Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/395

 to detect the individuals who thus disgrace their colors and their country. Were it possible to rouse the Mexican people to resistance, no more effectual plan could be devised than the very one pursued by some of our volunteer regiments now about to be discharged. "The volunteers for the war, so far, give an earnest of better conduct, with the exception of the companies of Texas horse. Of the infantry, I have little or no complaint; but the mounted men from Texas have scarcely made an expedition without unwarrantably killing a Mexican." Sir, what an atrocity!—killing a Mexican upon an expedition! Kill a Mexican —monstrous!—this done in the face of day. Kill a Mexican! Why, sir, we hear of no such complaints when battalions fell at Monterey—I will not say how disposed of. We hear no such sympathetic complaints then. But killing one Mexican!—what a deed!! I grant you, that wherever there are instances of criminal injustice and outrage inflicted by the military, the authors of them deserve severe punishment; but a spirit of justice would suggest a course of propriety in this respect, which would punish the real offender and have a moral influence on all around. This has not been done, but whole corps have been stigmatized and denounced, and the most extraordinary reasons given for this most extraordinary conduct in a Commanding General. In lavishing further encomiums on the Texan troops, he says: "I have, in consequence, ordered Major Chevallier's command to Saltillo, where it can do less mischief than here, and where its services, moreover, are wanted."

"Where their services are wanted"—for what? To "do mischief"—that is, to kill more than "one Mexican," I suppose. Is it not strange that he should send these men, whom he is unable to restrain and control in the face of a large army, to a place where there was none to control them and restrain them from outrage on the Mexicans? Were "their services" wanted there for outrage and depredation? or were they sent there with a view of ascertaining whether new temptations would inspire with a stronger sense of duty?

"The constant recurrence of such atrocities, which I have been reluctant to report to the Department, is my motive for requesting that no more troops may be sent to this column from the State of Texas."

"No more troops from Texas." They had been an incumbrance to him, one would suppose; yet one of them, the gallant and lamented Walker, was mainly instrumental in saving the army from disaster at Palo Alto, and McCullough, who, in the General's report of the battle of Buena Vista, was only mentioned as having done very well, was designated as one of the spies sent on to Encarnacion, and was also a Texan. Instead of saying in that report that McCullough gave him information which saved the army, he spoke of him as one of the spies dispatched for information, but did not state that it was through him that he had derived it. Yes, sir, it was McCullough who reconnoitered the enemy's camp, and possessed himself of the first information of the advance of Santa Anna, and by communicating it to the General, enabled him to fall back from Agua Nueva to Buena Vista, where the gallant defense was made. Well, sir, does not all this look like strong prejudice against the Texans? Would it not, from this evidence, seem most conclusively that this prejudice which existed in the breast of the General, and was formed before he had any knowledge of the