Texas Rising

by Stephen L. Moore

  Private Bob Hunter watched as the determined widow drew a large knife from her saddle and sawed off the rawhide tug holding the chain to her oxen. “Nobody said a word,” recalled Hunter. Mrs. Mann then mounted her horse and rode off with her oxen as the Twin Sisters bogged into the mud. Houston told his men they would have to get by as best they could dragging the cannon. Conrad Rohrer had other ideas. He grabbed one of his teamsters and said that he would convince Mrs. Mann to return the oxen to his use.

  “Captain Rohrer, that woman will fight,” Houston hollered.

  “Damn her fighting!” shouted Rohrer.

  Sam Houston then waded into the mud, grabbed a wheel mounted to one of the cannon frames, and asked his men to help him get the artillery moving to drier ground. The army was able to move another six miles before making camp for the night in some heavy timber near Cypress Creek (present Telge Park).

  When Captain Rohrer rode back into camp that night, he said that Mrs. Mann had refused to give up her ox teams. Several soldiers noticed that his shirt had been torn in several places. Rohrer explained that she had asked for some of it for baby rags. Private James Winters, however, heard several men laughing that the tough old widow had torn it off him.32

  13

  “DARING CHIVALRY”:

  THE FIRST DUEL

  COLONEL JUAN ALMONTE’S DRAGOONS came within a musket’s shot of capturing the Texas government.

  President David Burnet, his wife, Hannah Este Burnet, and several cabinet members departed the steamboat Cayuga at the Lynchburg landing. They took their horses, crossed San Jacinto Bay aboard the ferry, and rode the final ten miles to the settlement of New Washington. At the plantation of Colonel James Morgan, they found a flatboat hauling supplies from the Morgan warehouse out to the schooner Flash in Galveston Bay. Morgan’s Point, a parcel of land extending into San Jacinto Bay, was the sprawling plantation of cattle and orange trees owned by Morgan.1

  Colonel Almonte and his fifty soldiers received word that the Texas president was at Morgan’s plantation and rode there in great haste. Burnet’s party had just enough warning to climb into a large skiff and a large flatboat. The cabinet members and several plantation servants pulled hard on the oars to clear the beach as Almonte’s dragoons arrived at the bay shore. The Mexican cavalrymen dismounted and took aim on the fleeing Texian executives. David Burnet and his party were spared only by the chivalry of Juan Almonte, who refused to let his men shoot into the boats on account of a woman and child being present.2

  The Texas government leaders thus narrowly escaped capture on April 16 as they rowed across to Galveston Island. Almonte’s men seized James Morgan’s warehouses—stocked with food and other provisions—and sent word for General Santa Anna to join them at New Washington. His Excellency’s troops had lingered in Harrisburg through the day, continuing to loot the town. Lieutenant Colonel José María Castillo y Iberri recalled that Santa Anna was so enraged at missing the capture of President Burnet that he even lent a hand to the troops he ordered to burn the town.3

  Santa Anna moved from Harrisburg around 3 P.M. on April 17, crossing Buffalo Bayou en route to New Washington. He had 750 soldiers and fifty horses at his disposal. He sent Lieutenant Colonel Castillo y Iberri as a courier toward the port of Velasco to order General Cos to march to his assistance with five hundred foot soldiers. Santa Anna’s own force crossed a tributary to Buffalo Bayou known as Vince’s Bayou on a sturdy cedar bridge built by the William Vince family. When the mules hauling the Mexican cannon known as the Golden Standard refused to cross the bridge, Santa Anna ordered General Castrillón on what proved to be a nine-mile circumvention through boggy prairies.4

  Colonel Juan Bringas, an aide to Santa Anna, relieved the Vince ranch of a large, black Thoroughbred stallion called “Old Whip,” which he made his own. The general’s force suffered through a violent storm that evening and reached New Washington by noon on April 18. Colonel Pedro Delgado noted that his troops found many items of luxury in the warehouses on James Morgan’s plantation, including soap, tobacco, and flour. A much worn-down bunch under General Castrillón finally arrived with the Golden Standard cannon around 5 P.M.5

