by Drew McGunn
She waited on the corner of the street for a carriage to roll by and couldn’t shake the idea of how many women and children had been left destitute by the death of their husbands and fathers, and how blessed she was that her own family remained intact. She shuddered at the thought of her own children being alone.
As she stepped into the street, she felt a sharp tug on her purse and turned. A young girl in a dirty calico dress held onto one end of the bag. Her eyes were round in terror as she realized Becky’s grip was stronger than her own.
The waif let go and started to run away, when Becky instinctively grabbed her arm, yanking her off her feet.
“Let go of me!”
The girl was thin. Too thin. Becky’s hand nearly encircled the girl’s arm. Dark circles ringed the girl’s eyes above gaunt cheeks and a dirty face. How long has it been since she’s eaten?
“I don’t think so.” Becky fired back.
“I’ll scream.”
Aside from a few vehicles on the streets, they were alone. “Go ahead. Scream all you want,” Becky paused, weighing her options. “Or, you can come along with me—”
Wide with fear already, the girl’s eyes grew larger yet. “Don’t turn me over to the Rangers.”
“—and we’ll get you fed,” Becky finished.
The girl stopped pulling against Becky and considered the offer. Hesitantly, she said, “Alright, Miss.”
As she guided the girl to the Stagecoach Inn, Becky never let go of her arm until they were seated in the restaurant. It was between breakfast and lunch and the dining area was nearly empty when a waiter came over to take their order.
“Mrs. Travis, a pleasure. What can I get for you?”
Becky nodded toward a slate board where the breakfast special had been written. “Good morning, Micah. Two specials, please.”
The girl’s expression turned from sullen hostility to a mixture of curiosity and awe. She stammered, “He called you Mrs. Travis. Are you the president’s wife?”
Becky offered a warm smile and nodded. “Now that you know my name, what’s yours?”
The girl looked down at the white starched tablecloth, her cheeks colored bright red. “I’m so sorry about earlier. I had no idea it was you I was trying to steal from.” A tear trickled down her dirty face. “I’m Johanna.”
Becky reached across the table and took the girl’s fragile hand in hers. “Where’s your family, Johanna?”
Her tears ducts opened, and a sob escaped from the girl’s lips. Becky fished a handkerchief from her purse and handed it over to Johanna. “Take your time, sweetie. There’s no hurry.”
The waiter returned and set several plates on the table piled with flapjacks, grits, and bacon. First, one pancake disappeared and then another as Johanna grabbed them from the platter and stuffed them into her mouth, barely chewing before swallowing.
“Slow down there. You’ll make yourself sick,” Becky said as she intercepted a small hand reaching for a third. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
“A few days. I was picked up by the Rangers and the captain, he made me shine his boots and then clean out the stables before he would let me eat anything. It was disgusting.”
“Why’d the Rangers pick you up?”
More slowly, the girl picked up a fork and cut up another flapjack. “I, uh, tried to take another lady’s purse. She caught me and took me to the Rangers.”
Becky forced a smile. “You’re really not a very good thief, Johanna.”
The girl giggled. “Horrible.” The smile faded, and she continued, “But I’ve got to eat, and both of my parents are gone.”
“What happened?”
“My ma and pa had a farm a few miles outside of town. It wasn’t much, but they were proud of it. But when the war started, Pa had to become a soldier. He sent his pay to us, and we got along okay until someone came from the government and told Ma that my pa had been killed.”
Johanna bit into a piece of bacon before continuing. “The money stopped coming, and one day after I came home from the school on the Seguin town road, I found my ma in the barn. She hanged herself.”
By now, Johanna’s tears had stopped. She looked embarrassed after eating all the food on the plates. The matter-of-fact way the girl had described her mother’s death left Becky sick to her stomach, and her plate untouched. “Did you let folks know that lived nearby?”
Johanna nodded, “I told the Jacksons. Their pa is in the same company as mine was. But I didn’t stay with them. One of the boys, he’s older, I didn’t like the way he looked at me.”
