and the majority of the men were almost as indignant. Some even called
General Houston a coward――afraid to stand and fight. Only a few took a
calmer view and stood up for him, pointing out that Sesma and Woll were
being reinforced and that General Urrea was likely to come up at any
moment, from below, with a new attack.
“As for Sam Houston being a coward,” spoke Dick Carroll, “you gentlemen
misjudge him. No man who fought like he did under General Jackson,
and had that arrow jerked out from him, flesh and all, is a coward.
He charged those Creek breastworks away in front of his men. If he
retreats now, he’s simply playing for time.”
Ernest glowed to hear such words. _He_ knew that Sam Houston could be
no coward.
“Well, boys,” spoke another in the group, “I’ve women and children
between the Colorado and the Brazos, and I’m going to them this very
evening and move ’em eastward, orders or no orders.”
A number of men did leave, to move their families. The general gave
furloughs for this purpose to all who asked.
Camp was struck a little before dusk, and the march eastward toward
the Brazos was begun. Passing back along the column, and eying it, the
general turned and rode a short distance with Captain Robert Calder,
near Ernest and Jim.
“I should be glad to have your views on this retirement, sir,” invited
the general.
“I am willing to obey the orders of the commander-in-chief, general,”
replied Captain Calder. “We could have whipped the enemy there at the
Colorado. Our men all agree to that. But I suppose your idea is to draw
the Mexicans further into the country, until you can do the job slick
and clean.”
“This retirement is a necessity of war,” declared the general. “Yes,
sir; we could have whipped the enemy, back at the Colorado; but we
can’t fight battles without having men killed and wounded. We haven’t
the means of conveying ammunition and baggage, not to speak of the
wounded. A battle would handicap us fatally. Besides, a defeat of the
enemy at the Colorado would inevitably have united all the Mexican
columns against us. We will choose some good position on the Brazos
near San Felipe, where by means of boats we can drop down or up, and
give the enemy battle to our own advantage. I will do the best I can;
but be assured, the fame of Jackson can never repay me for my anxiety
and pain.”
The timber skirting the Colorado had been left behind when through the
column spread an alarm. A body of troops were sighted, approaching
across the prairie, from the south. Mexicans! A Mexican patrol――General
Urrea’s advance guard? No! Scouts galloped out, to investigate, and
scurrying back reported. Texans! More Texans! Reinforcements from the
mouth of the Brazos!
The column was halted, to wait.
“Listen to the drum!” exclaimed Jim, as he and Ernest sat their
saddles, watching. “They’ve got a drum!――and a fife!”
To brave beat of drum and piping of fife, amidst welcoming cheers the
new troops arrived. Three companies they proved to be――numbering only
130 men in all――under command of Major John Forbes: Captain Amasa
Turner’s company of regular infantry, and two companies of volunteers.
They brought no cannon, and few horses; but, of great importance to Jim
and Ernest, and Sion, they brought Leo Roark! From the wearied ranks he
gaily waved response to his cavalry friends, and Sion also called his
attention with a series of loud whoops.
The three companies fell into the place assigned to them by General
Houston, and marched on, the drum rattling merrily and the fife tooting
lustily. Music for the army!
That night at camp the four veterans of San Antonio had a reunion.
“What’s the meaning of this march, anyhow?” demanded Leo. “You-all are
heading the wrong way.”
“We’re going to retreat till we can lick the Mexicans one bunch at a
time,” answered Ernest.
“One man at a time, he ought to say,” growled Sion.
“Where are all your men, from your part of the country?” accused Jim of
Leo. “We counted on five hundred of you. You’d better have left your
drum and fife at home and brought cannon and mules.”
“Fetched in what men we could,” retorted Leo. “If you keep on
retreating you won’t get anybody! The people want their homes
protected. They aren’t going to fall back and leave their families.
First they heard of the Alamo massacre, and now they’re hearing about
Fannin’s defeat. When I left home my mother and the family were all
packed up, ready to light out.”
“My folks have gone――took only the little they could carry,” said Jim,
soberly.
“So have mine,” said Sion.
Ernest, hearing, was glad, for once, that _his_ mother was in
Cincinnati.
Leo had enrolled in the company from Velasco, near where he lived. He’d
traded his shot-gun for a musket, but otherwise he was the same manly
Leo of the campaign against Bejar.
On the next day, which was Palm Sunday, March 27, the timber along the
Brazos River was reached. And when the march crossed the San Felipe
road, from the Colorado to the Brazos, rain had begun to fall, so that
all the bottom-lands were heavy with black mud.
