Lone Star

by T. R. Fehrenbach

  Santa Anna, who joined with Sesma's troops, reached the Brazos at San Felipe. Here he found the fords covered by Moseley Baker's sharpshooters. He shunted south, and seized the ferry at Fort Bend. He heard the Texas government was at Harrisburg, about 30 miles away, and he marched to capture it. Burnet, Zavala, and the others barely got away; the Mexicans pursued them to Morgan's Point, overlooking Galveston Bay.

  In this column Santa Anna had 700 to 800 troops. The other Mexican columns were many miles away, except for Cós, who had been absolved of his pledge and was again leading troops in Texas. Santa Anna burned Harrisburg to the ground. He proceeded to the town of New Washington, on the bay, then swung back northwest to the San Jacinto River. Here, he trapped Sam Houston, who had marched from the Brazos to Harrisburg, left his sick and disabled in the ruins, then coiled into a position between the San Jacinto and Buffalo Bayou.

  Houston deliberately let himself run out of territory, because he was running out of time. Hundreds of his men had left, gone to find and help their fleeing families, disgusted with this strange commander who would not fight. But it was the Napoleon of the West, not the ex–U.S. lieutenant, who made the crucial mistake. Santa Anna had at last placed an inferior force in front of Houston, on terrain where neither army could easily retreat. The hard-riding Deaf Smith had taken a Mexican courier on April 18. The dispatches revealed Santa Anna's planned movements. Houston let himself be "trapped."

  He turned toward the Mexican column and took a position with his back to the river and bayou. The evidence is that if he had turned away from the enemy at this time, the army would have revolted. The Texans were at perfect pitch. They were tired but not exhausted, angry, and murderous. Their enthusiasm was worn away, but so was any nervousness or fear. Houston had marched and drilled his army just enough. Now, Houston placed his cannon (the Twin Sisters, which were a gift of the city of Cincinnati, Ohio) and threw his small cavalry force on the open prairie to his right. He was ready to fight.

  On April 20 Santa Anna found and fixed him, with a light skirmish that neither side tried to press home. Santa Anna did not want to attack, since he was waiting reinforcement. Why Houston did not attack on the morning of the 21st has never been explained. He allowed Cós to march into Santa Anna's camp with an additional 400 men; now, the Mexican forces outnumbered him. Houston had reached the San Jacinto with only 918.

  Santa Anna had indeed grown contemptuous of Sam Houston, as Burnet had charged. The Mexican President felt there was no hurry. He camped about three-quarters of a mile from Houston's army, behind hasty fortifications made of saddlebags and brush breastworks. A swell in the ground in front of this camp protected the Mexicans from Houston's field pieces. It also hid the Texas army from Mexican view.

  Houston held his war council at noon on April 21. He had planned to attack on the morning of the 22nd, and to this the majority of his officers agreed. But the rank and file were impatient and rebellious; they voted, company by company, to fight immediately. Houston shrewdly acquiesced.

  The problem with a proper army was that it was usually predictable. Santa Anna's veterans were getting all the rest they could, for the morrow's battle. The afternoon, in the humid April warmth along the bayou, was devoted to siesta. Santa Anna himself had retired; most of the officers dozed under trees.

  Certain details, such as the exact size of the Mexican army of approximately 1,200, are still unclear; and it is unclear how the Texas army of almost 1,000 at midafternoon of a bright, sunny day could walk across almost a mile of open grassland and take a veteran force by complete surprise. It happened. Santa Anna had made his last, and fatal, mistake in Texas.

  Houston sent Deaf Smith and a few trusted men to demolish Vince's Bridge across the Brazos, some miles away. This had a double purpose. It cut off the Mexican retreat—but also trapped the Texans, if they should lose. Houston was not the first commander to burn his bridges behind him; now, like Cortés's men in Mexico when their ships were burned, the Texans could only conquer or die.

  In this army were men and leaders whose loyalty Houston had held by a thread: Sherman, Somervell, Lamar, and Wharton. Wiley Martin and the colonist lawyer, Moseley Baker, would follow him if he fought. There were also his backers, who included Millard, Wells, Burleson, and Tom Rusk. But now, for the first time since it began, the Texas army was united.

