USA > Texas > A Twentieth century history of southwest Texas, Volume I > Part 48
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67
Troop G: Troopers, Joseph H. Beck, Louis B. Bishop, Edwin M. Brown, Elijah Pennington, Benjamin Slaughter.
Troop H: Trooper, William J. Moneckton.
Troop K: Troopers, William F. James, Lewis Maverick, Colton Reed. Troop L: Frank P. Hayes, 2d Lieut.
Altogether forty-six men were from San Antonio and vicinity, while perhaps half as many more came from other Texas towns.
On Sunday, May 29, the regiment broke camp and proceeded by rail to Tampa, Fla., the trip consuming four days. On the morning of June 14 the troops proceeded, on board the transport Yucatan, for Cuba. For six days the thirty or more transports which had left Tampa steamed steadily southwestward, under the escort of battleships, cruisers and torpedo boats. On the morning of June 22 the troops began disembark- ing at Daiquiri, a small port near Santiago de Cuba, after this and other nearby points had been shelled to dislodge any Spaniards who might be lurking in the vicinity.
Before leaving Tampa the Rough Riders had been brigaded with the First (white) and Tenth (colored) Regular Cavalry under Brigadier- General S. B. M. Young, as the Second Brigade, which, with the First Brigade, formed a cavalry division placed in command of Major-General Joseph Wheeler. The afternoon following their landing they were or- dered forward through the narrow, hilly jungle trail, arriving after night- fall at Siboney.
Before the tired soldiers (men who had been accustomed to traveling on horseback all their lives, for the most part, but now compelled to pro- ceed on foot) could recuperate, the order to proceed against the Spanish position was given, and the first actual fighting was on. This was on June 24. During the advance against the Spanish outposts Henry J. Haefner, of Troop G, fell, mortally wounded. This was the first casualty in action. Haefner enlisted from Gallup, New Mexico. He fell without uttering a sound, and two of his companions dragged him behind a tree. Here he propped himself up and asked for his canteen and his rifle, which Colonel Roosevelt handed to him. He then began loading and firing, which he continued until the line moved forward. After the fight he was found dead.
After driving the enemy from their position at the American right a temporary lull followed. Fighting between the Spanish outsposts and the American line was soon resumed, however. A perfect hail of bullets swept over the advancing line, but most of them went high. After a quick charge the enemy abandoned their main position in the skirmish line. The loss to the Rough Riders was eight men killed and thirty-four wounded; the First Cavalry fost seven men killed and eight wounded ; the Tenth Cavalry lost one man killed and ten wounded. The Spaniards were under General Rubin. This fight, the first on Cuban soil, is officially known as the Battle of Las Guasimas.
360
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
On the afternoon of June 25 the regiment moved forward about two miles and camped for several days. In the meantime General Young was stricken with the fever. Colonel Wood then took command of the brigade, leaving Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt in command of the reg' ment. On June 30 orders were received to be prepared to march against Santiago. It was not until the middle of the afternoon that the regiment took its position in the marching army, and eight o'clock that night when they halted on El Paso hill. Word went forth that the main fighting was to be done by Lawton's infantry, which was to take El Caney, several miles to the right, while the Rough Riders were simply to make a diversion with the artillery.
About six o'clock the next morning, July 1, the fighting began at El Caney. As throughout the entire campaign, the enemy used smokeless powder, which rendered the detection of their location well-nigh impos- sible. Soon after the beginning of the artillery engagement, Colonel Roosevelt was ordered to march his command to the right and connect with Lawton-an order impossible to obey. A captive balloon was in the air at the time. As the men started to cross a ford, the balloon, to the horror of everybody, began to settle at the exact front of fording. It was a special target for the enemy's fire, but the regiment crossed before it reached the ground. There it partly collapsed and remained. causing severe loss of life, as it indicated the exact point at which other troops were crossing.
The heat was intense, and many of the men began to show signs of exhaustion early in the day. The Mauser bullets drove in sheets through the trees and jungle grass. The bulk of the Spanish fire appeared to be practically unaimed, but the enemy swept the entire field of battle. Though the troopers were scattered out far apart, taking advantage of every scrap of cover, man after man fell dead or wounded. Soon the order came to move forward and support the regulars in the assault on the hills in front. Waving his hat aloft, Colonel Roosevelt shouted the command to charge the hill on the right front. At about the same moment the other officers gave similar orders, and the exciting rush up "Kettle hill" began. The first guidons, planted on the summit of the hill. according to Roosevelt's account, were those of Troops G, E and F of his regiment, under their captains, Llewellyn, Luna and Muller.
No sooner were the Americans on the crest of the hill than the Spaniards, from their strong intrenchments on the hills in front, opened a heavy fire, with rifles and artillery. Our troops then began volley firing against the San Juan blockhouse and the surrounding trenches. As the regulars advanced in their final assault and the enemy began running from the rifle pits, the Rough Riders were ordered to cease firing and charge the next line of trenches, on the hills in front, from which they had been undergoing severe punishment. Thinking that his men naturally would follow, Colonel Roosevelt jumped -over the wire fence in front and started rapidly up the hill. But the troopers were so excited that they did not hear or heed him. After leading on about a hundred yards with but five men, he returned and chided his men for having failed to follow him.
36
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
"We did not hear you, Colonel," cried some of the men. "We didn't see you go. Lead on, now ; we'll sure follow you."
The other regiments joined the Rough Riders in the historic charge which followed. But long before they could reach the Spaniards the latter ran, excepting a few who either surrendered or were shot down. When the attacking force reached the trenches they found them filled with dead bodies. There were few wounded. Most of the fallen had bullet holes in their heads, which told of the accurate aim of the Ameri- can sharpshooters.
"There was great confusion at this time," writes Colonel Roosevelt, "the different regiments being completely intermingled-white regulars, colored regulars and Rough Riders. * We were still under a heavy fire and I got together a mixed lot of men and pushed on from the trenches and ranch houses which we had just taken, driving the Spaniards through a line of palm trees, and over the crest of a chain of hills. When we reached these crests we found ourselves overlooking Santiago."
Here Colonel Roosevelt was ordered to advance no further, but to hoid the hill at all hazards. With his own command were all the frag- ments of the other five cavalry regiments at the extreme right. The Spaniards had fallen back upon their supports, and our troops were still under a very heavy fire from rifles and artillery. Our artillery made one or two efforts to come into action on the infantry firing line, but their black powder rendered each attempt fruitless. In the course of the afternoon the Spaniards made an unsuccesful attempt to retake the hill. A few seconds' firing stopped their advance and drove them into cover of the trenches.
The troops slept that night on the hilltop, being attacked but once before daybreak-about 3 a. m .- and then for a short time only. At dawn the attack was renewed in earnest. The Spaniards fought more stubbornly than at Las Guasimas, but their ranks broke when the Americans charged home.
In the attack on the San Juan hills our forces numbered about sixty- six hundred. The Spanish force numbered about forty-five hundred. Our total loss in killed and wounded was one thousand and seventy-one.
The fighting continued July 2, but most of the Spanish firing proved harmless. During the day our force in the trenches was increased to about eleven thousand, and the Spaniards in Santiago to upwards of nine thousand. As the day wore on the fight, though raging fitfully at intervals, gradually died away. The Spanish guerrilas caused our troops much trouble, however. They were located, usually, in the tops of trees, and as they used smokeless powder, it was almost impossible to locate and dislodge them. These guerrilas showed not only courage, but great cruelty and barbarity. They seemed to prefer for their victims the unarmed attendants, the surgeons, the chaplains and hospital stew- ards. They fired at the men who were bearing off the wounded in litters. at the doctors who came to the front and at the chaplains who held burial service.
The firing was energetically resumed on the morning of the 3d, but during the day the only loss to the Rough Riders was one man wounded.
