by H. W. Brands
Houston entreated the volunteers to reconsider their campaign. Even as they were heading south, Santa Anna was driving north; why did they wish to leave Texas to fight when the enemy was coming to them? Houston had to admire the daring and zeal of the troops. But such qualities “must not be wasted in profitless labors,” he said (according to Ehrenberg’s reconstruction of the speech). “In order to win, we must act together. United we stand, divided we fall. I am told that you intend to take Matamoros. I praise your courage, but I will frankly confess to you, my friends, that I do not approve of your plans. The capture of a city that lies outside the boundaries of our territory is useless, and the shedding of Texas blood in such unprofitable warfare is a mistake.” The volunteers wanted to fight the enemy. “Will you not do so more effectively by falling upon its armies after long marches and other hardships have exhausted and demoralized them?” The Texas forces weren’t large enough or strong enough to be divided. “Since our military power is weak, let our strength be in our unity.”
Many of the soldiers were openly skeptical of Houston’s argument. One of their officers, a Captain Pearson, stepped forward to rebut the commander. “However great my esteem for General Houston,” Pearson said, “I cannot accept his proposal. We have already tarried here too long. What has been the result? Most of our men have left because they grew tired of our inaction. . . . There is no sense in our staying here idle. Why should we bear all the hardships of the campaign and receive so little in return? . . . Let us march on, and I ask all those who agree with me to be on the road to Matamoros by noon.”
Ehrenberg was torn, as were many of his comrades. “These two speeches, following close upon each other, excited mingled feelings in our hearts,” he said. “The army was overwhelmingly in favor of storming Matamoros, yet the eloquence and popularity of General Houston induced most of the volunteers to postpone their departure for this city until the arrival of Fannin’s regiment.” But others wouldn’t wait, no matter how eloquent Houston was. “There were still quite a few who wanted to follow the immediate promptings of their impatience. Forty of our comrades decided to go at once to San Patricio, forty miles farther south, and they marched away that very day.”
In early December 1835, Stephen Austin and his fellow “agents of the people of Texas,” William Wharton and Branch Archer, received their diplomatic charge from the provisional government. They were to travel without delay to “the United States of the North,” entering that country at New Orleans, where they were to procure and outfit naval vessels for the defense of Texas’s coast and commerce, obtain arms and other provisions for the Texas army, negotiate a loan of up to $100,000 “on the best terms that you can,” and solicit donations from supporters of the Texas cause. After that:
You will proceed to the City of Washington with all convenient speed, endeavoring at all points to enlist the sympathies of the free and enlightened people of the United States in our favor by explaining to them our true political situation and the causes which impelled us to take up arms, and the critical situation in which we now stand. You will approach the authorities of our Mother Country, either by yourselves or confidential friends, and ascertain the feelings of the Government toward Texas, in her present attitude. Whether any interposition on the part of that Government in our favor can be expected, or whether, in their opinion, any ulterior move on our part would, to them, be more commendable and be calculated to render us more worthy of their favor, or whether by any fair and honorable means, Texas can become a member of that Republic. If not, if we declare independence, whether that Government would immediately recognize and respect us as an independent people, receive us as allies, and form with us a treaty of amity both offensive and defensive.
The tentative, conditional nature of this last part of the charge—“if we declare independence”—reflected the ambivalence that officially characterized the policy of the provisional government, and which was mirrored in the views of the commissioners. William Wharton thought timidity ill became Texas and would doom the mission, and he initially declined to participate. “From the papers of the United States and my correspondence,” Wharton wrote Archer, “I believe that under any declaration short of absolute independence, we will receive no efficient or permanent aid or pecuniary assistance from the United States, they believing it an internal domestic quarrel about which they can feel but little interest. So that situated as we are, we encounter all the evils of a declaration of independence without realizing one 50th of the advantages.”
Austin, however, judged that ambiguity still served a purpose. He left San Felipe in mid-December; between there and the coast he encountered José Mexía, who despite his recent reverse at Tampico hoped to continue the fight against Santa Anna. Austin thought Texas could benefit from the support of Mexía and other Mexican federalists; for this reason he believed that the declaration of November 7, calling for the reinstatement of the constitution of 1824, ought to remain the banner under which Texas fought. “A change of the basis now, to that of independence, would give us no more than is secured by the declaration . . . ,” Austin wrote the provisional government, “but it would injure us abroad by giving an idea that we are unstable in our opinions, and it would paralyze the efforts of the federal party which are now in our favor, and no doubt turn them against us.”
By the time he got to New Orleans, however, he had changed his mind. The question of what the Texans were fighting for could no longer be hedged. Finally Austin found himself agreeing with Sam Houston, to whom he wrote at length explaining the change in his thinking:
When I left Texas I was of opinion that it was premature to stir this question, and that we ought to be very cautious of taking any steps that would make the Texas war purely a national war, which would unite all parties against us, instead of it being a party war, which would secure to us the aid of the federal party. In this I acted contrary to my own impulses, for I wish to see Texas free from the trammels of religious intolerance and other anti-republican restrictions, and independent at once; and as an individual have always been ready to risk my all to obtain it; but I could not feel justifiable in precipitating and involving others until I was fully satisfied that they would be sustained.
