Into The Past

                  

April 19th

81 degrees — according to the car thermometer.

Positively frigid.

Texas bursts forth in all her warm radiance, wrapping the hills, canyons, and roadsides in bright Spring ribbons. Eight-petaled Englemann Daisies waved their long golden fingers; Indian Blankets spun their flaming copper pin wheels; Prairie Verbena arose in cloudbursts of purple fireworks. Mealy Blue Sage arose and played their role as a bluish-violet Bluebonnet wannabe. I swept past retirement ranches and private oases, watered by dammed up creeks and the Guadalupe River. The whole impression idyllically hypnotic as gurgling water over smooth stone.

Mealy Blue Sage taking the place of Bluebonnets. Photo by the author.

Once I left the last of the steep hills behind, the land broadened out revealing the horizon again. The land becomes a wave machine of sorts. Gentle deep dips and smooth rises, the earth rocking you back and forth with long swings as you make your way south. There’s far more rock than grass or trees. It’s hard scrabble countryside that bites back at any plow that dares assault her, yet the stony soil still feeds the soft waves of color erupting along the highway. The road shoulder at last broadened wide enough for me to pull over and take a few pics close to the entrance to the YO Ranch.

Indian Blankets and Engelmann Daisies whip in the wind. Photo by the author.

Therein lies a tale:

A thirteen-year-old boy’s destiny is changed forever when his family pulls up stakes and moves to San Antonio from Alsace-Lorraine. Charles Armand Schreiner, ripped from all he knew, now must survive the drastic change of scenery — from the land of castles, mountains, and vineyards to the raw, flinty, stabby, scratchy, sweltering land that is the Texas of the 1850’s. Tragedy, never far away from Texas in any era, doesn’t wait to strike. His father dies only three weeks after arriving in the Promised Land. An ill-placed rake or hoe rummaging through brush digs up death in the form of a rattlesnake. It plunges its fangs into the father’s neck. Young Charles now must become a man.

He joins the Texas rangers, doing what young single men do in a time of persistent Indian attacks. Apache and Comanche raids for horses and children continue well into the 1870’s in this region. His poor mother is swept away in an epidemic, even as the thunderheads of Civil War gather on the horizon.

The Schreiner's sympathize with the Union. When the Confederate draft is declared in Texas, Charles’s little brother, Aime, decides that he will head to Mexico with other Union sympathizers. From there they will take a ship to Union occupied New Orleans and continue the good fight from there. Charles thinks about going too. His brother is only a year younger, and they are close. But his wife is 8 months pregnant, and so Charles must choose between the War between the States or a possible war with his wife. He chooses his wife and bids his little brother a heartfelt farewell.

They will never see each other again.

Aime and the other Union supporters are caught around the Nueces River by Confederate forces. A battle ensues. Some of the Union men flee the scene while others stand firm. The Battle of the Nueces becomes the Nueces Massacre when the wounded prisoners are executed by their Confederate captors. Some of the escapees are chased all the way down to the Rio Grande, where they are shot even as they splash across the river. By the time all is said and done, over half of the unit are killed. Aime Schreiner is one of the slain, shot down when he tries to bravely lead a counterattack.

The Treue der Union Monument in Comfort, Texas. Photo by the author.

The remains of Aime and the others are buried at Comfort (the hometown of most of them) under a monument that still stands today: The Treue der Union Monument (True to the Union). It’s one of the few Pro-Union monuments to stand in a former Confederate State. Charles names his newborn son Aime after his beloved brother. He also joins the Confederate Army to remove the target from his back. Fortunately the regiment he joins ends up seeing little action.

The young father makes it through the war but now faces crushing poverty as the South begins to rebuild. And so, he does what Texans do best — he reinvents himself.

And man, does he reinvent himself.

Charles Armand Schreiner, middle aged. Image from Handbook of Texas Online

He starts up a mercantile store and does so well that, within a decade, he’s able to buy his partner out. He invests in marketing wool and Mohair, helping Kerrville to become the “Mohair Center of the World” for a time. From a broke reluctant Reb, he sprouts into a colossus bestriding the hill country, building up quite an empire woven of business, banking, and ranching.

He purchases the YO ranch in 1880 with the profits he makes from an epic cattle drive of 300,000 longhorns up to Dodge City. The YO will remain in the Schreiner family for six generations, even as other Texas ranches break up and turn into gated communities for California refugees. His grandson, Charles III, reinvents the YO as an exotic game ranch with a regular Noah’s Ark of exotic beasts, earning it the nickname of “Africa in Texas.”

As he nears death, Captain Schreiner makes one last grand gesture, one more legacy to leave behind. He donates money and land to create a military institute for young men near the end of World War I. That military institute, begun in 1923, evolves into what we now call Schreiner University, educating young minds for over a century. Their motto: “Enter with Hope, Leave with Achievement.” I don’t know if young Charles Schreiner entered Texas with hope. But he certainly left it in 1927 with an incredible legacy of achievement. Not too shabby for a poor immigrant kid from Alsace-Lorrain who arrived without a pot to piss in, as my dad would so eloquently say. That’s the flinty stuff Texians are made of.

A postcard from the early days of Schreiner Institute. The campus is still one of the most beautiful in Texas.

Leaving the YO behind, I continued heading South to Rock Springs, which is a nice little town mostly devoid of people — which is what made it so nice. The only signs of life are a couple of kids playing basketball after school in their driveway and another three jogging in the cool of the approaching evening along the main road. Other than that, the place appears to be completely deserted. That’s what I really like about this leg of the journey — long stretches of highway with few towns and little traffic. It will prove even more deserted once I get past Del Rio and begin working my way along the river up towards Big Bend. This is more what the real Texas feels like to me. Long stretches of nature and Nothing, with the rare small, sleepy town. The Texas that is fast disappearing.

