1824: The Arkansas War (45 page)

Ross nodded toward Ball. “There are some exceptions, I grant you. Charles here is one of them. I’m not really sure yet about Jones. A very fine soldier, and I’d trust him on any battlefield. But…” He shrugged. “He’s still more of a sergeant wearing a colonel’s uniform, really, than an actual colonel.”

“We’ve got some youngsters coming up,” Driscol grumbled.

“Yes, you do. Some very fine ones, I’m thinking. Young Parker is especially promising. So is McParland—the younger cousin, I mean, not Anthony, who already thinks like an officer. But his injury may keep him out of line command.”

He shook his head. “It’s not enough, Patrick. Not with only a few months to prepare.”

Ross jabbed a finger at Sam. “So, now, here arrives—at your service—one of the most capable and experienced commanding officers on the North American continent, and you propose to refuse him the colors. Are you mad?”

Patrick sighed and looked away. “It’s not really that, Robert. Sam is also my best friend.”

“Death’s always a risk in war,” Sam stated. “It doesn’t bother me.”

He hesitated then. But the rest was a given—he’d known it since the moment he decided to come to Arkansas—so it might as well be said aloud. “My son wouldn’t even be an orphan. Not with you and Tiana for his parents. Or even just Tiana, should you fall also in the war.”

Patrick shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about, Sam. What happens when the war is over—and you
survive?
”

Sam stared at him, groping at the question.

“Sam, face it. You’re an American at heart. I’m not, since I was an immigrant here to begin with. But you’ll never really be comfortable as an Arkansan. Even as a Confederate. If your wife hadn’t been murdered, you’d never once have considered changing your citizenship. You’d have stayed in the United States and done what the man you named your son after will be doing. Opposing the war, surely—but never once crossing the line marked ‘allegiance.’ ”

Sam continued to stare at him. Groping at the answer.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

Sam…couldn’t.

“What I thought. That’s why, at bottom, I’d much prefer to keep you out of uniform. Whatever else, when the war’s over, no one will be able to claim there is any American blood on your own hands. You were just a diplomat.”

Robert Ross sighed, now. “Patrick, you
can’t.
Neither can Sam, being honest, unless he simply wants to return. The army of Arkansas desperately needs experienced officers. And Houston—my opinion, at least—is possibly the best field-grade officer in North America.”

That was enough to break Sam’s paralysis. “Be damned to the future, Patrick. Yes, I suppose in a perfect world, someday I’d return to the United States.” Harshly: “But in a perfect world my wife wouldn’t have been murdered. And I made a vow and I intend to keep it. And that’s all there is to the matter.”

Driscol said nothing. But Sam could tell from his stance alone that he was conceding the argument.

Time for diplomacy, therefore, and a silver tongue.

“As for the rest,” Sam said cheerily, “I am pleased to announce that both John Ridge and Buck Watie are volunteering for the colors. The
Arkansas
colors, mind you.”

The two young Cherokees stepped forward. Without hesitation, either—although both of them avoided the gaze of the two Cherokee chiefs.

Especially that of Major Ridge, who was now glaring at his son and nephew.

“Of course, you’ll offer them commissions,” Sam continued smoothly. “I’ve no doubt of it at all.”

“Of course he will!” exclaimed Major General Robert Ross. “Splendid young men! From a fine family, and well educated. Perfect officer material.”

“Well, sure,” said Patrick.

The glare faded from Major Ridge’s eyes. Five minutes later, he was even embracing his young kin.

New Antrim, Arkansas

F
EBRUARY 14, 1825

The thing was there, all right. Just as grotesque as Sam feared it would be.

Shivering a bit—even with his Cherokee blanket, the great stone church was bitterly cold, in mid-February—he stared up at the icon. The newly proclaimed
martyr of the Church.

“She didn’t look in the least bit like that—that—”

“Don’t be rude, Sam,” said Tiana. She gave Marie Laveau a look that Sam couldn’t really interpret. Something so profoundly female that it was just beyond his comprehension.

“So we make up another one,” Marie said, shrugging. The tall, gorgeous quadroon gave the icon a dismissive glance and an equally dismissive wave of the hand. “It’s just some painted wood, you know. Has no holy power in itself. Might have, if they’d let me sprinkle—well, never mind. Father James is a good priest, even if he is just as superstitious as men always are.”

