USA > Texas > A Twentieth century history of southwest Texas, Volume I > Part 26
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Vol I. 13
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Americans. It is noteworthy that during the first years of their settle- ment the Germans took little part in practical politics, but along in the fifties those at San Antonio became more self-assertive in this direction. In May, 1854. advantage was taken of the concourse at their annual mu- sical festival in San Antonio to hold a simultaneous political convention. A platform of principles, rather general in nature, was adopted, contain- ing among other things a resolution that slavery was an evil which should be eventually removed, though affirming the belief that its abol- ishment should be left to individual state action.
Political Discord.
This at once produced much excitement in the community and the newspaper, whose editor fully sustained the obnoxious abolition princi- ple. was jeopardized from the commercial standpoint and even its very existence threatened. Writing from almost a contemporary point of view, Olmstead says: "'Americanism' was just beginning to show its strength in the east, and to extend its lodges and its barbarizing preju- dices into Texas. This independent movement on the part of the for- eigners was a godsend to the new party. It gave it a tangible point of attack, and what with the cry of 'foreign interference in politics' and 'abolition in Texas,' a universal howl went up against the Germans." The editor continued to stand his ground and answer the arguments of his opponents, but he soon found that among his own people was a di- vision of sentiment. "At his suggestion a general meeting of the stock- holders was called, at which the course of the paper was sustained, but as a measure of justice to the dissentients it was resolved to sell the press and allow the paper to stand upon its own merits. The editor now became proprietor, and for a time was well supported. An English de- partment was added to his sheet that Americans might read his principles for themselves, not in garbled extracts and translations with a purpose. This aroused again the fury of the American papers, which, as time passed, had somewhat subsided. A determined effort was made for the suppression of the sheet. Under threat of being denounced as secret abolitionists the American merchants were induced to withdraw their advertisements. The publication was then carried on at a loss. The ed- itor saw himself becoming a victim to his allegiance to principles, but for more than a year sustained with dignity his supposed right to free expression in Texas. His resources at length exhausted, he surrendered to starvation. and became a second time an exile, the press falling into the hands of the opposite party, who have established a journal whose first principle is not to give offense to slaveholders."
Farming Development.
One view of the conditions affecting the development of West Texas before the war is thus stated bv Olmsted: "The presence of this incon- gruous foreign element of Mexicans and Germans tends, as may be con- ceived, to hinder any rapid and extensive settlement of Western Texas by planters. There are other circumstances contributing to the same effect. The proximity of the frontier, suggesting and making easy the escape of slaves, is a chief difficulty. Then there are the border disquiets from In-
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dians, who regard slaves as fair booty when placed in their way. Besides which, the profit of cotton planting far from market, is small, the distance, for large emigrant trains, fatiguing, and the long travel expensive." Yet another writer, of about the same time, advertised the vicinity of San An- tonio, as peculiarly advantaged because there were very few instances of slaves running away from their masters. At that time the development of an immense cattle industry in West Texas was considered of secondary importance to the great staple of cotton, which could be produced on this prairie soil only by "a forced and uneconomical change." "Beef and wool," in the opinion of one writer, "must for a long time yield a far more profit- able return."
At this writing ( 1907) a great tide of homeseekers and land-buyers are pouring into the counties between San Antonio and the Rio Grande. Great development has been done, and much more is expected in the next few years. As a contrasting picture to this era of activity in settlement and improvement, it is of interest to note a description of this "desert" and its future possibilities, written by an acute observer fifty years ago. At that time the extreme Texas settlements reached, on the west, to the upper waters of the Guadalupe and to Fort Inge in the present Uvalde county, and from the latter point along the course of the Leona, the Frio, and the Nueces to the coast, this marking, in the judgment of the writer, "the limits of valuable land, of probable agricultural occupation." Be- tween this line and the Rio Grande "is a region so sterile and valueless as to be commonly reputed a desert, and, being incapable of settlement, serves as a barrier-separating the nationalities and protecting from en- croachment, at least temporarily, the retreating race."
