A small earthwork called Fort Griffin had been built by the Confederates
on the Texas side of Sabine Pass at the mouth of the Sabine River. It
was protected by five light guns and garrisoned by the Davis Guards, a
company from Houston commanded by Captain Odlum. The first lieutenant of
the company was Dick Dowling, an Irishman but twenty years of age.
Fort Griffin, though small, was a place of much importance. Sabine Pass
was a sort of outlet for the pent-up Confederacy. Blockade-runners, in
spite of the Federal ships stationed in the Gulf, were always slipping
out of the Sabine River, loaded with cotton for Cuba or Europe, and
stealing in with arms and supplies from Mexico.
[Illustration: Richard Dowling.]
Soon after the battle of Galveston, Major Oscar Watkins, Confederate
States navy, was sent by General Magruder with two cotton-clad
steamboats, the _Josiah Bell_ and the _Uncle Ben_, to annoy the
blockading fleet at Sabine Pass. After a skirmish and an exciting chase,
he succeeded in capturing two United States ships, the _Velocity_ and
the _Morning Light_ (January 21, 1863).
The United States then determined to take Fort Griffin and land at
Sabine Pass a force large enough to overawe that part of the country.
Twenty-two transports carried the land troops, about fifteen thousand in
number, to the Pass. Four gunboats, the _Sachem_, the _Clifton_, the
_Arizona_, and the _Granite City_, accompanied them, to bombard the fort
and cover the landing of the soldiers. The expedition was under the
command of General Franklin.
When this formidable fleet appeared at Sabine Pass, Captain Odlum was
absent and Lieutenant Dowling was in command of Fort Griffin. His whole
force consisted of forty-two men. He ordered the “Davys,” as they were
called, to stay in the bombproofs until he himself should fire the first
gun. Then, hidden by the earthwork, he watched the approach of the
gunboats.
The _Clifton_ steamed in and opened the attack from her pivot gun,
throwing a number of shells which dropped into the fort and exploded.
The _Sachem_ and the _Arizona_ followed, pouring in broadsides from
their thirty-two-pound cannon.
No reply came from the fort, which seemed to be deserted. The gunboats
came nearer and nearer. Suddenly a shot from the fort clove the air and
fell hissing into the water beyond the _Arizona_. The fight at once
became furious. The _Clifton_ and the _Arizona_ moved backward and
forward, vomiting huge shells which tore the earthwork of the fort and
filled the air with dust. Ships and fort seemed wrapped in flame. The
_Sachem_ meanwhile was stealing into the Pass toward the unprotected
rear of the fort. But a well-aimed shot from Dowling’s battery struck
her, crushing her iron plating and causing her to rise on end and quiver
like a leaf in the wind. She was at the mercy of the fort, and her flag
was instantly lowered. The _Clifton_ kept up the fight with great skill
and bravery. But she soon ran aground in the shallows, where she
continued to fire until a shot passed through her boiler, completely
wrecking her. A white flag was run up at her bow, and the battle was
over. The _Arizona_ and the _Granite City_ steamed out to the
transports, whose men had watched the fight with breathless interest.
The fleet at once retired, leaving the _Sachem_ and the _Clifton_ to the
“Davys.”[41]
Three hundred Union soldiers were taken prisoners. Captain Crocker of
the _Clifton_ came ashore with a boat’s crew, and, mounting the parapet,
asked for the commanding officer. Lieutenant Dowling, covered with the
dust of the fort, presented himself as the person sought.
The gallant Federal in his handsome uniform could hardly believe that
this dirty little boy was his conqueror, or that the handful of men
before him comprised the force which had so calmly awaited a hostile
fleet and defeated it.[42]
Eight months afterward the United States gunboats, the _Granite City_
and the _Wave_, were captured at Sabine Pass.
In November and December, 1863, General Banks took possession of the
Texas coast, protecting it with a land force from Brownsville to
Indianola. Within a short time, however, he withdrew his troops, leaving
only a garrison at Brownsville. But the cruel war was fast drawing to a
close. The Confederate army, thinned in ranks and in need of food, as
well as of powder and of shot, could no longer be maintained. There were
no men to take the place of those who fell in battle; the untilled
fields gave no harvests; the coasts were so guarded that the most
reckless blockade-runner, could no longer get in with supplies. On the
9th of April, 1865, General Robert E. Lee, commander-in-chief of the
Confederate army, surrendered to General U. S. Grant at Appomattox Court
House in Virginia.
Before this news reached Texas the last skirmish of the war had taken
place near Brownsville (April 13) between some of Banks’ soldiers and a
party of Confederates. The scene of this skirmish was the old
battlefield of Palo Alto.
On the 30th of May Generals Kirby Smith and Magruder went on board the
United States ship _Fort Jackson_ at Galveston and made a formal
surrender of the Trans-Mississippi Department.
