Authors: T.R. Fehrenbach
The committee appointed to study the question was hopelessly deadlocked, and the question was thrown before the general convention. As Gail Borden, Jr., who was to become better known for his condensed milk than for his efforts as a Texas politician, wrote, the question was debated for three days with animation, "yet coolness and moderation prevailed."
A large majority of the delegates opposed outright independence. There was a split here between older settlers and the new. The planter party insisted on incorporating the Texas Revolution into a Mexican civil war. It was known that General Mexía, the old Santanista, was planning a revolt against the dictator. The older group preferred to enlist the Republican sentiment in Mexico in the Texas cause, rather than let it devolve into an outright Texas-Mexico war, in which the Mexican millions and trained army would be brought to bear with crushing force.
The attitude of the United States toward the struggle was a big factor. That nation was bound by a treaty with Mexico regarding the inviolability of Texas. The brother-in-law of the U.S. Secretary of State wrote Texans, advising them to follow a legal and constitutional course, which would appear well in international law. Some Texans found the U.S. attitude hard to comprehend, but it was this: the government was prepared to assist a band of civil rebels fighting for a constitution unofficially, but it refused to become involved, because of appearances, in anything that looked like a plan to join Texas to the Union. President Jackson himself held this official legalistic view; he branded a Texas declaration of independence a "rash and premature act" as late as April 1836.
The newer arrivals, who had never developed a sense of Mexican citizenship, and who had gotten so far only trouble from the Mexican authorities, were much less patient. Some of these last had emigrated to Texas during 1834–35 with the deliberate idea of splitting the province away from Mexico. This group, although not dominant, was strong.
The final declaration of purpose by the November Consultation was a compromise. It attacked Santanista tyranny, upheld "natural rights," and stated Texans fought for the Constitution of 1824, thereby "laying the cornerstone of liberty in the great Mexican Republic." But it was also stated that Texas had the right to establish an independent government if Mexico discarded the Federal system. This compromise was obsolete before it was issued. Mexía's attempt to arouse Mexicans in defense of republicanism was utterly abortive. On October 3, 1835, Santa Anna's subservient Congress voided the old constitution and legalized the centralist state. The attitude of American citizens beyond the Sabine was that, whatever their government's position, they were hardly interested in assisting in a Mexican civil war, and the Texas emissaries quickly shifted their sails to this wind.
Austin, when he arrived in the States in December 1835, began to describe the Revolution as a "sub rosa" American war, a successful outcome of which would be in the interests of the United States.
Finally, something resembling an ethnic conflict was already taking place. The signs were ominous. When Governor Viesca of Coahuila escaped to Texas and tried to join the anti–Santa Anna forces around Béxar, he was brushed aside with suspicion, even contempt. The
alcalde
of the Mexican settlement in Victoria, in de León's colony, complained that the Texas militia, which now seized the town, treated all Mexicans, even those who declared for the Revolution, as virtual enemies. Some Texas natives did join the revolt. The Spaniard Lorenzo de Zavala, the old land commissioner Seguín, Don Juan Antonio Navarro, Placido Benavides, and a handful of
rancheros
either declared for Texas or fought in the Texan army. But the majority of the some 4,000 ethnic Mexicans in Texas either were hostile or held aloof. This doomed the illusion of civil conflict between Mexicans of different ideologies from the start.
The Consultation created a provisional government. This consisted of a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and a Council. Henry Smith, an irascible settler who had proven his patriotism by taking a bullet at Velasco in '32, was elected Governor. Stephen F. Austin, William H. Wharton, and Branch T. Archer, the Consultation president, were appointed Commissioners to the United States. This last was probably a serious error. These three were the only recognized leaders in Texas and badly needed at home. In fact, many of the Old Three Hundred families considered the appointment of Austin to be part of a plot to get him out of the country and out of the way of more ambitious men. Somewhat ironically, the more radical war group felt Austin was dangerously "pro-Mexican."
