Comanche Moon Falling

by Drew McGunn

  Zavala laughed. “You have no idea, David. I’m sure that my fellow Catholics in Congress would love to see more Catholic schools started, and our Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian members would jump at the chance to see their own schools bolstered. Getting them to agree on that, is the easy part.”

  Crockett smiled back slyly, “And the hard part is selling them on another tax. And that, my dear Lorenzo is where you come in, my exalted vice president. I need you to push it through Congress.”

  Zavala groaned and let his head fall into his hands.

  ***

  John Wharton resisted the urge to heave a sigh. The room in which he sat was cold, despite the closed window. A Franklin stove in the corner gave off scant heat. He glanced out the frosted panes and saw the dry docks of the Philadelphia Navy Yard below. He desperately wanted to be back in Texas, where he belonged. He wondered for what seemed the hundredth time how he found himself here.

  He had campaigned for Sam Houston during the election four years earlier. When Crockett had won the election, Wharton won a seat in the House of Representatives, where he’d intended to serve in the government until the next presidential election, but when Stephen Austin drowned in the storm in which the Brutus was lost back in 1838, he was as surprised as anyone, when Crockett had appointed him to the post of Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States.

  Despite his best efforts, that sigh finally escaped his lips. He would have been hard pressed to think of a city he detested more than Washington D.C., but now sitting in Philadelphia, he had found a winner. Were it not for a letter from both President Crockett and General Travis, he would have returned to his brother’s family in Houston for Christmas. Now, it looked like he would have to spend the season alone in Philadelphia. The mousy little assistant to the assistant to the assistant to the Secretary of War glanced over at him and asked, “Is there anything wrong, Minister Wharton?”

  Wharton’s thoughts were drawn back to the present as he dryly replied, “Nothing a little warmth wouldn’t fix, Mr. Jones.”

  At that moment, the door opened and a portly man, dressed in an expensive, heavy, woolen jacket entered the room, accompanied by a Naval Lieutenant and a cold gust of wind from the frigid hallway. As they settled around the table in the center of the room, Wharton took the opportunity to speak first. “Mr. Ericsson, it is a pleasure to meet with you in person. Even as far away as the Republic of Texas, we have heard of your contributions and inventions in the field of steam propulsion.” Having exhausted his own limited knowledge of Ericsson’s inventions, he concluded, “More to the point, your inventions have captured the attention of our president and War Department. Thank you for agreeing to this meeting.”

  The mousy man, Mr. Jones, to his left piped up. “Minister Wharton, the United States has, since before your revolution, looked favorably on the people of Texas. Let me speak candidly, sir. Your government’s recent purchases in our shipyards has been very favorably received and is the reason, Secretary Poinsett arranged this meeting.”

  Before the loquacious Jones could continue, John Ericsson interjected. “I’m pleased to hear my inventions have reached the ears of the government of Texas, but what does that have to do with me? I’m not sure how my inventions can help a few wild frontiersmen beyond the edge of civilization.”

  Not for the first time since accepting the prestigious post as minister to the United States did Wharton curse the wildly inaccurate novels making their way around the United States about Texas. James French’s novel about the then Colonel Crockett sprang to his mind, but he set the unproductive thought aside as he said, “Civilization is making its way across the American continent, Mr. Ericsson, and that’s why I am grateful to Secretary Poinsett and Mr. Jones here for arranging this meeting. I have been sent by my government to seek a contract with you to build a ship. We understand you have developed a steamship powered by screws from inside the ship rather than side paddlewheels.”

  Ericsson’s eyes lit up at the news and a smile creased his face for the first time since entering the room. “Yes. I have been trying to get these … gentlemen to build my ship designs.” As he finished, he pointed to the naval officer.

  The naval lieutenant raised his hand, as though picking up a familiar discussion, “As we have said, repeatedly, Mr. Ericsson, your design requires more testing before the department of the navy commits two hundred thousand dollars from our appropriations budget to build this design.”

  Before Ericsson could retort, Jones said, “And that’s where Mr. Wharton comes in, Mr. Ericsson.”

  Picking up the cue, Wharton nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly right, sir. The government of Texas will appropriate in the 1841 budget the necessary two hundred thousand dollars for a frigate based upon your latest designs.” With that, he pulled from an envelope several sheets of paper on which had been drawn the proposed ship’s specifications, including the draft of the ship and the number of guns required. As he skimmed the details, he smiled as he realized someone back in Texas had taken into account Galveston Bay’s shallow ship channel.

  Ericsson studied the drawings for a moment, “Ah, someone out there has been paying attention. You’ve included a forty-two-pound swivel mounted bow chaser. I’ve been working on a gun design as well as the mount that I think would benefit any ship.”

  Jones, who evidently had become bored with the technical aspects of the design, chimed in. “If we’re all in agreement, the government of the United States will lease to the Republic of Texas one of our dry docks here in Philadelphia, where Mr. Ericsson will be chief engineer, designing and building a frigate for your government, Mr. Wharton.”

