USA > Texas > The evolution of a state, or, Recollections of old Texas days > Part 11
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Arriving at Victoria, we erected a lot of cowhide sheds, which we dignified by the name of barracks, a mile or so above town. General Rusk then issued an order for all the smiths and wagon-workers to form an armorers' corps and go into town to work. My trade put me in the corps, having for my assistant a stalwart son of the Blue Grass state, Lang by name. General Rusk, had he been inclined to enforce strict military discipline, knew too well the disposition of the men to attempt it, so we were given, or took, the largest liberty possible to any kind of
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regulations. One order, however, it was necessary to enforce, that those dealing in intoxicating liquors should not sell their goods to the men except in the presence of an officer. The boys naturally resented any such infrac- tion on a time honored custom, and laid their heads to- gether to devise some plan to circumvent the general. One day a little Frenchman came up with several goatskins filled with vina mescal, for which he charged the ex- orbitant price of fifty cents a wineglass-five dollars a bot- tle. Half dollars were scarce, but we determined to test the virtues of the Frenchman's wares, officer or no officer.
There was an old sailor in the crowd who had served in the navy, and it was said was one of Lafitte's men: Be that as it may, he was up to all the tricks to outwit officers. He devised a plan whereby we might get the better of the commandant and the grasping Frenchman also. Among the plunder taken at San Jacinto was a cap- tain's uniform. Into this we inducted Lang and com- missioned him captain. He looked every inch of it. After rehearsing his part we staked him with fifty cents, and after dark he sauntered into the Frenchman's shanty. Swaggering around with an air of importance, he called for a glass of liquor, for which he threw down the half dollar. Directly the boys began to drop in, each one saluting "Captain" Lang. When the initiated had all got in, Lang looked around patronizingly.
"Well, boys," said he, "if I had known I was going to meet so many of my company here I'd have put some money in my pocket to treat you."
The Frenchman's face fairly shone with delight.
"Ah, monsieur Captain, zat is no matter; suppose you like for treat ze men, never mind ze money; you pay me to-morrow."
"All right," said Lang. "Step up, boys."
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We obeyed the order with alacrity, emptying our glasses with military precision, first to Captain Lang and then to the smiling vendor of the villainous liquid. By that time the stock was exhausted and we didn't tarry.
"Come around to my quarters to-morrow," said Lang, as we departed.
Returning to camp, we court martialed Lang and broke him of his commission. Bright and early next morning the Frenchman was on hand inquiring for Captain Lang's headquarters. Up and down he went, but, it is needless to state, he never found them.
The complex character of the army rendered the posi- tion of commanding officer an extremely difficult one to fill. The citizen soldiers, having proved the worth and wisdom of their leaders, were disposed to acquiesce in their decisions; but, as other parties, under their own officers and actuated by different motives, came on, there was unavoidably some friction. The citizens had taken up arms in self-defense ; another class had come through syn- pathy with their struggling countrymen ; others, still, from love of adventure. and, as is always the case, there were some who seemed to be actuated by no higher principle than prospective plunder, and in the pursuit of their object were no respecters of persons. These latter, so far as I know, were not engaged in any of the battles, and acknowl- edged no authority, either military or civil. At Victoria they did not even camp with the army: still General Rusk was held responsible for their misdeeds.
They foraged the country round, gathering up horses and mules, ostensibly preying upon the unfriendly Mex- icans; but I knew of their taking a pair of mules from the widow of Martin De Leon, whose family were always friendly to the Texans. Her son complained to General Rusk, who went with him to the captain of the thievish
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band, but that worthy refused to surrender them, and Rusk was not in a position to force their release, inas- much as the men were not regularly enlisted and a con- flict with them was not advisable. They did not tarry long after that, but, gathering up everything of value they could lay their hands on, left for their stronghold.
Our men all liked General Rusk, whose native good sense would not allow any assumption of superiority over the men under his command. The dignity of his position demanding a "staff," lie appointed a couple of young strip- lings, sons of old friends, as aids, with the rank of major One day a bluff old citizen called on the general, and, being well acquainted with him, walked into his tent without any ceremony, ignoring the presence of the youth- ful aids until Rusk formally introduced them as "Major Dexter and Major Hoxie, iny aids."
