Recollections of a Virginian in the Mexican, Indian, and Civil Wars/8

After this Christmas hunt, I found occupation in scouting and drilling, and in making a new system of tactics for mounted troops. The general introduction of the revolver and long range rifle called for such changes in cavalry tactics as would enable the men to dismount quickly and use their rifles on foot, and demanded also single rank formations. The working out of these problems occupied my thoughts and interests for a long time, and I had favorable opportunity for testing every movement, having charge of the instructions of my company, and the good will of my intelligent brother officers, though occasionally a sneer would reach me from some leather-head of the old dragoon regime, who did not wish to have to learn new tactics (they generally didn't know much of any). But I persevered with my work, won friends to it of all who saw it tried, and had the satisfaction of having it adopted by the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, who, being a great hunter and rifleman himself, knew that weapon could only be used effectively on foot, and that the time had come for moving horsemen to where they could be dismounted and could thus render efficient service.

By this new system of tactics, a troop of Mounted Rifles could be moving at the gallop, and when the trumpet sounded, "Dismount to fight," could halt, link their horses, and be handling their rifles in line of battle in several seconds. McClellan, who had been inspecting the cavalry systems of Europe, wrote me warm congratulations upon my great success. The tactics were used in both armies during the Civil War, and have been universally adopted in the Indian fighting upon the plains, and have very recently been embodied in the New Tactics.

As I have said, hunting was my only pleasure in Texas. In that day there were no settlements upon that vast region between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. It was a great pasture for thousands of wild horses, and wild cattle, deer, antelope, and every game bird we know of, and every sort of predatory beast. The tigers, or great, spotted panthers, as large sometimes as Bengal tigers, and the tawny, maneless lions, and many small varieties of the cat tribe abounded there. Nowhere, saver South Africa, were such quantities of large game to be found.

One day while patrolling that region, we encamped on sweet water in a grassy valley, and in the evening I went out for venison, having told the guide, Juan Galvan, a famous Indian scout, to follow me. When about a mile from camp I saw a deer and two fawns, as I thought them to be, enter the chaparral before me. I galloped rapidly around to the other side of the timber, to get a shot at the game as it emerged from it, when what was my delight to see a large lion come sauntering out of the prairie, moving up the wind with his nose well up and his long tail brushing the grass as he walked slowly along. The breeze blew fresh and the grass muffled my horse's tracks, as I cantered up to within fifty paces. Then I halted and drew a fine sight upon him behind his shoulder, but my horse moved, and I had to lower my rifle. I had just quieted him and taken aim again, when the guide with a clatter came galloping up behind me. The lion, surprised, wheeled toward me, when I dashed at him with a shout which made him turn and bound away. I tried to close, and get a running shot, but he outran my slow troop horse and went away with great leaps until he reached the chaparral. Had my rifle been a Winchester, or had I been upon my own horse, I would have dismounted and taken a sure shot, but on a previous day this brute had run off from me when I dismounted to shoot, and I did not feel justified in being left alone to encounter that great beast with a Mississippi rifle. I was greatly provoked with the guide, but he had run up to help me, was a very daring fellow, and very fond of me.

Soon after this, the grass near Fort McIntosh being used up, it was necessary to send our horses down the river for fresh pasturage, so that they might be in condition for the summer scouting. Tom Claiborn was captain of B Company, and Llewellyn Jones, captain of F Company. Claiborn's wife and children were domiciled in the garrison, and Jones' health was infirm, so I took the squadron two days' march down the Rio Grande, where we made a comfortable camp, and grazed our horses and hunted for more than a month. We were too far from the fort to draw fresh meat and rations. Wild cattle abounded about us, and each company had good hunters, and every night they brought in fat beeves, unbranded and as wild and savage as any other wild beasts in that region. When Mexico dethroned the last Emperor, Iturbide, and established a republic, the garrisons in what is now Texas were all withdrawn. The Indians then poured in upon the large ranches, murdered the people, and turned the stock loose. These had increased and multiplied till the whole of the region between the Rio Grande and the Nueces swarmed with wild horses and cattle, and one day I encountered a small herd of wild asses, as wild as zebras and very active.

