Against All Odds

by Drew McGunn

  “How many more?”

  Sherman took off his hat and set it on the desk next to Andy before replying, “Did you know, there are more than three thousand men assigned to our artillery, between our regulars, reservists and militia?”

  Andy whistled appreciatively at the number. “That’s a lot of men. How many guns do we have?”

  “We have ten batteries of artillery in the regular army. About half are assigned to coastal defenses or heavy artillery at the Alamo. The other half are field artillery. It goes downhill from there, fast. On paper, we have twenty batteries of reservists, fifteen of which are supposed to be armed with field artillery. That’s ninety guns. We have thirty. There’s a similar number of field pieces for our militia, and there’s twice as many men assigned to those batteries. And, honestly, I don’t want to tell you how old some of those guns are. We bought surplus stocks from the US. They were left over from the War of 1812.”

  Andy grimaced at the prospect of his own reservists drilling on forty or fifty-year-old guns. Not for the first time was he grateful the president was prioritizing manufacturing. It kept the men he cared for employed in Trinity Park instead of mobilizing with the army.

  He ventured, “How many guns do you want, Colonel?”

  He felt Sherman’s eyes bore into him as the artillery officer said, “Three hundred.”

  Andy nearly fell off his perch on the desk. He sputtered, “Three hundred! You might as well ask for three thousand. If I worked my men night and day for the next year, I might be able to produce three hundred, but I doubt it.”

  Sherman laughed as he returned to his perch. “You asked how many I wanted. I need enough to arm the regular army and about half the reserves. How many can you make between now and the end of March?”

  Berry pulled on his goatee as he thought about the production schedule. “If I can find a few more workers I could add a second shift in the foundry. If I do that, I might be able to deliver forty, if everything goes well.”

  ***

  Late March 1852

  Charlie glanced at the wooden scaffolding crossing the Trinity River. The railroad bridge was far from being finished, but the latticework was proof the owners of the railroad were committed to putting it back in operation. Rumbling from below drew his attention to the pontoon bridge spanning the Trinity at water level. Another battery of artillery was joining the army.

  And what an army it was, he thought. The last of the reservist infantry battalions had arrived yesterday, all the way from Santa Fe. A warm breeze blowing in from the Gulf brought the battalion’s flag snapping to attention. The unit’s motto, “Victoria o Muerte!” was emblazoned in red across the white bar at the top of the flag. Below, in golden thread was embroidered, “21st Texas Infantry.” The entire battalion, seven hundred men, stood shoulder-to-shoulder at attention, waiting for an inspection from the army’s commander.

  “Nine hundred miles by foot, Major Travis. Your father managed that a decade ago with the whole army in forty days, in his effort to reach the Alamo when Adrian Woll’s army attacked. Montoya managed it in fifty.”

  Charlie turned and smiled at General Johnston. “As I recall, had you not arrived with the army’s reserve before him, sir, I’d likely not be here today.”

  He took the general’s reins as Johnston climbed down from his mount. The general said, “I’m glad Colonel Garibaldi could spare you for a bit. I thought you’d enjoy reviewing the twenty-first with me.”

  As Johnston was speaking, the battalion commander, Hiram Montoya, approached. “My men are ready for your inspection, sir.”

  Charlie fell in behind the other officers as they slowly started down the long double line of men. The soldiers’ butternut uniforms were soiled after so many days marching. There were patches where wear-and-tear had taken their toll. But the soldiers’ rifles were clean and freshly oiled. Charlie stopped in front of a young, Hispanic soldier and took the gun to inspect it. Like the rest of the men in the 21st, he had been issued the M1833 Halls Breechloader. Charlie couldn’t help but wonder what circular route the rifle had taken to end up in the Santa Fe armory. Briefly, he speculated if Joe, his father’s former slave, had been one of the freight haulers who might have delivered the rifles.

  He handed the weapon back, and the young soldier held the rifle at attention for a moment before gently setting the butt on the ground. Charlie hurried to catch up to the other officers.