Bandera County in 1858.
Bandera county was created out of Bexar and Uvalde counties, Jan- uary 26, 1855. The following description of the county and its interests in 1858 is found in Cordova's "Texas :" "Its county seat is Bandera, sit- uated on the northeast bank and in a bend of the Medina river. The Ban- dera creek enters the river from the north, about one mile below the town. Near the head of this creek is Camp Verde, twelve miles from the town, at present occupied by a company of U. S. troops under the com- mand of Captain Palmer. The town is surrounded by a range of moun- tains from five to fifteen miles distant. At a distance of two miles to the southwest of the town there is a beautiful peak, while to the northeast, at a distance of about five miles, is another peak, and the river flowing for two miles in front of the town in a northeast course, as if running from one peak to the other, gives the town a very picturesque appearance.
"Three years ago (1855) this county was entirely unoccupied ; now it contains within the limits of the townsite over fifty families; besides a great number of farms in its immediate vicinity. This is to be attributed to the energy of its enterprising proprietors, John James, of San Antonio, J. H. Herndon, of Quintana, and Charles De Montel, of Castroville, who own not only the townsite but also about 15,000 acres of land in the im- mediate vicinity.
"At Camp Verde is the headquarters of the camels and dromedaries imported by the government some years ago into this state for the pur-
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pose of trying the experiment how they would answer the purposes of transport on the great sandy plains in the extreme west of the state. At last accounts they were on their journey, heavily laden, to the extreme frontier of New Mexico. There are now employed 19 drome- daries and 32 camels on the frontier. The climate agrees with them ad- mirably. "
CHAPTER XX.
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD.
It was the happy lot of Texas that she lay outside the main path of destruction wrought by the havoc-making storm of civil war. Thousands of her sons offered lives, strength or material resources to the southern cause, but few and unimportant are the battlefields in the state marking where the brothers of the north and the south fought sincerely for di- vergent beliefs. For this reason Texas recuperated more rapidly than the states which were the main theater of war, and after the period of civil war and reconstruction was finally past the industries, commerce, arts and social and political progress once more flourished upon her broad bosom, and by the dawn of the twentieth century the state had become one of the leaders in several departments of production and enterprise. But the Civil war period was a time of stagnation if not of retrogression, and the terrible scourge of the war, in direct and indirect relations, forms one more chapter of large events in Texas history.
It transcends the limitations of this work to inquire fully into the manifold causes and external influences which in combination brought about the Civil war. Indeed, the entire right and wrong on each side has not yet been entirely sifted out from the mass of facts ; we are not yet far enough away to get the true historical perspective. But in this brief chap- ter may be given the general facts concerning Texas' connection with this great tragedy of the Union.
As has been indicated heretofore, Texas was a logical slave state. Her geographical latitude, her climate, her industrial opportunities aligned her among those divisions of the world who were the last to break away from an institution which had been fastened upon both bar- barism and civilization from times unrecorded. The institution had its roots in the past, tradition sanctioned it ; to the southern people, from the viewpoint of their past and their then present, it was not simply a matter of sentiment, it was an absolute material necessity, and to outlaw it seemed arbitrary, an infringement on the cardinal points of liberty, and was not to be tolerated.
But slavery per se was the ultimate, not the immediate cause of the Civil war. It was a contest between unionism and disunionism; whether or not the individual state could withdraw the national powers once con- ferred upon the federal government, and whether or not the collective will of the majority of the whole people should prevail over any minority, was the question which was decided most emphatically by this internecine strife. It was the old and the new and the ever present issue between special and universal interests, whether the powers of a government shall be deflected for the nurture of one class to the detriment of another : whether capital shall be preferred before labor or vice versa, and all the
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other dominant issues which have confronted the American people since their republic began, and which at various times have ranged the same people on opposite political principles.
