And coming it was, in battle array: the infantry at quick step, the
horses at an amble, the Lone Star flag of the Harrisburg company in the
front; skirmishers out before and on either flank, and General Austin
and his staff leading.
“Let’s find Leo,” proposed Jim. “Let’s meet ’em. There’s nothing more
to do here. Some of the other men are going――see?”
For Colonel Bowie had left, and Henry Karnes, and several more, as if
to report and to exchange news. Nothing loth was Ernest to follow their
example. It was not pleasant, on this bloody prairie where so many
bodies were lying. Why, around the cannon itself were sixteen.
He and Jim ran to seize their ponies, saddled and waiting in the
protection of the timber skirting the bottom-land; and away they loped,
to where the Travis troop and the main army had come together.
“We must follow them right into town,” was exclaiming General Austin.
“Take them before they’ve recovered.”
“No!” protested Colonel Bowie. “That would be madness, general. Don’t
try it. They’ve cannon enough mounted on the walls of the town and the
Alamo to cut us to pieces on that open prairie. I’ve seen the cannon,
and I know.”
“From what Bowie tells of the fortifications and the number of men
manning them I agree with him, general,” added Captain Fannin, arriving.
Ernest looked in vain for General Houston, but he did not see the big
form and the big hat anywhere.
“Where’s Leo Roark?” demanded Jim, as he and Ernest mingled with some
of the Travis men. For Leo was nowhere in sight.
“Roark? He’s down toward San Felipe somewhere, by this time.”
“How’s that?”
“The delegates to the consultation left last night, and a lot of East
Texas fellows went with ’em to guard ’em to San Felipe. So Leo joined
with some of his own crowd, and mebbe he’ll go clear home to see how
his folks are getting on. There wasn’t enough excitement hyar-abouts.”
“Aw, thunder! He said he’d stick,” complained Jim.
“He’ll be back. You can depend on that. You can’t keep any such lad
away from a scrimmage long.”
“Where’s Sam Houston?” asked Ernest.
“Gone, with the other delegates, to tend the consultation, same as the
rest of ’em. Somebody’s got to provide for this army, or there won’t be
any army.”
“Jim Hill! Oh, Jim Hill!” shouted a shrill voice.
Jim turned quickly in his saddle. The voice had issued from the ranks
of a company of infantry standing at ease, about seventy-five yards
distant; a figure toward the end of the line waved his hat.
“Sion Bostick, sure as shooting!” exclaimed Jim. Away he galloped,
pulled short, in front of the company ranks, sprang from his horse and
shook hands vigorously with Sion.
Presently he came loping back.
“That’s Sion, all right, from down near Beason’s. Walked all the way,
till his feet are plumb blistered. Had to leave his horse at home for
the ploughing. You’ll meet him at camp.”
General Austin evidently had decided to heed the advice of Colonel
Bowie, for orders were being given to camp here at Concepcion. A
council of war was held at once. It also voted to postpone the attack
upon Bejar and the Alamo; for the Alamo alone, according to Colonel
Bowie, possessed thirty pieces of artillery, which commanded all the
approaches, and against which the two six-pounders, from Gonzales and
from Goliad, could do little. As for the captured Mexican four-pounder,
it had no ammunition.
As soon as camp was made, and the companies dismissed, Sion looked
Jim up, and Ernest was introduced to him. He was a sturdy, tanned
and freckled boy of sixteen (same age as Jim) armed with a long,
heavy-barrelled Kentucky rifle, as tall as he was. It had been his
father’s, he said; but his father had died almost two years ago, so now
it was his.
“I joined as soon as my mother’d let me,” he explained. “She finally
’lowed I could come along with Cap’n Splann’s company. I don’t know
what this war’s all about, but here I am. The school’s busted up,
anyhow. Nigh everybody down our way’s enlisted, and the kids that
aren’t big enough to take the war-path have got to work at home. You
fellows must have had a toler’bly smart little fight.”
“Well, I should say,” asserted Jim. “That prairie yonder looks like it.”
“The whole army’d have got here before sun-up,” declared Sion, “only
that those East Texans went along with the delegates to guard ’em, and
when Macomb came in reporting where you fellows all were, two more
companies were sent back after the first company, to fetch ’em in, and
we had to wait. The two companies came in without the first company,
but then it was after sun-up already. If it hadn’t have been for that,
we’d have got here in time for the fight, and the whole outfit of those
Mexicans would have been captured. Then General Cos in Bejar would have
listened to us, I reckon. I tell you what, Steve Austin was right vexed
when he heard Bowie was going to stay here instead of obeying orders
and turning back. It might have meant the loss of all of you, and
that’d have left the army in a pretty pickle, with near a hundred men
wiped out.”
