CHAPTER VII

The Mier Expedition

While it is hard “to lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale,” there is still attached to some of the experiences of individuals and of nations, a deep and abiding interest, which increases as the details are presented from different standpoints; indeed, there is but one way of arriving at the whole truth in any case, and that is by careful collection and examination of all the evidence. There are also wayside gleanings as we proceed in our searchings after truth—items of interest and even of importance, at once pleasing and instructive, robbing history of seeming harshness, at the same time impressing its thrilling facts upon mind and memory. Just as genial smiles and kind words sometimes brighten stern faces, inviting us to pleasant acquaintance, where once, by cold reserve and dignity, we were simply repulsed.

We come now to the darkest complication of affairs after 1836. Texas had for six years preserved intact her Declaration of Independence. Mexico seemed to have almost forgotten the very existence of the province which she had striven so hard to retain, at least making no serious interruption to our gradual growth and development; while on the other hand, the United States seemed to be watching or trying the strength and resources of the child republic before resuming the question of annexation.

In 1842, however, the comparative and transient calm was broken. Mexico, awakening to the fact that the prospect of annexation was assuming serious proportions, made two raids into our country—Vasquez in March and Woll in September. Then in December of the same year came the “Archives War,” that bloodless battle wherein Smith, with his twenty men, authorized by President Houston, started to transport the archives of government to the city of Houston, but meeting Captain Lewis1 with his cannon at Kenney’s Fort, concluded to accompany him back to Austin.

Then came the ill-starred Mier Expedition!

There are only two men now living in Bastrop County who passed through its dangers, horrors, and suffering—William Clopton* and John Morgan—from the former of whom we have lately received the following details, and record them in full, deeming this to be one of the facts in our history which is of an intense and abiding interest—thrilling in its heroism, horrible in its cruelty, and pathetic in its suffering.

In the fall of 1842 the President ordered an invading expedition against Mexico, having probably the twofold design of retaliation and of regaining a few of our Santa Fe men² still held by Santa Anna. General [Alexander] Somervell, with about seven hundred men, left the Medina River on the 25th of November, and after a tiresome march over flat, boggy land, severely trying both to men and horses, reached Laredo on the 8th of December. Moving down the Rio Grande, they crossed over near the little town of Guerrero, without opposition or adventure, although a force of Mexican cavalry under Canales3 showed themselves and immediately retreated. Here they stayed one night, then recrossed and marched down the river a short distance, when, greatly to their surprise and dissatisfaction, the army was ordered home.

A determined and vindictive spirit against Mexico had been aroused to the utmost among our soldiers, and some of them were loud and earnest in their protests against disbanding. At length, without opposition from Somervell, a force of 290 men seceded from the main command, and, reorganizing, elected William S. Fisher their commander.

They marched down the Rio Grande to a point nearly opposite the little town of Mier,⁴ then crossing the river went in and made a requisition upon the citizens for supplies. The Alcalde promised provisions next day, and the Texans waited for them in vain, until General Pedro Ampudia, with three thousand Mexicans, took possession of the place.

On the afternoon of Christmas Day, Fisher, leaving thirty men in charge of camp, marched with 260 across the river and on to Mier. They noted a few signs of the impending issue as they advanced, constantly running into Mexican scouts. Pressing forward, they made a straight march for the main plaza, where they were received by a heavy discharge of Mexican artillery.

Now fighting commenced in earnest. The night was dark and drizzly. Some took refuge in the stone houses, where with picks, crow-bars, and anything that could serve their purpose, they cut and dug, making port holes, and fighting in every possible way—fighting without pause for seventeen hours! Two hundred and sixty against three thousand: Ah! Fisher’s band comprised as good material as ever marched for battle. Some of them had fought under old [Samuel W.] Jordan at Saltillo,5 and all of them had proven that they knew how to fight. “Fine marksmen, with fine rifles, fine nerve and in a fine emergency.” Rocks, rifles, and cannon scattered fatality around, and sometimes men were fighting hand to hand in the street. The full effect of the struggle was a mere matter of conjecture until daylight, and then our men could see how their old rifles “told.” The cannon was silenced until men could slip around behind houses or other refuge, and by throwing ropes at last succeeded in dragging it out of rifle range. The team to the artillery, and entire company of sixty men were killed, except the captain and three privates!

