Comanche Moon Falling

by Drew McGunn

  The next morning, they saddled their horses, ready to continue the political campaign. After listening to Crockett’s views on charity, Will felt his own perspective on it had changed. He couldn’t undo Travis’ reckless choices which had ruined his own marriage.

  “I can’t change the past,” was Will’s first thought, but that made him chuckle, given the past was the very thing he was working to change.

  Setting the thought aside, Will decided his own charity would start at home with William B. Travis’ son. The boy stood on the porch, looking at the horses. Will walked back to the boy and said, “Charlie, if you want, you can stay here with the Ayres family and attend school. But it would please me mightily if you came with me to San Antonio. We could get a home in town and you can go to school and make new friends there.”

  The boy’s eyes lit up and he jumped off the porch into Will’s arms, “Pa, take me home with you!”

  Will and Charlie walked into the house. There was packing which needed doing. The day was young and as Crockett was prone to telling him, he was burning daylight. There was an election to win.

  Chapter 4

  Will sat at the table, a copy of the Telegraph and Texas Register lay folded on it. He glanced around the room, with its fresh coat of paint and smiled. Over the past month, since returning to San Antonio, he found a home, recently vacated by a Bexareno, a native of San Antonio, who chose to return to Mexico rather than remain in the Republic. Juan Seguin’s father, Erasmo, acted as a broker, selling the home to Will. He found it to be bigger than he and Charlie needed, but the boy was thrilled to have his own room.

  He thought it a holdover from his life before, but he was an unabashed morning person, and he delighted in sitting at the dining table, which was simply a large extension of the kitchen, and drinking a cup of coffee while reading dispatches and reports brought home the previous night. Of special interest, the Telegraph and Texas Register included the completed returns of the previous week’s election. He unfolded the crinkling pages and read the article.

  12th September 1836

  We are able to assure our readers that one-time congressman, Colonel David Crockett will be the first elected president of our Republic of Texas. While results are still due in from Red River county, in the northern reaches of the republic, the margin of victory accrued by Col. Crockett provides no possible means for any of the other candidates to seize the election.

  The provisional government in Harrisburg confirms nearly six thousand votes in total have been counted. Of this amount, almost four thousand were attributed to Col. Crockett. Gen’l Houston was not able to account for more than a thousand votes. Neither Governor Smith nor Mr. Austin collected more than five hundred apiece.

  Señor Zavala, Col. Crockett’s chosen selection for vice president remains in the lead, with less than 200 votes separating him from his nearest challenger. We are confident that the votes from the Red River will not substantially change the results, and we believe that Señor Zavala will join Col. Crockett’s administration as vice president.

  According to acting President Burnet, the transition will occur on the 22nd October, from whence President-Elect Crockett’s six-year term will commence. The government will convene also on the same in Harrisburg.

  Will set the paper down and said a silent prayer of thanks. Houston’s campaign included promises to settle the matter with the Comanche by treaty. He didn’t need Travis’ memories to know the futility of that course of action. From his own recollection of history, he recalled Houston’s attempts had been failures. He thought the lack of central leadership among the tribe was the likely culprit which scuttled Houston’s efforts.

  He chuckled grimly, as he thought, “One way or another, I’ll know soon enough whether my way will be any better than Houston’s.”

  After taking Charlie by the home of Juan Seguin’s sister and her husband, where the younger Seguin children played on the weekend, Will headed to the Alamo, where he met with James Neill and Green Jameson. Neill now contracted with the army as an engineer, working with Green Jameson on expanding and improving the Alamo’s defenses. He met the two engineers outside the doors to the chapel, where Neill held several rolled schematics on which he was working.

  Will anticipated one of the first things Crockett would do after the inauguration would be to review Will’s plans for the Comanche campaign, but he knew he also needed to provide Crockett a detailed plan for the Alamo’s development as a bastion against invasion from Mexico or incursion from the Comanche to the west.

