by Texas
The new laws of Texas stated that if he wished to retain office,
he must take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, and this would have been an easy gesture, except for one constraint: i have always been and am now loyal to the Union. My tongue would cleave to my mouth if I took a contrary oath.' He decided that when the test came, if men like Quimper forced him to deny his allegiance to the Union, he would resign.
But before he was forced to act, an escape presented itself. President Lincoln secretly offered to send Federal troops into Texas to assist Houston in retaining his governorship and thus keep Texas within the Union, and this was a most alluring temptation. But Houston could discuss it only with a man who would be honor-bound to respect the secrecy, so he sent for a man he had met only once, Somerset Cobb, the big plantation owner at Jefferson, and when the two men talked in Austin, Houston said: 'In the debate about secession, Cobb, you were a voice of sanity. How do you see things now?'
Cobb had not ridden so far to talk platitudes: 'War is inevitable. The South will fight valiantly, of that you can be sure, but we must lose.'
The two men sat silent, tormented by the problems of loyalty. Houston was loyal to the Union, that splendid concept so ably defended by Andrew Jackson when Houston was a young man learning to master politics. But he was also loyal to Texas, the state he had rescued from burning embers. God, how he loved Texas.
Cobb, for his part, would be forever loyal to the principles upon which he had been weaned in South Carolina, and if his natal state declared war, he must support her. But recent experiences had made him loyal also to Texas, and he saw that her present course was self-defeating. Even so, he must volunteer his services in a cause he knew would lose. Loyalties, how they cascaded upon a man, confusing him and tearing him apart, yet ennobling him as few other human emotions ever did.
'What should I do, Cobb?'
'Can you, in honor, take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy?'
'No.'
'Then you must resign.'
'And Lincoln's offer of military aid? To keep me in power?'
Now the silence returned, for how could the governor of any state accept outside force to retain office when the people of that state had shown they rejected him and all he stood for? In his question Cobb had touched the vital nerve which activated the best men in these perilous days: Can you, in honor, do thus or so? Men like Cobb and Houston had been raised in that Virginia-
Carolina tradition of honor; as boys they had read Sir Walter Seott and imbibed from his dauntless heroes their definitions of honor They had fought duels to prove their integrity, and when Houston's first wife behaved in a peculiar way, his sense of rectitude prevented him from explaining his position. Now honor demanded that Somerset Cobb respond to the bugle calls, and honor required that Sam Houston refuse President Lincoln's offer of aid, which could bring only war to Texas. There was not a chance in ten thousand that Cobb would refuse to fight for the South, the odds were the same against Houston's accepting outside aid to hold grimly to a governorship he had already lost.
Twice in one lifetime, as a young man in Tennessee, now as an old man in Texas, Houston faced the moral necessity of surrendering a governorship, and surrendering Texas proved twice as bitter as the earlier debacle. On 15 March those state officials eager to fight on the side of the Confederacy, should war come, revoked their pledge of allegiance to the Federal Union and took in its place an oath to defend the Confederacy.
Sam Houston refused to do this, so he was commanded to appear at high noon on Saturday, 16 March, and pledge allegiance to the new government. That night the old lion read from the Bible, spoke gently with his family, then went aloft to his bedroom, where he stalked the floor all night in his stocking feet, wrestling with the monumental choices that faced him. When he came down for breakfast, gaunt and worn, he told his wife: 'Margaret, I will never do it.'
As noon approached, he retreated to the cellar of the capitol, where he sat himself firmly in an old chair, took out his knife, and started whittling a hickory limb. From the top of the stairs a messenger from the new government cried three times: 'Sam Houston! Sam Houston! Sam Houston! Come forth and swear allegiance!' Silent, he continued whittling, and thus surrendered the nation-state he had called into being.
Although Houston preferred exile in silence, there was such a public demand that he explain his unpatriotic behavior, he, against his better judgment, agreed to defend himself at an open meeting held in Brenham, a little town due east of Austin, and people gathered from far distances to hear his attempt at justification.
