Ampudia Decides Not To Charge
Meanwhile, General Ampudia tried his own daring tactic. He ordered a group of men, including sharpshooters, to edge closer to the fort. They cloaked their movements by hiding behind a ravine formed by the southern edge of the lagoon. As they crept closer to Fort Texas, they used the banks of the Rio Grande for cover, but fort lookouts spotted them and began firing cannons. They killed one Mexican soldier, and the others quickly pulled back. Watching the precision of his foe’s artillery, Ampudia concluded that charging the fort would be too costly. He would wait and continue the siege.
Lieutenant Braxton Bragg directed the U.S. artillery that fired on Ampudia’s troops. Later, Bragg become a Confederate general, commander at such fierce Civil War battles as Chickamauga, Georgia. In fact, 15 soldiers in the Fort Texas siege were later Civil War officers, including George Thomas, whose stand at Chickamauga staved off destruction of Union forces. Other Fort Texas defenders included John Reynolds, a key figure in the Union defense of Gettysburg, a battle that cost him his life, and Lafayette McClaws, a Confederate commander at Gettysburg.
By the evening of May 7, Fort Texas had withstood five days of heavy bombardment. Neither side showed any intention of abandoning the fight, and there was still no sign of help for the U.S. soldiers. Finally, they finished the fort’s last wall, as the Mexicans continued to blast away with artillery, with sporadic return fire from within the fort.
U.S. officers decided to take the offensive. Chief engineer Mansfield stealthily led a group out of the fort, managing to approach some Mexican fortifications and explode an embankment. Another group left the protection of fort walls to torch houses occupied by Mexican troops.
These forays no doubt bolstered morale, but did nothing to alter the strategic balance. The U.S. Army, with dwindling supplies and ammunition, remained trapped inside the fort.
Walker, the Texas Ranger, had somehow threaded his way around thousands of Mexican soldiers to reach Point Isabel where he reported to General Taylor that fort defenders were holding up well, giving Taylor time to bolster the supply depot’s defenses and to organize a rescue.
By May 8, Taylor was moving toward Fort Texas with an army of 2,300 men and 250 supply wagons. Blocking his path, about eight miles north of the fort, was a Mexican army of about 4,000, commanded by General Mariano Arista.
Armies Clash At Palo Alto
The Mexicans waited at a place called Palo Alto. Their lookouts could see the approaching U.S. troops from some distance crossing the flat salt prairie. Men from the two sides had skirmished the night before, and there was little doubt that a major clash was imminent.
Arista ordered his men into a wide line, about one mile long, across the road leading to Fort Texas. As the U.S. troops moved closer, they halted, filled their canteens, and took up battle formations. Then they advanced to within about 800 yards of the Mexican positions and stopped.
For about two hours the armies eyed each other warily across an open field of tall grasses. The ground was muddy, with small water pools. Commanders on both sides shouted orders. There were few other loud noises as horses and men shifted uneasily under a blistering sun.
Then, about two in the afternoon, loud explosions shattered the quiet as the Mexican cannons spit out artillery shells. The U.S. force retaliated with their own cannons. Taylor prepared to order his troops to charge, but changed his mind as he saw the damage done by his artillery. The Mexican soldiers, hampered by outdated equipment, were at a distinct disadvantage despite their greater number. They fought with old, unreliable guns and gun powder and depended primarily on single-shot cannon balls. These often fell short, and even when they covered the desired distance flew so slowly that the targeted soldiers simply side-stepped them.
U.S. troops had newer weapons firing case projectiles that exploded on impact and canister shells stuffed with multiple shots. The combined effect was devastating. Cannon fire ripped huge gaps in the Mexican lines. Hot shards of flying metal maimed or killed many. Yet, the Mexican forces did not panic and stood their ground. Arista ordered a cavalry charge. Led by General Anastacio Tarrejon, the highly trained cavalry galloped at the U.S. force’s right flank. The usual strategic advantages of cavalry, speed and momentum, however, were reduced by the muddy ground. The waiting U.S. infantry formed into a tight square, bristling with rifles and bayonets, further blunting the Mexican charge. The U.S. soldiers also deployed fast, horse-drawn cannons. Able to move these guns rapidly whenever conditions warranted, they could fire at close range into opposition forces. The Mexican cavalry retreated.
