Texas Rising

by Stephen L. Moore

  The Texians sprawled before their meager campground in parade formation as Houston rode slowly down their lines. To the extreme right were the cavalry companies of Captains Henry Karnes and William Smith. They would be led into battle this day by a valiant new leader, Mirabeau Lamar—newly promoted to colonel. By saving two lives in the previous day’s skirmish, the poet from Georgia had earned the respect of his peers. General Houston had offered him command of the artillery but Lamar declined. Colonel Rusk then offered to have him join his staff as an aide-de-camp but Lamar instead accepted a third offer. The men under Karnes and Smith insisted that Colonel Lamar command their forces since he had saved two of their comrades.15

  Standing ready beside Lamar’s cavalry were the ninety-two regulars of Captains Andrew Briscoe and Amasa Turner. The six-piece Texas band—two drummers and four fifers—would march near them. The two six-pounder Twin Sisters cannon stood slightly ahead of the regulars and the thirty-two artillerymen were headed by Colonel Hockley. To the left of the artillery stood the eight companies and 386 men of Colonel Burleson’s First Regiment. Colonel Sherman’s 330-man Second Regiment, composed of ten companies, formed the left wing of the Texas Army.

  Baker, Calder, and other company leaders seized the moment to give quick motivational speeches to their young patriots. Goliad survivor Charles Shain needed little encouragement as he heard Sam Houston state that those who could not brave the enemy’s bayonets should remain behind. Shain and the other massacre survivors hoped to avenge the loss of their brave comrades who had been slaughtered at the La Bahía and Alamo compounds.16

  It was around 4 P.M. when General Houston trotted Saracen before his paraded companies and gave the long-awaited marching order, “Trail arms! Forward!”

  SANTA ANNA’S FORCES, NUMBERING about thirteen hundred souls, could not have been caught less prepared for battle.

  His cavalrymen had been allowed to unsaddle their horses to graze. General Cos’s reinforcement troops, exhausted from their long march, took the opportunity to sleep while other troops who had been constructing the defensive breastworks enjoyed a late afternoon meal. Santa Anna asked General Castrillón to advise him of any enemy movements while he retired to his command tent to take a siesta. One of the more controversial stories later circulated was that El Presidente was actually keeping company in his tent with Emily West, the indentured servant captured two days earlier on Colonel Morgan’s plantation at New Washington. The mulatto girl was reportedly the inspiration for the song “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” Exactly what the commander in chief of the Mexican Army was doing with young West during these climactic moments will long be debated, even if many historians dismiss the whole event as grandiose Texas folklore.17

  The Texians at that moment were advancing stealthily across Peggy McCormick’s cattle ranch. Sidney Sherman’s Second Regiment moved quickly through the mossy live oaks and tall grasses of the little thicket running along the edge of the marsh. The cavalry and other infantrymen of the regulars and of Colonel Burleson’s infantry eased forward over the open prairie. Tree cover, waist-high coastal grass, and a slight rise in the ground toward Santa Anna’s camp perfectly disguised their movements. Eager artillerymen pulled the heavy Twin Sisters cannon with leather straps toward the slight rise in the center of the field.18

  Moseley Baker’s company advanced with a hoisted red handkerchief, a sign that his men planned on offering no quarter to their enemy. Captain Wood’s Kentucky Riflemen carried the only true flag for the Texans, one that had been presented to them by the ladies of Newport, Kentucky, before they departed the United States. The flag featured a half-nude maiden who clutched a banner reading “Liberty or Death”—the very opportunities facing the 930 advancing Texians.

  Sherman’s men encountered a division of Mexican soldiers in the woods near camp and were the first to commence firing. Stephen Sparks of Captain Hayden Arnold’s Nacogdoches volunteers recalled, “We were ordered not to fire until we could see the whites of the enemies’ eyes. When we got within 300 yards of the ditch, we were ordered to charge, and we charged in double file.” Only one other man fired his weapon before Sparks touched his own trigger.19

  Most of Sherman’s men were within sixty yards of the napping Mexican Army as they opened up with their muskets. Each man quickly reloaded with lead balls and continued charging forward, firing point-blank into the mass of troops who sprang for their own weapons. Sherman’s regiment quickly became engaged in hand-to-hand combat as the action forbade the time to properly load and prime another round. Cries of “Remember the Alamo!” and “Remember Goliad!” rang out through the rising musket smoke and screams of death.

