Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/58

 50 Southern Historical Society Papers.

books and to deliver up the specie, which was fairly divided, the sum of $160 being received by each officer and man. San Antonio having valuable stores owned by private individuals, it was feared that ma- rauding stragglers might sack the city. Mr. Lasker, in conjunction with others from his regiment, assisted the civil authorities in main- taining order until the arrival of Colonel Pyron, who organized a body of men to protect the place and its inhabitants, and remained there under discipline doing guard duty until such dangers had passed.

As a general rule the depredations of the soldiery were confined to the property of the Confederate government, to which they considered themselves entitled. In but few instances was the property of citi- zens disturbed or interfered with. Notwithstanding the demoralizing effect of the sudden release of a large body of soldiery from all dis- cipline or restraint their behavior towards the citizens was in the main exemplary. A terrible calamity had fallen upon all alike, and when military organization was abandoned the soldiers fraternized with the people, and the people opened their arms to those who had been their defenders as though they were returning crowned with the laurels of victory. The soldiers of the Texas army were impatient of discipline, but braver men never lived. They were of the same material as those who made name and tame for Texas across the Mississippi. Fathers serving in Tennessee had sons here with Green, Walker or Polignac ; one brother would be marching and fighting, ragged and barefooted, in Virginia, while another followed the flag through the swamps of Louisiana. They were of the same blood and of the same families with those who composed Hood's brigade and Terry's rangers, which organizations deserve to rank in valor with the legions of Csesar and the battalions of Napoleon.

The disbanding of the troops began about the middle of May, and up to the 3ist there were men under arms in isolated commands or where remnants of regiments still devoted to the 'cause kept together and refused to accept the inevitable; but the forces continued to be depleted day by day.

On May 2ist part of a regiment still remained at Corpus Christi; on the agth the force at Galveston was scarcely sufficient to man the forts, and by the ist of June, with the exception of scattered detach- ments at different points in the State, the army which had won renown throughout the war on many fields, from New Mexico to the Mississippi, passed into a memory.