Electric Bison

In 1846, April 12, was Easter Sunday. That was the day Private John Reilly crossed the Rio Grande River by means unknown with a pass in his pocket to attend Roman Catholic Mass at Our Lady of Refuge Cathedral in the center of Matamoros, Mexico.

He never returned to his unit. After that time the Mexicans finally drew the north American blood of two dragoons, just in time to give slave-owning President James Polk the more solid cause he needed to request an already intended Declaration of War against Mexico from Congress on May 9. By then full scale war had already commenced between the U.S. and Mexican armies at Palo Alto on May 9 and Resaca de la Palma on May 9. The major battles of Monterrey, Buena Vista, Veracruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molina del Ray and Chapultepec then ensued over the next 17 bloody and expensive months before U.S. forces entered Mexico City on September 15, 1847.

The number of deserters and run-away slaves from the U.S. Army to join the San Patricios, or Saint Patrick’s Battalion, or Legion of Strangers, or Legion Estranjera, has been estimate to be a minium of 200 and a maximum of 700. After their last battle, at the Convent of Churubusco, a place built from an old Aztec Temple called “the place of the War God,” there were 72 survivors, including John Riley.

The battle at Churubusco was so violent and uncompromising that both sides welcomed a short Armistice. During that three week reprieve from violence, two Army Court Martial Boards were convened. The General Court Martial proceedings convened at Tacubaya, Mexico, tried 43 deserters. The one convened at San Angel Mexico, tried 29 cases, including that of Private John Reilly.

Nearly all those charged were sentenced to hang.

Because Reilly and others crossed to the Mexican side before the May 9 formal Declaration of War, General Winfield Scott, upon reviewing the sentencing, determined that only 50 deserters should hang. Riley received 59 whip lashes on his back, two brand marks, “D,” one on each side of his face and was made to wear an 8 pound Iron Collar with spokes emanating from it until released from prison at the war’s end. Here is what Riley wrote to his court martial board about Easter Sunday, 1846

From the United States National Archives, Record Group 153, Case 127, John Riley:

“Private John Reilly of K Company, 5th U.S. Infantry, did desert the service of the United States, from camp opposite Matamoros on the 12th of April, 1846, and did afterwards enter the military service of Mexico, then at war (which was not accurate) with the United States, and was captured bearing arms in the Mexican ranks against the forces of the United States on 20th August, 1847, at the Battle of Churubusco. How does the prisoner plead to this charge and specification?”

“Not guilty! I have a written statement for the court in my defense.”

“We will make it part of the record in due time, Private O’Reilly. I want to know one thing. Why did you decide to cross over the river to Matamoros?”

“I had the urge to go to Mass.”

Private Reilly’s written testimony, not read during his August 1847 Court Martial, said:

“I was never a deserter. I was captured by the Mexicans on a Sunday morning, while I was on a pass attending Mass. I was taken as a prisoner to Matamoros and directly to General Ampudia. I told Captain Furlock who served as my interpreter that I was not a deserter. I showed him my pass and asked him to tell General Ampudia that I was captured coming from church. General Ampudia ordered me confined in the Sappers Barracks at Matamoros. For 19 days I had no contact with the others who had already left the American camp, and I lived on six pence a day which was enough for bread and water. On the 29th of April, General Ampudia sent for me to come to his quarters. I told him I didn’t know anything about his country. I said I’d lived for two years in the United States and had served seven months and three days in U.S. ranks. As an Irishman, I am a British subject, and I told him I hoped his officers would treat me as a soldier and set me free. On the 5th of May, I was escorted from prison to General Ampudia. He told Captain Furlock to ask me questions about General Taylor and his men. I told him that I was neither a deserter or spy, and, if he wanted more information, he should ask someone else. On the 19th of May General Ampudia told me that if the Americans caught me in Matamoros, General Taylor would have me shot. He forced me, tied as a prisoner, to walk to Linares. The day after we got to Linares, he had offered me an officer’s commission as First Lieutenant in the Mexican Army. I told him if I fought against the United States, I’d be fighting against my brothers and countrymen. He told me that as an alien to both the United States and Mexico, I should be executed. He had me brought out on the plaza with my hands tied behind my back, and sentenced me to be shot in 25 minutes. General Arista rode up on horse-back and told Ampudia that no execution should take place while he commanded the army. One of General Arista’s assistants untied me and marched me to Arista’s quarters. General Arrista asked me several questions about General Taylor’s army. I told him I did not come as an informer but was a prisoner and hoped to be treated as such. He told me that he saved me from being shot in the Plaza of Linares and that I should not be acting as a smart ass. He said he would turn me back to Ampudia’s brigade and let Ampudia do as he liked with me. General Arista sent me back to prison, escorted by an officer, a Sergeant and six guards. The following morning Captain Furlock came to the prison and advised me to do something to save my life. I told Captain Furlock to tell General Arista that if he spared my life I would try to tell him what he wanted. He sent a guard who marched me up to his quarters.

