St. Patrick Battalion

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  I know little they spoke of, not being near enough to hear. And so I remember only what I saw. He had become unshaven and very dirty during the retreat, and burned by sun, but immediately in Linares he had got himself shaved and clean, and his uniform washed out. Thus he was most presentable, and of a gallant manner. Their conversations seemed intense. They must have poured torrents of words into each other. Even if they were not enamorado, the discussion of their circumstances would have been from the depths of their hearts. How much they must have tried to understand, and to make understood! How they must have wondered about their fates, the fates of all of us, the fate of Mexico! Together they had seen a war begin, and they were swept up in it, as was I, her only son.

  I can imagine how they must have spoken. Their common language was English, but hers was hardly fluent. His tongues were his native Gaelic, and English so dense with brogue as to require close listening. He had learned but a little of our language by then, and even those phrases he spoke correctly were obscured by his accent.

  One matter was of so much concern to the Irishman. He spoke of it fervently to her, and she told me of it. But he also spoke of it when I was his interpreter to our officials and messengers. It was this:

  That he and his Irish soldiers were very brave and very honorable. He was anxious that some might doubt this. He felt that the loyalty of deserters would always be suspect, even in their adopted country. And he was mortified that he and his gunners had retreated from their battery and left their cannons on the other side of the river. Even though most of General Arista’s army had fled in just such haste, Señor Riley was most pained by the memory. It was he who had influenced so many other Irish soldiers to come and serve Mexico. They were sure to be executed if the Yanquis caught them. He deemed himself responsible for their lives. He told my mother that he would justify Mexico’s faith in him if it cost him his life. That his Irishmen would prove themselves the bravest of all soldiers in the defense of Catholic Mexico, if given the opportunity on the battlefield. He said they had vowed never to abandon any of their compatriots if they were wounded in battle. For the honor, he said. My mother said that he was desperate to prove the courage and integrity of these Irish brethren of the good Mexican people. She told me that he believed himself on the verge of disgrace, that he prayed for opportunities to redeem his honor. She was deeply touched by his fervor.

  I myself, Señor, yo mismo lo ví. To convince her of it was a sign of his ardor. She, as well as Mexico, must believe in him. I know not what else they spoke of in the shade of that tree in the alcalde’s courtyard, but I know they spoke of honor.

  And I believe, Señor, that while they awaited orders from the commanders, they both wanted the orders and dreaded them. For the orders of war would surely separate them one from the other.

  I believe that was the feeling they had, because it was the feeling I had.

  ¡Ay de mi! Of course the orders came. Now we would be separated from Señor Riley. There was no time for the sentiments of leave-taking, nor privacy. My mother and I would go by wagon road to Mexico City, where I was to apply as a cadet at Chapultepec Castle. Teniente Riley with his gunners would march with the army’s remnants, northwestward into the Sierra Madre of the East, to take up the defense of Monterrey, where your army was expected to go. Major Moreno would go with him.

  Our good General Arista bore the blame for the recent defeats and was expelled from the army, we heard with sadness. In the army of Mexico, as in other armies perhaps, someone must be dishonored so that others may assume honor.

  Those assuming the honor were General Francisco Mejia and General Pedro de la Ampudia. They had been replaced at Matamoros by General Arista, and now in their turn they replaced him. So you see how such matters devolve, Señor.

  We stood in the gate at the house of the alcalde and watched our poor army march away toward Monterrey. Many were without shoes, yet going into the stony mountain paths. That was a minor hardship for the infantry soldiers from the Indian class who had never had shoes before, their feet already like leather. For the rest, we could imagine what an ordeal it would be. We watched the Irishmen march out, in their tattered uniforms, artillerymen without cannons or caissons. But Teniente Riley would not let them be seen as abject, ¡ni una miaja! He made them, eh, pavonearse. What is your word? Strut! If you could have seen it! My mother with her chin up watched them, smiling; perhaps they could not see her tears of pity, for dust rose thick off the sunbaked road. The last we could see of them was the white crossed belts on their backs, growing more faint in the yellow dust. I remember that sight, even so many years later: the dust full of sunlight, the mountains looming clean above the dust. And I remember the distant noise of the bands. Our army lost many weapons when it retreated across the river at Matamoros, but it did not seem to have lost any horns and drums.

  And then soon came the time for the rest of us to leave the town of Linares. Wagons and an escort were assigned to carry us, and the officers who were too badly hurt to serve in the defense of northern Mexico, and a few other civilians.

  We had more than three times farther to go, and in the opposite direction, than the soldiers going to Monterrey. From Linares to Mexico City, Señor, was a steep and perilous journey along the backbone of the Sierra Madre, three hundred miles if the road had been straight, but it was not straight anywhere of course.

  In the summer it was good to climb up from the plains and foothills into the mountains. Up from the unhealthful air and los mosquitos, into the fresh smell of trees. But the roads were bad, the wagons nearly shook apart, the nights were so cold I felt my mother shuddering all night although we slept against each other to keep from freezing. I recall even now how close the stars seemed to be, and also the howling of los lobos in the mountains. Sometimes we spent the nights in tiny towns, where the children would stand back against a wall and with wide and fearful eyes watch the officers who were missing arms and legs. They knew the word guerra, but this was the only evidence of it they had ever seen, for they were too young to have known all the constant wars before.

