Part 8

The two brave boys, Harry Ripley and young Cash, were also among the slain.

The wounded men were then dragged out of their beds and shot. Fannin, who was the last to die, met his fate inside the fort, it is even said inside the consecrated church. His high courage sustained him to the end. After receiving the promise of the officer in charge that he should not be shot in the head, that his body should be decently buried, and that his watch should be sent to his wife, he fastened the bandage about his eyes with his own hands, and welcomed death like a soldier. Not one of the promises made to him was kept.

The dead Texans to the number of three hundred and fifty were stripped of their clothing and piled, naked, in heaps on the ground. A little brushwood was thrown over them and set on fire. It burned, crackling a few moments, and then the flames died out. The half-consumed flesh was torn from the bones by vultures.

This cold-blooded murder was done by order of Santa Anna. For it, as for the massacre at the Alamo, a deadly vengeance was at hand.

5. REMEMBER THE ALAMO! REMEMBER GOLIAD!

On the morning of the 21st of April, 1836, Houston, with his army of seven hundred Texans, and Santa Anna, with his army of more than twice that number of Mexicans, were encamped within a mile of each other near the banks of Buffalo Bayou.

The country was in a wild panic. Men, women, and children were fleeing before the very rumor of Santa Anna’s approach, as in the pioneer days they had not fled before the tomahawks of the Comanches.

Houston’s slow retreat[26] (begun on March 13), from Gonzales to the Colorado, from the Colorado to various points on the Brazos, with the enemy close upon his rear, had filled the stoutest hearts with doubt and alarm. After more than two months of suspense charged with the terrible episodes of San Patricio, Refugio, the Alamo, and Goliad, and the burning of San Felipe, Gonzales, and Harrisburg, the people began to ask of each other what would be the end.

Here at last, on an open field and in a fair fight, the question was about to be answered.

Santa Anna, after the fall of the Alamo, was filled with vain glory. He called himself the Napoleon of the West, and looked upon the Texan “rebels” as already conquered and suppliant at his feet. From his headquarters at San Antonio he directed his army to possess the country and to shoot every man taken with a gun in his hand. One division, under General Gaona, was ordered to Nacogdoches; General Urrea, after the battle of Colita, was ordered to sweep the coast from Victoria to Anahuac with his division; the central division, under Generals Sesma and Filisola, followed Houston almost step by step in his retreat. Santa Anna himself accompanied this division.

On the 15th of April, believing that Houston was at last in his power, the Mexican commander-in-chief left his main army on the Brazos and marched, with about one thousand men, to Harrisburg, where he hoped to capture President Burnet and the members of his cabinet. He found Harrisburg deserted; whereupon he set fire to the town, and hurried to New Washington. From there, after burning the straggling village, he intended to move on to Lynch’s Ferry (now Lynchburg) at the junction of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River. His plan was to pursue the government officials to Galveston, whither they had retreated, make them prisoners, and so end the war. While his troops were in line for the ferry (April 20) he was startled by the arrival of a scout who reported the approach of Houston with his entire command. Santa Anna, thus cut off from his army, was taken completely by surprise.

This was the moment Houston had so long awaited.

“We need not talk,” he said to Rusk, the Secretary of War, who was with the army. “You think we ought to fight, and I think so, too.”

The rising sun of April 21 looked down bright and glowing upon the two hostile camps. The Texans were in a grove of moss-hung live oaks; in front of them a rolling prairie, gay with spring flowers, stretched away to the marshy bottom lands of the San Jacinto River; behind them Buffalo Bayou rolled its dark waters to Galveston Bay. The “Twin Sisters,” two small cannon presented to the Republic by the citizens of Cincinnati, were planted on the rising ground before the camp. They were flanked on either side by the infantry. The cavalry, under the command of Mirabeau B. Lamar, was placed in the rear.

Santa Anna’s camp also faced the prairie, but it had directly in the rear the oozy, grass-grown San Jacinto marsh.

