Days At Pendleton :: The Siege of San Antonio :: Independence and the Alamo :: Comanche Indians :: Description of the Council House Fight :: Perote: Prisoner's Journal :: Maverick - Man and Legend :: Samuel A. Maverick :: Long Ropes and Running Irons
Samuel Augustus Maverick, Texas Patriot
Samuel Augustus Maverick was the first and only son of Samuel Maverick of South Carolina and his wife, Elizabeth, a daughter of General Robert Anderson, of Revolutionary fame. This couple were married October 5, 1802. They had three children, the elder being Samuel A., born in Pendleton, South Carolina, July 23, 1803, died in San Antonio, Texas, September 2, 1870. The two daughters were Mary Elizabeth and Lydia Ann.
From the Texas Volume of the Encyclopedia of the New West, published in 1881 and edited by that splendid historian, John Henry Brown, we take the following in regard to the career of the subject of this sketch, Samuel A. Maverick:
"Samuel A. Maverick graduated from Yale College in 1825, afterwards attended a law course under Judge Randolph Tucker, at Winchester, Virginia. He came to Texas in 1835, and to the day of his death occupied an honorable prominence as a citizen, a public servant and landholder. His acquisition of lands by the purchase of scrip, headrights and bounty warrants and their location upon the public domain continued to his death, whereby he was reputed by some, but doubtless erroneously, to be the largest landholder in the world. His possessions, however, became immense and were acquired in so honorable and legitimate a manner that no term of reproach ever stained his name.
"Mr. Maverick in February, 1836, was elected from San Antonio de Bexar to the convention that declared the Texas independence on the 2nd day of March. This document was first published March 2, 1836, which was the first day of the sitting of the convention. Consequently those members who came in a day or two late, have their names to the Declaration, but not to this first printed copy. (These were Samuel A. Maverick, of Bexar; A. Briscoe and John W. Moore, of Harrisburgh; S. Rhodes Fisher, of Matagorda; George Childress and Sterling C. Robertson, of Milam; Samuel P. Carson, of Red River; John W. Bower of San Patricio, and J. B. Woods.) He was mayor of San Antonio in 1839, and again in 1862; an alderman in 1841-4, and again in 1851; and was city treasurer in 1841-2. While a prisoner in the Mexican castle of Perote (having been captured in San Antonio September 11, 1842 with the judge, lawyers and citizens) he was elected a member of the eighth Texas congress of 1843-4, and released by Santa Anna at the intercession of his old friend and kinsman, the Hon. Waddy Thompson of South Carolina, then minister to Mexico, and reached home in time to sit in that body. He was representative in the legislature in 1851-2, and in 1853-4; senator in 1855-6, and in 1857-8, and again a representative in 1859-60 and the two extra sessions of 1861. He was from December 5 to 9, 1835, in the successful storming of San Antonio under Milam and Johnson. He first arrived in San Antonio September 8, 1835. On the 16th of October, 1835, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Mexican commander, Colonel Domingo Ugartachea, but released by General Cos on the 3rd of December, and escaped to the Texas forces, then besieging the place, in time to re-enter the city under Milam.
"By the secession convention of 1861, with the Hon. Thomas J. Devine and Dr. (afterwards Colonel) Phillip N. Luckett, he was appointed a commissioner to demand the surrender of the army and garrison at San Antonio and other places, which he accomplished.
"It should have been earlier stated that on the 27th of August, 1848, he was one of an expedition authorized by the state government, of fifty men and ten Delaware Indians, commanded by Colonel John C. Hays and Captain Sam Highsmith, that left San Antonio to explore the country and open a road to El Paso, an enterprise then touching the popular heart of Texas, and deemed of the utmost importance, not only in developing the west, but in asserting our title to the Rio Grande as the western boundary of Texas. Not as a mere adventurer nor as a soldier, but unknown to himself, Samuel A. Maverick was a volunteer in that expedition, actuated by the higher impulses of a statesman. No brighter spot occurs in his history. His action, a man of wealth and education, given to secret communion with his wiser self, has never been explained, and is doubtless an unknown factor in the make-up of his sterling character to his own children, then mere children or unborn. This writer knows whereof he speaks, and the wisdom of Mr. Maverick was most signally verified by what followed in the great agitations and compromises in the American congress of 1850. At the time it was regarded as a hazardous expedition into terra incognito. The party became lost and underwent the pangs of thirst and hunger. Snakes, lizards and terrapins were eaten to prevent starvation; but the expedition was successful, and returned to San Antonio on the 10th of December, after an absence of three and a half months. The same trip will be made, inside of one year, on the iron horse, in four days.
"During the war Mr. Maverick was chief justice of Bexar county from 1863 till removed by the military fiat of General Sheridan, of the United States army, after the close of the war.
"Mr. Maverick remained in private life till his death in 1870. It will be seen from 1825 to 1867, a period of thirty-two years his services were in almost constant requisition by the people in some public capacity. He never sought office, never electioneered as a candidate, and was devoid of any official aspiration. He simply served the people honestly when drafted into their service. No decent man lives who will aver that he ever did a dishonorable act, or swerved from the highest sense of regard for integrity and the rights of the people in all his career.
"This sketch of his Texas career is a voluntary offering from one who has known him long and well and often served with him in the councils of the state, and who aided, if he did not lead, in bestowing his name upon a county in Texas as a fixed and ever-continuing memorial of his honor, his patriotism and his rare intelligence. However honorable the name in New England and South Carolina, it nowhere shines more brightly or is cherished more kindly that in that of Samuel A. Maverick, deceased, of Texas.
"Mrs. Maverick was eminently worthy of such a husband. One who has known her long and intimately, says: 'She is a noble woman, wife, mother and patriot—a woman of great thought and great heart—yet the most modest and unpretentious of women. She has fine administrative abilities, and in all respects is justly entitled to be classed as a model woman. Texas is proud of her, and jealously regardful of the character of her children.'
"The children of Samuel A. and Mary A. Maverick were ten in number, four of whom died in infancy. Of the others, Samuel, born May 14, 1837, was educated at Edinburg, Scotland; is merchandising at San Antonio, Texas; married May 14, 1871, to Sallie, daughter of Thomas Frost, late of Tennessee. Their children are Samuel A., born September 2, 1872; John Frost, born March 23, 1874; Mary Agatha, born September 12, 1875; Sallie, born August 20, 1877; and Elizabeth Givens, born October 11, 1879. Lewis Antonio, (the first American boy born in San Antonio) born March 23, 1839; was educated at the Universities of Vermont and North Carolina; married Ada, daughter of the late, John Bradley of San Antonio. Lewis died June 6, 1866, leaving no issue. His widow has since married Judge Jacob Waelder of San Antonio. George Madison, born September 7, 1845; was educated at the Universities of North Carolina and Virginia; is practicing law at St. Louis, Mo.; married June 26, 1872, to Mary Elizabeth, daughter of John Vance of Castroville, Texas. Their children are Mary Rowena, born February 10, 1874; Lola, born November 24, 1875, and George, born April 16, 1880. William H., born December 24, 1847; educated at the Universities of North Carolina and Virginia; is in the real estate business at San Antonio, Texas; married June 24, 1873, to Emilie Virginia, daughter of the late General Robert H. Chilton, of Virginia. The children are William Chilton, born February 19, 1875; Lewis, born February 12, 1877, and Laura Wise, born November 22, 1878. Mary Brown, born June 17, 1851; educated at Staunton, Virginia, and Mrs. Ogden Hoffman's, New York City; married August 17, 1874, to Edwin H. Terrell, lawyer, of Indianapolis, Indiana, now residing at San Antonio, Texas. Their children are Maverick, born June 12, 1875; George Holland, born October 1, 1877, and Edwin H., born July 23, 1879. Albert, born May 7, 1854; educated at the University of Virginia, and is now ranching in Bandera county, Texas; he was married March 20, 1877, to Jeannie L., daughter of Jesse L. Maury, of Charlottesville, Virginia. They have two children, Jesse, born December 27, 1877, and Agatha, born December 9, 1879."
Here ends the very interesting sketch by John Henry Brown, which was published in 1881. Since the above was written nine more children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Albert Maverick, as follows:
Jesse Maverick, born December 27, 1877; married to James S. McNeel; Agatha Maverick, born December 9, 1879, married to Norval J. Welsh; Ellen Maverick, born December 2, 1881, married Louis A. Wright; Albert Maverick, born August 14, 1883, married Lillian Williams; Reuben Maverick, born September 7, 1885, (deceased); Phillip Maverick, born January 2, 1887, married Jean Evans; Virginia Maverick, born March 3, 1889, married Murray F. Crossette; James Slayden Maverick, born December 27, 1890, married Hazel Davis; Mary Maverick, born October 17, 1892, married Robert McGarraugh; George Madison Maverick, born December 11, 1893, married Ruth Newell; Maury Maverick, born October 23, 1895, married Terrell Dobbs.
Samuel Augustus Maverick was the first and only son of Samuel Maverick of South Carolina and his wife, Elizabeth, a daughter of General Robert Anderson, of Revolutionary fame. This couple were married October 5, 1802. They had three children, the elder being Samuel A., born in Pendleton, South Carolina, July 23, 1803, died in San Antonio, Texas, September 2, 1870. The two daughters were Mary Elizabeth and Lydia Ann.
From the Texas Volume of the Encyclopedia of the New West, published in 1881 and edited by that splendid historian, John Henry Brown, we take the following in regard to the career of the subject of this sketch, Samuel A. Maverick:
"Samuel A. Maverick graduated from Yale College in 1825, afterwards attended a law course under Judge Randolph Tucker, at Winchester, Virginia. He came to Texas in 1835, and to the day of his death occupied an honorable prominence as a citizen, a public servant and landholder. His acquisition of lands by the purchase of scrip, headrights and bounty warrants and their location upon the public domain continued to his death, whereby he was reputed by some, but doubtless erroneously, to be the largest landholder in the world. His possessions, however, became immense and were acquired in so honorable and legitimate a manner that no term of reproach ever stained his name.
"Mr. Maverick in February, 1836, was elected from San Antonio de Bexar to the convention that declared the Texas independence on the 2nd day of March. This document was first published March 2, 1836, which was the first day of the sitting of the convention. Consequently those members who came in a day or two late, have their names to the Declaration, but not to this first printed copy. (These were Samuel A. Maverick, of Bexar; A. Briscoe and John W. Moore, of Harrisburgh; S. Rhodes Fisher, of Matagorda; George Childress and Sterling C. Robertson, of Milam; Samuel P. Carson, of Red River; John W. Bower of San Patricio, and J. B. Woods.) He was mayor of San Antonio in 1839, and again in 1862; an alderman in 1841-4, and again in 1851; and was city treasurer in 1841-2. While a prisoner in the Mexican castle of Perote (having been captured in San Antonio September 11, 1842 with the judge, lawyers and citizens) he was elected a member of the eighth Texas congress of 1843-4, and released by Santa Anna at the intercession of his old friend and kinsman, the Hon. Waddy Thompson of South Carolina, then minister to Mexico, and reached home in time to sit in that body. He was representative in the legislature in 1851-2, and in 1853-4; senator in 1855-6, and in 1857-8, and again a representative in 1859-60 and the two extra sessions of 1861. He was from December 5 to 9, 1835, in the successful storming of San Antonio under Milam and Johnson. He first arrived in San Antonio September 8, 1835. On the 16th of October, 1835, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Mexican commander, Colonel Domingo Ugartachea, but released by General Cos on the 3rd of December, and escaped to the Texas forces, then besieging the place, in time to re-enter the city under Milam.
"By the secession convention of 1861, with the Hon. Thomas J. Devine and Dr. (afterwards Colonel) Phillip N. Luckett, he was appointed a commissioner to demand the surrender of the army and garrison at San Antonio and other places, which he accomplished.
"It should have been earlier stated that on the 27th of August, 1848, he was one of an expedition authorized by the state government, of fifty men and ten Delaware Indians, commanded by Colonel John C. Hays and Captain Sam Highsmith, that left San Antonio to explore the country and open a road to El Paso, an enterprise then touching the popular heart of Texas, and deemed of the utmost importance, not only in developing the west, but in asserting our title to the Rio Grande as the western boundary of Texas. Not as a mere adventurer nor as a soldier, but unknown to himself, Samuel A. Maverick was a volunteer in that expedition, actuated by the higher impulses of a statesman. No brighter spot occurs in his history. His action, a man of wealth and education, given to secret communion with his wiser self, has never been explained, and is doubtless an unknown factor in the make-up of his sterling character to his own children, then mere children or unborn. This writer knows whereof he speaks, and the wisdom of Mr. Maverick was most signally verified by what followed in the great agitations and compromises in the American congress of 1850. At the time it was regarded as a hazardous expedition into terra incognito. The party became lost and underwent the pangs of thirst and hunger. Snakes, lizards and terrapins were eaten to prevent starvation; but the expedition was successful, and returned to San Antonio on the 10th of December, after an absence of three and a half months. The same trip will be made, inside of one year, on the iron horse, in four days.
"During the war Mr. Maverick was chief justice of Bexar county from 1863 till removed by the military fiat of General Sheridan, of the United States army, after the close of the war.
"Mr. Maverick remained in private life till his death in 1870. It will be seen from 1825 to 1867, a period of thirty-two years his services were in almost constant requisition by the people in some public capacity. He never sought office, never electioneered as a candidate, and was devoid of any official aspiration. He simply served the people honestly when drafted into their service. No decent man lives who will aver that he ever did a dishonorable act, or swerved from the highest sense of regard for integrity and the rights of the people in all his career.
"This sketch of his Texas career is a voluntary offering from one who has known him long and well and often served with him in the councils of the state, and who aided, if he did not lead, in bestowing his name upon a county in Texas as a fixed and ever-continuing memorial of his honor, his patriotism and his rare intelligence. However honorable the name in New England and South Carolina, it nowhere shines more brightly or is cherished more kindly that in that of Samuel A. Maverick, deceased, of Texas.
"Mrs. Maverick was eminently worthy of such a husband. One who has known her long and intimately, says: 'She is a noble woman, wife, mother and patriot—a woman of great thought and great heart—yet the most modest and unpretentious of women. She has fine administrative abilities, and in all respects is justly entitled to be classed as a model woman. Texas is proud of her, and jealously regardful of the character of her children.'
"The children of Samuel A. and Mary A. Maverick were ten in number, four of whom died in infancy. Of the others, Samuel, born May 14, 1837, was educated at Edinburg, Scotland; is merchandising at San Antonio, Texas; married May 14, 1871, to Sallie, daughter of Thomas Frost, late of Tennessee. Their children are Samuel A., born September 2, 1872; John Frost, born March 23, 1874; Mary Agatha, born September 12, 1875; Sallie, born August 20, 1877; and Elizabeth Givens, born October 11, 1879. Lewis Antonio, (the first American boy born in San Antonio) born March 23, 1839; was educated at the Universities of Vermont and North Carolina; married Ada, daughter of the late, John Bradley of San Antonio. Lewis died June 6, 1866, leaving no issue. His widow has since married Judge Jacob Waelder of San Antonio. George Madison, born September 7, 1845; was educated at the Universities of North Carolina and Virginia; is practicing law at St. Louis, Mo.; married June 26, 1872, to Mary Elizabeth, daughter of John Vance of Castroville, Texas. Their children are Mary Rowena, born February 10, 1874; Lola, born November 24, 1875, and George, born April 16, 1880. William H., born December 24, 1847; educated at the Universities of North Carolina and Virginia; is in the real estate business at San Antonio, Texas; married June 24, 1873, to Emilie Virginia, daughter of the late General Robert H. Chilton, of Virginia. The children are William Chilton, born February 19, 1875; Lewis, born February 12, 1877, and Laura Wise, born November 22, 1878. Mary Brown, born June 17, 1851; educated at Staunton, Virginia, and Mrs. Ogden Hoffman's, New York City; married August 17, 1874, to Edwin H. Terrell, lawyer, of Indianapolis, Indiana, now residing at San Antonio, Texas. Their children are Maverick, born June 12, 1875; George Holland, born October 1, 1877, and Edwin H., born July 23, 1879. Albert, born May 7, 1854; educated at the University of Virginia, and is now ranching in Bandera county, Texas; he was married March 20, 1877, to Jeannie L., daughter of Jesse L. Maury, of Charlottesville, Virginia. They have two children, Jesse, born December 27, 1877, and Agatha, born December 9, 1879."
Here ends the very interesting sketch by John Henry Brown, which was published in 1881. Since the above was written nine more children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Albert Maverick, as follows:
Jesse Maverick, born December 27, 1877; married to James S. McNeel; Agatha Maverick, born December 9, 1879, married to Norval J. Welsh; Ellen Maverick, born December 2, 1881, married Louis A. Wright; Albert Maverick, born August 14, 1883, married Lillian Williams; Reuben Maverick, born September 7, 1885, (deceased); Phillip Maverick, born January 2, 1887, married Jean Evans; Virginia Maverick, born March 3, 1889, married Murray F. Crossette; James Slayden Maverick, born December 27, 1890, married Hazel Davis; Mary Maverick, born October 17, 1892, married Robert McGarraugh; George Madison Maverick, born December 11, 1893, married Ruth Newell; Maury Maverick, born October 23, 1895, married Terrell Dobbs.
Eulogy by Dr. Cupples.
The following eulogy on the life and character of Hon. Samuel A. Maverick was delivered in October, 1870, before the Alamo Literary Society of San Antonio, Texas, by George Cupples, M. D.:
"Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Society:
"In all ages and amongst all peoples, from the times of which history has no record, even unto our day, it has been held a sacred duty to celebrate the merits of the dead, the exploits of warriors, the services rendered by legislators and sages, the moral excellence of men noted for their virtues and their public services. In the dim pre-historic ages the burial places of their forefathers were held in sacred awe by all races of men that have left vestiges of their customs and of their existence on the surface of the globe; and, indeed, of many of these, their places of sepulture furnish the sole glimpse of their degree of culture and advancement. The deeds of fame of heroes, the services of sages, of benefactors of their race, are preserved in the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, and of races still older—to whom the former owed their knowledge—the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos, and the tribes of far Cathay.
"The lays and legends of barbarous and semi-civilized, preceded the invention of the alphabet and the art of expressive sounds by symbols, and had for subject and inspiration the deeds of those who had distinguished themselves beyond their fellows. All their customs and usages, as far as known to us, mark their reverence for the memory of their dead, and the traditions of their good and noble actions. Shall a duty recognized by our uncultivated predecessors be neglected by us who claim to excel in the fulfillment of all civic obligations?
"In this, the seventh decade of this marvelous century, when the march of progress and the change hurries us on with breathless speed, when revolutions in politics, in social and physical science succeed each other with such rapidity as to leave us scanty opportunity to look back on the past, absorbed as we are in the present, it is well, I saw, that events happening in our midst should arrest our attention and claim our homage for those who, descending to the tomb in the fullness of age, leave the record of a life which connects our stormy and troubled present with the calmer past, and who are worthy to serve as an example and pattern to their successors in the arena of life.
"More especially does it behoove you, on whom devolves the duty of preserving the remembrance of the worthies of the West, to mark your appreciation of the public services and of the public and private virtues of one who, having espoused in his youth the cause of struggling liberty in Texas, defended her in war, served her in peace, guided her in her commencing career by his counsels, proclaimed to the world her Declaration of Independence, suffered for her in person and in property, bore the pains of prison and of fetters for her sake; gloried in her triumph, and to the close of a blameless life, 'mid trials such as fall to the lot of few men, bore himself as a true Texan and a faithful patriot. Need I say that such a man was Samuel A. Maverick?
"The name of Maverick is of old standing in the New England States, the founder of the family having emigrated from England at an early period of the settlement of this country. A young man of this name fell in one of the affrays which occurred in the streets of Boston, immediately before the memorable tea party. Another branch of the family settled in New York. I have in my possession a diploma or certificate issued to a master mason—in English, Spanish and French—handsomely engraved on parchment, by Peter Maverick, and published by Bro. Samuel Maverick, of New York. An ancestor of the subject of this notice settled in South Carolina, where the grandfather of the deceased, after serving in the war of the Revolution, died soon after its close, reduced to poverty by losses sustained in its course. His son, the father of our Mr. Maverick, consequently began life penniless, but by industry, united to capacity and integrity, he rose from being a clerk in a large establishment in Charleston, to be sole proprietor of three business houses, and had the credit of being a pioneer in numerous successful enterprises. He shipped the first bale of cotton from America, and thus materially aided in establishing a commerce which has spread over the world and has penetrated into regions the most remote of the globe, carrying civilization and enlightenment to the fartherest corners of the earth. The enterprises of this remarkable man extended even to the Celestial Empire, at that day all but inaccessible to America. Having accumulated a large fortune he removed to Pendleton, South Carolina, where he built a residence and remained until his death, in 1852, largely interested in land speculations.
"Here, Samuel Augustus Maverick was born on the 28th of July, 1803, his mother being a daughter of General Robert Anderson of South Carolina, of Revolutionary renown. Of Mr. Maverick's boyhood and youth little is known. Having received his preliminary education in his own State, he entered Yale College, where he graduated. During his journeyings to and from Yale he made the acquaintance of one destined to be for long years his friend and neighbor, and to follow him to the tomb at an interval of but thirteen days. This was the late Wm. B. Jacques, who often spoke of the gravity and sedateness beyond his years of the young Maverick, whom he had first known in the morning of life.
"At this time Mr. Maverick's friends looked forward to the time when he should become a leading man, and he himself was ambitious to excel and to take a political stand. But his views were diametrically opposed to the nullification ideas of the Carolinians, and he could not compromise with his opinions. He was not a disciple of Calhoun, though personally an admirer of the transcendent talent of that great statesman. Finding himself in politics directly at variance with all his neighbors, he left the State. An incident growing out of this difference had, no doubt, an important part in determining him to such a step as emigration, then much less common than now. His father on one occasion, after having answered Mr. Calhoun in a speech of great power, was made the subject of some intemperate remarks, which his son resented by challenging the utterer of them. In the encounter he wounded his antagonist, and afterwards nursed him until his recovery. With our knowledge of the man, never shrinking from personal risk, we may well imagine that the painful necessity of chastising the aggressor on this occasion, had great influence in his decision to leave South Carolina. Previous to this he had studied law under Henry St. George Tucker at Winchester, Virginia, and had been admitted to practice at the bar of his own State.
