Chapter 36

36

September 1847

San Ángel, Outskirts of Mexico City

They imprisoned Riley and twenty-eight of his men in a dank warehouse that smel ed of sewage and rot. As soon as the door closed, he gathered his men around him, Dalton by his side.

“Come now, my boys, this isn’t over yet!” Riley said. “There ought to be a way out of our present calamity. Let us not despair.”

“They’re going to kil us, kil us al ,” James Mil s said.

“No, Major Riley is right,” Dalton said. “Have faith men, have faith.”

“Faith in whom, him?” Alexander McKee said, pointing at Riley. “Isn’t it he who got us into this sad scrape?” He looked at Riley and spat. “Go hIfreann leat! ” He struggled to his feet and made his way across the room.

“Listen now, McKee, I wil not tolerate—” Dalton said.

Riley put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Let him be. He’s right.”

“We can tel them the truth,” John Bowers said. “Those sonsabitches treated us worse than animals. After al the great indignities we su ered, they left us no choice but to desert.”

“The in dels mocked our religion and didn’t al ow us to worship our Creator in our own manner,” Edward McHeran said. “Heavens know ’twas reason enough for us to do what we did.”

“They won’t give ear to that,” Riley said. “Especial y our religion. They’l throw the Articles of War in our faces.”

“We can say that their laws don’t apply to us Irish,” Thomas Riley said. “And you Germans, and you Scots,” he said as he glanced around the room.

“We can say we were much bewildered by liquor to know any better,”

Hezekiah Akles said. “I’ve got proof, right here on my forehead.” He touched his forehead where the letters HD had been branded by his commanding o cer.

Riley nodded, remembering that according to general order, drunkards would be al owed back into their ranks after going absent without o cial leave.

Besides, hadn’t the Yanks just won the battle at Churubusco? Surely they were feeling generous right now. There might be a chance they would forgive the San Patricios if they claimed to be nothing but drunks. Paddy the drunkard, wasn’t that what the Yanks cal ed them?

“Hear me,” Riley said. “Let us tel the Yanks a good cock-and-bul story, then.

Claim drunkenness when ye stand afore the judge. Say the drop led ye astray. At any rate, they’ve always accused us of bein’ nothin’ but drunken brutes, haven’t they? So tel them they spoke truth.”

“D’ya real y think that wil work?” John Bartley asked.

“ ’Tis worth takin’ the chance,” Riley said. “Besides, the Yanks have another battle to ght. ’Twon’t be long afore they have to face the Mexicans again, so they’ve got no time for trials. They need to focus on their strategy to win the war. The trials wil be over afore ye know it, eh?” Riley paused and looked at his men. He hoped they believed him. He wanted to believe it himself, but deep down, he knew the Yanks would show no clemency. Especial y not now. He knew Scott would make an example of them in order to stop more soldiers from deserting. But what else could he say to his men to give them hope? “If that story fails to convince, claim that ye were spirited away from your ranks by rancheros and were forced to ght with the Mexicans, that they threatened ye with death if ye didn’t ght for their cause.” He knew that under the Articles of War, their only valid defenses would be drunkenness and coercion.

“But they didn’t,” Dalton said. “We made our choice, and now we must abide by it.”

Riley nodded. “I know, but ’tis plain our Mexican friends are about to lose this war, and they won’t be able to give us succor when they can’t even help themselves. ’Tis up to us now to defend our cause and save ourselves from the bitter fate that’s upon us, ye understand?”

The men nodded.

“If that story fails, then say that ye were beaten until ye had no choice but to give in. Blame it on me, if ye must. Say that it was John Riley of County Galway who forced ye al to ght under his green banner.”

“Níl! ” Dalton said, standing up. “We wil do no such thin’.”

“If there is blame to be passed around, I wil bear my share,” Riley said, hitting his breast with his st. “Mea culpa.”

“I’l just say that I was a prisoner of love,” James Mil s said. “That my head was unsettled by the love of my Mexican sweetheart, which compel ed me to put on the Mexican uniform.”

The men chuckled.

“Let us pray,” Edward McHeran said, putting his hands together in prayer.

Knowing they were past the help of men, they bowed their heads in unison to ask for God’s mercy. Even Alexander McKee returned to the group and knelt with the rest, the sound of their voices drifting out into the wet night.

Throughout the next few days, news reached them in their prison. The trials of the San Patricios held in Tacubaya had begun, and an armistice had been agreed upon, forbidding either country from fortifying their defenses and strengthening their armies. The exchange of prisoners and the wounded would soon be carried out, but Riley knew without a doubt that Santa Anna wouldn’t be able to negotiate with Scott for their freedom. No, Scott would be sure to make examples of them.

Then their own trials began. One by one, the San Patricios imprisoned in San Ángel were sentenced to hang—not death by ring squad as de ned by the Articles of War—but to hang at the gal ows as if they were lowly spies or rapists.

Every single one of them received the death penalty. None of the claims they had made in their defense had swayed the Yankees. When Patrick Dalton received his sentence, Riley was close to tears. He needed to be strong, for al of them, but after that, he couldn’t look his friend in the eye.

On September 5, Riley was the last of the men to be summoned. As the guard was placing the chains around his hands, Riley observed his men, who

were leaning dejectedly against the wal s.

The guards pushed him out of the warehouse, and even though Riley knew the verdict that awaited him, he stil said a silent prayer. “God, have mercy on me. Let me live long enough to see my son once more and my unborn child.”

