The Texican Way: A novel of the US civil war

By Bernard Veale

Daniel Beauregard is a young Texan drafted into the Confederate Army. He is a crack shot with his Whitworth rifle and becomes a sniper. He meets Quantrill and joins his raiders. He is sent to Texas by Quantrill where he encounters General Robert E Lee. Lee has to return to Virginia in a hurry and he asks Daniel to escort him. Lee is being pursued by a US cavalry troop disguised as Confederates. Daniel decimates the disguised troop with his sniping skills. He realizes that Lee must have been betrayed by someone close to President Jefferson Davis and to track the traitor down he assumes the role of a US Army lieutenant and is quickly promoted to Captain. He discovers the codebook for US Army telegraphic communications and works out who the traitor is. He successfully supplies Lee with much crucial information. Due to the high rate of casualties, Daniel is a brigadier in the US Army when Lee finally surrenders.
With the war over, Daniel returns to playing poker; a skill he learned from his father. He travels on a riverboat down to New Orleans. On board he meets Senorita Teresita Rozas who, although he is much taken with her, does not return the compliment. While traveling to Laredo to be married to a rich ranchero, Teresita is captured by Comanche Indians. Daniel, now a very successful poker player, hears of the tragedy and using his special skills, finds and recovers her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AUK Authors
• Release date: May 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781781662151

Book preview

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Chapter One

What’s your name boy? And where did you get that rifle? The sergeant was a large man and even his brand-new uniform did not seem capable of containing all of him.

My name is Daniel Beauregard, sir, and this rifle was given me by my father.

Your father some sort of plantation owner? The rifle musta cost a pile o’ dollars.

No sir. I mean my father is no plantation owner and he won the rifle at poker.

You know how to shoot that rifle, boy?

Sure thing, sir, I used this rifle for a year and I can take out a squirrel at a hundred yards.

You can? I’m damned if I c’n see a squirrel at that distance. Get yourself into that squad over there and in future you call me ‘Sergeant’, you understand?

Yes sir, I mean, yes sergeant. Daniel said as he hurried to join the squad.

Now you men have to know that we are fixing to face up to the damned Yankees to show’em that we are Texans and nobody can push us Texans around. The officer said as soon as the sergeant had reported that the squad was ready for inspection.

The officer was a fine looking young man dressed in a uniform that a good tailor had worked on. His name was Lieutenant William Hackett and he was straight from Westpoint.

I know that you have not had any training as yet but the Yankees don’t care about that: they are fixing to fight us today. Most of you men have used rifled muskets before and if you haven’t you better learn how, pronto! Which of you counts himself as a good shot with a rifle?

Daniel duly put up his hand along with about a dozen others.

Okay, The lieutenant said. You men go with the sergeant so that he can rate your ability. The rest of you gather around me while I show you about the Springfield rifled musket.

Daniel followed the Sergeant who led them into a field where ten targets had been set up at two hundred yards on the far end of the field. He numbered off the first ten men and told them to take their time and shoot for the bull’s eye.

Ramrods waved around as the first ten loaded their weapons and then began spasmodic firing.

The sergeant waited until all ten had fired and then went off to view the targets. He marked each bullet hole with a dab of red paint from a can standing close to the targets.

Numbers two, five, seven and ten; go back to the lieutenant. You missed the target.

You three that haven’t fired yet, move up to the line and take your shots.

Daniel moved up and loaded his rifle quickly. His shot was the first of the three to ring out.

I told you to take your time, Beauregard! Why d’you fire so quickly? Sergeant bellowed out.

Sergeant, squirrels don’t sit around too long. You got to shoot quick or not at all.

The sergeant marched up to the targets.

Numbers one and two; go back to the lieutenant. You missed the target. Beauregard, your shot is plumb center. Re-load and try again at the first target this time.

Daniel complied with the order and the sergeant inspected the target. Plumb center again, Beauregard. What make of rifle musket is that?

It’s a British Whitworth, sergeant.

You stay by me, Beauregard. I think that the Colonel is going to want to speak to you. The rest of you men write down your names on this here list. The good news is that you are all going to be made instructors. That means extra pay and a nice new stripe to sew onto your sleeve.

After dealing with the list, a number of the men had not learned to write and the sergeant had to record their names for them, the sergeant sent them back to the lieutenant and marched Daniel off to the colonel.

The colonel was a tall thin man that could have doubled for Abraham Lincoln except that his hair and beard were white. He was sitting on a good-looking black horse with a white star on its forehead.

Colonel sir, this man is our best shot. He hit the target dead center both times. He is also the quickest at reloading.

What is your name young man? The colonel asked kindly, from his high saddle.

Daniel Beauregard, sir.

Beauregard? Any relation to the New Orleans Beauregards?

