Chapter Eleven.
The Red Hats.
For more than a month after the incidents related, were we of the invading army compelled to endure a semi-seclusion, within cuartels neither very clean nor comfortable.
We should have far preferred the billet; and there were scores of grand “casas” whose owners richly deserved it.
But the thing was out of the question. To have scattered our small force would have been to court the rising we had reason to apprehend.
Our division-general had the good sense to perceive this; and, against the grumbling of both officers and men, insisted upon his injunction—to stay within doors—being rigorously observed.
To me the situation was irksome in the extreme. It gave too much leisure to brood over my bitterness. An active life might have offered some chance of distraction; but inside a barrack—where one grows ennuyed with always seeing the same faces, and tired of the everlasting small talk—even the ordinary routine is sufficiently afflicting. What was it in the heart of a hostile city? What to me, suffering from the humiliation I had experienced?
Only for the sake of excitement did I desire to go out on the streets. The Calle del Obispo had lost its attractions for me; or, rather should I say, they were lost to me. As for visiting the Callecito de los Pajaros, I am sorry to record: that my wounded amour propre was more powerful than my sense of gratitude. I felt more inclined to shun, than seek it.
A month, and there came a change. The streets of La Puebla were once more free to us—by night as by day.
It was caused by the arrival of three or four fresh brigades of the American army: now concentrating to advance upon the capital.
The tables were turned, and the hostile Poblanos were reduced—if not to a state of friendship, at least to one of fear.
They had cause. Along with our troops came a regiment of “Texas Rangers”—the dread of all modern Mexicans—with scores of nondescript camp-followers, by our enemies equally to be dreaded.
Still more to be feared, and shunned, by the citizens of Puebla, was a band of regular robbers, whom General Scott—for some sapient purpose of his own—had incorporated with the American army, under the title of the “Spy Company”—the name taken from the service they were intended to perform.
They were the band of captain—usually styled “colonel”—Dominguez; an ex-officer of Santa Anna’s army, who for years had sustained himself in the mountains around Peroté, and the mal pais of El Piñol—a terror to all travellers not rich enough to command a strong escort of Government “dragones.”
They were true highwaymen—salteadores del camino grande—each mounted on his own horse, and armed with carbine, pistol, lance, or long sword!
They were dressed in various fashions; but generally in the picturesque ranchero costume of jaqueta, calzoneros, and broad-brimmed high-crowned hats; booted, spurred, sashed, laced, and tassel led.
On the shoulders of some might be seen the serapé; while not a few were draped with the magnificent manga.
On joining us they were a hundred and twenty strong, with recognised officers—a captain and a couple of “tenientes,” with the usual number of “sarjentes” and “cabos.”
So close was their resemblance to the guerilleros of the enemy, that, to prevent our men from shooting them by mistake, they had been compelled to adopt a distinguishing badge.
It consisted of a strip of scarlet stuff, worn, bandlike, round their sombreros—with the loose ends dangling down to the shoulder.
The symbol naturally led to a name. They were known to our soldiers as the “Red Hats”—the phrase not unfrequently coupled with a rude adjunctive.
Outlawed in their own land—now associated with its invaders—it is scarce necessary to say that the Red Hats were an object of terror wherever they had a chance of showing their not very cheerful faces.
And in no place more than La Puebla; that had given birth to at least one-half of them, and to all of them, at one time or another, shelter within its gaols!
Now returned to it under the aegis of the American eagle, there was a fine opportunity for the Red Hats to settle old scores with alcaldes, reyidores, and the like; and they were not backward in availing themselves of it.
The consequence was, that the Poblanos soon laid aside their bullying tone; and were only too well pleased when allowed to pass tranquilly through their own streets.
I was one among many other officers of the American army who felt disgust at this association with salteadores—solely an idea of our superannuated commander-in-chief, since celebrated as the “hero” of Bull’s Run.
Endowed with a wonderful conceit in his “strategical combinations,” the employment of the Spy company was one in which he felt no little pride; while we regarded it as a positive disgrace.
The act might have been allowable under the pressure of a severe necessity. But none such existed. In the anarchical land invaded by us we could have found spies enough—without appealing to its cut-throats.
It is not to be denied that Dominguez and his robbers did us good service. Faithfulness to our cause was a necessity of their existence. Outlawed before—now doubly estranged by their treason—they were hated by their countrymen with an intensity beyond bounds; and, wherever caught straying beyond our lines, death was their certain doom.
In several skirmishes, into which they were drawn with their own guerilleros, they fought like very tigers—well knowing that, if taken, they had no mercy to expect.
On their side the lex talionis was practised with a loose hand; so loose that it soon became necessary to restrain it; and they were no longer allowed to go scouting on their own account. Whenever their services were required, they had to be performed under the eye of an officer of mounted rifles or dragoons, with a troop of these acting in concert.
But the terror originally inspired by them continued till the end of the campaign; and the sight of a Red Hat coming along the street was sufficient to terrify the women, and send the children screaming within doors.
In no place were our red-handed allies held in greater detestation than in the city of La Puebla—partly from the striking resemblance borne to them by a large number of its population, and an antipathy on this account; partly from old hostilities; and, perhaps, not a little from the fact of our having there, more than elsewhere, permitted them to carry out their proclivities.
There was a sort of tacit consent to their swaggering among the Poblanos; as a punishment to the latter for the trouble, which their swaggering had caused to us.
It was only for a time, however; and, when things appeared to be going too far, the good old Anglo-American morality—inculcated by the township school—resumed its sway over the minds of our soldiers; and the Red Hats were coerced into better behaviour.