future mark. Dominique Yon, the captain who had shared imprisonment
with Pierre Lafitte, now settled down to quiet city life, became a
leader in ward politics, and grew into something of a local hero,
fighting in the precincts instead of on the deck.
Jean Lafitte, however, went back to his old trade. From New Orleans he
made his way to Texas, then a province of Mexico, and soon we hear of
him at his buccaneering work. For a time he figured as governor of
Galveston. Then, for some years, he commanded a fleet that wore the thin
guise of Columbian privateers. After that he threw off all disguise and
became an open pirate, and as late as 1822 his name was the terror of
the Gulf. Soon afterward a fleet of the United States swept those waters
and cleared it of all piratical craft. Jean Lafitte then vanished from
view, and no one knows whether he died fighting for the black flag or
ended his life quietly on land.
_THE HEROES OF THE ALAMO._
On a day in the year 1835 the people of Nacogdoches, Texas, were engaged
in the pleasant function of giving a public dinner to one of their
leading citizens. In the midst of the festivities a person entered the
room whose appearance was greeted with a salvo of hearty cheers. There
seemed nothing in this person's appearance to call forth such a welcome.
He was dressed in a half-Indian, half-hunter's garb, a long-barrelled
rifle was slanted over his shoulder, and he seemed a favorable specimen
of the "half-horse, half-alligator" type of the early West. But there
was a shrewd look on his weather-beaten face and a humorous twinkle in
his eyes that betokened a man above the ordinary frontier level, while
it was very evident that the guests present looked upon him as no
every-day individual.
The visitor was, indeed, a man of fame, for he was no less a personage
than the celebrated Davy Crockett, the hunter hero of West Tennessee.
His fame was due less to his wonderful skill with the rifle than to his
genial humor, his endless stories of adventure, his marvellous power of
"drawing the long bow." Davy had once been sent to Congress, but there
he found himself in waters too deep for his footing. The frontier was
the place made for him, and when he heard that Texas was in revolt
against Mexican rule, he shouldered his famous rifle and set out to take
a hand in the game of revolution. It was a question in those days with
the reckless borderers whether shooting a Mexican or a coon was the
better sport.
[Illustration: THE ALAMO.]
The festive citizens of Nacogdoches heard that Davy Crockett had arrived
in their town on his way to join the Texan army, and at once sent a
committee to invite him to join in their feast. Hearty cheers, as we
have said, hailed his entrance, and it was not long before he had his
worthy hosts in roars of laughter with his quaint frontier stories. He
had come to stay with them as a citizen of Texas, he said, and to help
them drive out the yellow-legged greasers, and he wanted, then and
there, to take the oath of allegiance to their new republic. If they
wanted to know what claim he had to the honor, he would let Old
Betsy--his rifle--speak for him. Like George Washington, Betsy never
told a lie. The Nacogdochians were not long in making him a citizen, and
he soon after set out for the Alamo, the scene of his final exploit and
his heroic death.
The Alamo was a stronghold in the town of San Antonio de Bexar, in
Western Texas. It had been built for a mission house of the early
Spaniards, and though its walls were thick and strong, they were only
eight feet high and were destitute of bastion or redoubt. The place had
nothing to make it suitable for warlike use, yet it was to win a great
name in the history of Texan independence, a name that spread far
beyond the borders of the "Lone Star State" and made its story a
tradition of American heroism.
Soon after the insurrection began a force of Texans had taken San
Antonio, driving out its Mexican garrison. Santa Anna, the president of
Mexico, quickly marched north with an army, breathing vengeance against
the rebels. This town, which lay well towards the western border, was
the first he proposed to take. Under the circumstances the Texans would
have been wise to retreat, for they were few in number, they had little
ammunition and provisions, and the town was in no condition for defence.
But retreat was far from their thoughts, and when, on an afternoon in
February, 1836, Santa Anna and his army appeared in the vicinity of San
Antonio, the Texans withdrew to the Alamo, the strongest building near
the town, prepared to fight to the death.
