Decatur's conflict with the Algerine at Tripoli.
Decatur's conflict with the Algerine at Tripoli.
The following year, Decatur attempted to gain the open sea from New York,through Long Island Sound, with the Macedonian and Hornet. A British squadron of superior force, however, compelled him to run into the Thames River in Connecticut, and he lay off New London for months unable to get to sea. He was naturally impatient at being thus cooped up, and bitterly complained that traitors on shore, by means of "blue lights," warned the enemy whenever at night he prepared to break out of his imprisonment. He sent a challenge to Commander Sir Thomas Hardy of the blockading squadron, offering to fight two of the British frigates with two of his own, but the offer was declined and Decatur's frigates were afterward dismantled.
Returning to New York, he assumed command of a squadron bound for the East Indies, and put to sea in the President. January 14, 1815, through the blunder of his pilot, his ship heavily grounded while going out. The next morning, Decatur discovered the British squadron in pursuit, consisting of the Majestic razee, the Endymion, Tenedos, and Pomona frigates and a brig. Of these the Endymion was the fleetest. After drawing her away from the rest, Decatur turned and attacked her. She was crippled and her battery silenced, when the American resumed her flight. By this time, however, the other ships had come up and opened fire. Escape was impossible and Decatur surrendered to the British squadron.
Returning to the United States under parole, he was despatched to the Mediterranean, on the conclusion of peace, to punish the Algerine pirates that were preying upon our commerce. He did his work thoroughly and well, compelling the Dey to sign the most humiliating treaty ever made with a Christian nation. He obtained similar redress at Tunis and Tripoli.
Decatur was subsequently created Navy Commissioner and made his residence in Washington at Kalorama, formerly occupied by Joel Benton.
Commodore Barron's suspension began February 8, 1808. He resorted to the merchant service, and was abroad when war was declared. His suspension terminated about eight months afterward, some time after which he reported himself to the navy department, by letter, for duty, the war continuing two years after his becoming available for command. He did not return to the United States until the close of 1818. He declared that he had used every effort to reach home before during hostilities, but was prevented. A court, presided over by Captain Charles Stewart, afterward declared its judgment that such effort had not been made by Barron.
The latter felt resentful toward Decatur, and called him to account for certain expressions he had been told were used by him reflecting upon his conduct as an officer. When appealed to, Decatur, as Navy Commissioner, declared that he held no personal enmity toward Barron; he deemed it unjust to other officers of the navy that his request to be restored to command should be granted.
Barron opened a sharp correspondence with Decatur, which continued nearly a year. Mutual friends, or rather enemies, fanned the trouble between them, which ended in a challenge from Barron which was promptly accepted by Decatur. The duel took place at Bladensburg, on the morning of March 22, 1820,Commodore Bainbridge was Decatur's second, and Captain Jesse D. Elliott served Barron in a similar capacity. Decatur chivalrously surrendered his right to name the distance, which Barron made the shortest possible, eight paces, on account of his defective eyesight. Decatur was without a superior as a pistol shot, and, declaring that he did not wish the life of his antagonist, said he would only wound him in the hip.
At the word "two," both fired so exactly together, that only one report was heard. Barron was struck in the right hip, as Decatur intended, and sank to the ground. Decatur stood erect a moment and was seen to turn pale, compress his lips, and press his hand against his side. Then he fell, the ball having passed through his abdomen.
"I am mortally wounded," he said, "and wish that it had been in the defence of my country." His attendants helped him to his feet, and started slowly toward the waiting carriage. His pain was so great that after a few paces he sank exhausted, near where Barron was stretched on the ground. While the two thus lay near each other, waiting to be carried off, they shook hands, and each freely forgave the other.
Decatur was lifted into the carriage, which reached Washington at half-past ten. He would not allow himself to be carried into his home until his wife and two nieces were sent to the upper floor where they could not see the dreadful sight. Wishing to save the distracted ones from the grief of witnessing his suffering, he refused them permission to enter the room where he lay.
The news caused consternation and sorrow in Washington, where no man was more honored and loved than he. He thanked his friends for their sympathy, told them he had not long to live, and signed his will. "I am a dying man," said he, "and only regret that my wound was not received on the quarter-deck in the service of my country."
When the surgeons proposed to probe for the bullet, he said it was not worth while as it had done all the harm it could. He remarked that he did not believe it possible for a person to suffer so much pain and yet live. But not once did he utter a groan. His agony was beyond description and did not cease until half-past ten, when he died.
