Chapter 8

1867: the BORDER

The Ninth U.S. Cavalry, as represented by Companies H, I, and J (the Army had finally resolved to differentiate the letters I and J) caught up with us at Fort Duncan, near Eagle Pass, Texas.

Fort Duncan had been established during the Mexican-American War to defend the river crossing between the town of Eagle Pass, a former Texas state militia camp established in eighteen-forty, and the Mexican town of Piedras Negras, Coahuila. We found that there was an active cross-border trade and so each country had established customs houses at the Rio Grande (known as the Rio Bravo del Norte in Mexico). I was told that the names Bravo and Grande shared some similar meanings, and that, in earlier times, the rio had been known in Mexico alternately as Rio del Norte, Rio Grande del Norte, and Rio Bravo del Norte, the latter two generally meaning Great Northern River. Apparently, Bravo referred more to its untamed nature and Grande its extensive size. John Fremont, on an ill-fated western surveying trip, had determined that the Rio Grande’s headwaters were in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado and that the rio might be nearly two thousand miles long.

We built the first camp at Zapata, some fifty-four miles from Fort Ringgold. The wood-structured headquarters and officers quarters buildings went up quickly, as did an open-sided stable with room for three dozen horses, sufficient for the light platoon of twenty-two cavalrymen. Most times, the horses would be held in corrals, with the stables for use in preparation for missions, though there would always be a dozen horses in the stable for a fast-response squad that could include one or two officers. But there were no horses yet.

The ready availability of dry adobe blocks -- their manufacture a minor industry on both sides of the river -- led to the decision to build adobe barracks for the men, as opposed to the half-wall tent platforms that were the original plan, thus preserving the more expensive milled lumber for more specialized uses.

As it was, we had many more hands than we could use in in any effective manner, other than make-work, so only Company C and one platoon each from Companies D and E remained to finish the construction. That still amounted to more than one hundred thirty men. The officers were counting on the system of leap-frogging experienced platoons of men to make each construction job faster and easier.

The remainder of the regiment moved on, still in the wake of the survey crew, thirty-five civilians hired under contract and operating under the supervision of lieutenant and a sergeant from the Army’s Signal Corps and a captain and a sergeant from the Army Corps of Engineers. The telegraph construction crew traveled with, and sometimes depended help from the Regiment. The survey crew was several hours ahead.

I rejoined the survey crew escort, and we continued as before: half the scout-sniper platoon staying with the surveyors, the other half proceeding in advance.

Then a problem arose I hadn’t anticipated but it was immediately obvious that we should have expected it.

It was a week after leaving the new camp at Zapata. I was, as usual, with the advance party. Water had remained to take charge of the crew’s close escort while Jordie was with me in the advance squad.

There was, in most places, a rough wagon trail that more-or-less followed the course of the rio, sometimes closer, sometimes farther, depending on stands of trees, or marshy ground, or extreme bends in the rio’s course. The surveyor’s job was to scout the shortest and easiest course for the telegraph. There was a general assumption that the wagon trail followed the easiest, most direct course, and so the surveyors tended to stake a route that paralleled the wagon road.

If an advance scout came to a place where he thought a deviation from the wagon trail was a possibility, we were to cut wooden stakes, top them with a strand of red yarn, and drive them into the ground to call attention to the possible alternate path. But we seldom had cause to do so...

This arrangement also made sense because of the need to haul the telegraph poles by wagon. These twenty-foot poles arrived from Fort Ringgold on special two-wheeled freight carriages, not unlike the way a two-wheeled limber and a two-wheeled artillery piece or a caisson were drawn behind horses. In this instance, the telegraph poles themselves served as the “trail” that linked the two two-wheeled carts, though the draft animals were oxen, rather than horses.

The telegraph poles, which I was told were yellow pine, had been treated with creosote. They were spaced every two hundred fifty feet, or twenty-one poles every mile. The freighting contract alone must have made someone rich.

As we followed the wagon trail, our standard order of advance was to have four scouts moving quietly and cautiously out in front about a mile, two more scout on each side, out to about a half mile, and two scouts guarding our rear at about a quarter mile. The remaining six men assumed the role of center squad for the others to pace and practice around. We rotated the duties every two hours.