The enemy had one advantage, which was also a disadvantage. They could fight from the tops of their flat-roofed houses, but as they peered over into the street below, their heads formed excellent targets for the Texas riflemen. Very few of the Mexican soldiers were simply wounded—the shots nearly always taking effect in the head. The scene was one of bloodshed and horror, which begs description. A miniature Paris was enacted at Mier, as the sickening stream of human blood flowed from the gutters and, curdling in the December cold, formed great, hideous heaps, sometimes fully a foot in height! Truly, nothing is more terrible than war!

General Ampudia sent a white flag to Fisher with fair promises and warnings, and our forces were surrendered, though many of the Texas soldiers, all scattered as they were, fought on, ignorant of the fact; most of the old soldiers whom I have heard mention it regret the surrender as entirely unnecessary and unfortunate. Our loss of life was comparatively very small, and our men as a body were still very anxious to fight bravely on. Finally, however, all surrendered.

The Battle of Mier has few parallels in our country’s history. Continuous fighting for seventeen hours; 260 Texans against 3,000 Mexicans! Texas had only eleven killed and twenty-two wounded, while Mexico had about 1,200 killed, as estimated and reported by one of her own officers!

Well might she stand off and dread the fire and nerve of Texas soldiers after the Battle of Mier! No wonder that thereafter we rested two years from Mexican invasion! But despite their daring and hardihood, the brave little band of Texans soon found themselves on their way to the City of Mexico, as prisoners of war.

Meanwhile, they entered into solemn agreement among themselves that they would break at the very first opportunity, and elected Captain Ewen Cameron, one of the “bravest of the brave,” as their leader. The weary, dreary marching between two lines of vigilant Mexican soldiers—a line of infantry and cavalry on either side—only served to strengthen and establish this determination, and as they trudged along on foot they watched and waited most eagerly for even a shadow of a chance to escape. It was discouraging; indeed, it was almost hopeless. Two hundred miles they marched, from Mier to Matamoros, on over a long road to Monterrey, still on to Saltillo, and then on to Salado, where they resolved to make the effort, which was brilliant and successful.

While the Mexicans were at breakfast, Cameron, throwing off his hat, gave the signal for action. “Now, boys, we go to it!” With the quickness of thought, almost, the astonished sentinels were overpowered and disarmed. The prisoners, rushing out of the enclosure, supplied themselves with whatever weapons were at hand—lances, sabers, “scopets,” muskets, anything, and after a short, sharp conflict with the guards, they were once more free.6

It is said that the United States Minister to Mexico, in conversation with Santa Anna sometime before this Mier Expedition, once remarked upon the fact that in the different battles Mexico always had so many more men killed than Texas. “Oh,” said Santa Anna, “that is due to the great superiority of the Texas arms.” Now, these tired and defenseless Mier prisoners in their daring self-deliverance revealed wherein “the superiority” consisted much more clearly and forcibly than did the famous Mexican general, and the Minister afterward very justly inquired, “How did the Texans vanquish double their own force without arms?” Ah! Santa Anna, there are weapons more fleet and powerful than those which men can see and handle, and Texas will doubtless continue to prove her “superiority of arms” in the world’s great battlefield.

But we left our prisoners free at Hacienda Salado. As they were making their departure the officer of the guards gave them a bit of timely advice, the wisdom of which was fully proved by their subsequent experience. He said, “Keep the plain, direct road. Turn neither to the right nor to the left, and there is no force this side of the Rio Grande to stop you!”

But they started for home, much divided as to what would be their safest route, though many thought that their best, and indeed last chance for freedom or life lay among the mountains. Deliberation and consultation made no pause in their flight, for leaving Salado at ten o’clock, they found themselves eighty miles along the road leading to Monclova, and then all took to the mountains, thereby re-surrendering their hard-earned liberty. The mountain route was dry and rugged. The band grew tired, hungry, thirsty, and bewildered. They were forced to butcher horses in order to secure meat. Many fell in their wanderings and died. Ah! I imagine that was most trying of all! To trudge on, driven by a desperate despair, and leave comrades to a death so lonely, so ghastly, so terrible in its helpless suffering and desolation!

On the fifth day of their wretched wanderings most of the survivors were recaptured by Mexicans, who would go to the water and wait, knowing full well that the thirst would soon drive the fugitives thither.

John Tanny [Tanney],* a man from Bastrop who was a notorious whistler, was concealed in a thicket close beside the water, when a Mexican, peering in and seeing him, called out, “Ah! Mr. Whistler, how do you do? Come out, Mr. Whistler!” By the way, it was said that as the 260 Texans charged into Mier, John Tanny imitated a fife to perfection, and thus won his name of “Mr. Whistler.” He was a man of whom his comrades said “fear was unknown.”

