Young Ole Devil

‘
He’s reckless, irresponsible and can’t - or won’t - avoid
getting involved in fights no matter what duty he’s supposed to be
carrying out!’

That was the
sort of comment which the senior officer of the Texas Light Cavalry
might, with some justification, have made about the hot-headed
Lieutenant Red Blaze during the War between the States. However, it
was uttered by Colonel William Barrett Travis shortly before his
departure to take command of the garrison at the Alamo Mission in
San Antonio de Bexar early in 1836.

He was speaking
about a young officer to whom Major General Sam Houston intended to
entrust a dangerous mission. The officer in question was to become
famous as the iron-hard disciplinarian who commanded the
Confederate States Army of Arkansas and Northern Texas. His name
was Jackson Baines Hardin - the man who became known as the ‘lil
ole devil’ for fighting...

YOUNG OLE
DEVIL

OLE DEVIL
HARDIN 1:

By J. T.
Edson

First published
by Transworld Publishers in 1976

Copyright
©
1976, 2015 by J. T. Edson

First
Smashwords Edition: April 2015

Names,
characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any
resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons
living or dead is purely coincidental.

All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and
retrieval system, without the written permission of the author,
except where permitted by law.

Cover image ©
2015 by
Edward Martin

This is a
Piccadilly Publishing Book

Series Editor:
Ben Bridges ~ Text © Piccadilly Publishing

Published by
Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.

For the two beautiful Barbaras
(French and Innes
, in alphabetical order) of the White Lion Hotel, Melton
Mowbray, although this probably won’t induce them to serve me an
extra pint of lager-and-lime after closing time.

This to explain briefly how the
events recorded in
YOUNG OLE DEVIL were caused and came about

Early in February 1836 a
Mexican army was marching northwards, its numbers increasing as the
Militia of various States and other volunteer regiments were called
into service by
Presidente
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Having consolidated his
position as absolute dictatorial ruler of all Mexico south of
the
Rio
Bravo,
ⁱ
el
Presidente
was intending to crush the opposition to his control of
Texas.

Neither the Spanish
Constitution nor the various regimes which had supplanted it after
the formation of the Republic of Mexico in 1822 had ever made a
serious effort towards opening up, developing, or even utilizing to
any great extent, the vast area of land which they had named
‘Texas’ after the
Tejas Indians who had occupied a portion of it. Instead, it had
fallen upon foreigners to do so.

Having received a land grant on
the Brazos River in 1821, Stephen F. Austin had been encouraged to
form a
swiftly growing Anglo-U.S. community. Other grants—such as
that acquired by the Hardin, Fog and Blaze clan on the Rio
Hondo—had been made by the Spanish and earlier Mexican regimes and
had allowed the Texians
ⁱⁱ
to extend their
holdings. By 1830, there were close to fifteen thousand of them
living in the hitherto unoccupied and unproductive
territory.

Such immigrants had proved to
be beneficial to their adopted country.
Hard working and industrious for the
most part, they had been willing to improve and develop the land
which they were occupying. Being capable fighting men, skilled in
the use of weapons, they had been able to stand up against the
hostile bands of Comanche, Wichita, Tonkawa and Kiowa Indians and,
unlike many of the
Chicano
ⁱⁱⁱ
population, did not
expect, or require the protection of the Mexican army against such
foes. Furthermore, as they had increased the potential value of
their properties, they had formed a useful source of revenue of the
Mexican economy.

However, despite all of the
financial and other benefits which had accrued from the Anglo-U.S.
colonists, the authorities in Mexico City had grown less and
less
enamored by the prospect of an ever-increasing foreign
population, even when it was occupying and making productive land
for which they had little use themselves. Diverse languages,
customs and, in some cases, religious beliefs had combined with
basic differences between the Texians’ and the Mexicans’
conceptions of democratic government to form constant sources of
friction.

The incessant political
upheavals, as one unstable regime after another gained power,
caused a growing sense of discontent among the Texians. Each
successive party to form a government had appeared to be worse than
its predecessors. Fully occupied with trying to remain in office,
none had given any consideration to the
immigrants
’
request that Texas be established as a separate State—it was
regarded as a territory of the State of Coahuila—with
representation in the government. They had, nevertheless, continued
to levy taxes and duties against the Texians and had attempted to
deny entry to further immigrants. As the Texians who had already
become established, and not a few of the
Chicanos
had pointed out, such a prohibition
would ruin all hope of further expansion and
development.

