Alamo Traces (6 page)
Authors: Thomas Ricks Lindley
On March 7, 1836, before Houston left for Burnam's Crossing, he wrote James Collinsworth, chairman of the government's military committee. In this missive, Houston's own words prove he was telling people he did not believe that the men, women, and children of the Alamo were under attack by the Mexican army. Also, the letter reveals that Houston, the commanding general of all Texian land forces, was oblivious to the military situation that faced the newly formed country. Houston wrote:
Before I proceed on my way this morning, you will allow me to call your attention, if you please, with that of the committee, to the subject of fortifying “Live Oak Point,” on the bay of Copano. Troops coming from the U. States via New Orleans can sail for that point on armed vessels, with artillery and
lumber
sufficient for such fortifications as will be necessary for the present. The cannon there placed should be large pieces, 12 and 18 [pounders], and very few will suffice. Col. [James] Power can give you all the information that you may desire; I will only suggest that it will give us command of all supplies destined for Goliad and San Antonio,
if the enemy should even possess them
[italics added]. If a liberal appropriation of money should be made for the army, although we should not immediately receive it, it will keep down much discontent until it can be had. I pray you to have the Cherokee treaty ratified, and Major Washington Lewis, residing at Masters' on the road, appointed agent for the Cherokees to reside near Bowls'. This will be of importance to the safety of the frontier. â If any plan be devised by which the Comanches can be approached by the head waters of the Brazos, and they induced to fall down and range upon the Laredo route to Bexar and steal horses, it will be important. A Mr. Dillard, residing at the Falls of the Brazos will be a proper person to communicate with. Measures should be attended to if possible to prevent the Creek Indians from emigrating to the East of Texas. Col. [Thomas J.] Rusk can inform you of the fact of A. Hotchkiss' interest in inducing the Indians to emigrate to the country. The evidence is
conclusive. â It would be well that the steam packet “Wm. Brown,” if purchased, should have such guns placed on her as would enable her to throw grape and canister into the enemy in close contact, as I am told she cannot carry large pieces. If Copano is occupied by us, the enemy will never advance into the Colonies. God bless you and may you long continue useful to Texas. I rode until late last night, and rose early this morning. . . .
There is a Blount in Washington, who deserves a Captaincy in the cavalry, if you should think proper to advance him. I pray that all appointments in the army, since the 6th of January, made by the self-styled “Council,” may be set aside, if the persons should be afterwards appointed. â Please see Doctor [Stephen H.] Everitt, and he can speak to you of a Mr. [Stephen W.] Blount of Jasper. He only received a Lieutenancy when he should have been advanced. . . .
What say you of a resolution, that Texas is part of Louisiana, and the U. States by [the] treaty of 1803?
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On March 7, 1836, when Houston dictated the previously detailed letter, “the key to Texas” had been turned. In fact, the door to “the sacred Territory of the Colonies” had been blown off its hinges and was about to crash down on Gonzales. Thus, with all of the territory south of the San Antonio River under control or soon to be under the control of Santa Anna's centralist soldiers, what were Houston's plans for the defense of Texas?
Not much, as Houston's words, “if the enemy should even possess them [Bexar and Goliad],” coupled with the Coleman and Thompson statements, demonstrate an apparent denial of everything military that had occurred in Texas since February 1, 1836. Otherwise, he planned to defend the Republic of Texas with the following actions: (1) ratification of his Cherokee treaty and appointment of an Indian agent for the tribe, (2) arrange for the Comanche Indians to travel the Laredo road to steal horses from the Mexican army, which suggests that Houston did not believe the Mexican army was at the Alamo and was anticipating a future advance of the enemy on the Laredo road, (3) stop any Creek Indian immigration from the United States, (4) arm a steamboat with appropriate cannon, (5) void many of the military appointments of the previous
Texas government, which would have given him stronger control over the army forming at Gonzales, (6) fortify Copano, Texas's most remote and least used gulf port, which he saw as the “key to Texas,” (7) request Collinsworth have the new Texas government pass a resolution that claimed Texas was included in the “Louisiana Purchase” of 1803, which would mean it was part of the United States.
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In the aggregate, the evidence supports a number of conclusions concerning Houston's role in the defense of Bexar and the fall of the Alamo. First, Houston did not order the Alamo demolished and San Antonio abandoned as he later claimed. He did, however, suggest those actions to Governor Henry Smith, who ignored the advice and reinforced San Antonio. Also, the General Council instructed the Alamo commander: “. . . in no case to abandon or surrender the place unless in the last extremity.”
The Cherokee Sam Houston, ca. 1820s
Photo courtesy Texas State Library & Archives Commission
Second, between February 1, 1836, and February 23, 1836, a time when the San Antonio garrison and Texas most needed its commander-in-chief, Houston was on leave from his military responsibilities. He was taking care of private affairs and conducting peace talks with the Cherokee Indians of East Texas.
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Third, Houston, after learning of Santa Anna's arrival at Bexar, ignored his military duties so that he could play a political role at the convention. He appears to have acted the politician to protect his position as commander-in-chief and to obtain even greater authority in that role. Houston obviously understood that if the Texians defeated Santa Anna's army, the Texian general would be seen as hero, which would give that commander a political advantage after the revolution. He insisted that because of the General Council's former acts he was no longer the army's commander-in-chief, that the Declaration of Independence required a reappointment of the position. After being reaffirmed, he was threatened with dismissal if he did not depart immediately for the army. He promised to leave the next day. Then, after the threat of being fired was removed, he broke his pledge. Otherwise, he spent his free time in the grog shops, celebrating the declaration of independence, which he alleged had been passed on his birthday.
