough to have a few horses in a pole corral. Then we rush into action, praying to God we aren’t too late to prevent the settler’s murder.”
Lee studied his plate of venison steak in a pensive way. “You can’t entirely blame the Comanches. We took their lands for settlement. Then we drove off the game they depend on for survival. If they have nothing, and steal, we’re partly responsible.”
“Don’t let Governor Houston hear you say that,” Thomas declared with a humorless smile.
But Charles could only think of the excitement of it. A mounted chase, a charge with sabers swinging. Patrol, pursue, punish. He was glad he’d been posted to the Second instead of some stodgy regiment in a safe part of the country.
Three times a year the paymaster brought the departmental payroll from New Orleans in the form of coin. Six times annually he set out on a circuit of the Texas forts, carrying the payroll in a padlocked chest. He traveled in a mule-drawn ambulance accompanied by a provision wagon and six mounted men commanded by a sergeant.
The mounted men were dragoons in orange-faced uniforms. Riding with them, Charles felt himself the object of the veteran’s unspoken contempt for the greenhorn. The dragoon uniforms and gear were weathered, whereas his were obviously brand-new.
The dragoons were America’s original mounted service. Now they were being superseded by the cavalry; light cavalry, really. Like the other new mounted regiment, the Second had no heavily armored men, as European cavalry did. Further, the Second was supposed to fight on horseback, not merely ride to a battlefield and then dismount. The dragoons felt threatened by this new style of mounted warfare, of which Secretary Davis obviously approved. Their resentment showed. Except for military courtesies, they ignored Charles during the journey.
At Fort Mason he had a joyful and alcoholic reunion with Fitz Lee, who was as cheerful and carefree as ever and just as scornful of authority. He and Charles discussed most of the West Point men in the regiment: Shanks Evans of South Carolina; Earl Van Dorn from Mississippi; Kirby Smith of Florida; John Hood of Kentucky; Alabama’s Bill Hardee, whose name had been given to the new-style hat while he was serving with the Second Dragoons. No wonder critics accused Davis of creating an elite regiment staffed with Southern gentlemen.
Just before the pay train moved out, Fitz said to his friend, “Watch out for that troop commander of yours. He hasn’t been out here long, but his reputation’s already bad.”
“Incompetent?”
“Not that so much. Devious. Not to be trusted. Be careful.”
Charles pondered the warning as he rode in the dust raised by the provision wagon, occasionally patting and murmuring to the roan he had named Palm in celebration of his home state.
A hot southwest wind flung grit against the back of his neck. Then, within a period of ten minutes, the wind shifted almost 180 degrees, the sky filled with boiling black clouds, the temperature plummeted, and a norther came tearing at him with torrential rain and hail so large that one piece gashed his cheek and drew blood.
In an hour the sun shone again. Ahead, the now-muddy road wound on across low hills toward a horizon rapidly clearing of clouds. As the caravan moved from a vale of glistening pecan trees to a stand of post oaks, a frightened cottontail rabbit bounded in front of the roan. Deep in the oaks, Charles heard larks singing.
His old, brash smile returned. His uniform was soaked, but he didn’t mind. The violent, changeable weather appealed to his sense of adventure. He liked Texas better
and better every minute.
From a bluff above the Clear Fork, the paymaster’s party descended to a pleasant green valley that stretched northward until its floor became lost in the noon haze. Charles had seldom seen a lovelier place. Somehow, the twisted mesquite trees and stunted prickly pear contributed to its fierce beauty.
But the valley’s verdant look was a trick of distance and perspective. Near the meandering river, heat-withered leaves on huge elm trees were barely stirring in the sultry breeze. The caravan passed melon and pea fields that had a parched look. Here and there an Indian stood in a dusty furrow watching the soldiers with sad eyes or sullen ones.
Beyond the drought-stricken fields, Charles saw his first Indian settlement—about two hundred animal-hide teepees decorated with yellow and red designs and symbols. The village generated an overwhelming impression of poverty.
Columns of smoke rose from cook fires. The odor of broiling meat mingled with the smell of human waste. Children laughed and played, emaciated dogs barked and ran every which way, and half a dozen young men added to the dust and din by riding bareback through the settlement. They were careful not to come close to the column, Charles noticed.
Two more miles and he’d be able to dismount. He was sweating and his thighs were sore despite the protection of the regulation saddle piece that reinforced the inside of his trousers. When he finally saw Camp Cooper, it looked like paradise, even though it was simply an assortment of fourteen primitive buildings made of stone, logs, clapboard, jacal, or combinations of two or more of them.
The post was laid out as a rambling reversed L. In front of the flagstaff on the parade ground, a platoon of foot soldiers was listlessly practicing the manual of arms. Charles recalled that two companies of the First Infantry were posted here, in addition to a squadron from the Second Cavalry.