While the majority of the
Texians had accepted Mexican citizenship in good faith, the refusal
to grant representation, and other treatment to which they had been
subjected by the various regimes caused them to revise their
attitudes. More and
more of them had come to agree with the faction, amongst which
Samuel Houston had been prominent, which had insisted that the only
secure future for themselves and their descendants lay in the
annexation of Texas by the United States of America.

On coming into power, Santa
Anna had quickly shown signs of being more ruthless, vindictive and
oppressive than any of his predecessors. Adopting the invariable
tactics of every dictator or despotic regime who seeks to impose
his, or its, will
upon a population, he had decreed that the ownership of
firearms was illegal and had sent an order to his brother-in-law,
General Martin Perfecto de Cos, that all the Texians were to be
disarmed.

Santa Anna
’s edict regarding firearms
proved to be the final straw which had broken the colonists’
patience. The Texians had realized that to surrender their weapons
would leave them defenseless against the hostile Indians and
criminal elements, none of whom would have given up
their
arms. What was
more, it would effectively prevent the immigrants from resisting
further impositions by
el Presidente.

When the garrisons of the
Mexican army
—showing an energy which had been noticeably absent when
called upon to deal with Indians or
bandidos—
attempted to carry out the disarmament,
the Texians had refused to obey. There had been rioting and open
conflict at Anahuac, Gonzales, Velasco and other places. Such had
been the fury of the Texians’ resistance that most of the Mexican
troops had been compelled to fall back and join General Cos at San
Antonio de Bexar. Faced with what amounted to an open rebellion by
men who still possessed the means to resist and were generally
superior to his own soldiers in the handling of weapons, Cos had
not been able to enforce
el Presidente’s
wishes. Nor, despite having been aware of
the gravity of the situation, had he attempted to have the
disarmament edict rescinded or tried to bring about a peaceful
settlement.

Realizing that there was no
hope of obtaining an. amicable and satisfactory relationship with
Santa Anna, the Texians had decided to sever all connections with
Mexico. They had set up a provisional government, with Henry Smith
and James W. Robinson as Governor and Lieutenant Governor
respectively and had sent a commission headed by Stephen F. Austin
to the United States to try
to obtain arms and provisions. Samuel Houston had
been appointed major general and made responsible for organizing an
army to defend what would—at least until annexation by the United
States, which everybody was confident would be a foregone
conclusion, be an independent republic under the Lone Star flag.
Prominent and wealthy Texians, such as James Bowie, William Barrett
Travis, Edward Burleson, Benjamin Milam, the Fog brothers, Edward
and Marsden, James W. Fannin and Frank Johnson, had raised
regiments—few of which had a strength exceeding
two hundred men—so as to be
ready to meet the attempts which all knew Santa Anna would make to
subdue their bid for independence.

The earlier stages of the
rebellion had been successful as far as the Texians were concerned.
Several minor skirmishes had gone in their
favor, as had the only major
confrontation to have taken place. On December the nth, 1835, after
a battle which had lasted for six days, Cos and his force of eleven
hundred men had surrendered to Colonels Milam and Burleson at San
Antonio de Bexar. Although there had been objections from some of
the other senior officers in the Republic of Texas’s army, the
co-commanders had allowed all of their captives to return unharmed
to Mexico on Cos having given his parole that he and his men would
not participate in further military action against the Texians. If
the reports which had been brought in by the Texians’ scouts had
been correct, the protest of some officers had been justifiable.
Cos was accompanying his brother-in-law and clearly did not intend
to honor the conditions of his parole.

While the various successes had
boosted the morale of the Republic of Texas
’s army, they had proved a mixed
blessing in that they presented an incorrect impression of the
struggle which still lay ahead. The victories, as Houston and most
of his senior officers appreciated, had been achieved against
poorly trained, badly equipped, and indifferently commanded
troops.

Due to Texas being so far from
the centre of their country
’s affairs and offering few opportunities for
gaining distinction and promotion, career-conscious officers of
good quality had avoided serving there. Houston knew that such men
would now be coming and would command battle-tried battalions which
had fought in the various struggles between the factions who were
attempting to take over the reins of government. They would be a
much more dangerous proposition than anything so far faced by the
Texians. Not only that, the Mexicans would have a tremendous
advantage in numbers.

Being aware of the disparity of
the size of his own command and the army which Santa Anna would be
able to put into the field, Houston had been disinclined to meet
the Mexicans in open battle except upon his own terms and on ground
of his choosing. With that in mind, he had ordered all the
scattered regiments and people in the western sector to assemble at
San
Antonio
de Bexar. Once they had done so, it was his intention to withdraw
into East Texas and make their stand where, if things should go
against them, they would have an avenue of escape by crossing the
border into the United States.