of d 4 (California
BANCROFT LIBRARY
GENERAL HOUSTON
MAKERS OF AMERICA"
LIFE
OF
GENERAL HOUSTON
1793-1863
BY
HENRY BRUCE
How necessary it is to be successful !
Kossuth at the Tomb of Washington
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD, AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS
o. H 3^43
Copyright, 1891,
BY DODD, MEAD, AND Co.
All rights reserved.
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
TO
ILoufee Cfmntjlo: ptoulton
THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY AND ADMIRINGLY INSCRIBED.
101853
PREFACE.
THE true secret of wearying one's reader, says Vol- taire, is to try to tell him everything. In other words, an exhaustive book is sure to be exhausting. While keeping this fact clearly in mind, I have tried to embody most of the interesting incidents that can now be re- covered in regard to the independence of Texas, and the career of that foremost Texan of whom it has been said that his life was as romantic as that of Harold Hardraada, and far more important in its results.
I do not think that in all my previous years I have read the amount of bad literature that I have been obliged to go through in the preparation of this volume. The Texans could fight like heroes ; but they do not seem to have imagined for an instant that the pen was mightier than the sword. No Life of Houston has hitherto been published which is not either imbecile or occasionally dishonest. If there be anything of justifying value in my story of Houston and of Texas, I have certainly plucked it up, like " drowned honour by the locks," from the bottom of the unfathomed deep.
Vlll PREFACE.
Among the few good books on this subject it is a relief to be able to mention Mr. Parton's valuable Life of Andrew Jackson, his invaluable and perfect Life of Aaron Burr, and the fitting portions of Mr. H. H. Bancroft's History of the Pacific States of North America. The two Histories of Texas, by William Kennedy and by Colonel Henderson Yoakum, though far from good, are sufficiently valuable to require mention.
I was unable or unwilling to undertake the six- months' journeying through Tennessee and Texas, which would have constituted the ideal preliminary to a Life of Houston; but I have done the next best thing in coming here to avail myself of the unmatched resources and courtesies of the British Museum. I have to express my grateful obligations to my most honoured friend and master, Mr. James Parton ; to Mrs. Maggie Houston Williams, Colonel A. J. Houston, and Mr. W. R. Houston, children of General Houston ; and to Mrs. Amelia E. Barr, Mr. F. D. Barker, Dr. Nathan Oppenheim, and Colonel T. W. Higginson.
For the Index I shall be indebted to my tried friend, Dr. John Milton Gitterman, the first Ph.D. of the Harvard class of '88, and the author of a fasci- nating and well-known volume, in German, on Ezzelin of Romano.
HENRY BRUCE. LONDON, December u, 1890.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
1521. Spanish Conquest of Mexico.
1685. Lasalle and the French discover Texas, February.
1687. Death of Lasalle in Texas, March.
1689. Spaniards from Mexico occupy Texas in order to keep it from the French.
1693. Spaniards abandon Texas.
1714. The French of Louisiana begin to stretch out towards Texas. — Spaniards from Mexico re- occupy Texas in order to keep it from the French. — Period of the Missions begins in Texas.
1762. Louisiana ceded to Spain. — Texas and Louisiana united under Spanish rule.
1793. GENERAL HOUSTON BORN IN VIRGINIA, MARCH 2.
1794. End of the period of the Missions in Texas. 1796. Tennessee admitted to the Union.
1800. Louisiana re-ceded from Spain to France.
1801. First American filibustering expedition into Texas. 1803. Louisiana ceded from France to the United States.
— Is Texas a part of Louisiana ?
1806. General Pike in Texas. — First American colonists
in Texas. — Aaron Burr's scheme for capturing Texas. — Population of Texas, not Indian, 7,000.
1807. Death of Houston's father. — His mother removes
to Tennessee. 1813. Houston enlists as a private in the War of 1812.
X CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
1814. Houston at the Battle of Tohopeka, March 27. 1816. Houston retained in the regular army as second lieutenant.
1818. Houston leaves the army and begins the study of
the law. — Admitted to the bar in six months.
1819. Houston Colonel of Militia and Adjutant-General.
— Florida ceded to the United States. — Does Texas go with Florida ?
1821. Houston Major-General. — End of the three cen- turies of Spanish rule in Mexico. — Independ- ence of Mexico, of which Texas is a part. — Beginning of indubitable American colonization of Texas.
1823. Houston elected to Congress from Tennessee. —
Stephen Fuller Austin in Texas. — Rise of Santa Anna in Mexico.
1824. Mexico adopts a Federal Republican Constitution,
and invites American colonization in Texas.
1825. Houston re-elected to Congress.
1827. Houston elected Governor of Tennessee.
1829. Houston marries, is deserted by his wife, resigns
his Governorship, and retires among the Indians of Arkansas.
1830. American population in Texas, 20,000. — Mexican
government getting alarmed, suspends all ex- isting land contracts, and forbids further immi- gration from the United States. — Struggles in Texas. — Houston among the Indians.
1832. Santa Anna rises again to the top in Mexico. —
Mexican soldiers expelled from Texas. — Hous- ton assaults Stanberry in Washington. — Is sent by Jackson to capture Texas.
1833. Santa Anna elected President of Mexico for the
term corresponding with the second term of Andrew Jackson. — Convention in Texas. — Austin sent to Mexico on behalf of Texas. — Beginning of the Texan Revolution.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xi
1834. Quiescence of the Texan Revolution. — Austin
detained in Mexico.
1835. Texan Revolution bursts out again, October. —
General Cos besieged in San Antonio. — Meet- ing of Consultation, and Declaration of partial Independence of Texas, November 3. — Taking of San Antonio.
1836. Mexicans temporarily expelled from Texas. — Win-
ter of discontent. — Santa Anna marches from Mexico with 8,000 men. — Meeting of Conven- tion in Texas. — Houston Commander-in-Chief.
— Declaration of absolute Independence of Texas, March 2. — Santa Anna takes the Alamo and slays 175 Americans in cold blood.
— Slays 400 Americans at Goliad. — Houston retreating. — Houston meets, defeats, and cap- tures Santa Anna at SAN JACINTO, APRIL 21.
— Texas evacuated by the Mexicans. — Hous- ton, in the autumn, elected first President of Texas. — Death of Austin. — Population of Texas, 50,000.
1837. Santa Anna sent back to Mexico. — Audubon
in Texas. — Texas recognized by the United States.
1838. End of Houston's first term.
1840. Texas recognized by France and England. — -
Houston's second marriage.
1841. Houston again elected President of Texas.—
Population about 80,000.
1842. Houston repeatedly saves the country.
1844. Houston's retirement from his last term as Presi-
dent.
1845. General Jackson annexes Texas. — Death of Jack-
son, Houston's great model ; born 1 767.
1846. Amalgamation of Texas with the United States. —
Houston elected first Senator from Texas. — Mexican War.
Xll CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
1854. Houston joins the Baptist church. — Speaks
against disunion. — " People's candidate " for
President of the United States. 1857. Houston defeated as candidate for Governorship
of Texas. 1859. Houston fails of re-election to the Senate. —
Elected, in the autumn, Governor of Texas for
two years. 1861. Houston opposes the secession of Texas from the
United States, and is deposed from his gover- norship, March. 1863. Battle of Vicksburg. — GENERAL HOUSTON DIES
AT HUNTS VILLE, IN TEXAS, JULY 26, AT THE
AGE OF SEVENTY.
1867. Death of Mrs. M. M. Houston; born 1819. 1876. Death of Santa Anna, Houston's great antagonist;
born 1795.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE THE EARLIEST HISTORY OF TEXAS, 1685-1806 ... i
CHAPTER II. RAGGED YOUTH OF GENERAL HOUSTON, 1793-1813 . 12
CHAPTER III. SOLDIERING WITH JACKSON, 1813-1818 25
CHAPTER IV. THE RISING MAN OF TENNESSEE, 1818-1829 .... 36
CHAPTER V. A CATASTROPHE, 1829 44
CHAPTER VI. DARK DAYS, 1829-1832 52
CHAPTER VII. THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION OF TEXAS, 1806-1832 64
XIV CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
PAGB
HOUSTON SENT TO CAPTURE TEXAS, 1832-1833 ... 77
CHAPTER IX. BEGINNING OF THE TEXAN REVOLUTION, 1833-1835 . 84
CHAPTER X. THE COMING OF SANTA ANNA, 1835-1836 96
CHAPTER XL
" T WAS THE MANNER OF PRIMITIVE MAN," 1836 . . 105
CHAPTER XII. THE BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO, 1836 115
CHAPTER XIII. AFTER THE BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO, 1836 .... 130
CHAPTER XIV. HOUSTON'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION, 1836-1838 ... 147
CHAPTER XV.
ADMINISTRATION OF MIRABEAU BUONAPARTE LAMAR,
1838-1841 157
CHAPTER XVI.
HOUSTON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION, 1841-1844 . . 163
CONTENTS. XV
CHAPTER XVII.
PAGE
GENERAL JACKSON ANNEXES TEXAS, 1844-1845 ... 180
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOUSTON IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, 1846-
1859 187
CHAPTER XIX.
THE FINE CLIMAX OF HOUSTON'S PUBLIC LIFE,
1859-1863 202
CHAPTER XX. THE POPPIED SLEEP, THE END OF ALL, 1863 . . . 215
INDEX 227
LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON.
CHAPTER I.
THE EARLIEST HISTORY OF TEXAS, 1685-1806.
FOR the sake of perfect clearness it will be well to remember that the present State of Texas has a popu- lation of 2,000,000, and an area of about 275,000 square miles, — or more than twice the area of Italy, more than the utmost extent of the empire of Napo- leon. With its seaboard of four hundred miles it forms the northwestern arc of the Gulf of Mexico. It may be not inaccurately regarded as a huge block of land, enclosed between the Red River and the Rio Grande, and flung southeastwards from the uplands of Colorado against the Gulf of Mexico. This is the direction of its rivers, — southward, with a decided inclination to the east.
These rivers may be said to average at least five hundred miles in length. Besides the Red River, twelve hundred miles long, which makes a part of the northern boundary of Texas, and then passes through Louisiana to pour its sluggish crimson flood into the Mississippi (into the Red River flows from the north the Washita), the rivers which concern us are as follows, beginning from the east : the Sabine, forming most of the boundary between Louisiana and Texas ; the Neches, flowing, like the Sabine, into Sabine Lake ;
2 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1685.
the Trinity, so named from its three arms, and flow- ing into the head of Galveston Bay ; the little San Jacinto (Hyacinth), hardly one hundred miles long, which flows into Buffalo Bayou at the west of Gal- veston Bay, and which ran red with Mexican blood on the crowning day of Houston's life fifty-four years ago ; the little Buffalo River, flowing into the head of Buffalo Bayou ; the Brazos, nine hundred miles long, and called the Arms of God on account of some absurd protecting miracle that took place in the Spanish days ; the noble Colorado, — so named, appar- ently, by the rule of contraries, and because its waters are singularly clear, — which flows into Matagorda Bay after a course of nearly one thousand miles; the Guadalupe, flowing into Espiritu Santo Bay ; the little Coleta, of tragical memory, flowing into the Guada- lupe on the west ; the big San Antonio, flowing into the Guadalupe below the Coleta ; the Nueces, flowing into Corpus Christi Bay ; and the Rio Grande, which rises in Colorado, not far from Pike's Peak, and rushes southwards and eastwards for eighteen hun- dred miles through diverse peoples that call it some- times the Rio del Norte or the Rio Bravo, until, in the last four hundred miles of its course, it forms the boundary between Texas and the Mexican States of Coahuila and of Tamaulipas. There are three natural divisions in Texas, — the low and undesirable regions that embrace the Gulf of Mexico, and extend inland from thirty to one hundred miles; the fine belt of rolling hill and plain which reaches still further inland for two hundred miles, at an elevation of about five hundred feet above the sea, and which Texans love
1685.] EARLIEST HISTORY OF TEXAS. 3
to call the Italy of America ; and the great plains or tablelands, occasionally broken by lofty mountains along the upper waters of the longer rivers, that stretch away indefinitely to the northwest.
The history of Texas begins with the ending of the career of La Salle (1643-1687), the foremost French explorer. After a wild and fate-hunted life,
"Ever roaming with a hungry heart,"
he»at last, in 1682, discovered the Mississippi, and sailed down its endless length until "the brackish water changed to brine, and the breeze grew fresh with the breath of the sea. Then the broad bosom of the great Gulf opened on his sight, tossing its rest- less billows, limitless, voiceless, lonely as when born of chaos, without a sail, without a sign of life."
La Salle took possession of everything in the name of Louis XIV., and called the country Louisiana in a most resounding proclamation. " On that day," adds Mr. Parkman, "the realm of France received on parchment a stupendous accession. The fertile plains of Texas ; the vast basin of the Mississippi, from its frozen northern springs to the sultry borders of the Gulf, from the woody ridges of the Alleghanies to the bare peaks of the Rocky Mountains, — a re- gion of savannahs and forests, sun-cracked deserts, and grassy prairies, watered by a thousand rivers, ranged by a thousand warlike tribes, — passed beneath the sceptre of the Sultan of Versailles, and all by virtue of a feeble human voice, inaudible at half a mile."
It was now the dream of La Salle's life to plant France upon these teeming shores. Through huge
4 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1687.
dangers and travails he forced his way back to France ; and in 1684, with hundreds of colonists and a little fleet at his command, he set sail for the Mississippi. By some inconceivable fatality or futility he lost his bearings, and in February, 1685, he entered Mata- gorda Bay in Texas, thinking that this was the mouth of the Mississippi. His admiral, with whom he had never got along well, sailed away hereupon, having done the technical part of his duty ; and the colony went to pieces in a miserable fashion, which vividly reminds us of the fate of Spanish expeditions in the same regions more than a hundred years before.
" Of what avail," says Mr. Parkman, " to plant a colony by the mouth of a petty Texan river? The Mississippi was the life of the enterprise, the condi- tion of its growth and of its existence. Without it, all was futile and meaningless; a folly and a ruin. Cost what it might, the Mississippi must be found."
La Salle was evidently caught, like a lion in the toils. Nobly, for two years, he strove to rend them. In March, 1687, he had crossed the Brazos and reached the waters of the Trinity, in a last desperate attempt to break across the unknown continent to Canada. Near the Trinity his followers rose upon him and slew him treacherously, leaving his naked body in the bushes, a prey to the wolves and the buzzards. He was not yet forty- four.
" It is easy," says Mr. Parkman, " to reckon up his defects, but it is not easy to hide from sight the Roman virtues that redeemed them. Beset by a throng of enemies, he stands, like the King of Israel, head and shoulders above them all. He was a tower
1687.] EARLIEST HISTORY OF TEXAS. 5
of adamant, against whose impregnable front hard- ship and danger, the rage of man and of the ele- ments, the southern sun, the northern blast, fatigue, famine and disease, delay, disappointment, and de- ferred hope emptied their quivers in vain. ... To estimate aright the marvels of his patient fortitude, one must follow on his track through the vast scene of his interminable journeyings, those thousands of weary miles of forest, marsh, and river, where, again and again, in the bitterness of baffled striving, the untiring pilgrim pushed onward towards the goal which he was never to attain. America owes him an enduring memory; for in this masculine figure she sees the pioneer who guided her to the possession of her richest heritage."
I shall borrow for yet a little from Mr. Parkman's tense and splendid narrative. "While the king of France," he continues, " abandoned the exiles of Texas to their fate, a power, dark, ruthless, and ter- rible, was hovering around the feeble colony on the Bay of St. Louis [Matagorda Bay], searching with pitiless eye to discover and tear out that dying germ of civilization from the bosom of the wilderness in whose savage immensity it lay hidden. Spain claimed the Gulf of Mexico and all its coasts as her own of unanswerable right, and the viceroys of Mexico were strenuous to enforce her claim. The capture of one of La Salle's four vessels at St. Domingo had made known his designs, and in the course of the three succeeding years no less than four expeditions were sent out from Vera Cruz to find and destroy him. . . . For a time the jealousy of the Spaniards was lulled
6 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1689.
to sleep. They rested in the assurance that the intruders had perished, when fresh advices from the frontier province of New Leon caused the Viceroy Galve to order a strong force, under Alonzo de Leon, to march from Coahuila and cross the Rio Grande. Guided by a French prisoner, probably one of the deserters from La Salle, they pushed their way [1689] across wild and arid plains, rivers, prairies, and forests, till at length they approached the Bay of St. Louis, and descried, far off, the harbouring-place of the French. As they drew near, no banner was displayed, no sentry challenged ; and the silence of death reigned over the shattered palisades and neg- lected dwellings. The Spaniards spurred their re- luctant horses through the gateway, and a scene of desolation met their sight. No living thing was stir- ring. . . . Two strangers, however, at length arrived." These strangers, after telling the story of the ruin of their comrades, were carried off to miserable ends in Spain ; " and thus in ignominy and darkness died the last embers of the doomed colony of La Salle. Here ends the wild and mournful story of the explorers of the Mississippi. Of all their toil and sacrifice no fruit remained but a great geographical discovery and a grand type of incarnate energy and will."
And thus it was, in 1689, and under Alonzo de Leon, that the nightmare of Spanish rule came upon Texas. In 1690 the same captain was sent once more to Matagorda Bay, and established the Mission of San Francisco on the site of the ruined French colony. In 1691 several other Missions were founded, and a nominal governor of Coahuila and Texas was
1714.] EARLIEST HISTORY OF TEXAS. 1
appointed. It was a dog-in-the-manger policy on the part of the Spaniards ; they wanted only to keep the French out of Texas. In 1693 all the colonies and Missions were abandoned, and Texas was left without a white inhabitant.
It must be remembered that the Louisiana of that day extended indefinitely from the Alleghanies to the Rio Grande. By about 1714 the enterprising French of Louisiana began to stretch their long arms across Texas. The Spaniards were alarmed, and determined to re-colonize Texas in order to keep it away from the French. Texas was made into a government, distinct from Coahuila, and Missions were established at San Antonio de Bexar, east of the San Antonio River, at La Bahia or Goliad, lower down on the San Antonio, and far to the east, at Nacogdoches, beyond the Neches. These three are therefore the oldest towns in Texas.
For about eighty years followed what may be called the period of the Missions. It will not be edifying to dwell upon this period. A Mission was a religious establishment in a new country, and a Presidio was the fort connected with it. The soldiers were crim- inals of the worst sort, and were under the authority of the fathers : the Franciscan fathers were generally a little more respectable than the soldiers. The object of a Mission was to collect about it, if possible, a self-supporting community of Christianized Indians. The Texan Indians seem to have been of a quite peculiarly squalid and uninteresting type, and they strongly objected to the process of being Christian- ized. The Christianized Indians were made to labor in the fields, and at night they were locked up in
LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1794.
separate buildings, the men in one building, and the women in another. The fathers kept the keys, and punished, by whipping, any attempt to emend the arrangement. The men were whipped in public, the women and the girls in private. In the spring these Indians were sent out to hunt and bring in their un- reclaimed kindred, very much as tame elephants are employed in India to capture the wild ones. Children were considered especially valuable.
The eighty years of this sluggish period passed by like a dream. It is useless to seek for facts and dates, — life was merely passive. Sometimes there would be bitter fighting with the French ; sometimes the Indians, disapproving of civilization, would unite and destroy a single Mission. Perhaps there were through- out Texas less than a dozen of these Missions, with perhaps a hundred soldiers and fathers, and twice as many Indians, attached to each. They did their work in their day, and mitigated the wildness of the wilderness. They were all secularized in 1 794, and here and there the crumbling white ruins of massive buildings, and walls three feet thick, still bear witness to a bygone state of things.
In 1762, at the end of the Seven Years' War, Louis XV. ceded Louisiana to Spain, — not at all of his own free grace, as he declared, but in order to keep it from falling into the hands of England. For forty years the feud was closed ; Texas was indispu- tably Spanish, and a part of Louisiana. During the American Revolution Texas was passive; but Gal- veston is named after the superb young Bernardo Galvez (1755-1786), who was then Spanish governor
1803.] EARLIEST HISTORY OF TEXAS. 9
of Louisiana, who took Florida from the English in such a fine way, and died tragically at thirty-one as viceroy of Mexico. In the year 1801 a gallant Irish- man named Philip Nolan, the first American filibuster in Texas, was slain near the upper waters of the Brazos, and his followers were captured or dis- persed. One of these followers ultimately survived to tell a tale as strange as Monte Cristo's, — but the adventures of Colonel Ellis Bean would make a story of themselves.
In 1800 Spain ceded Louisiana to Napoleon in exchange for the new kingdom of Etruria ; and in 1803, before he had fairly taken possession, Napoleon had to sell Louisiana to the United States for fifteen million dollars, once more in order to prevent it from falling into the hands of earth-encircling England. Louisiana, measuring only as far as the Sabine, in- cluded nine hundred thousand square miles, or more than the domain of the original thirteen colonies, and the area of the country had thus been doubled at a stroke. But this was not enough ; the United States wanted all the region west of the Rio Grande, includ- ing the whole of Texas and the best part of New Mexico. General Zebulon Montgomery Pike, another of the superb young men of history (1779-1813 — Pike's Peak) led two great exploring expeditions across the waste and howling spaces of Louisiana Ter- ritory. He has left a vivid account of his adventures ; once, in 1806, he was caught trespassing on Spanish precincts, was taken to Santa Fe, and long detained a prisoner. And in 1805 the unscrupulous and forgotten James Wilkinson (1757-1825), the universal traitor,
10 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1806,
Commander-in-Chief of the United States forces since 1796, was appointed Governor of Louisiana. The story of his incessant treasons and adventures and impudences, would make a sufficiently amusing book- let by itself. He it was who, by betraying Aaron Burr, ruined the most fascinating career in American history, and put off by thirty years the regeneration of Texas.
" The American Revolution," says Colonel Yoakum, " had changed the face of things. A spirit was in- voked that could not be allayed ; it was one of liberty of thought and action, of inquiry and progress. It soon forced its way to Texas. It came first in search of wild horses, of cattle, and of money ; it came to see and admire ; it came to meet dangers and con- tend with them ; it came to say that no people had a right to shut their doors and deny the rights of hospi- tality ; it came to diffuse itself wherever it went. At the close of 1806 Texas was in a more flourishing condition than it had been previously. The introduc- tion of new settlers, the marching and display of so many troops, the presence of so many distinguished generals, and the introduction from Louisiana of con- siderable wealth, brought in by the immigrants hither in consequence of the transfer of that country to the United States, — all these causes seemed to impart life and cheerfulness to the province. The regular military force in Texas was little short of a thousand men [according to Bancroft, 1500]. The population of Texas was, at this time, about seven thousand, of which some two thousand lived in San Antonio. This population was made up of Spaniards, Creoles,
i8o6.] EARLIEST HISTORY OF TEXAS. II
and a few French, Americans, civilized Indians, and half-breeds. Their habits were wandering, most of them being engaged in hunting buffaloes and wild horses."
We must not, we cannot, pause to look upon Gen- eral Pike's fascinating pictures of the Spanish society of this period. There was a growing attitude of hos- tility towards the United States ; it was to keep out the Americans that Spanish settlers and soldiers were being introduced. But the Americans were not to be kept out. Nominally, no one not a Spanish subject could enter Texas on any pretext save that of being engaged in botanical researches ; yet it is recorded that this year, 1806, witnessed the first actual Ameri- can settlements in Texas. The Spanish outpost was at Nacogdoches, the American outpost at Natchitoches, just across the Sabine, on the Red River, in Louisi- ana. " At least you shall not dare to cross the Sa- bine ! " the commandants seemed to be saying to one another. There was more than one fierce frontier skirmish. In addition to the seven thousand civilized inhabitants in Texas, there may have been thirty thousand wild Indians. The Mississippi had been opened to the United States ever since 1795; the restless population of the Western States was rushing incontinently down this flood-way, turbulent, discon- tented with the government at Washington, bearing in its own wild heart many of the qualities of the wilderness which it was subduing for others. Aaron Burr (1756-1836) was fifty years old, and was lost in vain dreams of snatching Texas from the Spaniards and building up an empire for his darling grandson.
CHAPTER II.
RAGGED YOUTH OF GENERAL HOUSTON, 1793-1813.
WE have not a Parton or a Parkman to relate to us the moving catastrophes of this particular hero. Yet a hero is still ours, and for poet we have Mr. C. Edwards Lester, a second cousin or so of Aaron Burr, and the author of My Consulship, The Glory and Shame of England, The Napoleon Dynasty, and of many meri- torious translations from the Italian.
In 1846, at the age of thirty-one, Mr. Lester pub- lished Sam Houston and His Republic, a large, clear pamphlet of two hundred pages, containing fourteen chapters, and sold for fifty cents. One half of it consists of excursuses upon things in general. The other half, if it were not for considerations that will appear later, one would be disposed to pronounce not at all bad, but a biography to be thankful for. It had the advantage of immediate inspiration.
Mr. Lester tells us, many years later, that it was written in General Houston's private room at the National Hotel in Washington. So that here we have at least what General Houston told Mr. Lester to write, what Houston wished the world to accept as the story of his life. It is hard to realize the state of political excitement in 1846 which could make necessary Mr. Lester's manly " Word to the Reader
1793] RAGGED YOUTH, 13
before he begins the Book or throws it down : I have lived to see obloquy heaped by the Sons of the Puri- tans upon an outraged People bravely struggling for Independence, in the holy name of Liberty.
" I have lived to see unmeasured calumny poured on the head of an heroic Man who struck the fetter from his bleeding country on the field, and preserved her by his counsels in the Cabinet. And I have lived to do justice to that man and that People by asserting the truth.
" This Book will lose me some friends, but it will win me better ones in their places. But if it lost me all and gained me none, in God's name, as I am a free man, I would publish it," etc.
In 1855, when General Houston had been stung by the Presidential gadfly, appeared an anonymous " Life of Sam Houston. (The only authentic Memoir of him ever published)." It makes a well-printed volume of four hundred pages. It is simply a resetting of Mr. Lester's Sam Houston and His Republic, with one or two omissions, with each paragraph queer-ly divided and numbered as a separate section in a way that I shall illustrate, and with the addition of six perfectly worthless chapters designed for campaigning purposes. This is the version which Mr. Parton used in his invaluable Life of Andrew Jackson.
And in 1883 Mr. Lester published the Life and Achievements of Sam Houston, Hero and Statesman. It is a closely printed volume of two hundred and forty pages. It is a rifacimento of the two preced- ing volumes, — omits most of the six campaigning chapters, brings down the story to General Houston's
14 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1793.
death, and indicates a late but laudable effort towards a chastening of style.
We have also the seven hundred close octavo pages, two volumes in one, of a Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston, by the President of a Texan University. The many-titled author has con- structed his Life out of Mr. Lester's several Lives, and has hit upon the rare plan of omitting all quotation- marks.
So much for the bibliography of our hero.
General Sam Houston was born on the 2d of March, 1793, at a place called Timber Ridge Church, seven miles east of Lexington, in Rockbridge County, Virginia. It is worth noting that it was on a 2d of March, forty- three years later, in 1836, that the Texan Declaration of Independence was signed.
He was of the contentious Scotch-Irish race, — contentious, but admirably well fitted to survive. His father was a soldier of the Revolution, and " was successively the Inspector of General Bowyer's and General Moore's Brigades." He died while on a tour of inspection among the Alleghany Mountains in 1807, and left his son no heritage save his spirit and his mighty frame. Houston's mother — but I am sure that for the chapters for which we are dependent upon Mr. Lester the reader will prefer his characteris- tic style to any words which are at my command. I only grieve that considerations of space will compel me to omit Mr. Lester's most characteristic passages.
"His mother," says Mr. Lester, "was an extraor-
l8o;.] RAGGED YOUTH. i$
dinary woman. She was distinguished by a full, rather tall, and matronly form, a fine carriage, and an impressive and dignified countenance. She was gifted with intellectual and moral qualities, which elevated her, in a still more striking manner, above most of her sex. Her life shone with purity and benevolence, and yet she was nerved with a stern fortitude, which never gave way in the midst of the wild scenes that chequered the history of the frontier settler. Her beneficence was universal, and her name was called with gratitude by the poor and the suffering. Many years afterwards, her son returned from his distant exile, to weep by her bedside when she came to die. . . .
" We have learned from all quarters that he never could be got into a schoolhouse till he was eight years old, nor can we learn that he ever accomplished much, in a literary way, after he did enter. Virginia, which has never become very famous for her district schools, had still less to boast of forty years ago. The State made little or no provision, by law, for the1 edu- cation of its citizens, and each neighbourhood was obliged to take care of its rising population. Long before this period, Washington College had been re- moved to Lexington, and a t Field school ' was kept in the ruined old edifice once occupied by that insti- tution. This school seems, from all accounts (and we have taken some pains to inform ourselves about this matter) , to have been of doubtful utility. Hous- ton is said to have learned to read and write, and to- have gained some imperfect ideas of ciphering. Late in the fall and the winter were the only seasons he was allowed to improve even the dubious advantages
1 6 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1807.
of such a school. The rest of the year he was kept to hard work. If he worked very well, he was some- times permitted to run home from the fields, to be in time to retain his place in spelling. But it is doubt- ful if he ever went to such a school more than six months in all, till the death of his father, which took place when he was thirteen years old. This event changed at once the fortunes of the family. They had been maintained in comfortable circumstances, chiefly through the exertions of the father, and now they were to seek for other reliances.
" Mrs. Houston was left with the heavy burden of a numerous family. She had six sons and three daugh- ters. But she was not a woman to succumb to mis- fortune, and she immediately sold out her homestead, and prepared to cross the Alleghany Mountains, to find a new home on the fertile banks of the Tennessee River. ...
" Fired still with the same heroic spirit which first led them to try the woods, our daring little party stopped not till they reached the limits of the emi- gration of those days. They halted eight miles from the Tennessee River, which was then the boundary between white men and the Cherokee Indians.
" Sam was now set to work with the rest of the family in breaking up the virgin soil, and providing the means of subsistence. There seems to have been very little fancy in his occupations for some time ; he became better acquainted than ever with what is called hard work, — a term which has a similar sig- nification in all languages and countries where any work is being done.
i So;.] RAGGED YOUTH. 17
" There was an academy established in that part of East Tennessee about this time, and he went to it for a while, just after Hon. Mr. Jarnagin [Spencer Jar- nagin, 1793—1851, represented Tennessee in the United States Senate from 1843 to 1847], who long represented his State in the United States Senate, had left it. He had- got possession, in some way, of two or three books, which had a great power over his imagination. No boy ever reads well till he feels a thirst for intelligence, and no surer indication is needed that this period has come, than to see the mind directed toward those gigantic heroes who rise like spectres from the ruins of Greece and Rome, towering high and clear above the darkness and gloom of the Middle Ages. He had, among other works, Pope's Iliad, which he read so constantly, we have been assured on the most reliable authority, he could repeat it almost entire from beginning to end. His imagination was now fully awakened, and his emulation began to be stirred. Reading translations from Latin and Greek soon kindled his desire to study those primal languages, and so decided did this propensity become, that on being refused, when he asked the master's permission, he turned on his heel, and declared solemnly that he would never recite another lesson of any other kind while he lived — and from what we have been able to learn of his history, we think it very probable that he kept his word ! But he had gathered more from the classic world through Pope's Iliad than many a ghostly book- worm who has read Euripides or ^Eschylus among the solemn ruins of the Portico itself. He had caught
1 8 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON, [1807.
the ' wonted fire ' that still ' lives in the ashes ' of their heroes, and his future life was to furnish the materials of an epic more strange than many a man's whose name has become immortal.
" His elder brothers seem to have crossed his wishes occasionally, and by a sort of fraternal tyranny quite common, exercised over him some severe re- straints. At last they compelled him [after he had served in a blacksmith's shop] to go into a merchant's store, and stand behind the counter. This kind of life he had little relish for, and he suddenly disap- peared. A great search was made for him, but he was nowhere to be found for several weeks. At last intelligence reached the family that Sam had crossed the Tennessee river, and gone to live among the Indians, where, from all accounts, he seemed to be living much more to his liking. They found him, and began to question him on his motives for this novel proceeding. Sam was now, although so very young, nearly six feet high, and standing straight as an Indian, coolly replied that ' he preferred measuring deer tracks to tape — that he liked the wild liberty of the red men better than the tyranny of his own brothers, and if he could not study Latin in the academy, he could, at least, read a translation from the Greek in the woods, and read it in peace. So they could go home as soon as they liked.' "
Apropos of Houston's academic days, before he joined the Indians, we learn from another source that he attended for a time Maryville College. One who afforded him instruction, or obstruction, in Maryville College has recorded the following reminiscences : —
1807.] RAGGED YOUTH. 19
" Sam was no student, and seldom or never recited a good lesson in his life ; he did not take to books, and, of course, learned little from them. But he was a boy and a man of most remarkably keen, close observation. When the doctor [Isaac Anderson, founder of the 'college'] was thinking that Sam and his other pupils were diligently studying their lessons, Sam would have them out on the commons playing. His special pleasure and amusement was to drill the boys in military tactics. He seems to have been a sort of natural military genius. So, instead of getting his lessons, he was mustering the boys, and, as might be expected, he had no lesson at recitation hour. Dr. Anderson said : ' Many times did I determine to give Sam Houston a whipping for neglect of study, but he would come into the school- room bowing and scraping, with as fine a dish of apolo- gies as ever was placed before anybody, withal so very polite and manly for one of his age that he took all the whip out of me ; I could not find it in my heart to whip him.' "
No man can know Pope's glorious translation as Houston knew and loved it his life through, without developing a considerable sense of form. Houston had this sense of form in a consummate degree, and we shall often have occasion to admire his skill in calculating effects.
The idea of the outcast boy, with his one book, suggests a masterly picture in The Outcasts of Poker Flat : " And so, for the rest of that night, the Homeric demi-gods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily Greek wrestled in the winds, and the
20 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1807.
great pines in the canon seemed to bow to the wrath of the son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quiet satisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the fate of * Ash-heels,' as the Innocent persisted in denominating the ' swift- footed Achilles. ' "
" Houston's family," continues Mr. Lester, " think- ing this a freak from which he would soon recover when he got tired of the Indians, gave themselves no great uneasiness about him. But week after week passed away, and Sam did not make his appearance. At last his clothes were worn out, and he returned to be refitted. He was kindly received by his mother, and, for a while, his brothers treated him with due propriety. But the first act of tyranny they showed drove him to the woods again, where he passed entire months with his Indian mates, chasing the deer through the forest with a fleetness little short of their own, — engaging in all those gay sports of the happy Indian boys, and wandering along the banks of the streams by the side of some Indian maiden, sheltered by the deep woods, conversing in that universal lan- guage which finds its sure way to the heart. From a strange source we have learned much of his Indian history, during these three or four years, and in the absence of facts, it would be no difficult matter to fancy what must have been his occupations. . . .
"The poets of Europe, in fancying such scenes, have borrowed their sweetest images from the wild idolatry of the Indian maiden. Houston has since seen nearly all there is in life to live for, and yet he has been heard to say that as he looks back over the
1807.] RAGGED YOUTH. 21
waste of life, there 's much that is sweet tc remember in this sojourn he made among the untutored children of the forest.
" And yet this running wild among the Indians, sleeping on the ground, chasing wild game, living in the forests, and reading Homer's Iliad withal, seemed a pretty strange business, and people used to say that Sam Houston would either be a great Indian chief, or die in a mad-house, or be governor of the State, — for it was very certain that some dreadful thing would overtake him !
" During the latter part of June, 1846, General Morehead arrived at Washington with forty wild In- dians from Texas, belonging to more than a dozen tribes. We saw their meeting with General Houston. One and all ran to him and clasped him in their brawny arms, and hugged him, like bears, to their naked breasts, and called him father. Beneath the copper skin and thick paint the blood rushed, and their faces changed, and the lip of many a warrior trembled, although the Indian may not weep. These wild men knew him, and revered him as one who was too directly descended from the Great Spirit to be approached with familiarity, and yet they loved him so well they could not help it. These were the men ' he had been,' in the fine language of Acqui- quosk, whose words we quote, ' too subtle for on the war path, too powerful in battle, too magnanimous in victory, too wise in council, and too true in faith.' They had flung away their arms in Texas, and with the Comanche chief who headed their file, had come
22 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1810.
to Washington to see their father. We said these iron warriors shed no tears when they met their old friend, but white men who stood by .will tell us what they did. We have witnessed few scenes in which min- gled more of what is called the moral sublime. In the gigantic form of Houston, on whose ample brow the beneficent love of a father was struggling with the sternness of the patriarch warrior, we saw civiliza- tion awing the savage at his feet. We needed no in- terpreter to tell us that this impressive supremacy was gained in the forest.
