USA > Texas > History of Texas : from 1685 to 1892, volume 2 > Part 6
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Filisola replied to Santa Anna that he would cross the Colorado, and do no hostile act, unless compelled so to do in necessary self-defense, and that he would respect the rights of property as provided in the armistice. But to avoid all danger of a misunderstanding, he sent General Adrian Woll, under a flag of truce, to get a fuller explanation of the intent and meaning of the armistice. General Woll arrived and was courteously received; but his imprudence excited the ire of the soldiery, and, though provided with the necessary safe conduct, signed by President Burnet, he was stopped and
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taken back to camp, by some of the scouts, after the govern- ment had left for Galveston. After an insignificant delay, he was sent on to Velasco, where the president furnished an escort to conduct him to the retreating Mexican army.1 Filisola, however, did not halt on the west side of the Colorado, but continued his retreat to Victoria and Goliad, over muddy roads and with scant provisions. His troops were greatly demoralized and retreated in a disorderly manner. Capt. Juan N. Seguin, who had, as an officer in the Texian army, commanded a detachment of Mexicans in the battle of San Jacinto, did good service in watching and reporting the retro- grade movements of Filisola.
Col. Burleson was dispatched with an advance column to follow and watch the movements of Filisola, but with in- structions not to molest him, unless he committed some overt act. Capt. Karnes, as commander of scouts, served under Burleson.
Gen. Rusk, with the army, reached Goliad, the extreme post on the frontier - beyond which, to the Rio Grande, there lay an unbroken and uninhabited wilderness, and went into camp.
Captains Ben Fort Smith and Henry Teal, as commissioners appointed for that purpose by President Burnet, were ordered
1 Adrian Woll, of French descent, was born on the frontier of France and Switzerland, and educated for the military profession. He arrived in Baltimore in 1816, with letters to General Winfield Scott, commending him as a young man of promise. In that city he joined the expedition of the patriotic but unfortunate Spanish General, Francisco Xavier Mina, and en- tered Mexico, at Soto la Marina, with him. While his chief perished, he survived the revolution and was retained in the Mexican army, to become a general of some distinction, adhering from first to last, to the fortunes of Santa Anna. He commanded the expedition of fourteen hundred men, who captured San Antonio, took as prisoners the district court of San Antonio and citizens to the number of fifty persons, on the 11th of September, 1842, but was defeated in a pitched battle on the Salado, on the 18th, and hastily retreated. On Santa Anna's downfall in 1855, he returned to his native place and died there. I received his early history from his own lips, in 1855.
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to overtake Filisola and present to him for ratification the treaty of the 14th of May, between Santa Anna and the Texian government. They were also empowered by General Rusk, as Texian commander, to ratify the treaty, in a military point of view, in conjunction with Filisola as commander of the Mexican army. They overtook Filisola on the 25th of May on a creek between Goliad and San Patricio, and he appointed Generals Tolsa and Amat, who signed the ratification with them. The treaty was also ratified and signed by Filisola and Rusk. Thereupon Filisola, unmolested, continued his retreat to Matamoros, having previously sent forward Urrea, with nine hundred men, to prevent the commencement at that place of an apprehended revolution, adverse to Santa Anna.
With the treaty, through Captains Smith and Teal, Santa Anna sent the following letter to Filisola :
"EXCELLENT SIR: Annexed I send to your Excellency the articles of the agreement, entered into by me, with his Excellency, David G. Burnet, President of the Republic of Texas, for your information and fulfillment of the same to its full extent, in order that no complaints may arise tending to cause a useless rupture. I expect to receive, without delay, your Excellency's answer by this same opportunity. Accept in the meantime my consideration and regard. God and Liberty.
" ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA."