Not as far as I know, sir.

Very well then, tell me Beauregard, do you know anything about Yankee rank insignia?

Sir, I do not know what insignia means.

Did you not go to school, Beauregard?

Yes sir, clear to eighth grade then my father lost his money and I had to help work the farm.

Insignia are the chevrons there on the sergeant’s arm or these marks here on my uniform.

Oh yes sir, I’ve seen them before. I know sergeants and lieutenants but you are the first colonel I ever did see.

And do you think that you can pick out a lieutenant from a colonel at two hundred yards?

Yes sir, I surely can. Lieutenants are young and colonels are old.

That’s not a bad observation, lad. Let’s use that as a starting point. What if I was to instruct you to kill any Yankee that you see giving orders, could you do that?

Yes sir, I can do that.

And if I told you to pay special attention to the older ones, could you do that?

Sure thing, sir. How many of these Yankees do you want me to shoot, sir?

All of them, lad, but we will only get a chance to shoot a few before they are up to us. After that we work with our bayonets.

Sir, if I could have two more rifles and someone to load them for me, I could get three times the number of Yankees.

That’s a good idea, son. Sergeant, this young man is to be made to full corporal. He is to be free to roam wherever he can get his best shots. Give him extra rifles and a companion to reload for him.

The sergeant led him away to the stores tent where he was supplied with two extra rifles, ammunition and a set of chevrons for his sleeve.

Sergeant, could I have Billy Thorne as my loader?

Which one is he?

He was one of those that missed the target, sergeant.

Hell yes! Him you can have with pleasure!

They returned in time to hear the lieutenant finish his lecture on how to face front and kill Yankees.

The sergeant explained to the lieutenant what the colonel had decided to do with Daniel.

But sergeant this man is one of the youngest men we have. We need men with experience.

Sir, this lad hit the target plumb center - twice! Colonel has made him full corporal and orders that he is to be free to roam wherever he feels he can get the best shots.

Well, then keep him away from my men. I don’t want them to feel that they can do the same thing.

He wants Billy Thorne to be detached with him, sir.

Who here is Billy Thorne? The lieutenant asked of the assembled company.

Billy stepped forward. Go with the Corporal. The lieutenant said and turned away.

Billy stood looking helplessly around him.

Hey Billy! Daniel said. I’m the corporal. Come with me.

Danny, how come you a corporal already and also what in heck is a corporal?

According to what I understand of it, which isn’t much, a corporal is a sort of boss-man one step below a sergeant. The colonel made me a corporal on account of the fact that I am the best shot in our company. I’ve been ordered to move around and shoot as many Yankee officers as I can when they start their attack. I asked for you to be my loader so that while I am shooting off the rifles you are busy re-loading them.

Heck, Danny, I’m as good a shot as you are only I don’t have no Whitworth rifle like you got.

You such a good shot Billy, how is it that you missed the target altogether?

Just ain’t used to that Springfield rifle they give me to shoot with but iffen you had borrowed me that there Whitworth I woulda showed them some shooting.

The two boys scrambled up the level topped ridge to find a suitable position overlooking their field of fire. Daniel chose a hollow behind a series of boulders that gave him a clear view of the meadow where the sergeant expected the Yankee cavalry to make their charge.

Billy load these two Springfields as well as your own. You stay low down. We don’t need you to pick up any stray Yankee lead. I’m going to peek through this gap between the boulders. When I hand you a rifle, you give me a loaded one and then re-load the one I just fired. You get it?

They had hardly settled in before the first shots were fired and the Yankees began their advance. They came in a great blue wave. The grey uniforms were outnumbered four to one and half of the ‘one’ were untrained boys dragged in from schoolrooms and given a rifle musket and parts of a uniform.

None of these statistics entered Daniel Beauregard’s head. He spotted a lieutenant on a horse at the head of his men and shot him out of the saddle at three hundred yards. Then he took down the sergeant but these casualties did not slow the advance one whit. These were trained soldiers moving under professional orders from competent officers.

Daniel scanned the rear ranks and spotted an older man carrying a sword at the ready and knocked him out of his saddle. The grey uniforms were beginning to take a toll of the blue front ranks as they came within the two hundred yard mark. The blue ranks were so solid at that point that even at that distance it was like shooting fish in a barrel.

No sooner had the greys opened up than the blue artillery began to pound them. The grey artillery replied with a much lighter bark spewing canister into the advancing blue ranks.

Daniel spotted an older man with a telescope pointing at the grey ranks and sending off a dispatch; his shot swung the man around but Dan saw him being helped to the rear and could not get a follow-up shot in time, so he took out the helper.

He took out another officer and a sergeant before the enemy was close enough to begin their charge. Daniel heard the order to fix bayonets as the greys prepared to meet the attackers and that was when the bombardment began.