  Houston formed them at three in the afternoon. Sixty horsemen mounted on the right, under the courtly Georgian fire-eater, Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar. Lamar's orders: keep the Mexicans from breaking across the prairie. Next came the two small companies of the Texas "Regular" Army, paced by Lieutenant Colonel Henry Millard. Beside the regular infantry stood the Twin Sisters, ready to roll under Hockley (Neill, the senior artillery officer, was injured). One gun would support each wing.

  Then, Burleson's First Regiment, the Texas backbone of the army, took its place in line, then Moseley Baker's riflemen, and Sidney Sherman's Second, with its Kentucky core. On each flank was water, the deep and black bayous.

  Houston formed a line of infantry, one man deep, that spread a thousand yards. Columns were for armies that attacked with the bayonet. The Texans had only rifles, tomahawks, and Bowie knives. In the center floated the Republic's flag: plain white silk, with five-point azure star, and the motto Ubi Libertas Habitat Ibi Nostra Patria Est—"where liberty lives, there is our homeland." Beside the flag, Houston rode his huge white stallion, Saracen. A thousand men were in this army, and this afternoon a thousand separate legends were being made. Posterity could take its choice of them. Only the bodies and blood on the field of San Jacinto remained ever afterward undisputed.

  Field music was found, a German who could play the fife, and a Negro freedman who could beat a drum. Two other musicians volunteered. But this combo of four did not know "Yankee Doodle" or any other martial air. They knew only popular music of the day. Grinning, General Houston told the field band to strike up "Come to the Bower," a tune regarded as quite risqué. Houston made no speech; he had none of Travis's impassioned rhetoric. He had not liked Travis, but on this day he missed the cold-eyed, deadly competent Bowie. He said something like, Hold your fire until you make it count. Forward—Texas! Only a part of the line could hear him. All saw him draw his sword, and all heard the field music screech into the air:

  Will you come to the bow'r I have shaded for you?

  Our bed shall be roses all spangled with dew.

  There under the bow'r on roses you'll lie

  With a blush on your cheek but a smile in your eye!

  Tired, dirty, bearded, hungry, angry—terrible—the army leveled its long rifles and went forward across the open plain. A Georgian Huguenot on the right, a Kentucky colonel on the left, at the head a Scotch-Irish agent of destiny from Tennessee, paced by a German fifer and a Negro beating on a drum, the Texans marched across the grass, up the swell, and down upon a dozing Mexican camp.

  They were seen. Sentries' muskets thudded, but incredibly, Santa Anna had had no pickets, nor any scouts watching the Texan camp. The line of the army, beginning to wave and break now, was in rifle range of the Mexican barricade before the shrieking, discordant notes of the "Centinela Alerto" went up. The bugles were too late. So was the Mexican cannon—the big Golden Standard was fired too quickly, too high. Its grape screamed uselessly over the Texans' heads.

  Incredibly, using the muscles of thirty men, Hockley had the Twin Sisters poised in front of the piled saddles and brush. He blew a tremendous hole, Cincinnati's gift to Texas, at a most proper time. The line kept walking forward, under fire now, but the main body of Mexicans was trying to assemble into disciplined order under shout and bugle call. Without that order, it was as doomed as Hessians on the Delaware. Mexicans, like Europeans of the time, were not trained to fight as individuals, without commands.

  In the Texan line, it was inevitable that the shout arose. Colonel Sidney Sherman, on the left, apparently yelled it first: "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember the Alamo!" The line dissolve
d, but it was running screaming at the enemy. Moseley Baker, who wept at the Brazos, took a bullet. Dr. William Mottley stumbled and went down. Texans later could name them individually, because on this day they were so few. Saracen, Houston's great horse, shrieked and crashed to earth. The General seized another mount from his aides. Houston, trotting ahead of the line, pointing ahead with his sword, his heart thudding in a tremendous passion, coolly, coolly, with his soldier's brain knowing no power on earth was going to stop this headlong charge.

  At something like twenty yards the Texas rifles began to blaze, a tremendous staccato roar. The barricades were swept clear. Burleson's regiment went into the position headlong and tore the fragile fortification apart. Sherman's line came leaping at it from the flank. Eight hundred rifles had left gray-uniformed dead and dying scattered all across the trampled ground. The Mexicans could not reload, could not form, could not wield the bayonet. The Texans went into them with rifle butt and long-bladed knife. They died.

