by Drew McGunn
Jimmy cast a nervous glance about. Nobody had time to worry about a stray runaway. He refused to let the jitters he felt get in the way of seeing the men from the 1st Provisional New York Cavalry Regiment as they erected tents. In all his fourteen years nothing rose to the same level as watching the soldiers, and that was saying something, he thought. Before his father’s murder, William Alonzo Hickok had run a station on the Underground Railroad. Watching the gratitude on the faces of the escaped slaves had filled Jimmy with a sense of purpose, but that died on the night slave catchers had burned down the family farm and killed his pa.
There was no denying that over the past few months, more slaves were escaping and making their way north to freedom. Some folks blamed more runaways on some new law down in the Republic of Texas while others said the slavers who killed his pa wanted to make an example him and close that escape route. All that Jimmy knew was the men setting up camp were going to fight the slavers, like the men who’d killed his pa. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do it, but when they broke camp on the morrow, he was going to be on the train heading to St. Louis.
His hands went to his stomach which growled in protest. Jimmy’s last meal had been in Joliet yesterday. It wasn’t long before cooking fires were burning on company streets as the soldiers from New York settled in for the evening. Jimmy meandered toward the camp, drawn by the smells.
A crowd of well-dressed men was following a tall, bearded officer across the railroad tracks into the camp. The eagles on the officer’s shoulder boards declared he was someone important. Jimmy, forgetting his hunger, fell in behind the last of the well-heeled men, curious.
“Colonel Brown,” one of the men shouted, “Joe Allen of the Chicago Tribune. What do you hope to accomplish with your regiment? The Federal army refuses to recognize your command.”
Jimmy stood on his toes to see over the shoulders of the newspaper reporters, to see the tall, gangly Colonel Brown. “Gentlemen, when the men of New York realized the great injustice being committed by the men of the South against our kindred in Texas, they answered the clarion call of liberty and freedom. We ride in opposition to the filibustering of Southern fire eaters. If President Cass doesn’t see fit to respond to that which is right in front of him, that’s on him, not us.”
Another reporters’ hand shot up, “David Bradly of the Democrat. Seems to me you’ve gone the wrong direction. Galveston’s a lot easier to get to from New York by way of the Atlantic. Why come to Chicago?”
Jimmy liked the unpleasant way Brown smirked at the reporter. “President Cass, as we’ve already mentioned can’t see the problems these southern filibusters are creating, and he’s only making it worse to deny us the freedom to sail from the eastern ports. Thankfully, the railroads, so new to our beautiful country, are not regulated by the president, lest we have to ride the entire way on our horses. We’ll cross the Mississippi and take the new rail from St Lewis to St. Joseph. From there, we’ll travel through the Western territory and from there on to Texas.”
“Colonel Brown! Josiah Elliott of the Chicago’s American. What with the South’s intransigence, the Western Territory is closed to settlement. The army has banned travel through the region. What will you do if the army tries to stop you?”
Brown frowned at the reporter, “As the Lord said, wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?”
Jimmy sensed the confusion on the reporters’ faces as Brown stared down the group. When one turned to go, Brown continued, “We are on a crusade, one that is destined to bring freedom to the colored man. His chains must be sundered, and that is our Lord’s commandment. I believe the order to which you refer prevents settlement of the region. We are free to travel through it. But if lukewarm Lewis Cass orders the army to stand in the way of the First New York, the outcome will be on the President’s head, not mine.”
The reporters furiously scribbled on their note pads as they hurried back into Chicago. Uncertain about the furious expression on Brown’s face, Jimmy fell in at the back of the pack until they left the camp. The idea of sending slavers to perdition sounded good. There was nothing he’d enjoy more than putting paid to men like those who’d killed his pa. But the fearsome colonel made Jimmy’s knees weak.