  The meeting broke up, but Wharton was forced to take up residence in the dirty, northern city, as contracts were drafted, and initial payment was received. He followed progress closely as Ericsson began designing the frigate. The following February, he received notice from Austin his role was concluded, when it arrived accompanied by Captain James Boylan. Boylan, one of the republic’s naval captains, had been dispatched to oversee the continued development of Texas’ largest single expense, and to provide periodic updates until its scheduled completion.

  Boylan’s arrival brought with it a summons for Wharton to return to Austin. And less than a month later he found himself in Austin, where the recent resignation of Crockett’s original Secretary of State, Thomas Ward, created a vacancy, which the president had offered to Wharton.

  He received regular updates from Boylan and met regularly with President Crockett, passing along the latest information. During one such meeting, they were to be joined by General Travis, who was running late. They were meeting in the newly constructed presidential mansion. Wharton, a native of Virginia, was dismissive of calling the eight room house a mansion. Even so, Wharton was surprised Crockett, as a native of Tennessee, had not chosen a more Southern Plantation style for the building which would be home to Texas’ future heads of state. Despite his preference for the plantation style, Wharton couldn’t deny the Spanish hacienda design of the home had a certain warmth and charm to it.

  He was taking a sip of Tennessee whiskey proffered by the president, when General Travis finally arrived in the small salon Crockett used as his home office. As he took a lingering sip of the president’s excellent whiskey, Wharton found he harbored a degree of jealousy toward General Travis, who even at thirty-one, seemed to lead a charmed life. He had read the reports from the battles at the Rio Grande and the Nueces and knew that had those fights gone differently, then Travis and a lot of other men would have died, and Texas, as a republic, would have been stillborn. He decided there was no point arguing with success, and Travis’ reforms over the past few years had given the Republic a small but highly effective army.

  Once the officer was settled into a chair with a glass of the president’s whiskey, Wharton said, “The latest reports from Philadelphia are promising. Captain Boylan believes Ericsson will have the ship ready to launch early next year. He’s contracting the forty-two-pou
nder long gun to a foundry in England, which has an excellent reputation for naval artillery. As you’ve read in his reports, it’s evident the captain anticipates steaming into Galveston Bay before the first breath of spring next year.”

  The general set his whiskey glass down on the mahogany table and said, “If Mexico attempts to do anything against us by sea next year, we’ll lock down the gulf so completely, their trade will die on the vine.”

  After seeing the detailed design of the new ship, it was hard for Wharton to disagree. Travis fished a sheet from his jacket and set it on the table. “David, in order to field the new frigate as well as our schooners, we’re going to need to expand our navy. I’ve put pen to paper for next year’s budget, we’re going to need six hundred sailors and three hundred marines.”

  Wharton watched the president throw back the remainder of his whiskey, swallowing it in a single gulp. As he slammed the empty glass on the table, he said, “Buck, one of these days, I’m going to make you give this damned budget to congress. Those polecats are going to raise a stink when they see these numbers.”

  ***

  The hotel room was crowded and despite the open window, cigar smoke swirled above their heads. Henry Clay looked around the room, aware that some of the nation’s most powerful men were there with him. Sitting on a chair nearest the window was Daniel Webster. George Evans, Maine’s leading Whig congressman, leaned against the wall and John Crittenden, Clay’s fellow senator from Kentucky sat on the bed. The other men looked to Clay, waiting for him to explain why they were sitting in a hotel room in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as the Whig National Convention got underway a few blocks away.

  The most powerful man in America, at least as Clay thought of him, was not there. Until a little more than a year before, Clay would have bet the most powerful man in the United States would be one of the four men in this room, but around that time he received a mysterious letter, addressed from a friend in Texas. At first, he ignored the anonymous writer, as he thought he had no time for some frontier Nostradamus. But after Mexico’s declaration of War against France, he came back to the letters and found that very prediction. Granted, France’s little pastry war with Mexico was hardly of significance to the United States, but the letter’s writer was certainly prescient.

  It was soon apparent Clay and the mysterious writer shared a common interest, neither wished to add Texas as the fourteenth slave state to the Union. When the mysterious writer predicted the beating the Whigs would take in the election of 1838, Clay dreaded any further correspondence, but the following missive took a different tact. Gone were predictions, in their place was a call to action. Clay and the other party leaders had been intending to move early in choosing the Whig candidate for the presidential election of 1840, but based upon the letters, Clay adjusted course and convinced other key politicians to let the dust of their defeats from 1838 settle and wait until the spring of 1840 to hold the convention.

  The other call to action the mysterious oracle had advised was a pact with Daniel Webster. It was for that reason Clay had called these other men to meet with him this day. He cleared his throat and said, “Thank you for joining me this afternoon. I fear if we do not join together, we’ll either get stuck with a former general or a current general. Neither Scott nor Harrison have the vision to lead our country out of the crisis created by the economic folly foisted on us by Jackson and his plantation aristocrats.”

  Webster laughed. “And I presume that you alone are the one to lead us into the promised land, Henry?”

  Clay smiled back. “Hardly that, Dan. I’d happily follow you like the children of Israel followed Moses across the Red Sea. But the truth is old fuss-and-feathers Scott will contest the convention against Harrison just out of spite.”