General Arista asked me how many troops General Taylor commanded. I told him I didn’t know, nor does any other private soldier. He asked me where the soldiers are from. I told him the units are composed of all nations, and that I had known Irish, English, French and Germans in U.S. service. He asked me how I had come into the service. I told him I was an alien to both the United States and Mexico, as a subject of Great Britain. He gave me four days to consider defending the Republic of Mexico, and if I decided not to take up arms for Mexico, I would suffer the punishment my countrymen suffered after the Battle of Labordee in Texas. He did not consider me or other foreigners entitled to be a soldier in the ranks of the United States. He said that all foreigners taken prisoner from U.S. ranks should be treated as traitors to the Mexican Government. That same night he ordered me chained in prison. The next morning between 10 o’clock and 11, General Arista sent a guard to march me back to his quarters with my arms tied behind my back. He met me in his hallway and asked whether or not I would defend the Republic of Mexico. I told him I had never served as a private in my lifetime, with the exception of 7 months and 3 days in the American ranks. Therefore if I was sentenced to death as a British subject, I would sooner serve as a commissioned officer and fight against my brothers and countrymen. No consul belonging to Great Britain was in that part of the country. I thought it best to accept the commission, because I was afraid of being immediately shot. I accepted it.”

This Harpers Weekly lithograph from the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, is the best image I’ve been able to find of Matamoros in 1846, as the U.S. Army of Observation reached the banks of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo River. At either edge are the earthen fortifications thrown up by the Mexican defender and in the center is the steeple of the Our Lady of Refuge Cathedral, which had been built in 1832. The sidewheeled steamboats give an idea of the river’s depth. In my mind a person would have to have officer’s binoculars to see the women of Matamoros doing their laundry, bathing and swiming, naked as they had for centuries under their town’s bluffs.

Constructing the earthen Fort Texas did not commence until April 8. The following description of what happened on the U.S. side after arriving on the norhthern bank has been drawn by writer Peter F. Stevens in his book, The Rogue’s March, John Riley and the Saint Patrick’s Battalion, 1846-48:

Soon after the U.S. Army’s arrival, General Taylor, hoping to find out the conditions of two dragoons who had been captured by the Mexicans before the American army’s arrival and to size up the intentions of (Mexican General) Meja, had sent General Worth across the Rio Grande undre a flag of truce. On the riverbank, Mejia, who “was breathing fire at the propect of battle,” refused to meet with Worth. The Mexican general had sent General Romolo Diaz de a Vega to deal with the “Yanquis.” Since he claimed that he did not speak English and since none of Worth’s party spoke Sanish, the “negotiations” proceeded in French. Whe he later reported back to Taylor, Worth said he believed the Mexicans ready for a fight. Taylor agreed that the Mexicans would strike “as soon as they received enough troops to attack us.”

To assess Mejia’s current strength, Taylor turned again to Worth. Old Routh and Ready considered him devious—-just the man to send a spy into Matamoros.

Worth selected an unnamed soldier from the 8th Infantry. On March 29, the man swam the Rio Grande, “surrendered” to Mexican troop, and announced himself as a deserter. His captors led him to Mejia, and so glib was the alleged runaway that Mejia not ony believed him, but also offered him a catain’s comission to peruade other Americans to join him.

Free to wander Matamoros and study the Mexican redoubts, he “served’ his new army for one day, stole back to the rier that night, and swam back to Taylor’s camp without Mexican pickets spotting him. He reported: “The Meican have 3,500 troops, 500 are cavalry and are fine troop, the remainder are good for nothing, a miserle, half-starved set of wretches. They have about thirty pieces of artillery, none larger than a nine-pounder, and many twos and three and fours.” Other sources claimed that Mejia had ony 2,000 troops. Reinforcements under General Pedro de Ampudia, however, were marching to Matamoros. The Mexicans would soon outnumber the Americans.

