All along that road stood our raggedy, worn-out, sick Irish soldiers, doomed to abuse and humiliation from their officers, watching their Old Countrymen ride by smart and proud in a Catholic Army, wearing rank they’ll never rise to in the American Army. I saw their faces.
Monterrey, Mexico September 28, 1846
THE AMERICAN FLAG is up over Monterrey now. For weeks our Army can’t chase Gen. Ampudia (by terms of the surrender), so here we will sit for a while licking our wounds and getting to the business of governing a city. Our Little America is already arriving by boat and road. Mister Doherty is here with his bootleggery and so I have a job. Most of our soldiers are either wounded or halfway crazed from all the hell of taking the city, hundreds sick from dysentery and wanting to drink anything that will stupefy them out of their misery. More than a thousand, maybe closer to two thousand, died from dysentery and related sicknesses since we came up the river. Now around this city it’s the bone saws and cauterizing irons day and night in the Surgery. And delirious men screaming like babies, waking up screaming and crying.
Now the fighting’s over, the West Pointers start to abuse the Irish troops again for discipline.
For this we could have stayed in Texas.
CHAPTER XIII
AGUSTIN JUVERO
SPEAKING TO THE JOURNALIST
ON THE PILGRIMAGE ROAD
TO BE A cadet in the Citadel, Señor Reportero, was to be like a monk, cloistered from the world. The regimen of study, drill, and work was severe and exhausting. In that high place we were surrounded by beauty we could not reach. We could hear the deep-toned bells of matins and vespers in Mexico City, and from more distant Churubusco, and from San Angel, as much as five and six miles away. The air was filled with their reverberations. If you are on a high place, sounds rise to you, and so we could hear the band music, and festival music, and the voices of singers, singers of joyful music and longing music, the chanters of holy songs. The ancient cypress trees down the hill were full of singing birds. But up in the Citadel, all was echoing stone, where no one sang. We heard only ourselves and our instructors. Little came to us from outside and below.
Yet our country was at war, and we were learning to be warriors. Each of us at the end of his three years was expected to emerge with the rank of an ensign and begin a life of military service. Thus we hungered for knowledge of that particular war, not just for studies of the art of war.
And there were ways we learned, Señor. Some you might expect, some that would surprise you. Newspapers and journals of all sorts, even those from the United States, were smuggled into the school. Some of the instructors themselves would want to bring us some item of news from the war that they felt would help them teach a point.
Thus we learned with astonishment and despair that General Taylor’s army had conquered the impregnable Monterrey! That although the Mexican artillery and the snipers had inflicted enormous harm upon them, the Yanquis had encircled the city and then compressed its defenders ever inward toward the plaza, until General Ampudia called for a truce in order to spare all the town’s civilians, who were trapped there with his soldiers, there in the plaza.
The general had negotiated the truce so skillfully, our instructor told us, that it was in itself worthy of study, aside from the tactics of the battle. He was able to gain some very favorable conditions because he knew how spent General Taylor’s army was. If the fight had continued another day, the Yanquis probably would have failed. But too many of the townspeople were imperiled. General Ampudia negotiated wonderfully. We were to study what he achieved:
He would yield Monterrey to the Yanquis, with the safety of the citizens assured. The Mexican army would march out in peace with all its small arms, and would not be pursued until two months had expired. With them would go, unmolested, a battery of six cannons and its artillerymen. This was indeed a coup for General Ampudia, because most of those artillerymen were the ones who had earlier deserted from General Taylor’s army, and had fought under the command of the valorous Señor Riley. Such a prize they would have been for Taylor’s vengeful men!
But General Ampudia did not intend to give up those deserters. They had proven themselves above value. With their heavy guns on the Black Citadel, under Teniente Riley’s superb command, those very cannoneers had inflicted more damage on the Yanquis, it seemed, than all the Mexican infantrymen and cavalry. It was said that his cannons had killed and wounded a tenth of General Taylor’s whole army, among them at least forty officers! One might imagine that the Irishmen’s revenge for their suffering under the West Pointers was richly satisfied in that battle!
And one might imagine as well what their fate would have been if General Ampudia had surrendered them. But he did not!
As for the city, it had no further strategic importance. We learned that our army marched south to San Luis Potosi then, and were met there by their new supreme commander, General Santa Anna himself, returned from exile and mobilizing the greatest army Mexico had ever seen. He had convinced us all that only he could be the savior of Mexico. You cannot comprehend the appeal of that man, Señor, unless you are Mexican. It was said, Santa Anna is Mexico!
I know, Señor, I know. To Yanquis, Santa Anna is a name for gigantic villainy and ruthlessness. He was merciless against your Texans in their secession from Mexico. But is General Santa Anna the only commander merciless in war? Who is merciful? I have long studied the histories of nations at war, Señor Reportero. I have found few instances of mercy shown by your own commanders. Your nation is but three-score years in existence—eh?—but already is notorious for the slaughter of its native people.
Forgive me for digressing, Señor. I was telling you of the ways by which the news of the war came to us in our cloister. Among the vessels of information there were our own families.