" But we have lost the thread of our story. This wild life among the Indians lasted till his eighteenth year. He had, during his visits once or twice a year to his family to be refitted in his dress, purchased many little articles of taste or utility to use among the Indians. In this manner he had incurred a debt which he was bound in honour to pay. To meet this engagement, he had no other resource left but to abandon his * dusky companions,' and teach the children of pale-faces. As may naturally be sup- posed, it was no easy matter for him to get a school, and at the first start, the enterprise moved very slowly. But as the idea of abandoning anything on which he had once fixed his purpose was no part of his character, he persevered, and in a short time he had more scholars to turn away than he had at first to begin with. He was also paid what was consid- ered an exorbitant price. Formerly, no master had asked above six dollars per annum. Houston, who probably thought that one who had been graduated at an Indian University, ought to hold his lore at a
1813.] RAGGED YOUTH. 23
dearer rate, raised the price to eight dollars, — one- third to be paid in corn, delivered at the mill at 33^3 cents per bushel, one-third in cash, and one-third in domestic cotton cloth of variegated colours, in which our Indian professor was dressed. He also wore his hair behind, in a snug queue, and is said to have been very much in love with it, probably from an idea that it added somewhat to the adornment of his person, — in which, too, he was probably mistaken.
"When he had made money enough to pay his debts, he shut up his school, and went back to his old master to study. He put Euclid into his hands. He carried that ugly, unromantic book back and forth to and from the school a few days without trying to solve even so much as the first problem, and then came to the very sensible conclusion that he would never try to be a scholar ! This was in 1813. But fortunately an event now took place which was to de- cide his fate.
"The bugle had sounded, and for the second time America was summoned to measure her strength with the Mistress of the Seas. A recruiting party of the United States army came to Maryville, with music, a banner, and some well-dressed sergeants. Of course, young Houston enlisted — anybody could have guessed as much. His friends said he was ruined ; that he must by no means join the army as a common soldier. He then made his first speech, as far as we can learn : ' And what have your craven souls to say about the ranks ? Go to, with your stuff; I would much sooner honour the ranks, than disgrace an appointment. You don't know me now, but you shall hear of me.' "
24 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1813.
"His old friends and acquaintances, considering him hopelessly disgraced, cut his acquaintance at once. His mother gave her consent as she stood in the door of her cottage, and handed her boy the musket. 'There, my son, take this musket,' she said, f and never disgrace it ; for remember, I had rather all my sons should fill one honourable grave, than that one of them should turn his back to save his life. Go, and remember, too, that while the door of my cottage is open to brave men, it is eternally shut against cowards.'"
CHAPTER III.
SOLDIERING WITH JACKSON, 1813-1818.
" INTO this regiment," says Mr. Parton, describing the junction with General Jackson, in February, 1814, of the thirty-ninth regiment of United States infantry, six hundred strong, — "into this regiment one SAM HOUSTON had recently enlisted as a pri- vate soldier, and made his way to the rank of ensign, — the same Sam Houston who was afterward President of Texas, and Senator of the United States."
Of And.rew Jackson (1767-1845) the reader will hear enough. Born on the ragged border of North Carolina on the i5th of March, 1767, orphaned by the Revolution, emigrating to Tennessee in 1788, and an United States representative and senator from the new State at thirty, — resigning his senator- ship, forced once more to serve the public as Judge of the Supreme Court in Tennessee, and retiring again to private life in 1804, when only thirty-seven, — he was the extreme type of Americanism. He was so like every American, only more savagely intense, that his popularity could not but have been great under any circumstances. Notwithstanding his fine characteri- zation of his friend Patten Anderson as " the natural
26 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1814.
enemy of scoundrels," it is hard not to call Andrew Jackson a scoundrel. One must have read Mr. Par- ton's account of Jackson's early life in order to appre- ciate the completeness of the squalour of this western civilization. Horse-whippings and murderous duels were an ordinary affair with Andrew Jackson ; and yet he was the legitimate leader of the community as its best member. He was destined to tickle the vanity of Americans as never man before, by closing the dis- astrous War of 1812 "in a blaze of glory," to become the most popular American of the century succeeding Washington, and to make himself forever memorable by organizing the political immorality of America.
It is needless to say that he would not have been the arch-typical American had he not been a dyspeptic. Even yet his hatchet face, his dark blue eyes of lurid flame, his bristling shock of white hair, and his form like a hickory pole, are familiar to all. In a very special way he was, through all his life, the hero and the antitype of General Houston.
General Jackson had done good service in the first campaign of the War of 1812, aided by the splendid young Colonel Thomas Hart Benton (1782-1859). Then, while Jackson was at his home near Nashville, and Benton " was away in Washington, saving Gen- eral Jackson from bankruptcy," there arose a spread- ing series of quarrels between Jackson's pet, William Carroll, and Benton's foolish brother Jesse. Jackson vowed to whip Tom Benton " on sight." He tried to do it, with every circumstance of abominable outrage, in the Nashville City Hotel, on the 4th of September, 1813. Benton stepped backwards down the cellar
i8i4-l SOLDIERING WITH JACKSON. 27
stairs ; Jackson was shot, and all but killed, by one tremendous discharge from Jesse Benton, which shattered his left shoulder, made him an invalid for life, and left a rankling bullet in his body for twenty years. And from this bed of deadly illness General Jackson rose, almost immediately, to lead his Tennes- seans against the Creek Indians assembled in Ala- bama. Houston's regiment, after unknown manoeu- vres, joined Jackson in February; and in March, 1814, Jackson marched still further to the south, through fifty miles of unbroken wilderness, to Tohopeka, on the Horseshoe Bend, where nine hundred warriors, and three hundred women and children, the ultimate remnant of the Creek nation, were gathered in a fatal position, on a peninsula formed by one of the serpen- tine twists of the sluggish river Tallapoosa. Jackson had two thousand men.
The battle of Tohopeka and the extermination of the Creeks occurred on the 27th of March, 1814, when Houston was just over twenty-one. It was a bloody, day-long conflict; "every officer," as General Jack- son remarked in characteristic frontier phraseology, " DONE his duty." We are not allowed to dwell upon the details, but we must notice that as the thirty-ninth regiment marched up to the Indian breastwork, firing through the loopholes, and Major Montgomery, the first man to mount, had fallen slain, young Ensign Houston (already risen from the ranks) took hi* place and called upon his men to follow him.
" While he was scaling the works, 'or soon after he reached the ground," says Mr. Lester, " a barbed arrow struck deep into his thigh. He kept his ground
28 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1814.
for a moment, till his lieutenant and men were by his side, and the warriors had begun to recoil under their desperate onset. He then called to his lieutenant to extract the arrow, after he had tried in vain to do it himself. The officer made two unsuccessful attempts, and failed. ' Try again,' said Houston — the sword with which he was still keeping command raised over his head — ' and, if you fail this time, I will smite you to the earth.' With a desperate effort he drew forth the arrow, tearing the flesh as it came. A stream of blood rushed from the place, and Houston crossed the breastworks to have his wound dressed. The surgeon bound it up and staunched the blood. Gen- eral Jackson, who came up to see who had been wounded, recognizing his young ensign, ordered him firmly not to return. Under any other circumstances, Houston would have obeyed any order from the brave man who stood over him, but now he begged the general to allow him to return to his men. The gen- eral ordered him most peremptorily not to cross the outworks again. But Houston was determined to die in that battle, or win the fame of a hero. He remembered how the finger of scorn had been pointed at him as he fell into the ranks of the recruiting party that marched through the village ; and rushing once more to the breastworks, he was in a few seconds at the head of his men."
- Mr. Parton, in describing a desperate assault that was made upon the stockade at the end of the after- noon, has a better account than Mr. Lester's of the second wounding of Houston on this day. " En- sign Houston," he says, " again emerges into view on
1814.] SOLDIERING WITH JACKSON. 29
this occasion. Ordering his platoon to follow, but not waiting to see if they would follow, he rushed to the overhanging bank which sheltered the foe, and through openings of which they were firing. Over this mine of desperate savages he paused, and looked back for. his men. At that moment he re- ceived two balls in his right shoulder; his arm fell powerless to his side ; he staggered out of the fire ; and lay down totally disabled. His share in that day's work was done."
" After the perils of this hard-fought engagement," resumes Mr. Lester, "in which he had displayed a heroism that excited the admiration of the entire army, and received wounds which to his dying day never perfectly healed, he was taken from the field of the dead and wounded, and committed to the hands of the surgeon. One ball was extracted, but no at- tempt was made to extract the other, for the surgeon said it was unnecessary to torture him, since he could riot survive till the next morning. He spent the night as soldiers do who war in the wilderness, and carry provisions in their knapsacks for a week's march. Comforts were out of the question for any; but Houston received less attention than the others, for everybody looked on him as a dying man, and what could be done for any they felt should be done for those who were likely to live. It was the darkest night of his life, and it closed in upon the most brilliant day he had yet seen. We can fancy to our- selves what must have been the feelings of the young soldier, as he lay on the damp earth, through the hours of that dreary night, racked with the keen
30 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1814.
torture of his many wounds, and deserted in what he supposed to be his dying hour.
" On the day after the battle Houston was started, on a litter, with the other wounded, for Fort Williams, some sixty or seventy miles distant. Here he re- mained, suspended between life and death, for a long time, neglected and exposed, the other regular officers of the regiment having all been removed to Fort Jack- son, or the Hickory Ground. He was at last brought 'back ... to his mother's house in Blount County, where he arrived in the latter part of May, nearly two months after the battle of the Horse-shoe.
" This long journey was made in a litter, borne by horses, while he was not only helpless, but suffering the extremest agony. His diet was of the coarsest description, and most of the time he was not only deprived of medical aid, but even of those simple remedies which would, at least, have alleviated his sufferings. His toilsome way was through the forests, where he was obliged to encamp out, and often with- out shelter. No one around him had any expecta- tion he would ever recover. At last, when he reached the house of his mother, he was so worn to a skeleton, that she declared she never would have known him to be her son but for his eyes, which still retained something of their wonted expression."
" Those," says Mr. Parton, in quoting this account, " who had an opportunity of observing the erect and towering form of Senator Houston, the commanding Indian grace of his attitudes and gestures, when, on his last public visit to the North, he appeared before us at Niblo's Garden as the champion and defender
1815.] SOLDIERING WITH JACKSON. 31
of the Indians, could not have supposed that he had ever been in such forlorn and desperate case as this. If we had known it, it would have added force to the Senator's bold and repeated assertion that in our Indian difficulties, from the beginning, the Indian has never been the aggressor, but always the party injured. It was a noble thing of a man to say who bore such scars under his broadcloth ! "
General Jackson in the mean time had swept off to New Orleans. "By the Eternal, they shall not sleep on our soil ! " he declared when he heard that the British had landed ; and his conduct, resulting in the battle of January 8, 1815, has been called the finest defence of native soil on record. It is not easy to make clear all of Houston's movements during these years. According to one -_ account, he had been a member of Jackson's military family before the battle of Tohopeka; and another witness, lest we should forget the aristocratic element in Houston's life, reminds us that after recovering in some measure from his wounds, he used to travel back and forth between Washington and Tennessee, lying in his own carriage, and attended by his body servant. We must relapse to Mr. Lester, who left Houston wounded in his mother's house : —
" Under the hospitable roof of that cottage, whose ' door was always open to brave men,' he languished a short time, and when he had recovered a little strength went to Maryville to be near medical aid. Here his health gradually declined, and in quest of a more skilful surgeon, he was removed to Knoxville, sixteen miles to the eastward. The physician to whom
32 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1815.
he applied, found him in so low a state that he was unwilling to take charge of -him, for he declared that he could live only a few days. But at the end of this period, finding he had not only survived, but begun to improve a little, the doctor offered his services, and Houston was slowly recovering.
"When he had become strong enough to ride a horse, he set out by short journeys for Washington. He reached the seat of Government, soon after the burning of the Capitol. . . . Winter was now advanc- ing, and with his wounds still festering, he journeyed on to Lexington, Virginia, where he remained till early spring.
" Having, as he supposed, sufficiently recovered to be able to do his duty as a soldier in some situa- tion, he prepared to cross the mountains. When he reached Knoxville, on his way to report himself ready for duty, he heard the glorious news of the battle of New Orleans. His furlough had been unlimited.
" After peace was proclaimed he was stationed at the cantonment of his regiment, near Knoxville, and when the army was reduced, he was retained in the service as a [second] lieutenant, and attached to the First Regiment of infantry, and stationed at New Orleans.
" In the fall he had embarked on the Cumberland, in a small skiff in company with two young men, one of whom afterward became distinguished as Governor White, of Louisiana. He was then a beardless boy, just leaving college. They passed down the Cumber- land, entered the Ohio, and at last found their way
i8i6.] SOLDIERING WITH JACKSON. 33
to the Mississippi, over whose mighty waters they floated through that vast solitude, which was then unbroken by the noise of civilized life. Our voyager had with him a few of those volumes which have been the companions of so many great and good men : a Bible, given to him by his mother, Pope's translation of the Iliad, the same book he had kept by him dur- ing his wild life among the Indians, Shakspeare, Akenside, and a few standard works of fiction, which, like Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, and the Vicar of Wakefield, have become a part of the history of every man who knows how to read. It is not difficult to imagine the effect such works must have produced upon the heated imagination of a young American soldier, voyaging through those impressive solitudes.
" After many days their skiff turned a bend in the Mississippi, above Natchez, and far down the river they saw a vessel coming up the stream without sails, sending up a heavy column of smoke. Instead of being a vessel on fire, as they at first supposed, it turned out to be the first steamboat that ever went up the Mississippi river.
"At Natchez they exchanged their skiff for the steamboat, and in eight days they reached New Orleans, where Houston reported for duty.
" He now had his wounds operated on once more, and the operation nearly cost him his life. The rifle ball, after shattering most completely his right arm just below its juncture with the shoulder, had passed round and lodged near the shoulder-blade. Nothing but an iron constitution had enabled him to endure 3
34 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1817.
the enormous suffering he had gone through, and the operation just performed had well-nigh robbed him of his last strength. His lungs were supposed, more- over, to be irreparably injured ; but that indomitable resolution which has borne him triumphantly through all the struggles of his stormy life, never gave way.
" After a winter of extreme suffering, he sailed in April for New York, where he passed several weeks, with a slight improvement in health. Returning to Tennessee by the way of Washington, after visiting his friends, he reported to the Adjutant- General of the Southern Division at Nashville, and was detailed on duty in the adjutant's office, and stationed at Nashville from the ist of January, 1817. He was attached to the office till the following November, when he was detailed on extra duty as a sub-Indian agent among the Cherokees, to carry out the treaty just ratified with that nation. His feeble health rendered it peculiarly hazardous to encounter the exposures of such an agency, but General Jackson considered it necessary to the public service that he should at least make the attempt, for," etc.
Not to quote Mr. Lester at too great length, Houston did his best in the public service for a year longer, conducted a delegation of the Hi- Wassee Indians to Washington, and after several vague adventures, finding himself not yet sufficiently robust for the full duty of a frontier officer, he " acted on the principle he so often illustrated, that ' no man should be an almoner upon the bounty of a State who cannot bring to its service talents and acquisitions which would procure higher emoluments in private
i8i8.] SOLDIERING WITH JACKSON. 35
life.' He returned with the delegation to the agency on the Hi-Wassee, and then resigned his commission as sub-agent, and went to Nashville to read law."
The following memorandum, luckily discovered in the War Department at Washington, will simplify Mr. Lester's wordy narrative, and synopsize our chapter : —
" Sam Houston entered 7th infantry as a sergeant ; became ensign in 39th infantry 29th July, 1813 ; was severely wounded in battle of Horse Bend under Maj.- Gen. Jackson 2;th March [1814] ; made third lieut. Dec., 1813 ; promoted as second lieut. in May, 1814 ; retained May i5th [1816] in ist infantry; became first lieut. Mar. ist, 1818; resigned May 1 7th."
CHAPTER IV.
THE RISING MAN OF TENNESSEE, 1818-1829.
IN the lack of any safer guidance, we must follow Mr. Lester for yet a chapter or two further.
When Houston left the army in 1818, and began the study of the law, he was in his twenty-sixth year, and not, as Mr. Lester states, in his twenty-fifth. But great men seldom shine in details, and we continue our clippings : —
" In his wanderings in search of health, his pay in the army had been inadequate to his necessities, and he found himself burdened down by a load of debt. Before he began the study of the law, he sold the last piece of property he possessed, and appropriated the last farthing of the avails to the discharge of his debts; but a residuum of several hundred still re- mained unpaid, — the balance, however, was soon discharged.
" He entered the office of Hon. James Trimble [in Nashville] , who told him that eighteen months of hard study would be necessary before he could be admitted to the bar. He began his studies in June, 1818. He read a few of the standard works prescribed in a course of law studies, and read them thoroughly. He grasped the great principles of the science, and
i8i9-] RISING MAN OF TENNESSEE. 37
they were fixed in his mind forever. There is a class of men who are made up, like composite architecture, of the details of beauty stolen from primitive orders ; such men constitute the secondary formations of society ; but the intellectual world, like the frame of nature, reposes upon nobler and more massive strata.
" Those men who borrow their lights from others, never lead the human race through great crises; they who depend on the strength they gather from books or men are never equal to lofty achievements. The minds which electrify the world, generate their own fire ; such men seldom shine in details, — they have no time to attend to them," etc., etc.
" We have used these illustrations only to convey a more perfect idea of Houston's character. His teacher had prescribed eighteen months' study; in one third of the time he was recommended to apply for license, and he was admitted with eclat. A few months' study had enabled him to pass a searching examination with great honour to himself and his new profession. He immediately purchased a small li- brary on credit, and established himself in Lebanon, thirty miles east of Nashville, and began the practice of law. Soon after [1819] he was appointed Adju- tant-General of the State, with the rank of Colonel. In the mean time he followed up his studies, and the practice of his profession, with earnestness, and so rapidly did he rise at the bar that he was, in October of the same year, elected District Attorney of the Davidson District, which made it desirable he should take up his residence at Nashville.
" There he was obliged to come in collision with
38 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1823.
all the talent of one of the ablest bars of Western America. Every step he trod was new to him, but he was almost universally successful in prosecutions ; and his seniors who rallied him upon his recent ad- vancement, and his rawness in the practice, never repeated their jokes. They discovered to their mor- tification, that neither many books, nor much dull plodding, could enable them to measure weapons with a man so gifted in rare good sense and penetrat- ing genius. . . . The labours of the District Attorney were unceasing, but the fees were so inconsiderable he resigned his post at the end of twelve months, and resumed the v regular practice of his profession, in which he rose to great and sudden distinction.
" In 1821 [when only twenty-eight] he was elected Major-General by the field-officers of the division which comprised two thirds of the State. In 1823, he was recommended to offer his name as a candidate for Congress. In the various official stations he had filled he had won so much respect, and at the bar he had displayed such rare ability, that he was elected to Congress without opposition. His course in the National Legislature was warmly approved by his constituents, and he was returned the second time by an almost unanimous vote.
" His course in Congress won for him the universal respect and confidence of the people of Tennessee, and in 1827 [at thirty-four] he was elected Governor of that State by a majority of over twelve thousand. His personal popularity was unlimited, and his acces- sion to office found him without an opponent in the Legislature"
i823.J KISING MAN OF TENNESSEE. 39
So much for Mr. Lester. Evidently this young man Houston had been pushing right onward and upward with conquering banners above him. I learn from another source that when he went to Lebanon at the end of 1818 or beginning of 1819, "a stranger among strangers," to begin the practice, of law, he was out of funds, and could hardly have started but for the kindness of one Isaac Golladay, " a merchant of this place, and also P. M. [that is, Postmaster]," who furnished him " an office at one dollar per month ; sold him clothes on credit ; credited him for his post- age, each letter being then charged twenty-five cents ; and recommended him to the people." Houston always remembered this kindness, and a son of Isaac Golladay shall tell us in his own way, later on, how it was requited.
I must omit a great deal in this little volume, and I have pleasure in omitting almost all the details that can now be recovered about General Houston's four years in the House of Representatives, 1823 to 1827. Yet it may be interesting to glance at several little circumstances, and among others at a letter of intro- duction which the new representative carried up to a venerable ex-President of the United States, then in his eighty -first year.
HERMITAGE, Oct. 4, 1823. THOMAS JEFFERSON, Esq.,
Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia.
DEAR SIR, — This will be handed to you by Gen. Sam. Houston, a representative to Congress from this State, and a particular friend of mine, to whom I beg leave to introduce you. I have known General Hous-
40 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1823.
ton many years, and entertaining for him the highest feelings of regard and confidence, recommend him to you with great safety. He has attained his present standing without the extrinsic advantages of fortune or education, and has sustained, in his various promo- tions from the common soldier to the Major-General, the character of the high-minded and honourable man. As such I present him to you, and shall regard the civilities which you may render him as a great favour. With a sincere wish that good health and happy days are still yours, I remain,
Your friend, and very obliged servant,
ANDREW JACKSON.
This same Andrew Jackson was the dictator of Tennessee, the idol of all the land. At the end of 1823 he signified that he would be willing to serve in the Senate, and we see him shortly following Houston to Washington. Here, for a while, we can trace the two friends serving on analogous committees, and playing staunchly into one another's hands.
Daniel Webster (1782-1852) — "the one Ameri- can of our time whom we could produce as a finished work of nature," writes Emerson, — was a member of the House during these four years, between 1823 anc^ 1827. The princely Clay, too (1777-1852), was elected to the eighteenth congress, which met in De- cember, 1823, and he was again chosen speaker, though he did not hold the office long. The veteran of the House was the Indian -blooded John Randolph of Roanoke (1773-1833). And into the nineteenth
1827.] RISING MAN OF TENNESSEE. 41
congress (1825) there came, among the new members, the all-accomplished Edward Everett ( 1 794-1865 ) ,and James Knox Polk of Tennessee (i 795-1849). Hous- ton was in good company, and he appears to have borne himself as if among equals. His politics, of course, were democratic. The district which he represented during these two congressional terms was the ninth, then the most recently formed district in Tennessee.
In 1827 we get a glimpse, though with no thanks to Mr. Lester, of a characteristic duel between Hous- ton and a General White of Tennessee. Let us not inquire too closely. It would seem that the Federal government had been making appointments of which Houston did not approve, and Houston had been calling names rather freely ; hence a challenge from General White, and a duel in which no one was much hurt, but which gave Houston a genuine shock. Writs were out against him in Kentucky; on the other hand, it made a popular hero of him in Tennes- see, and, according to one account, carried him into the governorship on a wave of triumph. I shall quote a few sentences from an old report of a speech which he made in answer to an ovation tendered him at Telico : " He never could recur to the late exceptional event in his life but with mingled pain and thankful- ness to that Providence which enabled him to save his person and his honour, and that without injury to his assailant. He had been, and still was, opposed to the practice of duelling. He had passed through the army without any act to sanction it. He had hoped to be as successful in civil life. ... He had risked his life in defence of his country, and he could do no less
42 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1827.
in defence of his honour. ' Thank God ! ' he added, 1 that my adversary was injured no worse ! ' "
"In 1827," says Mr. James Phelan, in his good History of Tennessee, "Willie Blount [the old War- Governor, 1767-1835], Newton Cannon [1781- 1842], and Sam Houston were candidates for the governorship. The vote cast for Blount was con- temptibly small. Houston was elected by a large majority. His administration was successful, his re- commendations conservative. Houston's career, even before he was made governor of Tennessee, was not without a touch of romantic diversity. He had been brought up among the East Tennessee mountains and on the banks of the beautiful stream which gave its name to the State. As a boy, he had been a familiar inmate of the wigwams of a small settlement of Cherokees in the neighbourhood of his mother's cottage." He "was elected solicitor-general of the- Nashville district, removed to Nashville, was elected adjutant-general in 1821 over Newton Cannon, to succeed William Carroll [1788-1844], and was elected in 1823 and 1825 a member of Congress. Cannon was known to be lukewarm in the cause of Jackson. Houston was known to be his ardent part- isan. This may have influenced the final result, both in the contest of 1821 and again in 1827.
" Houston had a tall, commanding figure, an im- posing bearing, an affable demeanour, and popular ad- dress. As solicitor-general he had displayed oratorical talents of no mean order. Clay and Webster were just rising through the morning mists. There were no orators in Tennessee. Houston, it was then thought,
1829] RISING MAN OF TENNESSEE. 43
would be a great orator. Perhaps a more favourable field for the cultivation of his talents might have accom- plished this result. His first efforts, considered as first efforts, were full of promise, which, however, was never realized. Perhaps there is something which unfits the man of action for words. Houston was certainly a man of action. Indeed he was a great man," etc.
Tennessee at this time enjoyed a quite peculiar dis- tinction as the State of Andrew Jackson. And it was during Houston's governorship that Jackson was elected President. America had known nothing like the popu- larity of this man. It could stand anything, as used to be said. Mr. Parton's query, Could Jackson stand his popularity ? is suggestive, but it has little to do with the question of Houston's prospects. In the beginning of 1829 General Houston, barely thirty-six, Governor of Tennessee, chosen favourite of the newly elected President, stood in as commanding a position as any man in the United States. A senatorship could add little to his standing ; the Presidency itself might well seem to be within the grasp of legitimate ambition.
CHAPTER V.
A CATASTROPHE, 1829.
BUT the eagle was to be suddenly stricken in his exulting flight. We will listen first to Mr. Lester, writing by immediate inspiration : —
"In- January, 1829, he married a young lady of respectable family, and of gentle character. Owing to circumstances, about which far more has been conjectured than known by the world, the union seems to have been as unhappy as it was short. In less than three months a separation took place, which filled society with the deepest excitement. Various reports flew through the State, all of them unfounded, and some of them begotten by the sheerest malignity, which divided the people of the State into two hostile parties, and inflamed popular feeling to the last point of excitement. As usual on such occasions, those who were most busy in the affair, were the very ones who knew least about the merits of the case, and had the least right to interfere. . . .
"Thinking, most probably, that they were doing her a kindness, the friends of the lady loaded the name of Houston with odium. He was charged with every species of crime man ever committed. The very ignorance of the community about the affair, by in-
1829.] A CATASTROPHE. 45
creasing the mystery which hung over it, only made it seem the more terrible. In the mean time, Houston did not offer a single denial of a single calumny — would neither vindicate himself before the public, nor allow his friends to do it for him. He sat quietly, and let the storm of popular fury rage on. From that day he has, even among his confidential friends, maintained unbroken silence, and whenever he speaks of the lady, he speaks of her with great kindness. Not a word has ever fallen from his lips that cast a shade upon her character, nor did he ever allow an unkind breath against her in his presence. Whatever may have been the truth of the matter, or whatever his friends may have known or conjectured, he had but one reply for them : ' This is a painful, but it is a private affair. I do not recognize the right of the public to interfere in it, and I shall treat the public just as though it had never happened. And remem- ber that, whatever may be said by the lady or her friends, it is no part of the conduct of a gallant or a generous man to take up arms against a woman. If my character cannot stand the shock, let me lose it. The storm will soon sweep by, and time will be my vindicator.'
" He had been elected to every office he had held in the State by acclamation, and he determined in- stantly to resign his office as Governor, and forego all his brilliant prospects of distinction, and exile himself from the habitations of civilized men, — a resolution more likely to have been begotten by philosophy than by crime.
" We have no apology to offer for this singular
46 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1829,
event. If Houston acted culpably, it could not be expected he would become his own accuser. If he were the injured party, and chose to bear in silence his wrong and the odium that fell on him he certainly betrayed no meanness of spirit, for he never asked the sympathy of the world. But notwithstanding his unbroken silence about the affair, and the sacrifice of all his hopes, he was denounced by the journals of the day, and hunted down with untiring malignity by those who had the meanness to pursue a generous man in misfortune. After his determination to leave the country was known, they threatened him with personal violence. But in this he bearded and defied them.
" But his friends did not desert him while the sun of his fortune was passing this deep eclipse. They gathered around him, and the streets of Nashville would have flowed with blood, if Houston's enemies had touched a hair of his head. But such ruffians never execute their vows when they have brave men to deal with, and Houston resigned his office, and taking leave of his friends, he quietly left the city of Nashville. He now turned his back upon the haunts of white men, and there was no refuge left for him but the forests. There he had a home, of which the reader has yet heard nothing ; it was far away from civilized life.
"While he was roving in his youth among the Cherokees, he had found a friend in their chief [Oolooteka], who adopted him as his son, and gave him a corner in his wigwam. In the mean time, the chief with his tribe had removed from the Hi-Wassee
1829.] A CATASTROPHE. 47
country to Arkansas, and become king of the Chero- kees resident there. During their long separation, which had now lasted more than eleven years, they had never ceased to interchange tokens of their kind recollections. When, therefore, he embarked on the Cumberland, he thought of his adopted father, and he turned his face to his wigwam-home, knowing that he would be greeted there with the old chiefs blessing."
If half of this is true, I have heard of few things finer than Houston's conduct and attitude. And I have discovered no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of the whole of the above account.
Mr. Phelan tells .almost the same story : " In Janu- ary, 1829, Houston married a Miss Eliza Allen, daughter of an influential family in Sumner County, and a member of ' the quality.' In April of the same year Houston's wife left him, and returned to her father's house, after Houston had written to the father requesting him to bring about a reconciliation be- tween him and his wife. The first information that came to the public was Houston's resignation, which took place on the i6th of April. He at once aban- doned the State, and went to the Cherokee country, to the wigwam of an Indian chief who had adopted him when a boy. From here he drifted to Texas, where, fortunately for his fame, he found a proper field for the display of those strong and admirable qualities of mind which, united to a steadfast charac- ter and a high purpose, made him great despite his puerile affectations and his robust vanity. The cause of separation was at that time a mystery, and the
48 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON, [1829.
lapse of time has in no wise lessened it. Houston, even when deepest in his cups, never suffered a word of explanation to escape him. He always protested that the virtue of his wife remained unimpeached. The most plausible and satisfactory explanation ap- pears to be this : Houston was spirited, sensitive, and vain. The young woman had been driven to the marriage by the importunities of her family, who were ambitious, and who saw, as they imagined, a brilliant career opening for Houston. Her affections had been won by another lover of less pretension and promise. She yielded to the wishes of her friends. The marriage took place. She was cold. Houston was importunate and passionate. Suddenly he discovered the truth. She did not love him. His suspicions were aroused, and he suspected more than the truth. Reproaches and recriminations fol- lowed. An explanation took place. Houston saw the real truth. He tried to effect a reconciliation. He wrote " a letter " to her father, to enlist his ser- vices. She remained obdurate, and returned to her father's house. Houston, who was fond of dramatic effects, determined to resign. This he did in a dramatic manner, and surrounding himself with a cloak of mystery, he left the State. This explana- tion is consistent with Houston's character, with the ordinary transactions of daily life, with what we know of the event, and most of all with the letter which Houston wrote before his wife left him. In this he says, < Whatever had been my feelings or opinions in relation to Eliza at one period, I have been satisfied, and it is now unfit that anything should be adverted
1829.] A CATASTROPHE. 49
to.' Again, ' Eliza stands acquitted by me. I have received her as a virtuous, chaste wife, and as such I pray God I may ever regard her, and I trust I ever shall. She was cold to me, and I thought did not love me.' "
For the sake of completeness, I will present this strange occurrence as it appeared from still a third point of view, that of a Colonel Williams, Houston's contemporary and friend. Williams had been drilling a militia regiment somewhere in the country, at Gov- ernor Houston's request, and under his inspection. "He desired me," says Colonel Williams, "to ac- quaint myself fully with the popular feeling [about State politics], and tell him after the meeting, which I did ; and as the sentiment was greatly in his favour, it afforded him much satisfaction, and he left the grounds for the city [Nashville] in fine spirits Sat- urday afternoon. I was registering my name at the Nashville Inn the following Monday, when Mr. Carter, the clerk, said, ' Have you heard the news ? ' I an- swered, 'No, what news?' He replied, 'Governor Houston and his wife have separated, and she has re- turned to her father's family.' I was greatly shocked, having never suspected any cause for separation. I went to his room at once, and found him in company with Dr. Shelby. He was deeply mortified, and re- fused to explain the matter. I left him with the Doc- tor for a few moments, and on returning said to him, ' Governor, you must explain this sad occurrence to us, else you will sacrifice yourself and your friends.' He replied, ' I can make no explanation ; I exone- rate the lady fully, and do not justify myself. I am 4
50 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1829.
a ruined man. I will exile myself, and now ask you to take my resignation to the Secretary of State.' I replied, * You must not think of such a thing ; ' when he said, ' It is my fixed determination, and my ene- mies, when I am gone, will be too magnanimous to censure my friends.' Seeing his determination, I took his resignation to the Secretary of State, who received it. The following morning he went in disguise to the steamboat, accompanied by Dr. Shelby and myself. He wrote me afterward that he was not recognized until he reached Napoleon, at the mouth of the Arkansas River, where he met a friend, from whom he exacted a promise not to make him known."
The editor of the Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston gives an explanation of his own, pur- porting to come from the second Mrs. Houston, which, however, amounts to the same thing as Mr. Phelan's, minus the point.
The wildest reports were abroad. I cannot close this short chapter better than by two passages from an eloquent letter to Houston, sent from Washington by General Jackson, then in the first months of his unex- ampled reign. " It has been communicated to me," he writes, " that you had the illegal enterprise in view of conquering Texas; that you had declared you would, in less than two years, be emperor of that country, by conquest. I must have really thought you deranged to have believed you had such a wild scheme in contemplation ; and particularly when it was communicated that the physical force to be em-
1829.] A CATASTROPHE. 51
ployed was the Cherokee Indians ! Indeed, my dear sir, I cannot believe you have any such chimerical, visionary scheme in view. Your pledge of honour to the contrary is a sufficient guaranty that you will never engage in any enterprise injurious to your country, or that would tarnish your fame."
And again, — " My affliction was great, and as much as I well could bear, when I parted with you on the 1 8th of January last. I then viewed you as on the brink of happiness, and rejoiced. About to be united in marriage to a beautiful young lady, of accomplished manners, and of respectable connections, and of your own selection, — you the governor of the State, and holding the affections of the people ; these were your prospects when I shook you by the hand and bade you farewell ! You can well judge of my astonish- ment and grief in receiving a letter from you, dated at Little Rock, A. T. [Arkansas Territory], nth of May, conveying the sad intelligence that you were then a private citizen, an exile from your country ! What reverse of fortune ! How unstable are all human affairs ! "
CHAPTER VI.
DARK DAYS, 1829-1832.
THE account which Mr. Lester gives of Houston's residence among the Indians in Arkansas has so much vraisemb lance % and so many elements of pathos, that it ought, at least, to be true : —
" His separation from his friends at the steamboat was a touching scene. . . . Landing at the mouth of the White River, he ascended the Arkansas to Little Rock, and then on, alternately by land and water, to the Falls of the Arkansas four hundred miles to the northwest. The old chief's wigwam was built near the mouth of the Illinois, on the east side of the Arkansas, and the Cherokees were settled on both sides of the river, above Fort Smith.
" It was night when the steamboat which carried Houston arrived at the Falls, two miles distant from the dwelling of the Cherokee chief. As the boat passed the mouth of the river, intelligence was com- municated to the old man that his adopted son Colo- neh (the Rover — the name given him on adoption) was on board. In a short time the chief came down to meet his son, bringing with him all his family.
" This venerable old chief, Oolooteka, had not seen less than sixty-five years, and yet he measured full six
1829.] DARK DA VS. 53
feet in height, and indicated no symptom of the fee- bleness of age. He had the most courtly carriage in the world, and never prince sat on a throne with more peerless grace than he presided at the council fire of his people. His wigwam was large and comfortable, and he lived in patriarchal simplicity and abundance. He had ten or twelve servants, a large plantation, and not less than five hundred head of cattle. The wig- wam of this aged chieftain was always open to visitors, and his bountiful board was always surrounded by welcome guests. He never slaughtered less than one beef a week throughout the year for his table, — a tax on royalty, in a country, toe, where no tithes are paid. " Such was the home Houston found waiting for him in the forests. The old chief threw his arms around him and embraced him with great affection. ' My son,' said he, * eleven winters have passed since we met. My heart has wandered often where you were ; and I heard you were a great chief among your people. Since we parted at the Falls, as you went up the river, I have heard that a dark cloud had fallen on the white path you were walking, and when it fell in your way you turned your thoughts to my wigwam. I am glad of it, — it was done by the Great Spirit. There are many wise men among your people, and they have many councillors in your nation. We are in trouble, and the Great Spirit has sent you to us to give us counsel, and take trouble away from us. I know you will be our friend, for our hearts are near to you, and you will tell our sorrows to the great father, General Jackson. My wigwam is yours, my home is yours, my people are yours, — rest with us.'
54 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1829.
" Such was the touching greeting the old chieftain gave him ; and Houston has often been heard to say, that when he laid himself down to sleep that night, after the gloom and the sorrows of the past few weeks, he felt like a weary wanderer returned at last to his father's house.
"He now passed nearly three years among the Cherokees. His history during this period is rilled with stirring and beautiful incidents, many of which have come to our knowledge, well worthy of being re- lated, since they would aiford the finest pictures of the lights and shadows of forest life. But they would only illustrate more fully those characteristics of stern courage and heroism for which, throughout his life, he was so distinguished, and of which the world will re- quire no better proofs than he gave. We shall, there- fore, pass by the romance of his forest life at this period, and speak only of his untiring and magnani- mous efforts and sacrifices for several years in behalf of the oppressed and outraged Indians."
It would have been better for all of us if Mr. Les- ter had said more about the romance of Houston's forest life and less about his efforts in behalf of Lo the poor Indian. Yet there seems to be little doubt that Houston, as a general thing, was a true and consistent friend of the Indians. This is probably the best place in which to quote certain memorable words of his at a much later period. We shall have reason to re- member Prescott's remark, that probable is as strong a word as history may often venture to employ.
