USA > Texas > History of Texas : from 1685 to 1892, volume 2 > Part 4
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Delgado's statements as to the respective forces and in all cases wherein his prejudices, hatred and wounded pride are involved, are wholly unworthy of credit.
CHAPTER III.
Pursuit of the Fleeing Mexicans - Capture of Santa Anna, Cos and Almon- te - Incipient Negotiations - Arrival of Volunteers from New York and Elsewhere.
Capt. Karnes and a small party of cavalry pursued the Mexican cavalry as far as Vince's bayou, killing some and picking up occasional stragglers on the prairie, many of them in a dazed and forlorn condition. Realizing that the common soldiers were but the ignorant and irresponsible instruments of the chief who commanded them, he spared all such and dealt with them as kindly as he could. In the battle there is no denying the fact that the l'exians, wrought up to a state of frenzy by the recent butcheries at Goliad, slew many who offered to surrender and imploringly exclaimed, " Me no Alamo, me no Goliad." Yet the fact remains that nearly eight hundred were made prisoners. In the pursuit a few stragglers who desired to surrender were slain by the more reckless portion of the pursuers, but a large majority of the Texians tried to check the carnage, feeling not only the magnanimous impulses of chivalrous men, but that the death roll of the enemy was already sufficiently large. Throughout the night Karnes guarded a thicket into which four Mexicans (leaving their horses) had entered as a place of refuge at twilight, but when daylight came only one remained. He surrendered and proved to be Santa Anna's secretary, and stated that the other three were Santa Anna, Cos and another officer. Karnes, with Washington Secrest, Fielding Secrest, James Wells, and Deaf Smith, then went in pursuit of the fugitives, passing round the head of the bayou towards the Brazos. Wells, being freshly mounted and knowing the
(40)
PRESIDENT MIRABEAU B. LAMAR
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ground, kept considerably in advance and came upon Cos, Capt. Iberri and Bachiler and two or three others near the Brazos timber, where the fugitives, seeing Karnes and his men rapidly approaching, halted and surrendered. Cos inquired of Deaf Smith, with well feigned nonchalance " whether General Cos had been killed or captured?" To which Smith promptly replied: " He has been neither killed nor captured. I am seeking him now, for he is one scoundrel I wish to kill in person." Having fairly surrendered, how- ever, Cos was safe, even in Smith's hands.
The party, with their prisoners, did not reach camp till the forenoon of the 23d. Besides those mentioned they picked up a dozen or two Mexicans found on the prairie.
On the 22d mounted men, in small squads, scoured the country on the route towards the Brazos, picking up many straggling Mexicans. A party under Col. Burleson reached and crossed the bayou above the burnt bridge. Col. Burleson then directed some of his men to return to camp, saying he would continue up the bayou. A group of six cavalrymen, composed of Second Sergeant James A. Sylvester, of Wood's company,1 and Privates Joel W. Robison, Edward Miles, Joseph Vermillion, -Thompson and - started back, trav- eling somewhat parallel to and down the bayou. Five of the party followed a bend of the stream, while Sylvester went directly on about a mile to the lower point of the bend. Before separating the entire party had noticed a man on foot in that locality, but before Sylvester arrived, he disappeared. On reaching the spot, however, Sylvester found the man lying down and trying to conceal himself in the high grass. Syl- vester ordered him to rise and was soon joined by the five troopers of the squad. The prisoner (Santa Anna) was poorly clad and, with the exception of a fine shirt, wore the
1 A young printer from Baltimore, last from Covingtion, Ky., opposite Cincinnati.
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garb of a common soldier. His captors did not dream of his identity. Robison, alone of the party, understood a little Spanish, and to him Santa Anna claimed to belong to the Mexican cavalry and that he had abandoned his horse the previous evening to avoid capture by the Texian cavalry and was unused to walking. The conversation between them, however, amounted to little. He was conducted back to the camp, about eight miles, walking two miles perhaps and riding the remaining distance, sometimes by himself, but chiefly behind one or another of the men. One of the men proposed to kill him, but all the others opposed the sugges- tion. He rode into camp behind Sylvester and was recog- nized by the Mexican prisoners, who involuntarily, in sup- pressed tones, exclaimed " The President ! The President ! General Santa Anna !" Upon which, without dismounting, Sylvester continued on to camp, where the prisoner was taken in charge by Col. Hockley and Major Ben Fort Smith, who carried him before General Houston, who, suffering from his wound, was reclining on a pallet under the shade of a large tree. Colonel Hockley said : " General Houston ! here is Santa Anna !" Dismounting, Santa Anna, speaking rapidly in his own language said : " Yo soie Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, presidente de Mexico, commandante en jefe del exercito de ofuraciones yme pougs a la disposicions del valiente General Houston, quiero ser tratado como deber ser un general quando es prisoner de guerra." General Houston called upon Moses Austin Bryan, then a youth of nineteen years, to translate what Santa Anna had said. That gallant youth promptly rendered the words into English as follows : " I am Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, president of Mexico, commander in chief of the army of operations, and I put myself at the disposition of the brave General Houston. I wish to be treated as a general should be when a prisoner of war."
