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AHEAD OF THE ARMY
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[Illustration: IT WAS SEVERE WORK, BUT IT WAS DONE WITH EAGER ENTHUSIASM
(See page 277)]
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AHEAD OF THE ARMY
by W. O. STODDARD
AUTHOR OF "THE ERRAND BOY OF ANDREW JACKSON," "JACK MORGAN,"
"THE NOANK'S LOG," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
C. CHASE EMERSON
BOSTON
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY
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COPYRIGHT, 1903, by LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published June, 1903
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PREFACE
Lest any one should suspect exaggeration in the pictures of Mexican
affairs in the old time, which are presented by Senor Carfora, it may be
well to offer a few facts by way of explanation. During sixty-three
years of the national life of the Republic of Mexico, from the
establishment of its independence in 1821 to the year 1884, nearly all
of its successive changes of government were accompanied by more or less
violence and bloodshed. There have been fifty-five Mexican Presidents;
at one revolutionary period, four within three months, and to this list
must be added two emperors and one regency. Both of the emperors were
shot, so were several of the Presidents, and nearly all of the others
incurred the penalty of banishment. How this came to be so will possibly
be better understood by the young Americans who will kindly travel with
Senor Carfora and his generals and his two armies, commanded for him by
General Scott and General Santa Anna. It is the wish of the author that
all his young friends may cultivate a deeper and kinder interest in the
wonderful land of Anahuac and its people. The now peaceful and rapidly
improving republic of the South is, in fact, only a kind of younger
brother of the United States. Mexico has no more sincere well-wisher
than
William O. Stoddard.
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CONTENTS
Page
Far-away Guns 11
The Race of the Goshawk 22
The Fortune of War 47
Completely Stranded 69
The Work of the Norther 84
Forward, March 99
The Land of the Montezumas 119
Out of the Tierra Caliente 136
Leaving the Hacienda 157
Pictures of the Past 167
Ned's News 181
A Storm Coming 193
The Revolution 207
The Despatch-bearer 221
Under Fire 240
General Scott and His Army 254
The Mountain Passes 267
Senor Carfora Trapped 281
The Stars and Stripes in Tenochtitlan 294
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
It was severe work, but it was done with eager enthusiasm Frontispiece
"Do you see that? What does it mean?" 30
"We have orders to take care of you" 114
Ned saw a long, bright blade of a lance pointed at his bosom 286
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AHEAD OF THE ARMY
CHAPTER I.
FAR-AWAY GUNS
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The long surges of the Gulf of Mexico were beating heavily upon the
sandy beach of Point Isabel, but the dull and boding sounds were not the
roar of the surf. There came a long silence, and then another boom. Each
in succession entered the white tents of the American army on the
upland, carrying with it a message of especial importance to all who
were within. It was also of more importance to the whole world than any
man who heard it could then have imagined. It spoke to the sentries at
their posts, and compelled them to turn and listen. It halted all
patrolling and scouting parties, making them stand still to utter sudden
exclamations. More than one mounted officer reined in his horse to
hear, and then wheeled to spur away toward the tent of General Zachary
Taylor, commanding the forces of the United States upon the Rio Grande.
In one small tent, in the camp of the Seventh Infantry, the first boom
stirred up a young man who had been sleeping, and he may have been
dreaming of home. He was in the uniform of a second lieutenant, and in
one respect he was exactly like all the other younger officers and most
of the men of that army, for never before had they heard the sound of a
hostile cannon. War was new to them, and they were not aware how many of
them were now entering a preparatory school in which they were to be
trained for service in a war of vastly greater proportions and for the
command of its contending armies, on either side.
Up sprang the young lieutenant and stepped to the door of his tent. He
was short, strongly built, and his alert, vigorous movements indicated
unusual nerve, vitality, and muscular strength.
"Grant, my boy," he muttered to himself, "that comes from the fort! The
Mexicans are attacking! It's more than twenty miles away. I didn't know
you could hear guns as far as that, but the wind's in the right
direction. Hurrah! The war has begun!"
He was only half right. The war had been begun long years before by
aggressive American settlers in the Spanish-Mexican State of Texas. Now,
at last, the United States had taken up the same old conflict, and only
about half of the American people at all approved of it.
