173 
 
 K/ 
 
 t 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ■ * 
 
 THE 
 
 ANNA S. GURLEY 
 
 MEMORIAL BOOK FUND 
 
 FOR THE PURCHASE OF BOOKS 
 IN THE FIELD OF THE DRAMA 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 William F. E. Gurley 
 
 CLASS OF 1877 
 1935 
 
Date Due 
 
 I iiii?™fiii3,US„ .f.!?.?,,. Mexican war- 
 
 3 1924 028 751 935 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028751935 
 
TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
GHADDATES' EDITION 
 
 VOLUME 24 
 
 THE CHRONICLES 
 
 OF AMERICA SERIES 
 
 ALLEN JOHNSON 
 
 EDITOR 
 
 GERHARD R. LOMER 
 
 CHARLES W. JEFFERYS 
 
 ASSISTANT EDITORS 
 
eSAVURE _ ANDERSEN _ LAMB Njy. 
 
SAM muSTON . 
 Engraving from » daguerreotype. 
 
TEXAS AND 
 THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 A CHRONICLE OF 
 
 THE WINNING OF THE SOUTHWEST 
 
 BY NATHANIEL W. STEPHENSON 
 
 LVXET 
 
 NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO. 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1921 
 
\1-^ 
 
 
 Copyright, 1921, by Yale University Press 
 
 
To 
 HENEY MASSINGBIKD TUCKER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE EMPRESARIOS Page 1 
 
 II. THE TURNING POINT " 17 
 
 III. THE INCOMPATIBLES " 3J, 
 
 IV. TEXAS SECEDES " 63 
 V. RECOGNITION " 87 
 
 VI. THE MEXICAN SHADOW " no 
 
 VII. ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER " 120 
 
 VIII. THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 " 140 
 
 IX. THE DOMESTIC CRISIS OF 1844 " 168 
 
 X. AN ADVENTURE IN IMPERIALISM " 177 
 
 XL "THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" " 193 
 
 XII. THE STROKE FROM THE EAST " 216 
 
 XIII. THE PIVOTAL ACTION " 233 
 
 XIV. THE CONQUERED PEACE " 248 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 259 
 INDEX " 263 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SAM HOUSTON 
 
 Engraving from a daguerreotype. Frontispiece 
 
 TEXAS AND EASTERN MEXICO: 1821-1848 
 Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geograph- 
 ical Society. Facing page 250 
 
TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE EMPRESARIOS 
 
 That American diplomat known to his contem- 
 poraries as "the eel-like Monroe" gave Manifest 
 Destiny a deep offense which popular memory has 
 let slip. He bartered away, as his enemies said, 
 our claim to the country between the Sabine and 
 the Rio Grande. However shadowy that claim 
 was, there were patriotic Americans in the year 
 1819 who wanted the country. The shadowiness 
 of the claim was not worth mentioning, they 
 thought. Napoleon sold us something in the 
 southwest and surely we, with Manifest Destiny 
 on our side, were the best judges of what old 
 Louisiana iacluded. Monroe took a narrower 
 view; and when he acquired Florida from Spain 
 and rounded out the eastern coast line, but stopped 
 
2 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 at the Sabine on the west, there was wrath in many 
 American hearts, and some bold Americans were 
 ready to stake their heads for the rectification of 
 their government's error. 
 
 One of these was James Long, who led a filibus- 
 tering expedition across the Mexican line in 1819. 
 Long's exploit was the outcome of a public meeting 
 of the citizens of Natchez, inspired by indignation 
 over Monroe's policy. The little army of adven- 
 turers who followed Long and captured the Mexi- 
 can frontier town of Nacogdoches was strangely 
 composed and acted from a variety of motives. 
 A noted Mexican refugee, Bernardo Gutierrez de 
 Lara, was associated with Long in setting up a 
 ready-made government on the American model to 
 preside over the new "Republic of Texas" which 
 the invaders proclaimed at Nacogdoches. This 
 Gutierrez had been involved in earlier attempts to 
 overthrow the kingdom of New Spain. Doubtless 
 to some of Long's followers the invasion was but a 
 detail in the revolution against Spain of which 
 they dreamed in their vision of a new and greater' 
 Mexico. Thus, it may be, starts a delusion which 
 we shall find all through Texan history — the de- 
 lusion that a genuine republican inspiration was 
 struggling in Mexico with reactionary monarchism. 
 
THE EMPRESARIOS 3 
 
 Long's republic was short-lived. During its few 
 months, its founder revealed that deadly serious 
 naivete which appeared so often in Americans of 
 that time. Looking about for an ally, Long be- 
 thought himself of the last great pirate of American 
 waters, Jean Lafitte, who flew the Jolly Roger over 
 Galveston Island. Lafitte had a pirate town there, 
 and for a while was a sovereign over the freebooters 
 of the sea. To him Long appealed. It was while 
 Long was absent negotiating with Lafitte that the 
 soldiers of New Spain fell upon Nacogdoches, 
 abolished the infant republic, and drove its sur- 
 vivors, whether American adventurers or Mexican 
 dreamers, helter-skelter across the border. 
 
 After such an invasion one would expect the 
 jealous and sensitive Spaniards to be intolerant 
 of everything American. Yet the excitement of 
 Long's adventure had hardly subsided when Moses 
 Austin, a Connecticut Yankee, was granted per- 
 mission to establish a colony of Americans inside 
 the borders of New Spain. Why did the royal 
 authorities thus contradict the logic of events.'* 
 Their archives have not yet disclosed the answer. 
 Guesses have been made, some of which must be 
 considered. Did the Viceroy of New Spain think 
 there was a population in our Southern States, 
 
4 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 royalist and Catholic, averse to becoming Ameri- 
 cans and willing to be lured back into the mon- 
 archical fold? Did he feel that monarchical reen- 
 forcements were needed in Mexico as a bulwark 
 against revolution? Or was there no deeper mo- 
 tive behind his action than mere favoritism? Was 
 it, in the blunt modern phrase, only a case of 
 "pull"? The fact that Austin had a powerful 
 friend at court, a certain Baron de Bastrop, fav- 
 ors this unromantic suggestion. The riddle is 
 still unread. But one fact is clear and full of 
 significance: Mexico evidently had no intention 
 of fostering an alien civilization; she prescribed 
 methods of government for the newcomers and 
 laid upon all the obligation to be, or to become, 
 members of the national church. 
 
 Though Moses Austin — citizen of Connecticut, 
 wanderer, pioneer, subject of Spain in old Louis- 
 iana, citizen of the United States again after 1803, 
 and promoter of many ventures — obtained the 
 grant from New Spain, his death intervened soon 
 after; and it was his son, Stephen F. Austin, who 
 was the real founder of Anglo-American Texas. 
 It was he who planted the first American settle- 
 ment, San Felipe de Austin, in December, 1821. 
 Meanwhile the revolution had begun which was to 
 
THE EMPRESARIOS 5 
 
 result in the independence of Mexico. The revo- 
 lution seems to have given a new turn to the deal- 
 ings of Stephen Austin with the authorities of New 
 Spain. In the spring of 1822, Stephen Austin, 
 while busy with his scheme of colonization, was 
 commanded to proceed to Mexico City to negotiate 
 direct with the Congress of independent Mexico. 
 At the capital, Austin met other Americans seek- 
 ing, like himself, concessions from the Mexican 
 Government. Chief among them stood that shifty 
 General Wilkinson who had drawn Spanish pay 
 while a great official of the United States, who had 
 left his country for his country's good, and who 
 was now on a hazard of new fortunes beyond the 
 Spanish line. There, too, was Hayden Edwards, 
 destined to become the enemy of Austin and to 
 play a strange role in the history of Texas, perhaps 
 even a deeply significant one. Other adventurers 
 surrounded these conspicuous figures. All were 
 clamoring for grants from the new government. 
 Among the Mexican revolutionists there was eager 
 discussion of many things, ranging from the prac- 
 ticality of the schemes of the adventurers to such 
 high subjects as the republican ideal and the merits 
 and demerits of slavery. In the midst of this tur- 
 moil of conflicting interests Austin found no one in 
 
6 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 a hurry to translate his informal agreement with 
 the old authorities into a formal agreement with 
 the new. 
 
 While Austin waited at the capital a second revo- 
 lution changed the new republic into an empire, 
 and General Iturbide became the Emperor Agustin 
 I. But Iturbide's government set the example for 
 so many later governments of Mexico by quickly 
 collapsing. A second Mexican republic was set 
 up and in 1824 a federal constitution was adopted. 
 The old Spanish provinces were formed into states 
 one of which included the three former provinces, 
 Texas, Nuevo Leon, and Coahuila. Though 
 Nuevo Leon was soon detached, the other two 
 remained one state until Texas ceased to be a part 
 of Mexico.' 
 
 One of the last acts of the reign of Iturbide was 
 a decree granting Austin the right to form a colony 
 of Americans in Texas and prescribing the main 
 lines upon which the new community was to be 
 constructed (February 18, 1823). WTiat is known 
 
 ' See the accompanying map. The state was divided into three 
 districts, those of Bexar, Monclova, and Saltillo. The district of 
 Bexar had the boundaries of the old royal province of Texas. 
 When the new state of Coahuila-Texas began, its legislature con- 
 tained eleven members, of which only two were allotted to the 
 district of Bexar. 
 
THE EMPRESARIOS 7 
 
 as the Imperial Colonization Law of 1823 had been 
 passed a lew weeks before. The provisions of the 
 law and of the decree, so far as Austin was affected, 
 were confirmed by the Congress of the republic 
 when Iturbide fell. 
 
 The imperial decree carrying out the provisions 
 of the colonization law instructed the Governor of 
 Texas to apportion land either directly among 
 immigrant families or indirectly through empre- 
 sarios who should agree to bring in not less than 
 two hundred families. Each family was to adopt 
 as its occupation either farming or grazing. Each 
 farming family was to have 177 acres of land; each 
 grazing family, 4428 acres. Austin, if he brought 
 in as many as two hundred families, was to have 
 354 acres of farm land and about 66,000 acres of 
 grazing land. All his immigrants were to "prove 
 that they are Roman Apostolic Catholics, and of 
 steady habits," and he was to found a town, or- 
 ganize his colonists as a militia, preserve order, and 
 administer justice. 
 
 The land granted to Austin, which was rapidly 
 taken up by his colonists, lay between the San 
 Jacinto and Lavaca rivers, on the Gulf side of the 
 one Texan highway, the trail from Nacogdoches 
 to San Antonio. His capital was the new town, on 
 
8 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 the Brazos River, San Felipe de Austin. For the 
 government of his colony Austin himself drew up a 
 code of laws almost paternal in temper, including a 
 prohibition of gambling and imprisonment for debt. 
 
 In 1824 the Mexican Republic enacted a coloni- 
 zation law similar to the former imperial law, but 
 leaving many details to the local authorities. Be- 
 tween the lines of this law we glimpse a shadow of 
 uneasiness. Mexico reserved the right to "take 
 such precautionary measures as it may deem ex- 
 pedient for the security of the confederation, in 
 respect to the foreigners who may settle within it." 
 The question whether slavery should be continued 
 in Mexico had already been raised. The national 
 colonization laws were silent on the subject. A 
 state colonization law of Coahuila and Texas, 
 enacted in 1825, provided merely that, "in regard 
 to the introduction of slaves, the new settlers shall 
 subject themselves to the laws that are now, and 
 shall be hereafter established on the subject." The 
 newcomers did not hesitate to bring with them 
 their slaves. 
 
 The Texas that was the consequence of these 
 laws was a mosaic. Theoretically a Spanish coun- 
 try, it was dotted with colonies of foreigners. 
 Each colony formed a tiny state embedded in 
 
THE EMPRESARIOS 9 
 
 the recognized state of Coahuila and Texas. To 
 establish the colony an empresario or contractor 
 was empowered to bring in a stated number of 
 families and to allot to each family a specified 
 amount of land within a definite area. This group 
 was given local rights similar to those of other 
 Mexican commimities, with an ayuntamiento or 
 local coimcil, elected by the people. 
 
 The purpose of the Mexican republicans in per- 
 mitting the creation of these colonies of foreigners 
 has not been explained any more than have the 
 purposes of the royalists who began the work by 
 encoiu-aging Austin. The Spanish tradition ran 
 counter to such a policy. If circumstantial evi- 
 dence counts for anything, the Mexican authorities 
 had some vision of a new regime which Americans 
 do not yet understand. One thing is certain : they 
 had no intention to leave the colonies permanently 
 separate from the rest of the population. Only the 
 Spanish language was to be used in public trans- 
 actions. A colonist who married a Mexican was 
 allowed more land than one who did not. All the 
 laws repeated or implied the provision of the origi- 
 nal grant to Austin, which laid down as "the first 
 and principal requisite for colonists that of being 
 Catholics or agreeing to become so." 
 
10 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 It was under these laws that Americans crowded 
 into Texas from 1822 forward. Here appears one 
 of the shadowy places in Texan history. How ex- 
 act was their knowledge of the situation? What 
 was their conception of the obligations the laws 
 required them to assume.? Did all of them, did 
 even most of them, know they were supposed to 
 join the Church of Rome? The old style historian, 
 with his eyes fixed on slavery and on constitutional 
 issues, ignored these questions and the new his- 
 torians have not yet answered them. Why Mexico, 
 after hedging these aliens about with such stringent 
 regulations, left them for a number of years to their 
 own devices, letting them come as they chose with- 
 out enforcing the restrictive laws — all this stUl 
 awaits research. 
 
 Whatever motive may have guided them, thou- 
 sands of Americans felt an irresistible desire to 
 pitch their tents in the sunset. From every section, 
 from every class, pilgrims were drawn to Texas, 
 the very seat of fortune in the American mind 
 during the twenties. Its noble woods, its great 
 prairies, the land that could be had for next to 
 nothing — these were potent magnets. Further- 
 more, it was the land of romance, of mystery. It 
 was the borderland of the strange Spanish world. 
 
THE EMPRESARIOS 11 
 
 To the adventurous soul, it called in the deep mur- 
 mur of the forest, in the wind across the trackless 
 prairie — "I am the Unknown!" To the dream- 
 er of democracy, it whispered grimly of possible 
 revolution, of the last death-struggle between the 
 people and the kings. The upholder of slavery 
 saw in Texas a possible new lease of life for his 
 peculiar institution. The abolitionist saw in it the 
 possibility of a new free State. The patriot of sec- 
 tionalism, if a Southerner, dreamed of expand- 
 ing his section by the addition of the Southwest. 
 Another sort of patriot, believing ardently that 
 Texas had been filched from his country by diplo- 
 macy, turned westward, resolute to recover it, 
 whether by fair means or by foul. Young and old, 
 rich and poor, wise and foolish, a great host of 
 Americans poured into the colonies of Texas in the 
 high days of the twenties. 
 
 Out of the crowd of empresarios, the leaders of 
 this migration, two men stand forth as makers of 
 history. These were the younger Austin and 
 Hayden Edwards. The character and adventures 
 of Stephen Austin will one day inform a biography 
 of singular interest. For the present he is eclipsed, 
 or nearly so, by that bolder, more bulky personality 
 which dominates the later history of Texas, Sam 
 
12 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Houston. But Austin will eventually come to his 
 own. A resolute, but also a patient man, he may 
 not have equaled Houston in driving force; but in 
 steadfastness he was second to none. From the 
 start to the finish he was true to his conception of 
 his obligation to Mexico. For this we have his 
 own words, and he was a man of principle whose, 
 words must be accepted. But just what his con- 
 ception was it is not easy to say. Though he made 
 a hard and fast religious agreement with Mexico, 
 he did not live up to it, and there seems little doubt 
 that he felt free to disregard it. Strangely enough, 
 his biographers, apparently indifferent on this 
 point, have never troubled themselves to go in 
 search of his own defense; their lightly sketched, 
 half-articulate explanations leave the subject dark. 
 That he probably considered the religious agree- 
 ment a conventional survival of the old order which 
 was, as he thought, perishing in Mexico and which 
 he believed would vanish presently along with last 
 night's darkness — that he interpreted as evidence 
 of this, Mexico's utter failure to enforce the agree- 
 ment — is at present a plausible hypothesis. What 
 is definite, what sets him off in sharp contrast with 
 Edwards, is his resolute attempt to become part of 
 Mexico. Neither Austin nor Mexico understood 
 
THE EMPRESARIOS 13 
 
 the other. Mexico did not realize that it was under- 
 miaing itself by introducing the Americans. Aus- 
 tin saw no reason why the two races with their 
 diflFering civilizations should not occupy the same 
 territory, and though with the simplicity of his 
 period he understood himself as little as Mexico 
 did, he fought hard to maintain the impossible new 
 condition — impossible for reasons that will de- 
 velop as the tale proceeds — and struck hard at 
 the first head reared in opposition. 
 
 Edwards, on the other hand, was among those 
 who looked upon the Mexicans as the real intruders 
 north of the Rio Grande, upon themselves as the 
 rightful owners of the soil, and upon the possession 
 of it as their chief aim in life. His previous history 
 is obscure. Henry Yoakum, the early historian of 
 Texas, calls him "a wealthy and intelligent gen- 
 tleman." His enemy, Austin, accused him of hav- 
 ing been a professional gambler at Mexico City. 
 He was one of the adventurers who surrounded the 
 sinister figure of Wilkinson during the intrigues 
 there in 1 823 . He had succeeded in getting himself 
 made an empresario and had fixed the site of his 
 colony — perhaps by design, perhaps by accident — 
 as close as possible to the boundary of Louisiana 
 and near to Nacogdoches, which had been the seat 
 
14 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 of Long's short-lived republic. That Edwards had 
 Long's adventure in mind is not imlikely. 
 
 On the face of the record the revolt of Hayden 
 Edwards and his followers against the Republic 
 of Mexico, which followed, grew out of the ques- 
 tion of land titles. The region in which Edwards's 
 colony was situated had suffered for twenty years 
 from others besides Long. Many of the native 
 landowners had fled from their homes. Neverthe- 
 less, their lands still belonged to them. In selecting 
 land for his colonists, Edwards was naturally re- 
 quired to avoid the holdings of these absentees. 
 But he did not do so. Was it merely because he 
 was a rough man with a high temper? This easy 
 explanation is not wholly satisfactory. In the 
 minds of most of the Americans who went to Texas 
 was fixed the idea that the earth belongs to him 
 who gives it value. Edwards and his associates 
 looked upon themselves as the sole creators of land- 
 value in their colony, and the return of Mexicans 
 who had failed to hold their own was to them as 
 the red rag that inflames the bull. Finally, many 
 honestly believed that the soil belonged to the 
 United States, that all good Americans thought so, 
 and that any one who did not was a poltroon. Now 
 and then in history a bold adventurer has risked 
 
THE EMPRESARIOS 15 
 
 his head in an attempt to commit his country to 
 an extreme course. He puts his life on the hazard, 
 beUeving his countrymen, whatever their attitude 
 hitherto, will be so wrought upon by his daring 
 that they will take up his battle cry and spring to 
 arms. It will appear in a moment that Edwards 
 conceivably was one of these great gamblers. 
 
 A decree of the Governor of the state canceled 
 Edwards's contract and ordered him out of the 
 country. Edwards demanded the privilege of ap- 
 peal to the Federal Government. The Governor 
 replied that he might do what he pleased hereafter, 
 but now he must go. Edwards's first thought seems 
 to have been that all Americans in all the colonies 
 would stand by him. He sent posthaste to Austin 
 for assistance, which was instantly refused. There- 
 upon Edwards put his head on the hazard. With a 
 mere handful of followers he seized the town of 
 Nacogdoches and proclaimed an independent re- 
 public which he styled Fredonia. For assistance 
 against Mexico, he appealed to Americans every- 
 where and even contracted an alliance with the 
 Cherokee Indians. He succeeded in raising an 
 army of two hundred men. On December 21, 1826, 
 the Republic of Fredonia, in true American style, 
 adopted a complete constitution. 
 
16 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 The revolt was quickly put down. Not only did 
 the colonists fail to respond to Edwards's appeal, 
 but Austin helped to raise a considerable force that 
 joined the Mexicans ia an attack on Nacogdoches. 
 Edwards at that moment was seeking aid across 
 the near border, in Louisiana. But before the 
 end of January all was over. The former empre- 
 sario was a landless man on the east side of the Sa- 
 bine and his handful of followers were dispersed 
 or prisoners. 
 
 And yet Hayden Edwards had made history. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE TURNING POINT 
 
 The Fredonian revolt was the sensation of the 
 hour both in the United States and in Mexico. 
 American newspapers in 1827 teemed with reports 
 of the "Fredonian War" — the war of two hun- 
 dred men against a nation — and with expressions 
 of sympathy with the Fredonians. The American 
 people, having in them the egoistic passion of the 
 Lord's Anointed, saw nothing of the point of view 
 of the Mexicans. Democracy, freedom of the in- 
 dividual, as Americans conceived it, was for them 
 the supreme law. No delicate questions of legal 
 right or of the political duty of the revolters were 
 allowed to color the main theme. In sharpest 
 black and white the ardent Americans of 1827 pic- 
 tured their kinsmen defeated in Mexico as apostles 
 of democracy crushed by an alien civilization. 
 
 Mexico took alarm. A startled consciousness 
 seized the Mexican leaders that their colonizing 
 
 a 17 
 
18 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 policy had overshot the mark. In their effort to 
 get a hardy new population they had created a 
 power that now threatened to turn and rend them. 
 It was the story of Frankenstein translated into 
 terms of politics. Immediately there was proposed 
 the simple but now dangerous course of revers- 
 ing the colonization policy and prohibiting further 
 immigration from the United States. Obregon, 
 the Mexican Minister at Washington, reporting to 
 his Government the widespread sympathy for 
 Fredonia in the United States, gave as the only 
 solution the closing of the Mexican frontier against 
 Americans. In the Mexican Congress the Wash- 
 ington Government was bluntly charged with 
 complicity in the Fredonian war. A powerful 
 newspaper at Mexico City, El Sol, put the accusa- 
 tion into public print. The President of Mexico 
 told the American Minister, Joel R. Poinsett, he 
 did not believe the charge but said he hoped the 
 President of the United States would publicly 
 deny it. 
 
 As early as February, 1827, indeed, Obregon had 
 interviewed Henry Clay, Secretary of State, hoping 
 for such a denial. He wished to be reassured that 
 he was right in thinking that the United States 
 Government had no official connection with the 
 
THE TURNING POINT 19 
 
 Fredonian revolt. Clay in perfect sincerity gave 
 him "the assurance . . . that the Government of 
 the United States has not given the slightest coun- 
 tenance or encouragement to these disturbances." 
 The Minister wrote home that he believed Clay. 
 But he knew something of American history. He 
 knew that immigrants from the United States, 
 settled in Spanish territory, had in times past 
 stirred up revolts, and that those revolts had in- 
 creased the international tension which finally led 
 to the American occupation of the Floridas. What- 
 ever the Government of the United States might 
 do or not do, the people wanted Texas, just as they 
 had wanted Florida; their hearts were with their 
 kinsmen beyond the Sabine; and Mexico must put 
 herself on guard. 
 
 At this juncture the Administration at Wash- 
 ington made a bad blunder. For all their imposing 
 talents, neither John Quincy Adams at the White 
 House nor Henry Clay in the Department of State, 
 had the essential qualities of the diplomat. They 
 were both racial egoists, unable to understand an 
 alien race. Unfortunately the Minister at Mexico 
 shared their limitation. He had misunderstood 
 the Mexican character so thoroughly that his dis- 
 patches to Clay created at Washington the false 
 
20 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 impression on which Adams and Clay now decided 
 to act. Nearly two years earlier Poinsett had 
 written to Clay that, in spite of intense contrary 
 feeling, Mexico would soon find Texas such a 
 thorny problem that she would consent to part 
 with it. Clay apparently reasoned that all Mexico 
 had needed was a demonstration of her diflSculties 
 in Texas, which he thought she now had. "Im- 
 pressed with these views," he wrote to Poinsett, 
 "the President has thought that the present might 
 be an auspicious period for urging a negotiation 
 at Mexico, to settle the boundaries between the 
 two republics." 
 
 This proposal sounds innocent enough, but the 
 conditions of the moment gave it a sinister mean- 
 ing. Once the United States had claimed the Rio 
 Grande as the boundary of Louisiana. The with- 
 drawal to the river Sabine, and the acceptance of 
 that line in the treaty of 1819 had been bitter- 
 ly denounced in the United States. Thousands 
 of Americans believed that they were entitled to 
 "recover" the territory between the Sabine and 
 the Rio Grande. On the other hand, when Poin- 
 sett first began sounding the Mexican Government 
 on the subject, he found a very diflFerent idea. The 
 Mexicans made an astonishing claim. They held 
 
THE TURNING POINT 21 
 
 that the King of Spain never had authority to 
 aUenate any part of the Spanish domain in America, 
 that the treaty of 1819 was therefore null and not 
 binding on Mexico; and it was even intimated that 
 the true boundary between the two coimtries was 
 the old line of the treaty of 1795 which would ex- 
 tend Mexico to the Mississippi. There were still 
 other considerations. The story of Poinsett in 
 Mexico is a strange and obscure tale. He was 
 accused of taking part in Mexican politics. In 
 1827 rumors about his political improprieties were 
 a floating scandal at Mexico City. That there was 
 foundation for them he himself confessed in a letter 
 to President Adams. He told of his attempt to 
 rally and consolidate the friends of "our Republi- 
 can principles" in Mexico by drawing them into a 
 grand lodge of York Freemasons that was to rival 
 the older Mexican foundation of Scottish Rite 
 Freemasons. The branches of the Masonic body 
 thus arrayed against each other became the bases 
 of two political parties. No wonder Poinsett's 
 most careful critic calls his course "amazingly 
 imprudent." 
 
 In the spring of 1827 Mexico still withheld 
 its endorsement from the treaty of 1819 and the 
 United States had not accepted a commercial 
 
22 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 treaty negotiated by Poinsett the year before; and 
 the bitterness over Fredonia still charged the air 
 when President Adams, through Clay, directed 
 Pomsett to offer Mexico in return for all the Texan 
 coimtry to the banks of the Rio Grande the 
 princely sum of one million dollars. But opinion 
 in Mexico with regard to the boundary had crys- 
 tallized; to meet the United States at the Sabine 
 and fight it out there became the accepted policy. 
 In April the Mexican Congress resolved that it 
 would not complete the commercial treaty unless 
 the United States pledged itself to accept the Sa- 
 bine as a boundary. In the following month Poin- 
 sett began sounding the minds of the Mexican 
 statesmen on the subject of the Rio Grande, and 
 was soon convinced that the project was hopeless 
 — at least for the present — and then, he wrote 
 Clay, he "abandoned it altogether." A premature 
 statement, as we shall see. 
 
 So lacking in diplomatic prescience were all three 
 of the American managers that they saw nothing 
 suspicious in the next move made by Mexico. A 
 Mexican commission started northward in the 
 autumn of 1827 to examine the country along the 
 proposed boimdary. Nothing suspicious in this! 
 Yet at that very time Poinsett wrote that the only 
 
THE TURNING POINT 23 
 
 thing to do was to accept the hne of the Sabine and 
 complete the pending commercial treaty on that 
 understanding. Early in 1828, Mexico met Poin- 
 sett on his new ground, accepted his proposition, 
 agreed to the revised commercial treaty and to 
 another, destined to be known as the Treaty of 
 Limits, fixing the boundary at the Sabine. 
 
 This action, however, did not turn the course of 
 the Mexican boundary commissioner, Don Man- 
 uel de Mier y Terdn, a learned and able man, 
 devotedly patriotic. He continued his leisurely 
 journey through Texas to Nacogdoches where in 
 1827 a small Mexican force commanded by Colonel 
 Piedras had been stationed. This officer was often 
 involved unpleasantly with the colonists of that 
 region, who wanted to know why his garrison was 
 there. It may have been this that moved the 
 Mexican authorities to instruct Teran as follows: 
 "Further, the Government desires that Your Ex- 
 cellency in passing beyond the frontiers which we 
 actually hold, will report whether or not there is 
 any necessity for fortifying any points along the 
 same for the necessity of the interior, once the 
 exact boundary is established." About the mid- 
 dle of the next year, having finished his "geo- 
 graphical investigation," Terdn sent to Mexico 
 
24 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 a long and interesting description of the Texan 
 
 community. 
 
 As one covers the distance from Bejar to this town 
 [Nacogdoches], he will note that Mexican influence is 
 proportionately diminished until on arriving at this 
 place he will see that it is almost nothing. . . . The 
 ratio of Mexicans to foreigners is one to ten. . . . 
 The Mexicans of this town comprising . . . the low- 
 est class. . . . The naturalized North Americans in 
 the town maintain an English school, and send their 
 children north for further education. . . . Thus I 
 tell myself that it could not be otherwise than that 
 from such a state of affairs should arise an antago- 
 nism between the Mexicans and the foreigners which 
 is not the least of the smouldering fires I have dis- 
 covered. Therefore, I now warn you to take timely 
 measures. Texas could throw the whole nation into 
 revolution. . . . 
 
 The wealthy Americans of Louisiana and other 
 Western states are anxious to secure land in Texas for 
 speculation but they are restrained by the laws pro- 
 hibiting slavery. If these laws should be repealed — 
 which God forbid — in a few years Texas would be a 
 powerful state which could compete in wealth and pro- 
 ductions with Louisiana. The repeal of these laws is a 
 point toward which the colonists are directing their 
 efforts. They have already succeeded in getting from 
 the Congress of Coahuila a law very favorable to their 
 prosperity; the state government has declared that it 
 will recognize contracts made with servants before 
 coming to this country, and the colonists are thus 
 
THE TURNING POINT 25 
 
 assured of ample labor which can be secured at a very 
 low price in the United States. 
 
 Among the ideas which were taking form in the 
 alert mind of Teran, here is one of the most im- 
 portant. The Texans had a great economic ad- 
 vantage over the rest of Mexico in their possession 
 of slaves. And they were holding slaves in defiance 
 of Mexican national law. Local laws also in theory 
 had abolished slavery. The state constitution of 
 Coahuila and Texas, adopted in 1827, emancipated 
 all future children of slaves and forbade bringing 
 in slaves after six months. But the influence of the 
 Texans had brought about the other slavery law 
 to which Teran refers. This piece of legislation 
 was not two months old, when Teran singled it 
 out as dangerous. Under this law, the newcomer 
 from the United States just before crossing the 
 border made a contract with his slaves, which 
 the State of Coahuila would respect. Thus slave- 
 holding settlers continued to come in. Teran saw 
 the difference in prosperity between Texas and 
 Mexico and fixed on the labor supply as the prime, 
 though not the only, cause; and to destroy the 
 supply of slave labor in Texas became henceforth 
 one of his chief designs. 
 
 In the spring of 1829 Teran left Texas. He and 
 
26 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Austin had become friends. That his visit had 
 made history, and that it was the beginning of the 
 end of their peace, had probably not entered the 
 minds of any of the Texans who had been the hosts 
 of this accomplished and delightful gentleman. 
 
 The year 1829 was eventful in the history of 
 Texas, Mexico, and the United States. In that 
 year Spain made an attempt to reconquer Mexico 
 — a wholly foolish endeavor that began in July and 
 collapsed in September at Tampico, without ap- 
 parent result except a great reputation for the 
 Mexican general, Santa Anna. Second in com- 
 mand against the invaders was Teran. The re- 
 pulse of the Spaniards left him a conspicuous fig- 
 ure as commandante general of the Eastern States 
 of Mexico. 
 
 It was while the Spanish fiasco was in progress 
 that a momentous interview took place at Wash- 
 ington. Andrew Jackson, now six months Presi- 
 dent, gave audience to an adventurer named An- 
 thony Butler and was wholly persuaded by him. 
 Butler had been in Texas. He was confident that 
 all Adams had failed to do two years before could 
 yet be done — only the price must be raised. Give 
 him five million dollars instead of one million, and 
 he would deliver Texas into Jackson's hands. 
 
THE TURNING POINT 27 
 
 A critic has written of Butler that "he lacked 
 moral character and fitness for any position of 
 trust" and "was charged with being a speculator 
 in Texan lands, a gambler, a drunkard, and a liar." 
 Jackson himself finally dubbed Butler a liar; but 
 that was after they had fallen out. In 1829 Butler 
 convinced both Jackson and his Secretary of State, 
 Martin Van Buren. Now followed a repetition of 
 the diplomatic blunder of 1827. Just as Adams 
 and Clay at precisely the wrong moment followed 
 up the vagaries of Poinsett, so now, at an even 
 more critical time, Jackson and Van Buren became 
 fatuous disciples of a commercial-diplomatic soldier 
 of fortune. To Poinsett, still at Mexico City, they 
 addressed instructions, which Butler was to deliver, 
 to try again to purchase Texas. 
 
 During the two years since Poinsett "aban- 
 doned" the scheme, while the gracious spy Teran 
 was in Texas, the relations between Washington 
 and Mexico had again become strained. A series of 
 small filibustering expeditions, all starting either 
 from or near New Orleans, had irritated the Mexi- 
 can authorities. Within a month of the conference 
 between Jackson and Butler, the Mexican authori- 
 ties complained that recruits for the Spanish Gov- 
 ernment were being gathered at New Orleans and 
 
28 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 that there were suspicious military preparations 
 at other places in the United States. Poinsett 
 vigorously denied that these reports were well 
 founded. But, the quarrel between him and the 
 Mexican authorities had now run its venomous 
 course to an irreconcilable issue. While Butler 
 was on his way to Mexico, President Guerrero 
 demanded Poinsett's recall. Jackson immediately 
 complied and appointed Butler in his place. 
 
 Another cause of friction between the repub- 
 lics was the treatment of the two treaties nego- 
 tiated by Poinsett. President Adams, accepting 
 the second thought of Poinsett, had dropped the 
 matter of the Texas purchase, and submitted his 
 treaties to the Senate. The treaties provided that 
 ratifications should be exchanged at Washington 
 within four months of the close of negotiations at 
 Mexico City, which would be May 12, 1828. The 
 Senate promptly authorized ratification, but the 
 Mexicans were so slow that their ratification did 
 not reach Washington until August, after the Sen- 
 ate had adjourned. Negotiation could be revived 
 only by submitting the treaties to the next ses- 
 sion of Congress. Before then, the presidential elec- 
 tion took place, Jackson triumphed over Adams, 
 and the latter determined to hand over the Texan 
 
THE TURNING POINT 29 
 
 question in all its thorniness to his successful rival. 
 When Jackson's strange minister, Anthony Butler, 
 succeeded Poinsett late in 1829, he found himself 
 in the same situation as his predecessor two years 
 before. Two treaties were hanging fire; both coim- 
 tries carried chips on their shoulders; the United 
 States, though innocent of any hostile act toward 
 Mexico, was scheming to profit by her distress. 
 At Washington there was no comprehension of the 
 out-at-elbows pride of the average Mexican, his 
 vanity, and his fierce dreaminess ; nor of the exist- 
 ence of shrewd and experienced men of the world 
 such as Teran south of the Rio Grande. Mean- 
 while at Mexico City, President Guerrero and his 
 cabinet were laying a plan for the "saving of 
 Texas. " This takes us back to Teran. 
 
 In the latter half of 1829, while Jackson and But- 
 ler were maturing their five-million dollar scheme, 
 Teran, the commander for the Eastern States, 
 made Texas the constant theme of his reports 
 to the Mexican War Department. A crisis was 
 approaching. "He who consents to, or does not 
 oppose the loss of Texas," wrote Teran to the 
 Minister of War "is an execrable traitor." To his 
 plan of shutting off the Texan labor supply, he 
 now added two other schemes: the country must 
 
30 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 be occupied by military garrisons; and colonies of 
 Mexicans should be formed to counterbalance the 
 existing colonies of Americans. 
 
 At first glance Teran seems to have been defeat- 
 ing his own ends during these later months of 1829. 
 By this time he was not alone in his belief that 
 Texas could be struck hard by the enforcement of 
 the anti-slavery laws. On September 15, 1829, a 
 decree of President Guerrero aimed to make effec- 
 tive the abolition of slavery throughout Mexico. 
 But strangely enough this decree never went into 
 effect in Texas. There was instantaneous protest 
 from the colonies. Led by Austin, they prevailed 
 on the Governor of Coahuila to intervene with the 
 President. Teran now appears in a curious r6le. 
 While Austin and the colonists were protesting, 
 and before it was known what Guerrero would do, 
 Teran from his headquarters at Tampico wrote to 
 Austin that Guerrero had authorized him to except 
 Texas from the main provisions of the decree. He 
 added that it would not be necessary to publish the 
 decree in Texas. In December Guerrero formally 
 confirmed Teran's promise. What had happened 
 behind the scenes at Mexico City? There is a 
 letter from Austin to Teran thanking him for his 
 intervention. But this would only increase the 
 
THE TURNING POINT 31 
 
 mystery, were it not for the following sentence in 
 a famous Mexican state paper, the Iniciativa of 
 Lucas Alaman: "Such is the independence en- 
 joyed by the North American colonists and to such 
 a point have the privileges accorded them borne 
 fruit that when the decree of September 15 . . . 
 abolishing slavery was issued . . . the commander 
 of the frontier of that State said he could not hope 
 to see such a decree obeyed unless it should be en- 
 forced by a larger military force than he then had." 
 In short, the Government had been premature, for 
 Terdn's military preparations were not complete. 
 To make sure that the Government fully under- 
 stood the situation, Teran sent early in January 
 an extensive report describing in detail his plan 
 for "saving Mexico," including his military and 
 colonization plans. Meanwhile Butler had arrived. 
 He had come through Texas, and apparently had 
 talked along the way, for three days after Teran's 
 report came in, El Sol was shouting at the United 
 States, "A few days after the departure of Mr. 
 Poinsett from this capitol," said that newspaper, 
 "the American Colonel Butler arrived here com- 
 missioned, as it is said by the Government at 
 Washington, to negotiate with ours for the cession 
 of the province of Texas for the sum of five millions 
 
32 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 of dollars. As we are not informed that, so far, the 
 Colonel has made any overtures on the subject, we 
 presume that he does the . . . administration the 
 justice to suppose it incapable of lending itself to a 
 transaction as prejudicial and degrading to the 
 republic as it would be disgraceful to the minister 
 who would subscribe to it." 
 
 This outburst in El Sol was not the only protest. 
 The flood gates were opened. As in 1827, so now 
 the proposal to buy Texas roused to fever heat 
 Mexican distrust of the United States. Here was 
 the arch enemy at his old tricks seeking to dis- 
 member Mexico. American newspapers, it was 
 said, were urging Jackson to seize Texas. Butler 
 like Poinsett fell into a panic, faced about, revived 
 the dormant treaties, and fell back upon the line 
 of the Sabine. On those terms the two treaties 
 were eventually accepted by Jackson, who saw, 
 even before his agent, that he had stumbled into 
 a horneta' nest. 
 
 The fate of Texas was thus in part decided by 
 the indiscretion of the American president and his 
 minister; still more by the resource and determina- 
 tion of Teran; lastly by the Mexican mmister of 
 foreign relations, Lucas Alaman, Building upon 
 Teran's report, while that enterprising oflBcial went 
 
THE TURNING POINT 33 
 
 on with his military preparations, Alaman drew up 
 his Iniciativa, or project, on which was based the 
 fateful decree issued by the Mexican Congress on 
 April 6, 1830. Though closely following Teran, 
 Alaman had added a history-making provision of 
 his own. In Article Eleven of the famous decree 
 "it is prohibited that emigrants from nations bor- 
 dering on this Republic shall settle in the states or 
 territory adjacent to their own nation." 
 
 When the decree was passed, Teran was at Mat- 
 amoras, where he had begun to concentrate his 
 army several weeks before. As suave and adroit 
 as he was resolute, he spent April and May com- 
 municating with prominent Texans, especially Aus- 
 tin, in an effort to reconcile them to the decree, 
 but without success. In the summer of 1830 Te- 
 ran led his army across the Nueces River. The 
 struggle of the two races for Texas had begun. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE INCOMPATIBLE8 
 
 From the Rio Grande one great highway crossed 
 Texas to Bexar (San Antonio), and thence ran in 
 nearly a straight Hne northeastward to Nacog- 
 doches and the frontier. Along this road in the 
 hot days of the summer Teran's army must have 
 marched. From the main road, along the leafy 
 byways that did service as minor roads, little 
 bodies of Mexican soldiers — disreputable men in 
 the main, some of them former convicts — van- 
 ished into the forests or struck across bits of prairie 
 to appear presently at various little towns where 
 they established garrisons. Having distributed his 
 men in a dozen or more cantonments, Teran fixed 
 his headquarters at Matamoras. 
 
 During the next eighteen months these soldiers 
 were the absorbing topic of conversation in Texas. 
 There was no regular mail system, and news was 
 circulated largely by mounted traders, who, singly 
 
 3i 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 35 
 
 or in caravans, moved across the landscape, in and 
 out of the great belts of shadowy forest, through 
 the burning glare of the open spaces, and told the 
 little wooden towns of Texas what they had seen. 
 And of these things the keen-eyed, hard-muscled, 
 restless newcomers from "the United States of 
 the North" talked together at street corners, on 
 hot summer evenings. They discussed the in- 
 solent Mexican "invasion," their own rights, and 
 the possibility of getting aid from their kinsmen 
 beyond the Sabine. 
 
 Just how did these Americans reason about their 
 own relation to Mexican law? Just how did they 
 excuse to themselves their serene indifference to 
 their pledge to become Catholics and justify their 
 intrusion of American ideals into Mexican civili- 
 zation? All this is obscure. But that they felt 
 entirely justified before their own conscience is 
 beyond the shadow of a doubt. Two things with 
 regard to them and their frame of mind are clear. 
 They looked on all life with that curious, boister- 
 ous jollity — that preoccupation with the moment 
 — which has come to be labeled American humor. 
 They held unswervingly to the idea of "the tools 
 to him that can use them." Subsequently Aus- 
 tin argued the Texas cause in the United States 
 
36 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 clearly and ably, basing his abstract argument on 
 the idea that no natural right to the soil exists — 
 that only as man cultivates the soil does a right 
 to it come into being. 
 
