The proas thus disposed of, Lieutenant Shubrick ordered his bugler to sound the “charge,” which was the signal agreed upon with the other portion of his force, whereupon they were to storm the citadel from the front while he attacked it from the rear. As the bugle sang its piercing signal, the gunners sent a solid shot from the “Betsy Baker” crashing into the gates of the fort, and at the same instant the whole line raced forward at the double. Though the gates were splintered, they were not down, but half a dozen brawny bluejackets sprang at them with their axes, and before their thunderous blows they went crashing in. But as the head of the storming column burst through the passageway thus opened they were met with a blast of lead which halted them as abruptly as though they had run against a granite wall. A sailor spun about on his heels and collapsed, an inert heap, with a bullet through his brain; another clapped his hand to his breast and gazed stupidly at the ever-widening splotch of crimson on his tunic; all down the column could be heard the never-to-be-forgotten sound of bullets against flesh and the groans or imprecations of wounded men. “Come on, men! Come on!” screamed the officers. “Get at the beggars! Give ’em the bayonet! Get it over with! All together, now—here we go!” and, themselves setting the example, they plunged through the opening, cutlass in hand. For a few moments the battle was as desperate as any ever waged by American arms. The cutlasses of the sailors fell like flails, and when they rose again their burnished blades were crimson. The marines swung their bayonets like field-hands loading hay, and at every thrust a Malay shrieked and crumpled. Meanwhile the little squad of artillerymen had dragged their gun to an eminence which commanded the interior of the stockade and from this place of vantage were sweeping bloody lanes through the crowded mass of brown men. But the Malays were no cowards. They knew how to fight and how to die. As fast as one man went down another sprang to take his place. The noise was deafening: the bang—bang—bang of muskets, the crack of pistols, the rasp of steel on steel, the deep-throated hurrahs of the sailors, the savage yells of the Malays, the groans and curses of the wounded, the gasps of the dying, the labored breathing of struggling men, the whole terrifying pandemonium punctuated at thirty-second intervals by the hoarse bark of the brass field-gun. Magnificently as the Malays fought, they could not stand against the cohesion and impetus of the American assault, which pushed them back and carried them off their feet as a ’varsity football team does a team of scrubs. After a quarter of an hour of fighting the survivors of the garrison retreated to their platform in the air, leaving the space within the stockade carpeted with their dead and wounded. Even then the Malays never dreamed of surrendering, but constantly called down to the Americans in broken English to “Come and take us.” To add to the confusion, if such a thing were possible, the portion of the stockade captured by Lieutenants Huff and Edson had, in pursuance of orders, been set on fire. So rapidly did the flames spread among the sun-dried, straw-thatched huts, however, that for a few minutes it looked as though Lieutenant Shubrick’s party would be cut off. The men handling the “Betsy Baker” having run out of ammunition, a messenger was hastily despatched to the boats for more and returned on a run with several bags of bullets. One of these was stuffed into the muzzle and the little gun was trained on the Malays who occupied every foot of the aerial retreat. When the smoke cleared away it was seen that the bag of bullets, fired at such close range, had created awful havoc among the defenders, for dead and dying men were scattered everywhere. Instantly Shubrick appreciated that now was his time to act, before the Malays had an opportunity to recover from their confusion. “Now’s our chance, boys!” he shouted. “Let’s get up on top there and clean out the nest of niggers.” At the words, his bluejackets rushed forward with a cheer. Nothing could stop them. Some ascended hastily constructed ladders; others swarmed up the poles which supported the platform as they were accustomed to swarm up the masts at sea, wriggling over the edge of the platform, emptying their pistols into the snarling countenances above them, and, once on their feet, going at the Malays with cold steel. The battle in the air was short and savage. In five minutes not an unwounded Malay remained within the citadel, and, amid a hurricane of cheers, the star-spangled banner was broken out from the staff where so lately had flaunted the standard of the rajah—the first time that our flag was ever raised over a fortification on Asiatic soil.
By this time, the Qualla Battooans were so thoroughly demoralized that the capture of the two remaining forts was effected with comparatively little difficulty. The companies composing the expedition now fell in upon the beach, and the roll was called to ascertain the casualties and to learn if any men had been left in the jungle. It was found that the Americans had had only two killed and eleven wounded—an amazingly small loss in view of the desperate character of the fighting. The Malays, on the other hand, though fighting from behind fortifications, lost upward of four hundred men.
