march!” sounded the orders; and in a weaving column four abreast
the little army headed from the blaze-lighted camp. There were six
companies of infantry, with fifty or sixty men in a company, forming
the centre; the sixty horsemen rode on either flank; the three
cannon――one iron nine-pounder and two four-pounders――had been thrown
into the river, for they could not be taken. One baggage-wagon, hauled
by four oxen, brought up the rear.
The general and his staff――Colonel Hockley, Colonel Burleson,
Lieutenant-Colonel Sherman and Major Somervell――led, on their horses.
A detachment under Captain Handy and Captain John Sharp formed a rear
guard. The march to the main road for the east passed through Gonzales.
The houses all were lighted, and inside and in the yards the men and
women were toiling desperately, packing their valuables and bedding,
for flight. The two wagons, piled high, and with women and children
atop the loads, joined the march for protection; so did a number of
other outfits――on horses, oxen, or afoot, mothers carrying the smallest
children, fathers, who had left the ranks, carrying others――whole
families trudging and sobbing, but the men grim. Mrs. Dickinson was
said to be somewhere in the procession.
General Houston’s voice could be heard, exhorting.
“None must be left behind,” he was saying. “Go to the interior. Keep
ahead of the army. That’s the only safe way.”
“Before morning there won’t be a soul in Gonzales,” spoke a rider near
Ernest. “This is war, all right.”
Ernest could not see the speaker; the march had proceeded into
darkness, and Gonzales and its lights, shining for the last time from
those homely casements, were behind.
“Yes,” responded another voice. “And by the time those fellows who’ve
skipped out have spread the news, all West Texas will be on the move.”
“When we join Fannin, I reckon we’ll do something.”
“We’ll try hard.”
The enshrouded road became sandy, making bad going for the people
afoot. Children whimpered, women panted, and even the volunteers
trudged more and more slowly. The air was warm and lifeless.
On a sudden, after the march had continued for two hours, along the
straggling column welled a cry, passing on lip to lip from rear to
front. Ernest quickly turned his head. He had been half asleep. The
western horizon was redly aglow.
“Gonzales! It’s a fire!”
“They’re burning the town!”
“Who’s doing that?”
“Did the rear guard have those orders?”
“There goes the only bit of property I have in the world.”
“Well, let the Mexicans come now. They’ll find nothing.”
Ernest gazed dumbly. Higher mounted the glow, as fiercer waxed the
flames. There went his and Dick’s little home, then; all the buildings
were of thin oak siding――they’d burn furiously. Ho-hum! That was pretty
tough. What were the people to do, if they ever went back?
False dawn, which precedes real dawn by an hour, was in the air, and
sleepy birds were twittering, when the exhausted column struggled
across Peach Creek, at the abandoned McClure ranch, and welcome orders
were given for the soldiers to rest on their arms. But many of the
refugees from Gonzales pressed right on.
No fires were made. Some of the footmen simply fell upon their
knapsacks and lay there. Ernest loosened Duke’s cinches and tethered
him out; and was spreading his blanket when Jim found him.
“I’ve been looking for you,” said Jim. “There doesn’t seem to be much
order, anyhow. I reckon we’ll just spread our blankets together after
this till the cavalry’s formed. I’ll ride with you to-morrow.”
“Good,” replied Ernest, briefly.
In silence they rolled up, side by side, in their blankets. Jim spoke:
“Pretty tough, isn’t it!”
“That’s right,” agreed Ernest.
The fire was brighter, and the refugees continued to pass.
XVII
RETREAT, AND EVER RETREAT
It seemed to Ernest that he scarcely had closed his eyes, at last,
when he was forced to unclose them. Men were passing among the prone
figures, waking them. Dawn had broken grayly, under a clouded sky.
Fires were being kindled; and the wearied refugees scattered through
the oak grove were arousing――the women to get the breakfasts. In the
west hung the smoke from the burning town.
“Well,” yawned Jim, pulling on his boots, “here we are, with all Texas
before us.”
“Wonder where we go to-day,” invited Ernest.
“Keep right on till we reach the Colorado, I reckon,” answered Jim.
“That’s the tell. We’ll join with Fannin somewhere on the Colorado and
hold the Mexicans there till we lick ’em.”