It seemed as if the whole male population of Washington and the adjacent county were present at the funeral, besides most of the officers of the government, members of Congress, and resident foreign ministers. TheNational Intelligencer, in an extra, said: "A hero has fallen. Commodore Stephen Decatur, one of the first officers of our navy, the pride of his country, the gallant and noble-hearted gentleman, is no more. He expired a few minutes ago, of the mortal wound received in the duel this morning. Mourn, Columbia! for one of thy brightest stars is set! A son without fear and without reproach, in the fulness of his fame, in the prime of his usefulness, has descended into the tomb."[Back to Contents]
Author signature.
Oliver Hazard Perry.
Oliver Hazard Perry was born in Rhode Island, August 23, 1785. The late Commodore Mackenzie, of the navy, who possessed what we may term a fine biographical faculty, has traced in his interesting narrative of the Life of Perry, with fond minuteness, the early incidents of the boy's career. The chief characteristics, he tells us, "were an uncommon share of beauty, a sweetness and gentleness of disposition which corroborated the expression of his countenance, and a perfect disregard of danger, amounting to apparent unconsciousness." This biographer gives some curious anecdotes of his school days.
Suffice it to say, that the family removing to Newport about this time, Perry found good opportunities of education at that place, and availed himself of them in a manly spirit. He was especially instructed in mathematics, and their application to navigation and nautical astronomy. As proof of the boy's ingenuousness, and the interest he excited in intelligent observers, it is related that Count Rochambeau, the son of the General of the Revolution, then residing at Newport, was particularly attracted to him, and that Bishop Seabury, on his visitation, marked him as a boy of religious feeling. These are traits which shape the man; we shall find them reappearing in the maturity of Perry's life, in his worth, humanity, and refinement.
The boy was but thirteen when his father, in 1798, was called into the naval service of his country in the spirited effort made by President Adams to resist the aggressions of France upon the ocean. He took the command of a small frigate, built under his direction in Rhode Island, named the General Greene, and carried with him to sea his son Oliver as a midshipman, at the express solicitation of the youth. The General Greene was actively employed in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, giving all its officers abundant opportunity for practice in the infant service. The French war flurry after a while blew over, as the Directory, the mainspring of these aggressions, lost power; peace was patched up, and Jefferson shortly after inaugurated an unwholesome pacific policy by a sweeping reduction of the navy, as if it were not small enough already. In this mutilating operation the elder Perry was dropped, the younger one fortunately retained.
The navy, however, was soon revived by the demands of the nation to resist the iniquitous and insulting depredations upon life and property inflicted by theBarbary powers. The United States had borne far too patiently with these injuries, though she had the honor of being in advance of the old powers of Europe in resisting them. The Mediterranean became the scene of many a chivalrous exploit of our early officers, a score of whom, headed by Preble, Bainbridge, Decatur, Somers, and others of that stamp of fiery and indomitable valor, gained immortal laurels by their deeds of daring in conflict with the infidel.
The young Perry served as midshipman in the frigate Adams, which sailed from Newport, in 1802, to join Commodore Morris' command at Gibraltar. His ship was for some time employed in blockading a Tripolitan at that port; a tedious but instructive service in manœuvring, at the close of which Perry, in consequence of his accomplishments, was promoted by his captain to the duties of a lieutenant. The frigate was then employed as a convoy, making the tour of the northern ports. This gave Perry an opportunity to study scenes of the old world, which can never lose their influence in the formation of the man of education and refinement.
In 1809, Perry got to sea in command of an armed schooner, the Revenge, which was employed on the coast service. While on the southern coast, he had an opportunity to gain distinction, which he did not fail to avail himself of, in cutting out a stolen American vessel from under the guns of a British ship in Spanish waters, off Florida. Conveying his prize off the coast, he was threatened by his Majesty's ship Gore, of double his force, when, having, as Mackenzie says, "no idea of being 'Leopardized,'" he put his little schooner in readiness for boarding at a moment's notice—a spirited resolution of great bravery, which he would no doubt have carried out, had the British vessel insisted upon overhauling the Revenge. While engaged in cruising off Connecticut and Rhode Island, in the beginning of 1811, he unfortunately lost his vessel, through an error of the pilot, on the Watch Hill Reef, opposite Fisher's Island, as he was sailing from Newport to New London. Every seamanlike effort was made to save the vessel, and when all was unavailing, Perry showed equal skill and resolution in landing the crew in a heavy January swell, with a violent wind. He was himself the last to leave the vessel. He was not merely acquitted of neglect, but his conduct was extolled by a court of inquiry.
He was, of course, thrown temporarily out of command by the loss of his vessel; an interval of repose which he hastened to turn to account by forming a matrimonial alliance with Miss Elizabeth Champlin Mason, of an influential family at Newport, to whom he had become engaged several years before, on his arrival from the Mediterranean. The wedding took place in May, 1811, affording him ample opportunity for the honeymoon, previous to the actual outbreak of the war impending with England.