The disgust in the girl’s voice left Becky with a strong idea about those looks. Becky had been lucky. Before she and her mother had joined her father in Texas, what few boys who’d come calling on her had been as innocent as she had been. In Texas, a few men who had looked to advance their careers by calling on the President’s daughter had always been polite when they had called on her. But when she met Will, she knew she’d met the one she was meant to be with. He’d been both courteous and familiar. Sooner than she’d have imagined possible, he filled the role of both suitor and friend.
Even so, she felt compelled to protect the young girl sitting across the table. She deserved better than to be fostered onto another local family who may or may not protect her. She deserved to be with people who loved her. “What other family do you have, Johanna?”
The girl shrugged. “We moved from Cincinnati when I was a little girl. My only family was Ma and Pa.”
When the waiter returned, Becky signed the bill and told Johanna, “Come on. I’ve got a place you can stay while you and I figure out the best thing for you.”
Johanna frowned, “Whatever you do, please don’t take me back to the Rangers.”
***
“I suppose it’s a stalemate, Payton. If we launch an attack on any of Johnston’s redoubts, they’ll chew us to ribbons,” G.T. Beauregard said as the two officers stared at the nearest enemy fortification nearly a thousand yards away.
Payton Wyatt, the army’s chief quartermaster, added, “And if they attack us, we can do more damage to them than they can to us.”
They stepped down from the wooden parapet and headed down the ramp. As the officers climbed into the saddle, Beauregard looked up into the sky. The lone balloon hung over the enemy position. “Damn that thing. They can look down at us and see everything we’re doing. Every time I shift a regiment from the line and let them rest, they see it. If they ever decide to risk an attack, they’ll see our every response.”
Wyatt shook his head. “We’ve tried using howitzers and mortars to hit the thing, but it’s simply too high up and too far away.”
In the distance, the whistle from an arriving train pierced the air. “More men and supplies from New Orleans, I’ll wager. What’s the latest from Major Forrest?”
Beauregard shook his head, “Hardly anything. He sent word that he defeated Brown and his abolitionists in a battle a few weeks ago, but since then, Northeast Texas has been silent as the grave. If we could open a second front, come in from Arkansas, that would force Johnston to split his army. Despite his repeating rifles and those infernal ‘Gatlings,’ we could sweep him aside.”
As they reached the two-story courthouse, they found several horses tied to hitching posts.
“I thought Jim and Robert would be gone by now,” Wyatt said, referring to Robert Potter and James Collinsworth.
Beauregard noted the drab military style saddle blanket on the horses, “I don’t think those belong to our confederates.”
From the door to the courthouse, another unfamiliar voice said, “Confederates? What an interesting expression.”
***
William Hardee used the handrail to swing down onto the station platform from the passenger car. The station had a new, almost unfinished look to it. In fact, most of the buildings near the station were also of recent construction.
“Looks like a boomtown, Captain Whittier. Hard to believe there’s a
siege when you arrive by train,” Hardee said.
His adjutant, Captain Henry Whittier ordered a couple of slaves to have their horses unloaded from one of the boxcars before he looked around. “Yes, sir. But to read about it in the newspapers, that’s the only way in or out of town.”
Hardee ran his fingers through his brown hair. “Seven thousand holding in more than twenty. My God, things have not gone the way the Committee envisioned. G.T. was supposed to be in Austin by now. Instead, Austin’s surrounding him.”
A few minutes later, their mounts were brought over, saddled, and ready to ride. Despite the new construction around the railroad, the town was on the small side, and it took but a few minutes to reach the courthouse. They walked through the four rooms, but it was late in the afternoon and whatever passed for the provisional government had left for the day.
Hardee was returning to his horse when he heard voices outside. From the deep shadows, he could see two officers dismounting. One said, “I don’t think those belong to our confederates.”