“Aw,” answered Jim, bravely, “we stayed and did a good job. Ninety of
us walloped four hundred, and we’re ready to do it again.”
“We sure are,” supported Ernest.
It was found that only one Texan――poor Dick Andrews――had been killed,
and that no one else had even been wounded; but sixty of the Mexicans
were counted, lying on the field, and others, mainly officers, had been
carried into Bejar. Some forty Mexicans had been wounded and borne away.
About noon, while the army were eating dinner, a priest in a black robe
approached from Bejar, with some helpers and carts, and was granted
permission to remove the slain. First he laid the bodies in a long row
on the ground, and prayed over them; then he had them loaded into the
carts, tied fast with rawhide ropes, and hauled into town by the oxen.
Three hundred reinforcements from East Texas were reported as being
on the way to join the army; and while waiting for them at Concepcion
General Austin issued some stringent orders, to “hold the men down,” as
Dick Carroll expressed it. There must be no more chances taken such as
that at the Horseshoe.
The army is now in presence of the enemy [read the orders];
prompt obedience to orders and strict discipline will soon
effect the great object of the campaign, but without them
nothing but disgrace and ruin will be the result.
It is therefore expressly ordered that any officer who disobeys
orders shall be immediately arrested and suspended from his
command until a court-martial decides his case.
Strong out-posts were stationed――one squad being placed in the upper
story of the mission, to keep watch over the country about, and
detachments of cavalry were detailed to ride in a wide circle around
the town and prevent provisions and information from entering.
Another Texas flag appeared at this encampment. It had been in the
knapsack of James McGahey of the Lynchburg company of volunteers,
and now for the first time Ernest saw it being shown by him. It was
of blue silk, with a big white star painted in the centre, over the
word: “Independence”; but because of this word it was not being used,
although it had been in the McGahey knapsack for a number of weeks.
Texas was fighting for her rights as a state and not for independence,
and the Texas leaders wanted this plainly understood.
“I suppose if the Mexican people once think we’re trying to leave ’em
they’ll all turn against us,” reasoned Jim, as he and Sion and Ernest
discussed the flag. “That’s a mighty pretty flag, anyhow; about as
pretty as the Harrisburg flag that Mrs. Dodson made. I’d as lief carry
it, and tell Mexico to go to grass.”
“If we don’t get state rights maybe we’ll declare for independence,
and be a republic with Sam Houston for president,” offered Ernest,
recalling what Sam Houston had prophesied when he accepted Major
Rector’s razor. “I’d like to be at the consultation and hear him speak.”
“Maybe so,” agreed Jim. “But I’d like to be here, too, and help take
Bejar while they’re talking.”
However, the taking of Bejar did not progress very rapidly. To be sure,
on the next day, which was November 29, the expected reinforcements
arrived――200 from East Texas, so that now the army numbered 600, rank
and file. General Austin stayed at Concepcion, with one-half the army,
and sent the other division, under Colonel Edward Burleson, the Jackson
soldier, up the river about half a mile, so that now two sides of Bejar
were guarded; the cavalry rode around and around, covering all sides;
and not a Mexican soldier ventured out of the fortifications, except to
cross the river between Bejar and the Alamo.
Sion had gone with the Burleson division; and with Leo still absent in
the east, this left Jim and Ernest to depend on one another again.
It was said that General Austin was delaying for more cannon, and a
body of volunteers from the United States. An express from San Felipe
brought word that the consultation had gathered, and that two companies
of the United States volunteers were sailing from New Orleans to join
the Texans. He brought also copies of a proclamation that had been
issued by the Central Committee of Defense (now changed to a General
Council) at San Felipe, to the citizens of the United States.
Dick Carroll got hold of one copy, and read it aloud to a little group
which included Jim and Ernest.
SAN FELIPE DE AUSTIN,
October 26, 1835.
_To the Citizens of the United States of the North_:
The general council of all Texas have determined to address you
in behalf of suffering Texas, and to invoke your assistance.
Our citizens were invited to settle Texas by a government
having for its model that of the United States of the North.