  A few feet ahead, Johnston came to a sudden stop. “What the hell?”

  Charlie followed his gaze and saw something he’d never imagined seeing. Before him in butternut brown was an entire company of colored riflemen. Johnston recovered his surprise and said, “A moment, Colonel.” He took the Hispanic officer by the elbow, and they walked away from the long line of soldiers.

  Although he was standing well away from Johnston and Montoya, Charlie could hear every word. “So, it’s true? The president told me that you’d recruited a company of Negros, but I didn’t believe it.”

  Montoya’s voice carried a note of defensiveness. “Every one of these men is free. Many of them you trusted to carry supplies from the east to the garrisons in the west. Seems to me if you can trust them to carry supplies along some godforsaken road across the Chihuahuan desert, they deserve your trust now.”

  Johnston turned a skeptical eye on the men, who were standing at attention. They must realize they’re being talked about, Charlie thought. If it were possible for the ebony-skinned soldiers to stand any straighter, they did so as the army’s commander and their own colonel stood just outside of earshot.

  “I don’t like it, Colonel. It’s a distraction and runs the risk of creating divisions within our army.” Johnston’s voice was low, Charlie had to strain to hear it.

  Montoya growled, “Are you ordering me to send them home? I won’t do it.”

  Johnston shifted from one foot to the other. “If you refuse a direct order, I’ll sack you and put someone else in command of the twenty-first, Colonel Montoya. Don’t be too quick to tell me what you won’t do.” He paused, stroking his graying mustache. “But, no. I’m not ordering it. While President Travis has given me wide latitude how I conduct this campaign, he insisted I find a place for your men.”

  Montoya’s sigh of relief brought a smile to Charlie’s lips. He was glad his father was willing to take a chance on the colored soldiers. Johnston continued, “Right now, the engineers with the railroad have asked for some more men. They’ve got the wood for scaffolding but not enough men. I’m assigning your colored company to help.”

  Charlie saw the stormy expression of Montoya’s face and waited for the explosion. Johnston raised his voice, “Major Travis. I want you to detail a company from the Ninth to help with the bridge, too. I’m sure some of Colonel Garibaldi’s gutter-rats can be put to good use.”

  Charlie couldn’t hide the smile on his face. His opinion for Johnston’s tact went up a step. He’d known the General since he was a young boy, and he’d known Johnston’s views on negros matched most Southerners. But the years of working with his pa had taken the edge off those views. Ordering another company from the Ninth to assist would soften the blow to the colored soldiers under Montoya’s command. As he thought about it, Charlie quickly realized, the irascible men from Company E would be volunteered. The company was a melting pot of Europeans—mostly Irish with a leavening of Germans and Italians. But there were also some men there who’d worked on railroads before washing up on Galveston’s wharves.

  Montoya seemed mollified by Johnston’s willingness to not completely single out his soldiers, and they continued the inspection. Charlie was nearing the end of the line when he stopped in front of one soldier. The soldier was older than most of his compatriots, strands of curly gray were showing at his temples.

  “Joe, my God, what the hell are you doing here?”

  The frozen expression on the soldier’s face cracked into a smile, as his pa’s former slave said, “Just doing my duty, Master Charlie.”
<
br />   Another voice from the second line of soldiers piped up, “You old coot, you ain’t supposed to call an officer by his Christian name, that’s Major Travis!”

  Charlie’s eyes grew wide as he saw Cuffee standing behind Joe. He’d not seen the runaway since shortly after he’d been rescued by his pa eight years earlier. Cuffee wore a full, bushy beard and he’d put on a few pounds over the intervening years. Decorum be damned, he thought as he reached through the line of soldiers and pulled Cuffee forward.

  “You’re a sight to behold. It looks like Hattie’s been feeding you well.”

  Cuffee mumbled, “She’s been good to me. Joe’s been like my pa.”

  Sensing someone standing behind, Charlie turned and saw Johnston and Montoya. “Major, is there a problem with this particular rifleman?” Johnston said, as his lips twitched.