Grant did not linger in front of his tent. He walked rapidly away to
where stood a group of officers, hardly any of them older than himself.
"Meade," he demanded of one of them, "what do you think of that?"
"I think I don't know how long that half-finished fort can hold out,"
responded Lieutenant Meade, and half a dozen other voices instantly
agreed with him as to the perils surrounding the small besieged
garrison.
It was hardly possible, they said, that it could hold out until the
arrival of the main army. This, too, would have to fight all the way
against superior numbers, but that was a thing which it could do, and
they were all wild with eagerness to be on the march, in answer to the
summons of those far-away guns.
There were no railroads to speak of, and only the first small beginnings
of telegraphs in the year 1846. The news of the first fighting would
therefore be slow in reaching the President and Congress at Washington,
so that they might lawfully make what is called a formal declaration of
war. Much had already been taken for granted, but the American
government was at that hour anxiously leaning southward and listening
for the expected roar of Mexican cannon. It came, as rapidly as General
Taylor could send it. A swift despatch-boat, with all her canvas up,
went speeding across the gulf to New Orleans. Thence, in the hands of
special couriers, it would gallop all the remaining distance. Meantime,
the struggle at the Rio Grande frontier would continue, just as if all
the legal arrangements had been made, but it would be weeks before
Europe could be advised of what was going on. All this, too, when this
fight over the annexation of Texas was about to lift the Republic into a
foremost place among the nations. It was to give her all the Pacific
coast which she now has, except Oregon and Alaska, with the gold of
California and the silver of the mountains. Among its consequences were
to be the terrible Civil War, the abolition of slavery, the acquisition
of the Sandwich Islands, and many another vast change in the history of
our country and in that of these very European nations which were then
ignorantly sitting still and thinking little about it, because they had
no ocean cable telegraphs to outrun the swift clipper ships.
There were couriers racing inland in all directions to tell the people
of Mexico, also, that war had come, but the despatches of the general
commanding their forces on the Texas border were carried by a swift
schooner from Matamoras, on the coast, directly to Vera Cruz. A
messenger from that port had before him a gallop of only two hundred and
sixty miles to the city of Mexico. President Paredes, therefore, had
full information of the attack on the American fort sooner than did
President Polk by a number of very important days.
These were bright May days, and during all of them there were other
things going on which had a direct relation to the cannon-firing and the
siege. For instance, all the commerce between Mexico and the rest of the
world was deeply interested, and so were all the warships of the United
States, which were prepared to interfere with that commerce pretty soon,
and shut it off. There were merchant vessels at sea to whose captains
and owners it was a serious question whether or not cruisers carrying
the Stars and Stripes would permit them to reach their intended port
and deliver their cargoes. Whatever may have been the case with all the
rest of these vessels, one of them in particular appeared to be rushing
along in a great hurry at the very hour when Lieutenant Grant woke up so
suddenly and walked out of his tent.
She carried an American flag, somewhat tattered, and she was spreading
quite as much canvas as a prudent skipper might have considered safe
under the strong gale that was blowing. She was bark-rigged, of about
four hundred tons burden, and was headed westward in the Nicholas
Channel, off the northerly coast of the Island of Cuba. There was a high
sea running, but the ship stood up well, and the few men who were on
deck could get about easily. Even a boy of apparently not over
seventeen, who came to a halt near the mainmast, managed to keep his
balance with some help from a rope. That he did so was a credit to him,
and it helped to give him a sailor-like and jaunty air. So did his blue
trousers, blue flannel shirt with a wide collar, and the sidewise pitch
of his tarpaulin hat. He might as well have remarked aloud that he was
one of those boys who are up to almost anything, and who think small
potatoes of a mere storm at sea. Near him, however, stood a pair of men,
either of whom might have felt as much at home under another flag than
the one which was now fluttering its damaged bunting above them. The
shorter of the two was a very dark-faced gentleman of perhaps forty,
with piercing black eyes. In spite of his civilian dress, he wore an
expression that was decidedly warlike, or soldierly.
"Captain Kemp," he said to his companion, "will you be good enough to
tell me why we are in the Nicholas Channel?"
