The legislators then turned to the issue of providing for the men who were serving under General Stephen Austin near San Antonio. They decided these volunteer troops should be paid at the rate of twenty dollars per month, from the day they left their homes until the day they returned. On November 12, the Consultation elected Henry Smith (who had long advocated independence) as the provisional governor of Texas, James W. Robinson as his lieutenant governor, and Sam Houston as the major general of the Texas Army. The San Felipe lawmakers also appointed William Harris Wharton, Branch Tanner Archer, and Stephen Austin as commissioners to solicit aid from the United States for the current crisis. Austin’s new appointment would require him to pass command of the Texas Army to Colonel Ed Burleson, now second in command under Major General Houston. Two days later, the Consultation broke up for a week’s hiatus.7
The Consultation’s selection of Sam Houston over Stephen Austin or others as the new leader of their Texas Army was peculiar at best. He stood six feet two inches, a powerful man with a colorful past that included a fondness for the bottle. As a youth in Tennessee, he had run away from home in 1809 to live for three years among the Cherokee Indians of Chief Oolooteka (John Jolly), who adopted him and gave him the Indian name Colonneh, or “the Raven.” Houston viewed Oolooteka as his “Indian Father” and the Cherokees as his surrogate family, thus instilling in him a great sense of sympathy toward Indians in general during his future political career.
At age eighteen, Houston left the Cherokees to set up a school. In 1813, he joined General Andrew Jackson to fight the British. Within the year, Houston had been promoted to third lieutenant for his noted bravery and devotion to duty. Under the command of Jackson, Houston participated in the pursuit of one thousand Creek Indians in early 1814 with some three thousand U.S. infantrymen, militiamen, and allied Indians. The Creeks fortified themselves in a loop of the Tallapoosa River known as Tohopeka, or Horseshoe Bend. General Jackson’s forces made a determined charge against their breastworks that escalated into hand-to-hand combat. Lieutenant Houston was shot through the lower right groin with an arrow in the charge. He nearly passed out from the flow of blood when he ordered another officer to pull the barbed arrow back through his leg.8
Although Jackson ordered him out of the fight, Sam Houston soon joined another charge against the fortified Creek position. He was again badly wounded in the process by two musket balls that tore into his right arm and shoulder. Surgeons saved the lieutenant that night while Jackson’s men proceeded to kill some eight hundred of the Creeks in the battle and by torching their fortification. Houston emerged as one of the heroes of Horseshoe Bend. He was left scarred and in pain for decades as chips of bone from his shoulder slowly worked their way out, causing drainage that persisted for years.9
Houston became a lawyer in Tennessee with a swift and successful political career aided by his battlefield reputation. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives and was elected governor of Tennessee in 1827. His personal life was a mess, though. He became distraught over a failed marriage in 1829 and resigned from office to flee back to the comforts of his adoptive Cherokee family under Chief John Jolly, whose tribe had taken up residence in what is now Oklahoma.
