Thursday, January 26, 2012

The perils of rewrites, or, why Dawson and Mier must go

For the past week I've worked furiously polishing up my Chicken Ranch book proposal, adorning it with whistles and bells, all in preparation for sending it off--along with the first several chapters--to prospective publishers. It's put up or shut up time for me if I want the book to see the light of day in 2013, which just so happens to be the 40th anniversary of the Chicken Ranch's infamous closure. Marketing opportunities like that don't come around every day.

So in the course of my preparations, I'm also revising and polishing the first three chapters of the book, which will accompany the aforementioned proposal. You see, not only do I write slowly, I also write sloppily. The need for second and drafts, etc., is not merely desirable but necessary. On my return to chapter one, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it didn't suck nearly so badly as I recall it doing when I first wrote it. So, yay! Score one for me. The subsequent revisions took much less time than I'd expected.

Except... something kept nagging at me. I tried ignoring, dismissal, ear plugs, but nothing worked. The nagging continued. A section of the chapter--quite a nice section, which I'd spent a considerable amount of time researching and writing--simply did not fit. I've always been a modest history buff, and find Texas history, in particular, fascinating. So here I am writing about the early years of La Grange, and am faced with two of the most resonant moments in the history of the Republic of Texas, namely, the Dawson massacre and the Mier expedition. Neither are widely known, but the ill-fated Mier expedition is vaguely remembered in popular lore as the "Black Bean Affair." Since many La Grange men were involved with both incidents, and the remains of the dead were subsequently interred at Monument Hill outside of La Grange, it seemed like a no-brainer that this needed extensive coverage in my book.

Well, turns out I was wrong. The complexities of the events are such that you either mention them in passing or devote way too many pages explaining the complexities of each situation. The famed writer's guideline, The Turkey City Lexicon, contains one cautionary trap writers fall into called, charmingly enough, "I've suffered for my art (and now it's your turn)." There comes a time when, no matter how much effort you've put into research, no matter how interesting you find it, that very research must be sacrificed for the greater good of the narrative. It took me a few days to admit it to myself, but now that I've taken the plunge, I feel a lot better. It is the right choice. The nagging has subsided (for the time being, at any rate). Still, I am fond of the material which simply didn't work in context through no fault of its own. So now I share with you a goodly chunk of the stuff I wrote for the Chicken Ranch book which will never appear in said Chicken Ranch book. Who knows? You might even learn something about Texas history along the way. Enjoy.
That nobody took particular notice to a brothel setting up shop in a backwater saloon is hardly a surprise. The decade-long existence of the Republic of Texas was an eventful time for La Grange and Fayette County, and the years of statehood prior to the Civil War were no less so.

Two major events would shape La Grange’s identity in dramatic fashion. In September 1842, following news of San Antonio’s capture by an invading Mexican army, a company of Fayette County men under the command of Captain Nicholas Dawson rode to the aid of a small force of Texans camped near San Antonio on Cibolo Creek. By the time Dawson’s force of 53 men arrived, the fighting had ended. Instead of riding to the rescue, Dawson’s men found themselves face to face with more than 600 Mexican soldiers armed with cannons. Only 18 Texans survived the slaughter, with three escaping capture. The remaining 15 were taken to Mexico as prisoners and eventually released nearly 18 months later. A mere 10 ever made it home to Fayette County.

That December, Texas launched the Somervell expedition in retaliation. After recapturing of Laredo, a force of roughly 300 Texans spoiling for a fight crossed the Rio Grande and continued on to Ciudad Mier. Following a sequence of poor command decisions, the Texans blundered into a waiting Mexican Army unit 10 times their size.

The battle of Mier raged Dec. 25-26, with the Texans inflicting astonishingly heavy casualties against the larger force. In all, approximately 600 Mexican soldiers were killed and 200 wounded compared to 30 Texans killed or wounded, but lack of ammunition, food and water forced the Texans to surrender. The prisoners were marched toward Mexico City, but on February 11, 1843, they effected a massive escape into the mountains. The desert proved too great an obstacle to overcome, and 176 of the prisoners were recaptured. The enraged dictator of Mexico, Antonio López de Santa Anna, ordered all of the escapees executed, but the governor of Coahuila, Francisco Mexía, refused the order, leading to the decimation compromise known as the Black Bean Affair. The prisoners were forced to pick one of 179 beans from a jar. Those who drew white beans were spared; those who drew a black bean--17 in all--were blindfolded and executed March 25, 1843. Of the 15 men from Fayette County who’d joined in the Mier expedition, only William Eastland drew a black bean, and he drew the first one.

The loss of so many men of the Mier and Dawson parties was a bitter pill for Fayette County to swallow, and one not readily forgotten. Compounding the anger was the fact the executed Mier prisoners were interred at Hacienda Salado, in the Mexican state of Potosi, more than 100 miles south of Monterrey. Mexico refused to repatriate the remains, insisting such an act would be a desecration of the consecrated graves. It wasn’t until the U.S.-Mexican War erupted following the annexation of Texas that the opportunity to recover the remains arose.

In 1848, during the period of armistice before the final peace treaty would formally end the hostilities, 11 Texans stationed at Concepción, north of Monterrey, hatched a scheme to ride south to Hacienda Salado to recover the remains of the Mier prisoners executed six years prior. Without official sanction, they crossed enemy lines the morning of May 2 and arrived at Hacienda Salado the next morning after a hard ride. They caught the locals by surprise and forced five Mexicans to dig up the remains. The Texans collected the bones in sacks which they tied to pack horses. As the Texans were departing, they spotted two riders fleeing to nearby Cedral, where 500 Mexican troops were stationed. Alarmed by this, the Texans rode hard through the night, pausing for only a few hours to rest their exhausted horses. They finally reached Concepción with their precious cargo the following afternoon, covering more than 300 miles in a span of 53 hours.

The remains of the decimated Mier prisoners were brought to La Grange in June, and by September the remains of the Dawson company were acquired as well. The two sets of remains were then interred with full military honors in a vault on the bluff overlooking the Colorado River. Over the years the site became known as Monument Hill, one of the most important shrines of Texas history.
I also excised a whole lot of passive verbiage from the chapter as a whole during my second draft rewrite. Passive voice is a failing of mine, I admit. There's more polishing to be done, but we're getting there.

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