Perhaps the most famous story about the Alamo was the incident in which Commander William Travis drew a line in the dirt with his sword. Only those willing to die for Texas independence, Travis announced to the garrison, should step across the line and defend the Alamo. Jim Bowie, too sick to move from his cot, called over some of his “boys” and had them carry him across Travis’s line.
Despite the legend, the story about Travis and Bowie is at best highly questionable. One of the men at the mission that day was Moses Rose, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, who fled the Alamo a day or two before the massacre. Later that year he reportedly stayed with the parents of William P. Zuber, who was at the time off fighting in Sam Houston’s army. Before Rose left the household, he told Zuber’s parents about Colonel Travis’s speech, the line in the dirt, Bowie’s reaction, and how he had personally decided to go over the wall instead of the colonel’s line. After Sam Houston’s victory at San Jacinto, Zuber returned home and was told about Rose’s story. Thirty-five years later Zuber wrote a third-hand account from memory and published the piece, entitled “An Escape from the Alamo,” in the Texas Almanac of 1873. From there the story was widely circulated and soon became accepted by the public as fact.
One man who did not follow Rose over the wall but, contrary to legend, did not go down “fighting like a tiger” was Davy Crockett. Overwhelming contemporary evidence indicates that in the waning moments of the great struggle Crockett, along with several other Tennesseans, was captured and taken before General Santa Anna. Ignoring pleas from Mexican general Castrillon to show mercy, Santa Anna immediately ordered the troops standing nearest him to execute the remaining defenders.
SOURCE: Dan E. Kilgore, How Did Davy Die? (College Station: Texas A. & M. Press, 1978), passim; Walter Lord, A Time to Stand (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), pp. 40, 60; William Zuber, My Eighty Years in Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), p. xi.
The abandoned Alamo church as it looked in 1846. (Executive Document 32, U.S. Senate, 31st Cong., 1st sess.)
THE YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS?
The song “The Yellow Rose of Texas” honors “the sweetest rosebud that Texas ever knew.” The “sweetest little rose” the song refers to, however, was not a typical Texas belle but a young slave named Emily.
During the 1836 Texas Revolution, as Santa Anna’s ragged army approached San Antonio and the Alamo, the general, who had a great desire for women, learned of a beautiful girl who lived in the area. But the girl’s mother was a good Catholic, whose husband had been a former officer in the Mexican army. If General Santa Anna wanted her daughter, she insisted, he would have to marry her. Santa Anna’s moral convictions were more flexible. But if the old lady wanted a wedding for her daughter, a wedding—of sorts—she would get. Santa Anna had one of his soldiers borrow the necessary Catholic vestments and missal and ordered him to dress up as a priest. Then Santa Anna was “married” by the “priest” in the general’s own headquarters. The “honeymoon” lasted throughout the army’s stay in San Antonio and ended sixty miles east at Gonzales, Texas, where the royal carriage could not ford the swollen Guadalupe River. The “bride” and carriage were then sent back to San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Santa Anna, of course, traveled on with his army in search of Sam Houston and the rebellious Texans.
But the general was not one to be long without a companion. At Morgan’s Point, Texas, Santa Anna took the slave Emily from the household of Colonel James Morgan and made her his “serving maid.” She served him too well. On April 21, 1836, Santa Anna and Emily were partying in the general’s gaudy, carpeted marquee at San Jacinto, Texas. Champagne cases were stacked outside the entrance. Suddenly, battle cries filled the air as Sam Houston’s Texans surprised the Mexicans. The battle was over practically before it could begin. Santa Anna had been too involved with Emily to organize or rally resistance. He barely escaped the battlefield, clad only in his drawers and red slippers. In twenty minutes, 800 Texans had captured or killed the entire 1,500-man Mexican army. The next day General Santa Anna himself was located and taken prisoner. And the Yellow Rose of Texas, the slave Emily, became famous in legend and song for her role in bringing about the defeat of Santa Anna. Texans still debate whether her “service” that day was prearranged or merely coincidental.