On the 19th of June General Granger, United States army, took command at
the island and announced the freedom of the negroes.
The great Civil War was over.
Several thousand Texans lost their lives in the Confederate States army
during the four years’ war. Among the distinguished dead were General
John Gregg, first general of Hood’s brigade, Colonels Tom Lubbock and
Tom Green, the famous scout Ben McCulloch, General Granbury, Colonel
Rogers, and many others. To these may be added General Albert Sidney
Johnston, always claimed by Texas as her son, and who in death rests
upon her bosom.
The war was over. The ragged, foot-sore, hungry soldiers who had so
proudly worn the gray began to come home. Many who had gone away
round-faced boys came back lank and hollow-eyed men. Many were maimed
and crippled; many were sick; all were forlorn and discouraged. They saw
with despair their weed-grown fields, their dilapidated houses, and
rotting fences. The wives and mothers, whose husbands and sons had laid
down their lives for a lost cause, looked at the more fortunate wives
and mothers whose husbands and sons had been spared to them, and wept.
And all wondered how they could ever take up their ruined lives again.
But time is merciful. The gloom did not last always. The Blue and the
Gray clasped hands before many years had passed, and once more the Lone
Star of Texas blazed in a cloudless sky.
IX.
A FLIGHT OF YEARS.
(1865-1900.)
The time indeed came when the Blue and the Gray joined hands, and the
Lone Star shone once more in a cloudless sky. But that time was not yet.
The years which followed the Civil War were bitter and sorrowful ones
for Texas.
After the surrender General Granger continued to hold military
possession of the state.
Before his arrival Pendleton Murrah, who had succeeded Lubbock in 1863,
had left his office in the hands of the lieutenant-governor Fletcher S.
Stockdale, and gone to Mexico.
Andrew J. Hamilton was appointed provisional governor by President
Johnson. He arrived at Galveston in July (1865), and at once assumed the
duties of his office.
He ordered an election of delegates to a convention which was called for
the purpose of framing a new constitution.
But no man was allowed to vote who had borne arms against the United
States. The majority of Texas men had fought against the Union; they
therefore took little interest in an election of delegates for whom they
could not vote.
The convention met (February, 1866), the new constitution was drawn up
and submitted for ratification to such of the people as were “loyal to
the United States, and none others”; and in June James W. Throckmorton
was elected governor.
A few months later the United States government decided to place the
state again under military rule. Louisiana and Texas were constituted a
Military District with headquarters at New Orleans. General Philip
Sheridan was placed in command, and General Charles Griffin was ordered
to Texas with several thousand troops to enforce military rule (March,
1867). His headquarters were at Galveston.
All elections except those under control of his officers were forbidden
by General Griffin. An oath, known as the “iron-clad oath,” was required
of all voters. The newly freed negroes were for the first time placed on
juries and encouraged to vote.
It was during this time that the remains of the great soldier General
Albert Sidney Johnston were removed from New Orleans to Austin for final
burial.
At Houston, when the funeral train rolled into the station, it was met
by a procession of five hundred ladies and little girls. The coffin was
borne to the old Houston Academy, where for a day and night it lay in
state, amid the mournful tolling of bells.
In July Governor Throckmorton, upon reports made by General Griffin, was
removed from office by General Sheridan, and E. M. Pease appointed in
his place.
[Illustration: General Albert Sidney Johnston.]
In September, 1869, Governor Pease, vexed and wearied by the strife and
discord around him, resigned his thankless office. For a time there was
no governor, a military adjutant performing the duties of the place.
In 1870 Edmund J. Davis was inaugurated governor and held the office
four years. He was succeeded in 1874 by Richard Coke, with Richard B.
Hubbard as lieutenant-governor.
The dark and stormy period from the surrender to the close of Governor
Davis’ term of office has since been known in Texas as the
“Reconstruction Time.”
At the time of Governor Davis’ election, the military was finally
withdrawn from the state, the citizens were restored to their civil
rights, and Texas was readmitted to the Union. During his administration
a Homestead Law was passed, a one-per-cent tax was levied for the
building of schoolhouses, and the growth of railroads was encouraged by
liberal grants of land.
But there was still a great deal of trouble and discontent, and it was
not until Governor Coke took his seat that the state, so long shaken by
contention, began once more to breathe freely and to put forth the
strength within her.
Governor Coke served from 1874 to 1876; in 1876 he was elected to the
United States senate, and Richard B. Hubbard became governor
(1876-1879).
The governors who guided the Ship of State from 1879 to 1895 were Oran
M. Roberts (1879-1883), John Ireland[43] (1883-1887), Lawrence S. Ross
(1887-1891), and James S. Hogg (1891-1895).