Scores of settler families were pressing through the mud, for safety in
the east. Carts filled with the feeble and the children and household
goods were stuck fast in boggy places, and people, young and old,
mainly women and children, were trudging ankle deep――many with no
shoes, all wet and miserable.
“That’s sure a runaway scrape,” remarked Jim. And as the Runaway Scrape
is the frenzied flight still known. “An awful pity, too. Expect my
mother is out in the rain and mud, just like the rest. And Sion’s and
Leo’s.”
Morning dawned damply upon a muddy camp. When orders to march were
given, Captain Moseley Baker’s company refused to retreat any further;
and the wagon oxen of the Captain Wiley Martin company could not be
found. These two companies stayed behind; but the general, to avoid any
quarrel, ordered Captain Baker to remain at San Felipe and guard the
river crossing against the Mexicans, and for Captain Martin to guard
the Fort Bend crossing below. So for a little time Jim and Leo and
Ernest did without the pugnacious Sion.
In torrents of rain, Monday, the retreat continued, plastered with mud
and drenched with water. Creeks were forded. The wheels of the baggage
wagons that had been collected bogged to their axles, and several
times General Houston clambered off his horse and impatiently put his
shoulders to the tires, helping the men and oxen. His thin black coat
was soaked through and through.
“The general of the army has no blanket,” Ernest and Jim heard him
proclaim loudly, as he rode along with two or three of the officers.
“I had a very good one; it might shelter me from this pitiless storm,
but some scoundrel stole it. I am told,” he added, “that evilly
disposed persons have reported that I am going to march you clear to
the Redlands border of Texas. This is false. I am going to march you up
into the Brazos bottoms to a position where you can whip the enemy ten
to one, and where we can get an abundant supply of corn.”
It rained hard all that night――and a miserable night it was. Several
beeves were driven in and killed for food. The army huddled around huge
fires, cooking slices of beef and trying to dry their feet. The ground
was too wet to lie on. General Houston sat on his saddle, his feet on a
block of wood, and a borrowed blanket over his shoulders. Somebody at
one of the messes started a song, in a pleasant tenor voice.
Will you come to the bow’r I have shaded for you?
Your bed shall be roses bespangled with dew.
Will you, will you, will you, will you,
Come to the bow’r?
That was the way it began. The words drifted from fire to fire,
in a plaintive melody. Jim, squatted beside Ernest――both of them
soaked――grunted.
“That’s surely a fine song,” he said. “Talk about a bed of roses!”
“I’ll take a good hard plank for mine,” quoth Ernest. “Without dew. Am
wet enough already!”
He nodded off, into a dose, but was awakened by Jim nudging him.
“Look at the fire,” bade Jim, in low tones. “San Felipe’s burning!”
The sky in the south was red, and growing redder. The rain had ceased,
and upon the overcast sky the lurid glow mounted high and higher. All
the camp was awake, watching, in a state of fresh alarm.
General Houston had arisen from his saddle seat, and was stalking from
mess to mess.
“I gave no orders for this,” he repeated. “The citizens have done it.
It is a military measure, to anticipate the enemy. But there is no
battle. We hear no guns. The enemy shall not cross the Brazos. It is
well defended. Should they reach the west bank at San Felipe they will
find no shelter and supplies.”
However, the burning of the town――the first American town in Texas,
located by Stephen Austin――put the army in the dumps again, and the
song of “Will You Come to the Bower” was not renewed when the men
prepared for another dismal march. Three taps of the drum, by the
general himself, as the reveille, fell flatly on the heavy atmosphere.
Some of the men had left families on the Brazos near San Felipe――some
owned houses in San Felipe itself; and they hated to move further on,
while behind them the smoke pall hung. Where were the Mexicans? Henry
Karnes and the “Deaf Smith Spy Company” were constantly out, on the
scout, but they brought in no definite news.
On March 31, which was Thursday, camp was made in the bottom-lands near
Groce’s Ferry, of the Brazos between San Felipe and Washington. It
looked as though this was to be a camp for several days, at least, for
the general set everybody at work clearing away the brush on the margin
of a large pond back from the river.
What next? Nobody seemed to know. The army had retreated over 200
miles from Gonzales, and now had dwindled down from the 1300 men at
the Colorado to only a little more than 500 men. But the general was
energy itself. He never quit for a minute. The steamboat Yellowstone,
commanded by Captain Ross, was found at Groce’s Ferry loading with
cotton for the Gulf. The general ordered this seized and held, to be
used should the army cross to the east bank.
He formed the little army into regiments. General Burleson commanded
the first, and Lieutenant-Colonel Sidney Sherman of the Kentucky
volunteers (the company with the beautiful flag) was promoted to
command the second. The cavalry were attached to this regiment, and now
for the first time Jim and Ernest were under a settled officer. Leo
remained in the infantry, under Colonel Burleson, and Sion was still
down opposite the ruins of San Felipe, with the Captain Baker company.
The camp was aroused each morning by the three taps of the drum at
the general’s quarters, and there were daily drills. There also was
rain――rain, rain, rain, until the camp was a mud island, for the river
Brazos overflowed and surrounded it. Rain, mud, and measles, and bad
water; half the men ill with one disease or another, and the general
laid up, part of the time, in a tent that he had procured.
Then, on the second of April, came bad news. It permeated the
discontented camp like wild-fire. Colonel Fannin and his men had not
been paroled, but had been killed: shot down, or bayoneted, on Palm
Sunday, March 27, at Goliad, by the Mexican companies! Three hundred
and twenty――think of it――320 of the rank and file, marched out upon the
prairie, and slain by the Mexican soldiers! Santa Anna himself had sent
the orders.
The New Orleans Grays, the Red Rovers of Alabama, the Mustangs of
Kentucky, and all――all except twenty-six or twenty-seven who had dodged
the bullets and had escaped in the brush. Colonel Fannin and Colonel
Ward of the Georgians had been shot separately. It was worse than even
the Alamo.
Now news was received, at last, from the Mexican army. The Deaf Smith
Spy Company, who had been out on a long scout, returned with the word.
The army were coming in three separate columns. Santa Anna was leading
the centre column, from Gonzales straight eastward for Beason’s on the
Colorado and thence to San Felipe. A southern column under General
Urrea was marching from Goliad northeast for the coast. A northern
column under General Gaona was marching by way of Bastrop (or Mina), on
the Colorado above Moore’s Retreat for Nacogdoches in the far east. Six
thousand soldiers in all was given, by the spies, as the number――and
they were sweeping Texas with orders to shoot every Texan caught
bearing arms. All the country was in full flight; the roads from the
Brazos east were crowded with panic-stricken settlers.
Lorenzo de Zavala, the vice-president, joined the camp, with a company
of eighty men from the Red Lands. He reported that Thomas J. Rusk, the
secretary of war, was on his way to help in the fighting; and that two
cannon from Cincinnati had been landed at the coast and were being
hurried forward.
The general sent the Redlanders down river to reinforce Captain Baker’s
company opposite San Felipe at the San Felipe crossing, and gave strict
orders that no man was to leave the camp without permission. Secretary
Rusk arrived on April 4; but even he could not calm the discontent.
Were the army to stay here while the republic was being ravaged by
Santa Anna? What was the matter with that Sam Houston, anyhow? Leo
raged, Jim was sarcastic, and even Ernest felt his courage ebbing.
On April 7 the general issued an army order:
The moment for which we have waited with anxiety and interest
is fast approaching [he said]. The victims of the Alamo and
the spirits of those who were murdered at Goliad call for
cool, deliberate vengeance. Strict discipline, order, and
subordination will ensure us the victory. The army will be in
readiness for action at a moment’s warning. The field officers
have the immediate execution of this order in charge for their
respective commands.
“Big words,” fumed Jim. “But what do they mean? Here we are, squatting
in the mud and growing web feet. Couldn’t get off this island if the
Mexicans were right opposite. Oh, yes; _we’re_ safe; but what of the
rest of Texas? What of _our_ folks? Next thing, we’ll hear of some more
massacres, down the river. I’m sick; I’ve had the measles and now I’ve
got a cold. What we need is another general.”
That day cannon shots were heard, from down the river. A battle!
The Mexicans were trying to cross at San Felipe. Now the camp was
in a fever, indeed. Would Captain Baker and the Redlanders hold the
crossing? The three boys listened with anxious hearts, for Sion was
there in the fight.
The firing continued for two days, on and off. Then it ceased. Colonel
Alex. Somervell came in with the report that the Mexican advance guard
had retired without crossing. But there was considerable talk about
making Colonel Sidney Sherman the commander-in-chief. However, in the
morning notices, signed by General Houston, were stuck up with wooden
pegs on the trees, saying that any man who attempted to organize
volunteers from the army would be “court-martialed and shot.” This
stopped much of the talk.