This event found him at Newport, with the rank of master commandant, in charge of the flotilla of gunboats keeping watch in the harbor. It was a service not altogether adapted to satisfy the ambitious spirit of a young officer, but it was important in itself, and became, in Perry's hands, a step to future eminence. His course, at this time, illustrates a valuable truth, that no honorable employment isprofitless to a man of genius. He will in some way turn it to account. Constructing gunboats, and recruiting men in port, were services not calculated to make any great blaze in a despatch, but they conducted Perry to his glorious bulletins of victory, and the resounding praises of the nation.
He saw the new field of military operations opening on the lakes, and his experienced eye must have seen as well the certain difficulties, as the possible honors of the situation. It was not the post which an officer with the claims of Perry would have sought, while brilliant victories were being won, in the eye of the world, on the vast theatre of the ocean. Others, however, were before him on that element.
Despairing of a command at sea, he offered himself to Commodore Chauncey, who had recently been placed at the head of the lake service. His character was understood by this officer, and the proffer accepted. The necessary communications were made to the Government, and in the middle of February, in 1813, he was ordered to join Chauncey at Sackett's Harbor, with the picked men of his Newport flotilla. He lost no time in reporting himself at the appointed spot. His destination was Lake Erie, where he was to supervise the construction of two vessels to be employed in the next campaign, and he was anxious to get to the work; but Chauncey, who felt the need of his aid, detained him for a while on Lake Ontario. He, however, toward the end of March, reached Erie, where the vessels were building.
His experience in constructing gunboats at Newport was now of avail to him. He put the defence of the works, which had been greatly neglected, in a state of efficiency, and set himself to the collection of supplies, workmen, and an armament: no easy matter at that day and in that place in the wilderness; for such, as compared with our own time, it then was. The labors of Perry in this work of preparation were, in fact, of the most arduous character. They should not be forgotten as a heavy item to his credit in the sum total of his victory. Three gunboats and two brigs were launched and equipped in May.
It was at this time that he received advices that Chauncey was about to make an attack on the British post of Fort George, at the mouth of the Niagara River. He had been promised a share in this adventure, and hastened to the scene. The incidents of this journey show the spirit of the man. In his own words, in a letter describing this passage of his life: "On the evening of May 23d, I received information, about sunset, that Commodore Chauncey would in a day or two arrive at Niagara, when an attack would be made on Fort George. He had previously promised me the command of the seamen and marines that might land from the fleet. Without hesitation I determined to join him. I left Erie about dark in a small four-oared open boat. The night was squally and very dark. After encountering headwinds and many difficulties, I arrived at Buffalo on the evening of the 24th, refreshed, and remained there until daylight; I then passed the whole of the British lines in my boat, within musket-shot. Passing Strawberry Island, several people on our side of the river hailed and beckoned me on shore. On landing they pointed out about forty men on the end ofGrand Island, who, doubtless, were placed there to intercept boats. In a few moments I should have been in their hands. I then proceeded with more caution. As we arrived at Schlosser, it rained violently. No horse could be procured. I determined to push forward on foot; walked about two miles and a half, when the rain fell in such torrents I was obliged to take shelter in a house at hand. The sailors whom I had left with the boat, hearing of public horses on the commons, determined to catch one for me. They found an old passing one which could not run away, and brought him in, rigged a rope from the boat into a bridle, and borrowed a saddle without either stirrup, girth, or crupper. Thus accoutred they pursued me, and found me at the house where I had stopped. The rain ceasing, I mounted; my legs hung down the sides of the horse, and I was obliged to steady the saddle by holding by the mane. In this style I entered the camp, it raining again most violently. Colonel Porter being the first to discover me, insisted upon my taking his horse, as I had some distance to ride to the other end of the camp, off which the Madison lay."
Having thus reached head-quarters, arrangements were rapidly made, and the landing of the troops assigned to Perry. In the ignorance or inexperience of some of the officers, there was considerable confusion in directing the boats in the river, which was remedied by Perry's vigilance and decision. He was everywhere, in the midst of danger, guiding and directing; the unexpected attack of the British was met by his energy, the landing effected, and the object of the expedition accomplished. This victory opened the port of Black Rock, where several American vessels were collected, which Perry undertook to get into Lake Erie against the strong current of the river, a feat which was accomplished with extraordinary fatigue; so that he returned to his station at Erie, with a respectable addition of five vessels to his own newly launched little fleet in that harbor. The American force was composed of the brigs Lawrence and Niagara, of twenty guns each, and seven smaller vessels, numbering in all fifty-four guns. Captain Barclay, commander of the British forces on the lake, had the Detroit, of nineteen guns, the Queen Charlotte, Lady Provost, and three other vessels, numbering altogether sixty-three guns. The range of the enemy's guns gave them the advantage at a distance, when the corresponding American fire was ineffectual. The Americans, too, were under a disadvantage in the enfeebled state of the crews, by the general illness which prevailed among them. The British force had undoubtedly the superiority in trained men, as compared with Perry's extemporized miscellaneous command, and untried junior officers. The latter proved, however, to be of the right material.