To this letter Filisola replied on the 25th, as follows :
" EXCELLENT SIR: When on the point of taking up my march with the army which I have the honor to command, I received your Excellency's communication announcing the agreements made by your Excellency with the commander of the Texian forces. Previous to the reception of those agreements I was disposed to obey your prior orders, com-
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municated to me officially. In fulfillment of them I was already on my march, and continued therein on this very day ; nor shall there be any other delay than what may be absolutely necessary for transporting the sick, trains, stores and munitions of war, as is provided for in the treaty. Inasmuch as the said treaty is duly drawn up, agreed to, and ratified by your Excellency in the character of President of the Republic, and commander-in-chief of the army of opera- tions, I cannot fail to obey it in all its parts, and have acted in conformity since the commencement, for I have scrupu- lously performed that part respecting property [appropriat- ing everything movable that came in his way, prisoners he had none, ] and payment for what has been furnished to the army for its subsistence. Agreeably to the treaty aforesaid, I will also enter into arrangements with the com- mander of the Texian forces for a mutual fulfillment of its stipulations and adjustment of claims that may arise. God and Liberty.
"VICENTE FILISOLA."
About this time Filisola received instructions from the acting government in Mexico to negotiate for the release of Santa Anna; to secure Bexar and the western ports ; and to save the remainder of the army by concentrating it at a place convenient for receiving provisions, and to retreat no farther, as he would soon be re-inforced by four thousand troops, to be sent by sea from Vera Cruz. Filisola had more wisdom than the government, a thousand miles distant. He continued his retreat, losing many men from starvation and thirst, and was glad, with the utterly demoralized remnant of his army, to recross the Rio Grande. The promised four thousand Mexican soldiers were never sent from Vera Cruz.1
1 To add to the calamities of the times there were enacted many bloody scenes disconnected with the Mexican invasion. Pending the siege of the Alamo, the moving family of John Hibbins, at a point in Lavaca County,
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BURIAL OF THE DEAD OF FANNIN'S MEN.
On the morning of June 3d, the army was paraded within the fort. A procession was formed with Col. Sidney Sherman in command ; minute guns were fired and they marched to the
near the present town of Shiner, was attacked by Indians. He and George Creath, a brother of his wife, were killed, and Mrs. Hibbins, a little son and her infant child, were carried into captivity - the infant to be killed - she to escape at a point near where the city of Austin now stands and the son to be recovered a few days later, after a gallant fight, by a party of rangers under Captain John J. Tumlinson.
Within a few hours of this attack on the Hibbins family, Douglass, Dougherty, and their families were attacked by Indians at a point about twelve miles south of the place where the Hibbins family were assailed. Only two young sons of Douglass escaped the butchery that followed. On the 19th of May, a cluster of cabins known as Parker's Fort, two or three miles north of the present town of Groesbeck, in Limestone County, was surrounded by a large body of Indians. John Parker, senior, a Baptist preacher, his married son, Silas, and his single son, Benjamin F., and Samuel M. Frost and his son Robert were killed. Mrs. Rachel Plummer, daughter of James W. Parker, and her child; and Cynthia Ann and John Parker, children of Silas Parker, and Mrs. Elizabeth Kellogg were carried into captivity. Mrs. Plummer was ransomed about twenty months afterward, and her son at a later day. Cynthia Ann Parker remained among the Indians until the 18th of December, 1860 (24 years and 7 months), when she was rescued by L. S. Ross, then captain of a company of rangers and in after years Governor of Texas. Mrs. Kellogg was recovered a few months after her capture. John Parker was never ransomed nor retaken, but many years later took up his abode in Mexico, where he continued to live among the Indians. The elder Mrs. Parker and Mrs. Duty were terribly wounded and they with others, numbering in one party of eight (4 men, 2 women and 2 children), and in another twenty-one persons (2 men and 19 women and children), escaped and, after great suffering during six days, reached the settlement of Fort Houston, now Palestine. A few weeks later, in June, the inhabitants of a settlement at the three forks of Little River, in Bell County, just returned from their retreat east from the Mexicans, were com- pelled to seek safety from the Indians by removing to Nashville on the Brazos. There were eleven men and boys able to bear arms, and Mrs. Goldsby Childers and three daughters. On the way they were attacked by about a hundred Indians. The Rev. Mr. Crouch and Robert Davidson, whose families were still at Nashville, were killed. The others made a heroic defense and escaped. From these incidents and the account pre-
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solemn strains of martial music to the grave, where the remains, charred beyond recognition, were deposited. Gen. Rusk, in a brief address, recalled " the heroism of the brave band who had so nobly thrown themselves a barrier between the people of Texas and the legions of Santa Anna."