The Consultation also appointed Sam Houston of Tennessee commander in chief of the army, but it failed to raise a regular force for him to command, although it was much discussed. Actually, it was beyond the Texans' powers to raise a permanent army. There was no money to pay it, and there were as yet no men available to enlist. At this time, November 1835, the whole community was far from aroused. Not one man in four had reported for the militia call, and those who did were released within two months. As Wortham wrote, "In November, 1835 . . . a good percentage . . . were giving more attention to gathering their cotton crop than to the revolution." In all, no more than one hundred men were ever enlisted in the "regular" army, and this was to add its weight to the coming terror.
On November 14, the Consultation adjourned. Public affairs were left to Governor Smith and his Council. Unfortunately and incredibly, the powers of neither had been defined, and personal hostility was already brewing.
At Béxar and Goliad, the Texan army now consisted almost wholly of American volunteers. Only a few officers were Texas residents or could claim the legitimate title of "Texian." And the one thing a volunteer army, imperfectly organized, supplied, and led could not do was to sit and wait the Mexicans out.
The only advantage Texas had in this war was geography. Scarred as Mexico was by civil wars, the nation had a hard, blooded, professional army, an adequate treasury filled by its silver mines, and in Santa Anna, remarkably energetic leadership. The Texans could not possibly raise as many soldiers, and they had no money or industrial or supply system at all.
But several hundred miles of virtual desert, without roads, separated Anglo-Texas from the Mexican centers of population. The problem of maintaining a campaign hundreds of miles north of the Bravo, in an age of muscle power and wagon transport, was tremendous. Further, the two fortified positions the
Spanish had left along the northern frontier now worked against Mexico in reverse. The Alamo and the presidio at Goliad were genuine barrier forts blocking the southern flank of Anglo-Texas. The Texas coast was not nearly so vulnerable as it seemed. The rebels held all the existing ports and harbors, commanded now by captured cannon. The rest of the shallow, shoaling coastal waters had never been charted. Almost every past expedition to Texas had lost ships on those sandbars and reefs; no Mexican admiral could take in a hostile flotilla now.
If Texas's aim was independence, the most logical strategy was to continue to recruit men and money from the citizenry of the United States, and wait. In the north, far from its bases, even a superior Mexican army might be pinned against the barrier fortresses and destroyed. So long as these key positions were held, no Mexican force could operate with impunity east of the Colorado, leaving armed men at its rear.
But the volunteers at Béxar were composed of many men who could not wait. One such was Dr. James Grant, who had fled Mexico ahead of General Cós. Grant had never been a Texas resident, nor owned an inch of Texas soil. He had lost vast estates in northern Mexico. Dr. Grant devised a grand scheme to carry the war below the Rio Grande. He argued that by marching south and seizing Matamoros, the major Mexican city on the border, two things might be gained. One would be to give the republicans to the south moral support, by a demonstration of force. The other would be to damage Santa Anna by carrying the war to him.
Actually, a demonstration against Matamoros—a hit-and-run raid—made strategic sense, but only if the Texans were strong enough to mount and direct such a campaign capably. General Houston opposed the notion of any wholesale invasion of Mexico, but he agreed to a raid, provided it was commanded by a man for whom he had deep respect: James Bowie.
Dr. Grant took his Matamoros Expedition strategy before the government at San Felipe. He split the government in two. Smith, Houston, and most of the Texans who had no interest in Mexican politics were strongly opposed to Grant's proposal that the whole army move south. A majority of the Council, for a great variety of reasons ranging from idealism to personal spite, favored it. Some wanted to seed Mexico with Anglo-Saxon liberties through this army. Others wanted to put the Governor, and his high cockalorum General, Houston, in their places.