The Mexican army tried two more cavalry charges, with similar results. The “flying artillery” of the U.S. troops, commanded by Samuel Ringgold and James Duncan, proved brutally effective, although Ringgold, who had pioneered light artillery for the army, was fatally wounded.
Cannon sparks ignited grass fires, creating smoke that enveloped the battlefield. When the smoke cleared and the fighting finally ceased, the two armies were in similar positions to those before the battle. The Mexicans still outnumbered U.S. troops and still blocked the way to Fort Texas. The fight, however, had bolstered U.S. spirits and perhaps undercut Mexican confidence.
Forty-three U.S. soldiers were injured and nine died. Mexican casualties were more severe. Some 100 to 400 Mexican fighters suffered wounds, and at least 125 were killed. Official estimates are unreliable, however, and some historians think that perhaps as many as 200 to 300 Mexican soldiers died.
The armies spent an uneasy night camped on the battlefield. The next day Arista calculated he could reduce his enemy’s artillery impact by pulling back to a place with natural defenses. He stationed men on both sides of a lagoon, the Resaca de la Palma, where the tall banks formed shields. The chaparral of bushes and small trees was dense, providing additional protection, near this former channel of the Rio Grande.
Soldiers Fight In The Chaparral
Arista placed his heavy artillery on the main road leading over the resaca. As U.S. troops approached, Taylor divided his infantry into small units and sent them into the chaparral. Skilled in frontier fighting, these soldiers soon engaged Mexican fighters in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Some of the U.S. troops were able to fight their way across the resaca, then turned and began advancing from the side toward the Mexican center.
 Crossed sabers toward the center left of this map show where General Zachary Taylor fought the Mexican army, led by Mariano Arista. They met on a muddy battlefield at a place called Palo Alto, as Taylor tried to advance toward Fort Texas. |
At the same time, Taylor ordered a direct assault by mounted troops at the Mexican center. While the two armies’ artillery engaged in another duel, horsemen led by General Charles May rode hard down the main road. The cavalry, in the open, was extremely vulnerable and needed to get out of range quickly of the Mexican cannons.
With his long, black hair whipping in the breeze, May rode straight into intense rifle fire. The air filled with bullets, but the U.S. cavalry managed to push forward and capture the Mexican artillery. Now a flood of troops hammered the Mexican army from two directions. The Mexicans began retreating. Seeking to stem the tide, Arista displayed his own valor, riding at the head of a cavalry charge into the teeth of the oncoming soldiers. Despite his fearlessness, defeat was at hand. The Mexicans began streaming toward the Rio Grande, only to become targets for Fort Texas cannons.
Fort troops soon ceased fire, however, fearing they would hit their comrades pursuing Arista’s men. Mexican forces, now in chaos, tried to swim the Rio Grande to safety. The river, wider and more powerful than today, was swollen by spring rains and swept many soldiers under. The Mexican army reported that 159 troops were missing after the battle. Many likely drowned. The Mexican army also listed an additional 160 soldiers killed and 228 wounded in the battle at the Resaca de la Palma. Forty-five U.S. soldiers died and 97 were wounded.
Major Jacob Brown, who led the fort’s defense, died as a result of his battle wound a few hours before Taylor’s victory and return.
When Taylor arrived, he somberly renamed the bastion to honor the fallen commander. Fort Texas became Fort Brown.
There was no further combat at the fort in the following two years of the Mexican-American War. Fort Brown, however, was an important post on Taylor’s supply route as his army trekked deep into Mexico, fighting at Monterey, La Angostura, and Buena Vista against elements of the same army they had battled along the Rio Grande. Other U.S. forces invaded Mexico, including what is now New Mexico, Arizona, and California. At war’s end, Mexico was forced to sell half its territory to the United States.
