Lone Star

by T. R. Fehrenbach

  In these weeks the war party in Texas again came to life. These were men who for a great variety of reasons felt that life under the rule of Mexicans was unendurable. Again, these people were mostly newcomers who had failed to get land grants, merchants who found it impossible to operate under Mexican law, and lawyers who were particularly outraged by the non-Anglo-Saxon features of Hispanic codes, such as jailing citizens without trial. The great majority of the farmers and planters were busy with their crops and unconcerned with revolution. When the war clique or party seized the saddlebags of General Cós's courier at San Felipe and intercepted his message to Tenorio, most Texans condemned this act. But the nature of Cós's correspondence drove the war group into even more drastic action.

  A group met, elected J. B. Miller, the political chief of the Department of the Brazos, as chairman and passed a resolution that authorized the hotspur William Barret Travis to capture Anáhuac. Buck Travis was not only willing but eager. He gathered about two dozen followers, mounted a small brass cannon on a sawmill truck, deployed in front of the fort of Anáhuac, and demanded its surrender. On June 30 Captain Tenorio, although he commanded forty-four Mexican soldiers, complied. Travis immediately paroled these men, and there was no violence.

  This seemingly senseless attack aroused enormous opposition throughout the colony. Travis was denounced as a fool, a traitor, and a dangerous idiot. Seven Texas communities passed formal resolutions to the effect that they did not require their rights defended in this manner. During the entire month of July 1835, a definite majority of the settlers expressed loyalty to Mexico, denounced the notion of conflict with the central government, and even J. B. Miller, who had headed the radicals in June, sent a conciliatory letter to General Cós, who was now poised at Matamoros. Several "peace commissioners" were elected from the communities in a meeting at San Felipe and sent south to confer about the recent trouble with Santa Anna's brother-in-law.

  General Cós, however, was not in a conciliatory mood. He had several demands on the colonists before he would consent to treat with them: the arrest of Lorenzo de Zavala, the former cabinet minister who was somewhere in Texas, and the arrest and submission to the military of a group of prominent men of the radical or war clique. In an episode Texans later preferred not to talk about, some of the extreme conciliatory or peace party had handed Colonel Ugartechea, now commanding at San Antonio, a list of names. These included Travis, F. W. Johnson, a notorious land speculator, Robert Williamson, who was known as "Three-Legged Willie" and was like Travis a Patrick Henry of this revolution, and Sam Williams. The peace party felt that if these men were removed, the trouble would subside, and they were willing to sell the hotspurs to the Mexican government in return for peace.

  Now, an ironic but perfectly logical turnabout occurred: Cós's demand for these men to be arrested by their own kind and turned over to him shocked and angered the majority that had been, in meeting after meeting, condemning them. There was considerable understanding in Texas of Mexican military tribunals; the Mexican authorities played their politics in different ways from Anglo-Americans. No matter what Travis had done, no Anglo-Texan was prepared to see him put before a military court and shot. Cós, who had good intelligence and monitored the sentiments of the colony, felt his suspicions grimly confirmed by this sentiment. These people, who kept professing loyalty to the Mexican Constitution, were not really loyal to the Mexican nation or people. He made his famous statement, which summed up the Mexican attitude perfectly, and which was perfectly logical: that the Texans were citizens of Mexico, and they must submit to the government of Mexico, no matter on what principles the Constitution might be construed from day to day.

  Given the attitudes, prejudices, and folkways of the Anglo-Texans, this was impossible. They thought of themselves as free men, only minimally subject to any government, and if the central authority construed this as insurrection or anarchy, a large party of them were prepared to defend their position with arms. Thus, as Richardson wrote, did the season for conciliation pass.

  A few committees of correspondence, in the manner of 1774, had already been formed. Now, in the summer of 1835, these proliferated, with Cós and his army standing just below the Rio Grande. Call after call for a general convention to "discuss the public safety" went out. On August 15, William H. Wharton, who was openly calling for action, presided over a meeting at Columbia, which sent out a call for a consultation of all Texas citizens. A great convention was planned for Washington-on-the-Brazos for October 15. This message stated that the aim of the convention was to secure peace if it could be obtained on constitutional terms, and if not, to prepare for an inevitable war.

