Authors: T.R. Fehrenbach
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, Ponton 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.
Daylight showed both forces drawn up on an open prairie. The Gonzales cannon fired, without doing any damage, and Castañeda immediately requested a parley. He asked why he was being attacked.
Colonel Moore explained that the Captain had demanded a cannon given to the Texans for "the defense of themselves and the constitution and the laws of the country," while he, Castañeda, "was acting under the orders of the tyrant Santa Anna, who had broken and trampled underfoot all the state and federal constitutions of Mexico, except that of Texas," which last the Texans were prepared to defend.
Castañeda answered that "he was himself a republican, as were two-thirds of the Mexican nation, but he was a professional officer of the government," and while that government had indeed undergone certain surprising changes, it was the government, and the people of Texas were bound to submit to it. Castañeda further stated that he was not here to cause a war; if he was refused the cannon, his orders were simply to take up a position nearby and await further instruction.
Moore then suggested to the Captain, if he was a republican, he should join the revolution against tyranny by surrendering his command, which might then fight in the common cause. Captain Castañeda replied stiffly that he would obey his orders. At this, Moore returned to his own lines and ordered the Texans to open fire. There was a brief skirmish, and the Mexican force immediately abandoned the field and rode toward San Antonio. There is no question who fired first in the Texas Revolution.
By now, the word was out that there was shooting at Gonzales; hundreds of men from the Colorado and beyond were pouring in. Calls for a stand went out signed by prominent planters, such as Bryant, Archer, and McNeel. At Brazoria, William H. Wharton distributed a broadside, which began:
Freemen of Texas
TO ARMS!!! TO ARMS!!!
Now's the day, and now's the hour!
Communication after communication went out. Most were inflammatory, some repeated gaudy rumors, but all took up the constitutional question. A number were printed in Spanish, for the Mexican population, which was traditionally Republican in Texas. Three hundred men gathered at San Felipe, then went on to Gonzales.
In San Antonio, Colonel Ugartechea received the report of Captain Castañeda grimly. Cós was now at Goliad, having landed earlier at Cópano Bay, and Ugartechea knew he would soon be reinforced by the Commandant General's army. But he made an attempt to stop the fighting before it got worse. He sent a letter to Stephen F. Austin, appealing to this influential citizen to avoid an irreparable break.
Ugartechea asked for peace, but on the already stated terms: surrender of the cannon, and the proscribed citizens. He also promised something he patently could not deliver: there would be no garrisoning of troops if the colonists subsided. He professed friendship for Austin and the Texans, and asserted he would behave towards them as a gentleman, even though they had not behaved well toward Mexicans. But if the colonists did not submit, he would act militarily, and the dignity of the Mexican nation would be upheld.
This letter was significant, because it showed clearly the attitude of the vast majority of Mexican officials toward the Anglo-Americans, and especially those, like Ugartechea, who were genuinely friendly. Ugartechea himself, and almost every Mexican officer, in recent years had at some time or another taken up arms against one or another Mexican regime, in the name of some constitution. But this was a pastime reserved for ethnic Mexicans. Any attempt at resistance by Anglo-Texans, even though they were full-fledged citizens under the law, was instinctively regarded as a North American plot or an insult to the nation. This of course was an attitude toward alien immigrants peculiar neither to Mexicans nor to that time and place, but it infuriated even the peace party in Texas.
Meanwhile, Cós marched from Goliad to Béxar, arriving on October 9. He left a small detachment behind to hold Goliad, which was the Mexican gateway to the sea. At San Antonio, the Mexican Commandant General now had 800 soldiers. These men were regulars, and they should have been more than enough to pacify the country.
But the Mexican army in Texas, like the British regulars sixty years earlier, was facing men and conditions outside its experience. The oak-studded plains southeast of San Antonio were aswarm with riflemen. Ugartechea made one rather feeble demonstration outside Béxar; running into dangerous numbers of Texans, he retired. By October 24, the Mexican forces in San Antonio were under a genuine state of siege.
After the "victory" at Gonzales, a tremendous euphoria swept the countryside. A few days later, Captain Collinsworth and a few militiamen took Goliad, a small victory, but one which had a bad effect on Cós's morale. A force of 300 assembled at Gonzales. The inevitable shout was raised: "On to San Antonio!"
An attack on San Antonio seemed to make good sense. The town was the heart of Mexican Texas, and at the moment, it was where the troops were. If San Antonio fell into the hands of the Anglo rebels, they would control the entire state. Stephen Austin, now General Austin, arrived to take command of the "Army of the People," a job he did not particularly want. Austin was not a military man, and his health had been destroyed in the Prison of the Inquisition.
In straggling but happy order, the army took the road to San Antonio, the "Old Cannon Flag" of Texas flying at the head, the Gonzales "artillery" rumbling at its rear, pulled by two yokes of longhorn steers. Noah Smithwick, one of the volunteers, described the march in colorful terms: