Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I, Part 25

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel]
Number of Pages: 922

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Houston and ex-Governor Milledge L. Bonham, in Houston, in 1838, urged Bonham to retire with him ; but he sternly refused, saying : " I will report the result of my mission to Travis or die in the attempt." Mounted on a beautiful eream-colored horse, with a white handkerchief floating from his hat (as previously agreed with Travis), he dashed through the Mexican lines, amid the showers of bullets hurled at him - the gate of the Alamo flew open, and as chivalrous a soul as ever fought and died for liberty entered - entered to leave no more, except in its upward flight to the throne of God. The soul communion between those two sons of Carolina - in that noonday hour may be imagined. Sixty-six hours later they and their doomed com- panions, in all 183, slept with their fathers.

Bonham had neither wife nor child. He was but twenty-nine years and fourteen days old when he fell. His entrance into the Alamo under a leaden shower hurled from an implacable enemy was hailed by the besieged heroes with such shouts as eaused even the enemy to marvel. It was a per- sonal heroism unsurpassed in the world's history. In its inspiration and fidelity to a holy trust it was sublime.

Sueh was James Butler Bonham. Shall any man, after the immortal Travis, be more prominently sculptured on the Alamo monument than he? Let all who love truth and justice in history answer. The spirit of truth and justice appeals to those who would commemorate the deeds of the Alamo, that the names to be most signalized should be arranged with that of Travis in the foreground, then Bon- ham, Bowie, who heroically died sick in bed, Albert Martin, leader of the thirty-two from Gonzales, after which should follow those of Crockett, Green B. Jameson, Dickenson, Geo. W. Cottle, Andrew Kent, and the others down to the last one of the one hundred and eighty-three.

South Carolina went into mourning over Travis and Bonham, sons in whom she felt a sublime pride. I have before me the proceedings of several public meetings held in that State when the truth, in all its chivalrous glory, spread over her borders. Carolina wept for her sons "because they were not." She baptized them with tears of sorrow, not unmingled with the consolatory resignation of a mother who bewails the loss of her sons but rejoices that they fell in a eause just and righteous -- gloriously fell that their country might be free. Among many sentiments uttered at these meetings in South Carolina, I extraet the following :-

1. " The memory of Cols. Travis and Bonham : There is cause for joy and not of mourning. The District of Edgefield proudly points to her two gal-

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fant sons who fell in a struggle against a monster tyrant, eoutending for those sacred principles which are dear to every American bosom."

2. " The memory of Cols. Travis and Bonham : Martyrs in the cause of Texian liberty. We are proud to say' that this spot of earth gave them birth; and that here they imbibed those principles in the maintenance of which they so gloriously fell."

3. By James Dorn: " James Butler Bonham, who perished in the Alamo - a noble son of Caro-

lina. May her sons ever contend for that soil on which he so nobly fought and died."

Throughout the State similar meetings were held, and hundreds of Carolina volunteers hastened to Texas, to save the land for which Travis, Bonham, Bowie, Martin, Crockett and their com- rades died. Bowie, by name, shared in the eulogies pronounced, as did also Crockett. Each name is dear to Texas; but no name in the splendor of manhood and chivalrous bearing can ever eclipse that of James Butler Bonham.

Benjamin R. Milam.

The career of this chivalrous martyr to Texian liberty possesses romantic interest from its incep- tion to its close.

Born in Kentucky about 1700, of good stock and reared in that school of republican simplicity and unbending integrity so characteristic of a large ele- ment of the people of that (then) district in old Virginia, he entered upon man's estate, fortified by sound principles of right and never departed from them. He inherited the love of enterprise and . adventure, and among such a people, in passing from childhood to manhood, this inheritance grew into a passion.

In carly manhood he was a daring soldier in the " war of 1812," and won both the admiration and affection of his comrades. In 1815 he and John Samnel, of Frankfort, Kentucky, took a large ship- ment of flour to New Orleans, but finding a dull market, he and two others chartered a schooner and sailed with the flour for Maricaiho.

On the voyage the yellow fever appeared in its most malignant form, carrying off the captain and nearly all the crew. A terrific storm disabled the vessel. The adventure proved a total loss. The survivors were finally conveyed to St. Johns, N. B., and thence to New York. Milam ultimately reached his Kentucky home.

