Mexico

by James A. Michener

  “Jubal, I remember that you served with General Scott in Mexico. How did you find it?”

  With unexpected vitality, memories of those years in ’47 and ’48 came tumbling back: “It was a real country, not at all like we used to think. Some of its cities, away from the war, were quite habitable.”

  “Did you have a chance to see any of them?”

  He started to tell of his visit to Toledo but judged it would be tedious to explain why he had been investigating a silver mine.

  A man asked: “Would you consider emigrating there’ Like the others?”

  “I had a chance to go with General Early. I love Virginia When I get my name cleared, I’d want to work here—rebuild—get things going again.”

  “You should, Clay,” one of the members said. “You’re a real hero and we need you.” Then he repeated: “A real hero. You must be amazed at what’s happened with your daughter.”

  Clay leaned forward: “What did? I’ve been looking for her.”

  “After the fire … some of us buried your wife, Jubal … the girl came here to a family in Richmond, where I saw her often, a true Southern belle, an honor to our people, and to you, Clay.”

  “What happened?”

  “When the North took over our government they sent down a handsome young man from West Point, a lieutenant, and he worked in the governor’s office, that is, their government, not ours. He was a bright fellow, good manners, treated us with respect while some of his seniors from the North were real bastards.”

  “And then?” Clay asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “Yes, they fell in love. He was invited to all the parties, such as we could afford, and he was widely liked. An excellent young man, except his war background, and they were married.”

  “Married?” He said the word with such force that for some moments no one dared speak, but then a club member who had also fought at Cold Harbor said: “Young Shallcross served as Grant’s aide at Union quarters on the Pamunkey.”

  For two days my grandfather could not bring himself to visit his daughter, although he was willing to risk capture to see the only remaining member of his family—and capture would be probable if he was identified by an official in the government of occupation. But his curiosity and love for his daughter were so great that on the third day he allowed his fellow officer from Cold Harbor to take him to the small house occupied by Shallcross and his bride. There he waited behind a tree while his guide knocked on the door, was greeted by a man Clay could not see, and entered. Inside, as the man explained later, he arranged a truce of honor: “Captain Shallcross, you know me, Major Abernethy, reprieved by your government.”

  “Of course, Major. What can I do for you?”

  “I know, here in Richmond, where a Confederate officer is hiding who is not reprieved.” At these ominous words Shallcross held up both hands: “We no longer hound patriots, misguided though they were. I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “Former Confederates are arrested daily,” the major snapped, and Shallcross said: “If they force themselves upon us, if they have criminal records.”

  “I think you will want to see this one, but I must ask your word of honor once you have seen each other that he can leave freely.”

  “You didn’t need to creep to my house to extract such a promise. Granted.” The two soldiers shook hands, whereupon the major went back to the door and signaled. In a moment Jubal Clay edged suspiciously into the small room and stood facing his son-in-law. When neither man spoke, the major said: “Captain Shallcross, I have the honor to present Colonel Clay, late of the Virginia Third.”

  Shallcross flushed, hesitated, then extended his hand: “You are welcome here, Colonel. I’ll call your daughter.” In a moment Grace Clay Shallcross entered the room—an elfin girl of sixteen with a waist so small a man could encircle it with his hands. She was, thought Clay, in that first moment of seeing her after three years of painful absence, the kind of woman who would keep the South alive and functioning, for defeat had not touched her, and he saw her as a creature of inestimable worth. But as the four of them sat and talked he felt a hardness supplanting his first sensations of love.

  “How was it your mother didn’t escape, too?”

  “She wanted to save her piano. The men tried to drag her away, but she wouldn’t go and finally they had to flee, because of the smoke.” She hesitated then added: “We thought that maybe she wanted to die … the boys gone … the house … and maybe you had been killed in the Valley defeats.”

  “When she died we were still winning. We were in Washington.” His voice hardened not against his daughter but against the man she had married. Pointing at Captain Shallcross he asked. “Is it true that he served as General Grant’s aide at Cold Harbor?”

