USA > Texas > History of Texas : from 1685 to 1892, volume 1 > Part 39
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" Previous to this time the General Council had adopted a resolution requiring the Governor to direct the removal of the
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headquarters of the army, and I had been ordered to Wash- ington for their establishment until further orders. I had been detained awaiting copies of the ordinances relative to the army. Their design was manifest, nor could their objects be misapprehended, though the extent to which they were carrying them was not then known. Messrs. Hanks and Clements (members of the council) were engaged in writing letters to individuals in Bexar, urging and authorizing a cam- paign against Matamoros, and, that their recommendations might bear the stamp of authority and mislead those who are unwilling to embark in an expedition not sanctioned by government and led by private individuals, they took the liberty of signing themselves members of the military com- mittee; thereby deceiving the volunteers, and assuming a character which they could only use or employ in the General Council in proposing business for the action of that body. They could not be altogether ignorant of the impropriety of such conduct, but doubtless could easily find a solid justifica- tion in the bullion of their patriotism and the ore of their integrity. Be their motive whatever it might, many brave and honorable men were deluded by it, and the campaign was commenced upon Matamoros under Dr. Grant as acting- commander-in-chief of the volunteer army - a title and des- ignation unknown to the world. But the General Council, in their address to the people of Texas, dated January 11th, state that ' they never recognized in Dr. Grant any authority what- ever as an officer of the government or army, at the time.' They will not, I presume, deny that they did acknowledge a draft or order drawn by him as acting commander-in-chief, amounting to $750. But this they will doubtless justify on the ground that your Excellency commissioned General Burleson, and, of course, the appointment of Dr. Grant as his aid-de-camp, would authorize him to act in the absence of General Burleson. It is an established principle in all armies that a staff officer can claim no command in the line of the
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army, nor exercise any command in the absence of the general, unless he holds a commission in the line. In the absence of General Burleson, the senior colonel, in the absence of the colonel the major, or in his absence the senior captain, would have the command; but in no event can the aide or staff officer, unless he holds a commission in the line of the army, have any command; and his existence must cease, unless he should be continued or re-appointed by the officer of the line who succeeds to the command in the absence of his superior. When General Burleson left the army his aide had no com- mand, but the field-officer next in rank to himself.
" Then who is Dr. Grant ? Is he not a Scotchman who has resided in Mexico for the last ten years? Does he not own large possessions in the interior? Has he ever taken the oath to support the organic law? Is he not deeply interested in the hundred league claims of land which hang like a murky cloud over the people of Texas? Is he not the man who im- pressed the property of the people of Bexar? Is he not the man who took from Bexar without authority or knowledge of the government cannon and other munitions of war, together with supplies necessary for the troops at that station, leaving the wounded and sick destitute of needed comforts? Yet this is the man whose outrages and oppressions upon the rights of the people of Texas are sustained and justified by the acts and conduct of the General Council.
" Several members of that body are aware that the interests and feelings of Dr. Grant are opposed to the independence and true interests of the people of Texas. While every facil- ity has been afforded to the meditated campaign against Mat- amoros, no aid has been rendered for raising a regular force for the defense of the country, nor one cent advanced to an officer or soldier of the regular army, but every hinderance thrown in the way. The council had no right to project a campaign against any point or place. It was the province of the governor, by his proper officers, to do so. The council
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has the right of consenting or objecting, but not of projecting. The means ought to be placed at the disposition of the gov- ernor, and if he, by himself or his officers, failed in their application, he would be responsible for the success of the armies of Texas, and could be held responsible to the govern- ment and punished; but what recourse has the country upon agents who have taken no oath and given no bond to comply with the powers granted by the council ?
" The organic law declares, in article third, that ' the gov- ernor and general council shall have power to organize, reduce or increase the regular forces,' but it delegates no power to create army agents to supersede the commander-in-chief, as will be seen by reference to the second article of the ' mili- itary ' basis of that law. After declaring that there shall be a regular army for the protection of Texas during the present war, in the first article, it proceeds in the second to state the constituents of the army : ' The regular army of Texas shall consist of one major-general, who shall be commander-in- chief of all the forces called into public service during the war.' This, it will be remembered, is a law from which the council derive their powers; and, of course all troops in serv- ice, since the adoption of this law, and all that have been accepted, or to be accepted, during my continuance in office, are under my command. Consequently the council could not create an agency that could assume any command of troops, so as to supersede my powers, without a plain and palpable violation of their oaths. New names given could not change the nature of their obligations; they had violated the organic law.
" I will now advert to an ordinance of their own body, en- titled, ' An Ordinance and Decree to Organize and Establish an Auxiliary Volunteer Corps of the Army of Texas,' etc., passed December 5th, 1835. The ordinance throughout recognizes the competency of the governor and commander-in- chief as the only persons authorized to accept the services of
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volunteers and makes it their especial duty to do so. It also gives the discretion to the commander-in-chief to accept the services of volunteers for such term as ' he shall think the defense of the country and the good of service require.' It is specified that muster-rolls shall accompany the reports of the volunteers, and, when reported by the commander-in- chief to the governor, that commissions shall issue accord- ingly.
