After putting down the Zacatecas rebellion in mid-May, Santa Anna had returned to another hero’s welcome in Mexico City, then retired to his beloved hacienda in the mountains of Jalapa, ostensibly for health reasons. But when news of the seizure of the Goliad presidio and the confrontation at Gonzales reached the country’s interior, he sprang into action. He arrived in the nation’s capital by early November to begin assembling the Army of Operations, which would eventually comprise six thousand men and which he planned to deploy against Texas. Financing the expedition was an operation in itself: though Santa Anna had assumed almost absolute authority, there were limits to his power, particularly when it came to the depleted treasury. Later that month, the Mexican Congress authorized the government to furnish him with 500,000 pesos, but the money was never issued. His Excellency took matters into his own hands, negotiating several large loans, and even using his own properties as collateral. One loan of 400,000 pesos with steep interest rates was later rejected by Congress. Somehow, he obtained enough to keep the expedition going, though his exertions to cover payrolls and supplies would involve much juggling and coercion over the next several months—and he would still come up short.
Santa Anna ordered units from around the country to supply conscripts to fill out the skeleton ranks of infantry, cavalry, and artillery forces. The Army of Operations would be almost equally divided between permanentes, the regular army forces, and activos, the active militia, with some frontier presidial units also present. There was no lack of bodies in the higher ranks: the army was top-heavy with officers, quite a few of them owing their commissions to political connections—one of His Excellency’s top aides would later write that there were officers enough for an army of twenty thousand men. Many of these men knew little of their profession.
Most of the higher-ranking officers, however, were veterans who had fought alongside Santa Anna—and sometimes, amid Mexico’s near-constant upheavals and ever-shifting allegiances, against him. As his second commander in chief, largely a ceremonial and advisory position, he named Italian-born General Vicente Filisola, a capable administrator but, at forty-six, past his prime as a battle commander. Filisola lacked the respect of his peers, who would never forgive his foreign birth. (Several high-ranking officers were born in Spain or one of its possessions, but they at least shared the same blood and language as their Mexican-born comrades.) General Manuel Fernández Castrillón, the tall, well-educated former royalist who had fought at Santa Anna’s side for more than a decade, was appointed aide-de-camp. Born in Cuba, he came to Mexico with the Spanish army, but had changed sides during the revolution. Few men had the courage to stand up to their commander in chief when he turned abusive; Castrillón was one of them.
Serving as chief of staff was Colonel Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, the New Orleans–educated illegitimate son of an early revolutionary hero, José María Morelos. The squat, swarthy Almonte had been sent to Texas in 1834 to infiltrate the province and determine its political attitude. He had seen with his own eyes the colonists’ lack of allegiance—and their industriousness in civilizing the province’s wilderness. In his report he had presaged the dangers they presented, and recommended that the army be dispatched immediately to control the unruly colonists.
As commanding general of the artillery, His Excellency named the skilled and ruthless Pedro de Ampudia, another Cuban—one of several in positions of high rank. Dozens of other officers rounded out the fifty-man general staff. As the army’s commissary general, His Excellency appointed his brother-in-law, Colonel Ricardo Dromundo, who had married his sister Francisca, though Filisola and other officers had reservations about his performance and integrity.
One division of the army was already on the move. Forty-year-old General Joaquín Ramírez y Sesma had commanded the cavalry superbly in the Zacatecas victory in May; he had been rewarded with the governorship of that military department. Despite the fact that he and Santa Anna had opposed each other politically until 1833—he had once issued a manifesto mocking Santa Anna—he enjoyed His Excellency’s confidence. He also enjoyed gambling and parties, but he was a brave and determined soldier, though somewhat arrogant. He viewed himself as the Joachim Murat, the dashing French cavalry leader, to Santa Anna’s Napoleon, though that opinion was not shared by some of his peers. When news of General Cós’s besiegement at Béxar reached the capital, orders were sent to Ramírez y Sesma directing him to march at once to the aid of Cós with three battalions of infantry, one cavalry regiment, and a battery of light artillery. On November 11, he began the long trek from Zacatecas to Laredo, situated on the Rio Grande, which would serve as the primary base of operations for the march into Texas.