 In addition to the social philosophy of the 
 Texans — which was the American political philo- 
 sophy of that day — the sense of humor of these 
 people must never be forgotten. It was a very 
 limited form of humor, to be sure, but very real. 
 It informs one of the most interesting of the Texan 
 documents, the Reminiscences of a certain Henry 
 Smith, whom we shall meet presently as one of the 
 chief movers in the secession from Mexico. Never 
 was this peculiar humor displayed more fully than 
 in a story told in the recollections of the family of 
 Adolphus Sterne, one of the Fredonians captured 
 by the Mexicans in January, 1827, who spent some 
 time in prison. 
 
 He . . . wore loose boots which he could easily draw 
 o£E and on his feet, and his chain was locked about 
 them. One night, his guards locked the door of his 
 room, and went to a fandango. Left alone he drew the 
 boot off his chained leg, and the chain with it. Then 
 he raised a sash, went out through a window, pro- 
 ceeded to his store, dressed himself properly, and made 
 his way also to the fandango. There he found his 
 guards who were much startled by his arrival; but he 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 37 
 
 and they promised not to inform against each other, 
 and all were easy. One of his friends in surprise said 
 to him: 
 
 "Why, Sterne, how came you here?" 
 
 "I walked," was the reply. 
 
 "But why are you here?" 
 
 "To dance, of course." 
 
 And dance he did. In good time, he returned to his 
 store, resumed his prison garb, went back to his prison, 
 reentered it through the window, and drew on his boot, 
 and the chain with it. When his guards returned, 
 they found him as they had left him. 
 
 If we remember the unswerving belief of the 
 Americans in Texas, that the earth belongs to him 
 whose labor gives it value, and their humorous 
 attitude towards things Spanish or Mexican, and 
 add to these a certain rough cleanness of heart 
 and a contempt for intrigue, we can at least part- 
 ly imderstand their view of the decadent Latins 
 of Mexico. 
 
 The Texans being what they were, the Mexicans 
 and their convict soldiers being what they were, the 
 remarkable aspect of the matter is that more than 
 eighteen months went by before a serious clash oc- 
 curred. Bickerings there were, of course, without 
 number. During the latter part of 1830 and the 
 whole of 1831 the colonists and these men whom 
 they regarded as unscrupulous invaders became 
 
38 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 steadily more and more exasperated. The chief 
 bone of contention was a question of customs 
 duties. By the laws of 1823 the colonists were 
 exempted from duties for a period of seven years. 
 Teran's invasion came just at the end of this period. 
 The Mexican tariff that now became binding on 
 the colonists prohibited the importation of a long 
 list of ordinary necessities of an agricultural com- 
 munity; and the nearest Mexican trading centers 
 were separated from the Texan colonies by hun- 
 dreds of miles of what was then considered desert, 
 where there was constant danger of Indian raids. 
 The difficulties of such trading were great as com- 
 pared with the easy trade by sea from New Orleans. 
 The colonists received little satisfaction from a con- 
 cession of the Government allowing free importa- 
 tion of certain necessities for a period of two years, 
 but only through two ports, one of which was 
 Anahuac at the head of Galveston Bay. 
 
 Teran made a great blunder by placing in com- 
 mand at Anahuac John Davis Bradburn, a soldier 
 of fortune from the United States. Even if Brad- 
 burn's harshness has been exaggerated in Texan 
 tradition, there seems no doubt that he was a 
 hard, fierce man, quite unsuited to the complex 
 situation over which he was expected to play the 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 39 
 
 Olympian. Chief in a series of clashes between 
 Bradburn and the Texans was a direct defiance of 
 his authority as collector of customs. This episode 
 took place at Brazoria. By a somewhat informal 
 arrangement, Teran had permitted the landing of 
 goods at the mouth of the Brazos River under 
 the oversight of Bradburn. The arrangement was 
 not satisfactory, and the Government soon accused 
 the shippers of extensive smuggling, especially of 
 arms and ammunition. When the crews of three 
 schooners set the customs ofiicers at defiance in 
 December, 1831, the people of the neighborhood 
 sided with the sailors and joined in a demonstra- 
 tion very like a riot. The sailors made their escape ; 
 but Teran put them under ban, by annoimcing 
 that if any of them returned to Mexico they would 
 be seized and tried forthwith. Nevertheless one 
 of the schooners, the Sabine, came back the next 
 month and, in defiance of the authorities, delivered 
 two cannon to the people of Brazoria. This time 
 there was a real riot which so terrified the cus- 
 toms officers that they fled to the woods and left 
 Brazoria to its own devices. 
 
 Meanwhile at Anahuac things had gone from 
 bad to worse. The quarrel between Bradburn and 
 his subjects has become so entangled with legend 
 
40 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 that it is now difficult to separate fact from tradi- 
 tion. But this much, at least, stands forth grimly 
 definite; in May, 1832, Bradburn arrested several 
 prominent colonists on the ground that they were 
 obstructing his rule. This action was the signal 
 for a revolt. Bradburn found himself suddenly 
 surrounded in his fort at Anahuac by a force of 
 enraged enemies, more numerous than his garrison. 
 He had the advantage, however, of being sheltered 
 by the fort, and the early skirmishing was rather in 
 his favor. Then the colonists, bethinking them- 
 selves of the cannon at Brazoria, sent off for the 
 two pieces and sat down to besiege Bradburn. 
 
 During these same days, destiny was at work in 
 Mexico. That Santa Anna who had been Teran's 
 commanding officer against the Spaniards was now 
 expanded to a great figure. He and Teran, in the 
 three years since their close association at Tampico, 
 had drifted in opposite directions. Santa Anna 
 had gone the way of all flesh in Mexico and had 
 started a revolution against the rule of Bustamante 
 who in his time had overthrown Guerrero. Teran, 
 relatively a conservative, sympathized with the 
 existing Government, and was being supported in 
 Texas by that Government. Santa Anna, a the- 
 atrical statesman with a shifty conscience, had 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 41 
 
 struck the attitude of liberalism and accused the 
 Government of tyranny. His headquarters were 
 at Vera Cruz, where lately government forces had 
 besieged him, but on May 13, 1832, they were re- 
 pulsed. This reverse proved to be the beginning of 
 the end for Bustamante. Simultaneously Teran, 
 defending the old Government in the north, also 
 suffered a defeat. He had marched upon Tampico, 
 where the local commander had declared for San- 
 ta Anna, and had been repulsed. Thereafter, the 
 "liberals" advanced in power with giant strides. 
 
 Though Teran was watching this great revolt 
 in the south and was despairing of his country, 
 he found time to order Colonel Piedras to go to 
 Anahuac from his own garrison town of Nacog- 
 doches and "pacify the disturbances." That was 
 toward the end of May. June was almost gone be- 
 fore Piedras started. The Texans — still without 
 the cannon of Brazoria — were waiting for him. 
 They captured him, made him promise to have 
 all prisoners in the hands of Bradburn released, 
 and sent him on his way. Piedras kept his word. 
 The first week of July he spent at Anahuac, re- 
 leasing the prisoners and reorganizing the garrison, 
 for Bradburn sullenly refused to continue in com- 
 mand. Piedras then posted back to his own town. 
 
42 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 By this time Santa Anna and his party were 
 carrying everythiag before them. Teran had lost 
 heart beyond recovery. His death, at the opening 
 of July, is accounted for by some as suicide, by 
 others as assassination. Either is possible. Assas- 
 sination has always been a respectable device in 
 Mexican politics. The acute and farsighted Teran, 
 however, may have seen only disaster for all his 
 hopes in the success of Santa Anna and despaired 
 of the future. Remembering his Latin tradition, 
 it is easy to believe that he fell on his own sword. 
 
 While stern events were hurrying toward catas- 
 trophe farther south, the first real battle between 
 Texans and Mexicans was fought. The grimly hu- 
 morous Henry Smith was district commissioner 
 at Brazoria. WTien the news came that cannon 
 were needed at Anahuac, he and others saw that 
 the only way to take them there was by sea. But 
 at the mouth of the river Brazos stood the fort of 
 Velasco well garrisoned. If the cannon were to go 
 to Anahuac this fort must first be reduced. In 
 his Reminiscences Smith has told how it was done. 
 There was fierce battle. One cannot read Smith's 
 plain, unboastful tale without a thrill or without 
 thinking him justified when he adds that "take 
 this battle altogether . . . the number engaged. 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 43 
 
 the hurry in which they were called, totally undis- 
 ciplined ... to march up coolly and deliberately 
 within thirty paces of a strong fortress of disci- 
 plined troops . . . really seems to savor more of 
 reckless hardihood than of true courage." 
 
 But the need of cannon at Anahuac had passed. 
 The capture of Piedras had changed everything. 
 Furthermore, the feeling in favor of Santa Anna 
 had made its way even to Anahuac. The insurgent 
 colonists had declared themselves for the "liberal" 
 movement. Perhaps that was one reason why 
 Piedras had been in a hurry to go home. He was 
 no lover of Santa Anna. While he was hurry- 
 ing through the business and then taking himself 
 off, another man of war was approaching Anahuac 
 from the opposite direction. This was Colonel 
 Mejia, sent northward by the followers of Santa 
 Anna to spread the "liberal" gospel at the point 
 of the bayonet. While Smith and his associates, 
 far up the coast, were storming Velasco, Mejia 
 occupied Matamoras. This may have been the 
 last straw that broke Teran's courage. A few 
 days after Teran's death, Mejia set out by sea to 
 pacify Texas and by mid-July had his army at the 
 mouth of the Brazos. He brought with him no less 
 a person than Austin, who, having been absent 
 
44 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 from his colony attending in the legislature during 
 the Anahuac troubles, was now returning home 
 and had joined Mejia at Matamoras. Shrewd and 
 cautious, Austin had, as he thought, perceived 
 which way the wind was blowing for Texas. His 
 prompt fraternizing with Mejia furnishes the key 
 to his policy. Still loyal to the Mexican connec- 
 tion, but opposed to the party of Teran, Austin 
 aimed to reconcile Texans to the rule of the liberals, 
 represented by Santa Anna. Sailing northward 
 with Santa Anna's general, he passed the depleted 
 garrison of Velasco marching southward on their 
 retreat from Texas. He was, as it were, the surety 
 for Mejia, when the enthusiastic people of Brazoria 
 gave them a public dinner, poured out fiery elo- 
 quence, and endorsed the "liberal" movement of 
 the glorious Santa Anna. 
 
 About the same time the spread of Santa-Anna- 
 ism infected the garrison at Andhuac. Drawn ir- 
 resistibly by the lure of revolution they had only 
 one thought and that was to hasten southward to 
 the scene of commotion. Some made their way 
 overland. Bradburn in disguise escaped from the 
 country. The majority of the garrison packed 
 themselves into schooners and put out to sea. As 
 they reached the blue water beyond Galveston bar. 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 45 
 
 they were met by the flotilla of Mejia bringing his 
 army to Andhuac. Both parties being now on the 
 same side, they joined forces. Away they went 
 southward, Mejia leading, to join Santa Anna. 
 
 By this time the Texans had everywhere taken 
 their cue from circumstance. Not yet prepared 
 to secede, they saw in Santa Anna the less of two 
 evils. While Mejia was at Brazoria, a conference 
 of delegates from neighboring ajuntamientos had 
 passed resolutions denouncing the late "militaris- 
 tic" government of Teran, declaring their loyal- 
 ty to Mexico, and praising Santa Anna. Now, 
 though Mejia had gone, the work he had come to 
 do was not quite complete. To be sure, the ex- 
 ample of the Anahuac garrison had proved con- 
 tagious. Garrison after garrison threw their hats 
 in the air, shouted their devotion to the new lord 
 of misrule, abandoned their posts, and set out on 
 hurried marches to join his army. But there was 
 one notable exception — Piedras. With Piedras, 
 the colonists resolved to deal. Determined to be 
 taken seriously as followers of Santa Anna, a force 
 of Texans, led by Colonel John W. Bullock and 
 Colonel James W. Bowie, attacked Piedras in his 
 garrison town of Nacogdoches There was sharp 
 fighting with deaths on both sides. Piedras then 
 
46 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 resigned his command, his major declared for 
 Santa Anna, and the soldiers were permitted to 
 follow their heart's desire southward to the field 
 of loot and rapine and Santa Anna. 
 
 Two years were now flown since Teran with his 
 army had entered Texas. Teran was in his grave 
 and his army was gone. To the impressionistic 
 Texans these years apparently had not seemed 
 critical. Scattered over their enormous coimtry, 
 they did not find that their lives either on their 
 farms or in their little towns had been seriously 
 affected. The main area of the civil war was a long 
 way oflf. General knowledge of the various local 
 disturbances passed but slowly over the sparsely 
 settled country, along the bridle-paths diverging 
 from the one great road. We have some vivid 
 pictures of life in Texas in this year of crisis. None 
 of these, perhaps, has more curious interest today 
 than the account in the Reminiscences of Henry 
 Smith of what life was like at Brazoria in that 
 space of deceptive quiet between the episode of 
 the Sabine and the storming of Fort Velasco. 
 
 It may be well to remark here, that the colonists were 
 presumed to be Roman Catholics, or bound to become 
 such, as that was one of the necessary prerequisites to be- 
 come a citizen — and no marriage could be consummated 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 47 
 
 by law without the presence and permission of a Priest 
 and none as yet had thought proper to reside amongst 
 us, and as necessity is the mother of invention, the 
 system of provisional marriages by bonding was in- 
 troduced, requiring the judicial officers who were by 
 law Notary Publics, to take the acknowledgment of 
 the parties to a bond conditional on a sufficient penalty 
 to be married by a Roman Catholic priest as soon as an 
 opportunity might offer. . . . 
 
 The Government having determined to put the 
 colonists to every possible test, about this time, sent 
 all the way from the City of Mexico, a Priest to reside 
 among us and administer to our necessities. . . . His 
 sage appearance and seemingly good manners caused 
 him to be kindly received by the colonists as a kind of 
 necessary evil they could not well avoid. Every cour- 
 tesy and attention was paid to him and for a time he 
 and his parishioners got on very well together. He 
 never troubled them with church services, but con- 
 fined his duties to baptism and marriage ceremonies. 
 . . . He immediately issued his edict forbidding pro- 
 visional marriages. . . . Immediately after his arriv- 
 al a number of these old married people determined 
 to save trouble by having one grand wedding and give 
 the Padra an opportunity to do a whole sale business. 
 . . . Every preparation was made and a splendid 
 barbecue prepared, with all the necessary exhilerating 
 libations abundantly provided, so as to make it a day 
 of rural felicity. . . . The sight of a Roman Catholic 
 Priest was a rare show in Texas — a thing of which 
 they had long heard but never seen. . . . I was called 
 on to act as a kind of precurser . . . and take down 
 the names of the candidates for matrimony . . . and 
 
48 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 make out a roll of the names of all the candidates for 
 baptism. Now the test was to be made; though no 
 religious societies were tolerated in Texas, yet pre- 
 judices deep rooted by early education rose up in 
 strong opposition, and with many the idea of being 
 baptised by a Roman Catholic Priest carried with 
 it an everlasting stigma and disgrace. ... I had 
 never been baptised myself and as such was a willing 
 candidate because necessity required it . . . but . . . 
 I only succeeded in procuring a list of about forty out 
 of a company of two hundred. ... I reported my 
 list and told the Padra that I had probably enrolled 
 as many as he could conveniently get through with 
 that evening. ... I did not wish to let him know 
 that any persisted in refusing. ... I was requested 
 to muster my forces. Immediately issued orders for a 
 general parade. . . . They were marched up in solid 
 column and formed in hollow square around the 
 Priest's table. . . . 
 
 This curious bit of historical humor must not, 
 however, color one's entire impression of Texas 
 in 1832. Back of the volatile Texan amiability, 
 things were brewing. Sam Houston, whose amaz- 
 ing Odyssey had now included Texas, wrote to 
 Jackson, in 1832, that the country was ripe for 
 appropriation by the United States. At Mexico 
 City there was a renewal of the old suspicion of 
 American intentions. Butler, with his infallible 
 sense for the wrong moment, had resumed the 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 49 
 
 discussion of a possible American purchase. It was 
 firmly declined. And when he made a journey to 
 Texas in the spring of 1832, watchful Mexicans 
 drew their own inferences. Unfortunately, the 
 troubles at Anahuac culminated just as Butler was 
 returning to Mexico. One high official in Mexico 
 wrote to another that this coincidence revealed a 
 general plan to annex Texas to the United States 
 and that the discontent then active in the State 
 of South Carolina had some relation with the 
 revolutionary movement in Texas. 
 
 That the NuUificationists had any direct connec- 
 tion with the Texan revolt or that Jackson was 
 even remotely at the back of it is now regarded as 
 pure myth. But doubtless this belief was accept- 
 ed as fact at Mexico in the autumn of 1832 and 
 it is very probable that Mexicans saw what now 
 happened in Texas distorted by misapprehension. 
 But the Texans, unaware of this fixed illusion in 
 the Mexican mind — due largely to the provincial- 
 ism of the Government at Washington — thought 
 their own conduct in the autumn of 1832 and the 
 spring of 1833 above suspicion. By this time a 
 general Texan sentiment had been crystallized. It 
 was expressed in two conventions, both represen- 
 tative of the whole body of Anglo-Americans — as 
 
50 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 they called themselves — held in October, 1832, 
 and in April, 1833. April opened the reign — so 
 we may call it — of Santa Anna as President of 
 Mexico, for his party had now prevailed through- 
 out most of the Mexican States and was in posses- 
 sion of the capitol. To him and to the Mexican 
 Congress the Texans appealed for reform of the 
 customs laws, for the rescinding of Article Eleven 
 of the decree of April 6, 1830, prohibiting emigra- 
 tion from the United States, and for the organiza- 
 tion of their region as a separate State. The second 
 convention went so far as to draw up a proposed 
 Texas constitution, a copy virtually of an American 
 State constitution, setting up the English common 
 law as the law of the land. To present these ap- 
 peals to Santa Anna, Austin, as representative of 
 the people of Texas, set out for Mexico City and 
 arrived there in July, 1833. 
 
 Until this time Austin had not wavered in his 
 fidelity to Mexico. He seems also to have believed 
 the professions of Santa Anna. Seeing the situa- 
 tion from the Texan angle, without realizing how 
 events at Washington had affected Mexico, he 
 entered the capital confident that the so-called 
 "liberals" would be prompt to acknowledge the 
 "Anglo-Americans" as their allies and would make 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 51 
 
 haste to give them a state of their own. For even 
 then Austin was determined to have a Texan com- 
 monwealth separate from Coahuila. "If our appli- 
 cation is refused," he wrote home a few days after 
 his arrival, "I shall be in favor of organizing with- 
 out it — I see no other way of saving the country 
 from total anarchy and ruin — I am totally done 
 with conciliatory measures, and for the future shall 
 be uncompromising as [to] Texas." 
 
 Austin was to be bitterly disappointed. More 
 than two years were to pass before he again set 
 foot in Texas. Of that time the first six months 
 were spent in negotiations resulting in a suave 
 promise from Santa Anna that all the Texan de- 
 mands would be granted except the separation from 
 Coahuila and this last would be granted at the earli- 
 est possible moment. Still trustful of Mexico, Aus- 
 tin started back. But on the way he was arrested, 
 brought back to Mexico, and thrown into prison. 
 
 The cause of Austin's arrest needs explanation. 
 In the autumn of 1833, before Santa Anna took up 
 the note of conciliation, Austin, in a gloomy mood 
 over his negotiation, had written a letter (October 
 2, 1833) to the authorities of the town of Bexar 
 (San Antonio) "stating his belief that no reforms 
 were to be gained from the government and urging 
 
52 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 it to take the lead in declaring Texas a separate 
 State. He appears to have thought on the one 
 hand that the Texans, if left to themselves, might 
 go even further than that, and on the other that a 
 movement begun by the Mexican population of 
 Bexar would encounter less resistance from the 
 government. " ' Ordinarily a cheerful and prudent 
 man, Austin soon regained his more characteristic 
 mood. In November, he came to terms with Santa 
 Anna. In December he started home. His arrest 
 took place January 3, 1834, at Saltillo. The Bexar 
 authorities, more timid than he supposed, had been 
 terrified by his suggestion, and had sent his letter 
 to the central Government. We lack, as yet, the 
 full version of the Mexican end of the story. But 
 one cardinal detail is known. The mole-like diplo- 
 mat, Anthony Butler, spent the autumn of 1833 
 trying to bribe his way toward a cession of Texas 
 to the United States. His cynicism went the 
 length of offering one official two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars, and of reporting to Jackson that he 
 might use some half million "of the sum to which 
 you have limited me, in purchasing men, and the 
 
 ' E. C. Barker, Stephen F. Austin and the Independence of Tex- 
 as, Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. xiii, 
 p. 264. 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 53 
 
 remainder in purchasing the country." It is to 
 Jackson's credit that this performance caused a 
 burst of indignation at the White House, and led 
 to Butler's recall. But Butler's shameful activities 
 were the background against which the Mexican 
 Government looked upon the Bexar letter. 
 
 The arrest of Austin marked the beginning of a 
 gradual collapse of the Texan faith in Santa Anna. 
 Though Austin, from prison, wrote a number of 
 letters urging Texans to continue their fidelity 
 to Mexico, a party of resistance began to form. 
 And in May, 1834, Santa Anna gave it ample jus- 
 tification. All along his liberalism was a mere 
 blind. Now he dropped the mask. He threw him- 
 self into the arms of the most reactionary party 
 in Mexican politics, suppressed the Congress, and 
 became dictator. 
 
 A new storm center now developed. The State 
 Government of Coahuila plunged into the whirl- 
 pool of Mexican internal conflict. Most of its mad 
 performances — such as a furious contention over 
 the location of the capitol, and the formation of 
 two parties, one standing for the town of Mont- 
 clova, one for Saltillo — need not be described here. 
 Eventually both factions accepted the supremacy 
 of Santa Anna, whose general, Martin Perfecto de 
 
54 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Cos, with an army at his back, loomed high on the 
 Texan horizon. The autumn of 1834 saw Santa 
 Anna's influence established in the legislature of 
 Coahuila. That same autumn appeared a pam- 
 phlet entitled Security j or Texas, written by Henry 
 Smith, now a confessed leader of the war party, 
 that favored an open defiance to Mexico. But even 
 at this eleventh hour the Mexican party among the 
 Anglo-Americans, to whom Austin from his Mexi- 
 can prison was writing conciliatory letters, opposed 
 a revolt. Smith was answered in a publication 
 of the Central Committee which had been estab- 
 lished by the convention of the Anglo-Americans 
 to keep general oversight of the political situation. 
 Smith's time had not come. He failed to rouse a 
 war furor. In spite of the imprisonment of Austin, 
 in spite of the apostasy of Santa Anna, in spite of 
 Cos and his army, the goodhumored, easygoing 
 Texans were still content to trust to their luck and 
 to wait for the situation to mend. One reason for 
 this excessive optimism was a series of reforms 
 passed by the erratic legislature of Coahuila. 
 There was to be freedom of worship; English was 
 to be permitted in transacting public business; a 
 new judicial system was provided for; and new 
 laws were enacted for the disposal of public land. 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 55 
 
 These state reforms of Coahuila, however pacific 
 for the moment, turned out nevertheless to be just 
 what was needed to reopen strife. By this time 
 Santa Anna was frankly a reactionary. His plans 
 included a strongly centralized government and 
 the restoriation of clerical influence, lately near its 
 overthrow. The grant of freedom of worship by 
 the legislature of Coahuila was, of course, like the 
 proverbial red rag to the Mexican clericals. The 
 failure of the Anglo-Americans to become genuine 
 members of the Mexican church was doubtless 
 well known. The reign of the good "Padra" of 
 Smith's narrative had been short, and Smith inti- 
 mates that he was forced to retire. What tales of 
 the barbarous strangers did this priest carry back 
 to Mexico? Here was a good cause for the most 
 influential of Santa Anna's following to distrust the 
 alien inhabitants of Coahuila. 
 
 A more vulgar bone of contention was afforded 
 by the operation of the land laws. Land specula- 
 tion is an obscure and apparently evil force moving 
 in the darkness behind the politics of this time. 
 Land companies which had been formed to buy 
 up the claims of needy empresarios often practiced 
 fraud. One unsavory detail of the career of An- 
 thony Butler was his alleged connection with Texas 
 
56 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 land speculation. The Galveston Bay and Texas 
 Land Company of New York, which bought out 
 a number of empresarios and boldly cheated a 
 greater number of American immigrants, is noto- 
 rious. Butler's visit to Texas in 1832 was in com- 
 pany with the agent of this unscrupulous concern. 
 Smith describes these speculators as unprincipled 
 men who "ruled elections and had all appointments 
 made to suit and be subservient to their own pur- 
 poses." Into the hands of these interests Coa- 
 huila apparently saw fit to play. It was a short- 
 sighted piece of chicanery. The Texans had a 
 serious quarrel with the speculators and were 
 quickly alienated by the vicious policy upon which 
 Coahuila soon embarked. Santa Anna's Govern- 
 ment, suflSciently distrustful of Coahuila on gen- 
 eral grounds, took further alarm when the state 
 began a reckless alienation of public lands. - A 
 crisis was reached in the spring of 1835, when enor- 
 mous areas were virtually given away. Once more 
 — for the last time, as it proved — Mexico briefly 
 rehabilitated herself in Texan opinion by inter- 
 fering to stop this abuse. In April the Mexican 
 Congress suppressed the worst of the Coahuila 
 land laws. 
 
 The next incident in this singular kaleidoscope 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 57 
 
 of events illustrates again that amazing combina- 
 tion of wrathfulness and good humor which was so 
 typically Texan and so incomprehensible to Mexi- 
 cans. While Mexican rule was thus recovering 
 some measure of popularity in the spring of 1835, 
 Captain Antonio Tenorio, a young officer under 
 orders from General Cos, was trying to reestabHsh 
 an orderly custom house at Anahuac. He had his 
 troubles, for Anahuac had not forgotten its old 
 hatred of customs officers. Furthermore, the men 
 of Anahuac had a quicker sense of the ridiculous 
 than Captain Tenorio and played practical jokes on 
 him. A certain Mr. Briscoe, as Tenorio officially 
 reported, "took from his house a box and went to 
 the seashore to embark it"; Tenorio fell into the 
 trap, for such it was, and attempted to arrest Bris- 
 coe and his friends. When they resisted, he "shot 
 and woimded" one of the soldiers. Briscoe was 
 simply playing a joke upon the collector, for when 
 the box was opened it was found to contain nothing 
 but rubbish. 
 
 Tenorio, uneasy in his post, had written in June 
 for reenf or cements. These Cos promised to send. 
 The American love of a powwow was fully de- 
 veloped in Texas, and on the 22d of June a great 
 convention, or mass meeting, was to meet at San 
 
58 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Felipe. The subject to be discussed was a recent 
 action of General Cos. Not content with annulling 
 the Coahuila land laws, he had paid off an old score 
 by seizing Agustin Viesca, the President of Coa- 
 huila, and throwing him into prison. Upon this 
 matter the Texans were in two minds. They did 
 not warm to Viesca because he had been closely 
 identified with the recent obnoxious land laws. On 
 the other hand, were not their own liberties in 
 danger if Cos had arrested Viesca illegally? The 
 true American passion for constitutionality joined 
 with the American love of debate and inspired 
 the convocation at San Felipe. The meeting was 
 greeted with a surprise. The day before, some im- 
 pulsive gentlemen, indulging their curiosity, after 
 the manner of Briscoe and his box of rubbish, had 
 stopped a government courier and gone through his 
 dispatches. They laid before the meeting the letter 
 from Cos to Tenorio promising reenforcements. 
 
 Thereupon there was big talk in a high key at 
 San Felipe. But in the end the prudent men of 
 the "peace party" got control of the meeting, ^ith 
 the result that no action was taken. This outcome 
 did not suit the hot-heads — especially William B. 
 Travis, one of the men whom Bradburn had im- 
 prisoned three years before, who was resolved upon 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 59 
 
 vengeance. Travis set out with forty of like mind 
 to capture Tenorio. With the best grace in the 
 world Tenorio promptly surrendered and promised 
 to leave Texas with all his men. The little squall 
 having thus blown over, the goodhumored Texans 
 made a lion of Tenorio and took him and all his 
 men to a grand barbecue on the Fourth of July. 
 There, as a participant has recorded, "Captain 
 Tenorio walked among the people shaking hands 
 with the men and acting as if he was the hero of 
 the occasion." 
 
 The "war party" led by Smith attempted to 
 make capital out of the incident. Cos fatuously 
 played straight into their hands. Under orders 
 from the Mexican Minister of War, he issued a 
 demand for the surrender to the military of six 
 men — five ringleaders in the captureof Tenorio and 
 Don Lorenzo de Zavala, a Mexican politician and 
 an enemy of Santa Anna, who had recently taken 
 refuge in Texas. Cos sent orders to Colonel Ugar- 
 techea, now stationed at Bexar (San Antonio), to go 
 in search of the accused men with a force of cavalry. 
 
 Instantly the Texan blood was up. Since the 
 disappearance of Teran's army, Texas had been 
 virtually empty of soldiers, and the peace party 
 had succeeded in keeping the Anglo-Americans 
 
60 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 quiet. But the orders of General Cos worked a 
 revolution in popular sentiment. There was gen- 
 eral approval of a scheme to hold a "consultation" 
 of all the Texans, and the assembly was called 
 for the 15th of October. When it was reported 
 that Mexican soldiers were on the march, Travis 
 wrote jubilantly, "We shall give them hell if they 
 come here." 
 
 At this moment of crisis Austin returned to 
 Texas. He had been a prisoner in Mexico eighteen 
 months, and he had passed part of this time in 
 the old dungeons of the Inquisition. Yet he came 
 home with the hope that the situation might still 
 be saved, war averted, and that the connection 
 with Mexico might be made propitious. He found 
 that the world had changed. His Texas of 1833, 
 faithful to Mexico, had given place to a fiercely re- 
 bellious Texas, bent on revolution. The new state 
 of things struck him with despair. The whole night 
 following his arrival he "walked the beach, his 
 mind oppressed with the gravity of the situation, 
 forecasting the troubles ahead for Texas." A week 
 later in an address which he made at Brazoria he 
 dwelt upon the gravity of the hour and strong- 
 ly approved the proposed consultation. In the 
 middle of September he was at San Felipe, where 
 
THE INCOMPATIBLES 61 
 
 he was made the chairman of a Committee of 
 Safety. The Texans failed in an attempt to treat 
 with Cos, for he only repeated his demand for 
 the proscribed men and gave warning that Texas 
 must submit to any readjustment of its affairs de- 
 cided upon by the central Government. The Com- 
 mittee of Safety thereupon issued an address to 
 the people and advised the immediate formation 
 of volunteer companies, since war was now their 
 "only resource." 
 
 And now Colonel Ugartechea at Bexar (San 
 Antonio) made a move that was fraught with des- 
 tiny. The little town of Gonzales — sixty-four 
 miles east of Bexar and one of the southernmost of 
 the Anglo- American towns — had a six-pounder 
 brass cannon, to get which, Ugartechea sent a 
 corporal and four men with a cart. Andrew Pon- 
 ton, the alcalde of Gonzales, sent them back with- 
 out the gun and with only a letter full of reasons. 
 Then the men of Gonzales removed the gun, took 
 their women and children to a place of safety, and 
 sent out a call for help. 
 
 It was Lexington and Concord over again. All 
 up and down the valleys of the Colorado and Bra- 
 zos flew the hurry call for aid. In homestead after 
 homestead the man took down his rifle and set out, 
 
62 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 on foot or on horseback, for Gonzales. On the 
 1st of October a hundred and sixty Texans as- 
 sembled at Gonzales . There they learned that Don 
 Francisco Castaneda, a lieutenant of Ugartechea, 
 had come up with a Mexican force of eighty men 
 when only eighteen Texans were holding the village, 
 but hearing of the approach of reenf orcements, he 
 had retreated, without attempting to take the place. 
 
 The rescuing forces paused long enough to elect 
 a colonel and a lieutenant colonel. Then, crossing 
 the river, they gave chase to the Mexicans, and 
 overtook them early the next morning. The Mexi- 
 cans held a "commanding position," but after a 
 short fight the Americans scattered them. One 
 Mexican was killed and one Texan was wounded. 
 
 On this same day, October 1, 1835, General Cos 
 with his main army, on the march from Matamoras, 
 reached the town of Goliad, where he heard of the 
 "battle" of Gonzales. The skirmish was a trifle in 
 itself, but it marked the opening of a war of in- 
 dependence. The Texans had thrown down the 
 glove; Cos accepted it. He went forward with his 
 army to Bexar (San Antonio), where he was con- 
 fronted by a motley array of Texans under the 
 command of Austin. The two armies were within 
 striking distance and a battle was imminent. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 TEXAS SECEDES 
 
 When the Consultation began in November, the 
 question of the hour was not whether Texas should 
 strike for independence, nor whether the Mexi- 
 can government was legitimate, but whether Texas 
 should be governed by Mexican military authori- 
 ties and military methods. Ever since Teran's 
 show of force, pronouncements of real weight in 
 Texas had coupled two ideas, fidelity to Mexico and 
 determination not to be ruled by a military organ- 
 ization. At Gonzales, shortly before the fighting 
 began, an agent of Santa Anna "found the people 
 still desirous of maintaining peace with Mexico, yet 
 equally determined to resist with energy the en- 
 trance of troops into their country." This agent 
 obtained a statement from Ugartechea assuring 
 the Anglo-Americans that he would not send troops 
 against them. The delighted colonists were indus- 
 triously circulating his letter when, Uke a bolt from 
 
 63 
 
64 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 the blue, the soldiers arrived demanding their can- 
 non. The revulsion of feeling was instantaneous. 
 
 Furthermore, the Mexican Congress, reorganized 
 in complete subservience to Santa Anna, had 
 enacted a series of laws abolishing the federal 
 constitution of 1824 and setting up a strongly 
 centralized system. Finally a new constitution 
 was drawn which abolished the existing state 
 governments. 
 
 The three counts which in the later months of 
 1835 made up the Texan indictment of Mexico 
 were: first, the destruction of the constitution of 
 1824; second, the use of military power to tyran- 
 nize a state; and third, duplicity of conduct. Upon 
 this basis the Consultation drew up a Declara- 
 tion of causes for taking up arms against Mexico. 
 Though some phrases savored of independence, 
 the heart of this manifesto was the statement that 
 Texas would "continue faithful to Mexico, so long 
 as that nation is governed by the constitution and 
 laws that were framed for the government of the 
 political association." The Consultation oflFered to 
 combine with those Mexicans who stood by the 
 constitution of 1824 and whose rights, like theirs, 
 were "threatened by encroachments of military 
 despots." A motion to secede was voted down by 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 65 
 
 a large majority. But it was significant of the 
 temper of the assembly that for president of the 
 provisional government which was now set up, 
 Henry Smith was elected by a vote of 31 as against 
 22 for Austin. The organization of an army was 
 provided for, and Sam Houston was made its 
 commander. A council was created, with one 
 representative from each municipality, to cooper- 
 ate with the governor. The common law of Eng- 
 land was made the law of the land. A more formal 
 convention was called for March 1, 1836. Three 
 commissioners, Stephen F. Austin, Branch T. 
 Archer, and William H. Wharton, were instructed 
 to proceed at once to the United States, there to 
 enlist sympathy and to borrow money. Having 
 accomplished so much, the Consultation adjourned 
 on November 14, 1835. 
 
 On hearing that Austin had retired from its com- 
 mand, the army before Bexar (San Antonio) at 
 once elected a new general. Their action, disre- 
 garding the new commander-in-chief appointed by 
 the Consultation, typified both their temper and 
 their organization. The volunteers who had as- 
 sembled at Goliad resolved: "We claim, and can 
 never surrender but with life, the right to elect 
 freely our immediate commander." The several 
 
66 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 brilliant skirmishes that took place in October were 
 thoroughly decentralized. Austin had made no 
 attempt to check the tendency. This spirit ruled 
 the tumultuous councils before Bexar where Cos 
 was besieged. Should he be attacked with what- 
 ever advantage the Texans now had, or should 
 they fall back and wait for reorganization under 
 the new regime.'' A council of war early in De- 
 cember decided to raise the siege and go into 
 winter quarters. 
 
 Before this decision could be put into effect 
 reports reached the camp that "the garrison [in 
 Bexar] was in a tumult and much dissatisfied." 
 There was immediately a call for volunteers to 
 attack the city. The story goes that Benjamin R. 
 Milam, a daring and picturesque personality, ap- 
 peared among the men calling out, "Who will go 
 with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?" A shout 
 of acquiescence, and the assault had been deter- 
 mined upon. A rush by storming parties before 
 dawn on December 5, 1835, established the Texans 
 in the outer parts of the city. There followed five 
 days of slow fighting while the Texans gnawed 
 their way into the heart of the city. It was a 
 strange battle, for the soldiers avoided the streets 
 and did their firing chiefly from housetops. How 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 67 
 
 the Americans burst through from house to house 
 is thus described by a participant in the engage- 
 ment : "We went through the old adobe and picket 
 houses of the Mexicans, usuig battering rams made 
 out of logs ten or twelve feet long. The stout men 
 would take hold of the logs and swing them a while 
 and let drive endwise, punching holes in the walls 
 through which we passed. How the women and 
 children would yell when we knocked the holes in 
 the walls and went in." After five days of such 
 fighting the army of Cos coiled itself like a gigantic 
 worm — to use the simile of a great writer, of a 
 much greater battle — writhed its way out of the 
 city, and reassembled at the Alamo, a fortified 
 mission building on the far side of San Antonio 
 River. This was a poor position for defense, for it 
 was commanded by Texan rifle fire and crowded 
 with women and children. Cos opened negotiations 
 and presently surrendered. He was permitted to 
 withdraw his entire force to Mexico. 
 
 The next two months form a span of chaos in 
 Texan history. Innumerable views and a jumble 
 of resolute purposes created a Babel in the councils 
 of the provisional government. First of all there 
 was an irreconcilable difference between Governor 
 Smith and the Council. Smith, possessed by the 
 
68 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAK 
 
 desire for independence, wanted to organize Texas 
 for a defensive war. The Council, believing that 
 there existed a Mexican faction that would fight 
 for the old constitution, wanted to send an army 
 southward to find and assist those hypothetical 
 liberals. In consequence, both Governor and 
 Council tried to control the army, and for the 
 moment Houston found his command but a name. 
 The quarrel finally came to a head over a scheme 
 to march southward against Matamoras, across 
 the Rio Grande in Mexico. The army at San An- 
 tonio entirely on its own responsibility decided 
 upon this move as a flanking blow at a Mexican 
 army which was reported to be on the march for 
 Texas. The San Antonio soldiers divided them- 
 selves into three groups : a few remained as a garri- 
 son ; some withdrew to their homes ; the rest set out 
 for Matamoras. The expedition was led by Frank 
 W. Johnson. With him was Dr. James Grant, a 
 Scotch adventurer who had been one of the great 
 beneficiaries under the obnoxious land laws of 1834. 
 A somewhat sinister figure in the tragedy of the 
 time is this Scotch physician. His interests were 
 opposed both to an independent Texas and to 
 a centralized Mexico. Perhaps he was working 
 simply for his own advantage. How he destroyed 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 69 
 
 himself and very nearly destroyed Texas remains 
 to be seen. 
 
 While Johnson and Grant were starting on their 
 unauthorized expedition, the Council, ignorant of 
 what these adventurers were about, made a similar 
 plan. A flank attack on the advancing Mexicans 
 through Matamoras became the watchword of the 
 Council. Though Houston protested against this 
 move, the Council not only gave its ofiicial sanc- 
 tion to Johnson's expedition, when its destination 
 became known, but even authorized one of its own 
 against Matamoras which was to be organized and 
 commanded by James W. Fannin. In all these ar- 
 rangements Houston and the Governor were ig- 
 nored. Governor Smith, rightly or wrongly, 
 thought he saw therein the hand of those old ene- 
 mies of his, the land speculators, the men who were 
 typified by Grant. He flew into a rage and de- 
 nounced the Council as a pack of wolves and trai- 
 tors, whereupon the Council passed a resolution 
 deposing him, and that was the end of relations 
 between them. 
 
 The military situation in the latter part of Feb- 
 ruary, 1836, had four points of focus. At San 
 Antonio there was still a garrison, though Grant 
 and Johnson had carried off most of its supplies. 
 
70 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Toward the south near the coast the army of Grant 
 and Johnson occupied the town of San Patricio, for, 
 hearing that Matamoras had been strongly rein- 
 forced they had lost heart for their venture and 
 knew not which way to turn. In the third place, 
 Faimin with his expedition was at Goliad near 
 Johnson and Grant. And Houston, the nominal 
 commander of them all, was vainly trying to call 
 back the Matamoras expeditions and to strength- 
 en the garrison at San Antonio, where William B. 
 Travis was now in command. As for the Mexi- 
 cans, they were close at hand. On the 24th of Feb- 
 ruary, Travis, whose force was concentrated at the 
 Alamo, reported that Mexicans had occupied San 
 Antonio across the river. The invaders at San 
 Antonio proved to be the main Mexican army 
 under command of Santa Anna in person. Three 
 thousand Mexicans ^ were closing around one hun- 
 dred and fifty Texans. But so unfaltering was the 
 attitude of the Texans that one can sympathize 
 with a great scholar of Texas when he calls "the 
 letter in which Travis announced the opening of 
 the siege the most heroic document among Amer- 
 ican historical records." 
 
 ' The number is disputed. As this is the estimate of Professor 
 E. C. Barker it may be considered authoritative. 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 71 
 
 COMMANDANCY OF THE AlAMO, 
 
 Bejar, Feby. 24th, 1836 — 
 
 To the People of Texas & all Americans in the world: 
 
 Fellow Citizens & Compatriots — I am besieged, 
 by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa 
 Anna — I have sustained a continued Bombardment 
 & cannonade for 24 hoxirs & have not lost a man — 
 the enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, 
 otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if 
 the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with 
 a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the 
 walls — / shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call 
 on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, & every- 
 thing dear to the American character, to come to our 
 aid, with all despatch — The enemy is receiving rein- 
 forcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or 
 four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neg- 
 lected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as 
 possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what 
 is due to his own honor & that of his country — 
 VICTORY OR DEATH. 
 
