O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [7]
Ben Boone was prime meat for the Corps. Moreover, the recruiter found out that this one could read and write, having learned by memorizing the Bible. The recruiter offered him an eight-dollar bounty, a sum that Ben had to take seriously.
The Boone clan consisted of a dozen families and allies who dominated a swath of mountain from Preacher’s Hollow clear to Glasgow in the Blue Ridges.
Ben Boone’s grandfather, Enoch, the family patriarch, had spent that winter of horrors with George Washington at Valley Forge and was there at the final battle at Yorktown. He was a Christian zealot and a fervent abolitionist in a state where slaves, numbering almost half the population, upward of a half million, toiled in the tobacco fields. It was an open secret that the Boone “territory” held underground-railroad stations. Not all of the clan agreed with Father Enoch’s preachings, but no one would betray their kin, abolitionist or not.
Fortunately the Boones held their piece of mountain without much challenge. They were deadly riflemen and fiercely loyal to one another. Their pride was great in the men from their clan who had fought in the country’s military.
Benjamin Malachi Boone was the best among the coming generation, but it was his time to serve and he went off with his family’s blessing. So great were Ben’s skills that he was commissioned to brevet second lieutenant less than a year after he joined the Corps.
March 1847—Aboard the USS Lafayette
America had burst forth on an expansionist binge, lopping off huge territories from Mexico and reaching from ocean to ocean. Texas had been annexed. California was hoicked from Mexico on the rationale that if America didn’t hoick it, France or England would.
For the better part of a year the navy blockaded Mexican ports on the Gulf under the command of Commodore Perry. Small landings, raids, sieges of wavering forts called for an increase in the size of the Marine Corps.
The Corps recruited, trained, and spread aboard ships an undersized regiment. A Marine liaison was required by both Commodore Perry and General Winfield Scott.
Perry was astonished to be sent young Ben Boone, a brevet lieutenant scarcely twenty years of age, but Scott welcomed him. They were both abolitionists from the same area of Virginia and Boone quickly earned the commander’s respect.
The invasion of Mexico was on! Winfield Scott surveyed his magnificent fleet of seventy ships with twelve thousand soldiers aboard. The fighting was all over in California with the fall of the villages of San Diego and Los Angeles. Now, to hit Mexico in the center and march to the capital!
A six-foot four-inch bear of a man, “Old Fuss and Feathers” exuded confidence to his staff as the fleet deployed for the bombardment and siege of the stinkhole of Vera Cruz. He did not believe that a Mexican army of peasants impressed into service would offer a serious fight.
Not only did the Mexicans acquit themselves well, but heat and dysentery and malaria and swamps and yellow fever wrung the juice out of Scott’s army.
By September, a war-hardened and wiser army reached the plain of Mexico City, domain of the ancient Aztecs and the fortress of Montezuma.
Ben Boone had been at the general’s side during the entire campaign, displaying hillbilly cunning. With the Marine unit down to battalion size, their swift, controlled movements and courage gained in reputation. Boone was at last released from Scott’s staff to command a company.
September 13, 1847, became the greatest battle in Corps history. Ben Boone’s company was the first to reach and storm the Halls of Montezuma.
After the war, General Scott, seemingly in permanent command of the army, sent Boone to West Point for advanced schooling. Scott shadowed Boone’s progress and then had him stationed in Washington.
The general tried to cajole Ben into transferring to the army and Ben skillfully rejected entreaties, demands, and commands. Ben remained the Marine Corps liaison.