The Men Who War the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers (25 page)

portrayed the conditions of things at Corpus Christi: the town sacked by a dissolute crowd of barbarous marauders, the houses burned to the ground, his family depending for the necessities of life upon the charities of a cold world. The general’s eyes danced wildly in their sockets, his chin trembled, and his voice quivered with emotion.

Runnels turned to Ford and said, “Ford you must go; you must start tonight, and move swiftly.”

Knowing full well that Cortina was nowhere within a hundred miles of Corpus Christi, Ford nevertheless agreed, although he personally believed that Britton “either felt very intensely on the subject, or he was a first class actor. Opinion leaned rather in the latter direction.”

Regardless of his feelings about Britton’s histrionics, Ford realized that a Cortina raid on Corpus Christi was not impossible, and he immediately began preparing for the mission. He contacted S. B. Highsmith, one of his old lieutenants, “begging him in the name of old companionship to enlist his men and move at once without waiting for further orders.” On November 17, the governor commissioned Ford a lieutenant colonel, giving him command of the state troops, including Tobin’s men and Ranger companies raised in other counties, with authority to purchase provisions and mules. The governor, however, had violated tradition by designating Ford as a lieutenant colonel, because during the years since Jack Hays, militia and Rangers had become accustomed to electing officers. Consequently, he modified the order, reducing Ford to major and throwing the command open to election. That suited Ford; he knew his men and believed he would have a better chance at leading them if they believed it was their idea.
¹⁷

On November 18, Ford left Austin with eight men, picking up more on the road to Goliad, where he made arrangements with local community leaders to underwrite the expedition pending appropriation of funds by the state. At Banquete, twenty-five miles west of Corpus Christi, they were joined by Highsmith and the main force, bringing the command to fifty-three. “They were quite well armed, mounted on serviceable horses, and gave evidence of possessing good fighting qualities,” Ford observed. About December 1, the detachment reached King Ranch, established several years before by Capt. Richard King, who, together with Mifflin Kenedy, operated a steamboat line between Point Isabel and Roma via Brownsville. From there they started on the 125-mile trek almost due south to Brownsville.

Ford struck the Rio Grande at Los Indios, about twenty-five mile supriver from Brownsville. As they neared the river, they saw smoke signals “and felt assured we were closely watched by Cortina’s spies.” That night, they camped in a circlewith their horses and mules inside and sentinels beyond the perimeter. The company elected Joseph Walker captain, William H. Fry first lieutenant, and William Howard second lieutenant.
¹⁸

MAJOR HEINTZELMAN, MEANWHILE,
marched out of Brownsville on December 14, with 165 soldiers, including artillerymen, and 120 Rangers. He intended to attack one of Cortina’s camps at Ebonal Ranch, a few miles north of town, where his men may have been waiting to intercept Ford. Less than two miles from Cortina’s position, the major asked the Rangers to make a reconnaissance, but they were “so thoroughly stampeded” that they agreed to go only after Judge Edmund J. Davis offered to accompany them. Cortina’s entrenchments and breastworks, as it turned out, had been abandoned for about a week. Heintzelman ordered a road cleared around the obstructions and continued the march. About three miles farther, the column was marching through a dense grove of ebony when the soldiers saw several men gathered around a flag a few hundred yards ahead. At that moment, a cannon fired and the shot fell onto the road.

Heintzelman ordered his artillery into position and returned fire. “The rangers seeing with how much coolness the regular troops stood off the fire of the enemy regained confidence, and were finally enduced to attack,” he reported.