" During the period of my residence among the Indians in the Arkansas region," says General Hous-
1829] DARK DAYS. 55
ton, " I had every facility for gaining a complete knowledge of the flagrant outrages practised upon the poor Red men by the agents of the government. I saw, every year, vast sums squandered and consumed without the Indians deriving the least benefit, and the government, in very many instances, utterly ignorant of the wrongs that were perpetrated. Had one third of the money advanced by the government been use- fully, honourably, and wisely applied, all. those tribes might have been now in possession of the arts and the enjoyments of civilization. I care not what dreamers, and politicians, and travellers, and writers say to the contrary ; I know the Indian character, and I confidently avow that if one third of the many mil- lions of dollars our government has appropriated within the last twenty- five years for the benefit of the Indian population had been honestly and judiciously applied, there would not have been at this time a single tribe within the limits of our States and Terri- tories but what would have been in the complete en- joyment of all the arts and all the comforts of civilized life. But there is not a tribe but has been outraged and defrauded ; and nearly all the wars we have pros- ecuted against the Indians have grown out of the bold frauds and the cruel injustice played off upon them by our Indian agents and their accomplices. But the purposes for which these vast annuities and enormous contingent advances were made have only led to the destruction of the constitutions of thousands, and the increase of immorality among the Indians. We can- not measure the desolating effects of intoxicating liquors among the Indians by any analogy drawn from
$6 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1829.
civilized life. With the Red man the consequences are a thousand times more frightful. Strong drink, when once introduced among the Indians, unnerves the purposes of the good, and gives energy to the passions of the vicious ; it saps the constitution with fearful rapidity, and inflames all the ferocity of the savage nature. The remoteness of their situation ex- cludes them from all the benefits that might arise from a thorough knowledge of their condition by the President, who only hears one side of the story, and that, too, told by his own creatures, whose motives in seeking for such stations are often only to be able to gratify their cupidity and avarice. The President should be careful to whom Indian agencies are given. If there are trusts under our government where honest and just men are needed, they are needed in such places, where peculation and fraud can be more easily perpetrated than anywhere else. For in the far-off forests beyond the Mississippi, where we have exiled those unfortunate tribes, they can perpetrate their crimes and their outrages, and no eye but the Almighty's sees them."
" During the entire period he resided in that re- gion," observes Mr. Lester, " he was unceasing in his efforts to prevent the introduction of ardent spirits among the Indians ; and though for more than a year he had a trading establishment between the Grand River and the Verdigris, he never introduced or traf- ficked in those destructive drinks. This, too, was at a period when he was far from being a practically temperate man himself. But whatever might be his own occasional indulgences during his visits to Fort
1829.] DARK DAYS. 57
Gibson and other white settlements, he had too much humanity and love for the Red men ever to contribute to their crimes or their misfortunes by introducing or trafficking in those damnable poisons."
So far so good. There was a cloud upon Houston's spirit, and he moved as if in a fog. It is recorded that if the Indians called him at times " Coloneh," or " The Rover," they called him at other times, more simply, "Drunken Sam."
It is also recorded that in 1832 General Houston went up to Washington in behalf of the Indians, or of his own broken fortunes. He was dressed in the Indian garb, he was cordially received by General Jackson, and, being adventurous, he met with adven- tures. We are now in safer hands than Mr. Lester's. For the remainder of this chapter I am chiefly in- debted to Mr. Parton's Life of Andrew Jackson.
Houston has appeared several times already in this Life of Jackson. He is mentioned as a frequent and welcome guest at the Hermitage. And at the end of 1827, when Jackson went in glory down the Missis- sippi, to receive at New Orleans the anniversary ova- tion for his great battle of January 8th, 1815, young General Houston, governor of Jackson's adopted State, with his own staff about him, shone the brightest in the brilliant throng. Says Mr. Parton now : —
" Returning to the proceedings of Congress, we are compelled to notice a painful and disgraceful affair, in which General Houston, of Texas, was the principal actor. When we last [ ?] parted with this distinguished man, he had just leaped over the breastwork of the Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa, and had fallen
58 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1830.
wounded, all but mortally, in doing his duty as ensign of the thirty-ninth infantry. Since that day of terror and of glory he had run a bright career, and had had • various fortunes. He had been Governor of Tennes- see. He had represented Tennessee in the House of Representatives. But in 1830 he had come [un- known to us otherwise] to Washington, broken in fortune, unhappy in his domestic circumstances, a suitor for governmental favour. He applied for a contract for supplying rations to the Indians that were about to be removed, at the public expense, beyond the Mississippi. The President was extremely desirous that he should have the contract, — so desir- ous that he seemed inclined to give it to him, con- trary to the spirit of the law, which obliged it to be awarded to the lowest bidder. Colonel McKenney, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, was of opinion that the rations could be supplied, at a profit, for less than seven cents a day for each Indian. Houston's bid was eighteen cents, which McKenney thought would afford a profit of thousands of dollars a week, and indeed was equivalent to the bestowal of a large fortune. He also contended that time should be allowed, after advertising for proposals, for bids to come in from the section of country where the rations were to-be furnished. Time was not allowed. The affair was hurried on toward consummation, and it looked at one time as though Houston would get the contract at his own price."
After giving in detail the remonstrances of General Duff Green, President Jackson's confidential adviser, Mr. Parton adds : " Upon further reflection, the Pres-
1832.] DARK DAYS. 59
ident was so far convinced of his error as to give up the plan of furnishing the rations by contract. Gen- • eral Houston was disappointed and thrown upon Texas. And, perhaps, the United States owes the possession of that State to the failure of General Houston to ob- tain the contract for supplying the Indians.
'/ Some of the facts here related having gained pub- licity, General Houston and his contract became the subject of many newspaper articles, satirical and vitu- perative. In the summer of 1831, Houston published a proclamation of a comical nature, intended to neu- tralize these attacks." This proclamation is of such an abominably comical nature as to make me un- willing to embody it.
"In the spring of 1832," continues Mr. Parton, "he was in Washington again, where he forgot his proclamation. Before leaving the capital to enter upon his new and marvellous career in the southwest, he was betrayed by his passions into the commission of an act which subjected him to the censure of the House of Representatives, and which he himself must, long ago, have learned to deplore. He committed a most atrocious and unprovoked assault upon a mem- ber of the House of Representatives, Mr. William Stanberry of Ohio.
" Exasperated by this reply [in which Stanberry had refused to explain a reference on the floor of Con- gress to Houston's Indian scheme], Houston made no secret of his intention to assault Mr. Stanberry, who from that time, went armed to and from the capitol. Ten days elapsed before the bad design of the irate
60 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1832.
Tennessean was executed, and it was executed then [April, 1832] with peculiar circumstances of atrocity. Senator Buckner, of Missouri, stood by and saw it done, and afterward testified without a blush that he made no attempt to prevent the shameful deed. ' Hous- ton,' he said, ' was standing near a fence in one of the avenues, when Mr. Stanberry came along. It occurred to me immediately that there would be a difficulty be- tween them. <; Are you Mr. Stanberry? " asked Hous- ton. Stanberry replied very politely, bowing at the same time, "Yes, sir." "Then," said Houston, "you are the damned rascal ; " and with that, struck him with a stick which he had held in his hand. Stan- berry threw up his hands over his head and staggered back. His hat fell off, and he exclaimed, " Oh, don't ! " Houston continued to follow him up, and continued to strike him. After receiving several severe blows, Stanberry turned, as I thought, to run off. Houston, at that moment, sprang upon him in the rear, Stan- berry's arms hanging down, apparently defenceless. He seized him and attempted to throw him, but was not able to do so. Stanberry carried him about on the pavement some little time. When he [Stanberry] fell, he continued to halloo ; indeed, he hallooed all the time pretty much, except when they were scuf- fling. I saw Stanberry, after receiving several blows, put out both hands, he then lying on his back. I did not discover what was in his hands, or if anything was, but I heard a sound like the snapping of a gun- lock, and I saw particles of fire. Houston appeared to take hold of Stanberry's hands, and took something from them which I could not see. After that Hous-
1832.] DARK DAYS, 6 1
ton stood up more erect, still beating Stanberry with a stick over the head, arms, and sides, Stanberry still keeping his arms spread out. After Houston had given him several more blows, he lay on his back and put up his feet. Houston then struck him elsewhere. Mr. Stanberry, after he had received several blows, ceased to halloo, and lay, as I thought, perfectly still. All this time I had not spoken to either of the parties, or in- terfered in any manner whatever. I now thought Stan- berry was badly hurt, or perhaps killed, from the manner in which he lay. I stepped up to Houston to tell him to desist, but without being spoken to, he quit of his own accord. Mr. Stanberry then got up on his feet, and I saw the pistol in the right hand of Governor Houston for the first time.' "
Mr. Stanberry complained to the House of Repre- sentatives, on a plea of breach of privilege ; and that wise House " spent exactly one calendar month in debating the subject." It became a party question. Mr. James Knox Polk, of Tennessee, who was after- wards elected President on the cry of " Texas ! " distinguished himself " by his zeal to prevent an inves- tigation." I have read, in the British Museum, the readable parts of a speech in defence of Houston by one of his counsel, Francis Scott Key, author of " The Star Spangled Banner." From court to court, for the next few years, the ineffectual complaint was carried. If Houston was ever condemned or fined, the penalty would be regularly remitted by the President. These vain attempts to bring him to justice are the "per- secutions" of Mr. Lester's impassioned narrative. " General Jackson, I regret to be obliged to record,"
62 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1832.
says Mr. Parton, " sustained his friend Houston in this bad deed. He said to a friend, in substance, that ' after a few more examples of the same kind, mem- bers of Congress would learn to keep civil tongues in their heads.' Perhaps the people of the United States will learn, after a few more examples of the same kind, that the man who replies to a word by a blow confesses by that blow the justice of that word."
As for Houston, he seems never to have repented of this assault upon poor Stanberry, whose fate it is to be remembered only because he was once outraged by a hero. His own comment, long after, upon all this vast uproar is said to have been : " I was dying out once, and had they taken me before a justice of the peace and fined me ten dollars for assault and battery, it would have killed me ; but they gave me a national tribunal for a theatre, and that set me up again."
We will not dwell upon these things. If there is a doctrine which may hold good in this inconsistent and undoctrinal world, it is that of Compensation, which ordains that a man shall be judged, not by his good deeds or his bad, but by the proportion which the good bear to the bad. Houston's life was yet to compensate for worse deeds than his worst enemies could allege against him.
We recur, with a confidence which will never again be what it might have been, to the guidance of Mr. Lester :
" He returned by the way of Tennessee, and wher- ever he went he was received with every demonstra- tion of regard. Years had passed since other painful
1832.] DARK DAYS. 63
occurrences had taken place, and with them had passed, too, the storm they had raised. Reason had resumed its sway over the public mind, and a strong desire was manifested that he should again take up his abode in Tennessee. The recent persecutions he had just passed through, had only won for him a deeper sympathy than ever, and all the pride of the State was aroused to protect and honour the man it had lost. But he could not be dissuaded from his purpose of returning once more to the forest. A sight of the spot where he had seen the bright hopes that had greeted his early manhood crushed in a single hour only awakened associations he wished to forget ; and he once more turned his face toward the distant wigwam of the old Indian chief, where, after a year of persecution from Christian men, he found repose by the hearthstone of a savage king, — a biting satire upon civilized life. ... He had no more ambition to gratify. Posts of honour and emolu- ment proffered by General Jackson, he rejected ; for he would never suffer the foes of the old warrior and statesman to heap opprobrium upon his name for showing favour to a proscribed man."
CHAPTER VII.
THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION OF TEXAS, 1806-1832.
THE history of Texas, during the fifteen years suc- ceeding 1806, is one of blood and chaos. These were the years that included the Peninsular War in Europe, the years before the accomplishment of Mexican in- dependence. During a part of this time the patriot priest Morelos (1765-1815) was turning things topsy- turvy in Mexico, and he is only mentioned here as the probable father of a General Almonte whom we shall know. Texas was by possession a part of Mex- ico, and the Americans claimed that it ought to be a part of Louisiana, and Mexico belonged to Spain, though in constant rebellion, and it was quite un- certain who was king of Spain, and America was at war with England and almost with Spain, and Eng- land was at war with Spain too, and chaos was come again. After having read a score of mad accounts of the struggles in Texas a shudder comes over the compiler whenever he sees, in any connection what- ever, one of the names of the parties concerned. Certain it is that the present compiler declines to help perpetuate any of these delirious names or de- tails. The maddest part of the business is that no one knew what he was fighting for ; it was always a three or a four- sided fight, carried on in the dark.
i82i.] COLONIZATION OF TEXAS. 65
But the bloodshed was indubitable. Two things are sure, the American filibusters were desperately de- termined to get Texas, and the Spaniards were as determined not to let it go. We read of thousands engaged upon a side, of eight hundred Americans slain in single battles. No such numbers were ever engaged in the real Texan Revolution, twenty years later, but the story of the Revolution is great, while these details are deadly, because the secret of the story, if it had one, — the circumstance which might have made it interesting, — is lost.
In 1819 the seventy thousand square miles of Flor- ida came to the United States for five million dollars. The question of the western boundary of Louisiana was entangled with this question of the cession of Florida, and it seemed as if the United States might have got the whole of Texas into the bargain. But the opportunity was allowed to pass, and the Sabine, instead of the Rio Grande, remained the boundary of Louisiana.
And in 1 82 1 the three centuries (1521-1821) of the Spanish misrule in Mexico came to a sudden end. No more, whatever they might do, should the Span- iards serve the Devil in Mexico. The Mexicans, with a population of eight millions, and a territory of toward one million five hundred thousand square miles, or twice what they now possess, proclaimed to all men and demons that they were henceforth free, and took their place among the nations of the earth :
" Strange sons of Mexico, and strange her fate ; They fight for freedom who were never free ; A kingless people for a nerveless State."
5
66 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1822.
They hated the Spaniards with an undying hatred, but the Spanish taint was in their own blood, as we shall see.
Napoleon was not many months dead at Long- wood, and the great man of the Mexicans was Augus- tin de Iturbide (1783-1824). Him, in 1822, the year after the Plan of Iguala and Independence, they crowned Emperor of Mexico, with ceremonies care- fully modelled after the coronation of Napoleon at Milan. " The comparison," says Mr. Bancroft, " is well enough ; though it is related that the bauble tot- tered when first it was placed on the head of Itur- bide. ' Do not let it fall,' exclaimed the bishop with unintentional irony. « It shall not fall ; I have it safe,' replied the emperor."
But has not Carlyle preserved, in one immortal paragraph, this otherwise forgotten emperor ? " Itur- bide, ( the Napoleon of Mexico,' a great man in that narrow country, who was he? He made [1821] the thrice celebrated ' Plan of Iguala,' a constitution of no continuance. He became [1822] Emperor of Mex- ico, most serene ' Augustin I.' ; was deposed [1823], banished to Leghorn, to London ; decided on return- ing ; landed on the shore of Tampico, and was there met and shot [1824] ; this, in a vague sort, is what the world knows of the Napoleon of Mexico, most serene Augustin the First, most unfortunate Augustin the Last. He did himself publish memoirs or memo- rials, but few can read them. Oblivion and the deserts of Panama have swallowed this brave Don Augustin; vate caruit sacre"
It is as well to be reminded of Don Augustin
1 82 1.] COLONIZATION OF TEXAS. 67
because of his connection with Santa Anna (1795- 1876), the next great man of Mexico, the predes- tined antagonist of Houston. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was born at Jalapa, near Vera Cruz. A soldier at fifteen, he had risen in a quite resistless way. He had helped to make Don Augustin em- peror in 1822, and had been his right-hand man; then, in 1823, when only twenty-eight, he turned around and pulled down Don Augustin. For more than fifty years he never ceased to try and make himself emperor. He was the man with a star, and he called himself, for variety, the Napoleon of the West. The future seemed his, for of all the strugglers and fighters in the great Donnybrook of Mexican politics, he had the stiffest elbows. It will be edify- ing to consider how he collapsed at his first and only encounter with Houston ; but for the present, and by every Mexican standard, he was undoubtedly a great man. Says Mr. Bancroft of him : " Trained during the eventful days of the revolution, and of the transi- tion period which preceded the republican era, he became a master of intrigue, in which he was natur- ally an adept. As a soldier, he was at once bold and cautious, providing for defeat while striving for vic- tory. An excellent judge of character, he knew exactly how to influence those around him as best suited his purpose. . . . He loved to see his country prosper, so long as her prosperity was caused by him- self. . . . These very extremes, the versatility of his character, and even the viler traits in his disposition, tinged as they were with some gleams of a better nature, and all mingled with a boundless self-confi- fTBRATT
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
68 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1821.
dence and daring, sufficed to stamp him as a genius. As such at least he was regarded by the widely differ- ing parties, which, though hating and distrusting him, were compelled to appeal to him for aid ; for while by no means a natural ruler of men, he was a cunning manipulator of events."
The indubitable American colonization of Texas dates from the year 1821. In 1820 Moses Austin, of Connecticut, an old, much-enduring, honourable con- queror of the wilderness, the Grandfather of Texas, as he may be called, made his way perilously to San Antonio de Bexar, hoping to be able to obtain liberal terms for a projected colony of Louisianians. He was received with outrage by the Spanish governor, and would have had to retire baffled had he not encoun- tered an old friend in the person of the Baron de Bastrop, a Prussian and soldier of Frederick the Great, now one of the magnates of Texas. The Baron told him to go home in peace, guaranteeing the ulti- mate success of his petition. " From Bexar to the Sabine," says Kennedy, "Texas was then a total solitude, the settlements at Nacogdoches and [in] its vicinity having been destroyed by the Spaniards in 1819. Robbed and deserted by his fellow travellers, Austin was left alone on the prairies nearly two hun- dred miles from any habitation, destitute of provi- sions and the means of procuring them. In this wretched situation, with nothing to subsist upon but acorns and pecan-nuts, he journeyed onwards for eight days, constantly exposed to the weather at the most inclement season, swimming and rafting rivers
i822.] COLONIZATION OF TEXAS. 69
and creeks, until he reached the hospitable roof of an American settler, twenty miles from the Sabine. Worn down with hunger and fatigue, he was unable to proceed farther. His constitution had received a shock /rom which it never recovered. After recruiting his strength he resumed his course, and arriving in Mis- souri in the spring, commenced preparations for re- moval to Texas, but a cold . . . terminated his exist- ence a few days after the gratifying intelligence was communicated to him of the approval of his petition [to settle three hundred families of Louisianians in Texas] by the Spanish authorities at Monterey. He died on the loth of June, 1821, in his fifty-seventh year, leaving as a last injunction to his son Stephen to prosecute his plan of Texan colonization."
This son, Stephen Fuller Austin (1790-1836), was the Father of Texas. Of his manifold doings and sufferings and self-sacrifices for fifteen years I am unable to give any adequate account. Such an ac- count will never be written now. But Austin seemed to live only for Texas, and the enduring prosperity of that great State is his best monument.
Austin hastened to Bexar (Bexar and San Antonio are always the same place) and secured a confirma- tion of his father's grant. The only important con- dition was that every settler should enter the Roman Catholic Church before he entered Texas, and should swear allegiance to the Spanish king. He hastened back to New Orleans, set his indefatigable agencies at work, and returned to San Antonio in March, 1822, with an advance guard of his colonists. Here he found that Mexico was independent, and that his
70 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1824.
Spanish grants were of no value. He went on to Mexico, through a pestilent wilderness of twelve hun- dred miles, and arrived just in time to witness the comedy of Don Augustin. He obtained from the new Imperial government a confirmation of the Span- ish grants, and was hastening back to Texas early in 1823, when Santa Anna suddenly pulled down Don Augustin. Austin waited long enough to obtain still another confirmation of his grants, and then hastened to San Antonio to find most of his colonists dispersed. But nothing could discourage him. He chose the site of San Felipe de Austin, about a hundred miles up the Brazos, and by 1824 his settlement included the stipulated number of three hundred families. He was legislator, governor, general — he gave his life to the enterprise. It must not be forgotten that he and all his colonists were nominally Mexican citizens and Roman Catholics.
In 1824 the Mexicans, with loud bragging, adopted a Federal Republican Constitution, in palpable imita- tion of the Constitution of the United States. We have not to read beyond the third article in order to see that something is wrong : " The religion of the Mexican nation is, and will be perpetually, the Roman Catholic Apostolic. The nation will protect it by wise and just laws, and prohibit the exercise of any other whatsoever."
By this Federal Constitution Texas was formed into one State with Coahuila, across the Rio Grande. At present Coahuila has an area of about fifty thousand square miles, and a population of one hundred thou- sand. In 1824 its population was smaller, but it was
1824.] COLONIZATION OF TEXAS. 71
enough to swamp the votes of the Texans. There was a provision by which Texas could form an in- dependent State as soon as it attained the requisite size, but I am unable to discover what was the limit. The Texans highly approved of the Federal Constitu- tion, but it soon became an intolerable burden to them to be tied in this way to Coahuila, to be forced to use the Spanish language, and to have to go five hundred miles to Monclova or to Saltillo for every legal purpose.
The new Republican government of Mexico under- took vigorous measures for the colonization of its unoccupied territories. Its policy was to confer tracts of land upon persons who were to introduce at their own expense a certain number of immigrant families. This was called the Empresario System, and empresario means simply " contractor." It will not pay to go into the details of this system, except to notice that " if the contractor failed to introduce the stipulated number of families within the term of six years, he lost his rights and privileges in proportion to the deficiency, and the contract was totally an- nulled if he had not succeeded in settling one hun- dred families. The premium given to a contractor was five square leagues [forty-five square miles] of grazing land and five labores [a labor is 177 acres] of tillage land for each hundred families, but he could not acquire premium on more than eight hun- dred families." These terms certainly seem liberal, but they were marred by the practical favouritism which was shown in every instance to Mexicans. Austin was merely the earliest and greatest of the
72 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1824.
empresarios ; he took out at least two other contracts after his first contract had been fulfilled. The con- tracts were usually for two hundred, three hundred, or five hundred families, and it was distinctly stipulated of what nationality the families were to be.
" After the promulgation of the State colonization law," says Mr. Bancroft, " a tide of immigration into Texas set in from the United States, which in a few years converted her wildernesses and wastes into thriv- ing farms and lucrative cattle-ranges, while town after town, busy under the impulse of progress, sprung up in rapid succession. Empresarios flocked into the country, bringing settlers in their wake, and eager immigrants, in no connection with contractors, moved into Texas at their own expense and obtained land grants. . . . Nearly the whole surface of Texas was parcelled out to different empresarios ; though none of these fulfilled their contracts, with the exception of Austin, who was the only thoroughly successful con- tractor, some of them partially colonized their land grants."
In looking at a map of Texas at this period one notices, to the east of the big central block of land denominated "Austin's Colony" an extensive tract, lying against the Sabine, which is called "Zavala's Grant," for five hundred families. Lorenzo de Za- vala (1788-1836), was a fiery Mexican and Re- publican, born in Yucatan, and one of the earliest revolutionists. He had been senator, governor of the State of Mexico, secretary of the treasury : he was soon to be minister to France. To the north of Austin's Colony is Burnet's Grant. David G. Burnet (1789-
1830.] COLONIZATION OF TEXAS. 73
1870), was born in New Jersey, of a noted family, had accompanied Miranda's mad expedition to Vene- zuela in 1806, and came to Texas in 1826. North of Burnet's is the grant (six hundred foreign families) of General Vicente Filisola, born an Italian, who will make himself heard of. And between the Guadalupe and the Colorado is the grant of Benjamin R. Milam, old Ben Milam of heroic memory. Other grants there are even larger than these, but held in less famous names. To the southwest, along the Rio Grande, are several Irish colonies.
By 1830 there were twenty thousand American set- tlers in Texas, and not one of these was satisfied with the prospect of remaining indefinitely connected with Mexico. The United States had been trying hard to buy Texas, at almost any price ; the invariable answer of the Mexican government may be rendered, " Not for sale ! " But something was evidently bound to happen; things were so bad that they could not last. These Americans were probably not easy people to live with ; at least the Mexicans could not live with them, and it began to look very doubtful whether they would be able to expel them. At first the Mex- icans had been glad of their help in subduing the wilderness ; now it was the old story of the camel in the Arab's tent. " In short, it is the bravest of our provinces," writes General Almonte, of Texas, at about this time. Who shall possess this brave province? the Americans, who, with all their detestable faults of manner, represented civilization? or the Mexicans?
By 1830 the Mexicans were thoroughly alarmed. A certain Anastasio Bustamente (1780-1853), who
74 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1830.
was just then the foremost man in Mexico, issued a decree suspending all the existing contracts in Texas, and forbidding any American citizen to enter the country. The holders of contracts refused to sur- render them, and Americans poured into the country more incessantly than before. " At least we must and shall shake ourselves free of Coahuila, take our place as an independent State of the Mexican Union, and claim the rights which the Federal Constitution gives us ! " — this began to be the emphatic opinion in Texas. The mongrel Mexicans have always affili- ated with the Negro race in a way which would make a curious theme for the psychologist or the ethnolo- gist. They had not many pure negroes ; for various reasons they did not need slavery, and they had lately freed their slaves. But the Texans had about one thousand slaves, imported from the States, and they needed them greatly. In 1830 the Mexicans tried to extend emancipation to Texas ; the Texans answered, « Not so ! "
If I had a chapter to spare I would not record the uninteresting struggles in Texas for the next two years. These poor confused revolutionists were fighting in a good cause, but without a sense of form, without a poet to make their struggles memorable to us, and " Obli- vion, and the deserts of Panama," have justly swal- lowed them up.
In 1832 Santa Anna, the resistless, rose once more to the top by pioclaiming himself for the Federal Constitution of 1824, and against the tyranny of Bustamente. The Texans ranged themselves on the side of Santa Anna, and after some bloody battles
1832.] COLONIZATION OF TEXAS. 75
succeeded in driving the Mexican garrisons from the land. By August there was, not a Mexican soldier in Texas, except for a body of troops at San Antonio which was necessary to control the Indians. " Inde- pendence of Coahuila ! The Constitution of 1824 ! " — this was all that the Texans as yet claimed. But they could see that bitter times were coming, and they longed for a competent leader. Houston was a great hero on the Western border; in the autumn of 1832, while a thick cloud was upon him, the hearts of the people of Texas began to turn irresistibly to him, as we have evidence that his thoughts had already turned to Texas ; and it was openly proposed to send a delegation of Texans to ask him to come down and help them.
When Houston heard the news of the Texan revolt, he was, as my authority delicately puts it, " under the influence of < fire-water.' " He " walked out on the bank of the Grand River with John Henry, a mer- chant. Throwing himself on the ground, he was silent for some time, lost in thought ; then, starting up hastily, he exclaimed, ' Henry, let us go to Texas, for I am tired of this country, and sick of this life. Go with me, and I will make a fortune for both. We are not fit for merchants, never were, and never will be. I am going, and in that new country I will make a man of myself again.' "
There were secret motives and commissions, of which we shall get a glimpse in the next chapter; but according to the same authority, when Houston set out, on the ist of December, 1832, "he embraced a
76 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1832.
friend who divided a slender purse with him, saying : ' Elias, remember my words. I shall yet be the President of a great republic. I shall bring that nation to the United States, and if they don't watch me closely, I shall be the President of the White House some day.' "
CHAPTER VIII.
• HOUSTON SENT TO CAPTURE TEXAS, 1832-1833.
ONE of the more successful London novelists is fond of telling, toward the end of the evening and the third bottle of Glenlossie, a little story to illustrate the contrast between the pomp and circumstance of glorious European warfare and the rude efficiency of American methods. In a battle of the Civil War a Southern commander stood upon a hill- top gloomily watching the Northern battery that had made havoc of his army. At the foot of the hill was his last body of reserve ; by his side stood his aide-de-camp in shirt-sleeves. The commander turned his quid in his mouth, his lips quivered. " Tom," he said, quietly, without turning his head, " I want them guns, — want 'em bad." The aide-de-camp nodded, turned his horse in silence, and dashed down the hillside to the couchant rebels. " Boys," he declared, with an indescribable jerk of his thumb over his shoulder, " there ,'s a poor old gent up there, and he says he wants them guns, — wants 'em bad. Shall we get 'em for him?" And the story goes that the poor old gent got the guns, and the victory.
Andrew Jackson wanted Texas, — wanted it badly. Houston was the aide-de-camp who got it for him.
78 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1832.
" In 1830," says Mr. Parton, "General Sam Hous- ton, as we have seen, came to Washington, a man ruined in fortune and impaired in reputation. He lived for a while in a boarding-house, where also re- sided a certain Dr. Robert Mayo, once a well-known name, long ago forgotten. With Mayo General Hous- ton gradually became intimate, and to him he finally confided the particulars of a grand project for wrest- ing Texas from the feeble grasp of Mexico, and founding an independent republic. Dr. Mayo, who was then one of those waiters upon Providence whom we call office-seekers, betrayed his new acquaintance, and revealed the scheme to the President in a long letter. Heading his epistle with the cipher which the adven- turers employed in their secret correspondence, he proceeded to impart to the President the substance of Houston's revelations. ' I learned from him,' wrote Mayo, < that he was organizing an expedition against Texas ; to afford a cloak to which he had assumed the Indian costume, habits, and associations, by set- tling among them in the neighbourhood of Texas. That nothing was more easy to accomplish than the conquest and possession of that extensive and fertile country, by the co-operation of the Indians in the Arkansas Territory, and recruits among the citizens of the United States. That in his view it would hardly be necessary to strike a blow to wrest Texas from Mexico. That it was ample for the establishment and maintenance of a separate and independent government from the United States. That the expedition would be got ready with all possible dispatch,' " etc.
" Soon after General Houston had made these com-
1832.] SENT TO CAPTURE TEXAS. 79
munications, Mayo fell in with another of the confed- erates, who confirmed them, — a Mr. Hunter, who had been recently dismissed from the Military Acad- emy at West Point. Hunter informed Dr. Mayo that ' he was a bona fide agent of the recruiting service for this district ; that there were agencies established in all the principal towns ; that several thousarfds had already enlisted along the seaboard, from New Eng- land to Georgia, inclusive ; that each man paid thirty dollars to the common fund, and took an oath of secrecy and good faith to the cause on joining the party ; that they were to repair, in their individual ca- pacities as travellers, to different points on the banks of the Mississippi, where they had already chartered steamboats on which to embark, and thence fly to their rendezvous, somewhere in the territory of Arkan- sas or Texas, convenient for action.'
" Here was an exact reproduction of the Burr pro- ject of 1806. The revelations of Hunter were com- municated to the President by the zealous Mayo,
" When we consider the relations existing between General Jackson and General Houston, it is difficult to believe that the President was ignorant of Houston's design. His office, however, compelled him to assume an attitude of hostility to them," etc.
There is also in the Clay Correspondence a refer- ence, which I have lost, to Houston being once dis- covered in a gathering of midnight conspirators about a failing fire. This is about all that can be learned. Yet, among probable things, there are few more cer- tain than that, at the end of 1832, after the Stanberry affair, Houston went forth to Texas with a conditional
8o LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1832.
authorization from Jackson. " Good luck to you in any case ; recognition if you succeed ! "
General Houston's mission was a secret one, and it is natural that we know but little of it. With a few companions, on the ist of December, 1832, he left his " wigwam, which was situated on the margin of a prairie between the Verdigris and the Grand River, a short distance from its junction with the Arkansas," and set out through the wilderness for Fort Towson. Between Jonesborough in Texas, it is recorded, and Nacogdoches, he found only two houses. At Nacog- doches he reported to the authorities, and remained for some days. His object was twofold, — to " pros- pect " the new land for General Jackson, and to deal with the Indians who had passed over from American territory into Texas, contrary to the laws of Mexico and of the States. From Nacogdoches he proceeded (150 miles southwest) to San Felipe de Austin, hoping to meet Colonel Austin. Austin was absent ; and after eating his Christmas dinner at Felipe, Houston went on (another 150 miles westward) to .San Antonio, in company with one Colonel James Bowie (1790-1836), of portentous name, whom we shall learn to know and to respect. Bowie had mar- ried the daughter of the Mexican " vice-governor " of Texas, and was a great man. At San Antonio he introduced Houston to his father-in-law and to other magnates, and did much to further his purposes.
From San Antonio Houston returned with two companions to San P'elipe, where he made the ac- quaintance of Colonel Austin, and thence to Nacog-
1833-1 SENT TO CAPTURE TEXAS. 81
doches. Here he was warmly urged to take up his permanent residence, or at least to allow his name to be used as a candidate for a Convention of all Texas, which was to meet at San Felipe in the spring, and which was now the only theme of interest. He crossed the Sabine, and went on to Natchitoches in Louisiana, thus completing an absence of two months and a journey of more than a thousand miles. From the latter point he wrote several important letters, of which I will give one : —
NATCHITOCHES, LA., Feb. 13, 1833. GEN. JACKSON:
DEAR SIR, — Having been so far as Bexar, in the province of Texas, where I had an interview with the Comanche Indians, I am in possession of some in- formation which will doubtless be interesting to you, and may be calculated to forward your views, if you should entertain any, touching the acquisition of Texas by the government of the United States. That such a measure is desired by nineteen-twentieths of the population of the province, I cannot doubt. They are now without laws to govern or protect them. Mexico is involved in civil war. The Federal Consti- tution has never been in operation. The Government is essentially despotic, and must be so for years to come. The rulers have not honesty, and the people have not intelligence. The people of Texas are de- termined to form a State Government, and separate from Coahuila, and unless Mexico is soon restored to order, and the Constitution revived and re-enacted, the province of Texas will remain separate from the 6
82 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1833.
Confederacy of Mexico. She has already beaten and repelled all the -troops of Mexico from her soil, nor will she permit them to return ; she can defend her- self against the whole power of Mexico, for really Mexico is powerless and penniless to all intents and purposes. Her want of money, taken in connection with the course which Texas must and will adopt, will render a transfer of Texas to some power inevitable, and if the United States does not press for it, England will, most assuredly, obtain it by some means. Now is a very important crisis for Texas. As relates to her future prosperity and safety, as well as the relations which it \sic~\ is to bear to the United States, it is now in the most favourable attitude, perhaps, that it can be to obtain it on fair terms. England is press- ing her suit for it, but' its citizens will resist if any transfer should be made of them to any power but the United States. I have travelled nearly five hundred miles across Texas, and am now enabled to judge pretty correctly of the soil and resources of the coun- try, and I have no hesitancy in pronouncing it the fin- est country, for its extent, upon the globe ; for the greater portion of it is richer and more healthy than West Tennessee. There can be no doubt that the country east of the river Grand, of the North, would sustain a population of ten millions of souls. My opinion is that Texas, by her members in Convention, will, by ist of April, declare all that country as Texas proper, and form a State Constitution. I expect to be present at the Convention, and will apprise you of the course adopted, as soon as its members have taken a final action. It is probable that I may make Texas
1833-] SENT TO CAPTURE TEXAS. 83
my abiding- place. In adopting this course I will never forget the country of my birth. I will notify from this point the Commissioners of the Indians at Fort Gib- son of my success, which will reach you through the War Department. I have, with much pride and in- expressible satisfaction, seen your message and pro- clamation, — touching the nullifiers of the South, and their " peaceable remedies." God grant that you may save the Union ! It does seem to me that it is reserved for you, and you alone, to render to millions so great a blessing. I hear all voices commend your course, — even in Texas, where is felt the liveliest interest for the preservation of the Republic. Permit me to tender you my sincere thanks, felicitations, and most earnest solicitude for your health and happiness, and your future glory, connected with the prosperity of the Union.
Your friend and obedient servant,
SAM HOUSTON.
CHAPTER IX.
BEGINNING OF THE TEXAN REVOLUTION, 1833-1835.
FROM 1832 until his encounter with Houston four years later, the star of Santa Anna was in the ascend- ant. Except perhaps for Gomez Farias, he is the only Mexican politician worth mentioning. It is enough here to state that he was elected President of Mexico, with his enemy Farias as Vice- President, for the term of four years, almost corresponding with the second term of Andrew Jackson, or from April, 1833, to April, 1837. Thanks to General Houston, he never completed this term, but during the early years of it he was in great glory. He was undoubted President of Mexico, he was repeatedly Dictator, and he strove incessantly to be called for a time Emperor. In this darling purpose he never succeeded, owing, at first, to the skilful checkmating of Gomez Farias. Yet he would not own defeat, — he was magician, conqueror, the man of mystery and of destiny. He early followed the exemplary rule ; having come into power as the popular champion, he threw away the net now that the fish was caught, and utterly overturned the Fed- eral Constitution of 1824. But he could not over- turn the Vice-President ; he could not hear himself called Emperor even for a few perilous months. After
1833.] THE TEXAN REVOLUTION. 85
the failure of his coups d'etat, which always left him stronger than before, but left Farias, somehow, still Vice-President, he would get leave of absence from governmental duties, retire to his superb estate at Manga de Clavo, and cover himself with thick clouds for a while. So much for Santa Anna during the years included in this chapter.