When General Quimper and other staunch Southern partisans learned of the meeting, they were infuriated: 'His views are downright treason!' and a half-dozen rowdies announced that they would shoot Houston the moment he appeared on the platform.
Friends urged Houston to cancel the meeting, but to retreat under such circumstances was not his style: 'I shall speak.'
Millicent and Petty Prue rode south to hear the historic address, and were startled at how old Houston looked when he came onstage, six feet four, rumpled hair, his shoulders warmed by the Mexican serape he favored, his eyes sunk, but visible in every feature that old fire, that love of combat.
'Look!' Millicent whispered. 'He sees Quimper,' and indeed he did, for he looked directly at his would-be assassin and nodded.
'See those men!' Petty Prue cried loud enough for others to hear, and all looked to where six of Quimper's followers were moving resolutely toward the stage.
But then Millicent uttered a low 'My God!'—and when Prue looked to where she pointed, she saw that onto the stage had come the two Cobb men, pistols drawn.
'No shooting!' Prue whispered. 'Please God, no shooting.'
'We've gathered here tonight,' Reuben said quietly, 'to hear a great man try to justify his mistakes. Sett and I, we oppose every thing he stands for. We deem his actions a disgrace to Texas, but at San Jacinto he saved this state and we propose to let him have his say.'
Some cheered, but it was Somerset who electrified the hall: 'If anyone makes a move to interrupt this meeting, Reuben and I will shoot him dead.' And he pointed his two guns directly at Quimper while his cousin covered the others.
'Let him speak!' people began to shout, and when the noise subsided, the old warrior stepped forward, drew about his shoulders the tattered serape, and said:
'I love the plaudits of my fellow citizens, but will never sacrifice my principles in order to gain public favor or commendation. 1 heard the hiss of mobs in the streets of Brenham, and friends warned me that my life was in peril if I dared express my honest convictions.'
At this point Quimper and his men started to move forward, but Sett Cobb raised his pistols slightly and whispered: 'Keep back.'
'Never will 1 exchange our Federal Constitution and our Union for a Confederate constitution and government whose principle of secession can be only short-lived and must end in revolution and utter ruin.'
This blunt rejection of the Confederacy, to which almost every man in the audience had pledged his loyalty and his life, outraged the listeners, the Cobb brothers included, but the old fighter
plowed ahead. Now, however, he threw a sop to the Southerners, for he rattled off that impressive list of great leaders provided by the South:
'Our galaxy of Southern Presidents—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Taylor, Tyler and Polk—cemented the bonds of union between all the states which can never be broken. I believe a majority of our Southern people are opposed to secession ' (Loud cries of No' No!) But the secession leaders declare that the Confederate government will soon be acknowledged by all foreign nations, and that it can be permanently established without bloodshed ' (Cheers, followed by the thundering voice of prophecy) 'They might with equal truth declare that the foundations of the great deep blue seas can be broken up without disturbing their surface waters, as to tell us that the best government ever devised for men can be broken up without bloodshed '
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br /> Now he called upon his wide knowledge of war and politics, and •like the great seer he was, he hammered home a chain of simple truths: 'Cotton is not King, and European nations will not fight on our side to ensure its delivery.' 'One Southern man, because of his experience with firearms, is not equal to ten Northerners.' 'The civil war which is now at hand will be stubborn and of long duration.' 'The soil of our beloved South will drink deep the precious blood of our sons and brethren.' And then the tremendous closing of a tremendous speech, the mournful cry of an ancient prophet who sees his beloved nation plunging into disaster:
'1 cannot, nor will I, close my eyes against the light and voice of reason. The die has been cast by your secession leaders, whom you have permitted to sow and broadcast the seeds of secession, and you must ere long reap the fearful harvest of conspiracy and revolution.'
The crowd was silent. Quimper and his rowdies stood aside to let him pass. The Cobb brothers put down their guns. And Sam Houston left the stage of Texas politics.