  The stunned Mexican Army began firing back in earnest at the mass of frontiersmen sweeping down on their campgrounds from all sides. Their own cannon, the Golden Standard, opened fire with a mighty roar on the Texas cavalry. Colonel Rusk raced across the battlefield on horseback to report to General Houston that Sherman’s men had taken the napping enemy completely by surprise. En route, his young aide, Dr. Junius William Mottley, was blasted from his horse by a rifle ball to the stomach.

  As Rusk approached Houston, the general’s horse was cut down by a volley of shots. Saracen’s gray coat was splattered crimson red as five shots pierced the animal’s chest. Houston landed on his feet as his mount collapsed under him. Private Achelle Mare caught a small, riderless horse for the general, whose long legs now dangled below the stirrups as he pushed forward.20

  The conflict was now in full rage. Deaf Smith raced across the plains with a filthy, foaming horse to alert Houston that Vince’s Bridge had been successfully destroyed. No one else would be joining the battle. Conversely, neither army’s combatants could easily escape. Flashes of smoke and fire erupted along the Mexican breastworks as Ed Burleson’s regiment moved toward camp. The stunned Mexican soldiers initially fired too high. Private Ed Miles felt that his enemy’s first shots “passed over us like hail.” The soldados adjusted their aim as the Texans descended the slight slope leading toward camp, and some of their musket balls began hitting home. Thomas Mays crumpled from a musket ball that smashed into his left thigh.

  George Erath was marching in double file behind buckskin-attired, scraggly-bearded Captain Jesse Billingsley. They descended into a low spot in the field and then marched through the high coastal grass up over a slight rise. As they crested the little hill, bullets filled the air and Private Ed Blakely crumpled with a mortal wound. Erath had fired his gun from 150 yards but choked his barrel while hurriedly ramming in his next musket ball. Disgusted, he threw down his gun and grabbed Blakely’s weapon and shot pouch. Erath saw that the whole Mexican line ahead of him was falling into chaos as he charged forward.21

  The Texans had advanced in perfect silence but now that the hellacious thundering had erupted, the little Texian band began to play with their drums and fife. They opened with Thomas Moore’s number “Will You Come to the Bower?” once the shooting commenced. Private John Hassell recalled that Colonel Burleson ordered “Yankee Doodle” to be played as well.22

  The Twin Sisters were first fired from about two hundred yards from the Mexican breastworks. The ground-shaking roar was inspiring to many, who sprang forward with renewed energy. The artillerymen quickly loaded new rounds of canister and towed the iron weapons steadily closer to Santa Anna’s campground to continue pounding the defenses.

  El Presidente sprang from his tent as chaos befell his napping army. He would claim that Colonel Castrillón was negligent in visiting the guard lines a single time while he and Cos were resting. General Vicente Filisola wrote that most leaders were merely following the example of their senior officers and that those who were still awake “were completely relaxed.” Corporal Juan Reyes said “the enemy fell upon us with such violence that when the bugle of the right [flank] signaled the enemy on that side, it was lost in the din of battle.” Private Toribio Reyes found that none of the senior Mexican officers was able to maintain any order in the immediate confusi
on and uproar of the explosions. Some of the companies engaged in return fire but Reyes saw that General Cos’s newly arrived Aldama and Guerrero battalions were the first to begin fleeing from the battlefield.23

  Other Mexican units engaged the Texans in valiant fashion. Colonel Manuel Céspedes led an attack column—consisting of the Guerrero permanent battalion and detachments from Toluca and Guadalajara—forward to contain the main fire of their enemy. The Golden Standard gunners managed to get off at least three rounds of return fire before a shot from the Twin Sisters hit the Mexican cannon’s water bucket, wounding or scaring off most of the gunners. By this time, countless Texans were jumping over the Mexican breastworks.