The fallen leader married Diana Roger Gentry (also known as Talihina), a half-blood Cherokee woman who was a sister of another Cherokee leader, John Rogers. Rogers was a likely successor to Chief John Jolly, who had become the principal chief of the Western Cherokees. Within the Western Cherokee Nation, the Raven sustained himself as a lawyer and as a merchant. Houston imported barrels of whiskey, cognac, gin, rum, and wine to sell from his trading post. Political opponents sneered that he was importing the liquors for his own use. By late 1830, his consumption of alcohol was disgusting enough to his own Cherokees that he was sometimes referred to as “Big Drunk.” He spoke the Cherokee language, wore traditional Indian dress, and participated in their activities, but Sam Houston’s desire for the political spotlight could not be contained. In December 1832, he departed his Cherokees to seek his fortunes in Texas, abandoning his wife, Diana.10
Houston shared a Christmas dinner with celebrated knife fighter Jim Bowie, and he was thereafter escorted to Béxar by Bowie. Those who distrusted the former Tennessee governor’s motives believed he was scouting the Texas territory for his friend Andrew Jackson—who had been elected president of the United States in 1828. Houston was viewed as a rambunctious drinker with salty language but he also spoke in a language that pleased many revolutionary types—talking of liberty and the dawning of Texas’s “morning of glory.” He was elected the Nacogdoches delegate to the Consultation, and his past military experience helped him seize the opportunity to command the Texas Army.11
Few thought Sam Houston looked the part of commander in chief of the Texas military. Delegate Anson Jones, a doctor from Brazoria, found the new general wearing greasy buckskins and a garish Mexican blanket, looking like “a broken down sot.” Jones was kept awake all night by “a drunken carouse” involving Houston and Dr. Branch Archer drinking and denouncing Stephen F. Austin. Ironically, Austin was near Béxar trying to command an unruly mob. Houston, an elected delegate, duly remained at San Felipe during the hiatus of the Consultation versus going to take his command.12
The army was to number 1,120 enlisted men. It would include regular soldiers who enlisted for two years and “permanent volunteers” who served only for the duration of the war with Mexico. Major General Houston would also hold authority over the mounted ranger system and its superintendents. He could also choose his own staff of an adjutant general, an inspector general, a quartermaster general, a surgeon general, and four aides. For the moment, however, Houston was granted no authority over the volunteers already serving under Austin’s command.13
STEPHEN AUSTIN’S ARMY WAS engaged in a siege, a military blockade of San Antonio de Béxar to compel its Mexican troops to surrender.
General Cos was worried little about the blockade and had no intentions of rolling over. Austin sent a surrender demand to Cos on November 1. The Mexican commander sent the document back unopened, saying that honor and duty forbade him from accepting correspondence from rebels. Cos sent out Padre Garza with a white flag to say to Austin that he would defend this place until he died, even if he only had ten men with him.14
Austin held a council of war with his senior officers. His men decided to maintain the siege until they could be aided by reinforcements with a powerful eighteen-pound cannon. Colonel Ed Burleson and a force of men took possession of a nearby mill for the use of its corn and also as a headquarters.
Jim Bowie became tired of this game. He sent a letter of resignation to Austin the following day and rode to San Felipe, where he proceeded to spend much of his time drinking to excess. During the next week, there were minor skirmishes and shots exchanged between the Texas Army and the holed-up Mexican troops. Discipline was virtually nonexistent among the Texas volunteers. Drunk men wandered about camp, firing their guns and wasting ammunition, while others frittered away time gambling and cockfighting. Austin fired off a letter to the General Council. “In the name of Almighty God, send no more ardent spirits to this camp,” he wrote. “If any is on the road, turn it around or have the head [of the barrel] knocked out.”15
The first norther of fall blew in on November 6. Volunteer Samuel Maverick noted in his diary that the thermometer had plunged from 75 degrees the previous day to a mere 49 that morning. Captain William Travis, patrolling with a dozen of Andrew Briscoe’s mounted riflemen, achieved a significant feat on November 9 by making a surprise charge on a camp of Mexican soldiers. They seized three hundred horses and captured the soldados without having to fire a shot. The captured mounts were found to be so wild, though, that they were taken to the ranch of Juan Seguín.16
Some of the new recruits passing through Gonzales to join Austin’s army near Béxar were not fit for service. Scout Launcelot Smither informed Austin that one company passed through town and nearly beat him to death when h
