Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/126

 Houston and Rusk. The army desired that the hero of San Jacinto should resume command, but were entirely satisfied with Gen. Rusk. Gen. Lamar, having resigned his post as Secretary of War, repaired to the army with his commission, surrounded by his staff. How far the change was acceptable to the army, may be inferred from the fact, that when the nearly i,8oo troops in camp were asked for a demonstration of satisfaction with the new commander, "less than one in eighteen voted for him (Gen. Lamar), and the rest positively refused to serve under him."

On the occasion of the presentation of Gen. T. J. Rusk's portrait in the House of Representatives of Texas, April 1, 1879, Hon. Ashbel Smith eloquently said:

"On the result of the battle on the field of San Jacinto, on the twenty-first of April, 1836, turned the decision of the question whether Texas should become wholly Spanish, for Santa Anna had threatened that he would put to death every man, woman, and child west of the Sabine who would jabber English, and the massacre of the Alamo and of Fannin's command at Goliad, tell how bloodily he was executing his diabolical threat. We are accustomed to look on Santa Anna as a monster of crime. It is a mistake; he was the exponent of the race from Cortez and Pizarro down. As I just said, the question decided on the field of San Jacinto was, whether Texas should become wholly Spanish, with its despotism, religious and political, or a land of free institutions, with a representative government of the people, trial by jury, the habeas corpus, free thought, free speech, free politics, and tree religion. But this solution of the question at San Jacinto has not been restricted to Texas alone; it has drawn with it, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and planted in this vast region American institutions Not a few in the heat of sectional, political jealousies, have affected to consider San Jacinto as a sort of accidental scrimmage, in a big insurrection or pronunciamento, in which the Anglo-Americans had the luck to get the better of the Mexicans. The" contest between Texas and Mexico was war, organized war; it was a campaign in form and in reality, closed by a decisive battle. There were about 1,300 men in the Texan army on the Colorado, — the hope, the sole reliance and defense of the homes, of the wives and children of our people. Against this slender force came rushing, like a torrent, Gen. Santa Anna, with an army of 10,000 men, compact, disciplined, well armed, supplied with an ample military chest, with unbounded confidence in their General, whom they proudly styled the Napoleon of the West. Like wolves infuriated by the smell of fresh blood, the Mexicans were maddened by the gore, still green, of the murdered men of the Alamo and Goliad. Had Houston then and there given battle to Santa Anna, overwhelming numbers must have told; the Texan army crushed, scattered, cut to pieces, what would, alas! have been the fate of the v/omen, with their children fleeing, or attempting in vain to flee, before the squadrons of Santa Anna? But Houston fell back slowly, covering, protecting their escape. Santa Anna crowded on, became confident and careless, extending his invading lines until every part of them was weak, and with his own chosen corps pursuing with forced marches, lest Houston should escape.