Before the echoes of the bugles which sounded General Woll’s retreat had
finally died on the air, volunteers came flocking to San Antonio eager
to pursue him, and determined to cross the Rio Grande at all hazards and
release the Texans languishing in Mexican prisons.
On the 18th of November seven hundred men, armed and equipped for a
campaign, were assembled in the shadow of the twin towers of the old
Mission Concepcion. General Alexander Somervell, appointed by President
Houston to the command, put himself at the head of this small army; the
order to march ran down the line, and with a shout the men set their
faces toward the west.
After several days’ march they camped at Laredo on the banks of the Rio
Grande River. They expected to cross at once into Mexico and take the
enemy by surprise. But at the moment when everything seemed to them
favorable for this movement, General Somervell issued an order for his
soldiers to return to Gonzales, where they would be disbanded.
The men were dumfounded. Three hundred flatly refused to obey the order.
The others, after much wrangling, followed General Somervell to San
Antonio.
Captain William S. Fisher was elected colonel in command of those who
remained, and the expedition proceeded down the Rio Grande to a point
opposite the Mexican town of Mier.
Mier was occupied by General Pedro Ampudia (Am-poo′dee-a) with two
thousand troops. On Christmas morning, before daylight, Colonel Fisher
led his men over the river. The Mexicans came out to meet them, but were
forced to retreat before the hot fire of the Texans. By daylight the
Texans had captured the enemy’s cannon and cut their way into the town.
Here the fight went on, hand to hand, from street to street, from house
to house.
But the superior numbers of the enemy enabled them to keep up the
struggle, which lasted seventeen hours.
At the end of that time a flag of truce was sent by General Ampudia to
Colonel Fisher. Fisher had been severely wounded early in the action; he
was weakened by loss of blood and unnerved by pain; and he advised
surrender, although up to this time his men had been victorious. He knew
General Ampudia, he said, and he answered for his good faith.
After much discussion the majority of the men agreed to the surrender.
The terms were most honorable.
No sooner were the articles signed and the Texan arms stacked, than the
unfortunate prisoners began to suffer from the cruelty of their
treacherous foes. They were put in irons and marched to Matamoras,
thence to the interior. At the Hacienda of Salado, beyond Saltillo, they
rose upon their guards, overpowered the soldiers, seized their weapons
and horses, and escaped. But they found themselves in a strange country.
They soon lost their way in the wild mountain passes, and after enduring
great torture from hunger and thirst, they were finally recaptured and
taken back to Salado.
On their arrival there they were met by an order from Santa Anna. Every
tenth man of them was to be shot! One of their own number who understood
Spanish was compelled to read this order to his companions. The rattle
of handcuffs, indicating the surprise of the startled prisoners, was
promptly silenced by the guards; and, amid a deadly stillness which
succeeded the reading, an officer entered the shed where they were
confined. He carried an earthen jar. The jar contained one hundred and
seventy-five beans (the number of the prisoners). Seventeen of the beans
were black, the others were white. The jar was placed on a bench and a
handkerchief thrown over it. The roll was then called. Each prisoner
stepped forward as his name was called, placed his hand in the jar, and
drew out a bean.
The black beans in this fatal lottery meant death.
Some of the Mexican officers grew faint as they looked, and turned away
their heads. But others bent forward eagerly, as if watching the throw
of dice in an everyday game of chance.
It was Sunday afternoon, at the hour when the church bells were
everywhere calling the people to vesper prayer, when this fearful drama
began. Not one of the actors in it faltered or changed color at finding
in his hand the black token of death. When the ordeal was ended, the
shackles of the seventeen doomed men were knocked off. They were then
hurried to a yard adjoining the shed and shot without further ceremony.
Their comrades, crouched against the wall within, heard but too plainly
the whispered prayers, the echoing shots, and the dying groans.
The survivors were carried to the Castle of Perote near the city of
Mexico, where they found the prisoners taken by General Woll at San
Antonio. They were immediately put to convict labor. “They were hitched
to a wagon, twenty-five to a team, and compelled to haul rocks from the
mountains to the Castle of Perote. The prisoners at no time, however,
lost their buoyant spirits, nor did they ever lose an opportunity for
fun. McFall, a powerful man, was put in the lead, and was always ready
to get scared and run away with the wagon. This was often done, and the
corners of the adobe houses always suffered in such cases. The Mexican
officers would laugh, and the owners of the houses would swear in bad
Spanish. The overseers were kept busy. They had the power of using the
lash, but they did not do this very often, as the Texans made it their
business, at the peril of their lives, to return such civilities with
ample vengeance.”[31]
Several of the prisoners made their escape. Among these was Colonel
Thomas Jefferson Green, who had been Fisher’s second in command. He was
bitterly opposed to the surrender at Mier, and broke his sword across
his knee rather than hand it to General Ampudia. Mr. John Twohig, of San
Antonio, who had been carried into captivity by Woll, and several of his
fellow-prisoners made a tunnel under the prison wall, through which they
succeeded in getting out of the Castle and thence safe home again.
[Illustration: Anson Jones.]
Mr. Wright of De Witt County was not so lucky. He was a very large man;
after making his preparations for flight, he crawled into the tunnel,
where he got along famously until he was about half way through. There
he stuck fast, equally unable to go forward or to come back. Finally,
with a despairing effort he slid back an inch or two, then a little
further, until at last bruised, breathless, and torn, he got back into
his dungeon, glad to settle down to prison life once more.
Among the captives was Samuel H. Walker, afterwards famous as a captain
of cavalry in the Mexican war with the United States.
In September, 1844, these prisoners were finally released by Santa Anna,
at the dying request, it is said, of his young and beautiful wife.
About the time the Mier expedition started from San Antonio, the capital
was again removed from President Houston’s beloved town on Buffalo
Bayou; this time to Washington on the Brazos.
VII.
AUSTIN.
(1842-1861.)