Authors: T.R. Fehrenbach
The Mexican government took to shipping supplies under fraudulent manifests, indicating the cargoes were bound for New Orleans. This did not save them; the Texans attacked every Mexican flag on the Gulf. However, some Mexican supplies did get through by sea to the army at Goliad. One Mexican ship was captured while lying in Cópano Bay by Isaac Burton and some twenty mounted Texans on June 2, 1836. Burton's men, unable to attack across water on horseback, seized a ship's boat, and rowed out to the ship and boarded her. Burton and his men went into Texas song and story as "The Horse Marines."
All in all, General Filisola in late April was very much in the position of Napoleon in Moscow in 1812. He was mired in mud, and angry Texans were now buzzing south to harass him. The dozen cavalrymen who had escaped from the San Jacinto helped destroy the morale of his army with their exaggerated tales of defeat and massacre in the north. Filisola was under orders to do nothing that might endanger Santa Anna's life. Although the Supreme Government repudiated the treaties Santa Anna made with Texas, the Italian general had no real choice but to withdraw to Mexico. He was on half-
rations when the march began.
Most military historians, and Filisola himself, felt he was lucky to arrive south of the Rio Grande in good order by June 18. His men were half-naked, starving, and exhausted from the terrible march across the burning savannah from Goliad.
One final Mexican humiliation was that their President considered his life coequal with the cause of the Mexican nation, and he bartered on that basis. This was of course inherent in the monarchical form of government Santa Anna had installed. Although the Mexican Supreme Government—the Cabinet and Congress—invalidated his treaties on the grounds they were signed under duress, the executive authority was paralyzed. There was no leadership in Mexico to prosecute the war. By June 1836, Texas had won
de facto
independence, although Texas's position with Mexico was analogous to that of Israel vis-à-vis the Arab states between 1948 and 1968. Mexico would not recognize Texas, or even admit officially its Republic existed, while it was powerless to change the fact of its existence.
Mexico suffered from overcentralization and the unwillingness of various leaders to act on their own initiative. The problem of the interim government in the Republic of Texas was the exact opposite. The convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos had not created a nation merely by declaring one.
The red sun over San Jacinto had hardly set before the Texas farmers in Sam Houston's army began to drift away. They were seeking their families and going home. They were warriors, but never soldiers; they were unpaid, they were raised only for the current emergency, and they had crops to get in. As had happened before, and would happen again, a citizen army had won battles, but it could not be used by its government as an instrument of policy during the peace. Within a few weeks, virtually every Texan private soldier, both volunteer and regular army man, had departed for his home. The people themselves reestablished a sense of order and purpose quickly. The vast majority of fleeing refugees immediately turned around, before it was even certain the Mexicans were beaten. The real problem in Texas, ironically, now became one of controlling the "Texan" army, upon which the ultimate security of the country still rested. Houston fought the battle of San Jacinto with less than 1,000 men, but a month after Houston passed the command to Secretary of War Rusk and sailed to New Orleans, the army had grown to more than 2,000, despite the departure of the veterans. This army was wholly composed of American volunteers, all of whom had been promised land in return for service—as much as 320 acres for three months.
The government, now at Velasco, had no hard money, and almost no way of supplying this army. The Texans could no more live off the devastated land than the invading Mexicans. All provisions had to come in by water from New Orleans, and lack of credit, and some unfortunate bungling, delayed the arrival of food. What did arrive was not enough; the size of the army grew faster than army commissioners could anticipate. The news of San Jacinto caused a veritable rush into Texas by Americans.
By May 1836, the army was going hungry, and its temper was growing short. The argument of patriotism was futile. These men were not Texas citizens, and many of their officers or leaders were ambitious and disgruntled that they had lost an opportunity for glory on the Texas frontier. Tom Rusk did not really want the command, but took it as a favor to Sam Houston. He followed the retreating Filisola south to Victoria with a force that, in time-honored American fashion, was already holding mass meetings, denouncing him, and writing its grievances in insolent terms to President Burnet of Texas. Oddly, the matter that seemed to infuriate the volunteers most was that Santa Anna was going to be released, according to the treaties of May 14.
