5

In assuming that Texas had a government Houston was, in a broad sense, correct.

While he had been delaying his urgent march to rescue the blind widow, the Convention at Washington received its first intimation of the fall of the Alamo in a guarded letter from the Commander himself. Next day Houston confirmed the disaster, and deserters from Gonzales embroidered the horror. Part of the Convention fled without ceremony. Other members got drunk. Chairman Ellis attempted to adjourn the sittings to Nacogdoches, but a well-knit delegate with a stubby beard stood on a bench and told the members to return to their work.

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The Constitution was slapped together at ten o'clock that night. At midnight the Convention elected the well-knit delegate provisional president of the Republic.

His name was David G. Burnet. Thirty years before he had deserted a high stool in a New York counting house to see the world. He was with Miranda's romantic but rash descents upon Venezuela. He had roamed with the wild Indians in the little-explored West. One bulge in his close-fitting coat was made by a Bible, another by a pistol; and he did not drink or swear.

Lorenzo de Zavala was chosen vice-president.

Burnet's Cabinet was elected on the spot. At four in the morning of March seventeenth the new Administration was sworn in, and the Convention took a recess for breakfast.

After the meal a remnant of the members came together again. "An invaded, unarmed, unprovided country," wrote Colonel Gray, the useful diarist, "without an army to oppose invaders, and without money to raise one, now presents itself to their hitherto besotted and blinded minds and the awful cry has been heard from the midst of their Assembly, 'What shall we do to be saved?' " When a fugitive dashed into town shouting the groundless rumor that Santa Anna's cavalry had crossed the Colorado, the question of salvation became a matter too intimate for parliamentary procedure. "The members are now dispersing in all directions. A general panic seems to have seized them. Their families are exposed and defenseless, and thousands are moving off to the east. A constant stream of women and children and some men, with wagons, carts and pack mules are rushing across the Brazos night and day."

Mr. Burnet called a Cabinet meeting, at which it was decided to transfer the capital of the Republic "to Harrisburg on the Buffalo Bayou, as a place of more safety than this." The removal began in the rain on the following day. Vice-President Zavala rode a small mule. At his side Johnathan Ikin, an English capitalist, slopped through the mud on foot, revolving in his mind some doubts concerning a proposed five-million-

dollar loan. Mrs. Robinson, the wife of the late Lieutenant-Governor, also walked. Some one had stolen her horse.

Mrs. Harris, widow of the founder of the new capital, entertained the dignitaries of the government. Secretary of War Thomas J. Rusk and Colonel Gray dried themselves before her fire and rolled up in a blanket on the floor. The Secretary of Navy and the Attorney-General did the same. But the President, the Vice-President and the Secretary of State had a bed. Lorenzo de Zavala, Jr., embraced his father and, attended by a French valet, breasted the rainswept stream of fleeing humanity to join Sam Houston's Army.

6

The flight of the government did not diminish the difficulties of the Commander-in-Chief. "It was a poor compliment to me," he wrote to Rusk, "to suppose that I would not advise the convention of any necessity that might arise for their removal. . . . You know I am not easily depressed but, before my God, since we parted I have found the darkest hours of my life! . . . For forty-eight hours I have not eaten an ounce, nor have I slept." During the retreat "I was in constant apprehension of a rout . . . yet I managed as well, or such was my good luck," that the army was "kept together. At Gonzales "if I could have had a moment to start an express in advance of the deserters ... all would have been well, and all at peace" east of the Colorado. But the deserters "went first, and, being panic-struck ... all who saw them breathed the poison and fled." 8

Next day the outlook brightened. "My force will [soon] be highly respectable. . . . You will hear from us. ... I am writing in the open air. I have no tent. . . . Do devise some plan to send back the rascals who have gone from the army. . . . Oh, why did the cabinet leave Washington? . . . Oh, curse the consternation that has seized the people." 9

Matters continued to improve. Houston's determination to

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fight brought a tide of recruits, until ultimately he had perhaps fourteen hundred men—poorly equipped, without artillery, but eager for battle. Houston maneuvered down the river, and the alert Deaf Smith captured a Mexican scout who revealed that General Sesma was approaching with seven hundred and twenty-five infantry and two field pieces. Sesma camped on the west side of the river two miles above the right wing of Houston's army, and sent for reinforcements. Lieutenant-Colonel Sidney Sherman, a dashing Kentucky volunteer with the best-looking uniform in camp, begged to cross and attack, but Houston refused.

For five days the armies faced each other in expectation of battle. There were a few brushes between patrols. On the evening of March twenty-fifth a Gonzales refugee named Peter Kerr galloped into camp shouting that Fannin had surrendered after a bloody defeat. The cry went up to fall upon Sesma at once. Houston seized Kerr and denounced his story. Sesma would be taken care of in good time. The soldiery went to bed and during the night General Sesma was heavily reinforced.

The only music in the Texan camp was tattoo and reveille beaten on a drum by the Commander-in-Chief himself, who had learned the art under Captain Cusack of the Mounted Gunmen in Tennessee. Each night between these calls, General Houston inspected the lines of sentinels, conferred with his staff, wrote dispatches and turned the pages of the Commentaries of Caesar and Gulliver's Travels, which he had brought in his saddle-bags from Washington to read in his spare time.

There was an occasional hour for a talk with George Hockley. A fast comradeship grew between the General and his aide. They were old acquaintances and had come near fighting a duel in Nashville ten years before. But these mellow midnight conversations while his army slept carried Sam Houston back to days more remote. He spoke of his mother, of the consolation her teachings had been to his troubled life and of his will to reestablish himself as a mark of respect for her memory.

Reveille was beaten an hour before dawn, when the camp

stood to arms until full day outlined the west bank of the river where Mexican patrols lurked in the brush. After breakfast the Commander-in-Chief would kick off his boots and sleep for three hours. By mid-forenoon he was on his round of inspection, which carried him to every precinct of the camp. Since joining the troops at Gonzales the Commander had used liquor sparingly, if at all, but carried a small vial of salts of hartshorn which he periodically dabbed to his nostrils.

The morning after the Fannin alarm Houston did not sleep. The soldiers saw their General sunning himself on a pile of saddles while he cut chews of tobacco with a clasp knife and studied a map. The rumor spread that the General was planning a battle, and there was a great cleaning of rifles and clattering of accouterments. Noon came and Houston had not begun his inspections. Something was in the wind. By mid-afternoon the atmosphere was tense when an order came to break camp, load the wagons and be ready to retreat at sunset.

The army was dumfounded. What did it mean?' Detachment commanders went flying to headquarters to ascertain. They were told to return to their companies and carry out orders. The army would march at sunset as directed.

Bewildered and complaining, the army left fires alight and picked its way eastward through the tall grass. Seventy-five families were encamped on the river, hoping for a battle. They fled. "Among these was my own," one soldier wrote. "I now left the army and with the families set out on the retreat." 10 Many of Houston's soldiers did likewise.

Six miles from the river the army bivouaced without fires and grumbled itself to sleep. The first light of morning saw the column pressing on. Staff officers rode up and down. "Close up, men. Close up." Major Ben Fort Smith of the staff asked Captain Moseley Baker what he thought of the movement. Captain Baker replied in a loud voice. He thought little enough of the movement, and unless reasons for the retreat acceptable to the Army were forthcoming, Sam Houston would be deposed from command before the day was over.

THE RETREAT FROM GONZALES 237

The march was so relentlessly pressed that Captain Baker did not find an opportunity to carry out his plan. That night, with thirty weary miles behind them, the men were too tired to care. They had covered the whole distance between the Colorado and the Rio de los Brazos de Dios and were bivouaced a mile from San Felipe de Austin. But sentiment against the retreat had grown, and after a few hurried interviews Captain Baker turned in, confident that the Army would throw off Houston's leadership in the morning. 3

CHAPTER XIX The Plain of St. Hyacinth

Reveille rolled in the darkness, and stiff men, casting grotesque shadows, fumbled about the breakfast fires. A bleak wind blew ashes in the coffee kettles. The Commander-in-Chief did not show himself, but after breakfast the punctual staff officers bounced through camp with brisk orders to form companies for the march.

Soldiers grumble as a matter of form, but those ably led acquire a habit of obedience that overbears many weaknesses of the flesh. The companies fell in, and only Captains Moseley Baker and Wily Martin sustained the bold resolutions of the night before. Lieutenant-Colonel Sherman sent Houston an announcement of their refusal to march. This brought Hockley at a gallop, shouting to Sherman to put the column in motion. "If subordinates refuse to obey orders the sooner the fact is ascertained the better!" The column moved, but the companies of Baker and Martin stood fast.

A furious rain caught the column toiling through a swamp up the west bank of the River of the Arms of God. Wagons stalled and men floundered in the mud. The sheer force of the downpour broke the ranks. The exertions of all the staff officers and of Houston himself were unable to preserve an appearance of military order. Stragglers began to grope back toward Baker and Martin. Houston paused under a tree, penciling an order to Baker to take post in defense of the river

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crossing at San Felipe, and Martin at Fort Bend. They complied.

For three terrible days Houston drove the stumbling column through the unrelenting rain, advancing only eighteen miles. On March 31,1836, he halted in a "bottom" by the Brazos with nine hundred demoralized and mutinous men remaining of the thirteen hundred he had led from the Colorado five days before. Near by glowed the lights of Jared Groce's house, where in 1829 took place the first discussion on Texas soil to solicit Sam Houston to assist the fortunes of the restless province.

The country was in worse temper than the Army. Houston's abandonment of the Colorado gave fresh wings to the terror that had been calmed somewhat by his halt and the expectation of a battle. A fierce outcry broke from government and populace, which took little account of the strategic handicap Fannin's capitulation had imposed upon their General. Although students of the military science, viewing the campaign in retrospect, entertain divided opinions on the matter, Houston believed that a victory on the Colorado would have been indecisive and a reverse irreparable. General Santa Anna believed that the elimination of Fannin had made all Texas untenable for Houston, and arranged for an early return to Mexico City.

During the retreat came the paralyzing intelligence that Fannin and three hundred and ninety men had been executed in cold blood after surrendering, and of the massacre of a smaller band under Captain King. General Santa Anna was keeping his word. Texas shuddered and fled. Mr. Burnet's government lost its grip and the flight of the population became a hysterical plunge toward the Sabine.

Sam Houston's rain-soaked and rebellious mob was the Republic's solitary hope—menaced by four Mexican columns sweeping forward to enclose its front, flanks and rear. The profound wisdom of hindsight suggests that had the Commander given some explanation of his retreat, Army and country might have fared better. But the inscrutable Indian

brain of The Raven had divulged nothing and explained nothing. "I consulted none;" he wrote in the saddle, "held no councils of war. If / err, the blame is mine" 1 And he had taken no notice of criticism.

The story grew that Houston meant to abandon Texas in a mad effort to induce United States troops on the Sabine to take up the war. That first wet night in the Brazos Bottoms, Houston wrote Secretary of War Rusk for news of the government's program, if any. "I must let the camp know something ... [so that] I can keep them together." 2

2

Sam Houston promised his mob a glorious victory and drove a parcel of beeves into camp for a barbecue. Then he began to remold the rabble into an army to receive the enemy, providentially delayed by the rains.

The Bottoms quaked with activity, and no trick in the repertory of the professionally trained soldier was neglected. Drills, inspections, maneuvers; maneuvers, inspections, drills. Units were revamped, two new regiments created, a corps d'elite of Regulars formed. Anson Jones was so dizzily yanked from infantry private to regimental surgeon that he complained of "having to do duty in both capacities" for several days. Discipline and esprit de corps began to return. Recruits came in. Scouts watched the encroaching enemy. Patrols watched the camp. Jackals caught plundering refugees were assisted out of their troubles at the nearest tree.

Encouraging reports from the United States were published to the Army. Wharton wrote to Houston from Nashville: "Your name . . . [will] raise 5000 volunteers in Tennessee alone. . . . Especially the Ladies are enthusiastic. . . . The Ladies have pledged themselves to arm equip & entirely outfit 200 volunteers now forming." 8 The lovely Nashville ladies! Miss Anna Hanna stitched a flag for her old beau. A woman in black on a river plantation flaunted, like a banner, her proud glance in the face of hostile family frowns.

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Houston's difficulties were staggering. Burnet was an enemy. He had a spy on Houston's staff. The Commander-in-Chief intercepted one of this creature's letters, declaring that after abandoning the use of liquor Houston had taken up opium. A newly promoted major returned from Moseley Baker's outpost and began to sound out officers on a scheme to "beat for volunteers" to proclaim a successor to General Houston. Sidney Sherman—a full colonel now, his uniform the brightest sight in camp—was to be the man.

An Indian uprising threatened the refugees. Mexican agents were undoing the peace-work Houston had accomplished after leaving Refugio. "My friend Col Bowl," Houston wrote the war lord of the Cherokees, "I am very busy, and will only say how da do, to you!" The salutation took the form of a reminder that Houston had been the red man's friend and that the red man would find it to his profit to reciprocate. "My best compliments to my sister, and tell her that I have not wore out the mockasins which she made me."*

On April seventh Santa Anna reached San Felipe. Houston reinforced Baker, and for four days the Mexican artillery tried to force a crossing without success, although an American named Johnson, serving with the Mexicans, caused some discomfort by firing across the flooded river with a rifle. With this cannonade rumbling in his ears, Houston received a brief message from President Burnet. "Sir: The enemy are laughing you to scorn. You must fight." 5 The camp was in a frenzy of excitement. Leaders of the contemplated mutiny believed their hour had struck, but changed their minds when Sam Houston had two graves dug and affixed to trees about camp a memorandum saying that the first man to beat for volunteers would be shot. 6

Word that Santa Anna had abruptly abandoned his attempt to cross at San Felipe found Houston in a buoyant mood. He had just received his long awaited guns—two iron six-

pounders, the gift of friends in Cincinnati. Clad in a worn leather jacket, he was watching the camp blacksmith cut up old horseshoes for artillery ammunition, when a young soldier said that the lock on his rifle would not work. "All right, son," said General Houston, "set her down and call around in an hour." The boy came back, stammering an apology. He was a recruit, he said, and did not know that the man pointed out to him as a blacksmith was the Commander-in-Chief. "My friend, he told you right. I am a very good blacksmith," replied Houston taking up the gun and snapping the lock. "She is in order now." 7

The next two days Houston devoted to moving his army across the Brazos, while Santa Anna crossed near Fort Bend. The Texans encamped on the premises of a well-to-do settler named Donahoe, who demanded that Houston stop the men from cutting his timber for fire-wood. General Houston reprimanded the wood-gatherers. Under no circumstances, he said, should they lay ax to another of Citizen Donahoe's trees. Could they not see that Citizen Donahoe's rail fence would afford the fuel required? That night the army gallants scraped up an acquaintance with some girls in a refugee camp, turned Mr. Donahoe out of house and held a dance. 8

When the army left Donahoe's at dawn Moseley Baker demanded to know whether Houston intended to intercept Santa Anna at Harrisburg or to retreat to the Sabine. The General declined to answer. Seventeen miles from Donahoe's the road forked, the left branch leading to Nacogdoches and the Sabine, the right branch to Harrisburg. If Houston should attempt to take the left road, Captain Baker proclaimed that he would "then and there be deposed from command." 9 Rain slowed the march, however, and only by borrowing draft oxen from Mrs. Mann of a refugee band that followed the army, did the troops by nightfall reach Sam McCurley's, a mile short of the crossroads.