  Using the low wall separating the chapel courtyard from the plaza as a makeshift table, Neill opened a large diagram of the fort, as Will and Major Jameson looked on. Neill pointed to the north wall on the diagram, “We’ve removed most of the wall, as we can see over yonder, and have started construction on its replacement a dozen feet further out. The arduous task of repositioning the aquacias, north of the fort, has already been completed. So, the wall will still be inside the aquacia network.

  Will inclined his head, “It’s good work you’re doing, James, but you’ve been working on the north wall all summer. When you do expect to finish?”

  Ignoring the map for a moment, Neill pointed northward, where they could see scaffolding and adobe. “When it’s finished this stretch will be a hundred sixty-two-feet long. It’ll be twelve feet tall and three feet thick. And, General Travis, I’ll have it complete before Christmas.”

  “You should be prepared to evacuate your laborers, James, when we start the campaign against the Comanche. I may hold you to that timetable, as we may need this old fort’s walls before that campaign is over. Now, next to the completed north wall, what is this?” Will pointed to a building extension drawn on the map.

  Neill nodded to Jameson, “It’s a project I’ve given to Green to complete.”

  Major Jameson said, “General, that extension is a barracks. I’ve been told by Colonel Johnston the fort should need to garrison around eight hundred men, and our existing structures are wholly inadequate for the job. This planned barracks will be two stories, topping out at twenty feet. The outer wall is a simple extension of the new north wall, while the barracks will face the stock pen. When completed it could house as many as three hundred men.”

  Will nodded, there were other markings on the diagram.

  Jameson continued, “Another barracks will run along the south wall, parallel to the chapel’s outer wall, and should hold about the same number of men. And the chapel, we’re going to repair the roof and will use it either for its original purpose or storage.”

  Will asked, “What about the façade of the chapel? It could use some repair as well. Any plans there?”

  Both Neill and Jameson shook their heads. Neill said, “Hadn’t much thought of it, General. Do you have any thoughts?”

  With a flash of inspiration, will took the charcoal marker from Major Jameson and flipped the diagram on the back and drew a crenelated hump situated in the middle of the chapel’s façade. The other two men bobbed their heads in agreement.

  Will smiled and thought, “This old chapel may never go down as the shrine of Texas liberty, but damned, if I’m not going to make the front of the old church look just like I remember.”

  He flipped the diagram back over, “The north wall, the two barracks, and the roof to the chapel, how much time will you gentlemen need?”

  Neill rolled the diagram up and said, “Even if the government gives us the money we want, we’re looking at two or three years. Longer, if they’re tight with the purse strings.”

  Will grunted. A lot could happen in three years. As they toured the construction, Will prayed the forces arrayed against the republic would give him the time.

  After Neill and Jameson left, to continue their work on the north wall, Will closed himself in his office as he reviewed orders which required his approval and did the thankless task of reviewing each invoice requiring payment from the provisional government. One invoice he set aside as he worked through
the stack. Once finished he returned to it. It was from a vendor in New Orleans who won the competitive bid for the new butternut uniforms which he and Lt. Colonel Johnston had approved. Each Jacket, pair of pants, and shoes were four dollars, and a black slouch hat was two dollars. Excluding the cost of shirts and socks, each soldier’s uniform was fourteen dollars. Even if he only equipped 800 men, it still totaled more than eleven thousand dollars

  Long ago, Will conceded it was impossible to translate exactly between the twenty-first century American dollar and the hodgepodge of currencies circulating in Texas, but it hadn’t kept him from trying. He considered the comparable clothing in the early twenty-first century would cost more than two hundred dollars, or nearly two hundred thousand for all eight hundred men.

  “It’s hardly apples to apples,” Will thought, “but it’s still a godawful lot of money.”

  The chest with gold and silver had been moved to Will’s office from the chapel’s sacristy, and a few thousand dollars had been used to settle debts with New Orleans merchants so they would continue providing supplies to the three ships of the Texas navy.