There were less than two hundred of them in all, against the thousands
of the enemy, but they were men of heroic mould. Colonel Travis, the
commander, mounted the walls with eight pieces of artillery, and did all
he could besides to put the place in a state of defence. To show the
kind of man Travis was, we cannot do better than to quote his letter
asking for aid.
"FELLOW-CITIZENS AND COMPATRIOTS,--I am besieged by a thousand or
more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. The enemy have commanded a
surrender at discretion; otherwise the garrison is to be put to the
sword if the place is taken. I have answered the summons with a
cannon-shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I
shall never surrender or retreat. Then I call on you in the name of
liberty, of patriotism, and of everything dear to the American
character, to come to our aid with all despatch. The enemy are
receiving reinforcements daily, and will no doubt increase to three
or four thousand in four or five days. Though this call may be
neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible,
and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own
honor or that of his country. Victory or death!"
"W. BARRETT TRAVIS,
Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding."
"P.S.--The Lord is on our side. When the enemy appeared in sight we
had not three bushels of corn. We have since found, in deserted
houses, eighty or ninety bushels, and got into the walls twenty or
thirty head of beeves."
"T."
The only reinforcements received in response to this appeal were
thirty-two gallant men from Gonzales, who made the whole number one
hundred and eighty-eight. Colonel Fannin, at Goliad, set out with three
hundred men, but the breaking down of one of his wagons and a scarcity
of supplies obliged him to return. Among the patriot garrison were Davy
Crockett and Colonel James Bowie, the latter as famous a man in his way
as the great hunter. He was a duelist of national fame, in those days
when the border duels were fought with knife instead of pistol. He
invented the Bowie knife, a terrible weapon in the hands of a resolute
man. To be famed as a duelist is no worthy claim to admiration, but to
fight hand to hand with knife for weapon is significant of high courage.
Small as were their numbers, and slight as were their means of defence,
the heroes of the Alamo fought on without flinching. Santa Anna planted
his batteries around the stronghold and kept up a steady bombardment.
The Texans made little reply; their store of ammunition was so small
that it had to be kept for more critical work. In the town a blood-red
banner was displayed in lurid token of the sanguinary purpose of the
Mexican leader, but the garrison showed no signs of dismay. They were
the descendants of men who had fought against the Indians of the South
under like conditions, and they were not likely to forget the traditions
of their race.
On the 3d of March a battery was erected within musket-shot of the north
wall of the fort, on which it poured a destructive fire. Travis now sent
out a final appeal for aid, and with it an affecting note to a friend,
in which he said,--
"Take care of my boy. If the country should be saved I may make him a
splendid fortune; but if the country should be lost and I should
perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the
son of a man who died for his country."
The invading force increased in numbers until, by the 5th of March,
there were more than four thousand of them around the fort, most of them
fresh, while the garrison was worn out with incessant toil and watching.
The end was near at hand. Soon after midnight on the 6th the Mexican
army gathered close around the fort, prepared for an assault. The
infantry carried scaling-ladders. Behind them were drawn up the cavalry
with orders to kill any man who might fly from the ranks. This indicated
Santa Anna's character and his opinion of his men.
The men within the walls had no need to be driven to their work. Every
one was alert and at his post, and they met with a hot fire from cannon
and rifles the Mexican advance. Just as the new day dawned, the ladders
were placed against the walls and the Mexicans scrambled up their
rounds. They were driven back with heavy loss. Again the charge for
assault was sounded and a second rush was made for the walls, and once
more the bullets of the defenders swept the field and the assailants
fell back in dismay.
Santa Anna now went through the beaten ranks with threats and promises,
seeking to inspire his men with new courage, and again they rushed
forward on all sides of the fort. Many of the Texans had fallen and all
of them were exhausted. It was impossible to defend the whole circle of
the walls. The assailants who first reached the tops of the ladders
were hurled to the ground, but hundreds rushed in to take their places,
and at a dozen points they clambered over the walls. It was no longer
possible for the handful of survivors to keep them back.
