Michener, James A. (77 page)

'Cos!' Santa Anna shouted. 'Where in hell is Cos?'

'Excellency,' a pale-faced aide cried as he dashed up, his eyes still grainy with sleep, 'run for your life. All is lost.'

Even now the Texican foot soldiers had not begun to fire, but another aide dashed up: 'Excellency! They're upon us!' And the

Mexican staff officers stared in awe as the bold Texicans, led by Sam Houston astride his white horse with sword aloft, came resolutely forward, no gun firing, across that forward line where the pickets should have been. On they came, and when they were practically inside the Mexican lines, Houston lowered his sword, a military band began playing an old love song, and the slaughter began.

Grabbing his pants, Santa Anna took one terrified look at the carnage about to engulf his sleeping army, and fled.

On the Texican side the three representative participants had at one time known one another at Quimper's Ferry: Otto Macnab, Yancey Quimper and a tall, grim Old Testament prophet who marched resolutely into a battle he had long predicted.

He was Reverend Joel Job Harrison, the Methodist clergyman who had secretly served his flock against the day when righteous revolution would strike down the Mexican oppressors and allow the true faith to flourish. He advanced on the left flank, one of the oldest men in action that day and one of the fiercest. Quietly, insistently he assured the younger men around him: Today you're doing the work of the Lord. Let nothing stop you,' and when in dreadful silence his contingent entered the Mexican lines, it was he who uttered the first cry: 'At them!' and started his long arms flailing. He did not fire the very old gun he carried, he used it like a club, and whenever the men of this flank threatened to waver, it was he who urged them on. He was unstoppable, and his men tore completely through the Mexican lines, creating a havoc which spread to other segments.

In the center Otto Macnab had volunteered, just before the battle began, to test the open ground, nearly a mile of it, and with the aid of a young fighter from Mississippi named Martin Ascot he crept forward, and to his relief he and Martin found no scouts at all, and Martin, who had studied law before coming to Texas, whispered like a young professor: i do believe they've forgotten to post their forward pickets!'

So he and Otto began almost running toward the Mexican lines, and where there should have been a score of guardians they found nothing, until at last Otto stood straight up and signaled boldly that it was safe for the main line to come ahead.

With what terrible determination they came! Nobody cheered. Nobody fired his rifle. The cavalry did not engage in showy display. They just came forward, guns and knives at the ready, while a make-up band played softly a sentimental song the Texicans loved:

Will you come to the bower I have shaded for you? Our bed shall be roses all spangled with dew There under the bower on roses you'll lie With a blush on your cheek but a smile in your eye!

It was perhaps symbolic of national attitudes that Santa Anna's men had marched on the Alamo to the 'Degiiello,' that song of death and hatred, while the Texicans marched to their Armageddon singing a love song. But the aftermaths of the two songs would be similar.

'Hold your fire!' officers ordered as the main army caught up with Otto and Martin, and the men obeyed. Hearts pounding, and unable to believe that the Mexicans would allow them to come so close, the avengers moved on, and at this moment Otto looked about for his friend Yancey Quimper, because he wanted to fight this battle alongside someone he could depend upon, but Quimper was not in the front line, where Otto had expected he would be. He was not in the second line, either. In fact, he trailed far behind with two men who had game legs. At the time, Otto thought little of his absence.

At four sharp the Twin Sisters fired, and one set of cannon balls ricocheted through the main Mexican cannon emplacement, knocking several men off their feet. Surging forward, Otto and Ascot, with the center of the Texican line, engulfed that position and silenced the guns.

Now Otto and his new friend Martin were only eight feet— eight actual feet—from the Mexican lines, and before them they saw chaos: men fleeing, guns cast aside, officers missing. For just a moment Otto paused in disbelief, then coldly he started firing, killing his first man with a bullet through the back. Swiftly, with practiced fingers, he reloaded and shot another. With his third bullet he hit a Mexican in the back of the neck and did not even stop to see if the man toppled over, which he did.

Fi re—-reload—fi re—reload—fire!

Otto was seven minutes into the enemy lines before a single bullet was fired at him, and that one so wildly aimed that it posed no threat. At the end of the tenth minute of this fantastic charge, one Texican had been killed by a stray bullet, more than three hundred Mexicans had been slain, but the real horror was yet to come.

