Against All Odds

by Drew McGunn

  To Jimmy, time crawled by, as he waited, his nose stinging with the smell of burning wood. Thirty minutes or an hour passed, he couldn’t say for sure when he heard gunfire coming from where the troopers had gone. Moments later, a horseman streaked across the field, riding at a horse-killing speed. Before he could bring his mount to stop, he had yelled, “There must be a hundred rebels behind us, Colonel!”

  Brown stood in his saddle, his thundering voice could be heard across the field, “Up, men! We’ll send those sons of perdition to judgment!”

  At first, it seemed a jaunt to Jimmy as he galloped after the colonel. He and Watson were determined to keep up with Brown, ready to carry any order. They had gone less than a mile when they joined the platoon that had gone ahead. Sure enough, they were being pushed back by men dressed in brownish uniforms. Most were dismounted, sheltering behind trees, firing on Brown’s men with what seemed impossible speed.

  Watson said, “Hellfire, Jimmy. They’re armed with breechloaders.”

  The colonel must have heard his son. He bellowed, “At them, boys! Get in close and let’s end this.”

  Some of the men tried racing through the woods, but there were too many trees, and a rider and his horse made for a big target. Brown dismounted and led several hundred men forward. Most carried muzzle-loading carbines and they fired as they advanced. Jimmy stayed close to the colonel. They had closed to within a hundred feet when he became aware of a burst of gunfire on the regiment’s left flank.

  Almost instantly, the advancing line ground to a halt. An officer’s voice rose about the din of battle. “Wheel to the left, men, we’re flanked.”

  To Jimmy, it seemed every slaver in creation had landed on the regiment’s flank. Colonel Brown flung himself into the saddle and rode into the milling mass of men to the regiment’s left. Following hard on the colonel’s heels, Jimmy pulled up when he saw gray jacketed men forcing blue-jacketed troopers back, rolling up the dismounted line.

  In the confusion of the battle, Jimmy had emptied his pistol as he and Watson stayed close to the colonel. Chaos reigned. Before long, the regiment was retracing their route, retreating the way they had come, past the still burning farmhouse. The rest of the day had been a painful blur.

  At some point, during the night he’d found himself surrounded by men in gray jackets, firing and swearing as they descended on Brown’s headquarter command, the Southerners were gone nearly as fast as they had appeared. Jimmy ran his finger through a hole in his sleeve as he realized how close he’d come to becoming a casualty.

  Slowly he became aware of a voice raging. “No, no. Not Watson.”

  A drop of rain splashed on Jimmy’s forehead, bringing him back to the present of the gray morning. Another drop followed. He looked into the leaden sky as a few more drops fell. They mixed in with the tears cascading down his cheeks.

  He turned to the colonel. Brown stood back, his left arm in a sling, his right, holding a Bible. The expression on the colonel’s face mirrored the cumulus clouds overhead. Like the thunder in the distance, Brown rumbled, “Like Job I am. Tested by the Almighty. Like the Israelites of old, by day, we will follow the cloud of the Lord and by night his burning presence. Our blood that has been shed is the price to redeem God’s children, enslaved though they may be. We will take the fight to the heathen, to Esau’s children. They have sown the wind, let them reap the whirlwind.”

  Drops of rain became a steady patter, and Jimmy donned his vulcanized rubber poncho as he waited for the pit to be filled in. By the time the troopers finished burying their comrades, the rain had turned into a downpour, as though the Almighty attempted to scour the stain of battle from the face of the earth. He couldn’t help rolling his red-rimmed eyes heavenward and wonder why he’d ever left home. His best friend lay in the pit, dead, and for what purpose? As the bugler sounded Boots and Saddles and the rest of the regiment mounted up, Jimmy felt more alone than ever.

  ***

  “Papa, tell Davy to leave me alone,” a young voice piped up at the dinner table.

  Will turned his attention away from his conversation with Juan Seguin and eyed nine-year-old David Stern Travis gravely. The boy wore an impish smile, knowing he’d done something to upset his eleven-year-old sister and enjoyed every minute of it.