  Charlie reddened, as he realized every eye in the company was on him. “No, sir,” he managed. “This is the man who helped rescue me when I was kidnapped.”

  At that moment, he recalled hunting along the Trinity River with the runaway and before that, when Cuffee had labored beside him when he had been held captive in South Carolina. He alone, among the slaves, had taken the time to befriend a scared fifteen-year-old.

  Charlie raised his voice, “There’s not another man here, who I’d rather have by my side when we take the fight to those goddamned rebels in Beaumont.”

  It was the right thing to say, he thought, as the men on the field broke into cheers.

  ***

  The youth tied the reins to the saddle horn as his horse drank in the cool water of the muddy river. Trooper Jimmy Hickok’s blue jacket was sized too large for his growing frame, but the cold north wind that turned his cheeks red barely touched his hands because the sleeves were too long.

  He turned at another horse nickering and saw his friend, Watson Brown, nudging his mount into the river. Even now, two months after stowing away on one of the regiment’s box cars, Jimmy was amazed at how his life had changed since then.

  After he’d fallen asleep in the hay, he found himself woken up by a lanky New Yorker with sergeant’s stripes on his jacket. The sergeant had cussed and cuffed him about the head, and he had been convinced if the train hadn’t been rocking along at more than thirty miles an hour, he’d have been thrown off the train on his ass.

  Instead, after the train rolled into East St. Louis he’d been hauled before the regiment’s colonel, John Brown. The stern officer, grim-faced with a flowing black beard spilling onto his uniform, had asked him, “Boy, do your parents know where you are?”

  Jimmy had fired back, “My pa is dead, and my ma’s got more mouths to feed than President Cass has got sense.”

  Brown’s smile had been the only time Jimmy had seen mirth on the deeply religious but very dour Colonel’s face.

  The next question was, “What happened to your pa?”

  “Slavers killed him; said they was making examples of men who helped runaways flee.”

  In a whirlwind of activity after that, Jimmy found himself sworn into the regiment and wearing a uniform two sizes too large. The regiment was ferried across the river where another train took them all the way to St. Joseph on the Missouri River.

  From there, the regiment had moved through the Western Territory, drilling as they moved along. A few squatters had settled in the region, but apart from them and some Indians, Jimmy saw nothing that reminded him of his home in Illinois. He’d sat around the campfire at night and listened to the Colonel’s thundering voice, sometimes Brown would read from the Bible and other times he’d rail against the slavers in the South.

  Brown had said, as they started across the Western Territory that it would have already been open for settlement by God-fearing men were it not for the stench of slavery on the nation. Despite the Compromise of 1820, the Senators from the slave states had refused to allow the Western Territory to organize unless the people who settled could vote to allow slavery. Brown had spat, “Popular sovereignty they say, I say squatter sovereignty!”

  And now that the 1st New York had arrived on the Red River, the border between the Western Territory and Texas, maybe things would change. So far, Jimmy wasn’t very impressed with army life. It was hurry up and wait and then sitting in the saddle all day, listening to the squeaking of leather.

  A voice penetrated through his thoughts, “Father says we’re to cross into the promised land, Duckbill.”

  The men of the 1st New York had taken to calling him “Duckbill” on account of his long nose. Coming from most of the troopers it bothered him, but from the sixteen-year-old Watson, there was no heat in it, and it had become a mark of their friendship.

  Watson continued, “He says there’s a town about fifteen miles that away,” he waved across the river. “It’s full of slavers and their get. We’re going to cross this poor excuse for a river and liberate those downtrodden slaves.”

  Jimmy found the river crossing uneventful. Wagons were floated, and the horses swam the river, as there were neither fords nor ferries nearby. As the regiment rode through the dense pine and oak forest, Jimmy stayed near Colonel Brown. As one of his runners, if the colonel needed anything, Jimmy was handy to run the errand.

  The trail the regiment followed was nothing more than a narrow wagon road. A cavalry trooper raced his horse along the wagon track until he pulled up in front of Brown. With a hasty salute, he said, “Colonel, There’s plantation up ahead. It ain’t much, but they’ve got slaves.”