362
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
At noon the order to stop firing was given, and a flag of truce was sent in to demand the surrender of the city. For a week following peace negotiations dragged along. Failing of success, fighting was resumed shortly after noon of the 10th, but it soon became evident that the Spaniards did not have much heart in their work. About the only Rough Riders who had a chance for active work were the men with the Colt automatic guns and twenty picked sharpshooters who were on the watch for guerrilas. At noon, on the IIth, the Rough Riders, with one of the Gatlings, were sent over to the right to guard the Caney road. But no fighting was necessary, for the last straggling shot had been fired by the time they arrived.
On the 17th the city formally surrendered. Two days later the entire division was marched back to the foothills west of El Caney, where it went into camp with the artillery. Here many of the officers and men became ill, and as a rule less than fifty per cent were fit for any kind of work. All clothing was in rags; even the officers had neither socks nor underwear. The authorities at Washington, misled by reports received · from some of their military and medical advisers at the front, became panic-stricken and hesitated to bring the army home, lest it might import yellow fever into the United States. The real foe, however, was not yellow fever, but malarial fever. The awful conditions surrounding the army finally led to the writing of the historic "round robin," in which the leading officers in Cuba showed that to keep the army in Santiago meant its complete 'and objectless ruin. The result was immediate. Within three days orders came to put the army in readiness to sail for home. August 6 the order came to embark, and the next morning the Rough Riders sailed on the transport Miami, which reached Montauk point, the east end of Long Island, New York, on the afternoon of the 14th. The following day the troops disembarked and went into camp at Camp Wikoff. The regiment remained here until September 15, when its members received their discharges and returned to civil life.
Texas State Troops.
The war brought all the military organizations of San Antonio and the state into activity. A few days after the declaration of war the San Antonio Express recorded that "the veteran members of the Belknap Rifles, known as the 'Old Guard,' are making rapid progress in or- ganizing the Belknap Cavalry. The officers of the Belknap Cavalry are : John Green, captain ; John Tobin, first lieutenant; Hal Howard, second lieutenant."
Another company was the San Antonio Zouaves, whose captain was Eugene Hernandez. After drilling for a week or so in San Antonio the Zouaves went to the state camp at Austin, and the Belknap Rifles followed in a few davs. There they were organized as part of the First Regiment of Texas Volunteers, and on the 21st of May reached Mobile. There the regiment was brigaded with the Second and Third Regiments of Regulars. While drilling there the Texas contingent won much commendation, and the general in command was so impressed with the soldierly qualities of the Texans that it was his desire to take them to Cuba. But the seasoned troops were given preference, and the First
363
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
Texas was left behind, to be joined with the Second and Third Texas Regiments and ordered to San Augustine, where they became part of the first division of the Seventh Army Corps. They were sent to Miami, and were kept drilling among the everglades for several months. After the conclusion of hostilities in Cuba, the regulars were ordered home. Portions of the Seventh Army Corps were then sent to Havana, and in this way the First and Second Texas had an opportunity to reach the field of war, where they remained several months. The Fourth Texas Infantry and the First Texas Cavalry remained in Texas throughout the war, the First Cavalry, early in June, being ordered to occupy Fort Sam Houston, which, on account of the withdrawal of all the regulars, had been almost deserted for several weeks previous. The Fourth Texas also stayed in San Antonio, their quarters being at the Jockey Club grounds.
364
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
EDUCATION.
It is usual to begin a sketch of educational affairs in Texas with the statement that under the Spanish and Mexican regime education was a dead letter, or something to that effect. The inference is that a marked contrast is proved between that period of history and the Republican years that followed, so far as schools are concerned. The facts are that a regular system of free schools was not provided by Texas until 1854, and that for many years after the passing of Mexican domination educa- tion of the youth depended more on the voluntary efforts of the people than on any comprehensive and effective system under the control of the state or the county or municipality.