  Santa Anna found another item of interest that particularly caught his eager eye. Among the indentured servants working on Colonel Morgan’s plantation was a beautiful mulatto girl named Emily who was assisting with the loading of supplies on a flatboat. Less than thirty years in age, Emily D. West hailed from New Haven, Connecticut, where she had been born among blacks not held as slaves. On October 25, 1835, the light-skinned Miss Emily signed a contract with agent James Morgan in New York City to return to his New Washington hotel at Morgan’s point. She agreed to work for one year as a housekeeper for the annual contract of one hundred dollars. Emily arrived in Texas in December aboard a schooner carrying thirteen other laborers and the wife and children of Texas vice president Lorenzo de Zavala.6

  Santa Anna ordered the town of New Washington burned to the ground after his soldiers finished looting all of the Morgan supplies they could haul with them. El Presidente’s troops marched from Morgan’s Point and made rendezvous with Colonel Almonte’s group of dragoons. They were taken under fire near the banks of the bay by a little armed schooner of the new Texas Navy. Santa Anna decided to keep moving, hoping to surprise Sam Houston’s rebel army near the Lynchburg ferry.7

  As his troops moved to set an ambush site, Santa Anna took into the custody of his entourage the most prized seizure of his campaign—the beautiful Miss Emily.

  SAM HOUSTON’S RAGGED ARMY was moving steadily closer to a forced rendezvous with His Excellency’s army.

  On April 17, the Texas Army marched fifteen miles closer to Harrisburg, which Santa Anna was reported to have reached with his forces. The Texians had trudged more than two hundred miles since departing Gonzales on March 13 by the time they arrived in the charred town of Harrisburg around noon on April 18. The men made camp within sight of town, about eight hundred yards away on the left bank of Buffalo Bayou. Many collapsed in exhaustion after the steady marching through muddy roads. Captains Henry Karnes and William Smith crossed the bayou and went out with their scouts to search for the nearby Mexican Army.

  Deaf Smith, Karnes, and several of their men soon proved their value in the field once again. Twelve miles down the road toward the Brazos, they came upon three Mexican horsemen and overpowered them with little fight. One of them was Captain Miguel Bachiller, a special courier from Mexico City. His deerskin saddlebags were inscribed with the name “W. B. Travis,” the late commander of the Alamo. More important was the discovery of important letters intended for Santa Anna. The prisoners were bound and ridden back to the Texian camp at Harrisburg that evening.

  Sergeant Moses Bryan and others erupted into laughter at the site of Deaf Smith. The wily, weathered-skin old scout had traded his ragged coats and pants with those of Captain Bachiller. Soldiers howled at the site of the Mexican prisoner whose toes now stuck out of the holes in Smith’s tattered shoes. “Smith had on the Mexican courier’s fine suit of leather, a broad brim sombrero, a heavy bead band and trinkets attached, fine shoes and socks,” recorded Bryan. “But the suit was too small and too tight and pants not reaching nearer than six inches of the top of the shoes.”8

  Bryan, called to act as interpreter for Sam Houston, questioned the Mexican captain. Bachiller indicated that Santa Anna was moving with at least six hundred troops and one brass twelve-pound cannon. Sergeant Tony Menchaca of Captain Juan Seguín’s company read another dispatch from General Filisola to Santa Anna that indicated to Houston that the Mexican Army’s divisions were currently separated. Major Lorenzo de Zavala Jr. and others who could read Spanish pored over the other letters. Sergeant William Swearingen heard that the most important intelligence gleaned came from a dispatch from General Cos to the Mexican general. In it, Santa Anna stated that he would move the next morning to join Cos at Lynch’s Ferry on Buffalo Bayou.9

  Sam Houston’s spirits were greatly revived. He
now had the upper hand, having learned of the position of his enemy’s troops and the planned rendezvous site of the divisions under Cos and Santa Anna. His first challenge would be in crossing Buffalo Bayou. Colonel Sidney Sherman and 150 men were sent across on the evening of April 18, but crossing the swollen waterway proved difficult and dangerous. Only the cavalry company of Henry Karnes swam its horses across before orders were sent to halt the move while a more favorable crossing method was determined.

  General Houston decided on April 19 that he must leave behind everything that encumbered his march to engage Santa Anna. He detached a number of men at Harrisburg to guard the army’s baggage wagons and to care for the dozens of men ill with measles, fever, diarrhea, and flu-like symptoms. Major Robert McNutt, third senior officer of the First Regiment of Infantry, was placed in command of the camp at Harrisburg.