  A knock at the door diverted his attention from the invoice, and he set it aside. Lt. Colonel Johnston entered. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

  Will waved Johnston into the room. “I wanted to discuss our new tactics and get your take on them, Sid.”

  Johnston settled himself into the chair opposite Will, “The men are taking to them. Despite your order this past spring to clean out the soldiers just looking for their land bounty but have no interest in taking to our new order drill, I’ve still got close to a thousand infantry in the Army, not counting Seguin’s cavalry or Caldwell’s Rangers. I’ve only been able to get about half of the infantry training with the new tactics.”

  “Once President-Elect Crockett takes office and we have a working congress, we’ll request funding for a fixed number of regulars, Sid. When that happens, we’ll have a solid battalion of infantry. Looking to the future, I’m concerned our structure is ill-suited to the war we’re facing against the Comanche.”

  Dropping the formality of rank, Johnston cocked his head, “In what way, Buck?”

  Will responded with a question, “What’s the smallest operational unit on a battlefield, Sid?”

  Johnston leaned back in the chair, as it creaked, “Typically the company is the smallest unit to function on a battlefield, although platoons can certainly operate away from the company if called upon.”

  “True enough. We’ll have but a single battalion of infantry, come next year, call it eight companies if David can pry the funds free from congress. We need to demand more from our non-commissioned officers, and show them they can take initiative on a battlefield. I don’t want us to be limited to a company of sixty or eighty men being the smallest tactical unit.”

  Will paused, as his thoughts slipped back to the months before his mind was transported to Travis’ body. The fireteam was the glue holding a squad together. The four men in the fireteam each had a separate function, but more than that, they worked closely together. A single fireteam could operate independently to take or hold an objective or work with the other teams within the squad or section. He wanted the men in the Texas army to work that closely together. The weapons were different, the technology 180 years old, but the men, he thought, could be trained.

  “We need a new model. I have an idea for a tactical team of men, under the command of a corporal to be the focal point of each platoon. Let’s call this team a rifle team. These four men will drill together, work together, and fight together. I want them so well adapted to their team, there’s never a question they have each other’s backs. Three of these rifle teams will be under the command of a sergeant. These squads, just like their rifle teams, will work together and learn to be integral units. Three squads will form a platoon under the command of a lieutenant, and two platoons to a company.” Will drew a breath before continuing.

  “Sid, when we take the war back to the Comanche, I want every rifle team to have the confidence that they can hold an objective for their platoon or company. This model will force us to scrap any existing commitment to the tactics of Napoleon upon which both the US and Mexico rely. No more training the men to stand in line, blazing away at an enemy. We are going to focus on small unit tactics.”

  Johnston stood to his feet, and started pacing behind his chair as he tried wrapping his mind around Will’s vision. “That’s going to require a lot more drilling, Buck, and more practice on the firing line. We’re going to need more gunpowder and lead.” He continued pacing, becoming lost in thought about how to implement the new tactics.

  ***

  Mid-October brought with it a break in the sweltering heat, as summer, which had seemed determined to hold out as long as possible, finally gave up its assault on San Antonio. The day was perfect for a war game. Will joined Johnston on top of the Alamo chapel’s southern wall. Johnston had selected two companies of infantry, which had been training in the new “Texas Model” tactics over the previous month.

  The hundred fifty men were assembled in two companies of seventy-five men each, south of the fort. They were about to start a two-day war game west of town, one company pitted against the other.

  As the soldiers started marching to the west, Will glanced down at a piece of paper he had received from Harrisburg. It was the approval for the new organization of the army. Although only a month old, the new congress had agreed to Will’s proposal to fund a single battalion of infantry of eight companies, six hundred men in total. Will tried not to think about the fact that these two companies represented a quarter of the republic’s infantry. In addition, congress approved the earlier expansion of the Texas Rangers under Major Caldwell, while keeping two companies of regular cavalry, under the command of Captain Seguin. A battery of artillery, totaling forty men, was also stationed at the Alamo under the command of Captain Dickinson, while another was to be stationed between a couple of coastal forts east of Galveston, under the command of Captain Carey.