  The thousand men in the regiment were strung out along the wagon road, and when Brown stood in his stirrups, he called out, “Pass the word, we ride to liberate Lord Jehovah’s children. Unless we’re fired on, keep your fingers away from your triggers.”

  A bit later, Jimmy followed Brown into the expansive clearing where the plantation house stood. Calling that a plantation house is a bit like calling Homer a city, Jimmy thought, allowing his thoughts to return to the place of his birth. The plantation building was a log cabin, bigger than most. Near the edge of the clearing were a half dozen smaller cabins. Also, along the tree line, were stacks of logs. Apparently, as the land was cleared, excess lumber was stacked for future use. Most of the clearing was set aside for farming.

  In front of the big cabin stood a middle-aged man and woman standing in front of eight or ten younger people. Troopers from the 1st New York separated them from an equal number of colored men and women.

  Jimmy studied the slaves. They were hardly the first negros he’d seen. From time to time, fleeing slaves had hidden on his pa’s farm on their way north on the Underground Railroad. These were the first he’d seen who were still trapped on their master’s plantation.

  From his saddle, Brown frowned as he looked down on the plantation owner and his family. “You have waged war on these poorest of the poor. What have you to say for yourself?”

  The planter eyed the armed troopers standing on either side of his family before looking up at Brown. “War? That’s rich coming from the man holding a gun on my family. My entire life, I have poured my own blood into the land. I brought my family here to carve a place out of the Texas wilderness.” He looked across the clearing at the slaves for a moment before continuing. “I scraped and saved and borrowed enough to buy the means to build a legacy for my children.”

  Brown’s frown turned into a sneer. “The blood you pour is that of the slave. They deserve our compassion, and you bind them in chains.”

  The planter glared back, “These poor and downtrodden you’re so all-fired to protect, receive more from me than the meanest factory worker in your filthy northern factories.”

  Brown spat at the planter’s feet. “Tell that to the man whose skin is flayed away by the inhuman whipping or the woman whose virtue you steal as master.”

  He raised his voice, turning to the slaves, “Your chains are gone. This is your day of Jubilee.” He turned back to the planter, and like Samuel from the Old Testament, passing judgment on Saul, said, “Mene, mene,
tekel, upharsin.”

  He gestured to the soldiers surrounding the man and his family, and they grabbed him by the arms and hauled him away from his distraught wife, who screamed. The man’s sons who stepped forward, found themselves staring down pistol barrels.

  Troopers forced the planter against the wall of his home. The man refused to look at the men who pointed their weapons at him. Instead, he glared daggers at Brown, who sat, unflinching in the saddle, returning the glare. After what seemed an eternity to Jimmy, Brown raised his hand and in a single, violent gesture, dropped it suddenly.

  A single shot echoed across the clearing. One of the troopers standing guard over the planter held a smoking pistol. The planter collapsed against the wall, where blood pooled beneath him.

  Chapter 7

  18 March 1852

  Will untied the restricting cravat that time and history demanded he wear and threw the black silk cloth down on the floor of his library in the presidential mansion. “What the…” he knew what he wanted to say, but his children were down the hall with their mother and grandmother. He bit back the profanity as he struggled to control his temper. “Why is it that this news took more than two weeks to get here?”

  He addressed the question to John Wharton, his Secretary of State, and Juan Seguin, his vice president. They had arrived after church with news of the murder outside of Clarksville. Will left his jacket on as the room was chilled because the weather outside was still biting, even though Spring was only days away.

  Seguin shrugged. “It happened up by the border with Arkansas. Most of the militia in Clarksville sided with the rebels, Buck. They’ve arrested our customs agents on the border, and they’ve cut the telegraph line.”

  Will collapsed into the well-worn chair at his desk and swore. “I’m not going to have rabble streaming into Texas and turning this into a broader war, Juan.”

  Wharton interjected, “I fear what’ll come if this isn’t brought under control. But technically, the area is under martial law, after all, it’s in rebellion.”