A Ballad of Love and Glory(73)
The Saint Patrick’s Battalion lagged behind, their artillery caissons bouncing along the uneven roads full of gopher holes, the wheels sinking into the sandy soil. The crew had to constantly help the mule drivers pull the wheels out, and Riley and Dalton and the other officers were walking behind the heavy field pieces with their men to spare the mules the extra weight.
At the end of the day, as they trudged along the mountain pass, everyone’s enthusiasm dropped with the temperature. They continued past nightfall, and by the time they gained the summit, Riley thought that the men around him no longer looked alive. They headed down the slippery slope on the other side of the mountain, the path treacherous for the artillery caissons and supply wagons, and it wasn’t until a few hours before dawn that Santa Anna called for a halt. They were six miles away from the enemy troops.
“You will need all your strength today, boys,” Riley said as he and his men huddled together around the small fire they managed to get going. With no supper to be had, most had drifted off to sleep as soon as they came to a halt. The night was too well advanced to pitch his tent, and Riley was too haunted by his dream to allow himself to close his eyes. As he listened to the icy wind whispering around him, he thought of Nelly. Wrestling with the gloom trying to take possession of him, he glanced at Dalton, sitting on the ground a few feet away. He was one of the few who were still awake. He was a sturdy fellow and even now, despite what they had just gone through, Dalton seemed to be doing better than the rest of them. But upon careful inspection, Riley saw the fatigue in his friend’s eyes. He was fighting off sleep, just as Riley was.
“Rest now, Pat, a chara. Today you’ll need to have your wits about ya.”
“Aye, but you should do the same, eh?”
Riley nodded and put his head against his knapsack, but there was no wink of sleep to be had. Instead, he kept a careful watch over his sleeping men and thought of the fight that awaited them. Above all, they must avoid getting captured. He would see to it that the Yanks didn’t get their hands on the Saint Patrick’s Battalion.
* * *
At dawn, even before the officers began shouting their commands for the troops to move out, Riley was ready. As the army advanced to the Yankee camp in Agua Nueva, they saw clouds of smoke on the horizon. It seemed that upon hearing of Santa Anna’s approach, the Yanks had abandoned their position in the valley below and had set their stores of supplies on fire. Riley cursed under his breath. Counting on Taylor’s food supplies to keep them going, they’d gone through the last of the rations. Now the meals they’d been hoping for had been burned to ashes.
Santa Anna seemed to have the same concerns and proceeded to rally the spirits of his men. But this time, the troops were too deflated to join the general in his cheers for the motherland. They observed the smoke in the distance, knowing that there would be no food coming, no nourishment for their fatigued bodies. Santa Anna claimed that the smoke was proof that the Yankees had fled in fear. “Let us make haste then! Victory is near!”
In his enthusiasm, the general ignored their wretched state and forced the half-starved army to take up the line of march without even a chance to refill their water gourds or water their horses. Instead, he gave the bugle call for a quick march. The army trudged ahead for thirteen miles due north, finally reaching the narrow pass known as La Angostura, near an hacienda called San Juan de la Buena Vista, where the Yankees had decided to make a stand.
Riley scanned the defensive position the Yankees had taken on an irregular plain surrounded by the steep Sierra Madre range to the east and arroyos to the west. He surmised there were no more than five thousand troops. The Mexican forces had dropped to fourteen thousand, but the Yanks were well fed and well rested and had the advantage of having better positions on the broad plateau and in the hills. Old Zach knew what he was doing. Protected by the ravines, high ridges, and deep gullies crisscrossing the plateau, the Yanks were using the landscape in their favor. The narrow gorges prevented Santa Anna from spreading out his forces for maximum effect, squeezing them into a confined space only forty paces wide, with gullies on one side and bluffs on the other.
The commander sent out his officers with a parley flag to demand Taylor’s immediate surrender, giving him an hour to do so. Riley knew the Yankee general wouldn’t back down. Within the hour, his fears were confirmed when General Mejía read Taylor’s note aloud and then translated it for the commander. “In reply to your note of this date, summoning me to surrender my forces at discretion, I beg leave to say that I decline acceding to your request.”
“Be it so, then,” Santa Anna said. Then the council of war set out to devise a plan of attack. “I know they have the weaponry and the ideal terrain, but we have the numbers,” Santa Anna repeated when Riley and some of the officers pointed out the disadvantage of their position. “We will fight with our bare fists, if we must. But we will be victorious.”
He ordered his officers to maneuver their regiments into position. Under the direction of the chief of artillery, Riley scanned the area and chose the best location they could find for the three heavy guns that would be manned by the Saint Patrick’s Battalion. He and his men spent several hours dragging the three cannons—two 24-pounders and one 6-pounder—up the ridge. In shifts, his men worked the ropes tied to the cast-iron guns. By afternoon, standing on the high ground, Riley inspected the cannons and the cases of shot, shell, and canister. Peering over the rim of the ridge, where his cannons commanded the plateau, he beheld the Yankee army moving their eighteen artillery pieces into position and spotted Braxton Bragg’s battery. At the sight of the Yankee scoundrel, Riley hoped this time he could finally blast him to perdition.