More recruits joined from East Texas. Among them was one especially
nice-looking man, with the high-sounding name of Mirabeau Buonaparte
Lamar. He was from a famous Georgia family; had been a newspaper
editor, and could write poetry. He had walked almost all the way up
from Velasco to join the Texan army as a private. The men agreed that
he would not remain a private long.
Colonel Rusk, the secretary of war, was reported to have been sent by
the government on purpose to urge General Houston to fight. And a tart
dispatch was received from the president.
To GEN. SAM HOUSTON.
SIR: The enemy are laughing you to scorn. You must fight them.
You must retreat no further. The country expects you to fight.
The salvation of the country depends on your doing so.
DAVID G. BURNET.
The general appeared to pay no attention to this interference, as if
he were bent upon pursuing his own plans. But it was rumored that one
column of the Mexican army had crossed the Brazos, at last, and was
heading eastward. This might be so, for on the morning of April 12
orders were issued to break camp and prepare to leave. All that day and
half of the next day the steamboat Yellowstone and a ferry flat-boat
were busy carrying the 523 men, the wagons and the horses and oxen,
from the west bank to the east bank.
Affairs looked brighter. At Groce’s, on the east bank, the two cannon
from Cincinnati were found waiting. They were iron six-pounders and had
been presented by the citizens of Cincinnati to the Republic of Texas.
It seemed good to Ernest to see something that had been in Cincinnati.
He rather believed that his mother had looked upon these cannon. He
wondered if she had guessed that they were coming straight to him――and
why she had not thought to put a note in them!
No cannon shot accompanied them; all had been lost on the long way.
But blacksmiths were set at work cutting up horseshoes and chains and
other iron, to be tied in cotton bags, as canister. Colonel Hockley was
placed in charge of the cannon.
Yes, one column of the Mexican army had crossed the Brazos. A dispatch
from Captain Wiley Martin told this. A portion of the column had
threatened him at Fort Bend, while the rest of the column had gone
below and seized a ferry kept by an old negro. They had yelled to the
negro in English, and he had thought that they were some Texans wanting
the ferry.
The general promptly issued a proclamation, to reassure the people of
Eastern Texas. He said:
You have suffered panic to seize you, and idle rumors to
guide you. You will now be told that the enemy have crossed
the Brazos, and that Texas is conquered. Reflect, reason with
yourselves, and you cannot believe a part of it. The enemy have
crossed the Brazos, but they are treading the soil on which
they are to be conquered.
If you wish your country saved [he continued], join her
standard! protect your wives, your children and your homes, by
repairing to the field where alone, by discipline and concert
of action, you can be effective.
But the Mexicans were marching on!
[Illustration: TEXAS IN 1835–1836 AND MARCH OF THE TWO ARMIES EASTWARD
TO SAN JACINTO
Route of Texan Army under Houston: ― ― ― ― ―
Route of Mexican Column under Santa Anna: + + + +]
That night, tired of the nagging from Jim and Leo, who sided with the
men who thought that they knew more than the general did, about a
campaign, Ernest sought out Dick Carroll for comfort. He and Dick, at
least, would stand by the general. There were others, too.
“Don’t you worry about the general, boy,” assured Dick. “He’ll hoe
his row, in spite of the stones. And some day this army, and all
Texas, will thank him. It takes a big man to manage a retreat. Anybody
can fight, but few have the nerve to hold off till the proper time
to fight. A lot of these complainers aren’t reasonable. Hyar we
are, porely armed, porely drilled, porely provisioned, pulling all
ways――some of us skipping off home without staying to fight――and we’re
expected to stop right in their tracks an army ten times our size,
veteran soldiers, the best in Mexico, and commanded by a general who’s
never known defeat. We’ve got to oppose strategy to force. This one
army is up ag’in really three armies, all bigger; and we can’t fight
and run away to fight in another place, on account of the floods.
Besides, we’ve got the Injuns to look out for. These East Texas
settlements are open to attack from the prairies, and that northern
column of Gaona is liable to fetch along Injuns. The Comanches and
Cherokees are ready for the warpath, I hear tell.”
“But the general’s letting the centre column get ahead of us,” hazarded
Ernest.
“No, he isn’t. He’s letting it get in front of us, and that means we’re
behind it. It’s got to look two ways, now. And it’s marching further
and further, and separating more and more from the other columns. Sam
Houston wants it to run on the rope a bit longer; then he’ll lick it,
and have time to tend to the others. That’s my notion of what Sam
Houston is up to.”