  The battle lasted only a few minutes. The slaughter took longer. Santa Anna, General of Brigade Castrillón, and a dozen colonels of various degrees ran about, shouting conflicting orders: fire, form up, lie down to avoid the enemy fire. Some of the confused soldiery stopped fighting and threw down their arms, begging for mercy. The rest fled. Houston had his second horse shot from under him at the barricade, and this time his ankle caught a copper musket ball. Reeling, giddy, Houston bellowed for his men to Parade, and get back in order. He went unheard.

  The Mexicans who dropped their weapons and tried to surrender as individuals were clubbed and stabbed, some on their knees. Deaf Smith, plunging over the barricade on his horse, urged the Texans to "take prisoners like the Meskins do!" The terrible, high-pitched shout was everywhere: "Remember the Alamo!" It drowned out the cries of Santa Anna's broken and fleeing ranks.

  The great part of the Mexican army was never able to form or fight at all. Retreating in a panic, hundreds of soldiers found their retreat blocked by a deep ravine, or bayou. A few fled to the open prairie, where they were chopped down by Lamar's horsemen. But a great mass of struggling, screaming men pressed up against the banks of the bayou. Some rushed into the water and were drowned. The slaughter at this point became methodical: the Texan riflemen knelt and poured a steady fire into the packed, jostling ranks. Here, not on the barricade but several hundred yards behind the Mexican camp, the greatest carnage took place.

  Rank had no privileges in this screaming death trap. General of Brigade Castrillón, four colonels, two lieutenant colonels, five captains, and twelve lieutenants were killed in the press; five colonels, three lieutenant colonels, two majors, seven captains and a cadet were down, wounded. The Mexican army disintegrated. Only the gallant Juan Almonte was able to gather some hundreds and withdraw them in a semblance of order, too late to save the battle, but in an attempt to save Mexican lives. Colonel Almonte realized he could never get these broken men back in battle order, and toward sundown, when the Texans' bloodlust had been sated, he surrendered them. Almonte used his own judgment; the President and his brother-in-law Cós had disappeared.

  At nightfall, Houston sat under a tree with his boot full of blood, hearing the reports. Six hundred thirty Mexican corpses were scattered in clumps across the field. Almonte surrendered about the same number more, 200 of whom were wounded. These men sat on the ground, under guard, like dispirited cattle, still dazed by the horror that had overtaken them.

  The Texans lost two killed in action. There were about thirty wounded, of whom seven more would die. The figures cannot be precise; Houston's official report of two killed, twenty-four wounded, six mortally, was made after a hasty survey. Likewise, his report of more than 700 Mexican prisoners of war, when added to the 630 Mexican dead, exceeds the total figures on the Mexican army rolls. These were errors only in slight degree, however; what was clear was the army that was demoralized and routed suffered immense casualties, while the victors emerged almost unscathed.

  To this toll at San Jacinto must be added the 800 American dead who fell at the Alamo and Goliad. In the twilight at San Jacinto, however, this cost was small. Although no one quite knew it when the red sun went down on April 21, 1836, the balance of power in Texas had turned.

  The American West was won.

  Chapter 14

  AFTERMATH

  Army of Operations,

  The Camp at San Jacinto, April 22, 1836.

  His Excellency, Don Vicente Filisola, General of Division:

  Excellent Sir—Having yesterday evening, with the small division under my immediate command, had an encounter with the enemy which, notwithstanding I had previously observed all possible precautions, proved unfortunate, I am, in consequence, a prisoner of the enemy. Under these circumstances your Excellency will order General Guano, with his division, to countermarch to Béxar and wait for orders. Your Excellency will also, with the division under your command, march to the same place. The division under the command of General Urrea will retire to Guadalupe Victoria. I have agreed with General Houston for an armistice, until matters can be so regulated that the war will cease forever. . . .