Walking along the edge of the camp, hunger overcame his good sense, and Jimmy eventually begged enough food from the soldiers to satisfy his hunger. As the men of the 1st New York settled down for the night, Jimmy heard the soft refrain of carols drifting over the camp. He hadn’t thought about it since leaving home, but it was almost Christmas. It would be the first Christmas since his pa had been murdered. The thought brought an unwelcome tear to his fourteen-year-old eye. He rubbed it away, determined to be brave. Men don’t cry, he reminded himself as he walked by the cold, silent railroad cars.
It’s cold, Jimmy thought as his teeth started chattering. When he walked by a boxcar with its bay door slid open, he stopped and peered inside. While it was dark, he could smell the strong odor of horses and hay. The wind picked up, cutting through his jacket. Crinkling his nose at the smell, he clambered into the car and found piles of hay against the wall. He collapsed and burrowed under the straw until his bottom bumped against the floor. As the hay’s insulation warmed him, Jimmy Hickok drifted off to sleep to the sound of distant Christmas carols.
***
Becky closed the door softly. A candle still burned on the nightstand. Her eyes grew wide when she saw her husband. Will was propped up on a pillow, an open newspaper lay on his chest. His quiet snore brought a smile to her face.
She slipped off her shoes, exhausted. The trip to San Antonio to meet with Henrietta had taken the entire day. She marveled how the railroad could take her from Austin to San Antonio in only a couple of hours and back again all inside a single day. In the years before the train arrived, it would have taken the better part of a week to go to San Antonio and back.
“Your ma said you’d gone out,” Will’s voice broke the silence.
The tension Becky had felt since meeting with Henrietta broke when she heard her husband. She took the newspaper from him and leaned in until their lips met. When she broke the kiss, she said, “Hattie sent a telegram. You won’t believe what foolishness Joe has been up to.”
Will propped himself up on his elbow, “It must have been important for you to leave the children with your mother.”
Becky’s worried expression softened, there was no hint of criticism in Will’s voice, only curiosity.
“Hattie received a letter from Joe, well, Joe dictated a letter to her. Some dandy of a militia colonel in Santa Fe formed up a company of colored soldiers, and both Joe and Cuffee joined up. The letter said they were to be mobilized. Will, how can he do that?”
Her husband’s eyebrows arched upwards. “Damned if that fool Montoya hasn’t gone and done it. That’s one genie we’re going to be hard-pressed to put back in the bottle.”
“What did this Montoya fellow do?”
Will climbed out of bed and helped her untie the back of her dress as he said, “Hiram Montoya runs supplies along the Santa Fe trail. He’s not a big dog, but he commands one of our reserve infantry battalions. He wrote a letter to Sid and George Fisher, telling them he was going to raise a company of freedmen.”
Becky shook her head as he helped her remove the uncomfortable corset. “Poor Sid. He must have thrown a conniption fit at the idea. What about Mr. Fisher, as Secretary of War, surely he backed Sid.”
As he helped her into a nightgown, Will chuckled. “That crazy Hungarian asked how many battalions could we field if we actively recruited freedmen. No, love, George Fisher is probably the most liberal man I know when it comes to the question of giving black men a fair shake.”
“Who won?” she asked.
Will grimaced, “If I could wave a magic wand, I’d do it and make sure that every man who loves Texas could serve in the army without restriction. But for the time being, Sid’s convinced George to allow the company to be used for engineering pro
jects, like digging trenches and the like.”
Becky felt the tightness in her chest loosen. “That doesn’t sound too dangerous.”
“Montoya’s going to be drilling those freedmen with rifles. By the time the battalion reaches the front, those men aren’t going to take kindly to being told they’re second class soldiers, fit only for unskilled labor. No, Becky. The first time they get the chance to fight, Montoya’s freedmen are going to put paid to a very long list of grievances against those damned rebels.”
***
Will turned away from the map on his desk, ignoring the looks from the other men in the room. He fumed in frustration. The opportunity to quickly nip the slavers’ open rebellion was gone, and there was only one person to blame. Finally, he said, “The curse of governance is that too often we fight the last war. I have obsessed over the fact that we damn near destroyed the Republic fighting against Mexico. We mobilized every man that could carry a rifle. While it’s true we won, we nearly caused the wheels to come off the wagon of state. I’ve been guilty of worrying so much about the risk to the economy of mobilizing one more soldier than necessary, that I’ve not given you the tools you need to succeed.”