Emily’s song has undergone a great deal of change over the past 140 years. One set of original lyrics, not included in the famous Mitch Miller rendition, hailed Emily as “the Maid of Morgan’s Point.” In place of the chorus line, “She’s the sweetest little rose that Texas ever knew,” early Texans sang, “She’s the sweetest rose of color, this darky ever knew.”
SOURCES: Martha Anne Turner, The Yellow Rose of Texas (El Paso: Southwestern Studies Monograph–University of Texas, 1971), passim; Frank C. Hanighen, Santa Anna (New York: Coward-McCann, 1934), p. 88.
THE CURIOUS THING ABOUT TEXAS
If Texans ever begin worrying that they do not have enough political influence in the country, they have a remedy open to them which is not available to other Americans. By the terms of the treaty annexing Texas to the Union, the state has the right to divide itself at any time into as many as five states. This right gives the state the power to create eight more senators and four more governors.
SOURCE: David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace, The People’s Almanac #2 (New York: Bantam, 1978), p. 327.
THE END OF AN INDIAN TRIBE
The Karankawa Indians used to inhabit the lower gulf plains of southern Texas and northern Mexico. But with the arrival of the white man and his diseases and technology, the Karankawas, for all practical purposes, ceased to exist. The tribe met its final demise in the middle of a white man’s war, the Texas Revolution of 1836.
Captain Dimmit owned a ranch near the mouth of the Lavaca River, approximately ninety miles north of present-day Corpus Christi. In dealing with the Karankawas, he was always friendly, and was in the habit of giving members of the tribe beef whenever they were in the area. When the Texas Revolution broke out, however, Dimmit left his ranch to serve with the Texans. The Karankawas knew nothing of the war, so when the tribe appeared at Dimmit’s ranch and found it deserted, the Indians went out, rounded up a few cattle, and helped themselves to some beef. While eating, a party of Mexican soldiers rode up and demanded to know what the Indians were doing.
“Oh,” the Indians innocently replied, “it’s all right; we are Captain Dimmit’s friends.”
When the Mexicans heard this, they charged, killing many and causing the rest to flee. The remaining Karankawas regrouped shortly thereafter, but soon met a party of Americans. Fearing another assault, and not understanding why they had been attacked at Dimmit’s ranch, the hapless Indians played it safe with this new group of non-Indians and began shouting, “Viva Mexico!”
Immediately, the Americans attacked, and only a few Indians were able to escape to the nearby canebrakes. The two attacks ended the Karankawa tribe, and it was virtually never seen or heard of again in Texas or Mexico.
SOURCE: Noah Smithwick, The Evolution of a State (Austin, Texas: Gammel, 1900), pp. 22–23.
CACTUS CHASTITY
The chastity of young, unmarried, and untouched girls was a matter of great importance and respect among some Indian nations. The girls’ protection sometimes included the use of rather unusual methods. The Cheyenne would knot a rope around a young girl’s waist and thighs in such a manner that she could not have intercourse without great trouble. The women had to wear the rope at night, or whenever they traveled abroad, from the time they reached puberty until they were married.
Other tribes used more drastic measures. Anthropologists have unearthed in a rock shelter in Val Verde County, Texas, a prickly-pear cactus (Opuntia) leaf that most likely had served as the southwestern equivalent of a chastity belt. The cactus leaf curves inward slightly at its base. On the concave side there are no spines or bristles. There are no long bristles on the other side, but there are clumps of small, sharp bristles. Two-thirds of the cactus’s circu
mference is reinforced by two strands of slender bear grass, with loops sewn in at the base and the two sides. With these loops an Indian girl could attach the cactus to her sides by using a girdle-type garment. The cactus then formed a considerable deterrent to would-be seducers.
SOURCE: Melvin R. Gilmore, “An Interesting Vegetal Artifact from the Pecos Region of Texas,” University of Texas Bulletin: Anthropological Papers, I (September 8, 1937), 21.