On the fifth day—the day when most of them were regained—William Clopton and three or four others separated from the company, with the understanding that whoever found water would strike a fire; ascending smoke would summon the fellow sufferers together.

Wandering restlessly two days, Clopton, who was alone, lost, and almost crazy for water, saw smoke curling gracefully upward. Turning sore feet and tired body, he made painful but diligent efforts to reach the water which the signal promised. Water! Water! Water! His exhausted strength would carry him only a few steps, when he would fall, then rise and struggle onward. Water! Not a drop had he tasted in seven days!

Mexicans handed him a gourd and he drank. Then he realized that he was once more a prisoner in their hands, and around the water he recognized his fellow prisoners. Such a picture! Such a scene as presented itself in that Mexican encampment is beyond imagination or description, but not beyond sympathy or remembrance. Strong, handsome men, reduced almost to walking skeletons, confronted him, all pale, haggard, and hopeless.

Are sights and feelings such as these to be among the “half-forgotten things” of our past?

Again they found themselves prisoners of war, and were marched back toward the scene of insurrection. At Saltillo they were kept in suspense nearly half a day, and afterward learned the cause of the delay. A consultation was being held as to what disposal should be made of the prisoners. Santa Anna ordered every man shot, and the officer refusing to execute the order was cashiered. Then, by intercession of English, French, and United States Ministers, he was induced to enter into pretended terms of pardon, meanwhile sending the fatal sentence mitigated to every tenth man. As soon as the ministers learned of his treachery and cruel decree, they once more negotiated with him and once more (this time actually) he agreed to commute the sentence, but his commutation or pardon came a day too late. In the meantime, our prisoners are back at Hacienda Salado.

The “Death Lottery,” as Thrall aptly terms it, has been often described, but we cannot leave our men thus. Behold the parade at Salado on the 24th of March, 1843! One hundred and seventy beans drawn from the fatal box pronounced the cruel doom of seventeen brave men, who were taken out of ranks, blindfolded, tied, and at the word, “Fire!” shot from behind.7

All were killed instantly except young [John Levi] Shepherd from Bastrop, who feigned death and during the night crawled off. He was taken in by a Mexican woman and cured, and then recaptured—and shot!

Was ever ingratitude, injustice, and cruelty so prominently shown as in the character of old Santa Anna, here and now and always?

A prisoner in Texas in 1836, he was shown kindness, consideration, even courtesy, and finally set free. Now, when the tables were turned, he pursued a most persistent and unrelenting course of cruelty and injustice.

The sorely tried remnant of the band of Texans were marched to Mexico City, where, under domineering officers they were placed in chains and treated worse than convicts. They were required to work hard and constantly on roads and other public enterprises.

On the 20th of September they were removed to the Castle of Perote, about halfway to Vera Cruz, and still the tyrannical life of burden and insult was imposed upon them.

In the midst of all their torture and sufferings our men always proved themselves Texas soldiers, and by that term we mean to express all of courage, fun, and fortitude that can be found in unaided human nature. Making variety in their lives by exercise of the resources within them when all around them seemed a monotonous routine of unrewarded task, hopeless bondage, and unmerited suffering. Forced to carry sacks of sand on their backs, they would manage by some means to tear them, and as they trudged along found a sly relief in the regular outpouring of a stream of sand, which gradually lightened the heavy burdens they bore. Then there were carts for hauling rocks. Ropes were attached to the tongues and sticks tied along at intervals, to which the prisoners were required to hold, being “matched off” like horses. To one of these carts two Mexican convicts worked behind. Our Texas soldiers who pulled the sticks “in the lead” called them “the wheelers,” and had great fun at their expense. Once, when on the edge of a hill, they ran away, at the same time taking care to get out of the way as the loaded cart ran off the bluff, killing one of the wheelers and injuring the other, all of which was represented to the officers as “purely accidental.”

The scene now changes to one which challenges universal sympathy and indignation. One Davis,8 a fine gunsmith from Bastrop, was required to work in the armory at Perote. He was somewhat of a genius and would furnish his fellow prisoners with little saws or files of his own construction, and with these, their chains were often cut.