I can imagine myself sitting out on the square of Rock Springs or some nameless village on the cusp of being legally declared a ghost town, nodding off in the blessed silence, in the blissful haze of deliciously unctuous laziness. Only the infrequent car driving through town awakening me from my well-earned repose before drifting back off to the well-earned oblivion of a warm afternoon. My boyhood home in the country had the same sense of peace stretching out along the boards of our long porch. But my hometown has grown by leaps and bounds since then, suffering the fate of many Texas communities, with neighborhoods of cookie cutter houses metastasizing like cancers, and the roar of traffic over the hill growing louder and louder as taxes and water bills grow higher and higher without a return on the quality of life. “Progress” rampaging throughout a state once known for its open ranges and low cost of living, rapaciously devouring the countryside, sucking the watersheds dry, creating one gigantic Borg-like megalopolis.

The famed Jersey Lilly in Langtry, Texas. I would be visiting later on this trip. Photo by the author.

As I came within the forty-minute mark of puttering into Del Rio, I realized I was driving down the same road my parents and I meandered down on the way home from Big Bend one year. We’d spent the night in Del Rio after stopping at Langtry to visit the Jersey Lilly Saloon, home of the infamous Judge Roy Bean. I would stop there again this trip. As we drove towards Kerrville from Del Rio, a deer sprang out of the darkness and hit our little blue ford explorer, permanently denting it. Never even saw the deer, it was so dark. So, it could have been a Chupacabra or Sasquatch. My money is on the deer though.

This April trip is a journey into the past in more ways than one, a bittersweet exploration of the beginnings of our vanishing homeland and my own past, reliving memories from those halcyon days before dad went to heaven and Covid tore our society apart all in the same month. Birth and death, endlessly repeating in my mind as the miles and memories fly by. “And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

I feel in my bones that I am going south, back to the beginning. It’s hard to explain if you’ve never spent much time driving in wide-open spaces, but I can usually figure out my location just by feel without looking at the sun’s position. I’m a ginormous grouchy homing pigeon. I don’t know if those who spend most of their lives trapped in the cages of cities develop that survival instinct.

On and on and on, the miles tick off towards the border, away from places like Austin where newcomers play cowboy in a Texas themed amusement park. Here there’s no pretense, no fakery, just honest simplicity in a harsh environment that doesn’t suffer fools. The endangered Texas.

Lots of roadkill out here too.

Wildflowers have largely died off too, replaced with a mixture of short Spanish oaks and never-ending mesquite groves. I am now in the brush country teetering on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert. Soon there will only be mesquite. Then just cactus and Ocotillo with their crimson buds like pursed lips kissing the dry air.

Windmills fill the horizon in far Southwest Texas. Photo by the Author.

Windmills begin popping up on the horizon. Lots of folks hate them. I hem n’ haw back and forth on the issue. I think they can be quite photogenic, especially if they’re planted on a tall mesa and their lights in the evening create their own crimson galaxy of stars against the violent wash of the sky. Or when there’s a storm rolling through, and the towering thunderheads frame the slowly turning arms and lighting plays about her spinning arms in spider webs of angry electricity. But I can also see why people don’t like them. There’s so many of them now. Every lonely butte or mesa or slight rise seem to be giving birth to the things now. I feel like we have more than enough at this point. Leave us a few horizons without a thorny crown of windmills.

At last, I see the edges of Lake Amistad in the distance. The lake is low, so it takes on the appearance of a gigantic canyon stretching out into something like a jagged crater. Quite Jurassic looking. Imagine an abandoned rock quarry with high walls drawn out over miles and miles, and you will have an idea of what Lake Amistad looks like from a distance. Palm trees begin to spring forth as I sight the city limits of Del Rio.

Amistad Reservoir at sunset. It was lower than this when I drove past it. Picture taken by Chase Fountain for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

The first rung of my journey into the past now lies behind. Tomorrow I will explore the sacred places of the earliest peoples who called Texas home — well before Father Abraham was even a glimmer in his own father’s eye. Thinking of that makes me think of my dad’s own mischievous twinkling eyes. I begin to miss him again as I drive through town, towards the ancient Rio Bravo.

“And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Blood and Treasure

        "New Mexico is the best trick Old Mexico ever played on the U.S." 

Dr. Don Frazier's action packed history of the New Mexico Campaign

Howdy y'all! Welcome to another action packed episode of The Texian. This episode we talk to Dr. Don Frazier about the little known New Mexico campaign at the beginning of the Civil War. Turns out that Texans played a huge role in that theater of the war. It's a gripping part of our history that I guarantee few of y'all have heard much about. So sit back, relax and listen as we explore this struggle for empire in the American Southwest.

Tom Green, namesake of Tom Green county, and hero of the New Mexico Campaign 

Check out this episode!

The Tragic Tale of Two Expeditions

The Drawing of the Black Bean by Frederic Remington 

Howdy y'all!

This episode we talk with Dr. Hardin about two little remembered expeditions in the early history of the Republic of Texas that ended up in disaster. We also talk a good deal about President Mirabeau B. Lamar and his long reaching legacy. He had a much bigger impact than some folks would care to admit. So sit back, relax and listen as we explore the nooks and crannies of this little known window of Texas history.

Check out this episode!

Mirabeau B. Lamar, Second President of the Republic of Texas

The Dawson Massacre

Alsey Miller, later in life

A blind man makes a poor scout. Alsey Miller scrunched his eyes. Great smears of roiling colors battled it out behind a white veil of smoke. Cannons belched; the vibrations sang through the ground like a tuner's fork up his horse's legs. The Kentucky stallion reared nervously beneath him as Alsey tried to figure out exactly what was going on.

