Chapter 19
An Army of Democracy
On my arrival at the Brazos, had I consulted the wishes of all, I should have been like an ass between two stacks of hay. Many wished me to go below, others above. I consulted none – I held no councils of war. If I err, the blame is mine.
-General Sam Houston
East Texas-April 1, 1836
Hank was fed up with the whole damn revolution. It was more than six months since he’d last seen Julie and Auggey. Still worse, he had no idea where they were. If they’d stayed at home, they were surely dead by now. If they had fled, their odds that didn’t seem good neither, but at least it left some hope.
Hank desperately wanted to slip out in the middle of the night and go find them, but now that he’d been conscripted, leaving amounted to a hanging offense. Instead, day after day, hour after hour, he sat staring from the tent at the steadily pouring rain. He’d never seen it rain so much in his entire life. For the past two weeks, it had rained more or less continuously, night and day. The rivers and creeks were by now swollen, many out of their banks, rendering them all but impassable.
Hank’s every possession was by now soaked to perdition. But true to form, old Hawk had come through. He’d spent one especially dismal afternoon cooking up a pot of boiling animal fat and mud, subsequently basting the tent with the obscene concoction. The brew had smelled gruesomely odiferous, prompting Hank to complain something terrible, but from the moment of its application, the tent had uniformly kept the rain at bay.
“Damn thing still smells like a pile of bear farts,” he mumbled, still getting used to this new existence.
“What?” Hawk inquired, himself only half awake.
“Oh, nothin’,” Hank responded. “Just smelling the fresh spring air!”
“Har, har,” Hawk shot back, “Stinks to high heaven in here, but we’re dry. Half the other boys have done the same to their tents, and the other half are jealous.”
Something moved over near the corner of the tent and, bolting to his feet, Hank appeared ready to kill a snake. “Stop it, Hank. Don’t pay it any attention,” Hawk instructed.
“What the hell is that thing?” Hank asked in stupefaction.
“It’s a snapping turtle,” Hawk replied nonchalantly, “Must’ve gotten himself flushed out of his den in the creek, I reckon. That happens in weather like this.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Hank said wistfully, dropping back down onto his bedroll, “Lost my wife and son. Ain’t got no idea what’s happened to my farm, and I done run halfway across Texas escaping the Mexican Army. Been rainin’ for days now…but – and here’s a drop of sunshine if there ever was one - I got me here a dry tent, and a snappin’ turtle to boot! Ain’t life just grand, Hawk?”
Hawk responded sagely, “Eternal optimism, that is indeed what’s called for here.”
“Optimism? Optimism? You speak of optimism? Here we are, in this mudhole, the army shrinking noticeably by the day. Texas is crawling with Mexican armies; nobody knows how many there are, or even where they are. And that dang turd of a commander General Sam God-almighty Houston has us drilling in the rain. You’d have thought we was on a Sunday stroll.”
Propping his hands behind his head, Hawk suggested, “Now, now, Hank - things aren’t as bad as that.”
“Mirabeau Lamar says that Houston is an idiot,” Hank opined, “Sidney Sherman is rumored to be considerin’ quittin’ the army. And if that ain’t enough, some people are sayin’ President Burnet is about to kick Houston’s ass all the way back to Tennessee.”
“I know, I know, but patience, my man, patience,” Hawk interjected, “It won’t be long now.”
“Meanin’ what, my genius friend?” Hank queried dubiously.
“Your friend General Houston is playing a mean game of chess, Hank.”
“This here ain’t no chess game, Hawk,” Hank exclaimed in stark irritation, “We got lives at stake!”
“Just a metaphor, just a metaphor, my man. I’ve been observing our commander, and I believe he has the wind in his sails, and it’s just about to be blowing at his back, Hank.”
“Cut the sailor’s double talk and give it to me straight, Hawk,” Hank responded.
“Well, let’s us review the engagement up to this point, Hank. First thing is – we know that Santa Anna takes no prisoners.”