"He first moved to Alabama, and thence, in 1834, to Texas, arriving at San Antonio in 1835. In the fall of that year Messrs. Maverick, Jno. W. Smith and P. B. Cocke were arrested by Col. Ugartachea, commanding the Mexican troops occupying the city. During their incarceration they contrived to keep up intelligence with Gen. Burleson, who commanded the Texas army then investing the town. On one occasion these three gentlemen were sentenced on suspicion to be shot, and were actually marched to the place of execution, then Mrs. Smith, now the wife of Mr. James B. Lee, living on the Medina, appeared on the ground, fell upon the earth, embracing the feet of the Mexican commander, begging piteously for a further investigation of their case. The investigation was finally granted, and resulted in the clearing of the prisoners, who were, however, kept under close guard. They made their escape, nevertheless, and joined the Texan army. Early on the morning of the 5th of December, 1835, Col. Ben Milam attacked the city; S. A. Maverick as guide, with Milam at the head of the right division, moving down Soledad street to the LaGarza House—Johnson, commanding the left, marching down Acequia street to the same point, with Jno. W. Smith for guide. The cannon posted at the corner of the Main Plaza swept these streets. To procure water our troops took the Veramendi House by digging a trench of five feet in depth across the street during the night of the 5th, and so going back and forth with heads bent to avoid the grape shot. Of the seven hundred volunteers under Burleson at the Old Mill above town, only two hundred and fifty were under Milam—others joined two days later, but the greater number had gone home or to Goliad, where a force was then gathering to move against Matamoras. On the 8th, Milam was killed in the yard of the Veramendi House, being shot through the head; and by his side stood Mr. Maverick. On the 10th the Mexicans ran up the white flag of surrender. The Texan troops had fought incessantly night and day, and had taken all the square block of buildings fronting the north side of the Main Plaza, by digging through the walls of the houses from one to the other. Where the Plaza House now stands there lived the priest, Padre Garza; from this house the Texans made a charge and took and spiked the guns, the fire of which had been concentrated on that building and was fast crumbling it down. In this charge Col. Ward lost a leg, and the young Carolinian, Bonham, an eye. The Mexican gunners fled or were cut to pieces. This was on the morning of the 10th, and was followed by the capitulation of Gen. Cos, who was permitted to retire with his troops across the Rio Grande.
"Mr. Maverick's absence on March 6th, 1836, the day of the massacre of the Alamo, was due to his being sent a delegate to the Convention of the people of Texas. In which capacity he, on the 2nd day of March, signed the Declaration of Independence; the Hon. Jose Antonio Navarro being the other delegate from the municipality of Bexar, also present and signing.
"After the battle of San Jacinto, the result of which secured the safety of Texas, for a time at least, Mr. Maverick returned to Alabama, where he married in August of the same year, and in 1838, returned to San Antonio with his family.
"In March, 1842, Gen. Vasquez invaded western Texas, entering San Antonio with nine hundred men. On this occasion, Mr. Twohig blew up his store to prevent the ammunition it contained from falling into the hands of the enemy. The few American families then living in San Antonio had made good their escape in time, retiring to the Brazos river. The family of Mr. Maverick did not return to San Antonio until 1847.
"On the 12th day of September of the same year, the District Court being in session, a Mexican citizen, now dead, was visited by some of countrymen, known to be in the Mexican service; from them he ascertained that Gen. Woll was close at hand with a force of fourteen hundred men. This intelligence he communicated to Don Antonio Manchaca, who lost no time in making it known to Judge Hutchison. The few troops stationed in San Antonio immediately withdrew, but the American citizens, with the members of the bar, the presiding judge at their head, decided on defending the place; Mr. Maverick, who was urgent in favor of this course, declaring that they ought to set an example of resistance, and that whatever might be their fate, they would at least check the advance of the enemy, and give time for succor to arrive from the few and scattered settlements which existed at that day in western Texas. They accordingly, in the night of Saturday, the 12th, took up their position on the flat roof of the building known as Maverick's, forming the corner of Commerce and Soledad streets, and commanding all the entrances to the Main Plaza. This little band numbered fifty three Americans and one Mexican, Mr. Manchaca, who had served through the War of Independence, from Bexar to San Jacinto, and was especially marked for vengeance by Santa Anna. Soon after daylight, in a thick fog, the Mexican troops entered the Main Plaza, music in front, little expecting the reception which awaited them. A pealing volley from the Texan rifles checked their march, and before Woll could withdraw them, fourteen were slain outright and twenty-seven wounded. Having placed his men under cover, Gen. Woll brought up two six-pounder guns, and being well advised of the numerical weakness of the Texans, made his disposition for surrounding them and cutting off their escape. On the roof of the Dwyer House, on the southeast corner of the Plaza, he posted thirty-five Cushatta Indians, who formed part of his force. Another detachment crossed the river and took post near the large pecan tree, in front of the barracks. The east bank was guarded by cavalry, also, and preparations of the Mexican commander being now complete, he sent an officer, with a flag to summon the little band to surrender as honorable prisoners of war, adding, that if the conditions offered were not accepted within ten minutes he would advance on them with the bayonet. During the fire of musketry and artillery to which they were exposed while Woll was posting his troops, it is singular that not one of the little band of Texans was hit; they were partially covered by the low parapet of the flat-roofed house. The only one of them who received any injury was Mr. Manchaca, who was struck in the knee by a fragment of stone detached by a round shot, from the effects of which he walks lame to this day. Resistance being evidently vain, the small band surrendered, and were, on the retreat of Woll, marched to the Castle of Perote and there imprisoned, under circumstances of the greatest harshness.
"Gen. Woll has been generally and loudly denounced for breach of faith toward his prisoners; but it is not generally known that in sparing their lives he disobeyed the express orders of President Santa Anna to put to death every man taken with arms in his hands as a rebel and a traitor. These orders were shown by Woll, in 1863, to an intimate friend of Mr. Maverick (now present)—on which occasion he made many friendly inquiries for Maverick, Colquhoun, Twohig, and others by name. When asked why he had not defended his course by the publication of these orders, Woll replied that he himself owned, not only his life, under similar circumstances, to the intervention of Santa Anna, but also his position in the Mexican army, and that he could not, honorably, vindicate himself by the exposure of one to whom he owed so much.
"After the surrender of Maverick, Colquehoun, Twohig, Hutchinson, and their companions, Woll was utterly defeated, with great loss, five miles from San Antonio, on the Salado, by the Texans under Hays and Burleson, and without loss on their own side, if we except the LaGrange company under Captain Dawson, which was surrounded by the Mexican troops in the prairie, while on the march to the rendezvous, and cut to pieces, seven only of their number escaping.
"On the 23rd Woll marched on his return to Mexico, carrying his citizen-prisoners with him. On the way, one of the number, Mr. Cunningham, died and was buried on the Leona. On their arrival at Perote they were subjected to the most humiliating and cruel treatment, being confined to cells and frequently chained two together, Major Colquhoun being, if I mistake not, Mr. Maverick's companion in these bonds of adversity. Of these they were relieved from time to time to work on a stone quarry, or on the road which Santa Anna was constructing to his palace of Tacubaya. I have seen the quondam prisoners smile grimly when allusion was made to the little work the Mexicans got out of the Texan captives. While they were here many attempts were made to bribe them with promises of office and favor, and Mr. Maverick particularly approached, on account of his influence in Bexar; but he, like his companions in captivity, had naught but scorn for their offers, which utterly failed to seduce them from their faith and allegiance to Texas.
"By the intercession of Waddy Thompson, then American minister to Mexico, and a relative of Mr. Maverick, the latter with Judge Wm. E. Jones and old Judge Hutchinson, were released in April, 1843; others were released at the instance of the British minister, while others, of whom the leader was Jno. Twohig, disdained to ask protection from either power, and manfully dug their way out of the fortress, making good their escape to Texas in the spring of 1844.
"The following extract from a report of a speech made by Gen. Waddy Thompson, at Greenville, South Carolina, in May, 1844, sets the conduct and character of Mr. Maverick during his captivity, in the most honorable light: 'Amongst the many interesting incidents which General Thompson mentioned there was one particularly so, as it related particularly to a gentleman born and educated in this neighborhood—Mr. Samuel A. Maverick—which, in the language of Gen. Thompson, was not only honorable to the man himself, but to human nature. Mr. Maverick was a young man of large fortune, with a young wife and three or four interesting children. When he arrived at his prison at Perote he wrote to Gen. Thompson, informing him that he was there, and in chains, but said that he neither asked nor expected any interposition from Gen. Thompson, as he considered that such interposition might not be proper, and only asking the General to convey some letters to his family. Gen. Thompson, nevertheless, set about obtaining his release, and as there was then a negotiation on foot for re-annexation of Texas to Mexico, Gen. Thompson wrote to Mr. Maverick, saying that if he was really in favor of such re-annexation, and would say so, he thought his release would certainly be granted, as he, Gen. Thompson would say to Santa Anna that any promise which Maverick made would certainly be complied with. Mr. Maverick replied: 'I regret that I cannot bring myself to think that it would be to the interest of Texas to re-unite with Mexico. This being my settled opinion, I cannot sacrifice the interest of my country even to obtain my liberty, still less can I say so when such is not my opinion, for I regard a lie as a crime, and one which I cannot commit. I must, therefore, make up my mind to wear my chains, galling as they are.' General Thompson said that the virtue and constancy of Regulus, which had immortalized his name, did not excel this; and he felt a special pride in this heroic virtue because Mr. Maverick was a South Carolinian, his neighbor, and the kinsman of his kinsmen.'
"I have dwelt at length on the history of the taking of San Antonio, and the adventures of the prisoners taken there, as they constitute the last episode of the Texas-Mexican war, of which San Antonio was the theatre, and they may give some idea of the dangers and hardships to which the old Texans were exposed.
"During his captivity Mr. Maverick was elected by his fellow citizens of Bexar to the Senate. On his return he found his family at LaGrange, all sick; after moving them to the coast, near Decrows Point, he returned to South Carolina to procure means to meet obligations which he had assumed in many instances for the relief of his more necessitous companions in captivity. He gradually sold his property elsewhere and invested in Texas lands. In 1847 he returned to San Antonio, where he continued to reside up to the time of his death, September 2nd of this year.
"In 1838 he took out his law license in San Antonio. From 1838 until 1842 he was one of Hays' minute men, and often followed the trail of the marauding Indians under that celebrated chieftain. He accompanied his old leader, in 1848, on his expedition to open route from San Antonio to El Paso del Norte. On this memorable trip they lost their way, and were at the point of starvation, one man actually perishing of hunger; when they were guided by Indians to San Elizario, on the Rio Grande, where they found food and rest. Their route back from El Paso established the present road by Devil's river, Fort Stockton and Fort Davis.
"And now I approach an era in Mr. Maverick's life without a notice of which I should signally fail of doing justice to his character. We have seen that in 1834 he was driven by his opposition to nullification in South Carolina, to seek a home elsewhere. In 1860 he appeared on the stage of public events an ardent, zealous, and fearless advocate of secession—and in this there was no inconsistency; a Union man as long as the Union guaranteed and protected the dignity and sovereignty of the States which composed it, and the rights of their citizens; he advocated and strove for secession when he saw that these rights could not be maintained in the Union, and that the Constitution had failed to be the Aegis its framers had fondly hoped it to be. A scholar, his mind was too well versed in historic lore, and his intellect too right in the wisdom which deduces lessons for our guidance in the present from the annals of the past, not to know that revolutions once arrived at a certain point, continue to progress at increasing speed. A true Republican, he foresaw innovations which would substitute the will of the majority for the rights of the minority, and which would change the whole fabric of the government and institutions for which his fathers and himself had periled their lives.
"In February, 1861, as one of the three Commissioners of the Committee of Public Safety, he was charged with the delicate duty of procuring the removal of the United States troops from the State of Texas—and that all this was effected without bloodshed, and with so little of inconvenience or humiliation to the officers and men who had so long been friends among us, constitutes one of his highest titles to the respect and gratitude of his fellow citizens. And a very little acquaintance with the situation of affairs at the time will satisfy anyone, whatever views he may entertain on the question of accession, that but for this action of the Commissioners, civil war would have been inaugurated in the State; the Federal troops, numerous, well equipped and well commanded, forming a nucleus for an army composed of the forces which the Governor had already commanded to organize for the maintenance of Federal authority. No one who knows the feelings which prevailed throughout Texas can doubt that the Union army would soon have succumbed, but I repeat, that to the prudent yet energetic action of the Commissioners, and of their coadjutors, Texas owes it that no blood was then shed within her borders, and that she escaped the horrors of war which devastated her sister States.
"With this closed the public functions of Mr. Maverick, which he had exercised in various capacities from the memorable day when he affixed his signature to the Declaration of Independence, and always with credit to himself and advantage to his constituents; his public services in either House. In convention, or in any capacity whatever, being rendered with a disinterestedness and freedom from all personal and party considerations; which I trust will yet again be imitated in the legislative halls of our State.
"From this imperfect sketch of the life of our lamented associate it may be understood what manner of man he was. In all the qualities which constitute the true gentleman he was confessedly pre-eminent. Truthful to a punctilio, no man can say that he ever used equivocal language, and his sincerity was testified to by the confidence he commanded from all who knew him. And of those who enjoyed that privilege, who is there who does not remember to admire that courtesy of the old school which is fast passing away.
"Prudent and considerate, he never said of the absent one word, which uttered in their presence, could have wounded or pained them. Modest and retiring to a fault, he ever manifested that forgetfulness of his own comfort and convenience which is the true test of good breeding.
"His personal bravery was as patent as the sun at noonday. In moral courage he knew no superior. From that hour of jeopardy, when he signed the Declaration of Independence, to the last public act of his life, there was no hesitation, no wavering, no consideration of risk to person or property.
"It has been said, and not without truth—alas for the perversity of human nature!—that no man of worth can live without making enemies; this may be so, but if it be, Mr. Maverick's case furnishes the exception, which, according to the old scholastic dictum, proves the rule; for manifold as were the occasions which his vast landed possessions and his public functions at various times furnished for collision with the interests and passions of others, I verily believe he passed from earth without leaving on its surface a single personal enemy. Not that he courted popularity, for no man ever lived more independent of the prejudices and fashions of the world, and many personal peculiarities stamped him with an individuality all his own. And if, on rare occasions, amid the turmoil of civil commotion and revolutionary license, some pigmy of a hostile press sought to cast a stain on the record of this good man, 'twas but the homage he paid to virtues which he could never aspire to emulate.
"It may be thought by some that he was close and penurious, that he loved money more than the world deems right; but in this opinion the world, as is often the case, was very much mistaken. Those who knew him best, his oldest and most intimate friends, knew him to be most liberal and most generous when a worthy object of expenditure offered. True, he was careful and prudent in the management of his affairs; he was frugal and unostentatious in his habits, and he carried into practice his philosophic scorn of the gewgaws of fashion and of display. Years ago, when sickness and distress pressed hard on the poorer classes in San Antonio, secretly, and as a thief in the night, Mr. Maverick came unto the then mayor of the city, bearing something under his cloak—that cloak which, among the older inhabitants may be remembered as an historical relic—drawing forth the hidden object, Mr. Maverick in his peculiar hurried manner begged his honor to undertake the distribution among the necessituous of a thousand dollars, his contribution in this time of suffering, and above all, to say nothing of it.
"Such was the penuriousness of this good man, 'who did by stealth, and would have blushed to find it fame.' Would to God there were more misers of this stamp among us!
"I would sum up his character in the words of one who witnessed his first appearance at the bar of this District Court, and who formed one of the long procession which bore him to the tomb: "Mr. Maverick's distinguishing characteristics were still the same through life; quiet sedate, courteous, gentle and dignified; none knew him but to respect and admire him. More eminently just and dispassionate than brilliant and captivating, mature age found him a venerated exemplar of all the highest virtues.'
"Thus I have feebly, but truthfully, sought to sketch for you the life and character of our late associate. His honored head has been laid in the grave; the place which knew him shall know him no more forever; but his services to Texas and his sufferings in her behalf are a part of her history. His virtues shine forth as a light to the feet of those who seek to tread the path of life with honor to themselves and with benefit to their fellows.
"To this Society he leaves the signal honor of having inscribed his name on the roll of its founders, and the task of rearing on the site, which you owe to his munificence, an edifice which may do honor to the donor and credit to your young Association, the Alamo Literary Society; a task in which I trust you will be aided by the wealthier members of the community.
"To the inheritors of his name he has bequeathed a heritage richer than broad lands more precious than fine gold—the name of a just, an upright and a conscientious man, of one who never compromised with his convictions, who never bowed the knee to expediency; and let them ever remember that the name they bear has long been a synonym for honor, integrity and truth."
Mrs. Mary Adams Maverick, widow of Samuel A. Maverick, was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, March 16, 1818, and died at San Antonio, Texas, February 24, 1898, having attained the age of fourscore years, lacking a few days.
J. Marvin Hunter
Frontier Times
April, 1928
The following eulogy on the life and character of Hon. Samuel A. Maverick was delivered in October, 1870, before the Alamo Literary Society of San Antonio, Texas, by George Cupples, M. D.:
"Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Society:
"In all ages and amongst all peoples, from the times of which history has no record, even unto our day, it has been held a sacred duty to celebrate the merits of the dead, the exploits of warriors, the services rendered by legislators and sages, the moral excellence of men noted for their virtues and their public services. In the dim pre-historic ages the burial places of their forefathers were held in sacred awe by all races of men that have left vestiges of their customs and of their existence on the surface of the globe; and, indeed, of many of these, their places of sepulture furnish the sole glimpse of their degree of culture and advancement. The deeds of fame of heroes, the services of sages, of benefactors of their race, are preserved in the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, and of races still older—to whom the former owed their knowledge—the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos, and the tribes of far Cathay.
"The lays and legends of barbarous and semi-civilized, preceded the invention of the alphabet and the art of expressive sounds by symbols, and had for subject and inspiration the deeds of those who had distinguished themselves beyond their fellows. All their customs and usages, as far as known to us, mark their reverence for the memory of their dead, and the traditions of their good and noble actions. Shall a duty recognized by our uncultivated predecessors be neglected by us who claim to excel in the fulfillment of all civic obligations?
"In this, the seventh decade of this marvelous century, when the march of progress and the change hurries us on with breathless speed, when revolutions in politics, in social and physical science succeed each other with such rapidity as to leave us scanty opportunity to look back on the past, absorbed as we are in the present, it is well, I saw, that events happening in our midst should arrest our attention and claim our homage for those who, descending to the tomb in the fullness of age, leave the record of a life which connects our stormy and troubled present with the calmer past, and who are worthy to serve as an example and pattern to their successors in the arena of life.
"More especially does it behoove you, on whom devolves the duty of preserving the remembrance of the worthies of the West, to mark your appreciation of the public services and of the public and private virtues of one who, having espoused in his youth the cause of struggling liberty in Texas, defended her in war, served her in peace, guided her in her commencing career by his counsels, proclaimed to the world her Declaration of Independence, suffered for her in person and in property, bore the pains of prison and of fetters for her sake; gloried in her triumph, and to the close of a blameless life, 'mid trials such as fall to the lot of few men, bore himself as a true Texan and a faithful patriot. Need I say that such a man was Samuel A. Maverick?
"The name of Maverick is of old standing in the New England States, the founder of the family having emigrated from England at an early period of the settlement of this country. A young man of this name fell in one of the affrays which occurred in the streets of Boston, immediately before the memorable tea party. Another branch of the family settled in New York. I have in my possession a diploma or certificate issued to a master mason—in English, Spanish and French—handsomely engraved on parchment, by Peter Maverick, and published by Bro. Samuel Maverick, of New York. An ancestor of the subject of this notice settled in South Carolina, where the grandfather of the deceased, after serving in the war of the Revolution, died soon after its close, reduced to poverty by losses sustained in its course. His son, the father of our Mr. Maverick, consequently began life penniless, but by industry, united to capacity and integrity, he rose from being a clerk in a large establishment in Charleston, to be sole proprietor of three business houses, and had the credit of being a pioneer in numerous successful enterprises. He shipped the first bale of cotton from America, and thus materially aided in establishing a commerce which has spread over the world and has penetrated into regions the most remote of the globe, carrying civilization and enlightenment to the fartherest corners of the earth. The enterprises of this remarkable man extended even to the Celestial Empire, at that day all but inaccessible to America. Having accumulated a large fortune he removed to Pendleton, South Carolina, where he built a residence and remained until his death, in 1852, largely interested in land speculations.
"Here, Samuel Augustus Maverick was born on the 28th of July, 1803, his mother being a daughter of General Robert Anderson of South Carolina, of Revolutionary renown. Of Mr. Maverick's boyhood and youth little is known. Having received his preliminary education in his own State, he entered Yale College, where he graduated. During his journeyings to and from Yale he made the acquaintance of one destined to be for long years his friend and neighbor, and to follow him to the tomb at an interval of but thirteen days. This was the late Wm. B. Jacques, who often spoke of the gravity and sedateness beyond his years of the young Maverick, whom he had first known in the morning of life.
"At this time Mr. Maverick's friends looked forward to the time when he should become a leading man, and he himself was ambitious to excel and to take a political stand. But his views were diametrically opposed to the nullification ideas of the Carolinians, and he could not compromise with his opinions. He was not a disciple of Calhoun, though personally an admirer of the transcendent talent of that great statesman. Finding himself in politics directly at variance with all his neighbors, he left the State. An incident growing out of this difference had, no doubt, an important part in determining him to such a step as emigration, then much less common than now. His father on one occasion, after having answered Mr. Calhoun in a speech of great power, was made the subject of some intemperate remarks, which his son resented by challenging the utterer of them. In the encounter he wounded his antagonist, and afterwards nursed him until his recovery. With our knowledge of the man, never shrinking from personal risk, we may well imagine that the painful necessity of chastising the aggressor on this occasion, had great influence in his decision to leave South Carolina. Previous to this he had studied law under Henry St. George Tucker at Winchester, Virginia, and had been admitted to practice at the bar of his own State.
