A PIVOTAL POINT
Weare but beginning to understand what this America of ours is to do for the Old World. If we consider it under the figure of a vast steamship journeying to the relief of the mother nations, surely the beef and the flour, the cotton and the corn, even the inventions, with which it is freighted, form the least portion of its immeasurable cargo of supplies. Now, imagining our republic to be such a vessel, if Alaska be the stern and Florida the prow turned toward the other hemisphere for the peaceful conquest thereof, then must New York on the left hand and Texas upon the right be, in the days to come, the great paddle-wheels which shall drive it onward—New York not more so in a commercial than Texas in an agricultural sense. But it is with Texas only that we have here to do, and this in order to detail certain things hitherto unpublished which may not be without their use to the Humes and Motleys, the Froudes and Macaulays, of our nation in the wonderful future.
It is well to bear in mind from the outset that Texas is by far the largest of the States. To get even an idea of this, place within its boundaries New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania: even then you must pack into the crevices between these two or three granite boulders each of the size of Massachusetts to make a solid territory as large as Texas. As to that, however, Alaska is vast, and so is Sahara. If you set out upon a journey south and south-westward, beginning at the Potomac, and visit every Southern State in its order upon the map, you will find—and that almost immediately upon your arrival in Texas—that you have reached that State of them all which surpasses the others as much in prosperity as it does in dimensions. Near as Texas is to the equator, the oxygen of its abnormal growth is perceived by the newcomer in almost his first breath. There is a combination of causes for this. The Puritan who landed on Plymouth Rock gave character to, andtransmitted himself down, the after ages of New England history; and the same is true of the influence of the Connecticut Austin who in 1820 began the settlement of Texas. The lapse of two centuries may have given a more earthward direction to the old energy, but the energy itself is there; and, somehow, the character and history of this larger New England of the West have been along the same line. Everything has helped forward the prosperity of the State. General health, moderate taxation, fertility of soil, astonishing diversity of product, cheap and rapid construction of railroads along lines both of latitude and longitude, immeasurable reserves of alternate sections of land held sacred for education,—these are some of the causes which are attracting an immigration of about a hundred thousand a year to a realm so vast that the two millions already there seem but pioneers of the coming hosts.
But that which strikes the stranger most is the seemingly small proportion of negroes to whites in comparison with other Southern States; and this is becoming more marked every year. In one thing the population seems to be unanimous, and that is that Texas shall remain, vast as it is, one undivided State, a recent legislature having set apart three millions of acres toward the construction of a new capitol at Austin which shall be worthy of that one of the United States which is also, and in itself, an empire so much larger than Germany that to bring the balance to a level you must cast into the scale with it Jamaica, Holland, Denmark, Belgium and Greece. There is the momentum as of its enormous bulk in the prosperity of Texas; and not a man of us, however wide awake he is, but is a Rip Van Winkle as to what it is coming to be.
But all this is said in order to something else. Heaven knows that the history of Texas was romantic enough during the era of the mysterious Aztec, then of the Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Mexican, and after that of the original and unadulterated Texan of the battles of '36, and yet there is a page, unprinted hitherto, of its annals, in connection with the Confederacy, which is, in some senses, the most interesting of all. To appreciate it one must remember that, unlike any other State, Texas was once a republic which had won its independence with its own sword. Of its own free will it deliberately abdicated its nationality as such to become one of the United States. When the fever of Secession set in, of all the Southern States it was, on account both of its size and strategic location, the most important. An anecdote in regard to Mr. Lincoln may illustrate this. One of the early settlers of Texas was a gentleman whom I will designate as Mr. S——. There is hardly a citizen of the State but will know who is meant, so long and thoroughly has he been recognized over its broad domain for his indomitable energy, sagacity and magnificent success, as well as for an integrity and high sense of honor unimpeached by any. Except as he was compelled by the very qualities of his clear-headed character to be a Union man during the rebellion, Mr. S—— has never meddled in politics, and no man stands higher to-day in the estimation of the best men in Texas than he. As a Union man he was obliged to absent himself from the State during the war, and was in Washington in 1864. As soon as Mr. Lincoln knew of his arrival he sent for him, and held three different interviews with him in regard to Texas. During these conversations the President dwelt at length and with the utmost energy upon the necessity, in a military sense, of Texas to the Federal cause. "If we held Texas," he said, "we should not only outflank the Confederacy by land, but by water also;" and he developed the statement in all its details. "Go back," he entreated Mr. S——, "and say to your State that if it will return to the Union the slaves will not be interfered with."
