Michener, James A. (96 page)

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THE MEXICAN WAR \

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T WAS AN INTERLUDE, A TRAGICOMIC INTERRUPTION WHICH

few in Texas sought but which most later accepted as a turning point in their history. At a time when the newly approved state should have been paying attention to the building of governmental process and the sorting out of priorities, it found itself enmeshed in the Mexican War of 1846-1848, a minor affair militarily, a major event diplomatically.

Internally the effect on Texas was minimal; two battles and a disastrous cavalry encounter were fought on its soil, and its men invaded a foreign country, where they gained attention because of their bravery and lack of discipline. More important, men from the other twenty-eight states—Iowa becoming the twenty-ninth in 1846—served in Texas and sent home harrowing stories of 'bleak empty spaces, drought, Mexicans and rattlesnakes.' Of maximum importance, national newspapers sent to the war reporters, sketches and a remarkable man named Harry Saxon, who brought with him an unprecedented amount of gear to report upon Texas and the war. Their stories and pictures circulated around the world to launch the legend of Texas.

The American army was not in Texas by accident, nor was it there in response to any specific threat by the Mexican government. Instead, there had been a gradual worsening of relations between the two countries and some curious actions on the part of each. President-elect Polk, having been a prime force in bringing Texas into the Union, was determined to add New Mexico and upper California, so as to round out the continental reach of the i United States, and since Mexico was either uninterested in developing these areas, or incapable of doing so, he supposed that the Mexicans might be willing to sell them for a decent price in order ! to be shed of responsibility. He was aware, of course, that the [sudden acquisition of so much new land would force the American 'government to decide once and for all whether the resulting new ^states should be slave or free, and that would ignite dormant [antipathies between South and North, but on that thorny question he was willing to postpone decision.

Even before Polk had been inaugurated in 1845, the kettle of war was bubbling. The United States Congress authorized annexation; Mexico, feeling insulted, terminated diplomatic relations; and the new President initiated a pair of daring moves. First he ordered a sizable army unit to Corpus Christi on the northern border of the Nueces Strip, and warned its commander to be prepared to strike if events required. Next he dispatched a personal emissary, John Slidell, to Mexico with an offer to buy New Mexico for $5,000,000, California for $25,000,000, and to pay up to $40,-000,000 for a more complete package. When the Mexicans rebuffed Slidell for having offended their national honor, Polk saw that the two nations were on what he believed to be an unavoidable collision course. Forthwith he began to prepare for the war which he knew, and even hoped, must come.

In command of the eager troops at Corpus Christi was a crusty general, known for his courage, his stubbornness and his lack of education, who had been sent into Texas with orders to protect the American frontier but not to invade Mexico unless hostile action made this inescapable. Zachary Taylor was an almost perfect choice for the job; his frontier manner made him congenial to the Texans and his dogged, no-frills approach to battle made him an effective opponent to the flamboyant Mexicans. He did, however, face a difficult diplomatic problem: Where was the Texas frontier he was supposed to protect?

When France controlled the Mississippi, Spain had been agitated over the border between Spanish Tejas and French Louisiana, and after Mexico won her independence she, too, kept careful watch along that border. But neither Spain nor Mexico cared much what the border between Tejas and its neighboring districts to the south was; it was assumed that this inconsequential delineation ran along the Medina and Nueces rivers. So when Tejas broke away in 1836, officials in Mexico honestly believed that these riven still marked the boundary between new Texas and old Coahuila and Tamaulipas, and that the infamous Nueces Strip was Mexican. But the nation of Texas, and now the United States, had always argued that the boundary lay south at the Rio Grande, but neithei had much reliable documentation to prove this. Now, in 1845, the Nueces Strip was as much an area of contention as it had always ; been.

The site of the troop concentration had not been chosen al random. The village of Corpus Christi with its two hundred citi : zens lay where the Nueces River entered the Gulf of Mexico, anc this put it at the northeastern edge of the Nueces Strip. From hert the army would stand in readiness for a leap into Mexico propei <

whenever events warranted. The soldiers at Corpus came from all parts of the Union and represented the emerging mix of national origins—24 percent Scots-Irish, 10 percent German, 6 percent English, 3 percent Scots direct, 4 percent other foreign-born, and 53 percent native-born—nicely balanced between infantry, cavalry and artillery, with emphasis on the latter.

When President Polk learned that John Slidell's offer to buy most of northern Mexico had been rejected, he judged that relations between the two countries had deterioriated so noticeably that he had better move General Taylor and his army closer to Mexico, so in late March 1846, Taylor leapfrogged clear across the Nueces Strip and assumed a position near the mouth of the Rio Grande. He did this knowing that such an invasion of territory claimed by Mexico must provoke reaction, and he was prepared for war, as was President Polk in Washington. If the truth were known, both the general and the President hoped for war.