The next day, learning that the Malays were still defiant and that a large force of warriors was gathering at the back of the town, Captain Downes weighed anchor and, standing as close inshore as the water permitted, opened fire with his heavy guns, completing the destruction of the forts, setting fire to the town, and killing a considerable number of warriors. For more than an hour the bombardment continued, the American gunners choosing their marks, laying their guns, and placing their shots with the same coolness and accuracy which, years later, was to distinguish their successors at Santiago and Vera Cruz. The Qualla Battooans were even more terrified by the thunder of the Potomac’s broadsides than by the havoc that they wrought, for they had never heard big guns or seen a war-ship in action before. Soon white flags began to appear at various spots along the beach, and when, in acknowledgment of the signal, the bombardment ceased, a proa set out through the surf toward the frigate. As it came alongside it was found to contain emissaries from the surviving rajahs who had come to beg for peace. The awed and humbled chieftains passed between double ranks of bluejackets and marines to the quarter-deck, where they were received by Captain Downes, who was in full uniform and surrounded by a glittering staff. Nothing was left undone to impress the Malays with the might and majesty of the nation they had offended or their own insignificance, they being compelled to approach the American commander on their knees, bowing their heads to the deck at every yard. But they had had their lesson; their insolence and haughtiness had disappeared; all they wanted was peace—peace at any price.
The next morning the crew of the Potomac were gladdened by the cheery notes of the bo’sn’s whistle piping: “All hands up anchor for home.” Her mission had been accomplished. As the splendid black-hulled vessel stood out to sea under a cloud of snowy canvas, the grim muzzles of her four and forty guns peering menacingly from her open ports, the chastened and humbled survivors of Qualla Battoo stood on the beach before their ruined town and watched her go. At the mouths of her belching guns they had learned the lesson that the arm of the great republic is very long, and that if need be it will reach half the world around to punish and avenge.
UNDER THE FLAG OF THE LONE STAR
UNDER THE FLAG OF THE LONE STAR
HAD you stood on the banks of the Brazos in December of the year in which the nineteenth century became old enough to vote and looked northeastward across the plains of central Texas, your attention would doubtless have been attracted by a rolling cloud of dust. From out its yellow haze would have crept in time a straggling line of canvas-covered wagons. Iron-hard, bearded men, their faces tanned to the color of a much-used saddle, strode beside the wheels, their long-lashed blacksnakes cracking spasmodically, like pistol-shots, between the horns of the plodding oxen. Weary-faced women in sunbonnets and calico, with broods of barelegged, frowzy-headed youngsters huddled about them, peered curiously from beneath the arching wagon-tops. A thin fringe of scouts astride of wiry ponies, long-barrelled rifles resting on the pommels of their saddles, rode on either flank of the slowly moving column. Other groups of alert and keen-eyed horsemen led the way and brought up the rear. Though these dusty migrants numbered less than half a thousand in all, though their garments were uniform only in their stern practicality and their shabby picturesqueness, though their only weapons were hunting rifles and the only music to which they marched was the rattle of harness and the creak of axle-trees, they formed, nevertheless, an army of invasion, bent on the conquest not of a people, however, but of a wilderness.
Who that saw that dusty column trailing across the Texan plains would have dreamed that these gaunt and shabby men and women were destined to conquer and civilize and add to our national domain a territory larger than the German Empire, with Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium thrown in? Yet that trek of the pioneers, “southwesterly by the lone star,” was the curtain-raiser for that most thrilling of historic dramas, or rather, melodramas: the taking of Texas.
To understand the significance of that chain of startling and picturesque events which began with the stand of the settlers on the Guadalupe and culminated in the victory on the San Jacinto without at least a rudimentary knowledge of the conditions which led up to it is as impossible as it would be to master trigonometry without a knowledge of arithmetic. But do not worry for fear that you will be bored by the recital; the story is punctuated much too frequently with rifle-shots and pistol-shots for you to yawn or become sleepy-eyed.
The American colonization of Texas—then known as the province of New Estremadura—began while Spain still numbered Mexico among her colonial possessions. When Iturbide ended Spanish rule in Mexico, in 1821, and thereby made himself Emperor of the third largest nation in the world (China and Russia alone being of greater area), he promptly confirmed the land grants which had been made by the Spanish authorities to the American settlers in Texas, both he and his immediate successors being only too glad to further the development of the wild and almost unknown region above the Rio Grande by these hardy, thrifty, industrious folk from the north. Under this official encouragement an ever-growing, ever-widening stream of American emigration went rolling Texasward. The forests echoed to the axe strokes of woodsmen from Kentucky; the desert was furrowed by the ploughshares of Ohio farmers; villages sprang up along the rivers; the rolling prairies were dotted with patches of ripening grain. Texas quickly became the magnet which drew thousands of the needy, the desperate, and the adventurous. Men of broken fortunes, men of roving habits, adventurers, land speculators, disappointed politicians, unsuccessful lawyers, men who had left their country for their country’s good, as well as multitudes of sturdy, thrifty, hard-working folk desirous of finding homes for their increasing families poured into the land of promise afoot and on horseback, by boat and wagon-train, until, by 1823, there were probably not far from twenty thousand of these American outlanders established between the Sabine and the Pecos.