And the people of Texas, who now rejoice in and take great pride in their educational institutions, need feel no sensitiveness concerning the early conditions and the long futile pretensions to covering a multitude of educational omissions through fine-sounding legislative enactments and generous land grants. While the public school has been an ideal of the American people from the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, and has been exalted into first place among the bulwarks of the nation, it is well known to every one who has studied the subject that education has fared through incompetent and primitive conditions at every successive stage in the western advance to the Pacific. To be concrete, we may instance the state of Michigan, the majority of whose settlers came from cultured and scholastic New England, but in which no efficient system of public school education was provided until 1836, more than thirty years after the organization of the territory, during which time the pioneer children had depended on the rather haphazard and voluntary association of the settlers for school purposes.
In every new country the progress of education has been slow, and has been secondary to the securing of safety from hostile tribes, the providing of homes and the actual necessities of existence. If the con- trast is to be drawn at all between conditions in Texas and other states of the Union, it is found in this fact, viz.,-that the Spanish-Mexican portion of the population had not the educational traditions and abiding sense of the importance of schools in the same degree as the American people, and from the standpoint of the latter education in Texas did not begin till after the revolution of 1836. It was this feeling of the in- adequacy of Mexican control of schools that prompted the memorial of a convention of Texans at San Felipe de Austin in 1832, directed to the governor and legislature of Texas-Coahuila, and reading, in part, as follows :
"The inhabitants of Texas, represented by delegates, re- spectfully represent that from the time of settlement of Texas up to the present time no step has been taken to encourage education and to create a fund exclusively devoted to that object. They would respectfully sug gest that intelligence is the main pillar of republican institutions : that the government of the state of Coahuila and Texas, heretofore so liberal and even munificent in grants of land to individuals, will be equally so in the grant of land for so useful and patriotic an effort as
365
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
will be the dissemination of knowledge through every part of society. Under these considerations your memorialists pray a grant of as many leagues of land for the promotion of education as the legislature in its liberality shall think proper to bestow, to be made to Texas as the founda- tion of a fund for the future encouragement of primary schools in Texas, In which will be taught the Castilian and English languages. * *"
Though, from this memorial, one is led to infer that public educa- tion did not exist in Texas, it has been the profitable labor of a scholar, Mr. I. J. Cox, in an article contributed to the Texas Historical Associa -. tion Quarterly, to prove that educational efforts had been put forth at San Antonio for a generation or more, and that the net result of these only partially successful attempts in the capital and under the direction of the state government was not inconsiderable; in fact, some of the substantial features of the state educational system may be traced to the Mexican régime. Mr. Cox restricts the field of his investigation to San Antonio, though such a limitation is more nominal than real, since in the territory covered by this history no other schools were established during the Mexican régime. And since the instruction undertaken by the church-almost wholly catachetical-though its importance should never be lost sight of nor underestimated, is properly considered in the history of the church, this article is confined to secular education- secular not in the American sense of the term, however.
Mr. Cox finds the first real sign of educational awakening in a petition, presented to the town council (cabildo), in 1789, by Don Jose Francisco de la Mata. A few years before, he had opened a sort of school in which the ignorant youth of the villa might learn something of the proprieties of the church service, of parental control and of public duties. He had found his undertaking beset with discouragements, and now sought some authoritative recognition of his school from the town council, which was readily granted. The records fail to narrate the further progress of his school, which probably soon ceased.
Thirteen years later the new governor, Juan Bautista Elguezabal, orders the alcaldes and the alguicil mayor to see that parents place their children in school. Following this proclamation, the cabildo of San Antonio, at a meeting January 20, 1802, discusses the foundation of a school and the selection of a master. The result was that Jose Francisco Ruiz is appointed to teach school, using his own home as the school- house. A later record in the Bexar Archives, dated March 24, 1809, names a Francisco Barrera, who had been a school master in San Fer- nando and was now, perhaps in consequence, unable to support his family.
It is evident that general education was not supported by a strong public opinion. Herein we find the most marked distinction between these early Texas communities and those American settlements already referred to. Here the sense of need of popular education was felt by the ruling class, who urged with uncertain results the establishment of schools upon the apathetic citizens. In the American colony at San Felipe the representatives of the people voiced a general demand for school privileges.