"But the Emancipation Proclamation has been issued," Mr. S—— exclaimed.
"No matter for that. We will consent to any plan for gradual emancipation the Texans will make," replied the President: "they may arrange for it not to go into effect for forty years to come if they will but return. We will fix it to suit them. One thing is certain," he went on: "evenif the Confederacy should succeed with the other Southern States, we will never give up Texas. With it we can fence in the Confederacy, and whatever befalls we can never let Texas go—never!"
After much further conversation the President led Mr. S—— to the window and pointed to the trees. "Do you see," he said, "how the buds upon those boughs are swelling as they yield to the coming spring and summer? So is it in regard to the matters of which we are speaking: there is a Power mightier than we which, inevitable, irresistible, is dealing with them. Upon that Power we also can afford to wait. But we will never give up Texas, Mr. S——: never!"
Let it be added here, as casting light upon the characteristics of Texas, that it was never conquered by the Federal forces. Although attacked often and from almost every quarter, it invariably repelled the assault. When it succumbed at last it was from within, and not as the result of any victory achieved by Federal troops upon its own soil. But all this is merely to show that, superior in many respects to every other Southern State, the case of Texas was unique in almost every point of view; and this is stated with reference to what is now to follow.
When the rebellion began, General Sam Houston, who had been president of Texas when it was a republic, was governor of the State. In common with the overwhelming majority of the people, Houston was utterly hostile to Secession. With them he knew too well what Texas had been and how it had come into the Union. There was a certain grand inertia of the great State which resisted the noisy efforts of South Carolina to drag it out, as a stately ship resists, of itself and although its crew be passive, the attempts of a little tug to tow it along. Not one-fourth of the people of the State voted, when the test came, for Secession, and no man opposed it more determinedly than did its governor. If, like Texas among the States, he towered among men, almost a giant in stature and breadth of person, like Texas also he was peculiar every way. It required men of marked individuality to settle the country, to wrest it from Mexico, to erect it into a republic; and no Texan was more emphatically "himself and nobody else" than was the ponderous chief magistrate. Manifold stories illustrative of this are still afloat there: let one suffice, even if it shows also the weakness of the man. One morning when he was president of the republic the envoy from France called to confer with him upon an affair of critical importance. The executive mansion was but a log-cabin boarding-house at the time, and the only thing to be done was for the portly president to promenade up and down the long porch in front of the building, the envoy, who was the most polished and nervous of Frenchmen, walking by his side. But a small nurse-girl was engaged in drawing a screaming baby upon the porch in a roughly-constructed child's wagon. When he passed it the president said, with the politeness which always characterized him when anything female was in question, "Will you be so kind as to roll your charge somewhere else?" The nurse merely stared at him, and continued to drag the squalling infant up and down upon the squeaking wheels, the president and the envoy conferring together as well as they could as they walked. "My young friend," the former remonstrated at last as he halted before the girl, "I will esteem it a singular favor if you will go elsewhere." But it was little the nurse cared for the affairs of empires, and she paid no attention to the request. It so chanced that when the rival occupants of the porch passed each other the next time it was opposite the steep steps leading down into the yard, the Frenchman being upon that side. As the president came upon the rolling nuisance, now noisier than before, he whirled about. "I had rather," he shouted to the astonished girl, his face ablaze, his arms extended, "meet all hell in harness, and be dragged down the streets of the New Jerusalem by wild horses, than meet your horrible cart!" and, glancing around for his companion, he saw that in the violence of his explosion he had hurled the represented majesty of France down the steps and into the dirt.
He was an older man when Jeff Davis came along trundlinghisspecies of nuisance upon their common path, but he was no milder in his denunciation. Morning, noon and night, in public addresses and in private conversation, he left no shadow of doubt in the mind of any as to his opinion of Secession and its certain result. "Texas and the Federal government are like two noble mastiffs," he told the people from the steps of the Capitol at Austin in the earliest days of the rebellion, "and these miserable politicians are like little curs snapping and snarling about them to provoke them to fight. When the mastiffs are launched at last into bloody battle these wretched curs, holding themselves carefully out of danger, will circle about the big dogs which are tearing each other to pieces, with their shrill bow-wow-wows." And the writer remembers how well the old hero imitated as he said it, and with more accuracy than dignity, the vicious feebleness of the querulous spaniels.
Nor was the governor backward in doing also what he could to save his State from the coming chaos. A well-known and efficient lawyer of Texas hastened to Washington and had an audience with President Buchanan at the very outset of things, commissioned, doubtless, to do so by General Houston. "Relieve the officer now in command of that department," he urged upon Buchanan, "and appoint Houston in his place. Do that, do it at once, and we can assure you that you need have no fear of seeing Texas secede." The poor President shrank aghast from the proposition. We know how clerical in appearance Mr. Buchanan was, especially in the spotless whiteness of his ample necktie. "When I mentioned Houston to him," the lawyer said afterward, "he turned as pale as his cravat."
What was to be done? Governor Houston demanded it of himself as he sat and whittled shingles in his easy-chair at the executive office in the basement of the Capitol. General Twiggs was in command of the United States troops in that department, and they comprised one-fourth of the entire army then at the disposal of the Federal government. There were one hundred and twenty-one commissioned officers then in Texas—three thousand troops in thirteen forts and ten camps, including seven companies of the Third Infantry. At the general's head-quarters in San Antonio were fifty-five thousand dollars in cash, and thirty-five thousand stand of arms and seventy cannon within reach, with horses, mules, ammunition, wagons, tents, in abundance. In other words, General Twiggs, with a disciplined army and military stores of the value of over three millions of dollars, was available for resistance to Secession. But what about the officer in command? When General Twiggs shortly before had gone on leave of absence to Georgia, he had left Robert E. Lee in charge, remarking even at that early date, "If Old Hickory were President he could hold things." But Twiggs had returned, and Lee had left Texas, saying, "I am going to Virginia to turn planter. There will be at least one soldier the less to do the fighting." Could the governor rely upon General Twiggs? Captain R.M. Potter of the army, then in Texas, assures the writer that Twiggs did it merely as a ruse and to save time, but the governor had received tidings from him two months before that he could rely upon him. As it was, the United States troops were scattered six hundred miles along the frontier, and something must be done, secretly and instantly. Governor Houston knew that he could count upon many thousand volunteers. And not upon men merely as Union men: throughout the State were multitudes of those whose devotion to Houston was more almost of a religious nature than a matter of politics. These "Houston men" would have rallied to him rifle in hand, more or less indifferent to the cause he espoused, so that if there was to be a fight, and Houston was to command, he could have had plenty of soldiers, whoever and whatever was to be fought for or against.
And so the old governor sat awaiting events, a King Canute upon the seashore, and the ocean already lapping his feet. Almost every one of the many papers of Texas was ablaze with the prairie-fires ofSecession. Everywhere the men were being rapidly organized into companies, ladies were making and presenting banners, editors, recruits, haranguing politicians rushing into the affair as purely from sentimental considerations, and with as little sound consideration, as the youngest and most frivolous of the excited beauties who were decking out lovers and brothers to their death. But the Secession convention assembled at Austin: how could the governor prevent it? Resisting the importunities of inflamed, remonstrating, exasperated, vituperative, threatening men, the old man sat in the executive department silently whittling away, a cypress shingle in one hand, a jack-knife in the other. The swarming politicians could not but revere and be afraid of him. Was he not "Old Sam," "the hero of San Jacinto"? He had been president of the republic, United States Senator, possible President of the United States. He was, as has been said, a very large man, of commanding aspect, and he threw his whole weight, so to speak, into his detestation and denunciation of Jeff Davis and all his crew.