In a few minutes the fort seemed full of assailants. The Texans
continued to fight with unflinching courage. When their rifles were
emptied they used them as clubs and struggled on till overwhelmed by
numbers. Near the western wall of the fort stood Travis, in the corner
near the church stood Crockett, both fighting like Homeric heroes. Old
Betsy had done an ample share of work that fatal night. Now, used as a
club, it added nobly to its record. The two heroes at length fell, but
around each was a heap of slain.
Colonel Bowie had taken no part in the fight, having been for some days
sick in bed. He was there butchered and mutilated. All others who were
unable to fight met the same fate. It had been proposed to blow up the
magazine, but Major Evans, the man selected for this duty, was shot as
he attempted to perform it. The struggle did not end while a man of the
garrison was alive, the only survivors being two Mexican women, Mrs.
Dickenson (wife of one of the defenders) and her child, and the negro
servant of Colonel Travis. As for the dead Texans, their bodies were
brutally mutilated and then thrown into heaps and burned.
Thus fell the Alamo. Thus did the gallant Travis and his men keep their
pledge of "victory or death." Like the Spartans at Thermopylae, the
heroes of the Alamo did not retreat or ask for quarter, but lay where
they had stood in obedience to their country's commands. And before and
around them lay the bodies of more than five hundred of their enemies,
with as many wounded. The Texans had not perished unavenged. The sun
rose in the skies until it was an hour high. In the fort all was still;
but the waters of the aqueduct surrounding resembled in their crimson
hue the red flag of death flying in the town. The Alamo was the American
Thermopylae.
_HOW HOUSTON WON FREEDOM FOR TEXAS._
We have told the story of the Alamo. It needs to complete it the story
of how Travis and his band of heroes were avenged. And this is also the
story of how Texas won its independence, and took its place in the
colony of nations as the "Lone Star Republic."
The patriots of Texas had more to avenge than the slaughter at the
Alamo. The defenders of Goliad, over four hundred in number, under
Colonel Fannin, surrendered, with a solemn promise of protection from
Santa Anna. After the surrender they were divided into several
companies, marched in different directions out of the town, and there
shot down in cold blood by the Mexican soldiers, not a man of them being
left alive.
Santa Anna now fancied himself the victor. He had killed two hundred men
with arms in their hands, and made himself infamous by the massacre of
four hundred more, and he sent despatches to Mexico to the effect that
he had put down the rebellion and conquered a peace. What he had really
done was to fill the Texans with thirst for revenge as well as love of
independence. He had dealt with Travis and Fannin; he had Sam Houston
still to deal with.
General Houston was the leader of the Texan revolt. While these
murderous events were taking place he had only four hundred men under
his command, and was quite unable to prevent them. Defence now seemed
hopeless; the country was in a state of panic; the settlers were
abandoning their homes and fleeing as the Mexicans advanced; but Sam
Houston kept the field with a spirit like that which had animated the
gallant Travis.
As the Mexicans advanced Houston slowly retreated. He was manoeuvring
for time and place, and seeking to increase his force. Finally, after
having brought up his small army to something over seven hundred men, he
took a stand on Buffalo Bayou, a deep, narrow stream flowing into the
San Jacinto River, resolved there to strike a blow for Texan
independence. It was a forlorn hope, for against him was marshalled the
far greater force of the Mexican army. But Houston gave his men a
watchword that added to their courage the hot fire of revenge. After
making them an eloquent and impassioned address, he fired their souls
with the war-cry of "Remember the Alamo!"
Soon afterward the Mexican bugles rang out over the prairie, announcing
the approach of the vanguard of their army, eighteen hundred strong.
They were well appointed, and made a showy display as they marched
across the plain. Houston grimly watched their approach. Turning to his
own sparse ranks, he said, "Men, there is the enemy; do you wish to
fight?" "We do," came in a fierce shout. "Well, then, remember it is
for liberty or death! _Remember the Alamo!_"
As they stood behind their light breastworks, ready for an attack, if it
should be made, a lieutenant came galloping up, his horse covered with
foam. As he drew near he shouted along the lines, "I've cut down Vince's
bridge." This was a bridge which both armies had used in coming to the
battle-field. General Houston had ordered its destruction. Its fall left
the vanquished in that day's fight without hope of escape.