Our next camp was to be located at Fort McIntosh, which had been abandoned at the beginning of The War. The fort, at a major river ford, was a couple miles northwest of one of the more populated small towns along our route, Laredo.

Late that morning, I was with the center squad, moving at pace up the trail when I heard a gunshot from up ahead. By itself, it meant nothing, possibly one of the forward scouts taking a deer. Nonetheless, I quickened my pace and became more watchful. The others with me did likewise, though the surveyors continued their work, and would do so unless we warned them otherwise.

Shortly thereafter, Grover Fairchild, who had been with the forward team, was seen returning toward us on the trail at a steady, paced run. I ran forward to meet him.

“Is anyone hurt?” I asked, as we both came to a stop.

Breathing hard, but not gasping, he shook his head, then reported, “No, Sarge. Sergeant Tipton sent me back. There’s trouble at the town. Their marshal has a posse at a blockade. The Sergeant wants you should come forward.”

“Is the town under attack?”

“No, Sarge, the blockade is to stop us. They say ‘no nigger Yankee troops’ is comin’ into their town.”

“Ah, hell.” This was a bigger problem than might appear. One of our garrisons was to be at Fort McIntosh, only a couple miles north of Laredo.

I sent men to bring in the perimeter scouts and told the others to advance with them as a group at a double-time pace, while I ran forward with Fairchild. We reached Jordie in just a few minutes.

He was standing just off the trail in the treeline about a hundred yards from a place where two wagons and some barrels had been arranged cross-wise to the road. Behind the wagons were several men aiming muskets toward us. Somewhat foolishly, though, while their upper bodies might have been afforded some protection from the wagon boards, most of them had their legs exposed through the open space beneath the wagons. They did not seem to be men late of The War.

Jordie gave me much the same report as had Fairchild, adding, “They seem pretty angry.”

“Did they shoot at you?”

“No. That marshal let fly into the air, then started shouting.”

“He’s in charge?”

“Seems to be.”

Which one is he?”

“In the center, where the wagons butt-up.”

“I’ll go talk to him. I have an idea might work, though nothing that will likely get us invited to Sunday dinner. Hold my rifle and the hatchet and knife, but step out a bit so they can see me disarming.” Which is what we did.

As was our practice on these missions, we were in our normal blue army uniforms, reserving the buckskins for more purposeful use. After I disarmed, I slowly turned a full circle, demonstrating my lack of armament. Then I proceeded at an unhurried but deliberate pace.

hen I was about twenty yards from the barrier, the marshal called, “That’s far enough, Yankee.” He was a medium-sized man with rust-colored hair, a balding head, and a General Burnside-style whiskers and mustache.

“Marshal, I’m Sergeant Judah Becker of the Army’s Forty First Regiment. We’re the advance patrol for a crew surveying a telegraph line.”

“Don’t give a damn if you’re the Queen of Sheba, no Yankee niggers are comin’ into Laredo, nor no white man who likes suckin’ nigger dick.”

I stood there, my expression one of a person who had just heard a complex situation explained and I made an obvious show of nodding in understanding.

“That’s fine, Marshal, that’s no problem. We can leave and be no further trouble for the citizens of Laredo. While our orders from Washington are to proceed through the towns we encounter and make allowances for a telegraph office at each town, we can readily bypass Laredo, as long as your town council or the mayor will sign a release asserting that the town does not want telegraphy service. Normally I’d be carrying the form, but no one has asked to sign it yet and I left the forms with the wagons. However, my captain said a simple letter to that effect would suffice, as long as the town’s mayor signs and dates it.”

There was some discussion among the men at the barricade. One of them called, “Where would the telegraph line run, then, soldier?”

“Well, I’m no surveyor, but I’d figure most likely from that big curve south a’ here, they’d run it directly directly to the next inward curve to the north, so the wire would probably run about three-four miles to the east. Do you gentleman know if there’s any towns just east a’ here that might want a telegraph office?”