The situation, in short, was this: The Mexican Army under General Adrian Woll invaded Texas, capturing San Antonio on September 11, 1842.  Couriers raced across the settlements drumming up volunteers to drive off the invaders. Fathers, husbands, sons snatched up rifles and cornbread then rode off to liberate San Antonio. Forces gathered under Matthew "Old Paint" Caldwell now slugged it out with General Woll's much larger force on Salado Creek north of the city. The actual winner of the scrap was anybody's guess at this point. The 22 year old Kentuckian wasn't even entirely sure which writhing blur was Mexican and which was Texian. Alsey was chosen to scout ahead because of his familiarity with the area. But unfortunately he'd neglected to inform any of his companions that he happened to be extremely near sighted - and vanity refused him spectacles.

Muskets popped. One of the smears of color crumpled in the middle. Vague shouts and screams hummed like a beehive. He couldn't stay there exposed on the ridge much longer. The rolling pop of musket fire crawled in a centipede of smoke. The stallion's eyes darted nervously. "Easy, Selin, easy. I'm thinking that Caldwell is that group on the ridge being shot to pieces. I think." The smoke centipede raced, twisted and danced in another volley of popping rifles. "Our boys are getting slaughtered. I know it." Giving reign to Selin's terror, Alsey turned back towards Cibolo Creek. The cannon's rolling thunder carried the hurtling steed on a rushing tidal wave of echoes.

Cibolo Creek

Five miles away, a group of fifty-three men waited on the edge of the Cibolo. Grey haired frontiersmen and baby-faced teenagers filled their canteens in water that vibrated with each cannon shot. Begrimed eyes exhausted by two days of hard riding - with only one coffee break - watched restlessly for Miller as their horses took a breather. It was already three or four o'clock. A thunderstorm was trying to boil up from the west. The heat was ratcheting higher and higher as the atmospheric pressure stacked up.

Norman Woods watched his father cinch up the saddle on his handsome blue roan, Rattler. Norman's mind drifted over the miles back up the Colorado to Woods Fort - to the moment when his family first heard the cry for aid...As the courier slurped from a water bucket, the son watched his father stalk back into the double log house to fetch his gun and supplies. Norman looked over at his youngest brother, Henry Gonzalvo. "This is a young man's game, Gon. We will have to tuck into the Mexicans without a break after days of hard riding and he is not up for it anymore. You go hide his saddle in the barn and I'll hide Rattler." He quickly lead his father's favorite horse off and Gon buried the saddle under a pile of hay. The old man figured out their scheme soon enough. Without breaking his stride from the house, he calmly walked up to Norman's white stallion, grabbed mane and sunk spur. Round and round the fort he flew, like angry Achilles racing round the walls of Troy, shaking his rifle above his head. Reigning in before his family and eyes glowing with wrath he roared out, "See, I can ride and handle a gun as well as any young man! And I'll be giving the enemy one more crack at Ol' Zadock!" 

Thus ended the lesson.

As Norman looked at him now on the banks of the creek, Zadock Woods still made a fearsome sight. His long silver hair tossed in the rising wind under his broad brimmed hat. Add to that his long hoary beard, and he looked the very image of Odin filched from some antique painting. His highly stylized hunting jacket, a gift from Daniel Boone, set him completely apart from the vests, coats and top hats of his companion. He was a walking archetype, savagery clothed in civilized rags but beneath the facade all fire and steel. 

The Woods men formed the largest group within that company resting beneath the cypress. All over six foot with deep set, light eyes and long faces with high cheek bones. All handsome lesser shadows of Zadock. The family unit there included Zadock, his sons Norman, Henry Gonzalvo and teenage grandson, Milvern. Joe Robinson was a nephew. John Wesley Pendleton was Milvern's brother-in-law. They all stayed congregated around their patriarch, ready to charge hell with a bucket of water alongside him.

Samuel Maverick

Griffin Maverick stood near the Woods boys. Griffin was a mulatto and a slave. He'd been in San Antonio with his master, Samuel Maverick, when the Mexicans rode in. He'd managed to escape back to the Maverick family up on the Colorado. Samuel's wife Mary later wrote in her memoirs, "Our slave Griffin had come back from San Antonio and was greatly troubled about his master, to whom he was much attached. I called him to me, and talked to him about going to San Antonio to pass himself for a runaway, follow to Mexico, and do anything he could to free or even aid Mr. Maverick, and he could have his freedom." Such were the times that Mrs. Maverick didn't really grasp the insanity of the situation: a slave told to essentially runaway to a free country to his set his master free, then ride back to the slave Republic of Texas and hope his owners kept their promise of freedom. Maverick would later remember Griffin replying, "As for my freedom, I do not want anymore than I already have, master has always treated me more like a brother than a slave." Or at least, that's how Mary Maverick chose to remember the transaction. But it was also not unheard of for slaves to have deep familial bonds with families they had essentially grown up with. Their owners were the only stable family they had. Whatever his true feelings, here stood Griffin, a handsome brown giant, bristling with weapons and the only man with coin on him. His master's ransom.

Mary Maverick

"Sounds like we are missing all the fun." Nick Dawson grinned bravado but silently wondered why Alsey was taking so long. They were coming to aid Caldwell and if the battle was on, they needed to hurry before they were robbed of action. Elected to command by his comrades just the day before on the trail, the 34 year old Kentuckian held little real authority. The company just needed one fellow to bark decisive orders during a scrape to avoid pell mell confusion. Elected democratically, he could be quickly deposed as the mood suited his electors. Veteran of San Jacinto, member of the Republic's Army for a year or so, and old veteran of rangering campaigns against Comanche, the man was as close to a professional military man as this group of farmers, merchants, and grocers could find amongst them. Thus his election.

