“How many men?”
“About five hundred,” Avila replied, “but only thirty-six have guns.”
“No matter. If all goes right we shouldn’t have to fire a shot.” Ellis explained his plan. Then he and his two companions led the way across the shallow creek and through the grass to the hill where the sentry waited by the five cannon. Avila quietly ordered some of his men to swing the guns around and aim them at the sleeping royalist soldiers, while Ellis lit a small fire with flint and steel. When he had five sticks burning, he handed four of them to others, then held the last one above the touchhole of a cannon. The others stood with their matches poised over the remaining artillery pieces.
“Order them to surrender,” Ellis told Avila.
When the royalist soldiers heard Avila’s demand to surrender and saw the five men ready to fire the cannon, they leaped to their feet and held up their hands. The militia, camped at a distance, fled; most, Ellis was sure, would join the patriots the next day. In his underwear, Captain Paris quietly untied his horse, leaped to its back, and dashed away.
“Get their weapons,” Avila ordered his men. When they had collected all of the muskets and sabers they could find, Avila armed his men and placed a heavy guard around the camp. The royalist soldiers lay down again.
In the morning, Ellis and Avila counted the captured weapons. In addition to the five artillery pieces were six hundred muskets, nearly as many sabers, and a large supply of gunpowder. Avila was elated. “Wait till Morelos sees this!” he exulted.
Morelos soon arrived, and he smiled broadly when he saw the captured arsenal. “Elias,” he said, “I thank you for my first victory.” The usually undemonstrative leader embraced Ellis and gripped his hand. “Hidalgo ordered me to raise an army and seize Acapulco,” he continued. “With these weapons we can do it, but I still need your help.” He looked at Ellis expectantly.
Ellis tugged at his earlobe as he thought about it. If the rebels took the castle, it would mean capturing or killing Carreño. That prospect made his pulse quicken. “You can count on me,” he replied, “at least until you take Acapulco. I’ve got some scores to settle there.”
“Good. Your rank is captain of Engineers.”
The rebel army immediately set out through the mountains on the way to Acapulco. As he looked down on the Castle of San Diego, Ellis thought of his years in the tiny cell, and wondered if Bill was still there. “If it wasn’t for my pet lizard, I’d blow it up with my own hands,” he said.
“We need to have it in our possession,” Morelos countered. “With it we can control the whole southern coast. We must take it, not destroy it.”
“But how can we possibly do that?” Avila asked. “It looks impregnable.”
“Perhaps not,” Morelos said knowingly. “Call the officers here.”
When they were assembled, Morelos took a letter from his pocket and read it to them. It was from Major Pepe Gago, commander of artillery at the castle. “There is a conspiracy to surrender the castle to the insurgents,” Gago had written. “On the night of February 7, we will raise a lantern to the top of the flagstaff. Form all of your men in the space before the drawbridge so they will be ready to rush in the moment we lower it and open the gate. We will fill the touchholes with tallow so the cannon cannot be fired.”
“What do you think of that?” the smiling Morelos asked, folding the letter and pocketing it. Most were delighted at the prospect of gaining such a valuable prize without battle or siege.
“It sounds too good to be true,” Avila remarked.
‘It is too good to be true,” Ellis interjected. “It’s a trap. If we go where he says, they’ll have a bunch of cannon trained on the spot and slaughter us.”
“Oh, no,” Morelos replied. “It can’t be a trap. We’ll do as he says. The castle is worth much risk.” Ellis frowned, but said nothing more.
On the night of February 7 Morelos marched six hundred men to Las Iguanas, which overlooked the grim fortress. He split the troops into two divisions, one under Avila, the other under Ellis. “We’ll do as he directed,” Ellis said to Morelos, "but I request permission to place my men as I see fit.”
Morelos agreed. They waited, straining their eyes at the castle, but midnight came and still no light appeared. “He lied,” Avila yawned."We might as well give up.”
“Have patience,” Morelos said. “Let’s wait a little longer.”
About four in the morning, Ellis saw a small, faint light over the castle. “There it is!” he exclaimed, and the others stared as the tiny light slowly rose to the top of the flagpole.
“Get into position,” Morelos ordered.