The Convention met at San Felipe de Austin on the ist of April, 1833, and sat for thirteen days. We do not know the number or the names of the dele- gates, but among them were Colonel Austin, General Houston as one of the five delegates from Nacogdo- ches (he had been elected unanimously), David G. Burnet, whose grant of land we remember, and Branch T. Archer (1790-1856), a Virginian physician and politician, who had been for several years settled in Texas. Two important committees were appointed, one to frame a constitution, and the other to draw up a memorial petitioning the general government to grant the separation of Texas from Coahuila. Hous- ton was appointed chairman of the first, and Burnet of the second.
The constitution was drafted very much on the model of American State constitutions, but it contains some remarkable concessions to Mexican prejudice, in the absence of any mention of religious toleration, and in the provision that no banking establishment, of any sort, should exist under the new organization. Houston is said to have shown great moderation and far-sightedness in insisting upon these concessions, and indeed, Mr. Lester observes, rather dubiously, that " if restless and ambitious spirits, who will * rule
86 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1833.
or rend,' had been willing to follow Houston's wise counsels, the Independence of Texas would have been achieved without much sacrifice of blood or treasure."
The petition for a separate state government was ably drawn up by David G. Burnet. " Our misfor- tunes," it declares, "pervade the whole territory — operate on the whole population. . . . Texas, at large, feels and deplores an utter destitution of the common benefits which have usually accrued from the worst system of internal government, and if she be not precipitated into all the horrors of anarchy, it is only because there is a reclaiming spirit among the people which infuses a moral energy into the fragments of authority that exist among us. ... We complain more of the want of all the important attributes of government than of the abuses of any."
Three commissioners, of whom Colonel Austin was one, were appointed to carry this petition to Santa Anna, — that is, to bell the cat, to beard the sullen lion in his den. Two of them found very good reasons for not going, and Austin, the brave, the self-denying Austin, set out alone for Mexico in April, 1833.
His adventures bear a sad analogy to the adven- tures of his father on entering Texas nearly fifteen years before. I cannot pretend to record them. He reached Mexico, and after months of weary waiting he wrote home advising his people to go ahead and organize a State government. For this reason or for some other he was arrested (January, 1834) at Sal- tillo, while on his way back, taken once more to Mexico, confined in the dungeons of the Inquisition,
1835.] THE TEXAN REVOLUTION. 87
whirled from court to court, and infamously detained for nearly two years. He returned to Texas in the summer of 1835, hopelessly broken in health, and after fighting nobly through the War of Independence of the State he had founded, died at the close of the struggle.
For the two years following the Convention in 1833, the Texan Revolution was quiescent. To keep quiet seemed to be the policy of the patriots. Yet there was an immigration of thousands every year, and brave spirits were thronging from all quar- ters to the impending struggle in Texas. We may note that at this time a most paltry little civil war was raging in Coahuila, apparently between two rival governors, and that the government of Coahuila and Texas, which was really Coahuila exploiting Texas, foresaw that the good old state of things could not last, and was gathering its roses while it might by hastily selling off great sections of Texan land to foreign speculators, sometimes at the rate of a cent and a half per acre. Houston had finally thrown in his fortunes with the Texans, but we have no details of his private life.
In 1834 Juan Nepomuceno Almonte (1804-1869) probable son of the patriot priest Morelos,.who was shot in 1815, thoroughly educated in the United States, already at thirty colonel, and aide-de-camp to Santa Anna, was sent to reconnoitre Texas on behalf of the Mexicans. He was charmed with the country, — " the bravest of our provinces." This is the substance of his report. He gives the civilized population at twenty- one thousand, when, according to other authorities,
88 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1835.
he ought to have given it at thirty thousand or more ; he calls the negro slaves eleven hundred, when, accor- ding to these same dissentients, he ought to have called them nearly five thousand. We shall have the pleasure of seeing Almonte in Texas once more.
In 1835 there began to appear every sign of the bursting forth of the long- pent waters.
All the Mexican States, with the exception of Zaca- tecas, and the State of Coahuila and Texas, had sub- mitted to the despotism of Santa Anna. In May, 1835, Santa Anna marched irresistibly against Zaca- tecas with four thousand men, defeated the governor in a great battle near the city of Zacatecas, and wiped out all resistance in blood and outrage that was to be only faintly symbolical of the fate of the Texans, if they did not take warning. At the same time he ordered General Cos to look after Coahuila and Texas. Martin Perfecto de Cos was commandant of the eastern inter- nal provinces, a mighty man in Mexico, and brother- in-law of Santa Anna. He found it easy enough to look after Coahuila. He captured the triumphant one of the two rival governors who had lately been indulging in a little civil war on their own account, sent the legislature and the State authorities about their busi- ness, and established an outpost of Santa Anna's despotism. With the governor were captured several Americans, who had, apparently, no business to be in such company. One of them was Colonel Milam, who was to make his escape after desperate chances, and reach Texas just in time to die gloriously at the end of this year.
1835.] THE TEXAN REVOLUTION. 89
Would General Cos find it as easy to look after Texas? It hardly seemed so, for in June Colonel William Barrett Travis (1811-1836), the young mar- tyr of Texan liberty, who had already been in trouble with the authorities, and was now only twenty-four, swooped down with fifty men upon Anahuac, on the east shore of Galveston Bay, and expelled the Mexican captain and garrison. It was proposed by some to march and rescue the captured governor of Coahuila and Texas, by others to unite and expel the garrison of five hundred Mexicans from Bexar. Colonel Ugartechea, the commandant at Bexar, found it ad- visable to issue conciliatory proclamations. Cos sent an armed vessel to punish Anahuac, and this was quickly taken by a Texan privateer. Martin Perfecto de Cos sat bewildered at Matamoras, on the south of the Rio Grande, near the sea, watching the new face of things.
Does the reader remember Lorenzo de Zavala, the fiery republican and Mexican, with the grant of land in Texas for five hundred families? He had been ambassador to France since then ; in July he gave up everything, hurled his eternal defiance at Santa Anna, and fled to Texas. He was the only prominent Mexi- can who did good service to Texas ; the Texans quite refused to surrender him, and Santa Anna was furious. At about the same time there came to Texas Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar (1798—1859), of a famous Geor- gian family, who all have strange names, owing to the freak of an eccentric uncle a century ago, who insisted on standing godfather to his sister's children. Lamar was a detestable man, from Houston's point of view,
90 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON.
and our own, but he was a brave soldier, and had a certain sort of plausibility. From every State of the Union contentious Americans thronged faster and faster to the scene of the coming struggle. These were men fitted to survive, — the tenacious men whom Emerson speaks of, who would take root if planted on a marble slab. I cannot but give here the valuable testimony of William Kennedy, a Scotchman and minor poet, to " the superiority of the Anglo-Ameri- cans in forming colonies. The North Americans," he says, " are the only people who, in defiance of all obstacles, have struck the roots of civilization deep into the soil of Texas. Even as I trace these lines, I reflect upon their progress with renewed wonder and admiration. They are indeed, the organized conquerors of the wild, uniting in themselves the threefold attributes of husbandmen, lawgivers, and soldiers."
In September Colonel Austin returned broken from his outrageous detention in Mexico. He was given a great banquet at Brazoria, near the mouth of the Brazos. A thousand Americans are said to have at- tended, and he made them a memorable speech, which I grieve to be unable to quote entire. " I fully hoped," he said, "to have found Texas at peace and in tranquillity, but regret to find it in commotion; all disorganized, all in anarchy, and threatened with immediate hostilities. This state of things is deeply to be lamented ; it is a great misfortune, but it is one which has not been produced by any acts of the people of this country. . . . The people here are not to blame. They are farmers, cultivators of the soil,
1 835.] THE TEXAN REVOLUTION. 91
and are pacific from interest, from occupation, and from inclination. They have uniformly endeavoured to sustain the Constitution and the public peace, and have never deviated from their duty as Mexican citi- zens. . . . The consciences and the hands of the Texans are free from censure, and clean.
" The revolution in Mexico is drawing to a close. The object is to change the form of government, destroy the Federal Constitution of 1824, and estab- lish a central or consolidated government. The States are to be converted into provinces. ..."
In truth, there were two parties in Texas : the far- mers' party, or the peace party, represented by the moderate Austin, who used to declare that he dis- trusted "all persons except those who sought their living between the plough-handles ; " and the war party, represented by Houston and the filibusters. General Cos was now on his way to add five hundred soldiers to the five, hundred already in garrison at Bexar, and to relieve Colonel Ugartechea of the com- mand there, and before the end of September things had gone so far that the committee of safety, of which Austin himself was chairman, declared : " War is our only resource. There is no other remedy. We must defend our rights, ourselves, and our country by force of arms."
In October, 1835, the pent-up waters burst forth.
Bexar, on the San Antonio, Goliad, lower down on the San Antonio, and Gonzalez, on the Guadalupe, form, accurately enough, a triangle, of which each side is fifty miles, and of which Goliad, to the south,
92 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1835.
is the apex, while Bexar and Gonzalez represent the base, lying against the north.
A decree had been issued to disarm the Texans, and it is known how Anglo-Saxons have submitted, in all times, to such decrees. Colonel Ugartechea, not yet relieved at Bexar, demanded of the munici- pality of Gonzalez a poor little brass six-pounder, which had been presented to it a few years before, and which was a simple necessity for defence against the Indians. On being refused, he sent a company fifty miles eastward to Gonzalez, to take the gun. Early in the misty morning of October ist, 1835, one hundred and sixty Texans, a third of them mounted, under a Colonel John H. Moore, of whom we hardly hear again, fell upon the Mexicans to the west of the Guadalupe, six miles from Gonzalez. The Mexicans scampered ignominiously back to Bexar, with the loss of several men ; no Texan was killed. This is called the Lexington of Texas.
In these days General Cos was slowly marching up from the sea, by Goliad, to Bexar; and Texas was rising unanimously in arms.
On the Qth of October, Cos reached Bexar; and at midnight of the same day a Captain George Col- linsworth, of whom, again, we know nothing more, fell upon the garrison of Goliad with less than fifty men, and took it unresisting. It is recorded that some of the scouts discovered, in a thicket, a way- worn man who was Colonel Milam, escaped alone from Mexico, and who aided joyously in the assault.
Austin was elected by acclamation commander of all the forces in the west of the State. By the middle
1835-] THE TEXAN REVOLUTION. 93
of October we find him with an army rapidly growing to a thousand, encamped on the San Antonio, eight miles below Bexar, and closely blocking General Cos. On the 2 yth of October Colonel Bowie, whom we have met, and Colonel J. W. Fannin won the considerable battle of Conception, in a cane-bottom on the river, by an old Mission, a mile and a half from Bexar. One hundred Americans were engaged in this battle, and four hundred Mexicans ; one hundred Mexicans were wounded or slain. The Texans, holding Gonzalez and Goliad, were eager to take Bexar too, and complete the triangle, but Austin kept them back for a time, like a prudent man.
On the 3rd of November the Consultation met at San Felipe de Austin, in a little framed building of one room, without ceiling or plaster. Fifty-five of the ablest men in Texas were there, and foremost among them was General Houston, from Nacogdoches, in the buckskin breeches and Mexican blanket which used to make General Jackson declare that he thanked God "there was one man, at least, in Texas, whom the Almighty had had the making of, and not the tailor," — upon all which Mr. Lester dilates in his most char- acteristic manner.
The Consultation, in twelve days, and under the presidency of Branch T. Archer, did many things. It formed a provisional government, it elected one Henry Smith President pro tern, of Texas, and it made Hous- ton Commander-in-chief of all the forces in Texas, thus relieving Austin, who had asked to be relieved. But its most notable achievement was on the first day, November 3rd, 1835, when it issued this ringing decla-
94 LIFE OF GENERAL- HOUSTON. [1835.
ration of partial independence, more spirited than the final declaration four months later : —
DECLARATION OF THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS IN GENERAL CONVENTION ASSEMBLED.
WHEREAS General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and other military chieftains have, by force of arms, overthrown the federal institutions of Mexico and dis- solved the social compact which existed between. Texas and the other members of the Mexican Con- federacy ; now, the good People of Texas, availing themselves of their natural rights,
SOLEMNLY DECLARE
i st. That they have taken up arms in defence of their rights and liberties, which were threatened by the encroachments of military despots, and in defence of the Republican Principles of the Federal Constitu- tion of Mexico of eighteen hundred and twenty- four.
2nd. That Texas is no longer, morally or civilly, bound by the Compact of Union ; yet, stimulated by the generosity and sympathy common to a free people, they offer their support and assistance to such members of the Mexican Confederacy as will take up arms against military despotism.
3rd. That they do not acknowledge that the pres- ent authorities of the nominal Mexican Republic have the right to govern within the limits of Texas.
4th. That they will not cease to carry on war against the said authorities, whilst their troops are within the limits of Texas.
I83S-] THE TEXAN REVOLUTION. 95
5th. That they hold it to be their right, during the disorganization of the Federal System and the reign of despotism, to withdraw from the Union, to establish an independent Government, or to adopt such meas- ures as they may deem best calculated to protect their rights and liberties ; but that they will continue faithful to the Mexican Government so long as that nation is governed by the Constitution and laws that were formed for the government of the Political Association.
6th. That Texas is responsible for the expenses of her armies now in the field.
yth. That the public faith of Texas is pledged for the payment of any debts contracted by her agents.
8th. That she will reward by donations in land all who volunteer their services in her present struggle, and receive them as citizens.
These DECLARATIONS we solemnly avow to the world, and call GOD to witness their truth and sincerity ; and invoke defeat and disgrace upon our heads, should we prove guilty of duplicity.
CHAPTER X.
THE COMING OF SANTA ANNA, 1835-1836.
GENERAL MARTIN PERFECTO DE Cos sat bewildered and besieged in Bexar, with, it is said, twelve hundred and fifty soldiers, many of them convicts. Below him on the river, and all about him, were the Texans under Austin, vowing he should never escape. The fluidity of these Texan armies is like quicksilver — to-day they are, and to-morrow not. Different accounts give Austin's army at from one thousand to two hundred.
On the 25th of November General Austin resigned his command on receiving notice of his appointment as commissioner to the United States, to work the cause of Texas there. He was succeeded ' by his former second in command, General Edward Burle- son, but of course only in subordination to Houston as Commander-in-Chief of all Texas. The men were not to be held in any longer, and on the following day, November 26th, occurred a desperate skirmish called the " Grass-fight," Colonel Bowie scattering the Mexicans and killing about fifty. The volunteers from the United States, of whom there were several companies in the camp, were eager for action of any sort ; the Texans only wanted to be done with Bexar and return to their families for Christmas. Foremost
1835-] THE COMING OF SANTA ANNA. 97
among the agitators was Colonel Benjamin R. Milam, who had followed the army from Goliad as a private. He was about forty-five years of age. He had dis- tinguished himself in the War of 1812 and in the in- terminable Mexican wars of Independence; he had now but ten days more to live.
On the 4th of December, by much vehemency, he obtained Burleson's consent to storm the place. He stood before the commander's tent waving his hat and crying, "Who will go with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?" A ringing shout was the reply; the .vol- unteers for the assault fell promptly into line, elected Milam their leader, and were ordered to rendezvous that evening at an old mill.
Early the next morning, the 5th of December, the Texans began a series of furious assaults upon the town, which were repeated with increasing success, until, on the loth, San Antonio was theirs, and Gen- eral Cos with eleven hundred men, the remaining one hundred and fifty having been killed, surrendered. But Milam could not witness the triumph. As he was leading his men on the morning of the third day, December yth, he fell dead, pierced through the head by a bullet.
On the 1 4th of December General Cos, having sworn by such honour as he had not to fight against the Texans during the continuance of the present struggle, was allowed to depart for the Rio Grande with his eleven hundred men. He went to report to Santa Anna how he had looked after Coahuila and Texas ; there was not now a Mexican soldier in Texas. The next day, December i5th, General Burleson went
7
98 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1835.
home for Christmas. The Texans folded their tents like the Arabs and silently stole away. By the end of De- cember, except for the garrisons in Goliad and in San Antonio, there was hardly a Texan soldier, either, along all the western and most exposed frontier of the State.
The same day that Cos left San Antonio, Decem- ber 1 4th, twenty-eight poor, deluded Americans were shot by Santa Anna's orders at Tampico, on the Gulf of Mexico, in the southeastern corner of the frontier province of Tamaulipas. It seems inconceivable, but they and a hundred others had been enlisted in New Orleans to fight for Texan liberty by a certain Gen- eral Mexia, who had previously been entangled in Texan affairs. Mexia sailed to Tampico instead, and made a disastrous attempt to revolutionize the land. He escaped with many of his followers, but thirty-one were captured. Three of these died in hospital, and the remaining twenty- eight were shot, as I have said.
One is tempted to declare that General Houston had the only good military head in Texas. He was contending against untold difficulties in the eastern part of the State. From his headquarters at Washing- ton, on the Brazos, fifty miles above San Felipe, he issued on the i2th of December a proclamation to the people, of which passages will indicate the condi- tion of things. He seems to be the only man who imagines that the struggle for independence is not already over, or that it will be necessary to keep an army on foot through the winter.
" To all who will enlist [in the regular army, twelve hundred strong] for two years or during the war," he announces, " a bounty of twenty-four dollars and eight
1835-] THE COMING OF SANTA ANNA. 99
hundred acres of land will be given. Provision has also been made for raising an auxiliary volunteer corps to constitute part of the army of Texas, which will be placed under the command and subject to the orders of the commander-in-chief. The field for promotion will be open. The terms of service will be various. To those who tender their services for or during the war will be given a bounty of six hundred and forty acres of land ; an equal bounty will be given to those who volunteer their services for two years ; if for one year a bounty of three hundred and twenty acres," etc.
One is inclined to lose all patience with the Texans during this winter. The wildness of the wilderness they had subdued was certainly rampant in their own breasts.
First came a ruinous quarrel between the Governor pro tern., Henry Smith, and his Council. He was a native of Kentucky, and had emigrated to Missouri, and thence, unluckily, to Texas ; " of moderate height, quite fleshy, of fine social qualities, racy and interest- ing in conversation, not easily irritated, but extremely obstinate in maintaining his opinions." His Council seems to have been a sort of standing committee of the Consultation which had met at San Felipe in Novem- ber, and to have possessed powers co-ordinate with his own. All the wheels of government were blocked during this jangle. Such a passage from one of Houston's letters to Governor Smith will speak for itself : " No language can express my anguish of soul. O save our poor country ! — send supplies to the wounded, the sick, the naked, and the hungry, for God's sake ! What will the world .think of the author-
ioo LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1835.
ities of Texas? Prompt, decided, and honest inde- pendence is all that can save them and redeem our country. I do not fear ; I will do my duty."
The quarrel culminated in January, 1836, by the Council deposing Governor Smith, and calling a convention to assemble at Washington on the Brazos on the ist of March. "The council," says Yoakum, " was guilty of usurpation, and the governor of great imprudence. The disagreement was not only ruinous to Texas in her then critical condition, but was well calculated to bring her into public scandal and re- proach among civilized nations."
Then there was a certain Dr. Robert Grant, a Scotchman, who had large possessions in Coahuila, who cared nothing for Texas, but only for his own fertile pastures and vinelands. To him are due most of the calamities of which we shall read. I shall not give the deadly details of this business ; but for his own purposes Grant had inflamed all western Texas with the passion of conquering Matamoras ; he had in defiance of the law denuded Bexar and Goliad of their defenders, and in January, 1836, while Santa Anna was already moving upon Texas, he swept off to the south with about five hundred doomed men. Colonel Fannin behaved as badly in this matter as a man can behave. Houston was on the western fron- tier during some weeks in January; he had been powerless to avert the madness.
Now, with a heavy heart, he ordered Bexar and Goliad to be abandoned, and fell back upon the Brazos.
Why could not these Texans do such a sim-
1836.] THE COMING OF SANTA ANNA. 101
pie thing as obey? They were to learn a bloody lesson.
Santa Anna was upon them with a force estimated at six thousanjd or eight thousand. During December and January he had been massing his men, hoping at first to be able to relieve Cos ; it was time now to go and look after Texas himself. In February, 1836, he marched his men across the five hundred miles of desert on either side of the Rio Grande, " through storms of rain and snow, beaten by icy blasts or scorched by a fiery sun." Filisola was with him as second in command, the Italian general whose grant of land in Texas some reader may remember ; Cos, too, forgetting that he had any honour, and Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, as aide-de-camp and secre- tary. On the 23rd of February his advance guard entered Bexar and took possession of the town with- out opposition.
The garrison had retired to the Alamo, an old and too famous Mission about half a mile to the north of the river and the town. The number is variously given ; perhaps as accurate an estimate as any is one hundred and forty-five " men, besides some women, children, and negro servants. These were com- manded by the gallant young Colonel Travis, barely twenty-five, whom we like to think of as not person- ally guilty of disobedience to General Houston. With him was Colonel James Bowie, famous for his devilish bowie-knife, his duels, and the fortune he had made by smuggling slaves into - Louisiana, — more famous for his deeds and death in behalf of Texan liberty; and simple, great-hearted David Crockett
102 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
[1786-1836], upon whom the old existence had be- gun to pall, and who had come to this uttermost outpost of danger to find his, life by losing it.
The day after he was invested Colonel Travis wrote the following letter, and sent it through the Mexican lines : —
COMMANDANCY OF THE ALAMO.
BEXAR, Feb. 24, 1836.
To the people of Texas and all Americans in the world :
FELLOW-CITIZENS AND COMPATRIOTS, — I am besieged by a thousand or more Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have sustained a continual bombardment and can- nonade for twenty- four hours, and have not yet lost a man. The enemy have demanded a " surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison is to be put to the sword if the fort is taken." I have answered the summons with cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. / shall never surrender or retreat.
Then I call upon you in the name of liberty, patri- otism, and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with dispatch. The enemy are receiving reinforcements daily, and will, doubtless, in a few days, increase to three or four thousand. Though this call may be neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own hon- our and that of his country. Victory or death !
W. BARRETT TRAVIS. Lieutenant- Colonel Commanding.
1836.] THE COMiNG OF SANTA ANNA. 103
Santa Anna arrived on the 24th of February ; by the ist of March there were at least four thousand Mexicans about the Alamo. But on the ist of March also the Convention assembled at Washington on the Brazos. The apathy which had rested upon Texas during the winter of discontent was passed, the spirit of the people was again roused. The answer which they sent to Santa Anna was a Declaration of abso- lute Independence, dated March 2nd, 1836, forty- three years after the day on which Houston was born in Virginia. It was signed by fifty-eight members, of whom only three, including Zavala, were Mexicans. I will give the final and more vigorous portion of this declaration : —
" It [the Mexican government] has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defence, — the rightful property of freemen, and for- midable only to tyrannical governments.
" It has invaded our country both by sea and by land, with the intent to lay waste our territory, and drive us from our homes, and has now a large merce- nary army advancing to carry on against us a war of extermination.
" It has, through its emissaries, incited the merci- less savage, with the tomahawk and scalping-knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenceless frontiers.
" It has been, during the whole time of our connec- tion with it, the contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions, and has continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrannical government.
104 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
" These and other grievances were patiently borne by the people of Texas, until they reached that point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance ; our appeal has been made in vain ; though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been made from the interior. We are therefore forced to the melancholy conclusion that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therefor of a military govern- ment ; that they are unfit to be free, and incapable of self-government.
" The necessity of self-preservation, therefore, now decrees our eternal political separation.
" We, therefore, the delegates, with plenary powers^ of the people of Texas, in solemn convention assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and declare that our political connection with the Mexican nation has -forever ended, and that the-people of Texas do now constitute a FREE, SOVEREIGN, AND INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC, and are fully invested with all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations ; and, conscious of the rectitude of our intentions, ive fearlessly and confi- dently commit the issue to the Supreme Arbiter of the destinies of nations"
CHAPTER XI.
"'TWAS THE MANNER OF PRIMITIVE MAN," 1836.
THERE is a monument somewhere in Texas, with this inscription : " Thermopylae had its survivors, the Alamo had none." I have forgotten the circum- stances : the words are hardly to be forgotten.
The Alamo was an old Franciscan Mission, dating from the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was surrounded by walls three feet thick, and eight feet high. It covered, altogether, an area of nearly three acres, it contained a roofless church of hewn stone, and several other buildings, and was defended by fourteen guns. The garrison consisted of one hun- dred and forty-five men, besides some non-combatants, and these were increased on the ist of March, or ac- cording to Crockett, on the 24th of February, by about thirty men from Gonzalez. There was a plenti- ful supply of water from two aqueducts, which quickly became the special object of the enemies' attack. Colonel Travis is said to have been most careless from the first ; it was to his own surprise that a large store of provisions was discovered in the Alamo after the siege had begun. But listen to the ring of one or two of his latest letters : " I am still here, March 3d, in fine spirits, and well to do. With one hundred
106 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
and forty-five men, I have held this place ten days against a force variously estimated from fifteen hun- dred to six thousand ; and I shall continue to hold it till I get relief from my countrymen, or I will perish in its defence. We have had a shower of bombs and cannon-balls continually falling among us the whole time, yet none of us have fallen." And again : " Take care of my little boy. If the country should be saved, I may make him a splendid fortune ; but if the coun- try should be lost, and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country." The members of the garrison were insubordinate, and of a quality more willing to die with their young commander than to obey him.
There is a tragical completeness and grandeur about the story of the defence and of the fall of the Alamo which makes me unwilling to give any frag- ments of it here. We have the journal of the gentle David Crockett until the 5 th of March, and his details bring the last days of these devoted Texans very close to us. It is only the story of one hundred and seventy-five bad-mannered backwoodsmen perishing for their disobedience to General Houston's orders ; and yet there is a divine irradiation over it all. The Alamo was taken in the earliest morning of Sunday, the 6th of March, 1836, and Travis, Bowie, Crockett, with all their companions, were butchered by Santa Anna's particular command.
The Convention, which was sitting at Washington on the Brazos, during these days, was driven almost mad by terror and by Travis's reiterated messages for
1836.] THE MANNER OF PRIMITIVE MAN. 107
help. General Austin was in the United States ; one is tempted more and more to believe that General Houston was the one man in Texas not altogether demented. On the morning of Sunday, March 6th, the latest express ever sent out by Colonel Travis reached the Convention, crying for help. One mad member moved that the Convention should adjourn and march to the relief of the Alamo — more than one hundred and fifty miles — fifty men against eight thousand ! The Convention was proceeding to ad- journ accordingly, and it strained all Houston's per- sonal influence to stamp out the proposition. For what followed we must trust the words and the author- ity of Mr. Lester : —
" Houston stopped speaking, and walked immedi- ately out of the Convention. In less than an hour he was mounted on his battle-horse, and with three or four brave companions was on his way to the Alamo. Men looked upon it as an idle and desperate attempt, or surely more would have followed him. The party rode hard that day, and only stopped late at night to rest their horses. They were now in the open prairie. At break of day Houston retired some distance from the party and listened intently, as if expecting a dis- tant signal. Colonel Travis had stated in his letters that as long as the Alamo could hold out against the invaders, signal guns would be fired at sunrise. It is a well authenticated fact that for many successive days these guns had been heard at a distance of over one hundred miles across the prairie ; and being now within the reach of their sound, Houston was anxiously waiting for the expected signal. The day
io8 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
before, like many preceding it, a dull, rumbling mur- mur had come booming over the prairie like distant thunder. He listened with an acuteness of sense which no man can understand whose hearing has not been sharpened by the teachings of the dwellers of the forest, and who is awaiting a signal of life or death from brave men. He listened in vain. Not the faintest murmur came floating on the calm morning air. He knew the Alamo had fallen, and he returned to tell his companions. The event confirmed his conviction, for the Alamo had fired its last gun the morning he left Washington ; and at the very mo- ment he was speaking in the Convention those brave men were meeting their fate."
The reader may remember that San Antonio. Gon- zales, and Goliad, form the three points of a triangle lying against the north, each about fifty miles from the others, of which San Antonio is to the west, and Goliad is to the south, at the apex. Colonel Fannin was at Goliad with many hundreds of brave men, and General Houston had been doing his best, by com- mand and by entreaty, to get him to fall back before the thronging Mexicans, at least as far as Victoria, on the Guadalupe, which is nearly half-way on the road from Goliad to Gonzales. Why in the name of all the demons of discontent and mutiny could not Fan- nin have obeyed the better man, his superior by every law? Let us see a part of what befell him for his most criminal disobedience.
At length, on the i8th or the ipth of March (Texan dates are sometimes uncertain), when it was quite too
X836.] THE MANNER OF PRIMITIVE MAN. 109
late, when the whole country about was swarming with some odd thousands of Mexicans under General Urrea, forming the southern division of Santa Anna's army, — after he had first sent one body of thirty men into the midst of the Mexicans to defend Refu- gio, and then sent another body of one hundred men to rescue the first, losing them both, — Colonel Fan- nin set out in a loosely straggling fashion for Victoria. His march seems to have been conducted scanda- lously ; at the bloody little stream of the Coleta, eight or ten miles from Goliad and about half-way to Vic- toria, the Mexicans surrounded him and compelled him to fight. He had about four hundred men ; for more than a week past Houston, with four hundred other men, the last hope of Texas, had been waiting for him so anxiously at Gonzales ; now they would have to fight separately after all. It is but fair to remember that Fannin was colonel by no appoint- ment of Houston, but by popular election.
The battle of the Coleta extended far into the night ; I shall give a few scenes from the words of an eye-witness : " In about half an hour after their sec- ond repulse, Urrea succeeded in putting his columns in order. They were reluctantly driven by their officers to the assault for the third time, for it re- quired great exertions to induce them even to make a show as though they intended to advance to the charge ; our men saw the officers beating them over the shoulders, and coaxing them on by pricking them from behind. . . . The scene was now dreadful to behold ; killed and maimed men and horses were strewn over the plain, the wounded were rending the
no LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
air with their distressing moans, while a great number of horses without their riders were rushing to and fro back upon the enemy's lines, increasing the con- fusion among them ; they thus became so entangled, the one with the other, that their retreat resembled the headlong flight of a herd of buffaloes, rather than the retreat of a well-drilled regular army as they were. In the rush back a number were over- thrown and trodden under foot. . . .
"It was now about dusk, and Urrea bethought himself of a plan of attack which answered but too well. He directed the Campeachy Indians, who were better marksmen than any other of his troops, to throw themselves into the tall grass, and approach, as they did, within thirty paces of our lines. They then commenced a well-directed fire upon us, which told most destructively, by wounding fifty and killing four in the space of an hour. . . . Among the wounded was Harry Ripley, a youth of eighteen or nineteen, the son of General Ripley of Louisiana; he, poor fellow, had his thigh broken soon after the Indians took to the grass. Mrs. Cash [the only non-comba- tant present] at his request helped him into her cart, and fixed a prop for him to lean against, and a rest for his rifle ; while in that situation, he was seen to bring down four Mexicans before he received another wound, which broke his right arm ; he immediately exclaimed to Mrs. C., ' You may take me down now, mother ; I have done my share ; they have paid ex- actly two to one on account of both balls in me.' . . .
" So soon as the darkness rendered the flashes of the Indians' guns visible, they began to pay the piper,
1836.] THE MANNER OF PRIMITIVE MAN. 1 1 1
for our boys were quick on the trigger, and at that distance took care that a second flash should not be seen from the same weapon ; so they soon used them completely up, and then Urrea drew off his troops. They retired about a quarter of a mile off on each side, and rested on their arms all night. It was de- termined by our friends to throw up a breastwork ; so the poor fellows set to work, and they dug a ditch on all sides ; with the earth, their baggage, and am- munition-wagons, they made a very passable forti- fication. The wounded suffered agonies for want of water, and by their moans 'and petitions for it made the situation of those who had escaped unhurt even more distressing. They, however, worked man- fully, and accomplished more than could have been expected of them, wearied and thirsty as they were. During the whole night, the Mexican Gen- eral caused his bugles to sound at intervals of five minutes, with the view of keeping his troops on the lookout."
In the morning Fannin, with three hundred or four hundred men, surrendered; without terms, accord- ing to the Mexicans, — according to the Texans, upon terms of honourable capitulation. The prisoners were marched back to Goliad ; and at seven in the even- ing of March 26th Colonel Portilla, the commandant at Goliad, received an order from Santa Anna to shoot them, in obedience to a Mexican law which decreed that all foreigners landing in the republic with arms in their hands should be treated as pirates. Fannin's force was largely composed of volunteers from the United States.
H2 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
"Portilla," says Mr. Bancroft, "passed a restless night, and not till morning dawned did he decide to carry out the barbarous but imperative order. The whole garrison was drawn up under arms, the pris- oners were aroused from their sleep, formed into three divisions, and marched out of the town in different directions. Their questionings were satisfied with various explanations ; the victims in one band were told that they were going to Copano to be sent home ; of another, that they were wanted to slaugh- ter beeves ; and the third, that room in the fort was required for the reception of Santa Anna. Four doctors and about a dozen others were not called out. It was Palm Sunday [March 27th, 1836, three weeks after the taking of the Alamo]. Each line marched in double file, with a guard of soldiers on either side. Half a mile from the fort the order was given to halt ; the file of soldiers on the right passed through the prisoners' line, and in a moment after, the whole guard poured in a volley upon them. Nearly all fell ; a few survivors only escaped into the long grass of the prairie, some of whom, eluding their pursuers, gained the river [San Antonio]. The first division to suffer was that which had been led out on the road to the lower ford ; but the sound of distant volleys in other directions soon after told those at Goliad that the murderous work was being consummated else- where. For an hour after the first firing the ring of intermittent firing smote on the ear, producing in the listener's mind a terrible picture of the flight and chase, of the hunter following his unarmed prey through the tall grass and dark weeds, of the fiendish
1836.] THE MANNER OF PRIMITIVE MAN. 113
eagerness of the one to kill, and the desperate strug- gles of the other to escape. Over three hundred victims were put to death. . . . Twenty-seven only escaped. . . . The wounded were dragged from the barracks an hour later and shot. Fannin was re- served to the last, and met his fate with a soldier's calmness and bearing. He gave his watch to the officer in command of the firing platoon, with a re- quest not to be shot in the head, and to be decently buried. [We read elsewhere that he seated himself in a chair, tied the handkerchief over his own eyes, and bared his bosom to receive the fire.] He was shot in the head, nevertheless, nor was he interred, his corpse being cast among the bodies of the other dead."
Dr. Robert Grant, who had brought all these dis- asters upon Texas, who had seen his forces dwindle , from five hundred men to less than one hundred, and who had miserably miscarried in his attempt upon Matamoras and been taken prisoner, deserves no particle of pity. But while we are considering the beauties of this Hispano-American civilization, we may notice the manner of his death as reported from manuscript authorities by Colonel Yoakum, who is generally safe, though more dull than words can tell : " While Dr. Grant was in San Patricio, curing his own wound, and carefully ministering to the wants of the wounded of the enemy, he was promised that, so soon as he recovered, and those under his care were con- valescent, he should have a passport to leave the country without molestation. The captain left in 8
114 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
command of the town after the departure of Urrea secretly despatched eight men in search of a wild horse. The animal was captured about three weeks after the battle of the 2d of March. Grant was now brought forth, and by order of the captain, his feet were strongly bound to those of the horse, and his hands to the tail. ' Now,' said the captain ' you have your passport — go ! ' At the same moment the cords by which the mustang was tied were severed. The fierce animal finding his limbs unfettered sprang away with great violence, leaving behind him in a short distance, the mangled remains of poor Grant ! Nothing can be added to this simple statement of facts."
CHAPTER XII.
THE BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO, 1836.
THE present dominion of Canada has an area of more than ten times, and a population of about one hundred times, the population and the area of Texas in 1836 ; and when, to-day, we hear the Prime Min- ister of Canada announce that Canada could not for one moment think of standing alone, it is enough to make us admire the boldness or the simplicity of the Texan delegates who, in the Declaration of March 2d, 1836, pronounced Texas to be one of the equal nations of the earth.
The legislative powers of this new brave little nation (the population of Texas had been officially estimated a few months before at 50,000) were to be vested in a Senate and a House of Representa- tives, " to be styled the Congress of the Republic of Texas." It is instructive to observe that, while the members of Congress were to receive five dollars a day, the assistant clerks would receive six dollars, and the reporter eight. The executive authority was to be vested in a President, and "the first President elected by the people shall hold his office for the term of two years, and shall be ineligible during the next succeeding term ; and all subsequent Presidents shall
Ii6 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
be elected for three years, and be alike ineligible." The salary of the President was to be $10,000, with a house, the salary of the Vice-President $3,000, of the Secretaries $3,500, and of foreign Ministers $5,000. The government was altogether modelled upon that of the United States, with allowance for the fact that Texas was an integral, and the United States a federal, republic. There was a careful provision for the maintenance of negro slavery. Such was to be the organization of things if Texas ever justified her Declaration of Independence. Meanwhile, as there was sad need of some sort of immediate government, and as Henry Smith, the absurd Governor pro tern., and his absurd contentious Council, had been alike reduced to non-existence by the Declaration of Inde- pendence, the Convention proceeded to elect David G. Burnet as President of Texas ad interim, with Lorenzo de Zavala, the fiery Mexican, as his Vice- President. The only other member of this ad interim government who need concern us was Thomas Jeffer- son Rusk (1802-1856), the Secretary of War, formerly Houston's chief of staff, and always his true colleague. He was from South Carolina, and had been in Texas about a year. When Texas ceased to be a State and declared herself a nation, General Houston had of course resigned his position as commander-in-chief ; and the most important act of this Convention was undoubtedly his re-appointment as commander. Scarcely had the Convention done this one thing to justify its existence, when it fled in terror to Harris- burg. President Burnet, I have read, had to go off to remove his family to a place of safety, and throughout
1836.] THE BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO. H?
the remainder of the war the Convention and the Government did little more than fly continually before the rumour of the advancing Mexicans.