The position, which proved to be one of Cortina’s main camps, was overrun and arms and provisions were captured. The soldiers and Rangers chased the Cortinistas about two more miles through dense brush before finally breaking off and returning to the column. Heintzelman estimated there had been about sixty men in the camp, although Cortina himself was not present. The bodies of six Cortinistas were found. One Ranger was mortally wounded and two American artillery-men slightly wounded. Cortina had suffered his first setback, although he also showed that he was prepared to fire on United States regular troops, something that, until now, no one had believed he would dare.
¹⁹

Elsewhere, Ford heard the artillery and, unfamiliar with the immediate terrain, presumed Brownsville to be under attack. Galloping into town, the Rangers were met by a citizens’ company formed by Mifflin Kenedy, who directed them back toward Heintzelman’s column. They reached the scene of the fight, where the major was resting his men and animals. The soldiers and Rangers camped at Ebonal that night, and were caught in a heavy rain that ruined the paper cartridges for their firearms. The following morning, they heard Cortina’s bugles but, finding most of their ammunition virtually useless, decided against attacking “an enemy fully prepared and occupying a position chosen by himself.”

After trying unsuccessfully to lure Cortina into attacking the column, the soldiers and Rangers returned to Brownsville. During the march, the Rangers set fire to several houses along the road until Heintzelman issued a directive forbidding any more burning without his express order. “This sets a very bad example to Cortinas [
sic
] & the Rangers were burning all—friends and foes,” he commented.
²⁰

DESPITE THE SETBACK,
Cortina could no longer be regarded simply as a border bandit. He now had some four or five hundred men under his command, and his depredations had assumed the character of an insurrection. General Twiggs in San Antonio reacted accordingly. On December 16, he ordered two companies of cavalry, a light battery of artillery, and four companies of infantry to the Rio Grande. He was none too soon, because Cortina was expanding his operations farther up the river, raiding ranches and burning and sacking houses as he went. “The inhabitants had fled for their lives,” Ford noted. “Cortina had committed these outrages upon citizens of the United States regardless of race and upon Mexicans suspected of being friendly to Americans.”

Heintzelman was hard on his trail, but the elusive chieftain always seemed to manage to stay just ahead of him. The major was also having trouble with the Rangers, who were squabbling among themselves. Governor Runnels had instructed Ford upon his arrival in Brownsville to hold elections for major of the Ranger battalion, but Heintzelman hoped it could be forestalled. Both Ford and Tobin were under his command, and he had little patience with Ranger politics. All mounted units were needed as scouts in the field, and there was no time for elections. Privately, Heintzelman also wanted to give Ford time to build support and win the election.

“He is by all odds the better man,” the major confided to his diary. “He controls his men & Tobin is controlled by his. I would rather have Ford with 50 men than Tobin with all his men.”

Heintzelman had ample reason to resent Tobin, because his men committed atrocities against the local population that undoubtedly prompted many to join the Cortinistas. In one instance, an army patrol discovered the body of a loyal and respected
tejano
who had been lynched. Tobin later admitted some of his men were responsible.
²¹

ON CHRISTMAS DAY,
the soldiers and Rangers arrived in Edinburg, some sixty miles upriver from Brownsville, to find Cortina had departed after robbing the customs house, post office, and other government buildings. The next day, Heintzelman learned Cortina was occupying Fort Ringgold and the adjacent town of Rio Grande City, about fifty miles beyond Edinburg. He decided to surprise Cortina by a forced night march. Because the road was in full view of the Mexican side of the river, the soldiers moved out according to their usual routine during the day, and went into camp at their regular time at Las Cuevas Ranch, about eighteen miles below Rio Grande City. After dark, Heintzelmen called the army and Ranger commanders together and told the Rangers to circle around Rio Grande City and block the road upriver to Roma, while the troops attacked from the front. They would hit Cortina at daylight.

“You must be extremely cautious,” he said. “Do not stir up Cortina tonight.”
²²

The command moved out at midnight, with orders for complete silence. Ford had ninety Rangers, many of whom were veterans of his earlier campaigns. They were accompanied by Henry Clay Davis, the developer of Rio Grande City, who was familiar with the countryside, and James B. McClusky, the former post trader at Ford Ringgold. After about an hour’s slow ride, the Rangers’ guide spotted a party of men ahead and issued the Mexican challenge,
“Quién vive?”
A shot rang out in reply, and the guide returned fire. The Rangers charged and drove the strangers into the brush. They surmised it was a Cortinista scouting party, but Davis discounted them as a possible threat. Now that the Rangers had seen them, the Cortinistas would not dare take the road back to Rio Grande City, and it would be impossible for them to make their way back through the brush at night.
²³

