18 Minutes
Posted By Celia Hayes on August 29, 2010
Eighteen minutes, by the clock – in that furious eighteen minutes, a strategic battle was won. Eventually it would prove that more than just an errant and rebellious state had been lost to a central governing authority – and worse yet, lost under the personal supervision of a charismatic and able leader. In an open meadow with a slight rise across the middle of it, fringed with tall trees, bounded on two sides by a river and a third by a swampy lake (or a lakey swamp – descriptions are elastic) the dreams of one nation-state died and another was born.
(left – Sam Houston; Victor of San Jacinto, and much else)
The dreams of one of those nation-states died along with a fair number of its soldiers; ironically, the long-term political career of the man who had led them there was not one of them. He was the prototypical general on a white horse, following a willow-the-wisp of his enemy. He would not die in the swamp around Peggy’s Lake, or in the waters where Vince’s Bridge had been cut down. He would – like his adversary – die of old age, in bed of more or less natural causes, after a lifetime of scheming, treachery and showmanship. This probably came as a great surprise to everyone who had taken part on either side of the 1835-36 Texas War of Independence; that General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna would live a long life and erratically prosperous life –and his cause of death did not involve a hangman’s rope, a firing squad or an outraged husband. Which, given his career of double-cross, astounding brutality and corruption, should give confidence and inspiration to prospective caudillos everywhere. That is the end of the story, however – the beginning was in Texas, in the mid 1830s.
(left – Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna – A Man of Good Taste but Little Judgment)
Which beginning is more tangled than anyone could imagine, from just knowing of it through the medium of pop-culture. For most people, Americans and foreigners alike, that is pretty well limited to movies about the Alamo, and the Disney version of Davy Crockett. Act One – American settlers take over Texas; Act Two – many of them hole up in the Alamo; Act Three – a lot of swarthy and nattily-dressed Mexican soldiers kill them all; Act Four – somehow, the Americans win Texas after all, and in spite of that. Garnish with any number of fashionable intellectual flourishes, conceits and concepts and salt to taste.
The story is of course, much more interesting and nuanced than that – and I have had a great deal of fun in exploring some of the elements, especially now that I have come to the real final act; what happened after the farcical fight over a little spiked and repaired cannon – how that event led the men of Gonzales coming to the aid of those who had similarly aided them, certain musings about the characters of three men who took it onto themselves to defend an old mission half tumbled down. Then there was the massacre of the Goliad garrison, and how the American settlers in Texas took flight from their homes and scrambled east – women fending for themselves and their children, as husbands and fathers went to join Sam Houston’s army. I’ve even mused upon Houston’s character – for he was certainly that; flamboyant, contradictory, self-taught everything, drunkard and dissembler . . . and possibly the one man who held everything together in Texas for the space of six weeks in the spring of 1836.
One way and another, in late March of 1936, Sam Houston had gotten himself put in command of what passed for the Army of Texas, an army made up from a mix of eager volunteers and local militiamen – many of whom were absolutely confident they knew just about as much about the profession of arms as their commander. Many did not – exhibit A, James Fannin, West Point drop-out, timid, indecisive, and the last to be executed of his command, save for a few who were spared because of their profession, by sympathetic Mexican officers, or through having escaped in the confusion when the guns were turned upon them.
This army, to use a cheerful modern expression was making it up as they went along; everything was scratch, volunteer, on the fly – which had been well enough, when they were facing a few disorganized, unsupplied and demoralized Mexican commands in late 1835. But when the self-styled Napoleon of the West came roaring up from Mexico, determined to restore centralist sovereignty – that was a game changer. He came with a large army at his back, not just infantrymen, but also with well-trained and expert cavalry, and artillery, commanded by experienced officers. Against this, the scratch companies of local militia, and eager volunteers fresh from the eastern US had no chance at all, although learning this was a painful and often fatal lesson.
(right – First page of a hand-written list of Fannin’s garrison, compiled by survivor, Dr. Joseph Barnard – image lifted from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission website.Original list is 17 pages long.)
Sam Houston seems to have been the only Texan leader with an effective strategy in mind to counter Lopez de Santa Anna. His own army was short of everything but determination – and as they retreated into East Texas – a slow-burning fury which very often was directed at Sam Houston rather than the enemy, because it seemed to many that he had no wish to stand and fight.
Sam Houston had originally come to Gonzales, seventy miles east and south of San Antonio, at the end of March, with the intention of lifting the siege of the Alamo – although with the body of men at his command, one doubts if that was ever a serious possibility. Within a few hours of arrival, he had received word that the Alamo had fallen. Almost immediately, Sam Houston announced that his army would retreat to the line of the Colorado River, generally held to be a defensible boundary, on the edge of the American settlements in Texas. The spring was a rainy one, and the rivers and creeks were running high. As the Texans retreated, they burned Gonzales, and destroyed the river ferry at Burnham’s Crossing. Houston had sent messages to the citadel at La Bahia, commanding Colonel Fannin and his garrison to abandon La Bahia and to meet up with him as they fell back to defending along the line of the Colorado River. More and more volunteers were gathering to Houston – but Fannin’s men would more than double the number at Houston’s command, once their forces were joined.