"He first moved to Alabama, and thence, in 1834, to Texas, arriving at San Antonio in 1835. In the fall of that year Messrs. Maverick, Jno. W. Smith and P. B. Cocke were arrested by Col. Ugartachea, commanding the Mexican troops occupying the city. During their incarceration they contrived to keep up intelligence with Gen. Burleson, who commanded the Texas army then investing the town. On one occasion these three gentlemen were sentenced on suspicion to be shot, and were actually marched to the place of execution, then Mrs. Smith, now the wife of Mr. James B. Lee, living on the Medina, appeared on the ground, fell upon the earth, embracing the feet of the Mexican commander, begging piteously for a further investigation of their case. The investigation was finally granted, and resulted in the clearing of the prisoners, who were, however, kept under close guard. They made their escape, nevertheless, and joined the Texan army. Early on the morning of the 5th of December, 1835, Col. Ben Milam attacked the city; S. A. Maverick as guide, with Milam at the head of the right division, moving down Soledad street to the LaGarza House—Johnson, commanding the left, marching down Acequia street to the same point, with Jno. W. Smith for guide. The cannon posted at the corner of the Main Plaza swept these streets. To procure water our troops took the Veramendi House by digging a trench of five feet in depth across the street during the night of the 5th, and so going back and forth with heads bent to avoid the grape shot. Of the seven hundred volunteers under Burleson at the Old Mill above town, only two hundred and fifty were under Milam—others joined two days later, but the greater number had gone home or to Goliad, where a force was then gathering to move against Matamoras. On the 8th, Milam was killed in the yard of the Veramendi House, being shot through the head; and by his side stood Mr. Maverick. On the 10th the Mexicans ran up the white flag of surrender. The Texan troops had fought incessantly night and day, and had taken all the square block of buildings fronting the north side of the Main Plaza, by digging through the walls of the houses from one to the other. Where the Plaza House now stands there lived the priest, Padre Garza; from this house the Texans made a charge and took and spiked the guns, the fire of which had been concentrated on that building and was fast crumbling it down. In this charge Col. Ward lost a leg, and the young Carolinian, Bonham, an eye. The Mexican gunners fled or were cut to pieces. This was on the morning of the 10th, and was followed by the capitulation of Gen. Cos, who was permitted to retire with his troops across the Rio Grande.
"Mr. Maverick's absence on March 6th, 1836, the day of the massacre of the Alamo, was due to his being sent a delegate to the Convention of the people of Texas. In which capacity he, on the 2nd day of March, signed the Declaration of Independence; the Hon. Jose Antonio Navarro being the other delegate from the municipality of Bexar, also present and signing.
"After the battle of San Jacinto, the result of which secured the safety of Texas, for a time at least, Mr. Maverick returned to Alabama, where he married in August of the same year, and in 1838, returned to San Antonio with his family.
"In March, 1842, Gen. Vasquez invaded western Texas, entering San Antonio with nine hundred men. On this occasion, Mr. Twohig blew up his store to prevent the ammunition it contained from falling into the hands of the enemy. The few American families then living in San Antonio had made good their escape in time, retiring to the Brazos river. The family of Mr. Maverick did not return to San Antonio until 1847.
"On the 12th day of September of the same year, the District Court being in session, a Mexican citizen, now dead, was visited by some of countrymen, known to be in the Mexican service; from them he ascertained that Gen. Woll was close at hand with a force of fourteen hundred men. This intelligence he communicated to Don Antonio Manchaca, who lost no time in making it known to Judge Hutchison. The few troops stationed in San Antonio immediately withdrew, but the American citizens, with the members of the bar, the presiding judge at their head, decided on defending the place; Mr. Maverick, who was urgent in favor of this course, declaring that they ought to set an example of resistance, and that whatever might be their fate, they would at least check the advance of the enemy, and give time for succor to arrive from the few and scattered settlements which existed at that day in western Texas. They accordingly, in the night of Saturday, the 12th, took up their position on the flat roof of the building known as Maverick's, forming the corner of Commerce and Soledad streets, and commanding all the entrances to the Main Plaza. This little band numbered fifty three Americans and one Mexican, Mr. Manchaca, who had served through the War of Independence, from Bexar to San Jacinto, and was especially marked for vengeance by Santa Anna. Soon after daylight, in a thick fog, the Mexican troops entered the Main Plaza, music in front, little expecting the reception which awaited them. A pealing volley from the Texan rifles checked their march, and before Woll could withdraw them, fourteen were slain outright and twenty-seven wounded. Having placed his men under cover, Gen. Woll brought up two six-pounder guns, and being well advised of the numerical weakness of the Texans, made his disposition for surrounding them and cutting off their escape. On the roof of the Dwyer House, on the southeast corner of the Plaza, he posted thirty-five Cushatta Indians, who formed part of his force. Another detachment crossed the river and took post near the large pecan tree, in front of the barracks. The east bank was guarded by cavalry, also, and preparations of the Mexican commander being now complete, he sent an officer, with a flag to summon the little band to surrender as honorable prisoners of war, adding, that if the conditions offered were not accepted within ten minutes he would advance on them with the bayonet. During the fire of musketry and artillery to which they were exposed while Woll was posting his troops, it is singular that not one of the little band of Texans was hit; they were partially covered by the low parapet of the flat-roofed house. The only one of them who received any injury was Mr. Manchaca, who was struck in the knee by a fragment of stone detached by a round shot, from the effects of which he walks lame to this day. Resistance being evidently vain, the small band surrendered, and were, on the retreat of Woll, marched to the Castle of Perote and there imprisoned, under circumstances of the greatest harshness.
"Gen. Woll has been generally and loudly denounced for breach of faith toward his prisoners; but it is not generally known that in sparing their lives he disobeyed the express orders of President Santa Anna to put to death every man taken with arms in his hands as a rebel and a traitor. These orders were shown by Woll, in 1863, to an intimate friend of Mr. Maverick (now present)—on which occasion he made many friendly inquiries for Maverick, Colquhoun, Twohig, and others by name. When asked why he had not defended his course by the publication of these orders, Woll replied that he himself owned, not only his life, under similar circumstances, to the intervention of Santa Anna, but also his position in the Mexican army, and that he could not, honorably, vindicate himself by the exposure of one to whom he owed so much.
"After the surrender of Maverick, Colquehoun, Twohig, Hutchinson, and their companions, Woll was utterly defeated, with great loss, five miles from San Antonio, on the Salado, by the Texans under Hays and Burleson, and without loss on their own side, if we except the LaGrange company under Captain Dawson, which was surrounded by the Mexican troops in the prairie, while on the march to the rendezvous, and cut to pieces, seven only of their number escaping.
"On the 23rd Woll marched on his return to Mexico, carrying his citizen-prisoners with him. On the way, one of the number, Mr. Cunningham, died and was buried on the Leona. On their arrival at Perote they were subjected to the most humiliating and cruel treatment, being confined to cells and frequently chained two together, Major Colquhoun being, if I mistake not, Mr. Maverick's companion in these bonds of adversity. Of these they were relieved from time to time to work on a stone quarry, or on the road which Santa Anna was constructing to his palace of Tacubaya. I have seen the quondam prisoners smile grimly when allusion was made to the little work the Mexicans got out of the Texan captives. While they were here many attempts were made to bribe them with promises of office and favor, and Mr. Maverick particularly approached, on account of his influence in Bexar; but he, like his companions in captivity, had naught but scorn for their offers, which utterly failed to seduce them from their faith and allegiance to Texas.
"By the intercession of Waddy Thompson, then American minister to Mexico, and a relative of Mr. Maverick, the latter with Judge Wm. E. Jones and old Judge Hutchinson, were released in April, 1843; others were released at the instance of the British minister, while others, of whom the leader was Jno. Twohig, disdained to ask protection from either power, and manfully dug their way out of the fortress, making good their escape to Texas in the spring of 1844.
"The following extract from a report of a speech made by Gen. Waddy Thompson, at Greenville, South Carolina, in May, 1844, sets the conduct and character of Mr. Maverick during his captivity, in the most honorable light: 'Amongst the many interesting incidents which General Thompson mentioned there was one particularly so, as it related particularly to a gentleman born and educated in this neighborhood—Mr. Samuel A. Maverick—which, in the language of Gen. Thompson, was not only honorable to the man himself, but to human nature. Mr. Maverick was a young man of large fortune, with a young wife and three or four interesting children. When he arrived at his prison at Perote he wrote to Gen. Thompson, informing him that he was there, and in chains, but said that he neither asked nor expected any interposition from Gen. Thompson, as he considered that such interposition might not be proper, and only asking the General to convey some letters to his family. Gen. Thompson, nevertheless, set about obtaining his release, and as there was then a negotiation on foot for re-annexation of Texas to Mexico, Gen. Thompson wrote to Mr. Maverick, saying that if he was really in favor of such re-annexation, and would say so, he thought his release would certainly be granted, as he, Gen. Thompson would say to Santa Anna that any promise which Maverick made would certainly be complied with. Mr. Maverick replied: 'I regret that I cannot bring myself to think that it would be to the interest of Texas to re-unite with Mexico. This being my settled opinion, I cannot sacrifice the interest of my country even to obtain my liberty, still less can I say so when such is not my opinion, for I regard a lie as a crime, and one which I cannot commit. I must, therefore, make up my mind to wear my chains, galling as they are.' General Thompson said that the virtue and constancy of Regulus, which had immortalized his name, did not excel this; and he felt a special pride in this heroic virtue because Mr. Maverick was a South Carolinian, his neighbor, and the kinsman of his kinsmen.'
"I have dwelt at length on the history of the taking of San Antonio, and the adventures of the prisoners taken there, as they constitute the last episode of the Texas-Mexican war, of which San Antonio was the theatre, and they may give some idea of the dangers and hardships to which the old Texans were exposed.
"During his captivity Mr. Maverick was elected by his fellow citizens of Bexar to the Senate. On his return he found his family at LaGrange, all sick; after moving them to the coast, near Decrows Point, he returned to South Carolina to procure means to meet obligations which he had assumed in many instances for the relief of his more necessitous companions in captivity. He gradually sold his property elsewhere and invested in Texas lands. In 1847 he returned to San Antonio, where he continued to reside up to the time of his death, September 2nd of this year.
"In 1838 he took out his law license in San Antonio. From 1838 until 1842 he was one of Hays' minute men, and often followed the trail of the marauding Indians under that celebrated chieftain. He accompanied his old leader, in 1848, on his expedition to open route from San Antonio to El Paso del Norte. On this memorable trip they lost their way, and were at the point of starvation, one man actually perishing of hunger; when they were guided by Indians to San Elizario, on the Rio Grande, where they found food and rest. Their route back from El Paso established the present road by Devil's river, Fort Stockton and Fort Davis.
"And now I approach an era in Mr. Maverick's life without a notice of which I should signally fail of doing justice to his character. We have seen that in 1834 he was driven by his opposition to nullification in South Carolina, to seek a home elsewhere. In 1860 he appeared on the stage of public events an ardent, zealous, and fearless advocate of secession—and in this there was no inconsistency; a Union man as long as the Union guaranteed and protected the dignity and sovereignty of the States which composed it, and the rights of their citizens; he advocated and strove for secession when he saw that these rights could not be maintained in the Union, and that the Constitution had failed to be the Aegis its framers had fondly hoped it to be. A scholar, his mind was too well versed in historic lore, and his intellect too right in the wisdom which deduces lessons for our guidance in the present from the annals of the past, not to know that revolutions once arrived at a certain point, continue to progress at increasing speed. A true Republican, he foresaw innovations which would substitute the will of the majority for the rights of the minority, and which would change the whole fabric of the government and institutions for which his fathers and himself had periled their lives.
"In February, 1861, as one of the three Commissioners of the Committee of Public Safety, he was charged with the delicate duty of procuring the removal of the United States troops from the State of Texas—and that all this was effected without bloodshed, and with so little of inconvenience or humiliation to the officers and men who had so long been friends among us, constitutes one of his highest titles to the respect and gratitude of his fellow citizens. And a very little acquaintance with the situation of affairs at the time will satisfy anyone, whatever views he may entertain on the question of accession, that but for this action of the Commissioners, civil war would have been inaugurated in the State; the Federal troops, numerous, well equipped and well commanded, forming a nucleus for an army composed of the forces which the Governor had already commanded to organize for the maintenance of Federal authority. No one who knows the feelings which prevailed throughout Texas can doubt that the Union army would soon have succumbed, but I repeat, that to the prudent yet energetic action of the Commissioners, and of their coadjutors, Texas owes it that no blood was then shed within her borders, and that she escaped the horrors of war which devastated her sister States.
"With this closed the public functions of Mr. Maverick, which he had exercised in various capacities from the memorable day when he affixed his signature to the Declaration of Independence, and always with credit to himself and advantage to his constituents; his public services in either House. In convention, or in any capacity whatever, being rendered with a disinterestedness and freedom from all personal and party considerations; which I trust will yet again be imitated in the legislative halls of our State.
"From this imperfect sketch of the life of our lamented associate it may be understood what manner of man he was. In all the qualities which constitute the true gentleman he was confessedly pre-eminent. Truthful to a punctilio, no man can say that he ever used equivocal language, and his sincerity was testified to by the confidence he commanded from all who knew him. And of those who enjoyed that privilege, who is there who does not remember to admire that courtesy of the old school which is fast passing away.
"Prudent and considerate, he never said of the absent one word, which uttered in their presence, could have wounded or pained them. Modest and retiring to a fault, he ever manifested that forgetfulness of his own comfort and convenience which is the true test of good breeding.
"His personal bravery was as patent as the sun at noonday. In moral courage he knew no superior. From that hour of jeopardy, when he signed the Declaration of Independence, to the last public act of his life, there was no hesitation, no wavering, no consideration of risk to person or property.
"It has been said, and not without truth—alas for the perversity of human nature!—that no man of worth can live without making enemies; this may be so, but if it be, Mr. Maverick's case furnishes the exception, which, according to the old scholastic dictum, proves the rule; for manifold as were the occasions which his vast landed possessions and his public functions at various times furnished for collision with the interests and passions of others, I verily believe he passed from earth without leaving on its surface a single personal enemy. Not that he courted popularity, for no man ever lived more independent of the prejudices and fashions of the world, and many personal peculiarities stamped him with an individuality all his own. And if, on rare occasions, amid the turmoil of civil commotion and revolutionary license, some pigmy of a hostile press sought to cast a stain on the record of this good man, 'twas but the homage he paid to virtues which he could never aspire to emulate.
"It may be thought by some that he was close and penurious, that he loved money more than the world deems right; but in this opinion the world, as is often the case, was very much mistaken. Those who knew him best, his oldest and most intimate friends, knew him to be most liberal and most generous when a worthy object of expenditure offered. True, he was careful and prudent in the management of his affairs; he was frugal and unostentatious in his habits, and he carried into practice his philosophic scorn of the gewgaws of fashion and of display. Years ago, when sickness and distress pressed hard on the poorer classes in San Antonio, secretly, and as a thief in the night, Mr. Maverick came unto the then mayor of the city, bearing something under his cloak—that cloak which, among the older inhabitants may be remembered as an historical relic—drawing forth the hidden object, Mr. Maverick in his peculiar hurried manner begged his honor to undertake the distribution among the necessituous of a thousand dollars, his contribution in this time of suffering, and above all, to say nothing of it.
"Such was the penuriousness of this good man, 'who did by stealth, and would have blushed to find it fame.' Would to God there were more misers of this stamp among us!
"I would sum up his character in the words of one who witnessed his first appearance at the bar of this District Court, and who formed one of the long procession which bore him to the tomb: "Mr. Maverick's distinguishing characteristics were still the same through life; quiet sedate, courteous, gentle and dignified; none knew him but to respect and admire him. More eminently just and dispassionate than brilliant and captivating, mature age found him a venerated exemplar of all the highest virtues.'
"Thus I have feebly, but truthfully, sought to sketch for you the life and character of our late associate. His honored head has been laid in the grave; the place which knew him shall know him no more forever; but his services to Texas and his sufferings in her behalf are a part of her history. His virtues shine forth as a light to the feet of those who seek to tread the path of life with honor to themselves and with benefit to their fellows.
"To this Society he leaves the signal honor of having inscribed his name on the roll of its founders, and the task of rearing on the site, which you owe to his munificence, an edifice which may do honor to the donor and credit to your young Association, the Alamo Literary Society; a task in which I trust you will be aided by the wealthier members of the community.
"To the inheritors of his name he has bequeathed a heritage richer than broad lands more precious than fine gold—the name of a just, an upright and a conscientious man, of one who never compromised with his convictions, who never bowed the knee to expediency; and let them ever remember that the name they bear has long been a synonym for honor, integrity and truth."
Mrs. Mary Adams Maverick, widow of Samuel A. Maverick, was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, March 16, 1818, and died at San Antonio, Texas, February 24, 1898, having attained the age of fourscore years, lacking a few days.
J. Marvin Hunter
Frontier Times
April, 1928
Days at Pendleton
On October 5, 1802, Samuel Maverick married Elizabeth Anderson, youngest daughter of General Robert Anderson of Revolutionary note. After an active life in Charleston, South Carolina, where he engaged in commerce, shipping, and plantation management, Maverick retired from business and took his family to Pendleton in the mountainous region of northwestern South Carolina. He renounced the pursuit of greater fortune in Charleston partly to save his children from one of the dread enemies of the South Carolina town dwellers, the yellow fever, which he refers to as the "stranger's fever." The disease, he felt, was especially dangerous to children.
Here, two miles from Pendleton, he built a handsome home on an extensive farm, and he took a great pleasure and interest in cultivating many varieties of native and imported fruits and grapes in his orchards and vineyards. This home he named "Montpelier" in honor of his French Huguenot grandmother, Catherine Coyer, or Le Coier, of London, whose family is supposed to have come from Montpelier in southern France.
On his plantations near Charleston, Samuel Maverick had experimented in raising cotton. According to family tradition he sent the first bale, or "bag," as they were then called, to Liverpool, but it was returned because the seeds had not been removed. Then slaves were set to work to remove the seeds, and the cotton was sent back to Liverpool. It took a day for a slave to clean seeds from one pound of cotton. Maverick was also one of the first in the United States to ship cotton to the mills in Providence, Rhode Island.
Samuel Augustus Maverick, son of Samuel and Elizabeth Anderson Maverick, was born July 23, 1803, at Pendleton. There in the lovely foothills of the Blue Ridge he and his two sisters, Elizabeth and Lydia Anne, grew to maturity. The earliest likeness of Samuel Augustus was made at the request of his mother when he was seven years old—a pastel painting of a fair-haired little boy dressed in blue and holding in his hand a grape leaf filled with strawberries. Samuel's mother died in 1818 when he was fifteen years old.
Although the elder Samuel Maverick had received only a scanty education, because of the great impoverishment and terrible destruction caused in South Carolina by the Revolutionary War, he was careful to see that his son and his daughters were well taught and sent to the best schools to be found.
In 1822, at the age of nineteen, Samuel Augustus entered the sophomore class of Yale College. While in college he kept a diary, of which only the first page is still in existence:
On October 5, 1802, Samuel Maverick married Elizabeth Anderson, youngest daughter of General Robert Anderson of Revolutionary note. After an active life in Charleston, South Carolina, where he engaged in commerce, shipping, and plantation management, Maverick retired from business and took his family to Pendleton in the mountainous region of northwestern South Carolina. He renounced the pursuit of greater fortune in Charleston partly to save his children from one of the dread enemies of the South Carolina town dwellers, the yellow fever, which he refers to as the "stranger's fever." The disease, he felt, was especially dangerous to children.
Here, two miles from Pendleton, he built a handsome home on an extensive farm, and he took a great pleasure and interest in cultivating many varieties of native and imported fruits and grapes in his orchards and vineyards. This home he named "Montpelier" in honor of his French Huguenot grandmother, Catherine Coyer, or Le Coier, of London, whose family is supposed to have come from Montpelier in southern France.
On his plantations near Charleston, Samuel Maverick had experimented in raising cotton. According to family tradition he sent the first bale, or "bag," as they were then called, to Liverpool, but it was returned because the seeds had not been removed. Then slaves were set to work to remove the seeds, and the cotton was sent back to Liverpool. It took a day for a slave to clean seeds from one pound of cotton. Maverick was also one of the first in the United States to ship cotton to the mills in Providence, Rhode Island.
Samuel Augustus Maverick, son of Samuel and Elizabeth Anderson Maverick, was born July 23, 1803, at Pendleton. There in the lovely foothills of the Blue Ridge he and his two sisters, Elizabeth and Lydia Anne, grew to maturity. The earliest likeness of Samuel Augustus was made at the request of his mother when he was seven years old—a pastel painting of a fair-haired little boy dressed in blue and holding in his hand a grape leaf filled with strawberries. Samuel's mother died in 1818 when he was fifteen years old.
Although the elder Samuel Maverick had received only a scanty education, because of the great impoverishment and terrible destruction caused in South Carolina by the Revolutionary War, he was careful to see that his son and his daughters were well taught and sent to the best schools to be found.
In 1822, at the age of nineteen, Samuel Augustus entered the sophomore class of Yale College. While in college he kept a diary, of which only the first page is still in existence:
New Haven, A. D. 1823
S.A. Maverick Left Charleston, South Carolina, and sailed for New-York 30 May 1822.
Remained in N. York 2 weeks, from thence went to New Haven, Thence to Ripton 14 miles where I remained studying under Mr Rudd until commencement —
Entered Yale Col at commencement —— Sept 1822
Sophomore class which I entered contains 105 students. Total undergraduates 373. Presdt. Jeremiah Day.
September vacation, traveled up the Connecticut via Hartford, Middletown, Springfield, Northampton, &c.