  Shallcross did not propose to have his young wife answer for him: “I was there, as you were, Colonel Clay. We had great regard for your performance that day. I heard General Grant say so.”

  “Regard for me? Did he have no regard for his own troops? That he left them dying out there in the blazing heat?”

  Aware that this line of interrogation must end in verbal brawling, Captain Shallcross said: “Colonel, I am honored to have a wonderful woman like your daughter for my wife. And had you been available at the time, I would have come to you as one man of honor to another to ask for her hand. I pray that you will grant it now.” Extending his hand, he moved slightly toward Clay.

  “For an agonizing moment,” reported the ex-Confederate who had arranged this meeting, “the two men looked at each other, Shallcross almost pleading, Clay with growing bitterness, at the end of which he said darkly: ‘I must leave this contaminated house, and I shall never in this life see you again, Grace.’ With that he stamped from the room.”

  Before he left Richmond, Clay went to a notary and signed a legal paper giving title to the two thousand acres of the former Newfields Plantation east of Cold Harbor to his daughter, Grace Clay, born on that site in 1850. After filing this with the registrar of such papers and asking that officer to advise her after he had gone, he returned to his lonely room, where he found awaiting him a letter that threw his plans into disarray:

  My Dear Col. Clay,

  I have heard through the Brackenridges of Richmond that in your despair over the death of your wife and the loss of your home you propose leaving the country. Surely, anyone who realizes the crushing losses you have suffered will understand your decision, and those like me know how you, more than most men, centered the better portion of your life upon the joys you knew with Zephania, your unequaled wife.

  But, Jubal, I must remind you that there is a higher duty, and I beg of you to reconsider. Do not leave our homeland. It sorely needs you now. You are an engineer and command the skills we require for the rebuilding of our ravaged lands. There is so much work to be done that if we all labored ’til midnight for the rest of our lives we should barely accomplish a beginning. You above all are needed.

  Therefore I implore you, and if I were still your general I would command you, to stay at home and commit yourself to the work at hand. If you plead, “I spent four years fighting the North, must I now help them rebuild what they destroyed?” I can only advise you that the wisdom of the Almighty oftentimes commands a man to do exactly the opposite of what he did ten weeks before, and if he defends his honor there will be no dishonor in obeying the dictates of One mightier than himself. I implore you to stay and work, for I am convinced that it is God’s work we do.

  But I am mindful of the oppression one suffers when one must live where a particular tragedy has overtaken him, so I want you to leave Cold Harbor and come to Lexington, where our faculty sorely needs your engineering and mathematical skills You will find a new life instructing our young men whose duty it will be to rebuild the South, and I shall rejoice in having with me once more that dashing, reliable Colonel Clay.

  Yours quietly, Robert E. Lee

  Reading the letter three times in his hunger to hear once more his
commander’s grave voice, he satisfied himself that Lee was offering him a teaching job at long-established Washington College, a school of good reputation, and the idea of working with Lee again was so exciting that any thought of sleep was ridiculous. Throwing a jacket over his shoulders, he walked out into the streets of Richmond, the city he had fought so diligently to protect, and the idea of separating himself from the gallant struggle brought tears to his eyes. He visualized Lee as the one man who had gone through four years at West Point without picking up a single demerit—Jubal Early had had nigh two hundred every year—Lee as the bright-eyed captain in Mexico, and, finally, Lee in defeat. It would not be easy to disassociate himself from such a man.

  But suddenly the menacing image of Ulysses Grant took possession of his mind, and as it crowded out the gentle memories of Lee he cried aloud: “I cannot live in the same country with that many” He ran to a friend’s house, asked to purchase a horse, which was given him free, and as the sun appeared he rode quietly out of Richmond, still legally a fugitive and aware that never in this life would he again see his beloved city, or his revered commander, or his daughter.