After sorting out the country’s political affairs in the capital, Santa Anna rode to the city of San Luis Potosí early in December to begin organizing the army. The troops began assembling there and soon moved to the mile-high mountain city of Saltillo, in Coahuila, about 120 miles farther north, where they would take final shape. Saltillo, a city of almost fifteen thousand, lay in a wide valley flanked by the high peaks of the Eastern Sierra Madres, its old pink marble cathedral and government buildings gleaming in the sun. The area’s mild winters reassured Santa Anna of the wisdom of his overland strategy. The line of approach would proceed from Saltillo to Monclova, to Laredo, then to Béxar—some six hundred miles total.
On December 20, when Santa Anna learned of the defeat of General Cós at Béxar, he quickly moved to change his plans. The main portion of the army would now cross the Rio Grande at Guerrero, eighty miles upriver from Laredo—this route, he told his subordinates, would more likely guarantee a surprise attack on Béxar. Just a few days later, Ramírez y Sesma’s Vanguard Brigade reached the southern edge of Laredo to find Cós with his bedraggled column entering on the north side. They consolidated, and the Vanguard Brigade shared what they could with Cós’s men. Within a week Ramírez y Sesma set out for Guerrero, per His Excellency’s orders. Cós and his foot-weary soldados, still without their pay, proper food, or sufficient clothing, were ordered to march another two hundred torturous miles to Monclova, there to await the rest of the army.
SOME OF THE UNITS OF THE army moving north boasted experience during the civil wars of the previous half dozen years, but nearly half the soldiers were raw recruits—Indian peasants, vagabonds, prisoners, and the poor of the larger cities and towns—quickly conscripted with no experience and little desire to fight. That trait was shared by numerous veterans, at least in regard to this campaign. The thought of marching almost six hundred miles to Mexico’s distant northern frontier to fight norteamericanos who posed no direct threat to one’s village seemed an abstract cause. Most inhabitants of the sprawling nation still thought of themselves as Oaxacans, or Zacatecans, or Chihuahuans first, rather than Mexicans—the country was still too new, its towns and cities too far from each other, its politics too chaotic. In early December, Santa Anna had directed Ramírez y Sesma to “take advantage of the enthusiasm of the citizenry of the towns along your route by drafting those useful men familiar with firearms into the rank and file as auxiliary volunteers to enlarge the division.” The unfortunates thus impressed into service—unwilling conscripts were enlisted for ten years, volunteers for eight—were neither enthusiastic nor volunteers, further eroding the quality and morale of the Army of Operations.
The Mexican soldiers spent most of January 1836 in Saltillo familiarizing themselves with their weapons and learning rudimentary drills—there were, for example, seventy different bugle calls used as field commands. One of them, the degüello—“slit throat”—had been inherited from the Spanish, who had borrowed it from the Moors. It signaled “no quarter,” and would likely be sounded in earnest before long, since Santa Anna had issued instructions that the foreign rebels be treated as pirates:
The foreigners who wage war against the Mexican Nation have violated all laws and do not deserve any consideration, and for that reason, no quarter will be given them as the troops are to be notifie
d at the proper time. They have audaciously declared a war of extermination to the Mexicans and should be treated in the same manner.
The Anglo colonists, and any other foreigners from the United States or anywhere else who attempted to assist them, would be summarily executed, as befitted such treasonous barbarians.
During their several weeks in Saltillo, the recruits were introduced to the basics of marching and formations, but little more: anything more complicated would normally take a unit months to master. The simple order to load and fire, for instance, required fifteen distinct commands to complete. This series of orders could be reduced to “rapid fire,” consisting of a few commands that would result in the soldiers firing at will, but whether their orders were truncated or drawn out, the first time many of these soldiers would ever fire their muskets would be when they confronted the enemy, a prospect that seemed not to bother the commander in chief.