General Houston then rose upon his right arm and, pointing
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to an ammunition chest, replied: " Ah ! Ah ! indeed, General Santa Anna. Happy to see you, General ; take a seat, take a seat ! "
Wild excitement spread through the camp as the news became known and nearly the whole army crowded around the two chiefs, while a desultory dialogue proceeded between them, first Moses Austin Bryan and a little later young I.o- renzo de Zavala acting as interpreter. The Texian soldiers were then ordered to their quarters and in a little while Santa Anna asked to have Sylvester sent for and, on his arrival, embraced and thanked him, saying that he owed his life to him and his comrades. Santa Anna's secretary 1 Col. Almonte, was brought from among the prisoners and afterward remained with him, Almonte acting as interpreter. Santa Anna at once proposed negotiations for his release, but General Hous-
1 Juan Nepomuceno was the natural son of the patriot priest, Gen. Maria Morelos, who, in 1816, while leading the Mexican patriots and Congress, through a mountain pass, en route to -- , was overwhelmed and captured by the Spanish royalists troops, and soon afterwards executed in the city of Mexico. Seeing his son, a boy of 14 or 15 years, a short distance in the rear, at the moment of his own capture, Morelos, pointing to the thick woods on the mountain side, exclaimed, " Al Monte ! Al Monte ! " in English signify- ing : " To the mountains! To the mountains! " The boy obeyed the injunc- tion and, with some of the patroit soldiers, escaped. By these soldiers he was surnamed, in commemoration of his father's last injunction, " Almonte," hence Juan Nepomuceno Almonte. He was educated in the United States and was a good English scholar and ever a steadfast friend of Santa Anna His visit to Texas, in 1834, has been mentioned. He was for some years minister to the United States. After the final downfall of Santa Anna in 1855, true to his monarchical principles, Almonte became allied with the French intervention, and was in the cabinet of Maximilian; but, when that Prince fell, he escaped to France and there died, two or three years later, an exile from his own country. In the city of Mexico, in 1865, I had a pleasant interview with him, in which he expressed a strong regard for a number of Texians with whom he hadbeen thrown while a prisoner in 1836. He was a man of fine physical appearance and gentlemanly address and spoke in terms of affection of Col. Barnard E. Bee and George W. Hockley. His admiration for Generals Houston and Rusk was expressed without reservation.
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ton answered that that was a matter to bedetermined by the civil and not the military branch of the government, and that no ne- gotiations looking to that end could be opened until the arrival of President Burnet and the cabinet. Santa Anna thereupon expressed repugnance to civilians and declared that he pre- ferred to deal with soldiers.
Houston then asked how he expected to negotiate in view of what had happened at the Alamo? To which he replied that General Houston was aware of that rule of war which authorized putting to the sword the garrison of a fortress who, on summons, refused to surrender and by such refusal caused useless effusion of blood. General Houston replied that such had once been the rule, but he considered it obsolete and a disgrace to the age. He added, " But, General Santa Anna, you cannot urge the same excuse for the massacre of Col. Fannin and his men at Goliad. They capitulated, were betrayed and massacred in cold blood." Santa Anna replied, " If they capitulated I. was not aware of it. Urrea deceived me and informed me that they were vanquished, and I had orders from my government to execute all that were taken with arms in their hands." General Houston replied with crushing truth : " Gen. Santa Anna, you are the government ! A Dictator has no superior !" Santa Anna answered, "I have the order of Congress1 to treat all that were found with
1 Here is the decree of the Mexican Congress, a body composed of the tools of Santa Anna :
" 1. Foreigners landing on the coast of the Republic, or invading its ter- ritory by land, armed and with the intention of attacking our country, will be deemed pirates, and dealt with as such, being citizens of no nation, presently at war with the Republic and fighting under no recognized flag.