It was truly a tremendous task that Houston had upon his hands. He had undertaken to save Texas, and this would have been a difficult enough achieve- ment even with Texan co-operation and obedience ; now he would simply have to save Texas in spite of herself, and with one half the resources that he might just as well have had. He did this, and the way that he did it was by yielding at first, and retiring before Santa Anna's overwhelming forces. He was deter- mined to smite the tyrant yet, and he only waited for an opportunity to smite effectively. So for a month he retreated steadily, ever backward and eastward, across the Guadalupe, across the pellucid Colorado and the Brazos, for about two hundred miles, disre- garding all clamour and mutiny, invincibly calm, though often torn with anguish. The country that he deserted was abandoned to devastation, and a whirl- wind of blind terror was sweeping over Texas. Santa Anna followed Houston closely, — closely, but not compactly, as the Napoleon of the East would have done, — followed eastward in a loose and straggling line, the front of which must have extended nearly a hundred miles, from General Urrea's division in the south to the commands of Sesma and Gaona in the north. Then, on the banks of the predestined San 'Jacinto, Houston, with some seven hundred men, caught Santa Anna unawares, with only eighteen hun- dred Mexicans. Let us indulge in a glance or two at
n8 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
Houston's state of mind during this agonizing month of waiting and of retreat.
The negro servant of Colonel Travis, a Mrs. Dick- inson, with or without her child, and a mythical Mexi- can or two, all non-combatants, had escaped the mas- sacre in the Alamo, and reached General Houston's headquarters at Gonzalez, on about the 1 2th of March, bringing with them unspeakable terror. Houston waited as long as he dared for the disobedient Fannin to join him at Gonzalez, and then he fell back upon the Colorado. On the 23d of March he wrote to Colonel Rusk, the Secretary of War : " You know I am not easily depressed, but, before my God, since we parted [about a fortnight before] I have found the darkest hours of my past life ! My excitement has been so great that for forty-eight hours I have not eaten an ounce, nor have I slept. I was in con- stant apprehension of a rout ; a constant panic existed in the lines, yet I managed so well, or such was my good luck, that not a gun was fired in or near the camp, or on the march (except to kill beef) from the Guadalupe to the Colorado. All would have been well, and all at peace on this [the eastern] side of the Colorado, if I could only have had a moment to start an express in advance of the deserters; but they went first, and, being panic-struck, it was con- tagious, and all who saw them breathed the poison and fled. It was a poor compliment to me to sup- pose that I would not advise the convention of any necessity which might arise for their removal. ... I had to advise troops and persons of my falling back, and had to send one guard thirty miles for a poor blind
1836.] THE BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO. 119
widow (and six children) whose husband was killed in the Alamo. The families are now all on this side of the Guadalupe. These things pained me infinitely, and with the responsibility of my command, weighed upon me to an agonizing extent."
And the next day, in a postscript to the same letter : "In a few days my force will be highly respectable. I am writing in the open air. I have no tent, and am not looking out for the luxuries of life. ... Do devise some plan to send back the rascals who have gone from the army and service of the country with guns. Oh, why did the cabinet leave Washington ? . . . We must act now, and with great promptness. The country must be saved. Oh, curse the consternation which has seized the people ! . . . May God bless you ! This morning I hear of men from the mouth of the river — they are on the march — you will hear from us."
At this time Houston's force is said to have touched fourteen hundred men, but this is doubtful ; then came the hideous news of the massacre at Goliad, the panic became complete, and the Texan army flowed away like water. At first Houston tried arrest- ing the poor, frightened Mexican who brought the news, and pretending to have him shot as a bringer of false tidings \ but it was of little use. Retreat was certainly the one course now left, and Houston faced the fact in the following proclamation : —
" FELLOW SOLDIERS, — The only army in Texas is now present. Travis has fallen with his men at the Alamo ; Fannin's troops have been massacred at La
120 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
Bahia [Goliad]. There are none to aid us. There is here but a small force, and yet it is all that Texas has. We might cross the river [Colorado] and attack the enemy. We might be victorious — but we might be overcome. There are but few of us, and if we fall, the fate of Texas is sealed. For this reason, and until I feel able to meet the enemy in battle, I shall retreat."
These restless Texan soldiers were already taking counsel to depose Houston from the command ; but he, undaunted, fell back upon the Brazos, though without crossing it. On the 29th of March we find him writing to Colonel Rusk : " On my arrival on the Brazos, had I consulted the wishes of all, I should have been like the ass between two stacks of hay. Many wished me to go below, others above. I con- sulted none. I held no councils of war. If I err, the blame is mine. I find Colonel Hockley of my staff a sage counsellor and true friend. . . . For Heaven's sake, do not drop back again with the seat of government ! Your removal to Harrisburg has done more to increase the panic than anything else that has occurred in Texas, except the fall of the Alamo. Send fifty agents, if need be, to the United States. Wharton [William H. Wharton, one of the best of the Texans] writes me, from Nashville, that the ladies of that place have fitted out, at their own expense, no less than two hundred men. ..."
And again, on the 3ist of March : " For heaven's sake, do allay the fever and chill which prevails in the country, and let the people from the East march to the camp ! . . . I hope I can keep them [the sol-
1836.] THE BATTLE OF SAN JAC1NTO. 121
diers] together; I have thus far succeeded beyond my hopes. I will do the best I can ; but, be assured, the fame of Jackson could never compensate me for my anxiety and mental pain."
After the fall of the Alamo Santa Anna had fancied that Texas was conquered ; he had been persuaded with difficulty to remain and witness her complete humilia- tion. So he followed after Houston, his track, accord- ing to one account, " marked by death and desolation. The hoary head of the grandsire, the flaxen curls of the babe, and the dishevelled tresses of the affrighted mother, were alike stained with gore." He was get- ting further and further from his base of supplies, but he did not seem to notice it. The Texan scouts would sometimes capture letters from Mexico, hailing him as already Emperor. To one of these scouts, on one occasion, General Houston paid away the last five dollars that he had in the world. We have a picture of Houston at this period, sitting in a shanty at night, feeding a little fire with oak splinters to furnish the only light his extremity allowed, and dictating a de- spatch to Colonel Hockley, who sat upon a block of wood. In the retreat of the Texans or the advance of the Mexicans, Gonzalez and San Felipe de Austin were burned to the ground. Colonel Rusk joined the army early in April, and did much to appease dis- contents. Houston could not retreat forever, and it seems that he had decided within himself never to cross the Trinity.
Says Colonel Yoakum : " With few exceptions neither officers nor men had any tents during this severe campaign. Houston's baggage consisted of a
A22 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
pair of saddle- wallets, carried by his servant, and con- taining his official papers and a change of linen. As to a military chest, the army had none at all. The only moneys used by the general during the campaign were two hundred dollars of his own private funds. As an incident of those times, while the army was crossing the Colorado a woman was found sitting with another woman on a log near the river. Her husband had fallen in the Alamo; she had no re- sources, no protector, or means of conveyance. Hous- ton, learning her condition, furnished her out of his slender means fifty dollars. He saw no more of her. In after years, when Texas had become a State of the American Union, she wrote to him stating that she had laid out his donation in the purchase of cattle, the increase of which had made her family independent."
An army order of Houston's, issued on the yth of April, has some quick, sharp sentences that sound like battle : " The moment for which we have waited with anxiety and interest is fast approaching. The victims of the Alamo and the manes of those who were mur- dered at Goliad call for cool, deliberate vengeance. Strict discipline, order, and subordination will ensure us the victory. The army will be in readiness for action at a moment's warning. The field officers have the immediate execution of this order in charge for their respective commands." Soon after this Santa Anna crossed the Brazos ; Houston had let him cross in order that he might cut him off. To an angry letter from the government ad interim, Houston sent back a sharp answer on the i3th of April; on the same day he issued a ringing proclamation to the peopk of
1836.] THE BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO. 123
eastern Texas. "You have suffered panic," he says, " to seize you, and idle rumour to guide you. You will now be told that the enemy have crossed the Brazos, and that Texas is conquered. Reflect, reason with yourselves, and you cannot believe a part of it. The enemy have crossed the Brazos, but they are tread- ing the soil on which they are to be conquered. . . . If, then, you wish your country saved, join her standard ! Protect your wives, your children, and your homes, by repairing to the field where alone, by discipline and concert of action, you can be effective."
Houston had crossed the Brazos too, but appar- ently after the Mexicans ; he had let Santa Anna get in front of him, though by no means ahead of him. For another week the two armies moved slowly east- ward, this time the Mexicans on the initiative, the Texans content with checking them. Santa Anna had diverged from the direct route to Nacogdoches, much further north, and was making for Harrisburg, on the Buffalo River, hoping to be able to capture the migra- tory government ad interim. The government fled again; and by the igth of April Houston had got Santa Anna shut up between the mouth of the Buffalo River and the marshes along the " San Jacinto Bay," the embouchure at once of the Buffalo and of the San Jacinto. On the iQth we find him writing to Colonel Rusk in the field : —
" This morning we are in preparation to meet Santa Anna. It is the only chance of saving Texas. . . . We will only be about seven hundred to march, be- sides the camp guard. But we go to conquest. It is
124 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
wisdom growing out of necessity to meet and fight the enemy now. Every consideration enforces it. The troops are in fine spirits, and now is the time for ac- tion. We will use our best efforts to fight the enemy to such advantage as will insure victory, though the odds are greatly against us. I leave the result in the hands of an all-wise God, and I rely confidently upon His providence. My country will do justice to those who serve her. The right for which we fight will be secured, and Texas shall be free."
Houston was to the north, upon the Buffalo ; Santa Anna was to the south, against the marshes, and Houston was taking measures to destroy the single bridge that secured the retreat of either army. " Let it be an easy going fight, General," one of Hous- ton's free and easy soldiers had advised him from the ranks ; and he was taking his time about it. On the 20th Santa Anna drew up his eighteen hundred Mex- icans in line, and wanted to fight ; Houston's men, also, wanted to fight, but he would not. From the breezy forests of Tennessee, from the hot marshes of Jalapa, Houston and Santa Anna had been, during several years, drawing nearer and nearer to one an- other; "they two had, strangely enough, business together." Their meeting would not be much longer deferred. Each was a man resistless and unresisted in his own sphere, accustomed to conquer every per- son with whom he came in contact.
On the 2ist of April, 1836, was fought the battle of San Jacinto. Mr. Lester's statements are not perhaps always or altogether as scrupulously exact as they
1836.] THE BATTLE OF SAN J AC INTO. 125
might be, but as his account of San Jacinto is spirited, and derived at first hand from Houston and from Rusk, we may let him speak here : —
" The night which preceded the bloody slaughter of San Jacinto rolled away, and brightly broke forth the morning of the last day of Texan servitude. Before the first gray lines shot up the east three strange taps of a drum [according to another account Houston beat the drum on this morning as always] were heard in the camp, and seven hundred soldiers sprang to their feet as one man. The camp was busy with the soldier-hum of preparation for battle ; but in the midst of it all Houston slept on calmly. The soldiers had eaten the last meal they were to eat till they had won their independence. They were under arms, ready for the struggle.
"At last the sun came up over the prairie without a single cloud. It shone full and clear in the face of the Texan commander, and it waked him to battle. He sprang to his feet and exclaimed, ' The sun of Aus- terlitz has risen again ! ' His face was calm, and for the first time in many weeks every shade of trouble had moved from his brow."
There followed several hours of preparation, and of that restraint which is as important a factor in battles as in art. The Mexicans were eighteen hundred ; four hundred to the east, under General Almonte, and four- teen hundred under Santa Anna's immediate com- mand, to the west and southwest. On the west of the two armies was the road leading to Vince's Bridge, over the Buffalo, which offered the only means of retreat for either party. Houston was on the north
126 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
of Santa Anna with seven hundred men, more or less. He had just received, from the citizens of Cincinnati, an invaluable present of two brass cannon, called the "Twin Sisters." He had sixty horsemen under the command of Colonel Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, who did good service on this day, though never again.
" Everything," says Mr. Lester, " was now [at nine o'clock] ready, and every man at his post waiting for the charge. The two six-pounders had commenced a well-directed fire of grape and canister, and they shattered bones and baggage where they struck. The moment had at last come. Houston ordered the CHARGE, and sounded out the war cry, REMEMBER THE ALAMO. These magic words struck the ear of every soldier at the same instant, and ' The Alamo ! ' ' The Alamo ! ' went up from the army in one wild scream, which sent terror through the Mexican host. At that moment a rider came up on a horse covered with mire and foam, swinging an axe over his head, and dashed along the Texan lines, crying out, as he had been instructed to do, '/ have cut down Vince's bridge ! Now fight for your lives, and remember the ALAMO ! ' — and then the solid phalanx, which had been held back for a moment at the announcement, dashed forward on the breastworks like an avalanche of fire. Houston spurred his horse on at the head of the centre column right into the face of the foe.
" The Mexican army was drawn up in perfect order, ready to receive the attack, and when the Texans were within about sixty paces, and before they had fired a rifle, a general flash was seen along the Mexi- can lines, and a storm of bullets went flying over the
1836.] THE BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO. 127
Texan army. They fired too high, but several balls struck Houston's horse in the breast, and one ball shattered the general's ankle. The noble animal stag- gered for a moment, but Houston spurred him on." - This battle of San Jacinto, the name of which still makes old men thrill as they remember the huge re- nown of it in their youth, lasted only twenty minutes. It was but a rout and a pursuit. Many of the Texans flung aside their guns after the first fire, grasped their swords and their daggers, and began an indiscriminate massacre.
"Meantime," continues Mr. Lester, "although Houston's wound was bleeding profusely, and his dying horse could scarce stagger his way over the slain, yet the commander-in-chief saw every move- ment of his army, and followed the tide of battle as it rolled over the field. Wherever his eye fell he saw the Mexicans staggering back under the resistless shock of his heroic soldiers. Regiments and battal- ions, cavalry and infantry, horses and men, were hurled together ; and every officer and every man seemed to be bent on a work of slaughter for himself.
" The Mexican army had now been driven from their position, and were flying before their pursuers. Houston saw that the battle was won, and he rode over the field and gave his orders to stop the carnage if the enemy would surrender. But he had given "the Alamo for their war-cry, and the magic word could not be recalled. The ghosts of brave men, massacred at Goliad and the Alamo, flitted through the smoke of battle, and the uplifted hand could not be stayed."
128 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
Let us glance at the movements of this same Santa Anna, as narrated by Colonel Rusk.
"When the Mexicans were first driven from the point of woods where we encountered them, their officers tried to rally them, but the men cried, ' It 's no use, it 's no use, there are a thousand Americans in the woods.' When Santa Anna saw Almonte's division running past him, he called a drummer, and ordered him to beat his drum. The drummer held up his hands and told him he was shot. He called then to a trumpeter near him to sound his horn. The trumpeter replied that he also was shot. Just at that instant a ball from one of our cannon struck a man who was standing near Santa Anna, taking off one side of his head. Santa Anna then exclaimed, 1 D — n these Americans ; I believe they will shoot us all ! ' He immediately mounted his horse, and commenced his flight."
At first the Mexicans, though taken by surprise, resisted well ; then " they either attempted to fly, and were stabbed in the back, or fell on their knees to plead for mercy, crying, ' Me no Alamo! ' ' Me no Alamo! ' " Some seven hundred of them were slain, some seven hundred captured ; the marshes and the river were choked with their bodies. The Texan loss was six killed in the field, and about twenty-five wounded. At dusk the victors " returned to the camp, where a command was left to guard the spoils taken from the enemy. As the commander-in-chief was riding across the field, the victorious soldiers came up in crowcls, and slapping him rudely on the wounded leg, exclaimed : —
1836.] THE BATTLE OF SAN J AC INTO. 129
" ' Do you like our work to-day, General ? ' " ( Yes, boys, you have covered yourselves with glory, and I decree to you the spoils of victory ; I will reward valour. I only claim to share the honours of our triumph with you. I shall not take my share of the spoils.' He did not.
" While he was giving his orders, after he reached the Texan encampment, and before he dismounted, General Rusk came in and presented his prisoner Almonte. It was the first time these two men had ever met. This seemed to give a finishing stroke to the victory; and Houston, who was completely exhausted from fatigue and loss of blood, fell from his horse. Colonel Hockley caught him in his arms, and laid him at the foot of the oak."
Among the millions throughout the civilized world whose ears tingled to hear of the battle of San Jacinto, there was none who had such a right to be intensely moved as had Aaron Burr, who lay dying in New York at the age of eighty, in the house of a noble lady, his ancestral " guest- friend." This was what he might have done, would have done. Mr. Parton, in his Life of Aaron Burr, relates that a gentleman, call- ing upon Burr one morning at this period, " found him, newspaper in hand, all excitement, his eyes blazing.
" ' There ! ' exclaimed the old man, pointing to the news from Texas ; ' you see ? I was right ! I was only thirty years too soon ! What was treason in me thirty years ago is patriotism now ! ' " 9
CHAPTER XIII.
AFTER THE BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO, 1836.
THROUGH all the ambrosial night of the 2ist of April the horses of the victorious Texans champed such fodder as was attainable under the circum- stances ; the Texans, save for their grievously wounded commander, slept well on the field of their freedom and their fame.
In the battle of the preceding day General Al- monte and General Castrillon had behaved conspicu- ously well. Santa Anna had not done so. We learn from a Mexican diary, reported by Mr. Bancroft, that after the rout, " mounted on a splendid charger sup- plied him in the confusion " by one of his colonels, " he fled at full speed toward Vince's bridge, hotly pursued by the Texan cavalry. Finding the bridge destroyed, he did not pause, but plunged down the steep descent into the water, where his horse stuck fast in the mud. Nevertheless, favoured by the approaching night, he managed to conceal himself, crossed the creek later, and continued his way on foot. In an abandoned house he found some clothes, and doffing his uniform, assumed the garb of a sol- dier. Clad in a blue cotton jacket and linen trow- sers, with a leather cap and red worsted slippers, he
1836.] AFTER SAN J AC INTO. 131
. . . crawled away through the grass and mud in the direction of the Brazos." Alas for the report of such things in Jalapa and Mexico ! But Mr. Lester may now take up the moral tale : —
" The Texans were ranging the prairie throughout the [following] day, and bringing in prisoners. The grass was everywhere four or five feet high, and those who had not been taken the day before, were now crawling away on their hands and knees, hoping thus to effect their escape. Santa Anna had not yet been taken, but the victors were scouring every part of the field in search of the Dictator. ' You will find the hero of Tampico ' [does the reader remember the shooting of twenty-eight Americans at Tampico?], said Houston, ' if you find him at all, making his retreat on all fours, and he will be dressed as bad, at least, as a common soldier. Examine closely every man you find.'
" Lieutenant Sylvester, a volunteer from Cincinnati, was riding over the prairie on a fine horse, about three o'clock in the afternoon, when he saw a man making his way towards Vince's bridge. [We must not be too particular about accuracy.] The moment he found himself pursued, the fugitive fell down in the grass. Sylvester dashed on in that direction, and his horse came very near trampling him down. The man sprang to his feet, and apparently without the slightest surprise, looked his captor full in the face. He was disguised in a miserable rustic dress. He wore a skin- cap, a round jacket, and pantaloons of blue domestic cotton, with a pair of coarse soldier's shoes. But his face and his manners bespoke too plainly that he belonged to a different class than his
I32 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
garb betokened ; and underneath his coarse disguise, Sylvester saw that he wore a shirt of the finest linen cambric. 'You are an officer, I perceive, sir,' said the horseman, raising his cap politely. ' No, soldier,' was his reply ; and he drew out a letter in Spanish, addressed to Almonte. When he saw there was no hope of escape, he inquired for General Houston. By this time Sylvester had been joined by several of his comrades, and mounting his prisoner behind him, they rode off together on the same horse to the camp, several miles distant. As he passed the Mexican prisoners, they exclaimed with the greatest surprise, as they lifted their caps, ' El Presidente ! '
" In a single moment the news spread through the camp that Gen. Santa Anna was a prisoner, and the Dictator was taken to Houston. The General was lying on the ground [apparently outdoors] and having slept little during the night in consequence of his wound, had now fallen into a doze. Santa Anna came up behind him and took his hand. Houston roused himself, and turning over, gazed up in the face of the Mexican, who extended his left arm, and lay- ing his right hand on his heart, said [in Spanish], ' 1 am General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, President of the Mexican Republic, and I claim to be your pris- oner of war' Houston waved his hand to a box, — for it was the only seat in the camp — and asked his prisoner to be seated. He then sent for Almonte, who spoke English perfectly, and requested him to act as interpreter.
" Santa Anna took his seat, and glancing his keen eye occasionally around the camp with a timid ex-
1836.] AFTER SAN JACINTO. 133
pression, pressed the sides of his breasts with both hands, and gave two or three half- suppressed groans, like a man who was suffering deep pain. An inter- esting incident took place about this time, which Gen. Rusk thus related : ' At the time Santa Anna was brought into our camp I was walking with young Zavala, the son of the noble and venerable Zavala, who distinguished himself as the friend of Texan in- dependence. We approached him together. Santa Anna recognized young Zavala at once, and advanced to meet him with great apparent cordiality, uttering many expressions of kindness, such as are customary among the Mexicans on such occasions, several of which I remember. Among other things, he ex- claimed, "Oh ! my friend, my friend, the son of my early friend ; " with which, and other exclamations in the same strain, he embraced young Zavala, with high indications of apparent feeling, and I think, dropping a tear. Young Zavala returned his greeting with that deference which would have been due to his former rank and power, but at the same time emit- ting from his countenance an expression I have scarcely seen equalled on any occasion. His look seemed to wither Santa Anna, and staring him full in the face, he replied immediately, with great modesty, " It has been so, sir." Santa Anna evinced plainly that he was much mortified.'
"Almonte approached his captive general with evi- dent respect and grief, and the following conversation took place between the two commanders, — Hous- ton, in the mean time, lying on the ground, resting on his elbow. Great pains has been taken to get as
134 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
nearly as possible the exact words used by the speak- ers, and those who were present at the interview have assured us that all here related they do remember, and they recollect nothing else of importance.
" Santa Anna (after embracing Almonte, and re- covering perfectly from his embarrassment) rose, and advancing with the air of one born to command, said to General Houston : ' That man may consider him- self born to no common destiny who has conquered the Napoleon of the West; and it now remains for him to be generous to the vanquished.'
" Houston. — ' You should have remembered that at the Alamo.'
" S. A. — ' You must be aware that I was justified in my course by the usages of war. I had summoned a surrender, and they had refused. The place was then taken by storm, and the usages of war justified the slaughter of the vanquished.'
" H. — ' That was the case once, but it is now ob- solete. Such usages among civilized nations have yielded to the influences of humanity.'
" S. A. — * However this may be, I was acting under the orders of my Government.'
" ff. — ' Why, YOU are the Government of Mexico.'
11 S. A. — 'I have orders in my possession com- manding me so to act.'
" H. — * A Dictator, sir, has no superior.'
" S. A. — 'I have orders, General Houston, from my Government, commanding me to exterminate every man found in arms in the province of Texas, and treat all such as pirates ; for they have no gov- ernment, and are fighting under no recognized
1836.] AFTER SAN JACINTO. 135
flag. This will account for the positive orders of my Government.'
"If. — ' So far as the first point is concerned, the Texans flatter themselves they have a Government already, and they will probably be able to make a flag. But if you feel excused for your conduct at the Alamo, you have not the same excuse for the massacre of Colonel Fannin's command. They had capitulated on terms proffered by your General. And yet, after the capitulation, they were all perfidiously massacred, without the privilege of even dying with arms in their hands.'
" Those who were present say that when Houston came to speak of the Goliad tragedy, it seemed im- possible for him to restrain his indignation. His eye flashed like a wild beast's, and in his gigantic effort to curb in his wrath, cold sweat ran off from his brow in streams.
" S. A. — ' I declare to you, General ' (laying his hand on his heart), 'that I was not apprised of the fact that they had capitulated. General Urrea in- formed me that he had conquered them in a battle, and under this impression I ordered their execution.'
" H. — 'I know, General, that the men had capitu- lated.'
" S. A. — ' Then I was ignorant of it. And after your asseveration I should not have a shadow of doubt, if it were not that General Urrea had no authority whatever to receive their capitulation. And if the day ever comes that I can get Urrea into my hands, I will execute him for his duplicity in not giving me information of the facts.'
136 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
" Here the conversation was suspended for a while, and Santa Anna requested a small piece of opium. It was ordered by Houston, who asked him if he would desire his marquee and luggage and the at- tendance of his aides and servants. Santa Anna thanked him very politely, and said it would make him very happy, since they were proffered by his captor.
" While the order was being given, Almonte mani- fested a disposition to continue the conversation with Houston. After remarking to the Texan General that fortune had indeed favoured him, he asked why he had not attacked the Mexicans the first day the armies met [April 2OthJ. 'You had reason to suppose we should be reinforced. And yet if you had risked a battle that day you would have had another story to tell, perhaps, for our men were then ready to fight, and so anxious for the battle to come on that we could hardly keep them in their ranks. Why did you wait till the next morning, General ? '
"'Well,' replied Houston, 'I see I was right. I knew you expected I should bring on the battle that day, and were consequently prepared for it. Now if I must be questioned by an inferior officer in the presence of his General, I will say that was just the reason why I did not fight ; and besides, I thought there was no use in having two bites at one cherry.'
"After some remark of Almonte, which irritated Houston, and which, in the opinion of all who heard it, ill-befitted the occasion, he said, 'You have come a great way to give us a great deal of trouble, and
1836.] AFTER SAN J AC INTO. 1 37
you have made the sacrifice of the lives of a great many brave men necessary.' ' Oh,' flippantly replied Almonte, ' what of six or eight hundred men ! And from all accounts, only half a dozen of your brave men have fallen.'
" Houston replied : ' We estimate the lives of our men, I perceive, somewhat higher than you do,' and he gave him a look which seemed to say, ' Taunt me again, and you don't live an hour ! ' Almonte very politely changed his tone. ' You talk about reinforce- ments, sir,' said Houston, raising himself up ; 'it matters not how many reinforcements you have, sir, you never can conquer freemen.' And taking from his pocket an ear of dry corn which he had carried for four days, only a part of it being consumed, he held it up and said, ' Sir, do you ever expect to con- quer men who fight for freedom, when their General can march four days with one ear of corn for his rations ? '
" The exhibition of the ear of corn stirred up all the enthusiasm of the Texan soldiers, and they gath- ered round their General, and asked him to allow them to divide the corn. ' We '11 plant it,' said they, 1 and call it the Houston corn.' <Oh, yes, my brave fellows,' said the General, smiling, < take it along if you care anything about it, and divide it among you; give each one a kernel as far as it will go, and take it home to your own fields, where I hope you may long cultivate the arts of peace as nobly as you have shown yourselves masters of the art of war. You have achieved your independence ; now see if you cannot make as good farmers as you have proved yourselves
138 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
gallant soldiers. You may not call it Houston corn ; but call it San Jacinto corn, — for then it will remind you of your own bravery.' It is also said that in one of his despatches that day to the people of the Sabine, the General said to those who had fled from their homes, l Return and plant corn.' The soldiers dis- tributed their corn, and it now waves over a thousand green fields in Texas.
" Santa Anna had become interested in the conver- sation, and Almonte related to him what had been said. The Mexican General seemed to be transported with rage, and he cursed Almonte for losing the bat- tle. ... It is worthy of remark, also, that Santa Anna afterwards said ' that this was the first moment he had ever understood the American character ; and that what he had witnessed convinced him that Amer- icans never could be conquered.'
" Night came. The guard was so disposed as to in- clude Santa Anna's marquee, and he slept on his camp- bed with every comfort he could have had if he had been the victor; while near by him Houston lay upon the earth — his wonted bed in camp — with no respite from the intense agony of his wound. The ball had entered about one inch above the ankle joint, shattering the bone, and severing the muscles and arteries. It prostrated him for months, during which time he was worn down by fever and pain to the shadow of a man.
" After the battle two ravens were seen hovering over the field in the smoke which lingered on the battle scene. Some of the men proposed to shoot them, as they were near the earth. Houston said, * No —
1836.] AFTER SAN J AC INTO, 139
don't shoot them, — it is a good omen. Their heads are pointing westward. 'T is the course of empire. I own I am a little superstitious about the raven.' "
And here is just one more anecdote of Houston after San Jacinto : —
" A soldier had fled from the battle, declaring that all his comrades were killed at the first fire. When General Houston heard of the circumstance he de- clared he would have him shot. His Captain impor- tuned the Commander to let him go. 'Why, yes, Captain,' said the General, ' I will let him off, but on condition that he will promise to marry into a valiant race and cross the breed. Under no other circum- stances will I let him go.' "
Santa Anna, unlike Old World commanders when captured, was eager to ransom himself by surrender- ing every object of the campaign. An officer who had escaped from San Jacinto " on a fleet Andalu- sian courser," had already carried the news of the defeat to General Filisola, the second in command, who was east of the Brazos. Now Santa Anna, in terror for his life, sent to Filisola of his own motion, ordering him to release his prisoners and commence a universal retreat. On the 24th of April General Cos, fat, ineffective, without honour, was captured. Houston saw Santa Anna several times, and on these occasions one would have thought, from their accou- trements, that the vanquished had been the victor. It is characteristic of Houston's hardy effectiveness that he never met his prisoner alone, so that poisonous tongues might be still. The booty of San Jacinto
140 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
had been great; among it was $12,000 in coin, and Houston undertook the responsibility of dividing this
sum among his long unpaid soldiers. The fugitive
and superfluous government ad interim soon came up from Galveston, whither it had fled, and we have a memorial from General Houston, dated " Camp San Jacinto, May 3, 1836," giving his ideas of the terms upon which an arrangement with Santa Anna ought to be made, and insisting particularly upon the whole length of the Rio Grande as the Texan boundary^ against Mexico.
Meanwhile Houston was very ill and could no longer command the army in person, though he still retained his position. General Rusk succeeded him, and the miserable Lamar succeeded Rusk as Secre- tary of War. This farewell of General Houston to his army, on the 5th of May, has more than a reminiscence of Napoleon's bulletins : —
COMRADES : . . . You have patiently endured priva- tions, hardships, and difficulties, unappalled ; you have encountered odds of two to one of the enemy against you, and borne yourselves, in the onset and conflict of battle, in a manner unknown in the annals of mod- ern warfare. While an enemy to your independence remains in Texas the work is incomplete ; but when liberty is firmly established by your patience and your valour, it will be fame enough to say, " I was a mem- ber of the army of San Jacinto ! "
In taking leave of my brave comrades in arms I cannot suppress the expression of that pride which I so justly feel in having had the honour to command them in person, nor will I withhold the tribute of my warm-
1836.] AFTER SAM J AC INTO. 14*
est admiration and gratitude for the promptness with which my orders were executed, and union maintained through the army. At parting, my heart embraces you with gratitude and affection.
SAM HOUSTON, Commander-in- Chief.
" When this touching and eloquent address," says Mr. Lester, " was read to the army, the tears of the brave men fell upon the rifles on which they were leaning. Such was his parting with his companions in arms."
On the 1 4th of May the government concluded an arrangement with Santa Anna, on something the lines suggested by Houston, and on the principle of build- ing a golden bridge for a retreating enemy. This is known as the Treaty of Velasco. Very special facili- ities were to be given to General Filisola to get out of the country. Santa Anna was to be sent back to Vera Cruz in all honour, and was to do his utmost for the Texan cause. The poor fellow was utterly broken. On the ist of June he was in Velasco harbour, ill on board the ship that was to convey him back to his own country, and he issued this address to the Texan soldiers : —
MY FRIENDS, — I have been a witness of your cour- age on the field of battle, and know you to be gener- ous. Rely with confidence on my sincerity, and you shall never have cause to regret the kindness shown me. In returning to my native land, I beg you to receive the sincere thanks of your grateful friend. Farewell. ANT. LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA.
VELASCO, ist June, 1836.
142 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON.
We now come to a most infamous chapter in Texan history, — one that makes us wish to wash our hands forever of some of the people whose history we have been following.
In the British Museum I have looked at — I could not read — a pamphlet of seventy pages against Houston, published in 1854 by a General Thomas Jefferson Green (1801-1863), fr°m North Carolina. It is probably one of the sixteen publications which Houston once spoke of as having been issued against him, to his knowledge; "this military buffoon, this bleating cub" is a fair example of its language. We may hear again of this scandalous General Green ; but on the ist of June he unluckily landed at Velasco with about two hundred volunteers for Texas, com- posed of the most squalid Irishry of New Orleans. There had been a hue and cry throughout Texas for Santa Anna's blood, and Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar had not been ashamed to issue an address to Presi- dent Burnet, embodying this cry. Now General Green declared that Santa Anna should not escape. Uniting his volunteers with the loathsome mob of Velasco, he raised a riot which frightened the poor ineffective President ad interim into ordering Santa Anna to be removed ashore. Santa Anna refused to be removed, claiming the treaty. So, on the 4th of June, General Green boarded his ship, and burst into his stateroom. He "lay on his back in his berth, and his respira- tion seemed to be difficult." General Green, when he would not get up, ordered him to be put in irons. " When the irons were brought within his view, the prisoner jumped up, adjusted his hat, and stated his
1836.] AFTER SAN JACINTO. 143
readiness to accompany us." Santa Anna's comment on this performance was limited to two words, which do, indeed, express the beginning and the end of all social criticism on America, — " Bad manners."
When Houston, who was far away, being healed of his wound, heard of President Burnet's weakness, he said : '• I would have regarded the faith of the nation under any circumstances, and before the mob should have laid hands on Santa Anna, they should have first drunk my blood ! " And when, in July, he heard that his own old army of San Jacinto, which had been escorting Filisola and his unhappy remnant of Mexi- cans out of Texas, and which was then on the Coleta, was mutinying, demanding the execution of Santa Anna, and talking about arresting President Burner, he issued a fervent protest. " In cool blood to offer up the living to the manes of the departed," he says, " only finds an example in the religion and war- fare of savages. Regard for one's departed friends should stimulate us in the hour of battle, and would excuse us, in the moment of victory, for partial excesses, at which our calmer feelings of humanity would relent. . . .
" I, therefore, Commander-in-Chief of the army of the Republic, do solemnly protest against the trial, sentence, and execution of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, President of the Republic of Mexico, un- til the relations in which we are to stand to the United States shall be ascertained."
These Texans certainly did not excel in manners. But they knew how to defend their country, — there
144 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
was not now an armed Mexican in all Texas. Let us conclude this long chapter by listening to some noble words uttered at this time in the United States Senate by the fiery and fluent Benton : —
" Heartless is the calumny invented and propagated, not from this floor, but elsewhere, on the cause of the Texan revolt. It is said to be a war for the extension of slavery. It had as well been said that our own revolution was a war for the extension of slavery. So far from it that no revolt, not even our own, ever had a more just and a more sacred origin. ... A calumny more heartless can never be imagined than that which would convert this rich and holy defence of life, liberty, and property, into an aggression for the extension of slavery. Just in its origin, valiant and humane in its conduct, the Texan revolt has illustrated the Anglo- Saxon character, and given it new titles to the respect and admiration of the world. It shows that liberty, justice, valour, moral, physical, and intellectual power, characterize that race wherever it goes. Let our Amer- ica rejoice, let old England rejoice, that the Brazos and Colorado, new and strange names, streams far beyond the western bank of the Father of Floods, have felt the impress, and witnessed the exploits of a people sprung from their loins, and carrying their language, laws, and customs, their magna charta and its glorious privileges, into new regions and far distant climes. . . .
" Of the individuals who have purchased lasting renown in this young war, it would be impossible, in this place, to speak in detail, and invidious to discrimi- nate. But there is one among them whose position forms an exception ; and whose early association with
1836.] AFTER SAN JACINTO. 14$
myself justifies and claims the tribute of a particular notice. I speak of him whose romantic victory has given to the Jacinto that immortality in grave and serious history, which the diskos of Apollo had given to it in the fabulous pages of the heathen mythology. General Houston was bora in the State of Virginia, County of Rockbridge ; he was appointed an ensign in the army of the United States during the late war with Great Britain, and served in the Creek campaign under the banners of Jackson. I was the lieutenant- colonel of the -regiment to which he belonged, and the first field officer to whom he reported. I then marked in him the same soldierly and gentlemanly qualities which have since distinguished his eventful career: frank, generous, brave; ready to do or to suffer whatever the obligations of civil or military duty imposed; and always prompt to answer the call of honour, patriotism, and friendship. Sincerely do I re- joice in his victory. It is a victory without alloy, and without parallel, except at New Orleans. It is a vic- tory which the civilization of the age, and the honour of the human race, required him to gain; for the nineteenth century is not an age in which a repetition of the Goliad matins could be endured. Nobly has he answered the requisition ; fresh and luxuriant are the laurels which adorn his brow.