The day before (20th) when the ground was first occupied by the two armies, there had been some skirmishing. But this morning passed in a quiet, which was broken only by the arrival of General Cos at the enemy’s camp with a reinforcement of five hundred men.

Toward noon a profound silence fell upon the Mexican camp. The men, officers and soldiers, from Santa Anna to the humblest private, were taking their _siesta_ (afternoon nap).

Meantime, General Houston, after a short consultation with his officers, sent for Deaf Smith.

Deaf Smith was a bold, cool-headed, shrewd guide and spy, who had come from New York to Texas in 1821. He was hard of hearing (hence his nickname), silent and secretive in his manner, with the instinct and the unerring sight of a savage. It was Deaf Smith who had guided Fannin and Bowie from La Espada to Mission Concepcion, and led Johnson and Milam through the dark streets at the storming of San Antonio. It was he who had been sent to meet Mrs. Dickinson on her dreary journey from the Alamo; and when General Houston retreated from Gonzales, Deaf Smith, with one or two companions, was left to spy upon the movements of the enemy.

Houston dispatched Smith with secret orders to cut down and burn Vince’s bridge, about eight miles distant.

This bridge, which both armies had crossed on their march to their present position, spanned Vince’s Bayou, a narrow but deep stream running into Buffalo Bayou. To destroy it was to destroy the only means of retreat for either army.

General Houston, after making these arrangements, paraded his army. The men were in high spirits. Their eyes were dancing, their fingers itched to pull the triggers of their guns. The day was waning; it was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon. At this moment Deaf Smith galloped in, his horse white with foam, with the news that Vince’s bridge had been burned.

The order to advance was given. A single fife struck up the curiously inappropriate tune, “Will you come to the bower I have shaded for you.” The cannon were rushed forward within two hundred yards of the Mexican camp, and fire belched from the mouth of the “twins.” The left wing of infantry under Colonel Sidney Sherman began the attack. There was a cry which split the air: “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” and the whole force hurled itself forward like an avalanche.

The effect was appalling. The Mexicans half awake, dazed and bewildered by the sudden charge, hardly tried after their first feeble volley, to return the fire of their assailants. Within a few moments the Texans, still uttering their hoarse watchword of vengeance, had leaped the barricade, and were in the very heart of Santa Anna’s camp.

Too excited or too thirsty for revenge to load, they beat down the foe with the butts of their rifles, clubbed them with pistols, slashed them with keen-edged bowie knives. The Mexicans fled like frightened sheep, some into the muddy morass where they were caught as in a trap, others toward the bayou and the ruined bridge, others again to the cover of the timber where they made haste to surrender. “Me no Alamo! Me no Alamo!” cried many of the panic-stricken soldiers, falling on their knees before their captors.

By twilight the fleeing Mexicans were nearly all captured or killed, and the victors had time to breathe and to count their own dead. They had seven dead and twenty-seven wounded. Among the latter was General Houston, who received a wound in the ankle, which caused him to limp during the remainder of his life.

The Mexicans lost six hundred and thirty-two killed and two hundred and eight wounded. Seven hundred and thirty-two prisoners were taken.

Among the prisoners were the oath-breaker, General Cos;[27] Almonte, Santa Anna’s private secretary; and Colonel Portillia, the officer who had been in command at Goliad when Fannin and his men were shot. General Santa Anna, riding a handsome black horse, had escaped. He was pursued as he fled from the field by Henry Karnes, who knew from the flying horseman’s glittering uniform that he must be an officer of rank; he did not dream, however, that he was following Santa Anna. He felt sure of capturing the officer at Vince’s Bayou, for he rode straight for the destroyed bridge. But after a single second of hesitation on the bank, the horse and rider seemed to rise in the air and then plunge downward. When Captain Karnes reached the stream, the gallant animal was floundering in the mud on the opposite side, unable to clamber up the steep bank. The rider had disappeared.