A. Sidney Johnston, commander of the Texian army, flushed at Will’s admission. “I’m not sure I’d go that far, Buck.” Except for the Secretary of War, the men in the room had served together for years. Despite the formal setting of Will’s office in the Capitol building, there was a familiarity between the men. He continued, “But I’ll not deny, if we’d had more men, I could have defeated Beauregard in the Piney Woods.”
Juan Seguin leaned over the map of East Texas. “Those cabrónes who betrayed us gave Beauregard his victory. If you’d been facing two thousand men from Louisiana, your army would have celebrated Christmas in Beaumont.”
Johnston sent a sheepish smile in the direction of the vice president. “Thanks, Juan. But if it had just been the rebel soldiers, I’m convinced we’d have swept them aside, even if they were all armed with breechloaders. It was the damned piney woods. Outside of towns and farms, East Texas is a wilderness. We had enough field artillery that if we could have deployed them, they could have turned the tide. Hell, we couldn’t even use our cavalry effectively. There’s a reason we’ve spent the last fifteen years developing a doctrine in which our infantry, cavalry, and artillery work so closely together. Combined arms defeated Santa Anna in Mexico, and if we can deploy our army effectively, they’ll defeat Beauregard, too.”
He realized he’d raised his voice, and he smiled apologetically before adding, “But we need more men, too.”
Will gave a short nod and turned to the rotund Secretary of War, George Fisher. “George, what have we got and how much of it can be deployed?”
Fisher spoke with a heavy Eastern European accent, “It pains me to say it, but the rebels managed to cobble together eight infantry battalions and a cavalry squadron from the reservists and the militia in East Texas. That’s five to six thousand men we can’t call upon. Before the rebellion, we could have mobilized an army of more than fifty thousand, assuming we totally mobilized every man of military age.”
The Hungarian immigrant, whom Will had appointed his Secretary of War rummaged in the pocket of his rumpled coat until he pulled a sheet of paper from it. He unfolded it and said, “On paper, we still have the ability to mobilize almost forty battalions of infantry, twelve of cavalry, and six of artillery.” He smiled apologetically, “But that’s on paper. Realistically, Mr. President, I’d not expand the army to any more than twenty thousand men, maybe a bit more if Congress will authorize the recruitment of some of those Irish and German laborers who’ve washed up on our shores over the past few years. That still leaves around half our manpower in factories, mills, stores, and on their farms. While it will have serious repercussions for our economy, it shouldn’t cripple it.”
“George, I’ll leave it to you and Sid to determine which battalions should be mobilized,” Will said. “Can we arm a force that size?”
Fisher grew thoughtful before slowly responding, “I believe so. When East Texas rebelled, we lost more than three thousand of the M1842 rifles and about the same number of the older Halls rifles. Some of our militia units will have to use the Halls rifles until we produce more of our modern rifles at the Trinity Gun Works.”
Will turned to Johnston, “You’ve talked to Andy Berry more recently than the rest of us, how much can we rely upon their production numbers?”
Johnston stroked his salt-and-pepper mustache, “It could be worse, but it could be a hell of a lot better. We’re facing a serious bottleneck in the production of metal cartridges. We used up nearly half of all our reserves for the new model breechloaders and Gatling guns. Berry’s not going to be able to increase production on his brass cartridges above five-thousand rounds per day.”
“He’s going to have to if you’re going to have the resources to carry forward the war against the rebels,” Will said. “He’s going to have to find a workaround.”
Johnston nodded. “He knows. He’s signed an agreement with Colt Manufacturing for them to supply us with one hundred thousand brass cartridges each month. He’s close to arranging a similar deal with the Harpers Ferry Armory, once the US War Department gives its blessing. If he can get both contracts, he said he’d increase production on the M1846. Right now, only twenty-five hundred of these rifles have been issued. He can produce another five thousand this year.”
