Alamo Traces (33 page)

[On landing, after ascending a bluff, he found himself a deserted house, at which he found plenty of provisions and cooking vessels. There he took his first nourishment after leaving the Alamo. Travel had caused the thorns to work so deep in his flesh that he could not bear the pain of pulling them out, and he had become lame. There he rested two or three days, hoping that his lameness would subside, but it rather grew worse. Thenceforth he traveled on roads, subsisting, except in the instance to be noted, on provisions which he found in deserted houses. The families were retreating before the threatened advance of the enemy, and between the Guadalupe and Colorado every family on his route had left home. Between the Colorado and the Brazos he found only one family at home. With them he stayed during a considerable time; but probably from want of knowledge or skill, they did nothing to relieve his sore legs. While he was with them, two travelers of whom he had no previous knowledge, called and lodged during a night. The landlord entertained them with an account of Rose's escape. They seemed to be much interested in the account; but, on the next morning, just as they were leaving they obtained a private interview with the landlord, and told him that they lived in Nacogdoches and knew this Frenchman, Rose; that he was a man of very bad character, that he was an imposter, and had never seen the Alamo, and that he (the landlord), for the honor of his family, ought to ship him immediately. I judged that they, themselves, were bad men, and tendered this pretended friendly advice to their landlord, hoping thereby, to induce him not to charge them for their lodging. After their departure, the landlord told Rose what the men had said of him, and he determined never again to tell that he had been in the Alamo. This was during Houston's retreat from the Colorado, and several squads of
deserters from the army overtook and passed Rose. The first of these told him that an impostor by the name of Rose had imposed himself upon an old gentleman as being escaped from the Alamo, but that two men from Rose's home had informed the old gentleman of the imposition, and he had promptly driven the impostor from his premises. Succeeding squads told the same story, and before reaching the Brazos, Rose heard this caricature of part of his own history four times, but he did not tell any of his informants that he was the man, nor that his name was Rose. Years later, I learned that the report of his reputed imposition preceded him to Nacogdoches, and that several malicious persons there circulated the slander. I further learned that, not being able to disprove it by eyewitnesses, he was averse to talking on the subject. This reticence, though natural to a slandered man who could not positively prove his innocence, was imprudent. The people of Nacogdoches knew that he had been in the Alamo, but his sullenness exacted a suspicion that he was not merely an impostor, but a deserter and traitor. As I shall yet show, he at one place exhibited conclusive evidence of his innocence, yet his stubborn reticence caused his adventures to be forgotten, and this, I judge, was what prevented his escape from being recorded in the early histories of Texas.

After crossing the Brazos Rose found several families at home, and from them obtained direction to my father's residence.]

He continued his journey toilsomely, tediously and painfully for several weeks, in which time he encountered many hardships and dangers which for want of space can not be inserted here. He finally arrived at the residence of my father on Lake Creek, in what is now Grimes County.

My parents had seen, in the Telegraph and Texas Register, a partial list of those who had fallen at the Alamo, and in it observed the name of Rose. Having not heard of his escape, they had no doubt that he had died with his companions. On his arrival, my father recognized him instantly, and exclaimed, “My God! Rose, is this you, or is it your ghost?” “This is Rose, and not a ghost,” was the reply.

My mother caused her washing servant to open Rose's wallet, in her presence, and found some of the garments glued together with the blood in which they had fallen when thrown from the Alamo.

My parents also examined his legs, and by the use of forceps extracted an incredible number of cactus thorns, some of them an inch and a half in length, each of which drew out a lump of flesh and was followed by a stream of blood. Salve [which my mother made] was applied to his sores and they soon began to heal.

Rose remained at my father's between two and three weeks, during which time his sores improved rapidly, and he hoped to be well. He then left for home. We had reliable information of him but once after his departure. He had arrived at his home in Nacogdoches, but traveling on foot had caused his legs to inflame anew, and his sores had grown so much worse that his friends thought that he could not live many months. That was the last we heard of him.

During his stay at my father's Rose related to my parents an account of what transpired in the Alamo before he left it, of his escape, and of what befell him afterwards, and at their request he rehearsed it several times (till my mother could have repeated it as well as he). Most of the minutia here recorded were elicited by particular inquiries. In the following June I returned home from the Texas army, and my parents several times rehearsed the whole account to me.

[God had endowed my mother with close observation and extraordinary memory and I had inherited them. Hence what Rose had stated became stamped upon her memory and mine. I admired the sentiments of Travis' speech even as they had come to me third-handed and not in the speaker's own language. I regretted the apparent impossibility of the speech being preserved for posterity. In 1871 I determined to commit it to paper and try by rearrangement of its disconnected parts to restore its form as a speech. I had enjoyed a slight personal acquaintance with Colonel Travis, had heard repetitions of some of his remarks as a lawyer before courts, and had read printed
copies of some of his dispatches from the Alamo. After refreshing my memory by repeated conversations with my mother, I wrote the sentiments of the speech in what I imagined to be Travis's style, but was careful not to change the sense. I devoted several weeks of time to successive rewritings and transpositions of the parts of that speech. This done, I was surprised at the geometrical neatness with which the parts fitted together.]

Of course it is not pretended that Col. Travis' speech is reported literally, but the ideas are precisely those he advanced, and most of the language is also nearly the same.

Hoping that this letter may meet your approval and be interesting to your readers. I am, gentlemen, most respectfully, your humble correspondent,

W. P. Zuber

Prairie Plains, Grimes County, Texas, May 9, 1871

I have carefully examined the foregoing letter of my son, William P. Zuber, and feel that I can endorse it with the greatest propriety. The arrival of Moses Rose at our residence, his condition when he came, what transpired during his stay, and the tidings that we afterwards heard of him, are correctly stated. The part which purports to be Rose's statement of what he saw and heard in the Alamo, of his escape, and of what befell him afterwards is precisely the substance of what Rose stated to my husband and myself.

Mary Ann Zuber
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