HENRY CLAY SAVES THE COMMON LAW
“When Henry Clay was young, and a brilliant member of the legislature of Kentucky, one of the old Buckskins heard him quote the old common law of England as decisive of the case then under discussion. The old fellow was astonished and, jumping up, began, ‘Mr. Speaker, I want to know, sir, if what that gentleman said is true? Are we all livin’ under English common law?’ The speaker informed the anxious inquirer that the common law was recognized as part of the law of the land. ‘Well, sir,’ resumed Buckskin, ‘when I remember our fathers, and some of us, fit, bled and died to be free of English law, I don’t want to be under any of it any longer. And I make a motion that it be repealed right away.’ The motion was seconded. The Kentucky blood was up. The Buckskins fired off speech after speech, and Mr. Clay had as much as he could do to explain the matter and save the legislature of Kentucky from repealing the common law of England.”
SOURCE: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, February 1858, p. 425.
HENRY CLAY SPEAKS FOR THE PRESENT GENERATION
“Uniformly cheerful while on the floor, [Clay] sometimes indulged in repartee. The late General Alexander Smyth, of Virginia, a man of ability and research, was an excessively tedious speaker, worrying the House and prolonging his speeches by numerous quotations. On one of these occasions, when he had been more than ordinarily tiresome, while hunting up an authority, he observed to Mr. Clay, who was sitting near him, ‘You, sir, speak for the present generation, but I speak for posterity.’ ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Clay, ‘and you seem resolved to speak until the arrival of your audience.’”
SOURCE: Epes Sargent, The Life and Public Services of Henry Clay (Auburn, N.Y.: Derby & Miller, 1852), p. 111.
JOHN VAN BUREN’S PROPHECY
John Van Buren, speaking to his father, the President: “You think you’re going to be remembered because you were president; but you are going to be remembered because you are the father of John Van Buren.”
THE VICE PRESIDENT WHO SOLD HIS MISTRESS AT AUCTION
Fidelity to a single woman was not a conspicuous trait of Richard Mentor Johnson, vice president under Martin Van Buren. The Kentuckian never married and ran through at least three women during his life. Undoubtedly, he would have led a conventional married life if his mother had allowed him to wed a New England schoolteacher with whom he fell madly in love as a young man. But she didn’t, and her interference marked Johnson permanently. He promised that in time she would regret her action.
When Johnson’s father died a few years later, the irate son took his revenge. As part of his inheritance he received a female slave, Julia Chinn, whom his mother had raised as a child. Johnson decided to take Chinn as his mistress. He put her in charge of his home, introduced her into society as his wife, and had several children by her. When he was elected to the United States Senate, he took Chinn to Washington and referred to her in public as his wife. When people refused to accept her at parties, Johnson himself virtually ceased going out.
Chinn died during a cholera epidemic in Kentucky in 1833. But Johnson was not prepared to spend the rest of his life as a bachelor. Although he was in the national spotlight and was even mentioned as a possible presidential candidate, he took other black slaves as mistresses. Even after he was elected vice president by the Senate in 1837, he continued to have black concubines.
Johnson was not without a sense of personal morality, however. Despite his blatant exploitation of female slaves (which was rather ironic considering that he was a champion of the working classes), Johnson still believed in a few old-fashioned virtues. When one of his mistresses proved unfaithful, the Vice President put her up for sale and then took her sister as his next mistress.
SOURCE: George Stimpson, A Book about American Politics (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1952), p. 133.
MYTH OF THE LOG CABIN
William Henry Harrison was not born in a log cabin. The son of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, he was actually born in a two-and-a-half-story mansion, made of red brick, located on a large plantation on the James River. The myth that he was born in a cabin came about during the presidential election of 1840, when a Democratic newspaper charged that Harrison (who was a Whig) wanted little more from life than a pension, plenty of hard cider, and a log cabin. The Whigs promptly turned the taunt to their advantage and presented Harrison as the candidate of humble origins. The tactic was so successful that Whig Daniel Webster actually apologized once to a crowd for not being born in a log cabin. He added, however, that his elder brothers and sisters had been. Harrison himself never actually said that he was born in a log cabin, but neither did he say that he was not. And he did make references to his “log cabin home,” though he really lived in an ordinary house. The only log cabin he could ever legitimately claim was one that happened to be on his property but which he certainly never lived in.