“Well, that’s obvious!” Hank shot back impatiently.
Ignoring Hank’s tone, Hawk plowed ahead, saying, “Yes, so we know we only have one chance left. This is the only army left in Texas so far as we know, at least the only one on our side. How many men you suppose we have, Hank?”
“Depends on the day of the week…about a thousand, I’d say.”
“That could be high, but let’s suppose you’re right for the moment. How many enemy soldiers are there in Texas, you think?”
“Well, we’re told there was five thousand at the Alamo. Allowing for casualties, that means Santa Anna must have about four thousand. And General Urrea must have a couple thousand more. Then there’s the new ones arriving by ship. I don’t rightly know, Hawk, maybe eight thousand total?”
“Damn, I hope you’re wrong, Hank. But if you’re right, we’re outnumbered eight to one!”
“We’re good shots, though, and we’re bigger people than the enemy.”
“And how much do you think that accounts for?” Hawk queried with obvious condescension.
“Alright, I get your point,” Hank murmured and, apparently regretting this last inanity, he repeated, “I get it. So what do you think we gotta do?”
“We need to be smart. We’re going to have to outthink them. That’s what.”
Relieved that Hawk was finally getting to the point, Hank responded, “What exactly are you suggestin’?”
“Well, sir, I read about Julius Caesar back at Harvard. You do recall who Julius Caesar was, don’t you Hank?”
“Why, hell yes. Everyone knows about that fella. Fact is, my Julie is named after him. Either that or the month of July, which amounts to the same thing.”
“Excellent, Hank! You have a fine mind,” Hawk responded condescendingly.
“Don’t you be talkin’ down to me!” Hank blurted crossly.
“I assure you, I meant no offense,” Hawk apologized, “At any rate, that fellow Julius Caesar wrote about his war with the Celts in a book called The Gallic Wars.”
“You read that?” Hank inquired with obvious incredulity, “I didn’t even know people wrote books back then.”
“Yes, sir, I did, and that’s a fact.”
Realization creeping over him, Hank inquired, “Ain’t that book in Latin?”
“Why yes, it is. We were taught Latin at Harvard. Anyway, Caesar defeated more than 300,000 Celts in Gaul. And here is the most amazing part, he only had 60,000 legionnaires fighting on his side!”
“Wow! Them odds sound like ours. How’d he do it? How’d he beat them Celts, Hawk?” and by now Hank was seriously interested.
“Well, that is a long story, and it doesn’t exactly apply here, but let’s just say that he outsmarted them. He kept them on their heels, and he surprised them at every turn of events.”
“I see, kindda like that there Trojan horse thing,” Hank replied. He wasn’t too sure exactly how that had gone, but he knew that it had somehow succeeded.
“Right! So you know The Iliad!” Hawk responded, “The element of surprise turned the course of that war, too.”
“So, if I follow you correctly, what we need here is a Trojan horse,” Hank replied.
“Yes, that about sums it up,” Hawk opined astutely.
“I just got one question.”
“What’s that, Hank?”
“Why ain’t you leadin’ this here army, Mr. Hawk Banks? You got more up there than anybody else I know of. Why ain’t you in charge, instead of some yellow bellied snivelin’ general who thinks that the element of surprise means drilling in a cold wet rain?”
/> “Well, the main reason I’m not leading this army is that I’m being forced to spend a whole lot of time explaining military strategy to you, Hank,” Hank put in humorously.
“Now, that was just plain offensive, sir,” Hank shot back, himself joining in the hilarity.
“I’m sorry, you’re right,” Hawk replied, swerving back to the serious path, “Truth is, I’m not leading because I’ve no stomach for it. I’m having too much fun just living day to day. I don’t want any more responsibility than that, I expect.”
“And General Houston does?”
“Well, let’s put it this way - he’s willing.”