"Aids, h-1!" said the old fellow, looking the boys over contemptuously; "when I was their size I went in my shirt tail."
When General Green came on he requested a quarter guard. Rusk, who had never had anything in his quarters worth stealing, pretended to misunderstand.
"Why, bless your soul, General," said he, "there isn't a man in the army that would hurt you."
Pretty soon Green had a ten-gallon cask of wine sent to his tent, an outrage the boys were not disposed to sub- mit to. So they located the cask and after night the gen- eral was called out on some pretense, when Cy Gleason, a sturdy New York boy, raised the flap of his tent, rolled the cask out, and, raising it on his shoulders, marched off to the river, where he sank it, raising it as occasion required.
Captain H-, the only officer who ever had the temer- ity to try to enforce strict military discipline, paid for
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his folly with his life. There came up a violent thunder- storm one night, and when it was over the poor fellow, whose only offense was a little youthful vanity, was found in his tent with his brains blown out.
James P. Gorman, well known in the vicinity of Bastrop, was appointed wagonmaster. He picked up a Mexican sword, for which he made a cowhide sheath. With that strapped to his side and his head surmounted with a fox. skin cap, the ears standing erect on top and the tail hang- ing down behind, he cut a grotesque figure. The boys called him General Gorman. He was sent down to Linn's Landing on the bay to bring up a cannon that had been landed there. On the way up he was tempted to try the merits of the piece on a drove of deer that were feed- ing some distance away. He put in a charge of grape, and, bringing the gun to bear on the deer, touched it off. Hearing the report and suspecting that Gorman had been attacked, General Rusk hurried off a detachment to his relief. We made all possible haste to reach him, and imagine our disgust when we came up and instead of the enemy we were prepared to engage, saw only a herd of harmless deer, upon which the shots had taken no effect except to make them bound into the air when the bullets cut the dirt under their feet. General Rusk placed Gor- man under arrest for his escapade, but he swore "the show was worth it; he never had so much fun in his life."
Sauntering up through camp one day I came upon an- other character well known to most old Texans along the Colorado-Peter Carr-seated on a dry cowhide, the center of which was doing duty for a table. Another hide laid on a framework of poles served to keep off the sum- mer sun. Peter was engaged in dealing 21 with a deck of cards so ragged and begrimed that their faces were scarcely decipherable.
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"Hello, Pete; what's your limit?" said I.
"Oh, bet as much as you please," he replied.
I "sized his pile" and knew I could beat it, and with an unlimited game was sure to win in the long run, so down I sat. The other players soon "went broke" and dropped out, leaving the issue to Peter and myself, and it wasn't long till I had the game "busted." He accepted his defeat good naturedly, often referring to the incident in after years as the "unkindest cut" fortune had ever dealt him. He had had many reverses and was at that time flat broke, and had just succeeded in getting up a little game whereby he hoped to make a "raise," when along came a friend and "scooped the pot."