The musket they carried was the India pattern Brown Bess, the standard-issue gun used by British line troops for almost a century—a smoothbore, muzzle-loading, .75-caliber flintlock that was reliable enough but showing its age. Its massive slug could do serious damage, but it generated a powerful kick, and its accuracy range was only seventy yards or so. And because Mexican gunpowder was often inferior—too much sulphur and charcoal—a double load was sometimes used, resulting in a larger powder flash in the pan near the face and eyes, and an even stronger recoil. Because of this, many soldiers fired their muskets from the waist, further reducing any accuracy. Its seventeen-inch bayonet was likely its most effective feature.
The basic army unit was the battalion, and each infantry battalion comprised eight companies of eighty men each, though most averaged half that number. The line units were the six fusilero (musketeer), or line, companies—the regular foot soldiers who did most of the fighting. The two other companies were considered the “preferred” units: the best of the line companies were placed in a single company of granaderos (grenadiers), veterans usually held in reserve, and the sharpshooters of the cazador (hunter) company were the light infantry, or skirmishers. The cazadores were better marksmen, and often carried the superior British Baker .61-caliber rifle, accurate up to three hundred yards and easier to load.
Infantrymen wore blue pigeon-tailed jackets with red trim and white crossbelts, and white or blue trousers, though some raw recruits sometimes wore simple white or blue cotton or linen outfits of trousers and a loose shirt. Many of these conscripts wore sandals. All wore a black shako—the stiff, cylindrical, high-crowned hat popular at the time—with a brass plate and small red plume.
The Mexican cavalry was in slightly better shape. Troopers carried short-barreled British Paget carbines and holster pistols, a saber in a waist-belt sling, and a formidable wooden lance—one and a half inches thick and nine feet long, with a red pennant near the end, below the metal point. They wore short red coats and blue cloth trousers, and their black leather crested helmets were decorated with brass plating and a high horsehair comb. Mexican lancers were skillful horsemen and feared opponents.
The artillery corps had suffered the worst during the revolutionary years. A severe shortage of funds and inadequate training for the branch’s thin ranks had left it in woeful shape—Santa Anna would head north with only twenty-one pieces of ordnance, the largest being two twelve-pounders, but most of them smaller cannon, scattered among his units.
The officers’ uniforms were, in a word, fancier—white or gray trousers; black riding boots; blue pigeon-tailed jackets with scarlet frontpieces, cuffs, and high collars, each embroidered with golden leaves of palm, olive, and laurel; golden epaulets; and a wide blue or green sash around the waist, all quite usual in that era of Napoleonic influence.
There were variations on these uniforms that distinguished the permanentes from the activos, this state unit from that one, and veterans from recruits, among other distinctions, but the overall effect was colorful and striking, especially against a background of desert tans, oranges, and scrub.
The lack of funds led to serious shortages in every area. The Army of Operations had neither surgeons nor adequate medical supplies. The hospital corps had been abolished in 1833, and interim measures to fix the problem had failed, so medical students and three hundred pesos’ worth of drugs obtained at Saltillo—and the occasional village quack impressed into aid—would have to suffice. The quartermaster corps had neither the equipment nor the money to properly equip and supply an army of six thousand. But the army would march north with what could be scrounged together.
Other deficiencies abounded. Because there was a scarcity of mules, hundreds of oxen would be used. They were slow and could only be driven for eight hours a day. The army’s train comprised more than two thousand carts. The two months’ rations ordered by the commander in chief included flour, corn, beans, rice, and lard, though the largest part of the soldiers’ diet would consist of the one hundred thousand pounds of maize hardtack that he had ordered his brother-in-law to have baked. That order would not be completely fulfilled, and eventually the soldiers’ daily ration would be cut in half. Officers were expected to provide for themselves out of their regular pay, with no extra campaign allowance, a move that caused much resentment.