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Fourth, Houston, at the convention and on the long ride to Gonzales, protested that there was no need to hurry to the army because the enemy was not on the frontier, and that such claims by Travis and Fannin were political schemes. In the case of the convention, the evidence suggests that Houston was successful in convincing most of the delegates that the Bexar command was not threatened.
Fifth, Houston, when only days away from taking command of the troops at Gonzales, appears to have been totally out of touch with the military conditions that had existed on the frontier for over a month and the strategic reality he was about to encounter.
Sixth, Houston's suggesting the Texas government claim that Texas had been part of the Louisiana Purchase and was rightfully part of the United States appears to have been an attempt to give President Andrew Jackson and the United States an interest in Texas's struggle against Mexico.
The idea that Houston did not believe the enemy was at Bexar or Goliad is incomprehensible. Still, the evidence shows that Houston was telling people he did not believe the Mexican forces were at those
locations. He even suggested the same to James Collinsworth, chairman of the government's military committee. Nevertheless, could Houston have really have been that out of touch or stupid? Who knows? Only time and new sources will tell.
In 1845 Houston responded to a critical letter from Anthony Butler, minister to Mexico at the time of the Revolution, with these words: “The sliding scale may do in politics, but it will not do in matters of character.” Such may be the case with most politicians, but for Houston everything was politics. In the end, the Alamo defenders, whose loyalties were with Houston and Governor Smith, were just problems that Houston left to the “sliding scale.” What would the men, women, and children of the Alamo have thought of Houston's actions? Given that Captain James B. Bonham, on the morning of March 3, brought in the news that Houston would not be riding to the rescue, the people of the Alamo probably saw Houston's behavior as pure and simple betrayal of the worst kind.
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1
Dr. Anson Jones,
Memoranda and Official Correspondence Relating to the Republic of Texas, its History and Annexation
(New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1859), 35.
2
Marquis James,
The Raven: A Biography of Sam Houston
, Introduction by Robert M. Utley (1929; reprint, New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc., 1990), ix-x.
3
Ibid.
4
Moseley Baker to Sam Houston, October (1842), Evergreen, Manuscript Collection, Archives Division, Texas State Library, Austin, Texas, hereafter cited as MC-TSL; D. G. Burnet,
Review of the Life of Gen. Sam Houston
(Galveston: News Power Press Print, 1852), entire publication; Sidney Sherman,
Defense of Gen. Sidney Sherman Against the Charges made by Gen. Sam Houston in His Speech Delivered in the United States Senate, February 28th, 1859
(Galveston: “News” Book and Job Office, 1859), entire publication. The year is not given in the Baker letter's date, but Baker referred to the invasion that had taken place the previous spring. This appears to have been the Mexican attack on San Antonio conducted by Rafael Vasquez that occurred in March 1842. The Baker missive and the two pamphlets detail many of the complaints made against Houston by his fellow soldiers. Baker wrote the letter in response to political attacks Houston made upon him.
William C. Davis, in
Three Roads to the Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis
(New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1998), 547-548 and 568-569, was the first twentieth-century historian to objectively and accurately report on Houston's negative military behavior during the revolution. Davis, in making his case, used Thomas Ricks Lindley, “Drawing Truthful Deductions,”
Journal of the Alamo Battlefield Association
, I (September 1994), 31-33.
5
Robert M. Coleman,
Houston Displayed, or Who Won the Battle of San Jacinto By a Farmer In the Army
(Velasco: [Press of the Velasco Herald], 1837), entire publication.
6
John H. Jenkins,
Basic Texas Books
(1983; revised, Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1988), 81.
7
Sam Houston to James Collinsworth, March 13, 1836, Gonzales, in John H. Jenkins, ed.,
The Papers of the Texas Revolution, 1835-1836
(10 vols.; Austin: Presidial Press, 1973), V: 69-70; hereafter cited as
Papers
.
8
Ibid.
9
Sam Houston to Henry Reguet, March 13, 1836, Gonzales, Jenkins, ed.,
Papers
, V: 71-72.
10
Sam Houston to James Collinsworth, March 15, 1836, Camp on the Navadid [River], Jenkins, ed.,
Papers
, V: 82-84. This letter conflicts with Houston's January 17, 1836, missive to Governor Henry Smith in which
Houston asked for Smith's approval to destroy the Alamo and abandon San Antonio.
Also, in writing Collinsworth, Houston alleged that he gave the order on January 16, 1836, which is at odds with the date of January 17, in the actual missive to Smith. It is of note that Houston, on March 13, damned Fannin for not reinforcing the Alamo. Then on March 15, Houston wrote Collinsworth that the
troops should not be garrisoned in forts where they could not be supplied with “men and provisions.”
Could Houston have been worried that Collinsworth might order him to reinforce Fannin, who was at that time ensconced in Fort Defiance at Goliad?
11
Sam Houston, “A Refutation of Calumnies Produced and Circulated Against His Character as Commander-In-Chief of the Army of Texas, February 28, 1859,” in Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker (eds.),
The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863
(8 vols.; 1938-1943; reprint; Austin and New York: Pemberton Press, 1970), VII: 306-336; hereafter cited as
Writings
.
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid. This Houston statement contains several errors. Travis was not sent to Bexar to relieve Neill, but rather to reinforce him and furnish cavalry to scout the roads west of San Antonio. Travis arrived on February 5 and assumed temporary command on February 11, 1836. The Mexican army entered Bexar on February 23, not the “last of February.”
In “A Lecture on Trials and Dangers of Frontier Life, January 28, 1851,” in Williams and Barker, eds.,
Writings
, V: 272, Houston claimed: “The commander-in-chief had expressly ordered the Alamo to be blown up, and everything that could be, brought off forty days before the enemy besieged it. . . .” Santa Anna commenced the investment of the Alamo on February 23, thus “forty days before” would have been January 15, 1836, two days before Houston received Neill's letter that requested assistance.