Burnet, on June 1, allowed Santa Anna to board the Texas warship
Invincible
at Velasco, with his secretary Caro and the faithful Colonel Almonte. Lorenzo de Zavala and Bailey Hardeman, Texas commissioners, were to sail with him. But Burnet held the ship until June 3, to give the commissioners final instructions. This delay was fatal. Indignation against the Mexican leader was high, and the arrival of two hundred American volunteers under one General Thomas Green on the steamship
Ocean
destroyed Burnet's initiative. Tom Green and some of his officers were determined to play at statecraft. They demanded that Santa Anna be taken back ashore, and, in the argument, actually threatened Burnet's life.
Burnet "stuck by his guns," as he said, with coolness and courage, reiterating that for Texas to violate its own treaty with Santa Anna would make the Republic contemptible before the world. He again stated the advantages Texas had gained by the treaty, but he was talking mainly to men who really wanted a continuation of the war. Finally, fearing riot and insurrection inspired by the armed Americans thronging Velasco, Burnet ordered Santa Anna removed from the
Invincible
for his own protection. Santa Anna, thinking he was to be shot at last, created a great scene, and had to be removed by force. He was taken ashore under heavy guard.
Burnet's position was worsened by the news that the Mexican upper house had repudiated Santa Anna's agreements, and because General Urrea, who was already in Matamoros, imprisoned three Texans sent under a Filisola passport and flag of truce. On June 17, Rusk wrote from Goliad that Urrea had crossed the Rio Grande with his army. This was untrue, but it caused great excitement and resentment against the distinguished prisoner at Velasco.
Rusk found himself unable to quell or control the army. President Burnet, feeling the resentment might be against the commander personally, replaced him with a genuine hero of San Jacinto, Mirabeau B. Lamar. But the army, in a mass meeting, refused to accept Lamar as its leader, and further, a plan was discussed to arrest Burnet and have him tried before an army tribunal. This last, however, was too much even for this motley array, and the notion died. President Burnet, pardonably hoping to get rid of his principal problem, wrote a letter encouraging the army to adopt Fannin's old plan: a march to Matamoros. The army failed to move and continued to clamor for its pay and rights.
In July 1836, President Burnet called for a general election to be held the first Monday in September, to create a new Texas government. The Treasury notes issued by his administration were already as worthless as Continentals; by August 31, the Government of Texas was $1,250,000 in debt. Burnet planned to pass these problems on to his successor. In the meantime, he wrote to the Texas commissioners in New Orleans for God's sake to send him no more U.S. volunteers.
Santa Anna's captivity continued. In August, some loyal Mexicans tried to effect his release, but this attempt was thwarted, and Santa Anna suffered for it. He was moved frequently from place to place, and kept in leg-irons. He was frequently subjected to humiliations, and at times not even fed. His officers and men were treated similarly. The treatment of these soldiers was shameful by any standards, and has generally been ignored by American historians. Whatever indignities Santa Anna had earned, these were not due Almonte, his staff, or the common soldiers under the President's command. Many died in captivity, and all were eventually repatriated in poor condition.
In Texas, after a long, dusty summer of discontent, the man of the hour had become the man on horseback from San Jacinto. While Houston was convalescing in the United States, it had become more and more apparent that Texas had been saved in the spring by his splendid leadership, and nothing was more needed with the first cool winds of fall. Sam Houston—major general, visionary, politician, President's friends—only Houston could control the army and the arising Texas politicos, and influence events in the United States. To the unhappiness of the old planter group, Houston was proposed for President of Texas.