  The paper in Will’s hand was also an irritant. In it, President Crockett explained Will needed to work with Thomas Rusk, whom congress had assigned to organize the republic’s militia. Rusk hadn’t talked to Will since the constitutional convention, when the two had found themselves on the opposite side of the slavery debate. How was he supposed to work with someone who wouldn’t talk to him to organize the militia companies, which varied greatly in their sizes. Worse as far as Will was concerned, was their musters were poorly attended. On paper, Texas militia forces numbered more than four thousand men, and that only counted those present during the Revolution. Thousands more had arrived over the past few months, lured by the promise of cheap land. Even so, he had serious reservations Rusk would be able to muster more than a quarter if things came to a head with Mexico.

  It wasn’t something he cared to discuss with Johnston yet, so he tried setting the thought aside as he considered things which were actually going the right direction. In three weeks, he had the largest war game yet planned. In addition to six of Johnston’s infantry companies, both of Seguin’s cavalry would join in, as well as sixty rangers from Caldwell’s command and Dickinson’s battery. Around six hundred men would participate.

  ***

  The large command tent Will had previously purloined from Santa Anna was set up a day’s march from San Antonio. Will was joined by Lt. Colonel Johnston and Captain Seguin, as commander of the cavalry. Captain Dickinson was present as was Major Caldwell. A half dozen infantry captains rounded out those present, making the tent rather crowded.

  Will glowered at Johnston, who he thought looked happier than a tornado in a Texas trailer park. He grumbled, “Sid, you look like a cat that found himself a bird to eat.”

  Johnston’s sly smile spoke volumes. “Oh, please, General. I’m sure if your team had won yesterday, you’d be smiling too.”

  Will corrected him, “You mean, gloating.” But it wasn’t something he could deny, s
o he let the sniping go, even though it grated against him that Johnston’s team of three hundred won the war game against his own team. The judge’s ruling that Johnston’s use of artillery was more effective tipped the balance into the Lt. Colonel’s favor. Will tried to be philosophical about the loss. Despite Will’s eight years of infantry experience, first in the regular US Army and then later in the Texas Army National Guard, he understood Johnston’s formal training at West Point exposed him to a broader range of experiences. It hadn’t hurt that Johnston took to the new “Texas Model” tactics like a new convert. Will soothed his wounded pride by reminding himself Johnston was actually a very gifted and skilled officer. In a world living only in Will’s memories, he had risen to the rank of full general during the Civil War.

  In addition to the tactics, another of Will’s innovations was the “after action debrief” he and his officers were conducting. “Captain Seguin, your troopers would have been badly mauled when you attempted to move against company B. Most of the infantry were deployed effectively to counter your attack. Even though the judge ruled in your troopers’ favor, I don’t think he fully understands the effectiveness of our new model tactics.”

  Seguin nodded, “I thought the same thing, General Travis. Usually, there’s a window of opportunity to move cavalry against an infantry unit after they fire their volley. But with the new tactics, there is no volley, just a constant rate of fire. Each rifle team always seems to have someone ready to fire.”

  The next morning, Will’s six-hundred men quickly broke camp and marched back to the Alamo, less than twenty miles away. Next to him rode Major Caldwell. As the column marched along, the two men talked. “Major, when we move against the Comanche in a few months, in addition to your Rangers, I intend to take four of our infantry companies, Seguin’s cavalry, as well as a couple of Dickinson’s field pieces. My hope is we catch the Comanche by surprise with these new tactics.”

  Caldwell replied, “I have to admit, General, if these new tactics actually work, it’s going to really change the role of cavalry on a battlefield.”