For two good reasons Otto had not been able to locate Yancey Quimper. First, the big fellow had been assigned to the extreme right flank, where Colonel Mirabeau Lamar's cavalry were

supposed to wreak havoc in Santa Anna's headquarters. Second, the horsemen performed so swiftly and valiantly that Yancey and other foot soldiers who marched in their support had difficulty keeping up. The exciting prospect of an easy victory should have stifled any fears Quimper may have suffered, but when he realized he was about to enter enemy lines, where hand-to-hand fighting was under way, he froze.

Despite every desire to move forward and acquit himself well, he could not make his feet obey; he remained rigid while others rushed past, shouting encouragement each to the other.

Finally he saw a Texican with a limp, and although the man was not seriously hurt, Yancey hurried to him, trying to convince both the man and himself: That's a terrible cut! Let me help!' The man wanted to break away and rejoin the battle, but Yancey held him, dragged him to the ground, and pretended to tend the wound.

When the fight for the main lines had been won, Yancey regained his courage and roared ahead to participate in the climax, but now he saw an affair that was truly horrible; he grew violently sick and had to turn away. Soon he was back on the ground, crouching, his face ashen, his voice whispering mechanically: 'Charge them, men! Go after them!'

What had sickened him might have nauseated anyone. At the far end of the McCormick farm, on whose broad fields this battle occurred, there stood a body of water called Peggy's Lake; it was actually a swamp, and to its supposed sanctuary had fled the remnants of Santa Anna's army; there, knee-deep in water, the Mexican survivors, with wild gestures, tried to surrender. But the enraged Texicans—shouting 'Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!'—waded into the swamp after them, and using rifle butts like clubs, began to shatter their skulls.

'Me no Alamo! Me no Goliad!' pleaded Mexicans who had participated in neither massacre, but no Texican would listen. Men sorely embittered by the earlier battles pressed on, killing any dark-skinned soldier who floundered in the swamp, but especially remorseless were the men who had lost friends or relatives at Goliad, for they were avenging angels, killing even some of the soldaderas trapped in the bog.

This battle, so crucial in history, lasted only eighteen minutes. The Texicans, marching against prepared positions, lost two men, killed; the Mexicans, more than six hundred—but each side had others who were mortally wounded.

Otto Macnab, exhausted from swinging his gun butt and wielding his knife, looked for Yancey to share in the glory, but again he could not find him—in the swamp, nor at the line of battle, nor

in the Mexican camp. Yancey had assigned himself the rear-echelon job of guarding some captured stores, and there he was when Otto found him, cheering his fellow-men on, telling them how brave they were to have faced such odds.

Otto, looking about for General Houston, was told by a Kentucky man: 'Lordy, he did fight! First horse shot out from under him, I give him mine, and on he goes, right into the guns. This horse killed, too. Shot out from between his knees, his own leg all shattered, but on he goes. I like to find the son-of-a-bitch said Houston was afraid to fight.'

But Otto was near the badly wounded general when a large group of Mexican soldiers who had managed to surrender were being marched to their confinement, and Houston, seeing them through the pain which assailed him as he lay immobile, supposed them to be General Filisola bringing up a thousand reinforcements. 'All is lost! All is lost!' Houston cried. 'Have I a friend in this world? Colonel Wharton, I am wounded, I am wounded. Have I a friend in this world?'

'General,' Wharton said, 'you have many friends. What you see are our prisoners.'

When the doctors cut away Houston's right boot, blood welled over the top, and they saw for themselves how seriously he had been wounded at the start of the battle.

How had Benito Garza and his General, Victor de Ripperda, conducted themselves during this collapse of mexicano morale? Fighting side by side, always endeavoring to stabilize their crumbling lines, they tried vainly to rally their troops. When they saw the center about to collapse, they rushed there, much too late, and escaped death from the Texicans' relentless fire only by shifting to where Colonel Lamar's cavalry were creating havoc.