" Where elections take place in the volunteer corps, the ordinance declares that they shall be certified to the com- mander-in-chief, and by him forwarded to the governor. The third section of the law declares that when controversies arise in relation to the rank of officers of the same grade, they shall be determined by drawing numbers, which shall be done by order of the commander-in-chief of the army. This law was enacted by the General Council, and they cannot allege that any misconstruction could arise out of it, for it plainly points out the duties of the governor and commander-in-chief as defined by themselves. Yet, without the repeal of this law, they have proceeded to appoint agents to exercise the very powers declared by them to belong to the governor and commander-in-chief. This they have done under the impres- sion that a change of names would enable them to put down the governor and commander-in-chief, not subject to them for their places, but created by the consultation, and both of whom are as independent of the council as the council is of them - the commander-in-chief being subject to the organic law, and all laws conformable thereto, under the orders of the governor. I have obeyed the orders of your Excellency as promptly as they have met my knowledge; and had not the council, by acts as outrageous to my feelings as they are manifestly against law, adopted a course that must destroy all hopes of an army, I should yet have been on the frontier, and by all possible means would at least have sought to place it in a state of defense.
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" It now becomes my duty to advert to the powers granted by the General Council to J. W. Fannin, Jr., on the 7th of January, 1836, and at a time when two members of the Mili- tary Committee, and other members of the council, were advised that I had received orders from your Excellency to repair forthwith to the frontier of Texas, and to concentrate the troops for the very purpose avowed in the resolutions referred to. The powers are as clearly illegal as they were unnecessary. By reference to the resolutions it will be per- ceived that the powers given to J. W. Fannin, Jr., are as comprehensive in their nature, and as much at variance with the organic law and the decrees of the General Council, as the decrees of the General Congress of Mexico are at variance with the Federal constitution of 1824, and really delegate to J. W. Fannin, Jr., as extensive powers as those conferred by that Congress upon General Santa Anna ; yet the cant is kept up, even by J. W. Fannin, Jr., against the danger of a regular army, while he is exercising powers which he must be satisfied are in open violation of the organic law. J. W. Fannin, Jr., is a colonel in the regular army, and was sworn in and received his commission on the very day that the resolutions were adopted by the council. By his oath he was subject to the orders of the commander-in-chief, and as a subaltern could not, without an act of mutiny, interfere with the general command of the forces of Texas; yet I find in the Telegraph of the 9th inst. a proclamation of his, dated on the 8th, addressed, ' Attention, Volunteers !' and requiring them to rendezvous at San Patricio. No official character is pretended by him, as his signature is private. This he did with the knowledge that I had ordered the troops from the mouth of the Brazos to Copano, and had repaired to that point to con- centrate them. On the 10th inst. F. W. Johnson issued a similar proclamation, announcing Matamoros as the point of attack. The powers of these gentlemen were derived, if derived at all, from the General Council in opposition to the
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will of the Governor, because certain purposes were to be answered, or the safety and harmony of Texas should be destroyed.
" Col. Fannin, in a letter addressed to the General Council, dated on the 21st of January, at Velasco, and to which he subscribes himself, ' J. W. Fannin, Jr., Agent Provisional Government,' when speaking of anticipating difficulties with the commander-in-chief, allays the fears of the council by assuring them, 'I shall never make any myself,' and then adds: ' The object in view will be the governing principle, and should General Houston be ready and willing to take command, and march direct ahead, and execute your orders, and the volunteers to submit to it, or a reasonable part of them, I shall not say nay, but will do all in my power to produce harmony.'
" How was I to become acquainted with the orders of the council? Was it through my subaltern ? It must have been so designed, as the council have not, up to the present moment, given me official notice of the orders to which Colonel Fannin refers. This modesty and subordination on his part is truly commendable in a subaltern, and would imply that he had a right to say ' nay.' If he has this power, whence is it derived? Not from any law, and contrary to his sworn duty as my subaltern, whose duty is obedience to my lawful commands, agreeably to the rules and regulutions of the United States army, adopted by the consultation of all Texas. If he accepted any appointment incompatible with his obligation as a colonel in the regular army, it certainly increases his moral responsibilities to an extent which is truly to be regretted.
" In another paragraph of his letter he states: ' You will allow that we have too much division, and one cause of com- plaint is this very expedition, and that it is intended to remove General Houston.'