  The road took us through Ciudad Victoria and Ciudad Mante, both in Tamaulipas State. Then a hundred miles farther on, in San Luis Potosi State, we arrived at Ciudad Valles, at the crossing of the road between San Luis and Tampico. There we heard of messengers who had gone through, telling of the ships of the Yanqui navy seen patrolling in the Gulf. We rested and our wagons were repaired, and we traded our limping horses for mule teams before going on for many days, down into the valleys of fast rivers, then climbing ever higher, and at last crossing to the western side of the mountains in Hidalgo Province to reach Pachuca. There again we traded for good horses and mules to finish our journey. South of us was the great volcán, Popocatepetl, and ahead to the west spread the grand Valle de Mexico, the heart of my beloved country. You yourself, Señor, have come to Mexico City from the east. Surely you have never seen anything so magnificent anywhere. I have told you of our journey because I love to remember it in the eyes of my memory as I speak of it.

  And coming down into the Valle de Mexico was a return home, for me and for my mother. She was born in the great city, and in my turn I was also. It was because of the military life of my father that we ever were in other parts of Mexico. I am grateful that I have seen much of my country, for it swelled my heart. But here in the ciudad capital I am at home. Here live the families who enveloped my mother when she was a child and a young woman. When we came down from the mountain roads and into the sight of the great city, it was to her a sanctuary. Though the nation was being invaded by foreigners, she said to me that their invasion could not come this far.

  When she said that, I reminded her that three hundred years before, the Spaniard Cortés had come with only five hundred soldiers and conquered Aztecan Mexico, in the very place. I was only showing off for her my education. But I should not have done so, for my words dampened the joy of her homecoming.

  We were greeted in our home city by my mother’s relatives
. They made much over her, for she was thin and very fatigued.

  My uncle, Rodrigo, who had formerly been a soldier, he took me in his carriage to Chapultepec to enroll me in the Colegio Militar. We brought with us the paper that General Arista’s clerk had given me, with the general’s signature on it. It was a fine, bright day, I remember, and I wore a new black suit, which had been tailored for me to replace the torn and faded clothing I had been wearing since Matamoros. In the carriage we rode across the great plaza, the Zocalo, for a look at the cathedral where I had been christened. After centuries of construction the cathedral had been proclaimed complete. You have seen it, Señor, how magnificent it is. The horns and drums of a regimental band were echoing in the vastness of the Zocalo between the cathedral and the government buildings, and many companies of soldiers in their blue coats and white belts and black shakos were being drilled. It was the movilización de ejército, the grand patriotic calling up of armies, a reminder that our country was being invaded. Though the cities were alive with their usual markets and festivals and bullfights, there was the feeling of sadness and yearning and self-righteousness that prevails when your country is being attacked. Tío Rodrigo kept talking of it during our long ride, out through the city walls through the Belén gate and westward toward the castle. It is about two miles, and riding on the causeway you see the castle looming above the roofs and the trees. I as a Mexican cannot look up at that high place without imagining the king Montezuma and the seat of Aztec civilization there, for it remains in our national spirit, despite the efforts of the conquistadors to erase all traces of it. I do not have to describe to you the magnificence of the castle on that precipitous hill, for I know you have seen it, Señor. But if you have not gone up the steep road to the castle, if you have not seen from there all the valle, the city, the lakes Xochimilco and Chalco to the south and east, the Pedregal of lava in the south, a desert within a paradise, and the mountains beyond it all, Señor, if you have not seen all that from up there, you cannot know one’s eagerness to prepare for the service of one’s sacred land.

  As we went up, my good Tío Rodrigo showed me the grove of old cypress trees on the western slope, trees said to be hundreds of years in age even before Montezuma was upon that hill, and I remember he said to me, as we left the carriage in the care of cadets, he said, Agustin, you feel as if you are in the center of the world, that nothing exists before or after your lifetime, but the truth is that your life is a spark in size and duration, but Mexico is eternal. You must enter here in humility.

  ¡Son habas contadas, Señor! I don’t need to tell you that I could not have felt more humble, as even the lowly cadets who tended our carriage looked at me with contempt, for I was not yet even a cadet, but surely would come in even beneath them!

  On Chapultepec also is the summer home of the presidente. Therefore it swarmed with gentlemen and officers whose gravity and splendor and air of importance made my uncle and me seem almost invisible, which helped assure that I would feel humble. I did not know at the time that some of them were ambassadors of other countries, that another crisis of national leadership was in progress. I did not know that General Santa Anna was returning from exile, in hopes that his reputation would invigorate the patriotism needed for the national resistence to your invasion. The discussion was frantic in the government, about the need for him to come and lead, and the dangers of returning him to power. Thus, Chapultepec was teeming with advisers.