“Where do you think they’re going, Dick?”
“Who? The centre column that crossed the Brazos? To Harrisburg, I
reckon, and try to capture the government cabinet.”
“Is Santa Anna with them?”
“Don’t know. Nobody seems to know yet. But we’ll find out. About twenty
miles beyond here the road forks: one fork continues on east to the
Trinity and Nacogdoches, the other fork bends south for Harrisburg. And
if we don’t take the south fork I miss my guess.”
It was generally known that all the companies down the Brazos had been
ordered to meet the main body at Donoho’s Ranch, five miles east. This
looked like business. To-night the camp was more cheerful. The fife
played the tune “Will You Come to the Bower,” some of the men sang, and
even Jim and Leo sought their blankets less disgruntled.
The next noon, of April 14, camp was made at Donoho’s, to await the
companies that had been ordered up from below. This camp was rather
hard on the Donoho place, for most of the fence rails were torn down to
feed the camp fires. A number of refugee families were collected here
on their flight to the Trinity River and eastward still. Jim looked in
vain for his “folks.” The wearied outfits with their carts and oxen
hastened onward, fearful lest the army pass them and leave them exposed
to the enemy.
Captain Baker arrived to report that his company were on hand, camped
by the road about three miles further on. Captain Martin also came in.
He said, very distinctly:
“General, I have brought but my sword. On hearing that you are
retreating to Nacogdoches my company refuse to remain with you, and
declare that they must protect their families.”
“Are you and your men willing to retreat beyond the Trinity to
Nacogdoches, captain?” asked one of the men, of Captain Baker.
“Never, never!” answered the captain, determinedly. “If General Houston
will not take us to meet the enemy, we will elect a commander who
will!”
The general was standing talking with Captain Martin only a few feet
away, and heard. But he replied not a single word.
An old negro also arrived from below. He said that he had been the
ferry-man near Fort Bend, whom the Mexicans had bamboozled. They had
held him several days.
“Dey gwine straight on to Harrisburg to ketch the gubberment,” he
proclaimed. “Santa Anna wif ’um. Yessuh, he wif ’um. I done saw him.
He say: ‘You tell Sam Houston I know he up dere in de bushes, an’ when
I get done wif dese land-robbers down hyar I’se comin’ up to smoke him
out,’ Yessuh; dat’s what he say.”
Camp was made the next evening at Mr. McCurley’s ranch, thirteen miles
east. More refugees were here. The Martin company had been ordered by
the general to proceed on and to protect the settlers crossing the
Trinity from the Indians. That suited the company better. But the Baker
company were picked up, and Sion joined his three comrades again. He
was gleeful, but also critical.
“We drove those Mexicans back from the river, all right,” he asserted.
“We got fooled, though, once. Thought we saw a thundering big lot of
cavalry coming full tilt, and after we’d set fire to the town, against
’em, we found out they were only a bunch of cattle. Anyway, here we all
are, now. And if Sam Houston doesn’t let us take the Harrisburg road
to-morrow, to meet up with Santa Anna, we’re going to elect a general
who will.”
“Colonel Rusk says we’re going to Harrisburg,” spoke Ernest, hopefully.
“He does, does he?” responded Sion. “Huh! Maybe he’s the boss and maybe
he isn’t. We’ll mighty soon find out, to-morrow.”
The march was resumed in a driving rain. The men trudged heavily, and
even the horses seemed to share in the rebellious feeling. But General
Houston had given no indication of what he had decided, and rather a
pathetic figure he made, as he rode along in the pelting storm. He
still wore his thin old black coat; his whitish hat flopped on his
head, his legs were clad in baggy snuff-colored trousers and cowhide
boots; and his sword was tied around his waist by buckskin thongs. A
month’s beard covered his face.
The fife and drum had played a tune at the beginning; but when the
Roberts ranch, where the road forked, was reached, the music stopped,
and the rear of the column crowded up against the hesitating van.
General Houston had spurred ahead. Mr. Roberts the rancher was standing
at his gate, talking with several officers, as the general arrived.
With the cavalry, in the advance, Ernest heard the words plainly.
“Is that the road to Harrisburg?” demanded the officers.
“Yes, sir,” answered Mr. Roberts; and he pointed. “This right-hand road
will carry you down to Harrisburg as straight as a compass.”
“To the right, boys! To the right!” shouted the officers, galloping
away.