When it came to deciding whether a long-established institution in the commonwealth should have its foundations threatened by the general government administered through representatives from a section of the country widely remote and diametrically different in industrial and social conditions, and whether the rights and powers of a state over its internal affairs should be subordinated to the federal government, the previous history of Texas would show how that state would naturally take her stand. In the first place, Texas had only recently fought for independ- ence from what she considered a despotic rule directed from a too cen- tralized authority, and it was only natural that the men who fought at San Jacinto would resent what they considered an undue usurpation of powers by the government at Washington. Furthermore, Texas as a na- tion had legalized the institution of slavery, had voluntarily surrendered her national prerogatives on entering the Union, but without a single lim- itation as to slavery, and therefore, when her greatest interests were en- dangered, did it not seem right to her citizens that the bonds of confed- eration might be broken and the allegiance, scarcely fifteen years old, re- called ? Such at least are some suggestions as to the Texas point of view in this great national crisis, and while the preponderance of right, consid- ered absolutely and from the historical eminence gained in subsequent years, may be greater on one side, the sincerity of the partisans on both sides must remain forever unquestioned, and their self-sacrificing and he- roic patriotism, whether wearing the blue or the gray, will be a national pride and honor during all the ages.
The election of Hardin R. Runnels, the Democratic candidate, over Sam Houston, in 1857, by a majority of something like nine thousand, was the first definite sign of the approaching conflict in Texas. In 1820 Henry Clay's Missouri Compromise had forbidden slavery north of lati- tude thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes-the southern boundary of Missouri. In 1846 the doctrine was promulgated in the Wilmot Proviso that slavery should not be extended into the territory annexed from Mex- ico. In 1850 the venerable Clay again compromised so that California might be admitted as a free state and the organization of the other terri- tory south of the original compromise line might be effected without re- striction as to slavery. Then in 1854 came Senator Douglas with his famous "squatter sovereignty" ordinances, which practically annulled the Missouri Compromise and applied, in the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, the doctrine of local option as to slavery. About the same time was promulgated the famous decision in the Dred Scott case by which slaves were declared to be the same class of property as horses or cattle and therefore could be taken from slave into free states without losing their character as slaves. Following the squatter sover- eignty enactment ensued the contest between the slave and anti-slave ele- ments for the possession of Kansas, with all the bloody and disgraceful border warfare which eventuated in that territory entering the Union as a free state.
The Kansas question directed the attention of Texas to the tighten-
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ing tension between the states. Governor Runnels, in his message of Jan- uary, 1858, described the state of affairs in Kansas and advocated the doctrine of secession. A state Democratic convention about the same time gave vent to its feelings by proposing delegates to a convention of the southern states, and declaring that the doctrine of non-intervention was endangered by the federal government. On February 16, 1858, the state legislature passed a joint resolution, reciting the great danger threatened by the Kansas situation, by which delegates were to be appointed by the governor of Texas to a convention of the southern states whenever a ma- jority of said states should decide that the crisis demanded such a con- vention.
The Runnels administration represented the extremes of slavery ex- tension in Texas, and many of its supporters favored a resumption of the slave trade. This radical element was not in the majority in the state, and in the following election in 1859 the conservative party rallied around Houston-who had previously been defeated largely because of his oppo- sition to the Kansas-Nebraska bill-and elected him by a large majority to the governorship. The people of Texas were by no means eager at this time to repudiate the Union, hoped to continue its beneficent rule, and only by force of subsequent events were they moved into the secession stream.
By the time Houston took the executive chair the north and the south were so embittered in their feelings that amicable settlement of the difficulties was impossible. Kansas had come into the Union as a slave state, John Brown's raid had provoked indignation throughout the south, and in December, 1859, South Carolina's legislature affirmed the right of any state to secede from the federation of states and issued a call for a convention of the slaveholding states.
