Lone Star Nation (39 page)

His personal stake aside, there was logic to Grant's argument, but there was sounder logic against it. The shady dealings of the late Monclova legislature were no secret; their existence, and the fact that the beneficiaries included, besides Grant and Bowie, such other rebel leaders as Ben Milam and Frank Johnson lent credence to Santa Anna's claim that the rebels were merely pirates bent on looting Mexico's patrimony. As for their goal of seizing the Matamoros customs, this was the sort of thing brigands had been doing for centuries. Finally, the idea that an attack on Matamoros might ignite a rebellion elsewhere in Mexico was problematic, to say the least. The opposite result—that Mexicans would rally around the flag—was equally likely. Several weeks earlier, a band of anti-Santanistas recruited in New Orleans by José Antonio Mexía (and including the Tampico Blues of Herman Ehrenberg's acquaintance) had landed at Tampico, hoping to ignite local opposition to the dictator. The expedition turned out to be a fiasco: the schooner carrying the rebels ran aground, and Santa Anna's loyalists were waiting for them when they struggled ashore. Mexía managed to escape, but thirty-one of his men were left behind. Three died of wounds incurred in the operation; the others were executed for piracy.

Houston opposed the Matamoros expedition, but he lacked the authority to stop it. He had tried to persuade the San Felipe consultation to nullify the Monclova grants in order to demonstrate the bona fides of the rebels. He had failed then, for the same reason he failed now to forestall the Matamoros expedition: influential members of the consultation, and now of the provisional government, had interests in the speculation. Henry Smith joined Houston in opposition, but he couldn't control the general council, which proceeded to overrule him and Houston. When Houston discovered that the expedition was going to go forward, he bowed to the inevitable yet still tried to shape it. He ordered James Bowie to take charge. “In the event you can obtain the services of a sufficient number of men for the purpose,” Houston wrote Bowie, “you will forthwith proceed on the route to Matamoros, and, if possible reduce the place and retain possession until further orders.” Better Bowie, Houston reasoned, than Grant or Johnson or someone he didn't know. “Should you not find it within your power to attain an object so desirable as the reduction of Matamoros, you will, by all possible means, conformably to the rules of civilized warfare, annoy the troops of the central army, and reduce and keep possession of the most eligible position on the frontier, using the precaution which characterizes your mode of warfare. You will conduct the campaign. Much is referred to your discretion.” Houston directed Bowie to apprise the provisional government of his actions by reporting “through the commander-in-chief of the army.” And he added, in a non sequitur that was significant precisely for not following from what came before, “Under any circumstances, the port of Copano is important.”

Bowie was pleased at the prospect of action, even a prospect as clouded as the Matamoros expedition. After the rousing tussle at Concepción, things had turned in a decidedly unsatisfactory direction for him. The “Grass Fight” won no one any glory, and by bad luck Bowie missed the battle for San Antonio. Impatient at the (pre-Milam) refusal of his comrades to attack the town, he accepted an assignment to ride to Goliad and assess the state of that town's defenses. What he discovered was not encouraging, and he headed back to San Antonio to report the bleak news. By the time he got there the rebels had taken the town, and things were as dull as ever, if less frustrating.

The dullness disposed many of the victors, including Herman Ehrenberg and the New Orleans Greys, to join James Grant and Frank Johnson in the expedition to Matamoros. Bowie was inclined to go, too—which was why Sam Houston appointed him to head the affair.

Houston's rivals, however, had other ideas. His reasoning in naming Bowie to head the Matamoros expedition was translucent, if not quite transparent; the council accordingly denied Houston's authority to appoint Bowie, and appointed Johnson in his place. Johnson initially accepted the appointment but changed his mind when the council overruled some of his choices for junior officers, whereupon the council put James Fannin, Bowie's comrade from Concepción, in charge. The situation grew more confusing when the political skirmishing between Governor Smith and the council erupted into open warfare. Smith tried to dissolve the council and send the members home; the council, likening Smith to Santa Anna, called for the governor's impeachment. Meanwhile Johnson changed his mind again and joined Grant in assuming—with the approval of neither council nor governor—command of the Matamoros expedition, for which they began recruiting volunteers.

Bowie was in no mood to sort out the mess, and when Houston, acknowledging defeat in this part of the affair, offered him another assignment, he gladly accepted. What Houston disgustedly called the “Matamoros rage” had stripped the garrison left to guard San Antonio, till it was a shadow of the force that had conquered it. Houston had never considered the town strategically important, and its weakness—and the distraction provided by the Matamoros fever—supplied him an excuse to arrange its evacuation. Bowie, he decided, was just the man for the job. “Colonel Bowie will leave here in a few hours for Bexar with a detachment of from thirty to forty men,” Houston wrote Smith on January 17. “I have ordered the fortifications in the town of Bexar to be demolished, and if you should think well of it, I will remove all the cannon and other munitions of war to Gonzales and Copano, blow up the Alamo and abandon the place.”