He took a deep breath and tried to hold himself together as best he could, though the pain in his leg caused him to limp and his forehead broke into a sweat. When they pushed him into the room that had been turned into a courthouse, and Riley faced his judges, the wound on his leg opened again, and blood was seeping through his already bloodstained Mexican uniform.

Riley could feel the room’s gaze on him. He spotted Duncan sitting in the front row and saw the blatant hatred in his eyes, the same contempt with which Braxton Bragg would have looked at him if he were here. Colonel Bennet Riley was serving as judge. Riley hated sharing a surname with this man, a child of Irish parents but born and reared in America. A Catholic, but a Yank through and through. Riley knew not to expect any sympathy from the colonel. He knew the colonel would be harder on a true Irishman like Riley. Many American-born Irish were like that—turning against their own kind, pretending they had nothing in common with the folk from the ould sod. General Scott knew what he was doing when he appointed Bennet Riley to oversee the trials. On the outside, it would seem like the San Patricios were getting a fair trial, presided over by someone of Irish descent, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Sure enough, Colonel Bennet Riley stood and looked him up and down, taking in his major’s dark-blue Mexican uniform, the braided epaulets, the medal of honor, the insignia of his rank. The colonel sneered with contempt and cal ed the trial to order.

Riley kept his face impassive as Captain Ridgely read the accusations against him.“Private John Riley of K Company, Fifth Infantry, you have been accused of deserting service to the United States on the twelfth of April, 1846. You are accused of joining the Mexican ranks and taking up arms against the United States Army in the battle of Churubusco. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty,” Riley replied. His voice sounded sure and steady.

Murmurs broke out and many in the audience yel ed, “Liar!” and “Traitor!”

The colonel cal ed the courtroom back to order. Several men were cal ed to testify on Riley’s character, among them his former commander, Captain Merril . Riley remembered that rainy Sunday morning, the day after Sul ivan’s death, when he had made his decision to desert. He had thought Captain Merril would be resentful that it was under his watch that Riley had deserted, but he saw no hatred in the captain’s eyes. If anything, what he saw was respect, maybe even a hint of pity, because he, too, seemed to know what the verdict would be.

“Private John Riley was a man of good character and an excel ent soldier,”

Captain Merril said. “I don’t recol ect ever having to punish him in any way.”

Riley nodded a silent thanks and prepared to give his own statement. He knew ful wel that his reasons for deserting mattered naught to them, but he wasn’t going to make it quick and easy for the Yanks to sentence him to death.

No, he was going to make them wait, and he was going to give them a piece of his mind.

“On April twelfth, after my tentmate, Franky Sul ivan, was murdered in cold blood, I was in need of comfort from the Lord and his Holy Mother, so I asked the good Captain Merril here to give me permission to attend mass. On the way thither, I was thereupon taken prisoner by Mexican lancers who dragged me across the Río Grande against my wil .” He heard the hisses, saw the shaking of heads. Of course, they didn’t believe a word he was saying, but he continued.

“There in the town of Matamoros I was imprisoned, and for nineteen days I lived on nothin’ but bread and water and the good grace of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Final y, General Ampudia came to my prison cel and gave me three choices.” Riley stopped then and looked around the room. “The Mexican general said I could die by facin’ the American rin’ squad or his own rin’

squad, or I could join his army. I, of course, refused to take up arms against the United States, not after I had been treated so kindly and respectful y by my American comrades and superiors. Not after bein’ promised the opportunity to move up in rank. And especial y not after bein’ recompensed with a whole seven dol ars in wages to send back home every month. So the Mexican general said to think things over. I was kept prisoner, with my hands tied behind my back al the way to the city of Linares.”

He went on and on, describing the ordeal he had su ered. He was actual y beginning to enjoy himself, his lies becoming more outlandish. He’d never told a better cock-and-bul story before. He saw the people in the audience squirming, the judges’s faces turning redder and redder. Final y, during a pause in his storytel ing, the colonel said, “Are you ready to close your statement, Private?”

Riley stil wasn’t ready to give them the satisfaction of sentencing him to death and being done with the trial so they could enjoy their dinner. And how dare he cal him Private when he knew damn wel what his rank was? Riley shook his head and continued with his story. “And so ’twas, that many days later

—after much su erin’ and anguish—I was sentenced to be executed by Ampudia’s rin’ squad, after which, I was to have my head fried in hog’s grease and hung at the public square. But just when I was about to face death itself and put my defeated soul in the hands of the Lord, the other Mexican general, Arista, arrived to halt the execution. He gave me one more chance to take up arms in defense of Mexico.” Riley heard the audience’s whispers. The words traitor, liar, coward made his blood boil, and so he gave up the performance and brought his statement to a close.

“So I was given a choice, and I made it,” he said, his voice louder, his tone serious. “I decided that instead of bein’ sentenced to death and have my head fried, I would rather serve as a commissioned o cer in the ranks of the Republic of Mexico. There, as you can see,” he said, standing proudly and showing o his gilded shoulder straps and medal of honor, “I obtained the rank of major because of my skil s and bravery on the eld of battle—and because the Mexicans valued me and respected me in a way you Goddamned Yankees sonsofbitches never did!”

The audience was in an uproar. The colonel cal ed the court to order but no one paid him any heed. He banged his gavel again and again. Riley tried to keep his face expressionless, but he couldn’t help himself, and a grin spread across his face. He watched as the judges shouted among themselves.

Then Colonel Riley stood, waited until everyone quieted down, and said:

“After deliberation, the court nds the prisoner Private John Riley, of Company K, Fifth Infantry, guilty as charged, and does therefore sentence him to be hanged by the neck until he is dead!”