On the morning of the engagement the American fleet was among the islands off Malden at Put in Bay, when the British fleet bore up. There was some difficulty at first in clearing the islands, and the nature of the wind seemed likely to throw Perry upon the defensive, when a southeast breeze springing up, enabled him to bear down upon the enemy. This was at ten o'clock of a fine autumnal morning. Perry arranged his vessels in line, taking the lead in his flag-ship, the Lawrence, on which he now raised the signal for action, a blue flag,inscribed in large white letters, with the words of the dying Lawrence, "Don't give up the ship!" He accompanied this movement with an appeal to his men. "My brave lads, this flag contains the last words of Captain Lawrence. Shall I hoist it?" "Ay, ay, sir!" was the willing response. In this way he cheered the men in the awful pause, "a dead silence of an hour and a half," preceding the action, for in the light breeze the vessels were long in overcoming the intermediate distance of several miles.
Perry, who knew the perils of the day, prepared his papers as if for death. He leaded the public documents in readiness to be cast overboard, and—a touching trait of these moments—gave a hurried perusal to his wife's letters, and tore them to pieces lest they should be read by the enemy.
The awful silence is suddenly broken by a bugle sounded on board the Detroit, and the cheers of the British seamen. A shot from that vessel fell short of its mark. The Lawrence bears on to meet the fire, accompanied by the other vessels of the command in appointed order, each destined for its appropriate antagonist. At noon the British fire from the superior long guns, was telling fearfully on the American force, when Perry made all sail for close quarters, bringing the Lawrence within reach of the Detroit. He maintained a steady, well-directed fire from his carronades, assisted by the Scorpion and Ariel. The destruction on the deck of the Lawrence was fearful. Out of 100 well men, says Mackenzie, who had gone into action, 22 were killed and 61 wounded. We shall not insult the humanity of the reader by the details of this fearful carnage. It has probably never been exceeded in the terrors of the "dying deck," in naval warfare.
In the midst of this storm of conflict, Perry, finding his ship getting disabled, and seeing the Niagara uninjured at a safe distance, resolved to change his flag to that vessel. He had half a mile to traverse, exposed to the fire of the enemy, in an open boat. Nothing deterred, with the exclamation, "If a victory is to be gained I'll gain it," he made the passage, part of the time standing as a target for the hostile guns. Fifteen minutes were passed exposed to this plunging fire, which splintered the oars and covered the boat with spray. The Lawrence, stripped of her officers and men, was compelled to surrender.
Perry instantly bore up to the Detroit, the guns of which were plied resolutely, when she became entangled with her consort, the Queen Charlotte, and the Niagara poured a deadly fire into both vessels. This cannonade decided the battle in seven minutes, when the enemy surrendered. The American loss in this engagement was 27 killed and 96 wounded; that of the British 41 killed and 94 wounded. Gallant actions were performed and noble men fell on both sides. It was every way a splendid victor, placing the genius of Perry and his magnanimous, spirited conduct throughout, in the highest rank of naval exertion.
The memorable letters, brief, at once eloquent and modest, which he wrote that afternoon announcing his victory, are too characteristic to be omitted in any personal account of the man. Addressing General Harrison, he writes: "DearGeneral—We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop. Yours, with very great respect and esteem. O. H. Perry." The other was to the Secretary of the Navy: "Sir, it has pleased the Almighty to give to the arms of the United States a signal victory over their enemies on this lake. The British squadron, consisting of two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop, have this moment surrendered to the force under my command, after a sharp conflict. I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant. O. H. Perry." In consonance with this simple eloquence, the mark of a master-mind, was his chivalrous care of his wounded and conduct toward his prisoners.
The victory having been gained, and the lake thus cleared of the foe, Perry was enabled to act in concert with General Harrison in driving the British from Michigan, and when his fleet was of no avail to follow them in their rapid flight, he joined that officer's land expedition, and was present, acting as his aid, at the battle of the Thames. "The appearance of the brave commodore," writes Harrison in his official report, "cheered and animated every heart." Perry also gained the gratitude of the Moravians, in whose district the contest took place, by his care in relieving the inevitable evils of war. He met everywhere on his homeward route with complimentary toasts and resolutions, gathering volume as he reached his native State, where he was received at Newport with military and civic honors. The city of New York paid him a grateful attention in a request communicated by De Witt Clinton, then mayor, to sit for his portrait for the civic gallery. The portrait was painted by Jarvis, representing him in the act of boarding the Niagara, and is preserved in the City Hall. He was created an honorary member of the Cincinnati; Congress voted him a medal and money; he was dined and feasted, and "blazed the comet of the season."