" 2. All foreigners who shall import, either by sea or land, in the places occupied by the rebels (meaning the Texians), either arms or ammunition of any kind, for their use will be deemed pirates, and punished as such.
" I send you these decrees, that you may cause them to be fully executed.
" JOSE MARIA TORNEL, Minister of War."
" MEXICO, December 20, 1835."
This decree was undoubtedly inspired by Santa Anna.
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arms in their hands, resisting the authority of the government, as pirates. Urrea has deceived me. He had no authority to enter into any agreement; and, if I live to regain power, he shall be punished for it."
He then submitted a proposition to issue an order to Gen- eral Filisola to leave Texas with the troops commanded by him. General Rusk replied that his chief being a prisoner, Filisola would not obey the order. Santa Anna thereupon said, such was the attachment of the officers and soldiers of the army to him, that they would obey his commands, what- ever they might be, without hesitation. General Rusk then said: " Colonel Almonte, tell Santa Anna to order Filisola and his army to surrender as prisoners of war." Santa Anna replied that he was but a single Mexican, but would do. nothing that would disgrace either himself or his nation and his captors might do with him as they would. He said that he was willing to issue an order for Filisola to leave Texas. This proposition was finally agreed to and the following order was immediately issued :
" ARMY OF OPERATIONS, " CAMP AT JACINTO, April 22, 1836. S " His Excellency, Don Vicente Filisola, General of Division :
" EXCELLENT SIR : Having yesterday evening with the small division under my immediate command, had an encoun- ter with the enemy, which, notwithstanding I had previously taken all possible precautions, proved unfortunate, I am, in consequence, a prisoner in the hands of the enemy. Under these circumstances, your Excellency will order General Gaono with his division, to countermarch to Bexar and wait for orders. Your Excellency will also, with the division under your command, march to the same place. The division under command of General Urrea will retire to Guadalupe Victoria. I have agreed with General Houston for an armis- tice, until matters can be so regulated that the war shall cease. forever.
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" Your Excellency will take the proper steps for the support of the army, which from this time remains under your com- mand, using the moneys lately arrived from Matamoros, the provisions on hand there, as well as in Victoria, and also the twenty thousand dollars withdrawn from Bexar, and now in that treasury.
" I hope your Excellency will, without failure, comply with these dispositions - advising me, by return of the couriers, that you have already commenced their execution. God and Liberty.
" ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA."
At the same time, in two separate notes, Santa Anna directed Filisola to instruct all commanders not to permit any injury to the inhabitants of the country; and to order the commander at Goliad to release Miller's eighty men and all other Texian prisoners at that place. Santa Anna was then offered refreshments, of which he partook, and also a small quantity of opium, for which he asked. His servants, bag- gage, etc., were then brought to him.by Almonte and he was quartered near General Houston under the tree.
In the meantime, to show the utter ignorance of the Mexicans of the real condition of Texas, at the time the battle was fought, the division of Gaona was crossing the Brazos at Fort Bend under orders to march directly for Nacogdoches, while there were more than enough men on that route, on the march to General Houston, to have defeated Gaona in a pitched battle. These men (in all four or five hundred ) were citizens of Texas and volunteers from the United States. Those of them who were residents of Texas had been delayed by fears of an uprising of the Cherokees. At the time of the battle five companies were passing the Trinity at Robbins' Ferry and others were hastening on behind to swell the ranks of Houston. A company of about fifty men under Capt. Jacob Eberly, had crossed the lower Brazos on the approach of Urrea and was on Galveston Bay.
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Capt. John A. Quitman, of Natchez, Mississippi (after- wards a United States General in the Mexican war of 1846- 48), with twenty-five men, reached the battle ground on the 22nd, having marched all the way on foot.
On the 21st of November, 1835, 174 volunteers sailed for Texas on the brig Matawomkeag, from New York. Off the Bahamas, on the 9th of December, they were captured as pirates by the British man-of-war Serpent, Capt. Nepear, and carried into Nassau, N. P., where they were imprisoned until the 15th of January, and then released. Renewing the voyage, they were detained at the Balize to get provisions. While there James H. Perry and Algernon P. Thompson went to New Orleans and thence to Texas. Both were in the battle of San Jacinto, Perry acting as volunteer aide to General Houston. Thompson was one of the first men to mount the Mexican breastworks. The brig entered Matagorda Bay late in March and the men disembarked. The troops were formed into a battalion under Major Edwin Morehouse, a Texian who sailed from New York with them, and after considerable delay set forth to find General Houston, entirely ignorant of his whereabouts.
