Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/663



1878 there was published, at Austin, Texas, a pamphlet having a special interest as relates to the history of the State of Texas. It is entitled, "The Battle of San Jacinto, as viewed from both an American and Mexican Standpoint; its Details and Incidents as Officially Reported by Major-General Sam Houston, of the Texan Army; also, an Account of the Action written by Colonel Pedro Delgado, of General Santa Anna's Staff." The official report of General Houston has its place in the preceding pages of this volume.

The "roster" of the Texan army engaged in that battle, which in the pamphlet follows General Houston's report, is one of those permanent documents which will have a lasting interest, not only for the descendants of the men then engaged, but for their fellow-citizens and for the world at large. As the names of the Spartans who fell at Thermopylǽ were treasured as worthy of equal honor with their chieftain, so with the memory of Sam Houston should be sacredly guarded that of his brave associates, to whom the victory which saved a people and won a State was due. If the Plymouth obelisk holds engraved on granite the names of all that came to the northern extreme of the American Republic, the truest men of the North, the day ought not to be distant when a similar shaft shall enroll the names of these truest men of the South.

The Mexican report is worthy of perpetuation; that, so long as the annals of American history are read, the contrast between the style of thought and of expression with which the Anglo-Saxon settlers of Texas had to contend should be preserved as a memorial. Invited, as they were, by Santa Anna to settlement in Mexican territory, that they might strengthen the Republic established at the separation of the Mexican colonies from Spain, the very style of this report reveals the character of the man and his associates, who sought to force them to become the tools of the Dictator's personal ambition.

The special interest of this pamphlet is enhanced by the fact (647)