Many of the old-time Texans preferred Stephen Austin. But Austin was sick; he had spent almost all the past few years either in a Mexican prison or in the United States; he had worked wisely and well for Texas, but he had not been with the army when the final shots were fired. He was also badly tarred, in the newest immigrants' minds, with the most damaging of all words: pro-Mexican.
Burnet's proclamation of July 23, 1836, called on Texas to choose a President, Vice-President, fourteen senators, twenty-nine representatives, ratify the Constitution, and answer the question: should Texas seek annexation by the United States? The new government, with its mandate, was to assemble at the town of Columbia, on October 3.
Out of a total of 6,640 qualified votes, Austin received 587. The two men in the van at San Jacinto carried the day. Sam Houston was elected President with 5,119 votes, more than three-quarters of the whole. Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar became Vice-President. The Constitution was ratified almost unanimously. The vote on the proposition to seek annexation was significant: it carried, 3,277 to 91.
The clamor for Houston to take the reins was so great that Burnet, gratefully, moved the appointed date for the inauguration ahead almost two months. As soon as the Congress met, it voted to make Houston President, "at four o'clock, this day," again moving ahead the ceremony. Thus Houston was called on to make an impromptu inaugural speech.
Houston spoke in a dignified manner, reciting recent history, referring strongly to the hope of union with the United States. Then, he unhooked his sword and passed it to the Speaker of the Texas House—the "emblem of his past office"—in a scene of tremendous emotion and to roaring applause. It was more than a mere symbolic act. Sam Houston was no more a militarist than Wellington; the army and armed conflict, in which he had twice almost lost his life, were to him nothing more than means, or tools, to win his dream. He rode in front of his army to extend America, just as Wellington fought at Waterloo to "preserve the England that produced such gentlemen as these."
There was a time and place for all great men, and Stephen Austin knew it. He accepted his eclipse with grace. Austin, in fact, much better understood the heart and mind of Sam Houston than the roaring crowds that cheered him now. Houston pursued no wild and aberrant star; like Austin, he wanted most of all the Americanization of the piece of earth that had seized his soul, the State of Texas.
Between them, the warrior and the diplomat, they had almost achieved it. A modified American flag waved over Columbia and the twenty-three counties that formed the enclave of Anglo-Texas, now the Republic of Texas—red, white, and blue, emblazoned with a single five-pointed star.
Chapter 15
THE REPUBLIC
The final act in this great drama is now performed; the Republic of Texas is no more.
DR. ANSON JONES, PRESIDENT OF TEXAS, FEBRUARY 19, 1846
THE Republic of Texas was supposed to be ephemeral. The people of Texas voted overwhelming approval of union with the United States on the same ballot by which they elected the Republic's officers. The people of Texas had cultural, economic, political, and military reasons for seeking annexation, and obviously the United States had a tremendous strategic stake in Texas. Texas blocked American expansion to the Pacific, and a weak, unstable nation on American borders invited penetration by still-ambitious European powers. The Monroe Doctrine could not by any stretch of the imagination keep British influence out, if Britain chose to fish in Texas waters.
Sam Houston's republic was a straggling frontier community of less than forty thousand people; it was a series of plantations and farms carved out of the Southern forests along the river bottoms extending up from the Gulf, with an utterly colonial economy. Most Texans were subsistence farmers, with a little barter on the side. The planters exported their cotton against imported goods; the balance of trade was as yet adverse. The largest towns were frontier outposts with mud streets and at most a few thousand assorted people. There was no money economy, nor any money. There were no banks or improved roads or organized schools. There was no industry—everything from pins to powder had to be imported from the United States. Over this sprawling community the government was only loosely organized. The Texans replaced the old
ayuntamientos
with governmental units they considered more comfortable, counties, but real government consisted primarily of sheriffs and justices of the peace. Texas barely approached the basic requirements for statehood. It would take more than the accumulated political experience of a handful of capable men, and the traditions of the English-speaking peoples, to make it a viable sovereign nation.