6. TWO GENERALS.

The next morning (22nd) General Houston was lying under an oak somewhat apart from the camp. The pain of his wound had kept him awake during the night, and he was sleeping lightly. Suddenly an excited murmur ran through the camp, a clamor of Mexican voices arose: “El Presidente! El Presidente!” and some soldiers approached, having in their midst a man dressed in soiled linen trousers, a blue jacket, a soldier’s cap, and red worsted slippers. His linen, however, was of the finest, and he wore jeweled studs in his shirt front.

Houston, awakened by the noise, looked up. His visitor bowed. “I am,” he said in Spanish, “General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, and a prisoner of war, at your service.” He had just been captured, hiding, miserable and forlorn, in the long grass on the further side of the bayou. Houston waved his hand to a tool-chest near by, and Santa Anna sat down.

A greater physical contrast can hardly be imagined than that between these two men now gazing steadily and silently at each other.

The Dictator of Mexico was small and thin and not above five feet five inches in height. His swarthy face was ill-favored almost to repulsiveness; his small black eyes were cold and cruel. Houston was tall and finely proportioned, with fair complexion, open forehead, and fine blue eyes. Perhaps the one point of resemblance between the two generals lay in a certain foppishness in dress. But on this occasion this appeared in neither. Santa Anna had exchanged his gaudy uniform for the disguise he wore, and Houston was ill-kempt and shabby in his old campaign uniform.

Almonte, who had been sent for to act as interpreter, now came up and the interview began. Santa Anna was at first very humble; he even wept copiously. But after swallowing some opium he recovered his arrogance, and demanded to be treated as a prisoner of war. He wished to arrange for his immediate release.

When Houston dryly asked what consideration he could expect after the bloody scenes at the Alamo and Goliad, he pleaded the usage of war for the carnage at the Alamo. As for Goliad, he declared that Urrea had deceived him with regard to Fannin’s surrender, and pretended to denounce his subordinate officer in bitter terms. “Urrea told me Fannin was vanquished,” he said, “and I was ordered by my government to shoot every man found with a weapon in his hand.”

“You are yourself the government,” Houston replied curtly. “A Dictator has no superior.”

“I have the order of Congress,” Santa Anna insisted, “and that compels me to treat as pirates all who are found under arms. Urrea had no authority to make an agreement with Fannin. He has deceived me, and when I am free he shall suffer for it.”

Houston listened to this bluster, but declined to make terms with his prisoner, that power belonging alone to the Texan Congress.

He treated the unfortunate general with generous courtesy, returning to him his tents and personal effects, and permitting him to be waited upon by his own servants.

An order signed by Santa Anna was carried by Deaf Smith and Henry Karnes to General Filisola, the second in command, who was encamped near San Felipe, to conduct the Mexican troops to the Rio Grande.

The Texan soldiers could not understand the mercy shown to the Mexican prisoners, particularly to Santa Anna, the cruel and heartless foe who had tortured and put to death so many of their brave countrymen. With dark and angry looks and open threats they swarmed about the place of the interview. Some of the officers were in favor of a drumhead court-martial and an immediate execution. But better counsels prevailed, and Santa Anna was allowed to retire to his camp-bed and rest in peace.

The night which followed the victory was one of wild and grotesque rejoicing in the Texan camp. Huge bonfires were lighted, and by the red glow of their flames, the soldiers danced and sang and told over and over again the story of the great day and its triumphs. The Mexican camp was overhauled; the victors decked themselves with the arms of their foes, buckling about their waists two, three, or four brace of pistols, with powder-horns, shot-pouches, sabers, and bowie knives. They rigged out the captured mules with the gold epaulets of the Mexican officers, and the green and red cap-cords of the grenadiers. Then, lighting hundreds of wax candles found among the spoils, they paraded gayly about, waking the echoes of the night with their shouts of laughter. All this was not in very good taste, and it naturally made the prisoners very angry. But they might well have reflected that at least it was a better way of rejoicing over a victory than shooting prisoners in cold blood and setting fire to their naked corpses.

The military stores taken in the battle, the cannon, small arms, ammunition, and mules, were kept by the government. The camp baggage was sold at auction, and the proceeds, with the contents of the military money-chest, were divided among the soldiers. This money, which amounted to about seven dollars and a half to each man, was all that they received for their service during the whole war.