While remedying—he thought—the weakness on his western flank, Houston turned his attention south. The Matamoros expeditionaries were gathered at Goliad, eager for another try at the Mexicans and a first chance at some real booty. “Our party now mustered six hundred men,” Herman Ehrenberg explained, “and only the lack of food and ammunition kept us idle.” The troops initially accepted the delay as an inevitable aspect of campaigning. “But as time went by without bringing the stores we needed, our inactivity grew more irksome. . . . It enraged us to think that if we had been provided at once with powder and lead, we should by now have already stormed and captured Matamoros. As it was, the procrastination of the Government helped the enemy and diminished our chances, for the Mexicans, aware of our plans, were strengthening the defenses of their city and every day making it more nearly impregnable.” The delay discouraged the most impatient members, who abandoned the project and headed for their homes back in the States. Before long the ranks had dwindled to 450. To keep the remainder from following, Grant and Johnson decided to start south, hoping the promised supplies would overtake them on the road.

At Refugio the expedition rested several days, albeit more for the purpose of delay than recuperation. They were ready to resume the march for Matamoros, 150 miles farther on, when Houston rode into their camp. “Tenseness and excitement prevailed in our ranks,” Ehrenberg recalled, “for Sam Houston was the most famous and popular leader of the Texans. The vigor of his patriotism, the sincerity of his democratic faith, the liberal tenor of his conduct had won him the love and confidence of all his fellow-citizens.” In this latter sentence, Ehrenberg spoke more for the rank and file than for the politically ambitious, but even Houston's rivals had to acknowledge the man's gifts of leadership, which were put here to the test. “The eminent commander had now a delicate mission to perform,” Ehrenberg said, “for he came to allay the suspicions, calm the impatience, and restore the satisfaction of the restless, discontented troops. Nor was this all. The army was at present broken up, and the concentration of its forces at some point was as urgently needed as it would be difficult to achieve.”

Houston entreated the volunteers to reconsider their campaign. Even as they were heading south, Santa Anna was driving north; why did they wish to leave Texas to fight when the enemy was coming to them? Houston had to admire the daring and zeal of the troops. But such qualities “must not be wasted in profitless labors,” he said (according to Ehrenberg's reconstruction of the speech). “In order to win, we must act together. United we stand, divided we fall. I am told that you intend to take Matamoros. I praise your courage, but I will frankly confess to you, my friends, that I do not approve of your plans. The capture of a city that lies outside the boundaries of our territory is useless, and the shedding of Texas blood in such unprofitable warfare is a mistake.” The volunteers wanted to fight the enemy. “Will you not do so more effectively by falling upon its armies after long marches and other hardships have exhausted and demoralized them?” The Texas forces weren't large enough or strong enough to be divided. “Since our military power is weak, let our strength be in our unity.”

Many of the soldiers were openly skeptical of Houston's argument. One of their officers, a Captain Pearson, stepped forward to rebut the commander. “However great my esteem for General Houston,” Pearson said, “I cannot accept his proposal. We have already tarried here too long. What has been the result? Most of our men have left because they grew tired of our inaction. . . . There is no sense in our staying here idle. Why should we bear all the hardships of the campaign and receive so little in return? . . . Let us march on, and I ask all those who agree with me to be on the road to Matamoros by noon.”

Ehrenberg was torn, as were many of his comrades. “These two speeches, following close upon each other, excited mingled feelings in our hearts,” he said. “The army was overwhelmingly in favor of storming Matamoros, yet the eloquence and popularity of General Houston induced most of the volunteers to postpone their departure for this city until the arrival of Fannin's regiment.” But others wouldn't wait, no matter how eloquent Houston was. “There were still quite a few who wanted to follow the immediate promptings of their impatience. Forty of our comrades decided to go at once to San Patricio, forty miles farther south, and they marched away that very day.”

In early December 1835, Stephen Austin and his fellow “agents of the people of Texas,” William Wharton and Branch Archer, received their diplomatic charge from the provisional government. They were to travel without delay to “the United States of the North,” entering that country at New Orleans, where they were to procure and outfit naval vessels for the defense of Texas's coast and commerce, obtain arms and other provisions for the Texas army, negotiate a loan of up to $100,000 “on the best terms that you can,” and solicit donations from supporters of the Texas cause. After that:

You will proceed to the City of Washington with all convenient speed, endeavoring at all points to enlist the sympathies of the free and enlightened people of the United States in our favor by explaining to them our true political situation and the causes which impelled us to take up arms, and the critical situation in which we now stand. You will approach the authorities of our Mother Country, either by yourselves or confidential friends, and ascertain the feelings of the Government toward Texas, in her present attitude. Whether any interposition on the part of that Government in our favor can be expected, or whether, in their opinion, any ulterior move on our part would, to them, be more commendable and be calculated to render us more worthy of their favor, or whether by any fair and honorable means, Texas can become a member of that Republic. If not, if we declare independence, whether that Government would immediately recognize and respect us as an independent people, receive us as allies, and form with us a treaty of amity both offensive and defensive.