Under that invitation thousands emigrated here, and have
subdued a vast and extended wilderness to the purposes of
agriculture. In place of the solitary region inhabited hitherto
only by the savage and the beast, they now present a country
prosperous in the highest degree, and having inscribed on
its face a universal assurance of its future greatness and
prosperity.
“That’s right,” they encouraged. “And we’ve sure paid for all we’ve
got. If ’twasn’t for us there wouldn’t be a sod turned in all Texas.”
And now [continued Dick], when we had accomplished all this,
when we had just fairly established ourselves in peace and
plenty, just brought around us our families and friends, the
form of government under which we had been born and educated,
and the only one to which we would have sworn allegiance, is
destroyed by the usurper, Santa Anna, and a military, central
government is about to be established in its stead. To this new
form of government the people of Texas have refused to submit.
“Not by a jugful will we submit,” they chorused. “We’re going to see
this thing through.”
What number of mercenary soldiers will invade our country we
know not [continued Dick, reading], but this much we do know,
that the whole force of the nation that can possibly be spared
will be sent to Texas, and we believe that we will have to
fight superior numbers. But we believe victory in the end will
be ours. Only one sentiment animates every bosom, and every one
is determined on ‘victory or death.’
“My sentiments exactly, boys,” remarked somebody. “Expressed just like
this:
For this we are determined, to die or to be free,
And TEXAS TRIUMPHANT our watchword shall be!
Better to die freemen than to live as slaves.”
“Listen here,” bade Dick. “We’re coming now to a powerful piece of
language. It’s the kernel.” And he read with rising tone and kindling
cheek.
Citizens of the United States of the North――we are but one
people! Our fathers, side by side, fought the battles of the
Revolution. We, side by side, fought the battles of 1812 and
1815. We were born under the same government, taught the
same political creed, and we have wandered where danger and
tyranny threaten us. You are united to us by all the sacred
ties that can bind one people to another. You are, many of
you, our fathers and brothers――among you dwell our sisters and
mothers――we are alien to you only in country. Our principles,
both moral and political, are the same; our interest is one,
and we require and ask your aid, appealing to your patriotism
and generosity.
We invite you to our country. We have land in abundance, and it
shall be liberally bestowed on you. We have the finest country
on the face of the globe. We invite you to enjoy it with us and
we pledge to you that every volunteer in our cause shall be not
only justly but generously rewarded.
The cause of Texas is plainly marked out. She will drive every
Mexican soldier beyond her limits, or the people of Texas will
leave before San Antonio the bones of their bodies. We will
secure on a firm and solid basis our constitutional rights and
privileges, or we will leave Texas a howling wilderness. We
know that right is on our side, and we are now marching to the
field of battle, reiterating our fathers’ motto, ‘to live free
or to die.’
R. R. ROYALL, President.
A. HUSTON, Secretary.
Dick concluded and glanced around. Ernest had felt his own cheek
kindling, and his eyes brightening, and he marked the same symptoms in
all the group.
“Boys,” said Dick, “I call that a mighty fine document. If there aren’t
people in the United States who’ll think enough of the cause of human
liberty, ’specially where their own kin’s concerned, to grab their
guns and light out to help us other Americans, red blood up yonder is
terrible scarce.”
“Why doesn’t the United States send an army down?” blurted Jim, hotly.
“She doesn’t like Mexico, anyhow, and now’s her chance. They almost had
a war over the eastern boundary, and the United States is always trying
to buy Texas to the Rio Grande. Let her come and take us.”
“Oh, sho’, now!” rebuked Dick. “The United States army has no call
to come down in here. We aren’t fighting for independence――yet――and
that would be invading part of Mexico and seizing one of her states,
and there’d be a pretty how-de-do. Nations can’t do that sort of
thing without other nations objecting. Fact is, for volunteers to arm
themselves in the United States and then cross over is ag’in law,
and for the government up north to allow that is consider’ble of a
friendly act, and Mexico’ll feel right sore about it.”
“Who’s this Huston who signs as secretary? Not Sam Houston?”
“No, sir. Nor any relative, far as I know. Spells his name different.
We’ll hear from Sam, later.”
On the next day or two, General Austin ordered Colonel Bowie to march
the division up around back of the Alamo, and join the other division.
