Lone Star Nation (22 page)

The attack began in earnest. The Indians stormed the spot where Bowie and the others were making their defense, but the defenders managed to kill the chief directing the attack, and his death flummoxed the rest, who fell back. Regrouping, they adopted a different approach, sniping at the intruders from various angles. Two more of Bowie's band were wounded. As the shooting continued, the Indians broadened their front until they encircled the treasure hunters, whose predicament now became most grave. But the Texans were better armed than the Indians, and they held their own for the next two hours.

At this point—near midday—the Indians decided to force the interlopers from their position by setting the brush afire. Checking the breeze, they kindled the sage and grass upwind of the redoubt and prepared to pick off the Texans as they fled the smoke and flames. But luck was with Bowie and friends, and the gusty wind turned the fire aside at the last moment.

The standoff continued through the afternoon. Not long before sundown, the Indians lit another fire. Burning hotter and higher than the first, this one bore straight toward the defenders' position. They beat at the flames with buffalo robes and blankets and frantically cleared the ground closest to them of everything flammable. They couldn't save the animals, which panicked at the fire and, breaking their leads, tore away. But they did manage to hold their ground—except that it was now exposed, having lost the cover of vegetation that had spoiled the Indians' aim. They also managed to stack stones for a low wall to lie behind.

Darkness and exhaustion ended the day's fighting. Expecting another—and probably final—attack in the morning, James and Rezin Bowie discussed a counterattack to be launched under the cover of night. Presumably surprise would be in their favor, and in the dark the Indians wouldn't be able to tell how few the able-bodied Texans had become. But on second thought they agreed that those few—there were only six who could still shoot—were too few, and that even if they could break through the Indian lines, they could never carry out the wounded, who would be left to the Indians' vengeance. This grim prospect compelled them to abandon the plan.

The only thing that gave hope was the wailing of the Indians during the night, as they mourned their dead. By the tone and constancy of the laments, Bowie and company guessed they had done serious damage to the attackers. In the typical confrontation with whites, Indians applied a rough cost-benefit analysis, calculating whether the prizes at issue were worth the cost in deaths and injuries. Bowie and the others would surely die if the Indians insisted, but if the Texans displayed a determination to sell their lives dearly, the Indians might account the cost too high and abandon the effort. So the silver-hunters dug in and prepared for the next day's battle.

It never came. The Indians, tallying their casualties—and having rounded up the horses that escaped the flames—decided they had paid more than the Texans' remaining provisions were worth. In the hours after midnight they slipped away, leaving Bowie and the others alone in the San Sabá hills.

Bowie's defeat of the Indians added to the stories about the Sandbar Fight and burnished his reputation for bravery and skill in battle. Mexicans and Americans alike in Texas viewed the Louisianian with respect, if only because both parties felt a threat from the Indians. Moreover, in contrast to William Travis, who had flung himself into the political controversy that was swirling about the province, Bowie held back. He wasn't as attached to the status quo as Stephen Austin, but with a Mexican wife and father-in-law (a father-in-law who became, on the 1832 death of the governor of Coahuila y Texas, governor of the state), and with large landholdings under Mexican law, he had no incentive to agitate for an overthrow of the regime.

Yet those who did have an incentive agitated enough for everyone else, and during the summer of 1832 the troubles that made Travis a celebrity at Anahuac spread north to Nacogdoches. The Mexican commander there, José de las Piedras, ordered the settlers in the area to surrender their arms. Besides its obvious political overtones, the order threatened the security of the settlers against Indians and even—for those many who still hunted for food—against hunger. The settlers rejected the order and organized a militia to prevent Piedras from enforcing it. From Nacogdoches they sent word in all directions that despotism had arrived in the form of the Mexican colonel and must be resisted. The continuing struggle in Mexico between the centralists and the federalists, the latter led by Santa Anna, allowed the Texas militiamen to wrap their resistance in the philosophy of federalism; as federalists they demanded that Piedras withdraw his order. When he refused, fighting broke out. The militiamen attacked Nacogdoches in the early afternoon of August 2 and struggled street to street against uninspired Mexican defenders. That night Piedras decided to evacuate the town and head for San Antonio.

Bowie entered the fight at the behest of Stephen Austin. Austin had monitored the Anahuac disturbances with alarm, and he grew more alarmed at the spread of the troubles to Nacogdoches. Austin knew Bowie largely by reputation, but that reputation caused him to believe that Bowie was a man who could act decisively in a crisis. He urged Bowie to gallop to Nacogdoches to prevent the fighting there from triggering a revolution, but he left it to Bowie to determine how this might be accomplished.