As he dwelt for a moment upon the price of the holocaust, the effect was electrical. Standing around the grave the men, - among whom were five who, having escaped the mas- sacre, were chief mourners, with quivering lips and trembling with excitement, were ready under the slogan, " Remember Goliad," for a repetition of San Jacinto.
The next day, General Andrade, marching from San Antonio to join Filisola at San Patricio, stopped before reach- ing Goliad and asked permission of Gen. Rusk for his army to pass along the Goliad road. Gen. Rusk replied that, should any portion of the Mexican army come within sight of his men, he could not be responsible for the conse- quences. Andrade cut a road seven miles through the Chap- parral to intersect the road to San Patricio and made a new crossing of the San Antonio River for his artillery and baggage.1
A few days later Filisola, having passed westward into the wilderness, the Texian army fell back to Victoria. On the 30th of May President Burnet commissioned and dispatched James Collinsworth and Peter W. Grayson to the government of the United States to seek the recognition of Texas as an in- dependent republic and also to broach the question of annex- ation. Wm. H. Wharton, Stephen F. Austin, and Branch T.
viously given of the slaughter on the 2d of April, on the Nueces, of eleven of Beales' colonists and the capture of two women and three children, it will be seen how the pioneers, at five different places, covering a frontier line of three hundred and fifty miles, were scourged by savages, as the remorseless Santa Anna waged a war of extermination against the people of Texas.
1 Before leaving San Antonio, Andrade dismantled the Alamo, in viola- tion of the military agreement.
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Archer, appointed by the consultation in the previous Novem- ber, had gone as commissioners to the United States to seek aid and volunteers from the people, but in the nature of things were not accredited in any diplomatic sense, to the government of that country. These three gentlemen accomplished great good for the cause of Texas in procuring money and hasten- ing forward volunteers, munitions and provisions. They also did immense service in presenting to the people of the United States the true grounds upon which Texas took up arms, and thereby drew to the Texian cause the sympathy of people in every section of the Union. Hence volunteers came from all sections - from Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire to.the extreme west; from central States and all parts of the south. With independence declared in March and won in April, it was necessary for these gentlemen to be superseded by repre- sentatives from the Republic accredited directly to the gov- ernment of the United States. President Burnet promptly realized this changed condition and, at the earliest practicable moment, sent forward Messrs. Collinsworth and Grayson, men of eminent ability. Unfortunately they reached Wash- ington after the adjournment of Congress, and this involved delay until the succeeding session.
Messrs. Austin, Wharton and Archer reached home late in June. Austin arrived at Velasco on the 27th of that month, and at once rendered important service, as we shall see later, in regard to the apprehended hostilities by the Cherokee Indians.
CHAPTER VI.
Santa Anna Embarked for Vera Cruz, but Disembarked by a Military Mob - Gen. Houston in New Orleans - An Outrageous Letter from Malcontents in the Army to President Burnet, and his stunning reply - Santa Anna's protest and President Burnet's reply.
We come now to a review of the scenes over which, if duty permitted, I would throw the veil of oblivion. On the first day of June, Santa Anna and his suite were embarked on the war schooner Invincible, Capt. Jeremiah Brown, to be sent to Vera Cruz, in order that he might fulfill the stipulations of the treaty entered into with him. Bailey Hardeman and Vice-President Zavala were to accompany him to Vera Cruz. From several causes, however, the Invincible was delayed until the 3rd. Just before embarking on the first Santa Anna, when he had no reason to apprehend detention and considered himself virtually set free, under the sanction of the treaty, wrote the following farewell to the Texian army and had several copies distributed :
" VELASCO, June 1, 1836.
" My Friends :
I have been a witness of your courage on the field of battle, and know you to be generous. Rely with confidence on my sincerity, and you shall never have cause to regret the kind- ness shown me. In returning to my native land I beg you to receive the thanks of your grateful friend,
" ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA."
On the 3d the steamer Ocean arrived from New Orleans with about two hundred and fifty volunteers, nominally, at least, under command of Thomas J. Green.