  While the planters were busy harvesting their cotton, the towns and municipalities were buzzing with talk of war. Significantly, the newest towns and communities in Anglo-Texas no longer took the names of Mexican officials; there were no more Goliads, Victorias, and Mexías, but Columbias, Libertys, and Washingtons. During this period, the last great inrush of immigration unquestionably heightened tensions. Perhaps 10,000 Anglo-Americans passed over into Texas after 1830, making the population approximately 30,000, with not more than 10 percent of this Negro slaves. The older planters still had memories of a "munificent and liberal" Mexico; the new men were fresh from the ways and ideals of the United States. There is no question that many men, frontiersmen, now came with the idea that a war was brewing, and that Texas would soon become a part of the United States. In the Southwest the old dream never died.

  One great question in the legitimate settlers' minds was, what did Colonel Austin think? Austin had not ruled Anglo-Texas since 1828, but he had represented the region at Saltillo, and his influence with the older faction was still very great. What Austin would or could have done during the hot summer of 1835 can only be conjecture, because he was still held incomunicado in a Mexico jail. His arrest, in fact, was a large factor making the planter group uneasy. This imprisonment, on specious charges and without being brought to trial, violated all Anglo-American notions of justice.

  Nothing was more indicative of the state of Mexican law and justice in these years than the fact that although Gómez Farías fell from power in April 1834, Austin was still held more than a year later. No Mexican court or Mexican judge would accept responsibility, either for freeing him or shooting him. Finally, on July 13, 1835, Austin was released under a general amnesty—one of those peculiarities of Hispanic justice no American could understand. He was neither pardoned nor cleared, but set free with an assortment of prisoners and criminals of every kind. Before he could quit the country, he was forced to travel to Jalapa and seek Santa Anna's permission. The dictator gave it, apparently on the assumption that the former empresario would be a temporizing factor with the colonists; at this time Santa Anna did not know how far revolutionary sentiment in Texas had gone. Austin was given a passport to take ship to New Orleans. He left the country fully aware of the radical changes the Napoleon of the West was making, and with his trust in the Mexican President completely destroyed.

  At New Orleans, Austin wrote a revealing letter to his cousin, Mrs. Holley. During eighteen months in prison, while constitutionalism in Mexico was extirpated, Austin's sense of ethnic Americanism was enormously enhanced. His ideas of a pluralistic commonwealth under the Mexican flag were dead. He was now utterly convinced that Texas must separate from Mexico.

  In his letter Austin stated that Texas must be fully Americanized, remain a slave country, and hinted it should come under the American flag. He indicated that he was going to continue to keep up appearances, not to "become a very Mexican politician in hypocrisy" but because such a course was prudent. He felt that Santa Anna would move against Texas in the coming spring or summer. He could not, of course, know that events were moving much more rapidly. He wrote that the "great law of nature—self-preservation—operates, and supersedes all other laws . . . in all countries, one way or another, a few men rule society," and he was out to convince those men, in Texas and the United States,
of the great benefits that would "result to the Western world by Americanizing Texas." His aim was to keep the trouble damped and the Mexicans unsuspicious, while a hoped-for massive immigration of Americans flooded Texas:

  A great immigration from Kentucky, Tennessee, etc., each man with his rifle . . . would be of great use to us—very great indeed . . . I wish a great immigration this fall and winter from Kentucky, Tennessee, everywhere; passports or no passports, anyhow. For fourteen years I have had a hard time of it, but nothing shall daunt my courage or abate my exertions to complete the main object of my labors to Americanize Texas. This fall and winter will fix our fate—a great immigration will settle the question.

  With enough Kentucky and Tennessee rifles in Texas, Austin had no fear of Santa Anna and his Mexicans.