  16

  AMERICAN ANCESTORS: IN MEXICO

  When my grandfather landed at Veracruz in late 1866 and climbed the familiar road he had marched nineteen years earlier with General Scott as they fought their way to Mexico City, he anticipated no difficulty in locating his friend General Early: “Stands to reason. If he’s still in that big white hat with the turkey feather and that long white coat, everyone will know where he is.” Using his adequate Spanish, he asked a watchman: “Where might I find American soldiers who came down here after our war?” and the man pointed: “That little church. Many Americans drink there all day.”

  When he entered the courtyard of the church, set off by a high adobe wall, he found the Confederates, and one look at the motley crew assured him that he had joined the losers. They were an unkempt lot, unshaven, unwashed, some of their clothes in tatters, but intermixed with that type were a few men of obvious breeding, men who could not tolerate living in a nation governed by men like Butcher Grant. Clay naturally gravitated toward those of his own kind but was prevented from joining them by the others, who showered him with questions: “What battles did you see? What generals did you march with? Did you have to leave America?” Some rough types not only asked questions, they also demanded answers, and in their eagerness for news of home he detected loneliness and the fear that they might never again see their homeland.

  He had to answer them: “I’m a Virginia man, the Yankees burned my plantation, killed my wife and sons. I’m like you. I could never live there with men like Grant in charge.” The men felt empathy for Clay because all of them were without jobs and some had no money at all. “How do you expect to live, Reb?”

  “I’m looking for a friend. When I left him in Cuba, he told roe to meet him here. He’d have something.”

  “Maybe we’ve seen him. What’s he like?” and when Jubal mentioned General Early, the crowd broke into derisive joking: “Old Jube, got his ass kicked at Winchester, didn’t he? When he come here he talked big, cursed Grant, swore he’d never go back, Mexico was his home now.”

  A wry-faced man from Tennessee with only one arm broke in: “Cut quite a figure with that big white hat and turkey feather, but after three months he told us: ‘No sane man could live in this madhouse. They beg this fellow to come over from Europe and be their emperor, and he done a good job, they tell me. But now they want to get rid of him.’ ”

  “General Early, what happened to him?”

  “Hightailed it off to Canada. Said it was a decent country a man could respect.”

  “Did he have any money?” Clay asked, and one of the men said: “His brother, back in the States—he sends him some.”

  During the few days he was in the capital Clay learned of more than a hundred Confederates who were determined to make Mexico their home, and many of them were unlike the disgruntled drifters in the churchyard. These others had found work. Some had brought considerable sums of money with them or had access to it through relatives back home, and Clay suspected that such men were going to build a good life for themselves, especially if they were able to get hold of property.

  One such man from Georgia told him: “Mexicans hate the North just as much as we do. They welcome us Confederate brothers. If we try to fit in, they accept us.” With a smile he added: “And they understand our attitude toward our slaves. Their Indians are about the same but they use different words.”

  At the end of numerous similar discussions my grandfather reached two conclusions, which he often discussed with my father: “I saw that Mexico welcomed us only if we had money or a job, and I saw that neither was available in Mexico City. With that insight I headed for Toledo, where I hoped the rich Palafoxes might remember me.”

  They did. When three Palafox men who had attended that memorable dinner back in 1847 came to talk with Clay at the House of Tile, he could see they were heavier about the middle and grayer of hair, for that had been more than nineteen years ago, and he thought: They, of course, remember me as little more than a boy, and now I’m a battle veteran and a fugitive with lines in my face.

  Don Alipio threw his bearlike arms about my grandfather and cried: “I could see when he was here before that he was a Toledo man, and that one day he’d be back. Well, here you are, and now what?”

