The Battle of Salado Creek

      President Mirabeau Lamar's ill-fated 1841 expedition to conquer Santa Fe and the Mexican province of New Mexico greatly increased the tension between Mexico and the Republic of Texas. Relations continued to worsen until finally, in March of 1842, Mexican PresidentSantaAnna retaliated by sending GeneralRaphaelVasquez and a substantial force of soldiers across the Rio Grande with orders to occupy San Antonio.

      The borderincursion caught the Texans by surprise, but fortunately the Mexican forces remained in San Antonio for only two days before withdrawing and marching back to the Rio Grande with their wagons piled high with plunder. CaptainJackHays, riding at the head of a hundred TexasRangers and volunteers, dogged the Mexican column all the way back to Laredo, but his small force lacked the strength to do anything except harass the Mexicans.

     Angeredby General Vazquez's flagrant violation of the border, the Texas Congress passed a declaration of war against Mexico, but Lamar's successor in office, SamHouston, knowing full well how ill-prepared the bankrupt Republic was for war, wisely vetoed it. "Texas would defend itself if need be," he declared, "but we must not attack."

     Relationsbetween Texas and Mexico remained at an uneasy standstill until Santa Anna decided to break the impasse by ordering another General, French mercenary AdrianWoll, to cross the border with twelve hundred soldiers and once again advance on San Antonio. General Woll's border incursion was not meant to be a formal act of war on Santa Anna's part, but merely a demonstration in force to accomplish three goals: first, to assert Mexican sovereignty across the Rio Grande; second, to chastise the Texans for their move on Santa Fe; and finally to let the expansionists in the United States know Mexico was prepared to act in the protection of its own interests.

     GeneralWoll captured San Antonio well before dawn on September 11, cleverly avoiding the scouts Jack Hays had posted south of town by leaving the main road and making a night march through the hills. Like General Vasquez, Woll only planned to occupy San Antonio for a brief period, but he made good use of his time by capturing the members of the district court which happened to be in session, in addition to a number of other prominent Texas citizens. With only a small force of Rangers at his disposal, there was nothing Hays could do except ride to gather the militia.

     TheRangerleader sent out the call and from all across central Texas individuals and small groups of men rode or walked to the relief of San Antonio. Within the next few days more than two hundred volunteers had gathered at Seguin, every man eager to drive the Mexicans out of the Republic no matter what the cost. When a strong detachment from the Guadalupe Valley galloped into town behind MatthewCaldwell, a famous Indian fighter and one of the recently released prisoners who had been taken during the Santa Fe expedition, "OldPaint" was immediately elected to the rank of Colonel and given command of the small Texas army. Jack Hays was selected to lead the forty-two man mounted detachment, most of them from his own Ranger Company.

     BymidnightonSeptember17, Caldwell and his 210 volunteers were encamped on the east bank of SaladoCreek, six miles northeast of San Antonio near the site of present-day Fort Sam Houston. The terrain along the creek was an ideal defensive position protected from the wide open prairie to the east by a natural embankment and a dense stretch of timber that grew along the creek bottom. Caldwell ordered the Texans to dig in behind the embankment where they would have good cover and a clear field of fire into the open prairie for their long rifles. A steep, heavily thicketed ridge rose nearly vertical from the far bank of the creek rendering an approach from the west nearly impossible.

     Caldwell realized his small force could never drive General Woll and his men out of San Antonio, so he came up with a plan to lure the Mexican forces into attacking his strong defensive position on the creek. Early the following morning, he sent Jack Hays and six of his Texas Rangers to the Alamo where General Woll had set up his headquarters. Following Caldwell's orders, the Rangers began to ride along the walls shouting insults to the guards and challenging the Mexicans to come out and fight. It was not long before the bugles blared and a troop of Mexican lancers galloped out of the mission compound in hot pursuit.

     TheRangers fled towards the Salado, splashing across the creek a mile above Caldwell's camp and reaching the safety of the Texas lines well before the Mexican cavalry reined up on a low ridge some four hundred yards from the Texas position. After a brief rest, Hays led his Rangers in a series of skirmishes with the lancers. Putting their Colt Paterson revolvers and muzzle-loading shotguns to good use, the Rangers killed ten Mexican cavalrymen and wounded twenty-three before returning to the Texas positions along the creek without suffering a casualty.