  Mexican historians took this letter as proof that Austin from the first planned the basest treason against his adopted country. This view ignores Austin's arbitrary and illegal imprisonment, the bald pronouncements by the Mexican military that Texans would have to endure whatever kind of government the central regime decreed, and the bloody record of Santanista duplicity. The very adoption of the title "Napoleon of the West" was ominous to Texans, because Napoleon, in all English-speaking lands, was never looked upon as a great lawgiver, but only a military tyrant of the bloodiest and most maniacal kind. The dominant Mexican view was legalistic, and in point of fact, entirely legal under international or any other kind of law—Texas was recognized Mexican soil, and the Mexican nation had the right to impose any kind of government it chose. This fact was recognized, however reluctantly, even by President Andrew Jackson of the United States. But the Mexican outlook completely ignored not only Santa Anna's tyranny, but the fact that every Anglo-Texan was born with the notion he possessed inalienable rights. He could not give these up simply by taking Mexican citizenship or slough them off at the Sabine. Americans of the 19th century frequently were wrong, but very few had any moral doubts. Austin himself had none. He had created an Anglo-Saxon society in Texas, and as he wrote, the first duty of any society was to survive.

  The call for a massive and illegal entry of armed Americans was not so much a plot to join Texas to the United States as it was Austin seeking, from the most logical source, all the help he could get—just as Israelis, beset by Arabs, called upon Jewry all over the world. Neither Texas in the 19th century, nor Israel more than a century later, had any doubt of their right to defend themselves. What was at stake was more than mere boundaries.

  After issuing a call for help, Austin rode back across the Sabine to the Brazos. He reached San Felipe in September. Here, he found matters far gone, and the call for a consultation of all Anglo-Texans had already gone out.

  Austin approved the call. As colonel of the militia, he took the chair of the San Felipe municipal Committee of Safety. A few days later, a hard-riding courier from Béxar brought word that General Cós had crossed the Rio Grande with a large army, bound for San Antonio. Stephen Austin, who no longer signed himself "Estévan," now put out a general call for Texans to stand to arms: "War is our only resource. There is no other remedy. We must defend our rights, ourselves, and our country by force of arms."

  Thus the acts of Mexican Constitutionalists and Mexican reactionaries, taken together, had finally created the very monster Mexicans had always feared.

  Chapter 12

  BLOOD AND SOIL

  . . . We consider death preferable to disgrace, . . . opening the door for the invaders to enter the sacred territory of the colonies. We hope our countrymen will open their eyes at the present danger. . . . I fear it is useless to waste arguments upon them. The thunder of the enemy's cannon and the pollution of their wives and daughters—the cries of their famished children and the smoke of their burning dwellings, only [this] will arouse them. . . . For God's sake and the sake of our country, send us reinforcements.

  LT. COL. WILLIAM BARRET TRAVIS, COMMANDING THE ALAMO, TO GOVERNOR SMITH, FEBRUARY 1836

  . . . To suppose that such a cause will fail when defended by Anglo-Saxon blood and by Americans, and on the limits and at the very door of this free and philanthropic and magnanimous nation, would be a calumny against republicanism and freedom, against a noble race.

  FROM STEPHEN F. AUSTIN'S SPEECH TO THE CITIZENS OF LOUISVILLE, FEBRUARY 1836

  God and Texas—Victory or Death!

  THE CLOSE OF TRAVIS'S LAST LETTER FROM THE ALAMO, MARCH 3, 1836

  . . . It sealed forever the title of the Texans to the soil of Texas. The blood of Travis, of Bowie, of Bonham, of Crockett and the rest, consecrated the soil of Texas forever.

  LOUIS J. WORTHAM, LL.D., A History of Texas

  AUSTIN'S call to arms went out to the Texas ayuntamientos on September 19. Other letters went out from San Felipe, making the colonists' position clear: Cós, representing the Supreme Government, as the Mexicans now called it, demanded the surrender of the proscribed agitators, and the unconditional submission of the colonists to any changes in the law or government made by the Supreme Government. No consultation or colonists' assemblies would be permitted or recognized. To ensure this compliance, Cós was moving garrisons into Texas, making San Antonio his headquarters beginning September 16. The Anglos could submit or fight; it was a matter of supreme indifference to the General.

