Her husband was one of Urrea’s officers, and her kindness to the Texan prisoners throughout the war ought never to be forgotten. “Her name,” writes one of the survivors of the massacre, “should be written in letters of gold.”
The two brave boys, Harry Ripley and young Cash, were also among the slain.
The wounded men were then dragged out of their beds and shot. Fannin, who was the last to die, met his fate inside the fort, it is even said inside the consecrated church. His high courage sustained him to the end. After receiving the promise of the officer in charge that he should not be shot in the head, that his body should be decently buried, and that his watch should be sent to his wife, he fastened the bandage about his eyes with his own hands, and welcomed death like a soldier. Not one of the promises made to him was kept.
The dead Texans to the number of three hundred and fifty were stripped of their clothing and piled, naked, in heaps on the ground. A little brushwood was thrown over them and set on fire. It burned, crackling a few moments, and then the flames died out. The half-consumed flesh was torn from the bones by vultures.
This cold-blooded murder was done by order of Santa Anna. For it, as for the massacre at the Alamo, a deadly vengeance was at hand.
On the morning of the 21st of April, 1836, Houston, with his army of seven hundred Texans, and Santa Anna, with his army of more than twice that number of Mexicans, were encamped within a mile of each other near the banks of Buffalo Bayou.
The country was in a wild panic. Men, women, and children were fleeing before the very rumor of Santa Anna’s approach, as in the pioneer days they had not fled before the tomahawks of the Comanches.
Houston’s slow retreat[26] (begun on March 13), from Gonzales to the Colorado, from the Colorado to various points on the Brazos, with the enemy close upon his rear, had filled the stoutest hearts with doubt and alarm. After more than two months of suspense charged with the terrible episodes of San Patricio, Refugio, the Alamo, and Goliad, and the burning of San Felipe, Gonzales, and Harrisburg, the people began to ask of each other what would be the end.
Here at last, on an open field and in a fair fight, the question was about to be answered.
Santa Anna, after the fall of the Alamo, was filled with vain glory. He called himself the Napoleon of the West, and looked upon the Texan “rebels” as already conquered and suppliant at his feet. From his headquarters at San Antonio he directed his army to possess the country and to shoot every man taken with a gun in his hand. One division, under General Gaona, was ordered to Nacogdoches; General Urrea, after the battle of Colita, was ordered to sweep the coast from Victoria to Anahuac with his division; the central division, under Generals Sesma and Filisola, followed Houston almost step by step in his retreat. Santa Anna himself accompanied this division.
On the 15th of April, believing that Houston was at last in his power, the Mexican commander-in-chief left his main army on the Brazos and marched, with about one thousand men, to Harrisburg, where he hoped to capture President Burnet and the members of his cabinet. He found Harrisburg deserted; whereupon he set fire to the town, and hurried to New Washington. From there, after burning the straggling village, he intended to move on to Lynch’s Ferry (now Lynchburg) at the junction of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River. His plan was to pursue the government officials to Galveston, whither they had retreated, make them prisoners, and so end the war. While his troops were in line for the ferry (April 20) he was startled by the arrival of a scout who reported the approach of Houston with his entire command. Santa Anna, thus cut off from his army, was taken completely by surprise.
This was the moment Houston had so long awaited.
“We need not talk,” he said to Rusk, the Secretary of War, who was with the army. “You think we ought to fight, and I think so, too.”
Deaf Smith.
The rising sun of April 21 looked down bright and glowing upon the two hostile camps. The Texans were in a grove of moss-hung live oaks; in front of them a rolling prairie, gay with spring flowers, stretched away to the marshy bottom lands of the San Jacinto River; behind them Buffalo Bayou rolled its dark waters to Galveston Bay. The “Twin Sisters,” two small cannon presented to the Republic by the citizens of Cincinnati, were planted on the rising ground before the camp. They were flanked on either side by the infantry. The cavalry, under the command of Mirabeau B. Lamar, was placed in the rear.
Battlefield of San Jacinto.
Santa Anna’s camp also faced the prairie, but it had directly in the rear the oozy, grass-grown San Jacinto marsh.
The day before (20th) when the ground was first occupied by the two armies, there had been some skirmishing. But this morning passed in a quiet, which was broken only by the arrival of General Cos at the enemy’s camp with a reinforcement of five hundred men.