Perry's next service was in August, 1814, in command of the Java, 44, a frigate recently built at Baltimore. He was, however, not able to get to sea, in consequence of the blockade by the enemy. On the conclusion of peace he sailed in this vessel to join Commodore Shaw's squadron in the Mediterranean. In 1819 he sailed as commodore in command of the John Adams, for the West Indies, bound for the State of Venezuela, to carry on an armed negotiation for the protection of American commerce from aggressions in that quarter. Arriving at the mouth of the Orinoco, he shifted his flag to the Nonsuch, and ascended the river to the capital, Angostura, where he remained twenty days transacting his business, in the height of the yellow-fever season. His vessel had hardly left the river, on her way to Trinidad, when he was attacked. For nearly a week he suffered the progress of the terrible disease on board the small schooner, under a tropical sun, when he reached the station whither he had sent his flag-ship, the Adams. But he reached port only to die at sea, within a mile of the anchorage, on August 23, 1819, when he had just completed his thirty-fourth year. Such and so early was the fate of the gallant Perry. His remains were interred from the John Adams at Port Spain, with every attention by the English governor. Subsequently they were brought home in a national vessel by order ofCongress, and reinterred at the public expense in the cemetery at Newport. The country also provided for the support of his family. If ever America produced a man whom the nation delighted to honor it was Perry.[Back to Contents]
Sam Houston.
The builders of the American Commonwealth were all great and individual men, but the most grandly picturesque, the most heroic, figure among them, is that of General Sam Houston. Neither modern history, nor the scrolls of ancient Greece or Rome, can furnish a tale of glory more thrilling and stirring than the epic Sam Houston wrote with sword and pen, as a Conqueror of Tyranny and a Liberator of Men.
His life is a romance, and even his antecedents have the grandeur and glamour of military glory, for his ancestors, as "Sons of Old Gaul," had drawn their long swords in every battle for Scottish liberty, and his own father died while on military duty in the Alleghanies. He had also a mother worthy of the son she bore; a grand, brave woman, who put the musket into his boyish hands with the words, "My doors are ever open to the brave, Sam, but are eternally closed to cowards."
This was in the year 1813, when there was promise of a war with England, and Sam was not then twenty years old—a tall, slender, wonderfully handsome youth, with the air and manner of a prince. But nothing of this bearing was due to schools or schoolmasters, he was not of any man's moulding, although he had been educated for his future in a noble manner. For to escape the drudgery of measuring tape and molasses, he fled to the Indians when but a lad, and was adopted by their chief, and with the young braves he learned to run and leap, and hunt and ride, and find his way through pathless woods with all their skill. This was his practical education; he had only one book for mental enlargement, but this was Pope's translation of "The Iliad." He read and re-read this volume till he could recite it from beginning to end; till the words were living, and the spectral heroes were his friends and companions. So that when he joined GeneralJackson's battalion, he had the heart of a Greek demi-god and the physical skill and prowess of a Cherokee Indian chief.
He made a glorious record in this war, and, being severely wounded, both by arrows and gunshot, he returned to his home to be nursed by his mother. When he was able to rise again peace was assured and he resolved to become a lawyer. He was told that eighteen months' hard study would be necessary, but in six months he passed a searching examination, and was admitted to the bar of Tennessee withéclat. Then honor after honor came as naturally to him as a tree bears fruit or flower—first Adjutant-General of the State with the rank of Colonel; then District Attorney—Major-General—Member of Congress—Governor of the State of Tennessee. All these places and honors were awarded him by large majorities during a period of nine years. Indeed, betweenA.D.1818 and 1827, the records of Tennessee read like some political romance, of which the handsome and beloved Sam Houston was the hero.
This was his second school. He was learning during these years those great principles of government which enabled him afterward to legislate so wisely for the land he conquered. And as soon as he was ready for his destiny, an event happened which drove him back again to the wilderness. Concerning this event no human being has the right to speak authoritatively; it was an affair strictly between himself and his bride of hardly three months. But whatever occurred, shattered his life to pieces. He separated from his wife, resigned his office as governor, and in the presence of a vast and sorrowing multitude, bid adieu to all his friends and honors, and set his face resolutely to his Indian father, who was then king of the Cherokees in Arkansas.