Next morning a torrential rain failed to extinguish the excitement in the ranks. Which road would Houston take?

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The menacing Baker thundered warnings, but the Sabine route had its partizans among the troops. All of the refugees favored it. The Commander-in-Chief treated the commotion as if it did not exist and without comment sent the advance-guard over the Harrisburg Road.

A wail arose from the refugees. There was a halt and a wrangle which Houston terminated by ordering Wily Martin to escort the refugees and watch for Indian hostilities to the eastward. The Commander-in-Chief thought this cleared the path for his pursuit of Santa Anna, but he had reckoned without Mrs. Mann. She demanded the return of her oxen. Wagon Master Rohrer, a giant in buckskin with a voice like a bull, brushed the protest aside as too trivial for the attention of a man of affairs, and cracking his long whip, addressed the oxen in the sparkling idiom of the trail. Whereupon, Mrs. Mann produced from beneath her apron a pistol, and, if rightly overheard, addressed Mr. Rohrer in terms equally exhilarating. General Houston arrived in time to compose the difficulty with his usual courtly deference to the wishes of a lady.

Three or four hundred men followed Martin, or departed independently, leaving Houston with less than a thousand to follow Santa Anna who rode with a magnificent suite at the head of a picked force of veterans. But Santa Anna was now the pursued and Houston the pursuer. General Santa Anna commanded the center of three armies. The rains, however, had fought on Houston's side, and there was a chance that by fast marching he might catch the Mexican Commander-in-Chief out of reach of his cooperating columns. Another factor in Houston's favor was the Sabine retreat story. Houston had never intended to fall back to the Sabine, but the report was so persistently circulated and never denied that the Mexicans included it in their strategic calculations.

Over the boggy prairie path, by courtesy the Harrisburg Road, Houston drove the little column fearfully. Nothing delayed the advance. Wagons were carried over quagmires on the backs of the men. The greatest trial was the guns. In

camp the enthusiastic soldiers had christened them the "Twin Sisters," but now they thought of other names.

On the morning of April eighteenth the army reached the Buffalo Bayou, opposite Harrisburg, having covered fifty-five miles in two and a half days. Mounts and men were dead beat. Houston had never been in this part of the country before. He spent his nights in constant touch with the scouts and in the study of a crude map, covered with cabalistic pencil-ings of his own.

The army rested. Harrisburg was in ashes; Santa Anna had come and gone. Deaf 10 Smith swam the bayou and toward evening returned with two prisoners, a Mexican scout and a courier. The courier's saddle-bag bore the name of W. B. Travis—souvenir of the Alamo. It contained useful information. Santa Anna had dashed upon Harrisburg with eight hundred troops in an effort to capture President Burnet leaving Cos to follow. But the raid netted only three printers who had stuck to their cases in the office of Gail Borden's Texas Telegraph, Editor Borden and the government had fled to Galveston Island in the nick of time, with Santa Anna racing in futile pursuit to take them before they left the mainland. On his soiled map Houston traced the situation of his quarry, not ten miles away, groping among the unfamiliar marshes that indented Galveston Bay and the estuary of a certain nebulous Rio San Jacinto. 11 Sending his army to bed the Commander-in-Chief continued to pore over the chart. Two hours before dawn he slept a little.

After the daybreak stand-to General Houston delivered a speech. The "ascending eloquence and earnestness" put one impressionable young soldier in mind of "the halo encircling the brow of our Savior." "Victory is certain!" Sam Houston said. "Trust in God and fear not! And remember the Alamo! Remember the Alamo!"

"Remember the Alamo!" the ranks roared back. They had a battle-cry.

There was just time for a short letter to Anna Raguet's

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father: "This morning we are in preparation to meet Santa Anna. . . . It is wisdom growing out of necessity." 12

The pick of the army advanced, leaving the sick and the wagons with a rear-guard. After a swift march Houston made a perilous crossing of Buffalo Bayou, using the floor torn from a cabin as a raft. The column hid in a woods until dark, and then advanced warily, encircled by the scouts under Deaf Smith and Henry Karnes. At a narrow bridge over a stream—Vince's bridge over Vince's Bayou, men who knew the country said—the column trampled the cold ashes of Santa Anna's camp-fires. The night was black and the advance painfully slow. Equipment had been muffled so as to make no sound. A low-spoken order passed from rank to rank to be ready on the instant to attack. Rifles were clutched a little closer. One mile, two miles beyond the bridge, down a steep ravine and stealthily up the other side crept the column.

At two o'clock in the morning the word came to break ranks. In the damp grass the men dropped beside their arms. With the salt of the sea in their nostrils they slept for an hour; then formed up and stumbled on until daybreak, when their General concealed them in a patch of timber.

Some of the Vince brothers' cows were grazing in this wood. The army had a commissary! Throats were noiselessly cut and General Houston had given permission to build fires when a party of scouts dashed up. They had driven off a Mexican patrol and learned that Santa Anna was on the road to Lynch's Ferry. The butchers were called from their delectable task and the fires pulled apart. The men fell in to the banging of muskets and the clank of ramrods as old charges were fired and fresh ones sent home. The breakfastless army headed for Lynch's Ferry, three miles eastward. Santa Anna approached the ferry from the south, with five miles to go.

From the crest of a grass-grown slope Houston's army got its first view of Lynch's Ferry, lying at the tip of a point of lowland where Buffalo Bayou flowed into the San Jacinto lliver. On the farther side of the river was a scattering of

unpainted houses—the town of Lynchburg. Behind the town bulged a round hill, the side of which was covered with people who gazed for a moment at the column filing down the slope, and then melted away. They were Texas Tories waiting to pilot Santa Anna toward the Sabine.

Having the choice of positions, Houston established himself in a wood of great oak trees, curtained with Spanish moss, that skirted the bayou just above its junction with the San Jacinto. He posted the infantry and cavalry in order of battle within the thick shelter, and placed the Twin Sisters on the edge of the trees so as to command the swelling savannah that lay in front of the woods. This semi-tropical prairie extended to the front for nearly a mile, thick with waving green grass, half as high as wheat. A woods bounded the prairie on the left, screening a treacherous swamp that bordered the San Jacinto. Swamp and river swung to the right, half enclosing the prairie and giving it a background of green a tone darker than the active young grass. Over this prairie Santa Anna must pass to gain the ferry.

The Texans were prepared to fight, but the presence of cows in the grass revealed the force of Napoleon's famous maxim. Again the fires crackled, and this time steaks were sizzling on the spits when the scouts came galloping across the plain. They said that Santa Anna was advancing just beyond a rise. The Twin Sisters were wheeled out a little piece on the prairie. The infantry line crept to the edge of the woods.

Santa Anna's bugles blared beyond the swell. A dotted line of skirmishers bobbed into view, and behind it marched parallel columns of infantry and of cavalry with slender lances gleaming. Between the columns Santa Anna advanced a gun. The skirmishers parted to let the clattering artillerymen through.

The Twin Sisters were primed and loaded with broken horseshoes. General Houston, on a great white stallion, rode up and down the front of his infantry. Under partial cover of a clump of trees, three hundred yards from the Texan lines, the Mexican gun wheeled into position.

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Joe Neill, commanding the Twin Sisters, gave the word for one gun to fire. Crash, went the first shot by Sam Houston's artillery in the war. There had been no powder for practise rounds. Through the ragged smoke the Texans could see Mexican horses down and men working frantically at their piece. Their Captain had been wounded and the gun carriage disabled.

Crash! The second Twin cut loose, and the Mexican gun replied. Its shot tore through the branches of the trees above the Texans' heads, causing a shower of twigs.

Rat-tat! The Mexican skirmishers opened fire and plumes of black dirt jumped in front of the Texas infantry. A ball glanced from a metal trimming on General Houston's bridle. Colonel Neill dropped with a broken hip.

The Texan infantrymen had held their beads on the dotted line for so long that their faces ached. Every dot was covered by ten rifles, for no Texan had to be told that when he shot to shoot at something. A row of flaming orange jets rushed from the woods and expired in air; the dotted gray line sagged into the grass and did not reappear.

The Twin Sisters whanged away and the Mexican gun barked back, but the state of its carriage made accurate aim impossible. Santa Anna decided not to bring on a general engagement, and sent a detachment of dragoons to haul off the crippled gun. Dashing Sidney Sherman begged to take the cavalry and capture the Mexican field piece, and finally Houston consented. Sherman lost two men and several horses, but failed to get the gun. General Houston gave him a dressing down that should have withered the leaves on the trees. A private by the conquering name of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar who had borne himself courageously was promoted to command the cavalry regiment, numbering fifty-three.

Sherman was considerable of a camp hero just the same; he and Deaf Smith who had captured the ferry-boat loaded with Mexican flour. Dough, rolled on sticks and baked by the fire, made the postponed meal notable, after which the men

spread blankets by the fires and talked themselves to sleep over the big fight that was to take place in the morning. Less than a mile away, under the watchful eyes of Houston's scouts, flickered the camp-fires of the enemy.

On the twenty-first of April, 1836, reveille rolled at the usual hour of four, but a strange hand tapped the drum. The Commander-in-Chief was asleep, with a coil of rope under his head. He had left instructions not to be disturbed. It was evident that the anticipated dawn attack would not take place. The ranks silently stood to until daylight, precisely as they had done every other morning, except that the Commander-in-Chief slept through it all. Nor did the soldier hum of breakfast-time arouse him. It was full day when Sam Houston opened his eyes—after his first sleep of more than three hours in six weeks. He lay on his back, studying the sky. An eagle wheeled before the flawless blue. The Commander-in-Chief sprang to his feet. "The sun of Austerlitz," he said, "has risen again." 13

An eagle over the Cumberland on that awful April night— an eagle over the muddier Rubicon—an eagle above the plain of St. Hyacinth. Did these symbolic birds exist, or were they simply reflections of a mind drenched with Indian lore? The eagle was Sam Houston's medicine animal. When profoundly moved it was from the Indian part of his being and not the white-man part that unbidden prayers ascended.

The camp was in a fidget to attack. It could not fathom a commander who sauntered aimlessly under the trees in the sheer enjoyment, he said, of a good night's sleep. Deaf Smith rode up and dismounted. The lines of the old plainsman's leathery face were deep. His short square frame moved with a heavy tread. The scout was very weary. Night and day he and Henry Karnes had been the eyes of the army, and considering the tax of the other faculties that deafness imposed

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upon a scout, the achievements of Smith elude rational explanation.

"Santa Anna is getting reinforcements," he said in his high-pitched voice. And surely enough, a line of pack-mules was just visible beyond the swell in the prairie. "They've just come over our track. I'm going to tell the general he ought to burn Vince's bridge before any more come up."

After a talk with Smith, Houston told his commissary general, John Forbes, to find two sharp axes, and then strolled past a gathering of soldiers remarking that it wasn't often Deaf Smith could be fooled by a trick like that—Santa Anna marching men around and around to make it look like a reinforcement. Smith returned from another gallop on to the prairie. "The general was right," he announced loudly. "It's all a humbug." But privately he informed Houston that the reinforcement numbered five hundred and forty men under Cos, which raised Santa Anna's force to the neighborhood of thirteen hundred and fifty. Houston's strength was slightly above eight hundred. 1 *

Houston later told Santa Anna that his reason for waiting for Cos was to avoid making "two bites of one cherry." But he did not care to see Filisola, who might turn up at any time with two or three thousand Mexicans. Handing the axes to Smith, Houston told him to destroy Vince's bridge. "And come back like eagles, or you will be too late for the day."

Unaware of these preparations, the camp was working itself into a state. To all appearance the General was wasting good time, and jealous officers were only too eager to place this construction on the situation. At noon John A. Wharton, the Adjutant-General, with whom the Commander-in-Chief was not on the most cordial terms, went from mess to mess, stirring up the men. "Boys, there is no other word to-day, but fight, fight!" Moseley Baker harangued his company. They must neither give nor ask quarter, he said. Resting on his saddle horn, Houston narrowly observed the Baker proceedings. He rode on to a mess that Wharton had just addressed. Every

one was boiling for a fight. "All right," observed the General. 'Tight and be damned." 15

Houston called a council of war—the first and last, but one, of his career. The question he proposed was, "Shall we attack the enemy or await his attack upon us?" There was a sharp division of ideas. Houston expressed no opinion, and when the others had wrangled themselves into a thorough disagreement he dismissed the council.

At three-thirty o'clock, the Commander-in-Chief abruptly formed his army for attack. At four o'clock he lifted his sword. A drum and fife raised the air of a love-song, Come to the Bower, and the last army of the Republic moved from the woods and slowly up the sloping plain of San Jacinto. The left of the line was covered by the swamp, the right by the Twin Sisters, Millard's forty-eight Regulars and Lamar's fifty cavalry. A company from Newport, Kentucky, displayed a white silk flag, embroidered with an amateurish figure of Liberty. (The Lone Star emblem was a later creation.) A glove of the First Lieutenant's sweetheart bobbed from the staff. On the big white stallion Sam Houston rode up and down the front.

"Hold your fire, men. Hold your fire. Hold your fire."

The mastery of a continent was in contention between the champions of two civilizations—racial rivals and hereditary enemies, so divergent in idea and method that suggeston of compromise was an affront. On an obscure meadow of bright grass, nursed by a watercourse named on hardly any map, wet steel would decide which civilization should prevail on these shores and which submit in the clash of men and symbols impending— the conquistador and the frontiersman, the Inquisition and the Magna Charta, the rosary and the rifle.

For ten of the longest minutes that a man ever lives, the single line poked through the grass. In front lay a barricade

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of Mexican pack-saddles and camp impedimenta, inert in the oblique rays of the sun.

"Hold your fire, men. Hold your fire."

Behind the Mexican line a bugle rang. A sketchy string of orange dots glowed from the pack-saddles and a ragged rattle of musketry roused up a scolding swarm of birds from the trees on the Texans' left. A few Texans raised their rifles and let go at the dots.

"Hold your fire! God damn you, hold your fire !" 16 General Houston spurred the white stallion to a gallop.

The orange dots continued to wink and die. The white stallion fell. Throwing himself upon a cavalryman's pony, Houston resumed his patrol of the line.

"Fight for your lives ! Vince's bridge has been cut down!" It was Deaf Smith on a lathered mustang. Rather inaccurately, the soldiers understood Vince's bridge to be their sole avenue of retreat.

Twenty yards from the works, Houston made a signal with his hat. A blast of horseshoes from the Twin Sisters laid a section of the fragile breastwork flat. The infantrymen roared a volley and lunged forward drawing their hunting knives. "Remember the Alamo ! Remember the Alamo !"

They swept over the torn barricade as if it had not been there. Shouts and yells and the pounding of hoofs smote their ears. Through key-holes in a pungent wall of smoke they saw gray-clad little figures, with chin-straps awry, running back, kneeling and firing, and running back—toward some tents where greater masses of men were veering this way and that. The Texans pursued them. The pungent wall melted; the firing was not so heavy now as the Texans were using their knives and the bayonets of Mexican guns. The surprise lacked nothing. Santa Anna had thought Houston would not, could not, attack. In his carpeted marquee, he was enjoying a siesta when a drowsy sentinel on the barricade descried the Texan advance. Cos's men were sleeping off the fatigue of their night march. Cavalrymen were riding bareback to and from

water. Others were cooking and cutting wood. Arms were stacked.

When the barrier was overrun a general of brigade rallied a handful of men about a field piece; all fell before the Texans' knives. An infantry colonel got together a following under cover of some trees; a Texas sharpshooter killed him, and the following scattered. Almonte, the Chief-of-Staff, rounded up four hundred men and succeeded in retreating out of the panic zone. Santa Anna rushed from his tent commanding every one to lie down. A moment later he vaulted on a black horse and disappeared.

General Houston rode among the wreckage of the Mexican camp. He- was on his third horse, and his right boot was full of blood. "A hundred steady men," he said, "could wipe us out." Except for a handful of Regulars, the army had escaped control of its officers, and was pursuing, clubbing, knifing, shooting Mexicans wherever they were found. Fugitives plunged into the swamp and scattered over the prairie. "Me no Alamo! Me no Alamo!" Some cavalry bolted for bridge-less Vince's Bayou. The Texans rushed them down a vertical bank. A hundred men and a hundred horses, inextricably tangled, perished in the water.

Houston glanced over the prairie. A gray-clad column, marching with the swing of veterans, bore toward the scene of battle. After a long look the General lowered his field-glass with a thankful sigh. Almonte and his four hundred were surrendering in a body.

As the sun of Austerlitz set General Houston fainted in Hockley's arms. His right leg was shattered above the ankle. The other Texan casualties were six killed and twenty-four wounded. According to Texan figures the Mexicans lost 630 killed, 208 wounded and 730 prisoners, making a total of 1568 accounted for. This seems to be about 200 more men than Santa Anna had with him.

The battle proper had lasted perhaps twenty minutes. The rest was in remembrance of the Alamo. This pursuit and

THE PLAIN OF ST. HYACINTH 253

slaughter continued into the night. The prisoners were herded in the center of a circle of bright fires. "Santa Anna? Santa Anna?" the Texans demanded until officers began to pull off their shoulder-straps. But no Santa Anna was found.

The Texans roystered all night, to the terror of the prisoners who designated their captors by the only English words their bewildered senses were competent to grasp. A woman camp-follower threw herself before a Texan soldier. "Sefior God Damn, do not kill me for the love of God and the life of your mother!" The soldier was of the small company of Mexicans that had fought under young Zavala. He told his countrywoman not to fear. "Sisters, see here," the woman cried. "This Sefior God Damn speaks the Christian language like the rest of us!"

6

After a night of pain General Houston propped himself against a tree, and Surgeon Ewing redressed his wound which was more serious than had been supposed. While the Surgeon probed fragments of bone from the mangled flesh, the patient fashioned a garland of leaves and tastefully inscribed a card "To Miss Anna Raguet, Nacogdoches, Texas: These are laurels I send you from the battle field of San Jacinto. Thine. Houston."

The Commander-in-Chief also penciled a note which was borne as fast as horseflesh could take it to the hands of one who deserved his own share of the laurels—Andrew Jackson.

All day bands of scared prisoners were brought in. But no Santa Anna, no Cos. This was more than vexing. The Texans wished simply to kill Cos for violation of parole, but Santa Anna might escape to Filisola and return with thrice the army Houston had just defeated. With the President of Mexico in his hands, however, Houston could rest assured that he had won the war, not merely a battle.

Toward evening a patrol of five men rode into camp. Mounted behind Joel Robison was a bedraggled little figure in

a blue cotton smock and red felt slippers. The patrol had found him near the ruined Vince's Bayou bridge seated on a stump, the living picture of dejection. He said he had found his ridiculous clothes in a deserted house. He looked hardly worth bothering to take five miles to camp and would have been dispatched on the spot but for Robison, who was a good-hearted boy, and spoke Spanish. Robison and his prisoner chatted on the ride. How many men did the Americans have? Robison said less than eight hundred, and the prisoner said that surely there were more than that. Robison asked the captive if he had left a family behind. "Si, senor." "Do you expect to see them again?" The little Mexican shrugged his shoulders. "Why did you come and fight us?" Robison wished to know. "A private soldier, senor, has little choice in such matters."

Robison had taken a liking to the polite little fellow and was about to turn him loose without ceremony among the herd of prisoners, when the captives began to raise their hats.

"El Presidente! El Presidente!"

An officer of the guard ran up and with an air that left the Texan flat, the prisoner asked to be conducted to General Houston.

Sam Houston was lying on a blanket under the oak tree, his eyes closed and his face drawn with pain. The little man was brought up by Hockley and Ben Fort Smith. He stepped forward and bowed gracefully.

"I am General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, President of Mexico, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Operations. I place myself at the disposal of the brave General Houston."

This much unexpected Spanish was almost too great a strain upon the pupil of Miss Anna Raguet. Raising himself on one elbow, Houston replied as words came to him.

"General Santa Anna!—Ah, indeed!—Take a seat, General. I am glad to see you, take a seat!"

The host waved his arm toward a black box, and asked for an interpreter. Zavala came up. Santa Anna recognized him.

THE PLAIN OF ST. HYACINTH 255

"Oh! My friend, the son of my early friend!"

The young patrician bowed coldly. Santa Anna turned to General Houston.

"That man may consider himself 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."

"You should have remembered that at the Alamo," Houston replied. 17

General Santa Anna made a bland Latin answer that loses much in translation. Houston pressed the point. What excuse for the massacre of Fannin's men? Another Latin answer. Another blunt interrogation, and for the first time in his amazing life Santa Anna's power of self-command deserted him. He raised a nervous hand to his pale face and glanced behind him. A ring of savage Texans had pressed around, with ominous looks on their faces and ominous stains on their knives. Santa Anna murmured something about a passing indisposition and requested a piece of opium.

The drug restored the prisoner's poise, and formal negotiations were begun. Santa Anna was deft and shrewd, but Houston declined to discuss terms of peace, saying that was a governmental matter not within the province of a military commander. Santa Anna proposed an armistice, which Houston accepted, dictating the terms which provided for the immediate evacuation of Texas by the Mexican Armies. Santa Anna wrote marching orders for Filisola and the other generals. Houston beckoned to Deaf Smith, and the orders were on their way.

Houston had Santa Anna's marquee erected within a few yards of the tree under which the Texas General lay, and restored the captive's personal baggage to him. Santa Anna retired to change his clothes, and General Houston produced an ear of corn from beneath his blanket and began to nibble it. A soldier picked up a kernel and said he was going to take it home and plant it, A genius had opened his lips!

Houston's great voice summoned the men from their cordial

discussion of the mode of General Santa Anna's execution. "My brave fellows," he said scattering corn by the handful, "take this along with you to your own fields, where I hope you may long cultivate the arts of peace as you have shown yourselves masters of the art of war."

Irresistible. "We'll call it Houston corn!" they shouted.

"Not Houston corn," their General said gravely, "but San Jacinto corn !" 18

And thousands of tasseled Texas acres to-day boast pedigrees that trace back to the San Jacinto ear. Three days after the corn incident, Houston had forgotten the name, however, and in his official report nearly wrote it the battle of Lynchburg.

7

When President Burnet arrived with as much of his travel-stained government as could be picked up on short notice, General Houston was receiving Mrs. McCormick who bore a verbal petition to remove "them stinking Mexicans" from her land.

"Why, lady," protested General Houston, "your land will be famed in history as the spot where the glorious battle was fought."

"To the devil with your glorious history," the lady replied. "Take off your stinking Mexicans." 19

Mr. Burnet also found much to deplore, including General Houston^ reported use of profanity. He and his satellites swarmed over the camp, collecting souvenirs and giving orders without notice of the Comi..ander-in-Chief. Sidney Sherman and the new Colonel Lamar were much in the company of these statesmen. Leaning on his crutches, Houston watched the government confiscate the fine stallion of Almonte, which, after the sale of some captured material at auction, had been presented to the General by his soldiers. Had Sam Houston raised his hand those soldiers would have pushed Mr. Burnet into the San Jacinto. Even greater tact was required to preserve the

THE PLAIN OF ST. HYACINTH 257

life of Santa Anna, whose guards would have slain him except for Houston.

The Commander's wound had become dangerous, and Doctor Ewing said he must go to New Orleans for an operation. When President Burnet and Cabinet boarded their vessel to return to Galveston Island, Houston was not asked to accompany them. When he applied for permission, it was refused. But the Captain of the boat declined to sail without the General, and Secretary of War Rusk and his brother carried him aboard. Mr. Rusk was still Houston's friend and had made the last part of the campaign with the Army.

Passage on a Texas naval vessel sailing for New Orleans was likewise refused, and Surgeon Ewing, who had accompanied his chief to Galveston Island against President Burnet's order, was dismissed from the service. Houston's condition was alarming. Doctor Ewing feared lockjaw would develop before he could reach New Orleans. While Houston was being lifted on board a dirty little trading schooner, Burnet regaled the vast refugee camp on the island with tales of the General's private life. When these reached the ears of a newly landed company of southern volunteers, a message written by a hand so stricken that it could hardly guide a pen was all that saved the official dignity of the Provisional President.

"On board Schooner Flora "Galveston Island, 11th May 1836 "The Commander-in-Chief . . . has heard with regret that some dissatisfaction existed in the army. If it is connected with him, or his circumstances, he asks as a special favor, that it may no longer exist. . . . Obedience to the constituted authorities ... is the first duty of a soldier. . . . The General in taking leave of his companions in arms, assures them of his affectionate gratitude.

CHAPTER XX

"The Ceisis Requires It"

Foe seven days the little Flora rolled in a storm before it beat into the churning Mississippi and at noon on Sunday, May 22, 1836, arrived at New Orleans. The levee was thronged with people.

Not since Jackson's victory at Chalmette had America been so stirred by a piece of military news. The story of San Jacinto was not believed at first. After the Alamo and Goliad, the extermination of the bands of Grant and Johnson, the flight of the government and of the people, and the dismal dispatches that Houston was falling back, still falling back, the overwhelming intelligence of the capture of the President of Mexico and the annihilation of his army was incredible. When the confirmation came cannon boomed, men paraded, and in the Senate Thomas Hart Benton called Sam Houston another Mark Antony.

General Houston lay in a stupor on the uncovered deck of the Flora. Captain Appleman believed his passenger to be a dying man. When the Flora touched the wharf a crowd surged on board, and the Captain thought that his boat would be swamped. They started to lift Houston from the deck. With a cry of pain and a convulsive movement of his powerful left arm he flung them off. A man bent over the sufferer. The years rolled back and Sam Houston recognized the voice of William Christy, with whom he had served in the United States Army. A band struck up a march; Houston told Christy to

hold off the crowd and he would get up by himself. Leaning on his crutches he lurched against the gunwale.

His wild appearance stunned the crowd. General Houston's coat was tatters. He had no hat. His stained and stinking shirt was wound about the shattered ankle. The music stopped, the cheering stopped and a schoolgirl with big violet eyes began to cry. Her name was Margaret Lea. As he was lifted to a litter, General Houston fainted.

At the Christy mansion in Girod Street, three surgeons removed twenty pieces of bone from the wound. Recovery seemed by no means certain, and crowds lingered in front of the house. On June second Houston received a few visitors, but fainted during their call. Ten days later bad news came from Texas. Sam Houston gave his host a saddle that had belonged to Santa Anna and, although his life was still in danger, set out by land for the Sabine.

His strength failing on the journey, Houston was obliged to lay over en route. On July fifth he reached San Augustine and found the town in a state that was a fair example of the confusion prevailing in the Republic. Burnet was impotent. Few could keep track of the Cabinet, it changed so fast. President Burnet had negotiated two treaties with Santa Anna—one public, the other secret. The former provided for the cessation of hostilities and the return of Santa Anna to Vera Cruz. In the secret treaty Santa Anna promised to prepare the way for Mexican recognition of the independence of Texas. Two Cabinet members refused to sign the treaties, holding that Santa Anna had forfeited his life. One of these was Secretary of War Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, the afflorescent stranger who had led the cavalry at San Jacinto.

Nevertheless, Burnet hustled the prisoner aboard the Texas man-of-war Invincible which was spreading canvas to depart when the steamer Ocean entered Velasco harbor with two hun-

dred and fifty adventurers under Thomas Jefferson Green, of North Carolina. Green boarded the Invincible and dragged Santa Anna ashore in manacles while a mob on the beach howled its approval. Burnet's humiliation was complete. The Army, growing in numbers and in turbulence, scorned his authority. The civil population, huddled in refugee camps or trekking back to burned towns and desolated ranches, was a law unto itself. The Executive blamed Houston for his troubles, and in an effort to undermine the disabled leader's influence, shifted Lamar from the Cabinet back to the Army which was commanded by Houston's friend Rusk.

The first letter Houston received in San Augustine was from Rusk begging the Commander-in-Chief to hasten to the army. "First they mounted you & tried to destroy you [but] finding their efforts unavailing the[y] . . . have been hammering at mee and really trying to break up the army. . . . A vast deal depends on you. You have the entire confidence of the army and the people." 1 Four days later he wrote again, communicating a rumor that was to sweep Texas. Mexico, he said, was contemplating a new invasion. Six thousand troops were at Vera Cruz, four thousand at Matamoras. The Texans were without supplies. "Confusion prevails in the Country. The Cabinette I fear as a former Government has done, have been engaged in trying to destroy the Army. . . . The Army and People are Exasperated." 2 When, repeated Rusk, could Houston place himself at the head of the troops? A sinister idea had begun to lay hold of the grumbling soldiery.

To Houston the gravest feature of the situation was the rumored invasion. Resting on his crutches, he appealed to a mass meeting in San Augustine to support the government, and one hundred and sixty men marched for the frontier. With East Texas denuded of troops, the Indians grew restive and once more terror took the hearts of the Administration.

General Gaines and his Regulars were on the American side of the Sabine. Stephen F. Austin scrawled a note to Houston. "It is verv desirable that Gen Gains should establish his head

quarters at Nacagdoches. . . . Use your influence to get him to do so, and if he could visit this place [Columbia, the seat of government] & give the people here assurances of the good faith of Gen. Santa Anna in the offers and treaties he has made you & with this Govt" that also would be helpful.

At Phil Sublett's house in San Augustine, Houston took Austin's note from the hand of the courier. He penciled an asterisk after the word "treaty" and wrote on the margin, "I made no treaty." So much for keeping the record straight. At the foot of the sheet Houston added these lines: "General I refer this letter to you and can only add that such a step will . . . save texas. Your Friend Sam Houston." 3

Gaines declined to concern himself with treaties, but he sent some dragoons to Nacogdoches, Jackson describing the intervention as a measure to safeguard our frontier against the Indians.

3

No person in America had shown greater interest in the progress of the war in Texas than Andrew Jackson. The note that Sam Houston wrote on the battle-field was thrust into the hands of General Gaines at the international boundary, and Lieutenant Hitchcock risked his life in a dash through hostile Indian territory to save a few hours on the way to Washington. Jackson was recovering from a severe illness. He saw Hitchcock at once.

"I never saw a man more delighted," the young officer wrote in his journal. "He read the dispatch . . . exclaiming over and over as though talking to himself, 'Yes, that is his writing. I know it well. That is Sam Houston's writing.' . . . The old man ordered a map . . . and tried to locate San Jacinto. He passed his fingers excitedly over the map. ... 'It must be here. . . . No, it is over there." 4

In the flush of his ardor Jackson dashed off a note of congratulation to his old subaltern. Houston had won a

victory greater than New Orleans. Houston had attacked; Jackson had stood on the defense. And after that, a second letter. Success to Texas! Money was being raised in the United States and Jackson's contribution, "was as much as I could spare." 5

The occupation of Nacogdoches by Gaines stimulated recruiting in the United States.

"My brother Tom was just out of college and I was a freshman. Tom at once organized a Company of Volunteers in Washington, Pennsylvania. . . . We marched to Wheeling and took a little stern wheel boat named the * Loyal Hannah* for Louisville. ... A boat arrived from below with word that . . • another steamer bearing President Jackson . . . would soon be along. I was color bearer . . . and had received the flag from the hands of my sister Catherine. . . . When we met his [Jackson's] boat the flag was lowered in salute and three cheers given. . . . Lemoyne, the great Abolitionist, was on that boat and demanded of the President why it was that armed bodies of men were allowed to recruit in the United States to make war on Mexico. To which General Jackson replied, 'That Americans had a lawful right to emigrate and to bear arms.' " 8

Jackson considered that his official acts had been studiously correct. In response to protests from Mexico and murmurings in the chancellories of Europe, he had issued a solemn proclamation of the official disinterestedness of the United States. He had rebuked Commissioner Austin who during his tour of the States, had made so bold as to presume otherwise. He had directed his United States district attorneys to prevent violations of our neutrality. Indeed, upon receipt of this instrument, District Attorney Grundy, of Nashville, Jackson's home, had paused in his occupation of recruiting a company for Sam Houston to publish a stem warning. "I will prosecute any man in my command who takes up arms in Tennessee against Mexico and I will lead you to the border to see that our neutrality is not violated . . . on our soil. 997

Jackson's confidant, Samuel Swartwout, wrote to Houston:

"THE CRISIS REQUIRES IT" 263

"The old chief, encourages us to believe that you are not abandoned. . . . Genl Stewart left here the day before yesterday for Pensacola. His real object we suppose to be the command of the West India fleet preparatory to the reception of the answer from Mexico, to some queries or questions that the old man has sent to her. . . . We think your Independence will soon be acknowledged. . . . We shall press hard for annexation. . . . My noble Gen. you have erected a monument, with your single hand & in a day that will outlive the proudest . . . monarchies of the old world. . • . We have entertained your name in a proper manner . . . over the bottles by coupling your name and achievements with Washington and Jackson. . . . P. S. Mrs. Swartwout, one of your greatest admirers, sends her kindest regards to you, and my Daughter, now quite grown, begs me to say the same." 8

From Congressman Ben Currey, of the intimate Jackson circle:

"You are by Genl Jackson Mr Van Buren Maj Lewis Colo Earle etc ranked among the great men of the earth. . . . I . . . raised a company of fifty men to join you. . . . Colo Earl has a splendid snuff box which he intends to send you by the first safe conveyance. I gave Mrs Addison formerly Miss Ellin Smallwood ... a splendid entertainment on account of expressions of friendship for you evidences of which she wears on her finger. ... I find in her album a poem in honor of you. . . . Hays is abusing you for not putting Santa Anna to death. . . . Genl Jackson says he is rejoiced at your prudence." 9

Discredited old Aaron Burr sighed ruefully. "I was thirty years too soon."

4

When Houston heard of the kidnaping of Santa Anna, he stormed at the weakness of Burnet who managed, however, to retrieve the captive from Thomas Jefferson Green. Green rejoined the Army, which liked his style, and two colonels marched to overthrow the government and seize the Mexican President. Sam Houston halted them with a letter. "Texas, to be re-

spected, must be considerate, politic . . . just. Santa Anna living . . . may be of incalculable advantage to Texas in her present crisis." Santa Anna dead would be just another dead Mexican. 10

Burnet saw that his course was run. He called a general election to choose a new president and to ratify the constitution, but there was some embarrassment because the files of the Republic contained no copy of that document. In the exodus from Washington on the Brazos the Secretary of the Convention, Mr. Kimble, had disappeared with the manuscript. He ended his retreat at Nashville, Tennessee, however, giving the constitution to an editor who published it, but lost the original. A Cincinnati paper copied it from the Nashville sheet, and ten days after the call for an election Gail Borden's serviceable Texas Telegraph made a reprint from its Ohio contemporary. Burnet put a copy of the Telegraph in his desk, and the archives were in order. 11

Austin and ex-Governor Henry Smith offered their candidacies for president and Texas began to stir—but not with enthusiasm for the election. The Mexican invasion scare had blown over, and the unoccupied army was out of hand again. General Thomas Jefferson Green was a big man now. He proposed an activity for the troops. "March immediately against the town of Matamoras . . . carry & burn the town destroy the main people if they resist & retreat . . . before they can have time to recover from their panic." 12 Rusk relayed word of the design to Houston but before anything happened useful George Hockley rode into camp with news that Sam Houston was on his way to the army!

The men were thrilled. The absent Commander-in-Chief had become a legend with the ranks. Rusk dashed off a long happy letter, Matamoras was eclipsed and the election came into its own as an object worthy of the Army's notice.

Sam Houston did not go to the army. He sat in tranquil San Augustine with his bandaged leg on a pillow, one of Phil Sublett's negroes in attendance and a Miss Barker reading

from a novel. Miss Barker had journeyed from Nacogdoches to cheer the wounded hero. He said (but not to Miss Barker) that her blue eyes reminded him of Anna Raguet, who stayed at home.

5

Houston could have obliterated President Burnet and taken charge of Texas under any title that would have suited his whim, but he passed the warm July days in seclusion, bestirring himself only to save the life of Santa Anna and to keep Burnet on his uncomfortable seat. The approaching election found General Houston still uninterested, except to remark that Rusk was a good man and might do for president.

Rusk was flattered. He was popular with the army, and something like a boom began to agitate the ranks. Thomas Jefferson Green pondered in his tent and informed Houston that Rusk would be "satisfactory." But the paramount issue with General Green, was the execution of "Santo Ana." "Great God when will this childish play cease." 13

General Santa Anna himself was not indifferent to the paramount issue. He smuggled a letter to the hermit of San Augustine, undertaking a delicate task of instruction. "Muy Esti-mado Senor. . . . Your return has appeared to be very apropos . . . because it seems to me that your voice will be heard and properly respected." The difficulties that confronted Texas "and . . . embarrass my departure for Mexico . . . you can easily remove with your influence in order that Texas may owe you its complete happiness." The cause of Texas had been harmed by Houston's "absence, which is to be deplored. Hurry yourself then to come among your friends. Take advantage of the favorable time that presents itself and believe me, in all circumstances your affectionate and very grateful servant, Ant.o Lopez de Santa Anna." 14

After a fortnight of meditation, the conscientious Rusk wrote Houston a fine letter of gratitude "that you should feel me worthy of the Presidential Chair but my age precludes me

from running." General Rusk was thirty years old and had much to learn about politics. He was perplexed. Houston was his idol, and like Santa Anna, Rusk failed to understand why he should remain aloof. "This is an important office. I would rather vote for you than any other man." 15

Rusk wrote on the ninth day of August. Texas would vote on September fifth. During the week ending August twentieth destiny showed its hand. Sam Houston's name was presented for the presidency by spontaneous meetings in various parts of the Republic. On August twenty-fifth, eleven days before the election, Houston consented to run. His announcement was the soul of brevity. "The crisis requires it." Houston received 5,119 votes to 743 for Smith and 587 for Austin. The constitution was adopted, and a proposal of annexation to the United States was carried almost unanimously. Mirabeau B. Lamar was elected vice-president.

Within certain limits Mr. Burnet could choose his own time for relinquishing office. He retired, however, with a degree of dispatch that moved his friend, General Lamar, to charge the President-Elect with unseemly precipitation in donning the toga. In any event on the morning of October 22, 1836, Burnet submitted his resignation and Congress ordained the inauguration to take place at four that afternoon. By chance or design Sam Houston was in Columbia, accessible to the committee of Congress which, in the execution of the time-saving program, conducted him to the big barn of a building that served as their meeting-place. Grumbling a little over the lack of preparation, General Houston advanced to a table covered with a blanket and took the oath.

The President made a speech, and in conclusion disengaged the sword of San Jacinto. The quotation that follows appears on page eighty-seven of the House Journal, First Session, First Congress of the Texas Republic, the words in brackets having been inserted by the official reporter.

"It now, sir, becomes my duty to make a presentation of

this sword—this emblem of my past office. [The President was unable to proceed further; but having firmly clenched it with both hands, as if with a farewell grasp, a tide of varied associations rushed upon him; . . . his countenance bespoke the . . . strongest emotions; his soul seemed to have swerved from the hypostatic union of the body. . . . After a pause . . . the president proceeded:] I have worn it with some humble pretensions in defense of my country; and, should . . . my country call ... I expect to resume it."

Not every orator is a hero to his stenographer.

CHAPTER XXI

A Toast at Midnight

Although "the want of a Suitable pen" delayed the preparations of some preliminary papers, President Houston took hold of his responsibilities with little loss of time or waste of motion. The old barn at Columbia vibrated with his energy. Appointments, commissions, instructions, approvals, rejections, streamed day and night from a gaunt room wherein the Executive's labors kept three secretaries busy, Congress in a trance and the Cabinet in a state of prostration.

Everything had to be done, everything provided—instantly, it seemed. What was this? "In the name of the Republic of Texas, Free, Sovereign and Independent. . . . To All whom these Presents Shall come or in any wise concern: I, Sam Houston, President thereof send Greetings." Sam signed his name. He enjoyed doing that, for his swelling autograph was a work of art. But the paper called also for the great seal of the Republic. The President altered the document to read, "signed and affixed my private Seal, there being no great Seal of office yet provided." From his shirt he stripped an engraved cuff link, the design of which he impressed in wax upon the official paper.

The home-made heraldry on Sam Houston's cuff button served as the seal of the Texas Republic until Anna Raguet consented to assist in designing a permanent one. The button exhibited a dog's head, collared, encircled by an olive wreath,

below which was a script capital H. Above the dog's head was a cock and above the cock the motto: try me. This picto-graph of the duel with White was a modification of the ancient coat of arms of the Scottish barons of Houston which represented an incident in the life of an early soldier of the clan.

Sam Houston believed in the influences of heredity. His imagination was impressed by symbols and signs. In his inaugural address he said that neither chance, design, nor desire, but "my destiny," had guided his steps to the chief magistracy of the new nation. The rooster and the pups that figured in the White duel bore sufficient kinship to the martlets and hounds whose images had safeguarded generations of Houstons to convince Sam that they might have something to do with his future.

Houston chose a notable Cabinet, inducing his rivals for the presidency to accept portfolios. Austin was made Secretary of State and Henry Smith Secretary of Treasury. Crushed by the staggering proportions of his defeat, Stephen F. Austin would have gone to his grave an embittered man but for the magnanimity of the victor. Austin was ill and had prepared to isolate himself in a woodland cabin, but the impulse to duty remained, and he accepted the most responsible and burdensome post in the government.

Rusk again became Secretary of War. Of the Army of San Jacinto few remained in service. Most of the early volunteers and professional adventurers having been killed off beforehand, independence was won mainly by the old settlers with family responsibilities. They were now at home gathering the first crop of San Jacinto corn. Nevertheless, Texas had the largest military force of its history, fed by daily arrivals from

the States. Their commander was Felix Huston, a forceful swashbuckler from Mississippi. The men wanted action, and on the lips of Felix was a dangerous word—Matamoras.

An obstreperous Army had upset one Texas Government and made another ridiculous. Secretary Rusk's attitude toward the Matamoras idea did not satisfy the President, and Mr. Rusk resigned after holding office a month. He was succeeded by William S. Fisher, a military adventurer but a staunch man who had proved his fealty at Brazos Bottoms.

