Part 20

Then, on the second of April, came bad news. It permeated the discontented camp like wild-fire. Colonel Fannin and his men had not been paroled, but had been killed: shot down, or bayoneted, on Palm Sunday, March 27, at Goliad, by the Mexican companies! Three hundred and twenty――think of it――320 of the rank and file, marched out upon the prairie, and slain by the Mexican soldiers! Santa Anna himself had sent the orders.

The New Orleans Grays, the Red Rovers of Alabama, the Mustangs of Kentucky, and all――all except twenty-six or twenty-seven who had dodged the bullets and had escaped in the brush. Colonel Fannin and Colonel Ward of the Georgians had been shot separately. It was worse than even the Alamo.

Now news was received, at last, from the Mexican army. The Deaf Smith Spy Company, who had been out on a long scout, returned with the word. The army were coming in three separate columns. Santa Anna was leading the centre column, from Gonzales straight eastward for Beason’s on the Colorado and thence to San Felipe. A southern column under General Urrea was marching from Goliad northeast for the coast. A northern column under General Gaona was marching by way of Bastrop (or Mina), on the Colorado above Moore’s Retreat for Nacogdoches in the far east. Six thousand soldiers in all was given, by the spies, as the number――and they were sweeping Texas with orders to shoot every Texan caught bearing arms. All the country was in full flight; the roads from the Brazos east were crowded with panic-stricken settlers.

Lorenzo de Zavala, the vice-president, joined the camp, with a company of eighty men from the Red Lands. He reported that Thomas J. Rusk, the secretary of war, was on his way to help in the fighting; and that two cannon from Cincinnati had been landed at the coast and were being hurried forward.

The general sent the Redlanders down river to reinforce Captain Baker’s company opposite San Felipe at the San Felipe crossing, and gave strict orders that no man was to leave the camp without permission. Secretary Rusk arrived on April 4; but even he could not calm the discontent. Were the army to stay here while the republic was being ravaged by Santa Anna? What was the matter with that Sam Houston, anyhow? Leo raged, Jim was sarcastic, and even Ernest felt his courage ebbing.

On April 7 the general issued an army order:

The moment for which we have waited with anxiety and interest is fast approaching [he said]. The victims of the Alamo and the spirits of those who were murdered 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.

“Big words,” fumed Jim. “But what do they mean? Here we are, squatting in the mud and growing web feet. Couldn’t get off this island if the Mexicans were right opposite. Oh, yes; _we’re_ safe; but what of the rest of Texas? What of _our_ folks? Next thing, we’ll hear of some more massacres, down the river. I’m sick; I’ve had the measles and now I’ve got a cold. What we need is another general.”

That day cannon shots were heard, from down the river. A battle! The Mexicans were trying to cross at San Felipe. Now the camp was in a fever, indeed. Would Captain Baker and the Redlanders hold the crossing? The three boys listened with anxious hearts, for Sion was there in the fight.

The firing continued for two days, on and off. Then it ceased. Colonel Alex. Somervell came in with the report that the Mexican advance guard had retired without crossing. But there was considerable talk about making Colonel Sidney Sherman the commander-in-chief. However, in the morning notices, signed by General Houston, were stuck up with wooden pegs on the trees, saying that any man who attempted to organize volunteers from the army would be “court-martialed and shot.” This stopped much of the talk.

More recruits joined from East Texas. Among them was one especially nice-looking man, with the high-sounding name of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar. He was from a famous Georgia family; had been a newspaper editor, and could write poetry. He had walked almost all the way up from Velasco to join the Texan army as a private. The men agreed that he would not remain a private long.

Colonel Rusk, the secretary of war, was reported to have been sent by the government on purpose to urge General Houston to fight. And a tart dispatch was received from the president.

To GEN. SAM HOUSTON.

SIR: The enemy are laughing you to scorn. You must fight them. You must retreat no further. The country expects you to fight. The salvation of the country depends on your doing so.

DAVID G. BURNET.