Toward noon a profound silence fell upon the Mexican camp. The men, officers and soldiers, from Santa Anna to the humblest private, were taking their siesta (afternoon nap).
Meantime, General Houston, after a short consultation with his officers, sent for Deaf Smith.
Deaf Smith was a bold, cool-headed, shrewd guide and spy, who had come from New York to Texas in 1821. He was hard of hearing (hence his nickname), silent and secretive in his manner, with the instinct and the unerring sight of a savage. It was Deaf Smith who had guided Fannin and Bowie from La Espada to Mission Concepcion, and led Johnson and Milam through the dark streets at the storming of San Antonio. It was he who had been sent to meet Mrs. Dickinson on her dreary journey from the Alamo; and when General Houston retreated from Gonzales, Deaf Smith, with one or two companions, was left to spy upon the movements of the enemy.
Houston dispatched Smith with secret orders to cut down and burn Vince’s bridge, about eight miles distant.
This bridge, which both armies had crossed on their march to their present position, spanned Vince’s Bayou, a narrow but deep stream running into Buffalo Bayou. To destroy it was to destroy the only means of retreat for either army.
General Houston, after making these arrangements, paraded his army. The men were in high spirits. Their eyes were dancing, their fingers itched to pull the triggers of their guns. The day was waning; it was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon. At this moment Deaf Smith galloped in, his horse white with foam, with the news that Vince’s bridge had been burned.
The order to advance was given. A single fife struck up the curiously inappropriate tune, “Will you come to the bower I have shaded for you.” The cannon were rushed forward within two hundred yards of the Mexican camp, and fire belched from the mouth of the “twins.” The left wing of infantry under Colonel Sidney Sherman began the attack. There was a cry which split the air: “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” and the whole force hurled itself forward like an avalanche.
The effect was appalling. The Mexicans half awake, dazed and bewildered by the sudden charge, hardly tried after their first feeble volley, to return the fire of their assailants. Within a few moments the Texans, still uttering their hoarse watchword of vengeance, had leaped the barricade, and were in the very heart of Santa Anna’s camp.
Too excited or too thirsty for revenge to load, they beat down the foe with the butts of their rifles, clubbed them with pistols, slashed them with keen-edged bowie knives. The Mexicans fled like frightened sheep, some into the muddy morass where they were caught as in a trap, others toward the bayou and the ruined bridge, others again to the cover of the timber where they made haste to surrender. “Me no Alamo! Me no Alamo!” cried many of the panic-stricken soldiers, falling on their knees before their captors.
Sidney Sherman.
By twilight the fleeing Mexicans were nearly all captured or killed, and the victors had time to breathe and to count their own dead. They had seven dead and twenty-seven wounded. Among the latter was General Houston, who received a wound in the ankle, which caused him to limp during the remainder of his life.
The Mexicans lost six hundred and thirty-two killed and two hundred and eight wounded. Seven hundred and thirty-two prisoners were taken.
Among the prisoners were the oath-breaker, General Cos;[27] Almonte, Santa Anna’s private secretary; and Colonel Portillia, the officer who had been in command at Goliad when Fannin and his men were shot. General Santa Anna, riding a handsome black horse, had escaped. He was pursued as he fled from the field by Henry Karnes, who knew from the flying horseman’s glittering uniform that he must be an officer of rank; he did not dream, however, that he was following Santa Anna. He felt sure of capturing the officer at Vince’s Bayou, for he rode straight for the destroyed bridge. But after a single second of hesitation on the bank, the horse and rider seemed to rise in the air and then plunge downward. When Captain Karnes reached the stream, the gallant animal was floundering in the mud on the opposite side, unable to clamber up the steep bank. The rider had disappeared.
The next morning (22nd) General Houston was lying under an oak somewhat apart from the camp. The pain of his wound had kept him awake during the night, and he was sleeping lightly. Suddenly an excited murmur ran through the camp, a clamor of Mexican voices arose: “El Presidente! El Presidente!” and some soldiers approached, having in their midst a man dressed in soiled linen trousers, a blue jacket, a soldier’s cap, and red worsted slippers. His linen, however, was of the finest, and he wore jeweled studs in his shirt front.