What contribution could Texas make to the Confederacy? It was far removed from the fields of battle and possessed no manufactures of significance: if it wanted to arm its men, it had to forage through Mexico to find guns and ammunition.
It had only a sparse population—420,891 white persons, 182,-566 slaves and 355 freed blacks—most of whom lived in communities of less than a thousand. Only two towns, Galveston and San Antonio, had as many as five thousand people.
Nor could the Confederacy look to Texas for large numbers of recruits, since the state was heavily agricultural and required its men on its farms. Also, it offered an insane number of exemptions from military service: Confederate and state officers and their clerks, mail carriers, ferryboat operators, ship pilots, railroad men, professors in colleges and academies, telegraphists, clergymen, miners, teachers of the blind or any kind of teacher with more than twenty students, nurses, lunatic custodians, druggists—one to a store—and operators of woolen factories. Matters were further complicated in that any man chosen for military duty could purchase a substitute and stay home. Also, most Texans wanted to fight as cavalry, and in extension of the rough-and-ready rules of the Mexican War, they wanted to enlist for brief, stipulated periods and then fight only under Texan officers whom they elected.
It was a rule of thumb in all the armies of the world that a civilian population could never be expected to provide more than ten percent of its total population to a draft. Texas, with less than half a million white persons, should at best have provided about fifty thousand soldiers to the Confederacy. Despite all the exemptions, it sent between seventy-five and ninety thousand.
Reuben Cobb, as the operator of a cotton gin, was specifically excused from military service: 'The Confederacy will survive only if its cotton continues to reach European markets, for then we'll bring in the money we need for arms and food.'
But Reuben would have none of this, and on the first day that volunteers were accepted he enrolled, telling his wife: Trajan and Jaxifer can run the gin as well as I can,' and off to war he went, never doubting that the two trusted Negroes would keep his plantation prospering.
Cobb was welcomed as a proven fighter, but it was judged that he would be most useful not in the east with General Robert E. Lee, well regarded in Texas for his frontier wars against the Comanche, but as a member of a force defending the Red River approaches to the state. Elected by his troops as their captain, he roamed his command, assuring the safety of the Confederacy in that underpopulated quarter; he would have preferred more active duty and put his name in for either the Mississippi campaign or what General Quimper called 'our attempt to recapture Santa Fe,' but to his disgust he was left where he was.
His post had one advantage: he could at various times ride south to visit Lakeview and his family. His two sons, of course, were in uniform, one with the Texas Brigade, one with fellow Texan Albert Sidney Johnston, and his wife, Petty Prue, was more or less in charge of the plantation, assisted when possible by Cousin Sett.
Somerset Cobb, too, could have claimed exemption under a '20-slave owner' rule, but he had quickly volunteered at the first news of Fort Sumter The government had then decided that he was more needed at home, supervising the movement of cotton that brought the Confederacy wealth when delivered at New Orleans, which remained open at the moment. There brave rivermen sneaked it through the blockade to waiting English and French ships.
'Are we winning?' Sett asked during one of his cousin's unannounced visits.
'You know more than I do.'
'Any trouble along the Red River?'
'A great deal, if the truth were known. We suspect rebellion in that quarter. Watch it closely.' Flicking dust from his handsome General Quimper boots, he asked solicitously: 'How are the women? Is Petty Prue able . . . ?' His voice drifted, indicating the concern he felt about leaving a woman in charge of a major plantation.
'We give her what help we can.'
'We?'
'Yes, Trajan and I. He really runs things, you know.'
'The mills, yes. But surely he doesn't . .'
'Reuben, we have to use every hand we have. You know, I'm going off, first chance I get.'
'You're needed here, Sett.'
'I cannot have my son in uniform, my two nephews . . . What do you hear from the boys?'
'John tells me that the Texas Brigade has seen more battle than any unit in the army. Wherever they go, major combat. If it's critical, Lee calls for Hood.'
'He hasn't been wounded ... or anything?'
'God looks after brave men. I believe that, Sett. If two men march into battle, it's the coward who dies first.' He reflected on this, then asked: 'And how's Millicent?'