e tried to prevent them from abusing the women of the settlement. “The conduct of wild savages would be preferable to the insults of such cannibals,” Smither wrote. Stephen Austin was wearing down both mentally and physically. His two years of incarceration in Mexico had weakened his body to the extent that his servant had to help him to mount his horse. He was unafraid to point out his own lack of military experience to others, even if it did little to inspire his men. But when he was notified from San Felipe on November 18 that he had been appointed as a commissioner to the United States and had been relieved as commander of the Army of the People of Texas, he refused for the time being to abandon his post.17
Austin had been encouraged by the arrival of Captain Thomas H. Breece’s company of properly uniformed New Orleans Greys, who reached camp pulling two cannon. The Texian volunteers were now firing upon General Cos’s troops in San Antonio. The volunteer artillerymen placed the cannon they had captured at Concepción in a battery constructed west of the Alamo. Some placed bets on whether their cannon shot would hit a particular building, the old barracks, between the third and fourth windows. When the man fired the cannon and missed, he spent the next day paying for his bet by casting one hundred lead musket balls. Another man bet his pistols, the best in camp, against the worst pistols for anyone who could make a better shot.18
The wager was accepted by forty-eight-year-old Erastus “Deaf” Smith. Born in New York to a devout Baptist family, the tough old frontiersman had largely lost his hearing to a childhood ailment. He had settled in Texas in 1821, married a tall, beautiful, blue-eyed widow named Guadalupe Ruiz Durán, and proceeded to raise a family of four children. The open environment of Texas seemed to improve his fragile health, caused by consumption (now known as tuberculosis). Smith held divided loyalties between the new Anglo settlers and the Mexican government. By marrying his beloved “Lupe,” a Mexican woman, Smith became a Mexican citizen. His intentions to stay neutral were dashed when one of General Cos’s Mexican sentries refused to allow him back into San Antonio during October to visit his family. The officer struck Smith in the head with his saber, and he was forced to race from town on his horse, while he fired back at cavalrymen pursuing him. Deaf then joined the Texas rebels and swore that he would one day kill General Cos.19
Deaf—called “Deef” by some—had honed his tracking and hunting skills to provide for his family. He lined up the cannon, made adjustments for altitude and distance, and won the fine pistols of his fellow volunteer with his next shot. Smith then offered to fire the cannon again. If he missed, he would return the wagering man’s good pistols. He did not miss, and a cannonball smashed right where he had called his shot. His comrades cheered old Deaf wildly and he kept the pistols.
On November 21, General Austin ordered his army to prepare to storm Béxar the next day. That afternoon, however, he received reports from Colonel Burleson and Lieutenant Colonel Philip Sublett that the army was not in support of the attack, and no more than one hundred men planned to follow Austin. The volunteer general reluctantly countermanded his order. He wrote to his brother-in-law James F. Perry the next day that he was “really so worn out” that he required rest. Austin felt that he could have done his new country more justice had he been serving in the convention at San Felipe. “I can be of service to Texas by going to the U.S. and I wish to go there.”20
Austin paraded his men on the morning of November 24 to find out how many were willing to maintain their siege on Béxar. Some 405 pledged to remain under a leader of their choosing, and voted for forty-two-year-old Colonel Burleson to take command of them. They also elected Francis W. “Frank” Johnson as adjutant and inspector general, with William T. Austin retaining his post as aide-de-camp.
Stephen Austin rode out of camp on November 25 toward San Felipe and, ultimately, the United States. Some believed that his plans had been shared with Sam Houston, who had plotted to subvert them. Key officers such as Jim Bowie, Fannin, and Sublett had taken sides with Houston, and Sublett for one had shared his views on the foolishness of Austin’s planned attack on Béxar with the volunteers. Fannin had written to Houston, accepting his offer of a commission in the regular army. Bowie, who had quit the army and spent time getting drunk in San Felipe, may well have shared drinks with Houston. Some believed he was acting as Houston’s secret agent when he returned to Béxar shortly before Austin resigned.
Such was the state of affairs within the volunteer army of Texas that continued to hold the six hundred–plus Mexican soldiers of General Cos under siege at Béxar in late November.
AS THE STANDOFF IN San Antonio continued, the General Council reconvened on November 21. After a full week’s break, the delegates moved swiftly on strengthening the military of Texas.