Houston, awakened by the noise, looked up. His visitor bowed. “I am,” he said in Spanish, “General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, and a prisoner of war, at your service.” He had just been captured, hiding, miserable and forlorn, in the long grass on the further side of the bayou. Houston waved his hand to a tool-chest near by, and Santa Anna sat down.
A greater physical contrast can hardly be imagined than that between these two men now gazing steadily and silently at each other.
The Dictator of Mexico was small and thin and not above five feet five inches in height. His swarthy face was ill-favored almost to repulsiveness; his small black eyes were cold and cruel. Houston was tall and finely proportioned, with fair complexion, open forehead, and fine blue eyes. Perhaps the one point of resemblance between the two generals lay in a certain foppishness in dress. But on this occasion this appeared in neither. Santa Anna had exchanged his gaudy uniform for the disguise he wore, and Houston was ill-kempt and shabby in his old campaign uniform.
Almonte, who had been sent for to act as interpreter, now came up and the interview began. Santa Anna was at first very humble; he even wept copiously. But after swallowing some opium he recovered his arrogance, and demanded to be treated as a prisoner of war. He wished to arrange for his immediate release.
When Houston dryly asked what consideration he could expect after the bloody scenes at the Alamo and Goliad, he pleaded the usage of war for the carnage at the Alamo. As for Goliad, he declared that Urrea had deceived him with regard to Fannin’s surrender, and pretended to denounce his subordinate officer in bitter terms. “Urrea told me Fannin was vanquished,” he said, “and I was ordered by my government to shoot every man found with a weapon in his hand.”
“You are yourself the government,” Houston replied curtly. “A Dictator has no superior.”
“I have the order of Congress,” Santa Anna insisted, “and that compels me to treat as pirates all who are found under arms. Urrea had no authority to make an agreement with Fannin. He has deceived me, and when I am free he shall suffer for it.”
Houston listened to this bluster, but declined to make terms with his prisoner, that power belonging alone to the Texan Congress.
He treated the unfortunate general with generous courtesy, returning to him his tents and personal effects, and permitting him to be waited upon by his own servants.
An order signed by Santa Anna was carried by Deaf Smith and Henry Karnes to General Filisola, the second in command, who was encamped near San Felipe, to conduct the Mexican troops to the Rio Grande.
The Texan soldiers could not understand the mercy shown to the Mexican prisoners, particularly to Santa Anna, the cruel and heartless foe who had tortured and put to death so many of their brave countrymen. With dark and angry looks and open threats they swarmed about the place of the interview. Some of the officers were in favor of a drumhead court-martial and an immediate execution. But better counsels prevailed, and Santa Anna was allowed to retire to his camp-bed and rest in peace.
The night which followed the victory was one of wild and grotesque rejoicing in the Texan camp. Huge bonfires were lighted, and by the red glow of their flames, the soldiers danced and sang and told over and over again the story of the great day and its triumphs. The Mexican camp was overhauled; the victors decked themselves with the arms of their foes, buckling about their waists two, three, or four brace of pistols, with powder-horns, shot-pouches, sabers, and bowie knives. They rigged out the captured mules with the gold epaulets of the Mexican officers, and the green and red cap-cords of the grenadiers. Then, lighting hundreds of wax candles found among the spoils, they paraded gayly about, waking the echoes of the night with their shouts of laughter. All this was not in very good taste, and it naturally made the prisoners very angry. But they might well have reflected that at least it was a better way of rejoicing over a victory than shooting prisoners in cold blood and setting fire to their naked corpses.
The military stores taken in the battle, the cannon, small arms, ammunition, and mules, were kept by the government. The camp baggage was sold at auction, and the proceeds, with the contents of the military money-chest, were divided among the soldiers. This money, which amounted to about seven dollars and a half to each man, was all that they received for their service during the whole war.
General Santa Anna’s handsome silver-mounted saddle was purchased and presented to General Houston. The jeweled dagger handed to his captors by the Mexican General was also given to Houston.