Lingering bitterness remained between the two nations for years. Those north of the new border recounted war-time excesses and atrocities committed by Santa Anna’s armies during the fight over Texas independence. For their part, residents south of the border fumed about stolen lands and atrocities they had suffered, especially at the hands of the Texas Rangers.
Search Leads to the Past
After the Mexican-American War, U.S. troops built a new Fort Brown about a half mile north of the original bastion, again beside the Rio Grande. U.S. Customs facilities were recently enlarged on the site where this second Fort Brown once stood. Archeologists explored some of this area before construction began.
In 1990, researchers guided by archeologist Randall Moir delved into the ground about 250 feet from the present inspection booths near the International Bridge. They uncovered a tiny flake of chert, a type of rock, apparently left from the making of a stone tool by early Native Americans. One of the roving bands of Indians, whose ancestors lived in the area for thousands of years, apparently left the flake during a visit to the river.
Archeologists also discovered a very old gun flint fragment from a rifle that was perhaps carried by Indians soon after the first Spanish explorers appeared and introduced the weapons. Artifacts, objects shaped or used by people, also surfaced that seemed to have been made by Mexicans in the area before Taylor’s army arrived. Until recently, historians tended to overlook the possibility that there were settlements north of the river before U.S. forces came. But animal bones and pottery fragments, likely discarded in the 1830s, perhaps earlier, were found by archeologists. Some of the pottery pieces are thought to be English, while other ceramics were locally made. Some fragments were tempered with quartz and left unglazed; others were glazed with lead.
Researchers also uncovered pieces from white clay smoking pipes. These “kaolin” pipes were made between 1790 and 1830. Buttons, various types of bottle glass, and very thin window glass, all apparently predating Taylor’s army, also surfaced.
Farmers Left Traces
Archeologists speculate that the objects were left by tenants or farm laborers working municipal land owned by the city of Matamoros. Hand-made, soft clay bricks or adobe and clay daub, along with small nails, suggest the inhabitants lived in a house with clay walls and a wooden frame, perhaps a small hut with a thatched roof, known as a jacal. The dwelling probably stood within 100 feet of the archeological excavation.
In 1991, other researchers working nearby discovered additional evidence of an early settlement. Led by Douglas Potter, archeologists found pieces from ceramic pots made between 1820 and the 1850s. Further evidence of early settlement comes from National Park Service historian Aaron Mahr. He found maps and other historical documents showing substantial farming and several standing structures, presumably houses, near the Rio Grande that existed about the time U.S. forces reached the area.
Archeologists also found buried artifacts from the bombardment and siege of the original Fort Brown in 1846. Gun flints, percussion caps, cannon pieces, and other military pieces were uncovered, prompting speculation that a ridge near the International Bridge was the scene of an intense fire fight. United States and Mexican armies battled over some fortification on the ridge, according to this theory, although more research is needed to confirm this thinking.
Unsanitary Conditions Take a Toll
After the Mexican-American War, life at the new Fort Brown was less eventful, but at times still perilous. Soldiers in the late 1840s and the 1850s occasionally rode out on patrols to hunt cattle thieves and bandits, but for the most part their existence was taken up with drudgery.
The frontier post, built primarily from wood scavenged from the Point Isabel supply depot, was decidedly rustic. There were some softening touches, however. Vines wrapped around posts on the porches of officer quarters, providing shade and some relief from the scorching sun, and nearby picket fences were brightened by flowers planted nearby.
 Successful businessman Charles Stillman, Brownsville's founder, built this residence in 1850. Stillman first prospered as a merchant in Matamoros, Mexico, before establishing the Texas town across the Rio Grande River. His historic home is now the Stillman House Museum at 1305 East Washington Street. |
The wood buildings met strong disapproval from the Army inspector general who complained in 1854 that wood was inferior to brick. He further pointed out that cheap brick was available ($2 per thousand) in the new town of Brownsville. Brownsville, named for Major Jacob Brown, began taking shape in 1848 as soon as the Mexican-American War ended. Charles Stillman, a successful American merchant who had prospered in Matamoros, bought land across the Rio Grande after the war and formed a company to develop the town. His home, built in 1850, is maintained today as the Stillman House Museum.