We next find him, with a few followers, in 1818, on the head waters of the Colorado, trading with the wild Comanches. It was there that he first met David G. Burnet, afterwards the first Presi- dent of Texas, then among those wild men of the plains, as has been elsewhere shown, successfully striving to overcome the threatened inroads of pulmonary consumption. They slept on the same

blanket among savages, few of whom had ever seen an American. The closest ties of friendship speed- idly united them in the warmest esteem, never to be severed, except in death. It was a beautiful affection between two noble men, whose souls, dedicated to liberty and virtue, were incapable of treachery or dishonor. They separated to meet again as citizens of Texas.

Returning to New Orleans in 1819, Milam sailed for Galveston Island and there joined Long's ex- pedition for Mexico, in aid of the patriots of that country. Milam, however, sailed down the Mexi- can coast with General Felix Trespalacios, and a small party, effecting a landing and union with native patriot forces, while Long marched npon La Bahia ( now Goliad), Texas, and took the place, but. in a few days surrendered himself and fifty-one fol- lowers to a Spanish royalist force. They were marched as prisoners to Monterey, whence Long was conveyed to the city of Mexico. When he reached there the revolution, by the apostasy of Iturbide from the royalist cause, had triumphed. Long was then hailed as a friend. Trespalacios, Milam, Col. Christy and John Austin (the two latter having sailed with them from Galveston), arrived in the capital about the same time. Every- thing, to them, wore a roseate hue and they were the recipients of every courtesy. It was soon de- termined by the new government to send Tres- palacios as Governor of the distant province of Texas. That personage, however, became jealous of the influence of Long and basely procured his assassination. This enraged Milam, Christy and Austin, who had fought for Mexican liberty in sev- eral battles. They left the capital in advance of

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Trespalacios, rejoined their companions at Mon- terey, reporting to them the dastardly murder of Long. It was agreed among them to wreak ven- geance on the new Governor on his arrival at Monterey,

Before his arrival, however, two of the party there revealed the plan. Thereupon they were all seized and sent to the eity of Mexico and there thrown into prison, with every prospect of being put to death. At the close of 1822, on the arrival in that city of Jocl R. Poinsett, of South Carolina, as a commissioner of observation from the United States, he seenred their liberation and return home.

After the formation of the constitutional govern- ment in Mexico in 1825, Milam returned to that country, and was recognized as a valiant soldier. Ile was granted in consideration of his services, a large body of land, which, unfortunately, he located on that portion of Red river which proved to be in Arkansas, and hence a total loss to bim. Before that discovery, however, he established a farm and placed eattle on it. He also purchased a steam- boat and was the first person to pass such a vessel through and above the raft on Red river. He be- came also interested with Gen. Arthur Wavell, an Englishman, in a proposed colony farther up that stream; but from various causes the enter- prise was not carried forward. Milam was almost idolized by the few people scattered on both sides of that stream. Of those most dearly attached to him were that sturdy old patriot, Collin McKinney, his wife and children, some of whom were then grown.

About 1826 Milam secured in his own right & grant to found a colony between the Colorado and Guadalupe rivers, bounded on the south by the old San Antonio and Nacogdoches road, and extending up each river a distance of forty-five miles. This territory now includes all of Hays and Blanco counties, the east part of Comal, the upper part of Caldwell, the northwest quarter of Bastrop and the west half of Travis. He appointed Maj. James Kerr, the Surveyor-general of De- Witt's Colony, as his agent and attorney, in fact to manage the affairs of his proposed colony. The original power of attorney, drawn and witnessed by David G. Burnet, dated in January, 1827, in old San Felipe, and signed " Ben R. Milam," is a souvenir now in my possession. But before mat- ters progressed very far Milam sold his franchise to Baring Brothers, London. They totally failed to carry out the enterprise.

For thrce or four years prior to the opening of 1835, Milam remained on Red river. In that time the people beemme greatly alarmed in that section in regard to their land matters and the

true boundary line between Texas (or Mexico) and the United States. They appcaled to Col. Milam to intercede for them with the State govern- ment of Coahuila and Texas at Monclova. He could not resist. Early in 1835, alone on horse- back, he started through the wilderness with a little dried beef and parched meal, to travel about seven hundred miles, trusting to his rifle for further supplies of food. He made the trip, passing only through San Antonio from Red River to the Rio Grande. He found Governor Augustine Viesca anxious to do all in bis power in behalf of Milam and his constituents; but revolution was in the air. Santa Anna had just given a death blow to the constitutional government on the plain of Zacatecas, and the fiat had gone forth for the overthrow of the State government at Monclova. Time rapidly passed. Governor Viesca, with Milam and Dr. John Cameron, undertook to

escape into Texas. They were seized and impris- oned. One by one they eseaped and reached Texas, Milam being the first to do so. On the night of October 9th, 1835, he passed round Goliad and fell into the road east of the town. Hearing the approach of men on horseback, he seereted himself in brush by the road side. As the party eame opposite him he heard American voiees and ealled :--