On the approach of Santa Anna’s army, President Burnet and his cabinet retired from Harrisburg to Galveston Island. They were closely pressed by the advance of the Mexican cavalry under Almonte. As the President stepped upon the flatboat which was to take him to the schooner Flash, at the mouth of the San Jacinto, he was for several moments a target for Mexican guns. But he reached the Flash in safety, and the boat sailed across the bay to the almost deserted island. There, while the government officials waited in great anxiety and suspense for news from the army, they were joined by a large number of fugitives who had fled from their homes in the general panic. The steamboat Yellowstone—which had conveyed Houston’s army across the Brazos at Groce’s Ferry—came down loaded with refugees from the Brazos and Colorado. At Fort Bend it had passed the Mexican army under a hot fire. The smokestacks were riddled with bullet holes. The Mexican cavalrymen had tried at several points to lasso the boat from the bank as it steamed by, but fortunately their ropes were too short.
The Yellowstone brought news that Houston’s army was on the road to Harrisburg. Burnet knew, therefore, that the long-delayed fight would take place soon or never. Very few people had any faith left in Houston’s ability to defeat the Mexican army. Santa Anna was looked for in Galveston at any moment. Nearly all the women and children had already been placed on board the Flash, and the captain of the boat had orders to sail for New Orleans, where they would be safe.
General Houston’s first duty, after settling affairs in his somewhat disordered camp, was to send an express to the President with news of the victory, and to request him to come and treat in person with Santa Anna.
At the battle of Concepcion Captain Robert Calder, then a private posted in the mission tower, had given notice of the enemy’s approach. This young officer, who had also fought most gallantly in the battle of San Jacinto, volunteered to bear the General’s dispatches to President Burnet. It is not to the young captain’s discredit that the presence on the island of the beautiful girl whom he afterward married had something to do with his eagerness to perform this service.
Thomas J. Rusk.
He started on the morning of the 23d accompanied by B. C. Franklin and two soldiers detailed for the expedition. No boat was to be had except an open and weather-stained skiff with two pairs of oars. No provisions could be procured; the country around had been swept clean by the Mexicans. But the little party paddled away cheerily down the bayou. Late at night they found some food in a deserted cabin on the bank. The next day they entered the bay. The waves were rough; it was hard rowing and the boat leaked badly. Captain Calder had most of the work to do, the others having given out completely. Much of the way they coasted close to the shore, Calder wading and shoving or pulling the skiff along. They saw but one living human being on their trip. This was a wild African negro who had perhaps escaped from some slave-ship on the coast. On the fifth day they crossed from Virginia Point to the war-schooner Invincible, which was lying in the bay off Galveston. As they approached, Captain Brown hailed them through his speaking trumpet: “What news?”
The unexpected reply, “Houston has defeated Santa Anna and captured his whole army,” caused an instant outburst of wild excitement. The wet, weary, and hungry messengers were dragged on board and questioned by everybody at once. Captain Brown cried to his gunners: “Turn loose old Tom.” Old Tom, the cannon, was fired three times before Captain Brown remembered that it was the business of the Commodore to order a salute. “Hold on there, boys,” he said, “or old Hawkins will have me in irons.”
He sent Captain Calder and his men over to the flag-ship Independence, where Commodore Hawkins received them with enthusiasm and ordered a salute of thirteen guns.
The news spread among the ships and through the fleet of small boats that swarmed up to hear the story. It passed on to the land, where people were running about in a wild state of alarm at the sound of the commodore’s guns. Alarm was changed to joy. The refugees hugged each other, weeping tears of gladness, and fairly beside themselves with delight. President Burnet received Captain Calder in his tent and heard the story of the battle with deep emotion.
The young captain, “having changed his clothes,” as he relates, went in search of the bright-eyed girl whom he had not seen since the war began. As he passed, unknown, through the groups of men, he heard one man exclaim: “What! the whole Mexican army defeated and Santa Anna taken prisoner? No, gentlemen; these fellows are scoundrels and deserters. It is too big a story, and they ought to be taken into custody at once!”
President Burnet and his suite boarded the Yellowstone the same day (April 27) and steamed up to the new camp near Harrisburg, whither Houston had removed his army. There he met Santa Anna and arranged the basis of a treaty which the Mexican general signed on the part of his country.
By the terms of the treaty the Mexican army was to withdraw from Texas soil; hostilities were to cease; American prisoners were to be released; and all property seized during the invasion was to be returned to the owners. Santa Anna was to be liberated at the discretion of the Congress.