Shells screamed through the skies and blasted down on unseasoned fighters whose sole response was to run and hide. Daniel, away from the main ranks, felt safe enough to continue his attrition upon the leadership of the blues but someone among them had noted the direction of his effective fire and had directed the artillery to bracket the ridge on which he was situated.

The first shell struck the bank directly behind Daniel and Billy. A rock in the soil exploded backward decapitating Billy who was catapulted into Daniel knocking him senseless as the shower of soil filled the hollow behind the boulders effectively burying them under several inches of soil.

Daniel was not conscious to see his side overrun by the enemy charge as the raw recruits broke and scattered only to be rounded up and marched off to prison camp.

Chapter Two

Total silence lay over the battlefield when Daniel stirred a full day later. He pushed Billy’s body away from him and cleared away the soil on his hat. There was a bump on the back of his head the size of a goose egg and his throat was parched. He stood up shakily and looked about him. He could see that the sun had set and darkness was approaching.

He scrabbled around in the loose soil but could not find the canteen that Billy and he had been using. He did find his Whitworth rifle but it was caked with dirt and the barrel was fouled. He brushed off as much dirt as he could but would have to take time to work on it with a pull-through and some rag.

He walked down from the ridge and found the battlefield beginning to smell with the many dead bodies around. Obviously the bodies had already been stripped of anything of value. He came across the colonel’s body which someone had covered with the Confederate flag but no attempt had been made to bury anything. He lifted the flag and found that the colonel’s canteen was still attached to his belt.

He took the bottle and the belt since it had an empty leather pistol holster attached to it. His aching head was beginning to settle down a little and he wandered into the shattered trees to get away from the stink of death. Even in the trees the smell was sickening so he kept going into the increasing darkness until he discovered that the smell was imprinted in his nostrils. He sat down and tried to think through the cotton waste that seemed to fill his brain.

He did not know what to do now. He was far from home and there were Yankees all around. A thought came to him that he should get rid of the grey jacket and forage cap that he was wearing. The pants and boots were his own since the colonel’s supplies of uniforms had run out. He had just made up his mind to return to the battlefield to see if he could find a hat and a jacket that were not part of a uniform when a movement in the dusk caught his eye. He slipped to the ground bringing his unusable rifle up in a reflex action. The movement came again and he squirmed forward over the ground to get a better look. The dusk was growing deeper so he risked moving forward in a low crouch while keeping his eye on the spot where he had seen the movement. He deeply wished that he had taken the time to clean his rifle and load it.

The movement came again but with it came a sound which brought great relief to his over-stretched nerves: it was a snort such as a horse is wont to give from time to time.

He stood up and moved forward as silently as he knew how from years of hunting in wooded country. He stepped into a little glade where the grass grew abundantly and there, trailing his reins and intent on filling his belly stood a saddled large black horse.

Daniel moved forward making the sort of soothing noises that worked with other horses he knew. The black was not concerned by his approach although it turned its head in his direction and whinnied softly.

He reached the animal and stroked and patted it as he worked around to the trailing reins. When he came to its head he saw the single white star on the otherwise black animal and he knew that this was his late colonel’s horse. There were saddle bags on the cantle and he removed the saddle and hobbled the horse so that it could continue eating but would not be able to run far or fast.

The little glade seemed cosy enough so he leaned the saddle against a tree and unfolded the saddle blanket. It would do to sleep under since he did not have a blanket.

He unbuckled the saddlebags and looked inside. In the first bag there were several pieces of jerky and a deerskin packet of pemmican. There was also a bag of tobacco with a pipe and a flint and steel. Lying in the bottom of the bag was a shaving brush and a cutthroat razor wrapped in a small hand towel. He opened the second bag and found a Colt 1851 Navy Revolver 0.36 caliber with spare caps and balls and a leather bag containing fifty British gold sovereigns and a roll of Confederate banknotes.

This was the most cash-money he had ever seen in one spot.

Before he dozed off, he ate a strip of jerky and drank some water then he cleaned his rifle as well as he could in the dark night. He checked that the pistol was fully loaded and placed it in the holster that he now wore on the belt around his waist.

He awoke when the horse whickered. It was almost dawn judging by the lightening eastern sky. He pulled out the pistol and peered about him cautiously. The horse appeared to have become entangled in his hobble so Daniel rose, untangled him and replaced his bridle and saddle.

His goose egg bump on the back of his head was now much flattened and his head hardly ached at all so he swung up into the saddle and found a stream well away from the battlefield. The horse drank gratefully while he refilled the canteen. He decided that he should travel directly west until he was certain that he was far from where the war was being fought. After that he could make up his mind whether he wanted to return to Texas where he most certainly would be sent back into the war or to travel north where he risked being arrested as a rebel and sent to prison camp.