The general appeared to pay no attention to this interference, as if he were bent upon pursuing his own plans. But it was rumored that one column of the Mexican army had crossed the Brazos, at last, and was heading eastward. This might be so, for on the morning of April 12 orders were issued to break camp and prepare to leave. All that day and half of the next day the steamboat Yellowstone and a ferry flat-boat were busy carrying the 523 men, the wagons and the horses and oxen, from the west bank to the east bank.

Affairs looked brighter. At Groce’s, on the east bank, the two cannon from Cincinnati were found waiting. They were iron six-pounders and had been presented by the citizens of Cincinnati to the Republic of Texas. It seemed good to Ernest to see something that had been in Cincinnati. He rather believed that his mother had looked upon these cannon. He wondered if she had guessed that they were coming straight to him――and why she had not thought to put a note in them!

No cannon shot accompanied them; all had been lost on the long way. But blacksmiths were set at work cutting up horseshoes and chains and other iron, to be tied in cotton bags, as canister. Colonel Hockley was placed in charge of the cannon.

Yes, one column of the Mexican army had crossed the Brazos. A dispatch from Captain Wiley Martin told this. A portion of the column had threatened him at Fort Bend, while the rest of the column had gone below and seized a ferry kept by an old negro. They had yelled to the negro in English, and he had thought that they were some Texans wanting the ferry.

The general promptly issued a proclamation, to reassure the people of Eastern Texas. He said:

You have suffered panic to seize you, and idle rumors 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 treading the soil on which they are to be conquered.

If you wish your country saved [he continued], 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.

But the Mexicans were marching on!

That night, tired of the nagging from Jim and Leo, who sided with the men who thought that they knew more than the general did, about a campaign, Ernest sought out Dick Carroll for comfort. He and Dick, at least, would stand by the general. There were others, too.

“Don’t you worry about the general, boy,” assured Dick. “He’ll hoe his row, in spite of the stones. And some day this army, and all Texas, will thank him. It takes a big man to manage a retreat. Anybody can fight, but few have the nerve to hold off till the proper time to fight. A lot of these complainers aren’t reasonable. Hyar we are, porely armed, porely drilled, porely provisioned, pulling all ways――some of us skipping off home without staying to fight――and we’re expected to stop right in their tracks an army ten times our size, veteran soldiers, the best in Mexico, and commanded by a general who’s never known defeat. We’ve got to oppose strategy to force. This one army is up ag’in really three armies, all bigger; and we can’t fight and run away to fight in another place, on account of the floods. Besides, we’ve got the Injuns to look out for. These East Texas settlements are open to attack from the prairies, and that northern column of Gaona is liable to fetch along Injuns. The Comanches and Cherokees are ready for the warpath, I hear tell.”

“But the general’s letting the centre column get ahead of us,” hazarded Ernest.

“No, he isn’t. He’s letting it get in front of us, and that means we’re behind it. It’s got to look two ways, now. And it’s marching further and further, and separating more and more from the other columns. Sam Houston wants it to run on the rope a bit longer; then he’ll lick it, and have time to tend to the others. That’s my notion of what Sam Houston is up to.”

“Where do you think they’re going, Dick?”

“Who? The centre column that crossed the Brazos? To Harrisburg, I reckon, and try to capture the government cabinet.”

“Is Santa Anna with them?”

“Don’t know. Nobody seems to know yet. But we’ll find out. About twenty miles beyond here the road forks: one fork continues on east to the Trinity and Nacogdoches, the other fork bends south for Harrisburg. And if we don’t take the south fork I miss my guess.”

It was generally known that all the companies down the Brazos had been ordered to meet the main body at Donoho’s Ranch, five miles east. This looked like business. To-night the camp was more cheerful. The fife played the tune “Will You Come to the Bower,” some of the men sang, and even Jim and Leo sought their blankets less disgruntled.

The next noon, of April 14, camp was made at Donoho’s, to await the companies that had been ordered up from below. This camp was rather hard on the Donoho place, for most of the fence rails were torn down to feed the camp fires. A number of refugee families were collected here on their flight to the Trinity River and eastward still. Jim looked in vain for his “folks.” The wearied outfits with their carts and oxen hastened onward, fearful lest the army pass them and leave them exposed to the enemy.