On the 3d day of May the Mexican prisoners were placed on board the Yellowstone and carried to Galveston island, where they were kept under close guard.
President Burnet accompanied Santa Anna to the coast, whence it was intended to embark the Mexican general at once for Vera Cruz.
Soon after the battle of San Jacinto, General Houston, leaving Rusk, who had recently been appointed brigadier-general, in command of the army, went to New Orleans to have his shattered ankle treated by his own physician.
Filisola had heard of the defeat and capture of his commander-in-chief and was already in full retreat when Santa Anna’s order reached him. He arrived at Goliad about the 20th of May.
Here, on the 26th, Commissioners Benjamin Fort Smith and Henry Teal found him. They had been sent by President Burnet with a copy of the treaty between Santa Anna and the Texan congress for Filisola’s signature. He signed it, and continued his march westward to the Rio Grande.
On June 4 General Rusk—who had followed with the Texan army to see that the Mexicans retreated in good faith—stopped at Goliad to fulfill a sacred duty. This was to collect and bury the remains of the victims of the Palm Sunday massacre.
The charred and sun-dried skeletons scattered about the ground were gathered together and reverently laid in a pit dug for the purpose. The army was paraded inside the fort, and from thence, slowly and with reversed arms, to the beat of muffled drums, the soldiers marched to the chosen spot. With the procession walked several of Fannin’s men who had escaped death on that fatal Sunday.
Map of Texas at the Close of the War of Independence.
General Rusk began an address, the troops standing around him. “But in truth he did not finish what he intended to say, for he was overpowered by his feelings, and the tears rolled down his cheeks, and he had to stop speaking. There were but few dry eyes on that occasion.”[28]
So powerful was the impression produced on the men who assisted in this mournful ceremony that General Andrade (An-dra′dā), who was bringing up the rear of the Mexican army, was advised by Rusk that it would not be safe for him to attempt to pass through Goliad, as he could not answer for what his own men might do. Andrade was therefore obliged to cut a crossing seven or eight miles long through the chapparal thickets, in order to reach the main road. The Mexican army marched slowly westward with trailing banners. San Antonio and other places held by Mexican garrisons were given up. At length the Rio Grande was reached and crossed.
The independence of Texas was achieved.
The treaty between Santa Anna and the Texan Congress was concluded at Velasco (May 14), and to the written paper was affixed the seal of the Republic.
The choice of this seal was the result of an accident. When the declaration of independence was adopted at San Felipe, Governor Smith, having no other seal, used one of the brass buttons from his coat. Its device chanced to be a five-pointed star encircled by a wreath of oak leaves. The Lone Star with its wreath thus became the official signet of the Texas Republic.
Flag of Texas Republic.
Santa Anna was conducted on board the war-schooner Invincible, which had orders to convey him and his staff to Vera Cruz on the coast of Mexico. But public feeling was so strong against setting free the arch enemy of Texas that President Burnet was obliged to have him brought on shore again. He was sent from Velasco to Columbia, and thence to Orizaba, the country place of Dr. Orlando Phelps, on the Brazos River. A plot for his release was soon afterward discovered. This caused him to be put in irons, and to receive a small taste of the ill-treatment he had so often accorded to others. It was not until after the return of Houston from New Orleans in the fall that the captive general was finally released.
Meantime there was great dissatisfaction in the army. The soldiers, having no fighting to do, began to remember that they were hungry and in rags. They clamored for money which the poverty-stricken government could not give them; and they still demanded loudly the death of Santa Anna.
In June Major Isaac Burton, with a company of mounted rangers on the lookout for Mexican vessels at Copano, succeeded in decoying into port and capturing three supply ships which belonged to the enemy. These were the Watchman, the Comanche, and the Fanny Butler. The supplies, valued at twenty-five thousand dollars, were sent at once to the army. This timely relief and the re-imprisonment of Santa Anna restored the soldiers to good humor.
In September a general election was held. General Houston was made President, and Mirabeau B. Lamar Vice-President. The new term was to begin in December; but President Burnet, glad to lay down the burden which he had borne wisely and virtuously, resigned his office, and on the 22d of October Houston was inaugurated.