Coffee was being made――and it tasted very good, although there was no
sugar for it. From the direction of Gonzales sounded several heavy
explosions, rumbling through the damp air. Mexican cannon? If so, then
Henry Karnes and Deaf Smith and the other scouts would best light out
of there in a hurry. No――as like as not the explosions were from some
powder that had been forgotten, or from barrels of brandy. Rumor said
that the brandy had been poisoned, for the Mexicans, and that General
Houston was angry, when he heard.
Now General Houston was walking among the refugees (who had been
alarmed by the explosions) and telling them, in a loud, confident
voice, that to poison the liquor had been the act of savages, and that
it had now been safely disposed of.
Orders were issued to fall in. The footmen stiffly obeyed; most of them
were not used to walking, but the general (so ’twas said) thought
that he could hold the army together better if they were afoot. Ernest
saw Dick limping to his place. He and Jim, however, saddled up and in
partnership rode with the flanking cavalry.
After the first halt, to rest a moment, the general came slowly ambling
back along the column. He wore an old, thread-bare, closely buttoned
black coat, similar to a Prince Albert of to-day――a dress-coat, as it
was called. Probably he had given his buckskin coat to some refugee. He
appeared to be counting the men with his finger. He looked tired out,
and constantly sniffed at a little bottle of ammonia salts, to ward off
malaria. He made rather an odd figure, in his big hat, and long black
coat, with his bottle and his pointing finger.
“We are the rise of eight hundred strong,” he announced, as if to
himself, but in a loud voice so that all might hear; “and with a good
position we can whip ten to one of the enemy.” And he returned.
“Shucks!” remarked Jim. “That’s tall talk. We aren’t more than four
hundred and fifty. He’s saying that to encourage us.”
“Every little helps,” asserted Ernest.
“He’s got a load to carry, that man,” vouchsafed Jim. “We Texans aren’t
used to retreating, and look at us!”
Truly, the sight was not inspiring: the toiling, perspiring column, and
the distressed, panicky citizens, all fleeing from the advancing host
of the Mexican army flushed with victory.
That evening camp was made at the Lavaca River, near the ranch of
Captain Daniels. The ranch was deserted, like the rest of the country.
The general had no tent and all his baggage was a blanket and a pair
of saddle-bags containing his papers. To-night his headquarters were
an out-building of the ranch; and at dusk he could be seen through the
open door, seated on a three-legged stool, and whittling splinters with
which to feed a little fire in the fire-place, for light, while he
dictated some orders to Colonel Hockley, his chief aide. Soon after
supper Major William T. Austin rode away――with dispatches to the lower
Brazos, southeast, it was said. The general had sent word to Colonel
John A. Wharton to hurry up cannon, mules and ammunition.
In the morning word was passed that Colonel Fannin was still at Goliad,
and might not be able to retire. General Houston was heard to say to
Colonel Hockley:
“Hockley, here is the last hope of Texas. We shall never see Fannin
or his men. With these soldiers we must achieve our independence, or
perish in the attempt.”
Nevertheless, about ten o’clock the whole column was suddenly halted,
and a large squad of horsemen went galloping on the back trail.
“Where you going, boys?”
“To get a blind widow and seven children, bedad!” yelled one of the
riders――Irish, by his accent. “The gin’ral won’t be happy till he has
’em.”
So the march was delayed until the squad returned with the family, who
lived off the road and had not been told of the retreat. The “Deaf
Smith Spies,” as the Henry Karnes scouts were termed, came in also,
from Gonzales. They reported that when they had left, no Mexican army
was yet in sight.
About four o’clock in the afternoon of March 17, which was the fourth
day out of Gonzales, camp was made, in the rain, at Burnam’s Crossing
on the Colorado. During the march from Gonzales the general had been
energy itself. Nothing escaped his attention. He was everywhere at
once, from front to rear, encouraging the refugees, and scolding the
volunteers when they lagged. His strong point was discipline. John
Rhodes had been found asleep on sentry duty, and General Houston put
him under arrest and vowed he should be shot.
The next day, on the march, while crossing a creek, John stopped,
knee-deep, to get a drink. All the column behind him also stopped,
obligingly, to wait for him.
Back galloped the general, like a whirlwind.
“What are you doing here? Why are you halting?”
“John Rhodes wants a drink, general.”
“Knock him down!” bawled the general, pretending a terrible rage.
“Knock him down! Standing there and impeding the march of a whole army!
Knock him down, I say!” And he almost rode right over Rhodes, who was
so frightened that he did not take another swallow.
However, that evening the general called John, and told him that he
would not be shot, after all. And when the widow and her family were to
be rescued, he had halted the march himself and delayed it two hours!
From Burnam’s the general sent a dispatch to the government Military
Committee, at Washington on the Brazos. He dictated, from his quarters,
in such a loud voice, as if he were making a speech, that anybody near
at hand could hear.
It pains me to the heart [he said] that such consternation
should be spread by a few deserters from the camp, but we are
here, and if only three hundred men remain on this side of the
Brazos, I will die with them or conquer our enemies. Our own
people, if they would act, are enough to expel every Mexican
from Texas. Do let it be known that, on close examination,
and upon reflection, the force of Santa Anna has been greatly
overrated. If you can, by any means, soothe the people, and get
them to remain, they shall have notice, if I deem it necessary.
Let them entertain no fears for the present. We can raise three
thousand men in Texas, and fifteen hundred can defeat all that
Santa Anna can send to the Colorado.
Send agents to the United States [he said]. Appeal to them in
the holy names of Liberty and Humanity. Let the men from the
east of the Trinity rush to us. Let all the disposable force of
Texas fly to arms.
“The general’s certainly working hard,” quoth Jim, as he and Ernest
held a little council of war of their own. “But those fellows who
skipped out ahead of the army when they heard about the Alamo are
making him a heap of trouble. They’ve spread all kinds of stories.
Shucks, we’re not getting any at all from east Texas. Not more’n a
hundred and fifty men have met us since we left Gonzales――and part of
them vamoosed” (by which Jim meant “skipped”) “again.”
“Those last settlers we took up say it’s reported Santa Anna’s bringing
a lot of women along with his soldiers, and they’re to marry and settle
on the American ranches, and all Americans are to be driven out,” said
Ernest.
“If Fannin only gets away, we can hold the Mexicans at the Colorado,”
spoke Jim, confidently. “We lost one gun to-day. Did you hear?”
“No. What?”
“Musket. A sentry busted it over the head of a fellow by name of
Garner, who was bound to cross the line, whether or no. He didn’t
cross. Reckon the general’ll give that sentry a medal. This army needs
considerable disciplining.”
“Well, it’s got _some_ discipline,” argued Ernest. “The general tried
to cross the sentry line himself, and the sentinel made him sit on a
stump and wait for a written order from the officer of the day.”
“That tickled the general, I bet,” chuckled Jim. “What’s sauce for the
goose is sauce for the gander.”
Two days were spent in the mud, crossing the Colorado. All the refugees
were ferried over first, so as to be ahead of the column. One woman
was found by the general sitting on a log, refusing to move. She was
hopeless and crying. Her husband had been killed with Travis in the
Alamo, and her things had been burned in Gonzales. The general gave her
fifty dollars out of his $200, and told her that she need never pay him
back.
Wet and mudded, down the east bank of the Colorado the little army
marched until opposite Beason’s place, twelve miles below. This was
Beason’s Crossing. Sion lived here, across the river, near the new town
of Columbus. And that very evening he appeared in camp, with some
recruits.
Jim saw him first, and let out a wild whoop of joy.
“What do you think you’re going to do?” he demanded of Sion――he and
Ernest pumping Sion’s hand. “Still got that old pea-shooter, haven’t
you!” For Sion was equipped for war.
“Going to do? Fight, of course!” retorted Sion, as pugnacious as ever.
“What are you fellows going to do? Keep on running away?”
“No. As soon as we meet up with Fannin or get those cannon from the
mouth of the Brazos we’ll capture Santa Anna and go back to ploughing.
We’re here to stick. We’re stuck already, in the mud!”
“Have you enlisted, Sion?” queried Ernest.
“Sure. I’ve just been waiting till you came down. I’m in Captain
Moseley Baker’s San Felipe company, and I’m here to stick, too. He’s a
fighter. We fellows reckon Sam Houston’s gone about far enough.”
“Any news from Leo?”
“No.”
“Any news from Fannin?”
“No. But the convention’s quit. Elected David Burnet president of the
Republic of Texas and Lorenzo de Zavala [that was the Mexican patriot]
vice-president; and on the seventeenth, as soon as they heard about the
Alamo, they all moved out, down to Harrisburg, near Buffalo Bayou, in
the Galveston Bay country of the coast. Wasn’t that awful, about the
Alamo, though?”
“It certainly was,” agreed Jim and Ernest, sobering.