"We better vominose before there's no pepper bellies left to shoot." Harness shook and leather groaned as annoyed, exhausted horses submitted to being mounted once more. A sad-eyed pinto let out a plaintive grunt of dismay as her rider, Dick McGee, struggled aboard her weary back. McGee was what his nicer neighbors called "fleshy." What they meant was that the La Grange merchant was fatter than a hog in pecan season. His horse danced about trying to shake off this unwanted burden. The sweaty McGee cursed and fumed as he yanked on the reigns hard to hold her still, sending her spinning in circles in reply. It took another minute before he'd wormed his way back on board and straighten up his clothing with an air of wounded dignity. "Dick, I swear that mare deserves to be the next President of Texas for hauling your carcass all this way with no rest." Dick opened his mouth to spew forth the vilest invective he could conjure. Instead he pointed past Dawson back down the prairie towards the sound of battle. Alsey was riding hell for leather towards them.

"Caldwell's being shot to pieces!" he yelled out reigning in before them, sending clods of dirt flying. "Hotly engaged about two miles north of the San Antonio road. I ran into three Mex scouts on the way back here and managed to kill one of them. The other two rode off. Just barely made it here." Dawson looked over the scout's disheveled appearance but only hesitantly believed him. Something  rubbed him the wrong way about the man but he was the only one in their group really familiar with the area north of San Antonio.

"Hear that boys? Old Paint needs us." He spurred his horse forward as the other men roared out a cheer and dashed forward alongside the young bravo towards the faint sound of cannon fire.
Soon they could make out the rattle of guns popping through the cannon's roar. They charged over three miles of hills and hollows quick as their exhausted steeds allowed before reigning in on the hill Alsey had used as a lookout. Everywhere they saw the glittering storm of sword and bayonet. They could also see with 20/20 vision and saw Alsey had been wrong. The Mexicans saw them too.

"Look at those swarming and breaking off the main body there." Joe Robinson pointed down towards a nice sized group of Mexican soldiers advancing in their direction. "Looks to be about one hundred and fifty or so...Dragoons." Mounted Mexican Lancers rode hard in their direction and in good order. Robinson was an atheist or else he would have said a silent prayer - for he and the others were quickly realizing what predicament they had charged into. Seventeen year old Milvern Harrell was mounted up beside his cousin. "We are right between them and the city. That damned Miller has guided us right into their path.We are going to have to fight or retreat!" They both looked over at Zadock glaring down upon the advancing dragoons. "I know which one he'll choose," Robinson mumbled under his breath. Now there were two companies riding for them, lances flashing lighting in the stifling afternoon sun. Joe moved towards Dawson. "Captain, I think we might ought to start looking for a slightly more advantageous position than the one we are currently occupying." Dawson looked very worried and uncertain on what to do. Robinson's sarcasm didn't help.

Milvern Harrell later in life

"Boys, what do you think?" Puffy eyes regarded each other as they hesitated between fight or flight. Much of Dawson's bravado was wiped away."I'm thinking we fall back four miles yonder. Meet up with Jesse Billingsley and his reinforcements from Bastrop that we met on the road yesterday. Then we race back with that extra eighty or so but from a different direction so we don't have the whole damn Mexican army between us and Caldwell. We can't get to Caldwell from here. That would be suicide charging through the Mexican army. But we can ride around and hit them from the side with Caldwell."

The older men in the group began to grumble at the thought of retreat. Davie Berry, the oldest man there at 70, spat and cursed. "Why the hell did we ride so damned hard to get here if we are just going to tuck tail at the first sign of the enemy? We came to aid Old Paint and now we are just going to run like some scared rabbits? I stormed Bexar with Ben Milam and I'll be damned 'afore I show my back to any yellow-belly greaser." When Berry first heard about the Mexican assault on San Antonio, he tried to join the men in his neighborhood mustering up. Some of his family, like the Woods boys with Zadock, tried to convince him that such adventures were better left to young men. In reply, old Berry calmly marched off seventy paces, plopped down a target, marched back to his gawking family, cooly leveled his rifle and sent a bullet straight through the bulls eye. "I figure I can still shoot and hit a Mexican as good as anybody," he quipped as he got on his horse and rode away. That same cold fire stared down the younger army veteran.

"Listen here," snapped Dawson, "I am more than willing to meet the Mexicans if you boys prefer. But first I propose we move ourselves to that mesquite motte yonder so we aren't out here in the open with our tails exposed." He pointed to a clump of mesquite trees vaguely growing in the shape of a pair of spectacles.

"We came to fight!" bawled out Baptist Deacon Joseph Shaw. "Our horses are broken down anyway, those dragoons will catch up to us mighty fast and then we will be fighting on the run. Better to file up and meet them here head on."

One deep commanding voice cut suddenly through the conference like a blade. "We have marched a long way to meet the enemy and I do not intend to return without meeting them. I had rather die than retreat." 

"Well that settles that," Norman whispered to Gon as they watched their father scowl down their captain and cast the deciding vote. Dawson had no wish to stay and fight. He knew the better part of valor was to go back and join the other reinforcements coming up the road. Norman thought so too. But this wasn't a disciplined military unit. This was a democracy. And Dawson had to blow along with the wind or they'd simply demote him and do what they wanted anyway.  Gon seemed perfectly content to either to make a stand or fall back and regroup. He'd survived many a scrape with Indians. He reckoned this would be not be much different.