He began, in fact, his journey to Texas, the theatre of the great work for which his previous life had been a preparation. The thought of Texas was not a new one to him. No man had watched the hitherto futile efforts of that glorious land for freedom with greater interest; and there is little doubt that Andrew Jackson was a sharer in all Houston's Texan enthusiasms, and that he also quietly encouraged and aided the efforts for its Americanization. Indeed, at that day Texas was a name full of romance and mystery. Throughout the South and West, up the great highway of the Mississippi, on the busy streets of New York, and among the silent hills of New England, men spoke of the charmed city of San Antonio as Europeans in the eighteenth century spoke of Delhi and Agra and the Great Mogul. French traders went there with fancy goods from New Orleans, and Spanish Dons from the wealthy cities of Central Mexico came there to buy. From the villages of Connecticut, from the woods of Tennessee, and the lagoons of the Mississippi, adventurous Americans entered the Spanish-Texan Territory at Nacogdoches, going through the land buying horses, and lending their stout hearts and ready rifles to every effort for freedom which the Texans made. For though the Americans were few in number and much scattered, they were like the salt in a pottage, and men caught fire and the idea of "freedom" from them.
Texas was at this time a territory of the Empire of Mexico, and Mexico wasmaking constant, though as yet ineffectual, efforts to become independent. Twenty years before Houston entered Texas, a number of Americans joined the priest Hidalgo in his struggle to make Mexico free. They were all shot, but this did not hinder Magee and Bernardo, with 1,200 Americans, raising the standard of liberty two years later. This party took San Antonio, and the fame of their deeds brought young Americans by hundreds to their aid; though they received no money, the love of freedom and the love of adventure being their motive and their reward.
But these brave paladins were soon followed by men who bought land and made homes, and in 1821 Austin, with the sanction of the Spanish Viceroy, introduced three hundred families, who received every reasonable guarantee from the Spanish Government. They were scarcely settled ere there was another Mexican revolt against Spain. This time the Mexicans under Santa Anna achieved the independence of their country, and a Mexican Republic was formed, with a constitution so liberal that it was gladly accepted by the American colonists. But its promises were fallacious. For ten years Santa Anna was engaged in fighting for his own supremacy, and when he had subdued all opposition he had forgotten the traditions of freedom for which he first drew his sword, and assumed the authority of a dictator.
In the meantime the American element had been steadily increasing, and Santa Anna was, not unnaturally, afraid of its growing strength and influence. In order to weaken it, he substituted for the constitution under whose guarantee they had settled, military and priestly laws of the most oppressive kind; and the complaints and reprisals at length reached such a pitch, that all Americans were ordered to deliver up their arms to the Mexican authorities. It was simply an order to disarm them in the midst of their enemies. Now the rifle is to the frontier American a third limb, and in Texas it was also necessary for the supply of food for the family, and vital for their protection from the Indians. The answer to this demand was a notice to Santa Anna posted on the very walls of the Alamo Fortress:
"If you want our arms—take them! Ten thousand Americans." This was a virtual declaration of war, but the American Texans were by no means unprepared for the idea, nor yet for its translation into practice.
Austin—who had been sent with a remonstrance to Santa Anna—was in the dungeons of the Inquisition in Mexico; but Houston, Lamar, Burleson, Burnet, Bowie, Crockett, Sherman, and many another name able to fire an army, were on the ground. Besides which, the sympathy of the whole land was with the little band of heroes. For the idea of Texas had been carried in the American heart for two generations. As far back as 1819, President Adams had wanted Texas, and Henry Clay would have voted three millions for it. Van Buren told Poinsett to offer five millions. Jackson added an additional half-million for the Rio Grande territory; but Jackson had more faith in Houston and the American settlers in Texas than in money. His brave old heart was on fire for the wrongs and cruelties inflicted by Santa Anna on his countrymen; and he was inclined tomake Mexico give Texas as an atonement for the insults offered them. There is little doubt that the defiance posted on the walls of the Alamo thrilled him with a similar defiance, and that he instinctively put his hand on the spot where he had been used to wear his sword.
The first step of the American-Texans was to set a civil government in motion. Declarations and manifestoes had to be made, and loans raised in order to maintain an army in the field. There were many fine fighters, but Houston was the only statesman; and to him the arduous duty naturally fell. In the meantime Lamar and Burleson with 200 picked men attacked the Alamo Fortress. It was defended by General Cos with 1,000 men and forty-eight cannon; but on the afternoon of the third day's fighting surrendered to the Americans. This was but the first act in the drama, for as soon as the news reached Mexico, Santa Anna with a large "army of subjugation" was on the road to Texas.