" Men! who are you? "

" We are volunteers, marching upon Goliad ; who are you ? "

"I am Ben Milam, eseaping from prison in Mexico! "

" God bless you, Col. Milam! we thought they had killed you. All Texas will shout in joy at your eseapc! Mount one of our horses and help us take Goliad ! "

" Indeed I will, boys, and already feel repaid for all my sufferings ! "

He soon realized that he was in the presence of Capt. George M. Collinsworth and fifty-two volun- teers from the lower Colorado, Lavaca and Navidad.

Noiselessly they approached the unsuspecting fortress, a barricaded stone church, and, at the pre-arranged signal, burst in. In five minutes they were in full possession, with three Mexicans dead and all the others prisoners, while Samuel McCul- loch, fearfully shot in the shoulder, was the only casualty among the assailants ; and on the 21st of April, 1886, fifty-one and a half years later, he was a guest of Col. W. W. Leakc, at the semi- centennial reunion of the Texas veterans in Dallas.

A few days later Col. Milam, as a private, joined the volunteers in their march upon San Antonio, then oeenpied by the Mexican General, Cos, with

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about eleven hundred men, afterwards increased to fifteen hundred. From the 27th of October, to the 4th of December, varying in number from six hun- dred to eleven hundred men, first under Austin and then under Burleson, the volunteers had laid in a mile or so of San Antonio, without any attack upon the town. A brilliant victory was won by Bowie and Fannin, at the Mission of Concepcion at day- light on the 28th of October, before Austin's arrival with the main body; and on the 26th of November, the day after Austin left, the Grass fight occurred, in which a detachment of the enemy were driven into the town with some loss ; but noth- ing decisive had occurred. First uuder Austin and next under Burleson propositions for storming the place had failed. Dissatisfaction arose and men , came and went as they pleased. On the 4th of December, the force had fallen from eleven hun- dred to five or six hundred. On that day the last proposition had failed and great discontent pre- vailed. Milam became aroused and alarmed lest the entire encampment should disband and go home. He moved to and fro as a caged lion, till late in the day he stepped out in plain view of all and in a stentorian voice called out :-

" Who will follow Ben Milam into San Antonio? Let all who will, form a line right here."

In the twinkling of an eye three hundred men were in line. The plan was soon formed. During the night the entrance was made in two divisions, one led by Milam, the other by Francis W. John- son. Under a heavy fire they effected lodgments in rows of stone houses and then for five days tun- nelled from room to room. On the 8th, while crossing a back yard from one house to another, a ball pierced Milam's head and he fell dead. But his spirit survived. He had imparted it to his fol- lowers, who continued to press forward his plans, till on the 9th, after having been driven from the town into the Alamo, Cos raised a white flag. . On the 10th he capitulated, verifying the genius, the courage and ability to command of the grand and

glorious Milam, whose death was bewailed as a personal loss in every hamlet and cabin in Texas.

In person Col. Milam was of commanding form -- tall, muscular and well-proportioned, with a face, a countenance and manner that instantly won re- gard and confidence. None of the heroes of Texas was so universally loved. Ilis intelligence in prac- tical affairs was of the highest order. Unambitious of official place, he was always and everywhere a leader, because of the unbounded confidence men, and women as well, had in his wisdom, his inflexi- ble honesty, his kindness and his courage. I never dwell on his character without emotions of grati- tude to God for giving Texas in her infaney and travail such an example of the highest and noblest illustration of American manhood.

A DEFERRED MEMORIAL.

In the General Council of the Provisional Gov- ernment, December 27th, 1835 (nineteen days after Milam's deathi), the honorable John J. Linn, member from Victoria, the official journal says : " Presented a resolution providing for the erection of a monument to the memory of Benjamin R. Milam, at San Antonio de Bexar, which was adopted ; and his excellency Governor Henry Smith, James Cockran, Jolin Rice Jones, Gail Borden and John H. Money were appointed a central committee to carry into effect the objects of the resolution." (Journals of the Council, page 215, December 27, 1835.)