The unrest of the Army increased. Felix Huston, wrote one of his men, "was as ambitious as Cortez. ... It was his thoughts by day and his dream at night to march a conquering army into the 'Hall of the Montezumas.' During intervals at drill ... he would pour floods of burning eloquence and arouse . . . passions by illusions to . . . the tropical beauties of the land far beyond the Rio Grande. . . . Had he chosen to do so he could have marched that army to Columbia with the avowed purpose of driving Sam Houston and the Congress into the Brazos River. . . . Felix Huston was a man of might but there was a mightier and far greater man in the executive cottage at Columbia. That man was Sam Houston. . . . Without a Herald and without parade he suddenly appeared [in camp]. His manner was calm and solemn. . . . The few men who had fought by his side at San Jacinto gathered around him as soldiers always cluster about a loved chief. . . . Houston's first act was to visit the hospital and inquire into the condition of the sick. . . . He reviewed the little army and addressed the men as a kind father would his wayward children. He told them the eyes of the civilized world were on them and appealed to them to disprove the calumnies sown broadcast against Texas. . . . His sonorous voice like the tones of a mighty organ rolled over the column. For a time at least the army felt his influence and it seemed as though all danger had passed." 1

The duties of the Secretary of Navy were nominal since the Navy was detained in Baltimore for non-payment of a

repair bill. James Pinckney Henderson, the good-looking and gay young Attorney-General, and Robert Barr, the Postmaster General, organized their departments on credit. Although the Republic was unable to pay cash for feed for the post-riders' horses, mail service was established and within four months a supreme court, district courts and tribunals in each of the twenty-three counties were in operation.

The administration of justice presented especial complications. The white population, distributed over an area the size of France, numbered thirty thousand. Hitherto, the process of atonement for crime in Texas had used up a good deal of rope, but with few objections on the whole.

The district judge selected for the upper Brazos was Robert M. Williamson, who had killed his opponent in duel in Georgia. When the lady in the case married a disinterested third party, the disappointed marksman came to Texas to devote himself to ranching and the elixirs of forgetfulness. One of Judge Williamson's legs being useless below the knee, he strapped it up behind him and substituted a wooden leg to walk on. This gave him the nickname of Three-Legged Willie.

On the first tour of his jurisdiction Three-Legged Willie was welcomed with the information that the inhabitants desired none of Sam Houston's courts there. Judge Williamson unpacked his saddle-bags, and establishing himself behind a table, placed a rifle at one elbow and a pistol at the other. His Honor had a way of snorting when he spoke. "Hear ye, hear ye, court for the Third District is either now in session or by God somebody's going to get killed." 2

Shortly before his inauguration Sam Houston complied with a request of General Santa Anna to visit him at his place of confinement on a plantation near Columbia. The Napoleon of the West embraced his Wellington. His head did not reach the Texan's shoulders. He wept and called Houston a mag-

nanimous conqueror. He asked General Houston's influence to obtain his release in return for which Santa Anna guaranteed the acquiescence of Mexico to the annexation of Texas by the United States.

The idea of using Santa Anna to assist in a solution of the entangling diplomatic problems of the young Republic had previously occurred to Houston. He had written Jackson about it, but Jackson did not see how Santa Anna could help. The Mexican Minister at Washington had warned that no agreement made by Santa Anna while a prisoner would be considered binding.

What to do with the distinguished captive was a puzzle. There was still a healthy sentiment for his execution, and General Santa Anna was eager to cooperate in relieving Texas of the embarrassment of his presence. After the inauguration he addressed another letter to "Don Sam Houston: Muy Sefior mio y de mi aprecio" setting forth the pleasing intelligence that the diplomatic issues confronting Texas were "very simple" of solution. Texas desired to be admitted to the American union. The American union desired it. Only Mexico remained to be consulted and Santa Anna would be pleased to go to Washington and "adjust that negotiation." 3

Houston was skeptical of any pourparlers that Santa Anna might undertake, but he did wish to get him out of Texas. "Restored to his own country," Houston said, Santa Anna "would keep Mexico in commotion for years, and Texas will be safe." Houston asked Congress for authority to release the prisoner. Congress declined, and passed an inflammatory resolution. Houston vetoed the resolution, gave Santa Anna a fine horse and sent him on his way under escort of Colonel Barnard E. Bee. Santa Anna borrowed two thousand dollars of Bee and improved his wardrobe.

William H. Wharton had already started to Washington as minister plenipotentiary with instructions to obtain the recognition of Texan independence and annexation. But these were not, the only strings to the bow of Houston's foreign

policy. Should the attitude "of the United States toward Texas be indifferent or adverse," Mr. Wharton was to cultivate "a close and intimate intercourse with the foreign ministers in Washington," particularly the British and French. 4

When Wharton had journeyed as far as Kentucky, he reported opposition to annexation by "both friends and foes" of Texas. "The leading prints of the North and East and the abolitionists . . . oppose it on the old grounds of . . . extension of slavery and of fear of southern preponderance in the councils of the Nation," while "our friends" proclaimed that "a brighter destiny awaits Texas." This bright destiny did not contemplate an independent Texas with strong friends in Europe, which was Sam Houston's alternative to annexation. It contemplated dismemberment of the Federal Union by the establishment of a slaveholding confederacy of which Texas should be a part. "Already has the war commenced. . . . The Southern papers . . . are acting most imprudently. . . . Language such as the following is uttered by the most respectable journals. . . . [*]The North must choose between the Union with Texas added—or no Union. Texas will be added and then forever farewell to northern influence. ['] Threats and denunciations like these will goad the North into a determined opposition and if Texas is annexed at all it will not be until it has convulsed this nation for several sessions of Congress." 5

Wharton anticipated no difficulty in obtaining the recognition of Texan independence, however, which was necessary to repair the desperate condition of the Republic's finances. Wharton reached Washington in December of 1836, but was unable to see the President who was ill and working on his message to Congress. The message was expected to recommend recognition, and Congress was expected to grant it.

Every straw bearing on the course of events at Washington was watched with feverish interest in the barn by the Brazos. The enormous detail work of the Texan foreign policy was handled by Austin who proved Houston's ablest lieutenant.

Thus two of the greatest figures an American frontier has produced forgot their mutual distrust in the close association of unremitting labor. Despite frail health no task was too obscure for the conscientious Austin. "The prosperity of Texas," he wrote to a friend, "has assumed the character of a religion for the guidance of my thoughts."

On the night before Christmas Austin left his fireless room in the Capitol and retired with a chill. On the twenty-seventh he was delirious. "Texas is recognized. Did you see it in the papers?" With these words he ceased to speak, and Houston dictated this announcement: "The father of Texas is no more. The first pioneer of the wilderness has departed. General Stephen F. Austin, Secretary of State, expired this day."

3

The dying words of the first pioneer were not prophetic. The minute guns announcing his passing had not ceased to boom when newspapers from the United States arrived with Jackson's message to Congress, which contained these bewildering lines:

"Recognition at this time . . . would scarcely be regarded as consistent with that prudent reserve with which we have heretofore held ourselves bound to treat all similar questions."

Wharton was dumfounded. Could the man who spoke of "prudent reserve" be the same Jackson who had striven for fifteen years to annex Texas—countenancing the seamy diplomacy of Anthony Butler to that end, speeding Americans with his blessing to Sam Houston's Army, contributing to Houston's war chest, and advising the victor of San Jacinto on the conduct of Texan affairs?

Wharton went to work upon Jackson and in a skilful interview was both blunt and subtle. He appealed to the President's prejudices, his loyalties, his pride. Mexico, Wharton said, would print the message to Congress on satin.

Meantime, General Santa Anna arrived in Washington,

having charmed nearly every one he met during his leisurely journey. The North, especially, was able to appreciate the pleasing personality of the victor of the Alamo. "Santa-Anna" announced the Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Patriot. "How can we style him a tyrant . . . who opposed the efforts of rebels and used them with deserved severity" and "fought and bled to contravene the efforts of those who wished! to substantiate . . . the horrible system of slavery?"

Jackson broached the subject of purchasing Mexico's assent to annexation. Santa Anna leaped at the idea. Wharton told Jackson that Texas would submit to no such indignit}\ The outcome of a long conversation, however, was that if Mexico could be quieted with a little "hush money," as Jackson expressed it, and the matter conducted with proper regard for the sensibilities of Texas, everything would be all right. 6 But the subject was dropped and Santa Anna departed for Vera Cruz after a round of ceremonial farewells in which the only amenity omitted was the repayment of Colonel Bee's two thousand dollars.

Continuing to pull strings, Wharton obtained the insertion in the diplomatic appropriation bill of a line providing for the expenses of a minister to the "Independent Republic" of Texas. The line was promptly stricken out, but Wharton did not give up. On February twenty-eighth, with Jackson packing to leave the Executive Mansion, a provision was inserted providing funds for such a minister "whenever the President may receive satisfactory evidence that Texas is an independent power." This seemed harmless and was allowed to remain.

Wharton flew to Jackson. He repeated all of his old arguments and invented new ones. In the afternoon of the last day of his term Jackson yielded. With one stroke of the pen he sent to the Senate the nomination of Alcee La Branche, of Louisiana, "to be Charge d'Affairs to the Republic of Texas." With another stroke he remitted the fine of five hundred dollars a federal court-had assessed against Sam Houston for thrashing William Stanbery. Close to midnight the Senate confirmed

the appointment of La Branche, and Jackson and Wharton raised their glasses to Sam Houston's Republic.

Jackson would have preferred a toast to annexation, but for the first time in his life the old grenadier had been swerved from a course upon which he had set his heart. Jackson's love for the Union surpassed everything. The man who had defied the world in the dragooning of Florida retreated before the gathering tempest over slavery. It was a strategic withdrawal, however. Jackson had not abandoned his hopes for Texas. In one of his last conversations with Wharton, he said: "Texas must claim the Californias in order to paralyze the opposition of the North and East to Annexation. The fishing interests of the North and East wish a harbour on the Pacific." 7

Balboa carried the standard of Spain to the Pacific. Sam Houston would carry the Stars and Stripes. The Elorida imagination was not dead.

4

It was clear to Houston that his hopes, and Jackson's, must arise from the youthful soil of Texas rather than that of the District of Columbia. Texas must prepare to stand alone. At the outset, Houston had "determined to lay the foundations of the Texas Republic deep and strong . . . to be the ruler of the Nation and not of a party." 8

The words have a regal ring, and it was this transfusion of Sam Houston's personality into the frail frame of the Republic that staved off chaos. Yet the regal tone was a disguise, the masquerade of a depressed and overworked man who lived in a shack, fighting the habit of drink to appear worthy in the indifferent eyes of a girl, who, thus far, had deferred her acknowledgment of the card from the field of San Jacinto.

The President participated little in the social life of his capital, and when he did flashes of the old warm-hearted conviviality meant tales for the ears of Miss Anna Raguet. To Or. Robert Irion, a knightly young gentleman and the Presi-

dent's personal secretary, Sam Houston confided his troubles with a want of reserve uncommon for a man who had learned to obscure much. When Irion went home to Nacogdoches on a brief leave of absence, the President was very lonely. "Salute all my friends and dont forget the Fairest of the Fair!!!" "Write . . . and tell me how matters move on and how the Peerless Miss Anna is and does! I have written her so often that I fear she has found me troublesome, and ... I pray you to make my apology and . . . salute her with my . . . very sincere respects." 9

Since the peerless Anna was loath to correspond, the President contrived to get word of her by other means. Nearly every report thus received had Anna at the steps of the altar, although no two agreed as to the identity of the fortunate suitor.

In a vague region of the past, by a window that overlooked a river and an old-fashioned garden, sat another who awaited a letter. After San Jacinto, Eliza Allen's spirit had soared for a little on the wings of hope. Summer passed and naming autumn approached to paint the woods by the curving Cumberland with the colors they had worn eight autumns ago when an overpowering young Man of Destiny swept her into his arms. Eliza's heart sank, but hope that declines to die drove her also to undertake the makeshift of despair.

"Washington City 6th October T836 "Dear Gen 1 .

"I have now an opportunity of sending you a letter by a private conveyance . . . and . . . know that the subjects I will touch on will be more than interesting to your feallings.

"I passed through Tennessee on my way to this place; and spent two or three weeks there part of the time at my Brother Davids ... in Lebennon. Mrs. Houston was there about the time the news that you had gained the victory over Santa 4nna . . . reached that place. . . . She showed great

pleasure at your success and fairly exulted. ... No subject . . . was so interesting to her as when you were the subject of conversation; and she shew evident marks of displeasure and mortification if some person was to say anything unfavorable of you. . . . Some of her friends wanted her to git a divorce; and she positively refused; and said she was not displeased with her present name; therefore she would not change it on this earth; but would take it to the grave with her.—she has conducted herself with great surcumspiction and prudence and with great dignity of character so much that she has gained the universal respect of all that knows her She is certainly a most estimable woman; to have sustained herself as she has under all difficulties she has had to encounter.—I have dwelt on this subject as I believed it to be one that would not try your patience. . . .

"I am dear sir, very respectfully "And Sincerely your friend

"Jno. Campbell "His Excellency

"Gen 1 . Samuel Houston

"President of the Republic "of Texas" 10

And so Eliza—stretching her arms toward the man who one day had loved her so much as to surrender all that one can relinquish, save life. From the isolation of the trampled garden of her spirit she had followed the struggle for regeneration, perceiving in each singular achievement an extension of her regret.

But the great passion that had all but consumed the breast that held it was reduced to an ember, whose soft glow warmed a chamber of Sam Houston's heart merely for a memory. General Houston's answer to the letter of Eliza's distant cousin, Mr. Campbell, is not available. But when Sam's first cousin, Bob McEwen, to whose home in Nashville the Governor of Tennessee had brought Eliza as a bride, took up the theme of reconciliation, Houston told him it was impossible. Mr. McEwen conceded his cousin a right to the last word, but said that the door remained open. "Your wife desires such an

event" and Houston's refusal notwithstanding, "many of your friends" persisted in the prediction that a restoration of the blighted romance would suitably crown Sam Houston's triumph in Texas. "You occupy the position of a second Washington," concluded Cousin Bob, and "I am gratified to learn that you have become a sober man." 11

6

A fresh rumor that the Mexicans were massing for invasion sent the second Washington posting to Felix Huston's camp. "In a few days," he wrote Miss Anna, "I will set out for the army . . . and . . . if I win them you shall have more laurels." 12 The flurry blew over, and he wrote her a poem instead. "The greatest merit which it has is that it is intimately associated with you." 18

The collapse of the Mexican threat was not an unalloyed blessing. Felix Huston became bolder in his plotting to alienate the Army. Sam Houston removed him from command and appointed Albert Sidney Johnston in his stead. Johnston was an honor graduate of West Point. Abandoning brilliant military prospects in the United States at the request of his young wife, upon her death, he had joined the Texan Army as a private soldier. When Johnston undertook to assume command Huston challenged him to a duel. Five fires were exchanged without effect, Johnston not aiming. On the sixth fire Johnston fell, seriously wounded. Huston rushed to his victim's side and acknowledged him the Commander of the Army.

