Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/77

Rh, he habitually endorsed the envelopes with postscripts, to show to all that his force did not exceed twenty-five hundred, believing that success would fail to come to his aid if his real situation were known. The report that he had a command of twenty-five hundred men had no other origin.

News came from Fort Bend, about the nth of April, that Santa Anna, with the centre division of Mexicans, had already crossed the river at that place. The vigilance enjoined was not maintained by the company stationed at that place, consequently a negro took the ferry-boat over to the western side of the river, which enabled the Mexicans at once to cross the river, which, as it was at high flood, they could not have crossed in a month. A month's delay in crossing would have enabled Houston to maintain his position until his army was reinforced, from the confidence inspired by safety. Circumstances fortunately conspired in favor of Houston and the Texans. Gaono, and the upper division of the Mexican army, had lost their way on the march, and ascended the Colorado, High waters delayed the southern division under Urrea, and the Brazos was not passed at all. That Harrisburg had become the seat of Government, after the Convention had adjourned, March 17th, was known to Santa Anna, and he was prepared to take advantage of the panic which the flying officers of the Republic had spread over the country. Such was the consternation with which the Convention broke up, that only seven of its members found their way to the army in the field. The disastrous consequences of terrible panic among leading men were only thoroughly conceived by those w^ho were on the ground. Owing to this cause more than to any other, Houston received no more reinforcements in this fearful and trying crisis. A government ad interim had been created by a constitutional act of the Convention. A President, Vice-President, Secretaries of War, Navy, and the Treasury, with all powers, except law-making, incident to a government, had been appointed, ad interim, and then the Convention adjourned to Harrisburg, a point not less than seventy miles from the scene of war. The flight of the wise and worthy men of the country from danger, tended to frighten the old, young, and helpless, furnish excuses to the timid, and " sanction the course of the cowardly." The general dismay following the adjournment of the Convention, induced many brave men, impelled irresistibly by natural impulses, to go to their abandoned, fugitive wives and children to render them protection. It has been often declared by Gen. Houston that of all the circumstances which befell him in the struggle for Texas,