'Poorly. But she was never strong, you know. The absence of the boys, mine and yours . . .'
'You mustn't let her grieve. I ordered Petty Prue not to grieve just because she has two sons in service. Fact is, Sett, we should all be celebrating. Lee and men like Jeb Stuart, they're pushing the Yanks about.'
Very carefully Sett asked: 'Do your men, the sensible ones, that is, do they still think we can win this war?'
Reuben leaped to his feet. 'What an awful question! In my own house!' When his temper cooled he said: 'We've got to win. The entire fate of the South . . .'
'But can we win?' Sett hammered, and Reuben avoided an answer: 'I'm puttin' in for duty in the east . . . with Lee.' He submitted his papers and was accepted.
When the Texas plebiscite on secession was broken down by counties, it was found that eighteen out of a-total of 152, of which 122 were organized, had signified their desire to remain in the Union: seven along the northern border, where Southern traditions had not been able to prevail because of the constant influx of settlers from the North, ten among the German counties in the center of the state, where abolitionism had gained root, and one, Angelina, which stood alone and unexplained; its vote defied logical explanation. Equally dangerous, eleven other counties had come within ten percent of voting for the Union. Texas had not been nearly as unanimous in its support of the South as the Cobbs had predicted.
In the hill country, fiery abolitionists were visiting German settlements and trying to inflame the residents with talk about opposing slavery. When they reached Fredericksburg they awakened response in certain families who felt that slavery was an intolerable wrong, but they accomplished little with the Allerkamps or with their daughter, Franziska, whose husband was down along the Nueces pursuing Benito Garza. However, they did enlist the vigorous support of three families, who put them in touch with like-minded Germans to the south.
After a careful evaluation of that area, the abolitionists returned to the Allerkamp settlement with a persuasive proposal: 'We all know that slavery is wrong. We know it debases the man who practices it and the man who suffers it. What we propose is nothing radical. It injures no one. It can raise no opposition among those who support the Confederacy.'
'And what is that?' Ludwig asked, because he had for some time now been
seeking just such a solution to his confusion.
'We shall leave Texas for the moment. We shall quit all the wrongdoing, all the killing. And we shall go quietly down into Mexico, hurting no one and seeking refuge there until this senseless war is over.'
On 1 August 1862, sixty-five Germans, including Ludwig Allerkamp and his son Emil, headed west, then south, to escape the war.
General Yancey Quimper, feeling himself responsible for the safety of the Confederacy whether the threat came from the
Red River or from Fredericksburg, had infiltrated into the latter area a spy named Henry Steward, who reported to Quimper
Fifteen hundred fully armed and rebellious Germans have been n ing secretly at a place in the hills near Fredericksburg, where m
of English is spoken, at a secluded spot called Lion Creek I -these men are plotting to terrorize towns like Austin and San Ant then cross the Rio Grande into Mexico, from where they will sa New Orleans m hopes of joining the Northern army
When Quimper, keeping an eye on Northern sympathizers along the Red River, read this report and visualized a contingent of fifteen hundred effectives joining the Federals, he became determined to thwart them and wanted to leave immediately to engage them in battle before they could reach the Rio Grande. But when he presented the details to Major Reuben Cobb, the latter said: This is the word of one spy, and not a reliable one, if what I hear of him is true,' so the dash south was postponed. In further discussion Cobb pointed out several weaknesses in the story: How do we know they intend enlisting in the Northern army? What proof have we that they're doing anything but escaping into Mexico?' Three days later the spy Steward was found with his throat cut.
Infuriated by this attack, Cobb became even more eager than Quimper to punish the Germans, and together they rushed south to place themselves under the command of a mercurial Captain Duff, who had been dishonorably discharged in peacetime but allowed back in war. Duff's ninety-four mounted men sighted the sixty-five Germans fleeing on foot at the banks of the Nueces, a river accustomed to violent deeds, and less than fifty miles from Mexico. 'We must not let them escape,' Quimper whispered to Duff, who replied: They ain't goin' to.'