But Fannin left it too late – by the time he and his had packed up their wagons, their cannon, supplies and abandoned the old Spanish presidio, a striking force of Mexican troops under General Jose de Urrea caught up with them. Urrea was an able and enterprising officer, given the task of sweeping up settler resistance along the coastal lowlands. Within a very short time he had mopped up several other small Texian fighting companies, surrounded the retreating Fannin’s company, defeated them at Coleto Creek, and forced them to surrender. News of this surrender reached Houston within days – along with the knowledge that Urrea’s cavalry was already striking east. He ordered a retreat – this time to the line of the Brazos River and San Felipe – the town founded by Stephen Austin. Houston set up camp on the Brazos, in what had been considered the heart of the American settlements, near the plantation of Jared Groce, reputed to be the wealthiest settler in that part of Texas. There he rested for nearly a week, gathering volunteers, waiting for supplies from farther east to catch up to him – and for word from his scouting parties. The standing government of Texas fled to Harrisburg, now a suburb of Houston. And Houston waited, listening to the words of his officers – but saying very little of his own thoughts. Like General Washington and his ragged Continental Army, seventy years before, as long as the army of Texas existed in a meaningful way – that was what counted.
A battle was a chancy thing; Washington could afford to (and did) loose many a battle on the way to Yorktown. Houston did not have that luxury; he had allies, in the Americans (including the Regular Army, lurking meaningfully but neutrally just across the border) and American volunteers coming to join him every day, singly or in companies; but the Mexican Army was pressing hard. Santa Anna’s men did not have the sea-voyage from half the world away as the British forces had during the Revolution, merely an Indian-haunted desert, just a few hundred miles of hostile wilderness, or a short coastal voyage. No, I am fairly certain that Sam Houston reckoned that his army had only one good fight in them, so he had best make certain that fight would count, and that all the advantages of ground, time and hasty training of his volunteers would be with him. The country east of the Brazos was where he could count on at least one advantage; it was where the tall oak and pine woods began. The American settlers tended to be riflemen, preferred fighting from cover – not in disciplined ranks, and definitely not out in the open plains and scrub brush country, where Mexican cavalrymen had the advantage of speed and long spears. Texians were not quite yet the peerless horsemen they would become within another two decades.
While Houston drew a breath at Groce’s plantation, he took delivery of a pair of 6-pound cannon, purchased and sent to Texas as the gift of citizens of Cincinnati – and doubly precious for they were the only cannon his army possessed. During that period Houston also received news of the fate of James Fannin and his men, defeated at Coleto Creek and held prisoner in the old citadel of La Bahia. Lopez de Santa Anna ordered that all the prisoners be executed forthwith. Urrea’s officers obeyed – reluctantly, but they obeyed. Nearly three hundred and fifty survivors of Coleto were led out of the citadel on various pretenses, but before they were very far away, their guards turned upon them. A few managed to escape in the confusion. This was horrific, an unspeakable atrocity in the eyes of the Texians, for it had been understood that Fannin had surrendered under honorable circumstances. His men were volunteers, soldiers – and many of them had family, friends and comrades now serving among the Texian ranks. The cold-blooded mass-murder of Fannin’s command raised the anger among Sam Houston’s army to a white-hot pitch – not least because they would expect the same treatment meted, should they be defeated.
( Right – Sam Houston’s chief scout and spy – Erastus “Deaf” Smith)
But the news received was not all discouraging – the rainy spring kept the rivers flowing high. While it made a misery for his Army, and the civilian refugees fleeing east, it also created even more misery for the Mexican columns. Houston’s spies and scouts spent tireless days in the saddle; his chief of scouts was a long-time resident in San Antonio, Erastus Smith. Known as “Deaf” Smith, for he was terribly hard of hearing, Erastus Smith had made a reputation as a breeder of fine cattle, married a Tejana lady, and fathered a large family. At the beginning of the unrest in Texas he had been more or less neutral – as many long-established settlers had been – but during the siege of General Cos’s troops in San Antonio late in 1835, he had thrown his support to the rebellious Texians. “Deaf” Smith and his men brought rumors of hardship and want among the Mexican Army, even as they approached San Felipe and the various defended river-crossings on the Brazos. Many of Houstons’ officers began wondering openly if Houston would give the orders to engage, to turn and fight – instead, he ordered the Texian Army to fall back, once more, abandoning the line of the Brazos River. Dissatisfaction with Houston’s leadership reached a furious pitch, almost open mutiny; he was blamed for abandoning the Brazos, for the burning of San Felipe, and resented for his insistence upon drill and discipline. The secretary of war in the nascent Texas government, Thomas Jefferson Rusk arrived bearing a stern message – stand and fight. Very likely, at this point, Houston and Rusk conferred together and Houston convinced Rusk of the difficult wisdom of pursuing a strategy; a Fabian strategy, like that of George Washington – carefully falling back, while watching for the perfect moment and waiting for the enemy to exhaust resources and men, nibbling at the edge, a small engagement here and there. Houston must have convinced Rusk, for the latter stayed with the Army, even as they fell back one more time. And then, Erastus Smith captured a Mexican courier, one bearing a particularly important dispatch. And when he read it, Houston knew the time was indeed, almost right.
(To be continued, of course: This has a bearing on my next novel, Daughter of Texas, which will be released on April 21, 2011, on the anniversary of San Jacinto Day, as the retreat of the Texian settlers and the other events of the Texas War for Independence are part of my heroine’s eperiences)