  My uncle led me to a room where a captain looked at the letter I had carried from Matamoros. I stood waiting, not as humble as my uncle had said I should be, but proud to have brought a paper signed by a general. When the captain looked up from the paper his expression was not impressed or friendly. He put his finger on the signature and said that General Arista had been expelled from the army in disgrace, and so, what good was this piece of paper?

  I had not expected such a challenge. I was stunned. I imagined my entire career suddenly swept from my reach. But Tío Rodrigo must have expected it. He pointed to the date of the document and said that it was written while the general was still in command, and was thus still valid as an application. Then he menacingly hissed a demand to see the director of the Colegio, who was, he said, an old comrade-in-arms.

  The captain took the letter into an inner room. There were voices. Then the captain returned. With politeness he showed my uncle into the other room. But not me. He led me down a dark hall where an older cadet was writing at a desk. He told the cadet to take the usual information and then to take me to the comisario and then the residencia. It meant I was admitted. I was flooded with joy, and I told the cadet of my good fortune in having such an uncle. The cadet listened with arch interest as I explained. I should have seen that I was telling more than I should have told. I should have deduced from the jealousy among our army’s officers, that army cadets might already be cultivating the traits of suspicion and envy.

  Though untrue, it was presumed by all the academy’s cadets, almost from the moment of my arrival among them, that I had been admitted to the Colegio Militar only because my uncle was an old friend of the commandante.

  At first of course I did not know that was the rumor about me. I presumed it was only tradition that the newest cadet was to be snubbed and abused. They called me un niño pera in whispers as I passed. A spoiled rich child.

  Eventually I learned of the false rumor. I could have laughed, as I was perhaps the only cadet who had not gained admission through the influence of relatives or politicos. I had been recommended by an officer in the field, in reward for helpful service. How many of them had been? Not one.

  But I could not allow myself to be diverted from my education by such mezquindad. The education required three years. I had arrived only a little late for the beginning, and applied myself to come abreast in the first term. My earlier education had been acquired in spite of many disruptions, but I was adequate in mathematics and physics, which my mother had made me study from books no matter where we were. English was a course required at the Colegio, and I was already fluent in it. The education also required French language, because much of the curriculum had been derived from the Napoleonic arts of war. Chemistry was my realm of severest ignorance, but I was at advantage in astronomy, which had been a fascination of both my parents. I knew most of the celestial bodies and the constellations, as well as the mythology pertaining to them.

  Like most of the student cadets, I was impatient to proceed to the military subjects—fortifications, artillery, and tactics—but those would prove to be slow in coming. First were the academic studies, and, in large portions, drill, discipline, and the meticulous maintenance of uniforms, quarters, and accoutrements. One might have presumed at that stage in our education that the sole criterion for being an army officer was to look like one. We spent much of our time being inspected or preparing to be inspected. Fortunately, our frustrations with the routine, and with each other, could be vented en la esgrima, with the fencing swords. Many of us developed a passion for it, and I was already adept. In fact I became so adept that the antipathy of other cadets toward me became tempered by their respect for my skill with epee and saber. Perhaps some foresaw that their boorishness to me in school might someday be recompensed at maturity by an invitation to duel. I confess that now and then I entertained such a fancy.

  Although there was no official course in cavalry, except as a section of the course in tactics, we cadets were much exposed to the equestrian arts, racing and jumping, lancing, mounted combat, and the care and training of warhorses. Among the duties that filled all our waking hours were stable cleaning and the grooming of military horses kept by the Citadel. I grew to love and admire the beasts, which are essential to the military, and my affinity for them inclined me toward the eventual purpose of cavalry or dragoons, or perhaps to the horse-drawn artillery. I often remembered the élan and the efficiency of the flying batteries I had seen demonstrated in Señor Riley’s training maneuvers outside Matamoros. I could with gusto imagin
e myself, like him, commanding units of such importance in modern warfare. The Irishman was an inspiration to me in ways he did not even suspect. I thought of him every day, and prayed for his safety and success.

  In your travels in Mexico, Señor, have you seen Monterrey? Yes? ¡Bueno! It was a favorite city of my father and mother, for its beauty. For the sweet nature of its people. For its great cathedral, and for the wide plaza along the Rio Santa Catarina. High on a crag where it gleams in the sunrise is the bishop’s palace. And dominant on the north of the city stands the Citadel of Monterrey, where my father was stationed briefly when I was quite young. It is a formidable place made of dark stone, with embrasures for many cannons, and it guards several roads to the city.

  Soon after I arrived at the Colegio Militar in Mexico City, the news came that your General Zachary Taylor was marching on Monterrey. Our instructors talked to us in class about the tactics and the possibilities of the imminent campaign. They thought they knew what had gone wrong in the battles by the Rio Bravo: that General Arista’s courage had failed in the face of an inferior army. That was of course the official judgment. Such a thing would not happen at Monterrey; it was not even in the realm of the possible, because General Ampudia was returned to command the defense, and Monterrey’s defensive posture was unassailable. With such hope and pride we listened to those discussions! We loved the instructors’ appraisals of General Taylor’s inferior army, of his undisciplined volunteers, and the prospect that as many as half his army, the Catholic Irish and other Europeans, would soon desert him and come over to Mexico.