On November 24, the council decreed that the regular Texas Army was to consist of 1,120 men, divided into both infantry and artillery regiments. Each regiment would be further divided into two battalions composed of five companies of fifty-six men. Officers and men would be paid in the same fashion as those of the U.S. Army. The council additionally agreed to pay each soldier with 640 acres of land for service. In order to entice more men to join the regular army for two years, this land bounty was increased with an additional 160 acres plus twenty-four dollars in cash. The delegates also approved the purchase of weapons for the regular troops: three hundred jaeger carbines, six hundred muskets, two hundred braces of cavalry pistols, one hundred butcher knives, and a thousand tomahawks. Orders were placed for proper military manuals, including a hundred copies of Major General Winfield Scott’s Infantry Drill tactics book and twenty-six of Crop’s Discipline and Regulations.21
John A. Wharton of the Committee on Military Affairs presented a new proposal to protect the citizens of Texas with an organized ranging corps. The resolution, passed by vote on November 24, called for a three-company “Corps of Rangers” of 168 men, to be headed by a commanding major. Each private would be paid $1.25 per day to cover his own clothing, rations, pay, and horse service. Each ranger was to be constantly armed with one hundred rounds of musket balls and sufficient powder. Should a private be unable to provide his own horse, bridle, and blanket, the captain of his company was to purchase them and deduct it from his quarterly pay.22
Officers of this new ranging corps would be paid the same daily rate, plus be entitled to pay equal to that of officers with equal rank in the cavalry of the U.S. Army. This act was signed into effect on November 26. The new major of rangers in this battalion had supreme command—as opposed to four regional superintendents previously installed—and would report directly to the commander in chief of the Texas Army. The three new ranger companies would boast fifty-six men each, with one captain, one lieutenant, and one second lieutenant per company.
The council met again at 7 P.M. on November 28 to handle special elections for municipal judges and for the officers of both the infantry regiment of the army and the new corps of rangers. Ten men were named captains of the regiment of infantry, including early revolutionary leaders Robert Coleman, George Collinsworth, and Andrew Briscoe. For the Corps of Texas Rangers, the council named Isaac Watts Burton, William Arrington, and John Tumlinson Jr. as captains. In the voting for major commanding the ranger corps, it was close between James Kerr and “Three-Legged Willie” Williamson. The latter, present as a representative of the Mina Municipality and who had previously commanded rangers during Colonel Moore’s 1835 Tawakoni campaign, won the election by a one-vote margin.23
Major Williamson’s new ranger battalion would struggle to fully organize itself due to the state of war within Texas. In the meantime, the previously authorized regional ranging system remained in place—although it too had not yet fully mustered in. The most active companies in late 1835 were those under superintendents Silas Parker and Daniel Friar. By the end of November, Friar had twenty rangers under his command and they had fought one engagement with Indians who raided their camp on the San Gabriel River. There were no casualties, but two horses were killed by the Indians,
including that of First Lieutenant Ennes Hardin.24
The General Council of the provisional government of Texas was generous in offering both regular army and ranger units to serve during and after the current revolution. The challenges would prove to be filling the ranks, enduring the hardships of winter, and keeping a rowdy bunch of volunteers in unity against the Mexican Army. General Sam Houston knew there was no substitute for properly disciplined soldiers and for the moment he held no authority over the volunteers maintaining the siege of Béxar.
SOME OF THE SOLDIERS lounging about the camp of the volunteer army were startled by the sudden commotion.
Ahead of a cloud of dust, whipping a lathered horse was an eager scout racing in on November 26. Colonel Burleson immediately made out Deaf Smith, the valiant frontiersman who had so recently won the pair of pistols with his marksmanship prowess. Smith reported that he had sighted a column of Mexican soldiers advancing northward on the old Presidio Road.
The news filtered through camp that the column was likely that of Colonel Domingo Ugartechea, who was known to have departed twelve days earlier with a hundred dragoons to seek reinforcements. Deaf Smith, who had been watchful for their return along with other scouts, now reported that he had seen at least a hundred soldiers and as many pack animals. Rumors spread that Ugartechea’s column was also hauling a fortune in silver on its mules to pay the Béxar garrison. Wary of a possible ambush, Burleson managed to restrain his eager volunteers from racing into action. He instead sent Jim Bowie, Deaf Smith, Henry Karnes, and a cavalry force out to reconnoiter the Mexican force but not to attack unless success seemed favorable. Many other volunteers, greedy to seize the fabled silver hoard, grabbed their rifles and dashed from camp without orders to do so.25
The cavalrymen intercepted the Mexican force about a mile south of Béxar along Alazan Creek. Bowie immediately called a charge. His men fired their belt pistols and slashed at soldiers with their Bowie knives, unable to use their long rifles effectively on horseback. General Cos observed the skirmish from town and quickly ordered about fifty infantrymen out to assist his dragoons. Bowie’s men were soon outnumbered and took cover in a dry arroyo. The Mexicans charged the dry creek bed but were forced back three times by accurate rifle fire.
Texas Rising Page 6