Spring 1861
TWO PILGRIMS, Agustin Juvero and Padraic Quinn, kneel on the cobbles outside the basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They wait as old penitentes climb painfully over the threshold ahead of them.
The cripple squints at the red-haired reporter, and says:
“I regret that I cannot hear your voice or your words, Señor Quinn. Though you came to hear me, I am sorry that I cannot hear you. I would like to ask you a question. I believe I know the answer. You and I have met, perhaps, long ago. Do you believe that is true?”
Padraic Quinn nods, and prints on paper with his pencil:
In darkness by Rio Grande when you were delivering propaganda to the Irish soldiers and I was taking whiskey to them. In spring 1846.
“¡Aunque parezca extraño! ¡Sí! That is what I have come to believe, also! And so we meet again! I wondered that night whether that boy—you—could have been as frightened as I was.”
I had been warned all Mexicans had sharp knives.
“Indeed I carried a sharp knife. But when I saw you, I forgot that I had it.” He chuckles, shaking his head.
At that time I, too, knew John Riley. Before he crossed to you.
Agustin reads the note. “We were not far into this interview before I sensed that you also knew him. I could see it in your eyes, as you heard me speak of him. Sí. It was plain.”
“Wait,” Quinn says, and writes.
I kept a diary, through the war. I wish you could see it.
“Aha!” Agustin laughs. “Yes. It would be perhaps the only history of that war that I have not read yet.”
It led me to this occupation, of correspondent. Probably next I will go to the war beginning in the U.S.
Padraic pauses, then continues writing:
Though I shall regret leaving Mexico again.
“Gracias,” says Agustin. “Many who came here for the war chose to stay when it was over. And in the part of Mexico that you took from us, many live under your flag who are still Mexicans in their hearts. California and New Mexico, even Texas, are yours in name only, you should understand. The Mexican people will take all that back, Señor. Not suddenly or by force. In the long time. It is yours only for a while. We Mexicans have a patience that you Yanquis do not understand. Whatever the laws and the treaties say, all that is still Mexico.
“And now, amigo, we have come a long way together, with pain. Now let us go up and into this holy place, and offer candles to Our Lady. Your candle shall be my treat. You are my guest in Mexico. This is the only time I have made this peregrinación in the company of another, not alone. I am honored to have traveled it with an Irishman. Sí. And a friend of Don Juan Riley, ¡por otra parte!”
Mexico City
July 14, 1861
To Alfred H. Guernsey
Editor of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine
My Dear Sir,
I pray that this finds you prospering, in good health, and that you will remember our correspondence of several months ago, when I set out for this place. To refresh your memory: You expressed enthusiasm for articles I proposed to write and illustrate for your magazine, pertaining to interesting occurrences in the last war:
First, the poignant and tragic fate of the boy cadets in Mexico’s National Military College, who fought in the terrible Battle for Chapultepec Castle in September of 1847.
Second, the role of American soldiers, Irish Catholic immigrants in particular, who deserted from our Army and took up arms for Mexico, those known as the Saint Patrick’s Battalion. I trust you will recall, Sir, that I was personally acquainted with their principal officer, Major John Riley (also known as Reilly, O’Reilly, & the like in various accounts of that time). I came down here on your generous advance retainer, to do research on his fate and fortunes since that war.
That I have accomplished, my dear Sir, and I do believe that the story of those turncoats is even more interesting now than when we discussed it, considering that most of the ranking Secessionist officers in the present conflict have become turncoats in a like manner, and that those very officers were then among the most severe in condemning the Irish deserters. Hypocrisy, I hope you concur, is a most tempting target for a journal of integrity and truthfulness. Those senior officers who have gone over to make war against the Union were among the most able soldiers in the Mexican campaigns. Among them, I read, are now Lee, Bragg, Longstreet, Jackson, Beauregard, Magruder, Johnston, Pickett, and of course Jefferson Davis as the president of their Secessionist Confederacy.
The periodicals here in Mexico are replete with news of that secession. It is a matter of much interest to Mexicans for obvious reasons, including a certain satisfaction with America’s distress, but, as well, they remember many of the officers. The Mexicans, that is the literate portion of them, are also wary of mischief that might spill across their border, with their powerful neighbor in such an upheaval.
Now, Sir, to the matter at hand, my two articles. I have drafts of both pieces, which I shall send within the fortnight, after I pen clean copies of the revisions. I am confident that you will deem both articles even more interesting than they were originally conceived, because of some unexpectedly good fortune I have had in my research.
In brief, I managed to find a young gentleman who was a cadet at Chapultepec, deafened and maimed in that battle, and I have interviewed him at great length, finding him not only full of information but also quite articulate, and something of a military historian as well, with an intriguing philosophical perspective on the invasion and its consequences.
Even more fortuitous, Sir, is that he, too, had an important personal acquaintance with the said Irish rogue Major Riley, during and after the war. You may well imagine my delight and astonishment. The same young fellow was a source, in fact, for most of my findings on Mr. Riley’s fate after the war. Furthermore, he allowed me access to certain writings of Maj. Riley, papers and letters that were in the estate of the cadet’s mother, God rest her pitiful soul. I have copied those out and incorporated portions into the article, for they reveal an unexpected intelligence and eloquence on Major Riley’s part, and, even better, express in his own words his motivations and tenets of life and service, much at odds with those imputed to him by presumptuous and unsympathetic correspondents at that time. The integrity of this man should be an astonishment to any readers who read of him only as an arch-traitor, vilified by the Army and by the correspondents who were here during the war and his court-martial. Those writers to a large extent adopted the opinions and parroted the words of the American officers whom they accompanied perhaps too intimately. (You’ll remember, too, Sir, the rabid anti-Irish prejudice of most periodicals in those days, and the vitriol then being spewed upon Catholic immigrants of any nationality.)