" It is not within the scope of my present purpose to speak of military events, and to celebrate the exploits of that vanguard of the Anglo-Saxons who are now on the confines of the ancient empire of Montezuma; but that combat of San Jacinto ! it must forever re- main in the catalogue of military miracles. Seven
10
146 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
hundred and fifty citizens, miscellaneously armed with rifles, muskets, belt-pistols, and knives, under a leader who had never seen service, except as a subaltern, march to attack near double their numbers — march in open day across a clear prairie, to attack upwards of twelve hundred veterans, the Mite of an in- vading army of seven thousand, posted in a wood, their flanks secured, front intrenched, and com- manded by a general trained in civil wars, victorious in numberless battles, and chief of an empire of which no man becomes chief except as conqueror. In twenty minutes the position is forced. The com- bat becomes a carnage. The flowery prairie is stained with blood ; the Hyacinth is no longer blue, but scarlet. Six hundred Mexicans are dead ; six hundred more are prisoners, half wounded; the President-General himself is a prisoner; the camp and baggage all taken; and the loss of the victors, six killed and twenty wounded. . . . Houston is the pupil of Jack- — son; and he is the first self-made general, since the time of Mark Antony and the King Antigonus, who has taken the general of the army and the head of the government captive in battle. Different from Antony, he has spared the life of his captive, though forfeited by every law, human and divine."
CHAPTER XIV. HOUSTON'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION, 1836-1838.
ONE has to suffer for a long time the results of hav- ing been found out in telling an untruth. We have known General Houston in good and in evil fortune, and have come to like him ; and yet, when the ques- tion arises of another personal grievance of Houston's, as related by Mr. Lester, we cannot but remember the Stanberry affair.
In this case Mr. Lester's narrative has the curious effect of leaving us with an entire dislike and distrust of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, the alleged perse- cutor, while at the same time vaguely incredulous as to the details.
When Houston was deadly ill, after the battle of San Jacinto, the government ad interim, and partic- ularly Lamar, began a dastardly persecution of him. They took away from him General Almonte's battle- horse, a noble animal, " as black as a raven," which had been unanimously presented to him by the army, with the hope that he might "be able to ride him very soon." They forbade Santa Anna any longer to pay his customary morning visit to his courteous cap- tor. "Bad manners," said Santa Anna, shrugging his shoulders. It was necessary for Houston to go to
148 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
New Orleans for medical attendance, and the govern- ment refused him leave of absence. The captain of the steamboat refused to sail from San Jacinto without him ; and thereupon the government forbade " his surgeon-general, Dr. Ewing," to accompany him. Dr. Ewing, against Houston's own advice, went, and Lamar dismissed Ewing. The army was ready to slay the entire government, and would have done so at a sign from Houston ; Santa Anna, who was being con- veyed to Galveston on the same boat, ran to Houston when he saw him, " and embraced him with un- feigned joy." From Galveston, after many persecu- tions, Houston and his staff sailed, in May, for New Orleans, where he was taken apparently dying through welcoming crowds, to the mansion of the friend of his youth, Mr. William Christy, who had been a noble friend of the Texan cause from the first. Here he was lovingly cared for during some weeks, and was attended by the same Dr. Kerr who had attended him more than twenty years before, in the War of 1812. He refused public ovations, but did his utmost for his country in a quiet way, and set off for Texas by Natchitoches and the Red River at the earliest possible moment. So far Mr. Lester. We are glad to learn that, after terrible suffering, Houston entirely recovered from the wound in his ankle, re- ceived at San Jacinto.
Things were piping hot in Texas during this sum- mer of 1836. All of Santa Anna's invading army had been either captured or slain, or else escorted out of the country ; but the Texans had not by any means freed themselves from their own passions. At
1836.] FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 149
one time we find Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar ap- pointed commander-in-chief, over the heads of Houston and of Rusk, and going down to the army to be received with universal cat-calls and hisses ; we see him appealing to a popular division, and unable to get one soldier in ten to declare for him. Very bad manners, certainly, but exercised, we cannot but feel, towards a very bad man.
Santa Anna had not yet been murdered, nor Presi- dent Burnet arrested for not murdering him. But people wanted a different sort of ruler, and the first Monday in September was appointed for the election of the first regular President of Texas. There were two candidates, — General Austin, the Father of Texas, who had recently returned from the United States, and Henry Smith, the florid, placid, obstinate gentleman whom we remember, former governor of revolutionary Texas. At the last moment General Houston began to be nominated on all sides. '? The public wish on that point," says Yoakum, "was so manifest that he had no alternative but to accept." He gives as his own reason for accepting the nomi- nation, that Austin and Smith both represented embit- tered and nearly equal factions. " In this posture of affairs I was firmly impressed with a belief that, if either of the gentlemen should be elected, it would be next to impossible to organize and sustain a gov- ernment. . . . Not being identified with either of the parties, I believed I would be enabled so to consol- idate the influence of both, by harmonizing them, as to form an administration which would triumph over all the difficulties attendant upon the outset of the
150 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
constitutional government of Texas." Houston was 'elected by an enormous majority; and his first act was to appoint his two competitors to the two princi- pal offices in his cabinet. I hardly know another instance of such quiet strength.
Texas was the youngest and the feeblest of nations, and as yet unrecognized by any, — a nation of fifty thousand inhabitants, with a public debt of nearly $1,500,000. But in such hands as Houston's, there was good hope for the little nation.
Houston had hardly begun his administration, when Texas lost two of her sons whom she could least spare. On the i5th of November, 1836, at his resi- dence on the San Jacinto, died Lorenzo de Zavala, fiery Mexican and Republican, Vice President ad interim of Texas during the war, and one of the com- missioners who were already embarked to accompany Santa Anna . back to Vera Cruz at the time when General Green and his unruly mob began their out- rages in Velasco. And on the 27th of December died General Stephen Fuller Austin, the Father of Texas, who will never have his due recognition. He had failed to be elected President, and had accepted the position of Secretary of State under Houston. He had founded Texas, had sacrificed his health for her, and had lived to see her independent. We read of him that " every child of every colonist was known to him, and was welcomed to play upon his knee."
Santa Anna's fortunes, during this year, 1836, had been very sad. Whirled from prison to prison, buf- feted and starved, in hourly terror for his life, he had
1836.] FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 151
had his full of American bad manners, and had even begun to lose that self-complacency which is the balm of life. Rightly thinking that the Treaty of Velasco was annulled by the behaviour of the Texans, he had tried to escape, had been prevented, and he and General Almonte had been kept in irons during one period of fifty days. His only hope lay in the return of Houston to Texas. We read that when he first saw Houston again the little man ran forward, threw his arms about his neck, and lay for a minute with his head on Houston's broad shoulder, sobbing; Houston, we can imagine, patting him softly on the back like a child, and saying, "There, there, there ! " With the madness of all democracies, the Texans could not see what all the world saw, that Santa Anna's value, as a hostage and a mediator, was de- creasing with every day of his detention. As late as September, we find General Jackson writing to Hous- ton that it was the saving of Santa Anna's life that had given " possession of Goliad and [of the] Alamo with- out blood, or the loss of any portion of your army. ... He is the pride of the Mexican soldiers, and the favourite of the priesthood." But his power at home was slipping through his fingers, his prestige was pass- ing, his enemies were lifting their abased heads. Though he was still nominally President of Mexico until April, 1837, his term corresponding, as we have seen, with the second term of Andrew Jackson, his government had passed a special decree, disallowing any acts that he might perform during his captivity.
With the election of Houston as President of Texas, Santa Anna ceased to shudder for his life. The crazy
152 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1836.
Congress still voted and clamoured for some out- rageous measure, but Houston had set his face like a rock. Said Andrew Jackson at about this time : " Let those who clamour for blood clamour on ! The world will take care of Houston's fame." Houston himself was wont to say that after San Jacinto the Texans could richly have afforded to be generous towards Santa Anna ; now the only question was whether they could afford to be just. But for the honour of human nature he was determined to release his prisoner; and after much negotiation and complication he got Santa Anna safely started for Washington in the United States, with an escort of Texan officers, in- cluding a Colonel Bee. Houston rode along with Santa Anna for the first stage from Columbia ; then the party lost its way, and could not regain it without passing by the field of San Jacinto, where Santa Anna wept to see the bones of his soldiers whitening in the sun. Many thoughts must have been in his mind; deepest and firmest, an intense determination never again, whatever befell, to tread the accursed soil of Texas. General Filisola, by the way, had the honour quite to agree with his master on this subject. With some 2,500 men, out of Santa Anna's 8,000, he had escaped to Matamoras through incredible floods of water and of all other troubles, and sat there during this autumn, utterly refusing to obey the orders of the Mexican government to reinvade Texas, and declaring that Texas was a fatal country, " a country of mud and sand."
On the way to Washington Santa Anna borrowed $2,000 of Colonel Bee, which he never repaid. He
1837.] FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 153
reached Washington on the iyth of January, 1837. He remained quietly for a week as the guest of Pres- ident Jackson, and he was then sent home to Vera Cruz in a ship-of-war. He failed to make any sensa- tion on landing in Mexico ; his old rival, Anastasio Bustamente, had been recalled from exile in France, and in March, 1837, was elected President, Santa Anna receiving only two electoral votes out of sixty- nine. So do human affairs go up and down. Santa Anna would not be Emperor of Mexico this decade. He retired to Manga de Clavo, devoted himself to meditation and cock-fighting, and awaited once more the troubling of the waters.
The first President of Texas, it will be remembered, was to hold his office for two years only. Houston held sway for about twenty- six months, or from the 22d of October, 1836, to the i3th of December, 1838. Through financial complications of an almost hopeless sort, through occasional straggling invasions from Mexico, and chronic mutinies in an unpaid army, where every officer above the rank of captain aspired to the chief command, through Indian wars and the madness of senates, and the scorn of all the world, Houston, in these two years, guided the little republic into prosperity and something like solvency. He carried the nation on his shoulders; it is prob- able, for one thing, that the population of Texas nearly doubled during the two years of his rule. Houston was first and last, he did everything; we can only stop to notice that on ist of March, 1837, he secured the recognition of Texan independence by the Senate of the United States, and that the sign-
154 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1837.
ing of this bill was the last official act ever performed by his old friend Andrew Jackson. The capital of Texas was changed, in the autumn of 1836, to Hous- ton, on the Buffalo River, founded in his honour, and the government removed thither from Columbia in the spring of 1837. Houston was ineligible for the next term, and in September, 1837, his Vice-Pres- ident, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, was unanimously elected President, the opposing candidate having commited suicide just before the election.
If ever there was a child of genuine nature it was the beautiful and restless John James Audubon (1780-1851). With much trouble I have discovered some facts that concern us in the Life of Audubon, which was edited from his journals by Mr. Robert Buchanan.
" We walked toward the President's house," writes Audubon from the new city of Houston, in May, 1837, " accompanied by the secretary of the navy, and as soon as we rose above the bank, we saw before us a level of far-extending prairie, destitute of timber, and rather poor soil. Houses half finished, and most of them without roofs, tents, and a liberty pole, with the cap- itol, were all exhibited to our view at once. We approached the President's mansion, however, wading through water above our ankles. This abode of Pres- ident Houston is a small log-house, consisting of two rooms, and a passage through, after the southern fashion. The moment we stepped over the threshold, on the right hand of the passage, we found ourselves ushered into what in other countries would be called
1837 •] FIRST AD MINIS TRA TION. 155-
the ante-chamber; the ground-floor, however, was muddy and filthy, a large fire was burning, a small table, covered with paper and writing materials, was in the centre ; camp-beds, trunks, and different mate- rials were strewed around the room. We were at once presented to several members of the cabinet, some of whom bore the stamp of men of intellectual ability, simple, though bold, in their general appear- ance. Here we were presented to Mr. Crawford, an agent of the British Minister to Mexico, who has come here on some secret mission.
" The President was engaged in the opposite room on national business, and we could not see him for some time. Meanwhile we amused ourselves by walk- ing to the capitol, which was yet without a roof, and the floors, benches, and tables of both houses of Con- gress were as well saturated with water as our clothes had been in the morning. Being invited by one of the great men of the place to enter a booth to take a drink of grog with him, we did so ; but I was rather surprised that he offered his name instead of the cash to the bar-keeper.
" We first caught sight of President Houston as he walked from one of the grog-shops, where he had been to prevent the sale of ardent spirits. He was on his way to his house, and wore a large, gray, coarse hat ; and the bulk of his figure reminded me of the appearance of General Hopkins of Virginia, for like him he is upwards of six feet high, and strong in pro- portion. But I observed a scowl in the expression of his eyes that was forbidding and disagreeable. We reached his abode before him, but he soon came, and
156 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1837.
we were presented to his Excellency. [Houston at this time was forty-four, and thirteen years younger than Audubon.] He was dressed in a fancy velvet coat, and trousers trimmed with broad gold lace ; around his neck was tied a cravat somewhat in the style of seventy-six. He received us kindly, was desirous of retaining us for a while, and offered us every facility within his power. He at once removed us from the ante-room to his private chamber, which, by the way, was not much cleaner than the former. We were severally introduced by him to the different members of his cabinet and staff, and at once asked to drink grog with him, which we did, wishing success to his new republic. Our talk was short; but the impression which was made on my mind at the time by himself, his officers, and his place of abode can never be forgotten.
" We returned to our boat through a mele"e of In- dians and blackguards of all sorts. In giving a last glance back we once more noticed a number of horses rambling about the grounds, or tied beneath the few trees that have been spared by the axe. We also saw a liberty pole, erected on the anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto, on the twenty-first of last April, and were informed that a brave tar, who rigged the Texan flag on that occasion, had been personally rewarded by President Houston with a town lot, a • doubloon, and the privilege of keeping a ferry across the Buffalo Bayou at the town, where the bayou forks diverge in opposite directions."
CHAPTER XV.
ADMINISTRATION OF MIRABEAU BUONAPARTE LAMAR, 1838- I84I.
MIRABEAU BUONAPARTE LAMAR (the name has a mouth-filling sound) could fiddle, to use Lord Bacon's expression about the man who certainly cannot make a small town a great city, after a fashion that passed for cunning in Texas ; he had, as we remember, a talky sort of plausibility, made speeches full of sound and fury, and wrote lyric verse without an impulse. After some study, both of his poetry and of his policy, I find it hard not to wish that he, instead of his opponent, had committed suicide just before election day; and I have decided to reduce to a paragraph or two the chief events of his three years' misadministration.
With his election Texas came to a standstill ; dur- ing each year of his rule she went steadily downwards. An imposing and splendid government, a great navy, aggression towards Mexico, a high-handed policy towards the Comanches on the north, — these were his chief ideals of statesmanship ; and for each one of these Texas had to smart. The great navy and the imposing government cost little except money, and in three years the debt of Texas ran up from $1,5 00,000, to the ruinous sum of nearly $8,000,000, while the
158 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1838.
value of paper money fell from about seventy-five per cent to ten or fifteen. But Lamar's outrageous treat- ment of " Houston's pet Indians " resulted in an in- cessant and bloody warfare throughout all the northern and eastern settlements; and his aggression toward Mexico took the form, in the summer of 1841, of an expedition which was sent off across the desert, in defiance of the decrees of Congress, to capture New Mexico. The Santa Fe" Expedition has become a proverb for disastrous futility, and history will not soon forget, among other things, the great cannon, with MIRABEAU B. LAMAR inscribed upon its breech, which was dragged so far over the prairies to be taken by the Mexicans ; it was only the fact that Houston came into power again at the end of 1841 which saved the expedition from quite absolute wreck and shame. Houston did yeoman's service in the Congress during the greater part of these three mad years, and on one occasion, according to Mr. Lester, when the despairing Congress was about to adjourn sine die, he simply prevented the dissolution of all government : —
" The members publicly proclaimed that all hope of carrying on the government was gone, and they were determined to end the farce by going home. Houston rose in the midst of the tempest, as the members were leaving their seats, and addressed the Speaker. There never was a time when that man 'could not get a hearing.
" The crowd began to return ; members gradually resumed their seats and dropped their hats ; they pressed up around him ; the House became still ;
1840.] ADMINISTRATION OF LAMAR. 159
and not ten minutes went by before nothing was heard throughout the hall but the rich, deep voice that had echoed over the field of San Jacinto. No idea of the speech can be given but by telling the result. He closed by reading a resolution, ' that the House adjourn till to-morrow morning at the usual hour,' and not a member voted against it ! They flocked around him, and so universal was the feeling that but for him the government would have gone to pieces, that even his old enemies seized him by the hand, and thanked him l for saving the country.' "
In the autumn of 1839 the capital of Texas was again removed, and for the last time, from Houston to the new city of Austin (not at all San Felipe de Austin), far up on the Colorado, more than thirty miles beyond the nearest settlement. In September, 1839, France acknowledged the independence of Texas, and the old Duke of Dalmatia (Marshal Soult) is reported to have expressed his gratification at being enabled to serve as European godfather to the little nation. It is also said that Louis Philippe inquired of the Texan envoy what the population of the new country might be, and that the envoy, ashamed to give the right answer, appealed tp M. de Saligny, who was afterwards appointed French charge" in Texas. " About a million, Sire," instantly answered Saligny, and the question of population could no longer stand in the way. In England there was much uproar against the recognition of Texas, on the score of slavery, and Daniel O'Connell, the Hereditary Bondsman, blus- tered about it in his own fashion; but in 1840 Lord Palmerston took the responsibility of recognizing
160 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1840.
Texas, and he was quickly followed by Belgium and by Holland. The Texans were greatly aided in Eu- rope by the indefatigable and most unselfish exertions of General James Hamilton (1796-1857), who, after being Governor of South Carolina, and holding or de- clining almost every position in America worth having, had fallen in love with the cause of little Texas, and devoted to that his fortune and his career.
In this year, too, General Houston, whose happi- ness and whose first career had been wrecked by one woman, found the happiness of his later life in an- other. On the 9th of May, 1840, at Marion in Ala- bama, he married, at the age of forty-seven, Margaret Moffette Lea, who was twenty-one. According to the editor of the Life and Literary Remains, who has a special right to speak on this subject, she was bora in Perry County, Alabama, had received " the best advantages of the schools of Alabama, and through all her life continued to improve her intellectual powers by reading and study. Associating with the most cultivated people of Alabama, possessed of winning manners and conversational powers, she attracted no little attention from men of eminence in Church and State. . . .
" On a visit to Mobile she first met Gen. Houston. He was at that time given to occasional excesses in drinking, by which he had acquired the name among the Indians of ' Big Drunk.' His romantic history, his brilliant career as the saviour of Texas, his com- manding figure, winning manners, and vivacious con- versation, won the heart of the young Alabamian.
1840.] ADMINISTRATION OF LA MAR. 161
" She was asked by the writer why she ran the risk of unhappiness and misfortune by consenting to link her destinies with those of Gen. Houston, at a time when he gave way to such excesses? She replied, that ' not only had he won her heart, but she had conceived the idea that she could be the means of reforming him, and she meant to devote herself to the work.' "
As far as one can tell, General Houston's second married life was entirely happy. Mrs. Houston seems to have been a woman of genuine sweetness ; gradu- ally, as we shall see, she won him, not only away from whiskey, but into the bosom of the Baptist Church. They had eight children, all well fitted to survive ; and it is a pleasant picture which we have of Houston, during his lonely years in the United States Senate, waiting for his wife's weekly letters, reading portions of them aloud to his trusted friends, and spending his Sunday afternoons in answering them. Mrs. M. M. Houston wrote verses, a single stanza of which is sometimes worth a whole volume of Lamar's furious lyric. I will here give a few stanzas from a poem called "Our Daughters :"-
Our eldest is an autumn bloom ;
Just as the summer rose grew pale She smiled upon our woodland home,
The brightest flower in all the vale.
The second April came with showers, The buds to ope, and vines to wreathe,
And left the sweetest of its flowers Upon my joyous heart to breathe.
ii
162 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1841.
My beauteous gifts ! how carefully Their tender branches I must train !
That each fair plant on earth may be A household joy 1 And yet in vain
My fondest care without that aid The blessed Lord alone can give.
Father ! these earthly blooms must fade, But let their souls before Thee live.
*
My buds of innocence in time
Be formed to bloom beyond the skies,
Within the cloudless spirit's clime Unfading flowers of Paradise.
For about a year from December, 1840, Lamar was ill, and took little part in the administration ; the government was practically in the ha'nds of his Vice- President, the same David G. Burnet who was once such a weak President ad interim. David G. Burnet wanted to be President of Texas for a regular term, and he ran against Houston in the election of Septem- ber, 1841. It was a bitter fight, but Houston was elected by a three-fourths vote. The struggle for the Vice-Presidency was also severe, and resulted in the election of General Edward Burleson, the comman- dant whom some reader may remember as having allowed " old Ben Milam " to capture San Antonio for him in December, 1835, and as having then gone off to spend Christmas with his family.
CHAPTER XVI.
HOUSTON'S SECOND ADMINISTRATION, 1841-1844.
I SHALL be able to present some of the chief occur- rences of Houston's second presidency in his own words. It is absurd to put together two big volumes of Houston's documents and label them " Select Liter- ary Remains ; " but when he had something special to say, this strong man of action could say it well.
Houston and Texas had first of all to reap the dragons' teeth which had been so industriously sowed by Lamar. I shall leave to those whose souls are dry as summer dust the details of Texan finance, and of the analogous question of land tenures ; but a few main facts can do us no harm. At the last election the voters had been twelve thousand ; and this, allow- ing for some twenty thousand Indians and Mexicans, would give Texas a total population of not over eighty thousand. It was estimated that merely to pay the interest on the public debt, and to meet the current expenses of the government in the paper money worth ten or fifteen cents in a dollar, would require an an- nual tax of fifty dollars in coin to be laid upon each of the twelve thousand voters. In his first message, delivered a week after his inauguration, Houston de- clares that " there is not a dollar in the treasury. The
1 64 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1841.
nation is involved from ten to fifteen millions. The precise amount of its liabilities has not been ascer- tained. . . . We are not only without money but without credit, and for want of punctuality, without character. At our first commencement we were not without credit ; nor had a want of punctuality then impaired our character abroad or confidence at home. Patriotism, industry, and enterprise are now our only resources, apart from our public domain and the precarious revenues of the country. These remain our only hope, and must be improved, husbanded, and properly employed."
We must be content to know that in the course of three years, by infinite firmness, patience, and cun- ning, by reducing salaries and almost abolishing the useless navy, by placating the much-wronged Indians in the north, Houston pulled Texas out of the worst of this quagmire. Early in 1841 a pig belonging to an Austin hotel-keeper had strayed into the stables of M. de Saligny, the French charge", to eat the horses' corn ; Saligny's servant slew the pig, the publican horsewhipped the servant, Saligny arrested the pub- lican and had him bound over j the publican, watch- ing his chance, insulted Saligny and ordered him out of his hotel ; and Lamar had allowed this absurdity to cause a complete suspension of relations between Texas and France ; again it was Houston who had to make peace. In January, 1842, came the first con- fused news of the capture of the Santa Fe expedition, spreading anguish and madness through Texas; the Texans did not learn clearly, until seven months later, that " the entire expedition, with all the arms,
1842.] SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 165
horses, and goods had been taken — without firing a gun, the property appropriated by the captors, and the prisoners bound and on the march to the city of Mexico." It was owing to Houston's efforts, sec- onded by the United States, that the miserable rem- nant of these prisoners was ultimately restored. Then, in March, 1842, a small Mexican army invaded Texas, took possession of San Antonio, remained there two days, and returned to the Rio Grande, committing fearful ravages ; President Houston saw fit to order the removal of the public archives from Austin to Houston ; some Texans, with their habitual insubordi- nation deciding that the measure was unnecessary, took arms against it, and a little civil war, called the " Archive War," raged while the Mexicans were still in Texas. Things became worse and worse, and one only wonders that Houston could have any more patience with the country which he had so often saved.
In March, 1842, Houston had occasion to address a famous letter to Santa Anna. Many things had changed in the six years since the little Napoleon of the West had sobbed on Houston's broad shoulder, Houston gently patting him the while, and soothing him like a child. The little Napoleon had once more risen on the top of the troubled waves. In 1838 the French were bombarding Vera Cruz to enforce pay- ment of damages done to the pastry of a French baker, and to the property of many other French subjects, during Mexican civil wars. Santa Anna commanded against them. He was repeatedly sur- prised, fled once in his nightshirt before the Prince
1 66 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1842.
de Joinville, and lost his left leg. After the French had sailed away, with their demands completely sat- isfied, he posed as a national hero for having driven the French into the sea. In 1840 he managed to spill Anastasio Bustamente gently from the Presiden- tial chair, and to seat himself therein. Then for two years he had followed his well-known courses, retiring to Manga de Clavo and covering himself with thick clouds whenever a crisis arose. In the spring of 1842 he was as firmly seated in Mexico as he was ever destined to be ; and he had been guilty of several recent impertinencies to Texas. I grieve that I can print only the end of Houston's letter : —
Sir, from your lenity and power Texans expect nothing, — from your humanity less ; and when you invade Texas you will not find " thorns to wound the foot of the traveller," but you will find opposed to Mexican breasts arms wielded by freemen of unerring certainty, and directed by a purpose not to be eluded. Texans war not for gewgaws and titles ; they battle not to sustain dictators or despots ; they cfo not march to the field unwillingly, nor are they dragged to the army in chains, with the mock-title of volunteers. For awhile they lay by the implements of husbandry, and seize their rifles ; they rally in defence of their rights ; and, when victory has been achieved, they return to the cultivation of the soil. They have laws to protect their rights. Their property is their own. They do not bow to the will of despots ; but they bow to the majesty of the Constitution and laws. They are freemen, indeed. It is not so with your nation. From
1842.] SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 167
the alcalde to the dictator, all are tyrants in Mexico ; and the community is held in bondage, subject not to law, but to the will of a superior, and confined in hope- less subjection to usurpation. . . .
In the war which will be conducted by Texas against Mexico, our incentive will not be a love of conquest ; it will be to disarm tyranny of its power. We will make no war upon Mexicans or their religion. Our efforts shall be made in behalf of the liberties of the people, and directed against the authorities of the country and against your principles. We will exalt the condition of the people to representative freedom ; they shall choose their own rulers ; they shall possess their property in peace, and it shall not be taken from them to support an armed soldiery for the pur- pose of oppression. . . .
With the most appropriate consideration, I have the honour to present you my salutation.
SAM HOUSTON.
To his Excellency, ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA, President of the Repiiblic of Mexico.
In June, 1842, Houston summoned a special meet- ing of the Congress at Houston, where the govern- ment still remained after its forced removal from Austin in March. This Congress seems to have been madder than a hare ; Houston could do nothing but steadily veto every measure it passed ; " legislative jests," he calls these measures, and such they surely were. At one time he was nearly murdered for re- fusing to accept the powers of a Dictator. We read that the town of Houston swarmed with assassins, that
1 68 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1842.
Houston's own cabinet talked of resigning, and that during some weeks few of the President's friends dared to approach his house, unless secretly by night.
" But in the midst of all this storm, which few men could have resisted," says Mr. Lester, "Houston was calm and cheerful. He stationed no guard around his house ; he had no spies on the alert ; he did not even inquire what was said in Congress or done in the streets. The blinds and the windows of his dwelling were wide open, and he was often seen walking across his parlor, conversing cheerfully with his family. His wife, whom he had married in 1840, — one of the most accomplished and gifted of women, — reposed confidently upon his character, and she calmly and confidingly sustained him by her placid and intellect- ual conversations. Long after the lights had been extinguished through the town, and sullen, desperate, armed men were gathered in secret meetings to plot and counterplot, the gay voice of his wife, mingling with the tones of the harp and the piano, which she had carried with her to the wilderness, was heard coming forth from the open windows of Houston's dwelling."
General Houston had sworn to Santa Anna to have either peace or open war. Two other straggling in- vasions had occurred since March, and in October Houston caused a circular letter to be addressed to the governments with which Texas had relations, de- manding their interference. The Mexicans were a nation of ranchmen, and could not be touched by such incursions ; the Texans were agriculturists, and were being ruined by them. It is gratifying to learn
I843-] SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 169
that this able paper, which we are compelled to omit, completely secured its object. M. Guizot and Sir Robert Peel are said to have been particularly im- pressed by it. Civilized nations, one after another, notified Mexico that this irregular warfare must be stopped.
We have heard much of Houston's Indian "Talks." They are unique productions, with a decidedly Ossi- anic touch about them. Some are remarkable for their subject matter, and others for the strange names of the chieftains addressed ; they all speak for Hous- ton's knowledge of Indian character. I shall give two of the best specimens. We see that the government is still at Washington on the Brazos, on its way back to the deserted capital of Austin.
TALK TO THE INDIAN CHIEF LINNEY.
WASHINGTON, March 5, 1843.
MY BROTHER, — Your talk came to me. I read it, and was happy ! I remembered other days. Our words came back to my thoughts. We spoke to each other face to face. Our hearts were open to each other. Words of kindness entered into them and gave light to our countenances. When we talked together, our people were in our thoughts, and we remembered the women and children of our nations ; you have kept your words, nor have I forgotten mine. . . . You will stand by us and keep trouble from our people. If red men come to our settlements or hurt our people when they meet them, the blame may fall upon good red brothers, and cause injury to them and their peo-
1 70 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1843.
pie. So that our brothers must watch all those whose hearts are not straight, and who walk in crooked paths and bushes. . . .
The red brothers all know that my words to them have never been forgotten by me. They have never been swallowed up by darkness, nor has the light of the sun consumed them. Truth cannot perish, but the words of a liar are as nothing. I wish you to come, and we will again shake hands and counsel to- gether. Bring other chiefs with you. Talk to all the red men to make peace. War cannot make them happy. It has lasted too long. Let it now be ended and cease forever. Tell all my red brothers to listen to my commissioners, and to walk by the words of my counsel. If they hear me and keep my words, their homes shall be happy; their fires shall burn brightly, and the pipe of peace shall be handed round the hearth of their wigwams. The tomahawk shall no more be raised in war; nor shall the dog howl for his master who has been slain in battle. Joy shall take the place of sorrow ; and the laughing of your children shall be heard in place of the cries of women. Your brother, SAM HOUSTON.
And here is a lamentation for a dead warrior and ally : —
TO THE LIPANS, IN MEMORY OF FLACO, THEIR CHIEF.
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, March 28, 1843.
To THE MEMORY OF GEN. FLACO, CHIEF OF LIPANS:
MY BROTHER, — My heart is sad ! A dark cloud rests upon your nation. Grief has sounded in your
1 843. 1 SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 171
camp. The voice of Flaco is silent. His words are not heard in council. The chief is no more. His life has fled to the Great Spirit. His eyes are closed. His heart no longer leaps at the sight of the buffalo. The voices of your camp are no longer heard to cry : " Flaco has returned from the chase ! " Your chiefs look down on the earth and groan in trouble. Your warriors weep. The loud voices of grief are heard from your women and children. The song of birds is silent. The ears of your people hear no pleasant sound. Sorrow whispers in the winds. The noise of the tempest passes. It is not heard. Your hearts are heavy.
The name of Flaco brought joy to all hearts. Joy was on every face. Your people were happy. Flaco is no longer seen in the fight. His voice is no longer heard in battle. The enemy no longer make a path for his glory. His valour is no longer a guard for your people. The right of your nation is broken. Flaco was a friend to his white brothers. They will not for- get him. They will remember the red warrior. His father will not be forgotten. We will be kind to the Lipans. Grass shall not grow in the path between us. Let your wise men give the counsel of peace. Let your young men walk in the white path. The gray- headed men of your nation will teach wisdom. I will hold my red brothers by the hand.
Thy brother, SAM HOUSTON.
The prospects of Texas improved greatly in the course of the year 1843. Minute men and rangers
172 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1844.
had been raised for the defence of the Mexican frontier ; a sort of armistice had been arranged with Santa Anna ; the Indians were pacified ; Texan credit was partly restored, and the Texans had learned, above all, not to disobey their wisest and their best man.s But it is probable that Houston was never under so prolonged and terrible a strain as during the first eighteen months of his second presidency.
From the earliest moment the Texans seem to have awaited and desired annexation to the United States; their continuance as an independent nation was never regarded as other than a temporary expe- dient, and the lonely star of their brave little flag was in itself a pathetic appeal for amalgamation. At the end of 1843 it began to look as if their hopes would be gratified, for in his message of December President Tyler recommended annexation. For the next six .months the question was a burning one, and commis- sioners were circulating everywhere.
General Jackson, it is said, was the only man to whose judgment Houston ever deferred. We have several letters of this period, all in the tone of a furi- ous partisan, from Houston to Jackson. Here is part of a letter written in February, 1 844 : —
Now, my venerated friend, you will perceive that Texas is presented to the United States, as a bride adorned for her espousal. But if, now so confident of the union, she should be rejected, her mortification would be indescribable. She has been sought by the United States, and this is the third time she has con-
I844-] SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 173
sented. Were she now to be spurned, it would for- ever terminate expectation on her part, and it would then not only be left for the United States to expect that she would seek some other friend, but all Chris- tendom would justify her in a course dictated by ne- cessity and sanctioned by wisdom. However adverse this might be to the wishes or the interest of the United States, in her present situation she could not ponder long. The course adopted by the United States, if it stop short of annexation, will displease France, irritate England, and exasperate Mexico. An effort to postpone it to a more convenient season may be tried in the United States to subserve party purposes and make a President. Let them beware. I take it that it is of too great magnitude for any im- pediment to be interposed to its execution. That you may live to see your hopes in relation to it crowned with complete success I sincerely desire. In the event that it speedily takes place, I hope it will afford me an opportunity of visiting you again at the Her- mitage with my family. It is our ardent desire to see the day when you can lay your hand on our little boy's head, and bestow upon him your benediction. Be assured, General, that I should rejoice if circum- stances should afford an opportunity for an event so desirable to us.
Be pleased to make the united salutations of Mrs. H. and myself to your family. We unite our prayers for your happiness, and join in the expression of our affectionate regard for you.
Truly your friend,
SAM HOUSTON.
174 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1844.
England and France protested at once against the annexation of Texas ; it was certain to mean war with Mexico ; and after fierce discussions the measure was rejected by the United States Senate in June, 1844. So, for the third time, Texas had been repulsed, Hereafter it was due to General Houston that Texas no longer seemed to wish for annexation. She sud- denly became coy in order to make herself desired. "You don't want us?" she seemed to say, here- after, to the United States. "Very well, England or France would be very glad indeed to have us; and in any case we can take perfectly good care of ourselves."
Here is an account of an interview which an Eng- lish lady, Mrs. M. C. Houstoun, somewhat known in literature, who was then very young, and who went voyaging around the tropical world in her own yacht, had with General Houston in 1 844 : —
" The ' city ' of Houston is beautifully situated on the banks of the Red [?] River. The houses are built entirely of wood, and the hotels are wretched. Our chief end, however, was answered, for we received a visit from the conqueror of San Jacinto, and the friend of the red man. As is invariably the case on the introduction of Americans, — either to one an- other, or to foreigners, — much shaking of hands, together with considerable use of the monosyllable < Sir,' took place between us and General Sam Houston, whose costume is a happy mixture of the inevitable black satin waistcoat (donned, probably, from a sense of conventional respect for his British visitors), and
I844-] SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 175
the coarse blanket-like overcoat, which, having much the appearance of green baize, is the ordinary cover- ing of a Texan gentleman. A wan and worn-looking man is the President of this new republic, and there are, notwithstanding the shrewd and kindly expression of his face, signs thereon that he has (more than his many admirers like to think possible) deserved in his day the sobriquet of < Drunken Sam,' which was long since bestowed upon him. He has been twice mar- ried, having obtained — a thing easily done in Amer- ica— a divorce from his first wife ; his second marriage has, in one respect at least, proved of signal advantage to him, for, thanks to the influence of Madame la Presidente, General Houston has eschewed the habits both of drinking and of using bad language, in which he formerly indulged. He was what I have heard called * a fine swearer' in days gone by; but he has learned, not only to govern men, but to rule his 'tongue, which he has probably found to be a far more difficult matter. Like most Americans whom I have known, he is very proud of being able to clearly prove his descent from an English, or rather, in his case, from a Scotch family. He told us that his forbears belonged to Lanarkshire, and claimed cousinship with us at once. Never have I seen a man, especially one who had 'done,' not alone the 'State,' but the cause of humanity, such ' good service in his day,' who was so simple and unobtrusive in manner, and who seemed to think so little of himself. We parted with mutual professions of esteem, and an amount of handshaking that is unknown except among a people of whom," etc., etc.
176 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1844.
"When the President," Mrs. Houstoun says else- where, " travels through the country, it is at the ex- pense of persons at whose houses he puts up, and when he makes use of a steamer he has the privilege of a free passage. I believe that during his public career General Houston has neither saved nor made a dollar ; on the contrary, he is said to be often in pecuniary difficulties. As a proof how convinced the people are of his integrity, in regard to not having amassed a fortune from the public funds, it may be mentioned that not long ago, being in want of a little tobacco, and not having wherewith to purchase it, he could not obtain credit."