Will groaned, “God help us if we’re still fighting this war by the end of this year. The reason I’m authorizing such a large mobilization is that I want to knock the rebels and their allies out of Texas before the spring planting.”
His thoughts turned to John Wharton. The long-suffering Secretary of State had done everything in his power to heal the rift between the rebels and Will’s government, spending several months cajoling the slavers in Beaumont to lay down their arms. But by the time the rebels had invited Beauregard’s filibusterers into Texas, it had been too late. Now Wharton was sailing to Washington to lodge a protest with President Cass against the South’s illegal filibustering. “If John can get President Cass to come down on the state governments in the South that are aiding the filibustering, the flow of volunteers to Beauregard’s army will dry up, and you’ll be able to force the rebels to surrender.”
Seguin’s audible sigh caught Will’s attention. The vice president said, “But what if Cass is as ineffectual as we fear? States like Alabama and Mississippi seem hell-bent on sending even more men to join Beauregard. The Picayune from New Orleans had an article that as many as seventy-thousand volunteers could filibuster against us. How do we stop that?”
Chapter 6
Late January 1852
The cold air retreated from the heat of the blast furnace and sweat beaded on Andy Berry’s forehead as he led his guest into the foundry. Bundled in the heavy greatcoat issued by the army, his guest quickly unfastened the buttons. “Damned if you don’t feel like you’re stepping into hell, Captain Berry. How do you manage it?”
Andy shrugged. “You get used to it, Colonel Sherman. To be honest, I’d rather face the heat of the furnace than feel the hot breath of a jagged piece of metal sailing by my face.”
Sherman nodded, “An unfortunate hazard of war, Captain.”
Berry shuddered at a memory. “Not when it’s from one of your own guns, Colonel. I’ll be damned if I want any of the guns we’re making here to blow up when our boys are firing them.”
“You make a salient point. What are you doing to avoid that happening again?
Andy guided the artillery commander through the foundry to where several barrels rested on a platform. The guns’ breeches were open. The breechblock assemblies were on another platform. The young industrialist knelt by the open breech and patted the thick metal. “The problem is that despite the thickness of the iron, it’s still just iron. The processed nitrogenated gun cotton exerts too much pressure for the iron to withstand.”
Sherma
n dipped his head in agreement. “That NPC you and Mr. Borden created is some of the most potent stuff I’ve ever seen. But what’s the solution to blowing the breech open?
“In the short term, we’ll use black powder. It’s messy and corrosive, but it doesn’t put the same pressure on the iron as NPC.”
The artillery colonel picked up the breechblock assembly. Berry hid his smile as the other man struggled under the heavy weight. As the colonel returned the assembly to the platform, he asked, “Do you think you can tame NPC? Make it less volatile?”
“I’m not the expert on it, that’d be Gail,” Andy admitted. “But he tells me that so far, he’s found dozens of ways that don’t work to tame the instability of our gun cotton.”
Sherman chuckled. “I trust Mr. Borden still has all his fingers?”
“He’s more careful than I am. But all I’m dealing with is molten metal over here. I’ll take that over gun cotton any day.” Andy said.
Sherman beckoned him to follow as the colonel fled the foundry’s oppressive heat. When they exited the building, he asked, “We’ve been using black powder in our guns for longer than Englishmen have walked this continent. I think we can continue to rely upon it a while longer. The reason for my visit has more to do with those iron tubes back in the foundry.”
Andy shivered. He wore only a jacket and woolen trousers. “Wasn’t it enough that you transferred our guns to the regulars?” He had felt no anger after Sherman had ordered his own breechloaders and Gatling guns transferred to the army’s 1st Artillery. After the battle of the Trinity, Andy had decided he’d rather serve his country by providing the sinews of war rather than using them.
A ghost of a smile crossed Sherman’s face. “I needed them more. Actually, I need even more now.”
“Let’s get out of this cold,” Andy said. He led Sherman across an artillery park next to the foundry. The park was nearly empty. A few of the new breechloading field pieces sat at one end. As they entered his office, he offered his guest a chair before sitting on the edge of his desk.