The gratitude still expressed by Mexico for the service of the San Patricios battalion is touching. I hope to convey that.
I hope also to convey the curious ambiguity these people feel toward Gen. Winfield Scott, he who conquered them, but also he who spared the life of their darling Irish hero. (I read, by the way, that it was Gen. Scott himself who failed to prevent his favorite soldier, Robt. Lee, from defecting to the rebels! Oh, irony!)
Let us hope that the readers’ preconceptions of the notorious Riley will not be too rudely overset by the truth now available. It is difficult to alter a longstanding bias. I find that the United States Army now officially pretends that the Saint Patricks and the desertion problem never existed. The Army avers that no records exist of that matter. But it is hard to obliterate a history which had the rabid attention of all the nation’s war correspondents and newspaper readers for two years!
I daresay that publication of this account, with the Mexicans’ viewpoint involved, might embroil Harper’s in some controversy. On the other hand, the present rupture between North and South probably will overshadow most everything else. The Army itself surely is too distracted to make much of this now.
To bring this letter to a point, Sir, my forthcoming
article will apprise your readers that the notorious turncoat John Riley, upon being released from captivity at war’s end, returned to the Mexican Army where he was highly honored and raised to the rank of colonel; was engaged with a noted beauty of Mexico City society (the mother of my informant); then, alas, fell victim to the intrigues which prevailed in the army after his champion, Gen. Santa Anna, was exiled. Suspected of being part of a coup conspiracy, he was in danger of a firing squad with others of his Irish brigade, but so warm was the public sentiment for the “Heroic Irishmen,” that they were freed and returned to service. It was by then a peacetime army. He nearly died of the Yellow Fever, and in 1850 was retired from the Army with a pension payout, and embarked from Vera Cruz to Havana. From there, my informant said, John Riley tried to follow Gen. Santa Anna to his place of exile in Jamaica, but found the General already removed to another island. My informant received no direct correspondence from Mr. Riley after that, probably because of his own transience through various hospices and institutions. But he is certain that the Irishman took passage back to his homeland, as he had often expressed a desire to do, having a son still living there in County Galway. The remainder of his Mexican Army pension might conceivably allow Riley & son to exist a notch above starvation in that impoverished place, we may hope. Were it not for our war of secession and my obligation to be involved in journalizing it, I should love to go to Galway and renew our old friendship right now.
In fact, my informant and I have devised a plan for the indeterminate future, to embark together on a pilgrimage to find our mutual friend in Galway. My informant intends to go at his government’s expense as the initial envoy to establish a regular delegation that will honor the San Patricios in their homeland. This is his fond ambition, and he is confident that he can arrange it. He is also campaigning for a San Patricios monument to be erected in or about Mexico City. From this you might judge the height of Mexico’s affection for those renegades.
All that, Sir, is the issue of my long sojourn here in this bloody and tragic land. Long as it has been, I have not nearly exhausted my expense allowance. Herewith is my accounting.
In my months here, Mexico has been in a series of political tumults, as you surely know. President Juarez seems in firm control and presses his reforms, including the nationalizing of the Church and limiting the Army’s political power. I can report on these politics, but doubt American readers would be interested, having their own upheaval to occupy them.
I am reluctant to leave Mexico, but should take advantage of the land’s relative political stability to go to Vera Cruz and find passage to the States.
My itinerary there is uncertain as yet. With the Union’s Navy blockading our southern ports, I cannot expect to visit my mother in New Orleans. I shall telegraph you from whichever port I disembark in, and then, I presume, go sniffing after gunsmoke for you. I am a journalist, after all, and cut my teeth on war. The battlefield is the deepest circle of hell, but it is where I belong, if I am to be of any use in this life. God knows I won’t be among strangers there, whichever side I cover it from, for I knew most of the Generals when they were lieutenants here in Mexico. One such acquaintance likely to be useful is Lew Wallace, now the Adjutant General of Indiana, in charge of recruiting that state’s forces, with the intent to lead them. I know of no other officer more able to gain information, or more determined to get into action, and so I hope to establish a liaison with him. I also have special friendships with officers from Michigan, and if a certain U. S. Grant of Illinois shall have attained any prominence in the Army, I can expect him to welcome me. Both those gentlemen know me as an artist, as I flattered them both with portraits when they were in the bloom of youth.
In summation, Mr. Guernsey, watch for my articles on the war past, and I pray that in the event that the current one is prolonged, I shall be able to serve your fine magazine well as an enterprising correspondent and illustrator. Finally I am shed of the War with Mexico, and ready to go on, where “the claret is being drawn” anew. But this time, I pray, for a nobler cause. Good claret should not be wasted.
I am, Sir, your most humble servant,
Padraic Quinn
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JAMES ALEXANDER THOM was formerly a U.S. Marine, a newspaper and magazine editor, and a member of the faculty at the Indiana University Journalism School. He is the acclaimed author of Follow the River; Long Knife; From Sea to Shining Sea; Panther in the Sky, for which he won the prestigious Western Writers of America Spur Award for best historical novel; The Children of First Man; The Red Heart; Sign-Talker; and Warrior Woman, which he co-wrote with his wife, Dark Rain Thom. The Thoms live in the Indiana hill country near Bloomington.
ABOUT THE TYPE
This book was set in Garamond, a typeface originally designed by the Parisian typecutter Claude Garamond (1480–1561). This version of Garamond was modeled on a 1592 specimen sheet from the Egenolff-Berner foundry, which was produced from types assumed to have been brought to Frankfurt by the punchcutter Jacques Sabon.
Claude Garamond’s distinguished romans and italics first appeared in Opera Ciceronis in 1543–44. The Garamond types are clear, open, and elegant.
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