My mother wrote letters to me in the Colegio, though she could not come to visit. Her letters were long and well composed; to read them was to hear her speak across a table of all and any matters, as she had always done when we were together.
In the autumn of that year she sent to me a letter full of excitement. It became so much a treasured part of my family’s history that I translated it for correspondents elsewhere. This copy is in your tongue.
My beloved Son Agustin—
I write to say that I miss you severely, but that I have much pride that you study to become a soldier for your country. It is of course my prayer that this conflict shall be over, and peace shall come, before you are graduated as an officer, for I want you never to be in harm’s way.
My dear son, I do believe you will be pleased to learn that the good Captain Moreno, who was General Ampudia’s adjutant at Matamoros, is now assigned to oversee and promote the Irish artillerists. Captain Moreno wrote to Rodrigo and explained how this circumstance came to be. You will recall the Captain’s enthusiasm for the Irish gunner Señor Riley, and the respectful friendship that grew between them.
Both Capt. Moreno and General Ampudia credit the Irishman and his gunners for the best part of the defense of Monterrey. Upon meeting with General Santa Anna at San Luis Potosi, they presented Señor Riley to him. Captain Moreno writes that General Santa Anna warmed to Señor Riley at once, and gave him authority to form and train a full unit of artillerists comprising the ablest gunners from among all the defectors, and to supervise the training of our own gunners in the maneuvers of which he is such a master. His unit is called Los Voluntarios Irlandeses. Our friend Captain Moreno will be their translator. They call themselves San Patricios, after the saint of their native country.
Rodrigo believes it is certain that Señor Riley will soon receive a promotion in rank in keeping with his growing authority. General Santa Anna intends to glorify the Irish artillery, with an aim of inspiring still more hundreds of Irish Catholic soldiers to defect from the invading army.
The commandante also authorized the San Patricios unit to serve under its own Irish banner. Imagine that! Captain Moreno said that Señor Riley and some of
his gunners designed the banner themselves, and asked the nuns of the San Luis convent to stitch it onto a field of green silk. Captain Moreno described it: Depicting San Patricio, with his staff upon a snake; on the other side, a harp, the symbol of Ireland, and these words, “Erin go Bragh” and “Libertad por la Republica Mexicana.”
Those are beautiful symbols and words, most touching to the heart in times like these. The newspapers are enchanted with the Irishmen, as a part of the general patriotic fervor. General Santa Anna has taken a loan of two million pesos offered by the Church to help him fund the building of the army. Morever, he has committed much of his own personal fortune.
This letter begins to seem more like a news dispatch than a missive of endearment, my son, but such are the times, and I know not whether you hear or read much from the world beyond your school. My prayers are always for peace, as that is the nature of woman’s heart. Perhaps emissaries and diplomats may yet forestall the necessity for further bloodshed and persuade the North Americans to withdraw beyond our borders. In all the rumors and gossip and in the printed journals, the will of the citizens in that nation is said to be bitterly divided on the matter of the war. Most of Europe condemns it, we are given to believe. Adventurers and idealists from neutral nations are taking up Mexico’s cause independently, and have been arriving to serve.
Our Catholic clergy in the vicinity of the enemy are employing themselves actively in luring Catholic soldiers away from that army. They offer guides, money, and transportation to bring deserters down from the north. As the enemy’s bases and routes of supply now extend some three hundred miles, from the Gulf to Monterrey and Saltillo, the Yanquis are thinly drawn out, and surely they hold little control over the loyalties of the soldiers whose conscience is troubled. Deserters are said to be arriving from everywhere along that line. Clergymen and rancheros work in harmony to bring the deserters primarily to San Luis Potosi where our army is forming. Not all of the deserters want to serve in the Mexican Army, of course. Those who do not are provided kindness and passage. The ones who enlist with us of course are met with the most warmth and honor.
To be a citizen of a nation which is on the honorable side of a dispute, that, my dear son, is inestimable, however chance resolves the dispute. Even should we lose on the battlefields, in the eyes of our Lord and Savior, Mexico shall be hallowed.
Be content in knowing that I am in good health, serene in spirit, and constant in affection for my good son,
Your mother,
Gloria Estrella de Juvero
Such was the correspondence from my beloved mother, Señor. Her letters came sometimes two or three a week, and the news they relayed to me was welcome. It was notable to me how much of that news pertained in some way to the valorous foreigners, and in particular the Irishmen. It was no less interesting to me, as my own idealism had been inspired by the courage and the principle of those men. Of course the personificación of this gallantry was Senor Riley, that hombre guapo y fuerte. Many brave and able soldiers served with him in the defense of this grateful country, most of them but not all Irishmen. But as you have heard me say before, Señor, it was Don Juan Riley himself who won our hearts, when we first saw him wet and muddy in our house at Matamoros, and it was he who continued to rise in our esteem and our affections. My mother’s love for him was of a nature too sacred for me to relate to you even if I had known every corner of her heart. I know it was a great and noble dedication, sustained over long absences and great anxieties.
