1824: The Arkansas War: Chapter Twenty Nine

Arkansas Post
February 9, 1825

    The first thing John Ross said, when he spotted Sam entering the big mess hall in the fort that had been set aside for an impromptu conference room, was:

    “Thank God you’re here!”

    The Cherokee leader pointed an accusing finger at Pushmataha. The principal chief of the Choctaws was ensconced on a chair in a corner, for all the world as if he were seated on a throne. “Explain to this madman that if he doesn’t get his people moved across the Poteau into New Kitu—ah, blast it, ‘Oklahoma’—that they’ll starve. As it is, it’s going to be touch and go.”

    Sam studied Pushmataha. The old chief was famous all over the frontier for his canny ways, but all it took was one glance to know that he wasn’t going to budge.

    “They murdered and raped and robbed—Crittenden and his devils—all up and down the great river,” the chief growled. His English was fluent, if heavily accented. “Then their militias did it again, when they came at us afterward. We will not move from this place until we have our revenge. We will certainly not go to hide across the Poteau, leaving—”

    Pushmataha choked off a term that was the Choctaw equivalent of “nigger.” He took a slow, shaky, old man’s breath. “Leaving the blacks to do all the fighting.”

    Sam decided to shift the matter into Choctaw—in which he was by now just as fluent, and had considerably less of an accent. “Well, of course not. But your women and children can’t fight, Pushmataha. Not many of the old men, either. So it only makes sense…”

    By evening, he’d managed to work out a compromise. Most of the Choctaws would winter over in New Antrim. That would require hastily erecting enough shelter for an additional fifteen thousand people, in a city that was already bursting with more than thirty thousand. But Driscol announced he’d exercise his full powers as principal chief of Arkansas and institute the measure he’d been considering for some time now.

    Conscription. Pure and simple—no blasted inefficient, haphazard Sassenach press gangs, either. Arkansas would do it the proper way. The Napoleonic way.

    However, exemptions would be given to able-bodied men engaged in necessary labor.

    Building housing on short notice for the newly-arrived Choctaws was decreed necessary labor.

    The principal chief of Arkansas foresaw no great problem.

    “Can Patrick actually manage it?” Sam whispered to John Ridge, with whom he’d been quietly consulting on the side while Driscol and John Ross and Major Ridge and Pushmataha continued their wrangling over the details. “Conscription, I mean.”

    Major Ridge’s son was extremely astute, had been residing in New Antrim for some time now—and, along with his cousin, Buck Watie, who was standing alongside him—owned New Antrim’s biggest and most influential newspaper. Sam figured his assessment would be as good as any. And whatever he missed, Buck wouldn’t.

    “There’ll be a ruckus, of course. But… yes, he can.”

    “Of course, he can,” Buck chimed in, speaking as softly as his cousin even if the words came out like a snort “Don’t let all the similarities fool you, Sam. There are some ways—and not just obvious ones involving race—that Arkansas is about as different from the United States as both of them are from, I don’t know, someplace in Mongolia. One of them is the attitude people have toward the army here. Even a lot of the whites and Indians. The truth is, the way things are now, if Chief Driscol called for massive volunteers, he’d get them. There’ll be ruckus over conscription, like John says, but it’ll be mostly for show.”

    Sam looked back and forth from one to the other. Neither of the young Cherokees looked at all happy.

    “And the problem is?”

    John, as usual, took some time to think about his answer. Buck, as usual, gave it right away.

    “Isn’t it obvious, Sam? What happens if we win the war? And come out of it at the end—”

    John finished the thought. “—with what amounts to an all-black army, in a confederacy that’s supposed to be mostly for Indians? That’s a recipe for another war. A civil war, this time. In fact, we’re getting closer to it than I like, already. If you go out and talk to some of the Cherokees in New Kit—ah, Oklahoma—you’ll hear some nasty predictions and even calls for action. Especially from some of the richer mixed-bloods who own a lot of slaves. Some Creeks are talking the same way, too.”

     Sam studied the leaders in the corner of the mess hall. In deference to Pushmataha’s age and infirmities, all of them had gathered around the Choctaw chief’s chair.

    All the races of the continent were represented there. Mostly Indians, with two white men in the form of Patrick Driscol and Robert Ross. Only one black man. That was Charles Ball, the general in the chiefdom of Arkansas’ little army.