  The frontiersmen who had most recently been serving as Texas Rangers were targeted as candidates to help guard the baggage teams and the sick. Major Willie Williamson, who had returned to the army in company with Captain Joseph Chance’s Washington Guards ranger company, assigned Chance’s company to McNutt. Captain Stephen Townsend’s small Robertson Colony ranging company was also assigned to McNutt. The order to remain behind as camp guards did not go over well with many of the rangers, however. Captain Townsend and his brother Spencer temporarily joined the cavalry. Williamson also joined the cavalry, along with two of his other ranger officers who temporarily abandoned their commissions, Captain Isaac Burton and Lieutenant Thomas Robbins. Captain John Tumlinson and two of his rangers attached themselves as private soldiers in Texas infantry companies. William T. Sadler and seven of his former Fort Houston rangers also blended into infantry and cavalry companies. More than eighty men who had served as Texas Rangers were present to either help guard the army baggage or march toward Lynchburg.10

  Texas officers gave every man the chance to stay behind at camp if he was not willing to go into battle. There were no takers, aside from those too sick to walk. Two other infantry companies were assigned to Major McNutt, plus small numbers of guards picked from various other companies. Teenager William Zuber was ordered by Captain James Gillaspie to remain behind. Frustrated, he broke down in tears. Captain Juan Seguín’s tejano unit was also assigned to guard camp, as Houston considered their skills at herding to be of good value. Sergeant Tony Menchaca questioned this decision and asked that his superior, Colonel Sherman, visit the commander in chief with him.11

  Menchaca told Sam Houston he had joined the Texas Army to fight and he did not agree with his commission being deprived. “I did not enlist to guard horses and I will do no such duty,” he informed the general.

  Menchaca stated that he would instead head for Nacogdoches to take care of his family in their flight to safety. Houston could hardly turn away such strong patriotism. “Spoken like a man,” he conceded. He pledged to Menchaca that he would allow Seguín’s tejanos to fight. To avoid being mistaken for the enemy, Houston had Seguín’s men insert colored playing cards into their headbands. Some added white scraps of cardboard with printed lines of “Recuerden en Alamo” and “Recuerden Goliad.”12

  Some three hundred men remained behind at Harrisburg when the Texas Army began moving on April 19. Buffalo Bayou was swollen to more than three hundred yards wide in places, causing the troops to hike two miles below Harrisburg until a more suitable fording site was found below the mouth of Sims Bayou. There the troops used wood from a nearby home to shore up a leaking old ferryboat that would take them across the bayou.

  Prior to crossing Buffalo Bayou, Sam Houston delivered his first formal speech of the campaign. Perched atop his large gray mare, Saracen, he reminded his men that if anyone did not feel like fighting, they could stay behind with Major McNutt’s detachment. “Some of us may be killed and must be killed,” he said. George Erath recalled that Houston “promised us that we should have full satisfaction for all we had gone through.” Houston concluded his speech by urging his men to “remember the Alamo, the Alamo! the Alamo!” His soldiers roared back with “Remember the Alamo!”13

  A battle cry had been born.

  “After such a speech, but damned few will be taken prisoners,” remarked Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Somervell. Private Patrick Usher was equally inspired: “Had General Houston called upon me to jump into the whirlpool of the Niagara as the only means of saving Texas, I would have made the leap.”14

  Colonel Rusk, the secretary of war and a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, spoke next. His words were equally inspiring. “May I not survive if we don’t win this battle!” Rusk declared. Moses Bryan found the colonel’s talk soul-stirring and it was met with great applause. Tony Menchaca felt that Rusk addressed the men with enough effect that some were moved to tears. He advised his men to not only remember the Alamo but to remember Goliad and the brave men who had been slaughtered there.15

  The pep talks achieved their desired effects. Rusk ended his speech abruptly with “I have done.” The Texians broke into animated shouts of “Remember La Bahía! Remember Goliad!” and “Remember the Alamo!” Lieutenant M. H. Denham felt that he and his fellow soldiers were now “determined to conquer or die.”16

  The Texas Army began crossing Buffalo Bayou after the speeches were complete. The patched-up ferryboat proved effective enough in poling the Twin Sisters across, along with load after load of officers and men. By 5 P.M. on April 19, all were across and the men took cover in the bushes along the road to watch for the arrival of expected Mexican reinforcements. Once it was completely dark, General Houston put his troops on the move toward Lynchburg. He believed he would catch General Santa Anna at the ferry, awaiting the arrival of General Cos.