I had heard so much of the fierceness and activity of the wild cattle, that I desired to be able to tell by experience about the truth of these reports; so one morning, at daybreak, I set out with Juan Galvan and two Riflemen with pack mules to bring in the meat we expected to kill. Juan soon found the fresh trail of an enormous bull. His tracks were easily followed, for amidst the thousands his were larger than any. It was about eleven o'clock when Juan, who was riding at a fox trot just in my front, threw up his rifle and fired at a huge, white bull who broke out of the brush and ran off at a rapid gait. After two hours of hot pursuit, we came up with this monarch of the herds in a thick clump of bushes, where Juan and I dismounted, and, running up to within thirty or forty paces, fired into his great, white body. The bush was too thick for us to pick our shots. He ran out near the Riflemen, both of whom fired at him, but he kept on his swinging gait. The blood in great splashes fell upon the broad cactus leaves, and made the trail easy to follow, and excited us, as the sight of blood will affect any hunter.

Again, after half an hour's pursuit, we came upon our bull, and as before, Juan and I dismounted and ran up to put two more balls into him. There was more blood now upon the trail, and we were more eager, so that when we found him the third time at bay, I resolved to make a sure shot, and, running closer to him than ever before, delivered it. Old Juan was too smart to dismount, though I had not observed this. As my rifle cracked, I heard the bushes rattling, and the men cried out, "Look out, Lieutenant! He is charging you!" I wheeled and ran for my horse, but the bull was too close for me to stop to mount, so I heard him close at my heels, I turned suddenly towards a huge cactus I was passing and sprang into it, struggling through it and tumbling flat upon the ground on the other side. In all of my life I had never been so terrified, and I was so tormented by the great cactus spikes which had pierced my body, that for an instant I would have welcomed the bull or anything else that would have relieved me of my misery.

After some moments, I ventured to arise and investigate the whereabouts of that animal, an action which I immediately regretted; for he instantly saw me and made another dash for me, the men crying as he did so, "He's charging again!" I whirled through another cactus, the twin of the one I had just left, and lay as flat and still as a dead man; and I almost wished that I was dead, for in my fight I had acquired a second supply of cactus spikes, which left no part of my body unprovided for. They are the size of a large darning needle, with barbed points, and when one is pulled out it leaves the barb in to mark the place.

Juan, having more sense and experience with bulls than I, had never taken his foot out of the stirrup, and now dashed off after my horse, which had availed itself of the opportunity to run away. The Riflemen, too, had retired to a safe distance, so that when, after a longer delay than before, I arose very cautiously and inspected the field, I alone remained upon it. My rifle was empty, and all of my friends were gone, and, utterly demoralized, I stood wondering what had ever induced me to imagine that I wished to hunt a bull. One cheerful fact gave me courage: the bull was gone with the rest, but alas! the cactus spikes remained.

I reloaded my rifle, picked out some of the most accessible of them, and tried to rally my spirits and look cheerful as Juan rode up, leading my horse and crying out in a gay voice,

"Vamos!" [Let's go! -wmm]

"Vamos where?" said I.

"Por el toro." [After the bull. -wmm]

"Damn the toro," I responded heartily, as with a poor assumption of lively acquiescence, I took my seat where the late General Pope had his headquarters. As many good many spikes still remained, that saddle was far from being a downy pillow. But I wriggled and twisted and managed to keep up, and we soon emerged from the chaparral into a grassy glade where a herd of cattle had been startled by our approach. We drew up all abreast, and fired into the herd. I struck a great bridled bull, but permitted him to pass on, for just then bulls were a drug in my market. Juan, however, dashed off, whirling his lasso, and returned in ten minutes, saying, "We got him." Two of our shots had struck a beautiful, young sorrel cow, breaking her fore leg. Juan having lassoed her and tied her to the big, swinging limb of a mesquite, proposed going on after the bull, but I preferred to remain and look after the safety of the cow, and I told Juan that before following up the bull, I desired him to examine the rope and make sure the cow was securely tied. As we approached, she charged madly at us twice, but being thrown violently back upon her haunches, she ceased this and remained sullenly quiet. At last Jaun slipped off his horse and went carefully around the tree, followed slowly by the cow. Moran, one of the Riflemen, a large, handsome fellow, had dismounted, and stood leaning against his horse, holding Juan's rifle and his own in his hand. Old Dewey, a very phlegmatic Vermonter, was sitting lazily in his saddle his rifle across his pommel. I was quite alert, and ready to move on short notice, should the cow decide to charge again, which she suddenly did. The rope broke and she dashed at Moran, goring his horse in the flank. He dropped his rifles, and sprang up a tree. She then struck old Dewey's horse, lifting him so that his rider pitched over his head and, turning a somersault, landed upon his feet, rifle in hand. Turning, he delivered a quick shot in the cow's face, and then made for a tree, which he lost no time in climbing. The cow now had the field to herself, for by the time Dewey was safely ensconced, I was a rifle shot away, where a three legged cow could not catch me. Finally, Juan slipped down from his perch and gathering up his rifle mounted his horse, and, riding up to the animal, shot her in the curl and ended the battle.