She half turned and imperiously summoned forward a short, very dark-skinned black woman who’d been hanging back in the shadows of the cavernous church. “Antoinette here is a magnificent carver. Almost as good with the paints, too. With your guidance”—she waved again at the icon perched on the wall—“she can soon have that replaced with an image that captures the martyred wife to perfection.”

Sam opened his mouth, about to proclaim that under no circumstances would he be a party to any such half-papist, half-voudou heathenist nonsense. He was something of a freethinker himself, to be sure, not a dyed-in-the-wool Protestant. Still and all!

But the words never came. They were choked off by the worst of the grief. That he had lost his beloved wife, Sam could eventually accept. What he couldn’t accept was the knowledge that his son—only four years old when Maria Hester died—would never really remember his mother.

It was worse than that. Sam knew—had known from the day he made the decision—that he was looking at another of the world’s terrible ironies. No matter what happened, little Andy
would
have a mother, here in Arkansas. It would be Tiana Rogers—Tiana Driscol, now—the woman whom Sam had once thought, from time to time, might be the mother of his own children. And so, in a way, she would be. But only at the price of obliterating any real memory of his son’s natural mother, Maria Hester, née Monroe and died Houston.

Now…

If the boy could come, any day, any time, to a revered place, and look up and see…

“All right,” he said.

“Good!” proclaimed Marie. “And once Antoinette has made the proper icon, and you pronounce yourself satisfied, I will do the rest. Properly, this time.
Pfah!
”—that was a very rude gesture—“to what the priest says.”

“Just stay out of it, Sam,” Tiana quietly counseled.

He decided the counsel was good.

CHAPTER 30

New Antrim, Arkansas

J
ULY 18, 1825

The first thing Winfield Scott said to Patrick and Sam, after they’d taken seats in a quiet corner of the Wolfe Tone Hotel’s huge foyer, was this:

“You understand, gentlemen, I cannot pass on to you any information that might be detrimental to the United States or its armed forces. At the same time, you have my pledge that I will not pass on to General Harrison—or any of his subordinates—any information that is not contained already in the reports Mr. Bryant and I will be sending to the newspapers back home.”

It was said a bit stiffly, but pleasantly enough. Understanding and accepting the protocol, Patrick and Sam simply nodded. Then both of them turned their eyes to William Cullen Bryant.

The poet-turned-reporter looked a bit uncomfortable. “Ah…I must insist upon the same conditions. My personal sympathies—well, never mind that. If nothing else, the reports General Scott and I will be filing must be viewed by everyone as uncompromised.”

Sam kept a placid expression. Patrick’s face twisted into something close to a sneer. Winfield Scott sneered outright.

“Oh, that’s ridiculous, Cullen!” he exclaimed. “No matter what we do, Clay and his supporters will accuse us of spouting a pack of lies. So will every newspaper in the administration’s camp. They’re
already
saying so, before we’ve even filed a single report. What’s involved here isn’t practical; it’s simply a matter of our personal honor.”

Bryant looked stubborn. “Yes, I know they’ll accuse us of lying. But it doesn’t matter, Winfield, nor do I agree with you that it’s simply a matter of honor. At least half—more like two-thirds, I suspect—of the population of the United States is reserving their judgment. What we report
will
have an influence—provided it’s not tainted with charges of bias, that aren’t coming from people who have an obvious bias of their own.”

“Gentlemen, please,” Sam said smoothly. “It’s really not a problem. We have full confidence in your integrity, and you can rest assured we will respect it, on our part.”

Winfield Scott’s eyes ranged up and down Sam’s figure. The gaze was curious and perhaps a bit cold.

“It’s an attractive uniform,” he said abruptly. “Though I think that fur hat will get very uncomfortable now that we’re in midsummer.”

Patrick smiled. “Oh, we’ve got summer headgear, General Scott. But we’ll wear the fur hats except when it’s unbearable. It’s a small thing, but it helps remind the troops that we’re expecting a winter campaign.”

Scott turned the same curious perhaps-a-bit-cold gaze onto Driscol.

“You don’t think it’ll all be over within a few months, then.”

“Not hardly,” Sam stated. “By the first snowfall it’ll just be starting.”

Scott looked back at him. “Are you…
uncomfortable
in that uniform, Colonel?” He glanced at the insignia. “Excuse me. Brigadier, I should say.”