In one of her letters to me, one that no longer survives except in my memory, she asked me to envision in my imagination the meeting of the Irishman and the Gran Commandante General Santa Anna. Often I did envision it, Señor, and with the pleasure and excitement of a fervently patriotic niño ingenuo.
I have described to you often and in many ways this Irishman, whom I have seen with my own eyes in close proximity.
The other man in the picture, the supreme general, I have seen him only fleetingly and never close. I know him by his reputation, which is controversial and is studied by every Mexican. It has been said that in whatever crisis in Mexico, he is the solution but he is also then the next crisis. You have studied him, too, Señor, if you have studied Mexico at all. Yes, he is vainglorious, and cunning, and extravagant. He is the demigod in my country.
Even now, Señor, although I am desvalido, many times dashed, cínico, and a mocker of fools, no matter, the image of el Presidente General Santa Anna brings my spirit to attention. To mock him I should have to be able to mock Mexico herself.
In appearance and stature, nature blessed him. He was born criollo, with the high, long head of the European but the color of a native. A tall man, he seems even taller by virtue of his bearing. He is guapo, and unmatched in charm. He affects a deliberate gait in walking, to mask the pain and awkwardness of an artificial leg. And so, when he walks among gentlemen and officers, you would remark on the thoughtful dignity of the whole retinue, as they slow to his pace. The leg, his left, was shattered by a French cannonball when he drove the French occupiers out of Vera Cruz. The general is always bedecked in the fullest splendor of medals and braid, shining like a sun. He is the object of the loveliest and most opportunistic women, of course.
So, yes, Señor, I tried to envision that meeting of our supreme commandante and the gallant Irish cannoneer. With pride and pleasure I imagined them standing face-to-face, regarding each other. I would think of General Ampudia relating the boldness and the terrible skills of Teniente Riley. And then I would see the commandante reach for his hand, look straight into his eyes with the appreciation one true hero surely has for another. Then, soon, they would be speaking of artillery. The Mexican army in those times was well equipped with cannons of all grades, but still deployed them in old and cumbrous ways. Even as a first-year cadet, I was critical of the gunnery tactics as they were being taught at the Colegio, for I had witnessed the new methods of the flying battery in manueuvers at Matamoros. And so I would imagine those two paragons talking with enthusiasm about making the gunnery more modern. And it came to be as I had imagined. The Irishman’s units were supplied with enough powder and shell, and good horses and manpower for support to train brilliantly, there at San Luis Potosi. Captain Moreno wrote about it several times to my Tío Rodrigo. The Irishman was promoted to be a captain, and Captain Moreno was promoted to be a major, and the commandante of those units. I have spoken of the jealousy that prevails in our corps of officers; plainly, it would have created consternation if the Irishman had been promoted over our native gunnery officers, and thus did Major Moreno become commandante of the unit even though in actuality it was Captain Riley’s charge. You see. Our generals must work cleverly with niceties over their officers. Politics taints everything.
De este modo, my nation’s Army of the North was formed, there in the beautiful city of San Luis, growing to more than twenty thousand. Once again, as so often before, General Santa Anna was seen by Mexico as her savior in the face of an enemy invasion. He had drawn five or six thousand of the ablest horsemen in Mexico for his cavalry, twice that number of durable and obedient infantrymen under the bravest generals; also engineers, transport, musicians, priests. And shining in his expectations there was his artillery, revitalized with flying batteries, and with his most powerful cannons, the sixteen-pounders and twenty-four-pounders, to be deployed under the San Patricios’ green banner. Several more especially well-trained gunners had found their way to San Luis after deserting the Yanqui army, and were assigned as Capitán Riley’s subordinates. The supreme commandante himself interviewed one Patrick Dalton, who had deserted at Camargo and had ridden a burro all the way to San Luis. He assigned him a lieutenancy. He did not know the two gunners were already friends! Ah, such stories! Another example was formerly of the Prussian army, one Morstadt his name was, who had deserted after Monterrey and had been led to San Luis by a priest. Major Moreno also told of one called O’Leary, also trained by the British. He had deserted from the British army be
fore joining and deserting the Americans. But listen: He stayed true to Mexico to the day he died fighting.
For that matter, Señor, I say with pride and gratitude that none of those Irishmen who had deserted other armies ever deserted Mexico! She became their homeland, and almost all of them were to die for her. But that is getting in advance of my tale. There was to be much glory and much shame before they became our martyrs. The glory was theirs; the shame was yours.
Not yours personally, Señor. But it is gratifying to see you on your knees, on behalf of your country.
CHAPTER XIV
PADRAIC QUINN’S DIARY
Monterrey, Mexico December 2nd 1846
THIS WAS A day of real hatefulness and injustice. It started bad and got worse. It all sprung from the black heart of Capt. Tom Sherman, an artillery officer. I had a little role in the cause of it, but was a mere observer of the outcome.
All I did was deliver a bottle of whiskey from the bootlegger John Doherty to one of Capt. Sherman’s men. Mr. Doherty is an Irish soldier who was wounded in battle at Palo Alto, and was mustered out. As I may have said in the earlier diaries, he employs me a bit to deliver for him, as he can’t get about easily since his wounds.
St. Patrick Battalion Page 16