Term of study from last of October 'till 2 Wednesday Jany.
Went to New-York (City) —————— Jany. 1823
Term of study from Jany. till May
May vacation go to Norwalk, Stratford, &c. ———— Hear Father and sisters are in New York from Chaston & went to New York & came to N. Haven with them on 1st June.
Term commences ——————
Third Term of Sophomore hardest studies. Spherics, &c.!
Commenced this Book this day ———— 10 June 1823
After graduation from Yale, Samuel Augustus studied law under Henry St. George Tucker at Winchester, Virginia, and was admitted to practice at the bar of South Carolina in 1829. A note among his papers refers to his setting up in practice at Pendleton, with a collection of law books sent to him by his college classmate, Thomas Slidell.
Even at this early period, the great question of the day in South Carolina was secession, heatedly debated in the newspapers and at picnics and all public gatherings. Feeling was stirred up by the tariff put on manufactured goods by Northern members of Congress. Although this measure did not injure the South to the extent that some Southern politicians claimed, yet the South, being very largely agricultural, was not benefited either, while business in the industrial North was greatly augmented.
Samuel Maverick and his son stood firmly against secession and nullification. They favored instead calling a general convention and taking any lawful action to have the tariff reduced. Young Maverick's stand on these issues was made public in reply to a series of questions printed in the Pendleton Messenger in 1832. Both father and son endorsed the report and resolutions of the Pendleton Anti-Nullification Committee, which supported Andrew Jackson's candidacy for reelection to the Presidency.
A LETTER IN THE PENDLETON MESSENGER (1832)
Do you believe the Tariff for the protection of domestic manufactures, unconstitutional?
Do you believe it is unequal in its operation, and particularly oppressive on the Southern, or planting states?
Do you think the States have any rights reserved by which they may protect themselves against oppression on the part of the General Government? If so what are they?
Do you think we ought to submit quietly to the operation of the "American System" or to resist it?
If the latter what mode do you recommend for the state to adopt?
Remained in N. York 2 weeks, from thence went to New Haven, Thence to Ripton 14 miles where I remained studying under Mr Rudd until commencement —
Entered Yale Col at commencement —— Sept 1822
Sophomore class which I entered contains 105 students. Total undergraduates 373. Presdt. Jeremiah Day.
September vacation, traveled up the Connecticut via Hartford, Middletown, Springfield, Northampton, &c.
Term of study from last of October 'till 2 Wednesday Jany.
Went to New-York (City) —————— Jany. 1823
Term of study from Jany. till May
May vacation go to Norwalk, Stratford, &c. ———— Hear Father and sisters are in New York from Chaston & went to New York & came to N. Haven with them on 1st June.
May 1823
Term commences ——————
Third Term of Sophomore hardest studies. Spherics, &c.!
Commenced this Book this day ———— 10 June 1823
After graduation from Yale, Samuel Augustus studied law under Henry St. George Tucker at Winchester, Virginia, and was admitted to practice at the bar of South Carolina in 1829. A note among his papers refers to his setting up in practice at Pendleton, with a collection of law books sent to him by his college classmate, Thomas Slidell.
Even at this early period, the great question of the day in South Carolina was secession, heatedly debated in the newspapers and at picnics and all public gatherings. Feeling was stirred up by the tariff put on manufactured goods by Northern members of Congress. Although this measure did not injure the South to the extent that some Southern politicians claimed, yet the South, being very largely agricultural, was not benefited either, while business in the industrial North was greatly augmented.
Samuel Maverick and his son stood firmly against secession and nullification. They favored instead calling a general convention and taking any lawful action to have the tariff reduced. Young Maverick's stand on these issues was made public in reply to a series of questions printed in the Pendleton Messenger in 1832. Both father and son endorsed the report and resolutions of the Pendleton Anti-Nullification Committee, which supported Andrew Jackson's candidacy for reelection to the Presidency.
A LETTER IN THE PENDLETON MESSENGER (1832)
Do you believe the Tariff for the protection of domestic manufactures, unconstitutional?
Do you believe it is unequal in its operation, and particularly oppressive on the Southern, or planting states?
Do you think the States have any rights reserved by which they may protect themselves against oppression on the part of the General Government? If so what are they?
Do you think we ought to submit quietly to the operation of the "American System" or to resist it?
If the latter what mode do you recommend for the state to adopt?
A Voter and friend to the Union
COMMUNICATED
To the voters of Anderson and Pickens Districts
Fellow citizens: The Pendleton Messenger of yesterday contains a communication, addressed to myself, amongst others; to the writer of which together with my fellow citizens in general I take pleasure in addressing myself on all the points of that communication, with all the perspicuity and brevity I can bring to the task.
The communication alluded to enquires of me 1st whether I believe the Tariff for the protection of domestic manufactures unconstitutional. On perusing the constitution itself I find the 1st Article and 8th section authorizes Congress "To lay and collect taxes, duties, imports and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States: but all duties, imports and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." — Again, "Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes," — with those before me it is impossible that I can pronounce our whole system of duties on foreign commerce unconstitl. However, the fact that those duties are unevenly adjusted to suit one section of our union and to bear injuriously on another section and moreover with the fact that, however broad these grants of power may seem, I am inclined still to the belief that the high protective principle of the Tariffs of 1824 & 1828 by their unequal operation on the planting states were enacted in violation of those equitable principles of concession and forbearance, which (as they were the basis of our compact) ought to be regarded essential principles of our Federal constitution. For these reasons and in this sense, I believe the Tariff unconstitutional.
The next enquiry made respects to the unequal operation of the Tariff and its supposed peculiar oppressiveness on the southern or planting states. —— This I have already replied to in my previous observation where I have placed the unconstitutionality of the Tariff on the sole ground of its "unequal operation on the planting States": and if I were satisfied that the Tariff was not injurious to the South — a respectable portion of our country — not violatory of those principles of equity alluded to already, I should not have come to the conclusion that it was unconstitutional. Before I quit this part of my observations I beg to be understood to state explicitly that I believe the Tariff is represented to be ten-fold more oppressive than it really is. The theory that the producer of cotton, rice and tobacco (given in exchange for foreign dutied goods) is burthened with the tariff, that he in fact loses 1/2 of his cotton, I believe to be without any foundation in truth.
The plain truth is that whoever purchases an article from abroad pays the tax on it, which tax pays into the treasury. I have no doubt that the low price of cotton is owing wholly to the over production of the article in this & in other countries. Let it be remembered that in 1800 we made in the U.S. 36,500,000 millions of pounds, in 1831, 270,000,000. So far from truth is it that cotton would rise on a repeal of the Tariff there cannot be a doubt that if the protection on sugar were discontinued and the lands and negroes employed in sugar were brought to the cultivation of cotton, South Carolina would be borne down in the contest and forced by low prices to abandon her cotton planting entirely. I believe the Tariff to be an evil that is rapidly decreasing, and is by no means of a permanent ill, as is attempted to be shown by the nullification party. In fine, I look on the Tariff laws as being little more than such an evil as must be expected at times to result in every republican govt. where the majority must rule & ought to rule, with no restraints on their will but what are provided by the articles of agreemt. the constu. itself. I state these facts frankly to my fellow citizens, as I am bound to do.
The second enquery of "A voter" respects "the unequal operation of the Tariff and its particular oppressiveness on the Southern or planting States."
I do not for a moment believe the planters of the south lose on their produce by the duties laid on the foreign goods given in exchange for that produce. The truth is that whoever in the north South, east or west purchases a foreign taxed article pays the tariff duty and is the only sufferer by the high duty. South Carolina does not consume more of Tariff goods in proportion to her population than the rest of the union. Now then, it will be asked does a planting State suffer more by the protective policy than a manufacturing State? The whole injustice of the Tariff at one view, is seen to consist in the fact that the planting state pays her quota of taxes without any equivalent beyond the common benefits of the Federal governmt, whereas the manufacturing state receives in return a more than ample equivalent for the taxes she pays on foreign goods consumed. That equivalent converts in the employment given to manufacturing capital & labour and the preference given to it over the foreign manufacturer by the system of import duties. Moreover, a great deal of surplus revenue accumulated by this unequal system, has been expended in the western states, whilst very little of it has found its way back into the unrequited agricultural states.
Whilst I share with my fellow citizens of the South through the operation of these Tariff laws and am concerned with them in devising the means by which to obtain this repeal, I see no propriety in exaggerating the evil. It is quite enough without any misrepresentation, to excite our warmest feelings of solicitude. But it will not do for reasonable men to attribute the distresses complained of in our state to the Tariff. The mortifying reverse of fortune experienced by the great cotton planters of the south is owing wholly to the low prices of that article: and the low price of cotton or of any other produce is understood by every practical man to have no more conexion with the Tariff than with the changes of the moon. The great law of demand & supply regulates the price of all our productions. Let it be remembered that in 1800 our crop of cotton consisted of [36.5] millions of pounds whilst in 1831 it was [270 millions] and other countries have advanced in the same culture at a rate almost equal to ourselves. In 1826 it is known that cotton became greatly depreciated, and the low price was generally attributed to over production and no other cause; and the tariff of which we complain was not yet in operation!
The evils of the Tariff to the south consisting then in my opinion in our being taxed in the advanced price of goods for the purpose of giving employment to northern capital & labour. I look upon the Tariff law as unjust & unequal and that it behooves us to bring about a change of our public policy adapted to our just wants. That this change is to be brought about, and that ample relief is to be obtained through the ordinary action of the government and the powerful operation of public opinion in our favour, I firmly believe. It will not be too much to say that the modified tariff of the last session of Congress in which there are some considerable reductions of both protected and unprotected articles, is the first step in that change of policy which our interests so imperiously demand.
The next enquery of a voter is, whether I "think the states have any rights reserved by which they may protect themselves against oppression on the part of the general government? If so what are they?"
A great change took place in the powers of the states in 1788 when our new general govt. arose on the ruins of the old confederation. Before that time the states were for all practical purposes, sovn. States. Since that time the state governments and the general government have become coordinate branches, and all together constitute one great system — of well-defined civic policy. The active practical sovereignty is lodged now no longer in the states, nor was it transfered to the general govt. but it is found to reside in this whole complex yet well adjusted system of state and general government. In such a government (and ours is undoubtedly such) it is preposterous to suppose that the states have any practical control over the general govt. for then that general govt. would cease to be co-equal in point of soverignty, and equally absurd to suppose the general govt. had any check or controal over the states for they would then cease to be equal with the general govt. The two parties now and have ever since the govt. was framed been contending for the predominence of the states on the one hand and of the general govt. on the other hand, and both of them undoubtedly in error. These party dissentions are now arisen to an alarming height. We have occasionally been threated with an overthrow of the states, and a consolidation of all power in the arms of the federal. But this is not the only danger to which we are liable. It has been before now and is this moment threated from the violent attacks of the states rights party. They seem to be ready to run to every extremity in order to establish a principal by which the states are to have a perfect controul over the general government. That principle it is needless to observe is Nullification. Consolidation on the one hand and nullification on the other are the extremes of our political system. If you consolidate and give a controul over the states to the general govt. you prostrate our valuable state govermts. If you give the states a right to nullify or forbid the operation of any law of Congress which such state may choose to condemn you destroy our general government, for it will not be a government at all if it cannot enforce its laws, but must become a mere agency — an agency which is to perform the will, — not of a majority of the employers or of 2/3 or 3/4 of them but of each one — an agency which is to obey each state though one may command what another may countermand or each one of the 24 may require its own peculiar wishes! This is practical Nullification. This is that pretended "reserved right by which a state (in the language of the question above recited) may protect itself from oppression on the part of the general government." It will be found on examination to be wholly unsustainable in theory and ruinous in practice. Let us make that examination.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED AT THE UNION ANTI-NULLIFICATION MEETING HELD AT THE VILLAGE OF PENDLETON, 1832
That no portion of the history of this country has ever presented so many subjects of vital interest as the present. Those which interest us most are the Tariff, Internal Improvement, the proposed scheme of resistance by our State through nullification, and the recent proposition of a general Southern Convention. The condition of our state is a most unhappy one. We behold a people divided in council, divided on principles of the greatest importance. We see in every quarter of the state, at this moment, two great opposing parties, employing almost every means in their power to gain the mastery. The one party is in favor of resisting the acts of the general government of which we are complaining, by nullifying, annulling and forbidding their operation within our chartered limits. The other party or rather the remaining portion of our citizens is engaged in combatting both the unequal laws of the general government, and the dangerous remedies of the Nullification Party. This last portion of our citizens, constitute all those who oppose Nullification. They have hitherto acted separately, whilst their opponents [augment] their life and growth by the zeal, influence, and the numerous artifices of their leaders. We have no associations like our opponents. We publish and circulate no political tracts. We have been thrown together by no other motives than a desire to put down or if need be to resist forcibly the false dangers and revolutionary efforts of Nullification. As lovers of a good government, we are not disposed to stand idly by and see a scheme put in practice, which we are convinced will destroy this govt. even though the object in view is the laudable one of ridding ourselves of the Tariff. As lovers of the Constitution of our country, we are not inclined to destroy it for any pretext even if the thing complained of is a breach or an abuse of that instrumt. As lovers of a Republican government we are not disposed to put into the hands of one of the states of our confederacy a right (such as Nullification) to nullify lawmaking or any law of that govt.
We have a double duty to perform as if to prove the sincerity of patriotic Provision so ordered it that whilst we are opposing the aggression of the general govt. at the same moment we are restraining the dangerous impetuosity of our fellow citizens engaged like ourselves in opposition to those very aggressors, but unlike ourselves, endangering the very existence of our govt. and of liberty itself by their furious impatience.
RESOLUTIONS OF UNION PARTY
Resolved. That we will co-operate with our fellow citizens of this state or of all the southern states, in any and every plan which is constitutional, peaceful, and likely to prove effectual in procuring the repeal of the injurious and oppressive "Tariff laws of Congress.
Resolved. That Nullification, or the interposition of the State veto, to arrest a law of Congress, is in violation of the Constituition and repugnant to the form and character of our form of government — is contradictory in itself, and revolting to the common sense of mankind. — if put in practice, must either degrade the state or the general governmt, or else produce civil war and disunion, and ought therefore to be prevented by all means, in our power.
Resolved. That we will co-operate freely in the proposition of a Southern Convention, which we look upon as being the most peaceful as well as the most effectual means of bringing the government back to a wise and equal policy in regard to the Tariff system and that of Int. Imp[rovemen]t.
Resolved. That we heartily approve of the appointm. of delegates who will assemble at convention with their fellow citizens of the Union party on the second Mon. in this month, at a meeting held at this village on the 6th of this month.
Resolved. That we recommend the reelection of Prest. Jackson, and approve his administration.
At one public meeting where Samuel Maverick made a strong speech against secession in answer to his neighbor, John C. Calhoun, he was questioned and interrupted in a rude and noisy manner by a young man in the audience. Whereupon Maverick's son, young Samuel Augustus, challenged his father's heckler to a duel, wounded him slightly, and then took him to the Maverick home and cared for him until his recovery.
Soon after this Samuel Maverick suggested that his son go out to northern Alabama with his widowed sister Elizabeth and her three children, and direct a plantation which he had given them in Lauderdale County on the Tennessee River.
Young Maverick had dreamed of entering public life and his friends expected him to follow such a course, for which they considered him well qualified. But his firm opposition to the popular demand for secession influenced him to give up the thought of a political career in South Carolina, and he accompanied his sister out to Alabama.
This plantation management proving distasteful, he took an extensive trip by river up through the fast-growing north central states to New York, where he visited his younger sister, Mrs. William Van Wyck. He accompanied her to his father's home in Pendleton, then returned to Alabama. Soon after, on a business trip to New Orleans, he heard much talk of Texas. In the 1830's our turbulent frontier was suddenly extended into the Mexican-owned Southwest; the fame of Texas spread to the neighboring states in the Union and adventurous spirits were attracted as by a magnet. Maverick determined to go there and see Texas for himself.
To the voters of Anderson and Pickens Districts
Fellow citizens: The Pendleton Messenger of yesterday contains a communication, addressed to myself, amongst others; to the writer of which together with my fellow citizens in general I take pleasure in addressing myself on all the points of that communication, with all the perspicuity and brevity I can bring to the task.
The communication alluded to enquires of me 1st whether I believe the Tariff for the protection of domestic manufactures unconstitutional. On perusing the constitution itself I find the 1st Article and 8th section authorizes Congress "To lay and collect taxes, duties, imports and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States: but all duties, imports and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States." — Again, "Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with the Indian tribes," — with those before me it is impossible that I can pronounce our whole system of duties on foreign commerce unconstitl. However, the fact that those duties are unevenly adjusted to suit one section of our union and to bear injuriously on another section and moreover with the fact that, however broad these grants of power may seem, I am inclined still to the belief that the high protective principle of the Tariffs of 1824 & 1828 by their unequal operation on the planting states were enacted in violation of those equitable principles of concession and forbearance, which (as they were the basis of our compact) ought to be regarded essential principles of our Federal constitution. For these reasons and in this sense, I believe the Tariff unconstitutional.
The next enquiry made respects to the unequal operation of the Tariff and its supposed peculiar oppressiveness on the southern or planting states. —— This I have already replied to in my previous observation where I have placed the unconstitutionality of the Tariff on the sole ground of its "unequal operation on the planting States": and if I were satisfied that the Tariff was not injurious to the South — a respectable portion of our country — not violatory of those principles of equity alluded to already, I should not have come to the conclusion that it was unconstitutional. Before I quit this part of my observations I beg to be understood to state explicitly that I believe the Tariff is represented to be ten-fold more oppressive than it really is. The theory that the producer of cotton, rice and tobacco (given in exchange for foreign dutied goods) is burthened with the tariff, that he in fact loses 1/2 of his cotton, I believe to be without any foundation in truth.
The plain truth is that whoever purchases an article from abroad pays the tax on it, which tax pays into the treasury. I have no doubt that the low price of cotton is owing wholly to the over production of the article in this & in other countries. Let it be remembered that in 1800 we made in the U.S. 36,500,000 millions of pounds, in 1831, 270,000,000. So far from truth is it that cotton would rise on a repeal of the Tariff there cannot be a doubt that if the protection on sugar were discontinued and the lands and negroes employed in sugar were brought to the cultivation of cotton, South Carolina would be borne down in the contest and forced by low prices to abandon her cotton planting entirely. I believe the Tariff to be an evil that is rapidly decreasing, and is by no means of a permanent ill, as is attempted to be shown by the nullification party. In fine, I look on the Tariff laws as being little more than such an evil as must be expected at times to result in every republican govt. where the majority must rule & ought to rule, with no restraints on their will but what are provided by the articles of agreemt. the constu. itself. I state these facts frankly to my fellow citizens, as I am bound to do.
The second enquery of "A voter" respects "the unequal operation of the Tariff and its particular oppressiveness on the Southern or planting States."
I do not for a moment believe the planters of the south lose on their produce by the duties laid on the foreign goods given in exchange for that produce. The truth is that whoever in the north South, east or west purchases a foreign taxed article pays the tariff duty and is the only sufferer by the high duty. South Carolina does not consume more of Tariff goods in proportion to her population than the rest of the union. Now then, it will be asked does a planting State suffer more by the protective policy than a manufacturing State? The whole injustice of the Tariff at one view, is seen to consist in the fact that the planting state pays her quota of taxes without any equivalent beyond the common benefits of the Federal governmt, whereas the manufacturing state receives in return a more than ample equivalent for the taxes she pays on foreign goods consumed. That equivalent converts in the employment given to manufacturing capital & labour and the preference given to it over the foreign manufacturer by the system of import duties. Moreover, a great deal of surplus revenue accumulated by this unequal system, has been expended in the western states, whilst very little of it has found its way back into the unrequited agricultural states.
Whilst I share with my fellow citizens of the South through the operation of these Tariff laws and am concerned with them in devising the means by which to obtain this repeal, I see no propriety in exaggerating the evil. It is quite enough without any misrepresentation, to excite our warmest feelings of solicitude. But it will not do for reasonable men to attribute the distresses complained of in our state to the Tariff. The mortifying reverse of fortune experienced by the great cotton planters of the south is owing wholly to the low prices of that article: and the low price of cotton or of any other produce is understood by every practical man to have no more conexion with the Tariff than with the changes of the moon. The great law of demand & supply regulates the price of all our productions. Let it be remembered that in 1800 our crop of cotton consisted of [36.5] millions of pounds whilst in 1831 it was [270 millions] and other countries have advanced in the same culture at a rate almost equal to ourselves. In 1826 it is known that cotton became greatly depreciated, and the low price was generally attributed to over production and no other cause; and the tariff of which we complain was not yet in operation!
The evils of the Tariff to the south consisting then in my opinion in our being taxed in the advanced price of goods for the purpose of giving employment to northern capital & labour. I look upon the Tariff law as unjust & unequal and that it behooves us to bring about a change of our public policy adapted to our just wants. That this change is to be brought about, and that ample relief is to be obtained through the ordinary action of the government and the powerful operation of public opinion in our favour, I firmly believe. It will not be too much to say that the modified tariff of the last session of Congress in which there are some considerable reductions of both protected and unprotected articles, is the first step in that change of policy which our interests so imperiously demand.
The next enquery of a voter is, whether I "think the states have any rights reserved by which they may protect themselves against oppression on the part of the general government? If so what are they?"