Houston's message to the legislature concerning these South Caro- lina resolutions indicates not only that statesman's own views but a con- siderable trend of opinion throughout the people of the state. He argued vehemently against nullification and secession, asserting that separation from the Union would not cure the evils from which the south suffered and recommending against sending delegates to the proposed convention of southern states. The debate in the two houses of the legislature con- cerning this message ranged from the conservatism of Houston to the radical views of the fire-eating Democracy. The majority resolutions were to the effect that the .Union should be preserved but that federal ag- gression on the separate states should not be countenanced ; deprecated the black abolition movement in the north which might, by obtaining con- trol of the government, use federal laws for the eradication of slavery ; and that, if necessary, organized resistance among the southern states should combat northern aggression. The minority reports were against premature action of the southern states ; holding that the north as vet had not violated the constitutional privileges of the several states; that the black abolitionists were in reality the worst enemies of the republic, and asserted the principle that only when the federal government should prove unable to protect the individual states in their inherent rights would there be cause for dissolution of the Union.
The culmination of national feeling was reached in the year 1860.
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By the disruption of the Democratic party Abraham Lincoln was elected to the presidential chair, and politically the north became dominant over the south. The secession tide running so strong in the south now reached its flood. Extreme radicalism and disunionism, hitherto a strong minor- ity only, now gathered strength and collected to itself all the elements except the stanchest conservatives and unionists of Houston's stamp. Within two months after the national election all the southern states east of Texas, South Carolina leading the way, had seceded. Under pressure, Governor Houston called a special session of the legislature to meet January 21, 1861, and for the first Monday in the following February he ordered an election of delegates to the convention of southern states, as provided for by the legislative resolution of February 16, 1858. By every means in his power Houston protested against secession, holding that Lin- coln's election, while deplorable, was no sufficient ground for withdraw- ing from the Union. But the most ardent of the political leaders hastened matters by calling a state convention for January 28, 1861. The delegates to this convention, it is claimed, were chosen without due form and by a minority of the state's electorate. The legislature when it met disregarded Houston's counsel for moderation, repealed the resolution of February 16, 1858, by which the governor had called an election of delegates to a convention for preserving the rights of the south; and declared the state convention called to meet on January 28 to be empowered to act for the people.
When the convention met it passed, on February I, an ordinance of secession, by a vote of 166 to 7, and on February 23 this measure was approved by the popular will in a majority of forty-four thousand over thirteen thousand. The convention then took steps to carry out the an- ticipated will of the people, appointing a committee of safety and also ap- pointing delegates to the Confederate convention at Montgomery, Ala- bama. The convention then adjourned until March 2, and on March 4, the day of Lincoln's inauguration, it counted the votes of the people for and against the ordinance of secession with the result as above given.
Houston was throughout consistently opposed to all these actions, and a few days before the taking of the popular vote he delivered a speech in Galveston in which he pictured the horrors of civil war and the ulti- mate triumph of the north over the south, but in his peroration express- ing his undying love for his state and determination to stand by "my state. right or wrong." That he could thus talk directly in the face of such a storm of secession shows how affectionately the people held him and how much they admired his candor and integrity even when they disagreed with his political views. Houston held that the actions of the convention were extra-legal. On March 16 he was summoned before the convention to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate government, and when he refused to do this he was deposed and the lieutenant-governor, Edward Clark, installed in his place. Houston protested to the legislature and the people, but the former sanctioned his removal, and this commanding Texas statesman then retired to private life and remained out of the political and public embroilments of his state until his death, which oc- curred in 1863.