The detailed adventures of Peter Carr would make an entertaining narrative. Briefly stated, Peter Carr, a native of Pennsylvania, I think, first made his advent into Texas with a little schooner loaded with merchandise, about 1824. Chartering his vessel to another party, he took his goods up to Victoria, and after a short sojourn there, during which time he contracted a matrimonial engage- ment with a daughter of an old Spanish family, packed up his stock and went on a trading expedition among the In- dians, who robbed him of his outfit. Returning to Vic- toria, the mercenary old don refused to allow his daughter to consummate her engagement. About that time Carr got word that his vessel (which he had taken the pre- caution to insure in New Orleans) had been wrecked. He went back to New Orleans, collected the policy, and in- vested it in a fine hack and span of horses, with which he proposed to run between San Antonio and Matamoros. On his first trip out he drove into one of those bottom- less water holes to water his team. The horses went down, taking the hack with them, and, being unable to extricate themselves, were drowned, Peter narrowly escaping the
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same fate. Again he was broke, but with undaunted cour- age he made his way down to the gulf and from there round to New Orleans, thence home to Pennsylvania. His family being well-to-do, he got another stake, with which he bought a distilling outfit in New Orleans, ship- ping it on the vessel which brought me back to Texas in 1835. After getting his property safely aboard, seeing he had an hour or two to spare before the sailing of the schooner, he went back up town to take leave of his friends. When the hour of starting came, Peter was still absent, but the steam tug hitched on to our vessel and away we went. Before we were out of sight Peter came rushing down to the dock, shouting and waving his hat, but the captain didn't go back, so he had to hunt up an- other vessel, and I did not nicet him again till I returned with the army to Victoria. In the meantime his attitude on the political situation not seeming satisfactory to Gen- eral Houston, he had Peter arrested and his property con- fiscated, which left him stranded for the third time. After many unsuccessful attempts to retrieve his fallen fortunes, he finally got in with some cattle buyers and with them went out to the Rio Grande, where his knowledge of the language and "peculiarities" of the Mexicans enabled the buyers to make much more favorable terms than they could otherwise have made. For his services he received a share of the stock, which he drove in on the Colorado below Austin. From that tinie on Peter prospered, and inany a poor family blessed the day when Uncle Peter, as he came to be known in later life, brought his herds into the country. Anyone was welcome to take up the cows and milk them. He was the first mail carrier from Austin to LaGrange. Whether the heartless desertion of the senorita chilled his heart, rendering it impervious to the smiles of her sex, I cannot say, but he lived and died
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a bachelor. Before his death, which occurred some years back, he bequeathed a large tract of land in Burnet County for the founding of a university. The will, I believe, was broken. Thus the last hope of his eventful life, like most of its predecessors, was doomed to disappointment. Faults he had, as who has not? But his good deeds counterbal- anced them.
One of our new recruits, Jimmie Snead, a Pennsylva- ·nian, was out on the prairie one day when he found a Mex- ican bridle-bit. Thinking it some kind of a trap, he pro- cured a stick and tried to spring it. He failed to touch it off; but, not daring to put hand on it, he got it on the stick and brought it into camp.
One other incident of army life and I am done. The Mexican army in its retreat left a number of heavy bag- gage wagons on the east side of the Colorado, being un- able to cross them. These some of us were sent back to bring up. Before we could cross them the river began to rise, and having no ferry, we went up to Sutherland's gin and collected a lot of bale rope, of which we con- structed a cable of sufficient strength to tow the wagons over, crossing back and forth in a "dugout." We had an old sailor along who was engineering the work, and, like many another old salt, he couldn't swim. He was crossing the river (which by this time was pretty full) with the tow-line when the canoe fouled and capsized. Fortunately there was a stranded tree near, some of the limbs of which were above water. This he succeeded in reaching, and, climbing upon a limb which bent under his weight, he hung on for dear life. The river was rising fast and the current caused the tree to sway and tremble and almost start from its anchor. Every now and then a wave would submerge the limb on which the old fellow had taken refuge. The canoe was gone and the situation becoming critical.
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"Bear a hand there!" he shouted frantically, "Bring me a hawser. Don't you see the river is rising?" We pro- cured a rope and one of the boys swam in with it, mak- ing one end fast to the tree and the other to the shore. The sailor was all right then, he had a rope in his hands. We then swam in and got the canoe and succeeded in getting all our wagons across.
When it was definitely ascertained that the Mexican army had retired beyond the Rio Grande, there seeming to be no further need of their services, the citizens were anxious to return to their homes and we were accordingly ordered down to Columbia (where congress was then sit- ting) to be mustered out. Passing through Matagorda, en route, my acquaintances, who had seen me leave there a year before in company with Dr. Field, gazed on nie as one risen from the dead, believing that I had fallen with Fannin, a fate from which Dr. Field's profession saved lıim.