 William Baebet Travis 
 
 Lt. Col. comdt. 
 
 Of the three bodies of Texan soldiers — at San 
 Antonio, at Goliad, and at San Patricio — the one 
 farthest south was the first to meet disaster. If a 
 Mexican column on the 24th of February had its 
 head against San Antonio, some part of it would 
 probably be within striking distance of San Patricio. 
 
72 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 But the Texans lacked adequate information, and 
 Johnson and Grant lingered at San Patricio, ap- 
 parently without definite purpose. Suddenly the 
 Mexicans fell upon them; their force was anni- 
 hilated and Grant was killed. Though news of this 
 disaster reached Fannin at Goliad, he continued to 
 do nothing for another week. The Mexicans for 
 once were more active than the Americans. 
 
 On the 1st of March, in the gray of the dawn, 
 a little band of heroic men from Gonzales cut 
 their way through the Mexican lines and brought 
 to Travis their reenforcement. That same day 
 the Texan Convention assembled at the town of 
 Washington and was soon in possession of Travis' 
 appeal. It named Houston commander-in-chief 
 and urged him to go at once to the relief of Trav- 
 is. On the 7th of March, Houston, who had at- 
 tended the Convention, started for the front. He 
 sent forward a dispatch ordering Fannin to join 
 him on the way; but even then it was too late. 
 The defense of the Alamo is now one of the classic 
 episodes of American history. Before beginning 
 the assault Santa Anna said to one of his gen- 
 erals: "You know that in this war there are no 
 prisoners." One hundred and eighty-eight Anglo- 
 Americans fought to the death against a Mexican 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 73 
 
 force that outnumbered them sixteen to one. Not 
 one of the Texans survived the storming. It was 
 the proud Texan boast in after days that "Ther- 
 mopylae had its messenger of fate; the Alamo 
 had none." 
 
 What happened inside the enclosure of the Al- 
 amo, on Sunday, the 6th of March, is known only 
 from accounts of Mexican officers who took part in 
 the storming, from the recollections of one Ameri- 
 can woman who spent the terrible hour of the com- 
 bat in the convent church, and from the silent but 
 superb eloquence of the death roll. Among many 
 gallant men who went down with Travis two bore 
 names that are bywords in American frontier tra- 
 dition. James Bowie, brother of the Bowie who 
 designed the perfect hunting knife, lay upon a cot, 
 suffering from a recent injury, when the Mexi- 
 can trumpets blew the signal, "no quarter," that 
 Sunday morning. Nevertheless his death was a 
 costly one for the Mexicans. David Crockett, who 
 had come from his native Tennessee to throw in 
 his lot with the Texans, sold his life amid the last 
 massacre as grimly as a Norse Viking in an Ice- 
 landic saga. There had been another side to Crock- 
 ett's heroism in the stern week when the Mexican 
 trap was closing. He had the gift of music. His 
 
74 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 violin was the consolation of those men devoted 
 to their own destruction while they waited for the 
 end. Crockett, the dead shot, setting down his 
 rifle, and smiting with his bow the strings of his 
 violin, while nearer and nearer crept the encir- 
 cling host of enemies — is there any finer instance 
 of that figure which romance loves, the warrior- 
 minstrel of the forlorn hope! The one woman of 
 the garrison was the wife of Lieutenant Dickinson. 
 With her little daughter she took refuge in the 
 church while her husband fought furiously against 
 the horde of cutthroats who poured in waves over 
 the walls that surrounded the enclosure of the 
 Alamo. Once, for an instant, he joined her, but 
 only to cry out that the enemy were within the 
 walls, and then after a parting kiss, to rush back 
 sword in hand into the hopeless slaughter. " Soon 
 after he left me," says Mrs. Dickinson, "three un- 
 armed gunners came into the church and were 
 shot down by my side. Just then a Mexican oflB- 
 cer came in and asked me in English: 'Are you 
 Mrs. Dickinson ? ' I answered, ' Yes. ' ' Then,' said 
 he, 'if you wish to save your life, follow me.' I 
 followed him, and, although shot at and wounded, 
 was spared." 
 
 The massacre at the Alamo intensified, it did not 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 75 
 
 create, a resolve for independence. Thus under 
 the shadow of Santa Anna's approach the move- 
 ment for independence reached its climax. It was 
 the outcome of two diverse influences. During the 
 winter the faction of Grant — possibly the fac- 
 tion of the speculators, of "tainted money," as 
 we should say today — had steadily lost ground. 
 Whether the tool of this faction or not, the Council 
 had failed to lead the people. The Matamoras de- 
 lusion had resulted in a Texas that was unprepared, 
 with Santa Anna at its very gates. Then, too, 
 there was another potent influence at work — the 
 attitude of the United States, or rather of the 
 people and of the money lenders of the United 
 States. As to the people, no sooner was it learned 
 that fighting had begun in Texas than volunteer 
 companies were raised and started for the seat of 
 war. At Cincinnati, for instance, a subscription 
 was taken up to send artillery to Texas. Two 
 cannon, afterward named the Twin Sisters, were 
 cast by Miles Greenwood, a noted ironmaster of 
 those days, and were dispatched to Texas, where 
 they arrived in time to participate in the final 
 victory and formed the whole of Houston's artillery 
 train on the wild day of San Jacinto. 
 
 But the Government at Washington did not 
 
76 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 commit itself. Though it is probable that Houston 
 kept Jackson informed, the Administration pre- 
 served a careful neutrality. The money lenders 
 followed a middle course. Austin found that he 
 could borrow money for a prospective Texan re- 
 public but that American capital was cool toward 
 aiding Texas as a province of Mexico. During the 
 winter Austin had finally joined the party of in- 
 dependence. When the Convention met, virtually 
 all Texas was at last of one mind. On the second 
 day, the delegates solemnly and by unanimous 
 vote declared Texas a free, sovereign, and inde- 
 pendent republic. They then set to work upon 
 a constitution and pending its adoption brushed 
 aside Smith and the Council and established a 
 new provisional government with David Burnet 
 as President. 
 
 Five days after the fall of the Alamo, Hous- 
 ton arrived at Gonzales and, because of the ter- 
 rible news he had just received from San Antonio 
 changed his orders to Fannin, directing him to 
 destroy Goliad and retreat to Victoria. Houston 
 had no choice but to follow the same desperate 
 course at Gonzales. Owing to the determination 
 of each little group of volunteers to do what it 
 pleased, such forces as Texas had — many of them 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 77 
 
 newly arrived volunteers from beyond the Sabine 
 — were scattered far apart. To order all to retreat 
 on converging lines; not to attempt a stand until 
 all were massed at one point; to choose a point 
 far enough away to preserve the start any group 
 possessed in the race with Santa Anna — such, as 
 any layman could see, was Houston's only chance 
 to assemble an army worth the name. To a born 
 soldier like Houston, no other course deserved a 
 minute's thought. During the next few weeks the 
 various Texan lines of retreat resembled roughly 
 the ribs of a fan along each of which a little Texan 
 force was falling back toward the northeast. Into 
 the midst of the fan a considerable Mexican army 
 was hurrying forward, intending to shatter the 
 portions and thus render insignificant the Tex- 
 an army that would ultimately reach the point of 
 concentration. 
 
 It is reported that President Jackson at Wash- 
 ington, following with keen interest the Texan 
 retreat with the map of Texas before him, put his 
 finger on the spot that became the battlefield of 
 San Jacinto and said, "Here's the place. If Sam 
 Houston's worth one bawbee, he'll stand here and 
 give 'em a fight." 
 
 Houston proved himself "worth one bawbee" 
 
78 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 and something more. Before the day of his success 
 arrived, however, he had to overcome difficulties 
 scarcely to be measured. What colored everything 
 else in those weeks was the flight of the whole 
 population eastward before Santa Anna, started by 
 Houston himself when he burned Gonzales. At his 
 orders its people fled in any fashion they could, 
 their way lighted by the flames of their homes. 
 The narrative of a woman who took part in this 
 flight is worth all the retold accounts put together: 
 
 We camped the first night near Harrisburg. Next day 
 we crossed Vince's Bridge and arrived at the San 
 Jacinto in the night. There were fully five thousand 
 people at the ferry. The planters from Brazoria and 
 Columbia with their slaves were crossing. We waited 
 three days before we crossed. . . . Every one was 
 trying to cross first, and it was almost a riot. 
 
 We got over on the third day, and after traveling a 
 few miles came to a big prairie. It was about twelve 
 miles farther to the next timber and water, and some 
 of our party wanted to camp; but others said the 
 Trinity river was rising and if we delayed we might 
 not get across. So we hurried on. When we got about 
 half way across the prairie. Uncle Ned's wagon bogged. 
 The negro men driving the carts tried to go round the 
 big wagon one at a time until the four carts were fast 
 in the mud. Mother was the only white woman that 
 rode in a cart; the others traveled on horseback. Mrs. 
 Bell's four children, Mrs. Dyer's three, and Mother's 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 79 
 
 four rode in the carts. . . . The negro men put all 
 the oxen to the wagon, but could not move iti, so they 
 had to stay there until morning. Mother gathered the 
 white children in our cart. . . . 
 
 Mother with all the negro women and children 
 walked six miles to the timber and found our friends 
 in trouble. . . . The wagons and carts didn't get to 
 the timber till night. They had to be unloaded and 
 pulled out. 
 
 At the Trinity River men from the army began to 
 join their families. I know they have been blamed for 
 this but what else could they have done? The Texas 
 army was retreating and the Mexicans were cross- 
 ing the Colorado. Colonel Fannin and his men were 
 prisoners, there were more negroes than whites among 
 us and many of them were wild Africans, there was a 
 large tribe of Indians on the Trinity as well as the 
 Cherokee Indians in Eastern Texas at Nacogdoches, 
 and there were tories, both Mexicans and Americans, 
 in the country. ' 
 
 While Houston was shepherding the now home- 
 less Texans out of Gonzales, Fannin lost his final 
 opportunity to serve his country. He had procras- 
 tinated and found excuses for not going to the 
 Alamo, and now continued to defer action. He 
 had not proper means of transport. He had 
 sent out an officer with soldiers to gather in the 
 
 ' Reminiscences of Mrs. Dilue Harris, in the Quarterly of the 
 Texas State Historical Association, vol. iv, pp. 163-164. 
 
80 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 population of the vicinity. He could not leave him 
 behind and must send another force to hurry him 
 up. There were other delays. The end of this 
 trifling with responsibility was the destruction of 
 all the companies in Fannin's jurisdiction. Some 
 the Mexicans surprised and massacred. Others, in- 
 cluding Fannin, surrendered, only to be shot in 
 cold blood. 
 
 Meanwhile Houston amid the discontent of liis 
 men, whose families were fleeing under such des- 
 perate conditions continued the retreat. The 
 "terrain," that is, the lay of the land, in eastern 
 Texas reminds one of that in Venetia — a series of 
 rivers running eastward through a region of plain 
 and hill. And just as in 1918 we were all wonder- 
 ing at which river the Italians would stand against 
 the inrushing Austrians, so in 1836 the question 
 was at which river Santa Anna could be halted. 
 Jackson read the signs correctly when he flxed upon 
 the San Jacinto, which falls into a great indentation 
 in Galveston Bay, as the point where topography 
 and strategy favored a stand. 
 
 Santa Anna unwittingly helped on the inevitable 
 by jumping to the conclusion that Texas lay at his 
 mercy and by detaching parts of his army. His 
 own march followed approximately the retreat of 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 81 
 
 Houston's immediate command until the 7th of 
 April when the Mexicans entered San Felipe — or 
 its ruias, for by this time the town had been burned. 
 From San Felipe the opposing generals followed 
 different courses as far as Harrisburg on Buffalo 
 Bayou, which makes a right angle with the lower 
 San Jacinto. The provisional government was sit- 
 ting for the moment at Harrisburg. Thinking he 
 might destroy this town at a blow, Santa Anna 
 moved southward, crossed what must have seemed 
 to him his last serious obstacle, the Brazos River, 
 and then moved northeast upon Harrisburg. On 
 the 15th of April he reached an empty town. Re- 
 ports differ as to whether it was then on fire or 
 was burned later on by Santa Anna. What had 
 become of the Texan government? And where 
 was Houston? 
 
 Santa Anna believed that Houston had taken a 
 more circuitous route — as he had — but that he 
 also had aimed at Harrisburg, and that his purpose 
 was to pass through the town, follow Buffalo Ba- 
 you, then to cross the San Jacinto at Lynch's 
 Ferry and continue eastward. In a word, Santa 
 Anna thought he had beaten Houston in the race 
 for Harrisburg and that all he now had to do was to 
 push on, seize the San Jacinto ferry, and then turn 
 
82 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 about and destroy Houston at his leisure. But he 
 had not yet learned that he was dealing with a 
 people very different from the Mexicans. The fiery 
 Mexican was unable to gage the energetic Ameri- 
 can. The so-called fiery temperament forever con- 
 fuses impulse and energy. Had Houston been a 
 Mexican, Santa Anna would perhaps not have 
 found his calculations so far beside the mark. He 
 seems also to have thought Houston's army, if not 
 already broken up, feeble enough to be destroyed 
 by only a part of the Mexican forces. 
 
 For all these reasons Santa Anna felt safe in 
 making the reckless move that was to prove his 
 undoing. While his remaining forces were scat- 
 tered in several directions, he pushed on with only 
 seven hundred and fifty men toward New Wash- 
 ington, a village on Galveston Bay below the 
 mouth of the San Jacinto. There he expected to 
 capture the fleeing President of Texas, and yet 
 to have plenty of time to reach the ferry before 
 Houston. One of Santa Anna's outlying detach- 
 ments under General Cos was also moving in the 
 same direction along a route still farther south. 
 
 What had become of Houston while the enemy 
 was thus advancing? He had abandoned San 
 Felipe several days before the arrival of Santa 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 83 
 
 Anna. During the next three weeks while Santa 
 Anna was passing him to the eastward his course 
 presents problems, some of which have aroused 
 sharp discussion. It is enough here to note that 
 during this time he was swinging round a large 
 curve northeast, then southeast, contending with 
 the reckless spirit of his men, improving his or- 
 ganization, and at last striking the line of Santa 
 Anna's march on the BuflFalo Bayou on Monday, 
 the 18th of April. Santa Anna had passed by the 
 day before on his march to New Washington. 
 Thus Santa Anna's miscalculations began to work 
 his undoing. Unsuspected, the enemy whom he 
 thought he could deal with at his leisure was close 
 behind him, as he marched on in high spirits to 
 New Washington. Not finding his prey at New 
 Washington, he amused himself by burning the 
 town and then resumed his serious business — the 
 trapping of Houston by the seizure of the San 
 Jacinto ferry. 
 
 Meanwhile Houston had captured a Mexican 
 courier and thus learned of Santa Anna's plans. 
 He determined to spring a trap and hurried for- 
 ward along the south shore of Buffalo Bayou. On 
 the morning of the 20th of April, both generals were 
 marching on the same point, the San Jacinto ferry. 
 
84 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Santa Anna, coming up from New Washington, 
 was moving northward with his seven hundred and 
 fifty men. Houston, with about seven hundred 
 and eighty, was moving eastward. The Texans 
 reached the point of vantage first and there they 
 encamped in a live-oak grove and waited. At their 
 backs was the bayou, a narrow but deep stream 
 that joined the San Jacinto at the ferry about half 
 a mile distant. It was a lovely spot, for the high 
 banks of the bayou were covered with oaks, huge 
 magnolias eighty feet high, and great masses of 
 laurel, bay, and rhododendron. Southward of the 
 wood where the Texans camped was a stretch of 
 prairie. Watching this open space, the hardy, ad- 
 venturous Texans, each a dead shot, lay beneath 
 the great canopy of the silvery gray -green live oak 
 boughs, straining their eyes into the sun-glare of 
 the prairie, counting the hours before the Mexicans 
 should appear. 
 
 Early in the day Santa Anna's scouts informed 
 him that Houston had already arrived. "It was 
 with the greatest joy," says Santa Anna, "that 
 all the individuals belonging to the corps then 
 under my immediate orders heard the news, and 
 they continued the march, already begun in the 
 best spirit." Skirmishing later in the day, designed 
 
TEXAS SECEDES 85 
 
 to draw Houston out of the wood into the open, 
 failed of its purpose. Santa Anna therefore pitched 
 his camp on an eminence about a thousand yards 
 from the wood of the Texans. There he con- 
 structed breastworks. Early next morning Gen- 
 eral Cos joined Santa Anna, increasing his force to 
 something like twelve hundred men. Thursday, 
 the 21st of April, wore on without a demonstration 
 from either side. Fearing that more Mexican re- 
 enforcements were on their way, a band of Texans 
 led by "Deaf" Smith, a figure famous in Tex- 
 an tradition, destroyed a bridge which spanned 
 Vince's Creek, a tributary of the San Jacinto, over 
 which additions to the Mexican force would almost 
 certainly pass. Then in the late afternoon Hous- 
 ton's army, screened by their oak trees, began 
 silently to prepare for battle. Again Santa Anna 
 underrated his opponents. Still unaware of the 
 manner of man he had to deal with, the Mexican 
 general went to sleep. His army neglected to take 
 the most obvious precautions. Their horses were 
 unsaddled. The men were busy cooking. Sud- 
 denly at the edge of the grove of live oaks, a 
 thousand yards away, appeared a line of men. A 
 solitary fife struck up, "Will you come to the 
 bower I have shaded for you?" Immediately the 
 
86 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Texan battle line swept out into the open and 
 forward on the run. Now they were shouting, 
 "Remember the Alamo ! " All the fury of revenge 
 nursed during the terrible days of the retreat rang 
 in those fierce shouts and in the tempest of rifle 
 fire that followed. A few Mexicans stood for a 
 moment at the breastwork. Then all broke and 
 fled, while the Texans shot them like running game. 
 Thus ended Santa Anna's confident expedition. 
 The Texan loss was but two killed and twenty- 
 three wounded; of the Mexican army scarcely forty 
 escaped death, wounds, or capture. Houston re- 
 ported the dead alone at over six hundred. A 
 miserable fugitive brought in the next day proved 
 to be Santa Anna. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 KECOGNITION 
 
 The war which began at Gonzales in 1835 did not 
 end until the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, thir- 
 teen years later. It forms part of the background 
 and at times invades the foreground of American 
 history all through these eventful years. It was an 
 intermittent war, it is true, but it unifies the period 
 of thirteen years over which it cast its shadow. 
 
 The details of Texan experience during these 
 years — the constitution making, the local politics, 
 the financial desperation — form an interesting but 
 not a unique story, and hardly have a place on the 
 broad page of American history. The first com- 
 mission sent by Texas to the United States re- 
 turned despondent, with the report that the Ameri- 
 can Government stood neutral and that money 
 could be raised only by pledging Texas land at 
 cruelly low figures. A second and third commission 
 were sent to organize American sympathy. But 
 
 87 
 
88 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 nothing came of these efforts except glowing re- 
 ports of American intentions and the reiteration 
 of the belief of the commissioners that President 
 Jackson favored the cause of the Texans. The 
 fact that this bluntest of men would not come 
 out frankly on the subject does not seem to have 
 impressed them. 
 
 In 1836 the scene shifts to Washington, where 
 the fate of Texas was ultimately decided. Jackson 
 was then as eager to extend his dominion to the 
 Rio Grande as he had been in 1829 or in 1835. But 
 it was a bad time to spring new issues on the Ameri- 
 can public. Jackson the somewhat misty imperial- 
 ist might relish the idea of presenting to his coun- 
 trymen a great domain bought and paid for by his 
 astuteness alone; on the other hand Jackson the 
 politician was very cautious about involving the 
 country in war on the eve of a presidential election. 
 The first Texan commission had evoked from him 
 only a rhetorical flourish about the obligations of 
 the United States to Mexico. During 1836 Jack- 
 son's role continued to be that of a strict preserver 
 of neutrality. And yet for a brief time during that 
 year United States troops were on Texan soil — 
 or, as Mexico maintained, Mexican soil. General 
 Gaines had been ordered southwest to see that no 
 
RECOGNITION 89 
 
 military force, either Texan or Mexican, violated 
 the neutral territory of the United States. For 
 some time Gaines lay encamped with a small force 
 on the east bank of the Sabine. He was there when 
 the battle of San Jacinto took place, and an old 
 fiction, now obsolete, explained his presence at that 
 point as part of Jackson's secret support of the 
 Texan revolution. But while Jackson was not 
 actually abetting the revolution, no one with any 
 knowledge of his character can doubt that events 
 might have taken place in which — presidential 
 election or no presidential election — all Jackson's 
 political opportunism would have vanished, and he 
 would have plunged the United States into war. 
 Had the battle of the San Jacinto proved a rout 
 for the Texans, had the host of fleeing non-com- 
 batants reached the Sabine, it is as nearly certain as 
 anything unproven ever can be that Jackson would 
 have stalked in between Santa Anna and his prey. 
 It was partly, we may believe, to protect the 
 fleeing Texans even if Santa Anna did not overtake 
 them, that Gaines and his army were at the Sabine. 
 While Houston was gathering all he could of the 
 man power of Texas for his stand against Santa 
 Anna, the fleeing settlers were exposed to the alter- 
 nate horror of attack by the Indians. Gaines was 
 
90 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 instructed, if he saw danger of an Indian outbreak, 
 to cross the Sabine and attack the Indians. Though 
 he did not advance previous to Houston's victory, 
 a report that the Indians were rising led Gaines 
 briefly to occupy Nacogdoches in the summer of 
 1836. In consequence the Mexican Minister, after 
 a sharp controversy, demanded his passport and 
 withdrew from Washington in October. 
 
 In the six months since Houston's victory, Jack- 
 son had been studying the trend of events. There 
 was, indeed, much to think upon during the six 
 months which ended in the withdrawal of the 
 Mexican Minister. First of all there were the de- 
 bates in Congress. When Senator Thomas Morris 
 of Ohio, as early as April, presented a petition 
 from citizens of Cincinnati "on the subject of the 
 struggle for freedom now going on in Texas, and 
 suggesting the expediency of acknowledging the 
 independence of that country," he stirred up a 
 hornet's nest. All the great leaders of the day took 
 part in the violent discussion which followed. Out 
 of the turmoil of debate at least one fact emerged 
 unmistakably : Congress did not want to enter the 
 war. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, indeed, 
 though seeing plainly that annexation of Texas 
 meant war, pressed not only for recognition, but 
 
RECOGNITION 91 
 
 for annexation. But many politicians anticipated 
 the position which Preston, Calhoun's colleague, 
 took a year later when he said that, much as he 
 wanted Texas, he would not annex it until its in- 
 dependence of Mexico was past dispute. From 
 the latter point of view the actions of Gaines were 
 suspicious to say the least. John Quincy Adams, 
 during a debate in May, openly charged the Ad- 
 ministration with having sent Gaines to the border 
 with the purpose of involving the United States in 
 the war. 
 
 At first, the discussion did not reveal either sec- 
 tional or slavery bias. Senator Morris not only 
 presented the first petition for recognizing Texas 
 but soon after presented various anti-slavery peti- 
 tions. The only State whose legislature sent in 
 resolutions favoring recognition was Connecticut. 
 Some of the bitterest of the early opposition to 
 annexation was voiced by Senator Porter of Louis- 
 iana, who maintained that the war was ruining the 
 trade of his State with Mexico and that, if Texas 
 was annexed, Mexican raids would soon extend to 
 Louisiana. "It is all very well," he maintained, 
 "for gentlemen who come from States where peace 
 and security would not be disturbed by hostilities 
 to indulge in aspirations after the happiness of the 
 
92 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 human race." But he protested against their do- 
 ing so at Louisiana's expense. The upshot of this 
 war debate was a report by the Committee on For- 
 eign Relations of which Henry Clay was chair- 
 man. The document was blandly non-committal 
 and came to the conclusion "that the independ- 
 ence of Texas ought to be acknowledged by the 
 United States" whenever Texas was independent. 
 This smooth evasion of the crucial point was quite 
 like Clay. 
 
 The keen old President and his ring of astute 
 advisers — "practical" politicians of the true 
 blood — saw all this discussion in a perspective 
 that is sometimes forgotten. Jackson was only 
 just then extricating himself from a serious Euro- 
 pean predicament caused by too hastily joining 
 issue with France, on the assumption that the 
 Americans were in a warlike mood. Throughout 
 these months of 1836, when the fate of the politi- 
 cians was in the balance, the United States was 
 without a minister at Paris, and there was no 
 French minister at Washington. The rupture in 
 diplomatic relations had taken place in the pre- 
 vious year. In attempting to make an end of those 
 French spoliation claims outstanding since Napo- 
 leon, Jackson had tried a show of force and had 
 
RECOGNITION 93 
 
 issued mobilization orders to the American navy. 
 But the American people were equivocal, to say 
 the least, in their attitude on the subject. Clay 
 had got a unanimous vote in the Senate for resolu- 
 tions to the effect that the President had exceeded 
 his authority. Calhoun had warned the country 
 that it was drifting into war with France through 
 the haste and violence of the President. Late in 
 1835 Jackson's advisers were urging him to draw in 
 his horns. A circumstance which the Texan com- 
 missioners in the first half of 1836 failed to note was 
 the studied attempt of the Administration to with- 
 draw from the belligerent attitude of the previous 
 year. The American people were quick to respond. 
 It was the new tone of the President's dealing with 
 France that led Washington Irving in February, 
 1836, to write to Van Buren expressing his de- 
 light. The credit for the change Irving attributed 
 altogether to Van Buren. He was the pacific wiz- 
 ard behind the throne. It was he upon whom the 
 Texas envoy at Washington ultimately laid the 
 blame for the defeat of all the schemes to recog- 
 nize Texas in 1836. "I have made it my busi- 
 ness to unravel the mystery," he wrote, "and I 
 know I have succeeded. ... It all proceeds from 
 Mr. Van Buren 's party. . . . They are afraid of 
 
94 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 throwing Mr. Van Buren into a minority in the 
 next Congress." 
 
 When regarded in the perspective of the political 
 campaign of 1836, the evasiveness of the Adminis- 
 tration ceases to be mysterious. "Old Hickory" 
 had always admired the political adroitness of Van 
 Buren and had set his heart upon making him the 
 next President. But there were obstacles in the 
 way. The first half of 1836 brought the climax of 
 Jackson's financial battle in the distribution of the 
 surplus among the States. He had in solid array 
 against him all the financial interests of the coun- 
 try. And in the great commonwealth of New York, 
 so often the deciding State in presidential elections, 
 factions had so rent the party that promoters of 
 Van Buren were greatly alarmed. And now there 
 was still another source of alarm. Though the 
 Texas question entered politics without a sectional 
 bias, it speedily became entangled both with sec- 
 tionalism and with slavery. Senator Morris of 
 Ohio, the anti-slavery advocate who was its spon- 
 sor in the Senate, before long began to cool. The 
 indomitable John Quincy Adams sounded an anti- 
 slavery rallying cry. On the 25th of May he de- 
 nounced the Administration as conspiring to re- 
 establish slavery on soil where it had been abolished 
 
RECOGNITION 95 
 
 and as scheming to force the United States into the 
 war in the interest of the slaveholders. So violent 
 was Adams in his language that, in the reaction of 
 the next day, he pronounced his speech "the most 
 hazardous " he had ever made. But in a way it was 
 less hazardous and more strategic than he supposed. 
 Later he wrote in his diary that the North greeted 
 it with "a universal shout of applause." Through 
 such troubled waters the ship of Van Buren's po- 
 litical fortime — with Jackson in command, if not 
 quite at the helm — was laboring toward a perilous 
 haven beyond the November election. 
 
 It had been reiterated in congressional debates 
 that no one had enough certain knowledge about 
 Texan conditions to warrant decisive action. Was 
 it to forestall any complaint by friends of Texas 
 that Jackson sent Henry M. Morfit on a mission 
 of inquiry? Did he hope to find Texas so strong 
 that he might use the knowledge as a trump, should 
 the cards begin to run against Van Buren, or was 
 he honestly seeking light without ulterior purpose? 
 The biographers of Jackson have left us in the dark 
 as to his motive. Whatever it was, Morfit went on 
 his mission, and in August and September, while the 
 American voters in high revel took their fill of elec- 
 tioneering, he wrote letter after letter to the State 
 
96 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Department describing Texas. It was a discourag- 
 ing picture that he painted . The army was unstable. 
 The population consisted of some thirty thousand 
 Americans, five thousand negroes, and thirty-five 
 hundred Mexicans, as well as twelve or fourteen 
 thousand independent Indians. Though the Texas 
 leaders had meditated conquering everything be- 
 tween them and the Pacific, they had decided to 
 make the Rio Grande their western boundary as far 
 north as its source. This extension would give them 
 part of the province of New Mexico and fifteen thou- 
 sand additional population. But New Mexico was 
 not yet conquered. Financially the new republic 
 presented a curious spectacle. It was deep in debt 
 and yet had conducted a successful war with "little 
 embarrassment to her citizens or her treasury"; 
 this by no means insignificant accomplishment was 
 due to the bountiful inflow of donations from the 
 United States. Morfit concluded that Texas would 
 be little likely to maintain its independence since 
 "without foreign aid her future security must de- 
 pend more upon the weakness and imbecility of 
 her enemy than upon her own strength." 
 
 Morfit probably had no great insight into men 
 and nations. It is hard to say what weight his 
 reports had. A personal letter from Houston to 
 
RECOGNITION 97 
 
 Jackson may have accomplished more. Houston 
 was even more pessimistic then Morfit. He ac- 
 knowledged that the Texan situation was desper- 
 ate, so long as Mexico was determined to continue 
 the war, and he begged his old friend Jackson 
 to come to his assistance. But in 1836 Jackson 
 had other fish to fry, and perhaps he had some 
 real faith in the singular, not to say grotesque, 
 performance of Santa Anna's captors. 
 
 The majority of his captors wanted to give Santa 
 Anna an expeditious hanging, but Houston and 
 Burnet managed to save his life. Then they made 
 him sign a treaty which bound him not to take 
 up arms against Texas "during the present war 
 of independence," bound the Mexican forces to 
 withdraw across the Rio Grande, and provided 
 that Santa Anna himself should be allowed to 
 return to Mexico. A secret article promised the 
 recognition of the independence of Texas and by 
 implication the Rio Grande as a boundary. 
 
 How Burnet and Houston could have taken this 
 so-called treaty seriously — knowing Santa Anna 
 as they did — is a mystery. Later Santa Anna 
 publicly declared his part of the negotiation a mere 
 device for making his escape from Texas. As might 
 have been expected, Mexico struck the bottom out 
 
98 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 of the treaty by enacting that any agreement made 
 by the President while a prisoner should "be re- 
 garded as null, void, and of no effect." A meeting 
 of Texan soldiers prevented the return of Santa 
 Anna to his own country and very nearly put an 
 end to his life. Thereupon Santa Anna was in- 
 duced to write to Jackson begging him to employ 
 his influence to put the treaty into effect. Jackson 
 returned an answer that was unimpeachable from 
 the point of view of international law and as cool 
 as if his beloved Texans were subjects of the Em- 
 peror of Cathay. He deeply regretted that the 
 whole affair was beyond his competence, unless 
 Mexico should officially request his good offices. 
 This was in September and the presidential 
 election was not yet won. 
 
 During that same month the first regular elec- 
 tion was held in the Republic of Texas. Houston 
 was elected President, and the new constitution 
 drawn up by the convention was ratified by the 
 people. But far more significant was the plebiscite 
 which recorded some six thousand Texan voters in 
 favor of annexation to the United States and only 
 ninety -three opposed to it. One of the early acts of 
 the new Government was the dispatch of William 
 F. Wharton from the still unrecognized republic 
 
RECOGNITION 99 
 
 as Minister to the United States and the almost 
 simultaneous release of Santa Anna so that he too 
 as informal ambassador might intercede for Texas. 
 
 With the election of Van Buren to the presi- 
 dency Jackson ceases to be the leading man in 
 the tragi-comedy of the Texan negotiations. His 
 course for the next two months is far from clear, 
 but it is no longer of chief importance. The deal- 
 ings with Santa Anna, as might have been ex- 
 pected, came to nothing. The only person who 
 gained anything by the farce was Santa Anna 
 himself. With delicious effrontery he asked the 
 President for a warship to take him home, and it 
 was given him! Has history any picture more 
 ironical than that of this butcher of the Alamo, 
 protected by Texan statesmen from the wrath 
 of their soldiers, politely released from the coun- 
 try, politely bowing himself out of Washington, 
 and escorted to the deck of an American war- 
 ship, whereby he was conveyed in safety to his 
 native land! 
 
 At Washington the center of gravity in the 
 Texan negotiation now changed from the White 
 House to the Capitol. Apparently Jackson's aim 
 was to shift the responsibility for Texas upon 
 Congress. Ostentatiously he announced that he 
 
100 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 would let Congress guide him in this great matter. 
 When Jackson consented to be guided, there was 
 always a reason for his docility; but he was the 
 last man in such a situation to make candid con- 
 fession of his reasons. Perhaps the guesses of the 
 Texan Minister are as safe a guide as any to Jack- 
 son's wishes and purposes. His confidential corre- 
 spondence with his government shows Jackson 
 eager for annexation but unwilling to take the lead. 
 He intimates that the President encouraged him 
 to make an extravagant claim to all northern 
 Mexico, even to the Pacific, so as to give annexa- 
 tion a national rather than a sectional interest, and 
 he concludes that Jackson's main purpose in all 
 this deviousness was to avoid making enemies for 
 Van Buren in the next Congress. Be that as it may, 
 the friends of Texas in the Congress which met for 
 its last session in December, that month of good 
 omen, determined to bring things to a head. In 
 spite of all the talk about annexation, they decided 
 to reopen the fight on the narrower question of re- 
 cognition. A Senate resolution that the Republic 
 of Texas should be recognized called forth the elo- 
 quent support of Calhoun and the temporizing op- 
 position of Clay. On March 1, 1837, the resolution 
 was adopted. 
 
RECOGNITION 101 
 
 A more practical device in favor of Texas was 
 the work of Waddy Thompson of South Carolina 
 in the House of Representatives. He moved to 
 amend the civil and diplomatic appropriation bill 
 so as to provide for " a diplomatic agent to be sent 
 to the independent republic of Texas." The House 
 struck out the word "independent" and made 
 the appointment conditional upon the President's 
 receiving "satisfactory evidence that Texas is an 
 independent power." In this form both Houses 
 passed the recommendation and thereby adroitly 
 threw back upon Jackson the responsibility which 
 he had tried to fix on them. But this time he ac- 
 cepted the responsibility, though his precise motive 
 remains obscure. He sent for Wharton and some 
 other Texans to have a glass of wine with him 
 on the night of the 3d of March. That day, he 
 told them, he had nominated a charge d'affaires 
 to the Republic of Texas. He had said to Con- 
 gress that he regarded its action as "a virtual de- 
 cision of the question," and that it was his duty 
 to acquiesce therein. 
 
 But the recognition of the Republic of Texas 
 was only the prelude to the real play. The funda- 
 mental issue was still annexation. A breathing 
 space, however, followed the recognition. It was 
 
102 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 now plain that on the larger issue the political lines 
 would be sharply drawn. Wharton perceived the 
 coming storm. He wrote home that it would " agi- 
 tate this union more than did the attempt to re- 
 strict Missouri, nullification, and abolitionism, all 
 combined." An ominous sign was the political 
 composition of the new Congress. Though the 
 Administration had a majority in both Houses, the 
 Whigs, in opposition, showed a dangerous increase 
 over the previous Congress. When James K. Polk, 
 the previous Speaker of the House, was reelected, 
 it was by a margin of only thirteen votes. 
 
 The trial of strength in Congress between friends 
 and foes of annexation was postponed by the ter- 
 rible business collapse known as the panic of 1837. 
 But even while the country staggered on the edge 
 of ruin, while Whigs and Democrats were defin- 
 ing their relation to a catastrophe of the first 
 magnitude, the indefatigable Texan agents went 
 on log-rolling for annexation. Memucan Hunt, 
 who had succeeded Wharton, sought in vain to 
 enlist the support of the Administration. Presi- 
 dent Van Buren refused to turn aside from what he 
 deemed the larger issues. With the business of 
 the country prostrate, the danger of inciting war 
 with Mexico by annexing Texas could not be 
 
RECOGNITION 103 
 
 incurred. When Hunt, in August, made a formal 
 application to the State Department on behalf of 
 Texas for permission to enter the Union, the Secre- 
 tary blimtly told him that he was inviting the 
 United States to enter into a war. "So long as 
 Texas shall remain at war, while the United States 
 are at peace with her adversary, the proposition 
 of the Texan minister plenipotentiary necessarily 
 involves the question of war with that adversary." 
 
 Hunt appears to have considered the attitude of 
 the Administration as political chicanery. He did 
 not appreciate the reluctance of all the business in- 
 terests of the country to be drawn into war at such 
 a time. But he was quite right in seeing the whole 
 episode in the terms of politics, especially since 
 friends of Texas who had the confidence of Van 
 Bm-en assured him that the Democratic leaders 
 dared not "jeopardize the strength of the party in 
 the North by precipitate action on the subject." 
 
 During 1837 two events took place in the United 
 States the importance of which the Texans did not 
 fully realize. In the first place, the anti-slavery 
 agitation reached a point of acute crisis. In the 
 previous year John Quincy Adams had joined the 
 abolitionists and had become their chief voice in 
 Congress. The suppression by the House of the 
 
104 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 right of petition on the subject of slavery had made 
 Congress a boiling pot with the lid clamped down. 
 In November, 1837, one of the great tragedies of 
 the anti-slavery crusade took place. The aboli- 
 tionist Lovejoy was murdered by a mob in Illinois. 
 The cold fury aroused in men like Adams by this 
 outrage is beyond description. They set out to be 
 revenged on the whole party of slaveholders. 
 
 In this year, too, abolitionists reached a definite 
 conviction that the annexation of Texas was iden- 
 tified with the interests of slavery. The idea of a 
 conspiracy of slaveholders and annexationists orig- 
 inated with Benjamin Lundy, when that famous 
 abolitionist in 1832 devised his scheme for plant- 
 ing free colonies in Texas. Had his plans material- 
 ized, Texas would have been — like Kansas a quar- 
 ter century later — a labyrinth of hostile colonies, 
 some free, some slave. Although the plan was 
 never carried out, Lundy made several visits to 
 Texas and Mexico, and fell in with a notorious 
 Colonel Almonte, the bosom friend of Santa Anna, 
 who appears to have filled him with the Mexican 
 view of Texas. Lundy came home convinced that 
 Texas was a den of thieves. He wrote articles 
 for the abolitionist newspapers and published two 
 pamphlets. The Origin and True Cause of the Texas 
 
RECOGNITION 105 
 
 Insurrection and The War in Texas, in which the 
 violence of his language was matched by the in- 
 accuracy of his knowledge. He looked upon the 
 war as an "invasion of brigands from the United 
 States" who had the "avowed purpose of adding 
 five or six more slaveholding States to this Union." 
 Lundy's views were taken over bodily by Adams. 
 Remembering that these were largely the views of 
 Almonte and that through Adams they were foisted 
 upon historians for half a century, we have here 
 one more instance of the perversion of history by 
 uncritical writers. By the end of 1837 sectional 
 prejudice and anti-slavery passion had produced a 
 new political force hostile to Texas and fiercely 
 micompromising. 
 
 In December, the enemies of Texas forced the 
 fighting. The moment of attack was well chosen. 
 The dread of war, with American business still 
 prostrate, was widespread. Even among some of 
 the slavery champions this dread outweighed the 
 desire to acquire Texas. It had inspired Governor 
 McDuffie of South Carolina, in the most singular 
 act of his life, to urge the South Carolina Legis- 
 lature to reconsider their "almost unanimously 
 expressed desire" for the admission of Texas, giv- 
 ing as his reason that it would promptly involve 
 
106 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 the United States in the war and would lead to 
 servile insurrections in Louisiana and the neigh- 
 boring States. Another strategic feature of the 
 moment was the composition of Congress. Though 
 Texas was not yet definitely a party issue, the 
 Whigs, who were the champions of business against 
 the laissez-faire policy of the Administration, could 
 be trusted to stand pat against war. The Adminis- 
 tration forces, with their narrow majority of only 
 thirteen and with business not yet restored, would 
 hardly have the courage, even if they had the wish, 
 to hold together on a policy that involved war. 
 Furthermore, the Administration had been busy 
 during 1837 seeking to adjust a long list of claims of 
 American citizens against Mexico. At the close of 
 the year these claims were in sight of arbitration. 
 Diplomatic relations had been resumed. A Mexi- 
 can Minister had reached Washington. Annexa- 
 tion and war would throw aside the hope of any 
 profitable settlement. Instead of some crumb of 
 financial solace in Mexican payments, there would 
 be that necessity of all wars — taxes. The enemies 
 of annexation seemed likely at this critical mo- 
 ment to score a moral victory by squarely meeting 
 and rejecting the project. 
 
 The issue was brought before Congress when 
 
RECOGNITION 107 
 
 Senator Benjamin Swift of Vermont presented 
 resolutions by his State Legislature condemning 
 the proposal to annex Texas. Instantly the issue 
 was accepted as a sectional battle. After the read- 
 ing of the Vermont resolutions, Senator William 
 R. King of Alabama pronounced them "an in- 
 famous libel and insult on the South." Calhoun 
 deemed the present moment one of the greatest 
 importance; a great step had been taken in the 
 progress of events; he had long foreseen the pres- 
 ent state of things, and now the time had ac- 
 tually come when it was to be determined whether 
 we were to remain longer as one united and hap- 
 py people, or whether this blessed union was to 
 be dissolved by the hand of violence; Vermont 
 had struck a deep and dangerous blow into the 
 vitals of our confederacy. Swift withdrew the 
 resolutions for that day but gave notice that he 
 would bring them up again. 
 