A great change took place in the powers of the states in 1788 when our new general govt. arose on the ruins of the old confederation. Before that time the states were for all practical purposes, sovn. States. Since that time the state governments and the general government have become coordinate branches, and all together constitute one great system — of well-defined civic policy. The active practical sovereignty is lodged now no longer in the states, nor was it transfered to the general govt. but it is found to reside in this whole complex yet well adjusted system of state and general government. In such a government (and ours is undoubtedly such) it is preposterous to suppose that the states have any practical control over the general govt. for then that general govt. would cease to be co-equal in point of soverignty, and equally absurd to suppose the general govt. had any check or controal over the states for they would then cease to be equal with the general govt. The two parties now and have ever since the govt. was framed been contending for the predominence of the states on the one hand and of the general govt. on the other hand, and both of them undoubtedly in error. These party dissentions are now arisen to an alarming height. We have occasionally been threated with an overthrow of the states, and a consolidation of all power in the arms of the federal. But this is not the only danger to which we are liable. It has been before now and is this moment threated from the violent attacks of the states rights party. They seem to be ready to run to every extremity in order to establish a principal by which the states are to have a perfect controul over the general government. That principle it is needless to observe is Nullification. Consolidation on the one hand and nullification on the other are the extremes of our political system. If you consolidate and give a controul over the states to the general govt. you prostrate our valuable state govermts. If you give the states a right to nullify or forbid the operation of any law of Congress which such state may choose to condemn you destroy our general government, for it will not be a government at all if it cannot enforce its laws, but must become a mere agency — an agency which is to perform the will, — not of a majority of the employers or of 2/3 or 3/4 of them but of each one — an agency which is to obey each state though one may command what another may countermand or each one of the 24 may require its own peculiar wishes! This is practical Nullification. This is that pretended "reserved right by which a state (in the language of the question above recited) may protect itself from oppression on the part of the general government." It will be found on examination to be wholly unsustainable in theory and ruinous in practice. Let us make that examination.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED AT THE UNION ANTI-NULLIFICATION MEETING HELD AT THE VILLAGE OF PENDLETON, 1832
That no portion of the history of this country has ever presented so many subjects of vital interest as the present. Those which interest us most are the Tariff, Internal Improvement, the proposed scheme of resistance by our State through nullification, and the recent proposition of a general Southern Convention. The condition of our state is a most unhappy one. We behold a people divided in council, divided on principles of the greatest importance. We see in every quarter of the state, at this moment, two great opposing parties, employing almost every means in their power to gain the mastery. The one party is in favor of resisting the acts of the general government of which we are complaining, by nullifying, annulling and forbidding their operation within our chartered limits. The other party or rather the remaining portion of our citizens is engaged in combatting both the unequal laws of the general government, and the dangerous remedies of the Nullification Party. This last portion of our citizens, constitute all those who oppose Nullification. They have hitherto acted separately, whilst their opponents [augment] their life and growth by the zeal, influence, and the numerous artifices of their leaders. We have no associations like our opponents. We publish and circulate no political tracts. We have been thrown together by no other motives than a desire to put down or if need be to resist forcibly the false dangers and revolutionary efforts of Nullification. As lovers of a good government, we are not disposed to stand idly by and see a scheme put in practice, which we are convinced will destroy this govt. even though the object in view is the laudable one of ridding ourselves of the Tariff. As lovers of the Constitution of our country, we are not inclined to destroy it for any pretext even if the thing complained of is a breach or an abuse of that instrumt. As lovers of a Republican government we are not disposed to put into the hands of one of the states of our confederacy a right (such as Nullification) to nullify lawmaking or any law of that govt.
We have a double duty to perform as if to prove the sincerity of patriotic Provision so ordered it that whilst we are opposing the aggression of the general govt. at the same moment we are restraining the dangerous impetuosity of our fellow citizens engaged like ourselves in opposition to those very aggressors, but unlike ourselves, endangering the very existence of our govt. and of liberty itself by their furious impatience.
RESOLUTIONS OF UNION PARTY
Resolved. That we will co-operate with our fellow citizens of this state or of all the southern states, in any and every plan which is constitutional, peaceful, and likely to prove effectual in procuring the repeal of the injurious and oppressive "Tariff laws of Congress.
Resolved. That Nullification, or the interposition of the State veto, to arrest a law of Congress, is in violation of the Constituition and repugnant to the form and character of our form of government — is contradictory in itself, and revolting to the common sense of mankind. — if put in practice, must either degrade the state or the general governmt, or else produce civil war and disunion, and ought therefore to be prevented by all means, in our power.
Resolved. That we will co-operate freely in the proposition of a Southern Convention, which we look upon as being the most peaceful as well as the most effectual means of bringing the government back to a wise and equal policy in regard to the Tariff system and that of Int. Imp[rovemen]t.
Resolved. That we heartily approve of the appointm. of delegates who will assemble at convention with their fellow citizens of the Union party on the second Mon. in this month, at a meeting held at this village on the 6th of this month.
Resolved. That we recommend the reelection of Prest. Jackson, and approve his administration.
At one public meeting where Samuel Maverick made a strong speech against secession in answer to his neighbor, John C. Calhoun, he was questioned and interrupted in a rude and noisy manner by a young man in the audience. Whereupon Maverick's son, young Samuel Augustus, challenged his father's heckler to a duel, wounded him slightly, and then took him to the Maverick home and cared for him until his recovery.
Soon after this Samuel Maverick suggested that his son go out to northern Alabama with his widowed sister Elizabeth and her three children, and direct a plantation which he had given them in Lauderdale County on the Tennessee River.
Young Maverick had dreamed of entering public life and his friends expected him to follow such a course, for which they considered him well qualified. But his firm opposition to the popular demand for secession influenced him to give up the thought of a political career in South Carolina, and he accompanied his sister out to Alabama.
This plantation management proving distasteful, he took an extensive trip by river up through the fast-growing north central states to New York, where he visited his younger sister, Mrs. William Van Wyck. He accompanied her to his father's home in Pendleton, then returned to Alabama. Soon after, on a business trip to New Orleans, he heard much talk of Texas. In the 1830's our turbulent frontier was suddenly extended into the Mexican-owned Southwest; the fame of Texas spread to the neighboring states in the Union and adventurous spirits were attracted as by a magnet. Maverick determined to go there and see Texas for himself.
The Siege of San Antonio: 1835
Samuel Augustus Maverick took ship and arrived at the settlement of Velasco on the Texas coast in 1835. In exploring the country roundabout he contracted a bad case of malaria. His friends advised him to go to San Antonio in the interior, which being higher was considered much more healthful than the coast regions. San Antonio was then the center of much interest and activity for the whole country. As soon as he was able to do so, he made the trip on horseback via Gonzales, arriving in San Antonio September 8, 1835, a few weeks before the outbreak of the Texas Revolution. He was just thirty-two years old. His fever left him, and he was struck with delight at the beauty of the little Spanish-Mexican town.
We can imagine the scene before him with the clear winding river lined with cypresses, and the irrigation ditches of that day—the attractive simple stone and adobe buildings, flat-roofed, with thick walls, built about the open plazas; the more ambitious Cathedral and handsome mission churches built by the Franciscans in the eighteenth century, alternating on each side of the river below the villa, and showing up in the distance.
The Mexican people with their pleasant manners and customs added much to the picturesque scene. Here was a little foreign town quite different from anything Maverick had ever seen. He was a keen observer and as he walked about he made note of the streets, plazas, and safe river crossings—information which helped greatly when he later acted as guide for Colonel Milam into the city.
Maverick roomed at the home of John W. Smith. He entered into the life of the place, attended mass at the Cathedral with the soldiers, and heard the military band. A companion mentioned in his journal, a Mr. Anderson, told about the Comanche Indian raids—proving that life was not all idyllic in San Antonio.
Doubtless too he heard much of the general dissatisfaction of the Anglo-Americans in the various settlements scattered over Texas, especially the group headed by John A. Wharton of Brazoria who advocated calling a convention of elected delegates to secure "peace if it is to be secured on constitutional terms, and to prepare for war if war be inevitable."
He learned that even Stephen F. Austin, the great "impressario," had lost patience with existing conditions: the difficulty of transacting state business in the distant capital of Saltillo, the regulations controlling immigration, and the changeable Mexican government itself. Austin's imprisonment in Mexico, after years of careful law enforcement and loyalty to Mexico in his colonization efforts, must have opened his eyes to the hopelessness of continuing to hold Texas as a territory or state of such a government. Finally, when the citizens of Gonzales called Austin to command their forces in the attack on General Perfecto de Cos, in command of Mexican forces in San Antonio, he consented to lead them in the siege.
General Cos, who was a brother-in-law of Santa Ana, arrived in San Antonio October 8. At this time a guard was placed at Smith's doors, thus making prisoners of Maverick, Smith, and Cox. Forces of Anglo-Americans under Austin, Burleson, Bowie, and others were gathering outside the town, and from time to time skirmishes took place between them and the Mexican soldiers. Through the help of a bright and dependable Mexican boy, Maverick exchanged messages with the various American leaders. Smith and Maverick were released, on Smith's promising the Mexican authorities that they would soon return to the United States, and they joined the Texan forces at their camp ten miles below San Antonio.
We children were told by my father and grandmother that on reaching the main Texan force our grandfather stepped upon a tree stump and addresed the men gathered about. (He was not tall, lacking more than an inch of six feet.) He encouraged the troops to storm the town, gave them the number of the enemy forces, assured them that the Mexican soldiers were poor shots—usually aiming too high—and offered to guide them into the city. At this point Milam called for volunteers and some 250 men fell into ranks and "volunteered to make the attack next morning":
When Ben R. Milam led a division of the Texas troops into San Antonio, December 5th, he [Maverick] acted as guide to the troops moving down Soledad; being familiar with the streets and alleys he was able and did render great service to the troops. It was he who caught the body of Milam, shot by a [Mexican] sharpshooter, in the court of the Veramendi house. [Frederick C. Chabot, The Mavericks, p. 3. Ben Milam was born in Kentucky in 1790, served in the War of 1812, winning the admiration of his comrades, and later removed to the headwaters of the Colorado in Texas, according to the account by John Henry Brown in his Indian Wars. Milam joined Long's expedition to Mexico and, after Long's assassination, he and his companions were put in prison, and finally freed through the efforts of Joel R. Poinsett, the United States Commissioner of Observation in Mexico. Milam was granted land on Red River, Texas, where he remained three or four years. Appealed to by neighbors to examine into the Texas-Mexico boundary, he rode to Monclova, Mexico, via San Antonio, was imprisioned owing to the revolution in Mexico, escaped, and after hardships arrived at Goliad (seventy-five miles south of San Antonio) at the moment that Captain George M. Collinsworth and his party were about to attack the Mexican stronghold, a thick-walled Church-fortress. Here, according to Chabot's account, "the Americans, under Capt. Collinsworth captured Goliad on the 8th, when Milam, just arrived from Mexico 'acted a distinguished part.'" (The Alamo, Altar of Texas Liberty, pp. 28-29.)
The cannon of the Mexican army commanded the approaches of Soledad and Acequia (now Main) Streets. The Americans, resourceful, and acting on information given, made us of any makeshift tools they could procure to force their way through the stone walls of the houses bordering these streets.
Then followed one of the grimmest and hardest fought combats ever waged around San Antonio, the scene of many battles, including the Alamo in the following year. The tragic end of their courageous leader Col. Ben Milam was such a blow that as far as possible the truth was kept from his followers and from the Mexican forces also, and Johnston quietly took command.
Maverick later pointed out to his son the scene of the fighting:
Once, standing near the Veramendi House he told me, ""There [at S. E. corner of Veramendi house] Ben Milam was shot—as he staggered back I caught him in my arms." He pointed backwards to a spot in Veramendi Street, "There during the fight I helped to cut off a man's shattered leg, and we saved his life." [Letter dated 1893 from George M. Maverick to Frank W. Hackett, of Washington, D. C. The man whose life was saved was Col. William A. Ward, known as "Pegleg" Ward, second commissioner of the General Land Office under the Republic of Texas, Commissioner during the "Archive War." (Information supplied by Charles W. Ramsdell.)]
The first journal of Samuel A. Maverick tells of his coming to Texas in 1835 and describes the siege of San Antonio. The journals were given to Maverick's dauighter, Mary Brown Maverick Terrell, and were copied in 1879 by her husband, Edwin H. Terrell, because the paper was poor and the ink was fading. The journals are here printed from these copies, which were given to me in 1948 by George Terrell and Lewis Terrell of Seattle, the sons of Edwin and Mary Terrell.
Journal
SEPT. 5TH. Leave Gonzales for Bexar, 6 miles to Judge Williams. [blank] m. to [blank], 49 m. to Cibolo, 22 m. to Salado Cr.; 5 (m) to Bejar (76 miles from Gonzales to Bejar). Arrived on 8th Sept.
SEPT. 16TH. Grand Independence Celebration. (Paid Smith to 23rd, owe from 24th). Mr. Anderson's account of the Comanches.
OCT. 8TH. Messrs Smith & Anderson return from Gonzales with the final resolution of the people & Ayuntamiento that they will not give up the cannon. Col. Ugartechea had first sent 4 or 5 soldiers and wagons; 2nd, 100 men under Lieut. Castinada; and 3d, set out himself at head of all his effectives, at the moment of Anderson's going, but returned. People collecting in at Gonzales. This day (8th) arrived Genl Perfecto de Cos and also Ugartechea's family from Monterey. [Genl Coml. Bexar—Perfecto de Cos. Domingo de Ugartechea, Col. Com. Cav'y.]
OCT. 11TH. Sunday. Attend grand mass with the soldiers with military music, &c, and hear that La Bahia was surprised and taken yesterday (10th) at break of day by about 60 Americans. One killed and one or two wounded of the Mexicans.
OCT. 12TH. Great flurry and excitement by arrival of Mex. spies reporting that great crowds of Americans were on the road coming. This moment commence to mount cannon, pressing into the service Smith and other citizens (3 cannons already mounted; 2 now being mounted.)
OCT. 15TH. Appointed for the meeting of the Convention. Americans on the march from Gonzales.
OCT. 17TH. Arrival of courier with dispatches from [blank]. (12th. Timbers &c. taken to El Alamo to fortify the quartel, & begin, on 13th, to blockade the streets, which is finished by the 17th.) 16th. Smith's doors guarded, and Col. Ugartechea's.
OCT. 17TH. Arrival of Pedro Flores, as courier, with news that S. F. Austin is General of American forces. Dispatches from Gen'l Austin to Gen'l de Cos. Reports that 800 Americans are stationed at Cibolo and 500 more expected instanter. Reports that Sandoval, Comd't at La Bahia and company carried prisoners to San Felipe. (Ugartechea had this day gone out with 100 men to the Cibolo, and confronted the advance body, who having alighted & cooked, U. turned back.)
13th was the day on which the military broke the figure of San Antonio, and on the 14th the comet was seen in the west 45° above the horizon, its train reaching 1/4 over the visable firmament.
OCT. 18TH. Courier with communications from Cos to Austin, and my note to Austin. On 17th, finished mounting one cannon (had before only 3). All the powder &c. taken to the Church 3 or 4 days ago. Forces are divided here; part in the quartel (of the infantry) in Presidio on W. side of the rio, and the whole troop on E. side in their quartel in Alamo 300 cavalry and 2 [200] Infantry. (The actual number, officers, soldiers, guards etc. of Effectives is 647)
OCT. 19TH. Cos had written to Austin that if he would send his men all home & then send or come with 2 or 3, be would be disposed to hear him. This day Austin sent a mere verbal message by Pedro that he had not come to treat but to fight; and if he (Cos) would not meet him outside he would attack him inside of the town. De Cos's observation to the servant was "I want no more communications. Let the damn rascals come." His letter to Austin had on 18th been read aloud at the beat of the drum at the four corners of the public square.
OCT. 20TH. Great flurry this morning on account of a report that the Americans are at the Salado (5 miles). House tops covered with sentinels &c., but soon over. Suppose the report is a false one. The Mexican spies report that some 20 of them attacked 3 on Salado; got a rifle and blanket but did not kill the Americans.
[OCT.] 21ST. Bowie sent his compliments to the town. [Note: B. had married a daughter of Gov. Veramendi and had formerly lived in the City, E.H.T.]
[OCT.] 22ND. Reports that Rodriguez and 50 soldiers are absent and suppose [they are] gone over. Padillo is with Austin. This afternoon is the first rencontre. 12 or 15 shots discharged. 3 come in shot—one through the head, one wounded and one his gun broken. This night arrival from Rio Grande of a cavallardo and about 48 soldiers.
[OCT.] 23RD. Eleven soldiers came in from Rio Grande. Soldiers all in motion, and go out but nothing done. At night there was some shooting.
[OCT.] 24TH. 41 more soldiers arrived. There appears to have been a small engagement today at about 9 o'clock on the Salado. At 10 Infantry come in with one man wounded (shot through the head). We heard at least 100 reports. Another report has it that there were some soldiers wounded in an engagement at the 2nd Mission (San Jose), which took place this morning. 24th, Saturday. No fighting, word sent.
[OCT.] 25TH. Letter rec'd from [Austin] saying that the reason Bejar was not at once taken is because the colonists would disperse before all now on the march to this Place would be able to reach it. 4 or 5 hundred are coming besides those already come. Genl Houston had arrived with part of the Nacog[doches] troops. Mexer [Mexia] & Zavalla are on the move in Texas. The great object is, when all the fighting men are brought together, to concert measures for giving general, united & effective support to the Constitution of 1824, and to put down Centralism.
It is expected that a resolution will be taken by all or most to march on to Matamoras, and from thence to any quarter thought to be best. It is expected (says Gen'l A.) that Mexir [Mexia] will raise troops to march into the interior. [He adds that] Cos might put an end to all this by pronouncing, or leaving the people of Bejar free to do so (in favor of the Constitution). Word also comes to confirm the report of Friday's skirmishing, and it appears that some 3 or 4 were left dead for the Americans to inter.
[OCT.] 26TH. Nothing. An 18 pounder just mounted. Was carried by to the Alamo, and raised to the top of the church; besides this, they have 10 (smaller) cannons mounted—5 in Presidio, of which 4 are in the Plaza and 1 in front of the church, and 7 [in] the Alamo, of which one, the 18 pounder, is on the top of the old church of San Antonio [de Valero]. It appears that Bowie and the American party lately at the Mission of San Juan (3rd one) have gone back to the Headquarters at the Salado.
[OCT.] 27TH. Tuesday. Mexican infantry go out this morning. At 7 1/2 o'clock firing commenced, which continued nearly 2 hours (at the first Mission—Concepcion). 2 or 3 messengers then came in on a strain & they carry out 2 mules loaded with ammunition. Soon after 9 rounds of artillery are heard and brisk firing for 20 or 30 minutes.
[OCT.] 28TH. It appears from what is come out that the Mexicans had every one of their artillery men shot down & most of them killed, and both of the cannons they carried out taken from them. They left 23 dead on the ground. Out of 12 officers only one came off without a wound. They brought 42 wounded men off. 4 died on the way coming; on this morning (28th) it appears certain that 15 of these have died.
[OCT.] 28TH. Fifteen Mexican infantry out of the 42 wounded brought in are, this morning, dead; besides this havoc of the infantry, artillery-men etc. there were some of the cavalry killed. It is probable that more than 42 were brought off wounded for they [Mexicans] reported 8 (only) left dead [on the field], whereas the Padre, (who went with 10 men at the request of Austin to Gen'l Cos) reports 23 dead [on the field] and some dying in the American Camp. There must be at least 80 put past duty. The old Padre reports but one man as being touched, and he only wounded in a tender part
In the afternoon of yesterday some cavalry went towards the Mission and being hemmed in where the river was not fordable they quit their horses and swam the stream and thus saved their lives. The party of Americans were at first only 50 men, who were looking out a good camping place. As the action went on, they were increased until they were about 200 strong. The main body still remained with Austin on the Salado. They considered this as a mere scouting frolic, whereas it was an almost breaking up business for the Central party. The Mexican force was much more numerous than the American, and their infantry the best soldiers in the Republic (of the Mexican breed).
[OCT.] 29TH. Several deaths. In the afternoon a large reinforcement; 2 or 3 hundred, coming to the American army came almost into the town (suppose by mistake) and then turned off.
OCT. 30TH. A party of 3 or 4 hundred, with Bowie, came up on this side of the river near to town. The banter not being accepted, after staying till evening, they went down again.
[OCT.] 31ST. No mass. Two soldiers missing; either killed in the course of the firing today up the river, or possibly deserted. Some more cannons mounted here and great activity to secure the place.
NOV. 1ST. (Sunday) All Saints' Day; a great occasion with the Catholics. 8 o'clock this morning a division of the Fedl. force is seen 1 or 1 1/2 miles from the Alamo (north). They fired three times at Ugartechea's fort which salute is returned by two shots. Nothing more done—too far off.
NOV. 2ND. This is the people's day—for common people's souls to go to Heaven. Yesterday the Padre was sent by Gen'l Cos to say to Austin that they had better disperse and make their representations peaceably to the Government, and he would pledge himself they would be attended to. Austin returned the Padre with the word that he did not come to make representations; he would have a fight and if Cos would not come out he would go into the town. He sent word that the alternatives he [Cos] had were either to abandon the place or stay and fight.
He sent Cos word that he had extensive resources of men and money and that Mexir [Mexia] was gone to take Matamoras. When the Padre told Cos this he said it was a lie; they had not the resources spoken of &c. and that they might come on for they were not able to move him and he would stay in town.
Austin and his chief division are 1 1/2 miles above town, at the upper mill place. The rest below town on both sides of the river. Nothing done today—2nd—but a little firing at long distances (and without effect) at the picket guards of the Mexicans at the edge of La Villita about the ditch.
[NOV.] 3RD. The division of the Americans below town are said to be gone off this morning; where gone is not known.
The army above are still there. The Mexicans have gone on with their work of defense briskly. ———Cannons now mounted. The place could much easier have been taken with 200men after the affair of Gonzales than it can now with 1500 men.
The quartel in the Alamo is very strongly fortified, and the streets to the plaza here well guarded; and all trees, grass, fences and other lurking places and barricades removed and being removed in order to see the Americans when they come up. This night (of 3d November) some hundred or more guns fired in the Alamo, among which is heard a number of rifles. This turns out to be a party of Americans examining the premises and meeting the picket guard. A firing is carried on from behind a couple of houses. One Mexican is killed. While this is going on 1/2 doz. rounds are given and received by the Col. & the Americans N. of the fort.