After Zambrano had restored the royal authority in San Antonio,
366
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
following the brief rule of Casas and his fellow revolutionists in the early part of 1811, the new junta took measures to organize more thoroughly the school system of San Antonio by building a schoolhouse. Don Bicente Travieso was appointed to carry out this plan, the sum of 855 pesos being given him for the construction of the necessary building. His accounts were audited and approved in August, 1812. But the in- ventory taken about that time shows the condition of the building to be deplorable, and the furnishings of the most meager description. That he had misdirected the funds intrusted to him seems probable, since three years later the cabildo requested the use of a private house for school purposes. Even with such accommodations as Travieso had furnished, the town council found it impossible to hire a teacher regularly, even at 30 pesos a month. In 1813 the Magee-Gutierrez expedition put an abrupt end to the school.
Between Indian raids, revolutionary commotion and the poverty of the inhabitants, the schools had a wretched struggle for existence. In 1815 and again in 1817 the cabildo tries to solve the problem by calling for private contributions to pay a teacher's salary. From the south ward of San Antonio in 1819 the contributions aggregated a little more than 55 pesos, and if the other three wards collected similar amounts the in- struction must have suffered through lack of proper remuneration.
In the last year of the Spanish régime the cabildo requested Gov- ernor Martinez to issue a proclamation requiring parents to keep their children within doors until a school should be established to give them a necessary education. When, a short time after, a citizen offered to establish a school at the expense of the negligent parents, the proposition was accepted, and the regidores assumed the task of compelling the parents to send their children and bear their share of the expense. But at the opening of the Mexican revolution little progress had been made toward establishing popular education in San Antonio, and none at all in other parts of the province.
Three years after the establishment of Mexico as a republic, the dual state of Texas and Coahuila was formed. Its constitution, ratified March II, 1827, required the establishment of schools, that the method of in- struction should be uniform throughout the state, and that congress should form a general plan for public instruction. In 1829 congress pro- vided for the establishment of schools in the capitals of each of the three departments of the state. The system adopted was the Lancastrian or student-monitor system, and the curriculum of instruction was defined as reading, writing, arithmetic, the dogma of the Catholic religion, and all of Ackermann's "Catechisms of Arts and Sciences." Teachers, em- ployed for three years, should each receive a salary of $800 per year. The number of pupils in each school was limited to 150, and should more attend the teacher was entitled to an increase of salary.
Each school was under control of the ayuntamiento, which should have charge of the school accounts and the collection and disbursement of all moneys. The school fund should be made up of the existing school funds of the capital towns, all legacies for school purposes, all quotas assigned from the branches of municipal revenue, and the product of the pay pupils in each school. Free tuition was allowed to not over five
367
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
indigent pupils in each school, the charge for other pupils being $14 a year until they learned to write, and $18 a year for the rest of their attendance. It was also required that each student educated in the "establishment," on leaving, should pay $10 "gratitude money, for re- warding the teacher at the end of his contract."
Hardly any provisions of this comprehensive law were carried out, a modification being introduced a year after its enactment, permitting the establishment of six primary schools in the three departments of the state. However, some historians have traced the beginning of the Texas public school system to the provisions above outlined.
The last attempt of the state congress to enact a practical educa- tional policy was made in 1833. The various municipalities were to sell the public property within their limits. In addition to the private revenue belonging to the schools, one half of the annual product of the municipal funds should be devoted to educational purposes, until the amount of the annual school fund should reach $2,000. All vacant property was to revert to the state and be used for the schools. In all department and district capitals the maintenance and management of schools should be entrusted to "juntas of public education." The course of instruction was also enlarged. As Mr. Cox has well pointed out, this plan-of allowing each community to attend to the matter of education within its own limits and to provide funds for this purpose by allowing it the proceeds of the sale of public lands in its midst-was the foundation of the present school system of San Antonio.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.