Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/598

 was called. The provisional government had become extinct; self-combustion had taken place, and it was utterly consumed.

The general proceeded on his way and met many fugitives. The day on which he left Washington, the 6th of March, the Alamo had fallen. He anticipated it; and marching to Gonzales as soon as practicable, though his health was infirm, he arrived there on the 11th of March. He found at Gonzales three hundred and seventy-four men, half fed, half clad, and half armed, and without organization. That was the nucleus on which he had to form an army and defend the country. No sooner did he arrive than he sent a dispatch to Colonel Fannin, fifty-eight miles, which would reach him in thirty hours, to fall back. He was satisfied that the Alamo had fallen. Colonel Fannin was ordered to fall back from Goliad, twenty-five miles to Victoria, on the Guadaloupe, thus placing him within striking distance of Gonzales, for he had only to march twenty-five miles to Victoria to be on the east side of the Colorado, with the only succor hoped for by the general. He received an answer from Colonel Fannin, stating that he had received his order; had held a council of war, and that he had determined to defend the place, and called it Port Defiance, and had taken the responsibility to disobey the order.

Under these circumstances, the confirmation of the fall of the Alamo reached the general. Was it policy to give battle there against an overwhelming force, flushed with victory and the massacre of the Alamo? Was it wisdom in him to put upon the hazard of a die three hundred and seventy-lour men, in the condition in which his troops were, against ten thousand choice, victorious troops of Mexico, backed by a nation of eight million people, when he had only to rely upon the voluntary casualties that might exist to sustain him? What did he do when he first went there? He ordered every wagon but one to be employed in transporting the women and children from the town of Gonzales, and had only four oxen and a single wagon, as he believed, to transport all the baggage and munitions of war belonging to Texas at that point. That was all he had left. He had provided for the women and children; and every female and child left but one, whose husband had just perished in the Alamo; and, disconsolate, she would not consent to leave there until the rear-guard was leaving the place, but invoked the murderous hand of the Mexicans to fall upon and destroy her and her children.

Though the news of the fall of the Alamo arrived at eight or nine o'clock at night, that night, by eleven o'clock, the Commander-in-chief had everything in readiness to march, though panic raged, and frenzy seized upon many; and though it took all his personal influence to resist the panic and bring them to composure, with all the encouragement he could use, he succeeded. An example of composure himself, he at last got the excitement allayed, but not until twenty-five persons had deserted and carried panic with them to the eastern section of the country, as far as the Sabine, announcing the fall and massacre of the Alamo, and the massacre of the troops. He fell back, but fell back in good order.

An incident that I will mention, of the most unpleasant character, occurred on leaving Gonzales. On that night, about twelve miles from there, it was announced to the general that the Mexicans would suffer; that a barrel of gin and a barrel of wine had been poisoned with arsenic, and that, as they came to consume it, it would destroy them. I presume no man ever had such feelings