On January 3, 1836, the Council authorized Dr. Grant and Colonel Frank Johnson, now commanding at Béxar, to capture Matamoros. But Johnson, momentarily troubled by Governor Smith's opposition, declined the command. The Council then appointed James W. Fannin, Jr., to take command in Johnson's place, and after hearing Dr. Grant's declaration that Burleson had intended to pass the command to
him
, also appointed the doctor Commander-in-Chief of Volunteers. Since almost the entire army consisted of volunteers, this meant that Grant and Fannin held coequal, and mutually nonresponsible, commands. Then, a few days later, the Council compounded this consummate military folly by reinstating Colonel Johnson, who professed a change of heart. The other appointments were allowed to stand, and the Texas army now had four supreme commanders. General Houston, in fact, was not even advised of these new appointments.
These moves and appointments were passed over the Governor's veto, there being no definition of either conciliar or gubernatorial powers. When Smith received a message from Lieutenant Colonel J. C. Neill, who now commanded the fortress of the Alamo, that Grant and Johnson had stripped that fort of its cannon, supplies, and clothing for the expedition, Smith exploded. On January 10, he issued a statement that denounced these acts and vilified the Council in extremely personal terms. He further demanded an apology from the Council for its villainy, and suggested it must either agree to cooperate with him or else dissolve until after March 1, 1836.
The Council in return vilified the Governor, impeached him, and elevated Lieutenant Governor Robinson to the executive chair. Again, whether the Council possessed such powers was moot; no one knew. Smith refused to vacate. He seized the State archives, kept the official seal, and promised to shoot "any son of a bitch" who tried to take it from him. He continued to act as Governor as best he could; Robinson's efforts to operate the office were futile.
Then, on January 17, the Council itself was unable to raise a quorum. In effect, the government of Texas disappeared. All this in fact provoked not only anger but some amusement among the watching Texans, most of whom were now preparing for spring planting. But, however amusing it might appear, the results of this fiasco were tragic. Because the provisional government collapsed, some thousands of men were doomed to die.
Governor Smith had the loyalty of General Houston, Lieutenant Colonel Neill at San Antonio, and his recruiting officer at San Felipe, William Barret Travis, now a regular lieutenant colonel. The majority of the army, inflamed with the notion of seizing the strategic site, silver, and
señoritas
of Matamoros, claimed to be following the orders of the Council. Actually, it seemed to be acting on its own will.
Smith commanded Houston to proceed to Goliad, take command of the army there, and talk some sense into it. Failing that, he was authorized to advance upon Mexico. Houston met up with Grant and Johnson's force at Refugio.
Meanwhile, he received an urgent dispatch from Neill at the Alamo, asking for reinforcements. Houston detached Colonel James Bowie with a handful of men to march from Goliad to San Antonio on January 17. Houston's battle plan had been to garrison the two fortresses, but since Grant and Johnson had removed the army from Béxar to the Goliad area, Houston wanted a capable officer to inspect the situation at the Alamo and make a decision whether the northern post should be held or abandoned. Houston did not give Bowie orders to abandon San Antonio; he left this to Bowie's discretion. But it is evident that he anticipated a decision to withdraw.
Johnson and Grant had gathered about 500 volunteers at Refugio. Almost all of these were American citizens from the southern states. At this time, January 20, 1836, Fannin, also authorized to advance against Matamoros, sailed from Velasco to Cópano Bay near Goliad with what was called the "Georgia Battalion" and about twenty-five Texas volunteers, in all some 450 men. Fannin, Johnson, and Grant were each conducting separate operations. Houston soon found that none of them, commissioned by the Council, intended to place themselves under his orders.
Houston was informed that his authority applied only to the "regulars," and Fannin declined to accept him unless he placed himself under the orders of the Council. The commissions given Grant, Johnson, and Fannin utterly destroyed Houston's authority over the only troops in being. Houston advised the rank and file to give the expedition up, and departed. In a letter to Governor Smith on January 30 he washed his hands of the Matamoros affair, impuned the leaders' motives, and predicted that whether Matamoros fell or not, the expedition could only bring disaster to the Texas cause. The smell of piracy hung over the entire operation. Houston further revealed the complete inability of a logical, responsible military mind to comprehend the way things were being run in Texas. He withdrew from the army, furloughing himself until March I, and went north to treat with the potentially dangerous Cherokee Indians in east Texas.