Then came from Washington the great news of the third of March. Doctor Irion was again absent in Nacogdoches. "I have but a moment to say how do ye?" scribbled Houston. "You will have learned that we are Independent and recognized by the U. States . . . the last official act of Gen'l Jacksons life. This is a cause of joy. . . . My only wish is to see the country happy—at peace and retire to the Red

Lands, get a fair, sweet 'wee wifiV as Burns says, and pass the balance of my sinful life in ease and comfort (if I can). . . . My health, under you[r] Esculapian auspices, I thank God, is restored and my habits good."

Also his spirits. The writer proceeded to say that he would remove as soon as possible to the City of Houston, the prospective capital on Buffalo Bayou. The selection of this capital, named in the President's honor, had not pleased every one in Texas. Among those able to hold their enthusiasm in check was Anna Raguet. She had interrogated the President on the subject. Would not one of the established towns have done as well?

So the bitter went with the sweet. "I am informed," the President went on to tell his secretary, "that many ladies are coming to Houston and that society will be fine. We will not have the fair Miss Anna there—for she has a great aversion to 'Houston' and I dare not invite her . . . to a 'Levee' of the President. How sad the scene must be at my Levees,—no

Mrs. H there, and many who will attend can claim fair

Dames as theirs!!! You know the old adage, 'every dog,' etc., etc. My day may come!

"I pray you to salute all my friend[s], and ... to Miss A., my adoration. . . . Ever yr friend, truly Houston."

And a postscript:

"Irion. Miss Anna wont write me. Oh, what a sinner she must be." 14

CHAPTER XXII

The Bachelor Republic

In January of 1837 the steamer Laura, bound for the new capital, puffed up Buffalo Bayou in the wake of a yawl whose duty was "to hunt the city." The yawl stuck in the brush, giving the crew an opportunity to discover that they had passed the seat of government. An examination of the landscape disclosed "a few tents" and "a saloon."

When President Houston arrived in April, two taverns, "several" log cabins and "a few" saloons had been added. Timbers were being hauled for the new capital building and "all . . . was bustle and animation. Hammers and axes sounding . . . trees falling." 1 Sam Houston beamed with unblushing pride upon the busy scene. Forty-odd years before, identical emotions had stirred another tall Virginian striding the forlorn marshes of the Potomac.

The new place flourished. "Persons came pouring in until . . .a floating population had collected of some four or five hundred people." "Houses could not be built as fast as required," and town lots sold for five thousand dollars apiece. Of the resident population of "six or seven hundred persons . . . but one-half were engaged in any regular business . . . unless drinking and gambling may be considered such." Drinking "was reduced to a system, and . . . the Texians being entirely a military people, not only fought but drank in platoons." "Most of those who might be considered

citizens, were mere adventurers, who had pitched their tents for a time upon the prairy, to see what advantages might be seized upon in the combinations which were forming from the new elements that were about to create a new nation; with a view to depart should fortune prove unkind." 2

From tent to tent moved Felix Huston who did not intend that fortune should prove unkind. He conveyed as much to a man with a scar on his cheek and a faded cloak worn with a certain grace; and Captain Alexandre Le Ray de Chaumont, whose sword had found employment in many lands, betook himself to the Army. On his rounds General Huston paid particular attention to the members of Congress, assembling for their second session. His object was a campaign against Matamoras which, once authorized by Congress, could hardly be ignored. Should Sam Houston attempt to do so it would be proper for the Legislature to commission a new leader to crown the republican standard with glory and enrich its treasury with the wealth of the Montezumas. So argued Felix Huston.

The President got wind of the plot, which was confirmed by reports from the Army, now twenty-five hundred strong. The soldiers were unpaid and in a mood for anything. Albert Sidney Johnston had nearly died of his duel wound, and was still unable to assume command. This left the restless rabble in the hands of Felix Huston who had disregarded his pledge of loyalty to the chivalrous Johnston.

There was no immediate cause for alarm, however. Felix Huston had been precipitous. The Congress would not convene until May first, and before that, on April twenty-first, would be the celebration of the anniversary of San Jacinto. The resources of the Republic had been taxed to make this occasion memorable. The prairie winked with the camp-fires of the gathering veterans, and the nights were lively with sounds of celebration. Their presence gave the President a feeling of security. These old-timers were, generally speaking, Sam Houston's friends. They had slight use for the battleless

hosts whose conspiring chieftain continued to buttonhole congressmen.

On the evening of the twentieth all signs indicated a big time except for a shortage of girls for the ball. As Houston's population, floating and permanent, did not include more than eighty females, a committee had been named to find a sufficient number of dance partners. Invitations were scattered throughout the countryside, and the committeemen rode to neighboring settlements to make personal appeals. Many ladies had responded and nearly every roof in Houston was at their disposal while the men slept out-of-doors, but a count of heads still revealed an embarrassing deficit. The sun was sinking when a shout from the ragged street in front of the unfinished Capitol greeted an ox-drawn caravan creaking through the dust. The girls from Oyster Creek had come! Within an hour they were reinforced by the maidens from Brazos Bottoms-. By midnight the Caney Creek girls were in and valor basked in the smiles of beauty.

Cannon proclaimed the dawn of the great day. The President accepted a silk flag sent to him by the ladies of New Orleans. He ordered it displayed from the liberty pole as the signal for the procession to march to the scene of the exercises.

When the parade formed Mr. Crawford of the British Consular Service stood at the head of the line beside President Houston. England rules one-fifth of the surface of the earth, and one reason for this is that her traveling representatives are usually on the ground ahead of competitors. It was time to march but the signal flag had not appeared. Fifteen minutes passed, and the column was getting impatient when finally the emblem of the Lone Star was broken out against the sky.

The delay had been due to the fouling of the halyards. A seaman from a vessel in the bayou had risked his neck to climb the peeled sapling and hoist the gift ensign to its place of honor. After the ceremonies, Houston called the sailor aside and gave him a deed to a town lot. A speculator had recently given the lot to Houston.

The ball was a tremendous success and lasted all night. "Dressed in a rich velvet suit," General Houston attended with Consul Crawford, "moving among the throng with a gallantry and grace which have always distinguished him; and during the dancing he remained perfectly sober." 3 The President chose as his partner for the grand march the wife of Congressman Moseley Baker, which an observer mentioned as an example of Houston's tact. Had Mrs. Baker been a homely woman, this might have been entirely true.

2

The date for the convening of Congress was May first. But as there was no roof on the Capitol it was impossible to assemble a quorum. A makeshift capable of keeping out the sun was patched up, and on May fifth Congress was opened with pomp. Consul Crawford occupied a seat of honor, and Sam Houston, wearing the velvet suit, made what was described as "a regal entrance."

He delivered an address, intended as much for the ears of His Majesty's representative and for Washington, as for the republican legislators. "We now occupy the proud attitude of a sovereign and independent Republic, which will impose upon us the obligation of evincing to the world that we are worthy to be free." The President's recommendations were detailed. He faced the uncertain future with an impressive dignity, urging legislation not alone for present emergencies, but for the foundation of a permanent system of government adapted to the future growth of a great country.

The favorable effect of the address was not of long duration. Obstacles seemed overwhelming and Congress turned to the alchemy of the facile Felix. Why sweat and labor to create a financial system when the end could be obtained so much more attractively by conquest? While Felix Huston worked upon Congress his second-in-command, Colonel Rodgers, stirred the camp which threatened to march on Houston, "chastise the President" and "kick Congress out of doors."

At two o'clock in the morning of May eighteenth, the President rolled Secretary of War Fisher out of bed and started him to the Army with sealed orders. On reaching camp Mr. Fisher read his instructions, which directed him to "furlough" the Army by companies, with the exception of six hundred men. The first company was ordered to Dimitt's Landing, the second to the mouth of the Brazos, the third to Galveston, and so on along two hundred miles of seacoast. The furloughs were unlimited, but liable to revocation at any time. Those not responding in thirty days would be tried for desertion.

The reading of the order threw the camp into an uproar, but the Army's leader was absent and Fisher could handle men. He segregated the units and had them on the march before Rodgers fairly realized what had taken place. By the time the tidings reached Felix Huston, the pawns in his game were hopelessly scattered in a mad scramble to get out of Texas before Houston should recall them to service which was, of course, the last thing the President intended to do. Relinquishing the stage to his remote kinsman, Felix sailed for New Orleans. Fortune had been unkind.

The President's difficulties were not at an end, however. The question of finance had reached a point of crisis. The troops left in service threatened to mutiny unless they got more to eat. The public officers had received no salary and a stream of resignations threatened to wreck the civil administration. The Minister to the United States was behind with his board bill, and Houston had stripped the coat from his back to clothe a ragged veteran of San Jacinto.

The Congress of the penniless Republic did what it could to reward valor. San Jacinto campaign men were given lands. Sleek speculators hovered like vultures. A jug of whisky or a sack of corn-meal and a few dollars in cash were all that many a poor soldier of the Revolution received for his bounty. "Erastus, usually called 'Deaf Smith," was additionally recompensed, being allowed to take his pick of "any [public] house and lot in the city of Bexar" excepting only "forts, court

houses, calibooses, churches and public squares," and the President ordered him to Houston to sit for a portrait to adorn some future Texas Hall of Fame. 4

Congress had authorized the President to contract a five-million-dollar loan in the United States at ten per cent. But the panic of 1837 had tied up money in this country and the Republic scaled down its fiscal requirements. TKe President was empowered to borrow twenty thousand dollars at thirty per cent, interest, if he could not get it for less. A duty on imports was established ranging from one per cent, on bread to forty-five per cent, on liquor and fifty per cent, on silks, thus averting bankruptcy.

When Sam Houston entered his new capital city the audited claims against the Republic aggregated $606,945 with as many more waiting. Of this amount $1,569 had been paid, and an audited claim was worth fifteen cents on the dollar. Something had to be done. Congress passed a bill authorizing the issue of promissory notes to the amount of one million dollars. Houston vetoed it, saying that half of this sum would satisfy the need for a circulating medium and would be all that could be kept at par. The amount was limited to five hundred thousand dollars. Thus Sam Houston had in prospect a currency for his country, the value of which would depend upon *the confidence he should establish for Texas in the eyes of the world.

In the sensitive field of foreign relations the first events were not favorable to the creation of a national prestige. The bright particular star of the Texan diplomatic corps, William H. Wharton, was in a Mexican jail. By dint of great effort the Texas Navy had been redeemed from pawn, and Mr. Wharton was coming home in triumph on a war-ship when the vessel was waylaid by two superior Mexican men-of-war and captured after a severe fight. John A. Wharton went to Mata-moras under a flag of truce with thirty Mexican prisoners to

obtain his brother's release. They locked up John also, and the two principal vessels remaining of the Texan sea forces began to sweep threateningly up and down the Gulf. The Whartons relieved the situation by effecting their escape, but the Texas war-ships were run aground by Mexican brigs, and once more the Texas Secretary of Navy was virtually a gentleman of leisure.

Martin Van Buren did not, as Mr. Cambreleng had expressed the wish, live a thousand years, and it is doubtful if he had a thousand sweethearts. But he followed Andrew Jackson into the presidency, which was more than Cambreleng had anticipated when ruminating upon the likely consequences of Peg O'Neale's betrothal. At the same time Memucan Hunt succeeded William Wharton in charge of the Texan Legation at Washington with the instructions to plug with Mr. Van Buren for annexation.

If old Jackson shrank from ugly visage of slavery what was one to expect of Martin Van Buren? No sooner had Hunt put out his feelers than the American Anti-Slavery Society set itself to defeat annexation. General Santa Anna was extolled as a friend of humanity and the pretensions of the Texas Republic were immortalized in Art:

"Ho for the rescue! ye who part Parents from children—heart from heart— Up! patriarchs—and gather round, Ye who sell infants by the pound!"

The poet went on to chide the North, which

"Pours her choicest scoundrels forth To fight for Texas lands—and slavery . . . Where proudly walk . . . The forger and the great unhung! Where Houston, chief of San Jacinto, Arrayed in Presidential dignity, . . . plunges into Crimes which old Nick would scarce begin to. ,,B

John Quincy Adams declared the annexation of Texas to be the first step in the conquest of the remainder of Mexico and of the West Indies for the establishment of a slave monarchy for our southern planters. When a resolution for annexation came before the House of Representatives, Mr. Adams held the floor for three weeks in speech against it. This closed the session, and the measure was not voted upon.

Minister Hunt's unpaid hotel bill had reached an uncomfortable total. He came home, and Sam Houston withdrew his offer of annexation. Diplomatic exchanges between the Republic of Texas and the United States on the boundary issue and other questions assumed a crisp tone. Pinckney Henderson, who was able to afford the luxury of foreign travel, sailed with credentials of introduction to the courts of St. James's and Versailles. Hunt was succeeded at Washington by Dr. Anson Jones, who established a line of credit at a different hotel. He also established himself in the confidence of a member of the American Diplomatic Service. Henderson had not as yet been received at court, but Jones's American friend stretched the proprieties sufficiently to place before the great Palmerston, British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a letter calling attention to the growing importance of Texas. Did it not present a real opportunity for Great Britain to make a friend on the American continent? Lord Palmerston ruminated and wrote a memorandum. "The subject ... is important."

Suddenly the sun came out. Brushing aside the cares of state, Sam Houston sat down at his disordered writing table to answer a letter from Anna Raguet.

"My Excellent Friend:

"Your delightful favor reached me on yesterday, and can assure you it was as grateful to me as the Oasis of the desert is to the weary pilgrim. . . . The Congress has gone on thus

far without much excitement—[and so on for a page concerning the state of the nation].

"Our friend Doct. Irion is well, and bids me present his much love to yourself. . . . Miss Ruth is married, and bids adieu to all her cares and coquetry. What a blessed exchange! Don't you say so? The beauty of New York has reached this place, and has commenced the destruction of hearts and happiness—but as my time admits of no leisure, thus far I am . . . untouched by her soft, blue eyes! . . .

"I am delighted to know that you are charmed with Whalebone—but I can't retake him, as I have now four very fine horses. . . .

"I regret that my friends should be visited by the Indians, pr that any cause of alarm shou'd exist. Until our citizens learn prudence, we must be afflicted by such visitations. . . .

"This letter was commenced last night. . . . This morning I received an invitation to dine on tomorrow with the Fair New Yorker. . . . Should the gentlemen remain at wine, I withdraw to the parlor, and for the want of a competitor engross the smiles of the dear creatures.

"Again good-bye."