 Then Calhoun with his usual courage, believing 
 that an issue might as well be met at its first ap- 
 pearance, accepted the gage of battle. On the 27th 
 of December he gave his counterblast to the Ver- 
 mont resolutions. Though Texas was not named, 
 the view of the Union and of the situation of the 
 moment, as shown in the Calhoun resolutions, 
 
108 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 made the attempt to exclude Texas seem an imper- 
 tinence, not to say a treason. On January 4, 1838, 
 his colleague, William C. Preston, advanced the 
 discussion to its permanent form. In a set of 
 resolutions he asked the Senate to denounce the 
 Treaty of 1819 under which the region between the 
 Sabine and the Rio Grande had been "surren- 
 dered"; and urged that " whenever it can be effected 
 consistently with the faith and treaty stipulations 
 of the United States, it is desirable and expedient 
 to annex the said Territory to the United States." 
 
 Thus the Congressional battle began. In the 
 course of the struggle which raged for six months, 
 Preston made the declaration that he did not con- 
 template annexation until Mexico could be brought 
 to consent and that he was not trying to involve the 
 United States in war. Perhaps this admission cut 
 the ground from under him. At least the strate- 
 gists of the attack had gaged the situation cor- 
 rectly. By degrees an anti-Texas coalition was 
 formed. In June Preston's resolutions were tabled. 
 
 In the House the coalition had harder work 
 and came much nearer to defeat. Again Waddy 
 Thompson was the pro-Texan leader. The coun- 
 ter-attack was directed by Adams. He fought with 
 all the controlled fierceness and deadly precision 
 
RECOGNITION 109 
 
 that made him second to none in the bitterness of 
 debate. His final move was a famous piece of ob- 
 struction. During three weeks, from the 16th of 
 June to the end of the session, he held the free time 
 of the House in a continuing speech. Thus Adams 
 killed a resolution fathered by Thompson and simi- 
 lar in character to the resolutions of Preston. This 
 famous "Texas Speech," as it is now known, was 
 afterward enlarged and published. It contained a 
 review of Texan history which was taken up by 
 historians and has endm-ed until our own day. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MEXICAN SHADOW 
 
 DxTKiNG ten years the Republic which was pro- 
 claimed at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 
 2, 1836, watched with troubled eyes a great shadow 
 upon the southern horizon. To the student of to- 
 day the shadow seems indeed but a shadow; but to 
 the men of that day it was not yet certain that the 
 Mexican peril lacked substance. It is surprising 
 that the danger was not terribly real. Texas was 
 very sparsely settled. Its little homesteads and 
 towns were separated by great spaces. It was just 
 the country to invite raiders, for it afforded to the 
 predatory horseman rich opportunity. He might 
 choose his own time and course and might destroy 
 a settlement, even far within the border, and es- 
 cape, with only a handful of his enemies informed 
 of his movements. All that saved Texas in these 
 perilous days was the amazing slowness and stupid- 
 ity of the Mexicans. Had the Texans faced rovers 
 
 110 
 
THE MEXICAN SHADOW 111 
 
 of the type of the Tatars, or the Six Nations, their 
 worst alarm would have been justified. 
 
 The second President of Texas, Mirabeau Bona- 
 parte Lamar, whose extraordinary name fitted 
 the visionary idealism of his character, seems to 
 have had in him enough of the poet to spoil the 
 statesman. In December, 1838, Lamar succeeded 
 Houston — for the Texan constitution forbade the 
 President to succeed himself — and began at once 
 the ambitious attempt to make Texas a great 
 independent power. Taking advantage of the 
 natural reaction away from the United States, 
 Lamar gave free scope to his visionary tempera- 
 ment, and for a time Texas followed him. Of the 
 various ill-judged measures which he devised only 
 one needs to be mentioned here. That one the 
 Texan Congress refused to sanction, whereupon 
 Lamar put it through on his own responsibility. 
 It was nothing less than an attempt to break up the 
 trade which then flourished between Mexico and 
 the United States through Santa Fe and to compel 
 this trade to take a new course southward through 
 Texas. Neither the precise rights of a neutral in 
 trade with a belligerent, nor the nice distinctions of 
 international law seem to have occurred to this 
 dreamer President. Even had his mad attempt 
 
112 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 succeeded, the resulting complications with the 
 United States would doubtless have confused him; 
 but it was a tragic failure. The men in the fee- 
 ble expedition which he sent against Santa Fe suf- 
 fered frightful hardship, reached New Mexico in a 
 starving condition, and were easily overpowered 
 and taken prisoner. The only material effect of this 
 disastrous foray was to inflame Mexico and assure 
 renewal of the war at the earliest opportunity. 
 
 The Santa Fe tragedy destroyed the popularity 
 of Lamar, and Houston was acclaimed as his suc- 
 cessor. What Lamar had sown Houston now had 
 to reap. Coming into office in December, 1841, 
 he had not long to wait for the Mexican counter- 
 stroke. In March, 1842, a Mexican army, taking 
 advantage of the lay of the land to make a secret 
 advance, suddenly appeared before San Antonio. 
 Simultaneously raiding parties swept over the 
 southern horizon and fell upon other Texan towns. 
 But this first onrush was not an invasion in force; 
 loot was its principal object. Having seized what 
 they could carry off, the Mexicans vanished as 
 suddenly as they had appeared. 
 
 Exaggerated reports of the raid swept over Texas 
 and reached the United States, where an adven- 
 turous sympathy with Texas again became the 
 
THE MEXICAN SHADOW 113 
 
 fashion of the moment. Volunteers set out for the 
 scene of danger, and a militia force assembled in 
 Texas. But Houston had no mind for a premature 
 stroke by unorganized forces and during the sum- 
 mer the militia melted away. In September, when 
 the ordinary routine of life was going on at San 
 Antonio, the judge of the district holding court, 
 the leading members of the bar arguing before him, 
 a Mexican force of some twelve hundred men, 
 under General Adrian WoU, descended on the town. 
 After a little sharp fighting, these Mexicans swept 
 away southward, carrying off a number of prisoners, 
 including the leading members of the San Antonio 
 bar and the judge himself. 
 
 This second San Antonio raid again aroused in 
 Texas fierce discussions of what ought to be done. 
 Again volunteers flocked together and demanded 
 a counter invasion of Mexico. Again Houston 
 tried to prevent a premature stroke and sought to 
 persuade the impatient people to form some sort of 
 effective mihtary organization. But neither Presi- 
 dent nor people would accept the other's plan, and 
 while they wrangled, the Texan forces again began 
 to melt away. Thereupon three hundred enthu- 
 siasts resolved to take things into their own hands. 
 They elected a commander, made their way across 
 
114 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 the Rio Grande, and attacked the Mexican town 
 of Mier on Christmas Day, 1842. It so happened 
 that Mier was at that moment occupied by a Mexi- 
 can force which outnumbered the Texans probably 
 four to one. Though the invaders fought furiously 
 in the streets of Mier, their battle was hopeless 
 from the beginning. On the afternoon of the next 
 day the few Texans who remained surrendered 
 upon written assurance from the Mexican com- 
 mander that they should be treated "with the 
 consideration which is in accordance with the 
 magnanimous Mexican nation." 
 
 While on the march to the Mexican capital in 
 February, 1843, these Mier prisoners overpowered 
 their guard and made their escape. Seeking safety 
 in the neighboring mountains, they lost their way 
 and suffered horribly for want of food. Some died 
 of starvation, and those who survived were at length 
 recaptured. As a punishment for their hardihood, 
 every tenth man was shot. The rest were sent 
 to the dungeons of the castle of Perote, where 
 many died, so that in the end only a pitiful handful 
 remained to be liberated. 
 
 Such, in the opening nlonths of 1843, was the 
 desperate military situation in which Houston 
 found himself. His diplomatic outlook was equally 
 
THE MEXICAN SHADOW 115 
 
 dark. Early in the previous fateful year Houston 
 had renewed overtures with a view to annexing 
 Texas to the United States. But Daniel Webster, 
 who was then Secretary of State, was an enemy of 
 Texas and gave him no encouragement. He was 
 scarcely cordial upon the subject of mediation be- 
 tween Texas and Mexico, though at length he con- 
 sented to act if England and France cooperated. 
 When he heard of the Mier expedition, however, 
 he told the Texan Minister at Washington that he 
 would have nothing further to do with mediation. 
 Meanwhile a strange performance on the part 
 of an erratic officer of the United States Navy 
 promised for a moment to bring Webster over to 
 Houston's side, though in the end it made the 
 breach between them wider than ever. We shall 
 hear later of certain acrid notes that passed be- 
 tween Washington and Mexico City because Web- 
 ster persisted, to the disgust of the Mexicans, in an 
 attitude of strict neutrality. To the Mexican mind, 
 as to the later German mind, neutrality was not 
 a legal status but an emotional condition. When 
 Webster, keeping strictly to international law, 
 would not play the hand of Mexico, the Mexi- 
 can Minister of Foreign Affairs issued statements 
 that seemed to indicate the beginning of hostilities. 
 
116 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 These remarks came to the ears of Commodore 
 Jones, who commanded a small squadron of 
 American ships then oflF the coast of Peru, and, to- 
 gether with certain absurd and groundless rumors, 
 aroused his patriotism to the boiling point. Setting 
 all sail, he made for the coast of Mexico, confident 
 that before he sighted its shores the two countries 
 would be deep in a great war. When he arrived 
 before Monterey, California, the Commodore did 
 not pause to question the basis of his judgment but 
 at once invested the town. Imagine the bewilder- 
 ment of the inhabitants who were thus compelled 
 to produce newspapers and various other evidence 
 in an effort to persuade this strange impetuous man 
 from the sea that Mexico and the United States 
 were at peace. 
 
 This amazing farce occurred in October of 1842. 
 It became known at Washington in January, 1843. 
 Thereupon John Quincy Adams, the most relent- 
 less of the enemies of Texas, again took up the 
 cudgels against her. It had leaked out that Presi- 
 dent Tyler differed from his Secretary of State in 
 desiring a revival of the issue of Texan annexation, 
 which had become increasingly likely during the 
 latter part of 1842. Adams, now heart and soul 
 the anti-slavery leader and always on the qui vive 
 
THE MEXICAN SHADOW 117 
 
 to discover a Southern plot on behalf of slavery, 
 watched every item of news with a bitter and preju- 
 diced eye, for he was utterly suspicious of Tyler. 
 To Adams this news of what Jones had done meant 
 but one thing. Somehow, somewhere, a scheme 
 was on foot to embroil the United States with 
 Mexico and to force the country into a war on 
 behalf of slaveholding Texas. As for Jones, he 
 had stupidly bungled the matter. Even when the 
 Administration promptly recalled Jones and dis- 
 avowed his action, Adams was not satisfied. He 
 wanted Jones disgraced. Nothing short of that 
 would prove the good faith of the Administration, 
 though Tyler in a message to Congress stated that 
 Jones had acted "entirely of his own authority." 
 
 So lacking in temperate judgment were Adams 
 and his close associates that they presently issued 
 an Address to the People of the Free States. This 
 paper revealed the same absolute satisfaction with 
 a personal sense of evidence that had inspired the 
 conduct of the erratic Jones. Its thirteen signers 
 declared positively that the Southern States were 
 conspiring to annex Texas in order that "the un- 
 due ascendency of the slaveholding power of the 
 Government shall be secured and riveted beyond 
 all redemption." After a long review of all the 
 
118 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 charges originally inspired by Almonte and Lundy, 
 the Address advanced to new ground in an auda- 
 cious threat that the annexation of Texas would 
 justify the free States in dissolving the Union. 
 
 The Address was dated March 3, 1843, the day 
 on which Congress adjourned. On the same day 
 the Senate altered a Treaty of Commerce and 
 Amity which Webster after long delays had con- 
 sented to negotiate with the Texan Republic. The 
 alterations made the treaty unacceptable to Tex- 
 as. Thus in the spring of 1843 Houston came 
 to a point where his situation appeared desperate. 
 Despite the rumors of a new movement of annexa- 
 tion, the United States Department of State was 
 still in the hands of the great political genius who 
 was his enemy. The implacable Adams, who had 
 once defeated annexation, was openly moving for 
 an anti-Texan combination that should stop at 
 nothing before its goal. The mihtary events since 
 the resumption of hostilities were all in favor of 
 Mexico. The tragedy of the Mier prisoners was in 
 every mind. And this state of things had been 
 brought about while Santa Anna, again the hero of 
 Mexico, was engaged in a civil war with the prov- 
 ince of Yucatan . What might happen should Santa 
 Anna prevail, or should a compromise be effected 
 
THE MEXICAN SHADOW 119 
 
 with Yucatan, and all the power of the Mexican 
 government be turned against Texas? 
 
 There was, however, still one card in Houston's 
 hand which had not been played. We must turn 
 now to his relations with England. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 
 
 The story of Texas is full of strange historical par- 
 allels and apparent anticipations, as if the shadows 
 of coming events were ominously cast before. We 
 have seen that Benjamin Lundy in Texas would 
 have anticipated John Brown in Kansas. Curi- 
 ously, too, the same boisterous Palmerston of Eng- 
 land, who had to deal with the question of recog- 
 nition of Texas, was embarrassed twenty years 
 later by that of recognizing the Confederacy. 
 Palmerston was probably as well disposed to- 
 ward an independent Texas as he was toward 
 the Confederacy in the later years when the ca- 
 price of fortune had again inflicted him upon the 
 English people. But he had no more intention of 
 pulling some one else's chestnuts out of the fire in 
 the one case than in the other. He held off, waiting 
 to see what Texas could do by herself, and carried 
 water on both shoulders by agreeing that a Texan 
 
 120 
 
ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 121 
 
 ship might go into "the Ports of Great Britain as a 
 Mexican ship, according to the stipulations of the 
 Mexican treaty, notwithstanding that the Docu- 
 ments used for such ship should bear upon their 
 face that they were the avowed act of a govern- 
 ment in Texas, assuming the style of a Republic 
 independent of Mexico." 
 
 While Palmerston thus held ofP from an honest 
 recognition, Texas tried without success to borrow 
 money in England and France. The failure was 
 due to various influences. The gigantic collapse 
 of American business in the panic of 1837 was 
 fresh in every mind, and Europe was still wary of 
 all transatlantic investments. Many Englishmen 
 had already burned their fingers lending money to 
 Mexico and they feared that any financial support 
 of Texas might cause a further decrease in the 
 value of their Mexican bonds. Furthermore — a 
 significant fact — the British and Foreign Anti- 
 slavery Society was opposed to the creation of a 
 new slaveholding power. Thus early the slavery 
 question became a factor in Texan diplomacy. 
 
 It was the slave trade, indeed, which in part at 
 least persuaded Palmerston to recognize Texas. 
 The British people were eager to have their navy 
 sweep the slaver from the seas. But to accomplish 
 
122 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 this end it was necessary to possess a treaty-right 
 to visit, if not to search, ships flying other flags 
 than the Union Jack. In trying to persuade the 
 United States to grant such a right, Palmerston 
 used the bullying tone natural to him and offended 
 the old sensitiveness of Americans over the right 
 of search. The American ambassador at London, 
 Andrew Stevenson, gave Palmerston as good as he 
 got by serving notice that, in the absence of a 
 definite treaty granting it, no claim to the right of 
 search would be tolerated at Washington. Then 
 the American Secretary of State informed the 
 British Government that his country would not 
 accept a treaty giving right of search to British 
 cruisers. But in spite of this opposition, Palmer- 
 ston turned the flank of the United States by 
 agreeing in 1840 to recognize Texas as a new 
 republic upon the condition that it allow a mu- 
 tual right of search by cruisers of the two pow- 
 ers in suppressing the slave trade. But Texas hesi- 
 tated at the right of search, and for two years the 
 agreement remained unratified. 
 
 Meanwhile a curious coincidence occurred. Al- 
 most at the same time the administrations changed 
 in Texas, in the United States, in Mexico, and in 
 England. In 1841, Houston became President of 
 
ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 123 
 
 Texas a second time, Webster became Secretary of 
 State for the United States, Santa Anna returned 
 to power in Mexico, and in London, Palmerston 
 was succeeded at the Foreign Office by the Earl 
 of Aberdeen. 
 
 The new Foreign Secretary in England found a 
 transatlantic situation of many complications. As 
 to Mexico, there were the clamorous British bond- 
 holders ever ready to denounce him should he 
 provoke that unstable nation into a frank repudia- 
 tion of its debts. To avoid a rupture with Mex- 
 ico was therefore an enforced item in his policy. 
 The quarrel between Maine and Canada over their 
 boundary line had culminated in recent border tu- 
 mults now called the "Aroostook War" and for 
 a time had seemed to threaten the gravest conse- 
 quences. To settle the Maine-Canada dispute was 
 a pressing part of Aberdeen's American policy. 
 Moreover, the long standing Oregon question must 
 not longer be neglected. Finally, there was Texas. 
 The treaty recognizing its independence, condi- 
 tional on the right of search in suppression of the 
 slave trade, was still unratified. 
 
 The question of slavery was undoubtedly close 
 to Aberdeen's heart. Before the close of 1841, 
 before he had been a year in office, he negotiated 
 
124 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 the now famous Quintuple Treaty under which 
 France, England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria 
 adopted uniform laws with regard to the slave 
 trade and gave to one another a limited right of 
 search. On the day the treaty was signed Aber- 
 deen wrote to Edward Everett, the American 
 Minister at London, a conciliatory letter, phrased 
 doubtless in designed contrast to the correspond- 
 ence of Palmerston, inviting the United States to 
 join what he called "in truth a holy alliance." At 
 the same time Aberdeen informed Everett that he 
 would send a special minister to the United States 
 to eflPect a settlement of all points at issue betweto 
 the two countries. " In the choice of the individual 
 for the mission," the Foreign Secretary had been 
 "mainly influenced by the desire to select a person 
 who would be peculiarly acceptable to the United 
 States as well as eminently qualified for the trust." 
 So in April, 1842, Alexander Baring, Lord Ash- 
 burton, arrived at Washington. A long and stead- 
 fast friend of America, he was further bound to the 
 country through his wife, a Philadelphia beauty, 
 the daughter of William Bingham, who had sat in 
 the Continental Congress and had been a Senator 
 from Pennsylvania. 
 
 One of the early experiences of Ashburton in 
 
ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 125 
 
 Washington was also one of the most singular. 
 The distrust of England that Palmerston with his 
 bullying policy had sown, Aberdeen and Ashbur- 
 ton now had to reap. Not only the United States 
 but Texas mistrusted the underlying purpose of 
 Great Britain. As a matter of fact, Palmerston 
 had made overtures to Mexico advising the recog- 
 nition of Texas; but there were persistent rumors 
 — in the words of the Texan representative at 
 Washington — "that Great Britain was furnish- 
 ing money and supplies to Mexico for the subjuga- 
 tion of Texas." To get at the truth James Reily, 
 at that time the Texan cfiarge, turned to Clay, 
 a Whig like Webster but temperamentally more 
 open to approach. At Reily's request Clay sought 
 an interview with Ashburton and asked him for a 
 plain statement of England's intentions. In reply 
 he received unconditional assurance, subsequently 
 confirmed by Aberdeen, that England would never 
 interfere ia favor of Mexico. 
 
 Meanwhile Texas had at last dispatched a minis- 
 ter to England, Ashbel Smith, by whom the formal 
 ratifications of the British-Texan treaties were pre- 
 sented. But in Mexico discontent broke out again. 
 This new development was due to the explosions 
 in the American newspapers over the capture of 
 
126 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 San Antonio in March, 1842. Waddy Thompson, 
 the newly arrived United States minister to Mex- 
 ico, encountered bitter complaints in Mexico City 
 to the effect that in all parts of the United States 
 "no voice was heard but that of war with Mex- 
 ico and of aid to Texas." At the end of May 
 Bocenegra, the Mexican Minister of Foreign Re- 
 lations, sent a circular note to the resident dip- 
 lomatic corps denouncing American "violations" 
 of neutrality and virtually intimating war. His 
 reasoning was precisely that with which Americans 
 became indignantly familiar seventy-five years la- 
 ter. Thompson replied with the same invocation 
 of common sense and international law which was 
 afterward and in almost the same connection ad- 
 dressed to the no less obdurate Germans. The 
 freedom of speech tolerated both in the United 
 States and in England forbade government inter- 
 ference with public meetings. Ample illustrations 
 of this freedom of speech were at hand. Almost 
 coincident with a pro-Texas meeting at New Or- 
 leans which had given great offense in Mexico, 
 there was held in the same city a meeting in favor 
 of repealing the Irish Union; in England, without 
 protests from the United States, meetings were 
 held "denouncing a large portion of our people and 
 
ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 127 
 
 our institutions in language in comparison with 
 which that used in pubHc meetings towards Mexico, 
 is the language of compliment." 
 
 The discussion continued. Other equally offen- 
 sive notes which Bocenegra issued drew from Web- 
 ster a stern reply. In July he wrote to Thomp- 
 son: "You will write a note to M. de Bocenegra, 
 in which you will say . . . that the President of 
 the United States considers the language and tone 
 of that letter derogatory to the character of the 
 United States and highly offensive . . . that the 
 conduct of the United States in regard to the war 
 between Mexico and Texas, having been always 
 hitherto governed by a strict and impartial regard 
 to its neutral obligations, will not be changed or 
 altered in any respect or in any degree. If for this, 
 the Government of Mexico shall see fit to change 
 the relations existing between the two countries, 
 the responsibility remains with herself." 
 
 It was while both Bocenegra and Webster were 
 thus threatening war that Texas made an ill-judged 
 move. Relying on the friendly attitude of Aber- 
 deen toward the United States, the Government 
 of Texas instructed its minister, Ashbel Smith, to 
 ask whether England and France would not join 
 with the United States in a "triple interposition" 
 
128 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 between Texas and Mexico. Apparently Houston 
 and his advisers did not understand the true at- 
 titudes of the neutral powers and their fixed re- 
 solve in 1842 not to be drawn into the Mexican 
 War, unless it might be in their own quarrels. 
 Guizot, the Minister of Louis Philippe, gave the 
 matter a polite hearing but pointed out that the 
 strained relations between Mexico and the United 
 States made the scheme a very doubtful one. 
 Aberdeen, bent entirely upon conciliatory poli- 
 cies, was more outspoken, frankly disapproved the 
 scheme, and thought that each power could use its 
 good offices to more advantage if independent of 
 the others. Thus the proposed triple interposition 
 came to nothing. 
 
 Aberdeen was genuinely desirous, however, for 
 peace between Texas and Mexico. Immediately 
 upon the recognition of Texas he had instructed 
 the British Minister in Mexico to put the case 
 as forcibly as possible before the Mexican Gov- 
 ernment. He argued that it was impossible for 
 Mexico ever to reconquer Texas and that it was 
 in Mexico's interest to create a buflFer state be- 
 tween herself and the United States. He pointed 
 out that were a Mexican conquest of Texas possible, 
 the United States would doubtless frustrate it by 
 
ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 129 
 
 annexing Texas. Finally, he suggested that the 
 Mexicans "should not allow themselves to suppose 
 that they can at any time count on succour from 
 Great Britain in their struggles with, Texas, or with 
 the United States. Great Britain is determined to 
 remain strictly neutral . " So unpromising had been 
 Santa Anna's reception of these overtures on the 
 part of Great Britain that the matter was dropped. 
 
 Then came the flare-up of the war in the au- 
 tumn of 1842 with WoU's invasion in September 
 and his raiding of San Antonio. In October oc- 
 curred Jones's fiasco at Monterey, which incensed 
 the Mexicans. In December the surrender at Mier 
 took place. Early in 1843 the Mier prisoners were 
 massacred. But just when the outlook for Texas 
 was very dark things began to mend and Aberdeen 
 saw another opportunity to play the mediator. 
 
 Among the prisoners carried off by Woll from 
 San Antonio was James W. Robinson, once Lieu- 
 tenant Governor of Texas. In the terrible days 
 when the Mier prisoners were wandering in the 
 mountains or starving to death, Robinson was shut 
 up in the castle of Perote. Thence he wrote to 
 Santa Anna saying that Texas was tired of the war 
 and that he was sure he could negotiate a reunion 
 with Mexico. Santa Anna, remembering his own 
 
130 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 strategy after San Jacinto, was not quite taken in 
 but appears to have reasoned that one prisoner 
 more or less did not matter, and that he might as 
 well take the risk. He therefore released Robinson, 
 giving him a signed statement of his terms of peace. 
 From the Mexican point of view these terms con- 
 tained a real concession: if Texas would acknowl- 
 edge the sovereignty of Mexico, the Texan Govern- 
 ment should be granted so large a measure of au- 
 tonomy as to make it independent in all but name. 
 In April, 1843, Robinson laid these terms before 
 President Houston. By this time the British Min- 
 ister in Texas, Captain Charles Elliot, R. N., was 
 deep in the confidence of Houston — or thought 
 he was. The object of Houston's diplomatic con- 
 duct can only be conjectured. That he took dif- 
 ferent attitudes at different times toward England 
 and toward America is established, but his inten- 
 tions are still a matter of debate. Did he pass 
 through genuine changes in point of view or was 
 he, as some will have it, always playing one game 
 under several disguises ? Was he, when he posed as 
 a lover of England in the period that now begins, 
 really championing Texan independence, or was he 
 scheming to frighten the United States into offer- 
 ing annexation? These questions remain as yet 
 
ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 131 
 
 unanswered. What we do know is that in 1843 
 Houston appeared to turn away from the American 
 affiliation and certainly began to lean heavily on 
 the friendship of England. At his request EUiot, 
 through the British Minister at Mexico City, ar- 
 ranged an armistice. Houston by proclamation 
 suspended hostilities. As might have been expect- 
 ed, nothing came of the ensuing negotiations. Tex- 
 as would not acknowledge Mexican sovereignty. 
 Mexico would not recognize Texan independence. 
 For more than a year, however, the miserable 
 Mexican War was suspended. 
 
 It was in May, 1843, that Santa Anna's terms of 
 peace with Texas, carried by the released prisoner 
 Robinson, were communicated to Aberdeen. He 
 thought they were not of "a very practical descrip- 
 tion." Nevertheless he wrote to Elliot to make 
 every effort to persuade Texas that virtual inde- 
 pendence was worth the "nominal concession" 
 demanded by Santa Anna. What he probably 
 thought and what all shrewd observers must have 
 thought was that both Texas and Mexico were for 
 the moment exhausted and that each was playing 
 for time in which to recuperate. 
 
 Aberdeen, true to his conciliatory impulse, 
 would have liked to use this pause in the war to 
 
132 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 effect a permanent peace. In the early summer of 
 1843 his career as Foreign Secretary was as yet 
 distinctly bright. The difficult task of undoing the 
 bad effect upon America of Palmerston's diplo- 
 macy appeared to have been accomplished. The 
 Ashburton mission had ended brilliantly in a treaty 
 concluded at Washington in August, 1842. If the 
 Oregon question was still open, at least the other 
 vexatious matters concerning the Maine boundary 
 and the slave trade were settled. The provisions of 
 the Quintuple Treaty were virtually extended to 
 the United States. The complex American prob- 
 lem had thus been reduced to the two questions of 
 Oregon and Texas. To both of these Aberdeen was 
 giving careful thought in the early summer of 1843. 
 Other considerations besides rounding out his 
 foreign policy were pressing Aberdeen toward a 
 more active course with regard to Texas. British 
 bondholders clamored for a policy that would give 
 Mexico peace, prosperity, and a chance to pay its 
 debts. Moreover, the British cotton trade was 
 just then in a state of depression.^ Undoubtedly 
 
 ' Certain recent historians have made much, perhaps too much, 
 of this business depression. Aberdeen, subsequent to the summer 
 of 1843, is regarded by some scholars as a diplomatic ogre seeking 
 to devour the world in the interests of British business. We may 
 dismiss this extreme view. There is no denying that during a part 
 
ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 133 
 
 Aberdeen wanted to see Texas, Mexico, and the 
 United States, all at peace, all prosperous, all with 
 the best of feehng toward England. Incidentally 
 he may have thought it would be beneficial to Eng- 
 land if there were another great cotton field in the 
 world, one whose rulers inclined toward free trade. 
 Texas, it securely independent, would be such a 
 field. He believed that the Texans wanted inde- 
 pendence, and Houston diligently encoiuaged this 
 view. What Aberdeen did next, from the strictly 
 diplomatic point of view, was undoubtedly a blun- 
 der, but he was under an illusion with regard to the 
 real desire of the Texans, and did not realize how 
 deeply his relation to America had been changed by 
 Webster's retirement from the State Department 
 a few months before. The new policy was inti- 
 mately connected with the anti-slavery agitation in 
 England. Three important steps had been taken 
 for the suppression of the slave trade. 
 
 The three international agreements — the Quin- 
 tuple Treaty, the Texan Treaty, the Webster- 
 Ashburton Treaty — were all fresh in the public 
 
 of his career his motives are obscure. But that period does not 
 date from 1843. It is safest to take his actions during that year 
 at their face value. Especially it is well to give heed to his own 
 statements of his motives. While not at all a great man, neither 
 was he an evil one. 
 
134 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 mind and seemed to mark an era. Abolitionists 
 everywhere took heart, thinking their day was at 
 hand. Ashbel Smith as early as January, 1843, 
 was aware of the working of this powerful force 
 and, thinking he perceived a reaction to it on the 
 part of the British Ministry, he wrote home: 
 
 It is the purpose of some persons in England to procure 
 the abolition of slavery in Texas. They propose to 
 accomplish this end by friendly negotiation and by 
 the concession of what will be deemed equivalents. I 
 believe the equivalents contemplated are a guaran- 
 tee by Great Britain of the Independence of Texas — 
 discriminating duties in favor of Texian products and 
 perhaps a negotiation of a loan, or some means by 
 which the finances of Texas can be readjusted. . . . 
 
 Rely on it, as certain, that in England it is intended 
 to make an effort, and that some things are already in 
 train to accomplish if possible the abolition of slavery 
 in Texas. And might not Texas exhausted as just 
 described, listen in a moment of folly to such overtures 
 of the British Government? . . . 
 
 The independence of Texas and the existence of 
 slavery in Texas is a question of life or death to 
 the slave holding states of the American Union. . . , 
 The establishment of a free state on the territory of Texas 
 is a darling wish of England for which scarcely any price 
 would be regarded as to [sic] great. The bargain once 
 struck what remedy remains to the South. ' 
 
 ' Texan Diplomatie Correspondence, vol. ii, pp. 1105-1106. The 
 italics are in the original. 
 
ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 135 
 
 Ashbel Smith's surmise as to the ultimate aims 
 of the British Ministry must be read in the Hght of 
 later events. He was not mistaken as to the re- 
 newed activity of the abolitionists. Under the 
 auspices of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery 
 Society a world's convention of opponents of slav- 
 ery was arranged to meet in London from June 
 13th to June 20, 1843. As an event in the devel- 
 opment of abolition this convention does not at 
 present concern us, but as a political event, it is of 
 the first magnitude. 
 
 This world's convention naturally drew to 
 London the most militant American abolitionists. 
 Among them was Stephen Pearl Andrews from 
 Galveston, Texas. Lundy's dream of a Texas 
 filled with anti-slavery colonies, though it had 
 never been realized, had not been entirely vain. 
 There was some — it is very difficult to say how 
 much — anti-slavery sentiment in Texas, and the 
 new ferment of anti-slavery enthusiasm the world 
 over had its effect among the Texan abolitionists. 
 Andrews, as their representative, set out for Lon- 
 don. Passing through the United States he joined 
 another militant abolitionist, Lewis Tappan, and 
 together they called on the grim leader of their 
 cause, John Quincy Adams. In his diary Adams 
 
136 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 has recorded this visit. The passage is worth brack- 
 eting with the one already quoted from Ashbel 
 Smith. The entry which Adams made runs thus : 
 
 Mr. Tappan had with him the New Orleans Bee of the 
 15th and 16th May, containing several long articles 
 sounding the trumpet of alarm at the symptoms re- 
 cently manifested in Texas of a strong party with a 
 fixed design to abolish slavery. . . . Mr. Andrews 
 ... is now about to embark in the steamer Caledonia, 
 tomorrow, for England, with a view to obtain the aid 
 of the British government to the cause. ... I bade 
 him God speed, and told him that I believed the free- 
 dom of this country and of all mankind depended upon 
 the direct, formal, open and avowed interference of 
 Great Britain to accomplish the abolition of slavery in 
 Texas; but that I distrusted the sincerity of the present 
 British administration in the anti-slavery cause. 
 
 The Convention in London in the month of June 
 was, of course, a great event and it was watched 
 by all sorts of people, from all sorts of points of 
 view — by such political enemies as Lord Aberdeen 
 and Lord Brougham; by the keen and observant 
 envoy from Texas; above all, by a singular Ameri- 
 can busybody, Duflf Green, whose importance will 
 presently appear. 
 
 A committee of the Convention, sometimes re- 
 ferred to as "the Tappan Committee," obtained 
 
ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 137 
 
 an audience with Aberdeen which proved to be an 
 historic event. Precisely what took place during 
 this interview is somewhat doubtful. The com- 
 mittee gave one version; Lord Aberdeen, another. 
 Doubtless it was an instance of hot-headed enthu- 
 siasts misunderstanding the very cautious state- 
 ments of one who sympathized with them per- 
 sonally but had not at the moment any intention 
 of committing himself officially. What the com- 
 mittee believed Aberdeen to have said gave rise 
 to the report, destined to have wide influence in 
 America, that England would guarantee the in- 
 terest of a Texan loan if its proceeds should be 
 applied to the pm-chase and emancipation of slaves. 
 Aberdeen's version of the conference — which 
 was not known in the United States until the Com- 
 mittee's version had become a fixed tradition 
 accepted by such incompatibles as Calhoun and 
 Adams — was expressed in reply to a direct in- 
 quiry from Smith, in whom the version circulated 
 by the committee roused alarm. 
 
 His Lordship replied in effect [Smith wrote] that it is 
 the well known policy and wish of the British Govern- 
 ment to abolish slavery everywhere; that its abolition 
 in Texas is deemed very desirable and he spoke to this 
 point at some length, as connected with British policy 
 
138 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 and British interests and in reference to the United 
 States. He added, that there was no disposition on the 
 part of the British Government to interfere improperly 
 on this subject, and that they would not give the 
 Texian government cause to complain; he was not pre- 
 pared to say whether the British Government would 
 consent hereafter to make such compensation to Texas 
 as would enable the slaveholders to abolish slavery, 
 the object is deemed so important perhaps they might, 
 though he could not say certainly. . . . 
 
 Lord Aberdeen also stated that despatches had been 
 recently sent to Mr. Doyle, the British Charge d' Af- 
 faires at Mexico, instructing him to renew the tender 
 of British mediation based on the abolition of slavery 
 in Texas, and declaring that abolition would be a 
 great moral triumph for Mexico. Your Department 
 will not fail to remark that this despatch to Mr. Doyle 
 appears to introduce a new and important condition 
 into " mediation. " . . . 
 
 The British Government greatly desire the abolition 
 of slavery in Texas as a part of their general policy in 
 reference to their colonial and commercial interests 
 and mainly in reference to its future influence on 
 slavery in the United States. 
 
 Here we find Aberdeen's new policy. Mexico 
 was to be persuaded to abandon the demand for a 
 nominal sovereignty over Texas and was to con- 
 cede independence; the quid pro quo was to be 
 the "moral triumph" of a Texan assent to aboli- 
 tion; as Aberdeen told Smith, this programme had 
 
ENGLAND AS PEACEMAKER 139 
 
 already been communicated to Doyle in Mexico. 
 Soon after this interview Aberdeen wrote again 
 to Doyle reviewing his interview with the "Tap- 
 pan Committee," repeating his desire to have 
 Texas "confer entire emancipation on all persons 
 within its territory," and concluding with the 
 statement that "H. M. Government desires that 
 you should press this point earnestly on the atten- 
 tion of the Mexican Government." That Aber- 
 deen should have supposed Santa Anna and his 
 gangsters susceptible to the charms of what the 
 Englishman considered a "moral triumph" is 
 strange beyond expression. But apparently Aber- 
 deen was sincere in this belief. And he seems not to 
 have had the slightest suspicion how his course 
 would be interpreted by the successors of Webster 
 at Washington. It now remains to be seen how 
 this concihatory Lord Aberdeen, a statesman fol- 
 lowing the will-o'-the-wisp of his political illusions, 
 had digged for himself a great pitfall. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 
 
 In this period of American life, distrust of England 
 was broadcast. The dominant men in politics were 
 of the generation succeeding the Revolution, and 
 the impression of their youth — of the bitter hos- 
 tility to Great Britain in 1812 — remained with 
 them to color their views and shape their conduct. 
 Men like Calhoun and John Quincy Adams, who 
 had little else in common except their ability, were 
 at one in their reading of some ulterior motive into 
 every British act. It is the pathetic fallacy of 
 the time that so few American patriots could see 
 beyond their immediate horizon. Calhoun inter- 
 preted a certain set of facts as evidence that Eng- 
 land desired the extinction of slavery, and perhaps 
 even the dissolution of the Union, in her own com- 
 mercial interest, while Adams reasoned from the 
 same set of facts that England's "interest is to 
 sustain and cherish slavery." 
 
 140 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 141 
 
 The statesman who was now Secretary of State, 
 had the Umitations of his day. Abel P. Upshur 
 based his foreign policy on the belief that England 
 was aiming to abolish "domestic slavery through- 
 out the continent and islands of America in order 
 to find or create new markets for the products of 
 her home industry, and at the same time destroy 
 all competition with the industry of her colonies." 
 In accounting for Upshxir's foreign policy it must be 
 remembered also that his point of view was exclu- 
 sively American, the point of view of a "practi- 
 cal" man with a clear, though narrow, vision of 
 cause and effect, and of a slaveholder and a believer 
 in slavery. 
 
 About the time that Upshur became Secretary, 
 Duflf Green began writing home sensational ac- 
 counts of the relations between Aberdeen and the 
 Tappan Committee. He wrote to Calhoun, who 
 passed his letters on to Upshur, and also directly 
 to Upshur. As Green was a politician of some 
 prominence, a newspaper editor, and a faithful 
 Democrat, and as he had met in Europe some 
 distinguished people and had been invited by 
 Delane to write articles for The Times on American 
 conditions, his reports on Aberdeen struck his 
 American friends with the force of oracles. Two 
 
142 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 misapprehensions of Aberdeen which Green circu- 
 lated alarmed Upshur. One of them was the accoimt 
 given out by the Tappan Committee of their in- 
 terview with the Foreign Secretary, according to 
 which Aberdeen promised to guarantee an Anglo- 
 Texan emancipation loan. He expressed his other 
 misapprehension when he said "that the British 
 Government deem it so important to prevent the 
 annexation of Texas to the United States that they 
 were disposed to support the loan if it should be 
 required to prevent annexation." Thus Upshur 
 and Calhoun formed a conception of Aberdeen's 
 foreign policy which they never abandoned. 
 
 The Anti-slavery Convention and the incident 
 of the Tappan Committee were widely reported 
 throughout the United States. Anti-slavery people 
 were jubilant, slaveholders alarmed. The prospect 
 of a free Texas offering an asylum to runaway 
 slaves — a second Canada only a river's width 
 away — stirred the slaveowning oligarchy of the 
 South into action. Though defeated in 1838 and 
 put aside, as it seemed, by the Whig victory in 
 the election of 1840, annexation might now have 
 another chance. Tyler had broken with the Whigs 
 who had elected him. In Upshur he had put at the 
 head of his cabinet an avowed annexationist. The 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 143 
 
 indiscretion attributed to Aberdeen was just what 
 was needed to breathe new life into the cause. If 
 anything more was required, it was suppUed by a 
 conversation between Aberdeen and Brougham in 
 the House of Lords. Brougham inquired what the 
 Government was doing in Texas; he wanted to 
 know whether Mexico was being pressed to recog- 
 nize Texas on the basis of emancipation; and he 
 made the diplomatically unfortimate remark that 
 aboUtion, if it could be effected in Texas, would 
 react against slavery in the United States. Aber- 
 deen refused to explain his course and insisted that 
 it was not the proper time for submitting to Parlia- 
 ment a statement of his Mexican policy, but he 
 assured his noble friend that so far as slavery was 
 concerned his refusal " did not arise from rudiflfer- 
 ence but from quite a contrary reason." A report 
 of this conversation printed in the New York 
 Herald on September 20, 1843, drew the conclusion 
 that England was aiming at the destruction of the 
 United States. 
 
 These European events, though Upshur assigned 
 to them prime importance in reviving the annexa- 
 tion issue, were not the only matters troubling him 
 in the early autumn of 1843. Though Texas in 
 1838, after Adams' great victory in Congress, had 
 
144 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 withdrawn its request for annexation, the request 
 had been renewed in 1842, and remained out- 
 standing till the summer of 1843, when President 
 Houston again withdrew it. 
 
 What, in the light of the supposed British in- 
 trigues, lay behind this action? Isaac van Zandt, 
 the Texan Minister at Washington, wrote home in 
 September that it had "fired" Upshur with re- 
 newed zeal for annexation. Van Zandt perhaps did 
 not make sufficient allowance for the perspective 
 in which the event was placed before Upshur's 
 imagination by the news from London and by the 
 talk of the abolitionists. 
 