With S. Addison White of the Navidad as their guide, they cut a road for eight miles through the dense bottom and cane- brakes of old Caney and passed the Bernard and then the Brazos, and though ten or twelve miles away, distinctly heard the thunder of the guns at San Jacinto. Though worn with fatigue, they hurried in the direction of the firing and arrived on the field early next morning. Some of them, including the twin brothers, Charles A. and John J. Ogsbury, marched the next day, under Captain Daniel L. Kokernot (acting under special orders from General Houston), to expel from the east side of the San Jacinto and the Trinity, a nest of tories, a list of whose names were found among the papers taken from the Mexicans, proving that they had been in treasonable com- munication with the enemy, against their own countrymen.
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Kokernot and his followers drove the last one of the gang out of the country or into the jungles of the river bottom.
The gallant soldier, Kokernot, nearly fifty years later, in writing of this march against the tories, declines to mention a single name, because a number of them had worthy descendants in the country. Among that gallant band, so early and promptly coming from New York to the aid of Texas, were Edwin Morehouse, the commander, Wm. H. Loring, afterwards a colonel in the United States army, a major-general in the Confederate army and later a general in the army of Egypt; Louis P. Cooke, afterwards secretary of the Texas Navy ; Charles de Morse, for forty-five years an editor in Clarksville and a colonel in the Confederate army ; James C. Allen, afterwards judge of Refugio County ; Richard Owings, long a worthy citizen of Victoria; John H. Woods, still an honored citizen of St. Marys, Texas ; John J. Ogsbury, a boy of seventeen, who died in the autumn of 1836 ; Charles A. Ogsbury, his twin brother (died in 1891 in Cuero), who distinguished himself not only as a soldier in 1836-37 in the Texian army, but subsequently as a participant in military operations against the Cherokees (in 1839 and 1840), and as a soldier in the Confederate army, and as newspaper editor for about twenty-five years, showing himself always a worthy descendant of the old Knickerbockers of Communipaw ; Algernon P. Thompson, long a prominent lawyer of Houston and founder of The People, one of the first newspapers in the Republic ; James H. Perry ( a West Pointer ), volunteer aide to General Houston, he did not remain long in Texas, and afterwards was long pastor of a church in New York; - Stanley, a brilliant and dashing young man; - Foote, and - Steele, Louis P. Cooke, Wm. H. Loring, then seven- teen, James H. Perry. Foote and Steele were students at West Point and left the institution to join the Texian army.
It will be seen that had the battle occurred a week later the effective force of Gen. Houston would have been about
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doubled, making a total of about 1,584 men, and in another week, fully 2,000. But these facts were unknown to the Texian general, they were among his hopes deferred - and that he was right in hazarding the fate of Texas when he did is proven by results. A similar victory over Ramirez y Sesma, when many wanted to fight on the Colorado, would have pro- duced no such results ; but would have left Santa Anna in possession of the western half of Texas with fully 6,000 men - far more vigorous than when Houston attacked him on the San Jacinto. Santa Anna at the latter place had only 1,600 or 1,700 men and one piece of artillery. Had General Houston had the power, as all his correspondence shows he had the desire, he could not have chosen a more favorable moment to strike the enemy a decisive and crushing blow than he did find and strike at San Jacinto. He stands vindicated before posterity as the master spirit in that clash of arms that gave liberty to Texas. He was sustained by Rusk, Adjutant-General ; John A. Wharton, Hockley, the regimen- tal commanders, Burleson and Sherman, Lamar, and such commanders as Millard, Bennett, Somervell, Karnes, Allen, Baker, Billingsly, Neill, Logan, Ware, Heard, Collinsworth, Horton, Gillaspie, Moreland, Murphree, Romans, Hill, Wm. S. Fisher, Roman, McIntire, Calder, Wood, Arnold, Ben Bryan, Kimbrough, Briscoe and Turner, who went into action to conquer or die.
The personnel of Houston's army challenges comparison as to talent, courage and morale, with that of any body of men who ever went into action either in ancient or modern times.