Mr. Linn died in Victoria on the 25th of Octo- ber, 1885, in his 88th year. Fifty-six years, less two months and two days, had passed since the adoption of his resolution and other years have been added to the past, and still there is no mon- ument to Milam. Some men have become million- aires in the town he won to liberty and a large number have become wealthy. Every man on that committee and every member of that council is dead, and still there is no monument to Milam! Will it for ever be thus? God forbid!

Rezin P. and James Bowie - The Bowie Family.

An erroneous impression has ever prevailed in regard to the Bowie family, in the belief that they sprang from Maryland. Such, until now, was my own impression ; but I am now in possession of per- feetly authentic facts to the contrary. Two of

three Scotch brothers of the name did settle in Maryland and have a numerous posterity. But a third brother, at the same time, settled in South Carolina. Ilis son, Rezin Bowie, born in South Carolina, was wounded and taken prisoner by the

James Powie

REZIN P. BOWIE.

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British. While so held in Savannah, among other American ladies who bestowed kindness upon him, was a lovely and pious young lady named Elve (sometimes written Elvy) Jones, of a large and educated family. In 1782 Rezin Bowie and this girl were married in Georgia and settled there. They became the parents of the Texas Bowies. Their first children, dying in infancy, were twin girls, Lavinia and Lavisia. David, a remarkably pious youth, died at the age of nineteen ; Sarah, who married Mr. Davis and died in Opelousas, La., in her first childbirth; Mary, afterwards Mrs. Abram Bird, and John J., who died a few years ago in Issequana County, Miss. These six were born in Georgia. The parents then removed to Elliott's Springs, Tennessee, where, on the 8th of September, 1793, the distinguished Rezin Pleasants Bowie was born. Two years later, in 1795, James Bowie, martyr of the Alamo, was born at the same place, followed by Stephen, who became a planter on Bayou Bœuf, La., and Martha, who first married James Nugent, who was accidentally killed, and then Alexander B. Sterrett, who, it is claimed, was the first settler at Shreveport, La., where he was sheriff and was killed. He has grandchildren in Shreveport, named Gooch, and a widowed daughter, Mrs. Bettie Hull, whose only surviving child is her widowed daughter, Mrs. Reizette Bowie Donley. Presumably about 1802, Rezin Bowie, Sr., removed from Elliott's Springs, Tenn., to Catahoula parish, Louisiana, thence to Bayou Teche, and finally to the district of Opelousas, where he died in 1819. His widow, nee Elve Jones, of Georgia, a woman noted for charity and deeply religious principles, died at the house of her son-in-law, Alex. P. Ster- rett, in 1837 or 1838, in Shreveport. Having thus sketched the family, we return to the two brothers, whose names are linked with that of Texas.

Rezin P. Bowie, the elder of the two, at the Catholic Church in Natchitoches, La., in 1812, married Frances, daughter of Daniel Neville. They had five children, two of whom died in child- hood ; Martha A., died, aged twenty-one years, in New Orleans, in 1853 ; Matilda E., married Joseph II. Moore, and is a widow in New Orleans, residing with my friend, her estimable son, Mr. John S. Moore. Elve A., married Taylor Moore, and died in Claiborne County, Miss., in 1872. Rezin P. Bowie was three times a member of the legislature of Louisiana, and filled other positions besides his connection with Texas. IIe was an educated and accomplished gentleman and a fine orator. He, too, and not his brother James, was the designer of the famous hunting instrument known as the Bowie knife. He died in New Orleans, January 17, 1841.

Col. James Bowie, on the 22d of April, 1831, in San Antonio de Bexar, Texas, married Maria Ursula, daughter of Don Juan Martin de Vere- mendi, Lieutenant-Governor of Coahuila and Texas. I have before me the " propter nuptias," authenticated by Jose Maria Salinas, the constitu- tional Alcalde, in which he settled upon his beauti- ful and lovely spouse the sum of fifteen thousand dollars, and in which his estate, in Texas and the United States, was shown to be worth $222,800. The instrument is witnessed by Jose Francisco Flores and Ygnacio Arocha. Two children blessed this union, but on a visit to Monclova, in Coahuila, in 1833, they and their young mother, as well as Governor Veremendi, died of cholera. It was to this quadruplicated affliction that Bowie so patheti- cally referred in his wonderful outburst of eloquence before the Council of Texas, at San Felipe, in De- cember, 1832.

These facts are authentie and meet the desires of many to know the true genealogy of the Bowie family.