Hostile Indians posed an even more significant problem. The army would be moving through territory controlled by the Apaches and Comanches, ferocious tribes that had been active lately. Furthermore, they as well as a handful of other Indian tribes had formed various confederations, an ominous development, since when the Indians were at peace with each other, frontier attacks on colonists increased. Though Santa Anna hoped to persuade them to side with the Mexicans against the norteamericanos, and the Texians expected and feared just such an alignment, the Indians refused to aid either side and continued to raid indiscriminately. The Army of Operations would be in great danger of harassment as it moved north.
Several other problems emerged. The road to Béxar manifested a lack of water and adequate pasture for the animals. Through the 150 miles north of the Rio Grande, the route crossed only two rivers dependable year-round for water, and much of the meager winter grass had been burned off by the rebels. Desertions, both by unwilling recruits desperate to leave before entering the emptiness of northern Coahuila and south Texas, and unpaid muleteers, who slipped away with or without their stock, threatened to reduce the effective troop strength by hundreds. The missing mule drivers would force inexperienced and untrained soldiers to take the reins and further slow the columns.
None of this seemed to faze Santa Anna, who showed no alarm and waved off complaints from his aides. There was no time to argue; everything would be taken care of, he maintained, for he personally attended to almost every detail. He issued a steady stream of orders intended to clear up any and all problems, though the specifics of many of these orders remained in question—“Whatever you find available there,” read one directive concerning food. Filisola was on the receiving end of many of these commands, but he was unable to comply with some of His Excellency’s demands. Many of the necessities—horses, hardtack, uniforms, blankets, and footwear, among them—simply could not be obtained. But orders to alleviate these shortages had been issued, and His Excellency remained confident of their execution.
Before leaving Saltillo, Santa Anna ordered a full-dress parade review of the troops. After witnessing the makeshift army he had attempted to whip into shape—or at least a semblance of such—march through the streets of Saltillo before cheering citizens, he waxed eloquent on its readiness. He reported to Secretary of War José María Tornel that he “had not in years seen in the Republic a more splendid body of troops”—they were well disciplined and equipped, he said, and unanimous in their enthusiasm. Whether he truly believed this, or wrote it to reassure Mexico City of the wisdom of his actions, is unclear, but several of his field officers felt quite differently. Among the various disconcerting issues: the men were owed back pay, were often hungry, and some lacked proper footwear—somewhat necessa
ry for a six-hundred-mile march through desolate terrain.
To bolster enthusiasm for the distant war, Tornel established a Legion of Honor for all soldiers serving in the campaign. It would be Mexico’s highest military award, and no doubt the promise of glory and its rewards made up to some extent for the severe shortages and dangerous conditions of the difficult march they were about to undertake. Whether it compensated for the absence of clergy, which for some unexplained reason no one had thought to bring along, was another matter. A dying soldier would not have access to last rites of the Catholic Church, and the solace these rites provided.
A few days after the parade, despite the shortages and looming hardships, the Army of Operations was deemed ready to march north. Several on Santa Anna’s staff had advised him to move his men by ship to a Texas port, making troop transportation and resupply much easier, but the commander in chief had overruled them: he wished to make Béxar his base of operations—almost all its inhabitants were Mexican and would, he thought, provide more cooperation and badly needed provisions. Ignoring the importance of having a supply point on the coast flouted every principle of military art, but the fact was that Mexico had no navy to speak of, and certainly no troop ships, not to mention money to charter them.
His Excellency was convinced that the expedition could carry enough provisions for two months and live off the countryside thereafter—after all, it had been done before, when he had accompanied Arredondo’s army to Béxar twenty-three years earlier. Several of his commanders advised a southerly route into Texas, nearer the coast, perhaps to the formidable presidio at La Bahía (recently renamed Goliad), which could be used as a base of operations; then adequate supplies could be more easily routed by sea from the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo León, and even from New Orleans. Santa Anna heard his aides out and continued with his plans: the army would march overland to Béxar.
The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation Page 12