  The boy’s auburn locks fell to just above his eyes, which twinkled when they stared at Will. Will’s lips twitched. His son’s irrepressible smile had won over many adults who’d dined with Will and his family over the years, and Will found himself ready to return the smile until Becky elbowed him in the ribs.

  Wincing, Will said, “That’ll be enough, David. Leave your sister be.”

  The boy settled down. Over the years, Will’s children had learned when their father was calling them out. Usually, David was “Davy,” and Elizabeth was ‘Liza.’ But when they were being called to muster, it was David or Elizabeth, followed by their middle names. Far more often, he had to put his incorrigible son on notice.

  As though that were the signal, the door from the kitchen opened, and a couple of servants employed in the presidential mansion brought lunch to the table.

  In between bites, Will turned to Becky, “Funny how they always go to the parent they think will be the most sympathetic.”

  Becky took a sip from her glass before saying, “Liza knows her papa will keep her devil-may-care little brother in line.”

  Will chuckled. “And Liza knows she can’t pull anything past her mother.”

  Juan Seguin’s wife leaned over and said, “See, Juanito, the president and Senora Travis have the right of it. With only two children at home, they’re no longer outnumbered.”

  As if to underscore her words, she waved toward the end of the table where three of their own children sat.

  Seguin allowed a small smile. “I’d wish for all of them to be still at home. Like Buck and Becky worry over Charlie, you and I worry about Jose and Juan. I wish all our children were with us, sitting around the table, eating dinner. Knowing they’re risking their lives on the front keeps me up at night.”

  Later, following the after-church dinner, Becky and Maria shooed the children out of the dining room and left Will and Seguin alone. After watching Becky go, Will turned to his vice president, “We try not to worry the children, but Becky and I were worried sick after news of our victory over the rebels a few weeks ago until we received a telegram from Charlie telling us he had come through unscathed.”

  Seguin nodded. “I know the feeling. It breaks my heart to see Maria reading the newspaper, scanning the names of soldiers killed or wounded in battle. The only relief is seeing her sad smile afterward. Sad for all the mothers and wives who’ve lost a husband or father, but glad we’re not in their number.”

  The door to the kitchen opened, and an older Tejano came through, carrying a pitcher. He spoke with a heavy accent, “More lemonade, your excellency?”

  Will smiled and held up his glass. Ice clinked in the glass as it filled up. Briefly, he was grateful to the faculty and inventors at Trinity College, who had invented a commercial ice making machine the previous year. For a modest price, any family in Austin could have blocks of ice delivered.

  He took a sip of the cold sweet drink before continuing, “I was disappointed to receive word from Colonel West. Our best chance at cutting off the rebels from Louisiana was our attempt to destroy Fort Austin at Sabine Roads.”

  “More names in the newspaper, Buck. Although, had West succeeded, he could have blown up the bridge’s support pylons on our side of the river.” Seguin said. “I wish we could just sail the Gulf Squadron up the Sabine river and blow up the damned bridge. Cut Beauregard and his army off, and we can end this rebellion once and for all.”

  Will found himself nodding in agreement. “You and me both, Juan. President Cass tells us he’s ordered the Southern volunteers to return home and then tells us that blowing up the bridge over the Sabine would be poorly received.”

  He swore before he continued, “Poorly rece
ived? An act of war is what he meant. That fool is doing nothing to stamp out the Southern volunteers spilling across the Sabine. And he has the gall to threaten us if we damage any part of the bridge in Louisiana. All he’d have to do is order General Scott to send in the army, and they could close the border. But Scott sits in New York drinking fine wine and hobnobbing with high society while the army is encamped in Missouri and in the Indian territory, doing nothing.”

  Seguin said, “The Whigs and Democrats will have their national conventions in the next couple of months. That could change things. Do you think the Democrats will stay with Cass?”