 As a matter of fact there was nothing mysterious 
 or sinister in Houston's withdrawal of the request 
 for annexation. Had it been known at Washington 
 on the day it was ordered — July 6, 1843 — its 
 significance might have been perceived. Only 
 three weeks had elapsed since Houston's proclama- 
 tion of June 13, 1843, ordering a cessation of hos- 
 tihties under the Robinson armistice. What could 
 have been more absurd than to discuss terms 
 which involved a possible recognition of Mexican 
 sovereignty by Texas, while there remained out- 
 standing a formal request for annexation to the 
 United States? 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 145 
 
 But as the summer progressed and the negotia- 
 tions with Mexico showed no sign of coming to 
 anything, Houston became nervous and furnished 
 students of history some cause to quarrel over his 
 motives. There is something to be said for simply 
 accepting the record at its face value. During the 
 \ previous year Houston had received distinct re- 
 buffs from the United States. The Adams mani- 
 festo threatening civil war if Texas were annexed 
 was but a few months old. The treaty of commerce 
 and amity between Texas and the United States 
 had been rejected by the American Senate within 
 the year. To be sure, Webster, the great enemy of 
 Texas, was gone from the State Department, but 
 as yet his retirement had not produced a change of 
 front toward Texas. On the other hand, English 
 officials had negotiated the Robinson armistice. 
 For the first time since the war began, Texas had 
 a real breathing space. What more natural than 
 that Houston — who resented the successive re- 
 buffs brought about by Webster and Adams, who 
 was grateful for the respite in the war, and who 
 hoped for some sort of peace — was eager at this 
 moment to be unembarrassed by an American 
 affiliation and to make the most of the friendship 
 of England? 
 
146 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 When in the late autumn Houston heard from 
 Van Zandt that Upshur had proposed a treaty of 
 annexation, the situation in which he found himself 
 had changed, though it is quite possible that his 
 sympathies at this time were still definitely pro- 
 British. Houston told Charles Elliot "that with 
 the independence of Texas recognized by Mexico, 
 he would never consent to any treaty on this pro- 
 ject of annexation to the United States." On the 
 ground of what he said to Upshur some critics 
 have charged him with duplicity, for Van Zandt 
 was to tell Upshur that the matter would be con- 
 sidered only on receipt of a definite proposal from 
 the United States Senate. 
 
 The clue to Houston's temporizing is to be found 
 in certain occurrences in Mexico. Three incidents 
 that were hardly noticed at Washington, but that 
 loomed large in Texas occurred in the latter part of 
 1843. One was no more dignified than a quarrel 
 between Doyle and the Mexican authorities over a 
 British flag exhibited among certain trophies of 
 war. Doyle's demand for the removal of the flag 
 and the squabbling of the Mexicans caused a cessa- 
 tion of diplomatic relations, a popular demonstra- 
 tion against England, and even threats of war. 
 To Houston, who had hoped that England would 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 147 
 
 find a way to permanent peace, this temporary 
 paralyzing of her influence in Mexico was discon- 
 certing. A second disquieting happening was the 
 pacification of Yucatan. Santa Anna had been 
 seriously embarrassed throughout the year by the 
 civil war against his administration in Yucatan, 
 and his consent to the armistice may have come 
 from his desire to center his whole strength upon 
 Yucatan. But toward the end of the year the 
 quarrel was made up. Just when Houston saw his 
 great friend, England, become powerless in Mexico, 
 he also saw his worst enemy, Santa Anna, turn to- 
 ward Texas, his purpose clearly shown by the third 
 alarming circumstance. Mexico knew that volun- 
 teers from the United States had always formed the 
 chief recruiting supply of the Texan army. In 
 1843 the Mexican Government issued a proclama- 
 tion announcing that any foreigner who invaded 
 the territory of the republic whether "accompanied 
 by a few or many adventurers" should, if taken 
 with arms in his hands, be shown no quarter but 
 should "be immediately put to death." 
 
 Considering the Mexican situation, Houston 
 plainly saw where his line of safety lay. So im- 
 perative was his need of an ally that he dared not 
 refuse any offer. It is quite likely that his first 
 
148 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 choice would have been an independent Texas, 
 and he continued to assure EUiot that he still 
 hoped for it. Nevertheless Houston would not 
 commit himself adversely to the American pro- 
 posal. He was maneuvering for position and 
 seeking a means of defense against the dreaded 
 Mexican blow. 
 
 Meanwhile Upshur at Washington, it would 
 seem, dreaded a blow from outside as much as 
 Houston in Texas. Though Everett at London, by 
 Upshur's instructions, had asked Aberdeen what 
 were his intentions, and though Aberdeen had 
 denied any intention to intervene in Texas, the 
 denial as reported by Everett served if anything 
 to increase Upshur's conviction that England was 
 playing a game of deception with the United States. 
 "The subject of domestic slavery," Everett wrote 
 in his report of the interview, "was never so much 
 as mentioned or alluded to by the British Minister 
 to the Government of Texas, except to disclaim in 
 most emphatic terms any intention on the part 
 of England to interfere with it here. Her Texas 
 policy was to build up a power independent of the 
 United States who could raise cotton enough to 
 supply the World; of which power slavery would be 
 a necessary element." 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 149 
 
 Whether or no Aberdeen was candid in this 
 interview may be left to his biographers. To 
 Upshur, at least, the whole truth seemed to lie in 
 Everett's conclusion that England desired an in- 
 dependent Texas as rival to the United States in the 
 growing of cotton. He was confirmed in his belief 
 that England was an ogre seeking her commercial 
 interests utterly without scruple. To defeat the 
 British move against Texas was, therefore, for the 
 United States a matter of life or death. From this 
 time forward the great majority of the anti-British 
 sank all other considerations before their over- 
 powering fear of the ogre in London. Subsequent- 
 ly Calhoun asserted this fact in so many words 
 and insisted that it was not for sectional but for 
 national reasons that he urged the annexation of 
 Texas. At the time his enemies did not believe 
 him. Certain later historians have sought to prove 
 him insincere by exposing the misapprehension 
 on which his reasoning was based; but such a 
 refutation concerns his political acumen and not 
 his motive. It becomes increasingly plain that 
 both Calhoun and Upshur, carried away by their 
 traditional dread of Great Britain, saw the Texas 
 question as a matter of international strategy. 
 
 Beheving the American danger to be real and 
 
150 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 acute, Upshur was set on edge by Houston's equivo- 
 cal attitude during the latter part of 1843. Van 
 Zandt, also provoked, exceeded his authority and 
 negotiated a treaty of annexation. Then, perhaps 
 alarmed at his own temerity and on second thought 
 appreciating Houston's position better, he de- 
 manded a guarantee of protection by the United 
 States against Mexico in the course of negotia- 
 tion, should Texas consent to negotiate. Here was 
 the crux of the Texan issue narrowly considered. 
 Should the United States enter the war? We have 
 seen that a few years earlier almost all Americans, 
 even friends of Texas like Preston, were resolute 
 not to annex a war; but at that time the British 
 ogre had not been raised from the dead. Its res- 
 urrection now transformed the case. Convinced 
 that England was moving upon Texas and that she 
 must be kept out at all cost, Upshur prepared 
 for war with Mexico. Verbal assurance was given 
 Van Zandt that Texas would be defended against 
 Mexico. At the same time Upshur sent a virtual 
 ultimatum to Houston in which he very nearly 
 threatened to go over Houston's head and ap- 
 peal direct to the Texan people. Upshur further 
 stated that annexation could now be carried in the 
 United States Senate, warned Houston against 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 151 
 
 trusting the friendship of England, and cited the 
 fable of the wolf and the lamb. 
 
 It is highly probable that Van Zandt, not being 
 in sympathy with Houston, had anticipated Up- 
 shur's implied threat and was already correspond- 
 ing with the Department of State, behind Houston's 
 back. At least it is certain that a popular move- 
 ment for annexation was started in Texas at the 
 close of 1843. From this Houston held off, there- 
 by provoking sharp criticism. He was accused of 
 acting too often behiud a "veil of secrecy." Pres- 
 ently, being pushed forward by Washington and 
 by the clamor at home, he laid the whole situation 
 before the Texan Congress and emphasized the 
 great danger, should negotiations with the United 
 States fail, that England and France might take 
 offense at such disregard of their good offices and 
 leave Texas alone to face a vengeful Mexico. He 
 insisted upon at least a defensive alliance with the 
 United States before entering upon negotiations. 
 The possibility of such an alliance seemed to be 
 established shortly afterwards by the receipt of 
 Van Zandt's dispatch reporting the verbal assur- 
 ance of protection. To clinch the matter Hous- 
 ton appUed to the American minister William 
 S. Murphy, who stated in writing to the Texan 
 
152 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Government that "neither Mexico nor any other 
 power will be permitted to invade Texas on account 
 of any negotiation" with the United States. This 
 assurance determined Houston, and the next day 
 he sent off a special envoy to cooperate with Van 
 Zandt. On the day following he wrote to his 
 old friend Jackson urging him to use his influ- 
 ence on behalf of annexation, saying that Texas 
 approached the United States " like a bride adorned 
 for her espousal" but intimating that there were 
 other lovers in the field should the presumptive 
 bridegroom prove too coy. 
 
 Meanwhile, though the negotiations had been 
 kept secret, the Mexican Minister at Washington 
 scented danger. This ofl3cial was none other than 
 that same Almonte who, years before, had filled 
 Lundy with erroneous views upon Texas and who 
 now again becomes associated with John Quincy 
 Adams. In December, 1843, Almonte unbosomed 
 himself to Adams and was assured that an annexa- 
 tion treaty could not pass the Senate. Not wholly 
 satisfied, Almonte then interviewed Upshur. The 
 Secretary of State made no secret of his fear that 
 England was striving to control Texas and to 
 injure the United States. Upshur expressed his 
 dread of England by saying that "he would 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 153 
 
 infinitely prefer to see Texas again in possession 
 of the Mexicans than under the influence of the 
 British Government. ..." When Almonte sug- 
 gested that England might object to the "sale" 
 of Texas, even if Mexico were willing, Upshur re- 
 plied that in such an event the United States 
 would go the length of war with England. Almon- 
 te's last word was to the effect that before he could 
 again communicate with his Government, Mexi- 
 can armies would be in the heart of Texas. Be- 
 fore anything further could be done, Upshur was 
 killed by the explosion of a great cannon during 
 an artillery display on the warship Princeton on 
 February 28, 1844. 
 
 Calhoun now became Secretary of State and no 
 one could have been found more likely to continue 
 an anti-British policy. With characteristic bold- 
 ness he sent for Almonte, informed him that a 
 treaty of annexation was in preparation, and asked 
 whether Mexico could be induced to consent. Al- 
 monte replied that annexation meant war and that 
 he would ask for his passports the moment the 
 treaty was ratified. With the issue thus clearly 
 defined, the diplomats parted. 
 
 Nothing daunted, Calhoun turned to the Texan 
 representatives — for the special envoy had now 
 
154 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 arrived — and confirmed the promise of protection. 
 "Should the exigency arise to which you refer in 
 your note to Mr. Upshur," he said in writing to 
 Van Zandt, "I am further directed by the Presi- 
 dent to say, that, during the pendency of the treaty 
 of annexation, he would deem it his duty to use all 
 the means placed within his power by the constitu- 
 tion to protect Texas from all foreign invasion." 
 On April 12, 1844, the Texan envoy signed the 
 treaty of annexation. 
 
 In the six weeks since Upshur's death the Mexi- 
 can Minister on his part had labored industriously. 
 The letters which he sent to his Government during 
 March told of conferences with congressmen, sena- 
 tors, and other persons of importance; he was 
 assured that New England, New York, and Penn- 
 sylvania would secede rather than permit annexa- 
 tion; the abolitionists would all stand by Mexico. 
 He therefore concluded that it was most impor- 
 tant to invade Texas without delay. The one dis- 
 couraging circumstance was the attitude of the 
 British Minister, who gave no hope that England 
 would try to prevent annexation by force. Almon- 
 te was accordingly convinced that England's great 
 trade with the United States would prevent war. 
 
 Plainly Washington was a boiling pot when the 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 155 
 
 treaty was signed. It is highly probable that the 
 Administration had become doubtful of its strength. 
 Perhaps for this reason it delayed ten days before 
 sending the treaty to the Senate; or perhaps it 
 sought to arouse public interest. The political 
 strategy of these ten days is not altogether clear, 
 but the new Secretary of State undoubtedly cre- 
 ated enemies for the treaty by making public a 
 significant letter to Lord Aberdeen. 
 
 Among Upshur's unfinished business Calhoun 
 had found a letter from Pakenham, the British Min- 
 ister, enclosing a dispatch from Aberdeen. Re- 
 ports from America of the great excitement over 
 his dealings with the Tappan Committee had at 
 last come to Aberdeen's ears, and he saw that the 
 American excitement must immediately be quieted. 
 With that end in view he sent the dispatch now 
 known as the first paper in the Calhoun-Paken- 
 ham correspondence. This letter was little more 
 than a plain statement of Aberdeen's attitude to- 
 ward Texas, repeating practically what he had 
 said to Ashbel Smith the previous summer. He 
 denied that he had any secret design with regard to 
 Texas and frankly admitted his desire for aboli- 
 tion "throughout the world" but insisted that 
 England would do nothing "secretly or underhand." 
 
156 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 He said further that England's interests in Texas 
 were purely commercial and that she had "no 
 thought or intention of seeking to act directly 
 or indirectly in a political sense on the United 
 States through Texas." 
 
 To this letter Calhoun wrote a long reply, a copy 
 of which was submitted to the Senate with the 
 treaty. There can be no doubt that in his own 
 mind it was an argument for Americanism, an 
 appeal to his countrymen to resent a foreign inter- 
 ference with a domestic institution. His text was 
 Aberdeen's avowal of his desire to see slavery 
 abolished throughout the world. From this Cal- 
 houn drew the conclusion that England desired a 
 world unsafe for slavery; and from that it followed 
 that she would enforce her views on the United 
 States by violence. Would any American, slave- 
 holder or other, stand by and see his country's 
 institutions mutilated by an invader? Such was 
 the sentiment Calhoun wished to inspire in every 
 American. Unfortimately for his cause, he did not 
 confine himself to the general theme but discussed 
 at length the merits of slavery and compared the 
 conditions of negroes in the South and in the North. 
 The precise effect of this letter has never been de- 
 termined. Did it defeat the treaty.? Did it fall flat? 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 157 
 
 Who knows ! It aroused a storm of protest and the 
 treaty was eventually rejected by the Senate, but 
 whether these facts are causally related is not 
 easily told. 
 
 The Texan annexation treaty was before the 
 Senate from April until June. During that time 
 the national conventions were held, that of the 
 Whigs on the 1st of May and that of the Demo- 
 crats later in the same month. The Whig platform 
 did not mention Texas. Clay, the foregone con- 
 clusion in the way of Whig candidate, had pre- 
 viously issued a letter defining his position with 
 regard to Texas. In this document Clay held that 
 it was "perfectly idle and ridiculous, if not dis- 
 honorable, to talk of resuming our title to Texas," 
 insisted that annexation meant war with Mexico, 
 opposed the project, and poohpoohed the idea that 
 England was moving against the United States 
 through Texas. 
 
 Among the Democrats the aimexation issue pro- 
 duced a complicated intrigue, the details of which 
 are not important here. It is enough to say that 
 Van Buren, until then the most promising candi- 
 date for nomination, spoiled his chances by a letter. 
 With his eye on the political situation in the North 
 and fearful of losing the anti-slavery wing of his 
 
158 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 party, which was now large, Van Buren came out 
 frankly against annexation on the ground that it 
 meant war with Mexico. In contrast to this atti- 
 tude, James K. Polk took up Clay's challenge and 
 in unequivocal terms announced himself "in fa- 
 vor of immediate re-annexation of Texas," and the 
 Democratic politicians, who saw that at this mo- 
 ment they needed a fighting man, nominated Polk. 
 
 As the Presidential campaign began, the foreign 
 affairs of the United States entered upon a new and 
 very singular chapter. In both connections Clay 
 held the center of the stage. His great personality, 
 so hypnotic in its effect upon his associates, was 
 also to impress Aberdeen and to give direction to 
 his policy. As far back as December, 1843, Clay 
 had met Elliot, then on a visit to New Orleans, and 
 had assured him that he need not be alarmed over 
 rumors of projected annexation, for no annexa- 
 tion treaty would pass the Senate. These assur- 
 ances Elliot sent to Aberdeen. Later on, Paken- 
 ham told Aberdeen that he could rely on "the 
 whole strength of Mr. Clay's party " being thrown 
 against annexation. 
 
 There seems little doubt that the Whigs at this 
 time appeared to Aberdeen as the dominant Ameri- 
 can party. How completely he was convinced that 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 159 
 
 his best course lay in close cooperation with them, 
 is shown by a passage in a subsequent dispatch to 
 France in which he confessed alarm lest his policy 
 had been "throwing additional weight into the 
 scale of . . . Mr. Polk . . . and proportionately 
 diminishing Mr. Clay's Election to the Presiden- 
 tial Chair." Until very recently Aberdeen's part 
 in this year of destiny, 1844, has been ignored by 
 American historians. Even today his motives are 
 imcertain and his actions seem in part ambiguous. 
 Three illusions in his mind furnish a clue to his 
 pohcy: first, that he had the dominant American 
 party on his side; second, that opposition to an- 
 nexation represented only the alarm of slaveholders 
 over the question of abolition in Texas; and, third, 
 that Texas was opposed to annexation and would 
 regard as an act of aggression any attempt by the 
 United States to achieve it. The different chap- 
 ters in Aberdeen's diplomacy may be marked off, as 
 first one and then another of his political illusions 
 faded away. 
 
 The most important of these — the vision of a 
 troubled Texas, afraid of both Mexico and the 
 United States, and eager to be independent of 
 both — was inspired by a letter from Elliot, re- 
 porting that Houston assured him his demands for 
 
160 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 protection by the United States were intended as 
 an impossible condition which would bring annexa- 
 tion to a standstill. He hoped that Great Britain 
 would "find means of preventing all further risk of 
 complication in that direction." During most of 
 1844 Aberdeen was in two minds towards the 
 United States. On the one hand, Upshur's anti- 
 British agitation incensed him. Tyler's message of 
 December, 1843, contained sneers at England that 
 caused Aberdeen to lose his temper. He wrote 
 Pakenham "to state to Mr. Upshur H. M.'s Govt, 
 would have been glad if they could have discovered 
 in the Message greater evidence of that disinterest- 
 ed policy, the presumed absence of which in other 
 quarters, the President has thought necessary to 
 call to the Notice of his Countrymen." Paken- 
 ham wisely disobeyed instructions and did not 
 deUver this communication. Aberdeen's temper 
 after Calhoun's reply to Pakenham was foreseen 
 by the Minister when he wrote home: "Your 
 Lordship will perceive with surprise and dis- 
 pleasure . . . that the explanations furnished by 
 Her Majesty's Government have been received in a 
 sense quite contrary to their obvious and literal 
 meaning." Plenty of cause here for temper! 
 The Oregon negotiation was, however, still 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 161 
 
 outstanding, and Aberdeen was eager to bring it to a 
 happy conclusion. During half the year his course 
 vacillated between an indulgence of his temper and 
 a consideration of his best interests. In his calmer 
 moments he could not forget the watchful attitude 
 of British business, with its enormous American 
 trade, and at such times he must have fully realized 
 that a breach with the United States would have 
 wrecked the ministry. Behind Aberdeen stood 
 Peel, the Prime Minister, an incomparably larger 
 man and one who kept a far better balance between 
 his impulses and his actions. On both of these men 
 the opposition in Parliament served a warning in 
 May when it demanded what the Government was 
 doing in America, basing the inquiry on a sus- 
 picion that it was meddling with the internal 
 affairs of other countries. Both Aberdeen and Peel 
 refused to commit themselves. Shortly before, the 
 Liverpool Mercury had declared that a war with 
 the United States, even if successful, would so 
 damage British trade as to be a "calamity of the 
 most fatal description." 
 
 Against this complex background must be seen 
 Aberdeen's rash move earlier in the year when he 
 invited France to join with him in a protest against 
 the pending treaty. Guizot, always agreeably 
 
162 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 disposed towards the British authorities, instructed 
 the French Minister at "Washington to cooperate 
 with Pakenham. Fortunately for Aberdeen the 
 two ministers agreed that Aberdeen's plan, if car- 
 ried out, would not play into Clay's hands but 
 into those of his enemies, would stimulate the anti- 
 British feeling, and would give annexation a trump 
 card. The protest, it seems, was not made. 
 
 During the month of May, when the treaty was 
 before the Senate and Clay was forcing the issue 
 with an apparent firmness destined soon to dis- 
 appear, Aberdeen resolved to get entirely free of 
 his entanglement with the international abolition 
 of slavery. This he did before the month was over 
 by entering into new negotiations with Mexico ia 
 which he definitely withdrew all his previous sug- 
 gestions as to abolition in Texas. Three days later 
 he sent a dispatch to Pakenham informing him of 
 this change of front, accompanied by a full state- 
 ment of the attitude of the British Government on 
 the subject of slavery in the United States. There- 
 in he repeated his condemnation of slavery but 
 promised to refrain carefully from any steps which 
 could affect the interest of the United States "in 
 this particular." 
 
 If Aberdeen's view of the American situation 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 163 
 
 had been correct, if Clay had dominated it, and if 
 the militant slavery faction had been his only seri- 
 ous enemies, Aberdeen might well have congratu- 
 lated himself on a shrewd stroke. Doubtless he 
 thought he had the situation in hand when, in this 
 new overture to Mexico, he proposed on the one 
 hand that Mexico should acknowledge Texan in- 
 dependence and on the other that Texas should 
 pledge herself not to consent to annexation by any 
 other power, and that England and France should 
 guarantee the pledge. 
 
 A short but obscure chapter in Aberdeen's di- 
 plomacy thus begins. While awaiting action by 
 Mexico, he obtained the assent of the amiable 
 Guizot to his new plan. Then with apparent 
 abruptness Aberdeen changed front once more. 
 On the 18th of July, before any reply to his over- 
 ture had been received from Mexico, he wrote to 
 the British Ambassador at Paris that the scheme 
 must be abandoned or at least indefinitely post- 
 poned. What had happened between May and 
 July.? What illusion had dissolved? 
 
 Clay's firm opposition to annexation was based 
 on his belief that it was safe policy. The illusion 
 he had helped create in Aberdeen dominated him as 
 well in that month of May, when he thought he 
 
164 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 would certainly be the next President of the United 
 States. At first it looked as if, in forcing the fight, 
 he had split the Democrats. When the treaty came 
 to a vote it lacked the necessary two-thirds major- 
 ity. The seven Democrats who voted against it 
 were taking revenge for the Van Buren faction be- 
 cause the party machine had not accepted their 
 favorite. It was quickly made plain, however, that 
 this was a case of the sulks and not a settled policy. 
 Thomas H. Benton, chief supporter of Van Buren, 
 first voted against the treaty and then came out in 
 favor of annexation through the action of Con- 
 gress. All factions of the Democratic party ac- 
 cepted annexation as their cardinal doctrine. Van 
 Buren himself oflFered no opposition, and his per- 
 sonal following ia New York, which was the "piv- 
 otal State," took their strategic place in the battle. 
 Each week of the campaign made it clearer that 
 Clay and Aberdeen, with their illusion that the 
 militant slaveholders formed the whole strength of 
 the annexation movement, had made a fatal blun- 
 der. The United States wanted Texas. At any 
 rate, so loud and insistent and widespread was the 
 cry for annexation that Clay, whose ear was to the 
 ground, became alarmed. He began to make ad- 
 missions, to explain away his position, to prepare 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 165 
 
 to straddle the issue. At length he wrote the fa- 
 mous letter that killed him politically. The ad- 
 vocates of annexation had gone too far in defiance 
 of him to swing around like a dog to a whistle 
 because he now offered to accept their terms. 
 When he announced that he would be glad to see 
 Texas annexed if it could be done "without dis- 
 honor, without war, upon the common consent of 
 the Union, upon just and fair terms," he shattered 
 the anti-Texas faction. Whether it could have 
 won if its leader had stuck to his colors is a subject 
 of dispute to this day. 
 
 All these moves in the political game were de- 
 scribed by Pakenham to Aberdeen. Both Paken- 
 ham and the French Minister perceived the turning 
 of the tide. A victorious anti-Texas party that 
 would welcome or at least acquiesce in the Anglo- 
 French guarantee of Texan independence proved 
 to be a dream. Both ministers warned their Gov- 
 ernments not to proceed with the plan. The de- 
 termining letter appears to be the dispatch to 
 Pakenham dated the 27th of June. Though at 
 that date Clay had not yet written the letter that 
 destroyed him, Pakenham' s political insight read 
 the situation correctly. While still hoping much 
 from Clay's election, he made the remarkable 
 
166 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 prophecy that, even if elected. Clay would not 
 after all be able to stop annexation, but merely to 
 secure for it a fair consideration. Pakenham told 
 Aberdeen almost in so many words that, if England 
 and France should pursue their plan "without the 
 consent and concurrence of this country previously 
 obtained," the result might be war. There had 
 arisen "a crisis of the utmost delicacy in our rela- 
 tions with this Coimtry." Other information with 
 regard to the American situation had also come to 
 Aberdeen. Side by side with the Texas question 
 the Oregon question had grown more and more 
 momentous. The Democratic platform declared 
 that the title of the United States to "the whole 
 of the territory of Oregon is clear and unquestion- 
 able; that no portion of the same ought to be ceded 
 to England." The whole coimtry rang with the 
 cry: "Fifty-four forty or fight! " 
 
 What was the British Ministry to do? The 
 whole thought of Aberdeen upon American aflFairs 
 during June and July, 1844, has never been dis- 
 closed. But the result of his thinking was soon 
 made manifest. There are those who believe that 
 for a brief space his temper overmastered his true in- 
 terests and that he contemplated war. If that is so, 
 it was indeed a midsummer madness that quickly 
 
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS OF 1844 167 
 
 passed. In late July, Aberdeen was correspond- 
 ing with Paris and decently burying bis ambitious 
 scheme of the previous May. He had decided fi- 
 nally upon an amicable policy towards the United 
 States. As to Texas, the future was to be left to 
 circumstance. Oregon was to be the immediate 
 witness to the desire of Great Britain to settle her 
 American problems in a friendly way. Pakenham 
 pressed Calhoun, who was still at the State Depart- 
 ment, to resume negotiations. In August when the 
 American crisis had taken on another and very 
 startling aspect, these two able men, in a tone 
 that was like a cool breeze amid the hot fury of 
 American politics, opened the final chapter in the 
 long controversy over Oregon. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE DOMESTIC CRISIS OF 1844 
 
 While the ostentatious Polk and the unstable 
 Clay imagined they were the great players in the 
 presidential game, the real contest in 1844 lay 
 between Calhoun and another powerful personal- 
 ity, Robert Barnwell Rhett; and that contest was 
 fought out in South Carolina. The fundamental 
 issue between Calhoun and Rhett was not annexa- 
 tion but secession. 
 
 We have Rhett's word that he became a seces- 
 sionist in 1844, and that he was the only one in 
 Congress during that year. He was then a repre- 
 sentative from South Carolina. A perfectly fear- 
 less and a wonderfully direct man, he had often 
 before then threatened to accept secession as a 
 solution of the sectional conflict. As early as 1838, 
 in a counterblast to a petition against slavery in 
 the District of Columbia, he moved that "the 
 constitution of the United States having proved 
 
 168 
 
THE DOMESTIC CRISIS OF 1844 169 
 
 inadequate to protect the Southern States in the 
 peaceable enjoyment of their rights and property : 
 Resolved, that a committee of two members from 
 each State in the Union be appointed to report 
 upon the expediency and practicality of amending 
 the constitution or the best mode of dissolving the 
 Union." He had taken part in those great par- 
 Uamentary battles in which Adams had led the 
 assaults upon the friends of Texas, and he made 
 his irrevocable decision soon after Adams had 
 threatened a secession of Northern States. 
 
 About this time occurred a schism in the 
 Methodist Church which appears to have made 
 a deep impression on the Southern imagination. 
 The Charleston Mercury, the newspaper that was 
 Rhett's especial organ, remarked that "the split 
 of the Methodist Church [into the Northern and 
 Southern Churches] is of peculiar significance as 
 marking an epoch — the first dissolution of the 
 Union." Putting all these signs together, Rhett 
 concluded that the experiment of union was a 
 failure. He therefore determined to take Adams 
 at his word and to anticipate his threatened North- 
 em secession by an attempt, at least, to lead the 
 South into secession. Rhett first urged the South- 
 ern members of Congress to issue an address to 
 
170 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 their constituents advocating a convention of the 
 whole South to deal with the Texan question. 
 When this failed, he advanced to the position 
 which he held ever after and which put him 
 fundamentally at odds with Calhoim. Siace the 
 South would not act as a whole, Rhett urged upon 
 the South Carolina delegation that they send home 
 a circular advocating separate action by their own 
 State. His theory was that if South Carolina 
 seceded the other Southern States would be forced 
 by the instinct of self-preservation to follow her 
 example. If we may accept the bitter version of 
 this incident recorded in the diary of Governor 
 Hammond, though the plan promised success for a 
 while, "at the eleventh hour Calhoun came in and 
 broke it up chanting praises to the Union and 
 peace." Rhett thereupon went home, leaving be- 
 hind him the war-cry, "Texas, with or without 
 the Union." 
 
 Partisans of Rhett in South Carolina were al- 
 ready making active demonstrations in favor of 
 annexation. They held meetings and adopted res- 
 olutions. Though most of these gatherings were 
 not in favor of disunion before Rhett returned up- 
 on the ground, some of them were. For instance, 
 one meeting at Barnwell resolved that if annexation 
 
THE DOMESTIC CRISIS OF 1844 171 
 
 failed "a dissolution of the Union would be both 
 inevitable and highly desirable," and another 
 at Beaufort resolved that, "We will dissolve the 
 Union rather than abandon Texas." 
 
 Even before Rhett took command of his forces in 
 person, the movement for secession was progress- 
 ing so rapidly that in the middle of June the Charles- 
 ton Courier, an anti-Rhett paper, published a letter 
 from "A Plam Man" advising "Mr. Calhoun to 
 send a missionary into the State, for the purpose 
 of attending all political meetings and checking the 
 recklessness and headlong course of his political 
 friends. With great propriety may he exclaim, 
 'deliver me from my (foolish) friends,' etc." 
 
 In the first weeks of the presidential campaign, 
 many South Carolinians were averse to Polk . There 
 was much talk of supporting Tyler for President. 
 There was also much talk of disunion. To combat 
 both these tendencies the Courier reiterated quota- 
 tions of the views of Calhoun and insisted that 
 he and his friends were entirely satisfied with the 
 nomination of Polk. The Courier rejoiced "that 
 the disunion spirit, lately revived and thus mani- 
 fest among us," had not made headway outside the 
 State and held it "a matter of real gratulation that 
 Mr. Calhoun should throw the weight of his great 
 
172 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 name against intemperate action of any kind." 
 The Mercury sharply took the Courier to task for 
 its attitude, and the Calhoun organ replied: "We 
 repeat here our high gratification at the stand 
 now taken by Mr. Calhoun against separate State 
 action, or separate Southern action, on matters 
 of national concernment — we know of no leader 
 under whom we would more willingly enlist than 
 our great Southern statesman, should he indeed 
 return to his first love, recover his nationality of 
 feeling and unfurl the glorious banner of Union 
 and Liberty." 
 
 Thus the issue was joined. To Calhoun's argu- 
 ment that nothing ought to be done until the elec- 
 tion should determine whether Polk or Clay was to 
 direct events, Rhett had his reply. To his mind it 
 was no longer a question of the Presidency but of 
 the House of Representatives. There, more and 
 more clearly, lay the heart of the problem, as the 
 House tended to divide on sectional lines. Before 
 long a solid majority from the free States would 
 control it. Secession or submission were the al- 
 ternatives before the South. Since a choice must 
 be made, why not at once before the enemy forces 
 had time to consolidate fully? 
 
 Rhett took immediate command of his battle in 
 
THE DOMESTIC CRISIS OF 1844 173 
 
 an address which he delivered on the 31st of July 
 at Bluffton at a public dinner given in his honor. 
 The significant toast was "Disunion the only 
 remedy"; and another toast was "John C. Cal- 
 houn — we will follow him as long as he is true to 
 us." The event of the day was, of course, Rhett's 
 speech, in which he clearly defined his position. 
 He saw no hope from the presidential election; the 
 Democratic party throughout the country could 
 not be relied upon to protect the South; Texas 
 must be acquired; the tariff must be abolished; the 
 one way to preserve Southern institutions was to 
 secede. Rhett's speech was enthusiastically re- 
 ceived, and the entire assemblage appeared to be 
 with him. "The spirit of Brutus," said the Mer- 
 cury, "has not passed away but will inspire the 
 people until the State once more is free." 
 
 During August and September the battle raged. 
 For a time Rhett seemed to be carrying everything 
 before him. He made numerous speeches. He re- 
 ceived great ovations. It seemed that the spell 
 of Calhoun had been broken. "If it be true," 
 said a letter which the Mercury displayed as an 
 editorial, "that our old commander has bid adieu 
 to his faithful soldiers, another leader, not as able, 
 nor perhaps as judicious in the council yet as brave 
 
174 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 and determined in the field, it will be no difficult 
 matter to select." 
 
 But those who thought that the old commander 
 had lost his hold had been premature in their judg- 
 ment. While Calhoun remained at Washington 
 negotiating with Pakenham over Oregon, a few 
 letters from him, the reiteration of his views by 
 his recognized agents, and the arguments of the 
 newspapers that represented him, gradually re- 
 stored his spell. It was a great victory for sheer 
 prestige. By the end of August the resolutions at 
 public dinners were beginning to regain their old 
 tone of hero-worship for Calhoim. Gradually his 
 argument for no action until after the election 
 became the popular one. Rhett's contention that 
 Congress and not the Presidency was the heart 
 of the matter lost its allurement. In September 
 the Courier declared that "Mr. Calhoun has been 
 and is still the guiding star for South Carolina." 
 
 That Calhoun feared what might follow disunion 
 only less than he feared the consequences of a con- 
 solidation of the Union, every biographer has 
 recognized. But time has shown that consolidation 
 or disruption was inevitable, and it was this alter- 
 native which Rhett saw in 1844 and Calhoun failed 
 to see. Must Calhoun's defenders come eventually 
 
THE DOMESTIC CRISIS OF 1844 175 
 
 to the conclusion, then, that in 1844 the older 
 statesman was the inferior strategist? 
 
 Two considerations interpose to arrest this con- 
 clusion. For one thing, Calhoun had a new vision 
 which Rhett had not — the vision of a United 
 South acting as a unit, in place of the older vision 
 of a Southern group of friendly but separate States. 
 It was this vision which Calhoun handed on to 
 those successors of his who beat Rhett a second 
 time in 1851. Another consideration may have 
 ruled Calhoun's action. There can be little doubt 
 that he was hypnotized by his belief that England 
 would turn aggressor in the Western Hemisphere, 
 were it not for the opposition of the United 
 States. When he said that his Texan policy was na- 
 tional not sectional, he told the strict truth. The 
 best proof is his course in South Carolina, the 
 truly pivotal State. We need not say that he 
 had lost strategic insight, but rather that he was 
 keen enough to pierce through sectional limitations. 
 Assuming his view of British policy, what could 
 have seemed more disastrous in 1844 to America 
 than a division of the Union into two weakened 
 republics to replace a single powerful one ? Twenty 
 years later, in a similar situation, the third Napo- 
 leon tried to conquer Mexico. A divided republic 
 
176 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 in 1844 would have given the same opportunity, 
 not to the conciliatory Aberdeen, but to the aggres- 
 sive and anti-American Palmerston, who, but a 
 few months after Rhett's defeat, became Aberdeen's 
 successor. Whether Calhoun was right or wrong 
 in his view of Aberdeen, what great good fortune 
 for America that he kept a imited front in the face 
 of Palmerston when such a prize as Texas might 
 have tempted that grand swashbuckler to follow 
 his natural bent ! 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 AN ADVENTURE IN IMPERIALISM 
 
 The Democratic victory in November reunited 
 the party. Taking the election of Polk to be an 
 indorsement of the programme of annexation, the 
 party leaders set confidently to work. What could 
 not be done by treaty, should be done now by 
 action of Congress. A few Whigs, equally obedient 
 to the popular will, joined the friends of Texas. 
 A joint resolution was adopted by both Houses 
 inviting Texas to become a State of the Union and 
 was signed by President Tyler on March 1, 1845. 
 Thereupon Almonte demanded his passports and 
 left Washington. 
 
 Meanwhile Mexico had become, to use a modern 
 term, isolated. We may date her isolation from 
 the end of April. Mexico was at that time deeply 
 stirred by a report that annexation was impending. 
 An appeal to the British Minister was met by the 
 assertion that " any assistance from England must 
 
 12 177 
 
178 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 be a moral one for that whatever disposition 
 may have at one time existed to go beyond that 
 line had now been withdrawn." Though Aberdeen 
 was led by the Texan Government into one more 
 attempt to intervene in the interest of independ- 
 ence, it was as mediator only that he acted. As a 
 result, Mexico oflFered to recognize the Republic of 
 Texas if it would remain independent. But Texas 
 was treating also with the United States, with re- 
 gard to annexation, and when the two proposals 
 — peace with Mexico and independence or no 
 peace and annexation — were laid before a con- 
 vention that assembled on July 4, 1845, Texas 
 accepted the invitation of the United States. 
 
 And now the center of the stage belongs to the 
 new President of the United States, James Knox 
 Polk. Undoubtedly Polk did not want war; but he 
 was as ignorant of the Mexican character as Adams 
 or Jackson and treated the Mexican ultimatum as 
 of no consequence. He regarded the Texan episode 
 as closed — as, with skillful diplomacy, perhaps it 
 might have been — and now maneuvered to bring 
 forward a scheme of his own. His first aim was to 
 restore diplomatic relations with Mexico. During 
 the whole of his first year of office he made tor- 
 tuous and fruitless attempts to induce the Mexican 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN IMPERIALISM 179 
 
 Government to eat its words, assume again that 
 there was peace between the nations, and receive 
 an American Minister. But in all these efforts he 
 failed to consider the Mexican point of view and 
 the internal situation with its swift and revolu- 
 tionary changes of control, and the fact that, in 
 addition to the Government, there was a Mexican 
 people — ignorant, visionary, sensitive, and en- 
 raged against the United States. Whatever their 
 leaders might wish personally — and the sensible 
 ones among them knew what war with the United 
 States would mean — none of them dared defy 
 public opinion in Mexico and receive an American 
 Minister. The bare rumor of such a possibility 
 evoked from Mexican newspapers such comment 
 as this : 
 
 The vile government [of Mexico] has been and is in cor- 
 respondence with the usurpers. The Yankee Parrot 
 [William S. Parrott, a confidential agent of Polk] and 
 the American consul at Mexico are those who have 
 agreed with the government for the loss of Texas, and 
 this same Parrott has departed for the North to say to 
 his government to send a commissioner to make with 
 our government an ignominious treaty on the basis of 
 the surrender of Texas and we know not what other 
 part of the repubhc. This is as certain as the existence 
 of God in Heaven. 
 
180 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Behind this hysteria was an inkHng of the truth. 
 During 1845 Santa Anna was not the man of the 
 hour in Mexico. His personal fortunes, his risings 
 to power and his fallings from power, were as 
 kaleidoscopic as the revolutions of his country. 
 The year 1845 fell in one of his periods of eclipse, 
 when he was living in exile in Havana. A short- 
 lived government headed by General Herrera ap- 
 pears genuinely to have desired peace at any 
 price, and had intimated to Polk that a minister 
 would be received. Polk jumped at the chance, 
 and in the autumn commissioned John Slidell 
 Minister to Mexico. 
 
 The written instructions issued to Slidell both 
 summed up a great deal of previous diplomacy and 
 foreshadowed a great deal more. His avowed pur- 
 pose was the settlement of American claims against 
 the Mexican Government, involving business losses 
 by American citizens during twenty years, due in 
 some cases to arbitrary acts of the Mexican au- 
 thorities, in others to unofficial violence during the 
 countless Mexican revolutions. Ten years before, 
 Adams had accused Jackson and Van Buren with 
 deliberately keeping the claims unsatisfied so as to 
 work up anti-Mexican feeling in the United States. 
 In point of fact, at that very time an arbitration 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN IMPERIALISM 181 
 
 was being negotiated. It was conducted by two 
 commissioners from each country with an umpire 
 named by the King of Prussia. The commissioners 
 agreed upon payments to Americans amounting to 
 about half a million dollars. The umpire awarded 
 in addition about a million and a half. This was 
 too much for the Mexican treasury to pay, and 
 the undischarged obligation remained a convenient 
 issue which the United States had always ready, 
 should diplomacy demand a crisis. Polk meant to 
 make the most of it. He assumed that Mexico was 
 as good as bankrupt, and his instructions to Slidell 
 disclosed his ulterior purpose. If Mexico, acknowl- 
 edging Texan independence, would accept the Rio 
 Grande as a boundary, the United States would 
 itself discharge the claims. 
 
 But even this "rectification of frontier" was not 
 Polk's dearest aim. While the wrangle over Texas 
 was going on in 1844, this secretive man pondered 
 many things in his own mind and apparently came 
 to an unsuspected conclusion. Turning his eyes 
 towards the West, he saw in imagination the germ 
 of another Texas far away beyond the mountains. 
 Amid the gigantic spaces and the illimitable forests 
 of "the Calif ornias," here and there, was a dwin- 
 dling Mexican settlement. Once New Spain had 
 
182 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 made an attempt to occupy that enormous coun- 
 try, but the inspiration died and now its Spanish- 
 Mexican population was a mere handful. Of real 
 government under Mexico, the vast tract had none. 
 Adventurers from the United States had made 
 their way into the storied region, as earlier into 
 Texas. They came in direct defiance of Mexican 
 law and stayed because they dared to, with no 
 rights in the land. The Sacramento Valley grad- 
 ually became their favorite region. A place called 
 Sutter's Fort — built by a German adventurer who 
 passed himself oflf as a Frenchman and had been 
 naturalized as a Mexican — was their wonderful 
 Alsatia, "where all the wandering English and 
 American vagabonds found a refuge in which they 
 could not be disturbed by any Mexican authori- 
 ties." Before Polk became President, things were 
 beginning to stir in the Sacramento Valley. Sir 
 George Simpson, who was in California in 1842, 
 wrote regarding the polyglot adventurer that it 
 Sutter had "the talent and courage to make the 
 most of his position, he is not unlikely to render 
 California a second Texas. Even now the Ameri- 
 cans only want a rallying point for carrying into 
 effect their theory that the English race is destined 
 by ' right divine ' to expel the Spaniards from their 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN IMPERIALISM 183 
 
 ancient seats — a theory which has already begun 
 to develop itself in more ways than one." 
 