" He then assures the council that no blame shall attach to
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him, but most dutifully says : ' I will go where you have sent me, and will do what you have ordered me, if possible.' The order of the council, as set forth in the resolutions appointing Col. Fannin agent, and authorizing him to appoint as many agents as he might think proper, did most certainly place him above the governor and commander-in-chief of the army. Nor is he responsible to the council or the people of Texas. He is required to report but he is not required to obey the council. His powers are as unlimited and absolute as Cromwell's ever were. I regard the expedition, as now ordered, as an indi- vidual and not a national measure. The resolutions passed in favor of J. W. Fannin, Jr., and F. W. Johnson, and their proclamations, with its original start-Dr. Grant - absolve the country from all responsibility for its consequences. If I had any doubt on the subject previous to having seen at Goliad a proclamation of J. W. Fannin, Jr., sent by him to the volun- teers, I could no longer entertain one as to the campaign, so far as certain persons are interested in forwarding it. After appealing to the volunteers, he concluded with the assurance ' that the troops should be paid out of the first spoils taken from the enemy.' This, in my opinion, connected with the extraordinary powers granted him by the council, divests the campaign of any character save that of a piratical or preda- tory war.
" The people of Texas have declared to the world that the war in which they are now engaged is a war of principle, in defense of their civil and political rights. What effect will the declaration, above referred to, have on the civilized world - when they learn that the individual who made it has since been clothed with absolute powers by the General Council of Texas, and that, because you (as governor and commander-in-chief ), refuse to ratify their acts, they have declared you no longer governor of Texas. It was stated by way of inducement to the advance on Matamoros, that the citizens of that place were friendly to the advance of the troops of Texas upon that
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city. They, no doubt, ere this, have J. W. Fannin's proc- lamation (though it was in manuscript), and, if originally true, what will now be their feelings towards men, who ' are to be paid out of the first spoils taken from the enemy.' The idea which must present itself to the enemy, will be, if the city is taken it will be given up to pillage, and when the spoils are collected, a division will take place. In war, when spoil is the object, friends and enemies share one common destiny. This rule will govern the citizens of Matamoros in their con- clusions and render their resistance desperate. A city con- taining twelve thousand inhabitants will not be taken by a handful of men who have marched twenty-two days without breadstuffs or necessary supplies for an army.
" If there ever was a time when Matamoros could have been taken by a few men; that time has passed by. The peo- ple of that place are not aware of the honorable, high-minded men who fill the ranks of the Texian army. They will look upon them as they would look upon Mexican mercenaries, and resist them as such. They too will hear of the impress- ment of the property of the citizens of Bexar, as reported to your Excellency, by Lieutenant-Colonel Neill, when Dr. Grant left that place for Matamoros in command of the vol- unteer army.
" If the troops advance on Matamoros there ought to be co-operation by sea with the land forces, or all will be lost, and the brave men who have come to toil with us in our marches and mingle in our battles for liberty, will fall a sacri- fice to the selfishness of some who have individual purposes to answer, and whose influence with the council has been such as to impose upon the honest part of its members; while those, who were otherwise, availed themselves of every artifice which they could devise to shield themselves from detection.
" The evil is now done, and I trust sincerely that the first of March may establish a government on some permanent founda- tion, where honest functionaries will regard and execute the
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known and established laws of the country, agreeably to their oaths. If this state of things cannot be achieved, the country must be lost. I feel, in the station which I hold, that every effort of the council has been to mortify me individually, and if possible, to compel me to do some act which would enable them to pursue the same measures towards me which they have illegally done towards your Excellency, and thereby remove another obstacle to the accomplishment of their plans. In their attempts to embarrass me they were reckless of all prejudice which might result to the public service from their lawless course.
" While the council was passing he resolutions affecting the army of Texas, and transferring to J. W. Fannin, Jr., and F. W. Johnson, the whole control of the army and resources of Texas, they could order them to be furnished with copies of the several resolutions passed by that body, but did not think proper to notify the major-general of the army of their adop- tion; nor have they yet caused him to be furnished with the acts of the council, relative to the army. True it is they passed a resolution to that effect, but it never was complied with. Their object must have been to conceal, not to pro- mulgate their acts. ' They have loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.'
" I do not consider the council as a constitutional body nor their acts lawful. They have no quorum agreebly to the organic law, and I am therefore compelled to regard all their acts as void. The body has been composed of seven- teen members, and I perceive the act of ' suspension ' passed against your Excellency was by only ten members present ; the president pro tem, having no vote, only ten members remain when less than twelve could not form a quorum agreeably to the organic law, which required two-thirds of the whole body. I am not prepared either to violate my duty or my oath, by yielding obedience to an act manifestly
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unlawful, as it is, in my opinion, prejudicial to the welfare of Texas.1
" The lieutenant-governor, and several members of the council, I believe to be patriotic and just men; but, there have been, and when I left San Felipe there were, others in that body on whose honesty and integrity, the foregoing acts will be the best commentary. They must also abide the judgment of the people. I have the honor to be,
" Your Excellency's obedient servant,
" SAM HOUSTON, " Commander-in-Chief of the Army."