  “Not likely.” Will reflected on the question before elaborating. In the world he’d come from, both the Democrats and Republicans of the 20th century had been durable united national parties. In the world in which he’d lived for the last sixteen years, he worried things had diverged so much that the Republicans might not emerge at all. In their place, the Whigs and Democrats were a motley collection of regional alliances. He added, “The Northern Democrats have had as much of their Southern counterparts as they can stomach. They may share the same views about tariffs and the overall role of government as their Southern neighbors, but by and large, they favor the national union over their Southern neighbors. Cass is loathed by both wings of his party. If he escapes from the convention with his nomination intact, I’ll be surprised.”

  “What about the Whigs?”

  Will shrugged. “Couldn’t say. Most of them in the North are applauding our Free-Birth law, well, except those who say it doesn’t go far enough. I suspect that they won’t be able to help themselves but to nominate someone who’s sufficiently abolitionist enough for New England. But that’ll be too much for the Southern Whigs to tolerate. I hope the Whigs don’t fracture, but it’s a possibility. If the Whigs win in November, they’ll crack down on these damned Southern Volunteers who are adding their own numbers to the rebels.”

  “For our sake, I hope the Whigs win,” Seguin said, “but every time the winds blow against Southern Democrats, the worst of that lot scream secession. What’ll we do if they lose in November and decide to secede?”

  The lemonade in Will’s mouth seemed to turn to ash, as he considered Seguin’s question. After swallowing, he said, “We’ll blow that bridge over the Sabine to hell and gone.”

  ***

  Major Charlie Travis cussed the wind that swung the wicker basket back and forth beneath the giant, silk balloon.

  “Who’d I piss off again to get stuck here with you, Sam?” Charlie’s stomach lurched as the wind shifted direction and yanked at the basket.

  Seventeen-year-old Sam Williams laughed as he checked the wires to the telegraph. “That’s easy. Go up in something like this once, and you’re the expert. Since its first deployment, this fat bitch has had a perfect record. General Johnston thinks it’s safer for you up here than charging into battle beside Colonel Garibaldi. I guess he didn’t read the report about the first one catching fire when the firebox failed.”

  “Remind me again, why you volunteered, Sam?”

  “The height doesn’t bother me, I’m not afraid of falling.”

  Charlie closed his eyes, wishing the basket would stop swinging, “I’m not really afraid of falling. No, I’m just afraid of what will happen when I hit the ground.”

  Sam laughed, “You won’t hit terminal velocity until fifteen hundred feet. There’s always the chance you’d survive. We’re ready to start transmitting.”

  The balloon hung over the Texian line, just outside of Beaumont. Across from the army’s trenches were the rebels’ defensive works. He’d heard General Beauregard had studied engineering at West Point, and it was evident some thought had gone into the defenses ringing the town.

  If Beaumont had held more than a thousand souls before the war, Charlie would have been surprised. But as the largest town in the part of Texas in rebellion, it had multiplied over the past half-year. The oldest part of the town was a haphazard maze of roads, barely more than cattle trails. The newer sections radiating from the railroad were platted with grid-like precision. All of it, old and new, nestled against a bend in the Neches River.

  “There are a few boats on the river, Sam. I thought the navy had bottled up the mouth of the Sabine River. Damned shame they haven’t been able to get past those forts down at Sabine Pass.”

  After Sam finished sending a message down the wire wrapped around a strand of the thick rope tethering the balloon, he turned, “I’ve heard that several coastal forts that had been closed over the past few years were emptied of their heavy coastal guns by the Southern volunteers and shipped west. We know what they’ve got at Forts Austin and Washington, but I wonder if they’ve fortified the Neches north of where it runs into the Sabine?

  Charlie lifted his binoculars to his eyes and followed the river toward where it emptied into Sabine Lake. Farms largely replaced the dense forest along the riverbank up and down the Neches. Several large plantations nestled against the river. It was cotton planting season, yet the fields were empty. As he swept his binoculars one way and then the other, he idly wondered if the slaves had run off or if they had been forced to build the embankments and bastions protecting Beaumont from Johnston’s army.