"Then let us fight," Dawson said in resignation. He lead the retreat towards the mesquite motte sprouted about a hundred yards to their right. The thicket was sparse and stretched thinly over 2 acres of the prairie. "Dismount and tie off your horses." The die cast, Dawson was back to his old decisive self. As the men leaped down and began to take up position behind trees, a young Elam Scallorn, nephew of Old man Berry and little more than a boy, scurried around looking for a good position to take up. All the narrow trees were taken though. His face blanched white with terror. "Where must I get, Uncle Davie, where must I get?" "Hell boy, I don't know. Cozey up with someone and share a tree, dammit." The boy rushed up behind the ponderous Dick McGee and took up residence behind his massive frame. The fleshy fellow spun and cuffed his ears. "Get out from behind me boy and fight like a man. You can't use me for breastworks!"

Dawson saw a few of the other younger lads had a wild look in their eyes as they watched the two units of Mexican cavalry bear down on them. They slowly backed up, looking over their shoulders, wrestling with the choice of losing face or running for their lives. If the company collapsed and scattered every which way in terror, there would be no defense and they'd all be chased down and skewered like fish. Norman stood near Dawson, saw the boys beginning to fall back and looked back at the lancers, now only a few hundred yards away. "Captain, we are in a bad fix."

Possible painting of Norman Woods

Dawson drew his pistol. "I'll shoot the first man who runs." His voice quivered. Something terrible was suddenly building up inside him as he felt the noose around them tighten. He was losing control. "I have no intention of running," Norman replied with withering contempt. Dawson stepped away from Norman and instead leveled his pistol at the younger men still backing up. "You hear me? I'll shoot the first man who retreats or surrenders! We have to all fight together or none of us gets out of this alive."

The dragoons reigned up before them in a brightly clad line of cavalry. They sat there for a bit, watching the Texians. A small detachment melted out of the unit and rode closer to the upper edge of the timber line. A white flag flapped in the hot breeze as they called out for a parley in Spanish. Though Dawson's company didn't know it, the Mexicans were actually losing to Caldwell, not being shot to pieces as Alsey had surmised. They were sick of fighting. If they could work out a deal with these reinforcements to clear the path for the Mexican army's retreat, they'd do their best to make it a reality. Dawson motioned them away. "Nothing doing!" The lead dragoon hesitated, shocked that the Texians would so blatantly thumb their noses at a superior force without hearing them out. "You hear me? I said Git! Vaminose!" Dawson waved his pistol at them. "There will be no palavering today. Get out of here before we mow you down. Scat!" The peace party took the hint and took off in a wide circle around the mesquite grove; a wheel of color and steel. The whole group began advancing at a slow trot as they joined back up with the other lancers. They knew the marksmanship of the Texians, had been schooled in it all day as a matter of fact, so they began feeling out the range. Old Davie Berry sighted and drew a bead on the foremost lancer and dropped him. Zadock and the other grayhairs fired off and emptied a few more Mexican saddles. The cavalry wheeled around and rode off another good 400 or so yards till they got out of range. Being whipped on both sides, their humors soured. Raging lancers charged forward again, Texian rifles be damned, at full gallop in fully military order, ready to crash into the mare's nest of trees and sharpshooters. The lead horseman lifted high his gleaming sword and a shout arose from the thundering horde. Lightbursts fired from sword and lance. Dawson stepped out in front of the trees, calmly lifted his rifle and took out the lead swordsman to kick in the dust. "That's the way I used to do," he laughed as the men hurrahed. They all started firing pell mell, Mexicans hitting the dirt right and left. The cavalry spun and beat a hasty retreat back out of range. More whoops sailed in the air alongside hats. "Run, you pepper-bellied sons of bitches, run!"

The firing continued but now randomly with little effect. The Mexican's Brown Bess muskets didn't have the range the Texian's rifles did and their powder quality was abysmal. The balls fell well short of the mesquites. Now mostly out of range, the Texians weren't dropping as many as they were before either but an occasional musket ball did manage to hiss past some dragoon's ear or cripple a horse. Zadock and Robert Barkley muttered their son's names each time as they fired, ticking off a rosary of hate. Zadock's son Leander died at Velasco and Robert's son died at Goliad. Norman and Gon had stopped firing long before their father and instead tried to figure out what the Mexicans were about. "They look to be awaiting something...more soldado's to help upset this stalemate, I reckon." Gon shook his head. "I wish pa would stop wasting ammunition. If more are about to swoop down on us, we'll need all the lead we can get. They are shouting some in Espanol but I can't make it out." Gon could speak Spanish well enough to be understood.

More soldiers were indeed rushing to the cavalry's aid. Infantry this time, that's why it took longer for them to catch up to the lancers. But now two squadrons were finally marching up right behind the skittish horses. Norman shook his head. "That's a helluva lot more soldados...but we can keep them pinned down up there for awhile. Why didn't they send more horsemen? We can pick off infantry like fish in a barrel. Doesn't make a lick of sense."

A sudden crack of cannon thundered across the prairie. The Texians hit the ground as the top of the mesquite grove exploded into a shower of branches and mesquite beans. "They pulled up a damned cannon!" Zadock crawled over towards his sons trying to reload as he did. None of them had seen the artillery piece hidden behind the infantry. Another shot screamed through trees, lower this time, turning the timber into a rain of mulch.

Norman thrust a protective hand over Zadock's head and pushed it lower as another round of grapeshot hissed over them. "That shot was lower than the last! They are working their way down towards us." Now they heard a few yelps and shouts from men finally feeling the impact of hot falling metal.  Zadock looked apologetically at his sons. He struggled for something to say. Finally he mustered up, "'If I am killed boys, I want my body burned and ashes thrown to the four winds of heaven."