They all crossed the river north of the Alamo, to an old mill on the
west side of the stream; so that now the whole army were almost within
cannon-shot of the Alamo to the south, east of the river, and within
half a mile of the town to the southwest on the west side. It was
reported that General Cos was ready to surrender; but when a messenger
was sent forward under flag of truce, with summons to surrender, the
general ordered the flag to retire at once or he would fire upon it.
General Austin lingered hereabouts for a short time, hoping that the
Mexicans would sally out to drive him away; but they did not, so he
made camp at the mill.
This had brought Sion Bostick and Ernest and Jim together again. Sion
and some men of his company secured permission to try the little
Gonzales six-pounder on the Alamo. A squad of them under Captain Poe
dragged it on by ropes within 400 yards of the Alamo; and while the
army eagerly watched they fired several rounds. The solid balls knocked
great puffs of dust from the Alamo walls, and the Alamo cannon replied.
No harm was done, by either side, and presently, after a waste of
ammunition, the cannon quit.
“We dusted their coats for ’em, anyway,” proclaimed Sion, returning
in high glee to Ernest. “And we collected about a dozen of their
cannon-balls. Traded more than even.”
So near was the camp to the Alamo that on still nights the Mexican
sentinels could be heard crying, shrilly, one to another: “Sentinela
alerte! Sentinela alerte! [Sentinel on the watch! Sentinel on the
watch!]” This was the custom in the Mexican army. And there was a brass
band, whose music, especially at morning and evening, floated across
the space into the Texan camp.
Deserters from the town stated that General Cos had sent Colonel
Ugartechea south to Laredo, on the Rio Grande River, for reinforcement.
General Austin kept cavalry patrols constantly on the move beyond
Bejar, in the hope that the reinforcements could be cut off. On
November 8, William House of Captain William Austin’s company, on a
scout in search of the reinforcements, was chased by Mexican lancers,
and fell from his horse and broke his neck. Jim Hill went out with a
party of fifty men to bring in the body, and had a story to tell Ernest
and Sion of a fight with 250 Mexicans, in which the 250 were well
threshed.
Captain Travis’s company of scouts captured thirty horses that General
Cos had turned out of Bejar because there was no forage for them.
Sion Bostick’s crowd were given permission again to try the cannon.
They put it in an irrigating ditch only 300 yards from the Alamo, and
fired away. This appeared to enrage the Mexicans in the Alamo, who
replied hotly, and even shot at the camp. Several Mexicans on the walls
of the Alamo were killed by Texan sharpshooters; but the cannon on both
sides being small, did no more damage than before. Sion and his comrade
cannoneers could be seen picking up the Mexican round-shot and loading
those that fitted into the cannon in the ditch, and sending them back
again.
But all these scoutings and bombardments were not enough for the Texas
volunteers. They wanted to take Bejar and be done, and go home to their
families and crops. Even Jim grew dissatisfied, although he had agreed
with Ernest and Leo to “stick.”
“We didn’t enlist for camp duty and fooling ’round,” he said. “We
weren’t even sworn in. We just gathered together and came to drive the
Mexican soldiers out of Texas, so we could go home again for Christmas
and have a little peace. We aren’t bound to stay here this way waiting.
We’ve got enough men to wade right through Bejar. Fannin says that two
hundred and fifty men of the proper sort could do the business.”
“Yes, but he said if they were properly drilled. We aren’t drilled
much,” answered Ernest. “The men are always making General Austin
mad by shooting at marks around camp and by going off home without
permission. He says he’s worn out trying to regulate ’em. And Travis
says we’re patriotic, all right, but we aren’t much more than a mob.”
“Well, you fellows may know what we’re fighting about, but I don’t, and
I don’t care,” asserted Sion. “All I know is, we enlisted to fight, and
this cannon-ball business doesn’t amount to shucks. I’ll bet there are
enough men right from the Colorado to drive those Mexicans out of Bejar
like a flock of turkeys. They’ll shoot cannon, but they can’t stand
rifles.”
Thus a spirit of great discontent was evident in the army. Reinforcements
in little squads were constantly arriving, breathless and eager; but
other squads were constantly leaving, in independent fashion, for the
east, with the promise that they’d be back when they’d “found things all
right at home and there was any real fighting.” General Austin looked
more worried and feeble, as if indeed worn out. And still the Mexican
military band played defiantly, and above the walls of the Alamo and of
San Antonio de Bejar floated over Texas soil the green, white and red
tri-color of Mexico. And in the interior of Mexico General Santa Anna,
according to reports, had put down all opposition to his military
government; no help could be expected from the Mexican patriots there,
and he was assembling an army, not only to rescue General Cos in San
Antonio, but to conquer the Texas “rebels.”