Captain Baker arrived to report that his company were on hand, camped by the road about three miles further on. Captain Martin also came in. He said, very distinctly:

“General, I have brought but my sword. On hearing that you are retreating to Nacogdoches my company refuse to remain with you, and declare that they must protect their families.”

“Are you and your men willing to retreat beyond the Trinity to Nacogdoches, captain?” asked one of the men, of Captain Baker.

“Never, never!” answered the captain, determinedly. “If General Houston will not take us to meet the enemy, we will elect a commander who will!”

The general was standing talking with Captain Martin only a few feet away, and heard. But he replied not a single word.

An old negro also arrived from below. He said that he had been the ferry-man near Fort Bend, whom the Mexicans had bamboozled. They had held him several days.

“Dey gwine straight on to Harrisburg to ketch the gubberment,” he proclaimed. “Santa Anna wif ’um. Yessuh, he wif ’um. I done saw him. He say: ‘You tell Sam Houston I know he up dere in de bushes, an’ when I get done wif dese land-robbers down hyar I’se comin’ up to smoke him out,’ Yessuh; dat’s what he say.”

Camp was made the next evening at Mr. McCurley’s ranch, thirteen miles east. More refugees were here. The Martin company had been ordered by the general to proceed on and to protect the settlers crossing the Trinity from the Indians. That suited the company better. But the Baker company were picked up, and Sion joined his three comrades again. He was gleeful, but also critical.

“We drove those Mexicans back from the river, all right,” he asserted. “We got fooled, though, once. Thought we saw a thundering big lot of cavalry coming full tilt, and after we’d set fire to the town, against ’em, we found out they were only a bunch of cattle. Anyway, here we all are, now. And if Sam Houston doesn’t let us take the Harrisburg road to-morrow, to meet up with Santa Anna, we’re going to elect a general who will.”

“Colonel Rusk says we’re going to Harrisburg,” spoke Ernest, hopefully.

“He does, does he?” responded Sion. “Huh! Maybe he’s the boss and maybe he isn’t. We’ll mighty soon find out, to-morrow.”

The march was resumed in a driving rain. The men trudged heavily, and even the horses seemed to share in the rebellious feeling. But General Houston had given no indication of what he had decided, and rather a pathetic figure he made, as he rode along in the pelting storm. He still wore his thin old black coat; his whitish hat flopped on his head, his legs were clad in baggy snuff-colored trousers and cowhide boots; and his sword was tied around his waist by buckskin thongs. A month’s beard covered his face.

The fife and drum had played a tune at the beginning; but when the Roberts ranch, where the road forked, was reached, the music stopped, and the rear of the column crowded up against the hesitating van. General Houston had spurred ahead. Mr. Roberts the rancher was standing at his gate, talking with several officers, as the general arrived. With the cavalry, in the advance, Ernest heard the words plainly.

“Is that the road to Harrisburg?” demanded the officers.

“Yes, sir,” answered Mr. Roberts; and he pointed. “This right-hand road will carry you down to Harrisburg as straight as a compass.”

“To the right, boys! To the right!” shouted the officers, galloping away.

As the word passed, a great cheer arose. The head of the column promptly turned into the south, on the right-hand trail. The music struck up blithely. The general sat his horse, watching, with a little smile on his haggard face.

And down the Harrisburg road briskly marched the column, to find Santa Anna, now fifty miles in the lead.

XIX

FINDING SANTA ANNA

Harrisburg was only about twenty miles inland from Galveston Bay of the coast. So Santa Anna had marched clear across Texas, with General Houston at first before him, and now behind him. On the bay shore east of Harrisburg was the town of New Washington; and a few miles north of New Washington was Lynch’s Ferry and Lynchburg, of the San Jacinto River――just above where the river, flowing southward, widens into San Jacinto Bay in the upper part of Galveston Bay.