Norman's jaw dropped. "Are you off your head? It'll be a miracle if any of us get out alive!" Another thunderous roar and another swarm of grapeshot hissed over head. Men and horses started screaming in agony. The cannon had found its range. Another shot slashed through the grove. The horrible sound of screaming, thrashing horses beat in their brains. Men crawled on the ground, holding their intestines in with their hands, coughing out the names of their wives and children. Norman thought of his wife, Jane. He thought of their five children. Gon thought of Jane too. She was very beautiful. Brave as a tiger in battle, he was widely renowned for his timidity among the ladies back home. He was mocked by all the other men folk quite frequently about it. But he couldn't tell them that he was in love with his sister-in-law.

Possible Jane Woods, about 10 years later

There was a pause in cannonade to reload. Gon began crawling to a better firing position. "Somebody's got to pick those artillery men off. There'll be nothing left of us here soon." As he crawled away from Norman and Zadock, other men had the same idea and began firing back at the smoking cannons. The hissing lead pierced the white clouds of smoke and they heard a few screams of shock at the frontiersmen's almost supernatural marksmanship. Gon suddenly realized that his shoulder was hurting and saw blood seeping through his shirt. He'd caught a little shrapnel that stung like a hornets nest but he could still move freely enough. He bear crawled past Jerome Alexander, tallest man in the company, but now diminished and hunched over on his hands and knees, trying to fire off his rifle with blood soaked hands. He let out a strangled cry and crumpled to the ground coughing up blood. Mexican and Indian snipers were working their way in around the mesquite motte and were picking people off. The cavalry also now waited on both sides of the motte and fired at will in a scattered crossfire. Gon heard the fallen giant sputter out "God protect you all...My wife! My wife!" The rest was choked by upwelling gore. Gon crawled onward to turn his attention on the snipers. Screams and groans and coughing filled his ears. He saw the boy Elam Scallorn, no longer wailing for Uncle Davie, laid out in death alongside Dick McGee, their innards pouring out. Gon fought the urge to vomit and sent a sniper scurrying with a well aimed shot. He looked about him, surveying the damage. About a dozen of the men and almost all the horses had been killed so far...some instantly, most after lingering awhile with faces, limbs and torsos ripped to shreds by grape shot. Tree trunks were peeled raw. The high grass mowed down. Floating mesquite leaves cascaded down through a haze of sawdust. Broken branches lay in piles alongside the broken limbs of men. Time slowed. He saw Dawson walking through the sun-dazzled haze, all action and heroic fire, urging the young men to remain cool, to reserve their ammo till they were sure of their shot. The cannons barked and another hot scythe of grapeshot whistled past. He heard his brother scream.

The last hail of lead caught Norman as he raised up slightly to reload his rifle. Metal tore deep into his hip collapsing him in a mass of agony. Zadock threw himself across his son's body as another volley sailed overhead. He raised back up to help his son staunch the blood pouring from his hip. "I won't lose you too. I won't lose you too."  His chest exploded. A sniper's well aimed bullet caught him right in the heart and the old man collapsed over his son's body. Norman's cries of agony twisted into calling out "Pa, Pa" over and over again as the old man's body now proved the perfect shield for his wounded son.

Milvern and Joe Robinson heard Norman's cries and surmised what they meant but they couldn't see the dead father cradling his son. They were watching Captain Dawson still walking about the grove trying to encourage those left alive to hold fast and make their shots count. Almost all the horses were dead. They had no real means of retreat. He seemed to move almost in slow motion to them as he defied death to light a fire of hope in the survivors' hearts. But then Milvern saw he was limping. Blood ran down his pant leg. And behind the show of defiance, Dawson knew they were in an impossible position. Almost two thirds of them now lay cold as the clay. He had to ask for quarter. The cavalry crept ever closer, the snipers multiplied and the grapeshot reloaded. It was his decision but he still upheld the democratic nature of his office. He turned to the man laying on the ground beside his feet. "Should I hoist the white flag?" "Hell yes, or they will kill us all to a man." Dawson limped over to a dead horse and pulled a white Mackinaw blanket from a saddlebag. He tied if off to a empty rifle laying next to Old Davie Berry in a pool of blood. He began limping out towards the Mexican lines waving his homemade flag. The Mexicans would have none of it. The fighting rage was upon them. They were being whipped by Caldwell behind and had been shot up by Dawson's company -there would be no parley now. They began firing on Dawson as he limped towards the Mexican lines. Gon, Milvern, Joe and the remaining others fired back at the enemy while Dawson vainly waved the flag of surrender in a crossfire. He caught four or five bullets in the chest. He stumbled back into the mesquite motte dragging the flag in the dirt behind him, stumbling towards pale faced boys, his life bleeding out. He hit his knees. Joe and Milvern rushed over just as the captain collapsed. Nick Dawson gazed up in the sky, a gorgeous violet evening muffled by the sulfurous powder smoke and mesquite mulch snow. Then he couldn't see anymore. As he sunk into the soft arms of that final sleep, his wounded chest managed to croak out his last orders. "We must be like the Spartans, boys. Sell your lives dear. Let victory be purchased with blood."

Sunset approached. The grapeshot ceased and now the lancers and infantry began to march in good order upon the depleted company, yellow tongues of flame flashing from their bayonets and sabers in the lowering sun. They could tell most of the Texians were dead. Time to go in and mop up. Their colonel wanted the wounded disarmed then shot. But as they marched along the soldados figured they could save ammunition by using their sabers to dispatch the wounded instead.

"Do not fire till they are within pistol shot!" roared out Gon to whomever would listen as he managed to crawl over to his brother. Norman still lay under Zadock, clasping him in a tight hug while he felt his strength ebb away with his hip wound. "I'm done for, Gon. If I don't bleed to death, the Mexicans will be chopping me up directly. I can't walk, let alone run. You have to leave me. Now. Save yourself." He pressed a loaded pistol into Gon's trembling hand. "I am not going anywhere without you, if you die, then I die here too! " Gon almost sobbed as he looked over his father's body then up at the approaching lines of infantry.