So affairs looked rather black, and Ernest, for one, did not see
exactly how they were going to turn out, until, suddenly, into the camp
at the old mill rode Leo Roark and others, fresh from San Felipe, and
the consultation, and full of enthusiasm.
“Meeting’s adjourned. Now where’s Cos?” they shouted.
“Did you see your folks? Did you have any fun? Where’ve you been, all
this time?” demanded Jim and Ernest, rushing to greet Leo.
“Yes, I saw ’em. They’re doing fine. Had _some_ fun. Heard most of the
consultation, anyhow.”
“What’d they do?” queried Jim.
“Drew up a regular declaration of rights, elected Henry Smith state
governor, Austin’s going to the United States to get money, Sam
Houston’s commander-in-chief to raise an army――and,” concluded Leo,
“there are near two hundred United States volunteers right behind us,
now, on the way to help take Bejar. We passed ’em yesterday. Wait a
minute and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I’ll get Sion,” proposed Ernest. “You know Sion Bostick?”
“From down on the Colorado? Yes, I’ve met up with him.”
XI
SAM HOUSTON COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
“Let’s see,” spoke Leo, after he had put up his horse, and reported,
and returned wiping his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief, to
greet Sion, and to sit down, surrounded by his expectant cronies, Dick
Carroll and several others. “You don’t care anything about my visit
home. I was at the consultation most of the time, anyway, and slept
outside, nights, in my blanket. So did the other fellows, except those
that lived in the town.”
“Did you meet up with any of my folks?” asked Sion.
“I sure did, and Jim’s, too. They all sent their love. Well, the
consultation met on the third, in that little old one-story convention
hall that hasn’t any ceiling. There were fifty-five delegates, which
didn’t leave much room for the rest of us. But all the big men were
there, except Austin: J. A. Wharton, and Williamson (Three-legged
Willie, you know), and de Zavala, the patriot, and Captain Fisher, of
Gonzales, and Captain Burnam, and Dave Macomb, and A. Huston, of San
Augustine, and Branch T. Archer, of Brazoria, and Sam Houston――――.”
“What’d Sam Houston wear?” inquired Dick Carroll, pointedly.
“Buckskins and Mexican blanket, of course.”
“Looked like the best-dressed man, too; didn’t he?”
“That man certainly carries his clothes regardless,” admitted Leo. “You
really don’t notice _what_ he has on when he gets in action. Well,
first thing they elected Branch Archer president of the meeting, and
then they appointed Wharton and Houston and ten others to draw up a
declaration that would tell the people in Mexico and the United States
what we were fighting about.”
“I’d like to know that, myself,” invited Sion. “Haven’t got it through
my head yet!”
“I brought a copy with me,” continued Leo. “There were a thousand
printed. Here ’tis.”
“Let Dick read it,” proposed somebody. “He’s a boss reader; never shies
at a word.”
So Dick Carroll took the handbill, and read:
_Declaration of the People of Texas in General Convention
Assembled_
_Whereas_, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, and other
military chieftains, have, by force of arms, overthrown the
federal institutions of Mexico, and dissolved the social
compact which existed between Texas and the other members of
the Mexican confederacy; now the good people of Texas, availing
themselves of their natural rights,
_Solemnly Declare_
1st. That they have taken up arms in defense of their rights
and liberties, which were threatened by the encroachments of
military despots, and in defense of the republican principles
of the federal constitution of Mexico, of eighteen hundred and
twenty-four.
2nd. That Texas is no longer morally or civilly bound by
the compact of union; yet, stimulated by the generosity and
sympathy common to a free people, they offer their support and
assistance to such of the members of the Mexican confederacy as
will take up arms against military despotism.
“That sounds kind of patronizing,” commented Dick, interrupting
himself. “Some Mexicans mayn’t like it――coming from Texas.”
“’Tisn’t a declaration of independence, after all, is it!” remarked
Sion. “Why don’t we fight for independence?”
“Well, some of them did talk independence,” answered Leo. “But Sam
Houston was against it and so were others, and it was voted down, in
favor of the constitution of 1824――thirty-three to fourteen. Houston
put the motion, himself.”