Mrs. M. C. Houstoun shows admirable criticism when she declares her belief that Houston was "a Tory at heart," although this made no difference in his courtesy to all classes. " The House of Assembly at Washington," she adds, "is open to the street; it has no windows, and any one may look in who pleases. General Houston's greeting to the free citizens — carters, or blacksmiths, as the case may be — is always kind and polite. It is * How-d'ye- do, Colonel? How's Madam? Bad weather for the ladies ! ' "
After this year Houston could never be president of Texas again. In the elections of September, 1844, Dr. Anson Jones of Massachusetts (1798-18*58), Houston's friend and pupil, was elected President over General Burleson. " As long as old Sam is at the helm, the ship is safe ; " such had come to be the universal feeling in Texas. But the time was at
I844-] SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 177
hand when the ship must sink or sail under less skilful guidance.
On the 4th of December Houston sent his last message to the Congress, still at Washington on the Brazos. AndontheQth of December, 1844, Houston delivered his valedictory address to his " Gentlemen of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, and Fellow-citizens." It is a noble document, and one grieves to be unable to give it in its entirety.
" I am about," he says, " to lay down the au- thority with which my countrymen, three years since, so generously and confidingly invested me, and to return again to the ranks of my fellow-citizens. But in retiring from the high office which I have occupied to the walks of private life, I cannot for- bear the expression of the cordial gratitude which inspires my bosom. The constant and unfailing sup- port which I have had from the people, in every vicissitude, demands of me a candid and grateful acknowledgment of my enduring obligations. From them I have derived a sustaining influence, which has enabled me to meet the most tremendous shocks, and to pursue, without faltering, the course which I deemed proper for the advancement of the public interests and the security of the general welfare.
" I proudly confess that to the people I owe what- ever of good I may have achieved by my official labours, for without the support which they so fully accorded me, I could have acquired neither advan- tage for the republic nor satisfaction for myself. . . .
" The attitude of Texas now, to my apprehension, is one of peculiar interest. The United States have
12
1 78 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1844.
spurned her twice [three times] already. Let her, ^therefore, maintain her position firmly as it is, and work out her own political salvation. Let her legisla- tion proceed upon the supposition that we are to be and remain an independent people. If Texas goes begging again for admission into the United States she will only degrade herself. They will spurn her again from their threshold, and other nations will look upon her with unmingled pity. Let Texas, therefore, maintain her position. If the United States shall open the door, and ask her to come into her great family of States, you will then have other con- ductors, better than myself, to lead you into the be- loved land from which we have sprung, — the land of the broad stripes and bright stars. But let us be as we are until that opportunity is presented, and then let us go in, if at all, united in one phalanx, and sus- tained by the opinion of the world. . . .
" It is unnecessary for me to detain you longer. I now, therefore, take leave of you, my countrymen, with the devout trust that the God who has inspired you with faithful and patriotic devotion will bless you with His choicest gifts. I shall bear with me into the retirement in which I intend to pass the remainder of my life the grateful and abiding recollection of your many favours."
These are ringing words. Yet I do not think it an anti-climax to close the chapter, not with Houston's valedictory address, but with the simple verses ad- dressed by Mrs. Houston —
I844-] SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 179
TO MY HUSBAND. December^ 1844, on Retirement from the Presidency.
Dearest, the cloud has left thy brow, The shade of thoughtfulness, of care
And deep anxiety ; and now The sunshine of content is there.
Its sweet return, with joy I hail ;
And never may thy country's woes Again that hallowed light dispel,
And mar thy bosom's calm repose !
The same strong arm hath put to flight Our country's foes, — the ruthless band
That swept in splendid pomp and might Across our fair and fertile land.
The same Almighty hand hath raised On these wild plains a structure fair,
And well may wondering nations gaze At aught so marvellous and rare.
This task is done, The holy shade
Of calm retirement waits thee now. The lamp of hope relit hath shed
Its sweet refulgence o'er thy brow.
Far from the busy haunts of men, Oh ! may thy soul each fleeting hour
Upon the breath of prayer ascend To Him who rules with love and power.
M. M. HOUSTON.
CHAPTER XVII.
GENERAL JACKSON ANNEXES TEXAS, 1844-1845.
SUCH is the title of a curious chapter near the end of the third volume of Mr. Parton's Life of Andrew Jackson.
General Jackson's interest in Houston and in Texas had always been of the keenest. As evidence of this fact, here is an anecdote of the electric spring of 1836, for which I have been unable to find room any earlier :
"At this critical moment, which soon after termi- nated in the news of the battle of San Jacinto, Mr. Buchanan called to see the President, whom he found in his office, with the map of Texas before him. He had been tracing the progress of Santa Anna (forwards), and that of his pupil (backwards), and did not seem at all elated at the spectacle presented by these movements. As Mr. Buchanan looked over the map, the General, putting his finger upon San Jacinto, said, ' Here is the place. If Sam Houston is worth one bawbee, he will make a stand here, and give them a fight.'
" A few days after, the news was received at Wash- ington of what had taken place at that very spot."
Eight years had passed since the spring of San Jacinto. " General Harrison," says Mr. Parton, " had
I844-] JACKSON ANNEXES TEXAS. l8l
triumphed and died. Mr. Tyler, the Vice President, had succeeded him. The presidential election of 1 844 was approaching. Henry Clay, the beloved, the often disappointed, was to be the candidate for the Whigs. Mr. Van Buren, defeated in 1840 because of his im- movable devotion to the principles of his party, was the man entitled by that party's usages to be its candidate in 1844. A faction headed (according to Col. Benton) by Mr. Calhoun, was resolved upon his being dropped by the nominating convention. To effect their purpose, the faction devised a new and popular issue, or, as we now phrase it, a new plank in the platform ; one upon which Mr. Van Buren could not stand. — namely, the immediate annexation of Texas. As Mexico had not yet acknowledged the independence of the revolted province, its annexa- tion to the United States was equivalent to a declara- tion of war against Mexico. But what was that if a president could be elected thereby?"
Those to whom the mephitic atmosphere of the American politics of this time is not poisonous may read in the forty-sixth chapter of Mr. Parton's third volume, how General Jackson was craftily led on to write a letter, early in 1843, in favour of the annexa- tion of Texas at any cost ; how this letter was sup- pressed for a year, and then published, with the date changed to 1844 ; how Mr. Van Buren, in the mean time, had been induced to declare against annexation ; and how he was annihilated by this involuntary colli- sion with his old chief. Jackson, in a second famous letter, struggled mightily, but in vain, to save Mr. Van Buren without going back on himself. It was quite
182 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1845.
too late. "This [second] letter," says Mr. Parton, "could not save Mr. Van Buren from defeat in the nominating convention — so powerful was the com- bination against him. Mr. Polk of Tennessee, whose name had scarcely been mentioned in connection with the first office, received the nomination. Polk, of course, was strenuous for instantaneous annexation. He would have favoured the annexation of the infer- nal regions if the party had made it an issue ; for he was a politician of the New York school."
So Jackson dropped Van Buren, and struggled only for annexation. " In promoting this important meas- ure," says Mr. Parton. " he displayed an energy and a pugnacity seldom exhibited, before or since, by a politician in his seventy-seventh year." He annexed Texas (1845), an(^ died as the measure was accom- plished ; one of his god-sons tells us that on his death- bed he babbled only of Houston and of annexation.
It is hard to arrive at an idea of the public feeling on this subject in Texas. According to some ac- counts the annexation was bitterly deprecated. Yet it is certain that many Texans, in the characteristic Texan fashion, wanted to arrest President Jones for not pressing annexation with sufficient vehemence, and that the only member of the Austin convention who finally voted against annexation was a Mr. Richard Bache, a grandson of Benjamin Franklin. On the 2ist of June, 1845, a fortnight after his death, the Texan Congress had tendered to General Jackson "the unfeigned gratitude of a nation."
1845] JACKSON ANNEXES TEXAS. 183
Still harder is it to arrive at a correct notion of General Houston's movements during this year. In February, 1845, we have a vivid account of him as setting out from Washington on the Brazos, on his way to Eastern Texas. " He came into my room," writes his friend, "booted, spurred, whip in hand. Said he, ' Saxe Weimar (the name of his saddle-horse) is at the door saddled. I have come to leave Houston's last words with you. If the Con- gress of the United States shall not by the fourth of March pass some measure of annexation which Texas can with honour accede to, Houston will take the stump against annexation for all time to come ! ' When he wished to be emphatic he spoke of himself by name, Houston, in the third person. Without an- other word, embracing after his fashion, he mounted and left."
Before the end of 1845 Houston was in the City of Washington ; and by June he had certainly got as far as Tennessee on his way thither. General Jackson died at the Hermitage, near Nashville, on the 8th of June, 1845, at tne a£e °f seventy- eight. Now it is' an assumption with Mr. Lester and with others, that Houston was among the few most prized friends whom Jackson summoned to his death- bed ; and the editor of Houston's Life and Select Literary Remains goes so far as to state that he has had minute accounts of this death-bed interview from Mrs. M. M. Houston, who was present, and that it was one of the most touching things imaginable. Yet here is a letter to President Polk which I find in Yoakum's History of Texas : —
184 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1845.
HERMITAGE, June 8, 1845.
12 o'clock at night.
MY DEAR SIR, — In deep sorrow I address you this hasty note. At six o'clock this evening General Jack- son departed this life. He retained his faculties to the very last hour. I lament that I was denied the satisfaction of seeing him in his last moments. I was unfortunately delayed in ascending the Mississippi, so that I did not reach Nashville till half-past six this evening. I immediately procured a conveyance, and came out with my family, — having understood that the General's health was exceedingly precarious, and being anxious to administer, if I could, some comfort in the closing scene of his eventful life. On my way, a few miles from the city, I met the family physician, who informed me that the General was no more.
About three hours before his departure he con- versed for some time with his family, and took an affectionate leave of them, as also of his domestics. His physician represented the scene as most affect- ing, and remarked that he departed with perfect se- renity and with full faith in the promises of salvation through the Redeemer.
I have seen the corse since my arrival ; the visage is much as it was in life. His funeral will take place on Tuesday, at eleven o'clock, A. M. A nation will feel his loss, as a nation has received the fruits of his toils during the best years of his life. Very truly your friend,
SAM HOUSTON.
1845-1 JACKSON ANNEXES TEXAS. 185
It is a clear picture that this letter leaves in one's imagination, — of the two " conveyances " hailing each other on that country road in the scented sum- mer twilight, and of Houston leaping out to hear that his General, "the old chief," who had sent him forth ten years before to capture Texas, and to whose feet he was even now returning with his finished work, had passed away an hour before from the world in, which his fierce Will had been as one of the elemental forces.
Let us take one more contemporary glance at Hous- ton, as he stood in 1845, at tne end of his career as leader of an independent nation, on the threshold of his new career as Senator in Washington, and in- dulge ourselves at the same time in an example of Mr. Lester's manner of dividing his paragraphs:
X.
"There is a sorrow which even the Hero cannot bear. The storms of life may beat against the frail dwelling of man as wildly as they will, and the proud and the generous heart may still withstand the blast. But when the poisoned shaft of disappointment strikes the bosom where all we love and live for is treasured, the fruit of this world turns to ashes, and the charm of life is broken. Then it is that too often reason and bliss take their flight together."
XI.
" When this dark cloud fell over the path of Hous- ton, he buried his sorrows in the flowing bowl. His
186 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1845
indulgences began with the wreck of his hopes, and like many noble and generous spirits, he gave him- self up to the fatal enchantress. But his excesses have been exaggerated by his enemies a hundredfold. We believe no man can say that he ever saw Houston rendered incompetent, by any indulgence, to perform any of the offices of private or public life, a single hour." . . .
XIV.
" And now he finds himself standing on the meridian of life, with an erect, well-made form, of perfect health and gigantic strength. His hair has been turned gray by Herculean labours, but his eye is still soft and clear, and it beams with a smile which no man's can wear whose heart does not overflow with love of country and philanthropy to his race. His countenance is flushed with the glow of health and cheerfulness, which seldom, in a world like ours, lin- gers after the morning of life is passed. And but for occasional days of suffering from the wound he re- ceived in his right shoulder from two rifle-balls at To-ho-pe-ka, forty [about thirty] years ago, he knows no physical ailment. Sometimes these sufferings are intense, and he will never be free from them while he lives, for no surgical skill has ever been able to close up that wound. It has discharged every day for more than thirty years. In a manner almost miraculous, he has entirely recovered from the wound in his ankle received at the battle of San Jacinto."
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOUSTON IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, 1846-1859.
TEXAS entered the United States as no State had ever entered the Union before, as no State will ever enter it again, — as an absolutely independent nation surrendering its nationality, and electing to become a part of a big whole rather than remain a small inte- ger. By this measure Houston became once more, after thirteen years, an American citizen. Mr. Par- ton can well remember how it was whispered in Washington, during the years of Houston's senator- ship, that it was with this mission clearly in view that he had been originally sent out to Texas ; and it is significant that Houston had laboured to induce the Convention which declared the Independence of Texas, in March, 1836, to declare Texas, instead, to be a part of Louisiana, and thus, by consequence, of the United States. No matter ; ultimately, somehow, with the tough effectiveness characteristic of him, he had accomplished his mission.
The first senators from Texas were Houston and Houston's ablest and most honest colleague, Mr. Thomas Jefferson Rusk. They took their seats in March, 1846. Mr. Rusk sat until he unfortunately committed suicide, in July, 1856, just after his elec-
1 88 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1846.
tion to a third term ; Houston sat through three terms, until March, 1859.
One who wishes to preserve Houston's memory, but who has rendered that memory a very doubtful service, has gathered Houston's speeches in the United States Senate into a dense and dreary volume, and labelled* them Select Literary Remains. I have been unable to read this volume through ; and I think it safe to say that while the sun shines and the free wind blows, no man will ever read it. Houston was not an orator except upon great occasions, when the spark seldom failed to answer to the steel. But with the aid of this most depressing volume we will try to get a few inter- esting glimpses at the salient points of General Hous- ton's life through the thirteen years of dignity, of recognition, and of comparative retirement, between 1846 and 1859. During Houston's earlier years in the Senate the old giants, Benton, Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1782-1850), some of them his associates in the House of Representatives twenty years before, were still contending in the familiar arena ; when he retired in 1859 he had sat by the side of Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) and of Charles Sumner (1811- 1874).
We must just observe that in March, 1845, as the annexation of Texas became inevitable, the Mexican minister at Washington, our fluent friend, Juan Nepu- moceno Almonte, withdrew in a state of vehement indignation. General Houston had stood at the very centre of the events which led to the Mexican War ; but he took no part in that war (1846-1848), and he remained silent while he saw Zachary Taylor
1852.] HOUSTON IN THE SENATE. 189
(1784-1850), "the winner of three little battles," elected President over Henry Clay for no greater ex- ploit than the beating of Santa Anna. With himself Houston had brought to the United States the three hundred thousand or so square miles of Texas ; the . Mexican War, which was caused far more directly by Houston than by any other man, brought another accession of over five hundred thousand square miles. Houston is thus responsible for increasing the terri- tory of the United States by more than eight hundred thousand square miles, or by about the equivalent of the thirteen original States.
"How necessary it is to be successful!" sighed Kossuth, at the tomb of one successful liberator. Houston had been, on his own ground, as successful as Washington; and it is instructive to learn that while Kossuth approved of Houston in the highest degree, Houston, as will happen in this world of con- trarieties, did not at all approve of the splendid Kos- suth. Here is an extract from a contemporary news- paper, which describes the reception of Kossuth by the United States Senate in January, 1 85 2 : —
" Among the incidents of the reception, it may be mentioned that when the martial figure of General Houston approached Kossuth, there appeared to be a special attraction in the person of the hero of San Jacinto. Mr. Houston said : ' Sir, you are welcome to the Senate of the United States.' Kossuth feel- ingly replied : ' I can only wish I had been as suc- cessful as you, sir.' To this Houston responded : * God grant you may be, sir.' "
On a later occasion Houston used bitter, vehe-
19° LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1852.
ment language, to which it is hard to reconcile our- selves.
" When the advent of the illustrious stranger, Kos- suth, was announced," he said, " I was not captivated by his advent, Mr. President. A portion of my life had been spent among the Indians. They are a cau- tious and considerate people, and I had learned to reconnoitre character a little when it comes about me ; and I am liable to come in contact with it. I played the Indian and was wary. I received him, sir, in concurrence with the other senators. I wished his country liberty as I wished the world liberty ; but I did not wish to disregard our relations and obliga- tions to other countries. He was hailed, he was greeted, he was welcomed on some occasions more triumphantly than even Lafayette, the friend of Wash- ington. What claims had he upon us? He had claims of sympathy. If he ever flashed his sword for liberty he had a claim on our admiration and our fraternal feelings. But he had not done it — he re- treated with a body-guard of five thousand ; and after he had negotiated for a succedaneum, for a resting- place, he went away, leaving < poor Hungary ' down- trodden and bleeding. Sir, much as I admire the patriots who strike for liberty — much as I admire the noble people whom Kossuth purported to repre- sent — much as I admire all men who have struggled, even unfortunately or misguidedly, for liberty, no mat- ter where — much as I admire the promptings which .actuated them, and love the cause in which they have been engaged, yet when a man proves recreant to a noble cause, forgets his people, lives in comfort,
I8S3-] HOUSTON IN THE SENATE. 191
splendour, and display, when they have to bite the dust or gnaw the file in agony, I have no sympathy for that man."
And he went on to contrast, in angry words, the enthusiasm for Hungary in 1852 with the apathy that was shown towards the cause of Texas ten years be- fore. " How necessary it is to be successful ! "
In the following year, 1853, a young man, from the wild and woolly West, travelling through Texas, en- countered General Houston, and recalled to his mind the unforgotten past. I have already promised to give the traveller's own words.
" I was travelling in Texas," says the unsophistica- ted narrative, "in the year 1853. Arrived at the town of Huntsville, Walker County, on Sunday, about eleven o'clock. The good people of the town and vicinity were passing on to church as I rode up to the hotel. I was very sick ; had a high fever on me when I dismounted. I told the landlord I was very sick, and wanted a room ; he assigned me a room, and was very kind in his attentions. I took a bed immedi- ately, and while talking to him asked him in what part of the State Sam Houston lived. He replied, ' He lives about one and a half miles from town, and his family and he have just passed, going to church, in his carriage.' To this I said : ' Please keep on the look-out, and when he returns from church let him know that a Golladay, of Tennessee, was lying sick there/ After the church hour was over, say twelve or one o'clock, a large, portly, elegant-looking man, came walking into my room and to my bedside. I knew from the description which I had had of him
1 92 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1853.
that it was General Houston, although I had never seen him. I called him by name. He asked me if I was a son of his old friend, Isaac Golladay, of Leba- non, Tennessee. I replied, I was. He then asked, which one ? I told him I was Frederick. He said that he knew my older brothers, but he had left Leb- anon before I was born, but added, ' If you are the son of Isaac Golladay I recognize you as the child of an early and true friend. I went to Lebanon [1819], where your father, Isaac Golladay, resided, a poor young man; your father furnished me an office for the practice of law; credited me in his store for clothes ; let me have my letters, which cost then twenty- five cents postage, from the office of which he was postmaster ; invited me to his house, and recom- mended me to all the good people of his large gen- eral acquaintance/ He then said : ' You must go out to my house ; I will come in my carriage for you in the evening.' I replied, with thanks, that I was too sick to go, but he insisted on coming for me the next morning, to which I consented. Early the next morning he came for me ; being better, I went out to his house with him. He placed me in a room in his
yard, saying that Mrs. H was confined to her
room with an infant at the time. My fever rose and kept me confined. He sent for a physician. I was sick there for about ten days or two weeks. He made a servant-man stay and sleep in the office with me, to wait on me all the while, but often would come to see me and spend much of his time with me. One night, especially, while I was sick, the doctor had left orders for my medicine to be given through the night,
I853-] HOUSTON IN THE SENATE. 193
and my feet bathed in warm water ; he stayed all night with me. He had the vessel of warm water brought, pulled off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, to wash my feet. I objected, the servant being present. He replied, ' My Master washed His disciples' feet, and I would follow His glorious example,' and insisted that he should do so. During the time which he spent with me in my sick-room he gave me much of his early history. He gave me an account of the affect- ing scene when, in a brief address, he took leave of his friends in Lebanon, ... in recounting which many old citizens say that the emotions of his audi- ence were so excited that there was not a dry eye in the whole assembly. He was very much beloved by all while he resided in Lebanon."
One cannot read such an incident as this of any man without honouring him. General Houston's character had been visibly mellowing ever since his blessed second marriage in 1840. The hour was at hand when Mrs. Houston would be able to attain the goal of her wishes by winning her husband into the Christian fold.
A few years after this event, probably during his first winter as a senator (1846), "the tall form of * Sam Houston,' as he was familiarly called, draped in his Mexican blanket as a shield against the blasts of winter at Washington, was seen one Sabbath morning entering the sanctuary of the Baptist Church on E Street, near the City Hall. Frankly approaching the pastor after service, he said that respect for his wife, one of the best Christians on earth, had brought him 13
194 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON: [1854.
there. When the hope was expressed that feelings deeper, and obligations more imperative than those which bound him in devotion to a companion so wor- thy, would soon bind him to the house of God, a warm pressure of the hand and a hearty response to the suggestion showed that there were convictions beyond what were avowed that struggled in his mind. From that time, for twelve years, always in the morning and often at night, he might be seen seated in a pew near the pulpit. For a time, mechanically, and from habit, he appeared provided, as in the senate, with his pocket-knife and bit of pine, carving some little work for his own or other children, yet frequently arrested in his employ, and, looking up intently to catch some connection of thought that struck him in the sermon. In a few months the service seemed to absorb all his thoughts, and the whole outline of the discourse was so noted that he could write it down in his Sunday evening letter to his wife."
We learn that it was a sermon from the text, " Bet- ter is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city," that " fastened conviction " in his mind a few months later. And at length, on the ipth of No- vember, 1854, at the age of sixty-one, after much deliberation as to whether he ought to receive the rite at home in Texas or more publicly in Washing- ton, General Houston was immersed at the town of Independence, in Texas, by the Reverend Rufus C. Burleson, D. D., and became a member of the Inde- pendence Baptist Church. For him this was no gran rifiuto, no denial of his rights as a thinker and a man ; it was simply the triumph of all the better elements in
1854.] HOUSTON IN THE SENATE. 195
his nature. Only try to imagine how much force he had expended in his day ! He was weary now ; his nerves had worn thin, so to speak, and could no longer act as before ; and the old man, with the sense of continuity that marks noble natures, went back to his mother's teaching, turning instinctively for peace to the bosom of that faith which had comforted him when a child.
His Washington pastor, the Reverend G. W. Sam- son, D. D., has given an account worth quoting of a scene that took place before General Houston's first communion, after he returned to Washington a pro- fessed Christian : —
"Fixing his keen eye, as he looked down upon mine, he meekly but firmly asked, ' What is it, Brother S. ? ' ' General,' was the reply, ' you know the alien- ation between you and brother W. [a senator] . You will meet at the Lord's supper next Sabbath evening ; you ought not to meet till that difficulty is settled. Now I wish you, after service on Sunday morning, to let me bring you two together, and without a word of attempt at justification on either side, I wish you to take him by the hand, and say with all your heart that you will forgive and forget, and bury the past, and that you wish him to do the same, and hereafter to meet you as brothers in Christ.' The fire began to glow in his eyes, his brow to knit, his teeth to clench, and his whole frame shook with the struggle of the old man within him ; but in an instant, the man whose passion had been terrible, indeed ungovernable on so many a bloody battle-field, was changed from the lion into the lamb. He meekly replied, ' Brother S., I will do it.1
196 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1854.
And what he promised was done, and in an air of ma- jestic frankness and nobleness of soul, such as moved every beholder. From that hour I never have doubted that General Houston was a man renewed by the Holy Spirit."
In the autumn of 1854, too, the democratic party of New Hampshire, in an able enough manifesto which it is not necessary to quote, nominated Houston as the " People's candidate " for the presidential elec- tion to be held two years later. This appears to have been as far as he ever got toward the presidency of the United States. I have handled, in the British Museum and elsewhere, many dim documents relating to his hopes, but it is not a profitable subject to pursue. There can be no doubt that he wanted the 'great prize of the presidency ; that he thought it would be a fine thing to have been the ruler of two republics, as he had shed his blood in the service of two. He had seen one president of the United States elected on the cry of " Texas ! " and another president elected for merely having beaten that Santa Anna whom Hous- ton had beaten, and taken, and spared; and the glimpse which Mr. Parton had at this time of Hous- ton's bed-room, the bed flowing over, and the furthest corner piled high, with electioneering pamphlets, speaks worlds for the way in which he set his heart upon this ambition. It was not to be gratified; in fact he never had a chance, for he had been absent from the country, capturing Texas, long enough to fcmt him fatally out of the " inside track." Presi- dent of the United States he was never to be 1
I8S4-] HOUSTON IN THE SENATE. 197
" But we '11 do more, Sempronius, — we '11 deserve it!"
General Houston had no special objection to slav- ery ; and he dearly loved the Union, — that match- lessly big country, " Arctic- based, Mexican- washed," — which it may be safely said that he had done more than any other man to amplify. Consequently, in 1850 he had been all in favour of the Compromises with which the great name of Henry Clay is con- nected. Such, inaccurately reported, were Houston's words on the subject while the adored Clay still lived : —
" Mr. President, twenty-seven years ago [1823] I had the honour to occupy a seat in the House of Rep- resentatives from the State of Tennessee. I recollect that in the discussion of the Tariff Act of 1824 for the first time in my life I heard the idea suggested that there might be secession, disunion, or resistance to the constitutional authorities of the land. It pro- duced deep and intense meditation on my part. I did believe then that an example ought to be made of it ; but there was no way to touch it. I have heard principles of disunion boldly avowed in this hall, and have heard Senators avow what was treason, — not technically, but which was not stripped of one particle of the moral turpitude of treason. Disunion has been proclaimed in this hall. What a delightful commen- tary on the freedom of our institutions and the for- bearance of the public mind when a man is permitted to go unscathed and unscourged who, in a deliber- tive body like this, has made such a declaration !
198 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1854.
Sir, no higher assurance can be given of the freedom of our institutions, and of the forbearance of the American people, and their reliance upon the reason and the intelligence of the community. The intelligent mind is left free to combat error. Such sentiments, with their authors, will descend to the obscurity and the tomb of oblivion. I have only to say, in conclu- sion, that those who proclaim disunion, no matter of what name politically, — that those who, for the sake of disunion, conspire against the Union and the Con- stitution, are very beautifully described in Holy Writ. They are ' raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame ; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.' "
During the few years succeeding 1850 things rap- idly grew too bitter and strained for compromises. The sign of this change was the Kansas and Nebraska Bill, which violated the great original Compromise of 1820. Houston had occasion now to remember that he was among the Epigoni, and to recall that, of the three hundred legislators who had seen the Missouri Compromise go into successful working soon after 1820, but three individuals remained legislators, — Edward Everett, Benton, and himself; and of these, Benton had been driven from his thirty years' sen- atorship into the lower house. Houston felt all that was at stake in this overthrow of the Missouri Com- promise. " We are acting as trustees for posterity," he once declared, in 1854; "and according to our decision our children are to live in harmony or 'in anarchy." And again: "I had fondly hoped, Mr. President, that having attained to my present period
1854-] HOUSTON IN THE SENATE. 199
of life I should pass the residue of my days, be they many or few, in peace and tranquillity; that as I found the country growing up rapidly, and have wit- nessed its immeasurable expansion and development, when I closed my eyes on scenes around me I would at least have the cherished consolation and hope that I left my children in a peaceful, happy, prosperous, and united community. I had hoped this. Fondly had I cherished the desire and the expectation from 1850 until after the introduction of this bill. My hopes are less sanguine now. My anxieties increase, but my expectation lessens. Sir, if this repeal takes place, I will have seen the commencement of the agitation ; but the youngest child now born, I am ap- prehensive, will not live to witness its termination. Southern gentlemen may stand up and defend this measure. They may accept it from the Northern gentlemen who generously bestow it ; but if it were beneficial to the South it would have been asked for. It was not asked for, nor will it be accepted by the people. It furnishes those in the North who are ene- mies of the South with efficient weapons to contend with.
" Sir, the friends who have survived the distin- guished men who took prominent parts in the drama of the Compromise of 1850 ought to feel gratified that those men are not capable of participating in the events of to-day, but that they were permitted, after they had accomplished their labours, and seen their country in peace, to leave the world, as Simeon did, with the exclamation : < Lord, now lettest thou thy
200 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1857.
servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.' They departed in peace, and they left their country in peace. They felt, as they were about to be gathered to the tombs of their fathers, that the country they had loved so well, and which had hon- oured them, — that country upon whose fame and name their doings had shed a bright lustre which shines abroad throughout all Christendom, — was re- posing in peace and happiness. What would their emotions be if they could now be present and see an effort made, if not so designed, to undo all their work, and to tear asunder the cords that they had bound around the hearts of their countrymen? They have departed. The nation felt the wound; and we see the memorials of woe still in this chamber. The proud symbol (the eagle) above your head remains enshrouded in black, as if deploring the misfortune which has fallen upon us, or as a fearful omen of future calamities which await our nation in the event this bill should become a law. Above it I behold the majestic figure of Washington, whose presence must ever inspire patriotic emotions, and command the admiration and love of every American heart. By these associations I adjure you to regard the contract once made to harmonize and preserve this Union. Maintain the Missouri Compromise ! Stir not up agitation ! Give us peace ! "
We have seen that Thomas Jefferson Rusk, Hous- ton's colleague of twenty years, committed suicide in 1856. In November, 1857, General James Hamilton, the South Carolina magnate who gave up all for the
i859-] HOUSTON IN THE SENATE. 201
cause of Texas, had b*een elected to succeed Rusk in the United States Senate, and was on his way to Wash- ington by sea. There was a collision ; Hamilton had a chance of escape, gave it up to a lady, and perished at the age of sixty-one, — one of those Texans who, like Austin, will forever miss recognition, and who can afford to miss it. Dr. Anson Jones, the last President of Texas, had been strangely neglected by the United States Government, which had superseded him in the midst of his uncompleted term ; he was so ill-advised as to quarrel with Houston, and, in 1858, to commit suicide. In 1859 Lamar died.
Houston was growing old during his service in the Senate ; like Benton a few years before, he had failed of re-election from the State where he was once omnipotent, because he declined to go mad with the unanimous South; in March, 1859, his last term at Washington would expire, and he would be sixty- six. For thirteen years his life had been a divided one ; whenever possible, at home with his loved ones, either at Huntsville, beyond the Trinity, or at the little vil- lage of Independence, beyond the Brazos; during sessions of Congress sitting lonely at Washington, lodg- ing in a single room of a hotel, after the unwholesome American fashion, writing long letters to his wife, sedu- lously attending, in his Mexican blanket, every meet- ing of the Senate or of the Baptist Church, where he whittled endless toys for his own or for other children. Probably he was not sorry to be relieved in the spring of 1859, for he mentions in one of his speeches that every look at the setting sun used to bear him irre- sistibly to his far-distant home on the prairies.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE FINE CLIMAX OF HOUSTON'S PUBLIC LIFE, 1859-1863.
IT was not in the glow and rush of his resistless first career in Tennessee ; it was not during the winter of 1836, when he was the champion of a nation, or in the carnage of San Jacinto and the capture of the Mexican tyrant ; it was not during the ten years when he held Texas in the hollow of his hand, or yet in the thirteen later years of recognition and renown at Washington, that Houston, to my mind, won his finest triumph. Like Crockett, he had to lose his life in order to find it ; and it is only when, at sixty-eight, this all-victorious man submits, from a sense of con- tinuity and from pure loyalty to the principles of his youth, to that humiliation and defeat which could never have been imposed upon him, that he shines forth, for the first time, with something of the irradi- ation of a true hero of humanity.
In the autumn of 1857, while still in the United States Senate, Houston had been a candidate for the governorship of Texas, and had been defeated by Hardin R. Runnels, the candidate of the embittered Democrats. In March, 1859, Houston left the Sen- ate : and in November of the same year, after eight months of retirement, he ran against Governor Run- nels once more, and defeated him. Houston's elec-
i86r.] CLIMAX OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE. 203
tion was considered as a triumph for the Unionist party. Texas, which was the handiwork of Houston, had now a population of quite a third of a million. In December, 1859, Houston became Governor of Texas for the term of two years, which would, regu- larly, run until December, 1861.
The election of Mr. Lincoln in the autumn of 1860, which Houston deplored, rendered an attempt at seces- sion certain ; the behaviour of Mr. Buchanan during the last months of his presidency precipitated it. The commanding United States officer in Texas, it is inter- esting to observe, had been Colonel Robert Edward Lee (1807-1870).
Texas had different traditions from any other State of the Union ; she alone had once been a sovereign nation, and now she wished to resume her surrendered sovereignty. Nothing would do but that Houston, with a heavy heart, should summon a special conven- tion, which met at Austin on the 27th of January, 1861. The Convention submitted the question of secession to the popular vote, and temporarily adjourned. On the 1 8th of February, either party acting without vo- lition, and as if in a dream, General Twiggs, the United States commandant, surrendered to Houston all the national forces in Texas, — twenty-five hun- dred men, — and the national property, valued at $1,200,000. Would Houston be borne along in the current, after all?
Just before the popular vote was taken, Houston, from the balcony of that same Tremont House in Galveston where Mrs. M. M. Houstoun had been wont to watch the gentility of Texas suspended by its heels
204 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1861.
along the piazza, addressed his raging citizens. " His personal friends," says Mr. Bancroft, "fearing that violence would be offered, entreated him to remain quiet. But he was not to be stopped by any appre- hension of danger. He stood erect before the people, and in prophetic language pictured to them the dark future." Here are a few of his words : —
" Some of you," he said, " laugh to scorn the idea of bloodshed as a result of secession, and jocularly propose to drink all the blood that will ever flow in consequence of it ! But let me tell you what is com- ing on the heels of secession. The time will come when your fathers and husbands, your sons and broth- ers, will be herded together like sheep and cattle at the point of the bayonet, and your mothers and wives, and sisters and daughters, will ask, Where are they? You may, after the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure, and hundreds of thousands of precious lives, as a bare possibility, win Southern independence, if God be not against you, but I doubt it. I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrine of State rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people, as you are, for they live in cooler climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, where great interests are involved, . . . they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche, and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South with ignoble defeat." Yet even here Houston declared that Texas would have his sympathies, do what she might. As Henry Clay had said, " My country, right or wrong ! " so Houston said, " My State, right or wrong ! "
i86i.] CLIMAX OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE. 205
During this speech it was that "a horse in a team grew restive and attempted to kick himself out of the harness. Houston paused to say, 'Let him alone ; he is trying a little practical secession.' The horse finally choked himself down, and the teamster commenced beating him. < See how it works,' said he promptly. The horse, after being well beaten, was finally got upon his feet, and the teamster began to put on the broken harness. ' See in what a fix he is brought back into the Union,' said the ever-ready orator, amidst convulsed applause."
On the 23d of February, 1861, the popular vote was taken. All did not vote, but there were 40,000 for secession, 14,000 against it. Securus delirat or- bis terrarum, as Matthew Arnold used to say.
"Very well," said Houston, in effect, among his friends, " let Texas be once more a sovereign nation, as she was of old. But beware of joining the porten- tous confederacy that is forming around Jefferson Davis ! "
An incident which occurred during these bitter days may be clipped from one of the recent histories of Texas : " So greatly was the secession feeling predom- inant in Texas that he [Houston] was unable to direct his own family. Even his dearly beloved son Sam was a secessionist, and coming into the Governor's office one day just before his resignation, wearing a secession rosette on his breast, the Governor asked him, ' What is that, Sam, on the lapel of your coat ? '
" ' It is a secession rosette, father,' answered young Sam.
" ' Why, Sammy, haven't you got it in the wrong place ? ' said the Governor.
206 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1861.
" < Where should I wear it, father? ' asked Sam, ' if not over my heart ? '
" ' I think, Sammy, it would be more appropriate for you to wear it pinned to the inside of your coat-tail ! ' answered the Governor."
On the 2d of March (anniversary of Houston's birth, and of Texan independence) the adjourned convention assembled at Austin. On the 5th of March, when the result of the popular vote was clearly known, it adopted measures for admission into the Southern confederation, sent a special message of ex- planation to Governor Houston, and decreed that all State officers should take the oath of allegiance to the new government on the i4th of March. This Houston declined to do, and he was joined by Mr. Cave, his Secretary of State. The two were deposed from office, and on the 1 6th of March Mr. Edward Clark, " who had rode into the office of lieutenant-governor on the tail of Houston's coat," having taken the oath, was in- augurated in the place of Houston, who had still by rights nine months to serve. Houston protested, but mildly and decorously, against these things, merely pronouncing the acts of the convention null and void. He declined the services of United States troops,
" Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite, To vindicate his helpless right."