No man in Texas was oftener called upon, nor in more capacities, to serve his adopted country, than Thomas Jef- ferson Rusk: First, and that within a year after his ar- rival, as a delegate to the first revolutionary convention- 1835-and again to the convention that promulgated the declaration of Texas independence, which convention con- ferred upon him the office of Secretary of War; leaving this office to take care of itself, joined Houston at the front and as a member of the general's staff participated in the battle of San Jacinto, taking the command after Hous- ton was wounded; when the constitutional government was established, was again chosen Secretary of War ; after- wards conducted several campaigns against the Indians ; served as a member of the Texas congress; was chief jus- tice of the supreme court of the republic; president of the
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convention that consummated the annexation of Texas to the United States; and, with Houston, first represented the new state in the national senate, a position to which he was twice re-elected, being at the time of his death-1856 -president pro tem. of that body. As chairman of the committee on postoffices and postroads, he took an active interest in the establishment of the overland mail route to California.
General Rusk's military education had progressed no farther than Captain Erath's, but he had the esteem and confidence of his men to such an extent that an attempt to replace him with General Lamar stirred up such a spirit of mutiny that Lamar was constrained to withdraw. The only complaint against Rusk (having its origin anong the upstart subs who wanted to set up a military aristoc- racy) was his easy familiarity with the privates. Meagre as was the honor attaching to the office of commander of the Texas army, it must have been that which brought forward so many aspirants for the position, which was by 110 means lucrative, and fraught with difficulty, often mor- tification-the army going on the principle that "the ma- jority should rule."
But whatever the inducement, it was sufficient to en- gender bitter animosity between the rival candidates, which in one notable instance culminated in a duel, the parties to which were Generals A. Sidney Johnston and Felix Huston.
Johnston was appointed by President Lamar to super- sede Huston. Feeling aggrieved over his displacement, Huston visited his displeasure on Johnston, whoni osten- sibly, on account of discourtesy on the part of the latter, he challenged. Johnston was seriously wounded, but he held the place.
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CHAPTER XI.
The settlers gradually regained confidence and by this time were pretty much all back in their homes. The Indians were committing many outrages, making it again necessary to garrison the frontier. As neither Captain Tomlinson nor his lieutenants reported for duty, Colonel Coleman was instructed to proceed up on Walnut creek, six miles below Austin, and build the Coleman fort, con- sisting of a cluster of log cabins enclosed with a heavy stockade. All of the Tomlinson rangers were ordered to report to Coleman, their term of enlistment (one year) not having expired. Bastrop county suffered more from Indians during the year 1836 than for any other year of its history. I could mention numbers of its best men who were killed during that time. The return of the rangers, however, checked hostile incursions for a time, and people began to scatter out from the forts, in which they had been compelled to take refuge, and settle down to the business of preparing for the next season's crops ; few of them having made anything that year.
Mechanics were rather scarce in the frontier settle -- ments, and there was so much need of blacksmith work that I did not stop at the fort all the time, but worked in the settlements. It was while thus employed that I re -. ceived an invitation down to old Sammie Craft's, below Bastrop, the occasion being the marriage of his step- daughter, Candice Thompson, to David Holderman, Bas- trop's principal merchant. Mr. Craft had a more com - modious house than was ordinarily found in that section, having also a good "plank" floor, a luxury that most of the settlers were forced to forego. These advantages taken with the genial hospitality of the family, insured a full attendance at a social gathering within its walls. This
N. Donaldson.
COLEMAN'S FORT.
LOOKING FROM NORTHWEST; COLORADO RIVER TO THE RIGHT; WALNUT CREEK TO THE LEFT.
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being an extraordinary occasion, all the elite in the coun- try round were invited, and few regrets were sent. I being a pretty fair Arkansas fiddler had the entree of all social functions, where dancing was a feature. The bride needed not the aid of artificial lights to make her appear lovely, therefore the marriage ceremony was performed in broad daylight. I can't tell you just how the bride was dressed. The bridegroom, being a merchant, had on "store clothes," but that kind of apparel was not de rigueur. There were many homespun suits and the old reliable buckskin was also in evidence. Among the ladies, the rustle of silks was not wanting, if the styles were some- what varied according to the period at which the wearer migrated thither.
The writer was resplendent in a brand new buckskin suit, consisting of hunting shirt, pantaloons and mocca- sins, all elaborately fringed. It was on this occasion that I first met the lady who afterwards became my wife, and I used to tell her that it was my picturesque attire that won me her favor.
