San Acacia


   The performance of the Confederate Navy in both the Caribbean and Ionian Sea made for something of a high water mark for the CSA. These actions might have bought Joe Wheeler some goodwill with his war weary populace but, strangely enough, it only intensified the raging political fire storm that was being deliberately kept out of the newspapers and confined mostly to the inner halls of the Confederate Government. So far, in this war, the Navy had performed brilliantly. There was no blockade of the Confederate coastline as was true in the last war. The navy had fought on both land and sea in places as far flung as Africa and Europe, while managing to secure the CSA’s new possessions in the Gulf and the Pacific.
All of these victories should have been cause for mass celebration but, no one in the Confederate Government was making much of them because of the fact that the bedrock of their successful maritime ventures were their former slaves. This was at a time when their almost exclusively white army had been under performing at nearly every turn. While it is true that the army had held back the only real Yankee offensive in Tennessee, it was also true that they had lost ground while doing it and their war winning plan, something that they bragged about before the war, of capturing Washington, had been a complete disaster.
What Wheeler needed to take the heat off of his administration was that the army deliver him a solid victory. This would ease the silent calls to discharge nearly every sailor in his fleet and give him something solid to put in the newspapers and assure an uneasy public that they were winning the war. That was something sorely needed. Even if the average Confederate civilian was not at risk of starvation, the war had managed to slowly grind the economy of the CSA to a halt. It was true there was no blockade but, there really did not have to be one. The war on international shipping was doing the job of reducing imports and exports just as thoroughly. People were feeling the pinch.
That is why the New Mexican campaign was becoming almost as important to Joe Wheeler as it was to Elihu Root. Today it is easy to look at the fighting of late summer and early fall, of 1900, and dismiss it as just one more campaign amongst many. At the time, in the hearts of two nations, this campaign was quickly becoming the entire war and it had displaced nearly every other headline. With this in mind it is easy to understand why President Root had pinned his reelection fortunes on the outcome of this campaign and, in particular, which flag was flying over Albuquerque. He had, what seemed to be, a good reason to worry.
What few people outside of New Mexico remembered from the American 61 was that the state (then a territory) had not escaped the war unscathed. Not only had the Confederates invaded New Mexico but, they had managed to occupy Albuquerque and the territorial capital of Santa Fe. Had the CSA been able to send more reinforcements then it is all too likely that New Mexico would have been permanently flying the Stars and Bars. A lack of railroads and manpower had prevented this from happening and ultimately the invaders were driven out. This fact was never far from the front of General Pershing’s mind and he made reference to the 1862 campaign on more than one occasion. He also realized that his enemy now had the things that they had once lacked.
Pershing’s understanding of this was somewhat ominous in that, so far, he had read the entire situation correctly. He understood what he was facing and what he had to throw in the enemies way. This was why he maintained that a conventional defense would not work and, he could not afford to get into a static front situation. If this were to happen then attrition would quickly reduce his defenses and the US would loose New Mexico. Pershing, along with Funston, Wood, and even Roosevelt had traveled to Washington in late May and stated as much to General Shafter. They also presented their plans on exactly how this should be handled.
Much hay has been made about Bill Shafter and, in particular, his excessive three hundred and fifty pound frame. He is often portrayed as sleepy, lethargic, lazy, and sometimes even stupid. The truth is that Shafter was anything but. Not only was Shafter well read but, he was also a very practical man and he agreed with Pershing. Shafter not only understood the implications for New Mexico but, for the entire war effort. According to Roosevelt’s writings on the meetings, Shafter completely understood that the enemy was trying to take away the initiative that the US currently enjoyed. As he saw it, loosing that would be far worse than having Eugene Debbs sitting in the White House.
This was the primary reason that Pershing was ordered to hold the enemy with the meager resources that were already at his disposal. Pershing had already anticipated this situation and that was how he got Shafter to approve his basic plan. Both men understood that this plan was both dangerous and, more to the point, politically indefensible. Had General Miles been occupying Shafter’s chair it is unlikely that he would have ever approved such a plan but, Shafter was most definitely not Miles. Shafter agreed to take the political heat and allow Pershing to do what they both thought was the best thing for their country. In essence, Shafter had just agreed to stand up and take a bullet for his cause.
The political firestorm that resulted from the invasion of New Mexico brought about many calls to have General Shafter sacked and replaced. When Debbs pulled ahead of Root in the election polls, the president finally stepped in and ordered Shafter to redeploy troops from Canada to New Mexico. Shafter had been prepared for this eventuality and stuck to the plan. He knew that the key to the war was not the city of Albuquerque but, in crossing the St Lawrence Seaway and taking Britain out of the war in North America. The US could not do both and this was a fact that Shafter was all too aware of. Still, he could not ignore a Presidential order. Shafter obeyed those orders to the very letter.
This order stated that Army Corps were to be redeployed and that is exactly what Shafter did. The flags and standards of those corps, in Canada, were rolled up, given a small honor guard, and sent to Santa Fe where they were declared operational on the map boards in Washington. The men and regiments that had made up these units, for the entire war, were left in Canada and given new designations. This exercise in military semantics worked for a while but, word eventually got out and Shafter was forced to move some men. He moved only some. Shafter told his front line commanders to ask for some “volunteers” to form a cadre for the new divisions and this small number of men were sent to New Mexico.