One night upon the usual inspection, before locking the cells, Clopton’s chain was found to be loose. The inspecting officer struck him three or four times over the head with a saber, leaving a white scar which still gleams from out his gray hairs to tell us of the outrage and indignity. With chains on both legs he was taken to a hospital, where he was confined, sick, but still in chains, for four days.

Again the scene is shifted. A high grade of typhus fever attacks them and only seven escape its ravages! Many of them die.

The authorities concluded that the damp cell floors, which were of cement, might be one cause of sickness, and so over the cement they laid a plank floor on logs or “sleepers”—thus preventing contact with the damp.

John Tanny, the “Whistler,” originated and engineered a plan of escape which, in its execution, serves to illustrate in a measure how capacity will sometimes assert itself despite every opposition, defying every difficulty and discouragement.

None suspected the plot, save the fifteen who occupied his cell or division and aided him in the work which was so fascinating and yet so diligently slow. A square block of the cement was carefully sawed out and removed whole, so that when replaced it would hide from superficial glance every sign of the undermining work which they cautiously carried on during the night.

Digging! Digging! Digging! Silently, eagerly, earnestly working in the nighttime, until morning. Then hiding dirt and tools between the sleepers under the plank, and resuming their chains, they would be led out to their daily labor.

Thus they dug down the wall of the fort in a slanting hole, under and then up on the outside—nearly fifty feet in all. At last fourteen of our Mier prisoners were once more free. One man refused to venture out of the cell, knowing that everything was against their escape. Great was the astonishment of officers and convicts when the cell was opened one morning and only a solitary prisoner remained where fifteen had been locked in the previous evening.

Suspicion of foul play was so strong that the officers were all arrested and sent to Vera Cruz and our prisoners worked under a new regime. Most of the “night workers” were recaptured and forced to resume the treadmill life of burden, toil and insult.9

Thus the ill-used band of Texans spent nearly two years, occasionally tantalized by some glowing promise of freedom in the near future. Santa Anna’s birthday, the 13th of June, 1844, was celebrated as a national fete day, and this was for some time beforehand represented as the day appointed for their release. But amid the revelry and rejoicing of his subjects over his natal day, he showed no kindly feeling and sent no respite to the toilers at Perote.

It was singular, how uniformly kind, tender, and noble our men always found the women in the land of Montezumas, while the facts of our history reveal such startling depths in the hardness and cruelty of the men.

In this same year General Santa Anna’s wife died, and it was said that on her deathbed she requested her husband to liberate the Mier prisoners. Whether through her influence or not we cannot say, though we do know that the best impulses of men frequently come to them while under the shadows of sorrow; but at any rate, on the National Independence Day, the 16th of September, the Mier prisoners were set free, after all the confusion worse than death, trouble on top of trouble, pain on top of pain, sore tasks to hearts worn out with many wars, and eyes grown dim with gazing at the pilot stars. Free once more!

A man by the name of Bonnell,10 editor, I think, of the first, paper ever published in Austin, was left with the company of thirty men who kept camp when Fisher’s army charged into Mier and was nevermore heard of.

His fate is among the mysteries of our past, but his name still lives in the mountain from whose summit one can take such broad survey of Austin and the surrounding country—Mount Bonnell.

Then, too, Joe Berry, one of the first gunsmiths of Bastrop, as they marched for Mier fell over a bluff and broke his thigh. Six men, among whom were Bayt Berry, [Thomas] Davis, and Dr. Sinnickson, were left in charge of him at a little house in the suburbs. Next day about twelve o’clock Mexicans found them, killed the wounded Joe Berry and three others, and captured Dr. Sinnickson, while only two escaped.11

Some have accused Fisher and his men of remaining after Somervell left for the sole purpose of robbing Mier, furthermore saying that they disobeyed orders and deserved their suffering. Never were insinuations more unjust and untrue. If robbery was their object, why did they recross the Rio Grande and wait for the Alcalde to send supplies? And as to disobeying orders, Fisher’s men received no opposition from Somerville [Somervell], or “the highest power” when they announced a determination to remain. They were “anxious to avenge the insults which the raids of Vasquez and Woll had inflicted upon Texas.”

As stated in the beginning, I have lately received these details from my fellow countryman, William Clopton, and now in conclusion would like to pay fitting tribute to him as another of our brave and faithful soldiers. He came to Texas in 1837, is now past three score and ten, and has fought bravely for his adopted state all through her struggles.

He was a lieutenant in Eastland’s Company on the Mier Expedition, besides taking active part in many of our principal campaigns—the Cordova, Plum Creek, John H. Moore, and others.