We butchered her, and, packing the mules with the meat, sent the men back to camp with it, while Juan and I took another turn at our bull. We bounced him out of a thicket a little before sunset, ran him a mile, and then gave up the chase, and set out for camp ten miles away. It was ten o'clock before we got in, and I was occupied until a late hour getting rid of the cactus. Next morning I looked as if I had the measles, and felt as if the smallpox had me. So I declined to resume the chase that day, and kept my headquarters in my tent, letting the indefatigable Juan go out with a fresh party, which found the bull where we had left off. He charged them many times, and finally fell by the nineteenth ball. He was an enormous beast, entirely white, save his jet-black horns and hoofs. I had his great hide for a tent floor. It was all we got of him, for his wounds and heated contest had spoiled his great mass of fat meat. But it was certainly the most exciting contest and chase I ever enjoyed. I discovered that day that when a bull charges, he puts his head down, shuts his eyes, and goes straight for his enemy; but when a cow makes the attack, she keeps her eyes wide open and can't be dodged.

Soon after this, we were coming into camp late one evening, when suddenly we heard a wild bull come moaning towards us. It is the wildest sound imaginable in a lonely place. Juan and I leaped from our horses and hastened to meet him, concealing ourselves behind a bush that bordered his course. As we waited, we could hear him drawing nearer and nearer, moaning, and crushing the gravel under his heavy tread. He had come within ten paces when as his fore shoulders emerged into view, I whispered, "Now!" We both fired behind his shoulder, and Juan immediately ran for a tree, while I, being clad in a light coat, threw myself flat down behind my bush. As I lay there, I could hear the hurried tramp of the bull, whether in advance or retreat I could not decide, and the uncertainty was painfully alarming. Happily, he had wheeled and run back at our shot. The night closed in dark, and Juan could not follow him till the moon rose, when he found the bloody trail, but gave up the chase, very properly; for we were in a dangerous neighborhood.

After three years of this sort of frontier service, I was appointed recruiting officer at San Antonio. General Albert Sidney Johnston, commanding the department of Texas, was our neighbor there, and a very good one he was. That accomplished soldier, Don Carlos Buel, was also stationed there. General George Mercer Brooke, one of the bravest men and highest gentlemen in the service, died there. He was my friend and our only kinsman in that wild country.

While in San Antonio, Major Dick Howard and I purchased a cattle ranch on the Cibolo River, about twenty five miles from the town. The house was an unusually good one for that time in Texas, being built of hewn logs, well plastered and floored. It stood upon a hill in a fine grove overlooking the road from San Antonio to the Gulf. We had fifteen hundred head of breeding cattle, and proposed to send into Mexico for one hundred mares, and to raise mules, and I intended to resign and live on the ranch. But my wife's health and spirits so gave way under the affliction and exhaustion consequent upon the death of our little daughter, that I decided, instead, to accept a detail on the recruiting service which took me to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. When the war broke out I sold my ranch, doubling my money in Confederate gold bonds.

On arriving at Carlisle, then our only cavalry school, Colonel Charley May, the commandant, appointed me the superintendent of instruction and commandant of the Post. The duty and station were agreeable and comfortable. All of the young cavalry graduates from West Point reported to me for duty, and I thus became well acquainted with many of the brightest young men of the army. Fitz Lee, Averill, Lomax, Big Jim Major. "Red Jackson," and many others were there, whom it was my fortune to serve with or against in the great war, which none of us then realized was so near at hand.

The shooting there was very good. Mr. Johnson Moore, an excellent gentleman, a real sportsman, and the owner of many farms in the vicinity, was often my companion. A comfortable dinner at his town residence, with a bottle of good champagne, made an appropriate ending to many a pleasant day's sport. At that time he had a beautiful daughter, who was a great favorite socially, especially with the young officers. No man's lot seemed happier than his. Twenty years afterward I met him at the Virginia Springs. Time and sorrow had written deep lines upon his manly face. His daughter was dead, his son had fallen in the war, and many griefs had been his portion, but the gentle, affectionate nature was with him still, and I was tempted to go with him once again over the green fields and wooded hills of the Cumberland valley, where so often, with our guns and dogs, we had borne each other company. But it would not have been the same, for sorrowful memories of the years which lay between would have dimmed the sunshine of the reunion for us.