What an interesting choice of words. Hardee stepped into the doorway. “Confederates? That’s an interesting expression, General Beauregard.”
Later, in the courthouse’s largest room, which until recently had been reserved for jury trials, Hardee watched Beauregard’s expression as he read correspondence from the Southern Cross Committee. The committee, made up of many of the South’s most prominent fire-eaters, was coordinating the efforts of all the states from the deep South, unofficially, of course. Hardee knew the contents of the correspondence. He’d have not been present were it otherwise.
Beauregard set the papers down and pinched the bridge of his nose, as though willing a headache to let him be. “A training camp, General? The committee wants me to oversee turning our volunteers into soldiers? The largest part of me hates to leave something incomplete, General Hardee, but an order’s an order, even if the committee doesn’t really grasp what we’re dealing with here.”
“What doesn’t the committee understand, General?” Hardee eyed his counterpart quizzically.
Beauregard folded the correspondence and slid it back across the prosecutor’s table. “We may have numeric superiority, but Sidney Johnston’s entire army is armed with breechloading rifles. And I don’t know how they’ve pulled it off, but their artillery also uses a breech-locking mechanism that lets them fire twice as fast as our muzzleloading guns.”
Hardee hid his distaste at the news. It was easy enough. He’d been reading Beauregard’s reports for weeks, by now.
Beauregard said, “What will do you do with this command, Bill? A headlong attack will needlessly kill hundreds of these men.”
Hardee let the familiarity of using his Christian name pass. He and Beauregard shared the same rank, and the circumstances were informal. “I’d not do anything to needlessly spill our soldiers’ blood, G.T. If I can open a second front against Johnston, I’ll do so. But I think I can play for time until after the national conventions in Baltimore are over. Once we know who’ll be replacing President Cass at the head of our party’s ticket, we’ll be better able to plan for the upcoming campaign.”
Beauregard mused, “It seems only natural for me to think we’ll keep the presidency, even if we must dispose of Cass during the convention. But I fear the odds.”
Hardee could hardly disagree, although he spun it the best he could. “If we can stay united between Northern and Southern factions, we can defeat anybody the Whigs nominate.”
The bitterness of Beauregard’s laughter grated against his ears. “Then we’re doomed. The Whigs are sure to win. What then?”
Hardee liked his next word even less than Beauregard’s braying laughter. “Secession.”
***
25 May 1852
Black smoke billowed into the morning sky, obscuring the dim yellow orb which seemed to be a tiny pinprick of light poking through. Captain Jesse Running Creek raced across the open ground and threw himself into one of the wood-reinforced trenches. His feet sank deep into black mud as other Rangers tumbled into the trench to either side. Turning one way then the other, the fortified position was empty. His feet made a sucking noise as he picked them up, one at a time until he stood on wooden planking.
A few odds and ends littered the ground. As he stepped over a pile of trash, Jesse peered over the lip at the back of the trench. A gentle slope ended at a second row of trenches a few hundred feet back from the defensive works he and his men now held. No flags fluttered above the trenchworks. It seemed devoid of life.
“Sergeant,” Jesse said to a nearby NCO, “take a couple of rifle teams forward, through the communication trench and see if that line is as empty as it appears.”
Moments passed before one of the Rangers came racing back. Breathlessly, he said, “It’s empty, the whole damned line, Chief. Not a rebel between here and Beaumont, itself.”
Throwing caution away, Jesse climbed over the trench’s wooden planked back wall and stood, staring to the east. Beaumont was less than half a mile away. All that stood between him and the town that had housed the rebels was another empty trench. Despite the distance, he could hear the crackle of fire as the train depot’s wooden timber was consumed by a growing blaze. Even as he watched in the distance, the fire’s embers leapt between buildings as a nearby roof began to smolder.
Thirty minutes later, Jesse stood upwind of the burning husk of the modest two-story courthouse, which had served as the rebel’s capitol building until that morning. Heat radiated from the inferno, stopping his men from getting any closer.