Deadly diseases were a constant threat at Fort Brown in the 1850s. In fact, almost every officer died from illness in 1853. Foul drinking water from the Rio Grande was a leading cause of sickness because the river was the polluted repository of human and animal wastes upstream. Food was also often unhealthy. Bruce Aiken, executive director of the Historic Brownsville Museum, points out that soldiers sometimes ate spoiled bacon and “vermin-infested” flour.
Idle time led many soldiers to drink, spawning alcoholism and its attendant ills. Drunkenness was not confined to the enlisted men, either. The fort commander, Giles Porter, was court-martialed in 1857 because of alcohol abuse and relieved of his post by a panel of military judges. Two Virginia friends, Robert E. Lee and George Thomas, were among the judges, both of whom later fought on opposing sides during the Civil War.
Archeologists recently learned more about life at Fort Brown during the late 1840s and the 1850s. The National Park Service’s William Hunt and his team located various artifacts that apparently date to this period.
Digging on the former site of the Brownsville Civic Center, they uncovered many tobacco pipe fragments. Called ball clay pipes, these light colored smoking pipes were popular in the 1850s, then gradually lost favor. By the end of the Civil War, smokers preferred terra cotta pipes, mass produced by machine.
Hunt’s team also uncovered many ceramic shards that apparently date to the 1850s. Several pieces came from the same light blue plate with a design of flowers and ferns in front of a braided stick fence, along with a human figure. Apparently, the plate was a copy of a design created by a company called Enoch Wood and Sons, which closed in 1846.
Two percussion caps used to shoot military pistols, remnants of the kinds of weapons stockpiled at Fort Brown in the 1850s, also surfaced. There was also evidence that soldiers made bullets and sometimes used their own firearms. The scientists discovered lead spatter, the apparent byproduct of bullet making, and also found a gun decoration, a “cupric star,” that didn’t come from a regulation Army weapon, suggesting that soldiers kept personal guns, perhaps using them on patrol.
A large spike, probably from a steamboat hull, reflects the importance of river transportation in the early days of the fort before railroads reached Brownsville. Steamboats traveling up river from the coast delivered much of Fort Brown’s supplies.
Scientists also exposed pieces of glass probably used in constructing fort buildings in the late 1840s and 1850s.
The Fort Brown of the 1850s was built around a small parade ground with a flag pole at the center. Nearby were graves of several U.S. soldiers killed in the Mexican-American War, including Major Jacob Brown. To the east of the parade grounds were officers quarters; barracks stretched to the south. Behind the barracks were the kitchens, laundries, and stables, according to an 1854 fort map.
Archeologist Douglas Potter discovered in the early 1990s a fragment of a carved bone knife, numerous pieces of various kinds of pottery, and animal bones, including cattle bones that appeared cut with a knife. This refuse probably came from an 1850s kitchen and seemed to confirm the 1854 map’s accuracy.
Bandit or Hero
The U.S. Army abandoned Fort Brown in the late 1850s, and without military protection, Brownsville soon fell prey to a fierce fighter, Juan Nepomuceno Cortina. Born into a family with large land holdings near Brownsville, Cortina was in the Mexican cavalry and fought at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma for control of Fort Brown.
After the Mexican-American War, he settled on a ranch near Brownsville and smoldered over the vast territory the United States had taken from Mexico. Cortina was also incensed by Brownsville-based attorneys and judges whom he thought were stealing land from Spanish-speaking people unfamiliar with U.S. law.
Cortina’s own brushes with the law steadily escalated. Grand juries twice indicted him on charges of cattle thievery, but he was not arrested, perhaps because he was already so popular among people of Mexican descent. Then in July 1859 he shot a Brownsville marshal who was arresting and beating one of Cortina’s former employees. Cortina and the worker escaped.
That September, Cortina rode back into Brownsville, leading 40 to 80 armed men. They terrorized the townspeople, firing weapons and shouting, “Viva Mexico!” and “Death to the Americans!” They killed five men, including a guard at the city jail, where they freed prisoners. They then took control of the town. Some residents, whom Cortina had apparently targeted to kill, escaped.