The ceremony took place at Columbia. Among those present were many who had been prominent in the revolution: Stephen F. Austin, ex-Governor Smith, Branch T. Archer, the Whartons, Mosely Baker, Sidney Sherman, John T. Austin, William Austin, and many others.
Santa Anna, in his guarded apartment not far away, might almost have heard the echoes of his old enemy’s voice when, at the conclusion of his address, Houston unbuckled his sword and handed it to the Speaker of the House, with the assurance that if his country should ever call for his services again he would resume his sword and respond to that call with his blood or his life.
Stephen F. Austin was made Secretary of State in Houston’s cabinet. He had but lately returned from the United States, where he had rendered important service to Texas during her struggle for independence. He now saw his highest hopes realized. His beloved colonists had become a free people. His chosen land would now blossom like a rose in the fair sunshine of peace.
He began his new duties with ardor. But constant anxiety and the hardships of prison life had left him weak and delicate. The unfinished room where he worked was without fire; he was seized suddenly with pneumonia, and after a short illness he died (December 27, 1836).
The Father of Texas was but forty-three years old. His life had been noble, useful, and unselfish, and his death was a public loss. His body was conveyed in the steamer Yellowstone to Peach Point on the Brazos, near Columbia. There, in the presence of the President and his cabinet, the officers of the army and navy, and a large concourse of citizens, he was buried with military honors.
Mirabeau B. Lamar.
The first regular Congress had a hard task before it. The people of Texas were in favor of annexation to the United States. But a strong faction in that nation, though willing to acknowledge Texas as an independent country, was strongly opposed to receiving another slave state. The young Republic was therefore obliged to stand alone.
There was a large public debt, but no money in the treasury. Mexico still laid claim to her rebellious province, and it was necessary to maintain an army to repel invasion, and a navy to defend the coast. The Indians were troublesome. The civil law, in the confusion and disorder of the war, had become almost a dead letter.
This was a tangled skein, but Congress set to work with hearty good will to unravel the threads. The legislature provided for the public debt and other state expenses by issuing land scrip (government paper entitling the holder to so many leagues of land).
First Capitol of Texas. At Columbia (1836).
County and magistrate courts were organized; a Supreme Court was formed, and the Spanish code of laws was displaced by the code used by the United States. The soldiers instead of their pay received permission to go home on long visits to their families. Some vessels were bought for the navy, and commissioners were sent to the different Indian tribes to make treaties of friendship.
Congress adjourned in December. The following May it met in the new town on Buffalo Bayou named in honor of the President.
Monsieur Le Clère (Le Clare), a Frenchman who visited Texas about this time, writes thus of Houston: “I cannot say that Houston is a great city, although it is a capital. The principal street, Main Street, which is laid out in a straight line, and handsome enough for the country, runs down to the river. The footwalks are barely marked out. We found the landing still blocked by enormous trunks of trees. Great southern pines are left standing in the street. The ascent which leads from the bayou to the city is very rough, and one stumbles over the logs that encumber it. By the side of houses of tolerably fine appearance (though built entirely of wood), one meets here and there with those poor houses called log cabins. Finally, as a last touch to this picture, there stand in Main Street and near the capitol two great tents which would do honor to a chief of the Tartars or Bedouins.
“The environs of Houston are not inhabited. A great number of the people I saw in the city were going further west, but their passage gave it a very lively appearance. They were on horseback, and almost all armed with the terrible weapon called the bowie knife. Most of them carried before them on the saddle that rifle, excessively long, which they handle with a wonderful skill, and which Jackson’s men used so well at the battle of New Orleans.”
The capitol building was unfinished, and Congress was obliged to shorten its sittings when it rained or a “norther” blew fiercely through the shutterless windows. The President’s house was a double log cabin with a puncheon floor. But the naturalist Audubon describes President Houston (May, 1837) as receiving his guests in this rude cabin, “dressed in a fancy velvet coat and trousers trimmed with gold lace; and around his neck was tied a cravat somewhat in the style of 1776.”
The same writer speaks of the members of the cabinet as men bearing the stamp of “intellectual ability, simple, though bold in their general appearance.”