On the margin of page five General Houston wrote a few sentences, but since the paper is torn one can only discern:

" and myself are reformed. Neither gets 'tight.' I

have but ology 'I never drinks nothing.' " 6

When John James Audubon visited Houston City, the Secretary of Navy acted as his escort. "We approached the President's mansion," the great naturalist wrote in his journal, "wading in water above our ankles. This abode . . . is a small log house, consisting of two rooms and a passage through, after the Southern fashion. . . . We found ourselves ushered into what in other countries would be called the ante-chamber; the ground-floor, however, was muddy and filthy, a large fire was burning, and a small table, covered with paper and writing materials, was in the centre; camp-beds, trunks, and different materials were strewed around the room. We were at once presented to several members of the Cabinet,

some of whom bore the stamp of intellectual ability," and "to Mr. Crawford, an agent of the British minister to Mexico, who has come here on some secret mission."

The President being engaged in the opposite room, a stroll about the "city" was suggested. It was raining, and the party stepped into the Capitol, but the roof leaked, to the discomfiture of Congress as well as the tourists. Something to dispel the chill was in order, and Mr. Audubon was surprised that his host offered "his name instead of cash to the bar-keeper."

Returning to the Executive residence "we were presented to his Excellency," who wore the velvet suit and "a cravat somewhat in the style of seventy-six." He asked his visitors a few polite questions and led them into his private chamber, "which was not much cleaner" than the anteroom. There were introductions to members of his staff and friends seated on stools and a couple of camp-beds. The President asked the visitors to drink with him, "which we did, wishing success to the Republic. Our talk was short; but the impression made . . . by himself, his officers and his place of abode can never be forgotten." 7

One of the beds in the private room was Sam Houston's. The other belonged to Ashbel Smith, Surgeon General of the Army. The cots in the reception-room were for guests. A third room, a lean-to back of the private chamber, served as kitchen and servants' hall for the President's two negro retainers, Esau and Tom Blue.

The hands of Esau were skilled at producing drinks. One afternoon the President was detained until late at the Capitol. Friends dropped in and aperitifs were served on the spot. One good story followed another until it was too late to go home. The company composed itself upon chairs, a table and the floor. The President was the first to awake.

"Esau ! You, Esau!"

"Yes, Marse Gen'l."

"Water! Water!"

Where to get water at this time of night? Esau inquire;!.

At Aunt Lucy's, the President said. Aunt Lucy was an aged negress who laundered the garments of statesmen at her shack on the bank of the bayou. Esau returned without the water, but with a lengthy excuse. The President stood at a window, looking first at the sky and then at his servant.

"Esau," he said, "can you believe that this is I, Sam Houston, protege of Andrew Jackson, ex-Governor of Tennessee, the beloved of Coleto and his savage hosts, the hero of San Jacinto and the President of the Republic of Texas, standing at the dead hour of midnight in the heart of his own capital, with the myriad of twinkling stars shining down upon his unhappy forehead, begging for water at the door of an old nigger wench's shanty—and—can't—get—a—drop ?"

Esau reflected upon the words of his master. "Dat's jest right, Marse Gen'l. We sho' ain't got no wattah." 8

Dr. Ashbel Smith was a wiry man of medium stature whose indifference to his wardrobe was redeemed by the care he bestowed upon a close-clipped professional-looking beard. He was thirty-two years old, a Connecticut blue-stocking, educated at Yale and in France. He was rich and had come to Texas to forget a girl.

The Surgeon General was a good conversationalist and the quiet charm of his personality contributed to the popularity of the menage of the bachelor President of the Republic. The Executive residence was a scene of Rabelaisian entertainments. Wonderful stories were told of these full-toned carousals. Should the gentlemen weary of their own society it was only a short walk in the bracing air to the salons of Mrs. Mann and Madame Raimon—"ladies of some notoriety about the City of Houston," the virtuous Burnet recorded, representing General Houston in the act of acquainting his guests with "a number of fawn-necked damsels, whose naive deportment put upon one the idea practically of the Mussulman's paradise !" 9

The temperate habits of Doctor Smith had their influence on his roommate. At times the President presided at the revels,

indulging in no more than an occasional sniff of the hartshorn vial, the custody of which was a special responsibility of the Surgeon General. On such occasions Houston usually drove his guests away early and, after a game of chess with Smith, would plant himself on the foot of the Doctor's bed and talk until daylight.

When General Houston received Indian callers no liquor was served. Treaties with all of the tribes were made during that summer, delegations constantly coming and going. "Brother, I wish to see you. . . . Send word to Big Mush ... to the Kickapoos . . . the Caddoes. . . . I have a Talk that you will like to hear. Bring in the Treaty that I last made with you. It has ribbons and a seal on it. . . . Tell my sisters and brothers they live in my heart. Sam Houston." 10 This to The Bowl. An Indian remaining overnight in Houston City invariably bivouaced in the President's yard. Occasionally Sam Houston would honor their camp-fires and, seated on a bearskin, praise the flavor of the. dog-meat.

On other nights while the Surgeon General snored in his corner, the President would carry his candle to the littered table and write letters, pausing long between the paragraphs.

"It is past midnight. The toils of the day have passed by, and . . . the kind remembrance of my excellent friend is the first which claims my attention to the recollections of other days Sacred to Memory.

"You have been to New Orleans, and bye the bye, I have heard much, and, as usual, admired everything. You were the Belle of the City, and this was so much Glory for Texas. You claimed half the glories of the Victory of San Jacinto. I conceded them to you! Will you in return share with me your triumphs in the City of New Orleans? . . .

"You kindly say to me you were waited upon by 'your beautiful Miss Barker,' and 'I was much pleased with her.' I thank you for this, for . . .1 wrote to you while I supposed you in Philadelphia that if she shou'd arrive there I wou'd be glad that you wou'd see her. I did this because when I

saw her she presented to me a beautiful image so much resembling Miss Raguet that really I . . . was compelled to admire and wish to see her.

"Since then I have sent to her a trifling evidence of respect, which I dare not offer to Miss Anna, because she has not received from me the slightest token, and Miss B. had received a trifle from the spoils of San Jacinto when she was kind enough to dispense with Prudery and visit a soldier, prostrate and suffering under the influences of destiny. If I admired Miss Barker, it was because I admired others to whom she bore a striking resemblance! . . .

"It is half past two in the morning and this is Sunday. Should I remain longer from repose, I cou'd not look well at church. . . . Be so kind as to write to me—no matter what you write. . . .

"Sam Houston "Miss A. Raguet." 11

There was no church house in Houston, but services were held in the Hall of Congress. A visiting divine, thinking he perceived in Texas a field for such gospel, announced a temperance lecture. The proposal was coldly received until Sam Houston asked permission to preside at the meeting. This brought half the town. The President delivered a moving sermon on the evil of drink, concluding with the advice to "follow my words and not my example."

A veil of exaggerated official courtesy did not obscure from Sam Houston the fact that Vice-President Lamar was his enemy. The antipathy went back to the Burnet regime when the artful influence of Houston had prevented Lamar from obtaining control of the Army and succeeding, possibly, to something more to his taste than his present eminently restful office.

Early in the summer of 1837 General Lamar returned to Georgia for a visit, but his friends in Houston remained on

lookout. "I have with more vigilence than you are aware, watched the general procession of political movements. I find the President extreanly courteous when he out for general inspection, this seldom oftener than once in sunshine, between eleven & two, he . . . dresses himself gaudily in self peculiar taste viz. black silk velvet gold lace crimson vest and silver spurs takes a graduating glass, stops a moment before the miror . . . and adjusts his shappo . . . and lastly the requisite inibriating sip that makes himself again Hector upon his feet and no longe[r] the wounded Achilise of San Jacinto . . . and with a tread of dominion in his aroganic step strides . . . across his own nominated metropolis . . . to the bar keeper." 12

This sympathetic portrait was followed by a lengthy account of the President's perfidy. To Lamar's friends he "laments much indeed" the Vice-President's absence, but to others he spoke "in an entire different stile." But General Lamar could be of good cheer. He was the popular choice for the president at the next election, and he might not have to wait that long. "Since Col Teals murder their has been much dicention in the army Johnson is here [in Houston] and in all probability will not return" to his command.

The murder of Houston's friend, Teal, had stirred Texas. Major Western, commanding the cavalry at Bexar, became almost too broad in his innuendoes about upsetting the "one-horse" government at Houston. Senator Everitt could not wait to leave his seat in the chamber to hasten a note to the absent Lamar. "Your presence is needed. . . . Higher duties in all probability will require Your presence E're . . . this Scrawl can Reach You. Houston worn-down by . . . Debauchery, is fast sinking under its Effects." 18

Houston's health was not good, and his habits did not improve it, but fear of an assassin's bullet gave his friends their greatest concern for his safety. 14 In this situation Sam Houston called one of Lamar's spies to his residence and asked him to request the Vice-President to return to Texas, if he could

do so without inconvenience, and assist in guiding the ship of state. Houston's advisers thought this madness, at which the old fox of San Jacinto must have smiled. General Lamar answered politely, but found excuses for prolonging his visit.

But there remained Major Western. By chance the loquacious William H. Patton, one of Houston's aides at San Jacinto, was departing for Bexar on private business. In wishing him Godspeed, Houston remarked that his own thoughts had been much on Bexar of late. Major Western was there. An exceptional man, Major Western, whose polished manners and diplomatic ability reminded one of Martin Van Buren. Now, the President was about to send an ambassador to England. The thing was to find the best fitted man. In strict confidence, what did Patton think of the qualifications of Major Western? Of course, not a word to any one; nothing was determined as yet.

When the President heard of Patton's arrival at Bexar orders were sent for Major Western to report at the seat of government. Houston received the Major cordially, but England was not mentioned. Time passed. Major Western approached Ashbel Smith. Had the Surgeon General heard the President mention the matter of a mission to England? The Surgeon General could not say that he had.

Pinckney Henderson's appointment was announced, but Major Western declined to believe it. The President was a better judge of men. When the truth came out, the Major was "disgusted." He returned to Bexar with ominous haste, where he found another officer in command of the cavalry and orders transferring him to an outpost. 15

"The news of this country is not very interesting," the President wrote to Anna Raguet, enclosing a poem for criticism. "The frontier all quiet. . . . Dr. Irion is very well. . . . Miss Eberly & Miss Harris are both married—and doubtless both happy. People will marry on the Brasos! I saw on yesterday your schoolmate, Mrs Harrell. . . . Her husband is very kind to her. ... I have heard of a grand conclave of

Ladies in Nacogdoches to settle your destiny and mine! Farewell." 16

The ladies of Nacogdoches were not alone in the endeavor to influence destinies in Texas. For the one hundredth time a rumor of Mexican invasion ran through the country. Houston fell ill, and the Senate adopted a secret resolution "requesting & enjoining" the return of General Lamar.

But the news leaked and passions flamed in Texas. From Georgia Lamar posted westward. At Mobile he tarried to hold mysterious conferences about which hovered an old sweetheart, torn between aspirations for her adored and the peril of his undertaking. Missing a vessel at New Orleans, Lamar pressed on by the overland route along which desperados employed by Houston were supposed to lurk. "Come back to us instantly come back. . . . Your death is talked of . . . [until] I have lost the powers to think and can only repeat come back. Olivia." 17

The man on horseback did not heed her. Never lacking personal courage, Lamar plunged into the Redlands and his apprehensive followers recovered their composure sufficiently to give him a banquet at San Augustine. On November ninth the Vice-President reached Houston. The town was in a ferment. General Lamar addressed the Senate. Peace, my friends, was his counsel. Let none fear for the security of Texas.

6

The triumphal entry was the work of talented amateurs— splendid as to external details, but otherwise fatally misconceived. The Old Fox extinguished the last spark of hope by an attitude of humilating indifference.

The fact is that the time was inopportune. Imperceptibly Sam Houston had installed a nation at his back. The Constitution was in operation; customs were collected; salaries were paid; immigration had increased. Henderson was writing commercial treaties with England and France. The currency—■

,

called "star money" from the design on the notes—was a success. Beating down the opposition of Congress and of his own Secretary of Treasury, Houston had made this money receivable for customs on par with gold. This created confidence and star money rose to par for all purposes. The Capitol was finished—a handsome structure with a graceful colonnade of tall square pillars.

The Republic was a going concern—commerce reviving, mails delivered, courts respected. A drunken lawyer was arguing a case before Three-Legged Willie.

"Where is the law to support your contention?" interrupted the judge.

The lawyer whipped out a dirk.

"There's the law," he said.

Judge Williamson dropped the muzzle of a pistol over the bench.

"Yes, and there's the Constitution." 18

A national character had been established—an embodiment of the character of the Republic's Chief Magistrate, who taught men to discriminate between the democracy of his habits, and the aristocracy of his ideals. The Navy was being rebuilt; the Indians were quiet; Mexican threats had ceased to intimidate. The civil administration was no longer clover for broken-down politicians, or the military service the apple of every out-at-elbows ruffler trailing a sword—as Captain de Chaumont had learned to his sorrow.

Sam Houston had built this out of chaos in little more than a year.

Of course Texas was still frontier. Jacob Snively went to Nacogdoches on official business. "I cannot find a suitable companion with whom to spend my evenings," he wrote the President. "The young men of this place are so singular . . . and the ladies" respond to nothing except "flattery. You, Yoursejf are aware of that. Last Sunday morning Mr. Michael Cossby was killed by Mr. Speight. At San Augustine Saturday evening Mr. Pinkney Lout [no flatterer, apparently] was also

s*>8 THE RAVEN

killed ... by Mrs. Wright. . . . Miss Ana is well. She has many admirers, Messrs Kaufman, Hart & Hotchkiss. . . . I wish you were here." 19

Houston promised to come for Thanksgiving, promised again for Christmas, but stayed away. His letters to Miss Anna were briefer. "Business" was his apology. "Our foreign relations . . . Lord Palmerston . . . state of the army . . . internal problems," engrossed his attention. "A recent report that ere this your hand and faith were both plighted," however, was received with a "thorn in the heart and hope with resignation for the best!!!" "The Cabinet, all being batchelors or widowers but one, have been somewhat deranged by the arrival of a rich and pretty widow from Alabama—young, too." "Christmas passed without much fuss. One Ball, quite decent"

Another letter from Nacogdoches:

"We have been looking for you every day since Christmas and none with more apparent anxiety than Miss Anna.—The other day it was believed you were but a few miles from town and all was joy and gladness but we were again doomed to disappointment. . . . We will celebrate the second of March . . . and conclude . . . by a splendid Ball.—May you be with us on that day— Sic fata sinant." 20

This from the dashing Congressman Kaufman, apparently foremost among the corps of rivals. But whatever fate signified, Sam Houston remained in his capital on Independence Day, which was also his forty-fifth birthday.