"Fool's talk! You have to make it out of here. I need you to take care of Jane and the children for me. If you won't get out of here for yourself, then do it for Jane." Norman knew of his brother's feelings. Known for years. There was a tense moment now that the secret had been actually spoken aloud. Gon finally nodded slowly. "I love you little brother." Gon tried to reply through the hot tears flooding his vision but all he could muster was a primal noise of rage as he fled his brother buried beneath their father's stiffening form.

Possible Henry Gonzalvo Woods, in the late 1860's

Now it was hand to hand combat for the survivors. The soldados went from a march to a jog then a charge as they swarmed what was left of the grove. A melee of rifle butts and bowie knifes clashed with bayonet and saber. Men went down biting, clawing, gouging their assailants. Soldado and Texian fell together, knives sunk into each other's chest. The cavalry now swooped down from the sides with lances leveled, ready to spear any one who tried to escape from that web of death. As the men saw the walls close in, they ran. At last, it was every man for himself. That's exactly what the dragoons awaited. As each man darted from the "safety" of the mesquite grove, a pair of dragoons launched out, chased them down and speared the fleeing man like a fish. A bullet in the head made sure of the squirming victim. One man managed to run a desperate 400 yards away before a lancer finally over took him.  Gon saw it all. "They are massacring us like brutes! We are going to have to surrender or they'll cut us to pieces." Joe and Milvern kept swinging their rifle butts, stoving in Mexican heads. "I'm making a break for it." There was no other option. They didn't see any prisoners being taken. They'd have to take their luck with the wide open prairie and the dragoons. "Good luck, boys!" They each fled in opposite directions through the smoke choked forest of death.

Griffin now stood ringed by soldados trying to actually capture him unharmed. He was making it bloody work for them. After braining a few with his musket, enough of them grabbed hold of it and yanked it away. He quickly swung back into them with a great mesquite limb blown off by the artillery bombardment. Like Hercules swinging his club, the leonine black man refused to surrender, eyes blazing with wrath at the slaughter about him. After another two or three soldados fell before his hammering blows, their captain watching the entire debacle, finally sighed in weary resignation. He wanted to take Griffin alive. There was no slavery in Mexico and black prisoners of war were often given their freedom since the Mexicans assumed they were not fighting of their own free will. And thus did Colonel Jose Carrasco plan to do. But Griffin wouldn't be taken a prisoner. Carrasco couldn't stand idly by and watch men under his command be beaten to death by the black man. So he ordered him shot. As the smoke of rifle fire dissipated, he rode his horse up to the dead man's body and doffed his hat as he bowed in his saddle. "This is the bravest man I have ever seen."

Norman awoke from his stupor as he felt hands tearing at his clothes. As his eyes focused he looked up into the brown faces of battle maddened infantrymen, eyes glowing with the blood lust. "Quarter, for favor. Quarter." A half dozen swords flashed down upon his head. Blunted by hacking up the dead bodies around them, the swords slashed long furrows across his naked head. As he lifted his arms in vain protection he felt another dig deep into his side. The new pain electrified him and he managed to cry out louder. A sudden explosion of Spanish expletives roared out from somewhere he couldn't see and a sergeant rushed up and beat the soldados back with his sword. He stood over him like a guardian angel as the thwarted robbers took off to find an actual corpse to rob. "Gracias, muchos gracias," Norman gasped as he sought to stop the bleeding from his side. The sergeant kneeled, ripped up Zadock's clothing and helped tie a sort of shirt tourniquet around Norman's wound. He didn't know why he was even trying. This man was pale as death with all the blood leaking from his frame. But the sergeant didn't approve of the butchering going on around him and if he could save one defenseless man from being hacked to pieces then he would count it as a job well done. He watched the soldiers duck through the mesquite forest, completely stripping the dead bodies and rifling their pockets. Saddles overturned and bags emptied. Some laughed and hooted. Others were deadly serious about their work. They tried to glean some sense of victory from this day and took out their frustrations on the corpses. Arms and legs littered the ground; faces crushed and sliced beyond all recognition. The sergeant grew sick as he watched. Norman passed out once more.

Gon slowly put down his rifle and pistol and walked with arms raised towards an mounted officer. He figured the more calm he appeared the lest apt the dragoon would try to run him down. "Quarter, for favor. Quarter! Those left are all surrendering. Surrendering." His Spanish wasn't the best but the officer understood, nodded and trotted past the wonder struck young man. But then a group of infantry marching nearby saw Woods and decided that her was an easy kill. They charged the lone man. One shot at him almost at point blank range but the gun misfired. Two others swung at the young man with rifle butts, punching his left ear and almost breaking his arm. Gon ran back towards the mesquite motte, darted quickly into the trees and saw a horse miraculously alive and still tied to a mesquite. It took him only an instant to untie him . As he launched upwards into the saddle, a voice shouted "Woods! Woods! Don't take my horse!" John Church of La Grange ran towards him wild eyed and weaponless. Gon fought the temptation to sink spur and ride out anyway, but as he saw the look of desperate terror in Church's eyes he alighted and handed him the horse. He dove into a patch of high grass that hadn't been mowed by shrapnel. Worming on his belly across the dirt the grass covered him from sight for a bit as he tried to figure out which direction he should take. He heard a sudden eruption of musket fire, a scream and the cries of a horse in it's death throws and he knew John Church and horse hadn't made it far. He continued to watch the marching enemy lines, drenched in sweat, the heat and humidity strangling him as he lay close to the ground. He felt his heart thumping into the ground and his breath blew up dust into his face. He wiggled further through prairie till he saw what he thought looked to be a large opening between the two groups of infantry that stood between him and the Cibolo. It was now or never. He took a deep breath, leapt to his knees and sprinted for that open window.