1 The council at that time should have consisted of 21 instead of 17 members, as stated by Gen. Houston.
CHAPTER XLV.
Movements of Grant and Johnson - Their Disorganizing Course - Growth of the Feeling for Independence.
General Houston's clear exposition of facts, principles and military law so fully establishes the factious and illegal char- acter of the acts of the council, and so incontrovertibly up- holds the attitude of Governor Smith, as to need neither fable nor cunningly devised subterfuge in its support.
Still, in view of the mighty interests at stake, while fully justifying the excoriation given by General Houston to the responsible parties, we cannot unreservedly approve his course in retiring from the field without an appeal to the intelligence and patriotism of the volunteers, most of them recently arrived from the United States and not informed as to the true condition of affairs. He may have done so, but there is no evidence of it. He did, however, address them at Refugio against the expedition to Matamoros, saying that the time, if it ever existed, had passed for any hope of success, when it was known that Santa Anna could, in a few days, throw ten thousand men into that place. This speech exploded that bubble, all of the men, excepting sixty-four, refusing to fol- low Dr. Grant, Johnson, Fannin or any one else in an expedition so Quixotic.
To be more explicit in regard to antecedent facts the journals of the council show that on the 3rd of January a communication was submitted from F. W. Johnson, for him- self and other volunteers, for authority to proceed to Mata- moros, " which was read and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, with instructions to report this afternoon at 3 o'clock."
(517)
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At three o'clock the committee reported in favor of the expedition as "of the utmost importance at this time, * and your committee take great pleasure in recommending F. W. Johnson to take command of all the troops that he can raise for that purpose." This report, utterly ignoring the Governor and commander-in-chief, was adopted.
On the 4th resolutions were offered in support of the expedition to Matamoros. On the 5th, Clements and Barrett were appointed a committee to wait on Messrs. Fannin and Johnson and get their views on the subject. On the same day the committee reported that they had performed that duty and that Messrs. Fannin and Johnson, " fully concurred with the resolutions." That is to say, resolutions placing them above and independent of the lawful commander-in-chief, as set forth in Gen. Houston's report to Governor Smith.
On the 6th, Col. James Bowie exhibited to the council his orders from the commander-in-chief to proceed against Mata- moros or such other point as he might deem best.
On the 6th, also, F. W. Johnson sent a communication " declining any participation in the contemplated expedition to Matamoros," upon which the council went into secret session, when the report and resolutions were recommitted and Bar- rett " was added to the committee for this special case," Hanks and Clements being heretofore its moving spirits and asking the aid of Barrett.
On the 7th the committee reported ("in consequence of Mr. Johnson declining to act as agent, for reasons submitted by himself and entirely satisfactory to this council,") the ex- traordinary resolutions heretofore given, under which J. W. Fannin, as agent, was clothed with those disorganizing powers, independant of the commander-in-chief, which led to the slaughter of himself and the brave men under his command. Johnson, however, was afterward granted the authority and proceeded to act.
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On the 14th, when there were but eight members present, the council professed to have a justification for F. W. John- son's organizing the volunteers at Bexar under himself as commander for a descent upon Matamoros, in this, that the Governor had granted such authority to General Burleson ( of which, however, they claimed only verbal information ) and that when Burleson returned home, Johnson, being a member of his staff, as adjutant-general, had succeeded to the com- mand and authority granted to Burleson.
They therefore adopted a report granting to Johnson the approbation of this " government to conduct the volunteers who have entered upon the expedition to Matamoros," and ordering " that he proceed to unite with J. W. Fannin, the government agent appointed by resolutions of this house, duly passed and adopted." And " that when said volunteers are all concentrated as directed by the resolutions appointing J. W. Fannin agent, etc, a commander of the whole body be elected under existing laws." Before which juncture Col. Johnson should be " authorized to hold an election by the volunteers from Bexar of all the requisite officers, and have the same properly certified and reported," not to the com- mander-in-chief or Governor, but to this remnant of the General Council. " Nothing contained in the foregoing report and resolution, " it was specified, " shall be so taken as to interfere with the agency granted to J. W. Fannin by the Provisional Government heretofore."
Col. Johnson hastened to the west, armed with this author- ity as will be seen by reference to Gen. Houston's report to Governor Smith of the interview between them at Refugio on the 21st. These resolutions, directly interfering with his lawful duties and authority, caused General Houston to return and make the report we have inserted, trusting that the people in convention a month later would trample such usurpations under foot. He has been considered by many as, at times, an extreme man. In all these usurpations of an illegal coun-
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cil he certainly had ample cause to excite the indignation of any man fit to command an army ; and, like Governor Smith, when writhing under such a sense of wrong to both himself and his country, did not lack for words to express his feelings and opinions.
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