  They did not waste time with Jubal. The brother who managed the family’s money said bluntly: “Yes, nineteen years and we still don’t have a decent manager at the Mineral. Señor Clay, destiny has brought you back to us. Can you ride out to the mine with us tomorrow? We seek your counsel.” When the four men inspected the shaft—much deeper now but still operated by little Indian women climbing up those incredible stairs—and the smelter and the adobe warehouses, Jubal said: “It’s obvious what ought to be done. You haven’t even built the stone rim around the mouth of the shaft,” and they said: “We talked about it, but our managers never seemed to understand.”

  Jubal, an honest man, one of the most incorruptible of that tormented period, could not misrepresent himself to the Palafoxes: “I have no plantation any longer, no wife, no children, no country.” He paused, laughed and then concluded: “And damned little money. I need a job and I have a powerful feeling about this mine. Often during the war, and later, I thought of those caverns of silver.”

  A deal favorable to both sides was arranged that first morning after his arrival in Toledo, but he had barely started the innovations that would preserve this as one of the premier mines of the world when he was diverted by the last thing on earth he needed, another war. One morning Don Alipio came galloping out to the Mineral: “Clay! You must come with us. We may need your skills.” On the hurried ride back to town the fifty-eight-year-old man said with the eagerness of a nineteen-year-old: “Querétaro has sent an urgent message. They need all the troops we have. The damned Indians are threatening to shoot the emperor, and we mustn’t let that happen.”

  At the churchyard in Mexico City the Confederate exiles had mentioned an emperor, but Jubal had not been listening: “Has the emperor done a bad job?”

  “A splendid one. Exactly what our side wanted when we asked for him.”

  This sounded so improbable that Jubal asked: “I don’t understand,” and Don Alipio stared at him in disbelief to think that a learned man from the next country had not even been aware of the tremendous change that had occurred in next-door Mexico: “Didn’t you hear? The liberals were making such a mess of this country after you and General Scott left that some of us, men like my brothers and me, from all over Mexico, sent a delegation to the emperor of France—I was a member—and we asked him to find a young prince of good character to come to Mexico as our impartial emperor. He made a handsome choice, Maximilian, royal house of Austria. I was on the committee of three who went to Vienna to offer him the crown. He took it and he and his Empress Carlota, the Belgian princess, have given our country j
ust what it needed, stability.”

  Clay’s mentor wished to explain further but apparently decided that no norteamericano could ever understand Mexican politics, for he shrugged and concluded: “Now they want to shoot him, the best man we ever had.”

  In Toledo he found more than a hundred militiamen gathered before the cathedral in the plaza, including five other members of the Palafox family, all mounted on sturdy horses. Since Querétaro, known as the western protector of that capital, lay some seventy miles east of Toledo, the informal expeditionary force would require at least two days to reach their target, so a hastily put-together line of mules and their Indian drivers had been converted into a quasi-military train that would bring along tents and food and extra ammunition. Jubal, finding himself by accident part of a military exercise, thought, General Early would never do it this way, on the spur of the moment, but before he could protest to anyone, the Toledo force rode out to rescue their emperor.

  The railroad, which had probed into many corners of Mexico, built with English and French money, had not yet reached Toledo, so the dirt road east was maintained in fairly good condition. But even so, by the end of the first long day, Jubal was exhausted, though the Palafox men appeared to be in top condition. As dusk fell, Clay was initiated into a long-established custom of the Mexican military unit. When the troops began to bivouac, a score of peasant women mysteriously emerged with clay pots and a collection of sticks, and before long the preparation of a hot meal of beans, tortillas and shreds of spicy meat was under way. Some of the women had come all the way from Toledo on donkeys, others had joined as the troops rode through their villages; they were the soldaderas, the hangers-on without which no Mexican army could function.

  The Palafox expedition, as it was being called, approached the western outskirts of Querétaro on the afternoon of 18 June 1867, but there they were halted by a contingent of heavily armed Indians commanded by an officious white colonel from the southern city of Oaxaca who ordered the invaders to halt. When Don Alipio reined in his horse, the colonel warned him: “No armed troops allowed in the city tomorrow.”