The character of Col. Bowie has been grossly misunderstood by the great mass of the American people - a misunderstanding as great as that be- tween a ruffian on the one hand and a high-toned, chivalrous gentleman on the other. In no conceiv- able sense was James Bowie a ruffian; but, by titles as indisputable as those under which the people of Texas hold their homesteads, he was a high-toned, chivalrous and great-hearted gentle- man. Hle was one of several sons of moral, upright parents, his mother especially being an exemplar of Christian womanhood in her cvery-day life, and never, in all the vicissitudes of life, did the heart of son more tenderly revere mother than did that of James Bowie, who died in the Alamo, as he had ever lived, a champion of liberty and free govern- ment.

The Bowic family has long been conspicuous in Maryland, in politics and jurisprudence, occupying the highest social status.

Many statements in regard to James Bowie which gained more or less currency through the press were purely imaginary. He was not, as so persistently repeated, the fabricator of the famed Bowie knife. Rezin P. Bowie, in a written state- ment after his brother's death, asserted positively that he, and not James, whittled the model of that knife, from which pattern a blacksmith made the knives for hunting purpose. In common with the general public I had entertained the contrary opinion and had so written of the matter until a few years since, when I met this statement.

Prior to locating in Texas, the two brothers were

٠ ٨

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planters and traders. James first entered Texas with the view of locating, in 1824 - became a citizen in 1826 -- but did not wholly give up his home in Louisiana till 1823. He was fond of hunting and camp life, and became deeply interested in explora- tions for the discovery of gold and silver mines, devoting much time at intervals for several years to that search.

The celebrated fight on a sand bar near Nateliez, in 1828, was the product of a feud in which oppos- ing factions agreed upon that mode of adjusting their difficulties. To that extent it was a duel in which a number were engaged on either side. Bowie fell from a wound and was unable to rise. Ilis antagonist closed upon him, and, though pros- trate, Bowie, by the use of his knife, killed hiui. After a time he recovered and suffered no perma- nent disability. In the article before referred to Rezin P. Bowie asserts that this was the only duel in which he or his brother were ever engaged. On the contrary, on many occasions, Bowie interposed to prevent difficulties and to reconcile excited men for whom he entertained kindly regard. He was, to this extent, a peace-maker.

Bowie's noted fight with the Indians, on the 2d of November, 1831, from an account furnished by Rezin P. Bowie, to a Philadelphia paper in 1832, has been described in almost every book on Texas. The account appears in this volume.

Bowie arrived in Nacogdoches after the battle of August 2d, 1832, between the Americans and the Mexican garrison under Col. Jose de la Piedras. The latter retreated during the night on the road to the west. He was pursued and surrendered at the Angelina on the 4th. Bowie escorted the prisoners to San Antonio.

Bowic, in 1882, commanded a small company into the Indian country to retaliate for their attack upon him. But the red men received information of his movement and fed as from a pestilence, declaring him to be a " fighting devil." In a toar of several hundred miles he never saw an Indian.

Bowie joined the volunteer citizen soldicry at Gonzales in October, 1835, and with Fannin com- manded an advance of ninety-two men, who, at the Mission of Concepcion, two miles below San Antonio, at daylight, on the 28th of October, were attacked by four hundred Mexicans, with two cannon. They occupied a fine position on the bank of the river, and after a short contest repulsed the enemy with heavy loss, on their part losing but one man, Richard Andrews.

On the ?6th of November Bowie commanded in the Grass Fight, on the west side of San Antonio and drove the enemy into the town.

During the winter, pending the provisional gov- ernment, he desired a commission under which he could raise and command a regiment. Gen. Hous- ton estimated him as an able and safe commander and desired him in the field - indeed, assigued bim, for the moment, to an important position. Bowie repaired to the seat of government and applied to the legislative council for the authority desired. That body was torn by faction and delayed action. Bowie became impatient. Tired of waiting, he suddenly appeared at the bar of the council and essayed to speak. "Order! Order ! " rang through the hall, while Bowie stood erect, hat in hand, the personification of splendid manhood and fierce determination. The air was full of revolution - Bowie the idol of a majority of the people. A crisis was at hand. The presiding officer quickly spoke, suggesting that Col. Bowie - so long tried, distinguished and courageous - be heard. The council, grasping the situation, invited him to speak.

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Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I, Part 25

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895 Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel] Number of Pages: 922

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel]
Number of Pages: 922