" I love Texas too well," he said, " to bring civil strife and bloodshed upon her. To avert this calam- ity, I shall make no endeavour to maintain my author- ity as chief executive of this State, except by the peaceful exercise of my functions. When I can no
i86.i.] CLIMAX OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE. 207
longer do this, I shall calmly withdraw from the scene. . . . Fellow-citizens, think not that I complain of the lot which Providence has now assigned me. It is, per- haps, meet that my career should close thus. I have seen the statesmen and patriots of my youth gathered to their fathers, and the government which they had reared rent in twain, and none like them are now left to reunite it again. I stand almost the last of a race who learned from them the lessons of human freedom." For a day or two Houston held out as governor. But he was now a weak and sad old man. On the 1 8th of March, 1861, Governor Clark reached the government offices before him and held possession. Houston sent a last message to the Legislature, which was not received ; and a few days later he withdrew to Huntsville, declaring that his prayers for Texas would still " be offered up with the same sincerity and devotion with which his services were rendered while occupying public station." Or, in the words of Mr. Lester : " He retired to his prairie home ! and plant- ing upon his log-cabin a single four-pounder, he told his State to ' go to ruin if she pleased ; but she should not drag him along with her.' He had made and saved her, and if she would be unmade, it should be her work — not his."
The Texas scrap-book contains a couple of anec- dotes of Houston's unfinished term as governor of Texas, of which we must give one.
" In the year 1860, while Houston was governor of Texas, an expedition was fitted out for frontier pro-
208 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1861.
tection. In the purchase of medical supplies, the governor gave strict orders that no liquor should be included, under penalty of his severe displeasure. In the requisition for medical stores made by Dr.
T , surgeon of the regiment, were included ' Spts.
Vini Gallici, bottles 24.' This was duly furnished with the other articles, and the bill was taken to General Houston for his approval. The old gentleman settled his spectacles upon his nose, and gravely putting his ea- gle quill behind his ear, read the bill through slowly and carefully until he came to the item in question, when
he turned to the druggist and said : ' Mr. B , what
is this Spts. Vini Gallici? ' < That, General, is brandy.1 ' Ah, yes ! and do you know that I have given positive orders that no liquor should be furnished for this ex- pedition ? ' * No, General ; I was not aware of it.'
The general ran£ his bell. 'Call Dr. T .' The
doctor was summoned. ' Dr. T , what is this
Spts. Vini Gallici for? ' ' That, Governor, is for snake- bites.' Appealing to the druggist, the governor con- tinued : ' Mr. B , is Spts. Vini Gallici good for
snake-bites?' ' Yes, sir, it is so considered.' 'Yes,' replied General Houston, in slow and measured tones, ' and there is Dr. T who would cheerfully con- sent to be bitten by a rattle-snake every morning be- fore breakfast, in order to obtain a drink of this Spts. Vini Gallici.' Having thus delivered himself, he ap- proved the account."
General Houston's daughter, Mrs. Maggie Hous- ton Williams, of Independence, has sent to me, with extreme courtesy, the following recollections of
i86i.] CLIMAX OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE. 209
her father, written in answer to certain leading questions : —
" A public man, as my father was, must necessarily have been much of his time absent from home ; and as he died before the oldest child had attained his majority, our recollections have been dimmed by the passage of time. His visits to his family were not of long duration during his terms as United States Sena- tor, and we felt that we never really knew him until his service in the Senate was ended. We were not permitted then to have him to ourselves, as he was elected governor in 1859, and we went to Austin. His life while there was one of incessant toil. He would often be busy at the Capitol until past mid- night, then would come home and retire completely exhausted. My mother would never allow him to be disturbed in the morning, and he would sleep until 9 o'clock, perhaps later ; then he would rise, make his toilet, shave himself (which he did every morning when in health), eat his breakfast, and return to his labours. On the busiest days his dinner was sent him at noon (his hour for dining) , and his supper after dark. He cared nothing for the dainties of the table, and often confined himself, when not feeling well, to a diet of bread and milk. He was regular in his habits and plain in his tastes, except in the matter of his dress, which was much commented on, but which had at least the merit of originality; For instance, he often wore, when in Washington, a vest of tiger-skin, which I have now in my possession. Instead of his overcoat, he would sometimes wear a dark-brown blanket with stripes of a lighter shade, thrown around 14
210 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1861.
his shoulders. A light-gray, broad- brimmed hat of felt or beaver was the only hat I remember seeing him wear. -His style of dress could not make him look ridiculous, nor did it detract from the command- ing air which belonged to him.
" In regard to his * opinions of men and things/ my recollections are very indistinct of the time pre- vious to the Civil War. The hard feelings caused by political matters were told to our mother no doubt, but his children never heard him abuse an opponent or an enemy. As an instance of his reticence regard- ing his enemies when in the family circle, I will men- tion the following : When we were living on the coast, soon after the war began, my eldest sister once spent a day or two with a friend who resided several miles from us, and on her return was telling our father of an old gentleman she had met. ' He is such a charm- ing old man,' she said, ' and so entertaining. You certainly must remember him, for he said that he knew you in the early days of Texas, and made such kind inquiries about you.' My father asked his name,
and when she replied, 'Judge ,' he and my
mother exchanged amused glances, and he laughed very heartily. Afterward we learned that the ' charm- ing old man' had been one of our father's bitterest enemies, and had once written a scurrilous pamphlet against him. He must have felt very insignificant when my sister told him that she had never heard her father speak of him !
"My father had a high regard for Com. Maury [Matthew Fontaine Maury, 1806-1873], and spoke often of him and other prominent persons who were
i86i.] CLIMAX OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE. 211
his personal friends. In the late war, he looked upon Robt. E. Lee as the greatest man in the South.
" His favourite poets were Burns and Moore, and he was fond of reading Shakspeare. Rollin's Ancient History was his favourite work of that kind ; but above all books, he preferred as constant reading the Word of God, and urged his children to take that as the * man of their counsel.1 Every Sabbath during our childhood we were required to read some portion of the Bible, and not allowed on that day to read any- thing that was not of a religious character. Remem- bering the temptations and excesses of his early man- hood, he endeavoured to instil the principles of temperance in the minds of his children, and never allowed a drop of spirituous liquor to be brought into his house. He abhorred falsehood, and taught his children to regard lying as a dastardly crime.
" In March, 1861, he was deposed from the guber- natorial office by the secession convention, because he refused to sign the ordinance of secession which would declare Texas no longer in the Union. He saw ' as with a prophet's ken ' the troubles that would ensue from such a step ; but feeling his impotence to avert the coming disasters, he retired to private life. He was never the same again, — his great heart was broken."
General Houston's two years of retirement, the last years of his life, were not happy. He who had been accustomed to rule and to save found himself sud- denly swept aside, while everything was rushing to ruin. From time to time he issued deep, unheeded
212 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1863.
warnings against the proclamation of martial law in Texas, and against the enforcement of the Confeder- ate paper currency. He was unable to control the politics of his own household, and he saw his oldest son, Sam, not yet of age, a lieutenant in the rebel army, gayly wearing his secession cockade in the wrong place, ride off to a northern prison, in the effort to prove that he knew better than his father. By the spring of 1863 he had come to think that the success of the South was possible, and this only shook his be- lief in the destined freedom of America, and led him to fear that the country would be ultimately divided into two centralized despotisms. The wound which he had received in the right shoulder while fighting for the United States fifty years before, at the battle of the Horseshoe Bend, and which had never closed dur- ing all that while, began to trouble him afresh ; and other physical troubles, of which I know nothing, were upon him. Moreover, the wound which he had re- ceived at San Jacinto, in his ankle, had finally disabled it ; he went upon a crutch and a cane now who was once so erect. And as if this was not enough, Hous- ton, who had served two republics for half a century, was left destitute at the end, and I read on good au- thority that his family sometimes suffered for the lack of common necessaries. He bore it all like himself, and in silence. But he was sick of time and desired to rest.
For the sake of curiosity shall we glance at the vicissitudes of Santa Anna, Houston's great antago- nist and antithesis, during the twenty years since
1863.] CLIMAX OF HIS PUBLIC LIFE. 213
Houston had had occasion to write to him, in charac- ters of fire and wit, that withering defiance of which we read the concluding paragraphs? From the date of Houston's famous letter, March, 1842, Santa Anna had managed, now in person and now by deputy, while he veiled himself in thick clouds at Manga de Clavo, to be called President of Mexico for nearly three years longer, until December, 1844. Then his troops de- serted him, his statue was pulled down and his pic- ture burned by the mob, he was impeached and imprisoned, and only escaped to Havana at the haz- ard of his life in May, 1845. But when the war with the United States became serious the Mexicans thought that they needed their Napoleon. He was recalled in October, 1846, as commander-in-chief, made president in December, with the tough old Gomez Farias once more as his vice-president ; and after incessant defeats and mortifications which are historic, he was glad to escape, in April, 1848, to Jamaica, going thence to South America. In April, 1853, in consequence of a " revolution," he returned to Mexico and became pres- ident for life, with the title of Most Serene Highness, and the power of appointing his successor. This was almost empire; -but in August, 1855, he was driven hopelessly from his throne, fleeing to Havana, and thence again to South America. He never had any hold on Mexico after this final tumble ; but he lived in many places in South America and the Spanish main for many years, and in the spring of 1863 he sat desolate in St. Thomas, widowed, old, and one- legged, meditating how he might turn the enterprise of Maximilian to his own account. Nobody wanted
214 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1863.
him any longer anywhere ; and it may be mentioned that after still three or four other ignominious attempts to invade his country, always ending in absurdity, he died in the city of Mexico within the memory of us all, in June, 1876, at the age of eighty-one, forgotten by the people, and ignored by the government that no longer feared him.
CHAPTER XX.
THE POPPIED SLEEP, THE END OF ALL, 1863.
ONE of Houston's daughters writes : " How well I remember his look when the roar of the cannon at Austin announced that our State had seceded ! and his sorrowful words to my mother, l My heart is broken.' The words were true ; he never was himself again."
He was sorely shaken what to think in the chaos of new things. At one time we find him saying : " The time has come when a man's section is his country. I stand by mine. . . . Whether we have opposed this secession movement or favoured it, we must alike meet the consequences. It is no time to turn back now." Yet at the very end he declared to the minister who attended him : " My views as to the propriety and possibility of the success of this wicked revolution have undergone no change." Of Mr. Davis he had said, as reported by a questionable witness : " I know Jeff Davis well. He is as ambitious as Lucifer, and as cold as a lizard."
On the 2d of March, 1863, Houston was seventy. And on the 1 8th of March, in response to a popular ovation in his own eponymous city of Houston, he de- livered his broken, last little speech. It was just before this that, when asked by the Confederate authorities at
216 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1863.
Houston for his pass, he had drawn himself proudly up and replied : " Go to San Jacinto and there learn my right to travel in Texas ! " Here is the opening paragraph of Houston's latest speech : —
" LADIES AND FELLOW-CITIZENS : — With feelings of pleasure and friendly greeting, I once again stand be- fore this, an assemblage of my countrymen. As I be- hold this large assemblage, who from their homes and daily toil have come to greet once again the man who so often has known their kindness and affections, I can feel that even yet I hold a place in their high regard. This manifestation is the highest compliment that can be paid to the citizen and patriot. As you have gath- ered here to listen to the sentiments of my heart, knowing that the days draw nigh unto me when all thoughts of ambition and worldly pride give place to the earnestness of age, I know you will bear with me while with calmness, and without the fervour and elo- quence of youth, I express those sentiments which seem natural to my mind in the view of the condition of the country. I have been buffeted by the waves as I have been borne along time's ocean, until, shat- tered and worn, I approach the narrow isthmus which divides it from the sea of eternity beyond. Ere I step forward to journey through the pilgrimage of death, I would say that all my thoughts and hopes are with my country. If one impulse arises above another, it is for the happiness of these people ; the welfare and glory of Texas will be the uppermost thought while the spark of life lingers in this breast."
From Houston General Houston went home to Huntsville to die. He was surrounded by all his fam-
1863.] THE END OF ALL. 217
ily save only his son Sam, who, poor boy, was wounded and a prisoner in the North. As there was no Baptist minister at hand, Houston was attended by a Presbyterian minister with whom he had once had a difference, — which he now made up, as he made up all his old quarrels. His last days were spent, we are told, in incessant and heart-broken prayers for his people and for his family. And in the fervid summer just after the news of Vicksburg, while Santa Anna was plotting at St. Thomas, and Mr. Motley was writ- ing that there was nothing green in Vienna except the Archduke Maximilian, — on the 26th of July, 1863, General Samuel Houston, aged seventy, fell on that sleep which is luxurious in proportion as the sleeper is aweary.
Mrs. Maggie Houston Williams has very kindly con- tributed, at the latest moment, the following further particulars of her father's death : — tJflQCTOft
"He died July 26th, 1863, three weeks~after the fall of Vicksburg. He had received his death blow when Texas seceded, and now a death blow had fallen on the Confederacy with which our lot was cast. For more than three weeks he was confined to his bed. The day previous to his death he fell into a comatose state from which we could not arouse him ; but during the next forenoon, we heard his voice in a tone of entreaty, and listening to the feeble sound, we caught the words ' Texas ! Texas ! ' He had loved and laboured for his adopted State, and her memory had gone with him to the brink of the dark river of death. Soon afterward, my
2i8 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1863.
mother was sitting by the bedside with his hand in hers, and his lips moved once again ; * Margaret ! ' he said, and the voice we loved was silent forever. As the sun sank below the horizon his spirit left this earth for the better land. The loving father, the devoted husband, the incorruptible patriot was gone."
Houston was buried at Huntsville, and a simple slab was erected above his grave, with the inscription : "Gen. Sam Houston, born March 2, 1793. Died July 26, 1863." Texan savagery showed itself in lan- guage by a resolution of the Legislature expressing condolence with Houston's " surviving \sic !~\ widow," and by a speech of the Honourable J. H. Ban ton, in which he spoke of Houston as revolving " with lamb- like humility . . . around the great Sun of Righteous- ness." Perhaps Houston would not have felt such solecisms acutely ; and it is satisfactory to learn that the Legislature ultimately paid Mrs. Houston the bal- ance — about $1,700 — of her husband's salary as Governor of Texas during the interrupted term. Mrs. M. M. Houston removed again, with her eight young children, saving Sam, to the town of Independence, where there was a University under the direction of the editor of the Select Literary Remains ; and she died there, at the age of forty-eight, in December, 1867.
A blue marble shaft, seventeen and a half feet high, has risen on the field of San Jacinto. On one side of the pediment are the words, " Remember the Alamo ;" on the other, "Come to the Bower," — the air to which the Texans marched that morning. Near the top is a polished band containing nine stars, to repre-
1863-] THE END OF ALL. 219
sent the nine Texans (including three fatally wounded) who were slain. On the reverse of the base are Na- poleon's words : " Dead on the field of honour ; " and on the obverse is this passage from Houston's address before the battle (April 21, 1836) : —
" This morning we are in preparation to meet Santa Anna. It is the only chance of saving Texas. From time to time I have looked in vain for reinforcements. We have only about seven hundred men to march with besides the camp-guard. We go to conquer. It is wisdom growing out of necessity to meet the enemy now. Every consideration enforces it. The troops are in fine spirits, and now is the time for action. We shall use our best efforts to fight the enemy to such advantage as will ensure victory, though the odds are greatly against us. I leave the result in the hands of a wise God, and rely on His providence. My country will do justice to those who serve her. The rights for which we fight will be secured, and Texas free.
"SAM HOUSTON."
Mr. H. H. Bancroft, whose work is as monumental as a work in forty great volumes can well be, says : —
" The victor of San Jacinto was a truly great man. If Austin laid the foundation-stone, Houston erected the edifice. Apart from his high intellectual capabil- ities, he possessed many of the noblest qualities that adorn the human character. His courage, his kind- ness, his scrupulous honesty in every official station which he occupied, and the open expression of his
220 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1863.
sentiments regardless of personal consequences, can never be questioned. ... In both of the battles in which he was engaged he was wounded while leading on his men j . . . and he possessed that higher kind of courage which enabled him to brave the contempt of a community which still held to the savageism that insults should be wiped out with blood. [Houston once, in Texas, dismissed the challenge of an inferior with the remark that he never fought down-hill.]
" In private life he was affable and courteous, kind, and generous. When thwarted, however, he became harsh, and not unfrequently vindictive. He never failed to repay with compound interest, sooner or later, any insinuation or coarse attack. . . . Acts of friendship and of enmity were equally retained in his memory, and met with corresponding return. Majes- tic in person, cf commanding presence, and noble countenance, he was a striking figure in public and private."
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, in his capital Life of Ben- ton, says of Houston and the Texans : " The conquest of Texas should properly be classed with conquests like those of the Norse sea-rovers. The virtues and faults alike of the Texans were those of a barbaric age. They were restless, brave, and eager for adven- ture, excitement, and plunder; they were warlike, resolute, and enterprising ; they had all the marks of a young and hardy race, flushed with the pride of strength and self-confidence. On the other hand they showed again and again the barbaric vices of boastfulness, ignorance, and cruelty, and they were utterly careless of the rights of others, looking upou
1863.] THE END OF ALL. 221
the possessions of all weaker races as simply their natural prey. A band of settlers entering Texas was troubled by no greater scruples of conscience than, a thousand years before, a ship -load of Knut's followers might have felt at landing in England. . . . The great Texan hero, Houston, who drank hard and fought hard, who was mighty in battle and crafty in council, with his reckless, boastful courage, and his thirst for changes and risks of all kinds, his propensity for pri- vate brawling, and his queerly blended impulses for good and evil, might, with very superficial altera- tions of character, stand as the type of an old-world Viking — plus the virtue of a deep and earnest patriotic attachment to his whole country. Indeed his career was as picturesque and romantic as that of Harold Hardraada himself, and, to boot, was much more im- portant in its results." And the famous Texan, whom Mr. Roosevelt quotes in the same volume as saying that he might bring himself to forgive a man who had shot him on purpose, but that he could not imagine himself as ever forgiving one who had shot him by accident — must not this famous Texan have been Houston ?
And in that fascinating little new book, called Famous Senators, Mr. Oliver Dyer gives what may serve us as an excellent final summary of Houston's career and character : —
" There was [foremost after the four greatest Sena- tors, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, and Benton] General Sam Houston, of Texas, about whose name more romance clustered at that time than encircled the name of any other American citizen. Houston was
222 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1863.
born in North Carolina [ ?], in 1 793, but went to Ten- nessee while a boy. He became a popular favourite at an early age, and after a brilliant military and legal career, he entered the arena of politics, and was elected Governor of Tennessee when he was thirty-four years old. It was predicted that he would be President of the United States before he was fifty, but a sudden and incomprehensible stroke of fortune shattered his career and drove him from civilization.
"The mystery which surrounded this misfortune has never been authoritatively cleared up. Shortly after his inauguration as Governor of Tennessee, Houston married a beautiful young lady; and the legend is that at the time of her marriage she had a lover (not Houston) to whom she was passionately devoted; that her family compelled her to marry Houston because he was Governor of Tennessee and the most popular man in the State except General Jackson ; that Houston soon discovered the truth of the matter, and was overwhelmed by it, — in fact, was nearly driven insane by it. At all events, he resigned his office and disappeared. It is said that he did this in order that his wife might get a divorce and marry the man she loved. After a while it was found that he had gone to the Cherokee country, had been made a chief of that tribe, and was living in barbaric dignity ; that is to say, in a wigwam plenti- fully supplied with skins, wild game, whiskey, and tobacco. . . .
"My heart leaps now, and my blood grows hot as I recall the time, in April, 1836, when the news
1863.] THE END OF ALL. 223
of the terrible fight in the Alamo, at San Antonio de Bexar, first came to the sequestered village . . . where I lived, then a boy just coming twelve years old. I wept over the fate of the three heroic colonels, — Travis, Crockett, and Bowie, — and young as I was I thirsted for vengeance, and prayed for vengeance on their slayers. . . .
" And when, four or five weeks afterwards, news came of the massacre of Colonel Fannin and his men at Goliad, after they had surrendered under a solemn agreement, in writing, that they should be treated as prisoners of war, the whole community was aroused to madness. Public meetings were held and fiery resolutions were passed. We prayed for ven- geance more fervently than ever. Twenty-four boys, of which I was one, formed a company to march down and ravage Mexico ; but news of Houston's de- feat and capture of Santa Anna at San Jacinto came in time to save that ill-fated republic from the im- pending invasion. . . .
" We were a simple people who believed in God, and loved heroes who won battles in accordance with our prayers; and from that time General Sam Houston was set in our hearts alongside Jackson and Washington.
" Twelve years had passed, and I was now to see this hero face to face, to hear him speak, and report his words. ... It was not without apprehension that I first approached General Houston and looked him over, as he stood in an ante-room of the Senate cham- ber, talking with his colleague, Senator Rusk. I was not disappointed in his appearance. It was easy to
224 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1863.
believe in his heroism, and to imagine him leading a heady fight, and dealing destruction 'on his foes. He was then [1848] only fifty-five years old, and seemed to be in perfect health and admirable physical con- dition. He was a magnificent barbarian, somewhat tempered with civilization. He was large of frame, of stately carriage and dignified demeanour, and had a lionlike countenance capable of expressing the fiercest passions. His dress was peculiar, but it was becoming to his style. The conspicuous features of it were a military cap, and a short military cloak of fine blue broadcloth, with a blood-red lining. After- ward, I occasionally met him when he wore a vast and picturesque sombrero and a Mexican blanket, — a sort of ornamented bed-quilt, with a slit in the middle, through which the wearer's head is thrust, leaving the blanket to hang in graceful folds around the body.
" Like other men of his class, General Houston was a heavy drinker, but he seldom showed the effect of his potations. It seemed to me as though his wild life had unfitted him for civilization. He was not a man to shine in a deliberative assembly. It was only at rare intervals that he took any part in the debates, and when he did speak his remarks were brief. His principal employment in the Senate was whittling pine sticks. I used to wonder where he got his pine lum- ber, but never fathomed the mystery. He would sit and whittle away, and at the same time keep up a muttering of discontent at the long-winded speakers, whom he would sometimes curse for their intolerable verbosity. Those who knew him well said that he
1863.] THE END OF ALL. 22$
was tender-hearted, and had a chivalric regard for women ; that he would make any personal sacrifice to promote the welfare of a lady friend, — a reputation which was directly in line with his alleged conduct toward his wife. It was a matter of common jocose remark, that if * Old San Jacinto ' (that was Houston's nickname) should ever become President, he would have a cabinet of women.
" General Houston impressed me as a lonely, mel- ancholy man. And if the story of his early life was true, he might well be lonely and melancholy, not- withstanding his success and his fame ; for that terri- ble blow which smote him to the heart at the zenith of his splendid young career, and dislocated his life, and drove him to the wilderness, must have inflicted wounds that no political triumphs or military glory could heal. He was a sincere lover of his coun- try, was indomitably patriotic, and stood firmly by the Union to the day of his death, which came in 1863."
I have little to add to the words of my betters. General Houston, like so many Americans, was a man stronger in quantity than in quality, — the distinguished style of an Aaron Burr was not his. As a consequence, while his great deeds done will remain, there can be no supreme fascination about the story of the way in which he did them. Of the bigness and of the essen- tial healthiness of the man, there is little room for question. "There was a Cromwellian touch about him," said a famous litterateur to me, as he contem- plated a certain portrait of Houston. I have been is
226 LIFE OF GENERAL HOUSTON. [1863.
living with the memory of Houston for some months past, and I have found it impossible not to become attached to him. Mrs. Amelia E. Barr, who was acquainted with Houston between the years 1853 and 1860, writes to me : "He was the noblest, the most princely, the most chivalrous character in American history."
INDEX.
ALAMO, 101 etseq.; defence, 106 ;
fall, 107; memory of, 122, 126,
128. Almonte, 73, 87 ; at the Alamo,
101 ; at San Jacinto, 124, 130 ; ; captured, interpreter, 133 ; and
Houston, 136-137; minister at
Washington, 188. Alleghanies, 3. Americans, revolutionize Texas
86; shot, in; bad manners,
H3-
Ariahuac, 89,
Antigonus, 146.
Archer, B. F., 85.
Archive (Civil) War, 165.
Arkansas, 79, 80.
Audubon, J. J., 154 et seq.
Austin, M., grandfather of Texas, 68.
Austin, S. F., father of Texas, 69, 80, 85, 219 ; arrested in Mexico, 86 et seq. ; quoted, 90 ; com- mander-in-chief, 96 ; U. S. Com- missioner, 96, 149 ; secretary of State, dies, 150, 201.
Austin, capital of Texas, 159, 206.
Austerlitz, sun of, 125.
BACHE, 182.
Bancroft, H. H., quoted, 66, 67,
72, 112, 130, 2I9-22O.
Barr, Mrs. A. E., quoted, 226.
Bastrop, Baron de, 68.
Bean, Colonel, 9.
Bee, Colonel, 152.
Benton, J., 26.
Benton, T. H., 26; quoted, 144-
146, 181, 188, 201. Bexar (San Antonio), 69, 91. Blount, 42. Bowie, Colonel, at Alamo, 93, 96,
101. Brazos, river, 2, 4, 119, 120, 122,
139, H4-
Buchanan, R., 154, 180.
Buckner, on Houston and Stan- berry, 60, 61.
Buffalo Bay, 133; bayou, 2; river, 2.
Burleson, 96, 97, 163 ; Dr., 194.
Burnet, 72, 85, 116, 142; Vice- President, 163.
Burr, A., 9, n ; on conquest of Texas, 129, 225.
Bustamente, 73, 165.
CALHOUN, sen., 181. Canada, 115. Cannon, 42. Carlyle, quoted, 66. Carrol, 26. Cash, Mrs., no. Castrillon, General, 130.
228
INDEX.
Cherokees and Houston, 54.
Christy, 148.
Cincinnati guns at San Jacinto, 126.
Clark, 206.
Coahuila, separated from Texas, 7, 75 ; united, 70, 85.
Coleta, river, 2; battle, 109; mu- tiny, 143.
Collinsworth, Captain, 92.
Colorado, river, 2, 144.
Columbia, 154.
Comanches, 21, 22.
Conception, battle of, 93.
Corpus Christi, bay, 2.
Cos, General, 88, 92, 96; surren- ders, 97 ; breaks parole, 101 ; captured again, 139.
Creek War, Houston in, 27, 145.
Crockett, D., at Alamo, 102.
DALMATIA (Soult), Duke of, 159. Davis, J., 188, 215. Dickinson, Mrs., escapes from Alamo, 118.
EMERSON, quoted, 40. Empresario system, 71. Espiritu Santo Bay, 2. Everett, 41.
FANNIN, Colonel, success at Con- ception, 93, no; disobedient, 108 ; defeat at Coleta, 109 ; shot, iii.
Farias, 84.
Filisola, 73, 101, 139, 142-143* 151.
Flaco, 170, 171.
French, in Texas, 4 ; attack Mex- ico, 165.
GALVE, Mexican viceroy, 6. Galvez, Spanish governor of Lou- isiana, 8.
Galveston Bay, 2.
Golia (la Balia), 91, T 08-112.
Golladay, I., Houston's friend, 39;
his son Fred, quoted, 191-193. Gonzalez, 91, 108. Green, T. J., 142. Grant, R., 100, 113. Grass fight, 96. Guadalupe River, 2, 91. Guizot, 169.
HOUSTON, Sam, born, 14; biog- raphers, 12 et seq. ; parents, 14 ; education, 17-19 ; flees to Indians, 19; various occupations, 21, 22; joins army, 23 ; ensign in Jack- son's corps, 25 ; gallantry at Tohopeka, 28 ; wounded and sent home, 30; returns to army, 32; operation, 33 ; takes Indians to Washington, 21, 74; leaves army, 35 ; studies law, 37 ; ad- jutant-general, 37 ; district attor- ney, 38 ; major-general, 38 ; con- gressman, 38 ; governor of Ten- nessee, 38 ; friend of Jackson's, 38; meets Jefferson, 40; duel with White, 41 ; governor, 41 ; appearance, 42 ; married unhap- pily, 44-50 ; resigns and goes to Indians, 46-52 ; plan for Indian supplies fails, 55-59 ; assaults Stanberry, 59-60 ; plan on Texas, 5°> 75-78; Jackson's help, 77- 79 ; starts, 81 ; at convention of San Felipe, 81 ; letter to Jackson, 8 1 ; commander-in-chief of Tex- ans, 93, 116, 150; Texan inde- pendence on his birthday, 103 ; too late for the Alamo, 106; draws Santa Anna from his base, 117; letters, 117; addresses, 119; campaigning, 121-126; victory of San Jacinto, 2, 126-
INDEX.
229
128; wounded, 127; gives his men the spoils, 129; receives surrender of Almonte, 129; and Santa Anna, 132; punished de- serter, 139 ; conversation with his captives, 1 34 et seq.; frugality, 137- 138 ; sick, 140 ; fixes Texan boun- dary, 140 ; farewell address, 140; attacked by T. J. Green, 142; protests at ill treatment of Santa Anna. 143; eulogized by Sen. Benton, 144-146; ill-treated by Texan government, 147 ; presi- dent of Texas, 149 ; administra- tion, 150 et seg. ; mansion, 155 ; prevents breaking up of govern- ment, 158 ; marries, 160 ; family, 160 ; elected president, 163 ; let- ters to Santa Anna, 166-167 ; refuses dictatorship, 167 ; State papers, 168; to Indians, 169, 170; on annexation, 1 72 ; integrity, 1 76 ; Tarewell address, 177-178; on Jackson's death, 183-185 ; in U. S. Senate, 185-188; and increase of U. S., 189; speech on Kossuth, 191, and F. Golla- day, 191-193; conversion, 193- 196; candidate for U. S. Presi- dency, 196 ; on repeal of com- promise, 197 ; life in Washington, habits, 201 ; dress, 93, 209, 224; heroism, 202 et seq. ; defeated and elected governor of Texas, 202 ; opposed to secession, 203 et seq. ; speech, 204, 205 ; his son Sam, 205 ; retires from governorship, 206, 207; retired life, 211-222; recollections of, 209-211; anec- dotes, 205, 207, 210, 220 ; old age, 212; last words, 217, 218; death, 217.
Hamilton, J., Gen., 160 ; dies, 201.
Harrisburg, 116.
Hockley, H., 121, 129.
Hopkins, General, 155.
Houston, capital of Texas, 154
et seq. ; H.'s last speech at, 216. Houstoun, Mrs. M. C., on Gen.
Sam Houston, 174, 175. Houston, Sam, vide sup. Houston, Sam, Jr., 205 ; captured,
212.
Hunter, 79. Huntsville, 201. Hyacinth (San Jacinto), 145.
INDEPENDENCE, Texas, 194, 201.
Indians, befriended by Houston, 31, 55, 169-171 ; contract, 58, 59; conducted to Washington by him, 21, 34 ; ill-treated, 158.
Iturbide, A. de, emperor of Mexico, 66 et seq. ; fate, 66 ; confirms American colonization of Texas, 70.
JARNAGIN, sen., 17.
Jalapa, 124.
Jackson, life, 25-26 ; introduces H. to Jefferson, 40; H.'s friendship for, 42; letter on Texas, 50; presidency, 57; tries to help H. with Indian contract, 58, 59 ; and Stanberry assault, 62 ; knows of H.'s Texan plans, 78 ; on H.'s dress, 93, 145, 151, 152; recog- nizes Texan independence, 153; annexes Texas, 180-182; dies, 184.
Jefferson, 40.
Jones, last president of Texas, 201.
KEY, F. S., 61. Kennedy, W., quoted, 68, 90. Kerr, Dr., 148. Kossuth, quoted, 189.
230
INDEX.
LAMAR, M. B., 140, 142, 147 et seq.; commander-in-chief, 149? president of Texas, 157, 162- administration, 158 et seq.
La Bahia (Goliad), 7.
La Salle, F., 3 et seq.
Lebanon, Tenn., 39, 192-193.
Lea, Miss, marries Houston, 16 et seq., 168 ; verses, 179 ; converts Houston, 194 ; dies, 218.
Lee, R. E., 203, 211.
Leon, A. de, 7.
Lester, on Houston's life, 12 et seq., 147 ; quoted, 14-18, 20-24, 2&~ 29> 3°» 3J-34, 36, 44-47, 52-54» 57, 62, 63, 107, 108, 125-126, 128, 131-139, J41* !68, 185- 186.
Little Rock, 51.
Louis XIV., 3, 5.
Louis XV., 8.
Louis Philippe, 159.
Louisiana, i ; Spanish, -8, 9 ; French, 8, 9; American, 9, 65.
MARK ANTONY, 146.
Matagorda (St. Louis), bay, 2, 4.
Matamoras, 89, 100.
Mawry, 210.
Mayo, 78.
Meranda, 72.
Mexia, General, 98.
Mexico, Gulf of, i, 2.
Mexico, holds Texas, 70 ; indepen- dence, 66 ; constitution, 70.
Mexican, viceroy, 5 ; land tenure, 71 ; defeated at San Jacinto, 125 et seq. ; defeat Texans, 158, 164, 165.
Mississippi River, i, 3.
Milam, B., 73 ; takes San Antonio,
97-
Morelos, 64. Motley, 217.
Monclova, 71. Moore, Colonel, 92.
NATCHITOCHES, n. Nacogdoches, 7, n, 68, 80, 123. Neches, i, 7. New Orleans, 148 ; battle of, 31,
145.
Nolan, 9. Nueces River, 2.
OOLOOTEKA, 52. O'Connell, 159.
PALMERSTON, 159.
Parkman, 12; quoted, 3, 4, 5,
12.
Parton, 12, 13, 190; quoted, 25,
28, 3o. 57-59. 180-182. Peel, 169.
Phelan, quoted, 42, 47. Pike, Gen. Z. M., 9. Pike's Peak, 29. Polk, J., 41, 61. Pope, 129. Portilla, in.
RANDOLPH, J., 40.
Red River, i.
Rio Bravo, 2.
Rio Grande, i, 6 ; boundary, 140.
Rio del Norte, 2.
Ripley, no.
Rocky Mountains, 3.
Roosevelt, Theodore, on Houston,
220.
Runnels, H. R., 202.
Rusk, T. J., quoted, 116, 117, 128-129, *33 > commander-in- chief, 140 ; senator, 187 ; dies, 200.
INDEX.
231
SABINE River, i ; lake, i.
Saligny, 159-164.
Samson, Dr., 196 et seq.
San Antonio, 69, 97, 108.
San Domingo, 5.
San Felipe, 80, 85 et seq.
San Jacinto, 2, 117; battle, 117 et seq., 123, 128 ; anniversary of, 156; strategy at, 180,216; mon- ument, 218.
Santa Anna, 67, 74, 98, 101 et seq. ; storms Alamo, 101 et seq. ; massa- cres prisoners, 98, 111-112; de- feated on San Jacinto, 117-128 et seq. ; flight, 130 ; captured, 131 ; meets Houston, 132 ; at Velasco, 141-142; at Washington, 152; president, 165 et seq. ; last fates, 212-214.
Santa Fe, 9, 157.
Slavery, 74, 197 et seq.
Smith, 99, 100, 116, 149.
Spanish rule in Texas, 4, 65.
Stanberry, 59-60.
Sylvester, 131.
Sumner, Charles, 188.
TAMPICO, 66, 98, 131.
Tamaulipas, 2.
Taylor, Z., 181-183.
Texas, Texans, area, i ; bounda- ries, i ; population, i et seq., 117 ; early history, 3 et seq. ; French, 4 ; Spaniards abandoned, 7 ; re-col- onized, 7 ; [Indians, 7 ;] wars, 64-65 ; independence, 7, 103 ; colonized by Americans, n, 68, 70, 220 ; separated and united to Coahuila, 7, 70 ; constitution, 70; slavery, 74; Houston on, 8 1 ; not submissive to Santa Anna, 88 ; revolution, 88, 91, 144-146 ; November, 3, 94 ; take San Antonio, 97 ; independence,
103 ; defence of Alamo,io7 et seq. ; constitution, 115 ; recognized by United States, 153, and Eu- ropean governments, 159-160; thanked by Santa Anna, 141 ; chronology, 108 ; want of man- ners, 143 ; failure of govern- ment, 117 ; panic, 117, 120, 157; saved by Houston, 157; and Santa Anna, 142-144 ; Benton on, 144-146; Civil War, 165; defeated by Mexicans, 164 et seq. ; annexation plans, 173, 181-182; secession, 205 ; and Houston, 206 ; monuments, 218.
Timber Ridge Church Va., 14.
Trinity River, i, 4.
Tohopeka, 27, 186.
Travis, Colonel, takes Anahuac, 89 ; at San Antonio, 97 ; com- mander of the Alamo, 101 ; let- ters, 102; falls, 107-119.
Trimble, J., 36.
Twiggs, 203.
Tyler, 181.
UNITED States, and Texas, 9, 65,
73, 153, 181, 182. Ugartechea, 89. Urrea, General, 117; disavowed
by Santa Anna, 135-136.
VAN BUREN and Texas, 181-182. Vera Cruz, 5. Venezuela, 77. Vicksburg, 217. Vince's Bridge, 124-126.
WASHINGTON, G., 189. Washington, D. C., 183, 185; in
Texas, 108, 183. Washita River, i.
232
INDEX.
Webster, 40, 188. White, Governor, 32. White, duel with Houston, 41. Williams, Mrs. M. H., on Hous- ton, 208, 217-218. Williams, Colonel, 49. Wilkinson, General, 9. Wharton, 120.
YOAKUM, Colonel, quoted, 10, 100, 113-114, 121, 149.
ZAVALA, 72, 89, 116, 133-150;
his son, 103. Zacatecas, state of, 88.
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