The Alamo was taken by the Americans during the first day of December, 1835; on March 2, 1836, Texas was declared by the Convention assembled at the settlement of Washington, to be an independent republic, and 55 out of 56 votes elected Houston commander in chief. Houston immediately set out for the Alamo, but when he reached Gonzales he heard that every man in it had died fighting, and that Santa Anna had made a huge hecatomb of their bodies and burned them to ashes. Houston immediately sent an express to Fannin, who was defending Goliad, to blow up the fortress of Goliad, and unite with him on the Guadalupe. Fannin did not obey orders. He wrote to Houston that "he had named the placeFort Defiance, and was resolved to defend it." This decision distressed Houston, for Fannin's men were of the finest material—young men from Georgia and Alabama, fired with the idea of freedom and the spread of Americanism, or perhaps with the fanaticism of religious liberty of conscience. After reading Fannin's letter, Houston turned to Major Hockley, and said, as he pointed to the little band of men around him, "Those men are the last hope of Texas; with them we must achieve our independence, or perish in the attempt."
He immediately sent wagons into all the surrounding country to gather the women and the children, for he anticipated the atrocities which would mark every mile of Santa Anna's progress through the country; and he was determined that these helpless non-combatants should be placed in comparative safety in the eastern settlements. Then commenced one of the grandest and most pathetic "retreats" history has any record of. Encumbered by hundreds of women and children in every condition of helplessness, the bravery, tenderness, and patience of these American soldiers is as much beyond credence as it is beyond praise. The whole weeping, weary company were to guard, and to forage for; yet the men were never too weary to help mothers still more exhausted, or to carry some child whose swollen feet could no longer bear its weight. On this terrible march many children were lost, many died, and many were born; and the whole company suffered from deprivations of every kind.
On March 23d Houston wrote to General Rusk, "Before my God, I have found the darkest hours of my life! For forty-eight hours I have neither eatennor slept!" And just at this time came the news that Fannin with 500 men had been massacred, after fighting until their ammunition gave out, and surrendering as prisoners of war under favorable terms of capitulation. This news was answered by a passionate demand for vengeance, and Houston, gathering his men around him, spoke words which inspired them with an unconquerable courage. His large, bright face, serious but hopeful, seemed to sun the camp, and his voice, loud as a trumpet with a silver tone, set every heart to its loftiest key.
"They live too long," he cried, "who outlive freedom, and I promise you a full cup of vengeance!" But in words not to be gainsayed, he told them theymustput their women and children in safety first of all. Then he explained the advantages they were gaining by every mile they made the enemy follow them—how the low Brazos land, the unfordable streams, the morasses, and the pathless woods were weakening, separating, and confusing the three great bodies of Mexicans behind. He declared the freedom of Texas to be sure and certain, and bid them prepare to achieve it.
When they arrived at Harrisburgh they found Santa Anna had burned the place. It was evident then, that the day and the hour was at hand. Houston transported the two hundred families he had in charge across the Buffalo Bayou, which was twenty feet deep, and the very home of alligators. He then destroyed the only bridge across the dangerous stream, and wrote the following letter, now in the archives of the Texas Republic:
"This morning we are in preparation to meet Santa Anna. We will only be about seven hundred to march, besides the camp guard. But we go to conquest. The troops are in fine spirits, and now is the time for action. I leave the results in the hands of an all-wise God, and I rely confidently in His Providence."Sam Houston."
"This morning we are in preparation to meet Santa Anna. We will only be about seven hundred to march, besides the camp guard. But we go to conquest. The troops are in fine spirits, and now is the time for action. I leave the results in the hands of an all-wise God, and I rely confidently in His Providence.
"Sam Houston."
Both armies were on the field of San Jacinto, and Santa Anna had with him nearly two thousand men, against the 700 with General Houston. Houston advanced to the attack at three o'clock in the afternoon, with the war cry of "Remember the Alamo!" It was taken up by 700 men with such a shout of vengeance as mortal ears never heard before. With it on their lips they advanced close to the Mexican lines, while a storm of bullets went over their heads. Houston and his horse were both wounded, but both being of the finest metal, they pressed on regardless of wounds. The Americans did not answer the volley until they could pour their lead into the bosoms of their foes. They never thought of reloading, but clubbing their rifles until they broke, they then flung them away, and fired their pistols into the very eyes of the Mexicans. When nothing else remained, they drew their bowie knives and cut their way through the walls of living flesh.