Santa Anna evidently was not ready for an immediate assault. His men
halted and intrenched themselves. But Houston did not propose to delay.
At three in the afternoon, while many of the Mexican officers were
enjoying their siesta in perfect confidence, Santa Anna himself being
asleep, the word to charge passed from rank to rank along the Texan
front, and in a moment the whole line advanced at double-quick time,
filling the air with vengeful cries of "Remember the Alamo! Remember
Goliad!"
The Mexican troops sprang to their arms and awaited the attack,
reserving their fire until the patriots were within sixty paces. Then
they poured forth a volley which, fortunately for the Texans, went over
their heads, though a ball struck General Houston's ankle, inflicting a
very painful wound. Yet, though bleeding and suffering, the old hero
kept to his saddle till the action was at an end.
The Texans made no reply to the fire of the foe until within
pistol-shot, and then poured their leaden hail into the very bosoms of
the Mexicans. Hundreds of them fell. There was no time to reload. Having
no bayonets, the Texans clubbed their rifles and rushed in fury upon the
foe, still rending the air with their wild war-cry of "Remember the
Alamo!" The Mexicans were utterly unprepared for this furious
hand-to-hand assault, and quickly broke before the violent onset.
On all sides they gave way. On the left the Texans penetrated the
woodland; the Mexicans fled. On the right their cavalry charged that of
Santa Anna, which quickly broke and sought safety in flight. In the
centre they stormed the breastworks, took the enemy's artillery and
drove them back in dismay. In fifteen minutes after the charge the
Mexicans were in panic flight, the Texans in mad pursuit. Scarce an hour
had passed since the patriots left their works, and the battle was won.
Such was the consternation of the Mexicans, so sudden and utter their
rout, that their cannon were left loaded and their movables untouched.
Those who were asleep awoke only in time to flee; those who were cooking
their dinner left it uneaten; those who were playing their favorite game
of monte left it unfinished. The pursuit was kept up till nightfall, by
which time the bulk of the Mexican army were prisoners of war. The
victory had been won almost without loss. Only seven of the Texans were
killed and twenty-three wounded. The Mexican loss was six hundred and
thirty, while seven hundred and thirty were made prisoners.
But the man they most wanted was still at large. Santa Anna was not
among the captives. On the morning of the following day, April 22, the
Texan cavalry, scouring the country for prisoners, with a sharp eye open
for the hated leader of the foe, saw a Mexican whom they loudly bade to
surrender. At their demand he fell on the grass and threw a blanket over
his head. They had to call on him several times to rise before he slowly
dragged himself to his feet. Then he went up to Sylvester, the leader of
the party, and kissed his hand, asking if he was General Houston.
The man was evidently half beside himself with fright. He was only a
private soldier, he declared; but when his captors pointed to the fine
studs in the bosom of his shirt he burst into tears and declared that he
was an aide to Santa Anna. The truth came out as the captors brought him
back to camp, passing the prisoners, many of whom cried out, "El
Presidente." It was evidently Santa Anna himself. The President of
Mexico was a prisoner and Texas was free! When the trembling captive was
brought before Houston, he said, "General, you can afford to be
generous,--you have conquered the Napoleon of the West." Had Houston
done full justice to this Napoleon of the West he would have hung him on
the spot. As it was, his captors proved generous and his life was
spared.
The victory of San Jacinto struck the fetters from the hands of Texas.
No further attempt was made to conquer it, and General Houston became
the hero and the first president of the new republic. When Texas was
made a part of the United States, Houston was one of its first senators,
and in later years he served as governor of the State. His splendid
victory had made him its favorite son.
_CAPTAIN ROBERT E. LEE AND THE LAVA-BEDS._
The Mexican War, brief as was its period of operations in the field, was
marked by many deeds of daring, and also was the scene of the first
service in the field of various officers who afterward became prominent
in the Civil War. Chief among these were the two great leaders on the
opposite sides, General Lee and General Grant. Lee's services in the
campaign which Scott conducted against the city of Mexico were
especially brilliant, and are likely to be less familiar to the reader
than any incident drawn from his well-known record in the Civil War. The
most striking among them was his midnight crossing of the lava-fields
before Contreras.