 Not really a part of Mexico, the California of 
 1844 has been well described as a derelict on the 
 sea of international politics, "to be picked up by 
 any adventurer who chose to take it into the port 
 of a strong and stable government." More than 
 once the United States had felt a passing impulse 
 to acquire California. Jackson and Anthony But- 
 ler had that purpose in the back of their heads. 
 Webster had talked of it with Lord Ashburton and 
 had learned that England would make no objec- 
 tion. Aberdeen had expressed himself in the same 
 terms. Nevertheless in 1844 there was a persist- 
 ent rumor in the United States that England 
 was scheming to take possession of California. 
 Later researches have proved that it was quite 
 without foundation. But, like that other British 
 rumor, the great war scare of 1844, it seemed a 
 reality, at least to such men as Polk. On these 
 two foundations — the American movement into 
 the Sacramento Valley and the rumor of a Brit- 
 ish design to appropriate California — Polk's for- 
 eign policy in 1845 was based. Slidell was to in- 
 form Mexico that the United States could, not 
 allow the Californias to fall into other hands. For 
 
184 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Upper California and New Mexico, he might offer 
 as much as twenty -five million dollars. 
 
 Into the shifting scene of Mexican politics 
 stepped John Slidell, the king's pawn in Polk's 
 vision of peaceful imperialism, only to find that 
 Herrera's Government was in a panic. Rumors 
 that it intended to make terms with the United 
 States were creating a furor and a wily military 
 politician. General Paredes, was working in the 
 army for revolution. The Secretary of Foreign 
 Relations almost tearfully besought Slidell to go his 
 way, to remain hidden, to do anything but force 
 the Government's hand! Recognition of him as 
 Minister, at that minute, was not to be dreamed of. 
 To Slidell, a capable but obtuse man, who seems to 
 have been utterly blind to the nature of the situa- 
 tion, the terror of the Government tottering to- 
 ward its fall was merely "unparalleled bad faith." 
 
 While Slidell was thus describing Mexican policy 
 in his dispatches, Paredes raised a revolt, over- 
 turned the Government and made himself Presi- 
 dent. Slidell's prompt demand, under Polk's or- 
 ders, for recognition or his passports, met the reply 
 that Mexico would make no concessions. His 
 passports were delivered to him in March, 1846. 
 
 The failure of Slidell's mission placed Polk in a 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN IMPERIALISM 185 
 
 quandary. It was plain that the Californias could 
 not be obtained without war. And he was afraid 
 of Congress. Polk knew that, if he were to ask for 
 support in a defensive war to protect Texas from 
 attack, or even on the doubtful question of the 
 Texan boundary, he could rely on a safe majority. 
 The old Texas of Spanish days stopped at the 
 Nueces River. We have seen that the new Texas 
 boldly claimed the whole left bank of the Rio 
 Grande. As a matter of fact, there was a debat- 
 able land between the Nueces and the Rio Grande 
 where neither Texas nor Mexico was in control. 
 But numerous American leaders were willing to 
 adopt the Texan claim and stand on the defensive 
 all along the Rio Grande. Calhoun took this posi- 
 tion. Nevertheless, eager friend of Texas though 
 he was, he wanted no further campaign of aggran- 
 dizement. When it was rumored in Congress that 
 Polk meditated something larger and more sinister 
 than merely the holding the line of the Rio Grande, 
 Calhoun was deeply alarmed and had friendly con- 
 ferences on this hinted danger with some of his 
 political enemies. 
 
 Though Polk had entered on his Mexican nego- 
 tiations hopeful of a peaceful solution, he did not 
 intend to be caught napping. He had kept a hand 
 
186 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 behind his back, and in it he held his weapons. For 
 he had put the army and navy in position to strike 
 if necessary and had caused orders to be issued to 
 the Pacific squadron, to the Gulf squadron, and to 
 the army in the Southwest. Preparations were 
 made for a blockade of the east coast of Mex- 
 ico. General Zachary Taylor, in command in 
 the Southwest, was instructed early in the game 
 to take his forces into Texas. He went thither 
 by sea and in August, 1845, was encamped near 
 Corpus Christi. There he remained until March 
 of the following year. 
 
 Since the Mexican Government refused to re- 
 ceive Slidell, Polk decided to proceed to extremities. 
 Even before this Taylor had been ordered to the 
 Rio Grande. It was known that the army had ad- 
 vanced southward when, on May 9, 1846, there was 
 held a Cabinet meeting at which Polk urged upon 
 his ministers a war policy. All the Cabinet agreed 
 with him except George Bancroft, the Secretary of 
 the Navy, who said he would "feel better satisfied 
 in his course if the Mexican forces had, or should, 
 commit any act of hostility." 
 
 It would seem that this appeal to the Goddess of 
 Discord was not in vain. The evening of that same 
 day came a dispatch from Taylor announcing a 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN IMPERIALISM 187 
 
 skirmish with the Mexicans on the 24th of April, 
 on the east side of the Rio Grande, in which several 
 Americans had been killed. As if by magic Polk's 
 horizon cleared . Fate had thus suddenly and unex- 
 pectedly filled his hand with trumps. He spent Sun- 
 day,the 10th of May, on his celebrated warmessage, 
 and the facts, adroitly stated to suit his plans, were 
 laid before Congress the next day in these words : 
 
 The strong desire to establish peace with Mexico on 
 liberal and honorable terms, and the readiness of this 
 Government to regulate and adjust our boundary and 
 other causes of difference with that power on such fair 
 and equitable principles as would lead to permanent 
 relations of the most friendly nature, induced me in 
 September last to seek the reopening of diplomatic 
 relations between the two countries. . . . An envoy 
 of the United States repaired to Mexico with full 
 powers to adjust every existing difference. . . . The 
 Mexican Government not only refused to receive him 
 or listen to his propositions, but after a long contin- 
 ued series of menaces have at last invaded our terri- 
 tory and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our 
 own soil. . . . 
 
 The movements of the troops [of the United States] 
 to the Del Norte [Rio Grande] was made by the com- 
 manding general under positive instructions to abstain 
 from all aggressive acts towards Mexico . . . unless 
 she should declare war or commit acts of hostility 
 indicative of a state of war. . . . 
 
188 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 The Mexican forces at Matamoras assumed a bel- 
 ligerent attitude, and on the 12th of April General 
 Ampudia, then in command, notified General Taylor 
 to break up his camp within twenty -four hours and to 
 retire to the Nueces River, and in the event of his fail- 
 ure to comply with these demands announced that 
 arms, and arms alone, must decide the question. But 
 no open act of hostility was committed until the 24th 
 of April. On that day General Arista, who had suc- 
 ceeded to the command of the Mexican forces, com- 
 municated to General Taylor that "he considered 
 hostilities commenced and should prosecute them." 
 A party of dragoons of 63 men and officers were on the 
 same day dispatched from the American camp up the 
 Rio del Norte, on its left bank, to ascertain whether 
 the Mexican troops had crossed or were preparing to 
 cross the river, "became engaged with a large body 
 of these troops, and after a short affair, in which some 
 sixteen were killed and wounded, appear to have been 
 surrounded and compelled to surrender." . . . 
 
 As war exists, and, notwithstanding all our efforts 
 to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself, we are 
 called upon by every consideration of duty and patriot- 
 ism to vindicate with decision the honor, the rights, 
 and the interests of our country. ... I invoke the 
 prompt action of Congress to recognize the existence 
 of war, and to place at the disposition of the Executive 
 the means of prosecuting the war with vigor, and thus 
 hastening the restoration of peace. . . . 
 
 This message proved to be a bombshell which 
 blew the opposition to bits. The President was 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN IMPERIALISM 189 
 
 authorized to raise an army of fifty thousand men. 
 Ten miUion dollars were placed at his disposal. 
 The war fever which started ia Congress swept the 
 country. Volunteers flocked to the recruiting 
 stations and with reckless expedition were hurried 
 to the front. The Gulf squadron immediately 
 blockaded the Mexican coast. 
 
 Chance had put still another card into Polk's 
 hand. Early in the year an agent of the exiled 
 Santa Anna, Colonel Atocha, had appeared at 
 Washington, seeking an interview with Polk. His 
 aim was to teach Polk how to manage Mexico. 
 What was needed was the high hand. The leaders 
 were willing enough to do all that the United 
 States desired but dared not appear to be yielding. 
 This interview had occurred during the last stage 
 of Slidell's attempt to impose himself as American 
 Minister to Mexico. Let Slidell retire to Vera 
 Cruz, said Atocha, go aboard an American ship of 
 war, and from its deck issue an ultimatum. But 
 even thus the situation could not be saved properly 
 unless that true friend of the United States, the 
 noble Santa Anna, should be restored to power. 
 
 Polk listened with intense interest. At the mo- 
 ment he declined to commit himseK. But Atocha 
 had made an impression, for shortly afterward Polk 
 
190 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 suggested to the Cabinet just such a performance 
 by Slidell, warship and all, as the wily Atocha had 
 desdribed. But the Cabinet did not approve, and 
 Polk decided to bide his time. 
 
 Now that fate had put the game in his hand, the 
 President, who was not in the least degree blood- 
 thirsty, returned to his old love, and dreamed of 
 gaining his end peacefully after all. A great show 
 of force and cooperation with a bought President 
 at Mexico City — what might not the two accom- 
 plish with the minimum loss of blood ! On the day 
 on which war was declared the following "private 
 and confidential" order was sent to Commodore 
 Conner of the Gulf squadron: "Commodore: if 
 Santa Anna endeavors to enter the Mexican ports, 
 you will allow him to pass freely." 
 
 But such arrangements were not enough. To 
 hasten the peaceful solution, Polk entered into di- 
 rect negotiation with the rascally Mexican exile 
 at Havana. Commander A. S. Mackenzie, a neph- 
 ew of Slidell, who was sent to Cuba, discussed 
 with Santa Anna his hypocritical programme of 
 "reforms" and received from him a written state- 
 ment of what he proposed to do. In this paper 
 Santa Anna declared that "he would not hesitate 
 to make concessions rather than see Mexico" 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN IMPERIALISM 191 
 
 ruined by its present rulers, and that " if the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States shall promote his 
 patriotic desires, he offers to respond with such a 
 peace as has been described." In this paper Santa 
 Anna advised that Taylor invade Mexico as far as 
 San Luis Potosi, "which movement will compel 
 Mexicans of all parties to recall " Santa Anna. He 
 stipulated that "the greatest secrecy be observed 
 concerning these communications," and he also 
 gave advice about attacking Vera Cruz and the 
 conduct of the blockade. 
 
 No European pretender — Stuart, Bourbon, or 
 any other — ever offered to sell out his country 
 with a more barefaced cynicism. No vmscrupu- 
 lous foreign government ever fell into a pretender's 
 trap more easily. Subsequently, as might have 
 been expected, Santa Anna denied ever having had 
 this interview or made these statements. But his- 
 torians have shown thus far no inclination to accept 
 his word rather than Mackenzie's. Santa Anna's 
 character stands in the way of any such vindi- 
 cation. Furthermore, the preliminary mission of 
 Atocha fits too closely into the circumstantial 
 evidence. Polk himself had no doubt of the accu- 
 racy of Mackenzie's report; the orders by which 
 a chink in the blockade was kept open for Santa 
 
192 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Anna's benefit continued in force, and in the mid- 
 dle of August Santa Anna slipped through the 
 chink. Between the lines of Commodore Conner's 
 report, the incident becomes positively comic. 
 Santa Anna was aboard a British ship, the Arab, 
 and Conner's silences, if they mean anything, 
 allow us a glimpse of officers of the British and 
 American navies winking at each other with their 
 tongues in their cheeks as the Arab gets through 
 the blockade and out again and the Enghshmen 
 certify to Conner that the ship carried no freight. 
 By just what sort of "gentlemen's agreement" 
 they manipulated this farce Conner does not say. 
 Thus Santa Anna came home to Mexico ! 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 "the hero of buena vista" 
 
 The man who was the striking arm of the United 
 States Government during 1846 was a first-rate 
 soldier, though not much of a general. He was 
 sixty -two years old and had behind him forty years 
 of hard service, chiefly against the Indians. In 
 origin a farmer, he remained to the end the rug- 
 ged countryman. He despised form, held insig- 
 nia in contempt, and loved his shirt sleeves. "Old 
 Rough and Ready" was the army's nickname for 
 Zachary Taylor. 
 
 The forces which Taylor commanded in the 
 Mexican War at first consisted of a portion of the 
 regular army, rapidly augmented by volunteers. 
 The war fever drew men to the colors from all parts 
 of the country. One of the distinguishing features 
 of this war was the hard fighting endured with 
 honor by American volunteers in their initial en- 
 gagements. To be sure, these were very different 
 
 13 193 
 
194 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 from the scientific movements of the present day. 
 Taylor's battles, especially, depended little upon 
 strategy but for that very reason they tested all 
 the more the mettle of the American temperament 
 — its boldness, its energy, its grimness. Tay- 
 lor's victories were particularly the victories of the 
 average American soldier. 
 
 The petty skirmish which enabled Polk to save 
 his policy occurred while Taylor was entrenching 
 himself near the Rio Grande and was building what 
 is now known as Fort Brown opposite Matamoras. 
 His base of supplies was on the coast at Point Isa- 
 bel. The importance of the American volunteers 
 in this war was foreshadowed by Taylor's im- 
 mediate appeal to the Governors of Texas and 
 Louisiana to send him with all possible speed five 
 thousand men. 
 
 The Mexicans, whose base was at Matamoras, 
 planned to surround Taylor, cut his connections 
 with Point Isabel, and force his surrender. To 
 frustrate this and to obtain fresh supplies Taylor 
 marched back to Point Isabel on May 1, 1846, 
 leaving a garrison under Major Brown at the fort. 
 The relative movements of the two armies do not 
 reflect credit on their intelligence systems. While 
 Taylor was marching east, he passed, without 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 195 
 
 knowing it, the main body of the Mexican army, 
 which had crossed the river between Fort Brown 
 and Point Isabel. The Mexican General, Arista, 
 hearing of his movements, turned west for an at- 
 tack on the fort, whose present name commemo- 
 rates [the death of Major Brown in the gallant 
 repulse of the Mexicans. 
 
 On the 7th of May, with two hundred wagons 
 and over two thousand men, Taylor, like the noble 
 Duke of York in the familiar rhyme, prepared to 
 march back again. But Arista got wind of his in- 
 tention and prepared for a battle at a place called 
 Palo Alto. There Taylor encountered him on the 
 8th of May. The Kttle battle which followed, 
 though it has been made a great action by fervid 
 describers, ended with the fall of night and left 
 neither side victorious. But after sharp experi- 
 ence of the Americans at short range, the Mexi- 
 cans, though technically undefeated, thought they 
 had had enough of it, and at dawn began an or- 
 derly retreat. The American soldier rather than 
 his general, morale rather than strategy, had tri- 
 umphed. By ten o'clock on the 9th of May the 
 Mexicans had withdrawn to a new position five 
 miles nearer the river and were in camp along 
 a ravine not far from the Resaca de la Palma. 
 
196 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Taylor followed deliberately, and not until late 
 afternoon was fighting resumed. This time the 
 Americans really won the battle. Arista, who did 
 not expect an attack that day, had made no prepa- 
 rations. As the sun began to sink, he was in his 
 tent writing. His men, greatly depressed by their 
 experience at Palo Alto, were cooking their sup- 
 pers. The horses were unsaddled. Into this dis- 
 mal but unsuspecting army there dropped the 
 sudden fire of the advancing American infantry, 
 followed by sharp fighting sustained by the Mexi- 
 can outposts and then a staggering cavalry charge 
 led by Captain May of the American regulars. 
 A panic, a stampede — and the Mexicans had 
 abandoned the field. Arista retreated into Mexi- 
 co, since, with his demoralized army, he found it 
 impossible to hold Matamoras, and Taylor took 
 possession of the place. 
 
 While Taylor was feeling his way southward 
 through eastern Mexico, two raids farther west 
 revealed the fact that all northwestern Mexico was 
 without troops for its defense. From Fort Leaven- 
 worth, early in the summer. Colonel Stephen W. 
 Kearny led forth an expedition that would have 
 been one of the follies of history had it not been 
 inspired by accurate knowledge of Mexico and the 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 197 
 
 Mexicans. Aiming at nothing less than the con- 
 quest of New Mexico and with no base of suppUes 
 behind him, Kearny took barely sufficient food to 
 cany him to Santa Fe. His faith in his own judg- 
 ment was justified by the surrender of Santa F6 
 the moment he appeared before it. Having pro- 
 claimed all New Mexico a part of the United States, 
 Kearny turned westward across the horizon of the 
 present narrative and rode blithely into the little 
 side war then raging in California. ^ In the autumn 
 and early winter General Wool, starting from 
 San Antonio, marched three hundred miles to the 
 Mexican town of Parras, whence he made a wide 
 sweep eastward and eventually joined Taylor's 
 army without encountering serious opposition at 
 any point. 
 
 Now to return to the main army. For nearly 
 four months Taylor was making ready for a fur- 
 ther advance into Mexico. Though his enemies 
 did not molest him, he had great difficulties. 
 In everything but fighting the American army 
 was inefficient. Sickness, inadequate transport, 
 and congestion at every possible point made a 
 dreary record for the summer of 1846. Meanwhile 
 
 'See The Forty-Ninera. by Stewart Edward White (in The 
 Chroniclea of America). 
 
198 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 volunteers poured into Taylor's camp faster than 
 he could provide for them. Too often the new- 
 comer went directly to the hospital — or what 
 passed muster for a hospital. "The mortaUty in 
 our camp," wrote an eye-witness, "was appalling. 
 The dead march was ever wailing in our ears and 
 even at this distant period, I can scarcely look back 
 to our stay there without a shudder. . . . Large 
 hospital tents were constantly full — the dead be- 
 ing removed at sunrise and sunset but to make 
 room for the dying. The groans and lamentations 
 of the poor sufferers during those sickly sultry 
 nights were heart-rending." 
 
 Taylor had fixed on the city of Monterey as his 
 next objective. Early in September, with about 
 six thousand effective troops, he was on the march. 
 On the nineteenth, he approached the city and 
 went into camp about three miles to the northeast. 
 Monterey lay on a plain, open on the north but 
 inclosed by mountains on the other three sides. 
 The enemy had made the most of these natural 
 defenses and were present in force. Taylor divided 
 his army into two sections — one under his im- 
 mediate command and the other under General 
 WilUam J. Worth, who was ordered to make a de- 
 tour around the north side of the city and to attack 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 199 
 
 from the west, cutting the road from Monterey 
 to Saltillo. These two commanders attacked the 
 town from opposite sides and each fought his own 
 battle with but little knowledge of the movements 
 of the other. The conduct of the men was above 
 praise. Danger seemed a meaningless word to 
 them. Death they had forgotten. During the 
 21st, 22d, and 23d of September the Americans 
 fought their way into the city, from both sides, in 
 the most gallant fashion, foot by foot. On the 
 morning of the twenty-fourth General Ampudia, 
 with his surviving troops cooped up in the center 
 of the town, asked for terms. Taylor did not in- 
 sist on an unconditional surrender but accepted an 
 agreement to evacuate with a temporary cessation 
 of hostilities. Thus Ampudia withdrew, leaving 
 the Americans in possession of Monterey. 
 
 The sheer hard fighting at Monterey and the 
 captiu-e of the city naturally impressed the Ameri- 
 can people, and they accepted the commanding 
 general as a conquering hero. The Administra- 
 tion, however, saw the situation in other colors. 
 "In agreeing to this armistice," Polk wrote in his 
 diary, " General Taylor violated his express orders 
 and I regret that I cannot approve of his course. 
 He had the enemy in his power and should have 
 
200 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 taken them prisoners. ... It will only enable the 
 Mexican army to reorganize and recruit so as to 
 make another stand." Polk's irritation and anx- 
 iety were due in part to the turn that had been 
 given to affairs by the course of Santa Anna. That 
 slippery intriguer had done what might have been 
 expected of him — had broken all his promises to 
 Polk, had put himself at the head of the military 
 party in Mexico, and was now making ready for 
 what looked like determined war. Polk realized 
 what a vain folly had been his game with Santa 
 Anna. He saw, too, that more troops must be sent 
 to Mexico. There must be more hard fighting. 
 Would Congress stand by him? How exasperat- 
 ing at such a moment to hear that Taylor for the 
 second time had failed to strike a body blow. 
 
 Thenceforth, the Administration had no good 
 word for Taylor. It must be admitted that Tay- 
 lor's dispatches during the remainder of the year 
 contained nothing to commend him. They were 
 often querulous, sometimes ill-tempered, always 
 weighted with advice about the further conduct of 
 the war. These plans were often patently unwise 
 and revealed Taylor's poor understanding of strat- 
 egy. He was a splendid fighter — just the man to 
 take a city by storm — but an inferior general. 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 201 
 
 Polk had now lost faith in Taylor. Gradually, 
 under other advice, the President developed a new 
 plan of campaign. In Novenaber it was decided to 
 invade Mexico from the sea. Vera Cruz was to be 
 taken as the base of operations. The command of 
 this ambitious expedition was entrusted to General 
 Winfield Scott. Late in the month, dispatches 
 were sent to Taylor informing him of the plan, in 
 which he was to play the inferior r6le of maintain- 
 ing a threatening attitude on the northern flank of 
 Mexico. The real business was now the Vera Cruz 
 expedition. Taylor was, therefore, to send every 
 man he could spare to the coast, whence they would 
 be forwarded to Scott. 
 
 During this period of uncertainty at Washing- 
 ton, Taylor had pursued a course which Polk inter- 
 preted as paying " no regard to the views of the 
 Government." While not exactly disobeying the 
 War Department, Taylor had treated its advice as 
 of little consequence. He had pushed forward his 
 advance guard to the Mexican town of Saltillo and 
 was holding what Washington considered an ex- 
 posed position in defiance of the wishes of the 
 War Department. There were now under Tay- 
 lor's command several distinct units which he had 
 placed at widely distant points on a line nearly 
 
202 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 five hundred miles long running from the sea at 
 Tampico through Monterey and Saltillo far into 
 the interior of Mexico. "General Taylor by dis- 
 persing his forces into small bodies," wrote Polk in 
 his diary, "has acted directly against the views of 
 the Government and contrary to his own views as 
 communicated to the Government that he could 
 not advance beyond Monterey with safety." 
 
 During December Taylor himself became con- 
 vinced that he had not disposed his forces well. 
 He was busily rearranging his disposition, when, 
 after singular delays, he received in January, 1847, 
 imperative orders subordinating him to Scott. 
 Taylor thereupon sent a bitter dispatch to Scott 
 saying he could not "misunderstand the object 
 of the arrangement" showing that he had "lost 
 the confidence of the Government " — which was 
 quite true. 
 
 Though Taylor obeyed the unconditional part 
 of his new instructions, he continued to disregard 
 advice. Scott urged him to fall back from Saltillo 
 and to concentrate at Monterey. It is possible 
 that Taylor, bitterly mortified by the action of 
 the Government, was rendered stubborn by this 
 advice. At any rate, he took the opposite course. 
 Drawing together what he could of the troops left 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 203 
 
 to him, he passed beyond Saltillo and went as far 
 as a place called Agua Nueva, where he maintained 
 his headquarters from the 5th to the 21st of Feb- 
 ruary. The force under his immediate command 
 was smaller than when he began the march to 
 Monterey. It consisted of little over forty-seven 
 himdred men, some of whom were quite raw. 
 
 While Taylor was thus exposing himself to the 
 danger of an attack by a rapid concentration of the 
 enemy, Santa Anna was leading northward by way 
 of San Luis Potosi a force which outnumbered 
 Taylor's three to one. On the 20th of February, 
 Taylor heard that Santa Anna had passed San 
 Luis Potosi and was moving straight toward him, 
 while two thousand cavalry under General Minon 
 were circling through the mountains to the east of 
 Saltillo, which was still his main depot of supplies. 
 On the following day, Taylor's scouts sighted 
 Minon to the eastward, while to the south they 
 made out the advance of Santa Anna. As Agua 
 Nueva was no place for a defensive battle, Taylor 
 was at last compelled to take the advice he had 
 hitherto scorned and retire to safer ground. 
 
 From Agua Nueva a highroad ran north eighteen 
 miles to Saltillo through a broad pass in the moun- 
 tains. The character of this pass determined the 
 
204 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 course of the battle which forms the conclud- 
 ing incident in Taylor's military career. Taylor 
 marched back twelve miles to the hacienda of 
 Buena Vista near the northern end of the pass. He 
 was unable to remove all the supplies collected at 
 Agua Nueva but carried off a portion in wagon 
 trains at "furious speed" and ordered the rear 
 guard to destroy the remainder. At daybreak on 
 the 22d of February, the whole American army was 
 gathered about Buena Vista. 
 
 Looking back over the course of his retreat, the 
 course which Santa Anna might be expected to 
 follow, Taylor pondered certain features of its to- 
 pography but failed entirely to allow for certain 
 others. He disposed his forces in an unfortunate 
 way. The scene before him, as he saw it, had three 
 main characteristics. First, the average level of the 
 pass was a flat though deeply crevassed plain, lying 
 north and south and bounded on either hand by 
 mountains of considerable height. The space be- 
 tween the mountains varied in width from a mile 
 and a haK to five miles. In the second place, the 
 crevasses worn in this plain by watercourses were 
 not only deep but were also of a peculiar formation, 
 the most important one, as Taylor thought, having 
 its bottom sixty to seventy feet below the average 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 205 
 
 level of the plain. The earthen cliffs that formed 
 the walls of these crevasses were as a rule very 
 nearly perpendicular. The geological explanation 
 is that frost, with its corroding and crumbling 
 effects on earthen banks, is in that region almost 
 unknown. The mountain torrents cut their way 
 through the plains as neatly as if the cutting had 
 been done by a gardener's spade, and their banks 
 remain perpendicular, like the banks of a well-kept 
 ditch. For an advancing force of infantry to de- 
 scend one side of these crevasses and ascend the 
 other without the aid of scaling-ladders would be 
 extremely diflicult, especially along the deep parts 
 of the crevasses. For cavalry or artillery, it would 
 in many places be impossible. 
 
 The third thing which Taylor perceived correctly 
 was the relation of the highroad from Agua Nueva 
 to this system of crevasses and their watercourses. 
 There was a main stream through the pass and a 
 number of tributaries. The main stream followed 
 closely the western ridge, running along its foot 
 and leaving almost the whole of the plain of the 
 pass between it and the eastern ridge. Through 
 the crevasse or miniature canyon of this main 
 stream the road came northward toward Taylor's 
 eye, in a narrow passage between the water and 
 
206 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 the perpendicular earthen chffs. To a man stand- 
 mg in the road by the stream side, the tops of the 
 earthen chffs which formed the banks of the cre- 
 vasse ditch appeared to be more than forty feet 
 above his head, level with the plain of the pass, and 
 by looking over his left shoulder, he could see a 
 long distance through lateral crevasses of appar- 
 ently equal depth reaching off toward the eastern 
 mountains — other miniature canyons whose floors 
 joined that of the main canyon through which ran 
 the stream and the highway. Such were the three 
 characteristics of the scene which Taylor grasped. 
 But there was still a fourth, more vital than the 
 others, which he failed to grasp. 
 
 The field of battle, as Taylor conceived it, was 
 to be a new Thermopylae. Owing to lateral cre- 
 vasses, which appeared to the American general to 
 be impassable, Santa Anna with his cavalry and 
 his artillery would have no choice but to advance 
 along the highroad, through the sunken corridor. 
 Thus the coming fight would involve a grim de- 
 fense of a narrow passage — as at Thermopylae, 
 with its narrow passage between mountain and sea 
 — and Santa Anna might come to his destruction 
 between the river and the cliff and be welcome. 
 There, as Taylor saw it, was the key to the coming 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 207 
 
 battle and there he posted the artillery upon which 
 he chiefly relied — eight guns under Captain Wash- 
 ington. The bulk of the American army was drawn 
 up on the left of Washington and in his rear. The 
 troops to the left were mainly on the plain, high 
 above Washington's head, along the brink of a 
 crevasse. In their rear were two light batteries 
 commanded by Captain William T. Sherman and 
 Captain Braxton Bragg. Neither to the right nor 
 to the left did the American line extend the whole 
 way to the mountains that formed the parallel 
 walls of the pass, though far to the left near the 
 base of the moimtains was an outpost of cavalry 
 and four companies of foot. 
 
 Let us now reverse the point of view and look 
 upon the scene with the eyes of Santa Anna as he 
 came up through the pass from the south. Though 
 not a great general, Santa Anna was no fool. To 
 march on along the sunken road to a Homeric 
 slaughter in front of Washington's guns, as Taylor 
 was inviting him to do, was quite too obviously a 
 case of the spider and the fly. Santa Anna and his 
 oflScers also observed the topography of the pass 
 and promptly seized upon the fourth characteristic, 
 which Taylor had overlooked. The lateral cre- 
 vasses, far back at the heads of their watercourses. 
 
208 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 became shallow. Along the foot of the eastern 
 mountains, before the water, in its rush toward the 
 main stream, had cut deep into the plain, there was 
 a strip of land where the crevasses were not suflS- 
 ciently deep to impede the movements of troops. 
 There and not at the Thermopylae of the highroad, 
 lay the real key to the situation. The topography 
 of the land made it necessary for any one attempt- 
 ing to hold this pass against attack to fight simid- 
 taneously two battles — one down in the corridor 
 of the stream to hold control of the road, and 
 another at some distance to the east to hold the 
 open country at the heads of the lateral crevasses. 
 Between the two positions lay the impassable 
 region of the deep crevasses with their nearly 
 perpendicular walls. 
 
 The battle of Buena Vista consisted of four 
 stages. The first comprised the American prep- 
 arations; the second, the first Mexican attack 
 which promptly revealed the faultiness of Taylor's 
 plan; the third, Taylor's rearrangement of his 
 forces. These three stages occurred on the 22d of 
 February. The fourth, the knock-down fight 
 under conditions Taylor had not foreseen, occurred 
 the next day. 
 
 The second stage of the battle consisted of a 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 209 
 
 quiet movement of the Mexican troops by means 
 of the shallow ends of the lateral crevasses on 
 to the lower slopes of the eastern mountains and 
 toward the open country. The Mexicans meant 
 to turn the American position from the east, and, 
 while the Americans guarding the road were held 
 in their Thermopylae by a frontal attack, to envelop 
 the entire army caught in its own net. 
 
 The instant the Americans perceived this pur- 
 pose the third stage of the battle began. Taylor 
 had been involved in his own imperfect strategy. 
 His efforts to rectify his mistake late in the day de- 
 manded radical changes in the arrangement of the 
 American troops. It was obvious now that the 
 main battle would be the eastern one and would 
 be fought at the heads of the crevasses. Taylor 
 accordingly withdrew three of Washington's guns 
 from the road, hurried them up to the plain, and 
 sent them eastward to the region where the advanc- 
 ing Mexicans, now established on the mountains, 
 threatened to accomplish their flanking design. To 
 support the guns he sent other reenforcements in 
 the same direction. At the same time, as if fear- 
 ful that he had been caught napping at each end 
 of his line, Taylor ordered part of Bragg's artillery 
 with a supporting force to cross the stream and 
 
210 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 take position in the other gap he had left open at 
 the far edge of the strip of fields along the foot of 
 the ridge on the west. 
 
 These movements and counter-movements, in- 
 volving some desultory firing at long range with 
 little serious result, filled the 22d of February. At 
 nightfall Taylor had rearranged his army and had 
 partially closed the gap between the heads of the 
 crevasses and the eastern mountains. But this 
 crucial ground was not really in his possession. 
 The Mexicans were on the slopes of the moun- 
 tains still farther to the east in an admirable posi- 
 tion to carry out their plan of turning the flank of 
 the Americans. 
 
 During the night the American commander went 
 back to Saltillo to make sure that all was well at 
 his base. He was not on the field when the real 
 battle began atdawn on the 23d of February. On 
 that day the two actions which nature had fore- 
 ordained took place. The one on the road was not 
 seriously pressed by the Mexicans. Knowing the 
 American position to be impregnable, they con- 
 tented themselves with enough of a demonstration 
 to keep the defenders at their posts. The real 
 battle was an ebb and flow — backwards by the 
 Americans from the heads of the crevasses to the 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 211 
 
 hacienda and forward again to their original posi- 
 tion. This eastward battle was opened by skir- 
 mishing on the mountains, followed by a great rush 
 of Mexicans along the lower slopes and through 
 the open strip at their feet. The most exposed 
 American troops at that moment were the gun- 
 ners of the three cannon sent thither the night be- 
 fore and some Indiana volunteers supporting them. 
 In a furious combat these checked the Mexicans 
 for a few moments but were soon driven back 
 with the loss of one of the guns. Every man and 
 horse belonging to it had been killed or disabled. 
 As these exposed Americans fell back while the 
 bulk of the Mexican army continued its circling 
 movement along the base of the mountains, there 
 could no longer be any doubt where the battle was 
 going to be lost or won. The thin American line 
 which the night before had been thrown so hastily 
 across from the crevasse heads to the mountains, 
 as an obstacle to the Mexican advance, must be 
 saved at all cost. Sherman accordingly pushed all 
 his guns forward. Bragg and his Kentucky vol- 
 imteers, who had been Sent across to the western 
 mountain slopes at nightfall, were now hastily 
 recalled and hurried off to the extreme east. 
 But before the reinforcements could make their 
 
212 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 presence felt, the mischief had been done. The 
 Mexicans had burst through the American Une. 
 The American skirmishers on the extreme east were 
 cut off from the main army. Looking back, they 
 saw the struggUng American hne swinging hke a 
 gate on a pivot where, at the right hand, it touched 
 the deep section of a crevasse, swinging back, back, 
 from its original position at right angles to the 
 mountains until the gate was open and the way 
 was free for the Mexicans. To reach their com- 
 rades the skirmishers had to run for it, making a 
 wide detour, getting ahead of the advancing Mex- 
 icans, and then racing right across their path. 
 Their escape was made possible only by the brief, 
 desperate interruption of the Mexican advance 
 when Bragg and Sherman got into action. 
 
 The whole eastward battle by this time had the 
 look of an American defeat. The Mexicans, pour- 
 ing now along the base of the mountains through 
 the wide open gateway around the heads of the 
 crevasses, appeared to have the success of their 
 encircling movement within easy reach. On the 
 left, the backward swinging American line was ap- 
 proaching the hacienda. The loss of the Americans 
 in killed and woimded had been heavy. Their 
 formations were more or less disorganized. Indeed, 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 213 
 
 some Americans were running, and these "strag- 
 glers," racing past the hacienda, did not pause 
 xmtil they reached Saltillo, where they reported 
 the destruction of the American army. 
 
 It was in this desperate moment when the battle 
 appeared to be lost that Taylor returned to the 
 field after his night at the base of supplies. The 
 grim old Indian fighter found now just the situa- 
 tion in which he appeared at his best. Arriving at 
 the hacienda, he saw the vicinity occupied by sol- 
 diers slowly retreating in confusion. But close at 
 hand fortunately was the regiment of Mississippi 
 Rifles commanded by Jefferson Davis. With these 
 and with the reserves which had hitherto supported 
 Washington's battle but which were now brought 
 up to save the other engagement, the Mexican ad- 
 vance was checked. A quick reorganization of the 
 confused troops surrounding the hacienda and a 
 swift counterstroke converted the check into a 
 retirement. The Mexicans drew back. 
 
 While the Mexicans paused, Taylor completed 
 the reorganization of the eastward battle and pre- 
 pared for an heroic attempt to regain his position 
 — to turn his line back on its pivot at the deep 
 crevasse, to swing the gate shut against the enemy. 
 This was the time for a supreme stroke on the part 
 
214 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 of the Mexicans; but they missed their chance. 
 Hovering along the base of the mountains, they 
 fooHshly satisfied themselves with cavalry charges. 
 One detachment of cavalry swept right through 
 the hacienda, reached the stream, crossed it, rode 
 completely around the American army, and then 
 made its way along the western moimtains to a 
 jimcture with the Mexicans before Washiagton. 
 
 Another downpour of Mexican horsemen created 
 the military reputation of Jefferson Davis. Across 
 their path was drawn Davis' command and the 
 third Indiana regiment. Coming down on the 
 gallop, the Mexicans did not like the look of that 
 line of silent Americans, motionless in the open. 
 The Mexican leaders shortened rein and rode warily. 
 Then they halted. At that moment the word of 
 command ran along the American line. There was 
 the spitting crackle of the deadly American fire. 
 Mexican saddles were emptied. Horses plunged 
 and ran masterless . The surviving Mexicans j erked 
 their horses round and rode hard for the. mountains. 
 
 Now, too late, Santa Anna threw all his reserves 
 into the eastward battle which became a furious 
 fight in the contracted area between the crevasse 
 heads and the mountains. The superior mettle of 
 the Americans determined the outcome. Though 
 
"THE HERO OF BUENA VISTA" 215 
 
 the Mexicans had numbers on their side, they were 
 slowly and steadily pushed back. By nightfall 
 they had been driven around the heads of the cre- 
 vasses and o£F the lower slopes of the mountains. 
 The return movement of the Americans, still piv- 
 oted at the right hand on the flanking crevasse, 
 had succeeded. The gate had been swung back 
 and was now shut against the Mexicans. As dark- 
 ness fell, the two armies stood practically where 
 they had stood the night before. The net result of 
 the twenty-four hours since the battle began was 
 apparently nothing at all — except for the miseries 
 of the wounded and the tragic peace of the dead. 
 
 If the Mexicans, with their great advantage in 
 numbers, should prove equal to the occasion, what 
 were Taylor's chances for the morrow.'' But the 
 Mexicans had no stomach for more fighting. By 
 this time their morale was exhausted. In the night 
 under a pale moon Santa Anna with all his army 
 stole off on a forced march back to San Luis 
 Potosi. When morning dawned, the Americans 
 were without adversaries. Taylor instantly sent off 
 dispatches proclaiming a splendid victory. The 
 American public went wild and in due time gave the 
 commander his reward by making him President of 
 the United States. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE STROKE FROM THE EAST 
 
 General Winfield Scott, whom Polk had re- 
 luctantly placed in command of his invading army 
 — for Polk was a strict party man of the old sort 
 and Scott was a Whig — was a brilliant, elderly 
 dandy. He loved fine uniforms. Afoot, his fig- 
 ure was criticized as being short in the leg; but 
 this defect enhanced his appearance mounted, es- 
 pecially when he rode a big horse and "towered," 
 as the comment was, resplendent. He had the 
 dandy's traditional courage. As a young man in 
 the war of 1812 he had made a name for himself as 
 a gallant soldier. At sixty he was an accomplished 
 student of the art of war, and was well versed in the 
 theories accepted by his time. He knew something 
 of European travel. There was a dash of the 
 writer in him. His intellect, though deliberate, 
 was powerful. He had a shrewd eye for men. 
 To sum up the characteristics that made for his 
 
 216 
 
THE STROKE FROM THE EAST 217 
 
 advantage, he was talented, cultivated, impressive, 
 debonair. 
 
 Unfortunately there was another side to Scott. 
 He was vain, and a love of flattery was one of his 
 dangers. There were circumstances in which his 
 temper could not be relied upon. The incipient 
 writer, caged so to speak in the soldier, sometimes 
 broke free, rash and undisciplined, with results that 
 in one case at least were appalling — as will be 
 seen in the marvellous letter that must be quoted 
 toward the end of this chapter. Altogether, good 
 qualities and bad, Winfield Scott inspired one of his 
 ablest critics to compare him with General Webb in 
 Thackeray's Henry Esmond. The comparison is 
 a happy one. George Lockhart Rives penetrates 
 Scott's character when he says, "those lines which 
 pleased Webb so highly might well have been 
 written of Scott: 
 
 "Before the front the general sternly rides 
 With such an air as Mars to battle strides; 
 Propitious heaven must sure a hero save. 
 Like Paris handsome and like Hector brave." 
 
 The brilliant qualities of Scott were in evidence 
 during the early part of his invasion. From his 
 rendezvous at Lobos Island, off the Mexican coast 
 
218 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 to the south ol Tampico, he sailed with a great fleet 
 of transports to Vera Cruz. One of the thrilling 
 moments for the American army was that in which 
 Scott's landing parties entered their boats, a few 
 miles south of Vera Cruz, facing an open beach 
 backed by a line of sand hills behind which for 
 all they knew might be the whole Mexican army. ' 
 Amid loud cheers from the ships, over a glistening 
 sea, the boats raced for the beach. The first boat 
 to touch carried the commanding officer. General 
 Worth — fighting Worth of Monterey — who was 
 the first man ashore. Leaping overboard in shal- 
 low water, forming instantly in a battle line, the 
 Americans charged the sandhills, topped them, and 
 faced — an empty landscape. An anticlimax, to 
 be sure, but with no element of the unheroic. 
 
 Scott promptly invested Vera Cruz. After fom* 
 days' bombardment, during which the city was 
 ruined while the American loss was trifling. Vera 
 Cruz surrendered. No Mexican forces had ap- 
 proached to relieve the city; there was no evidence 
 that any notable army threatened him; and yet at 
 hand on the coast was an enemy that Scott right- 
 ly feared. This was yellow fever. His next aim, 
 
 ' A party of Mexican cavalry had been driven from the beach 
 by cannon fire. 
 
THE STROKE FROM THE EAST 219 
 
 therefore, was to clear Vera Cruz and get up in- 
 to the mountains before the fever appeared on 
 the coast, and in this he succeeded and so saved 
 his army. 
 