He felt hooves thundering up behind before he made it half way to freedom. He turned and raised his arms again to try and surrender. Four dragoons charged down on him. A lance stabbed over his head and sliced a groove into the top of his head while the another stabbed at his side. Gon whipped around instinctively and took a holt the lance shaft, yanking with a great tug. The lances were attached to the Dragoons with a leather strap to prevent them from being dropped so Gon pulling with all his might yanked the lancer off his horse. As the dragoon kicked and cursed in the dirt, Gon leapt over and with a wild angry cry stabbed the man over and over and over with his own lance. He spun around with spear uplifted ready to launch into the horsemen hovering above him.The other three dragoons were riding away. This man put up too much of a fight for them to mess with. Let someone with loaded rifles deal with him. The young man yanked the spear free of its former owner's body and made for the dead man's horse. He started to try and mount it but the beast wanted nothing to do with its master's killer. It kicked and bit at him but he managed to get aboard. The furious horse refused to move faster than a trot. But at least it moved faster than Gon could afoot. He managed to steer the stubborn animal to the edge of the battlefield before a bullet hissed past his ear. He turned and saw a soldado with smoking musket and three others charging towards him. The horse suddenly refused to budge. He kicked and cursed it but it stood there awaiting the Mexicans. Gon leapt from the horse, still clutching the spear as his only weapon and ran. He felt the soldiers on his heels, thought he could hear them breathing behind, kept expecting a bayonet in the back. Then in a wild glance over his shoulders he say the soldados were nowhere near him and had instead stayed behind to secure the horse. Gon dodged into a thicket that at last hid him from the enemy and collapsed into a bed of tall grass. He would wait there till sun down. Not long now. Then he'd start the long journey home on foot. He was bleeding from his shoulder, his head and his ears. His arm was numb and possibly cracked. But he had escaped. And now all he could see was Norman and his father laying alone in that mesquite abattoir.

General Adrian Woll

Out of a company of fifty three, only fifteen survived to be taken prisoner. Gon and, of all people, blind Alsey Miller, were the only two to escape. Alsey had given a good accounting of himself till retreat seemed the better part of valor and he took off from that death trap about the same time as Gon. His beautiful horse, Selin, lay dead, ripped open by grapeshot. Like any good Kentuckian, Alsey had a good eye for horseflesh, found a surviving horse with a dead owner that looked like it could outrun the Mexicans and lit out. He made it through the lines of infantry fairly easy. He almost laughed out joyously that he'd made it through unscathed - till his poor eyesight lead him straight into General Woll, commander of the entire Mexican army. He'd never seen Woll but he could certainly tell he was the heave-hoe of the operation with all the medals and feathers in his hat. The two stared awkwardly at each other while the officers around the general sat opened mouthed at the absurdity of the situation. Woll finally broke the silence with "Venga aqui pronto, venga aqui pronto!" (Come here quick) Alsey had no clue what he should do, he finally came out with "Uhm, No, over there - pronto," in his best Spanish, pointing east. He turned the horse and galloped away. General Woll and his commanders simply stood there, smoking cigars in hand.

Blind Alsey headed back towards the mesquite grove till he was close enough make out the handful of prisoners having their hands tied behind there back. Milvern and Joe stood among them. Joe was pretty battered and bruised and Milvern had a great slash across his back. Both now faced a long hard march down into the belly of Mexico to an uncertain fate. They might wish they had died alongside Zadock rather than be shuffled off to where they were being sent. Milvern saw Alsey off in the distance and nudged Joe. "That fool is so blind he runs right back into the frying pan." Joe only laughed sardonically at the black comedy of it all. But now the dragoons saw Alsey too and started the chase. Off Alsey went, praying he was heading in the right direction and actually away from the enemy this time. It seemed like he was but as he looked down at his pants he saw flecks of crimson blossoming. He didn't feel shot and quickly felt around his leg. The blood sprayed from the somewhere on the horse's end and it's blood soaked tail flecked him with blood. He kicked the horse harder - he had to get a good distance before it started to weaken. Too late. But fortune sometimes favors the bold - and the blind - and a riderless horse was soon running up alongside him. He recognized it as Ed Manton's. Ed was among the captured. He also saw the dragoons gaining on him. With no time to stop and switch mounts, Alsey pulled a stunt worthy of a Hollywood swashbuckler. As the new horse galloped alongside him, Alsey leaped from his wounded horse at full gallop onto the back of Ed's horse. With the Mexicans shouting angrily at being robbed of their prey, Alsey rode east towards Seguin. He was at last going in the right direction. Ed Manton's horse was finding its way back home. Thunder cracked in the distance and lighting flickered over the last remains of the sunset.

Joe, Milvern and the others were stripped down to their pantaloons, robbed of their valuables and marched off to San Antonio. Norman, still passed out, was given some consideration now that tempers had cooled down. Soldados laid him delicately in a great ox cart beside the wounded Mexican soldiers. And thus he and other survivors began their long journey towards the infamous castle of Perote, a great walled prison between Mexico City and Veracruz. Perote means coffin in Spanish. The castle would indeed prove a coffin for six of the fifteen survivors.

Perote Prison

The mangled bodies of the dead were robbed, stripped and left to the tender care of the vultures and wolves. Already yellow eyes congregated in the darkness waiting to dig into the great feast laid before them. But at last, the long gathering thunderstorm burst like a sore over the prairie. The late summer rain fell cold and heavy, washing away the blood of the fallen, leaving behind white marble statues sprawled in icy repose. An almost full moon rose into the night of September 18, 1842.

And so ended Zadock Woods' 69th birthday.

Marker in the general vicinity of the Massacre, in far north San Antonio

                                                                                     Copyright: Ben Friberg, 2019