On the 19th of August, 1847, Scott's army lay in and around San
Augustin, a place situated on a branch of the main road running south
from the city of Mexico. This road divided into two at Churubusco, the
other branch running near Contreras. Between these two roads and a ridge
of hills south of San Augustin extended a triangular region known as the
Pedregal, and about as ugly a place to cross as any ground could well
be.
It was made up of a vast spread of volcanic rock and scoriae, rent and
broken into a thousand forms, and with sharp ridges and deep fissures,
making it very difficult for foot-soldiers to get over, and quite
impassable for cavalry or artillery. It was like a sea of hardened lava,
with no signs of vegetation except a few clumps of bushes and dwarf
trees that found footing in the rocks. The only road across it was a
difficult, crooked, and barely passable pathway, little better than a
mule track, leading from San Augustin to the main road from the city of
Mexico.
On the plateau beyond this sterile region the Mexicans had gathered in
force. Just beyond it General Valencia lay intrenched, with his fine
division of about six thousand men and twenty-four guns, commanding the
approach from San Augustin. A mile or more north of Contreras lay
General Santa Anna, his force holding the main city road.
Such was the situation of the respective armies at the date given, with
the Pedregal separating them. Captain Lee, who had already done
excellent engineering service at Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo, assisted by
Lieutenants Beauregard and Tower of the engineers, had carefully
reconnoitred the position of the enemy, and on the morning of the 19th
the advance from San Augustin began, Captain Lee accompanying the troops
in their arduous passage across the Pedregal. One of those present thus
describes the exploit:
"Late in the morning of the 19th the brigade of which my regiment was a
part (Riley's) was sent out from San Augustin in the direction of
Contreras. We soon struck a region over which it was said no horses
could go, and men only with difficulty. No road was available; my
regiment was in advance, my company leading, and its point of direction
was a church-spire at or near Contreras. Taking the lead, we soon struck
the Pedregal, a field of volcanic rock like boiling scoria suddenly
solidified, pathless, precipitous, and generally compelling rapid gait
in order to spring from point to point of rock, on which two feet could
not rest and which cut through our shoes. A fall on this sharp material
would have seriously cut and injured one, whilst the effort to climb
some of it cut the hands.
"Just before reaching the main road from Contreras to the city of Mexico
we reached a watery ravine, the sides of which were nearly
perpendicular, up which I had to be pushed and then to pull others. On
looking back over this bed of lava or scoria, I saw the troops, much
scattered, picking their way very slowly; while of my own company, some
eighty or ninety strong, only five men crossed with me or during some
twenty minutes after.
"With these five I examined the country beyond, and struck upon the
small guard of a paymaster's park, which, from the character of the
country over which we had passed, was deemed perfectly safe from
capture. My men gained a paymaster's chest well filled with bags of
silver dollars, and the firing and fuss we made both frightened the
guard with the belief that the infernals were upon them and made our
men hasten to our support.
"Before sundown all of Riley's, and I believe of Cadwallader's, Smith's,
and Pierce's brigades, were over, and by nine o' clock a council of war,
presided over by Persifer Smith and counselled by Captain R. E. Lee, was
held at the church. I have always understood that what was devised and
finally determined upon was suggested by Captain Lee; at all events, the
council was closed by his saying that he desired to return to General
Scott with the decision of General Smith, and that, as it was late, the
decision must be given as soon as possible, since General Scott wished
him to return in time to give directions for co-operation.
"During the council, and for hours after, the rain fell in torrents,
whilst the darkness was so intense that one could move only by groping.
To illustrate: my company again led the way to gain the Mexican rear,
and when, after two hours of motion, light broke sufficiently to enable
us to see a companion a few feet off, we had not moved four hundred
yards, and the only persons present were half a dozen officers and one
guide."