[NOV.] 4TH. Redoubled exertions today in fortifying and clearing away hereabouts and mounting cannons. Ugartechea fires two guns off this morning, without getting an answer. A note had come yesterday from S. Jr. [thought to refer to Juan Seguin], saying that tonight (of 4th) a general attack is contemplated. A report is abroad among the citizens that the Americans are quarreling, and particularly Austin and Bowie. This evening at 7 o'clock the Mex. guards, whilst passing in the vicinity of the grave yard received a couple of shots and came in. No mass.
[NOV.] 5TH. From the effect of a number of little reports, stories and conjectures, our house is in great dejection this morning; have been drooping some days. I still have confidence. Ugartechea fires some cannon.
[NOV.] 6TH. Ugartechea fires his cannon, and there is another taken by Candalia (Ar't'y Col.), a little out of town on this side above and fired several times, but not very near the Amens., though towards them. Very cheering accounts come this afternoon of an addition of 4 or 5 hundred more men with some cannons and plenty of provisions and other supplies. A great fog this morning, arising by evaporation from the river (spring water). Thermometer at 7 A.M. in shade out of doors is at 49°. Yesterday at about same hour a norther blew up, bringing the thermometer down 20°, from 75° to 55°. About a week past we experienced the first norther this fall.
[NOV.] 7TH. Note from Austin in general terms. All the Americans are at the upper Molina [Later the site of the Drought home at 9th Street, San Antonio] General Mexir [Mexia] has sailed from New Orleans to Matamoras or Tampico with a great force etc.
[NOV.] 8TH. (Sunday) Afternoon. A spying party of Americans said to be seen west of town a mile out. Capt. Barragan and some cavalry give them chase. They forced the Americans to seek safety in a gully. They took 6 horses, two frock coats and two hats, on which account the church bell was rung in joy. This evening the Gen'l fired off some signal rockets which threw things into a little helter skelter and turned out a false alarm.
NOV. 9TH. Reported that a considerable number of men more have joined the American force. Also reported that 4 or 5 hundred soldiers are coming on to Cos from Laredo (having some reluctant Mexicans as prisoners). The Americans are keeping a good lookout for this reinforcement of the Federal Army.
[NOV.] 10TH. The Federal Army (of Austin & Co.) have from time to time been receiving cannon. just heard they received yesterday one requiring six yoke (of oxen) to haul. Suppose an 18 pounder. Col. T. J. Rusk sent me his name by Peter.
[NOV.] 11TH. Wrote a few lines to Rusk this moming and sent by P., evening. Holmes received a few lines from Wm. Austin and I a sibylline leaf. He writes that they are 900 strong. Some who were obliged have gone home. New forces immediately expected. Some from New Orleans certainly on the way; have seven cannon. Two hours after dark an alarm, and in about twenty minutes four or five hundred muskets discharged and three cannon. Two guns being fired close to Smith's, Cap't Solis with (Mendoza) four soldiers and some at the door entered the house where we were sitting. In his lingo he demanded who shot off the guns and why?, and in a very menacing, hurried manner ordered his men, who at the word formed in a good position, cocking their muskets, and held them at a present (with bayonets). Smith (J.W.) and the women denied that we did it. He asserted and the women again earnestly protested. He then pushed into the yard, still furious and in calling out it so happened that he was heard by Vedall [Alejandro Vidal] who owned that he had shot his guns, saying he shot at some of the Americans on the point, on the opposite side of the river. This was a lie, but being a faithful damned dog no more was said. The Capt. tried to excuse himself and the affair ended. (He had said he was shot at as he heard the balls whiz by him; this a lie.) Vedall answered at the second call. If he had declined answering at all, they would have been fully convinced it was we, and certainly if a soldier would have said this or these men fire[d] (or with arms) they would have shot us instantly. It was certainly a fine specimen of Centralism. I did not at the time think they would fire. It occurred to me that he demanded to know if any from the American Camp had got into our premises. I knew none had and felt that his was an idle bravado and that we were safe. On a full explanation, however, I saw we were very near being shot through a mistake. Dm such a government.
[NOV.] 12TH. Col. Ugartechea, who is a well-meaning gentleman, being told what occurred last night, was much concerned. We demanded again leave to go out of town. He went to the General [Cos] and two hours [after] returned. He reports that the General can't suffer us to go out of his custody; but they promise ample protection and Ugartechea closed by requesting us to shoot such fellows if they should do such a thing again. This is kind assurance of & Gen'l and Colonel, but is impracticable and useless. It seems that Ugartechea had the Captain brought up; that Candalia, the Lt. Col. of Infantry, defended his capitan. He undertook to quarrel with the Col. (Ugartechea) when the Gen'l told them to stop: "The times don't allow brother officers to quarrel," and added to Ugartechea "Assure those gentlemen at Smiths that they shall be protected. If the like insult is offered again, tell them to shoot down the rascals but they cannot be permitted to leave town."
[NOV.] 13TH. Report of a cannon heard early this morning, and at about 10 o'clock twenty guns fired in answer to five or ten from the Mill, commenced by the Americans.
[NOV.] 14TH. Quiet. Five or six shots fired by the Americans on the Alamo. Two of them hit the fort.
[NOV.] 15TH. Sunday. I am engaged in making a plan. At 10 O'clock brisk and heavy firing going on by the Americans, not answered by Ugartechea, as was the fact yesterday. Shot as if by an experienced gunner. The fourth shot entering the fort took a soldier's leg off. One shot supposed to be aimed at the Church near this [house] in the middle of town, bit in a tree top on the bank of the river and fell into the water, one hundred yards from us or less. They whistled as if they were coming into Smith's. One hit the corner of Don Fernando Rodrigues' stone house. Today a flag flying for the first time, in the fort, and a man in it with his shin bone broke etc. Videll [Vidal] cut off his leg, borrowing Mr. Smith's saw. His operation was singular and savage; he (the man) died at sunset, killed by Videll.
[NOV.] 16TH. Sent my project to [Milam] at 9 o'clock. Firing commenced a few minutes after at the fort again and after a while at the church near us (where there is a constant lookout kept and where there is a battery etc.) The balls fired at the town fell short a hundred yards or so, one falling at the picket's cannon (No. 2) in the second street, and one knocking down a woman's hen house—dreadful! The Col. did not fire in reply. Soon on the receipt of [blank] the firing ceased altogether and nothing more today.
[NOV.] 17TH. Not a sound. The wind hardly blows. All gayety again in town. Officers riding about on their pampered and mettlesome steeds. A report circulated that a great force from Santa Anna has landed and that a considerable reinforcement will be here in three or four days.
[NOV.] 18TH. A man from the American Camp came in last night and tells some of his friends (report perhaps general) that the Americans know that Col. Ugartechea left here four or five days ago in the night with sixty men in order to bring on those four hundred or more troops that a few days ago were on the march and returned back to Laredo; that the Americans had sent a messenger and escort to hurry on Padilla and some troops under him, who are coming from Goliad in order to [make] an attack, which the Americans were determined to make before Col. Ugartechea could get here with his reinforcement. This the deponent asserts positively, viz: That the Americans are going to make an attack some night. And from the very uncommon caution observed last night for the first time (and in the afternoon) in challenging citizens as they passed Musquis' corner, and (what they never did before) making them tell what business they were upon etc., it is my opinion that some news came in during yesterday afternoon about the Americans' design of making an attack. This is the first time I heard that Col. Ugartechea had gone out of the fort.
[NOV.] 19TH. The Americans said to be erecting a battery one half [mile] this side of the mill, a little above La Garza's sugar mill. One lone gun fired (cannon); fired at the American camp at 11 or 12 o'clock at night. Nothing. No firing all day. Govr. Viesca said to have come yesterday to American Camp. He reports that Genl Mexia had taken Matamoras. There is a report that Montezuma had gained a naval victory over the Centralists.
[NOV.] 20TH. One American cannon at 11 o'clock. This day the worst norther we have had. Thermometer 42° with rain and wind. One cannon also early this morning. After dark an American came into edge of town, enquiring for Gen'l Austin's camp. He was seized by the picket guard and carried to the jail of the Plazas. Another American was seen lying drunk below town, but before the soldiers could reach him a Mexican (friend) had sent and the American on his horse made off. It is said that the dispatches just arrived bring word that the little fort on the Nueces, on the road from Goliad to Matamoras, was just taken by Americans; six cannon and a parcel of small arms and prisoners.
[NOV.] 21ST. The soldiers who came back from hunting up the drunk men were sent again. They found an American by the road-side sleeping (or drunk). He woke up and said he was their friend (in bad Spanish). However, one of the soldiers shot a ball through him, but still speaking, another shot and killed him. They then stripped him and brought his clothes & pistol and horse to town which they are offering for sale about town. He had no gun. Señor Paplo further says that it came from Yturri's house (friend to Cos) that they speak of shooting the prisoner. This a very cold, bleak, rainy day. The Americans are raising a battery or something not far from La Garza's sugar mill, one half mile this side of the Molina where Austin is. Thermometer this morning 36 1/2º.
[NOV.] 22ND. Sunday. Very cold. One hundred guns at least fired through the day; say seventy from the Alamo and a cannon placed on W. side of the river, and thirty by the Americans.
NOV. 23RD. Five cannon fired this morning from the battery of the Americans at or near the sugar mill of La Garza. The weather very cold—very unusually so as S. [Smith] says. Thermometer down to 28º after sunrise. Water in the house froze over as thick as a dinner plate. No frost out of doors by reason of the wind.
[NOV.] 24TH. Thermometer at 31º, but a little weak sunshine, now and then. The Americans were very quiet yesterday and so today. It is supposed that something is going on betwixt them and Ugartechea (at the head of the soldiers he is trying to bring in from Laredo). This whole afternoon is occupied in a far-off attack on the American dirt fort, three quarters of a mile above. Some two or three hundred discharges of muskets, now and then the crack of a rifle is heard. The Americans have two cannons there. In the midst of the firing the Americans fired two cannon at the fort (over it) and one at the church here in town. None of the officials went out. Towards night the soldiers returned—Two killed and one wounded (Mexican). The Americans in all likelihood came off untouched as the soldiers did not go within musket shot but near enough to be reached by a good rifle.
[NOV.] 25TH. Thermometer 30º. Sun shining and a fair day.
[NOV.] 26TH. Weather improving. Foraging party of Mexican soldiers etc. on the west of town (in hearing) attacked by the Americans—three killed and several wounded. Some wounded men brought in next morning report that every kindness was offered and done to them by the Americans. By their request they were left by the Americans covered up with their blankets and grass. They say that none of the Americans were hurt. The Americans took off all their pack mules (the Mexicans), say twenty or thirty.
[NOV.] 27TH. Fair day, cool. One of the soldiers of yesterday's foraging party, in running off, came by an American's horse and mounted him; be was shot through the hat. (A soldier who had taken hold of the horse a moment before had his arm broken by a rifle ball.) The same brought the horse in and to-day sold him to Smith for $46.00, horse, saddle and three pistols.
[NOV.] 28TH. Americans after the foragers this morning on the Salado, but were dodged. At 10 o'clock thermometer is at 54º—a fine day. Five or six cannon shot at the Alamo fort. Nothing done. Last night (after midnight) a great deal of musket firing from the picket guard, who reported (falsely) that they saw the Americans coming in with a great many ladders to scale the walls. Poh! No need of ladders.
[NOV.] 29TH. Mr. Cocke thinks he was shot at whilst on the ridge-pole of our (Nixon's) house [current Commerce Street, about 200 feet east of Soledad Street. G. M. M.]. Some cannon firing.
[NOV.] 30TH. Monday. Cannonading.
DEC. 1ST. Left town, Smith having promised for us that we would go soon to the United States. After leaving town cannons fired from both parties.
[DEC.] 2ND. We all go into the American camp from ranch of José Angel Navarro (Gefe Politico), ten miles below town. Great cannonading this day. Col. Mendoza has the calf of his leg shot off. Council of officers held instanter and Smith and myself urge an assault. After a great many objections being urged and answered by our offering to head the divisions etc., it is finally agreed to make the attack by taking: 1st Veramendi's; 2nd La Garza's; and 3d Cardena's houses. The command to be given to Maj. Morris; 2nd Col. Somerville; and 3d Col. Jack.
[DEC.] 4TH. This failed, on Col. Somerville and Col. Jack saying they were not ready, so when morning (the 4th) came, there was a general breaking up. Another faux pas is made: the volunteers curse the officers and 250 or 300 set off for home. All day we get more and more dejected. The Gen'l (Burleson) mustered the remaining men and begged them not all to go; but some stay and retreat with the cannon to La Bahia. A retreat seems our only recourse. The spectacle becomes appalling; but it was the deep darkness that prognosticated day. Near sunset Al Feris [Alveris?], Cornet of horse, deserts, coming in on a fine horse and with a white flag. His story is heard and corroborated. (Another deserter had just come in with dispatches from Cos to Ugartechea). Near dark and by the animating manner and untiring zeal of Col. Milam, these trivial matters are turned to account. An impulse is given and received; the men fall into ranks to see if we are strong enough. The mere fragment of the seven hundred, say two hundred & fifty, volunteer to make the attack next morning; (two thousand had from time to time been in camp.)
DEC. 5TH. Attack made, myself [as guide] going with Col. Milam at the head of the right division. Johnson commanded the left.
DEC. 10TH. White flag of surrender sent us.
DEC. 31ST, 1835 & JAN. 1ST, 1836 Men set out for La Bahia to rendezvous for an attack on Matamoras.
It is unfortunate that my grandfather's journal breaks off in this most exciting place, just when his own part in the storming of San Antonio became most important. Doubtless he was too busy fighting to make journal entries, and merely gives the date of Cos's capitulation—the white flag and nothing more. We wish that he had taken the time shortly afterwards to write a brief account of his own part in the storming, but have never found such a description. We do know that when General Cos raised the white flag, Maverick went with Burleson, Johnson, Swisher, and some others across the river and received the surrender in the Nueva Villita. The articles of capitulation were signed in the "Cos House" on what is now Villita Street. I have often thought that the "plan" my grandfather sent to Austin—since he had lived in the city and was observant—advised the attack from thick-walled house to house, just as it was carried out.
Forty years later Sidney Lanier visited San Antonio and wrote an account of the city, based on his own observations and his talks with early settlers. His aricle "San Antonio de Bexar," published in Southern Magazine in 1873, was reprinted in William Corner's San Antonio de Bexar, from which the following account of the storming of the city is taken:
It is whispered the town will be stormed. On the 3rd of December, Smith, Holmes, and Maverick escape [Maverick's journal entry for December 1 makes it clear that they left the city with the permission of the Mexican officers; Lanier's use of the term "escape" is apparently based on misunderstanding.] from San Antonio, and give the Texan commander such information as apparently determines him to storm. Volunteers are called for to attack early next morning; all day and all night of that December 3rd the men make themselves ready, and long for the moment to advance; when here comes word from the General's quarters that the attack is put off! Chagrin and indignation prevail on all sides. On the morning of the 4th there is open disobedience of orders; whole companies refuse to parade. Finally, when on the same afternoon orders are issued to abandon camp and march for La Bahia at seven o'clock, the tumult is terrible, and it seems likely that these wild energetic souls, failing the Mexicans, will end by exterminating each other.
Midst of the confusion here arrives Mexican Lieutenant Vuavis, a deserter, and declares that the projected attack is not known (as had been assigned for reason of postponing), and that the garrison in town is in as bad order and discontent as the besiegers. At this critical moment a brave man suddenly crystallised the loose mass of discordant men and opinions into one compact force and one keen purpose. It is late in the morning, Col. Benjamin R. Milam steps forth among the men, and cried aloud: "Who will go with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?" [John Henry Brown quotes Milam as saying, "Who will follow Ben Milam into San Antonio—let all who will form a line right here." This seems more likely than "old" Ben Milam, since he was only forty-five in 1835. R.M.G.] Three hundred and one men will go.
A little before daylight on the 5th they "go," General Burleson agreeing to hold his position until he hears from them. Milam marches into and along Acequia Street with his party; Johnson with his along Soledad Street. Where these debouch into the Main Plaza, Cos has thrown up breastworks and placed raking batteries. The columns march parallel along the quiet streets. Presently, as Johnson gets near the Veramendi House (which he is to occupy, while Milam is to gain De la Garza's house), a Mexican sentinel fires. Deaf Smith shoots the sentinel. The Mexicans prick up their ears, prick into their cannon-cartridges; the Plaza batteries open, the Alamo batteries join in; spade, crowbar, rifle, escopet, all are plied, and the storming of Bexar is begun.
But it would take many such papers as this to give even meagre details of all the battles that have been fought in and around San Antonio, and one must pass over the four days of this thrilling conflict with briefest mention. It is novel fighting; warfare intramural, one might say. The Texans advance inch by inch by piercing through the stone walls of the houses, pecking loop-holes with crowbars for their rifles as they gain each room, picking off the enemy from his housetops, from around his cannon, even from behind his own loop-holes. On the night of the 5th with great trouble and risk the two columns succeed in opening communication with each other. On the 6th they advance a little beyond the Garza house. On the 7th brave Karnes steps forth with a crowbar and breaks into a house midway between the Garza house and the Plaza; brave Milam is stricken by a rifle ball just as he is entering the yard of the Veramendi house and falls instantly dead; and the Navarro house, one block from the Main Plaza, is gained. On the 8th they take the "Zambrano Row" of buildings, driving the enemy from it room by room; the enemy endeavor to produce a diversion with fifty men, and do, in a sense, for Burleson finds some diversion in driving them back precipitately with a six-pounder; at night those in the Zambrano Row are reinforced, and the "Priest's House" is gained amid heavy fighting.
This last is the stroke of grace. The Priest's House commands the Plaza. Early on the morning of the 9th General Cos sends a flag of truce, asking to surrender, and on the 10th agrees with Gen. Burleson upon formal and honorable articles of
capitulation.
Samuel Augustus Maverick took ship and arrived at the settlement of Velasco on the Texas coast in 1835. In exploring the country roundabout he contracted a bad case of malaria. His friends advised him to go to San Antonio in the interior, which being higher was considered much more healthful than the coast regions. San Antonio was then the center of much interest and activity for the whole country. As soon as he was able to do so, he made the trip on horseback via Gonzales, arriving in San Antonio September 8, 1835, a few weeks before the outbreak of the Texas Revolution. He was just thirty-two years old. His fever left him, and he was struck with delight at the beauty of the little Spanish-Mexican town.
We can imagine the scene before him with the clear winding river lined with cypresses, and the irrigation ditches of that day—the attractive simple stone and adobe buildings, flat-roofed, with thick walls, built about the open plazas; the more ambitious Cathedral and handsome mission churches built by the Franciscans in the eighteenth century, alternating on each side of the river below the villa, and showing up in the distance.
The Mexican people with their pleasant manners and customs added much to the picturesque scene. Here was a little foreign town quite different from anything Maverick had ever seen. He was a keen observer and as he walked about he made note of the streets, plazas, and safe river crossings—information which helped greatly when he later acted as guide for Colonel Milam into the city.
Maverick roomed at the home of John W. Smith. He entered into the life of the place, attended mass at the Cathedral with the soldiers, and heard the military band. A companion mentioned in his journal, a Mr. Anderson, told about the Comanche Indian raids—proving that life was not all idyllic in San Antonio.
Doubtless too he heard much of the general dissatisfaction of the Anglo-Americans in the various settlements scattered over Texas, especially the group headed by John A. Wharton of Brazoria who advocated calling a convention of elected delegates to secure "peace if it is to be secured on constitutional terms, and to prepare for war if war be inevitable."
He learned that even Stephen F. Austin, the great "impressario," had lost patience with existing conditions: the difficulty of transacting state business in the distant capital of Saltillo, the regulations controlling immigration, and the changeable Mexican government itself. Austin's imprisonment in Mexico, after years of careful law enforcement and loyalty to Mexico in his colonization efforts, must have opened his eyes to the hopelessness of continuing to hold Texas as a territory or state of such a government. Finally, when the citizens of Gonzales called Austin to command their forces in the attack on General Perfecto de Cos, in command of Mexican forces in San Antonio, he consented to lead them in the siege.
General Cos, who was a brother-in-law of Santa Ana, arrived in San Antonio October 8. At this time a guard was placed at Smith's doors, thus making prisoners of Maverick, Smith, and Cox. Forces of Anglo-Americans under Austin, Burleson, Bowie, and others were gathering outside the town, and from time to time skirmishes took place between them and the Mexican soldiers. Through the help of a bright and dependable Mexican boy, Maverick exchanged messages with the various American leaders. Smith and Maverick were released, on Smith's promising the Mexican authorities that they would soon return to the United States, and they joined the Texan forces at their camp ten miles below San Antonio.
We children were told by my father and grandmother that on reaching the main Texan force our grandfather stepped upon a tree stump and addresed the men gathered about. (He was not tall, lacking more than an inch of six feet.) He encouraged the troops to storm the town, gave them the number of the enemy forces, assured them that the Mexican soldiers were poor shots—usually aiming too high—and offered to guide them into the city. At this point Milam called for volunteers and some 250 men fell into ranks and "volunteered to make the attack next morning":
When Ben R. Milam led a division of the Texas troops into San Antonio, December 5th, he [Maverick] acted as guide to the troops moving down Soledad; being familiar with the streets and alleys he was able and did render great service to the troops. It was he who caught the body of Milam, shot by a [Mexican] sharpshooter, in the court of the Veramendi house. [Frederick C. Chabot, The Mavericks, p. 3. Ben Milam was born in Kentucky in 1790, served in the War of 1812, winning the admiration of his comrades, and later removed to the headwaters of the Colorado in Texas, according to the account by John Henry Brown in his Indian Wars. Milam joined Long's expedition to Mexico and, after Long's assassination, he and his companions were put in prison, and finally freed through the efforts of Joel R. Poinsett, the United States Commissioner of Observation in Mexico. Milam was granted land on Red River, Texas, where he remained three or four years. Appealed to by neighbors to examine into the Texas-Mexico boundary, he rode to Monclova, Mexico, via San Antonio, was imprisioned owing to the revolution in Mexico, escaped, and after hardships arrived at Goliad (seventy-five miles south of San Antonio) at the moment that Captain George M. Collinsworth and his party were about to attack the Mexican stronghold, a thick-walled Church-fortress. Here, according to Chabot's account, "the Americans, under Capt. Collinsworth captured Goliad on the 8th, when Milam, just arrived from Mexico 'acted a distinguished part.'" (The Alamo, Altar of Texas Liberty, pp. 28-29.)