As he sat and whittled he could not but hear the uproar in the legislative hall overhead in which the convention was assembled: the vehement applause of clapping hands and stamping feet reached his ears, even if he could not hear the eloquence which had aroused it. So far, he had fired blank shot only from behind his entrenchments, but he outnumbered—and all knew it—in his one person, and ten times over, the throngs of brave but mistaken men discussing and rushing through grandiloquent resolutions above, not a man of whom but was thinking all along of the governor down stairs as of a sort of legitimate Guy Fawkes who might at any moment blow their noisy parliament to the moon. "What do you think Old Sam will do?" That was the question of the day with them beyond every other. Alas! that was the conundrum which the governor, ponder as he might, was so far unable to answer. He had conquered and driven out the Mexicans; had sent the Texan soldiers home with the one charge, "Go and plant corn;" had seen Texas grow into a republic under his care; had rejoiced when he had helped place it in the Union. Now the imperial State was in the act of being hurled into what he confidently regarded as the most causeless of catastrophes; but what could he do? That was the supreme question. "What can I do to prevent it? What ought I to do, to-day and before it is too late?"
Early one morning a man entered the executive office, locked the door behind him and walked up to the pondering governor, his felt hat in his hand. It was not his name, but I will content myself with calling him Jack Jones. You would not have looked at him a second time had you passed him in the street, for he was merely a tall, pallid-faced, pigeon-chested, stoop-shouldered victim, apparently, of consumption, and as mild as could be desired in tone and manner. Governor Houston knew him well, however—knew him so well that he gave him a cordial reception and listened to him to the end as his visitor proceeded to unfold his plans. They were exceedingly simple, and in substance this: "I hate these scoundrels of the convention as much as you do, governor, and you know it, and you knowme! I have got eight hundred men of the same stripe up in Burnet county. We have plenty of guns and ammunition, and are more than ready. We can save Texas. Only say the word, governor, and we will clean out the convention in twenty-four hours. What do you say?"
The governor debated with himself as he sat. Suppose he consented. There would be a fight, possibly a bloody massacre. Might not the Secessionists call another convention to meet at Galveston, Houston, somewhere else? In any case, war, civil war in its worst form, would follow. Hat in hand, the messenger waited for his answer. "Thank you, but not quite yet," the governor said. "Go back to Burnet county and hold your men in readiness. When I send for you come, and come quick."
There was no time to be lost. "But these men: how am I to feed them whenthey come?" the chief magistrate asked of himself.
"About two months before the passage of the Secession ordinance," said the Mr. S—— to whom allusion has already been made, and in reluctant answer to the questioning of the writer, "General Houston, Mrs. Houston and some of their children drove out to my house in the country near Austin, ostensibly upon a friendly visit. General Houston and myself took seats on the porch, while the ladies retired to the parlor. After some of the usual small-talk, the general remarked of the roses then in bloom, 'I see you have a beautiful garden: let us take a walk among them.' We did so, but soon took our seats in the arbor. There, after pledging me to secrecy, he said, 'Although Mr. Lincoln is not yet inaugurated, he has sent a Mr. Lander to me as an agent to assure me of all the aid I need the day he takes office if I can but hold the State until then. General Twiggs,'the governor added,'has agreed to do what he can to help me. I have eight hundred men waiting to come at a word. Volunteers will pour in. I am sure that I can, with the aid of General Twiggs, hold Texas against any force the Confederacy can send. But my men must be supplied with powder and lead, and must be fed. Above all,' added the governor, 'they must have plenty of coffee. Can you undertake the task? I am not going to rob the State treasury, but I pledge you my honor as governor that you shall be paid in the end. Abundant assurances have been made me from Washington that the money will be on hand as soon as Lincoln is inaugurated, and no appropriation will be necessary from the State.'