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J. Pinkney Henderson and Memucan Hunt were passen- gers on the vessel. It was the first arrival of Messrs. Hen- derson and Hunt in Texas. There was considerable opposition among the citizens to the release of Santa Anna, and these newly arrived volunteers, utter strangers in the country and utterly ignorant of the condition of affairs, demanded his detention.
President Burnet, for the time being, was unable to offer effectual resistance and, therefore, sent Messrs. Henderson, Hunt, Hardeman, and Ben Fort Smith to explain matters to Santa Anna and bring him ashore, which was done. He was landed at Quintana and placed under a guard com- manded by a man whom Green assured the president was trustworthy and a gentleman, but who proved to be other- wise.1
1 Green, in his defense, in regard to this matter, published years later, says : " Landing at Quintana, on the western bank, we met President Bur- net and surrendered the prisoner to him. He turned to me and said, 'I deliver the prisoner over to your charge and shall hold you responsible for his safe keeping.'"'
This is contrary to the statement of President Burnet, as the two fol- lowing letters show. The first was published in the New Orleans Bulletin and copied into El Correo Atlantico, a Spanish paper in that city :
" VELASCO, June 4, 1836.
" We arrived at Galveston, May 30th, and on the 2d of June were ordered to repair to this place, where we arrived on the same evening on board the Ocean. We found the place in great confusion in consequence of the cabinet having sent Santa Anna on board of a vessel to send him home, for the purpose of having a treaty ratified which was made by them. The people were opposed to his going, but had not an individual commissioned to be their leader. On the morning of the 3d instant I came forward as their leader, and formed my company, equipped for service, and sent to the cabinet to have Santa Anna and his suite brought on shore. There was at first some objection, but they at last complied, and I now have him and suite in my charge. He was delivered over to me to-night, and I am at this time on duty with a strong guard under my command. Gen. Cos and four or five hundred Mexicans are still on Galveston Island as prisoners.
" H. A. HUBBELL."
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When Gen. Houston sailed for New Orleans, on the 11th of May, he left an address to the troops then on Galves- ton Island and those who might subsequently arrive, in which he said that obedience to the constituted authorities and laws of the country, was the first duty of a soldier, and that it would adorn the soldiers' martial virtues, and qualify him for the highest rights.of citizenship.1
On the day that Santa Anna was taken from the vessel (when President Burnet, his family and cabinet were desti- tute of every comfort, and living in mere huts, ) President Burnet received an extraordinary communication from the army, then at Victoria, prompted by a mass meeting in the camp. The complainants said that they were citizen sol- diers - the bone and sinew of the country, and that they claimed the privilege, as freemen, to speak freely and plainly and would do so in a tone devoid of passion. They said that they had battled cheerfully for their coun- try and had defeated and taken prisoner the author of all the
On the arrival of the paper containing this letter in Velasco, the President addressed this note to Brigadier-General Thomas J. Green :
" EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, VELASCO, July 1, 1836.
"SIR : I enclose you a copy of a letter found in El Correo Atlantico, and published originally in the New Orleans Bulletin. This redoubtable 'leader' is, I presume, the same you introduced to me as a confidential officer, to whom the custody of the prisoner might be committed with per- fect safety. If he had been known as the author of the letter enclosed (in which it is difficult to determine whether impudence or falsehood predom- inates), he certainly would never have borne a commission in the service of Texas, with the approbation of the government. You will please signify this to Capt. Hubbell, whose speedy resignation would be very cheerfully accepted, and would save me the trouble of a more peremptory suggestion. " Your obedient servant,
"DAVID G. BURNET."
1 From New Orleans, June the 4th, he wrote to Col. Lamar: "My wound has improved. Some twenty or more pieces of bone have been taken out of it. My general health seems to improve slowly. It is only within the last four or five days that I have been able to sit up any portion of the day."