All sorts of people from at home and abroad thronged the little capital. Curious travelers like Audubon and Le Clère, the Frenchman, brushed against hunters clad in buck-skin, traders with pack-mules, and eager-eyed young adventurers from “the States.”
A Comanche Chief.
A great many Indians came into the town to see their Great Father, Houston. One such deputation was from the hunting-grounds of the Comanches. They came to make their treaty of peace in person. They rode mustang ponies, and brought their squaws and papooses with them. After setting up their buffalo-hide lodges on the prairie near the town, the warriors marched in single file to President Houston’s own residence. They were all tall and finely formed, with very red skin, and jet-black hair which they wore hanging in long locks down their backs. These locks were ornamented with bands of silver. Many of the warriors wore, just below the elbow, clumsy rings of copper or gold, from which dangled the scalp-locks of their dead enemies. Monsieur Le Clère, who saw this procession, says that one young Indian had two of these rings hung with ten or fifteen heads of hair of different colors. The women wore tight leggings of tanned buck-skin, with tunics of wolf or jaguar skins, trimmed with beads and quills. Many strands of colored beads were strung around their necks, and their hands were loaded with gold and silver rings. Some of their costumes were graceful and pretty. The wearers were nearly all old and ugly; but one young girl, the daughter of the chief, is described as very beautiful, with liquid black eyes, softly rounded cheeks, and red laughing lips. She wore on her head a crown made of eagle feathers, and her girdle was a band of heavy silver discs.
The President welcomed his red brothers gravely and kindly. The calumet, or pipe of peace, was smoked and the treaty was made. The Indians received presents of beads, blankets, and red cloth. The old chief when he rode away carried the Texas flag tied to a stalk of sugar cane. “Me big chief! Houston big chief!” he cried, striking his breast with his hand.
The provisional government of 1835 provided for a navy to serve the new Republic of Texas. It was not a very formidable navy. It consisted at first of two vessels—the schooners the Invincible and the Liberty. Afterward were added the Independence, which became the flag-ship of Commodore Hawkins, commandant of the fleet, the Brutus, and several small sloops, including the Champion and the Julius Cæsar.
These ships cruised about the Gulf of Mexico, watching the coast and doing what they could with their small guns to annoy the Mexican war-vessels. Early in April, 1836, the Invincible, commanded by Captain Jerry Brown, met the Mexican brig, the Montezuma, near Tampico and fired upon her. A spirited engagement followed which lasted several hours, and in which the Montezuma was badly disabled. She drew off, and in attempting to enter the harbor ran aground.
The Invincible sailed away unhurt, and the next day met and captured the American brig, the Pocket, which was on her way to a Mexican port with a cargo of supplies for Santa Anna’s army. Captain Brown brought the Pocket into Galveston, whence the supplies were forwarded to the army.
The Invincible, lying at that time in the bay, received from Captain Calder the first news of the victory at San Jacinto, and Captain Brown at once “turned loose Old Tom” to express his own joy therefor.
The Yellowstone came down from the Texan camp and landed the Mexican prisoners on the island; she then proceeded to Velasco, having on board the President and his cabinet officers, and General Santa Anna and his staff.
The Invincible was ordered to follow, and after signing the treaty, Santa Anna was conducted on board, and Captain Brown received orders to sail to Vera Cruz with the defeated general. The Texan commissioners empowered to treat with the Mexican government were also on board. As already related, Santa Anna was taken ashore again and placed in prison. The Invincible with the Brutus was soon afterward sent to New York for repairs. The Liberty conveyed General Houston to New Orleans, and was there sold to pay her war-expenses.
The new Congress was without means to meet the cost of repairing and refitting the Invincible and her sister ship. They were on the point of being sold when Henry Swartwout, the collector of the port of New York, with great generosity provided the money from his private purse. They were completely equipped and sent to sea the same year.
In 1837 the entire fleet set out for a cruise in the Gulf of Mexico. The Champion and the Julius Cæsar were taken by the enemy on the 12th of April. Both carried valuable cargoes, and their loss was a keen blow to the young government.
On the 17th of April the Independence encountered near Velasco two Mexican brigs of war,—the Libertador, armed with sixteen 18-pound guns and manned with one hundred and forty men, and the Vincedor, with six 12-pounders and one hundred men. The Independence had but thirty-one men. The action, in which the Texans behaved with great gallantry, was a short and severe one. It ended in the capture of the Independence. The crew were sent as prisoners to Matamoras.