Since my arrival here, I have received information which has satisfied me on this subject. I have no doubt we can obtain all and even much more aid than we need. I now think the time has come for Texas to assert her natural rights; and were I in the convention I would urge an immediate declaration of independence.
I form this opinion from the information now before me. I have not heard of any movement in the interior by the federal party, in favor of Texas; on the contrary, the information from Mexico is that all parties are against us, owing to what has already been said and done in Texas in favor of independence; and that we have nothing to expect from that quarter but hostility. . . . Our present position in favor of the republican principles of the constitution of 1824 can do us no good, and it is doing us harm by deterring those kind of men from joining us that are most useful.
At New Orleans, Austin proselytized on behalf of Texas to audiences large and small. The response was gratifying. “There is a Louisiana Battalion, a Georgia Battalion, a Mississippi Battalion, an Alabama Battalion, and a Tennessee Battalion,” he reported. Money also signed on. “We have effected a loan for two hundred thousand dollars and expect to procure another for 40 or 50,000.” The terms were generous to the lenders, to be sure: eight percent, repayable in Texas land, which made the lenders as much speculators as vindicators of liberty. And not surprisingly, the lenders insisted that Texas declare independence as soon as possible. “The universal wish and expectation in this quarter is that Texas ought to declare herself independent at once,” Austin said.
From New Orleans, he steamed upriver. Natchez was strong for Texas independence, a meeting there having just “Resolved: That the proud dictator, Santa Anna, like the fort Alamo, must fall. And the purple current of valiant gore that has moistened the pl
ain in the cause of liberty and glory must be avenged.” Donations were accepted and volunteers enlisted. Nashville was even warmer. “I have never been in a place where I have met with more genuine hospitality and enthusiastic patriotism,” Austin wrote.
Austin found the experience gratifying both politically and personally. “I had no idea before I left home of the deep and general interest that is felt for the cause of Texas, or of the influence which my opinions seem to have in this country.” It made him reconsider his past actions—but not to renounce them. “Had I known it sooner, I should have been less cautious than I have been about precipitating the people of Texas into a declaration of independence. The responsibility, however, would have been very great on me had I contributed to involve the settlers whom I had been instrumental in drawing to that country, before I was certain they would be sustained.” Yet all was turning out well. “I am now confident they will be fully and promptly sustained in their independence.”
At Louisville, Austin gave the speech of his life, on behalf of the cause of his life. He spoke of the sins of Santa Anna: of promises broken, laws ignored, innocents brutalized for defending their rights. Beyond the specific grievances and incidents that had provoked the current conflict, Austin addressed a deeper issue: the meaning of Texas. Americans had traveled to Texas to find a better life for themselves and their children. They had entered a Mexico that boasted a republican constitution promising fundamental rights of self-government. Yet the usurper Santa Anna had destroyed that constitution and suspended those rights. Like the American patriots of 1776, the Texans had been forced to fight for what was theirs. Indeed, Austin said, the cause of the Texans was better than that of the American revolutionaries, for the danger to Texas was more immediate. The patriots of 1776 had resisted “a principle, the theory of oppression.” “But in our case it was the reality. It was a denial of justice and our guaranteed rights; it was oppression itself.” The Texans were accused of ingratitude in accepting Mexican land and then throwing off Mexican rule. Again Austin cited American precedent. “I will ask, if it was not ingratitude for the people of the United States to resist the throng of oppression and separate from England, can it be ingratitude in the people of Texas to resist oppression and usurpation by separating from Mexico?” The Texans were charged with land theft, with taking what didn’t belong to them. But to whom did the land of Texas—“a country which we have redeemed from the wilderness, and conquered without any aid or protection whatever from the Mexican government”—really belong? Just as the American colonies had belonged to those who settled them, and not to the English king, so Texas belonged to the Texans. “We have explored and pioneered it, developed its resources, made it known to the world, and given to it a high and rapidly increasing value. . . . The true and legal owners of Texas, the only legitimate sovereigns of that country, are the people of Texas.”
The cause of the Texans was just, and a victory for Texas would be a victory for everything America cherished and humanity desired. “The emancipation of Texas will extend the principles of self-government over a rich and neighboring country, and open a vast field there for enterprise, wealth, and happiness. . . . It will promote and accelerate the march of the present age, for it will open a door through which a bright and constant stream of light and intelligence will flow.” The cause of Texas was one to which virtuous people everywhere could rally, and it was one upon which the Texans could fairly hope for heavenly blessing. “With these claims to the approbation and moral support of the free of all nations, the people of Texas have taken up arms in self-defence, and they submit their cause to the judgment of an impartial world, and to the protection of a just and omnipotent God.”