SOURCE: Clinton Weslager, The Log Cabin (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1969), p. 273.
A MOST PROLIFIC PRESIDENT
On April 15, 1815, Mary Tyler, the first child of future president John Tyler, was born. On June 13, 1860, forty-five years later, Tyler’s last child, Pearl, was born. All totaled, Tyler fathered fifteen children by two wives. No U.S. president sired more offspring.
Tyler maried his first wife, Letitia Christian, in 1813. Twenty-nine years and eight children later, Letitia became the first first lady to die in the White House. Tyler became the first president to marry while in office, approximately two years later, when he married his second wife, Julia Gardiner. Julia, born in 1820, was five years younger than Tyler’s oldest child. Together, the president and his second wife had seven children. When the fifth one arrived in 1853, Tyler proudly admitted he was “not likely to let the [family] name become extinct.” Tyler died in 1862 at age seventy-one. Julia Tyler lived until 1889, twenty-seven years after her husband and forty-five years after her presidential marriage. She died at age sixty-nine.
SOURCE: Robert Seager, And Tyler Too (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), pp. 102, 359.
JOHN TYLER’S FAITHFUL HORSE
Appearing on a grave in Virginia is the following inscription written by President John Tyler:
“Here lies the body of my good horse, ‘The General.’ For twenty years he bore me around the circuit of my practice, and in all that time he never made a blunder. Would that his master could say the same!”
SOURCE: Joseph Kane, Facts about the Presidents, 2d ed. (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1968), p. 74.
PRESIDENTIAL ADVICE FOR APPOINTMENTS
In 1845, President James K. Polk selected James Buchanan as his secretary of state. When former president Andrew Jackson heard of the appointment, he was incensed. “But General,” complained Polk, “you yourself appointed him minister to Russia in your first term [as president].” “Yes, I did,” replied Old Hickory. “It was as far as I could send him out of my sight and where he could do the least harm! I would have sent him to the North Pole if we had kept a minister there.”
SOURCE: A. C. Buell, History of Andrew Jackson (New York: Scribner’s, 1904), p. 404.
THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PRESIDENT
Judged by his ability to keep his promises, James K. Polk was the most successful president in American history. During the 1844 election, candidate Polk made five major promises: to acquire California from Mexico, to settle the Oregon dispute, to lower the tariff, to establish a sub-treasury, and to retire from the office after four years. When Polk left office, his campaign promises had all been fulfilled.
SOURCE: Thomas Bailey, The A
merican Pageant, 4th ed. (Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1971), pp. 306–7.
A HISTORICAL SOLUTION TO A RECENT PROBLEM
In late March 1974, millions and millions of blackbirds, deviating from their normal migratory pattern, descended upon the area around Graceham, Maryland. A disaster of epic proportions precipitated, with national news coverage of citizens employing everything from firecrackers to electronic sound devices to move the birds along. It was not the area’s first encounter with hordes of blackbirds.
In the middle 1800s another multitude of blackbirds landed on the farm of Dr. Fredric Dorsey in nearby Washington County, Maryland. Dorsey soon became so exasperated he scattered wheat soaked in arsenic over his fields. To wash the foreign substance from their throats, the poisoned birds rushed to the stream which passed through Dorsey’s farm—where millions of the blackbirds quickly dropped dead. By the next morning the congestion of dead birds had completely dammed up the stream and put over a quarter mile of Dorsey’s farm under water. The birds had caused more damage dead than alive.
SOURCE: Thomas J. C. Williams, A History of Washington County, Maryland (1906; rpt. Baltimore: Regional, 1968), p. 267.
PROSTITUTES IN THE THEATER
Promoters often wonder what the best way is to fill a theater. In the first half of the nineteenth century free admission for “women of infamy” was the favorite method of assuring a full house. With a sizable number of prostitutes inside, the paying customers were not far behind. And with paying customers came high ticket receipts for the theater.
One-Night Stands with American History Page 7