Old Capitol at Houston (1837). From an old Print.
A little later the Invincible and the Brutus captured the Mexican schooners, the Obispo and the Telegraph. Both boats were sent in as prizes.
In August the Brutus and the Invincible reached Galveston with another prize. The Brutus with the prize entered the harbor safely, but the Invincible did not succeed in passing the bar. She was attacked the next morning (26th) by two Mexican ships. The Brutus started out to assist her, but ran aground and lay helpless on the sand. The Invincible held her own against the enemy all day; at nightfall she struck on the breakers. Her crew were saved, but the gallant old ship went to pieces.
The next year (1838) a new navy was voted by Congress. Several vessels were bought, but there was now no duty for them to perform. They were placed in the service of Yucatan, which was in revolt against Mexico. Some years later, when Texas was annexed to the United States, they passed into the navy of that country.
The Brutus, the last ship of the old Texan navy, was lost in a storm at Galveston Bay as late as 1867.
One of the laws of the constitution provided that no one should be allowed to hold the office of President for two successive terms. Houston’s term of office expired in 1838, and Mirabeau B. Lamar was elected President and David G. Burnet Vice-President.
The Secretary of War under Lamar was Albert Sidney Johnston. This brilliant young soldier came to Texas just after the battle of San Jacinto. He was a graduate of West Point, and had served in the Blackhawk war.
Johnston at once organized a force to act against the Indians. Lamar did not have Houston’s kindly feeling for the Red Men. He looked upon them as dangerous enemies, and he wished to rid the country of them entirely. The Indians, on their side, had been breaking the treaties made with Houston.
Mexico was too full of troubles at home to invade Texas again. But Mexican agents were sent among the Cherokees and Comanches to stir them up against the white settlers, and incite them to reclaim their lands. Many homes on the frontier were burned, and their peaceable inmates killed or taken prisoners. The Texas rangers, under General Rusk and Colonel Burleson, finally defeated and subdued the most troublesome of the warlike tribes, and the frontier became quiet once more.
First Executive Mansion. At Houston (1837).
But in 1840 trouble broke out again with the Comanches. Twelve chiefs of this tribe came to San Antonio to sign a new treaty. As usual, they were accompanied by their women and children. They had promised to bring with them thirteen white prisoners, but they appeared with but one, a little girl named Matilda Lockhart, who had been carried away in a raid on her father’s house two years before. The chiefs declared they had no more prisoners. But the child said there were others at the camp, who were to be brought in one by one for large ransom. A company of soldiers was ordered into the council-room, and the Indians were told that they were prisoners until the other white captives were given up. One of the chiefs immediately attempted to escape, stabbing the sentinel at the door. A furious combat followed, in which the twelve chiefs were all killed. In the plaza outside there was also a desperate fight. The Indian women took part in this, and three of them were killed. Captain Matthew Caldwell, who was unarmed, defended himself with stones until his assailant was killed. Judge Thompson, who had been playing with the Indian children, setting up pieces of money for them to shoot at, was slain by an arrow from one of their bows. Colonel Wells came riding into the plaza in the midst of the skirmish. A powerful Indian leaped on his horse behind him and tried to shake him off. Unable to do this he seized the bridle and tried to guide the horse out of the plaza. Colonel Wells’s arms were pinioned so that he could not draw his pistol, and it was only after careering thus several times around the plaza that the Indian was shot by a soldier and the Colonel released. The band was finally overpowered. Thirty-two warriors, three squaws, and two children were killed; the others were all made prisoners. This encounter is known as the “Council-house Fight.”
Congress held its meetings in Houston until 1839. But the site for a new capital had been chosen. It was on the banks of the Colorado River, on the then extreme frontier. Two or three pioneer cabins already stood there, and the little settlement bore the proud name of Waterloo. But bands of savage Indians still roamed the hills and prairies adjacent. It was necessary to place guards about the grounds to protect the masons and carpenters while they were at work on the capitol building. Among the buildings erected was a blockhouse, as a refuge for the women and children in case of an Indian raid. The new capital was named Austin, in grateful memory of the Father of Texas.