Ellis marched his division to the side of the castle opposite the place Gago had told them to assemble. Avila and his men waited at a distance as a reserve. Ellis sent a man to inform Gago that they were in position by the drawbridge.
“Watch what happens now,” he told his men. All flinched and held their ears when a tremendous roar went up and the earth trembled as fifty cannon fired on the space by the drawbridge. The cannon continued to shower the spot with grapeshot for half an hour, while Ellis, Avila, and their men withdrew into the mountains.
“If we’d been where he wanted us,” Ellis told Morelos, “not one of us would be alive.”
“We’ll return the favor one day,” Morelos said grimly. “I hope it’s soon.”
From the heights of Las Iguanas, they bombarded the castle for nine days with the cannon captured at Tres Palos. The following morning, a large force Carreño had sent during the night charged the insurgents and captured all but one artillery piece. Morelos hastily withdrew to the village of El Veladero, which was higher and more easily defended, but the loss of four cannon hurt.
In the first week of May, Morelos left Avila holding El Veladero and marched toward the little town of Chilpancingo, a key point on the road to Mexico City. On the way, a mounted scout galloped up. “The royalists are coming this way,” he said. “We should meet them in the morning.”
Morelos and Ellis rode ahead, looking for a defensive position. They found a deep ravine with steep sides that could be crossed only in a few places. Early the next morning, Morelos placed his army there, and they soon saw the royalists approaching in the distance. He sent Ellis with three hundred men on a roundabout march through the woods. Out of sight of the royalists, they crossed the ravine and waited until the two armies clashed, then charged the enemy rear. The royalists panicked and fled, while the rebels crossed the ravine as quickly as they could in pursuit. Many of them were Indians, who had centuries of grievances to avenge against all Spaniards. They pursued the royalists as far as they could run, hacking at them with machetes. Ellis overtook them on horseback.
“Capture them, don’t kill them,” he shouted, but few heeded him. As he knew, captured royalists might be exchanged for rebel prisoners.
The next day the rebels entered Chilpancingo, which surrendered without resistance. Morelos soon heard that a royalist force was preparing to move against Avila at Veladero, and sent Ellis with fifty mounted men to reconnoiter. The royalists were camped ten miles away, but had made no threatening move. At El Veladero, Ellis learned from an Acapulco woman that Governor Carreno was leading an attack on a rebel stronghold south of the town.
With reinforcements from El Veladero, Ellis hastened to the rescue. He prepared an Indian-style ambush where the road wound through bluffs, then sent a small force to fire on the enemy and fall back, luring the royalists into his trap. The ruse was successful, for five hundred royalist troops rushed headlong after the decoy party. Ellis watched with grim satisfaction as the last of the royalists came under the bluffs. Men fired down on them from front and rear—they couldn’t go forward and they couldn’t retreat.
Through the thick clouds of smoke that wafted over the royalists, Ellis glimpsed the heavy-set Carreño on his horse, waving his sword and trying to rally his men. Heart pounding, Ellis raced along the bluff to get closer. If I had my long rifle, he thought
, I’d kill him for sure. When he was even with Carreño, who was about seventy-five yards below him, Ellis knelt and aimed his musket, waiting for Carreño to check his nervously prancing horse. When Carreño turned toward him, Ellis grimly squeezed the trigger. Carreño flinched, clutched his breast, and swayed in the saddle. I hit the son of a bitch! Ellis exulted. Two officers, seeing Carreño in trouble, dashed to his rescue while Ellis hastily reloaded. One rode alongside Carreño, holding him in the saddle, while the other led his horse away at a trot. Ellis fired at Carreño’s back, but couldn’t tell if he’d hit him. By the time the survivors extricated themselves, they had lost more than three hundred killed or captured.
The royalist force that had been threatening Avila at El Veladero suddenly marched toward Chilpancingo, and Ellis and his mounted men hurried there to warn Morelos. At the village of Tixtla, Nicolás Bravo and his men blocked the royalists’ path, but after a fierce battle the rebels were low on ammunition. Morelos hastened to the rescue, circling around Tixtla to attack from the rear while Bravo’s men charged the front. A desperate battle ensued, for the royalists stubbornly held their ground until a sudden rain shower drenched the gunpowder of both sides. Aware that the royalists had lost the advantage of their superior guns, the rebels unsheathed their machetes and charged, routing the enemy.