From the west, Buffalo Bayou (near whose mouth is to-day located the city of Houston) joined the San Jacinto River at Lynch’s Ferry. Somewhere to the south of the angle formed by the Bayou, and the San Jacinto River and bay, were the Santa Anna army. They could not go much further east, that was certain. They would go north, for East Texas. Urrea was taking care of the south.

To-day’s march from McCurley’s ranch was a hard one. The prairie road was soft with bogs and with mud from the rain, and everybody was in a hurry. The “Twin Sisters,” as the Cincinnati cannon had been christened, were dragged with long ropes――a score of volunteers lending their hands. The cannon wheels and the wheels of the wagons sank deeply into the mushy sod. The general frequently dismounted and helped push and pull. There were so many sloughs and creeks, also, that it took until dark to go twelve miles, and even then camp was made on wet ground at the edge of a sluggish creek.

Buffalo Bayou, curving into the south as it reached back from the San Jacinto, sent out many branches; and Jim and Ernest and all were well fagged out when, before noon of April 18, the third day from McCurley’s and the forking of the trails, the toiling army at last reached the main channel of the bayou, almost opposite Harrisburg.

Not a Mexican soldier had been sighted; but now, slightly to the southeast, across the bayou, lay Harrisburg. It had been burned, for a veil of smoke from its smouldering rafters hung low over the bayou timber, marking the site.

So there, between the bayou and the coast, a short stretch of timber-dotted prairie and swamp country, was Santa Anna with his army.

However, the other army were almost too tired to talk. During the forced march of fifty-five miles from McCurley’s, in two and a half days of rain and mud, Jim and Ernest had scarcely seen Leo and Sion. As soon as the camps had been located, and supper eaten, everybody had gone to sleep. Now the word was passed that a half day’s rest would be given, to freshen the army up for a battle.

Deaf Smith and Henry Karnes, the chief scouts, took two or three of the Deaf Smith Spies, and swimming their horses, crossed the rapid bayou on a raft, to reconnoitre. Otherwise it was a lazy afternoon. But about dusk Deaf Smith returned, driving two prisoners before them. He made them row the raft, and followed them in to camp, a pair of leather saddle-bags in his hand, his rifle in the other. There was no use yelling questions. But――――

“I know that one fellow, and so do you!” exclaimed Ernest, to Jim. “That little fellow. Remember him? He’s a _paisano_ from Bejar. He was in Captain Seguin’s Mexican company, too, before San Antonio.”

“Well, you never know which way those _paisanos_ are going to jump,” quoth Jim.

The two prisoners were conducted to headquarters by Deaf Smith. The “little fellow” proved to be a guide for Santa Anna; and the other prisoner was a captain in the Mexican army, who had been carrying dispatches from General Filisola the Italian to Santa Anna. Deaf Smith had caught both of the men on the main road for Harrisburg.

The guide told General Houston that the Santa Anna army numbered 500 infantry and 100 cavalry. As for the dispatches in the leather bags――――

“Jiminy!” cried Sion, who with Leo sought out the other boys, after having skirmished for the true news. “Deaf Smith says those dispatches were so fresh that the ink on ’em was hardly dry yet. Those were Travis’s deerhide saddle-bags――had his name on ’em. The dispatches told us just what we want to know. Santa Anna’s ahead, all alone, with only six hundred men. Urrea’s clear down at Matagorda. Gaona’s away back up north, toward Bastrop. He got lost. Filisola and Sesma are at the Brazos, near Fort Bend below San Felipe; and the only thing that’s liable to interfere is Cos the parole-breaker. Filisola’s hurrying him forward with five hundred men.”

“Yes,” put in Leo, “and Deaf Smith says Harrisburg was burned on the fifteenth, and the Mexicans got to the bay just in time to see President Burnet setting out in a skiff for Galveston Island. Only three printers were left in the town. Then Santa Anna started on for New Washington and Lynch’s Ferry, to cut us off if we retreated east. But when he finds we’re here to fight him, and have cut _him_ off, in a pocket, he’ll have to get out either over the bayou again, or else by Lynch’s Ferry. He doesn’t know we’re here――he thinks we’re retreating to the Trinity and Nacogdoches. That’s what all the settlers have told him. And if we hurry we can beat him to the San Jacinto, and he’s _our meat_!”