About an hour before daylight, the column was within three miles of Rio Grande City. Davis suggested the Rangers halt about a mile and a half short of Fort Ringgold, at the home of a Mexican friend who would have reliable information. As they approached, they passed several houses, and some of the Rangers fluent in Spanish stopped and assured early risers that they were reinforcements for Cortina. Davis’s Mexican friend advised that Cortina was camped on the main street of Rio Grande City, with his line thrown across the town from the river to a hill overlooking the town. With his flanks secured by the terrain, the Rangers would be unable to circle around, and the command could only approach on the plain in front of Fort Ringgold. The Texans also learned Cortina’s forces were stronger than they originally had believed. Ford threw up a picket across the road less than two hundred yards from Cortina’s line and rested his men while they waited for Heintzelman. The Rangers, accustomed to grabbing whatever sleep they could in the field, wrapped their horses’ reins around one arm and dozed off on the cold, bare ground.

Heintzelman, meanwhile, had sent Tobin with two companies in advance of his right. Not familiar with the layout of the town, he planned to give the Rangers half an hour to circle around behind, after which the regulars would attack with artillery cover. What happened next is uncertain. In his memoirs, Ford wrote that upon hearing Heintzelman’s artillery carriages approaching, he rode up to the column and made a verbal report of the situation, which the exhausted major only vaguely understood. He said that he suggested continuing the effort to turn Cortina’s left flank on the hill, and Heintzelman agreed. Heintzelman, however, reported that his column had just reached Fort Ringgold when a Ranger rode up and reported that Ford, supported by Ranger companies under Tobin, Capt. Peter Tumlinson, and Capt. Wade Hampton, had attacked Cortina’s line from the front.
²⁴

Ford moved up the road and attacked the picket line, driving it back and meeting a Cortinista scouting party in Ringgold just as the sun was coming up. The daylight did little good, because a heavy winter fog had set in. Nevertheless, the Rangers fired into the Cortinistas, forcing them into town. Here the Rangers were met with gunfire from the housetops, which Ford called “ineffective” and Heintzelman said was “a vigorous resistance.” The Rangers gained the hill overlooking the town. To the right toward the river was the cemetery, and beyond, the Roma Road. Believing that Heintzelman would arrive at any moment with artillery, Ford sent Tobin to attack Cortina’s left at the cemetery and gain the Roma Road. While Tobin was busy with the left flank, Ford moved against the right, down by the river where Cortina had his artillery. Because of the dense fog, Ford was within two hundred yards before he knew where the guns were. Cortina’s gunners opened fire.

Elsewhere, everything was going wrong. Tobin, for some reason, did not attack the cemetery, allowing the Cortinistas to turn all their attentions on Ford and retake the guns. Heintzelman, meanwhile, had overrun Cortina’s camp, forcing him to abandon provisions, a baggage cart, and half-cooked meals, but his men were too exhausted from their long night march to push on, and many of the Cortinistas took advantage of the fog to escape into the brush.

Ford sent Lieutenant Fry with a small detachment of mounted riflemen “to pay his respects entirely to the [Cortinista] artillerymen.” Fry’s Rangers rode up to within forty yards of the guns and opened fire, and the Cortinistas moved out to meet them. “The opposing forces were within a few yards of each other,” Ford remembered. “The very heavy fog rendered it difficult to distinguish a Mexican from an American at the distance of twenty yards.”

The guns were silenced, but the Cortinistas made a mounted charge, and Ford ordered his men to take their horses into the brush. About that time, Tobin came up and the charge was thrown back, but the Cortinistas had taken advantage of the confusion to carry off their cannon. About this time, Heintzelmen arrived and found the Ranger companies “all broken up, and strewed along the road, with most of their officers in advance.” He caught up with Ford and told him to push on because “our victory would not be complete if they succeeded in carrying off their guns.”

After a chase of about nine miles, the Cortinistas were forced to abandon the guns. The Rangers found cartridges filled with grape and canister, with buckshot stuffed in between. They also had solid cartridges with slugs of iron.