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disasters under which the country had groaned. The neglect of the government even to express congratulations and its action in leaving them still in camp, without even sufficient beef and with no provisions made for their relief, had exasper- ated them beyond endurance: "Especially," they declared, " when on Galveston Island, there was an abundance of pro- visions and three steamboats which could have brought them to us in thirty-six hours." They said that they had advanced to the Brazos where supplies had been promised them, and next to Cox's Point, but were in each instance disappointed in their just expectations. The following is an extract from the communication : " We are now here and have lately suffered for the want of beef itself. Under these circumstances, we have still to continue the march with no other prospect than that of great suffering before us. And to whom are we to charge these injuries? Surely to you, as the President of the Republic." They added that it was their belief that Mex- ico would renew the war, and that the government (which they charged with apathy ) should immediately proceed to draft men and enlist regulars so as to be in a state of readiness to meet the foe. " Of the proposed release of Santa Anna," they said, " we heard with indignation that the proposition has been seriously debated by you and your cabinet as to the policy of turning him loose, and that some of you propose his liberation. That we should suspect the purity of the motive, which suggested such a policy, you must not doubt. It is well known by whom he was captured and at what risk, and we will not permit him to be liberated until a constitutional congress and president shall determine that it is expedient, and should he be liberated without the sanction of Congress, the army of citizen-soldiers will again resume the privilege of putting down the enemies of Texas; for we do not believe in treating with a prisoner. We abhor the idea of interfering with the management of the government .. We consider the principle dangerous, and that it ought only to be resorted to
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in extreme cases; and in order to avoid all difficulty and prevent the occurrence of a dangerous example, we request you will order elections for members of Congress; and the necessary officers of government forthwith, and that Congress be called together at least in two months, in order that the government may be organized and that we may have one of laws and not force. In conclusion, we repeat to you that Santa Anna must be safely secured, and placed at the disposition of the coming Congress. With the earnest de- sire that your views may coincide with our own, and that peace and prosperity may shortly pervade the country, we have the honor to be," etc.
On the next day, June 4th, the President replied to this strange and unfounded indictment against him and his cabinet. He expressed profound regret that the victors in the glorious battle of San Jacinto, should conceive that great injury had been done them by him and his administration, but comforted him- self with the belief that, " as the brave were ever generous," they would see their mistake when the plain facts were pre- sented to them.
He reminded them of a fact which he said was " painfully impressed " upon his memory (i. e. the distraction of the country following the fall of the Alamo), and said that when his administration came into office, the country was destitute of everything necessary to sustain an army.
They had charged, he said, that while they were suffering for the necessities of life in camp, those who fled before the enemy were " rioting in the abundance of the public stores," and replied that before the government was informed of the victory achieved at San Jacinto (which was not until the 26th ), a steamboat had left Galveston with supplies for the army, but some accident to her boiler had compelled her com- mander to anchor at Redfish bar and that another was sent as soon as practicable, and reached the army at Buffalo bayou. After that the steamboat Laura, he said, was chartered, and
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loaded with supplies to meet them at Fort Bend, but during a high wind that prevailed for several days, her boiler sprang a leak, and the government was informed of it after they supposed the soldiers were enjoying the cargo, and the government then hastened to load the schooner Express, and at the time of writing, the schooner Columbus, with Commissary Forbes on board, was preparing to leave with supplies to be landed at Copano. He called attention to his efforts to improve fiscal affairs so that better provision could be made for the support of the government and said that even the women and children on the island had been provided only with the necessaries of life, and there certainly had been no " rioting in the public stores."
As to the disposition to be made of Santa Anna, he re- minded them that that officer had surrendered himself a pris- oner of war, and had been received as such by the com- mander-in-chief, and that a treaty had been made, and Santa Anna was duly performing part of his stipulations and the Mexican troops were leaving the country.
President Burnet said that although Santa Anna had been called a murderer, he knew of no principle of international or civil law that would justify the courts, civil or military, of one belligerent nation in taking cognizance of the official military acts of the opposing commander-in-chief, and finally that the Texian government was debarred from exercising jurisdiction, if any existed, by the military convention agreed upon and ratified between General Houston and the Mexican chief, before the government was apprised of his capture.
He said (appealing to their pride ) that should Santa Anna, in violation of his pledges, return with an army to Texas, " there was not a soldier in the Texian ranks that would not as soon confront him as the meanest caitiff of his nation. Who and what was he more than any other Mexican chief?"
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