Amid the disparaging description of the Mexicans by Worth’s spy, he unwittingly recounted an alarming development for the U.S. Army. Mejia’s offer to commision the man to raise a company of deserters heralded an evolving Mexican strategy aimed at Taylor’s men most affected by the tolling of church bell, the sounds of hymns that wafted from Matamoros churches, and by the priests who sprinkled holy water upon cannons and fortifications.

Through a network of spies, Mejia and other Mexican generals knew of the rancor between Natiist offirs and immigrants in Taylors ranks. The Mexicans realized that 47 percent of Taylor’s men hailed from Europe, mainly Irishmen, along with many Germans. So, too, did Mexican leaders recall the Nativist mobs that had murderously rampaged through Catholic neighborhoods in Philadelphia and other American cities in 1844. And Taylor’s foes were about to tap into the hard feelings permeating their enemy’s camp.

The hope of the immigrant troops that the nearness of battle would divert officers’ Nativism dwindled. “The donkeys are part and parcel of the Mexican,” an American captain stated, “as much so as the pig of the Irishman.” Angered by the daily sights and sounds of Matamoros’s Catholic rituals, many of Taylor’s officers simiarly ridiculed “popery” and “papist mummery and flummery” and professed their zeal to free Mexico from the “dead hand of the Roman Catholic Church.”

On the evening of March 29-30, 1846, just after Taylor’s bugles sounded tattoo, the general alarm send soldiers scampering out of their bivouac and clutching their muskets. Scouts had reported that at least 600 Mexican cavalrymen had crossed the Rio Grande and would fall upon the camp before dawn. American dragoons clambered atop their mounts to the bugle calls “To Horse” and galloped off into the darkness to engage the Mexicans, the jangle of spurs and sabers echoing as the riders vanished.

Officers ordered their men to sleep with their weapons, but sleep that long night came to few soldiers, open eyed, listening or the first distant crcks of the dragoons’ pistols and carbines.

“Nothing came to pass,” wrote an officer.” But, as the bleary-eyed troops pushed themselves from their bedrolls and mustered for assembly they noticed that the Mexicans had emplaced another cannon in a sand-bagged battery.

The following morning, March 31, a jittery American officer noted: “Two men, foreigners, swam the river and deserted.”

Grant and others worried that officers’ “harsh and cruel usage” on “these poor fellows” had driven the across the river. Captain Philip Norbourne Barbour and Lieutenant George Meade echoed Grant’s growing concern about the lure of Matamoros for immigrant soldiers.

On April 1 1846, as ‘the whole city turned out” to wish them good luck, the Mexicans released the two captured dragoons, and the pair regaled their American comrades with accounts of the Mexicans’ “kindness,” fandangos (dances), and the beauty and charm of the women.” The pair’s glowing accounts of life among their Catholic captors proved an immediate problem for Taylor and his commanders, for, in Meade’s words, the excaptives’ stories, combined with the enemy’s church bells and priest, “induced a great many desertions from our side.”

In response to the two desertions on the evening before the dragoons’ return, Old Rough and Redy issued “orders…verbally given to the several commanders on or about the first of April (1846) that all men seen sweimming acros the river hould be hailed by our pickets and ordered to return; and, in case theat they did not return, that they should be shot.” Taylor had taken the unprecidented and illegal step of ordering that deserters be shot while no state of war existed—-a blatant violation of the Articles of War.

Scarcely had Taylor isued his shoot-to-kill order before core of men defied it. Surgeon Jarvis recorded in his journal that 36 soldiers swam the river during the night of April 1-2 under the noses of the sentries, at last 14 deserters hailing from the mostly Irish ranks of the 1st Brigade. Riley’s unit, the 5th, accounted for many.

On the evening of April 2-3, more men stole from camp, hid along the riverbank until pickets had passed by, and slipped into the Rio Grande. Captain Barbour wrote on the next day: “We have lost about thirty men…by desertion…Several slaves belonging to the officers have left their masters and gone over to Matamoros.” The Kentuckian Barbour worried: “If we are located on this border, we shall have to employ white servants.”

Sometime during the morning of April 4, Private Carl Gross, a Frenchman serving in Company Iof the 7th Infantry, had decided to desert. He had plunged into the water that afternoon nd splashed toward Matamoros. Pickets spotted him and ordered him to stop. He kept swimming. Several muskets barked, and Captain Henry tersely noted that “he (Gross) was shot and sank.”

That evening, as the men gathered at their evening mess and discussed Gross’s death—-a warranted act to some, and execution to others—-two Irishmen, James Mills and Thom…