  Colonel Céspedes was seriously wounded and he retreated. Others began following suit. General Castrillón and twenty-five-year-old Lieutenant Ignacio Arenal, however, fought until the bitter end to keep the Golden Standard manned. Castrillón stood atop ammunition boxes and shouted at soldiers to hold their ground. He became a martyr, defiantly glaring at the advancing Texians with his arms folded across his chest. Volleys of rifle balls ripped through the proud artillery general’s body and he expired near the cannon.24

  Colonel Sherman’s Second Regiment swept into the Mexican camp. Unable to reload their guns quickly enough, they used their rifles and muskets as war clubs to bash Mexican soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. Others pulled their Bowie knives. Former Ranger captain William Sadler fought off a Mexican soldier wielding a dagger, wrestled him down, and kept the dead man’s dirk as a prized trophy of the conflict. Deaf Smith was thrown from his horse near the breastworks. He grabbed one of his belt pistols and aimed it at the head of a Mexican soldier, but the percussion cap exploded without the pistol going off. Smith threw the gun at his opponent and then wrestled the soldado’s rifle away from him. Cavalryman James Nash saw the plight of old Deaf and used his horse to run down a nearby Mexican officer, whom Smith finished off with the officer’s own saber.25

  Sam Houston later credited Juan Seguín’s tejano company with fighting valiantly for the Texian cause. Seguín’s men fired their first volley and they crouched low to reload near the Mexican camp. First Sergeant Manual Flores, seeing the chaos unfold ahead of them, shouted at his fellow tejanos: “Get up! Santa Anna’s men are running!” As they swept into the Mexican camp, one enemy officer cried out to Tony Menchaca for mercy, calling him a “fellow Mexican.” Menchaca howled back angrily, “No, damn you, I’m no Mexican! I’m an American. Shoot him!”26

  The Texans were able to fire their weapons numerous times before the close-action combat ensued in Santa Anna’s camp. “I shot old Betsy six times and a holster pistol one time,” said Private John Hassell of Burleson’s regiment. “In the seven shots, I know that I killed four.” George Washington Lonis of Captain David Murphree’s company fired his rifle thirteen times and claimed a dozen kills before he fell seriously wounded by a musket ball that ripped through his right lung.27

  Colonel Burleson’s First Regiment and Colonel Millard’s two regular companies soon cleared the Mexican breastworks and seized the Mexican cannon. “Our rifles created dreadful havoc among them, and they gave way in every direction,” said Captain Robert Stevenson. All Mexican resistance had been broken in “about eighteen minutes” per General Houston’s postbattle report. Goliad Massacre survivor Charles Shain agreed that the Texan army was across the breastworks in less than twenty minutes and “the Mexicans were then running in all directions.”28

  GENERAL SANTA ANNA HAD lost all control of his army.

  He tried in vain to rally his men but they were fleeing now in all directions. Santa Anna found that it was “every man for himself. My desperation was as great as my danger.” Colonel Delgado felt that his soldiers had been reduced to “a bewildered and panic stricken herd.” Santa Anna reportedly announced, “The battle is lost.” He accepted a stallion from one of his aides and raced from camp toward Thompson’s Pass. His aide Ramón Caro mounted another horse and galloped after the fleeing general.29

  General Houston, by contrast, was highly visible to his men during the first eighteen minutes of conflict. He placed himself at the head of his First Regiment in front of the Mexican breastworks, shouting at his men to continue firing. The general was riding before his companies of regulars when his second horse was killed by a volley of five shots. Another musket ball shattered Houston’s left ankle but he was quickly helped onto his third horse of the day. Few soldiers were even aware at the time that old Sam had been winged.30

  By this point the Mexican Army had been completely broken. The Texian companies were widely scattered. Captain Robert Calder later noted, “I very much doubt if any captain could, at short notice, have formed any five of his men together.” Although Santa Anna’s troops had been routed in eighteen minutes, heavy fighting would continue for another two hours. It was nothing short of a slaughter.31

  Vengeful Texans showed no mercy. Mexican soldiers cried out for it, though, as they were overtaken beyond their campground. Most were dispatched with a lethal blow to the head amid screams of “Remember the Alamo!” The fleeing soldados were doomed by the soggy grounds along the bayou behind their encampment. Horses that tried to cross Peggy’s Lake bogged down and began sinking. Some Texans literally crossed the huge mud bog by jumping across horses and other debris like stepping-stones. Peggy’s Lake was actually a small bay separated from the main San Jacinto Bay by a small strip of land. Texas riflemen cut down the fleeing soldiers who tried to escape through the marshes. Some Texans who ran out of ammunition or did not want to waste time to reload splashed into the water to use their Bowie knives and hatchets. A few bloodthirsty souls even removed scalps.