In 1894 Charles A. Culberson became governor, and in 1896 he was
returned by a large majority to the same office. On his election by the
legislature in 1897 to the senate of the United States, he was succeeded
by Joseph D. Sayers, who was the chief executive of the great state of
Texas at the close of the nineteenth century.
These years have been marked by many wonderful changes in Texas. Not the
least of these changes has been the growth of the great public school
system. The first free school in Texas was opened at San Antonio in
1844. A state public school system was organized in 1870. From these
imperfect beginnings to the admirable system of to-day, when an army of
earnest and gifted men and women are banded together in the noble work
of teaching, and countless multitudes of children pass daily in and out
of the schoolroom,—from that gray dawn to this blazing noontide, what a
change!
The cause of education has indeed been ever in the minds and hearts of
the people.
[Illustration: The Sam Houston Normal Institute.]
An Agricultural and Mechanical College was founded at Bryan, and opened
in 1876.
In 1879 a State Normal School for teachers, called the Sam Houston
Normal Institute, was established at Huntsville, Governor Houston’s old
home. A few years later the Prairie View, a normal school for colored
teachers, was established.
A State University was founded in 1881. The fine group of buildings
crowning one of Austin’s green hills was finished and thrown open to the
young men and women students of the state in 1883.
The first president of the University Board of Regents was Doctor Ashbel
Smith. After his services to the Texan Republic, Doctor Smith devoted
himself to scientific study and to the free practice of the medical
profession. In 1861 he enlisted in the Confederate States army. He was
elected a captain in the second Texas regiment of infantry, and was
promoted to the colonelcy on the battlefield of Shiloh for personal
bravery. He was in command of the post of Galveston at the time of the
final surrender. He was chairman of the committee sent from Galveston to
New Orleans to escort to Texas the remains of General Albert Sidney
Johnston.
[Illustration: The University of Texas.]
His wise counsels were of great service during those troublous times.
The joy and pride of this truly great man’s declining years was the
University of Texas. He lived to see it answer to his highest hopes; and
his memory should be eternally associated with its fame.
In 1895 the Board of Regents was authorized to manage all lands
belonging to the University; at the same time the office of president
was created.
A number of charitable and other public institutions have been added to
those already in existence. The new Penitentiary at Rusk (1877), a State
Orphan’s Asylum at Corsicana (1881), and two Insane Asylums, one at
Terrell (1883) and one at San Antonio (1890), are among these. In 1891
the John B. Hood Camp of Confederate Veterans at Austin was taken under
the kindly care of the state, and its name changed to the Texas
Confederate Home.
Many state questions of importance have been considered; new laws have
been made and old ones improved.
The public debt has been reduced. A new constitution has been adopted by
the people (1875).
The state revenues have been materially increased by the introduction of
wiser and better regulations. The school tax has been raised.
Arbitration laws have been passed, greatly to the advantage of
disputants; and anti-trust laws have been enforced.
In 1895 suit was brought by Texas, in the Supreme Court of the United
States, for Greer County, a body of land on Red River claimed both by
the United States government and by Texas. The decision of the Supreme
Court (April, 1896) awarded the county to the United States.
[Illustration: The Old Alamo Monument.]
A new court, called the Commission of Appeals, was created in 1881; the
same year an admirable quarantine system was established, with a special
station at Galveston.
A memorable feature of the year 1895 was the extra session of the
legislature called for the purpose of making prize fighting illegal in
the state of Texas. The brutal and degrading sport was promptly declared
a felony, and a law was passed prohibiting it on penalty of confinement
in the Penitentiary.
On the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898 Texas furnished more
than her quota of eager and determined volunteers to the United States
army; the sons of the men who wore the gray donned the blue uniform and
wore it proudly and worthily throughout the campaign.
A railroad commission was formed in 1891. In 1891, also, the United
States government began at Galveston the building of jetties to improve
the entrance to the harbor. These jetties, which are a double line of
gigantic stone walls, reach out from the land into the Gulf. The action
of the tides within this artificial channel washes out the sand, and
thus deepens it. The channel, though damaged by the great flood of 1900,
was not materially injured. Similar jetties were built at Sabine Pass
and at Aransas Pass.
In 1881 the old capitol at Austin was burned, and with it many priceless
relics of the earlier days of Texas. Among these was the old monument
dedicated in 1857 to the heroes of the Alamo. It was built of stones
from the ruined fortress and stood on the porch of the capitol. It was
inscribed with the names of Travis and his men; and the four sides of
the shaft bore the following inscriptions:
_North._ “To the God of the fearless and the free is dedicated this
altar, made from the stones of the Alamo.”
_West._ “Blood of heroes hath stained me. Let the stones of the Alamo
speak that their immolation be not forgotten.”
_South._ “Be they enrolled with Leonidas in the host of the mighty
dead.”
_East._ “Thermopylæ had her messenger of defeat, but the Alamo had
none.”