Neither option appealed to him. He was prepared to defend Texas against anyone but he did not hold with slavery and if that was what the war was being fought over, then he would just as soon head for Mexico where he could make a living with his knowledge of Spanish and the gold sovereigns he had found.

He had made up his mind to do this when he came upon a black man lying in the middle of the path he was riding on. He slipped down from the horse and approached the prone man with his pistol drawn and ready.

He extended a toe and prodded the man who stirred and groaned.

What’s the matter with you, Jim? Daniel asked cautiously.

The black man rolled over.

My name ain’t Jim, sah, it be Jonas.

Okay Jonas, Daniel said equably. What is your problem?

Yankees done hit massah’s plantation. Dey’se kilt de Massah an’ ah don’ know what dey done with Miss Arabella. All ah know is we ain’t got nuttin’ to eat ‘cos dem Yankees done take all our stock to feed dere army. Dey tell us we is free now but dey don’ give us nuttin’ to eat. Me ‘n mah family is like to die frum starvin’ so ah done run far as ah c’d to find some food but dem armies done picked dis country clean.

How many are you trying to feed Jonas?

Dey’s ten o’ us, sah ‘n two chillum. Ah don’ brung ‘em nuttin’ dey’s like to die.

There are deer in these woods, Jonas. I’ve seen plenty of them.

Sho’uff sah, dey is; but we ain’t got no means ter kill ‘em so dey like as be on de moon for all de good dey gonna do us.

Okay, you eat this pemmican. That’ll give you some strength then we’ll go see whether we can get you a deer.

Jonas chewed his way through the pemmican and begged for some water. Daniel gave him the canteen and he very nearly emptied it.

They moved into the woods back-tracking to where Daniel had last seen deer-sign. The tracks went toward a stream and Daniel found a spot where several animals had come down to drink. He looked for a good stand of grass where the horse could graze and hobbled it there then he moved back to the stream and positioned himself where he could watch the animals approach. It was almost dusk when the first deer appeared. It was an exceptionally large mule deer and Daniel took him down with a single shot between the eyes.

He walked back to the horse to find Jonas collecting a large bundle of weeds.

What are those for Jonas?

Sah, dese here greens is good vittles. De massah done call ‘em spinnich. We’s done eat ‘em alla time.

Come, bring the horse, Jonas. We’ve a big deer to load up.

Jonas smiled broadly as he tucked his bundle of weeds under one arm and took the horse’s reins in his other hand.

It took them a quarter of an hour to position the deer on the horse’s back. For lack of anything other than the hobble with which to tie the carcass on the unhappy horse’s back, Jonas had to walk alongside holding the deer in place while Daniel led the horse.

We’s gonna turn lef’ at de next fork sah. Jonas said after three hours of walking in the moonlight.

They walked until they approached the burnt out shell of what had been a very attractive mansion.

Dass alla lef’ of our massah’s home. He wuz a good man, Mister Fairfield, an’ he sho’nuff din’ hold with dis here war. He come frum de north. Bought de whole plantation an’ alla us black folk frum a drunk massa dat treat us worse’n cattle. Massa treat us like proper folk. Ain’t no-one here w’da left him when he tell us to go away frum de war.

So why did the Yankees kill him?

Dey done want his livestock and grain. Ah guess he w’da give dem over ‘cept he knew we gonna starve so he ax ‘em iffen he c’d keep some to live on but dey done refuse and gun him down when he try to stop ‘em.

They came to the slave quarters behind the mansion. As far as Daniel could see in the moonlight, they were clean and freshly painted displaying for all the world to see that this owner cared for his people.

Jonas called out. Hey ev’body yo’all come on out! We’se got ourselves a right good meal tonight!

If ten people could be called a crowd, the crowd came out making enough noise for ten times their number.

Jonas introduced Daniel.

Dis heah be our benefactor man. His name be Daniel. He done shot dis here deer fer us.

There were eight men, two women and two toddlers. They crowded around and began to cut up the deer apportioning it among themselves while Jonas organized the pot and fire for the stew of deer liver, weeds and a few ancient potatoes.

While this unappetizing but nourishing meal was being cooked Daniel asked Jonas.

Is there anywhere around here that we can buy some wheat flour and maize flour?

Dey’s a village about ten miles thataway, suh. It been a Yankee town since ’61. Dey got a prison yard theah, filled with Confederate soldiers waiting to be shipped north. I figure dat dey got whatever y’c’n pay fer in deir stores.

If I go to a Yankee town I’ll end up in that prison-camp and all I got is Confederate money.

"Ah c’n go. Dey ain’t gonna think anything wrong with a nigger having Confederate money and