Morelos followed the royalists to Chilapa, where they had sought refuge with the garrison there. When royalists came out and attacked, they were repulsed with heavy losses—among the captives was Major Gago. “You thought to butcher us with your trick,” Ellis said coldly to the pale Gago.
“I was only following orders,” he replied.
Morelos questioned Gago for a few hours to learn what he could about royalist plans. When he was finished, he arose, gave a flick of his hand, and walked away. Rebel soldiers dragged Gago to a tree, stood him against it, then, while he begged for his life, shot him.
“The rainy season has begun,” Morelos said, glancing up at the dark sky as they entered Chilapa. “No more fighting for a while. I’m going to stay here and train recruits, but I want you to go back to Chilpancingo. Sulfur and saltpeter are mined near there. Make all the powder you can; we’ll be ready to use it when the rains stop.” The two towns were less than twenty miles apart.
Ellis found an unused bam and repaired the roof to keep out rain. Eight Indian women came daily to grind the sulfur and saltpeter Morelos’ men brought from the mines. Ellis mixed the powder and stored it in barrels, kegs, goatskin bags, anything he could find that would keep it dry.
When Morelos sent for him one day, Ellis left work and rode through the steady rain to the house where Morelos lived in Chilapa. “Come in and dry your clothes, Elias,” Morelos said. His eyelids drooped and his usually bright eyes were dull.
“What’s the matter?” Ellis asked anxiously. “Are you sick?”
Morelos gingerly put his palm on his throbbing temple. “It’s not malaria this time,” he replied. “It’s another of those cursed headaches. But that’s not why I sent for you.” He sat weakly in a chair and looked sadly up at Ellis, who still stood, his dripping clothes forming little pools of water on the tile floor.
“Elias, I received terrible news. General Calleja badly defeated Hidalgo and drove him north. At Saltillo, he and Allende turned over what was left of the army to Rayón, then set out with a small force and a pack train of silver on their way to the United States to buy arms and recruit men. They never got to Texas, for the turncoat Elizondo betrayed them. All have been executed.” He sighed deeply and put both hands over his face.
“Now we need help from the United States more than ever,” he continued, lowering his hands. “Do you think if we offer Texas in exchange for arms and men, your government will send them?”
Ellis took off his wet jacket and hung it on a chair. “Everybody wants Texas, and I’ll bet most Americans would like to see Mexico independent,” he replied. “I think it might work.” He wondered who Morelos would send.
Morelos pushed the kerchief up around his forehead to loosen it. “If I didn’t need you here, I’d ask you to go,” he said. “I’m going to send Major Fero and Mariano Tabares.”
Ellis frowned. “I think Tabares would like to take your place,” he said, “and I don’t know how far I’d trust Fero.”
Morelos shrugged. “Rayón and a lot of others would like to replace me,” he said, “but I don’t have much choice. Tabares has served well, and Fero was an American army officer. I have to trust them.” Ellis bit his lip but said nothing.
Because the royalists controlled the sea, the two men set out over land for Rayón’s headquarters at Zitácuaro, in the mountains west of Mexico City, on their long ride to the United States. Ellis returned to Chilpancingo.
A little over a month later, Ellis was astonished to see Fero and Tabares ride into Chilpancingo. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought....”
“General Rayón commissioned me a brigadier general and Señor Fero a colonel and sent us here,” Tabares replied, while Fero scowled. “We’re not under Morelos now.” Ellis stared at them as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
“The revolution has too many leaders,” Fero growled. “It needs only one. Rayón.” They rode on toward the coast. As soon as they were out of town, Ellis hurried to Chilapa.
“Elias,” Morelos said when Ellis dismounted, “you were right not to trust those two. They’ve abandoned their mission and gone over to Rayón.”
“I know. I came to tell you they rode through Chilpancingo on their way to the coast.”
Morelos looked shocked. “To the coast? I wish now I’d arrested them. When I refused to recognize their commissions from Rayón, both were angry. I thought they’d go back to him. I must warm Avila to be on his guard.”