“All Texas acts scared out of its boots,” complained Sion. “The
government’s as bad as the rest――retreating like that. If half the men
who are tending to their families would join the army their families
would be a great deal safer. We’ve got to do something pretty quick.
The Mexicans are close.”
“How do you know?”
“Because some of their patrols are right west of here. People saw ’em
yesterday. Old Sesma’s behind ’em with six hundred men.”
That was true. The scouts under Henry Karnes, who had been stationed
across the river, above, brought in a Mexican soldier and three horses,
and Scout Secrest showed the sword and pistols of another soldier whom
he had killed. Three more prisoners were captured, by a detachment
under Lieutenant-Colonel Sherman. They said that General Sesma and
General Woll were now on the west bank of the Colorado, only three
miles above Beason’s. The Deaf Smith Spies, on falling back from
Burnam’s, had set fire to the ranch buildings and to the Dewees place,
below.
General Houston posted strong guards up along the river; and according
to reports there would be a battle. If Generals Sesma and Woll had only
600 men, the Texan army ought to be able to thresh them. Sherman, it
was said, would have ambushed them――only that one of his men disobeyed
orders and fired too soon, and spoiled the whole plan. If the artillery
only would come from the mouth of the Brazos! The little army were in
great excitement――although some of the men managed to leave, in spite
of the sentries. They reasoned that if there was a fight and the army
was whipped by the Mexican artillery and cavalry, they ought to be at
home with their families.
General Houston looked ill. He was carrying a great load. The news
that the government had fled also, as if it did not trust him or the
army, worried him. He said to one of the officers: “That removal from
Washington to Harrisburg has done more to increase the panic than
anything else that has occurred in Texas, except the fall of the Alamo,
sir.” And from Beason’s he wrote to Colonel Rusk, the secretary of war:
You know I am not easily depressed, but since we parted at the
convention I have found the darkest hours of my past life! My
excitement has been so great that for forty-eight hours I
have not eaten an ounce, nor have I slept. I was in a constant
apprehension of a rout; a constant panic existed in the lines,
yet I managed so well, or such was my good luck, that not a gun
was fired in or near the camp, or on the march (except to kill
beef) from the Guadalupe to the Colorado.
It was a poor compliment to me [he said] to suppose that I
would not advise the convention of any necessity which might
arise for their removal.
I had to advise troops and persons of my falling back, and had
to send one guard thirty miles for a poor blind widow (and
six children) whose husband had been killed in the Alamo. The
families now are all on this side of the Guadalupe. These
things pained me infinitely, and with the responsibility of my
command, weighed upon me to an agonizing extent.
In a few days [he added] my force will be highly respectable. I
am writing in the open air. I have no tent, and am not looking
out for the luxuries of life. Do devise some plan to send back
the rascals who have gone from the army and service of the
country with guns. Oh, why did the cabinet leave Washington?
We must act now, and with great promptness. The country must
be saved. This morning I hear of men from the mouth of the
river――they are on the march――you will hear from us.
The general wrote most of his dispatches at night, when he sat and
whittled a stick (he was a great whittler) while dictating, or while
thinking what to write.
But reinforcements were on the way; and word came that Colonel Rusk,
the secretary of war, had stationed a guard over the ferry across the
Brazos at Washington, with orders to stop all men going eastward with
arms.
General Houston was not saying much, but the belief was that a
battle would be fought on the 27th: for by this time Fannin or the
reinforcements would have arrived――particularly the cannon for which
Major Austin had been sent. He had promised to report in twelve days,
sure. Fight! That was what the army wanted to do: fight! By the way
Sion stormed about, one would have thought that he would do all the
fighting alone.
Then, in the evening of March 25, a new commotion swept the camp. Jim,
and Ernest, and Sion, sitting together, heard the shouts and saw the
running; and together they scampered for the centre of the disturbance.
A man had been brought in, by the corporal of the guard, and had been
immediately assailed by questions.
“Fannin! Fannin’s been whipped!” were the cries. “He and all his men
killed or captured! Refugio taken, too. All the lower Guadalupe wiped
out――a lot of the prisoners tied to oak trees and shot!”
By the time that the three boys breathlessly arrived, the messenger,
who was a Mexican countryman named Peter Kerr, was being hustled along
by the corporal. But he had answered enough questions so that his story
was clear.
Colonel Fannin had waited for the little garrisons at San Patricio to
collect the women and children and join him. But the advance of the
Mexican soldiers sent by Santa Anna into the south had been too rapid,
and the Texan troops had been cut off. Then on the morning of March
19 he had begun his retreat to Victoria, with 350 men and ten cannon.