“So let me get this straight,” replied Hank. “You’re able but not willing, and Houston’s willing but not able.”
“Didn’t say that at all, no sir, not at all. If you’d stop and think things through, you might decide that he is indeed both willing and able.”
“Give me some evidence, anything at all…anything,” Hank suggested, now zeroing in on the end game of their debate.
“For one thing, we haven’t engaged the enemy yet.”
“Bull crap! That’s no evidence, sir! That is more like a lack of evidence,” Hank exclaimed ruefully.
“Hank, had we engaged Santa Anna’s troops with this army, we’d all be dead now,” Hawk murmured softly. He reached around the edge of his bedroll and pulled out the snapping turtle and placed it in front of him. “So we must play like this snapping turtle - that’s what I’m thinking. We need to lay low, because we have very few weapons at our disposal, and we must therefore pick exactly the right time and place. And when that happens, just like this turtle, we can be very dangerous. Maybe…just maybe…we can even win.”
“So General Houston is like a turtle, your saying?”
“In a way, yes. You give him a little bit more time. It won’t be long now, he’s going bite that over-confident Santa Anna on the butt. You just wait and see! And in my view, he’s fighting an even tougher battle than Caesar ever fought.”
“Why?” Hank look puzzled.
“Well, sir, Mr. Caesar had the luxury that if anyone disobeyed an order, he’d just cut out their liver and feed it to his dog. Houston has to deal with this fellow and that, every one of them disagreeing and spreading discontent within the ranks. And somehow he still manages to keep this army aimed in the right direction. You think about that, Hank, because in my book that’s pure genius!”
Army of Texas Headquarters
General Houston had struggled through yet another day of uniform discord among his followers. Perched on his cot, he was unable to even contemplate the thought of sleep. Having drilled the army for two weeks, he had during that span lost more than fifty men. They had simply wandered off in the night, unable to comprehend the importance of fighting as an army. Lacking proper military training, most of the men assumed that a battle consisted of little more than charging out into a field and shooting the enemy in some bellicose grand confrontation, not unlike a Sunday turkey shoot.
Houston understood only now, after six months of attempting every means at his disposal to beg, cajole, order, appease, blackmail, and downright threaten the men under his command, that he could never mold them into an army. Furthermore, he was beginning to believe that he would not be able to convince them to follow him to the Sabine, where General Edmund Gaines was assembling a seasoned army from the United State of America.
General Ramirez y Sesma had unwittingly laid waste to that most attractive option by pressing close enough to Houston’s force that when word got out that Houston had feinted rather than attack, the troops had screamed louder than ever for Houston’s resignation. The word rampant among the troops was that Houston was yellow, indeed a coward of whopping proportions.
The truth is, had Houston known that Sesma was so near with such a small force, he might have indeed taken a chance on engaging in battle, but information to that effect had come too late for Houston to consider such a possibility.
So now here he sat with an army that was shrinking by the day, and half of those who remained were under the weather. Santa Anna had at least four, maybe five columns, each with a thousand or more well-trained soldiers, and Houston’s force had dwindled to less than eight hundred. If any two of those columns caught Houston’s force at one time, his army would be wiped out for sure. On the other hand, if he could somehow maneuver to engage one and only one of them, they might just score a victory of sorts. And that now seemed to be his only chance of preserving the last remaining Army of Texas.
The last six months had indeed been the toughest of his entire life. He realized that the next few days would be the most enduring of his existence. He understood the significance of the moment. Old Andy Jackson had seized the opportunity so many times back in the War of 1812. Accordingly, Houston knew all too well that the time had come. He had to find a crack in Santa Anna’s armor, and he had to find it quick.
Houston now resolved to lead his men south, into the swamps near the Trinity. Perhaps there he would be able to catch one of the approaching columns in the bayous and cut them off from the remainder of the Army of Mexico. Having made this perilous decision, he lay down to rest on his cot, well aware that one way or the other their fate was now sealed.