Here perhaps is an appropriate place to refer to certain subsequent events that gave pain to every honorable citizen of Texas. ' I refer to personal animosities engendered between Gen. Houston on one side and President Burnet, Col. Sher- man, Col. Lamar, and others on the other side. Twenty years later bitter things were written on both sides, criminations and recriminations. General Houston, in a farewell speech
4
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in the senate of the United States, on the 28th February, 1859, indulged in an unjust philippic against the gentlemen named. This was deeply lamented by his most devoted friends as well as the whole people. That those gentlemen fully vindicated themselves will be admitted by all familiar with the facts. Unfortunately, however, the controversy was bitter and acrimonious. It grew out of the campaign ending in the battle of San Jacinto.1
1 After some hesitation, I feel impelled to make the following statement. While temporarily residing in Mexico I came to Galveston on the schooner San Carlos, about the last day of March, 1869, and was given a supper by quite a number of old friends. The next day Mr. Willard Richardson, editor of the Galveston News, told me that the venerable ex-Presi- dent Burnet, residing in the family of Mrs. Perry, was anxious to see me, and offered to take me in his buggy. Touched very deeply by remem- brance of the kindness of President and Mrs. Burnet when I was a youthful printer in Austin in 1839 and 1840, I accompanied Mr. Richardson and Col. William T. Austin, who joined us with a pleasure that is yet a sweet remembrance. Meeting the venerable patriot and Christian citizen he said: " God bless you, my son; I have long wanted to meet you once more. I am alone, all are gone -wife and children. You and Moses Austin Bryan, each by a different title, are very dear to me." He then presented me his original commission as a Second Lieutenant of the Liberating Army of South America, signed by the patriot General Miranda, and dated January 1st, 1806, saying: "I have saved it for you, my son, because you love Texas and have always labored to exalt the character of her people in moral and political virtue."
After a long and somewhat diversified conversation, in which three men, the youngest (myself) being forty-nine and the senior eighty-one, joined, with moistened eyes, I ventured to say : " President Burnet, I sorrow upon one point : It grieves my soul to think that some of the fathers of Texas were arrayed in personal antagonism. Most of them are dead; but you live and are a Christian man. Referring more particularly to General Houston, who has been in his grave nearly six years, may I ask if you harbor any bitterness towards him?" The old patriot promptly responded, as nearly as I can repeat his language, in these words: "I am glad you put the question and doubly glad to say to you, as I have often said to Mr. Richardson, that there dwells in my heart not one particle of bitterness towards General Houston. On the contrary, I believe he died a Christian, and Mrs. Houston is reported to be an admirable Christian lady and mother.
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All of these patriots are entitled to the grateful remem- brance of posterity, and, without indulging in the task of res- urrecting their unfortunate personal antipathies, I dismiss the subject for the more congenial duty of recording, in ap- propriate places, their civic and military virtues. At least one biographer of General Houston, in this and kindred cases, and one historian in another, has resurrected and republished documents or letters written under misapprehension of facts and calculated to leave unjust stains on innocent men, which the former evidently afterward regretted. Such matter should have no place in permanent history.
Bereft of my own children, I rejoice that she is blessed with several and all of good promise - one little girl I am told is a genius. The General's oldest son was wounded and captured during the war. Mine was killed at Mobile. It would have been a great pleasure to me if the boys had known each other and fought side by side."
David G. Burnet was born in Newark, New Jersey, April 4th, 1788, and died in Galveston, December 5th, 1870, aged eighty-two years and eight months, the last of his family. His wife and three children were buried on his farm near Lynchburg and the battle ground of San Jacinto. His last child, Major Wm. Este Burnet, of the Confederate army, was killed in the battle of Spanish Fort, near Mobile, on the 31st of March, 1865-only ten days before the surrender of Lee; on which the stricken father wrote in the old family bible : " A victim to an unhappy war, and I only am left poor and desolate. Oh! My God! thy will be done and give me grace to submit cheerfully to it." The character and history of this tried and true patriot were remarkable. In 1806, when but eighteen, he was a Lieutenant under the patriot General Francisco de Miranda, fighting for the liberation of Venezuela, and again in 1808, greatly loved by his chief, who finally perished in prison in Spain. In 1817-18-19, in search of health, he lived two years with the wild Comanches, on the upper waters of the Colorado and Brazos. In 1826, with his young family, he became a permanent citizen of Texas; in 1833, wrote the memorial to Mexico adopted by the convention of that year ; in 1834 became district judge of the department of Brazos and was the only judge who ever held a court in Texas before the revolution. From March 18th to October 23rd, 1836, he was the first President of the Republic. From December, 1838, to December, 1841, he was Vice-President and, during most of the latter year, acted as President. He was a learned man and, through life, a sincere believer in christianity.
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