There was neither gas nor kerosene to light the danc- ing room, but the tallow candles beamed on the assembly from highly polished tall brass candlesticks, such as now are carefully treasured as heirlooms by the descendants of old families.
Among the guests was the Rev. Hugh M. Childers, who, though a Methodist minister, was also an expert with a violin, and even "tripped the light fantastic." For an all around useful man he had few equals, always bear- ing his full share of anything that came along, from a prayer meeting to an Indian fight. A preacher who could only talk found himself out of a job in those parts.
Dr. Fentress also wielded the bow and, between us three, we kept the dance going all night. We were not versed in the giddy measures of the dances in vogue now- adays, but,
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"Hornpipes, strathspeys, jigs and reels Put life and mettle in our heels."
There were a couple of strangers present who attracted a good deal of attention-an elderly man, with a profes- sional handle to his name, and his son, a lad of twenty or thereabouts. They had money for which they were seek- ing investment. Both of them were well dressed, sporting gold watches and shirt studs, and the young man was cutting a wide swath among the girls, laying us buckskin boys quite in the shade. But by and by old Aunt Celic, a mulatto woman who was looking on through the open door, beckoned to her young mistress, Miss Harriet Craft, and, taking her aside, said :
"Miss Ha'it, wat you in dar dancin' wid dat niggah fo?"
"Hush, Aunt Celie ; that isn't a nigger," said Miss Craft.
"He is niggah, Miss 'Ha it; he jes' as much niggah as I is. Look at his ha' and his eyes," urged the indignant old woman.
Commanding Aunt Celie to hold her peace, Miss Har- riet returned to her guests, but the furtive glances be- stowed upon the young stranger betrayed the doubt Aunt Celie's warning had awakened. £ Later developments proved the keenness of the old woman's perception. She was not easily deceived on the color line. Our host spared no pains to make the time pass pleasantly, himself going through the evolutions of a hornpipe to show 11s clumsy young fellows how they danced in his youth.
There was a bountiful feast, the table remaining spread and the coffee pot kept boiling all night, those who chose repairing to the dining room for refreshments at any time.
We literally "danced all night to broad daylight and went home with the girls in the morning," the unsafe condition of the country rendering such escort absolutely indispensable. We didn't neglect to take our rifles along eitlier.
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We didn't always have boards to dance on. Sometimes there were puncheons (split timbers), and sometimes only the ground, but we enjoyed any respite from the wearing cares that beset us, and overlooked all minor discomforts.
My term of enlistment expiring about the beginning of 1837, I substituted a man who had a family, to whom he was desirous of returning, and again took up my quarters in the fort. The weather was cold and wet and our men suffering for clothing. Buckskin was sufficient while the weather remained dry; but, a story my wife used to tell on Jimmie Manning will best illustrate the objection to which buckskin was open as a wet weather garment. Jimmie, who had not then been long in the country, was out with a surveying party when there came up a drench- ing rain, and before they could reach shelter the buckskin breeches of the party were thoroughly saturated. The widow Blakey's house opened its hospitable doors to re- ceive the dripping, shivering surveyors. Mrs. Blakey had two grown up daughters and it could generally be de- pended on to find one or more visiting young ladies there, making it a favorite stopping place at all times, especially so on a rainy day.
The hero of the story being unacquainted with the vagaries of buckskin, on alighting from his horse and find- ing his feet enveloped in the slimy folds of his panta- loons, which had lengthened a foot or so and become as unmanageable as a jelly fish, took out his knife and cut off the extra length. Men didn't keep extra suits of cloth- ing those days and, as there were no dry garments to offer the party, there was a rousing fire built in the great open fire place and the boys drew up in front of it to dry their clothing. When the fire began to make its influence felt, Jimmie's breeches began a retrograde movement. perceiv- ing which he reached down and stretched them out again
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to the ill concealed amusement of the girls, who had wit- nessed the amputation. But the pantaloons were on the retreat, and by the time the buckskin reached its normal condition had put a safe distance between them and the tops of his shoes. Jimmie didn't wait for the rain to stop, but struck out for Bastrop to procure clothing of a more stable character.
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