A voice startled him out of the hypnotic effects of staring at the fire. “Couldn’t see anything swinging up in that godforsaken balloon this morning. All that smoke has made it impossible to see very far.”
Jesse turned and saw Charlie Travis. The youthful major climbed from his mount and tied it to a tree before continuing, “Any idea why they gave up a perfectly good fortified position? Had General Johnston ordered an attack, I’m damned if I think we could have cracked this nut.”
Shrugging, Jesse said, “I heard that General Beauregard was recalled. Some Georgian name of Hardee commands the rebels and their allies. I don’t suppose there’s much chance this Hardee fellow’s going to keep right on going east, right across the Sabine?”
“That’d be too easy. There’s still forty miles between Beaumont and the Sabine River. There’s plenty of places for him to put up a fight. My money is on him digging in on the Texas side of the river.”
Jesse shuddered. “Unless we can destroy those rebel batteries at the mouth of the Sabine River, I don’t much care for the idea of leading my men against those odds.”
The courthouse’s burning frame groaned and collapsed, sending embers eddying into the sky, interrupting Charlie’s response. They stared into the building’s glowing remains until a noise from behind startled them out of their reverie. Jesse turned and saw a couple of files of men moving along each side of the road. They stood out in their dark blue jackets.
Charlie offered, “When it’s time to go at the rebels, we won’t be doing it alone. Those boys are from the First Massachusetts Volunteer infantry. They arrived a couple of weeks ago from Boston.”
Jesse studied the men passing by. Their uniforms were new, and their rifled muskets still carried the bluing on their barrels. “Can they fight?”
The young officer glanced to the east, toward the Sabine River. “They traveled more than two thousand miles, Jesse, just to get here. Every one of them is a volunteer. While we may not be able to take their measure until they’re thrown into the crucible of battle, what we’ve seen looks promising.”
Jesse allowed a smile to slip onto his face. “Another thousand men. A few more battalions from our friends in the North and we can knock Hardee back into Louisiana.”
Charlie untied his mount’s reins from the tree and swung into the saddle. “Not just from the North. We’ve recruited another battalion from the gutter rats in Galveston and Houston. Not one
in five of them speaks English properly. Most are straight off the boat from Ireland, Germany, and Italy. When General Johnston is ready to attack, he’ll do it with at least two thousand more men than we started this campaign with.”
The young major wheeled his horse and cantered back toward the Texian army’s lines. Jesse watched him go, feeling buoyed at the news.
Chapter 11
6 June 1852
The chair legs scraped across the worn floor. A moment later, wood squealed against wood as the room’s occupant forced the window of the small hotel room open. Only a ghost of a breeze stirred the faded curtains.
As Horace Greeley returned to the chair and picked up his pen, he decided any breeze was better than none. He flipped open the inkwell’s lid and dipped his pen. As his hand rested above the paper, he considered the chaos that had been the National Convention of the Democratic Party.
Lewis Cass had shown up, expecting an easy path to re-nomination. Greeley chuckled. Cass must have been the only person in attendance who thought he’d receive his party’s nomination. Under other circumstances, it would have been a reasonable assumption; after all, he was the sitting president.
When the southern fire eaters, who dominated the Southern delegations, nominated the former Senator from South Carolina, Robert Rhett as their presidential candidate, it was clear Cass’s odds of winning the nomination were diminished.
No sooner had the fire eaters nominated the radical Rhett than a northern faction that had grown weary of the Southern Democrats’ filibustering expedition into Texas, chose their own candidate, Stephen Douglas. Different factions nominated several other men. The most notable, Jefferson Davis, was prominent among the moderate wing of Southern Democrats.
Greeley shook his wispy mane of hair and set his pen on the paper.
Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Such was the state of the Democratic National Convention this year. President Cass arrived in Baltimore on the first of this month, confident in his ability to unite his fractured party, ignorant or ill-informed of the passions arising from the ill-advised filibuster by our Southern cousins.