"The next day," continued Mr. S—— in narrating the facts to me, "I saw the governor in his office. Locking himself with me into an inner apartment, we discussed the whole matter, and I agreed to supply five hundred thousand rations, and as many more as possible, the governor insisting again and again upon there being, whatever else might be lacking, an abundance of coffee. For these rations I was to be paid at the rate of thirty cents each, and transportation. The governor then wrote out the contract, spelling out every word aloud, according to his habit, as he did so. I hastened away with the contract duly signed, and, going down to Houston and Galveston, I purchased two hundred and fifty-seven sacks of Rio coffee to begin with—all I could find—and enough percussion-caps, bacon, rice and flour to meet the emergency impending. Meanwhile, I could not but laugh at what seemed to me the puerile efforts at fortification going on in Galveston;" and my friend paused, as he told me the story yesterday, to unroll and put into my hand the commission given him by the governor as quartermaster-general upon his staff with the rank of colonel.
"In two weeks," continued Mr. S——, "I was back again, but the instant the governor had locked me with him into his inner office he turned to me with rage in his face. 'Sir,' he said to me in a manner and tone of voice which I can never forget, 'Twiggs is a traitor!' Then he sank into a chair, the tears trickling down his heroic countenance, and sobbed like a child. He then clenched his fist and smote the table with what seemed to be a suppressed curse, long and deep. After he had somewhat recovered he repeated to me the message Captain Smith had brought him from Twiggs. It was in such cautious language as to the general's isolation and want of instructions from Washington that I suggested to Governor Houston that possibly he misunderstood General Twiggs. 'No, sir,' the governor exclaimed, again smiting the table with his huge fist, 'there can be no mistake. Twiggs is a traitor! We are to have a fearful civil war;' and he appealed to God for wisdom and protection in a manner which touched me to the heart. In a few weeks thereafter," added Mr. S——, "the ordinance of Secession was passed, and Twiggs surrendered everything to a stageload of politicians and a preconcerted show of a few men improvised as soldiers whom a corporal's guard of loyal men could have easily dispersed if there had been any one to give orders. About a year after this an ex-governor of Texas and an ardent Secessionist whispered to me in thestreet, 'Take my advice and destroy that contract with General Houston.' How it had become known that there was such a contract is and for ever will be a mystery to me. But the pity of the whole thing was that Governor Houston was not the man he had once been—was too old."
Mr. S—— was perhaps the largest merchant at the capital, but the choicest of his merchandise just then was seven tons of rifle-powder. This was seized ere long by the Confederate authorities. When Mr. S—— protested against it and refused Confederate money in payment, the State treasurer hastened to give him his price for the powder in silver thalers which happened to be rusting in the vaults. Would the Federal authorities have been as complaisant toward a man in their midst known to be a rebel and who refused greenbacks? Surely, as in the hesitation already alluded to of Twiggs and Lee, while the feelings of the leaders were fired their judgment must to the last have remained but half convinced as to the justice, and therefore ultimate success, of the Confederate cause. Gallant as, in most instances, they were, they would have struck more unhesitatingly, more vigorously, more victoriously, had every man been able to put his entire self, brain and conscience as well as heart, into the blow.
It was extremely little of themselves that the Union men of Texas invested in their show of obedience to Secession when that was required of them at last. How well the writer recalls the rueful aspect of a body of these who, to save themselves from worse things, had been organized into a military company! They comprised some of the best citizens of Austin, but Falstaff himself did not have, morally speaking, as forlorn a set of recruits when they formed into dismal lines under the trees of Court-house Square. Every man had his weapons, but they dispensed with music: gladly would they have marched and countermarched without a flag also. But there were ladies ardent in the cause of Secession who, unasked and with malicious haste, constructed a particularly large and gorgeous Confederate flag for them. If it was presented with enthusiasm, it was received by the dolorous warriors in sepulchral silence, and the wheelings hither and thither of the ununiformed heroes thereafter were more funereal, if possible, than before. The one spark of hope in every bosom was that in some way Governor Houston or somebody else might suddenly employ them against the flag, more hateful to them than Fluellen's leek, which they were constrained for the time to flaunt. "Never mind, men," a certain Mr. O—— in their ranks whispered to them as they sadly trudged along—"never you mind. Some day we may prove to be themucilagearound which a Federal army will rally."
