A Ballad of Love and Glory(8)
Riley grabbed his elbow and pulled him back. “There’s naught to be done.”
Sullivan shook his head. “How can you stand aside and do nothin’?” In dismay, Riley watched as Sullivan stepped out of line and shouted, “Let him alone!”
“Get this insolent sonofabitch out of here!” Captain Merrill yelled. “Buck and gag him.”
“Riley, do somethin’!” Sullivan pleaded as he was dragged away. Riley tightened his fists. Do somethin’? What could he do? Half of his unit were immigrants like himself—with the same anger in their faces, the same impotence. Like them, Riley remained silent. He wished that fool of a boy had known well enough to do the same.
It took all of Riley’s willpower not to look as a piercing scream ripped through the ranks. The smell of Maloney’s burning flesh drifted over to him. Riley felt his anger burning hotter. He thought of Nelly and their son, Johnny. For them, I’m doin’ this for them. Maloney’s screams stopped suddenly, and finally, Riley turned to look. The pain of the branding overcoming him, the poor fellow now lay on the ground, immobile. At least for a little while, he would be at rest.
Captain Merrill ordered him carried to the hospital tent and then called everyone to attention. Riley made the sign of the cross for the second time that day. “Holy Saint Patrick, please give me strength.”
* * *
After a breakfast of weevil-infested hardtack and pickled pork, which he downed with a pint of uninviting black coffee, Riley fell in for drill and spent hours under the merciless sun marching and learning maneuvers as they prepared for the approaching war. With his musket braced against his right shoulder and his head erect, Riley wheeled with his unit across the dusty ground. Flawlessly executed rotations and drills that usually gave him pride were marred today by the smell of burnt human flesh.
Brigadier General Taylor sat sidesaddle on his old mare surveying the troops, a straw hat on his large head, dressed plainly in linen trousers, a dusty green coat, and common army shoes. The sixty-one-year-old Taylor wasn’t a typical general at all. He didn’t put on airs, and Riley had often seen him laughing and chatting with various of his men, regardless of rank. More than once, the general had saved an immigrant soldier from being punished by a nativist officer. As a veteran of several wars, Taylor had the kind of wisdom that came only from the battlefield, but with none of the vulgar pride of the other officers, such as Braxton Bragg and James Duncan. Riley heard it rumored that the general hadn’t supported President Polk’s push to annex Texas and harbored doubts about the claims Texas and the president made about its boundary. But orders were orders, and Taylor remained true to his duties as the commander-in-chief of the Army of Occupation. Riley had admired General Taylor up until his shoot-on-sight orders. The Articles of War clearly stated that desertion was not punishable by death when the country wasn’t at war.
Sullivan and other soldiers were seated on the dirt throughout the campground, their legs drawn up and their arms tied around them, with a stick placed under their bent knees and a gag stuffed into their mouths. Other soldiers had been condemned to spend the day upon a wooden sawhorse with their hands tied behind their backs and irons on their feet. The poor wretches would fall off and be forced back on again and again until they wished they were dead. And some of them got their wish. Back in Corpus Christi, Riley saw a soldier fall off the “horse” and snap his neck. With his hands tied behind his back, the unlucky man had been unable to break the momentum of the fall.
After setting up camp opposite Matamoros, Engineer Captain Mansfield designed a massive six-bastioned fort with ramparts, gunpowder magazines, and bombproof shelters, and construction of the stronghold was now underway. When finished, cannons would be placed on the arrow-shaped bastions and a ditch would surround the entire complex. Those on fatigue duty had to excavate the dirt and haul it up to the scaffolds; others, like Riley, shaped the earthen walls while engineers bawled their instructions from down below. Sweaty and shirtless, his whole body caked in mud, Riley watched the fifteen-feet-thick walls slowly take shape while he and his comrades broiled under the sun.
Up on the scaffolds, he could at least enjoy the slight tang of briny air carried on the occasional breeze drifting in from the Gulf of Mexico some twenty miles distant, and he had a fine view of the open country. Beyond the dense chaparral were cultivated fields, fig and pomegranate orchards, patches of corn, and the grasslands dotted with horned cattle and shepherds with goats and sheep. Observing the Río Grande winding its way through the thickets, he realized it was the most crooked river he’d ever seen. It twisted and doubled back on itself so much that even a wagon could traverse the land faster than a boat. The winding path of its muddy waters created peninsulas that jutted out like fingers. General Taylor had chosen one of these long fingers for his camp, knowing they would be protected from ground assaults on three sides. But surely the location also had disadvantages—the river walled them in as much as protected them, making them vulnerable to a siege.
Riley turned away from the river to the fields where the Yankee artillery drills were taking place. With his collection of 6-, 12-, and 18-pounders, Taylor had at his disposal a magnificent artillery, especially of the lighter variety, what they called the “flying artillery,” which could redeploy immediately to wherever they were needed. From the scaffolds, Riley spotted Bragg’s crews and couldn’t help but marvel at the dazzling speed with which the gunners and drivers could hitch the 6-pounder guns to their team of horses, move to a new position, unhitch, and fire with deadly aim at an astonishing range of 1,500 yards. The man was truly an excellent artillery officer. Riley was loath to admit how much pleasure it gave him to watch Bragg’s gun crews at battery drill whirling the cannons around the field with such rapidity and precision.