But that same day, on a grassy prairie, he had been surrounded by
General Urrea and 900 cavalry and infantry, with cannon and about 100
Indians. Colonel Fannin formed a hollow square, and beat them off all
day long. Early the next morning 400 more Mexicans arrived, with more
cannon, and with 100 pack mules bearing new supplies. Sixty Texans had
been wounded, and there was no water, and very little food, and the
ammunition was almost gone. So before noon Colonel Fannin had agreed
to surrender. He and his men were to be treated as prisoners of war.
The outside volunteers were to be sent back to New Orleans and the few
Texas citizens were to go home, on parole, not to fight again in the
war.
But this was bad news indeed. Jim indignantly hurled his hat on the
ground.
“Think of it!” he exclaimed. “Gee whiz! Think of it! Right at this time
when we needed that crowd! The Mexican says if Fannin had marched only
three miles further ’stead of camping in the open he’d have been in the
timber and all Mexico couldn’t have cut him off!”
“We can fight without him, anyhow,” blurted Sion. “We’ve got enough
to lick Sesma and Woll. And I reckon we’ll do it, about day after
to-morrow.”
“Don’t know whether we will or not,” retorted Jim. “And supposing we
do. They’re just an advance guard. There’s Urrea, now, down south, with
twelve or fifteen hundred regulars, and nobody to hold him; and there’s
Santa Anna coming, with a few thousand more. And who’s helping _us_?
Half of us are down with the measles, anyway. Where are those East
Texas militia we’ve been hearing about? Where are those reinforcements
and those cannon from the mouth of the Brazos? And look what we’ve
lost! All those companies from the United States, except the Newport
Volunteers that are in this camp. The New Orleans Grays, the Mobile
Grays, the Kentucky Mustangs, the Alabama Red Rovers, the Georgia and
Tennessee companies, and all the rest――the best armed troops we had;
and one of the best officers――Jim Fannin.”
“Well,” said Ernest, determined to make the best of it, “they weren’t
all shot. They just surrendered. Only half a dozen were killed and they
wiped out about three hundred Mexicans.”
“They all are paroled, though; they can’t fight any more. They won’t
break their parole; they’re not like Cos,” insisted Jim. “And remember
the Alamo. Every man massacred whether he’d surrendered or not. And
remember how those other men were tied to oak trees and shot. We’re
liable to hear the same kind of news from Fannin yet.”
“Can’t help it,” declared Sion, doggedly. “I’m here to fight, and so
are the other men.”
“You talk as if you were as tall as that gun you’re lugging round,”
scoffed Jim. “Sounds as if you were going to account for the whole
Mexican army.”
“This gun shoots just as hard as if I was as big as General Houston,”
stoutly answered Sion. “That Mexican said there was a boy named Harry
Ripley with Fannin; from Louisiana. He got wounded, and asked a woman
named Mrs. Cash, from Goliad, to prop him up so he could shoot. He
popped four more Mexicans before a bullet broke his steadying arm; and
then with a broken arm and a broken thigh he had to quit. Said he’d
made the Mexicans pay double for what they gave him. I reckon I can do
as well as any boy from the United States.”
“I reckon you can, Sion,” agreed Jim.
General Houston ordered the Mexican, Peter Kerr, under close arrest;
would not even talk with him, and claimed that he was only a miserable
spy, and should be shot, the first thing in the morning. But nobody
believed that this would be done; they all knew the general too
well――and Peter evidently had spoken the truth. Late that evening the
general was seen talking to him, and examining him. The next day there
was no execution; instead, when the army was paraded, they listened to
the adjutant, Colonel Ben Fort Smith, read a general order:
FELLOW-SOLDIERS: The only army in Texas is now present. Travis
has fallen with his men at the Alamo; Fannin’s troops have been
massacred at La Bahia [which was Goliad]. There are none to aid
us. There is here but a small force, and yet it is all that
Texas has. We might cross the river and attack the enemy. We
might be victorious――but we might be overcome. There are but
few of us, and if we fall the fate of Texas is sealed. For this
reason, and until I feel able to meet the enemy in battle, I
shall retreat.
SAM HOUSTON,
Major-General Commanding.
Not a cheer greeted the order. Instead, from angry men welled sullen
murmurs.
XVIII
TO FACE THE ENEMY AT LAST