Have you ever watched a grown man try to outsmart an entire battery of Mexican cannons using nothing but empty crates, leftover tent canvas, and the pure conviction that the other side might just be dumb enough to fall for it?
On the wide, windy prairie of Palo Alto, General Zachary Taylor’s outnumbered army rolled forward with a long wagon train and a desperate need to reach the Rio Grande. What no one in either line expected was that one private with a talent for creative lying would give the American guns the opening they needed to turn an afternoon of thunder into a Mexican nightmare.
By the spring of 1846 the border between the United States and Mexico had become a powder keg. President Polk’s decision to claim the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas put American troops under Zachary Taylor squarely in territory Mexico still considered its own. After the Thornton Affair in late April, Mexican forces under General Mariano Arista crossed the river, laid siege to the American fort opposite Matamoros, and waited for Taylor to come to the rescue. Taylor left his supply base at Point Isabel with roughly 2,288 men and a train of nearly three hundred wagons. On the afternoon of May 8 he found Arista’s army of more than 3,200 troops drawn up across the road on the open coastal prairie known as Palo Alto, “Tall Timber.”
The ground was almost perfect for artillery. Tall, sharp cordgrass covered the plain. Chaparral and mesquite thickets bordered the edges. Arista stretched his line nearly a mile wide, cavalry on the flanks, infantry and guns in the center, determined to block the road and crush Taylor’s smaller force. Taylor formed his own line with the 5th Infantry and Ringgold’s light battery on the right, the two heavy 18-pounders in the center, and Duncan’s flying artillery on the left. The Mexican guns opened first. Their solid shot mostly fell short or sailed high. The American light batteries, trained to move, unlimber, fire, and shift again, answered with deadly accuracy.
Brandon Herrera was with the infantry supporting the right. He watched Mexican round shot skip through the grass and saw the long line of enemy cavalry forming for a charge. He also noticed the pile of empty ammunition crates, spare tent canvas, and a few unused limber poles that had been dropped near the wagon park when the train was pulled back for safety. While officers shouted orders and the guns kept up their roar, Brandon grabbed three other privates and went to work.
In less than twenty minutes they had built two crude but convincing dummy batteries in the tall grass on the American right. Canvas draped over crates and poles looked enough like gun tubes and wheels from a distance. Brandon had the men kick up dust, wave a couple of spare flags, and shout orders as if a real section were preparing to fire. Then he walked back to the real line, dusted off his hands, and muttered, “If they fall for that, I want a medal made of pure gullibility.”
They fell for it.
Mexican guns and a squadron of lancers swung toward the false positions and poured shot and steel into empty prairie. The real flying batteries under Ringgold and Duncan used the distraction to advance another hundred yards, wheel into new positions, and rip into the actual Mexican line with canister and solid shot. When an accidental grass fire, started by burning artillery wads, sent thick smoke rolling across the field and forced a temporary lull, the dummy batteries kept drawing attention long enough for Taylor to push the 18-pounders forward along the road and re-form his line.
Twice Torrejón’s cavalry tried to turn the American right. Both times the combination of infantry squares and the mobile light guns stopped them cold. Brandon, back with the ranks, watched a lancer’s horse shy away from the smoke and the false guns and called out, “That’s right, keep charging the ones that aren’t real. Saves us the trouble of loading.”
By seven o’clock the Mexican ammunition was running low and their ranks had been hammered for four hours. Darkness ended the fighting with both armies still on roughly the same ground, but the difference in casualties told the real story. American losses stood at nine killed, forty-four wounded, and two missing. Mexican losses, by their own later counts, ran to at least 102 killed, 129 wounded, and 26 missing; other estimates put the total nearer 250 or more. The heavy pounding and the failure of the cavalry charges left Arista’s officers and men badly shaken. Before dawn the next morning the Mexican army pulled back to the defensive position at Resaca de la Palma.
Palo Alto was the first major clash of the war. It proved that American light artillery, properly handled, could dominate a larger force on open ground. The lopsided result stiffened American resolve, helped push Congress to declare war on May 13, and opened the road for Taylor’s later advances into northern Mexico. It also marked the beginning of the end for Mexican hopes of holding the disputed territory north of the Rio Grande.
Two days after the battle, while the army prepared to push on, General Taylor rode along the line. He stopped in front of Brandon’s company, looked the private up and down, and said the false batteries had bought the guns the time they needed. Taylor directed that Brandon Herrera’s name be entered in the official report with special commendation for “resourcefulness under fire that materially aided the artillery in maintaining the advantage.” The general further stated that when the proper authority arrived he would recommend the man for a Certificate of Merit and the extra pay that went with it. Brandon accepted the words with a straight face, then turned to the nearest private and said quietly, “Next time remind me to build the fake guns a little farther from the real ones. I nearly got myself promoted by accident.”
The army moved south the following day. The prairie of Palo Alto was left behind, but the lesson of that afternoon, and the private who had made empty crates look like cannon, traveled with it.