     GeneralWoll arrived on the scene in the early afternoon with four hundred infantry, one hundred sixty dragoons, and two pieces of artillery. The guns were immediately brought forward and began to bang away at the Texas positions. Woll then formed his men in lines of battle with the infantry in front, backed up by the dragoons and cavalry on each flank, and prepared for what he thought would be an easy victory.

     For the next few hours, Caldwell sent out fifteen to twenty skirmishers at a time to mix it up with the Mexicans. The old Indian fighter was hoping to lure the Mexicans into an attack before Woll decided to send for more artillery. With more guns, the Mexicans could sit back and batter the Texans away from the protection of the creek. Time passed, but General Woll refused to take the bait.

     During this lull, two riders galloped through the Mexican lines on well-lathered horses and reined in near Caldwell. The news they brought was far from pleasant. The men had been acting as scouts for a detachment of 53 volunteers out of La Grange under the command of Captain Nicholas Dawson. The main party had been cut off and surrounded several miles from Salado Creek by a large contingent of Mexican cavalry and infantry.

Instead of attacking the unlucky Texans, the Mexicans had stood off and shelled them with artillery for over an hour. After enduring the terrible punishment for as long as they could, the few remaining Texans raised a white flag and laid down their arms. The Mexicans moved in and bayoneted all the wounded, taking few prisoners. News of the incident infuriated the Texans, and many of them demanded an immediate attack. However, Caldwell preached caution and the volunteers reluctantly accepted his advice.

      Theday was beginning to grow late when General Woll finally ordered his infantry and dragoons to make a frontal assault on the Texas positions along the wooded creek bottom, and the outcome of the battle was exactly what Caldwell had hoped for. As the Mexicans charged across the open prairie, bayonets glistening in the sun, the Texas marksmen, protected by the cover of the trees and the high embankment, delivered volley after volley of devastatingly accurate rifle fire into the enemy's massed ranks. Mexicans fell by the score, most of them hit in the head or center-punched in the chest. One of the Texans remarked the fight "was an easygoing affair" and "seemed like child's play."

      Towardsunset, Woll, thoroughly cowed by the pinpoint marksmanship of the Texas volunteers, reassembled his battered troops and ordered a retreat to San Antonio. During the brief encounter, only one Texan was killed. The Mexicans left sixty bodies on the battlefield and filled their wagons with another forty-four dead and one hundred and fifty wounded. The following day General Woll ordered a mass funeral in San Antonio rather than the grand victory fandango he had earlier planned.

     TheMexicansoldiers evacuated San Antonio on September 20, taking a herd of five hundred cattle and whatever wagons and carts they could lay their hands on loaded down with plunder. Two hundred Mexican families seeking protection from the town's enraged Anglo citizens also accompanied the column. Caldwell called a council of war, and a vote was taken to pursue the Mexicans and attack them if possible.

     Hays and the Rangers led the way, and they caught up with the Mexican rear guard near the Arroyo Hondo in the middle of the afternoon on September 22. By then the main column had crossed the river and assumed a good defensive position along the west bank, but General Woll ordered a company of infantry and a few cavalry back across the river to protect two cannons and the Mexican families still remaining on the east bank.

     Caldwell gave Hays permission to assault the cannons and promised to support his charge with an infantry attack. The Rangers made a valiant mounted charge into the face of the guns, killing all five Mexican artillerymen as they galloped past. However, Caldwell failed to support the effort as promised, and a determined advance by the Mexican infantry forced the Rangers to spike the guns and withdraw.

     JackHays was furious with Caldwell, but the volunteers had simply refused to advance on the strong Mexican position along the river, and there was nothing the veteran militia leader could have done to make them move. General Woll led his tired and battered force away from the river during the night and reached the safety of the Rio Grande on October 1. Hays had refused Caldwell's order to withdraw, and the Rangers had dogged Woll and his men all the way back to the border, occasionally skirmishing with the Mexican cavalry.

     Even though the Rangers were embittered by the outcome of the fight, welcome news awaited them upon their return to San Antonio. Finally growing tired of the Mexican border incursions, President Houston ordered General Alexander Somervell to organize sufficient volunteers for the purpose of conducting a patrol in force along the Rio Grande with discretionary powers to invade Mexico if necessary. At long last the Rangers would have the opportunity to take the fight to the Mexicans.

The above glimpse of Texas History is part of the research for my historical fiction series Saga of a Texas Ranger. www.sagaofatexasranger.com