Nothing comparable to that charge for freedom was ever made. Men said afterward that the unseen battalions—the mighty dead as well as the mighty living—won the battle. "Poor Fannin!" exclaimed General Sherman, "he has been blamedfor disobeying orders; but I think he obeyed orders to-day!" Men fought like spirits, impetuous, invincible, as if they had cast off flesh and blood. The battle began at three o'clock in the afternoon of April 21, 1836, and after the Americans reached the Mexican line, it lastedjust eighteen minutes. At four o'clock the whole Mexican army was flying, and the pursuit and slaughter continued until dark. It was a military miracle, for the American loss was only eight killed and seventeen wounded. Of the Mexicans, 630 were left dead on the field; multitudes perished in the bayou and morass; and there were nearly eight hundred prisoners. Only seven men are known to have escaped either death or capture. Santa Anna was found hiding in coarse clothing, and Houston had the greatest difficulty to save his life. For Houston knew that the lives of all the Americans in Mexico were in danger, besides which, he was needed to secure the peace and independence of Texas. It required Houston's influence, however, to convince men whose fathers and brothers and sons had been brutally massacred at Goliad and the Alamo, that their private vengeance must give way to the public good.
Just about the time that the battle of San Jacinto was fought, President Jackson was one day found by Mr. Buchanan studying earnestly the map of Texas. He was tracing Houston's plan of retreat—of which he had doubtless received information—and putting his finger upon San Jacinto he said, "Here is the place! If Sam Houston is worth one bawbee, he will make a stand here, and give them a fight!" A few days after this declaration, news was received in Washington that the fight had been given and won on that very spot.
The annexation of Texas was now publicly, as it had long been privately, the hope and goal of the Government; and for this end Jackson, says Mr. Parton, "displayed an energy and pugnacity seldom exhibited before or since, by a politician in his seventy-seventh year." But "failure" was a word not in Jackson's vocabulary; he annexed Texas, and dying as the measure was accomplished, talked only in his last moments of Texas and Houston.
Houston was elected President of the new Republic by acclamation, and he served the State two terms in this capacity. Both were marked by the finest statesmanship; and during them the Texans suffered little from the ferocious Apache, Comanche, and other Indian tribes. For Houston fearlessly slept in their camps, and treated them as brethren; and his Indian "Talks" have an Ossianic poetry about them. Thus he writes to the Indian Chief Linney: "The red brothers know that my words to them have never been forgotten by me. They have never been swallowed up in darkness, nor has the light of the sun consumed them. Truth cannot perish, but the words of a liar are as nothing. Talk to all the red men, and tell them to make peace. War cannot make them happy. It has lasted too long. Let it now be ended and cease forever," etc., etc.
After the annexation of Texas, Houston represented the State for three terms in the United States Senate; but in 1859 he failed of re-election, because he refused to go with the South on the fatal subject of Secession. Yet so great was the confidence of the people in his honor and ability, that they elected him Governor of Texas in the same year; and he entered on the office in December,1859. The election of Mr. Lincoln in 1860 precipitated events; and though Houston used all his mighty personal influence, and all his charmful, potent eloquence to keep Texas inthe Union, he failed, and was deposed from the Governorship on his refusal to sign the Ordinance of Secession.
Then he calmly withdrew from the scene, and there are many living who remember his pathetic parting words. "I have seen," he said, "the statesmen and patriots of my youth gathered to their fathers, and the government which they had reared rent in twain, and none like them are now left to reunite it again. I stand almost the last of a race who learned from them the lessons of human freedom!"
These events inflicted a mortal wound upon his great spirit, and when he heard the roar of the cannon announcing the secession of Texas, he turned to his wife and said, "My heart is broken!" The words were only too true; for two years he lingered a sad and solemn old man, mourning for the woes of his country and for the defection of his eldest son Sam, who had joined the Confederates, and been taken prisoner by the Northern army. He was also suffering from the wounds received both in the war of 1812 and also at San Jacinto; and it was evident that he had come to the close of life. He himself looked forward to the event without fear, and with a wise and well-grounded hope.
On March 2, 1863, Houston was seventy, and in response to an ovation in his own city of Houston, he made a short, broken little speech. It was his last public effort, and from it he went back home to Huntsville, to die. His last days were spent in incessant and heart-broken prayers for his country and for his family; and on July 26, 1863, three weeks after the fall of Vicksburg, he breathed his last to the words "Texas! Texas!"
So honestly and unselfishly had this great man lived that he died in poverty, needing many comforts; this hero, who by his valor and statesmanship had increased the territory of the United States by more thaneight hundred thousand square miles, or about the equivalent ofthe thirteen original States! But the splendor of his name is not to be touched by such an accident as poverty; to the people of Texas, Houston will ever be a beloved memory; and on the Roll of Fame he shines forth, the noblest, the most princely, the most picturesque and chivalrous character in American history.[Back to Contents]