  EXTRACT OF THE LETTER FROM ANTONIO LÓPEZ DE SANTA ANNA TO THE MEXICAN FORCES IN TEXAS

  Towards sunset, a woman on the outskirts of the camp began to clap her hands and shout "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" Those about her thought her mad, but following her wild gestures, they saw one of the Hardings, of Liberty, riding for life towards the camp, his horse covered with foam, and he was waving his hat and shouting, "San Jacinto! San Jacinto! The Mexicans are whipped and Santa Anna a prisoner!" The scene that followed beggars description. People embraced, laughed and wept and prayed, all in one breath. As the moon rose over the vast, flower-decked prairie, the soft southern wind carried peace to tired hearts and grateful slumber.

  FROM THE ACCOUNT OF MRS. TERRELL, ONE OF THE RUNAWAYS TRAPPED UP AGAINST BUFFALO BAYOU NEAR HARRISBURG ON APRIL 21, 1836

  IN the days and weeks before the battle at San Jacinto, Stephen F. Austin, William H. Wharton, Branch T. Archer, and a number of other Texas agents were working night and day in the United States. Most Texans, after the fall of the Alamo, believed that only American intervention could save Anglo-Texas. Austin and Wharton traveled up the Mississippi and Ohio Valley to New York, where they tried to negotiate a loan. They found the New York bankers cautious and cool. Interest in Texas receded in direct proportion to the distance eastward from the middle border.

  Austin, Archer, and Wharton secured $100,000 in institutional loans and some $25,000 in private donations in the United States. One group in New Orleans gave $7,000, and two wealthy families each donated $5,000. There were many pledges of land, slaves, and personal property, but these were virtually worthless, as they could not be translated into ready cash. Thomas McKinney and William Bryan, who were Texas agents and Texas merchants in New Orleans, got local merchants to supply powder, lead, flour, rifles, and clothing on faith for the most part, and for the rest used their own funds. The suppliers of the Texas Revolution, like those of 1776, expended their own fortunes out of patriotism. Small as these stores were, without them Houston could not have remained in the field at all.

  The Texas agents had better luck recruiting men than finding money.

  Travis's letter of February 24th, 1836, was read to audiences all through the southwestern states. It produced violent emotional reactions in the border country. All through the Mississippi Valley friends of Texas held mass meetings to send volunteers or "armed emigrants," as Austin called them, to the war. The largest recruiting centers were New Orleans, Louisville, and Cincinnati. Many small companies were raised and outfitted, among them the New Orleans Grays, the Mobile Grays, the Alabama Red Rovers, and the Kentucky Mustangs. Most of these men died with Fannin at Goliad.

  Almost every Southern and border state sent men or weapons. Cincinnati sent the Twin Sisters down the Mississippi; Alabama stripped its state arsenal of muskets for Texas. Thomas Chambers, who was authorized by the Texas
Council to raise an "Army of the Reserve" in the United States, successfully propagandized Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. He raised and equipped almost 2,000 volunteers and sent them on their way.

  The three official commissioners, however, were most interested in getting the United States government to move. On April 15, 1836, Austin sent a letter to the President of the United States, his Cabinet, and most of the Congress. He made the letter public at the same time, having it printed by friendly newspapers. The letter was propagandistic, but it summed up the attitudes that were being privately expressed by many prominent Americans of the time:

  Pardon me for this intrusion upon your valued time. I address you as individuals, as men, as Americans, as my countrymen. I obey an honest though excited impulse. We have recent dates from Mexico by packet. It appears that Santa Anna has succeeded in uniting the whole Mexican nation against Texas by making it a national war against heretics; that an additional army of eight thousand men is organizing in Mexico under Gen. Cotazar to march to Texas and exterminate the heretic Americans. Santa Anna is now in Texas, as we all know, with about seven thousand men fighting under the bloody flag of a pirate—he is exciting the Comanches and other Indians, who know nothing of lines or political divisions of territory, and massacres have been committed on Red River within the United States. This is a war of barbarism against civilization, of despotism against liberty, of Mexicans against Americans. O my countrymen! the warm-hearted, chivalrous, impulsive West and South are up and moving in favor of Texas. The calculating and more prudent, though not less noble-minded, North are aroused. The sympathies of the whole American people en masse are with the Texans. . . . Will you, can you, turn a deaf ear to the appeals of your fellow citizens in favor of their and your countrymen and friends who are massacred, butchered, outraged, in Texas at your very doors? Are not we, the Texans, obeying the dictates of an education received here, from you, the American people, from our fathers, from the patriots of '76—the Republicans of 1836? . . .