Bowie accepted the assignment yet arrived too late to avert the street battle between Piedras and the militia. He wasn't too late, however, to pursue Piedras down the Camino Real, which he did with a company of some twenty men. Meeting the Mexicans at the Angelina River, Bowie's company harried them upstream till one of the junior Mexican officers decided he'd had enough and staged a mutiny. Most of the Mexican troops joined him, converting en masse to federalism. Bowie laconically reported the result to Austin: “I write to inform you that the 12th Regiment of Infantry, formerly of Nacogdoches and in command of Col. Jose de las Piedras, has been induced by certain American arguments to declare in favor of the Constitution of Santa Anna, that Col. Piedras is a prisoner in town soon to be dispatched for Anahuac, and that the regiment has put itself under my command.”

The capture of Piedras and the Mexican regiment by the greatly outnumbered American force further added to Bowie's reputation—at the same time that it identified him, almost against his will, with the insurgents in Texas. This wasn't what Austin had hoped for in sending Bowie to Nacogdoches, and it wasn't what Bowie had expected. Bowie accepted the plaudits; Austin tried to figure out what they portended.

Bowie's capture of a Mexican regiment in the name of Santa Anna would appear ironic before long, but in the summer of 1832 irony had yet to become the theme of Mexican politics, and Santa Anna remained the hero of the revolution—and the hope of the Texans. After his defeat of the Spanish at Tampico, the general could have made himself president, but he begged off, pleading poor health. “I find myself the victim of renewed attacks of illness, and must retire to the midst of my family to recuperate,” he told his disappointed followers.

In truth, he simply wanted to let his support mature before he asserted himself. Elections were approaching, and Santa Anna declared, “Should I obtain a majority of suffrages, I am ready to accept the honor and to sacrifice, for the benefit of the nation, my repose and the charms of private life. My fixed system is to be called, resembling in this a modest maid, who rather expects to be desired than to show herself to be desiring.”

Yet the maid knew better than to rely on the ballot. The government, currently controlled by the centralists, would count the votes and might well get whatever result it desired; as a hedge against such fraud, Santa Anna sounded out supporters in the military, determining who would back him in a coup. A clique of officers in Veracruz province said they would, and as a measure of their loyalty they helped him seize the customs house at the port of Veracruz. Its receipts being the single largest source of Mexico's public revenue, this action threatened to strangle the government financially and make Santa Anna's position impregnable.

The general's insurgent example reverberated across Mexico. The southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca shouted for Santa Anna and federalism, as—at the other end of the country—did Texas. Stephen Austin wrote encouragement to the rebel leader. “I would not be a lover of the fundamental principles of the constitutional liberty of my adopted country,” he told Santa Anna, “if I failed to respect the Chief whose arms have always been used to protect and sustain them.” As Austin traveled about his colony, he urged the settlers to demonstrate their support of Santa Anna. They didn't require his urging. “On my arrival at Brazoria,” he explained, “I met the whole people unanimous and enthusiastic in favor of the plan of Santa Anna.” Austin added his endorsement, declaring that “the party of Santa Anna is truly the liberal republican and constitutional party” and that a victory by Santa Anna would be “the only means to bring civil war to an end and to secure peace and the constitutional liberty of the nation.” So convinced was Austin of Santa Anna's rectitude and importance to Mexico that he was prepared to take up arms on the general's behalf. “The colony and all Texas have but one course left, which is to unite in the cause of the Santana party, and if necessary fight it out with the ministerialists.”

By late summer of 1832, support of Santa Anna was becoming a solid majority opinion throughout Mexico. The government—the regime of the “ministerialists”—was being rapidly discredited, partly on account of the ministers' conservative and centralist views, partly from their failure to defeat this latest insurgency, and partly because, as incumbents, they were blamed for twenty years of unrest in Mexican society and politics. Many Mexicans simply wanted the turmoil to end and were willing to throw their support to anyone who promised peace.

In October 1832 Puebla fell to the Santanistas. A series of small battles around the Valley of Mexico followed, with Santa Anna's forces gaining additional ground. Finally, the discouraged government forces simply melted away.

Santa Anna accepted his victory from the people of Mexico City in January 1833. A grand parade was held in his honor; floats represented the Battle of Tampico (with Santa Anna explicitly portrayed), the Homeland (featuring the Constitution of 1824, of which Santa Anna was the most recent and successful defender), Valor (Santa Anna again) accompanied by Fame and Abundance, and the Mexican Nation surrounded by the twenty states of the Mexican federation (which Santa Anna was securing).

The hero basked in his glory and magnanimously called for grievances to be forgotten—for “indulgence with mistakes of opinion, an end to hatreds, and the erasure from memory of the word ‘vengeance.' ” “Thus,” he said, “you will attain the object of your desires and sacrifices, long and happy days for the republic, durable happiness for all.” And then, with a flourish of humility that frustrated his followers and bewildered his foes, he retired again to his hacienda. “My whole ambition is restricted to beating my sword into a plowshare,” he said. Yet he assured his supporters he would not be far away, nor heedless of the popular will. “If any hand should again disturb the public peace and constitutional order, do not forget me. I shall return at your call, and we shall again show the world that the Mexican Republic will not tolerate tyrants and oppressors of the people.”