A new monument, upon whose summit stands, rifle in hand, the statue of a
Texas ranger, has been placed in the capitol grounds.
The legislature which met soon after the burning of the old capitol
provided for the erection of a new one. Three million acres of public
lands were set aside to meet this expense. The new building was finished
and dedicated in 1888.
The historic old church of the Alamo was purchased by the state in 1883.
The battlefield of San Jacinto has also become the property of the
state. This beautiful spot, consecrated by the blood of heroes, is
guarded by the same encircling trees, which, clad in the green of
spring’s livery, looked down upon the birth of freedom on that long-past
21st of April. May the coming centuries see them still standing, mute
witnesses to the bravery of men who had no peer!
X.
THE NEW CENTURY.
The last year of the nineteenth century witnessed in Texas a calamity
which wrapped the state in gloom and stirred the entire country to
instant and generous sympathy. This was the Great Flood at Galveston.
Earlier in the same year (April 7) the city of Austin had suffered a
severe loss through water. The wonderful barrier of granite—the largest
dam in the world—which imprisoned the waters of the Colorado River
between the wooded hills on either side, thus forming an artificial lake
thirty miles long, had suddenly given way; the mighty torrent set free
had poured through the gap, carrying ruin with it and leaving havoc
behind.
In August, 1899, there had been a flood of unusual magnitude in the
Brazos River. An angry sea had swirled down from the Red Lands above;
the long and fertile valley of the Brazos was laid waste; several lives
were lost, and much valuable property was destroyed. But these floods
were dwarfed in importance by the tidal wave from the sea which on
September 8 and 9, 1900, beat against the Gulf coast and fell with
special violence upon the Island of Galveston.
A blinding storm of rain fell ceaselessly throughout the whole of the
first day; a furious wind drove the salt spray across the island from
Gulf to bay. By nightfall the streets were submerged; the lower floors
of many dwellings were under water. During the night of horror which
followed, the railroad bridge connecting the island with the mainland
was swept away, and the city lay isolated and helpless at the mercy of
the hurricane. As the hours passed the people huddled together in their
rocking houses, climbed to the upper stories and out upon the roofs,
with the savage flood climbing after them. Thousands were swept to death
from these insecure places of refuge. Whole blocks of buildings crumbled
like so many sand houses into the waters; the foamy waves were strewn
with a mass of wreckage: shingles, beams, furniture, household goods,
animals dead and dying, human beings battling for their lives in the
darkness or drifting stark and stiff with the storm.
Many stories of heroism, of self-sacrifice, of pathetic devotion, are
told of that awful night; many strange incidents are related. Strong men
perished, while frail and delicate women survived unhurt; skilled
swimmers succumbed; helpless babes floated to safety. One little child,
torn from its mother’s arms by the gale, drifted through the débris,
across the island, across the bay, and was found the next day, quite
unharmed, nested like a bird in the limbs of an oak tree on the
mainland!
When the morning dawned, pale and wan, a ghastly spectacle met the dazed
eyes of the survivors. The waters, receding sullenly, exposed masses of
ruins; thousands of corpses strewed the uneven sands; not a sound from
the outer world penetrated the dismal silence. There was a single moment
of paralyzed despair; then, with a splendid courage, almost without
parallel, the stricken people took heart and set life in motion again
for themselves and for their beloved city. Help poured in from every
direction: money, provisions, clothing, doctors, nurses; best of all,
words of sympathy and cheer, which lightened the task. In an incredibly
short time almost all traces of the Great Flood had disappeared, and the
lovely island lay serene and smiling, as before, on the bosom of the
Gulf. It is believed that from six thousand to seven thousand people
perished in the storm.
In September, 1901, a sea wall, planned for the protection of the island
against such storms, was begun; this enclosing wall, which is to cost
one and a half million dollars, will be when finished sixteen feet broad
at the base, sixteen feet high, and five feet in breadth at the top.
The dawn of the twentieth century was marked by the discovery of
petroleum in vast quantities in southeast Texas. In the earliest days of
Lone Star history, certain of the incurving bays west of the Sabine
River were known as the Oil Ponds, because they offered upon their
smooth surface a secure refuge from the stormy Gulf outside to all
manner of sailing craft. The meaning of their strange quiet was
undreamed of until the first well on Spindletop Heights near Beaumont
shot its geyser of oil hundreds of feet in the air. The oil wells at
Beaumont and elsewhere now number many scores; their rich output seems
inexhaustible.
Long-continued droughts and the appearance of the boll weevil, an insect
very destructive to the growing cotton, marred the splendor of this
opening year. Vigorous measures have been taken to exterminate the boll
weevil, and despite all drawbacks the crops of cotton, corn, and rice
have steadily increased in size and in value.
In 1903 S. W. T. Lanham was inaugurated governor.
XI.
TEXAS.