At the time, no one realized the impact this particular order would later have. Shafter, knowing the temprement of the average division commander, realized all too well that these “volunteers” would be the problemed children of their front line commanders. One of these men would be Captain Woodburry Cane. From a conventional standpoint it would seem a logical move since, in theory, it would make the divisions in Canada more productive. The reality was something different but, would prove to be far more advantageous. Many of these malcontents were the officers and NCO’s who had been agitating for a complete rewriting of the book of small unit tactics. Now they would all be in one place so they could compare notes and refine their experience into a realistic plan.
This would have no effect on current operations though. While Shafter waged a political war in Washington, Pershing was having to deal with the current situation with what he had. He executed these plans exactly as they had been drawn up before the invasion began. His greatly outnumbered forces would fight a series of skirmishes, designed to only slow the advance of enemy forces as they pushed up the Rio Grande river valley. US troops would never stand long enough to be drawn into a full scale pitched battle.
These stand and then run tactics started right from the beginning of the campaign as Confederate and Mexican troops flooded into the Mesilla Valley. Most of settlements in this region were outgrowths of US Army installations. The Civilians were evacuated and anything that would have been of any worth to the enemy had long since been removed or destroyed. Nothing was heavily defended and the pattern would repeat itself over and over. Confederate or Mexican troops would locate an enemy force, they would gather their strength and attack. The US troops would repulse one or two assaults and then widthdraw.
The cycle would make Mexican Field Marshall Mariom declare one victory after another. The newspapers and politicians seemed to agree. Strangely enough these “victories” were having an effect on the allied command structure that Pershing could have never predicted but, would take anyway. It was no secret to anyone that McDonald and Mariom never got along. McDonald was far more skeptical of these easy vicotries and seemed to see them for what they were. He could not convince his Mexican counterpart of this and, as a result, their strategies began to slowly diverge into two very separate war plans.
The most important of these strategies was Mariom’s deployment of his cavalry. Initially they had been used to closely shield his movements and guard his supply lines. With the enemy in full retreat, not only did Mariom rapidly move his infantry forward but, he sent the bulk of his lancers far to the west on raids along the American rail lines. This would have major consequences later on. For the time being, it caused a final rift with McDonald who then moved most of his forces to the east of the river and, at that point, the single allied army became two. Then Mariom finally reached San Acacia.
What McDonald had suspected all along, finally happened when the Mexican Army reached the small village that was nestled in a bend on the western bank of the Rio Grande. It was an insignificant little place that might have had a population of fifty people before the invasion. At this point it was nothing but a small collection of adobe huts and of no use to anyone. What was important was just to the north and easily within sight of the village. The bend in the river was flanked by marshy flats. Two large mesa’s dominated what was a narrow valley that the river lazily flowed through. To the west was broken desert with a series of gullies running down from some high ridges.
Pershing had been fortifying this position since before the invasion. He had rightly calculated how much time it would take him to mass most of his forces from their far flung outposts. He knew this place was a natural choke point with beautiful fields of fire. His engineers had made sure that they were even better by the time that Mariom showed up. His artillery, that had seen little action before now, was set up on the reverse slope of the Mesa’s. The peaks were manned by observers and machineguns which supported the infantry at the southern bases of the high ground. There was no getting around this position and, when the Mexican attacks tried to go through the defenses, something happened that Mariom did not expect. The Americans did not leave.
The first two days of Mexican attacks went in with little artillery support as Mariom was still of the opinion that the Americans would not stay and, Mariom did not wish to slow down his rate of advance. After massive casualties it became clear that a deliberate assault was needed and Mariom would spend two more days planning this attack. By the time he launched it the Americans had already switched to their alternate firing positions and it neutralized much of the effectiveness of the Mexican Artillery.
Mariom decided to wait until McDonald could catch up on the east bank. The Mexicans took those three days to reform their ranks but, US artillery gave them very little opportunity to make good on the time. Pershing also decided to launch several raids on Mexican lines as well. When McDonald finally reached the battle the Mexican Army was not in any better shape. As a result, Mariom demanded that McDonald flank the position on the east bank, then cross the river north of the US positions. It took several days before that argument resulted in some kind of plan and, by that time, it was too late. Pershing had already redeployed to meet this very move.
McDonald suggested that they widthdraw to the south and reform into a single unified force before attacking the Pershing again. Mariom would hear nothing of it and demanded more action. As a result, after being stalled at San Acacia for two weeks, an impormptu attack was launched with the two allied armies being separated by the river. McDonald’s move on the east side was half hearted at best. His troops came up against artillery fire almost as soon as they began moving. The Mexicans were in no shape to launch the kind of attack that was needed. The end result was an early Confederate widthdrawl and a Mexican assault that collapsed after only a half hour.
Pershing had stopped his enemy cold and dished out a lot more than he and taken. Even so, he was still outnumbered and lacked the sufficient firepower that was required to go over on the offensive. The immediate threat to Albuquerque was over but, a stalemate is a stalemate. Pershing was not sure how long both sides could wait the other out and, he was only now starting to see the effects of the Confederate re-supply system. Their trucks were out performing US mules and, despite the tactical victory, Pershing might still loose. They were still at a tipping point and, slowly, Pershing began to realize the ultimate victory and San Acacia was going to have to come from somewhere else.