Sam didn’t hesitate. He’d now had almost half a year to think about it, since he’d taken Arkansas citizenship as soon as he’d arrived back in February.

“No, not in the least. That’s because I don’t really think of it as a change in uniform to begin with. As far as I’m concerned, the uniform I used to wear has been stolen by a swindler and his accomplices. The political principles for which I’m fighting today are no different than they were on the day I stood”—he gestured at Patrick—“when then-Lieutenant Driscol and I stood side by side facing the redcoats in front of the Capitol.”

“May I quote you to that effect, General Houston?” Bryant asked. His pad and pen were already in hand.

“Oh, yes,” Sam said brightly. “Please do.”

An hour later, Patrick offered to give Scott and Bryant a tour of New Antrim’s military installations. They accepted, of course, leaving Sam alone in the foyer’s corner.

Not more than fifteen seconds after Driscol and the two reporters left the hotel, Salmon Brown took the seat formerly occupied by Winfield Scott.

He began without preliminaries. “We figure they’ve landed close to six thousand troops at the confluence, almost half of them regulars. The only artillery they’ve got—so far, anyway—is the First Regiment. Colonel Abram Eustis is in command. They were stationed—”

“In Charleston, South Carolina. Yes, I know.” Sam scratched his chin. “Interesting. It would have been a lot easier to bring in the Fourth Artillery under Armistead. What’s the infantry?”

“They’ve got four infantry regiments. The First, the Fifth—which used to be the Fourth, it seems—”

“That’s Harrison’s old unit,” Sam interrupted, “from the Thames campaign. They renamed it after the war, when they consolidated the regiments during the reduction. The Fourth did pretty well in the war with Britain, except for when Hull surrendered his whole army at Detroit. But nobody’s ever blamed the regiment for that. Harrison’ll be leaning on them heavily, I’m pretty sure. If it was me, I’d be more inclined to rely on the First Regiment. The Battle of the Thames was a long time ago, and who knows what shape the Fourth’s in today? The First, on the other hand, has been in Baton Rouge under Colonel Taylor, who’s an excellent troop trainer.”

Salmon Brown shook his head. “Taylor’s no longer in command of the First. Colonel John McNeil is.”

Sam’s eyebrows rose. “Then where’s Taylor?”

“Don’t know for sure, Sam.” Like John Brown himself, his brother was not given to military formalities. “Word is, though, that he was sent up north. To St. Louis.”

Sam’s eyes moved to the northern wall of the foyer as if he were trying to look through it. “
St. Louis?
What…Ah, never mind. Let’s deal with what’s at hand, for the moment. Which are the other two infantry regiments Harrison’s got down there on the confluence? The Seventh is probably one of them. They were stationed not far away.”

“That’s right. Colonel Matthew Arbuckle’s in command. The other one is the Third, with Lieutenant Colonel Enos Cutler in command.”

Sam chewed on it for a moment. “So. One regular regiment of artillery; four of infantry. The United States sent four out of their seven regular infantry regiments and a fourth of their artillery. Against which, we’ve got at the moment—all told—three infantry regiments and an artillery regiment.”

He laughed, once, very sarcastically. “They’re overconfident. They should have sent six infantry and two artillery regiments. Six infantry, anyway. It’s always hard to pry artillery units out of their garrisons, because the local politicians put up such a fuss. Need ’em there to defend the town against—whoever. Barbary pirates, maybe, come all the way across the Atlantic.”

“John and me figure they got you outnumbered three to two,” Salmon pointed out dispassionately. “That’s just in regular troops. Unless you decide to use the three new regiments.”

“No, that’d be a mistake. Those recruits aren’t ready for a pitched battle on the open field in the Delta, yet. Send them into one, they’d just shatter—and it would take a year to rebuild their self-confidence.” He went back to scratching his chin. “And your arithmetic’s just about right, although it wouldn’t be if we could send all of our regiments down there. But we can’t. We need to keep the First in reserve as well as using it to train the new regiments. And we can’t risk the whole artillery regiment on the open Delta. We’ll need it intact when the war moves up the river valley, which it will. We always knew we couldn’t stop the United States from taking the Delta.”