  Private Walter Lane refused to fire on the helpless Mexican soldiers who “took to the water like ducks to swim across, our men firing at their heads.” Corporal Bernardino Santa Cruz, one of the elite grenadiers, noted with disgust that entire battalions of his army had fled, leaving his unit no other choice. Santa Cruz and his companions plunged waist-deep through the body of water and effectively lost their chance to fight any further as their ammunition pouches and powder became soaked. Lieutenant Denham found Peggy’s Lake to be “a scene of slaughter which defied description.” Private James Winters found that the dead horses and soldiers “made a bridge across the bayou.” Colonel Wharton tried without success to save one young Mexican soldier by pulling him up onto the horse behind him. Wharton declared him to be a prisoner, but old Jim Curtis, who had recently served in Tumlinson’s ranger company, defiantly shot the Mexican from the colonel’s horse.32

  “It was nothing but a slaughter,” recalled Sergeant William Swearingen, who watched his comrades shoot the swimmers as fast as they could reload their guns. Wharton tried ordering the men to cease firing.

  “Colonel Wharton, if Jesus Christ were to come down from Heaven and order me to quit shooting Santanistas, I wouldn’t do it, sir!” yelled Private Joe Dixon of the regulars.33

  Wharton angrily reached for his sword. Dixon stepped back and cocked his rifle, forcing the colonel to discreetly ride on to check the bloodlust elsewhere. Dr. Nicholas Labadie tried to secure Colonel José Batres—on his knees and pleading for mercy—as his prisoner. Several Texans leveled their rifles at Batres, splattering his blood and brains across Dr. Labadie. The Texan leaders were far from immune from barbaric actions. Near Peggy’s Lake, a pair of Texas regulars secured a Mexican man and a female camp servant as prisoners. They were soon implored by a Texan officer on horseback: “Kill them, God damn them. Remember the Alamo!”34

  The two regulars attacked the man with bayonets even as Private Thomas Corry attempted to prevent the senseless execution. At the same time, Colonel John Forbes, the commissary general of the Texas Army, ran his sword through the Mexican woman’s chest and left her expiring body to quiver on the ground.

  “Damn you!” shouted Corry. “You have killed a woman!”

  Other Texans witnessed the event and Forbes was later put before a board of inquiry on charges
of murder. His fellow Texan would acquit Forbes of any unsoldierlike or improper conduct.35

  Peggy’s Lake was not the only slaughtering ground during the late afternoon hours of April 21. One large group of Mexican officers and cavalrymen fled down the road leading toward Vince’s Bridge. They were badly surprised to find that Deaf Smith’s men had already disposed of their only easy exit from the McCormick ranch. Cavalry captains Karnes and Smith led about eighteen mounted men, one of them a Goliad Massacre survivor, in pursuit. Another slaughter ensued when the Mexican horsemen reached the swollen bayou.

  Some fell to their knees after their horses became bogged down. “Me no Alamo!” said some. “Me no La Bahía!” Most were executed by carbines at close distance. William Taylor, one of the pursuing cavalryman, explained, “We felt compelled to kill them. We saw it was impossible for us to take prisoners, and we had little disposition to do so.” One of the stronger Mexican soldiers turned on Jack Robbins and tackled him. The pair wrestled in the mire until Robbins could pull his knife and end the duel. A Mexican officer riding Old Whip, the fine black stallion recently stolen from William Vince’s ranch, tried to pass himself off as Santa Anna once he was detained. Henry Karnes swung his sword, scoring a glancing blow off the Mexican officer’s head. He then leapt into the bayou to escape. His exodus was prevented by a volley of lead fired by Taylor and other cavalrymen.36

  There were no other prisoners taken near Vince’s Bridge, although a few had escaped the scene. Foremost among them was General Santa Anna, who had lost his horse and taken refuge for the moment in a thicket of small pines. Secretary Ramón Caro also ditched his mount and hid in the woods. Karnes’s men poked about the thicket, some calling out in Spanish for Santa Anna to surrender himself and be spared. There was no reply. Deaf Smith then mounted Old Whip and rode back toward the battlefield to secure more men to keep the woods surrounded through the night. The capture or execution of El Presidente would certainly seal the Texan victory.37