posts. I am but one among you.”
The surgery was brutal yet delicate. The amputation utensils were removed from their case. They were clean but not sterilized, the concept of infection being then unknown. Likewise, there was no pain relief to offer Brown, just a jolt of medicinal whiskey and either a stick or a chunk of leather on which to bite down. Amputation victims were known to thrash wildly during the operation, so two strong men restrained Brown’s arms after he was lowered onto the surgical table. His left leg, the good one, was lashed to the table so that he would be unable to twist his body or kick as the surgeon sliced into him.
A tourniquet was cinched around the femoral artery. The surgeon then snipped away loose muscles and tendons from the end of the destroyed leg. He wielded a very long and slender scalpel, taking care to leave a flap of skin big enough to cover the stump. Next the surgeon cut into the meaty end of Major Brown’s thigh, slicing clear down and around the bone.
He reached for his saw. Rather than cut off the femur’s shattered tip, the surgeon pushed the muscle away from the femur until three inches of thigh bone were revealed. That way, after he had sawed it off, two to three inches of muscle would lie between the end of the bone and the flap of skin, ensuring that the femur wouldn’t poke through the end of the stump once Brown was sutured. Later, when he was fully healed, a wooden prosthetic leg would be fitted over the major’s amputated limb, allowing him to walk again.
The surgeon, according to procedure, used his right hand to hold the saw, placing his left index finger directly on the bone to serve as a cutting guide. The work proceeded relatively quickly: Brown’s femur was sawed off, arteries and veins were sutured, water (also unsterilized and perhaps bearing a touch of Rio Grande mud) was splashed on the wound, and then the flap of flesh was sewn over the stump.
Once the surgeon finished, he ordered that Brown be carried down into the safety of the underground ammunition magazines. Brown would recover in the sweltering, airless room until the siege ended. This postoperative recovery setting was hardly ideal, and Brown’s chances of survival, like that of his fort, depended upon Taylor’s hasty return.
A few hours later, Mexican general Arista sent four officers to broker a surrender. They informed the lonely men of Fort Texas that a large enemy force had blocked the road between Fort Texas and Port Isabel. The Seventh was unlikely to be rescued or resupplied, stated Arista’s emissaries, and should surrender now before they began the long, slow death from starvation and dehydration that often accompanied a siege. Brown’s replacement as fort commander was Captain Edgar S. Hawkins. Arista gave him one hour to make his choice.
Hawkins was a forty-five-year-old New Yorker who had the dubious distinction of having required six years to graduate from West Point (which he had entered at the tender age of thirteen). He had spent most of his career in garrisons along the American frontier. So he possessed ample experience in hostile border environments such as the one in which he now found himself. Hawkins listened closely as an interpreter who spoke very poor Spanish read the Mexican demand; then he called a council of his officers before issuing a response. Among them were the artillerymen Bragg and Lowd, Captain Joseph Mansfield, the fort’s designer, and Dana. The council quickly made its decision.
“My interpreter is not skilled in your language,” Hawkins sent word to Arista, in a tone both defiant and courteous. “But if I understand you correctly, I must respectfully decline to surrender.”
Arista’s furious reply was to launch the most withering artillery barrage the Americans had seen so far. Shrapnel and shells dropped on Fort Texas like summer rain. The U.S. tents, pitched carefully along the inside walls of the fort, were shredded by the flying metal.
The surgery was brutal yet delicate. The amputation utensils were removed from their case. They were clean but not sterilized, the concept of infection being then unknown. Likewise, there was no pain relief to offer Brown, just a jolt of medicinal whiskey and either a stick or a chunk of leather on which to bite down. Amputation victims were known to thrash wildly during the operation, so two strong men restrained Brown’s arms after he was lowered onto the surgical table. His left leg, the good one, was lashed to the table so that he would be unable to twist his body or kick as the surgeon sliced into him.
A tourniquet was cinched around the femoral artery. The surgeon then snipped away loose muscles and tendons from the end of the destroyed leg. He wielded a very long and slender scalpel, taking care to leave a flap of skin big enough to cover the stump. Next the surgeon cut into the meaty end of Major Brown’s thigh, slicing clear down and around the bone.
He reached for his saw. Rather than cut off the femur’s shattered tip, the surgeon pushed the muscle away from the femur until three inches of thigh bone were revealed. That way, after he had sawed it off, two to three inches of muscle would lie between the end of the bone and the flap of skin, ensuring that the femur wouldn’t poke through the end of the stump once Brown was sutured. Later, when he was fully healed, a wooden prosthetic leg would be fitted over the major’s amputated limb, allowing him to walk again.
The surgeon, according to procedure, used his right hand to hold the saw, placing his left index finger directly on the bone to serve as a cutting guide. The work proceeded relatively quickly: Brown’s femur was sawed off, arteries and veins were sutured, water (also unsterilized and perhaps bearing a touch of Rio Grande mud) was splashed on the wound, and then the flap of flesh was sewn over the stump.
Once the surgeon finished, he ordered that Brown be carried down into the safety of the underground ammunition magazines. Brown would recover in the sweltering, airless room until the siege ended. This postoperative recovery setting was hardly ideal, and Brown’s chances of survival, like that of his fort, depended upon Taylor’s hasty return.
A few hours later, Mexican general Arista sent four officers to broker a surrender. They informed the lonely men of Fort Texas that a large enemy force had blocked the road between Fort Texas and Port Isabel. The Seventh was unlikely to be rescued or resupplied, stated Arista’s emissaries, and should surrender now before they began the long, slow death from starvation and dehydration that often accompanied a siege. Brown’s replacement as fort commander was Captain Edgar S. Hawkins. Arista gave him one hour to make his choice.
Hawkins was a forty-five-year-old New Yorker who had the dubious distinction of having required six years to graduate from West Point (which he had entered at the tender age of thirteen). He had spent most of his career in garrisons along the American frontier. So he possessed ample experience in hostile border environments such as the one in which he now found himself. Hawkins listened closely as an interpreter who spoke very poor Spanish read the Mexican demand; then he called a council of his officers before issuing a response. Among them were the artillerymen Bragg and Lowd, Captain Joseph Mansfield, the fort’s designer, and Dana. The council quickly made its decision.
“My interpreter is not skilled in your language,” Hawkins sent word to Arista, in a tone both defiant and courteous. “But if I understand you correctly, I must respectfully decline to surrender.”
Arista’s furious reply was to launch the most withering artillery barrage the Americans had seen so far. Shrapnel and shells dropped on Fort Texas like summer rain. The U.S. tents, pitched carefully along the inside walls of the fort, were shredded by the flying metal.
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