A few weeks later, Morelos grimly rode into Chilpancingo with one hundred well-armed men at his back, and stopped to see Ellis. “Avila says that Fero and Tabares are at El Veladero, trying to get the blacks in our army to rise up and butcher the whites. I’ve got to stop them.” He touched his spurs to his horse and trotted on.
A week later he returned, looking almost cheerful. “All is quiet now,” he told Ellis, “but if l hadn’t gotten there when I did....” He shook his head.
“Where are they?”
“Where they’ll never cause trouble again.”
“They had it coming,” Ellis said.
Leaving Ellis in Chilpancingo making powder, in November Morelos began his second campaign. Ellis, wishing he could be with him, eagerly waited for news. “After we took Tlapa,” Morelos wrote, “we marched on Chiutla. I had to take it, for Mateo Mizutu was there, and he’d sworn to kill me. He even had a cannon named ‘Kill Morelos.’ They fought like fury, but our brave men couldn’t be stopped. He offered me fifty thousand pesos to spare his life. I would have turned down a million.”
Early in 1812 Ellis learned that royalist General Calleja had routed Rayón at Zitácuaro and scattered his army. In March Calleja, with eight thousand troops, besieged Morelos’ army of four thousand in Cuautla. In early May a rebel officer wearily rode into Chilpancingo and found Ellis at his powder mill.
“The army and the citizens tried to slip away one night,” he gasped. “Calleja pursued us and slaughtered everyone without mercy, even the families. Morelos barely escaped—many men gave their lives so he wouldn’t be captured. He told us before we marched that if we were scattered, to meet him at Izúcar. He wants you there.”
Taking half of the troops guarding Chilpancingo, Ellis hurried to Izúcar with all the available guns and a pack train with two thousand pounds of powder. He was greatly relieved to find Morelos there, but shocked at the sight of his hollow cheeks. His clothes, once tight, hung on him like flour sacks on a post.
“We tried to hold out until the rains began,” he weakly explained. “That would have forced them to leave. But the rains were late, and we ran out of food. There wasn’t another rat or lizard left.” He paused, looking chagrined. “Frie
nds in Mexico City say that Calleja told the viceroy he would abandon the siege in another day or two.”
“Rotten luck,” Ellis said. “Cooley and Danlin were with you. Do you know if they escaped?”
Morelos shook his head. “Cooley was out foraging when a royalist patrol caught him. They undoubtedly shot him. I don’t know about Danlin.”
“What will you do now?” Ellis asked, wondering if Morelos was so discouraged he’d accept the viceroy’s offer of pardon to any insurgent who laid down his arms.
Morelos’ sunken eyes flashed. “Why, keep fighting, of course. One defeat, even a disaster like this, doesn’t mean the war is lost. The viceroy ordered Calleja to destroy me, but here I am. I won’t stop till we’re free. Or until I’m dead,” he added, lowering his voice. “But you’re not a Mexican. If you want to leave I’ll understand.”
Ellis gazed at the little rebel leader with unconcealed admiration. “I’m with you,” he vowed, “to the end. As long as there are royalists to kill, I’m staying.”
“Thank you, my friend,” Morelos said hoarsely. “I will never give up.”
The rebel soldiers who had escaped during the attack straggled into Chiutla, where Morelos had moved. Many men, most with only machetes for weapons, came from the countryside, eager to serve under Morelos. When a large force had been gathered and trained briefly they marched to Chilapa, which the royalists had reoccupied after Morelos left. The royalist commander refused to surrender. As he boldly led an infantry charge, Ellis recalled his fright when the Spaniards attacked Nolan’s fort, and smiled. The sound of enemy gunfire was no longer terrifying. The garrison surrendered after a brief resistance.
After forcing the royalists to abandon the siege of Huajuacán, Morelos marched to the rich city of Tehuacán, the trade center for the provinces of Puebla, Oaxaca, and Veracruz. Ellis beamed and Morelos almost smiled as cheering citizens lined the streets and church bells pealed. Since the city was within striking distance of the Veracruz-Mexico City road, and a strategic base for campaigns against Mexico City, Veracruz, or Oaxaca, Morelos made it his headquarters.
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