The cannon of the Mexican army commanded the approaches of Soledad and Acequia (now Main) Streets. The Americans, resourceful, and acting on information given, made us of any makeshift tools they could procure to force their way through the stone walls of the houses bordering these streets.
Then followed one of the grimmest and hardest fought combats ever waged around San Antonio, the scene of many battles, including the Alamo in the following year. The tragic end of their courageous leader Col. Ben Milam was such a blow that as far as possible the truth was kept from his followers and from the Mexican forces also, and Johnston quietly took command.
Maverick later pointed out to his son the scene of the fighting:
Once, standing near the Veramendi House he told me, ""There [at S. E. corner of Veramendi house] Ben Milam was shot—as he staggered back I caught him in my arms." He pointed backwards to a spot in Veramendi Street, "There during the fight I helped to cut off a man's shattered leg, and we saved his life." [Letter dated 1893 from George M. Maverick to Frank W. Hackett, of Washington, D. C. The man whose life was saved was Col. William A. Ward, known as "Pegleg" Ward, second commissioner of the General Land Office under the Republic of Texas, Commissioner during the "Archive War." (Information supplied by Charles W. Ramsdell.)]
The first journal of Samuel A. Maverick tells of his coming to Texas in 1835 and describes the siege of San Antonio. The journals were given to Maverick's dauighter, Mary Brown Maverick Terrell, and were copied in 1879 by her husband, Edwin H. Terrell, because the paper was poor and the ink was fading. The journals are here printed from these copies, which were given to me in 1948 by George Terrell and Lewis Terrell of Seattle, the sons of Edwin and Mary Terrell.
Journal
SEPT. 5TH. Leave Gonzales for Bexar, 6 miles to Judge Williams. [blank] m. to [blank], 49 m. to Cibolo, 22 m. to Salado Cr.; 5 (m) to Bejar (76 miles from Gonzales to Bejar). Arrived on 8th Sept.
SEPT. 16TH. Grand Independence Celebration. (Paid Smith to 23rd, owe from 24th). Mr. Anderson's account of the Comanches.
OCT. 8TH. Messrs Smith & Anderson return from Gonzales with the final resolution of the people & Ayuntamiento that they will not give up the cannon. Col. Ugartechea had first sent 4 or 5 soldiers and wagons; 2nd, 100 men under Lieut. Castinada; and 3d, set out himself at head of all his effectives, at the moment of Anderson's going, but returned. People collecting in at Gonzales. This day (8th) arrived Genl Perfecto de Cos and also Ugartechea's family from Monterey. [Genl Coml. Bexar—Perfecto de Cos. Domingo de Ugartechea, Col. Com. Cav'y.]
OCT. 11TH. Sunday. Attend grand mass with the soldiers with military music, &c, and hear that La Bahia was surprised and taken yesterday (10th) at break of day by about 60 Americans. One killed and one or two wounded of the Mexicans.
OCT. 12TH. Great flurry and excitement by arrival of Mex. spies reporting that great crowds of Americans were on the road coming. This moment commence to mount cannon, pressing into the service Smith and other citizens (3 cannons already mounted; 2 now being mounted.)
OCT. 15TH. Appointed for the meeting of the Convention. Americans on the march from Gonzales.
OCT. 17TH. Arrival of courier with dispatches from [blank]. (12th. Timbers &c. taken to El Alamo to fortify the quartel, & begin, on 13th, to blockade the streets, which is finished by the 17th.) 16th. Smith's doors guarded, and Col. Ugartechea's.
OCT. 17TH. Arrival of Pedro Flores, as courier, with news that S. F. Austin is General of American forces. Dispatches from Gen'l Austin to Gen'l de Cos. Reports that 800 Americans are stationed at Cibolo and 500 more expected instanter. Reports that Sandoval, Comd't at La Bahia and company carried prisoners to San Felipe. (Ugartechea had this day gone out with 100 men to the Cibolo, and confronted the advance body, who having alighted & cooked, U. turned back.)
13th was the day on which the military broke the figure of San Antonio, and on the 14th the comet was seen in the west 45° above the horizon, its train reaching 1/4 over the visable firmament.
OCT. 18TH. Courier with communications from Cos to Austin, and my note to Austin. On 17th, finished mounting one cannon (had before only 3). All the powder &c. taken to the Church 3 or 4 days ago. Forces are divided here; part in the quartel (of the infantry) in Presidio on W. side of the rio, and the whole troop on E. side in their quartel in Alamo 300 cavalry and 2 [200] Infantry. (The actual number, officers, soldiers, guards etc. of Effectives is 647)
OCT. 19TH. Cos had written to Austin that if he would send his men all home & then send or come with 2 or 3, be would be disposed to hear him. This day Austin sent a mere verbal message by Pedro that he had not come to treat but to fight; and if he (Cos) would not meet him outside he would attack him inside of the town. De Cos's observation to the servant was "I want no more communications. Let the damn rascals come." His letter to Austin had on 18th been read aloud at the beat of the drum at the four corners of the public square.
OCT. 20TH. Great flurry this morning on account of a report that the Americans are at the Salado (5 miles). House tops covered with sentinels &c., but soon over. Suppose the report is a false one. The Mexican spies report that some 20 of them attacked 3 on Salado; got a rifle and blanket but did not kill the Americans.
[OCT.] 21ST. Bowie sent his compliments to the town. [Note: B. had married a daughter of Gov. Veramendi and had formerly lived in the City, E.H.T.]
[OCT.] 22ND. Reports that Rodriguez and 50 soldiers are absent and suppose [they are] gone over. Padillo is with Austin. This afternoon is the first rencontre. 12 or 15 shots discharged. 3 come in shot—one through the head, one wounded and one his gun broken. This night arrival from Rio Grande of a cavallardo and about 48 soldiers.
[OCT.] 23RD. Eleven soldiers came in from Rio Grande. Soldiers all in motion, and go out but nothing done. At night there was some shooting.
[OCT.] 24TH. 41 more soldiers arrived. There appears to have been a small engagement today at about 9 o'clock on the Salado. At 10 Infantry come in with one man wounded (shot through the head). We heard at least 100 reports. Another report has it that there were some soldiers wounded in an engagement at the 2nd Mission (San Jose), which took place this morning. 24th, Saturday. No fighting, word sent.
[OCT.] 25TH. Letter rec'd from [Austin] saying that the reason Bejar was not at once taken is because the colonists would disperse before all now on the march to this Place would be able to reach it. 4 or 5 hundred are coming besides those already come. Genl Houston had arrived with part of the Nacog[doches] troops. Mexer [Mexia] & Zavalla are on the move in Texas. The great object is, when all the fighting men are brought together, to concert measures for giving general, united & effective support to the Constitution of 1824, and to put down Centralism.
It is expected that a resolution will be taken by all or most to march on to Matamoras, and from thence to any quarter thought to be best. It is expected (says Gen'l A.) that Mexir [Mexia] will raise troops to march into the interior. [He adds that] Cos might put an end to all this by pronouncing, or leaving the people of Bejar free to do so (in favor of the Constitution). Word also comes to confirm the report of Friday's skirmishing, and it appears that some 3 or 4 were left dead for the Americans to inter.
[OCT.] 26TH. Nothing. An 18 pounder just mounted. Was carried by to the Alamo, and raised to the top of the church; besides this, they have 10 (smaller) cannons mounted—5 in Presidio, of which 4 are in the Plaza and 1 in front of the church, and 7 [in] the Alamo, of which one, the 18 pounder, is on the top of the old church of San Antonio [de Valero]. It appears that Bowie and the American party lately at the Mission of San Juan (3rd one) have gone back to the Headquarters at the Salado.
[OCT.] 27TH. Tuesday. Mexican infantry go out this morning. At 7 1/2 o'clock firing commenced, which continued nearly 2 hours (at the first Mission—Concepcion). 2 or 3 messengers then came in on a strain & they carry out 2 mules loaded with ammunition. Soon after 9 rounds of artillery are heard and brisk firing for 20 or 30 minutes.
[OCT.] 28TH. It appears from what is come out that the Mexicans had every one of their artillery men shot down & most of them killed, and both of the cannons they carried out taken from them. They left 23 dead on the ground. Out of 12 officers only one came off without a wound. They brought 42 wounded men off. 4 died on the way coming; on this morning (28th) it appears certain that 15 of these have died.
[OCT.] 28TH. Fifteen Mexican infantry out of the 42 wounded brought in are, this morning, dead; besides this havoc of the infantry, artillery-men etc. there were some of the cavalry killed. It is probable that more than 42 were brought off wounded for they [Mexicans] reported 8 (only) left dead [on the field], whereas the Padre, (who went with 10 men at the request of Austin to Gen'l Cos) reports 23 dead [on the field] and some dying in the American Camp. There must be at least 80 put past duty. The old Padre reports but one man as being touched, and he only wounded in a tender part
In the afternoon of yesterday some cavalry went towards the Mission and being hemmed in where the river was not fordable they quit their horses and swam the stream and thus saved their lives. The party of Americans were at first only 50 men, who were looking out a good camping place. As the action went on, they were increased until they were about 200 strong. The main body still remained with Austin on the Salado. They considered this as a mere scouting frolic, whereas it was an almost breaking up business for the Central party. The Mexican force was much more numerous than the American, and their infantry the best soldiers in the Republic (of the Mexican breed).
[OCT.] 29TH. Several deaths. In the afternoon a large reinforcement; 2 or 3 hundred, coming to the American army came almost into the town (suppose by mistake) and then turned off.
OCT. 30TH. A party of 3 or 4 hundred, with Bowie, came up on this side of the river near to town. The banter not being accepted, after staying till evening, they went down again.
[OCT.] 31ST. No mass. Two soldiers missing; either killed in the course of the firing today up the river, or possibly deserted. Some more cannons mounted here and great activity to secure the place.
NOV. 1ST. (Sunday) All Saints' Day; a great occasion with the Catholics. 8 o'clock this morning a division of the Fedl. force is seen 1 or 1 1/2 miles from the Alamo (north). They fired three times at Ugartechea's fort which salute is returned by two shots. Nothing more done—too far off.
NOV. 2ND. This is the people's day—for common people's souls to go to Heaven. Yesterday the Padre was sent by Gen'l Cos to say to Austin that they had better disperse and make their representations peaceably to the Government, and he would pledge himself they would be attended to. Austin returned the Padre with the word that he did not come to make representations; he would have a fight and if Cos would not come out he would go into the town. He sent word that the alternatives he [Cos] had were either to abandon the place or stay and fight.
He sent Cos word that he had extensive resources of men and money and that Mexir [Mexia] was gone to take Matamoras. When the Padre told Cos this he said it was a lie; they had not the resources spoken of &c. and that they might come on for they were not able to move him and he would stay in town.
Austin and his chief division are 1 1/2 miles above town, at the upper mill place. The rest below town on both sides of the river. Nothing done today—2nd—but a little firing at long distances (and without effect) at the picket guards of the Mexicans at the edge of La Villita about the ditch.
[NOV.] 3RD. The division of the Americans below town are said to be gone off this morning; where gone is not known.
The army above are still there. The Mexicans have gone on with their work of defense briskly. ———Cannons now mounted. The place could much easier have been taken with 200men after the affair of Gonzales than it can now with 1500 men.
The quartel in the Alamo is very strongly fortified, and the streets to the plaza here well guarded; and all trees, grass, fences and other lurking places and barricades removed and being removed in order to see the Americans when they come up. This night (of 3d November) some hundred or more guns fired in the Alamo, among which is heard a number of rifles. This turns out to be a party of Americans examining the premises and meeting the picket guard. A firing is carried on from behind a couple of houses. One Mexican is killed. While this is going on 1/2 doz. rounds are given and received by the Col. & the Americans N. of the fort.
[NOV.] 4TH. Redoubled exertions today in fortifying and clearing away hereabouts and mounting cannons. Ugartechea fires two guns off this morning, without getting an answer. A note had come yesterday from S. Jr. [thought to refer to Juan Seguin], saying that tonight (of 4th) a general attack is contemplated. A report is abroad among the citizens that the Americans are quarreling, and particularly Austin and Bowie. This evening at 7 o'clock the Mex. guards, whilst passing in the vicinity of the grave yard received a couple of shots and came in. No mass.
[NOV.] 5TH. From the effect of a number of little reports, stories and conjectures, our house is in great dejection this morning; have been drooping some days. I still have confidence. Ugartechea fires some cannon.
[NOV.] 6TH. Ugartechea fires his cannon, and there is another taken by Candalia (Ar't'y Col.), a little out of town on this side above and fired several times, but not very near the Amens., though towards them. Very cheering accounts come this afternoon of an addition of 4 or 5 hundred more men with some cannons and plenty of provisions and other supplies. A great fog this morning, arising by evaporation from the river (spring water). Thermometer at 7 A.M. in shade out of doors is at 49°. Yesterday at about same hour a norther blew up, bringing the thermometer down 20°, from 75° to 55°. About a week past we experienced the first norther this fall.
[NOV.] 7TH. Note from Austin in general terms. All the Americans are at the upper Molina [Later the site of the Drought home at 9th Street, San Antonio] General Mexir [Mexia] has sailed from New Orleans to Matamoras or Tampico with a great force etc.
[NOV.] 8TH. (Sunday) Afternoon. A spying party of Americans said to be seen west of town a mile out. Capt. Barragan and some cavalry give them chase. They forced the Americans to seek safety in a gully. They took 6 horses, two frock coats and two hats, on which account the church bell was rung in joy. This evening the Gen'l fired off some signal rockets which threw things into a little helter skelter and turned out a false alarm.
NOV. 9TH. Reported that a considerable number of men more have joined the American force. Also reported that 4 or 5 hundred soldiers are coming on to Cos from Laredo (having some reluctant Mexicans as prisoners). The Americans are keeping a good lookout for this reinforcement of the Federal Army.
[NOV.] 10TH. The Federal Army (of Austin & Co.) have from time to time been receiving cannon. just heard they received yesterday one requiring six yoke (of oxen) to haul. Suppose an 18 pounder. Col. T. J. Rusk sent me his name by Peter.
[NOV.] 11TH. Wrote a few lines to Rusk this moming and sent by P., evening. Holmes received a few lines from Wm. Austin and I a sibylline leaf. He writes that they are 900 strong. Some who were obliged have gone home. New forces immediately expected. Some from New Orleans certainly on the way; have seven cannon. Two hours after dark an alarm, and in about twenty minutes four or five hundred muskets discharged and three cannon. Two guns being fired close to Smith's, Cap't Solis with (Mendoza) four soldiers and some at the door entered the house where we were sitting. In his lingo he demanded who shot off the guns and why?, and in a very menacing, hurried manner ordered his men, who at the word formed in a good position, cocking their muskets, and held them at a present (with bayonets). Smith (J.W.) and the women denied that we did it. He asserted and the women again earnestly protested. He then pushed into the yard, still furious and in calling out it so happened that he was heard by Vedall [Alejandro Vidal] who owned that he had shot his guns, saying he shot at some of the Americans on the point, on the opposite side of the river. This was a lie, but being a faithful damned dog no more was said. The Capt. tried to excuse himself and the affair ended. (He had said he was shot at as he heard the balls whiz by him; this a lie.) Vedall answered at the second call. If he had declined answering at all, they would have been fully convinced it was we, and certainly if a soldier would have said this or these men fire[d] (or with arms) they would have shot us instantly. It was certainly a fine specimen of Centralism. I did not at the time think they would fire. It occurred to me that he demanded to know if any from the American Camp had got into our premises. I knew none had and felt that his was an idle bravado and that we were safe. On a full explanation, however, I saw we were very near being shot through a mistake. Dm such a government.
[NOV.] 12TH. Col. Ugartechea, who is a well-meaning gentleman, being told what occurred last night, was much concerned. We demanded again leave to go out of town. He went to the General [Cos] and two hours [after] returned. He reports that the General can't suffer us to go out of his custody; but they promise ample protection and Ugartechea closed by requesting us to shoot such fellows if they should do such a thing again. This is kind assurance of & Gen'l and Colonel, but is impracticable and useless. It seems that Ugartechea had the Captain brought up; that Candalia, the Lt. Col. of Infantry, defended his capitan. He undertook to quarrel with the Col. (Ugartechea) when the Gen'l told them to stop: "The times don't allow brother officers to quarrel," and added to Ugartechea "Assure those gentlemen at Smiths that they shall be protected. If the like insult is offered again, tell them to shoot down the rascals but they cannot be permitted to leave town."
[NOV.] 13TH. Report of a cannon heard early this morning, and at about 10 o'clock twenty guns fired in answer to five or ten from the Mill, commenced by the Americans.
[NOV.] 14TH. Quiet. Five or six shots fired by the Americans on the Alamo. Two of them hit the fort.
[NOV.] 15TH. Sunday. I am engaged in making a plan. At 10 O'clock brisk and heavy firing going on by the Americans, not answered by Ugartechea, as was the fact yesterday. Shot as if by an experienced gunner. The fourth shot entering the fort took a soldier's leg off. One shot supposed to be aimed at the Church near this [house] in the middle of town, bit in a tree top on the bank of the river and fell into the water, one hundred yards from us or less. They whistled as if they were coming into Smith's. One hit the corner of Don Fernando Rodrigues' stone house. Today a flag flying for the first time, in the fort, and a man in it with his shin bone broke etc. Videll [Vidal] cut off his leg, borrowing Mr. Smith's saw. His operation was singular and savage; he (the man) died at sunset, killed by Videll.
[NOV.] 16TH. Sent my project to [Milam] at 9 o'clock. Firing commenced a few minutes after at the fort again and after a while at the church near us (where there is a constant lookout kept and where there is a battery etc.) The balls fired at the town fell short a hundred yards or so, one falling at the picket's cannon (No. 2) in the second street, and one knocking down a woman's hen house—dreadful! The Col. did not fire in reply. Soon on the receipt of [blank] the firing ceased altogether and nothing more today.
[NOV.] 17TH. Not a sound. The wind hardly blows. All gayety again in town. Officers riding about on their pampered and mettlesome steeds. A report circulated that a great force from Santa Anna has landed and that a considerable reinforcement will be here in three or four days.
[NOV.] 18TH. A man from the American Camp came in last night and tells some of his friends (report perhaps general) that the Americans know that Col. Ugartechea left here four or five days ago in the night with sixty men in order to bring on those four hundred or more troops that a few days ago were on the march and returned back to Laredo; that the Americans had sent a messenger and escort to hurry on Padilla and some troops under him, who are coming from Goliad in order to [make] an attack, which the Americans were determined to make before Col. Ugartechea could get here with his reinforcement. This the deponent asserts positively, viz: That the Americans are going to make an attack some night. And from the very uncommon caution observed last night for the first time (and in the afternoon) in challenging citizens as they passed Musquis' corner, and (what they never did before) making them tell what business they were upon etc., it is my opinion that some news came in during yesterday afternoon about the Americans' design of making an attack. This is the first time I heard that Col. Ugartechea had gone out of the fort.
[NOV.] 19TH. The Americans said to be erecting a battery one half [mile] this side of the mill, a little above La Garza's sugar mill. One lone gun fired (cannon); fired at the American camp at 11 or 12 o'clock at night. Nothing. No firing all day. Govr. Viesca said to have come yesterday to American Camp. He reports that Genl Mexia had taken Matamoras. There is a report that Montezuma had gained a naval victory over the Centralists.
[NOV.] 20TH. One American cannon at 11 o'clock. This day the worst norther we have had. Thermometer 42° with rain and wind. One cannon also early this morning. After dark an American came into edge of town, enquiring for Gen'l Austin's camp. He was seized by the picket guard and carried to the jail of the Plazas. Another American was seen lying drunk below town, but before the soldiers could reach him a Mexican (friend) had sent and the American on his horse made off. It is said that the dispatches just arrived bring word that the little fort on the Nueces, on the road from Goliad to Matamoras, was just taken by Americans; six cannon and a parcel of small arms and prisoners.
[NOV.] 21ST. The soldiers who came back from hunting up the drunk men were sent again. They found an American by the road-side sleeping (or drunk). He woke up and said he was their friend (in bad Spanish). However, one of the soldiers shot a ball through him, but still speaking, another shot and killed him. They then stripped him and brought his clothes & pistol and horse to town which they are offering for sale about town. He had no gun. Señor Paplo further says that it came from Yturri's house (friend to Cos) that they speak of shooting the prisoner. This a very cold, bleak, rainy day. The Americans are raising a battery or something not far from La Garza's sugar mill, one half mile this side of the Molina where Austin is. Thermometer this morning 36 1/2º.
[NOV.] 22ND. Sunday. Very cold. One hundred guns at least fired through the day; say seventy from the Alamo and a cannon placed on W. side of the river, and thirty by the Americans.
NOV. 23RD. Five cannon fired this morning from the battery of the Americans at or near the sugar mill of La Garza. The weather very cold—very unusually so as S. [Smith] says. Thermometer down to 28º after sunrise. Water in the house froze over as thick as a dinner plate. No frost out of doors by reason of the wind.
[NOV.] 24TH. Thermometer at 31º, but a little weak sunshine, now and then. The Americans were very quiet yesterday and so today. It is supposed that something is going on betwixt them and Ugartechea (at the head of the soldiers he is trying to bring in from Laredo). This whole afternoon is occupied in a far-off attack on the American dirt fort, three quarters of a mile above. Some two or three hundred discharges of muskets, now and then the crack of a rifle is heard. The Americans have two cannons there. In the midst of the firing the Americans fired two cannon at the fort (over it) and one at the church here in town. None of the officials went out. Towards night the soldiers returned—Two killed and one wounded (Mexican). The Americans in all likelihood came off untouched as the soldiers did not go within musket shot but near enough to be reached by a good rifle.