 The American invaders set out for "the City," 
 the capital of Mexico, following much the line 
 which Cortes had taken three hundred years be- 
 fore. A charming record of this great march has 
 been preserved in the letters of a young artillery 
 captain to his wife. Robert Anderson, afterward 
 Major Anderson of Fort Sumter fame, looked upon 
 the road through Mexico with the eye of the imag- 
 ination. Witness his suggested contrast of past 
 and present, in connection with what was known 
 as the National Bridge whence he "went to visit 
 an old fortification intended to command the ap- 
 proaches to the bridge. The fort is an old one on a 
 high hill, the side pretty well defended by mus- 
 quetry fires. This place we learned had been fur- 
 nished with eight pieces of artillery which were 
 withdrawn the day before. . . . The scenery at 
 the bridge is beautiful. , . . The bridge is like 
 all of the Spanish works of art constructed during 
 their stay in this country, well executed and on a 
 magnificant scale." 
 
 Even the bravest of the Americans, in whom fear 
 
220 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 had no place, might well congratulate themselves 
 as they wound up and up mto rugged and still more 
 rugged mountains, where impregnable positions 
 were without defenders, that they faced the present 
 of Santa Anna and not the past of Cortes. 
 
 Meanwhile what was Santa Anna about? This 
 enigmatic man has received no serious considera- 
 tion from American historians. The tradition has 
 been that he does not deserve any, and he is pic- 
 tured as a common fraud, alternately boasting and 
 running away. His own defense is based on the 
 cowardice of his armies, which, he insists, com- 
 pelled him often to flee or be taken, and he chose 
 not to be taken. Nevertheless, no matter who was 
 responsible for the Mexican panic after that drawn 
 battle of Buena Vista, Santa Anna had rallied a 
 considerable force at San Luis Potosi. Military 
 problems and a crisis in Mexican politics had de- 
 layed his subsequent movements and for these 
 reasons Scott had not been molested at Vera Cruz. 
 But now Santa Anna had organized another army, 
 had weathered his political crisis, and was about to 
 challenge Scott's advance. 
 
 Against the advice of his chief engineer, Santa 
 Anna fortified the pass of Cerro Gordo on the main 
 road to Puebla. The choice of groimd was unwise 
 
THE STROKE FROM THE EAST 221 
 
 for several reasons, especially, as the event proved, 
 because in case of disaster it would be impossible 
 to retreat, so narrow was the only exit backward 
 from the Mexican position. The Mexican leader 
 nevertheless placed his army in a segment of high 
 broken country, the hollow of an arc of mountains 
 whose chord was a line of precipices six hundred 
 feet deep forming the canyon of a river. Between 
 the precipices and the mountains Scott was ad- 
 vancing along a zigzag road. The right wing of 
 the Mexican line rested on the precipices, whence 
 it stretched diagonally across the segment to the 
 mountains in such a way that most of the Mexicans 
 had the precipices at their backs. Santa Anna did 
 not consider it worth while to occupy the lower 
 slopes of the mountains so as to make impossible 
 any attempt on the part of the Americans to turn 
 his left wing, because he thought not even a rabbit 
 could get over such difficult ground. 
 
 Among the Americans, however, a young en- 
 gineer disagreed with Santa Anna. The opinion 
 of Captain Robert E. Lee, that the Americans 
 could make their way along the mountain slopes 
 and turn the Mexican left, was accepted by Scott, 
 who gave orders for the hazardous undertaking. 
 The plan involved two attacks: at a set time the 
 
222 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Americans were to assail the front of the Mexicans, 
 while at the same time the flanking column was to 
 attack from the rear. 
 
 The all but insuperable difficulty of this flanking 
 movement along the mountain slope made a deep 
 impression upon another young American officer, 
 Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant, who subsequently de- 
 scribed this march "over chasms where the walls 
 were so steep men could barely climb them. Ani- 
 mals could not. . . . The engineers, who had 
 directed the opening, led the way and the troops 
 followed. Artillery was let down the steep sides by 
 hand, the men engaged attaching a strong rope to 
 the rear axle and letting the guns down, a piece at 
 a time, while men at the ropes kept their ground 
 at the top, paying out gradually, while a few at 
 the front directed the course of the piece. In like 
 manner the guns were drawn by hand up the 
 opposite slopes." 
 
 A day and a night were necessary for the accom- 
 plishment of this operation. A Mexican detach- 
 ment which discovered the Americans was put to 
 flight, and an outlying Mexican fortification was 
 taken by storm. Early the next morning, Sun- 
 day, the 18th of April, the separate parts of Scott's 
 army began their attacks according to schedule. 
 
THE STROKE FROM THE EAST 223 
 
 The flanking column hurled itseK on the left wing 
 of the Mexicans, crushed it, and sent the survivors 
 whirling through the narrow exit along the preci- 
 pices which was their one escape. Having pene- 
 trated the Mexican line to the brink of the preci- 
 pices, the American flanking column now held the 
 bulk of their enemies in a trap. Meanwhile the 
 Mexicans of the center and the right had also been 
 attacked by Scott's other columns so that now in 
 front and on each side of them were the American 
 bayonets and at their back was the hne of preci- 
 pices. Their comrades of the left wing had already 
 saved themselves by running, and these men, thus 
 trapped, threw down their arms. Santa Anna, 
 however, was not with them. The flight of his left 
 wing had carried him along vvith it, and he was now 
 riding hard for safety. Scott had nothing further 
 to do with him for several months. The only ef- 
 fective Mexican force between the American army 
 and Mexico City was thus destroyed, and its ar- 
 tillery, ammunition, and supplies were all in the 
 hands of the conqueror. 
 
 The Americans now pushed on to Jalapa — "the 
 beautiful and celebrated city of Jalapa," Anderson 
 calls it. The next evening, he writes, his command 
 encamped "near a large cotton factory; the night 
 
224 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 was intensely cold, ice formed in our basins." Two 
 days afterward, writing from the historic Castle of 
 Perote, he describes the march from the camp near 
 the cotton factory. 
 
 Off again, the next morning early, road ascending and 
 rough; about eleven we came to a village at the en- 
 trance to a pass which they had commenced fortifying, 
 but seized by the panic spread by the runaways from 
 the battle of Cerro Gordo, they had abandoned it, 
 leaving seven or eight pieces of cannon on the ground. 
 This would have been an ugly pass, as it is in the midst 
 of the lava of an old volcano, exceedingly rough and 
 sharp; its rough jagged points would have impeded the 
 advance of our troops and kept us under their fire. 
 
 Passing over this volcanic road, we soon found our- 
 selves in the region of the pine. The scenery was ex- 
 ceedingly grand and picturesque. Encamped that 
 night at Las Vegas, water excellent, night cold. The 
 next day we entered this celebrated work early in the 
 day, the troops having hastily abandoned it the pre- 
 ceding day. We are now in the region of the cedar. 
 
 Scott's immediate objective was Puebla, where he 
 intended drawing a long breath before proceeding 
 to the extremity. Anderson gives interesting de- 
 tails of the march. On the 7th of May, he writes : 
 
 A command of two companies of infantry and one of 
 dragoons was sent forward this morning on the Puebla 
 
THE STROKE FROM THE EAST 225 
 
 road, some fifteen miles, to bring an Alcade, or some of 
 his subjects, to task for preventing the inhabitants 
 around the town from bringing provisions to the troops 
 here. . . . Our paying the Mexicans liberally for 
 what they bring will induce them to come, our punish- 
 ing those who prevent them will show them that . . . 
 our strength . . . will be exerted when necessity de- 
 mands it. . . . The market people are becoming 
 much more reasonable in their prices; we now buy a 
 dozen eggs for eighteen and three quarters cents, occa- 
 sionally five cents for a pie; onions, sixteen for six and 
 one quarter cents, and bananas, seven for six and one 
 quarter cents. Chickens half grown, eighteen and 
 three quarters cents each. These prices will do very 
 well. The fresh meats we get are generally hog and 
 sheep — the hogs always skinned — most funny look- 
 ing things they are with their jackets off. In this re- 
 gion we scarcely ever see a cow. 
 
 When we remember what havoc invading armies 
 have made in our own time, we find Anderson's in- 
 timate account of the tranquillity of Puebla under 
 the American rule refreshing. 
 
 Scott held Puebla about three months, from the 
 middle of May until near the middle of August. 
 During this period the less forttmate side of his 
 character became manifest. He was deeply wor- 
 ried over problems of supply and allowed them 
 to get on his nerves. One-year volunteers whose 
 terms of enlistment were about to expire had to 
 
 IS 
 
226 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 be released and sent back to the coast. The War 
 Department was slow in replacing these men — not, 
 apparently, through the fault of any one in particu- 
 lar but merely through the general unprepared- 
 ness that has always characterized the entry of the 
 United States into a war. These delays and dis- 
 appointments upset Scott's temper. He wrote 
 savagely to the War Department accusing it of a 
 plot to "destroy" him by withholding reinforce- 
 ments. It was during this period of tense strain 
 that a certain Nicholas P. Trist made his appear- 
 ance at Puebla. And thereby hangs a tale — a tale 
 that takes us back to Washington. 
 
 Months before, while Scott was assembling his 
 forces for the invasion, who should reappear at 
 Washington but Colonel Atocha. He had the same 
 old story to tell. Santa Anna in his heart longed 
 for peace, peace at the American price — but un- 
 der present conditions he dared not propose it to 
 the Mexican people. Stale as the bait was, Polk 
 rose to it a second time. He discussed with his 
 Cabinet the question of sending a plenipotentiary 
 to the front armed with extraordinary powers both 
 diplomatic and military. 
 
 Polk and his Cabinet, one of the least distin- 
 guished in the annals of American poKtics, now 
 
THE STROKE FROM THE EAST 227 
 
 embarked on a surprising course of mistaken 
 diplomacy. First they tried some backstairs nego- 
 tiations in which they used Atocha — that shady 
 diplomat, once the personal representative of the 
 leader of the nation with which they were at war ! 
 — as the go-between. Atocha made his way to 
 Mexico City, where he gave out that the United 
 States Government demanded the cession of all 
 Mexico north of a line drawn due west from the 
 mouth of the Rio Grande, along the twenty-sixth 
 parallel, in return for fifteen million dollars. In 
 March the envoy was back at Washington with 
 the refusal of the Mexican Government to con- 
 sider such terms, and the note from Mexico was 
 bitter, not to say insolent. 
 
 Meanwhile rumors had got abroad that the Presi- 
 dent was in favor of immense conquests in Mex- 
 ico. Calhoun took alarm. From the first he had 
 opposed a war of conquest. To safeguard Texas 
 and secure a strategical frontier — that was all he 
 would approve. Distrusting the President, he in- 
 troduced resolutions in the Senate, in 1847, con- 
 demning the idea of extensive Mexican conquests. 
 Nearly a year before, when Polk seems to have 
 favored the line through the mouth of the Rio 
 Grande, Calhoun had come out in support of a line 
 
228 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 following the Rio Grande from its mouth to El 
 Paso del Norte and thence due west to the sea. 
 
 Polk, always sohcitous lest a defection among his 
 Democratic followers in Congress should leave him 
 helpless, decided to limit his demands to a cession 
 which should be bounded as Calhoun indicated: 
 Mexico should cede the east bank of the Rio Grande, 
 New Mexico, Upper California, and also Lower 
 California. To bring this about, a plenipotentiary 
 was to go to the front, with power not only to treat 
 for peace but, if necessary, to order the command- 
 ing general to cease hostilities. For this extraordi- 
 nary mission Polk selected no high official but a 
 mere clerk in the State Department. Nicholas P. 
 Trist was a capable clerk, to be sure, and a good 
 Democrat, related by marriage to Jefferson, but 
 in the world's eye he was nobody. Could anything 
 but a total lack of imagination explain the dis- 
 patch of such an envoy empowered to manipulate 
 a sensitive and harassed general, proud of a great 
 achievement? 
 
 Trist proceeded to Vera Cruz and sent a letter to 
 Scott announcing his approach and the nature of 
 his mission. Scott received this letter at Jalapa 
 and wrote an irritated, unbecoming reply. While 
 Scott was still there, Trist overtook the army but 
 
THE STROKE FROM THE EAST 229 
 
 did not present himself to the commanding gener- 
 al, and for several days the envoy and the gen- 
 eral remained in the same town without meet- 
 ing. Then Scott left for Puebla. Two letters from 
 Trist, who lingered at Jalapa, called forth that let- 
 ter from Scott which ranks high among historical 
 indiscretions : 
 
 My first impulse was to return the farrago of insolence, 
 conceit, and arrogance to the author; but, on reflection, 
 I have determined to preserve the letters as a choice 
 specimen of diplomatic literature and manners. The 
 jacobin convention of France never sent to one of its 
 armies in the field a more amiable and accomplished 
 instrument. If you were but armed with an ambula- 
 tory guillotine you would be the personification of 
 Danton, Marat, and St. Just all in one. 
 
 You tell me that you are authorized to negotiate a 
 treaty of peace with the enemy, a declaration which, 
 as it rests upon your own word, I might well question; 
 and you add that it was not intended at Washington 
 that I should have anything to do with the negotiation. 
 This I can well believe, and certainly have cause to be 
 thankful to the President for not degrading me by 
 placing me in any joint commission with you. 
 
 In the middle of May, Trist reached Puebla. 
 Until almost the end of June he and Scott were not 
 on speaking terms. During this time a ridiculous 
 three-cornered discussion between Scott, Trist, 
 
230 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 and the Administration formed an episode which 
 Americans today would like to forget. From it no 
 one issued with credit. Scott's resentment went so 
 far that he wrote to Washington asking to be re- 
 Ueved. The President, unable to see that his own 
 wooden-headedness was the cause of the trouble, 
 berated Scott in his diary and longed for some one 
 he dared put in his place. 
 
 This disgraceful situation changed color sud- 
 denly, like a stage transformation scene, just as 
 June closed. For some reason not yet known Scott 
 and Trist faced about and became friends. Pres- 
 ently Trist was writing to Washington that his 
 first impression of Scott was all wrong and that the 
 General's "conduct has been characterized by the 
 purest public spirit, and a fidelity and devotion that 
 could not be surpassed to the views of the Gov- 
 ernment." Scott for his part wrote of the happy 
 change in his relations with Trist, whom he now 
 considered "able, discreet, courteous, and amiable." 
 Both asked to have their previous letters removed 
 from the archives. Was ever diplomacy in such 
 fashion made a laughing stock.'' 
 
 An incident of the reconciliation, and possibly 
 one of its causes, was a visit to Puebla of an at- 
 tache of the British legation. Trist, while he and 
 
THE STROKE FROM THE EAST 231 
 
 Scott were at outs, had applied to the British 
 Minister to put him into communication with the 
 Mexican authorities. Adroit management by the 
 Englishman of this difficult situation, together with 
 the opportune reconciliation of the American chiefs, 
 made possible a real, though underhand, negotia- 
 tion with Santa Anna. Open negotiations would 
 begin if Scott and Trist would promise Santa An- 
 na a million dollars, in perfect secrecy, to be paid 
 when the treaty should be ratified, and if they 
 would provide him at once with ten thousand 
 dollars, all for the purpose of quelling opposi- 
 tion. Scott and Trist fell into the trap. The ten 
 thousand dollars were sent forward. But the open 
 negotiations promised were not begun. Santa 
 Anna resorted to his old subterfuge, which some- 
 how seems always to have deceived the Americans. 
 A more imperative display of force must be made. 
 Scott must threaten the capital more obviously. 
 When the Americans were at the gates, Santa Anna 
 would at last be in a position to defy his domestic 
 enemies and to meet the American demands. 
 
 Just how far Scott was taken in has never been 
 determined. His subsequent course of action is 
 often bewildering, and no theory satisfactorily 
 explains all of it. Did he believe that he had 
 
232 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 fought his last battle and that Santa Anna was 
 virtually his accomplice, or did he see through the 
 wily Mexican? Did Scott think another blow was 
 necessary and that then Santa Anna would keep 
 his word and peace on good terms would follow? 
 Or did the various possibilities leave him so in 
 doubt that he began his advance without any 
 definite forecast of the future? 
 
 The one absolutely certain thing is that on Au- 
 gust 7, 1847, the American army, consisting now 
 of 10,738 men in splendid condition, abandoned 
 its connection with the coast and marched out of 
 Puebla on its way to the City of Mexico. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE PIVOTAL ACTION 
 
 Between Puebla and the City of Mexico towers a 
 wall of mountains capped with perpetual ice. To- 
 ward this gigantic fortification the Americans ad- 
 vanced, prepared at every step for battle. From 
 height to height they rose, wondering whether they 
 would have to fight again as they had done at 
 Cerro Gordo. But they encountered no resistance 
 and on the 10th of August the advance guard 
 reached the pass for which they had aimed, 10,500 
 feet above sea-level, with the colossal ice-peak, 
 Iztaccihuatl, on their left hand. Anderson, de- 
 scribing the arrival of his command at the pass, 
 writes : 
 
 At ten o'clock precisely, . . . my eyes caught the first 
 view of the valley of Mexico. There it lay, as seen 
 through the narrow opening made by the road, in the 
 overhanging trees; a quiet landscape having in the 
 foreground a sheet of waters; the portion of the valley 
 
 233 
 
234 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 visible blending itself imperceptibly in distant moun- 
 tains, which could scarcely be distinguished, the day 
 being at that moment cloudy, with a gentle mist from 
 the mountains which rested on their sides. 
 
 Every turn of the road now opened to us a new or 
 more extensive view . . . every variety of green that 
 could be formed by the varied light and shade of pass- 
 ing clouds . . . mountains here, nearly in the fore- 
 ground, there, in the distance, and beyond limiting 
 the view; and lake, in this part almost undistinguish- 
 able from the grass and slime, which nearly covered it, 
 to the clear water, in which the shadows of the passing 
 clouds were visible; the picture studded with haciendas, 
 some traced out by their huge mud walls enclosing 
 immense courtyards, like fortifications, villages with 
 churches, etc., presented views which were charming 
 to those who hoped that there lay the City, from which 
 they must return to their beloved homes. 
 
 To the military mind the most important geo- 
 graphical feature before the invaders was Lake 
 Texcoco, which lay immediately east of the City of 
 Mexico — that is, between it and the American 
 army. South of this lake lay two others, Xochi- 
 milco and Chalco, the latter extending farther to 
 the east. The highroad from Puebla to the City of 
 Mexico, after rounding the northeastern corner of 
 Lake Chalco, traversed a long and narrow isthmus 
 between the lakes, and so at last reached open 
 ground in front of the ancient city. It was upon 
 
THE PIVOTAL ACTION 235 
 
 this isthmus, behind formidable fortifications on a 
 rocky hill known as the Pefion Viejo, that the army 
 of Santa Anna lay in wait. To guard against a 
 flanking movement by the Americans, who might 
 conceivably make a wide detour round Texcoco, 
 another army was in position northeast of the lake. 
 Did the failure to hold the moimtain passes mean 
 that Santa Anna was really playing iato Scott's 
 hand.'' Whatever Santa Anna's secret purpose at 
 that time, Scott had no delusions about his imme- 
 diate intention. Santa Anna would make a genu- 
 ine resistance under the eye of the capital. Grim 
 battle crowned by a crushing victory seemed to 
 Scott the imperative necessity. On the east shore 
 of Lake Chalco Scott paused to think. To attack 
 along the isthmus would be Thermopylae over 
 again; he therefore promptly dismissed the idea. 
 The flanking movement round Texcoco did not 
 commend itself to him. Was there any third plan? 
 To the Mexican mind there apparently was not. 
 Santa Anna had not even now learned the lesson of 
 Cerro Gordo. The strip of broken country south of 
 Lake Chalco, where its waters approached the feet 
 of the mountains, seemed to him closed by nature. 
 To the men who had dragged their cannon by hand 
 through the chasms at Cerro Gordo it did not seem 
 
236 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 impassable. Scott, who had been considering this 
 plan all along, determined to attempt it. 
 
 Now began the strategic move that was the 
 turning-point of the war. Scott sent a column 
 against the Penon to serve as a blind, while he 
 swung the bulk of his army round through the 
 difficult country south of the lake. The movement, 
 in comparison with that at Cerro Gordo, proved 
 only moderately difficult. On the 18th of August 
 Scott established his headquarters at the village of 
 San Agustin de las Cuevas, west of Lake Chalco, 
 on the highroad between the City and Acapulco. 
 
 Scott had won his first move; but had he actu- 
 ally bettered his position? Santa Anna, perceiv- 
 ing what his opponent was about, had withdrawn 
 from the isthmus, and had also established himself 
 on the Acapulco road. Three miles north of San 
 Agustin the great hacienda of San Antonio had 
 been fortified by the Mexicans. Two miles farther 
 to the north the road was again blocked by the ex- 
 tensive fortifications of Churubusco. And what of 
 the road itself.'' Was it, like the isthmus road, a 
 Thermopylae .' Scott's engineers reported it was 
 much the same thing. On the east were Lake 
 Xochimilco and its marshes; on the west, an ancient 
 lava field, the Pedregal, fissured into a labyrinth of 
 
THE PIVOTAL ACTION 237 
 
 chasms worse than the mountains at Cerro Gordo. 
 If Scott could not somehow continue his turning 
 movement, his first success in strategy would be of 
 httle value. 
 
 Four miles to the west of the Acapulco road, 
 beyond the Pedregal, there was another road, con- 
 necting the 'capital with the village of San Angel 
 and continuing southward through a narrow valley 
 past the farm of Padierna to Contreras. Could 
 this be reached by skirting the southern edge of the 
 Pedregal? Encouraged by the belief of his en- 
 gineers that it could, Scott decided on a second 
 turning movement toward the west. Leaving 
 General Worth to threaten San Antonio, Scott 
 himseH started a column along the skirts of the 
 Pedregal. It was hard work, and the men had to 
 march light, opening a road as they went. But 
 again the Americans proved equal to the task and 
 forced their way past the Pedregal until they ap- 
 peared before the village of Padierna on the San 
 Angel road. ' 
 
 Meanwhile Santa Anna, though with less con- 
 fidence than in the earlier stage of the game, sought 
 
 ' Through a confusion of names by the Americans, the fighting 
 on the San Angel road was known at that time as the battle of 
 Contreras. 
 
238 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 to prepare against a further move of the Americans 
 toward the west. The army that had guarded the 
 north end of Lake Texcoco, commanded by Gen- 
 eral Valencia, was brought aroimd to the west of 
 the lake and was sent forward to hold the San An- 
 gel road. Valencia, advancing as far as Padierna, 
 guessed what Scott was about and decided to for- 
 tify the west side of the valley in which Padierna 
 lies. On the 18th of August Scott's advance guard 
 encountered his outposts. After a brief skirmish 
 the Americans withdrew. Santa Anna, fearing that 
 the Americans might get between him and Valen- 
 cia, ordered the Mexican general to fall back along 
 the San Angel road in order to be in closer touch 
 with the forces at Churubusco. But Valencia, who 
 was his political rival and was eager to make a 
 reputation, refused to obey. 
 
 At Padierna, in the afternoon of the 19th of 
 August, Valencia was attacked. The Americans, 
 however, did not press the attack but contented 
 themselves with long-range firing. Realizing that 
 , Valencia's position was too strong to be taken in 
 front, the Americans had decided upon another au- 
 dacious turning movement. After an engineering 
 reconnaissance, an infantry column under Gen- 
 eral Riley was sent out to do just what Santa 
 
THE PIVOTAL ACTION 239 
 
 Anna had feared — to get between him and Valen- 
 cia and come down on Padierna from the rear. 
 Now the Americans did their best marching, "most 
 difficult and tedious, passing over volcanic rocks 
 and across large fissures barely narrow enough to 
 permit the men to get over them by leaping." 
 Their path was through the heart of the Pedregal. 
 Another brigade, commanded by General Cad- 
 walader, followed, and then another, commanded 
 by General P. F. Smith, who took command of 
 the whole expedition. By nightfall these forces 
 were in part on the San Angel road some distance 
 north of Padierna and in part beyond it at the vil- 
 lage of San Geronimo. Just as night fell they were 
 menaced by a large force of Mexicans advancing 
 down the San Angel road from the north. 
 
 Such was the hazardous situation of the armies 
 along the San Angel road in the late afternoon, as 
 Scott observed it from a high hill opposite Padierna. 
 The swift approach of night induced both sides 
 to stand where they were and wait for morning. 
 Scott laid a new plan for the next day. He realized 
 that to some extent — he did not as yet know how 
 far — Santa Anna had again paralleled his western 
 movement. This accounted for the unexpected 
 advance of the Mexicans southward along the San 
 
240 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Angel road. To deal with this new turn of events 
 a double battle would have to be fought next day — 
 with Valencia at Padierna and with the newcomers 
 at San Geronimo. Reinforcements were therefore 
 ordered to San Geronimo over the difficult path 
 through the Pedregal. 
 
 That night a tempest swept the Pedregal and 
 the San Angel road. Again a difference of mo- 
 rale was revealed in the opposing armies. The 
 Americans at San Geronimo, though without 
 cover, stood their ground in the midst of the 
 storm. The Mexicans who had menaced them 
 at nightfall drew back to find shelter in the vil- 
 lages toward the north. While the storm raged 
 Captain Robert E. Lee performed what Scott de- 
 scribed as "the greatest feat of moral and physi- 
 cal courage performed by any individual, to my 
 knowledge, pending the campaign." Through the 
 dark and the driving rain he contrived to make 
 his way back from San Geronimo, across the fis- 
 sures of the Pedregal, to headquarters, where he 
 reported that the officers at San Geronimo advised 
 a sudden concentration on the position of Valen- 
 cia immediately before daybreak. Scott approved 
 the plan, and Lee returned through the night to 
 San Geronimo. 
 
THE PIVOTAL ACTION 241 
 
 The Mexicans at Padierna seem to have vacil- 
 lated between exultation and hysterics. Valencia 
 wrote boastful dispatches dated at "the trium- 
 phal camp of Padierna"; he promoted officers; he 
 also raved against Santa Anna whom he charged 
 with abandoning him to the Americans. Mean- 
 while Smith prepared to move along the moun- 
 tains at Valencia's back and take his position in 
 the rear. It was three in the morning of Friday, 
 the 20th of August, when the Americans — who 
 had had no tents dm-ing the tempest and but lit- 
 tle food — started from San Geronimo. At six 
 o'clock, they burst upon Valencia's camp. Just 
 seventeen minutes were sufficient for the business. 
 Valencia fled. His men fled. A torrent of panic- 
 stricken Mexicans poured down into the San An- 
 gel road and along it pell-mell toward the north, 
 pursued by the Americans. The fugitives met 
 that other Mexican army which had weakly re- 
 treated to find shelter from the tempest while the 
 Americans had endured their hardships and had 
 gone forward to victory. This second army, which 
 was really the main army commanded by Santa 
 Anna himself, was appalled by the rout of Valencia's 
 army and, catching the spirit of retreat, rapidly fell 
 back toward the north. 
 
 i6 
 
242 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 The force under Worth that was watching San 
 Antonio had also found its opportunity. While 
 Scott pressed the pursuit along the San Angel road 
 he notified Worth that he would soon be able to 
 swing round on San Antonio from behind, and that 
 Worth as soon as he heard the sound of such an 
 attack was to move against San Antonio from the 
 front. Worth exceeded his instructions and pushed 
 his command forward earlier than Scott had in- 
 tended. In the forenoon of the 20th of August the 
 two sections of the American army were thus mov- 
 ing northward on parallel lines still separated by 
 the wilderness of the Pedregal — Scott along the 
 San Angel road, Worth along the Acapulco road. 
 
 On both roads the Mexicans were retiring. Be- 
 fore Scott they were in full retreat. Before Worth 
 they began to withdraw as soon as they heard of 
 the disaster on the other road, which had now made 
 San Antonio an untenable position. Pressing after 
 them. Worth converted their retirement into a 
 rout, followed them through San Antonio, and 
 continued along the Acapulco road until he faced 
 the strong defenses of Churubusco. 
 
 About the same time Scott, driving the Mexicans 
 before him in like manner, had reached the village 
 of Coyoacan, southwest of Chiurubusco, where three 
 
THE PIVOTAL ACTION 243 
 
 roads opened before him — one southeast to San 
 Antonio, one northeast to Churubusco, one north- 
 west to the city. It was from Coyoacan that Scott 
 had intended to swing round and take San Antonio 
 from behind, advancing by the first of the three 
 roads. From the steeple of the village church, San 
 Antonio could be seen as well as that portion of the 
 Acapulco road between San Antonio and Churu- 
 busco. An ofiicer sent into the belfry reported that 
 the Mexicans were retreating from San Antonio 
 upon Churubusco. Scott's plan of action was no 
 longer of use. Should he now advance by the 
 northeast road and join Worth at Churubusco or 
 advance by the northwest road, leaving Worth to 
 his own devices, and either turn Churubusco from 
 the west or continue straight on to the city gates .f* 
 The decision he reached has been hotly discussed 
 both by participants in the event that followed and 
 by later students. Perhaps it is fair to say that the 
 bulk of opinion views Scott's next movement as a 
 hasty blunder and holds that the success which 
 closed this famous day was due not to generalship 
 but to sheer hard fighting. ^ 
 
 ' The opposite view is skillfully defended by the latest specialist 
 in this field, Justin H. Smith, who holds that Scott took the only 
 course open to him. See The War with Mexico, vol. ii, p. 112. 
 
244 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Scott resolved to attack Churubusco and thus 
 unite with Worth and get complete control of the 
 Acapulco road. It is not denied by his friends that 
 he was ill-informed as to the defenses of Churu- 
 busco, that he did not fully comprehend what he 
 was undertaking. His detractors insist that he 
 should have turned this position as already he had 
 turned the isthmus and San Antonio; that it ought 
 to have been regarded as too strong for a direct 
 attack; that only the personal superiority of the 
 American soldier to the Mexican soldier retrieved 
 Scott's mistake and saved him from a repulse. 
 
 The Mexican position, roughly speaking, was 
 like a fan opening from a bridge-head where the 
 Acapulco road crossed the Churubusco River. 
 The bridge-head itself was strongly fortified. South 
 of the river, like the ribs of the fan, heavy masses 
 of building had been incorporated in the defenses. 
 Conspicuous among these was the old convent of 
 San Mateo, which Mr. Rives describes as : 
 
 a venerable building dating from the year 1678, which 
 still remains one of the most interesting and attractive 
 objects in the immediate neighborhood of the City of 
 Mexico. The little convent church, now rarely used, 
 is of solid and somber Spanish masonry, but is finished 
 on its western front with blue tiles, or azulejos, which 
 
THE PIVOTAL ACTION 245 
 
 add a delightful touch to the quaintness and incom- 
 parable charm of the group of buildings. On the south 
 side of the church is a beautiful patio with a gallery on 
 the second story, and orange trees blossoming in the 
 midst of it add beauty and perfume to the secluded 
 spot. The convent is surrounded with large gardens 
 which must once have been cultivated by the Francis- 
 can brothers, and about which stood, and still stands, a 
 strong masonry wall some twelve feet in height, the 
 whole constituting a very formidable place of defense. 
 
 In addition to the defensive advantage which this 
 masonry offered, there were the Mexican entrench- 
 ments. Both these and the convent lay south of 
 the river, a small stream flowing due east. North 
 of the river large masses of Mexican infantry were 
 posted. 
 
 In the course of the afternoon the Americans 
 carried on simultaneously, but without much co- 
 operation, three different attacks on this strong 
 position. Worth, advancing from San Antonio, 
 entered the village of Churubusco from the south- 
 east, aiming straight at the bridge-head. General 
 Twiggs advanced from Cayoacan on the southwest 
 to the storming of the convent. A third column, 
 under the command of General Franklin Pierce, 
 — presently to be replaced by General Shields — 
 was sent across the river, some distance to the 
 
246 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAK 
 
 west, with orders to march round behind Churu- 
 busco, seize the Acapulco road north of the bridge, 
 and attack the Mexicans from the rear. Scott's 
 headquarters remained at Cayoacan, from whose 
 belfry Churubusco was in plain view. 
 
 The fighting which now took place proved to be 
 the sternest which the Americans had yet encoun- 
 tered. Hitherto they had been opposed chiefly 
 by Indian conscripts with little interest in the 
 war. Now a large number of their opponents 
 were Spanish Mexicans, who were reinforced by a 
 considerable number of deserters from the Ameri- 
 can army — impetuous Irishmen who had been 
 won over by secret agents of the Mexican Govern- 
 ment and were now known as the " Companions of 
 St. Patrick." These men, likely to fight desper- 
 ately because they knew that capture probably 
 meant death, were placed in the key position at 
 the bridge-head. 
 
 For some time the struggle was merely a furious 
 fight; each of the three columns conducted its own 
 battle, and each attacked from a different point of 
 the compass. It was at their extreme left, after an 
 American column had crossed the river that the 
 Mexicans first gave way. Thereupon Worth flung all 
 his strength upon the bridge-head and finally carried 
 
THE PIVOTAL ACTION 247 
 
 it with the bayonet. The Mexicans made their 
 last stand in the convent. When they no longer 
 had hope, a white flag from the church tower 
 brought the engagement to a close. Churubusco 
 had fallen. 
 
 What forces were engaged on the Mexican side 
 in these days of their great defeat is not definitely 
 known. The number was probably about twenty 
 thousand, though not more than nine or ten thou- 
 sand were in action at Churubusco. The Mexican 
 losses are also largely conjecture. Nearly three 
 thousand men were taken prisoner. Among these 
 were a number of the American deserters, who re- 
 ceived, after trial by court martial, the last severi- 
 ties of military law. As to the American forces, 
 out of about eight thousand actually engaged the 
 total loss, during the two days of fighting (the 19th 
 and 20th of August), was about a thousand men. 
 
 Taken altogether, these brilliant actions — often 
 spoken of as two, and even three, separate battles,^ 
 though really one expanding design to drive the 
 Mexicans from Churubusco — shattered the outer 
 defenses of the City of Mexico and placed a trium- 
 phant American army at its very gates. 
 
 ■ Named Contreras, San Antonio, Churubusco. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE CONQUERED PEACE 
 
 The last gunshot at Churubusco should have ended 
 the Mexican War. Yet it did not. There were 
 stUl, though probably without justification, three 
 hard fought engagements. One of these was not 
 only unnecessary but was also the bloodiest event 
 of the war — the slaughter of the Molino del Rey. 
 Scott's course of action in this last chapter of the 
 war is not explained by his own statements, es- 
 pecially the senseless armistice which he now con- 
 cluded with Santa Anna. The theory of Scott's 
 enemies is that he was playing politics with his eye 
 on the presidency and that, in his eagerness to gain 
 popularity by making peace, he was trapped by 
 Santa Anna. According to a more generous the- 
 ory Scott was still Santa Anna's dupe and really 
 thought that the Mexican was eager for the end 
 and that Churubusco had given him the excuse he 
 was seeking. If so, we can understand Scott's 
 
 248 
 
THE CONQUERED PEACE 249 
 
 prompt acceptance of Santa Anna's application 
 for an armistice — decided upon, apparently, be- 
 fore the cannon smoke was well o£f the roof -tops 
 of Churubusco. 
 
 Now followed two weeks of inaction for the 
 Americans while Santa Anna, under cover of nego- 
 tiations, stealthily reconstructed his defenses and 
 reorganized his army. After that, Santa Anna 
 dropped the mask, and Scott, having now to endure 
 being placed before the world's eye as Santa Anna's 
 dupe, resumed the offensive. ^ 
 
 The renewed operations of the Americans began 
 with the horrible attack on the Molino del Rey, a 
 group of massive stone buildings at the foot of the 
 storied hill of Chapultepec. Scott, who had heard 
 that this place was used as a cannon foundry, now 
 ordered its destruction. After an assault which 
 was so stubbornly resisted as to cause a grim mor- 
 tality among the Americans, the mill was taken. 
 No cannon foundry was discovered. Scott, per- 
 haps because of chagrin at seeing how plainly San- 
 ta Anna was his master in diplomacy, had again 
 blundered. After this costly battle the Americans 
 
 ' Mr. Justin H. Smith, in the second volume of The War with 
 Mexico, holds a brief for Scott as diplomat no less than as general. 
 Scott's case will never be more subtly argued. But one may ap- 
 plaud the skill of an advocate without accepting his conclusions. 
 
250 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 marched back to their camp. The action had 
 been perfectly fruitless and had greatly weakened 
 Scott's force. 
 
 His next move was the storming of Chapultepec. 
 Here is an incident in the war which will live for- 
 ever in the American imagination, for never have 
 Americans, not even at Chateau-Thierry, given a 
 better account of themselves in the deadly work 
 of the bayonet. The steep hill of Chapultepec, 
 crowned by an old palace of the Mexican viceroys, 
 had been well fortified. Against the advice of his 
 best engineers, Scott decided that its garrison must 
 be dislodged. Again there was furious hand-to- 
 hand fighting. The terraces of Chapultepec lit- 
 erally ran with blood. During the storming the 
 American officers for a while lost control of their 
 men, and no quarter was given. This was in re- 
 venge for a base incident in the previous battle, 
 when, in an interval during which the Americans 
 had fallen back under heavy fire from the walls 
 of the Molino del Rey, the Mexicans had sallied 
 forth and murdered the prostrate wounded. It 
 was this bit of savagery that was repaid with 
 interest. 
 
 Though at a frightful cost, Scott had now shat- 
 tered the second line of defense before Mexico 
 
THE CONQUERED PEACE 251 
 
 City. Without a pause in his hammerlike blows, 
 he crashed on into the city itseh. On September 
 13, 1847, two American columns drove through its 
 gates. Santa Anna with what he could rally of its 
 garrison escaped into the suburbs and fixed his 
 headquarters at Guadalupe Hidalgo. Early in the 
 morning of the fourteenth the Americans were in 
 possession of the capital of Mexico. 
 
 The loss of the city was a heavy blow, but Santa 
 Anna was not yet ready to abandon the game. 
 With the remnant of his troops he was planning to 
 overwhelm the American garrison at Puebla and so 
 cut off Scott from his base of supplies, when he was 
 forced to resign the presidency.^ 
 
 The office devolved upon the presiding justice of 
 the Supreme Court, Manuel de la Pena y Pena, 
 the same man who as Foreign Secretary had in- 
 vited an ambassador from the United States and 
 then had not dared receive him. At Queretaro, 
 Pena y Peiia succeeded in establishing a provisional 
 government that was recognized both at home and 
 abroad. He was still a moderate in politics, steeled 
 to accept the accomplished fact, eager for peace. 
 
 ' Shortly afterward Santa Anna once more sought safety in ex- 
 ile. As he had entered Mexico by American connivance, he aban- 
 doned it, appropriately enough, under an American safe-conduct. 
 
252 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 Behind him among the moderates was such com- 
 mon sense as Mexico possessed. Opposed to him 
 were various factions, all fantastic, ranging from 
 monarchists to extreme republicans, some bent 
 upon dragging out the war into an endless gue- 
 rilla conflict which the United States might at last 
 abandon, some equally opposed to peace because 
 they believed that only through annexation to the 
 United States could republicanism become secure 
 in Mexico. Now for the last time that stubborn 
 ghost of a British intervention was raised and laid. 
 An inquiry from Mexico whether England would 
 guarantee peace between Mexico and the United 
 States, followed by England's positive refusal to 
 intervene, left the new Government alone with its 
 difficulty. Pena y Pena had hoped to work at his 
 problem with characteristic Mexican deliberation. 
 But shortly after Trist began negotiations, a dis- 
 patch arrived from Washington depriving him of 
 authority and ordering him home — apparently 
 because Polk thought he was becoming merciful 
 toward the enemy. Pena y Pena was terrified. 
 What might this portend ? Was anything behind it 
 except dissatisfaction with an agent who paid little 
 attention to instructions? Trist made crafty use of 
 the dispatch, pressing Pena y Pena to arm him with 
 
THE CONQUERED PEACE 253 
 
 a signed treaty which he might take home with him 
 in defiance of the President. He had the audacity 
 to write to Washington, in substance, that he was 
 the best judge of what ought to be done and would 
 continue negotiations. 
 
 In spite of the impending crisis, Mexican di- 
 plomacy kept its usual intolerably slow course. 
 There was desperate effort to mitigate Trist's three 
 main demands : that the Rio Grande be accepted as 
 the boundary of Mexico, that New Mexico and 
 Upper California be ceded to the United States, 
 and that the compensation therefor be only fifteen 
 millions instead of the thirty millions which Mexico 
 demanded. Trist made some concession by agree- 
 ing to assume the American claims that were the 
 alleged cause of the war. On the whole, the Mexi- 
 cans had reason to be glad they were dealing with 
 Trist and not with his master at Washington. 
 When Polk set out to "conquer a peace," he meant 
 to have both Californias, Upper and Lower. Had 
 he not feared opposition in Congress, he might have 
 demanded still more. 
 
 In spite of Trist's generosity, which left the Mexi- 
 cans a considerable part of their original domain, 
 they continued the vain attempt to bargain. At 
 last Trist and Scott, now on the best of terms. 
 
254 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 played their final trump. Trist named the day 
 on which he would break oflf negotiations. Scott, 
 through the British Charge d'Afiaires, let it be 
 known to Pena y Pena that he was preparing to 
 march on Queretaro. The British diplomat gave 
 the Mexicans a broad hint that both Americans 
 meant business and that the only way to stop them 
 was to sign a satisfactory treaty. Pena y Pena 
 yielded. In the evening of the day Trist had 
 named, a courier from Queretaro, riding posthaste, 
 brought to the Mexican commissioners at the capi- 
 tal instructions to sign the treaty in a form satis- 
 factory to Trist. It was agreed, perhaps as a con- 
 cession to Mexican pride, that the signing should 
 not take place in the city. At Guadalupe Hidalgo, 
 some twenty-four hours after the courier arrived, 
 the commissioners of the two countries signed on 
 February 2, 1848, the document which dismem- 
 bered Mexico and added an empire to the United 
 States. Except for that small portion of Arizona, 
 piu-chased through James Gadsden six years after- 
 ward, the treaty established the southern boundary 
 of the United States as it is today. 
 
 It is recorded of that French minister who ceded 
 New France to Great Britain that he later claimed 
 
THE CONQUERED PEACE 255 
 
 that he had foreseen how it would disrupt that 
 Empire, breaking one strong power into two weak 
 ones. Be that as it may, the addition of New 
 France to the British Empire may have been fate's 
 device for precipitating the American Revolution. 
 If so, the addition to the Union of the enormous 
 area ceded by Mexico forms a parallel, leading 
 as it did to the series of crises which ended in the 
 Civil War. 
 