On Washington's birthday there was a splendid ball in Houston at which Miss Dilrue Rose, of Bray's Bayou, made her debut. "Mrs Dr. Gazley was dancing with the president. She, not feeling well, asked me to take her place." Alas! As little Miss Rose advanced to claim the vacant place "a pretty young widow, Mrs. Archer Boyd," pushed in ahead of her. "But I had the honor of dancing in the same set . . . [and] as there was to be a wedding in June and I was to be the first bridesmaid and General Houston best man, I didn't care." 2

San Jacinto Day came first and was observed with a grand celebration and ball. "As Miss Mary Jane Harris, the belle of Buffalo Bayou was married" Miss Rose recorded the simple truth that "I came in for considerable attention." Alas once more General Houston did not dance—only "promenaded." Presently, however, he "was talking with Mother and some other ladies when Father presented Sister and me to the president. He kissed both of us. 'Dr. Rose, you have two pretty little girls.' I felt rather crestfallen as I considered myself a young lady." 22

But neither widows nor pretty little girls were much in the President's thoughts. It was Miss Anna. Houston was now free. Tiana was dead and Cherokee roses bloomed on her grave. 23 Eliza Allen had been divorced—on the President's petition, presented by his attorneys before District Judge Shelby Corzine, of San Augustine. Mrs. Houston was represented by counsel, but there was no contest of the charge of abandonment. Everything was done as quietly as possible, but the news got out and there was a deal of whispered concern. While accompanying the President to an Indian conference, John H. Reagan, afterward Postmaster General of the Confederacy, adroitly asked the familiar question. Why had Houston left his wife?

"That is an absolute secret," Sam Houston said, "and will remain so.

Anna Raguet received a version of the divorce story that shocked her. It is a simple matter to surmise what this version was. Under the Republic divorces were granted by Act of Congress, but for purposes of secrecy President Houston had empowered Judge Corzine to hear the case in chambers. This procedure seemed a little too regal for such a good friend of Houston as Barnard E. Bee who expressed to Ashbel Smith the opinion that the decree was "a fraud." 28

"Miss Anna," wrote Houston. "Having learned by some agency that you were induced to believe that I had presumed

to address you at a time when I must have been satisfied in my own mind that legal impediments lay in the way of my union with any lady . . . but one thing would remain for me to reflect upon. . . . Had I sought to win your love when I was aware that the same must have taken place at the expense of your happiness and pride and peace and honor in life, I must have acknowledged myself a 'lily liver'd' wretch !!! . . .

"Of this, enough. The enclosed letters contain the opinions of Gentlemen eminent in the profession of the law—obtained on the abstract question as to the legality of my divorce! The question was solemnly argued in court for the adverse party, and the judge on calm reflection rendered his decision to be recorded—which was done. . . .

"This much I have felt bound to say to you on the score of old friendship and a desire to evince to you that I have merited (at least in part) the esteem with which you have honored me in by gone days." 26

Houston followed this letter to Nacogdoches. But the girl who held half of San Jacinto's laurels was lost to him.

Sam Houston returned to his capital in the rain alone. Cannon boomed across the prairie at his approach and an escort of the Milam Guards, the flower of the Army (possessing uniforms), galloped to meet the President. An epoch-making evening would now be complete.

The occasion was the Republic's salutation to the beaux arts in the form of the first professional theatrical performance under the Lone Star. The President was a few minutes late, but still in time for the state dinner to the cast. He ate in his wet clothes and a little doll actress from Baltimore confessed a difficulty in keeping her eyes on her plate.

Meantime the hall where the performance was to be held was filling up. The young ladies of Mrs. Robertson's fashionable boarding school were to have front seats, but when they arrived these places were occupied. The girls were marshaled into other chairs and from this point of vantage Dilrue Rose

witnessed the entrance of the President and staff to the strains of Hail the Chief. But all of the seats were taken.

"The stage manager, Mr. Curry, requested the men in front who were gamblers and their friends to give up the seats. This they refused to do. Then the manager called for the police to put them out." This "enraged" the gamblers who drew "weapons and threatened to shoot. The sheriff called the soldiers. ... It looked as if there would be bloodshed, gamblers on one side, soldiers on the other, women and children between, everybody talking. . . . The president got on a seat, commanded peace, asked those in front to be seated, ordered the soldiers to stack arms and said that he and the ladies would take back seats. This appeared to shame the gamblers. . . . [Their] spokesman said that if their money was returned they would leave the house as they had no desire to discommode the ladies." 27

So the curtain rose upon "Sheridan Knowles Comedy The Hunchback," the performance concluding "with a farce entitled a Dumb Belle, or I'm Perfection."

After the show a player named Mr. Barker took a dose of laudanum for his nerves. It killed him, thus terminating the engagement. Tears blurred the borrowed bloom on the cheeks of the little trouper from Baltimore, who declared herself a widow, with two fatherless babies at home. The consolation of Mrs. Barker became a national matter. Her husband was given a fine funeral. The gamblers raised a purse of gold for the orphans, and General Houston placed the Executive Mansion at the bereaved artist's disposal until a vessel sailed for New Orleans.

Three days later came the June wedding that Dilrue Rose was counting on. "It was grand. . . . General Houston and I were to be the first attendants, Dr. Ashbel Smith and Miss Voate second and, Dr. Ewing and Mrs. Holliday, a pretty widow, third. At the last moment . . . Mrs. Holliday suggested that I was too young and timid, and that she would tak* my place. General Houston offered her his arm and Dr.

Ewing escorted me. As soon as the congratulations were over, General Houston who was the personification of elegance and kindness, excused himself and retired. Mrs. Holliday then took possession of Dr. Ewing and left me without an escort till Mr. Hunt introduced Mr. Ira A. Harris." 28 No widow intervening, Dilrue married Ira Harris.

8

Six months of presidency remained to Sam Houston who, under the Constitution, was ineligible to succeed himself. Things went awry. The contractor for the new Navy found the President "nearly all the time drunk." 29 Congress passed some foolish financial legislation over a veto, and star money dropped to ninety cents. A Mexican-inspired Indian outbreak terrorized the Nacogdoches country, and Houston's neglect of defensive measures brought a tide of denunciation. Star money fell to eighty cents. During an exchange of amenities, ex-President Burnet called Houston a half-Indian, the President retorting that his predecessor was a hog thief. Mr. Burnet challenged Houston to a duel, and Dr. Branch T. Archer, himself handy with the pistols, delivered the note. Houston brushed it aside, telling Archer to inform Burnet that "the people are equally disgusted with both of us." 30 Houston had a violent quarrel with his friend, W. H. Wharton. Wharton's hand dropped to his bowie knife. Houston raised his arms above his head. "Draw—draw if you dare!" Wharton did not draw. 31

Samuel Colt, whose own career may explain his admiration for Houston, sought to smooth the pathway of the burdened Executive with a gift of a pair of handsome dueling irons. After trying them out on marks pinned to trees General Houston pronounced the new weapons to be superior to the run of pistols then in use. A local vogue for Colt's pistols resulted which enabled the Yankee inventor to sell as many guns in Texas during the next four years as he sold in the rest

of the world. With this testimonial of approval the future of the Colt product was assured, notwithstanding an untimely bankruptcy due to a temporary absence of appreciation among the less discriminating.

Yet the reign of "Judge Colt" fell short of the President's ideal. By his personal example and otherwise General Houston had striven to discourage dueling in his powder-stained Republic. These efforts, however, received little support except in the case of Willis Alston, whom tradition identifies (but not to the exclusion of two or three other candidates) as the rival for Eliza Allen's hand over whom Sam Houston prevailed in 1829. Alston was a member of the celebrated North Carolina family and had made Houston's acquaintance when the two were in the United States Congress. After his father and two brothers had fallen in duels Alston killed a Georgia politician and came to Texas, where he killed a Doctor Stewart, and was executed by a mob in Brazoria. The fault of Mr. Alston involved the purity of the Code; he had used a sawed-off shotgun on Doctor Stewart.

Amid these events General Lamar's candidacy for president and that of Burnet for vice-president gained impetus. The befuddled opposition divided the field between two tickets which seemed to insure Lamar's election until one of the presidential aspirants, Chief Justice Collingsworth of the Supreme Court, a brilliant man who had wrecked his mind with drink, leaped from a steamer and drowned himself in Galveston Bay. This cleared the way for Peter W. Grayson, a lawyer of considerable ability and exemplary personal life. The Houston opposition took heart. Grayson was in the United States. While hastening home to press his campaign he was seized by a fit of mental depression, a malady against which he had waged a solitary struggle since the days of his youth. At a wayside tavern in Tennessee the sufferer penned a polite note asking the pardon of his landlord and blew out his brains.

Sam Houston attended the inaugural of Lamar and Burnet wearing a powdered wig and a costume of Washington's

time. He delivered an oration not unworthy of association with another Farewell Address. Tears were in his eyes, and in the eyes of some who had come to sneer, when Sam Houston extended his great arms in an attitude of benediction and relinquished his Republic to the keeping of Mirabeau B. Lamar. "The day will come," said the Telegraph and Texas Register, which was not a partizan of General Houston, "when his name shall appear in the pages of the Texian story, unsullied by a single stain—his faults . . . forgotten, his vices buried in the tomb; the hero of San Jacinto . . . the nursling of Fame."

CHAPTER XXIII

The Talented Amateue

Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar had stepped into Texas with a sword in his hand and inquired the way to Sam Houston's Army when most people were headed in other directions. After the first skirmish at San Jacinto, General Houston raised the private of cavalry with the conquering name and air to command the mounted troops. His report of the battle mentioned the personal gallantry of Colonel Lamar.

As vice-president, Lamar's opposition and abortive coup d'etat of 1837 followed the promptings of a nature that had derived ideas of grandeur from a doting uncle in Georgia who had christened him. Mirabeau Lamar regarded Sam Houston as a preposterous vulgarian who had humiliated Texas by his familiarity with Indians and rowdy whites.

In a polished inaugural address President Lamar foreshadowed a departure from the policies of his predecessor. Negotiations for annexation to the United States would not be resumed. A loftier destiny awaited Texas as an independent power, adorned by the graces as well as the sturdier virtues of Anglo-Saxon democracy. As a personal patron of the arts, General Lamar felt himself eligible to sponsor this extension of culture. He deprecated the fact that his achievements in the fields of war and statecraft had eclipsed his mastery of the violin and the merit of his lyrical verses. The inaugural ceremonies closed with a ball in the Capitol. "The elite of the

land its beauty and worth were collected there," wrote Ashbel Smith, ". . .a large and overflowing assembly of noble and accomplished dames, of soldiers scholars and chivalrous gentlemen."

Sam Houston accepted the altered order of the times. One of the final acts of his Administration had been a house-cleaning of the Executive Mansion. Curtains were hung at the windows and carpets laid on the floors—though not until new planks were found to replace those lately pulled up for fire-wood by General Houston who had been unwilling to bring a pleasant evening to an untimely end. Houston closed his regime with a levee in which a suspicious mind might discover a trace of irony. "The rooms of the White House," noted the sprightly Smith, White House being a very new and smart expression, "were full to overflowing ... a far less promiscuous assemblage than is commonly seen on such occasions. . . . The crowds promenaded to the movement of soft music . . . and . . . it was worth while to behold the elegant form and manly proportions of General Houston, to listen to the promptness and variety of his colloquial powers his facility and great tact to appropriate compliments as ... he received the greetings of beauty and of talent." 1

Moving into the refurbished establishment, General Lamar declared war on Indians, sent the Navy to help the rebellious province of Yucatan, recruited an army to frown across the Rio Grande, projected a national system of education, and began to lay out a new capital city. The money to defray these expenditures was printed while the President sunned himself in the contemplation of larger triumphs.

The site of the new capital was on the upper Colorado, beyond the remotest settlements, but with the maturity of the President's projects destined to be the hub of the greater Republic. The location was an inspiring one amid a collection of hills crowned by a violet haze, which long years before Stephen Austin had picked for his dream university. Although thev named the new town Austin, the founders did not know of

Stephen's dream, but they were aware of the enthusiasm of General Lamar who had camped on the site during a hunting trip.

Sam Houston devoted the early months of the Lamar Administration to his personal affairs, which were prosperous, and then took a trip to the United States.

That nations make history is another fact that Mirabeau Lamar did not overlook. He began segregating material for the express purpose of assisting a future chronicler of the Texan story. By his industry were preserved thousands of documents, including this letter from Memucan Hunt, former Minister to the United States, dated at Jackson, Mississippi, July 13, 1839:

"General Houston was received with considerable attention at Columbus in this State, and on my reaching there, I was surprised to find how favorable an impression he had made. I do not think, however,.when I left that place that my acquaintances continued to entertain . . . favorable views of him. . . . Only think how contemptible he acted, when I assure you that he mentioned the circumstances of the quarrel between him and myself, giving an unjust version of it, to a young lady, who he knew I would shortly visit. . . . This is almost as ridiculous, as his having burned off his coat tail, while in a state of intoxication, immediately after making Temperance speeches." 2

The maiden of Columbus had not been the first young lady to share the confidences of the distinguished traveler. Before coming to Mississippi, Houston was in Alabama buying blooded horses and seeking capital for his Texas enterprises. The quest for capital took him to Mobile to interview William Bledsoe, who invited the General to his stately country home, Spring Hill. It was a radiant afternoon in May, and Mrs. Bledsoe was giving a strawberry festival on her lawn.

Emily Antoinette Bledsoe was eighteen years old. Her Parisian ancestry spoke in lustrous dark eyes, a vivacious manner and love for pretty clothes. In the presence of such a hostess Sam Houston was at his best. They were strolling in the rose garden when a girl came by carrying a dish of strawberries.

"General Houston, my sister, Miss Margaret Lea," said Emily Antoinette.

General Houston bowed very low.

"I am charmed." And he really was.

Sam Houston thought he had never seen anything so beautiful as the girl who regarded him with placid violet eyes. She was taller than Antoinette, and two years older. She was dressed less extravagantly. Her features were fairer and more tranquil. Her hair was dark brown, except for a gay band of golden ringlets circling her temples like a halo.

A young woman of less poise might have betrayed herself. Margaret's thoughts swept back to the unforgettable Sunday when New Orleans had received the victor of San Jacinto. The wild image of him, swaying against the gunwale, was burned in her mind. She had been incapable of dispelling the premonition that some time she would meet this romantic man, and the meeting would shape her destiny.

Emily Antoinette saw little more of General Houston that afternoon. At night a candle burned late in a room at Spring Hill. Margaret was writing a poem. 3

General Houston visited Andrew Jackson at the Hermitage, and moved on to East Tennessee where he sojourned with a cousin, Judge Wallace, of Maryville. One evening a roomful of relatives was discussing Eliza Allen, who to every one's surprise had married a wealthy widower. Houston was lying on a couch, apparently not listening, when some one made an unnecessary remark. "Houston got up with eyes flashing,"