  Cós also said, and this was widely circulated by Austin from the Brazos to Nacogdoches, that it was time to break up "foreign settlements in Texas."

  The call to arms united almost the entire population, but only upon two things: that the consultation must be held, and Cós's troops should be kept out of Texas. The evidence is very clear, from statements and letters of the planters, that a majority of the people had not adopted any notion of independence. The landowners and cotton planters had seen crises come and go, and there was great confidence that this one would blow over, too, if only Texans stood by their rights.

  Nor did all Texans stand to arms immediately. This was the season of the harvest east of the Colorado, and the bulk of the stable population were farmers. Austin and other leaders had to write broadside after broadside to arouse the country: "There must be no half-way measures! War in full! The sword is drawn and the scabbard must be put on one side until the military are all driven out of Texas."

  By general consent, Austin assumed the high command and the rank of general. Couriers were sent pounding down the dusty roads and trails, carrying the news and spreading the alarm. The coastal strip that was Anglo-Texas was thinly settled and the word took time to spread. But the little, straggling communities and towns were filled with rumor, and anger at "military despotism." An account went out that Cós carried 800 pairs of iron hobbles, in which Texans would be marched back to Mexico. Bands of armed men—every Anglo-Texan at this time went armed—began to gather along the trails and at the crossroads, to defend the Constitution, and what most of them considered immensely more important: their own soil. The Mexicans regarded these men as foreigners, but the colonists saw the Mexicans as invaders, and by the often unhappy logic of history, both parties were correct.

  The first bloodshed came for the same reason the shots heard 'round the world were fired at Lexington. Mexican policy was now to seize arms and military stores in Texan hands before real trouble started, and in doing so among a population of this kind, they started it. When Cós took ship from the Rio Bravo to sail to the Texas coast, and from there to march to Béxar, Colonel Ugartechea at San Antonio sent a file of cavalrymen riding south to Gonzales. Green DeWitt's colony had been issued a small brass cannon, a six-pounder, for defense against Indians some years before.

  Andrew Ponton, the Gonzales alcalde, received the order for the surrender of the gun, signed by the political chief at San Antonio. Ponton stalled for time, supported by the citizens. He demanded an order from the political chief of the Department of the Brazos before releasing it. The noncommissioned officer in charge of the Mexican cavalry left his men camped at Gonzales and rode back to Béxar for further instructions. Meanwhile, P
onton buried the cannon, and sent runners to the surrounding area for armed assistance. Messengers reached Bastrop and the plantation of J. H. Moore, on the Colorado.

  Now, the eighteen men in Gonzales able and willing to fight organized, removed all boats from the Guadalupe River, and hid the ferry in a bayou north of town. The next step was to capture the handful of Mexican soldiers waiting near the town. This was done—but one man got away, and rode hallooing back to Béxar.

  On October 1, 1835, Captain Francisco Castañeda arrived from San Antonio with something less than two hundred men. Ugartechea intended a show of force. Casteñeda, blocked by the Guadalupe, demanded the ferry be restored, and the cannon handed over. There was some parleying, a demonstration by the Mexican cavalry near the town, and considerable yelling and taunting by the Texans, who were now steadily being reinforced by a swarm of armed men filtering from the backwoods into town. During this Mexican stand-off, Castañeda's troopers took no action except to strip a watermelon patch.

  Now, John Moore, the big man of the neighborhood, arrived and was elected colonel. Moore decided to attack the Mexicans at daylight. The buried cannon was unearthed and mounted on a wagon. A blacksmith shop busily forged some ammunition—iron scraps and lengths of chain. Some inspired soul made a flag: two yards of white cloth, painted with a cannon and the words come and take it.

  Before the dawn, in the morning fog of October 2, Moore's militia went out to find the Mexicans. They blundered into the Mexican pickets, but in the dark and fog there could be no war. Everyone drew back and waited until daybreak.