 Over the whole matter of the Mexican cession 
 lies the sinister shadow of party politics. It in- 
 vaded the army, producing bitter quarrels between 
 Scott and his generals. Indeed, it is hard to prove 
 that he was not trying to make political capital out 
 of the Mexican War and to prevent others from 
 doing so. In spite of much talk about public duty, 
 the same may be said of Polk. If he was not in 
 deadly fear of Scott as a possible Whig candidate 
 for President, at least he was very zealous in punish- 
 ing his errors. Using the quarrels in the army as a 
 pretext, Polk removed Scott from command. The 
 victor of Contreras was not permitted to lead his 
 army home. In the Roman sense, he was refused 
 a triumph. Instead, he was summoned before a 
 military court of inquiry on the conduct of the war 
 — a court which accomplished nothing beyond 
 
256 TEXAS AND THE MEXICAN WAR 
 
 spoiling the dramatic effect of the career of the 
 leading general. 
 
 The early months of 1848 were filled with anx- 
 ious debate upon the effect that peace would have 
 on the country. Slavery questions, the Wilmot 
 Proviso, were on every tongue. Generally, it was 
 assumed that a great cession would be required of 
 Mexico and that the only question now was how 
 it should be divided between North and South. 
 Against this assumption stood Daniel Webster, 
 insisting that the United States should take no new 
 territory but Texas — that only so could we escape 
 a terrible division on the subject of slavery. 
 
 No scruples of this sort troubled the President. 
 Though the treaty was less grasping than his desire, 
 he determined to make the best of it. On the day 
 that he decided to send the treaty to the Senate, by 
 a strange coincidence, John Quincy Adams was 
 struck with paralysis at his place in the House — 
 February 21, 1848. The adjournment of both 
 Houses that day and the next caused a delay, but 
 on the twenty -third the treaty was communicated 
 to the Senate. Webster strove in vain to defeat it. 
 On the 10th of March it was ratified by 38 votes 
 against 14. The opposing votes were evenly di- 
 vided between Whigs and Democrats. Only four 
 
THE CONQUERED PEACE 257 
 
 of them came from New England and the Middle 
 States; the rest were scattered over the West and 
 South. The majority, 26 Democrats and 12 Whigs, 
 represented every section of the Union. When it 
 came to the pinch, the lure of empire broke all 
 party and sectional lines. The moment the acqui- 
 sition was complete, however, all these lines were 
 again restored and the quarrel over the spoil of 
 Mexico soon solidified each of the two sections and 
 rendered them bitterly self-conscious. It virtually 
 reorganized the Union on the principle of duality 
 by creating between the parties an unstable equili- 
 brium. Thus was the stage set for a great and 
 terrible civil war. 
 
 17 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 There is no satisfactory, independent narrative of the 
 Texas episode. Of modern books, the Texas (Ameri- 
 can Commonwealths, 1903) of the late Professor G. P. 
 Garrison is excellent, but in some respects obsolete. 
 The chief living authority. Professor E. C. Barker, un- 
 fortunately has not written the book which he ought 
 to write. Very valuable essays by Professor Barker 
 are: Stephen F. Austin and the Independence of Texas, 
 The Texan Declaration of Causes for Taking up Arms 
 Against Mexico, and Land Speculation as a Cause of 
 the Texas Revolution, all in the Quarterly of the Texas 
 State Historical Association; The Finances of the Tex- 
 as Revolution in the Political Science Quarterly; Presi- 
 dent Jackson and the Texas Revolution in the American 
 Historical Review. An illuminating essay is Causes 
 and Origin of the Decree of April 6, 1830, by AUeine 
 Howren, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, vol. xvi, 
 pp. 378-422 (April, 1913). Valuable monographs by 
 Miss E. Z. Rather are Recognition of the Republic of 
 Texas by the United States and De Witt's Colony, both 
 pubUshed by the University of Texas. Many con- 
 temporaneous accounts such as the Reminiscences of 
 Henry Smith will be found in the Quarterly of the Tex- 
 as State Historical Association, now the Southwestern 
 Historical Quarterly. 
 
 259 
 
260 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 Among recent volumes that bear upon Texas, the 
 most valuable to the general reader is, on the whole, 
 George Lockhart Rives, The United States and Mexico, 
 1821-184.8 (2 vols., 1913). Its Texan chapters form a 
 good outline of the entire episode. Justin H. Smith, 
 The Annexation of Texas (1911), though important, 
 bears too heavily on the hypothesis of a British con- 
 spiracy. More objective is Ephraim D. Adams, Brit- 
 ish Interests and Activities in Texas (1910). The in- 
 valuable Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of 
 Texas has been published in three volumes as An- 
 nual Reports of the American Historical Association, 
 (1907-08). 
 
 Of the great actors of the drama adequate lives are 
 still to be written. This is true even of the greatest, 
 Calhoun, though his latest biography by W. M. Meigs, 
 The Life of John Caldwell Calhyun, 2 vols. (1917), is a 
 most important accumulation of fact. J. S. Bassett, 
 The Life of Andrew Jackson, 2 vols. (1911), has sup- 
 planted the earlier treatises but is by no means defini- 
 tive. Of Rhett there is no biography. Carl Schurz, 
 Henry Clay (American Statesmen, 2 vols., 1887), and 
 H. C. Lodge, Daniel Webster (American Statesmen, 
 1883), are fairly good and very readable. The Diary, 
 4 vols. (1910), of President Polk is an invaluable docu- 
 ment, as of course is the more famous Memoirs of John 
 Quincy Adams. Of Austin there is great need of a 
 good biography. The same may be said of Houston, 
 who is clumsily treated by A. M. Williams, Sam Hous- 
 ton (1893), and delightfully, but briefly and perhaps 
 too ardently, by Sarah Barnwell Elliott in her Sam 
 Houston (1900). 
 
 The Mexican War is carefully treated in J. B. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 261 
 
 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, 
 vol. VII (1910) ; in the second volume of Rives, The 
 United States and Mexico, 1831-4.8, 2 vols. (1913). 
 For the general reader these supersede the older narra- 
 tives. Both the student and the general reader will 
 take keen interest in Justin H. Smith, The War vnth 
 Mexico, 2 vols. (1920). Aiming to rid the story of the 
 partisan interpretation fastened upon it by the Whig 
 school of American historians, Mr. Smith is as artful 
 in his silences as he is effective in his utterances. In- 
 corporated in the graphic narrative and its voluminous 
 notes are two special pleas — for Polk in the precipi- 
 tation of the war, and for Scott in its conduct. As to 
 military events, since Mr. Smith has had access prob- 
 ably to all existing documents of importance, many of 
 which have never before been used by historians, his 
 version may be considered authoritative. This work 
 contains an extremely full bibliography. Several dia- 
 ries and memoirs of great interest are still in manu- 
 script. However, Grant's Personal Memoirs, 2 vols. 
 (1885), have long been in print, as have Sherman's 
 Memoirs, 2 vols. (1875), while recently there has been 
 given to the public The Life and Letters of George B. 
 Meade, 2 vols. (1913). A group of letters from Tay- 
 lor have been printed under the title. Letters from the 
 Battle-fields of the Mexican War (1908). Very delight- 
 ful are the letters of Robert Anderson published as 
 An Artillery Officer in the Mexican War (1911). 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aberdeen, Earl of, succeeds 
 Palmerston as British 
 Foreign Secretary, 123; ne- 
 gotiates Quintuple Treaty, 
 123-24; and attempts at 
 conciliation between Texas 
 and Mexico, 127-29, 131- 
 133, 138; and Oregon ques- 
 tion, 132, 160-61; estimate 
 of, 132-33 (note); and "Tap- 
 pan Committee" of Anti- 
 Slavery Convention, 136- 
 139, 141, 142, 155; and 
 Brougham, 143; denies in- 
 tention of intervention in 
 Texas, 148, 149; dispatch 
 in Calhoun-Pakenham cor- 
 respondence, 155-56; and 
 Whig party, 158-59; illu- 
 sions furnish clue to policy, 
 159-60, 164; invites France 
 to join protest against an- 
 nexation treaty, 161-62; and 
 abolition, 162; diplomacy 
 regarding annexation of 
 Texas, 162-63; and Paken- 
 ham, 165, 166; decides on 
 amicable policy toward 
 United States, 166-67; on 
 acquisition of California, 183 
 
 Abolition, Adams and, 94-95, 
 103, 104, 116-17; crisis in 
 anti-slavery agitation, 103- 
 104; and Texas, 104-05; Ad- 
 dress to the People of the Free 
 State3,ll7-lS;3ee also Slavery 
 
 Abolitionists, convention in 
 London (1843), 135-39 
 
 Acapulco road. Worth on the, 
 242 
 
 Adams, J. Q., as a diplomat, 
 19, 22; Poinsett's letter to, 
 21; offers to buy Texan 
 country, 22; submits Poin- 
 sett's treaties to Senate, 28; 
 defeated by Jackson, 28; 
 charges against Administra- 
 tion, 91, 180; and abolition, 
 94-95, 103, 104, 116-17; 
 "Texas Speech," 108-09; 
 and Jones's expedition, 116- 
 117; Andrews and Tappan 
 visit, 135-36; opinion of 
 British motives, 140; mani- 
 festo, 145; Almonte and, 
 152; struck with paralysis 
 (1848), 256 
 
 Agua Nueva, Taylor at, 203 
 
 Alaman, Lucas, Mexican Min 
 ister of Foreign Relations, 
 32; Iniciativa, 31, 33 
 
 Alamo, Cos surrenders at the, 
 67; Travis's force at the, 
 70; massacre, 72-74; "Re- 
 member the Alamo," 86 
 
 Almonte, Colonel, and Lundy 
 104; views taken by Adams 
 105; Mexican Minister at 
 Washington, 152-53, 154 
 demands passports, 177 
 
 Ampudia, General Pedro, at 
 Monterey, 199 
 
 Anahuac, port for free impor- 
 tation of necessities, 38; 
 
 263 
 
264 
 
 INDEX 
 
 An&huac — Continued 
 
 Bradburn at, 38-40; Piedras 
 sent to, 41; Tenorio as cus- 
 toms official at, 57 
 
 Anderson, Robert, record of 
 march to City of Mexico, 
 219; description of Jalapa, 
 223; quoted, 224-25, 233-34 
 
 Andrews, S. P., 135 
 
 Arab (British ship), Santa 
 Anna aboard, 192 
 
 Arbitration between United 
 States and Mexico, 180-81 
 
 Archer, B. T., commissioner to 
 United States from Texas, 
 65 
 
 Arista, General Manuel, and 
 battle of Palo Alto, 195 
 
 Army, American, inefficiency, 
 197-98 
 
 "Aroostook War," 123 
 
 Ashburton, Alexander Baring, 
 Lord, 183; special minister 
 to United States, 124-25; 
 Clay interviews, 125 
 
 Atocha, Colonel, agent of 
 Santa Anna, 189-90, 191, 
 226-27 
 
 Austin, Moses, 3-4 
 
 Austin, S. F., son of Moses, 
 66; founder of Anglo-Ameri- 
 can Texas, 4-8, 11-12; and 
 Mexico, 12-13, 16, SO; Gov- 
 ernor calls for help from, 15; 
 and Terdn, 25-26; and Mexi- 
 can anti-slavery decree, 30; 
 argues Texas cause in United 
 States, 35-36; and Mejia, 
 43-44; goes to Mexico City, 
 50-51; imprisonment, 51- 
 52, 53, 60; w^rites concilia- 
 tory letters from prison, 54; 
 return to Texas, 60; made 
 chairman of Committee of 
 Safety, 61 ; defeatedf or presi- 
 dency of provisional govern- 
 ment, 65; commissioner to 
 United States, 65; retires 
 from command of army, 66; 
 
 joins party of independence, 
 76 
 
 B 
 
 Bancroft, George, Secretary of 
 
 Navy, 186 
 Baring, Alexander, see Ash- 
 burton 
 Barker, E. C, Stephen F. 
 
 Austin and the Independence 
 
 of Texas, quoted, 51-52; 
 
 cited, 70 (note) 
 Barnwell (S. C), meeting at, 
 
 170-71 
 Bastrop, Baron de, friend of 
 
 Austin, 4 
 Beaufort (S. C), meeting at, 
 
 171 
 Benton, T. H., and annexation 
 
 of Texas, 164 
 Bexar (San Antonio), highway 
 
 to, 34; Austin writes to 
 
 authorities of, 51-52; Texan 
 
 army meets Cos at, 62, 65, 
 
 66-67; see also San Antonio 
 Bocenegra, Mexican Minister 
 
 of Foreign Relations, 126, 
 
 127 
 Bowie, Colonel J. W., leads 
 
 Texans, 45; death at the 
 
 Alamo, 73 
 Bradburn, J. D., commands 
 
 Mexicans at Andhuac, 38- 
 
 40; escapes, 44-45 
 Bragg, Captain Braxton, at 
 
 Bueua Vista, 207, 209, 211, 
 
 212 
 Brazoria, riot at, 39; Austin's 
 
 address at, 60 
 Briscoe, Mr., practical joke 
 
 upon Tenorio, 57 
 Brougham, Lord, and Anti- 
 Slavery Convention, 136; 
 
 and Aberdeen, 143 
 Brown, Fort, 194 
 Brown, Major, commander at 
 
 Fort Brown, 194; death, 195 
 Buena Vista, character of 
 
INDEX 
 
 265 
 
 Buena Vista — Continued 
 place, 204-07; battle of, 
 208 et seq. 
 
 Bullock, Colonel J. W., 45 
 
 Burnet, David, President of 
 provisional government of 
 Texas, 76, 97 
 
 Bustamante, Anastasio, Santa 
 Anna starts revolution 
 against, 40, 41 
 
 Butler, Anthony, and Jackson, 
 26-27; as Minister to 
 Mexico, 28, 29; discusses 
 American purchase of Texas, 
 48-49; works for cession of 
 Texas to United States, 
 52-53; land speculation, 55- 
 56; and California, 183 
 
 Cadwalader, General George, 
 239 
 
 Calhoun, J. C, 137; on an- 
 nexation of Texas, 90-91, 
 149; presents resolution, 
 107-08; opinion of British 
 attitude, 140, 149, 175-76; 
 Secretary of State, 153; and 
 Pakenham, 155, 174; and 
 Rhett, 168, 171; on disunion, 
 171-72, 174-75; toast to, 
 173; attitude on war in 
 Texas, 185, 227 
 
 California, and international 
 politics, 183-84; war in, 197 
 
 Castaneda, Francisco, at Gon- 
 zales, 62 
 
 Catholics, colonists of Texas 
 required to be, 9, 10, 35 
 
 Cerro Gordo, Santa Anna 
 fortifies, 220; action at, 
 221-23 
 
 Chalco, Lake, location, 234; 
 Scott near, 235, 236 
 
 Chapultepec, attack at foot of, 
 249; storming of, 250 
 
 Charleston Courier, anti-Rhett 
 paper, 171, 172, 174 
 
 Charleston Mercury, Rhett' s 
 organ, 169, 172, 173 
 
 Churubusco, Mexican forti- 
 fications at, 236; Mexicans 
 at, 238; Worth at, 242; Scott 
 joins Worth, 243-44; battle 
 of, 244-47 
 
 Cincinnati, subscription for 
 artillery for Texas, 73 
 
 City of Mexico, see Mexico 
 City 
 
 Civil War, Mexican cessions 
 as a cause of, 255 
 
 Clay, Henry, Secretary of 
 State, 18-19; as a diplomat, 
 19; relations with Poinsett, 
 20, 22; report by Committee 
 on Foreign Relations, 92; 
 interviews Ashburton, 125; 
 position on annexation issue 
 (1844), 157, 158, 163-64; 
 letter causing political death, 
 165 
 
 Coahuila, political conflict in, 
 53-55; state reforms, 54-55; 
 land policy, 55-56 
 
 "Companions of St. Patrick," 
 246 
 
 Congress, United States, Sen- 
 ate authorizes ratification of 
 Mexican treaties, 28; atti- 
 tude toward war, 90; Jack- 
 son shifts responsibility for 
 Texas upon, 99-100; politi- 
 cal composition, 102; House 
 suppresses right of petition 
 on slavery, 103-04; issue of 
 annexation of Texas, 106-07 
 
 Conner, Commodore, ordered 
 to allow Santa Anna to enter 
 Mexico, 190 
 
 Consultation, meeting (1835), 
 63-65; draws up Declaration 
 of causes for taking up arms 
 against Mexico, 64 
 
 Contreras, battle of, 237 (note), 
 247 (note) 
 
 Corpus Christi, Taylor en- 
 camps near, 186 
 
266 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cos, Martin Perfecto de, gen- 
 eral of Santa Anna, 53-54, 
 57; arrests Viesca, 58; incurs 
 wrath of Texans, 59, 61; at 
 war with Texas, 62; besieged 
 at Bexar, 66; surrenders 
 (1836), 67; returns to Texas 
 (1836), 82, 85 
 Coyoacan, Scott reaches, 242 
 Crockett, David. 73-74 
 
 D 
 
 Davis, Jeflferson, commands 
 
 Mississippi Rifles, 213, 214 
 Democratic party, victory, 177 
 Dickinson, Mrs., at the Alamo, 
 
 74 
 Doyle, Percy, British Charge 
 
 d' Affaires in Mexico, 138, 
 
 139, 146 
 
 E 
 
 Edwards, Hayden, empresario, 
 5, 1 1 ; contrasted with Austin, 
 12; early history, 13; opin- 
 ion of land ownership, 14; re- 
 volt against Mexico, 14-16; 
 and Republic of Fredonia, 
 15 
 
 Elliot, Captain Charles, Brit- 
 ish Minister in Texas, 130, 
 131, 146, 158, 159 
 
 Empresarios, 1 et seq. 
 
 England, as peacemaker, 120 
 et seq.; international crisis 
 of 1844, 140 et seq.; and 
 California, 183 
 
 Everett, Edward, American 
 Minister at London, 124, 
 148, 149 
 
 P 
 
 Fannin, J. W., leads expedition 
 against Matamoras, 69, 70; 
 given orders by Houston, 
 
 72, 76; delays and surrender, 
 79-80 
 
 Finance, financial aid for Texas 
 in United States, 76, 76; 
 Jackson's financial battle, 94 
 
 Florida, acquisition of, 1; 
 results of immigration to, 19 
 
 France, spoliation claims, 92- 
 93; intervention proposed 
 between Texas and Mexico, 
 127-28; invited by Aber- 
 deen to protest annexation 
 treaty, 161-62 
 
 Fredonia, Republic of, 15; 
 sympathy in United States, 
 18 
 
 "Fredonian War," 14-16, 17. 
 18 
 
 Freedom of speech, 126-27 
 
 G 
 
 Gadsden Purchase, 254 
 
 Gaines. General E. P., with 
 United States troops in 
 Texas (1836), 88-89, 90 
 
 Galveston Bay and Texas 
 Land Company of New 
 York, 56 
 
 Goliad, Fannin at, 70, 71, 76 
 
 Gonzales, battle of, 61-62, 87; 
 attitude toward Mexico at, 
 63 
 
 Grant, Dr. James, with expedi- 
 tion against Matamoras, 68- 
 70; killed, 72; faction loses 
 ground, 75 
 
 Grant, U. S., description of 
 march at Cerro Gordo, 222 
 
 Green, Duff, at Anti-Slavery 
 Convention in London, 136; 
 letters to Calhoun, 141 
 
 Greenwood, Miles, casts 
 cannon, 75 
 
 Guadalupe- Hidalgo, Treaty of, 
 87, 254; Santa Anna's head- 
 quarters at, 251 
 
 Guerrero, Vicente, President 
 of Mexico, recall of Poinsett, 
 
INDEX 
 
 267 
 
 Guerrero, Vincente — Continued 
 28; plan for "saving of 
 Texas," 29 
 
 Guizot, French Minister, re- 
 fuses to intervene between 
 Texas and Mexico, 128; and 
 annexation of Texas, 161-62 
 
 H 
 
 Hammond, J. H., Governor of 
 South Carolina, 170 
 
 Harris, Mrs. Dilne, Reminis- 
 cenoes, quoted, 78-79 
 
 Harrisburg, Santa Anna moves 
 upon, 81 
 
 Havana, Santa Anna in exile 
 at, 180 
 
 Herrera, General, heads short- 
 lived Mexican government, 
 180, 184 
 
 Houston, Sam, 11-12; on 
 United States appropriation 
 of Texas, 48; commands 
 army in Texas, 65, 68; atti- 
 tude toward Johnson's ex- 
 pedition, 69, 70; commander- 
 in-chief, 72; at the Alamo, 
 72; and Jackson, 76, 96-97; 
 at Gonzales, 76, 78; as a 
 soldier, 77; leaves Gonzales, 
 79, 80; Santa Anna against, 
 81-84; Battle of San Jacinto, 
 84-86; intercedes for Santa 
 Anna, 97; President of Re- 
 public of Texas, 98, 113, 114- 
 115; elected second time 
 (1841), 122-23; action on 
 Santa Anna's peace terms, 
 130-31 ; and Texan independ- 
 ence, 133, 148, 159-60; 
 question of annexation, 144, 
 146, 151; British friendship, 
 145, 147, 150-51; need of 
 ally against Mexico, 147- 
 148 
 
 Hunt, Memucan, Texan Minis- 
 ter to United States, 102 
 
 Imperial Colonization Law of 
 
 1823 (Mexican), 6-7 
 Indians, Edwards's alliance 
 
 with Cherokees, 15; danger 
 
 from raids, 38; report of 
 
 rising, 90; population in 
 
 Texas, 96 
 Irving, Washington, letter to 
 
 Van Buren, 93-94 
 Iturbide, General Agustin de, 
 
 becomes Emperor Agustin 
 
 I, 6-7 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, and Butler, 
 26-27, 28, 29, 53; accepts 
 Mexican treaties, 32; fore- 
 tells battle of San Jacinto, 
 77; on expansion, 88; atti- 
 tude toward Texan revolu- 
 tion, 88, 89; and French 
 spoliation claims, 92-93; and 
 Van Buren, 94, 95; sends 
 Morfit to Texas, 95; Houston 
 begs aid from, 97, 152; deal- 
 ings with Santa Anna, 98, 
 99; shifts responsibility for 
 Texas upon Congress, 99- 
 100, 101; Adams's accusa- 
 tion of, 180; and California, 
 183 
 
 Jalapa, Americans at, 223, 228, 
 229 
 
 Johnson, F. W., Texan adven- 
 turer, 68, 69, 70, 72 
 
 Jones, Commodore T. A. C, at 
 Monterey, 116, 117, 129 
 
 K 
 
 Kearny, Colonel S. W., leads 
 expedition to New Mexico, 
 196-97 
 
 King, W. R., Senator from Ala- 
 bama, on Vermont resolu- 
 tions, 107 
 
268 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lafitte, Jean, pirate, 3 
 
 Lamar, M. B., second Presi- 
 dent of Texas, 111-12 
 
 Land, American idea of rights 
 to, 35-36, 37; contention 
 over, 65-56 
 
 Lara, B. G. de, Mexican 
 refugee, 2 
 
 Lee, Captain R. E., at Cerro 
 Gordo, 221; at San Ger- 
 onimo, 240 
 
 Lobos Island, Scott at, 217 
 
 Long, James, sets up "Re- 
 public of Texas," 2-3 
 
 Lovejoy, Elijah, murdered, 104 
 
 Lundy, Benjamin, 120, 152; 
 abolitionist, 104; The Origin 
 and True Cause of the Texas 
 Insurrection, 104-05; The 
 War in Texas, 105 
 
 M 
 
 McDufiSe, George, Governor 
 of South Carolina, on ad- 
 mission of Texas, 105 
 
 Mackenzie, A. S., and Santa 
 Anna, 190 
 
 Masons, branches become 
 bases of political parties, 
 21 
 
 Matamoras, Teran at, 33, 34; 
 Mejia occupies, 43; San 
 Antonio soldiers set out for, 
 68; Fannin's expedition 
 against, 69; Mexican base 
 at, 194; Taylor takes, 196 
 
 May, Captain, leads cavalry 
 charge, 196 
 
 Mejia, Colonel J. A., occupies 
 Matamoras, 43; and Austin, 
 43-44; Texans join, 45 
 
 Mexican War, bibliography, 
 260-61 
 
 Mexico, changes in govern- 
 ment, 6; Imperial Coloniza- 
 
 tion Law of 1823, 6-7; 
 colonization law (1824-25), 
 8; Minister withdraws from 
 Washington, 90; sends sol- 
 diers to Texas, 34; Texan 
 indictment of, 64; isolation, 
 177-78 
 
 Mexico City, suspicion of 
 American intentions at, 48; 
 march of Americans to, 219; 
 mountain fortifications, 233; 
 Americans enter, 251 
 
 Mier, Texan forces attack, 114; 
 prisoners massacred, 129 
 
 Mier y Teran, Manuel de, 
 Mexican boundary com- 
 missioner, 23; description of 
 Texas, 24-25; oflScial reports 
 on Texas, 29-30; and anti- 
 slavery decree, 30; military 
 and colonization plans, 31; 
 concentrates army, 33; at 
 Matamoras, 33, 34; places 
 Bradburn in command at 
 Andhuac, 38, 39; and San- 
 ta Anna, 40, 42; defeat 
 at Tampico, 41; death, 42, 
 43 
 
 Milam, B. R., at San Antonio, 
 66 
 
 Miflon, General, Mexican 
 leader, 203 
 
 Molino del Rey, slaughter of 
 the, 248, 249-50 
 
 Monroe, James, boundaries 
 determined under, 1-2 
 
 Montclova, political party at, 
 53 
 
 Monterey, Taylor at, 198, 202; 
 battle, 199-200 
 
 Monterey (Calif.). Jones at, 
 116, 129 
 
 Morfit, H. M., on mission of 
 inquiry to Texas, 95-96 
 
 Morris, Thomas, Senator from 
 Ohio, on independence of 
 Texas, 90, 91; and anti- 
 slavery question, 91, 94 
 
 Murphy, W. S., 151-52 
 
INDEX 
 
 269 
 
 N 
 
 Nacogdoches, "Republic of 
 Texas" proclaimed at, 2; 
 captured, 3; Edwards's col- 
 ony near, 13-14; Edwards 
 seizes, 15; Austin aids Mexi- 
 can attack on Edwards, 16; 
 Texans attack Piedras at, 
 45; Gaines at (1836), 90 
 
 Napoleon III and Mexico, 175 
 
 Natchez, public meeting to 
 deplore Monroe's policy, 2 
 
 New England and annexation 
 of Texas, 154 
 
 New Mexico, expansion into, 
 96; war in, 112; Kearny's 
 expedition to, 196-97 
 
 New Orleans, pro- Texas meet- 
 ing at, 126 
 
 New Washington, Santa Anna 
 at, 82; burned, 83 
 
 New York and annexation of 
 Texas, 154 
 
 Nullification, 49 
 
 O 
 
 Obregon, Mexican Minister at 
 
 Washington, 18 
 Oregon question, 132, 160-61, 
 
 166, 174 
 
 P 
 
 Padierna, village on San Angel 
 road, 237, 238, 239, 241 
 
 Pakenham, British Minister, 
 155, 158, 160, 162, 165, 167, 
 174 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, and recog- 
 nition of Texas, 120-22, 
 125; succeeded at Foreign 
 OflBce, 123; succeeds Aber- 
 deen, 176 
 
 Palo Alto, battle at, 195-96 
 
 Panic of 1837, 102, 121 
 
 Paredes y Arillaga, General 
 
 Mariano, raises revolt in 
 Mexico, 184 
 
 Parras, General Wool marches 
 to, 197 
 
 ParTott, W. S., confidential 
 agent of Polk, 179 
 
 Pedregal, the, lava field, 236, 
 237, 240, 242 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, Prime Minis- 
 ter of England, 161 
 
 Pefla y Pefla, Manuel de la, 
 establishes provisional gov- 
 ernment at Queretaro, 251 
 
 Pennsylvania and annexation 
 of Texas, 154 
 
 Penon Viejo, Santa Anna on, 
 235 
 
 Piedras, Colonel, Mexican 
 leader, 23; captured, 41, 43; 
 attacked at Nacogdoches, 
 45; resigns command, 46 
 
 Pierce, General Franklin, 245 
 
 Poinsett, J. R., American 
 Minister to Mexico, 18; as a 
 diplomat, 19-20; political 
 improprieties, 21, 27-28; ne- 
 gotiates commercial treaty, 
 22-23; receives instruction 
 to try to purchase Texas, 
 27; recalled, 28 
 
 Point Isabel, Taylor's base of 
 supplies at, 194 
 
 Politics, Texas question in, 
 94-95, 103 
 
 Polk, J. K., reelected Speaker 
 of House, 102; Presidential 
 campaign of 1844, 158, 168, 
 171; election, 177; policy 
 regarding Mexico, 178 et 
 seq., 194; and California, 
 181-83; war message, 187- 
 188; and Taylor, 199-200, 
 201; Atocha and, 189-90, 
 226-27; mistaken diplomacy, 
 227; sends Trist to Mexico, 
 228; and Scott, 255; opinion 
 of treaty, 256 
 
 Ponton, Andrew, alcalde of 
 Gonzales, 61 
 
270 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Porter, Senator from Louis- 
 iana, opposes annexation of 
 Texas, 91 
 
 Preston, W. C, on annexation 
 of Texas, 91, 108, 150 
 
 Princeton (warship), Upshur 
 killed on, 163 
 
 Puebla, Scott's objective, 224, 
 229; Trist reaches, 229; 
 march from, 233 
 
 Q 
 
 Quer^taro, provisional Mexi- 
 can government established 
 at, 251 
 
 Quintuple Treaty, 123-24, 132 
 
 R 
 
 Reily, James, Texan charge, 
 125 
 
 Rhett, R. B., on secession and 
 annexation of Texas, 168 
 et seq. 
 
 Riley, General Bennet, at 
 Padierna, 238 
 
 Rio Grande River, United 
 States claims as boundary of 
 Louisiana, 20; desire of 
 United States to buy coun- 
 try to, 22, 27, 88 
 
 Robinson, J. W., 129-30 
 
 Robinson Armistice, 144, 145 
 
 Sabine (schooner), 39 
 
 Saltillo, Austin arrested at, 
 52; political faction at, 53; 
 Taylor at, 201, 202-03, 210 
 
 San Agustfn de las Cuevas, 
 Scott's headquarters at, 236 
 
 San Angel road, fighting on, 
 237, 239 
 
 San Antonio, Johnson's expe- 
 dition from, 68, 69; Travis 
 in command at, 70; Mexi- 
 cans move against, 70, 71; 
 
 Mexican army raids, 112; 
 second raid, 113; capture 
 (1842), 125-26, 129; Mexi- 
 can fortification, 236; Worth 
 at, 242; Mexicans retreat 
 from, 243; battle of, 247 
 (note); see also Bexar 
 
 San Felipe de Austin, Austin 
 founds, 4; capital of Austin's 
 colony, 7-8; convention at, 
 57-58; Austin at, 60-61; 
 burned, 81; Mexicans enter, 
 81; Houston abandons, 82 
 
 San Ger6nimo, American 
 troops at, 239, 240 
 
 San Jacinto, battle of, 81-86, 
 89; Jackson foretells, 77, 80 
 
 San Luis Potosi, Santa Anna 
 rallies force at, 220 
 
 San Meteo, convent of, 244-45 
 
 San Patricio, Grant and John- 
 son at, 70, 71. 72 
 
 Santa Anna, in repulse of 
 Spain (1829), 26; starts 
 revolution,40-41; andTeran, 
 40-41; success, 42; and Pied- 
 ras, 43; feeling in favor of, 
 43, 44-45; President of 
 Mexico, 50; Austin and, SO, 
 51; Texans lose faith in, 53; 
 reactionary, 53, 55; and land 
 question, 56; Zavala enemy 
 of, 59; centralized govern- 
 ment under, 64; commands 
 Mexican army, 70, 75; at the 
 Alamo, 72; population flees 
 before, 78; at the San Jacinto, 
 80 et seg.; saved by captors, 
 97; duplicity, 97; and Jack- 
 son, 98, 99; civil war with 
 Yucatan, 118, 147; returns 
 to power, 123; turns again 
 against Texas, 147; in exile 
 at Havana (1845), 180; 
 Polk and, 189-92, 200; re- 
 turns to Mexico, 192; against 
 Taylor, 203; at Buena Vista, 
 204 et seq.; against Scott, 
 220, 235, 238, 239; at Cerro 
 
INDEX 
 
 271 
 
 Santa Anna — Continued 
 
 Gordo, 220-23; negotiations 
 with, 231-32, 249; armistice 
 with, 248; renews operations, 
 249; at Guadalupe Hidalgo, 
 251; resigns presidency, 251; 
 exile, 251 (note) 
 
 Santa F6, Lamar's expedition 
 against, 112; Kearny at, 197 
 
 Scott, General Winfield, com- 
 mands Mexican expedition, 
 201; advanced in rank, 202; 
 personal characteristics, 216- 
 217; and Santa Anna, 220, 
 231-32, 248-49; at Cerro 
 Gordo, 220-23; at Puebla, 
 224, 225; and Trist, 228-31; 
 letter to Trist, quoted, 229; 
 strategy of, 235-36; at Pa- 
 dierna, 238; on Lee's courage, 
 240; on San Angel road, 241, 
 242; blunder, 243-44; at 
 Churubusco, 244, 246; at 
 Molino del Rey, 249; at 
 Chapultepec, 250; reaches 
 Mexico City, 251; removed 
 from command, 255-56 
 
 Secession, 168 et seq. 
 
 Sherman, W. T., at Buena 
 Vista, 207, 212 
 
 Shields, General James, 245 
 
 Simpson, Sir George, on Sutter, 
 182 
 
 Slavery, in Texas, 25, 30; in 
 Mexico, 30; anti-slavery agi- 
 tation in United States, 
 103-04; annexation of 
 Texas and, 104-09; factor 
 in Texan diplomacy, 121; 
 Quintuple Treaty, 123-24, 
 133; British feeling against, 
 156; in District of Columbia, 
 168; see also Abolition 
 
 Slave trade, British and, 121- 
 122 
 
 Slidell, John, United States 
 Minister to Mexico, 180, 183, 
 189 
 
 Smith, Ashbel, Texan Minister 
 
 to England, 125, 155; quoted, 
 134, 137-38 
 
 Smith, "Deaf," Texan leader, 
 85 
 
 Smith, Henry, Reminiscences, 
 quoted, 36-37, 42-43, 46- 
 48; district commissioner at 
 Brazoria, 42; Security for 
 Texas, 54; leader of "war 
 party," 59; elected Presi- 
 dent of provisional govern- 
 ment, 65; difference with the 
 Council, 67-68 
 
 Smith, J. H., The War with 
 Mexico, cited, 243 (note), 
 249 (note) 
 
 Smith, General P. F., com- 
 mands American expedition, 
 239, 241 
 
 Sol, El, Mexican newspaper 
 accuses United States of 
 complicity in Fredonian 
 War, 18; quoted, 31-32 
 
 South Carolina, nullification, 
 49; and admission of Texas, 
 105; contest between Rhett 
 and Calhoun, 168 et seq. 
 
 Spain attempts to reconquer 
 Mexico, 26 
 
 Sterne, Adolphus, story of, 
 36-37 
 
 Stevenson, Andrew, American 
 ambassador at London, 122 
 
 Sutter, Captain J. A., 182 
 
 Sutter's Fort, 182 
 
 Swift, Benjamin, Senator from 
 Vermont, 107 
 
 T 
 
 Tappan, Lewis, abolitionist, 
 
 135 
 Tappan Committee, 136-39, 
 
 141, 142, 155 
 Tariff, Mexican, 38 
 Taylor, General Zachary, takes 
 
 forces to Texas, 186, 188; 
 
 Santa Anna advises invasion 
 
 of Mexico by, 191; "Old 
 
272 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Taylor, Zachary — Continued 
 Rough and Ready," 193; 
 forces of, 193-94; builds 
 Fort Brown, 194; at Palo 
 Alto, 195; advance into 
 Mexico, 196, 197-98; cap- 
 ture of Monterey, 199; Polk's 
 opinion of, 199-200, 202; 
 as a general, 200; disregards 
 Washington's advice, 201; 
 subordinated to Scott, 202; 
 Santa Anna against, 203; 
 at Buena Vista, 204 et seq. 
 
 Tenorio, Captain Antonio, 
 Mexican officer, 57, 58, 59 
 
 Teran, see Mier y Teran 
 
 Texas, "Republic of Texas," 
 2-3; Austin's colony, 6-8; 
 as consequence of Mexican 
 colonization laws, 8-10; mi- 
 gration to, 10-11; Edwards's 
 revolt in, 14-16; slavery, 
 25, 30; Convention draws 
 up constitution (1833), 60; 
 and secession, 63 ct seq.; 
 declared republic, 76; recog- 
 nition, 87 et seq., 120-22; 
 question of annexation, 98, 
 101 etseq., 115, 116-18, 143- 
 144; settlement, 110; sug- 
 gested as buffer state by 
 England, 128; becomes State 
 of the Union, 177, 178; 
 boundary question, 185; bib- 
 liography, 259-60 
 
 Texcoco, Lake, 234, 238 
 
 Thompson, Waddy, pro-Texas 
 leader in House, 101, 108- 
 109; United States Minister 
 to Mexico, 126 
 
 Travis, W. B., captures Ten- 
 orio, 58-59; in command at 
 San Antonio, 70; letter an- 
 nouncing siege, 71 
 
 Treaties, Annexation treaty 
 (1844), 154-55, 157, 161-62, 
 164; British-Texan treaties, 
 125,133;Guadalupe-HidaIgo, 
 87, 254; Quintuple Treaty, 
 
 123-24, 133; Treaty of Com- 
 merce and Amity with Texan 
 Republic, 118, 145; Treaty 
 of commerce with Mexico, 
 21-22, 23, 28, 29; Treaty of 
 1819, 20, 21, 108; Treaty of 
 Limits, 23, 28, 29; Treaty 
 of 1795, 21; Webster- Ash- 
 burton treaty (1842), 132, 
 133 
 
 Trist, N. P., envoy to Mexico, 
 226, 228; Scott and, 228-31; 
 negotiations, 253-54 
 
 Twiggs, General D. E., at 
 Churubusco, 245 
 
 Tyler, John, breaks with 
 Whigs, 142; message of 
 December, 1843, 160; South 
 Carolina supports, 171; reso- 
 lution inviting Texas as 
 State signed by, 177 
 
 U 
 
 Ugartechea, Colonel, Mexican 
 commander at B6xar, 61; 
 statement to Anglo-Ameri- 
 cans, 63 
 
 United States, and Fredonian 
 War, 18-19; boundary 
 claims, 20-21; desire to buy 
 Texan country to Rio 
 Grande, 22, 27, 88; relations 
 with Mexico, 27 et seq., 35; 
 Texan commissions to, 65, 
 87-88; attitude toward war 
 between Texas and Mexico, 
 75-76; troops on Texan soil 
 (1836), 88-89; Mexican Min- 
 ister withdraws from, 90; 
 question of recognition of 
 Texas in, 91-92, 99-100, 
 101; European predicament, 
 92-93; Texas sends Minister 
 to, 98-99; diplomatic rela- 
 tions with Mexico resumed, 
 106; question of mediation 
 between Texas and Mexico, 
 115; and Great Britain, 126, 
 
INDEX 
 
 273 
 
 United States — Continued 
 140; intervention between 
 Texas and Mexico proposed, 
 127-28; International crisis 
 of 1844, 140 et seq.; domestic 
 crisis of 1844, 168 ei seq.; 
 enters war, 178 et seq.; see 
 also Congress, names of 
 Presidents, Texas question 
 of annexation 
 
 Upshur, A. P., Secretary of 
 State, 141-43, 146, 148-53; 
 killed, 153 
 
 Valencia, General, at battle of 
 Contreras, 238, 240, 241 
 
 Van Buren, Martin, Secretary 
 of State, 27, 93-94; candi- 
 date for presidency, 94, 95; 
 elected President, 99; against 
 annexation of Texas, 157- 
 158; Benton and, 164; Adams' 
 accusation, 180 
 
 Van Zandt, Isaac, Texan Min- 
 ister at Washington, 144, 
 146, 150 
 
 Velasco, Fort of, 42 
 
 Vera Cruz, Santa Anna at, 41; 
 Santa Anna advises United 
 States to attack, 191; as 
 base of American operations, 
 201; Scott at, 218; Trist 
 goes to, 228 
 
 Viesca, Agustin, President of 
 Coahuila, 58 
 
 W 
 
 at 
 
 Washington, Captain, 
 Buena Vista, 207 
 
 Washington (Texas), Texan 
 Convention at, 72; Republic 
 of Texas proclaimed at, 110 
 
 Webster, Daniel, Secretary of 
 
 State, 115, 123; enemy of 
 Texas, 115, 145; reply to 
 Bocenegra, 127; and Cali- 
 fornia, 183; against treaty, 
 256 
 
 Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 
 132, 133 
 
 Wharton, W. F., Minister to 
 United States, 98, 101, 102; 
 commissioner to United 
 States from Texas, 65 
 
 Whig party, attitude toward 
 war, 106; position as to 
 Texas, 157; Aberdeen and, 
 158-59 
 
 White, S. E., The Forty-Niners, 
 cited, 197 (note) 
 
 Wilkinson, General James, 5, 
 13 
 
 Wilmot Proviso, 256 
 
 Woll, General Adrian, Mexican 
 leader, 113; raids San An- 
 tonio, 129 
 
 Wool, General J. E., march to 
 Parras, 197 
 
 Worth, General W. J., at Mon- 
 terey, 198-99; at Vera Cruz, 
 218; battles of San Antonio 
 and Churubusco, 242-47 
 
 Xochimilco, Lake, location, 
 234, 236 
 
 Yoakum, Henry, quoted, 13 
 Yucatan, civil war with, 118- 
 119; pacification of, 147 
 
 Zavala, Lorenzo de, capture of, 
 59