"No, Senor Zuroaga," growled the large-framed, roughly rigged and
grim-looking sailor. "I'm cap'n o' this ship, and I don't give
explanations. We've had gales on gales since we left port. One course is
as good as another, if you're not losing distance. We'll reach Vera Cruz
now three or four days sooner than we reckoned. All those war insurance
risks were paid for for nothing."
"I'm not so sure of that," was slowly and thoughtfully responded. "Not
if one of Uncle Sam's officers should get a look into the hold of this
ship."
"You're a Mexican, anyhow," said Captain Kemp, surlily. "You know enough
to keep your mouth shut. You don't really have to know anything about
the cargo. Besides, it was peace when we sailed. We shall make a safe
landing,--if nothing happens on the way."
"Captain," said the Mexican, "it does not take long to make a
declaration of war when both sides are determined to have one."
"You're wrong there, Senor Zuroaga," replied the captain, emphatically.
"Mexico doesn't want a brush with the States. She isn't strong enough.
The Yankees can whip her out of Texas any day."
"That is not the point at all," replied Zuroaga, sadly. "The fact is,
the Texan Yankees want a war for revenge, and the American party in
power would like to annex a great deal more than Texas. President
Paredes needs a war to keep himself in power and help him put on a
crown. Old Santa Anna wants a war to give him a chance to return from
exile and get control of the army. If we ever do reach Vera Cruz, we
shall hear of fighting when we get there."
"Perhaps," said the captain, "but it will be only a short war, and at
the end of it the United States will have stolen Texas."
"No, senor," said Zuroaga, with a fierce flash in his eyes. "All
educated Mexicans believe that Texas or any other of the old Spanish
provinces has a right to set up for itself. Almost every State has
actually tried it. We have had revolution after revolution."
"Anarchy after anarchy!" growled the captain. "Such a nation as that
needs a king of some kind, or else the strong hand of either England or
France or the United States."
"Mexico! A nation!" exclaimed Senor Zuroaga, after a moment of silence.
"We are not a nation yet. Within our boundaries there are several
millions of ignorant Indians, peons, rancheros and the like, that are
owned rather than ruled by a few scores of rich landholders who
represent the old Spanish military grants. Just now President Paredes is
able to overawe as many of these chiefs as he and others have not
murdered. So he is President, or whatever else he may choose to call
himself. The mere title is nothing, for the people do not know the
difference between one and another. Now, Captain Kemp, one sure thing is
that the Yankees have taken Texas and mean to keep it. They will fight
for it. One other sure thing is that General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
will come back if he can, to carry on that war and supersede Paredes.
If he does so, there is danger ahead for some men. He will settle with
all his old enemies, and he loves bloodshed for its own sake. When he
cannot be killing men, he will sit in a cockpit all day, just for the
pleasure of seeing the birds slaughtering one another. I believe he had
my own father shot quite as much for love of murder as for the
opportunity it gave him for confiscating our family estates in Oaxaca."
"You seem to have enough to hate him for, anyhow, and I don't blame
you," replied the captain, as he turned away to give some orders to the
sailors, and all the while the boy who stood near them had been
listening.
"Well, Ned Crawford," he muttered to himself, "that's it, is it? Father
didn't seem to believe there would be any war. He said there would be
plenty of time, anyhow, for this old _Goshawk_ bark to make the round
trip to New York by way of Vera Cruz."
A great lurch of the ship nearly swung him off his feet just then, and
he was holding on very firmly to his rope when he added:
"He said I'd learn a great deal all the way, and I shouldn't wonder if
I'm learning something new just now. What do they mean by that
dangerous cargo in the hold, and our being captured by American ships of
war? That's a thing father didn't know anything about. I guess I can see
how it is, though. Captain Kemp isn't an American, and he'd do almost
anything to make money. Anything honest, I mean. How it does blow! Well,
let her blow! Father said he was putting me into a first-rate commercial
school, and here I am right in the middle of it."
Ned was indeed at school, and he seemed likely to have unexpected
teachers, but so is every other wide-awake young fellow, just like
Ulysses Grant and his crowd of young associates in their hot weather war
school over there on the Texas border.
Senor Zuroaga also had now walked away, and Ned was left to hold by his
rope, looking out upon the tossing sea and wondering more and more what
sort of adventures he and the _Goshawk_ might be so swiftly racing on
into.