Had Austin reached Tennessee a bit earlier on his journey east, he might have encountered David Crockett heading west. In the mid-1830s Crockett was more famous than ever, but he was discovering that fame had its price. The publication of his autobiography was followed by a tour of the sort that would become mandatory for celebrity authors a century and a half hence. Crockett covered the East Coast, traveling for his first time via train; enthusiastic audiences greeted him at Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Newport, Providence, and Boston. They clamored to hear his stories of “grinning” bears to death and outwitting and outshooting wild Indians. The Whigs and anti-Jackson Democrats among his listeners—and the farther east he went, the more unpopular Jackson grew—delighted to hear him lash “King Andrew.” Jackson’s administration had no principles, Crockett asserted, and accordingly it had led the country astray. “This reminds me of an anecdote of an old man in the barrens of Illinois,” he said.
He took his boy out to plow, and there was no trees in the barrens. Says he, Boy, do you see yon red heifer? Yes, says the boy. Well, do you plow straight to her. The old man left the boy. The boy he plowed toward the heifer, and she moved and the boy followed, and so kept plowing on all day. The old man in the evening came, and was astonished. Says he, You rascal, what sort of plowing is this you have done? Why, says the boy, you told me to plow to the red heifer, and I have been plowing after her all day.
As with the book itself, the tour was as much about Crockett’s eastern future as about his western past. This was his first exposure to the Northeast and vice versa. The Whigs were happy to host some of Crockett’s events; whether or not he became their presidential nominee in 1836, as an anti-Jackson westerner (and a Tennesseean, at that) he demonstrated that the president didn’t speak for everyone in the West. Crockett understood that the Whigs loved him less than they hated Jackson, but he also understood that shared antipathies were the lifeblood of many alliances. The Whigs were using him; he would use them. Both might benefit.
After his popular triumph, Crockett found life in Congress a bore. “You look tired, as if you had just got through a long speech in the House,” said a visitor to the Capitol, encountering Crockett on the steps and thinking he was winded from addressing his colleagues. “Long speech to thunder!” Crockett replied. “There’s plenty of them up there for that sort of nonsense, without my making a fool of myself at public expense. I can stand good nonsense—rather like it—but such nonsense as they are digging at up yonder, it’s no use trying to.” When Crockett did address the House, it was primarily to savage Jackson; when Jackson’s lieutenants called him to task or order, he turned his fire their way. “I am not certain that the people will object to being transferred by Jackson over to that political Judas, little Van,” he said of Martin Van Buren, Jackson’s heir apparent. “I have sworn for the last four years that if Van Buren is our next president I will leave the United States. I will not live under his kingdom. . . . I would vote for the devil against Van and any man under the sun against Jackson.” Speaking, at this point, more for dramatic effect than from careful reflection, he said, “I will go to the wilds of Texas. I will consider that government a paradise to what this will be.”
Crockett intended to provoke the Jacksonians, and he succeeded. Jackson himself raged against Crockett as a ringleader of a “wicked plan to divide and conquer the Democracy of the union.” “How is it,” the president thundered, “that there is no man in the Republican ranks to take the stump and relieve Tennessee from her degraded attitude of abandoning principle to sustain men who have apostatized from the Republican fold for sake of office?” James Polk duly discovered such a man. Crockett initially underestimated Adam Huntsman—or, rather, he underestimated the ability of the Jackson machine to get out the vote for Huntsman. The two tramped across western Tennessee, with Crockett lambasting Jackson and Huntsman defending him. As always, Crockett campaigned as the man of the people. “If his vocabulary was scanty, he was master of the slang of his vernacular, and was happy in his coarse figures,” observed a reporter sent from New York to cover Crockett. “He spurned the idle rules of the grammarians and had a rhetoric of his own.” When Huntsman tried to embarrass him by producing a coonskin and asking him to assess it, as if that were the sum of his expertise, Crockett rejoined, “Sir, ’t
is not good fur. My dogs wouldn’t run such a coon, nor bark at a man that was fool enough to carry such a skin.” As the election approached, Crockett was confident. “I have him bad plagued,” he said of Huntsman.
Yet Crockett’s cleverness and confidence couldn’t overcome Jackson’s organization, and the incumbent lost a close race. “The great Hunter, one Davy, has been beaten by a Huntsman,” a happy Jacksonian gloated to Polk. Another boasted: “We have killed blackguard Crockett at last.”
It wasn’t the first time Crockett had lost, and he didn’t think it signaled an end to his political career. Jackson had won this round, and his protégé Van Buren might win the next round, in 1836. But then again, Van Buren might not win, in which case an office for Crockett under a Whig administration wasn’t out of the question. Even if Van Buren did win, he was no Jackson and would be vulnerable in 1840.
The question for Crockett was how to fill his time till then. A return to farming didn’t appeal, especially after his taste of fame. A journey to the West made more sense. He could hunt, and if he went to Texas he could chase buffalo, a prize to pique the interest of any hunter. Besides, with all the news coming out of Texas lately, including reports about his old friend Sam Houston, a man would have to be dead to curiosity not to want to find out more about that country.