A Ballad of Love and Glory
Reyna Grande
In memory of Patrick Antison John Appleby John Benedick Patrick Casey John Cavanaugh Dennis Conahan John Cuttle Patrick Dalton George Dalwig Kerr Delaney Frederick K. Fogal Marquis T. Frantius Parian Fritz Robert W. Garretson Richard Hanley Barney Hart Roger Hogan George W. Jackson William H. Keech Harrison Kenney John W. Klager Henry Longenhammer Elizier S. Lusk Martin Lydon Hugh McClellan John McDonald Gibson McDowell James McDowell Laurence McKee Lachlin McLachlin John A. Meyers Thomas Millett Auguste Morstadt Peter Neil
Andrew Nolan Francis O’Conner William C. O’Conner Henry Ockter William Outhouse Richard Parker John Price
Francis Rhode John Rose
Herman Schmidt John Sheehan James Spears Henry Venator William A. Wallace Lemuel N. Wheaton Henry Whistler And John Riley
Speak and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away, O’er the camp of the invaders, o’er the Mexican array,
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near?
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.
Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls; Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls!
Who is losing? who is winning? Over hill and over plain, I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain rain.’
—From “The Angels of Buena Vista,”
John Greenleaf Whittier, 1847
Part One Whither Rolls the Storm
1
March 1846
El Frontón de Santa Isabel, Gulf of Mexico
When the three steamships came into view, undulating on the shimmering waters of the gulf, the villagers grew quiet and still, in the way Ximena had seen meadowlarks freeze when hunted by a hawk. Standing on the shore of the Laguna Madre, the water soaking into her skirt, she squinted from the glare as she watched the ships passing through the entrance of the inlet, the smoke rolling out of their funnels dark as storm clouds. She trembled inside. These vessels were not traders or merchants bringing goods to market.
The port of El Frontón de Santa Isabel, just north of the mouth of the Río Bravo del Norte, was a lifeline for the small settlements and scattered ranches in the area and the nearby city of Matamoros. Ximena loved swimming and fishing in the bay, the cool salt air and rolling waves, so whenever her husband went to the port to sell and trade supplies from their rancho—cowhides, tallow, wool, livestock, and crops from the last harvest—she eagerly joined him. As the steamships anchored in the harbor, she caught flashes of red and blue in the air and something glinting on the decks in the afternoon sunlight. Though she couldn’t see clearly what they carried, an image formed in her mind: bronze cannons and blue-clad soldiers.
For eight months, she’d been hearing rumors of war, ever since US and Texas soldiers had been encamped in Corpus Christi Bay. But as long as they remained two hundred and fifty kilometers away, their presence hadn’t disrupted her daily life. Three months before, in the last days of 1845, the Republic of Texas had become the twenty-eighth state in the Union, and a dispute had erupted over this strip of land between the Río Bravo—or the Río Grande, as the norteamericanos called it—and the Río Nueces to the north. She, like everyone, knew it was only a matter of time before the Yanqui president, James Polk, would order his troops to march south to take possession of the disputed land. These warships, Ximena realized, were bringing an end to what little tranquility had existed in her region.
“We should go,” she whispered, turning to her grandmother, who was standing beside her in the water. Nana Hortencia’s silver braids hung loosely at either side of her head, and although the years had bent and twisted her body like the limbs of a mesquite, her hands were firm and steady.
The old woman sighed with worry and said, “Let us go find your husband, mijita.”
Tolling church bells shattered the eerie silence that had descended upon the small community. All at once, mothers pulled their children out of the water and rushed them home, fisherwomen snatched up their baskets, and fruit and vegetable vendors hastily loaded their crates onto their carts. Out in the Laguna Madre, the fishermen were rowing their boats back to the wharf. Then bugles sounded the alarm, and the handful of Mexican soldiers protecting the port hurried to their posts.
Ximena waded out of the water and guided her grandmother to the storehouses. Her wet skirt clung to her legs, her sandals squished, but there was no time to change. She quickened her pace, but as Nana Hortencia struggled to keep up, she forced herself to slow down, to not panic. Clutching the old woman’s hand, they wove through the throng of frightened villagers, her eyes searching for her husband, Joaquín. She sighed in relief when she spotted the ranch hands at a storehouse, rushing to finish loading the sacks of coal onto the carts. But Joaquín wasn’t with them, nor could she find him inside.
“Stay here, Nana,” she said and hurried back outside.
As Ximena whirled around into the street, a party of Texas Rangers rode into the plaza from the rear of the port, shouting their wild cries and firing their revolvers into the air. The villagers screamed and ran for cover. The Mexican soldiers guarding the customhouse hastily fired warning shots, and the Rangers retaliated.
The grass-thatched roof of the customhouse had already begun to smoke, and then, suddenly, burst into flames.