  He finally halted his troops at 2 A.M. on April 20, about two and a half miles from Lynch’s Ferry. Those not on guard duty quickly fell out and tried to get some sleep, clutching their rifles close to their growling bellies. The fact that the bay-area ground was wet did not help when a cold norther settled in over the weary Texians.

  Most had little on their minds save the hope for real action that might well come with morning.

  NEW WASHINGTON WAS IN flames as Santa Anna’s troops marched toward Lynchburg on the morning of April 20.

  En route, Colonel Delgado suddenly noted Captain Marcos Barragán racing up the road at full speed on horseback. He had been sent with about fifty of his men to Lynchburg Pass to observe the movements of the Texas Army. There he ran afoul of Texian scouts under Sidney Sherman and lost four cavalrymen in a brief encounter. Barragán wheeled his horse about and raced for Santa Anna to spread the news. He reached the general around 8 A.M. and said the Texans were hot on his heels.17

  General Santa Anna was so alarmed that he jumped on his horse and galloped off at full speed for the road. He barreled right through men and mules, plowing over two soldiers in his haste. Colonel Delgado worked to quickly restore order to his momentarily panicked troops. He moved his men and artillery across the tall grass of the prairies to establish a good defensive position during the late morning hours. The Mexican Army made preparations for battle near the San Jacinto River and Buffalo Bayou on the sprawling cattle ranch of widow Margaret “Peggy” McCormick. The forty-eight-year-old cattlewoman originally from Ireland had continued to run the cattle ranch with her two sons following the accidental drowning of her husband, Arthur, in 1824. The McCormicks had fled their league of land as the Mexican Army approached.

  Santa Anna was pleased with the position of his troops on the vast McCormick ranch. He found that Sam Houston’s Texas rebels had taken possession of a small wooded area that was surrounded by the bayou. “His situation made it necessary for him to fight or go into the water,” thought Santa Anna.

  THE MORNING BRUSH WITH Captain Barragán’s scouts put the Texian camp in a brief panic as well.

  Dawn at General Houston’s camp was quite cold for late April, as an unusually late norther had blown through overnight. Soggy with dew and quite chilled, the Te
xas soldiers had been put back on the march again at 6 A.M., just four hours after they had paused for the night to rest. They marched to Lynchburg Ferry and paused while Sam Houston picked out a suitable stretch of ground on which to make his camp. Only then did he allow his men to stake their horses and mules and begin collecting kindling wood for breakfast fires.18

  Three of Peggy McCormick’s cattle were slaughtered to feed the troops. Dr. Shields Booker scavenged a dozen eggs to add to the surgeons’ pot of brackish water and half-pounded coffee. The campfires had not been burning long when some of Colonel Sherman’s and Captain Karnes’s scouts galloped back into camp with news of their skirmish with Captain Barragán’s cavalrymen. Houston barked at his troops to grab their arms, break camp, and kill their fires. George Erath saw Colonel Rusk ride into camp, shouting to all that Santa Anna had burned New Washington and was advancing on the Texas force.19

  The surgeons each quickly downed their share of boiling coffee and pulled the eggs from the coffee water. Dr. Labadie noted that the eggs contained small chickens inside. “I surrendered my share to others who, finding them well cooked, swallowed them quickly.” Several of the soldiers found great delight in the momentary fear that consumed Colonel John Forbes when he heard the Mexican Army might be rushing down on them. The commissary general jumped on his saddled mule and tried to get it to run. All the beast could do was jump about, as its legs had been tied to keep it from wandering off from camp. Private Thomas Corry recalled that Forbes “sat surrounded by laughing men, until one of them walked some fifty feet and cut the hobbles off.”20

  Sam Houston found no humor in the fact that hundreds of men began priming their weapons for action with fresh powder. In order to load fresh, each man discharged his weapon. Dr. Labadie said there was “a perfect roar of musketry, till over 400 were fired across the bayou.” Houston flew into a rage. “Stop that firing!” he roared. “God damn you, I say, stop the firing!”