Sam shrugged. “On the other hand, our regiments will be stronger than theirs. We can muster at least six hundred men to a regiment, maybe seven. They’ll be lucky if they’re even half strength. I’m willing to bet not one of those infantry regiments down there has more than five hundred men actually present. At least one of them won’t have more than maybe four hundred. Desertion and absence without leave is rampant in the U.S. Army; always has been. Not much of a problem for us. Give it a few months, down there in the Delta—disease will make it worse.”

He took a moment, doing the math. “Figure…they’ll have two thousand infantry, actually on the field, when we meet. We’ll have about one thousand, three hundred. They’ll have an advantage in artillery, but that terrain isn’t very good even for field artillery. Not anywhere near the river, anyway. If we maneuver properly, they won’t be able to move their ordnance up quickly enough. And the one thing I’m sure and certain about is that Arkansas infantry can out-march any infantry the U.S. Army’s got. Like I said, they’re overconfident.”

“They got lots of militia troops, Sam. At least three thousand. About half of them are the Georgia militia. The rest are mostly Louisianans. A few units from Alabama. Nothing yet but a handful from Mississippi.”

Sam’s sneer was magnificent. At least, he hoped so.

“The Georgia militia.” He uttered the phrase the same way he might refer to offal or animal refuse. “Ah, yes. The same heroes who retreated precipitously from the Red Sticks during the Horseshoe campaign—I can remember Old Hickory’s choice words at the time—and then ravaged defenseless towns of friendly Creeks and our Cherokee allies. Jackson had choice words about that, too.”

The situation seemed worth the effort of a gesture. So, although he didn’t chew tobacco, Sam rose, stalked over to a nearby spittoon, and used the device loudly. He didn’t miss, either.

After returning to his seat, he pulled the cap off his head and plopped it into his lap. Winfield Scott was right. The blasted thing might look splendid, but it was going to be a pure nuisance in the months ahead.

“One thing we’ll do,” he continued, “—I’ve already discussed it with Patrick and Charles, and General Ross agrees—is break those Georgia bastards. If we get any kind of a chance, anyway. Have they started their usual atrocities?”

Salmon Brown disapproved of tobacco entirely. But for a moment he looked as if he wanted to use the spittoon himself. “They fell upon two families of Indians who’d somehow remained near the river. Quapaws, probably, or Caddos, not paying attention to anything except their immediate business. They wouldn’t have been Choctaws or Chickasaws.”

He didn’t volunteer any details, nor was Sam about to ask. Georgia militiamen were notorious for their brutality and had been for decades. Disemboweling pregnant Indian women, after they’d been gang-raped, was pretty typical behavior. Sometimes the fetus would be mutilated also.

They could do so with impunity, because the state of Georgia adamantly refused to discipline them. During the war with Britain, Andrew Jackson had become so furious with the depredations of the Georgia militia that he’d had an entire unit placed under arrest by regular troops. Unfortunately, he’d had no legal choice but to turn them over to the Georgia authorities—whereupon a Georgia jury had promptly declared them innocent of all charges.

“Break them,” he muttered. Then, shaking off the moment’s anger: “Harrison’ll try to use the militia’s numbers, but they won’t be much use to him. Not against our regulars, at least. Against the Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctaws…It’s always hard to tell. Militias are prone to panic. Leadership’s always the key. With strong enough leaders, they can usually beat an equal number of Indians. Although…”

Again he shrugged. “We’ll just have to see. Part of the reason they can is simply because the Indians don’t ever have much in the way of guns—and especially ammunition.”

Salmon smiled. In that moment, he looked very much like John Brown’s brother. “That won’t be no problem here.”

Sam smiled back. In addition to terrorizing slave-catchers and serving as a genuinely excellent spy network, over the past months Brown’s Raiders had also proved to be superb gunrunners.

It had taken Henry Clay weeks after his inauguration to cajole and bully Congress into declaring war on the Confederacy of the Arkansas. But the very day after his inauguration, he’d made several sweeping decrees prohibiting the sale of weapons or other warmaking goods to the Confederacy.

And what a laugh that had been! All the Northern and border states had immediately raised an outcry over federal tyranny, the trampling of states’ rights—Jackson leading the charge in the Senate—and even some of the Southern states had choked on the measures. Virginia’s John Randolph, contrarian as always, had immediately turned from being Clay’s loudest supporter in the House to his loudest critic.