Old Rough-and-Ready Taylor may have been as slow-witted as his junior officers sometimes thought, and the depths of his ignorance and fumbling were widely known, but when an enemy took a defined position on terrain that had been scouted, Taylor, sixty-two years old and wheezing, knew what to do. The first order he had issued upon leaving Corpus Christi endeared him to his subordinates: 'When we have marched three miles into the desert, I want every camp follower who has attached herself or himself to my army kicked the hell out. If they won't go back to Corpus on their own, put them in irons and march them off with bayonets at their backsides.' And in one grand sweep the hundreds of prostitutes, pimps, gamblers, whiskey peddlers, thieves and petty traders were booted out. Among these disreputables was a large, pompous gentleman who had been making a small fortune by selling a fantastic variety of things to Taylor's army: whiskey, tobacco, socks, hard candy, cigars, big hats to replace the inadequate type provided by the commissary and, some said, the favors }f Mexican girls who seemed always to be available wherever he : ocated. As soon as the order went out to rid the army of such trash, h rigidly proper West Pointer from South Carolina, Lieutenant Colonel Persifer Cobb, took it upon himself to arrest this man, vhose operations he had monitored and whose behavior he de-)lored. But once he had the unsavory fellow corralled, Cobb found i limself involved in a political scandal.

'I am a state senator of Texas,' the prisoner bellowed, 'and a general in the militia!' When Cobb questioned other prisoners, hey confirmed the claims: 'He's Senator Yancey Quimper, Hero

of San Jacinto, and you're in trouble, Colonel, because he has connections.'

'Damn Texas,' Cobb muttered under his breath. 'Where else would you find a general running a whorehouse?' But when Quimper kept demanding that he be taken to General Taylor, and threatening to have Cobb cashiered from the army 'because of my powerful associations in Washington,' Cobb had to protect himself, and shortly Yancey Quimper was standing before General Taylor.

'Are you indeed a senator?' Taylor asked, and when Quimper replied: 'In charge of military affairs,' Taylor asked: 'And what in hell were you doing among the rabble of my army,' and the senator explained: 'Looking after my land interests here.'

This lie was so offensive to Cobb that without having been invited to speak, he blurted out: 'He was running a cheap store, a liquor bar, and worse,' at which Quimper drew himself to attention: 'I was a general in the Texas army, and I demand an apology.'

For one sickening moment Persifer Cobb feared that General Quimper intended joining the Texan volunteers, and his face drained of blood, but General Taylor, a rough old customer who could at times be magnificent, said: 'Get the hell out of here. I suspect you're a fraud.' And Senator-General Yancey Quimper retreated, muttering threats he knew he could not fulfill.

South of the Rio Grande there was a Mexican who had spent a dozen years also longing for such a war, but who now, when it was about to erupt, had ambivalent feelings arising from an event he could never have anticipated. Benito Garza, aged forty, had fallen in love.

When it became apparent that Mexico, in protection of its honor, must oppose any yanqui intrusion into the Nueces Strip, irrevocably the territory of Mexico, Garza had ridden north tc i assist General Mariano Arista in his defense of Mexican integrity. He was now serving Arista as a superior scout well informed about * the area under contention, and in this capacity he was willing tc| lay down his life.

However, when he moved with Arista to Matamoros, where the Rio Grande enters the Gulf, he found attached to the command i purveyor of salted beef, one Jose Lopez, who had an attractive daughter bearing a name highly favored by Spanish mothers of s religious bent: Maria de la Luz, Blessed Mary of the Holy Lights which children traditionally abbreviated to Lucha. Lucha Lopes was nineteen when Garza met her, a tall, slim young woman ol curious beauty and dominant will. Her beauty was unusual in thai her features were by no means perfect or strikingly regular; rather

they were strong, powerfully molded, with high cheekbones indicating a pronounced Indian origin. Her hair, which she wore in a long braid, was jet-black, which accentuated her black and piercing eyes.

When Garza first saw her delivering a basket lunch to her father, who had been negotiating with General Arista over the price of beef, he noticed that her dark eyes carried a clear sense of sadness, and he asked her father: 'Why is your daughter so mournful?' and he replied: The man she was to marry was killed on the other side of the river, where he kept his cattle.'

'Who killed him?' Benito asked, and the meat-dealer said: Tejas Rangers.' He pronounced the hated word in the manner common along the river, Rinches.

'When he was on his own soil!'

'Next they'll be shooting us in Matamoros.'

In his long years in the saddle Benito had seen many attractive girls and had idly courted some of them, but his manner of life had prevented him from seriously contemplating marriage. At first when he met this impressive young woman he shied away, because he knew that wars and incursions and revolutions would deter him from being a good husband or even a reasonable one.