General Santa Anna’s handsome silver-mounted saddle was purchased and presented to General Houston. The jeweled dagger handed to his captors by the Mexican General was also given to Houston.

7. HOW THE GOOD NEWS WAS BROUGHT.

On the approach of Santa Anna’s army, President Burnet and his cabinet retired from Harrisburg to Galveston Island. They were closely pressed by the advance of the Mexican cavalry under Almonte. As the President stepped upon the flatboat which was to take him to the schooner _Flash_, at the mouth of the San Jacinto, he was for several moments a target for Mexican guns. But he reached the _Flash_ in safety, and the boat sailed across the bay to the almost deserted island. There, while the government officials waited in great anxiety and suspense for news from the army, they were joined by a large number of fugitives who had fled from their homes in the general panic. The steamboat _Yellowstone_—which had conveyed Houston’s army across the Brazos at Groce’s Ferry—came down loaded with refugees from the Brazos and Colorado. At Fort Bend it had passed the Mexican army under a hot fire. The smokestacks were riddled with bullet holes. The Mexican cavalrymen had tried at several points to lasso the boat from the bank as it steamed by, but fortunately their ropes were too short.

The _Yellowstone_ brought news that Houston’s army was on the road to Harrisburg. Burnet knew, therefore, that the long-delayed fight would take place soon or never. Very few people had any faith left in Houston’s ability to defeat the Mexican army. Santa Anna was looked for in Galveston at any moment. Nearly all the women and children had already been placed on board the _Flash_, and the captain of the boat had orders to sail for New Orleans, where they would be safe.

General Houston’s first duty, after settling affairs in his somewhat disordered camp, was to send an express to the President with news of the victory, and to request him to come and treat in person with Santa Anna.

At the battle of Concepcion Captain Robert Calder, then a private posted in the mission tower, had given notice of the enemy’s approach. This young officer, who had also fought most gallantly in the battle of San Jacinto, volunteered to bear the General’s dispatches to President Burnet. It is not to the young captain’s discredit that the presence on the island of the beautiful girl whom he afterward married had something to do with his eagerness to perform this service.

He started on the morning of the 23d accompanied by B. C. Franklin and two soldiers detailed for the expedition. No boat was to be had except an open and weather-stained skiff with two pairs of oars. No provisions could be procured; the country around had been swept clean by the Mexicans. But the little party paddled away cheerily down the bayou. Late at night they found some food in a deserted cabin on the bank. The next day they entered the bay. The waves were rough; it was hard rowing and the boat leaked badly. Captain Calder had most of the work to do, the others having given out completely. Much of the way they coasted close to the shore, Calder wading and shoving or pulling the skiff along. They saw but one living human being on their trip. This was a wild African negro who had perhaps escaped from some slave-ship on the coast. On the fifth day they crossed from Virginia Point to the war-schooner _Invincible_, which was lying in the bay off Galveston. As they approached, Captain Brown hailed them through his speaking trumpet: “What news?”

The unexpected reply, “Houston has defeated Santa Anna and captured his whole army,” caused an instant outburst of wild excitement. The wet, weary, and hungry messengers were dragged on board and questioned by everybody at once. Captain Brown cried to his gunners: “Turn loose old Tom.” Old Tom, the cannon, was fired three times before Captain Brown remembered that it was the business of the Commodore to order a salute. “Hold on there, boys,” he said, “or old Hawkins will have me in irons.”

He sent Captain Calder and his men over to the flag-ship _Independence_, where Commodore Hawkins received them with enthusiasm and ordered a salute of thirteen guns.

The news spread among the ships and through the fleet of small boats that swarmed up to hear the story. It passed on to the land, where people were running about in a wild state of alarm at the sound of the commodore’s guns. Alarm was changed to joy. The refugees hugged each other, weeping tears of gladness, and fairly beside themselves with delight. President Burnet received Captain Calder in his tent and heard the story of the battle with deep emotion.