It so happened that the writer was about this time at the house of Captain Whitely, a noble-hearted officer of the army who remained true to the Union. It was in San Antonio, and one morning General Twiggs drove up in his carriage and entered the parlor. He was a large and unwieldy man, with an exceedingly red face, and he sat for a time in sombre silence. "Whitely," he said at last, "what can I do? The Southern people hate the North as Comanches do the whites, and the North returns the compliment. Five times have I written to General Scott, and not a word of instructions has he sent me. What can I do?"
Ignorant as the writer was of such matters, he easily conjectured, what Twiggs must have well known, that all despatches to and fro were intercepted. "Ah! what an opportunity!" he thought as he looked at the hesitating man—"what an opportunity for you to act on your own responsibility! You may become, if you do, as one of the immortals."
"You are my superior officer," was the only reply of Captain Whitely, who knew what Twiggs had already determined to do, himself in consequence thereof soon after a prisoner of war.
And so in a few days Governor Houston's fears were realized. Everything was surrendered to the Confederacy. As Twiggs rode through the streets of San Antonio with his disgraced army, many of them weeping as they went, in such triumphal procession as Rome never knewin its worst degradation, it was not for nothing that San Antonio had given a large majority against Secession. An old watchmaker known by everybody shouted as Twiggs went by, "Hurrah for General Hull!" But the people did not recognize the name of the man who in other days had dishonored America by his surrender. They should know what was meant. Mounting upon a goods box, his white hair upon the breeze, and in a voice heard by all, the aged patriot shouted, "Three cheers for Benedict Arnold!" In due time, as we know, the name of Twiggs was struck from the Army List as a coward and traitor, nor did he make a new name for himself in the Confederate ranks. The paymaster did not hand over the military chest to the new authorities. Was there not the half conviction as to Secession in this also? He placed it upon the porch of his house, and let them take it instead. I know not how true it is, but it is said that Davis could not be induced afterward to give employment to this man, whose name has slipped into oblivion from my memory also.
Somehow, there is always a flash of farce even in the agony of the darkest tragedy. When Twiggs surrendered his stores he demanded that somebody should receipt to him for the three millions of United States property which he gave up. Three small politicians stepped eagerly forward and signed the document. But Twiggs was not content. "I must have a more responsible name," he said. And so a Mr. M——, the wealthiest man in San Antonio, was brought in, and, "as a mere matter of form" he was told, he attached his name beneath that of the others. Afterward the possible import of what he had done began to dawn upon Mr. M——. One day, as he walked the troubled streets of San Antonio, he was observed to stop and soliloquize aloud. "A—— has signed that paper," he said to himself. "A——? Yes, he is worth about one thousand dollars. B——, he signed it, and he couldn't raise over three thousand to save his life. C——? Heavens! he is not worth one cent! Three millions of dollars! Good Lord! andIam responsible for it all!" and, slapping his hand upon his forehead, he rushed away to digest the thing in private.
The hurly-burly is hushed into silence now. Good men and bad, gallant but mistaken heroes, and those who faltered not in the fiercest blowing of the terrible storm—the whole period has come and gone. Like the sudden "northers" peculiar to Texas, the tempest broke upon it and passed away, leaving its imperial expanse all the greener and more fruitful, as if enriched by the blood of so many of its noblest sons. But for my part, as I look back into the darkness of those days, the central figure of them all is that of the old governor sitting in his chair in the basement of the Capitol, the tumultuous convention in session overhead, sorrowfully meditating what it were best to do. As he sat a day came when the officer of the gathering up stairs summoned the old man three times to come forward and take the oath of allegiance, as governor, to the Confederacy. I remember as yesterday the call thrice repeated—"Sam Houston! Sam Houston! Sam Houston!" but the man sat silent, immovable, in his chair below, whittling steadily on. The pert lieutenant-governor stepped at last with brisk willingness upon the platform, and was sworn in to an official nothingness in Houston's place. Very early next morning, when the old man went as usual to his office, he found his seat occupied by his smirk successor, and there was nothing for him to do but to abandon his last hope of help from any quarter and retire. Withdrawing to his plantation, he died before the war ended, a Union man still.
William M. Baker.