  After a final pass, he said, “If the rebels have fortified the river, they’ve done so closer to where it feeds into Sabine Lake.”

  He let the glasses fall onto his chest, suspended by a leather strap, and looked at the two armies scattered across the landscape below. The rebels and their allies formed a bubble around the town with both left and right flanks anchored on the Neches, north and south of town. He estimated their fortifications stretched close to three miles. More than twenty thousand men sheltered behind those walls. Worse, trains continued to come and go, bringing in fresh supplies and replenishing Beauregard’s losses from the 2nd Battle of the Piney Woods a few weeks before.

  General Johnston had pursued Beauregard’s retreating army in the aftermath of the Texian victory, but the rebel general had been content to sacrifice hundreds, if not thousands of men to shield his retreat. Charlie thought Johnston could have forced another battle before the rebels had reached the safety of Beaumont except the pursuing army was only a third the size of the force they pursued, and he shuddered to think about the number of men killed or wounded to gain their victory in the Piney Woods.

  Now, Johnston husbanded his forces in redoubts surrounding the rebel bulwarks. While he had been a student in the cadet program at the Alamo, Charlie had studied his father’s victory at the Battle of Saltillo now a decade past. Travis had defended a narrow valley with steep walls leading to the town of Saltillo with fortified redoubts. They were diamond shaped forts with a few field pieces and a couple of battalions defending the earthen walls. But they had been close enough to provide overlapping artillery fire.

  Johnston now adapted the design to his own needs. Encircling the enemy’s entrenched position, Johnston’s small army had built ten diamond shaped redoubts. Less than four miles separated one end of the army from the other, and the redoubts were set six or seven hundred yards apart. If the rebels attempted to attack any of the forts, they could be supported by the troops on either side.

  Charlie eyed the no-man’s-land between two of the redoubts. Two thousand feet was a long way to shoot for a rifleman, but the soldiers armed with the M1846 had a rifle that could hit a target at that distance, even if the men carrying it were not yet skilled enough to be effective at that range.

  “Sam, could you hit someone six hundred yards away?”

  His telegraph operator shook his head. “Not likely. You know that if your father decides to mobilize the students at Trinity College, the war’s as good as over, right?”

  “God help us if that happens,” Charlie laughed and pointed below. “If those bastards in Beaumont attempt to attack one of our redoubts, it’s not really the riflemen in the next one over that they have to worry about, but the artillery. Berry’s new three-inch breechloaders
have a range of nearly five thousand yards. If the enemy were to attack our centermost redoubt, it would be inside the range of every cannon on the line.”

  Sam peered over the edge of the basket, “I doubt General Beauregard would be so accommodating as to do that, Major. I’d have thought the Gatlings would be enough to stop those bastards from attacking.”

  “We’ve managed to put one in each of the redoubts, but we’re short of ammunition for them,” Charlie said, “We were supposed to get a shipment from Colt Manufacturing in Connecticut, but it’s running late. General Johnston fears the shipment was intercepted by some Southern privateers along the Atlantic coast.”

  Chapter 10

  4 May 1852

  Becky Travis tucked the receipt into her purse as she waited for the armed guard to open the door at the Commerce Bank’s Austin branch. As she stepped out of the stone and brick building, she turned and looked at its façade. White stone blocks faced the street, and several windows were cut into the two-story structure. The preacher was fond of saying how pride was a sin, but when she thought about how her husband and Samuel Williams had established a banking system in the Republic years earlier, she felt pride. And she wasn’t ashamed of it. A source of ready credit in the Republic, the bank had helped to launch many businesses over the past decade.

  Her pride hadn’t brought her to the bank on that Tuesday morning. Since the war began, hundreds had been widowed and orphaned, and several of the churches in town had established a fund to help some of the women who had lost husbands since the rebellion had begun. She had transferred money into the charity, comforted by the knowledge her modest contribution would put food on a woman and her children’s table or help to keep a roof over their heads.