The young captain, “having changed his clothes,” as he relates, went in search of the bright-eyed girl whom he had not seen since the war began. As he passed, unknown, through the groups of men, he heard one man exclaim: “What! the whole Mexican army defeated and Santa Anna taken prisoner? No, gentlemen; these fellows are scoundrels and deserters. It is too big a story, and they ought to be taken into custody at once!”

President Burnet and his suite boarded the _Yellowstone_ the same day (April 27) and steamed up to the new camp near Harrisburg, whither Houston had removed his army. There he met Santa Anna and arranged the basis of a treaty which the Mexican general signed on the part of his country.

By the terms of the treaty the Mexican army was to withdraw from Texas soil; hostilities were to cease; American prisoners were to be released; and all property seized during the invasion was to be returned to the owners. Santa Anna was to be liberated at the discretion of the Congress.

On the 3d day of May the Mexican prisoners were placed on board the _Yellowstone_ and carried to Galveston island, where they were kept under close guard.

President Burnet accompanied Santa Anna to the coast, whence it was intended to embark the Mexican general at once for Vera Cruz.

Soon after the battle of San Jacinto, General Houston, leaving Rusk, who had recently been appointed brigadier-general, in command of the army, went to New Orleans to have his shattered ankle treated by his own physician.

Filisola had heard of the defeat and capture of his commander-in-chief and was already in full retreat when Santa Anna’s order reached him. He arrived at Goliad about the 20th of May.

Here, on the 26th, Commissioners Benjamin Fort Smith and Henry Teal found him. They had been sent by President Burnet with a copy of the treaty between Santa Anna and the Texan congress for Filisola’s signature. He signed it, and continued his march westward to the Rio Grande.

On June 4 General Rusk—who had followed with the Texan army to see that the Mexicans retreated in good faith—stopped at Goliad to fulfill a sacred duty. This was to collect and bury the remains of the victims of the Palm Sunday massacre.

The charred and sun-dried skeletons scattered about the ground were gathered together and reverently laid in a pit dug for the purpose. The army was paraded inside the fort, and from thence, slowly and with reversed arms, to the beat of muffled drums, the soldiers marched to the chosen spot. With the procession walked several of Fannin’s men who had escaped death on that fatal Sunday.

Red River Trinity R. Brazos R. Colorado R. Nacogdoches San Augustine Old San Antonio Road Guadaloupe R. San Antonio Nueces R. Rio Grande del Norte Presidio of San Juan Bautista Sabine R. Neches R. Washington San Felipe de Gonzales Austin Anahuac Harrisburg Columbia Brazoria La Vaca R. Golita Cr. Victoria Goliad Refugio San Patricio Matamoros Galveston I. Velasco GULF OF MEXICO Matamoros

General Rusk began an address, the troops standing around him. “But in truth he did not finish what he intended to say, for he was overpowered by his feelings, and the tears rolled down his cheeks, and he had to stop speaking. There were but few dry eyes on that occasion.”[28]

So powerful was the impression produced on the men who assisted in this mournful ceremony that General Andrade (An-dra′dā), who was bringing up the rear of the Mexican army, was advised by Rusk that it would not be safe for him to attempt to pass through Goliad, as he could not answer for what his own men might do. Andrade was therefore obliged to cut a crossing seven or eight miles long through the chapparal thickets, in order to reach the main road. The Mexican army marched slowly westward with trailing banners. San Antonio and other places held by Mexican garrisons were given up. At length the Rio Grande was reached and crossed.

The independence of Texas was achieved.

VI. HOUSTON. (1836-1842.)

1. ON BUFFALO BAYOU.

The treaty between Santa Anna and the Texan Congress was concluded at Velasco (May 14), and to the written paper was affixed the seal of the Republic.

The choice of this seal was the result of an accident. When the declaration of independence was adopted at San Felipe, Governor Smith, having no other seal, used one of the brass buttons from his coat. Its device chanced to be a five-pointed star encircled by a wreath of oak leaves. The Lone Star with its wreath thus became the official signet of the Texas Republic.