  Webster shook his head, “Give General Scott his due, Henry, he’s got more than enough arrogance to think he’d be the best president. But point taken. What are you proposing?”

  Clay smiled conspiratorially. “It’s simple. Over the next few days we each work to build as much support we can get in the convention hall, at the generals’ expense. After the first ballot, whichever of us has the least support, he will throw it behind the other. One of us will be president.”

  Webster smiled coyly at his fellow senator, “And what of the loser?”

  “The nation expects a unity ticket, Dan. A Northerner and a Southerner. I think we can claim that mantle.”

  Webster conceded the point. “True enough. What about you, Henry? If the wind blows my way, will you be my vice president?”

  Chapter 20

  The stagecoach jostled over the uneven road, as the steel rimmed wheels seemed to find every chuckhole on the road between Austin and Houston. Will had been skeptical of the Houston-Austin Overland Stagecoach Company’s advertisement to deliver passengers in just two days between the two growing towns.

  As the coach found another chuckhole, Will amended his thought, “At least not without jostling a passenger’s teeth loose.”

  As he looked over at his son, who was attempting to read one of the pulp novels featuring Nimrod Wildfire, he was pleased with how the previous four years had progressed. The twelve-year-old Charlie was doing well in school and had adjusted to having Becky as a step-mother. As his mind wandered, he thought about how much the army had developed. While still small, at little more than a thousand men, it could stand toe to toe with any like number of soldiers in the world.

  As he thought of the breech loading carbines every soldier carried, he amended his thought, “They can more than hold their own.”

  While the steam frigate was more than a year away from delivery, the three steam schooners were an equalizing force against any aggression by sea from Mexico.

  Rather than a shrine, into which the world of his memories had turned the Alamo, now it was the central command for the army. In four short years, the fort had been expanded, allowing for more troops to be comfortably garrisoned there as well as for the command structure to function out of the facility. With two forts on the Rio Grande, Texas controlled the Rio Grande Valley from the mouth of the river and snaking northwest to where the Camino Real intersected the river, 340 miles upriver.

  As he thought of the reason for his and Charlie’s trip east, Will was especially proud of the success of the Gulf Farms Corporation. He felt he played a simple role of investor and made no claim to be the brains of the operation. Don Garza’s sharp business acumen was the driving energy behind the success of the business. Nevertheless, Will felt pride at contributing more than just money and land. Garza and the other investors had agreed to his suggested pay structure. Cotton farming was a labor-intensive process, even for the corporation, and during both the planting and picking seasons it was necessary to add the wives and older children to the labor pool. While it had required more than a little arm twisting and even a bit of shouting, in the end, Will had shamed the other investors into agreeing to pay the farmers’ wives and their children for their labor. While each farmer kept about half of the income generated by his children, the other half was escrowed until the child was sixteen. The wives kept all their pay. It was radical for the frontier, but the whole concept of a corporation competing against traditional plantations was radical.

  Philosophically, Will would have loved to have kept child labor from the corporation’s cotton fields, but when he had floated the idea at a board meeting, the blank stares he received from the other board members told him the idea wasn’t ready yet. Every small farmstead the wagon rolled by reinforced that reality. On nearly every farm, every available family member was needed to make a go of it on the frontier. He had learned a long time ago to pick his battles. The corporation’s farm would need more automation before changing their rules on child labor, and more automation was likely years’ away. But there were other changes which could be made, and that’s why he was allowing his body to be jounced about the coach, as it rolled eastward.

  His thoughts were interrupted when Charlie said, “Pa,
what are those wires for?” The boy pointed out the window to several copper wires, strung between two rickety wooden posts.

  Will looked out the window and smiled when he saw the wiring hanging between the posts. “Those are telegraph wires.”

  “What’re those?” Charlie asked.

  “The end of each of those wires is a telegraph machine. It’s a device that sends an electronic signal along those wires. They can send signals back and forth over long distances.”

  Will recalled his own surprise when President Crockett sent for him the year after the Revolution had ended, while the government was still in Harrisburg.

  “If I recall, three years ago your Uncle Davy received a letter from the inventor of the telegraph offering its use to Texas. Your Uncle Davy asked me what I thought, and I told him that if Mr. Morse wanted to let us use the device we’d be foolish to pass on it.”

  His son grew thoughtful as he watched the rickety poles slide by the window. “How fast can they send a message, Pa?”

  “Almost instantly. We actually tested these telegraph devices around the Alamo and ran some wiring between the fort and the main plaza in San Antonio. Mr. Morse and several of his men paid us a visit as we set the system up. At first the system worked poorly. The further the signal traveled the weaker it became. It took Mr. Morse more than a year to figure out how to keep the signal strong enough to travel long distances. Last year was the first time we were able to successfully send a message between the main plaza and the Alamo and back again.”

  His book forgotten, Charlie asked, “Does that have something to do with those papers on your desk about the Across Texas thing?”

  Will nodded, “Yes. A few dozen of us, along with some investor friends of Mr. Morse chartered a company called the ‘Across-Texas Telegraph Company’ last year.”

  His next question caught Will off guard, “Pa, are we rich? You’re on the board of that Farm company and you also own part of those wires. I’d think it takes a lot of money to do that.”