“He sure is!” exulted Jim. “This army can lick any six hundred Mexicans that ever were born.”

“I reckon Sam Houston knew his business, after all,” admitted Sion.

That night the camp was impatient for the dawn. Deaf Smith estimated that the Mexican army were less than a day’s march away. If they weren’t overhauled before they crossed the juncture of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River they’d have a clear lead again, and could go on up to Nacogdoches, and summon the Indians of the northern prairies, and perhaps unite with the Gaona column.

General Houston and Colonel Rusk, the secretary of war, had had a conference.

“We don’t need to talk,” the general was reported to have said. “You think we ought to fight, and so do I.”

There still were some men who feared that the general might wait. Colonel Sherman promised his regiment that _if_ the general would _not_ fight, they could follow him and he’d soon give them enough. But an aide summoned him and Colonel Burleson to headquarters and when Colonel Sherman returned, everything was all right.

The general had asked him and Colonel Burleson if they had beef on hand for three days.

“Yes, sir,” they replied.

“Very well,” had said General Houston. “You will see then that each man is supplied with cooked rations for three days, and hold the camp in readiness to march. We will see if we can find Santa Anna. Good evening, gentlemen.”

The morning dawned for a day of energy. The army ate a hasty breakfast of beef strips wound around green sticks and held in the blaze, and orders were given to fall in. General Houston rode in front of the lines, and from his horse made a speech. It was a short speech, but it was enough.

“The army will cross, and we will meet the enemy,” he declared. “Some of us may be killed, and must be killed. But, soldiers, remember the Alamo, the Alamo, _the Alamo_!”

“By thunder, after that speech there’ll be mighty few prisoners taken; I know that!” exclaimed Major Somervell.

Colonel Rusk began an address. He had proceeded only a few words, when he stopped, amidst the cheering, and bowed, and said, simply: “I am done.” He evidently saw that no more words were necessary.

First, the bayou was to be crossed. It was fifty yards wide, and running swiftly. The old ferryboat――a scow――had been found, but it was leaky, and the general fumed angrily when he saw that it had not been repaired according to orders. There was no time to repair it now. If Cos or Santa Anna should come while the army were crossing――whew!

The boat had no oars, even. General Houston flung off his black coat, grabbed an ax, and began to hew an oar from a piece of fence rail. He delivered orders right and left, while he hewed. A second oar was needed. Men were set at work tying rawhide ropes and horsehair _cabrestas_ or picket lines together. Only the saddle-horses, the “Twin Sisters” teams, and one baggage wagon were to be taken. The rest of the baggage and animals, and the sick men, were to be left here on the west bank.

Thirty pioneers or trail-makers were sent over first, while four men bailed. They carried an end of the rope, and made it fast to a tree; and the rope, thus stretched from bank to bank, formed a guide for the boat. When the boat was returned, rowed and paddled, the general himself leaped aboard, afoot, with the next detachment. His horse whinnied, and sprang into the water and swam after. Colonel Rusk stayed on the west bank. Running between them, guided by the rope, the boat made passage after passage. To help out, the raft which had served Deaf Smith was called into service.

The infantry and cannon and wagon were transferred before the cavalry moved. The boat soon was leaking much worse, and threatened to sink or capsize. The four men bailing furiously could scarcely keep it afloat.

Noon passed, and still the cavalry waited, and still the infantry were being ferried by scow and raft, urged from either bank by the shouts of the general and Colonel Rusk.

Somebody in Ernest and Jim’s company had picked up, on the ground where the general’s quarters had been located, a piece of paper which he had thrown aside. It was the first part of a note, written in lead pencil to Mr. Henry Raguet, of the Committee of Safety in Nacogdoches. The fragment said:

CAMP AT HARRISBURG, April 19, 1836.