    But it didn’t matter. All Sam had to do was step outside and walk about the fort for a few minutes. Everywhere he went—manning the twelve-pounders, not just holding muskets—he’d see almost nothing but black men. With a sprinkling of whites, constituting less than ten percent of the whole. One or two Indians, at most—if there were any at all.

    “The solution’s obvious,” he said harshly, not caring now if his voice carried. “Pick up the load yourselves, damnation.”

    Both young Cherokees flushed. “We’ll fight, Sam, and you know—”

    “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Sure, you’ll fight. Nobody ever accused Cherokees—or Creeks, or Choctaws, and sure as Sam Hill not Chickasaws and Seminoles—of being cowards. And so fucking what?”

    He jerked his head in the direction of Major Ridge. “You’ll fight the way your father—and your uncle, Buck—fights. A great warrior, nobody denies it. Not me, that’s for sure, having fought next to him at the Horseshoe Bend and the Mississippi.  And it doesn’t matter, because the only role he and his men could play at the Horseshoe and the Mississippi was that of auxiliary troops. There’s no way—not on their own—they can stand against what’s coming.”

    Now, he jerked his head in the direction of Driscol and Ball. “They can, on the other hand. Because whether you like it or not—whether it rubs your Cherokee customs and traditions the wrong way or not—they’ll fight the white man’s sort of war. And that’s what kind of war this is going to be. And you know it. So cut out the tomfoolery. I ask you again. You know the solution. Are you willing to accept it?”

    John and Buck looked at each other. “Yeah, all right,” said Buck almost immediately.

    “My wife can handle the newspaper,” John chimed in. “Truth is, she manages it pretty much already, on the business end.”

    “Well, good.”

    The Chickasaws wouldn’t budge at all. So, finally, Patrick cut the Gordian knot.

    “Fine, then. I’ll be pulling out of Arkansas Post come spring. Because there’s no way to hold it, against the size army the United States will send. So you can winter over in this area, and you can have the Post thereafter, if you think you can hold it. I give it to you. You’d still be smarter to send your women and children—them, at least—over into Oklahoma.”

    Sam translated. The Chickasaws chiefs swelled.

    “We’ll hold it! Watch and see if Chickasaws can’t!”

    Ten minutes later, most of the mess hall was cleared of people. The only ones who remained behind were Driscol, Robert Ross, Sam himself, and the four Cherokee leaders: John Ross and Major Ridge, and Ridge’s son and nephew.

    “Idiots,” Robert Ross stated. “The American army will over-run the Post and they’ll all die. Most of them, anyway. A few might escape, at the end.”

    Driscol shrugged. Every ounce of him the ice-blooded troll, now. “So let ‘em die. They’re Chickasaws, they won’t die easily. They’ll bleed the bastards, be sure of that. And once it’s over”—the troll’s grin, as pure as you could ask for—“it’ll be us instead of Henry Clay hollering ‘vengeance for Arkansas Post!’”

    Driscol turned to Sam, glowering at him. “I’ve half a mind to forbid you from enlisting in the army altogether. I’ve got the legal authority to do it, too, at least here in Arkansas.”

    “Damn you, Patrick, I didn’t come all the way—”

    “Damn you, Sam Houston! Look,  sooner or later wars have to be ended, too. And…” For a moment, the troll almost looked embarrassed. Impossible, of course. “Well, the truth is, I’m a poor one to try to make a settlement. You, on the other hand, are a natural diplomat and could probably manage the trick—provided you weren’t actually involved in the fighting and killing.”

    Before Sam could continue the argument, Robert Ross intervened.

    “Patrick, you’re being foolish. First, you have to win the war in the first place. Which, as it stands now, you most likely won’t.”

    Driscol glared at him. The British major general didn’t seem to care in the least.

    “Be as stubborn as you want. Here’s the truth, Patrick. You’ve got probably the best army anywhere in the world that could have been created by sergeants. The world’s best sergeants, I’ll add that into the bargain. But sergeants can’t win wars. They can rarely even win battles. What you need is what you don’t have. A real officer corps. You don’t have real cavalry, either, but you can probably survive that lack. You won’t survive without officers. Real ones, and enough of them.”

    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 in 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
February 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 at up 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 free thinker 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.