Doing whatever they could to stanch the hemorrhaging of the mexicano effort, they shouted, implored, and even shot one officer who was abandoning his post, but they accomplished nothing. Finally, when Lamar's cavalry came at them, they were parted. Garza was driven into the swamp, where he sought to surrender. Ripperda ran to the southern perimeter, where he found protection among some trees, whence he made a courageous journey on foot to intercept General Urrea's army, which would arrive at San Jacinto eager for battle, but two days late.

In the aftermath, strange things happened. General Santa 'Anna, running through shoulder-high weeds attended only by an aide, came upon an abandoned shack on the McCormick planta-

tion in which he found some old clothes that he put on over his uniform. Fearing that the presence of an obvious attendant might reveal his rank, he set out by himself to hide in bushes until daylight, when he hoped to escape across the shallow streams that enclosed the battlefield.

Otto Macnab, veteran now of the Mexican horrors at Goliad and the American retaliation at San Jacinto, tried to erase both from his mind. They had not happened. He had not participated in either; he had killed no one. At dusk, exhausted, he lay down and slept as if he were a boy back in Maria Campbell's dog-run.

Martin Ascot, his battlefield friend, did not sleep; seated by a fire, he produced the pen and paper he always kept with him and wrote one of the most reliable accounts of this amazing battle:

San Jacinto River Republic of Texas

21 April 1836

Revered Father,

Yet once again do I take pen in hand, by way of writing you a few lines to inform you that with God's help I survived the mighty battle, hoping you will inform Miss Betsy Belle of same.

In my last letter i told you of the heroic but doomed stand of our men at the Alamo; by now you will also have heard from the New Orleans papers about the shameless massacre at Goliad.

You would have been ashamed, Sir, of what happened next. Our Texican army, defeated twice at the Alamo and Goliad, started a shameful retreat, allowing General Santa Anna to pillage and burn the entire countryside. One town after another went up in flames and we did nothing to stop it, until we sometimes felt that all Texas was ablaze.

I was convinced that when General Santa Anna caught up with us he was going to whip us badly. But I was wrong. With extraordinary skill General Houston led us into a spot surrounded by water, forcing General Santa Anna to engage in battle at an unpromising spot and well before the rest of the Mexican army could catch up.

Then came the immortal battle! At four o'clock in the afternoon of this day, the Mexicans were resting in their tents, convinced that we would not dare attack until the next day, if ever, for they had 1400 trained men and we had few more than 800 irregulars. But I can tell you, Sir, that we marched confidently into battle. We felt that God was on our side. We felt that terrible wrongs must be avenged. And we felt that the future history of this part of the world depended upon our behavior.

On our flank the musicians played 'Yankee Doodle,' which inspired us no end. The band had but two members, a Czech named Fred with

his fife and a nigger boy named Dick with his drum. They played lustily and were very brave.

I carried that good Kentucky gun you gave me when I left, and during the sixteen minutes of battle I was able to fire it six times, for as you know, it was never easy to reload. Young Otto Macnab, who fought at my side, had lost his father at Goliad, and in his fury he was able to fire at least twenty times. Like a little machine of vengeance he stalked forward, loading and firing, and with each shot he muttered 'Remember Goliad' or 'This one for Goliad.' We were now so close to the Mexicans that we might have reached out and shaken hands with them, and when they saw us stop reloading and move forward with our rifle butts, they became terrified and started running toward a swamp at their rear.

General Houston galloped up and cried 'Do not kill any more. Take them prisoner.' But when he was gone a Methodist minister name of Harrison who was fighting in the swamp with us, a real old man, must of been near fifty, shouted to Otto and me 'Boys, you know how to take prisoners! With the butt of your gun over their heads and your knife at their throats.'

All us Texicans were now in the swamp, clubbing the Mexicans over the head and causing them to drown, hundreds of them. On the third smack 1 broke your fine gun, but I think I can get it fixed, so 1 took my hunting knife and started cutting throats. Otto would club a man, knock him sideways, and I would grab him by the hair and finish him off, and we must have handled a dozen this way, for Otto was a fierce fighter But late in the battle when 1 grabbed a Mexican on my own and was about to cut his throat from behind, Otto gave a great cry 'No! No!' and when I put my knife to the man's throat, Otto clubbed me over the head with his gun.