While at Carlisle I was authorized by the Secretary of War Floyd to prepare and publish the "Tactics for Mounted Rifles." Major Buel aided me to procure personal interviews with the Secretary, who entered earnestly into a system which facilitated the mounted riflemen in going effectively into action; and at that time all of our so called cavalrymen were mounted riflemen. My clandestine interviews with the Secretary were not discovered in the Red Tape Department until the "Tactics" was adopted and published, when the admonition was administered from the chief of that department to "observe the prescribed channels of correspondence in the future." This much amused Buel and me.

This suggested to me the expediency of merging the five regiments of mounted troops in one corps. The three senior regiments united in a memorial to Congress to arrange us accordingly, but it was not done till the great war put aside all personal considerations, for expediency's sake, and in both armies the mounted troops were all classified as cavalry, -- a misnomer, if by cavalry we mean soldiers who fight on horseback; for it is well known that the troopers of Stuart and Hampton, Van Dorn and Forrest, all dismounted to fight. Sabres have long been laid aside except by holiday soldiers, not one in fifty of whom is a swordsman. It was usual for our men in the Rifles to put away their swords whenever they went upon a hostile expedition, and in our great war, in which many thousands of men were killed and wounded, our surgeons were rarely troubled by sabre cuts.

Colonel Charley May, out commandant, was a "Light Dragoon," although, being six feet four inches tall and of tremendous frame, he was fitter for the heavy cavalry. His brother Julian was in my regiment, and was a remarkably handsome man. He, too, was over six feet in stature. Those Mays were extraordinary men in their physical and mental characteristics. Five brothers averaged over six feet three inches in height, and all were men of marked character. The Honorable Henry May, a member of Congress from Baltimore, was a man of ability, and of most kind and courtly manners. In the exciting times incident to the disrupting of the government, Mr. May stood up manfully for the rights of the people. I believe he was imprisoned for it. I was thrown intimately with Colonel May for two years, at Carlisle Barracks, and on me devolved the sad duty of paying the last honors of a dead soldier to his brother Julian.

Julian May's history was a very sad one. He was the youngest of the sons of Dr. May, a leading physician of Washington in his day. Before he was twenty one, Julian became involved in a difficulty with young Cochran. Both were connected with well known families in Washington, and the duel was the recognized mode of settling personal difficulties between gentlemen. This barbarous custom had the sanction of the highest men of our country in those days, and it was considered inevitable that these two youths should resort to it. So they crossed the river into Virginia and fought with rifles at forty paces. Cochran was shot in the head, and died instantly, and Julian May became a fugitive, his life and happiness ruined. Those who knew him best realized that he never recovered from this terrible experience.

General Jackson had then retired to the shades of the Hermitage, where he was passing the evening of his days. He was a friend of the May family, and naturally sympathized with young Julian in his sad position. At his request, the position of lieutenant was given the young man in the regiment of Mounted Riflemen, then just organized in time for the Mexican War. From 1848 to 1860, when his death occurred, Julian May was in all the vicissitudes of the service of that regiment, and his genial and kindly nature made him a favorite with his comrades throughout the army. His remarkable personal beauty was enhanced by a courtly breeding and bearing which distinguished him in every circle he entered. He died suddenly at Tucalote, while returning from Santa Fe to his post at Fort Union. We laid him in the little soldier's cemetery on the hillside overlooking the Post. I commanded the escort at his funeral, and read the service of the Church at his grave.

Charley May had long been married to a daughter of Mr. George Law, of New York, when the war broke out. He then resigned from the army and retired to private life. While his sympathies were with his own people in the South, he could not array himself against the people of his wife, who was a very admirable lady, to whom he was much attached.

William May, of the Navy, was the only one of the brothers not over six feet in stature. He was highly esteemed in the service, and had the manhood of his race. Captain William Lewis Maury, of the Confederate cruiser Georgia, who was his shipmate in the old Navy, told me that on one occasion May was sent off in command of a boat which was wrecked upon a reef. They found refuge upon the rocks, to which they clung till a launch from the ship came to their rescue. There was not room in the launch for all of the men to go at once, so May and part of the crew got aboard of her but as she pulled away from the reef, he saw some of his men still on the rocks, and before he could be prevented he sprang overboard and swam back to cast his lot with them. They were a gallant race, those Mays; the men handsome and proud, and the women beautiful.

While at Carlisle, I was appointed a member of a board of cavalry officers, which decided upon a uniform style of horse equipage for the army. Colonels Joseph E. Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Andrew Porter, and several others, were members of the board of which Colonel Philip Saint George Cooke was president. After six or seven weeks of careful examination of every item, we adopted the Cossack saddle brought over by McClellan, and now known by his name. It has stood he test of all these years of service, and is generally used by all frontiersmen.