Thus Texas was aligned with the states that withdrew entirely
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from the federal union, and for over four years her troops went pouring forth from her borders into the fratricidal strife that all but wrecked the nation. Resources and men were sacrificed without stint, but Texas was advantaged in many ways as the other states of the Confederacy were not. The broad track of the war was down the east side of the Missis- sippi, across the center of the Confederacy to the sea, and up the coast and in the Virginias. But Texas was not in this path. In fact, no north- ern invasion of her territory was ever permanently effective, and the state was left pretty much to herself, and was, for much of the war period, the one reliable source of communication and of supplies for the entire south. The northern squadrons soon had the Atlantic and gulf ports of the other states thoroughly blockaded and all commerce cut off. while the federal armies ravaged and desolated all the fair southland from the Mississippi to the sea. But the long line of Texas coast and the innumerable harbors could not be blockaded effectively, and the blockade runners were constantly slipping in with provisions or out with loads of cotton and other products of the fertile soil. Nothing could prevent the trade across the Rio Grande with the states of Mexico, and, comparatively speaking, Texas prospered during these terrible years. But of progress there was none. The best manhood of the state was fighting for its sincere faith, industries languished and were carried on only that the weakened pulse of existence might not be entirely stilled. and every department of activity suffered wounds that time alone could cicatrize.
The records of most of the sons of Texas were made on battlefields outside of the state, and not only is the state roster a long one but among its names may be found some of the bravest sons of the Confederacy. But this history must confine itself to those movements which took place within the borders of the state. Before the actual outbreak of hostilities
Surrender of San Antonio.
the committee of safety had conferred with General Twiggs in com- mand of the federal forces of the state. Twiggs was himself in favor of the secession movement, and he indicated his willingness to surrender the military resources of the state provided a show of force were made against him. Colonel Ben McCulloch therefore, on being assigned to the post at San Antonio, made a demonstration against the city and obtained the surrender of the forces of Twiggs together with over a million dollars' worth of property and munitions of war, the federal soldiers being al- lowed to leave the state. Colonel J. S. Ford took command at the Rio Grande border, taking possession of Fort Brown opposite Matamoras. The state was alive with military fervor and activity, and by November, 1861, fifteen thousand soldiers had been enrolled in the southern cause.
The governors of Texas during the Civil war were Francis R. Lub- bock, who was elected in 1861, and Pendleton Murrah, who was elected in 1863.
In the summer of 1861 a movement was set on foot to invade and gain New Mexico over to the Confederacy. Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor crossed the Rio Grande into the territory and captured a force of seven hundred federals. Preparations were made to resist this Con-
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federate invasion, but in the following February General Sibley of the Confederate army met and defeated the Union forces under General Canby at Val Verde. Santa Fe and Albuquerque then fell into the hands of the southern troops, but they later suffered a reverse at Apache Can- yon, after which they retreated down the Rio Grande, and by July, 1862, the territory was entirely abandoned, the campaign having been fruitless of practical results and having resulted in the death of many brave Texans.
The border defenses of Texas were as a rule too strong for the federal armies to penetrate. In September, 1862, Corpus Christi was captured and held for a short time by a naval force. In October of the same year the port of Galveston was captured by a federal naval force, but this important city did not long remain in their power. On New Year's day of 1863 General McGruder, by a combined land and sea at- tack, destroyed or captured three of the vessels in the harbor, drove the others out to sea, and by a successful assault on the land fort compelled the surrender of the troops there. Galveston remained for the rest of the war a Confederate possession, although the port was closely blockaded. A few weeks later the blockade of Sabine Pass was temporarily raised by the capture of two Union vessels by two Confederate boats after a hot conflict, and thereafter Sabine City was protected by a strong fort. In the latter part of 1863 General Banks undertook to carry out his plan for the conquest of Texas. The expedition was to land at Sabine Pass and carry on operations from that point. On the morning of September 8 the gunboats attacked the fort, but the attempt ended in disaster to the federals. Two of the boats were destroyed, over a hundred men killed and many more captured, while the garrison of two hundred Texans, only forty-two of whom participated in the battle, came out almost unscathed. The transports then returned to New Orleans and the expedition was given up. For this brave defense of Sabine Pass, President Davis pre- sented what is said to have been the only medal of honor bestowed by the Confederate government, it being a thin plate of silver with the initials of the words "Davis Guards" and a Maltese cross on the obverse and the place and date of the achievement on the reverse.
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