[NOV.] 25TH. Thermometer 30º. Sun shining and a fair day.
[NOV.] 26TH. Weather improving. Foraging party of Mexican soldiers etc. on the west of town (in hearing) attacked by the Americans—three killed and several wounded. Some wounded men brought in next morning report that every kindness was offered and done to them by the Americans. By their request they were left by the Americans covered up with their blankets and grass. They say that none of the Americans were hurt. The Americans took off all their pack mules (the Mexicans), say twenty or thirty.
[NOV.] 27TH. Fair day, cool. One of the soldiers of yesterday's foraging party, in running off, came by an American's horse and mounted him; be was shot through the hat. (A soldier who had taken hold of the horse a moment before had his arm broken by a rifle ball.) The same brought the horse in and to-day sold him to Smith for $46.00, horse, saddle and three pistols.
[NOV.] 28TH. Americans after the foragers this morning on the Salado, but were dodged. At 10 o'clock thermometer is at 54º—a fine day. Five or six cannon shot at the Alamo fort. Nothing done. Last night (after midnight) a great deal of musket firing from the picket guard, who reported (falsely) that they saw the Americans coming in with a great many ladders to scale the walls. Poh! No need of ladders.
[NOV.] 29TH. Mr. Cocke thinks he was shot at whilst on the ridge-pole of our (Nixon's) house [current Commerce Street, about 200 feet east of Soledad Street. G. M. M.]. Some cannon firing.
[NOV.] 30TH. Monday. Cannonading.
DEC. 1ST. Left town, Smith having promised for us that we would go soon to the United States. After leaving town cannons fired from both parties.
[DEC.] 2ND. We all go into the American camp from ranch of José Angel Navarro (Gefe Politico), ten miles below town. Great cannonading this day. Col. Mendoza has the calf of his leg shot off. Council of officers held instanter and Smith and myself urge an assault. After a great many objections being urged and answered by our offering to head the divisions etc., it is finally agreed to make the attack by taking: 1st Veramendi's; 2nd La Garza's; and 3d Cardena's houses. The command to be given to Maj. Morris; 2nd Col. Somerville; and 3d Col. Jack.
[DEC.] 4TH. This failed, on Col. Somerville and Col. Jack saying they were not ready, so when morning (the 4th) came, there was a general breaking up. Another faux pas is made: the volunteers curse the officers and 250 or 300 set off for home. All day we get more and more dejected. The Gen'l (Burleson) mustered the remaining men and begged them not all to go; but some stay and retreat with the cannon to La Bahia. A retreat seems our only recourse. The spectacle becomes appalling; but it was the deep darkness that prognosticated day. Near sunset Al Feris [Alveris?], Cornet of horse, deserts, coming in on a fine horse and with a white flag. His story is heard and corroborated. (Another deserter had just come in with dispatches from Cos to Ugartechea). Near dark and by the animating manner and untiring zeal of Col. Milam, these trivial matters are turned to account. An impulse is given and received; the men fall into ranks to see if we are strong enough. The mere fragment of the seven hundred, say two hundred & fifty, volunteer to make the attack next morning; (two thousand had from time to time been in camp.)
DEC. 5TH. Attack made, myself [as guide] going with Col. Milam at the head of the right division. Johnson commanded the left.
DEC. 10TH. White flag of surrender sent us.
DEC. 31ST, 1835 & JAN. 1ST, 1836 Men set out for La Bahia to rendezvous for an attack on Matamoras.
It is unfortunate that my grandfather's journal breaks off in this most exciting place, just when his own part in the storming of San Antonio became most important. Doubtless he was too busy fighting to make journal entries, and merely gives the date of Cos's capitulation—the white flag and nothing more. We wish that he had taken the time shortly afterwards to write a brief account of his own part in the storming, but have never found such a description. We do know that when General Cos raised the white flag, Maverick went with Burleson, Johnson, Swisher, and some others across the river and received the surrender in the Nueva Villita. The articles of capitulation were signed in the "Cos House" on what is now Villita Street. I have often thought that the "plan" my grandfather sent to Austin—since he had lived in the city and was observant—advised the attack from thick-walled house to house, just as it was carried out.
Forty years later Sidney Lanier visited San Antonio and wrote an account of the city, based on his own observations and his talks with early settlers. His aricle "San Antonio de Bexar," published in Southern Magazine in 1873, was reprinted in William Corner's San Antonio de Bexar, from which the following account of the storming of the city is taken:
It is whispered the town will be stormed. On the 3rd of December, Smith, Holmes, and Maverick escape [Maverick's journal entry for December 1 makes it clear that they left the city with the permission of the Mexican officers; Lanier's use of the term "escape" is apparently based on misunderstanding.] from San Antonio, and give the Texan commander such information as apparently determines him to storm. Volunteers are called for to attack early next morning; all day and all night of that December 3rd the men make themselves ready, and long for the moment to advance; when here comes word from the General's quarters that the attack is put off! Chagrin and indignation prevail on all sides. On the morning of the 4th there is open disobedience of orders; whole companies refuse to parade. Finally, when on the same afternoon orders are issued to abandon camp and march for La Bahia at seven o'clock, the tumult is terrible, and it seems likely that these wild energetic souls, failing the Mexicans, will end by exterminating each other.
Midst of the confusion here arrives Mexican Lieutenant Vuavis, a deserter, and declares that the projected attack is not known (as had been assigned for reason of postponing), and that the garrison in town is in as bad order and discontent as the besiegers. At this critical moment a brave man suddenly crystallised the loose mass of discordant men and opinions into one compact force and one keen purpose. It is late in the morning, Col. Benjamin R. Milam steps forth among the men, and cried aloud: "Who will go with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?" [John Henry Brown quotes Milam as saying, "Who will follow Ben Milam into San Antonio—let all who will form a line right here." This seems more likely than "old" Ben Milam, since he was only forty-five in 1835. R.M.G.] Three hundred and one men will go.
A little before daylight on the 5th they "go," General Burleson agreeing to hold his position until he hears from them. Milam marches into and along Acequia Street with his party; Johnson with his along Soledad Street. Where these debouch into the Main Plaza, Cos has thrown up breastworks and placed raking batteries. The columns march parallel along the quiet streets. Presently, as Johnson gets near the Veramendi House (which he is to occupy, while Milam is to gain De la Garza's house), a Mexican sentinel fires. Deaf Smith shoots the sentinel. The Mexicans prick up their ears, prick into their cannon-cartridges; the Plaza batteries open, the Alamo batteries join in; spade, crowbar, rifle, escopet, all are plied, and the storming of Bexar is begun.
But it would take many such papers as this to give even meagre details of all the battles that have been fought in and around San Antonio, and one must pass over the four days of this thrilling conflict with briefest mention. It is novel fighting; warfare intramural, one might say. The Texans advance inch by inch by piercing through the stone walls of the houses, pecking loop-holes with crowbars for their rifles as they gain each room, picking off the enemy from his housetops, from around his cannon, even from behind his own loop-holes. On the night of the 5th with great trouble and risk the two columns succeed in opening communication with each other. On the 6th they advance a little beyond the Garza house. On the 7th brave Karnes steps forth with a crowbar and breaks into a house midway between the Garza house and the Plaza; brave Milam is stricken by a rifle ball just as he is entering the yard of the Veramendi house and falls instantly dead; and the Navarro house, one block from the Main Plaza, is gained. On the 8th they take the "Zambrano Row" of buildings, driving the enemy from it room by room; the enemy endeavor to produce a diversion with fifty men, and do, in a sense, for Burleson finds some diversion in driving them back precipitately with a six-pounder; at night those in the Zambrano Row are reinforced, and the "Priest's House" is gained amid heavy fighting.
This last is the stroke of grace. The Priest's House commands the Plaza. Early on the morning of the 9th General Cos sends a flag of truce, asking to surrender, and on the 10th agrees with Gen. Burleson upon formal and honorable articles of
capitulation.
Earliest known post-battle view of the Alamo, by Mary A. MaverickIndependence and the Alamo
The next year was decisive in the history of Texas—1836, the year of Texas Independence, the year of the Alamo. In February, Samuel Augustus Maverick was elected to be a delegate to the Independence Convention at Washington on the Brazos, in East Texas. The Convention met early in March, at the very moment that the battle of the Alamo was being fought in San Antonio, less than two hundred miles away. Some of the delegates, including Maverick, were delayed by high water and arrived on March 3, the day following the signing, but they were allowed by the Convention to sign the historical document. [Two other delegates to the Convention at Washington elected from San Antonio were Jose Antonio Navarro and Francisco Ruiz, who were the only native-born signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence.] No account of the Convention in Maverick's own hand has survived. We do know from a fellow-signer, Colonel Stephen W. Blount, that Maverick showed himself at Washington to be "A man of determined will, unyielding when advocating what he believed to be right, and uncompromising in favor of a definite programme of separation from Mexico." [Frederick Chabot, The Mavericks, p. 4.] William Menefee, another signer, characterized Maverick in some detail:
He was one of the most polished members of the Washington Convention. He had been educated in the best schools of the country and his manners and general deportment indicated a refined nature. Mr. Maverick made no effort to display his polite learning, but it so dominated his nature that one could not help feeling it in his presence. Not only was he a man of superior mental training, but he was a man of tact and ability. His course at old Washington was that of a diplomat and statesman. He watched the proceedings closely and gave his assent to every proposition looking to the establishment of our independent Government. He was a cautious man and counseled prudence in speech and act. He recognized that whatever the convention did would but make Santa Anna more determined to crush opposition to his programme of subjugation. He was familiar with the prevailing sentiment in the United States regarding the Revolution and he emphasized the necessity of cultivating that sentiment. "Let our acts prove to the world that we are sincere patriots," he said in a brief address before the Convention, "and we need not fear the result. The people of the United States fought for the same character of freedom and independence for which we are battling, and they will sustain us as long as our fight is just. Let us not deviate from the programme mapped out by our leaders, and the God of War will give us the victory.
After the battle of San Jacinto, Maverick traveled back to his sister's plantation in Alabama. Many conflicting reports about the Alamo and the battles in Texas had reached the States, and he hastened to report to his sisters and friends and to send word to his father in South Carolina that he was alive and well, to allay their fears that he had perished in the Alamo.
On one occasion, while riding along a country road near Tuscaloosa, he met, also on horseback, a lovely blue-eyed blonde young woman in a green muslin dress, Mary Ann Adams. This chance meeting soon ripened into friendship and love. Mr. Maverick's relatives and friends celebrated his safe return with gay plantation parties and it was not long before Mary and Samuel Augustus became engaged and planned their wedding. They were married at her mother's home near Tuscaloosa on August 4, 1836. Mary was eighteen, Samuel Augustus thirty-three. ["After Mr. Maverick's death, in putting his effect to rights, she found a small piece of the green muslin dress she had worn that first day he saw her, and he had kept all those years unknown to her." Mrs. Albert Maverick, quoted by Frederick C. Chabot, Maverick Notes, 1835, p. 30.]
In the thirty-four years of their married life Mary Maverick shared her husband's interests, his anxieties, and his loyalties. His devotion to Texas and San Antonio became her own. Long years after his death, in 1889, she wrote an account of the fall of the Alamo, asking that it be saved for her young grandson George Maverick as an example of his grandmother's writing at the age of seventy-one—"The writing is poor enough to be ashamed of, nevertheless let all do better at that age who can." Despite her modesty, my grandmother's account brings vividly to life that heroic struggle of the spring of 1836, a few months before the young Mary Adams married Samuel A. Maverick.
FALL OF THE ALAMO
[By Mary A. Maverick; compiled from History of Texas by Henderson Yoakum and oral testimony.]
Genl. Santa Anna, "The Napoleon of the West" & Victor over all who in Mexico opposed his design of abrogating the constitution of 1824, arrived before the walls of the Alamo, breathing death & destruction to the traitors in Texas. With him came Genls. Filisola, Sesma, Gaona, Tolsa, Woll, Andrade, & perjured Cos (who had surrendered his forces to Burleson's Texan army after 5 days & nights continuous fighting, on 10 Dec '35—giving his parole for his command, & himself, not again to fight Texas; & thereupon all being allowed to depart for Mexico, with arms for defence against Indians). Santa Anna on 23rd Feb 1836 demanded instant & unconditional surrender of the men in the Alamo. Col Travis commanding answered with a shot, & immediately a blood red flag was hoisted on the church of Bexar, & firing on the fort began. Wm. B. Travis, Col commanding, had 30 men—sent by Gov Smith of provisional Govt. as garrison, & had secured about 113 vounteers; with these upon approach of the enemy he retired into the Fort, having previously in anticipation done what he could to strengthen the walls & provide means for defence. On 24th Col Travis sent an Express East appealing for aid, he wrote:
Fellow citizens & compatriots:
I am beseiged by a thousand or more Mexicans under Santa Anna, I have sustained a continued bombardment for twenty four hours, and have not lost a man. The enemy have demanded a surrender or retreat. Then I call you in the name of liberty, of patriotism, and of everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all despatch. The enemy are receiving reinforcements daily, and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. Though this call may be negelected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honour, and that of his country. Victory or death!
P.S. The Lord is on our side, when the enemy appeared in sight, we had not three bus. of corn. We have since found, in deserted houses, eighty or ninety bushels, and got into the walls twenty or thirty beeves. W B T
Feb. 25th Mexicans reinforced by Matamoras batalion de Cazadores attempt to erect a battery South of the Alamo, repulsed by Texas sharpshooters, Mex. reinforced by batallion of Ximenes. P.M. & During the night, the 2 batallions erect the battery. Travis sallied out 7 burnt the wooden & straw thatched jacales in vicinity. Feb. 26th more reinforcements for Santa Anna, and a battery erected North East & nearer the fort; Texans sallied out for wood & waters, & burned some houses 800 yds. off, amid incessant firing by the enemy. 27th Mex. attempted to erect a bridge across the river just N. of present Commerce St. bridge, 30 of the men were shot dead by the Texans, and the attempt abandoned. Feb. 28th Mex. erected a battery at the old mill N.W. of the Fort March 1st 32 gallant men from Gonzales were safely conducted into the Alamo by John W. Smith—who himself went back to try to get other help. Bombardment continued.
March 1st Texans short of ammunition and fired but seldom, but this day they struck the house occupied by Santa Anna with a 12 lb. shot. March 3rd Mexicans erected a battery on the North of Fort, 7 within musket shot, and they cut off the water supply of the Alamo by turning off the acqueduct, incessant bombardment continued. The Texans answered as their means & strength allowed.
March 3rd in early morning J.B. Bonham of So. Ca., who had been sent express to Fannin, returned & safely entered the Fort. This day 3rd, Travis made his last appeal in a letter addressed to Pres. of the Convention—in it he said—"The blood-red banner waves over the church in Bexar, and in the camp of the enemy in token of vengeance against rebels." He also addressed an affecting note to a friend in Washington Co. "Take care of my little boy.If the country should be saved, I may make him a splendid fortune; but if the country should be lost, and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country." On 3rd at night the Texans made a sally, and had a skirmish with the Mexican advance. The enemy continued the fire on the 4th, but a few shots were returned from the fort. On this afternoon, March 4th Santa Anna called a council of war. Cos & Castrillon wanted to wait the assault 'til after the arrival of 2 twelve pounders, on 7th, Ramires, Sesma, & Almonte were against waiting. Santa Anna, without a public decision, determined upon an assault, & made his preparations.
March 3rd Travis in a letter to Jesse Grimes Esqr writes "I am still here, and well to do, and in fine spirits. With one hundred & forty five men I have held this place ten days against a force variously estimated from 1500 to 6000; and I shall continue to hold it till I get relief from my countrymen, or I will perish in it's defence. We have had a shower of bombs and cannon-balls continually falling among us the whole time, the Texans on the contrary were worn down by incessant watching & labor within the walls, & they had only standing pools of mud & water to drink! & suffered all torments of thirst.
On Sunday Morning 6th of March a little after midnight the Alamo was surrounded by the entire Mexican army. The infantry with scaling ladders were placed next the wall, the cavalry just back of them, with orders to cut down any Mexican soldier attempting escape. At daylight the general charge was sounded, the ladders placed against the walls, & the soldiers mounting were received & driven back by tremendous firing of rifles & artillery. A second charge sounded, a second attempt made to mount the walls, & nobly repulsed with heavy loss to the enemy. An awful pause. A third assault was made with more fatal success, the enemy reached the top of the ladders, wavered & fell, but their places were filled by hundreds pressing onward behind them, on each ladder. At length, wounded—cut down—exhausted, the Texans did not retreat; but ceased to keep back the Mexicans, and the fort was soon filled by them. The living Texans fell back with face to the foe, into the old Church, and an adjoining long building, where behind the walls, & with bags of sand closing the openings, they contiued to do battle 'til all were cut down. Travis fell near N.W. wall, Crockett near S.E., each with piles of slain around them.
The desperate defence made by the few wounded who fired from their pallets & others behind the doors barred by sand-bags, made the Mexicans order up a captured cannon & fire twice into this hospital—thus quelling almost the last resistance. But Jas Bowie was in an upper-room, sick of typhoid—they found him, butchered him in bed, & mutilated his body—(altho a Mexican officer who had formerly received great kindness from him begged for his life). Before the assault the Texans had agreed that the survivor should fire a large quantity of damaged powder, & thus blow up the fort, destroying all. Maj. Evans, master of ordinance, undertook this as a discharge of his last duty to his country, but before & upon the point of firing it, he was shot dead. One would suppose that admiration for such unparalleled heroism would have saved these few!
Thus fell the Alamo & all its heroic defeders. The world has witnessed among men no greater moral sublimity! The survivors were Mrs. Dickinson (wife of Lt. Dickinson who fell) & her babe, Mrs. Dr.Alexi Allsbury (whose husband was sent express by Col. Travis) her child Alajo Perez and her sister (now Mrs. Contu), 2 negro servants of Bowie, & 2 Mexican women of Bexar.
Many Mexicans of Bexar were friendly to the Americans but afraid of Santa Anna, they were quiet. 30 Mexicans but afraid of Santa Anna, they were quiet. 30 Mexican men went into the fort at first, those all left except 3, who were killed on 6th fighting with the Texans.
At Santa Anna's command the bodies of the dead heroes were hauled out East S.E.—& burned in a field. (Ground now between Blum & Crockett Sts. or between Crockett & Houston. This present writer visited the site with Dr. and Mrs. Allsbury in Fall of 1838)
The bones were gathered and reverently buried by the first Americans here after San Jacito—but the place of burial they made has never been found, tho' long searched for.
Mrs. Allsbury went into the Fort with Bowie to care for his comfort, he being in feeble health, & having had to resign commad to Col. Travis. Mrs. Allsbury told me that the women & children (i.e. her son 8 yrs. & her sister 13, & Mrs. Dickenson & babe) fled to Col. Bowie's room when the soldiers entered the old Church; this room was upstairs. She saw the Mex. soldiers enter, bayonet Bowie, then while he still lived, carry him upon their bayonets into the Plaza below.—Then a Mexican cavalry officer dashed in amongst the butchers, with drawn sword! Lashing them right & left & forced them to desist. I am sorry I have forgotten this officers name. It should be recorded. Mrs. A. herself and children was taken care of by Sergt Perez of the Mex. army who was a brother of her first husband. Mrs. A. died here in 1887.
Santa Anna sent an express to Mexico: "Victory is ours! The war is over, and Texas at our feet."
Col James Bowie had married, in 1830 probably, a daughter of Govr Juan Verimendi—Dona Carmelita—who was a lovely character, who with 2 infants died of Cholera in 1833 in Monclova, where she had accompanied her parents who attended the session of States Govt for Coahuila y Texas. Mrs. Alex Allsbury was a niece & adopted daughter of Verimendi & therefore sister to Bowie's wife.
The next year was decisive in the history of Texas—1836, the year of Texas Independence, the year of the Alamo. In February, Samuel Augustus Maverick was elected to be a delegate to the Independence Convention at Washington on the Brazos, in East Texas. The Convention met early in March, at the very moment that the battle of the Alamo was being fought in San Antonio, less than two hundred miles away. Some of the delegates, including Maverick, were delayed by high water and arrived on March 3, the day following the signing, but they were allowed by the Convention to sign the historical document. [Two other delegates to the Convention at Washington elected from San Antonio were Jose Antonio Navarro and Francisco Ruiz, who were the only native-born signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence.] No account of the Convention in Maverick's own hand has survived. We do know from a fellow-signer, Colonel Stephen W. Blount, that Maverick showed himself at Washington to be "A man of determined will, unyielding when advocating what he believed to be right, and uncompromising in favor of a definite programme of separation from Mexico." [Frederick Chabot, The Mavericks, p. 4.] William Menefee, another signer, characterized Maverick in some detail:
He was one of the most polished members of the Washington Convention. He had been educated in the best schools of the country and his manners and general deportment indicated a refined nature. Mr. Maverick made no effort to display his polite learning, but it so dominated his nature that one could not help feeling it in his presence. Not only was he a man of superior mental training, but he was a man of tact and ability. His course at old Washington was that of a diplomat and statesman. He watched the proceedings closely and gave his assent to every proposition looking to the establishment of our independent Government. He was a cautious man and counseled prudence in speech and act. He recognized that whatever the convention did would but make Santa Anna more determined to crush opposition to his programme of subjugation. He was familiar with the prevailing sentiment in the United States regarding the Revolution and he emphasized the necessity of cultivating that sentiment. "Let our acts prove to the world that we are sincere patriots," he said in a brief address before the Convention, "and we need not fear the result. The people of the United States fought for the same character of freedom and independence for which we are battling, and they will sustain us as long as our fight is just. Let us not deviate from the programme mapped out by our leaders, and the God of War will give us the victory.
After the battle of San Jacinto, Maverick traveled back to his sister's plantation in Alabama. Many conflicting reports about the Alamo and the battles in Texas had reached the States, and he hastened to report to his sisters and friends and to send word to his father in South Carolina that he was alive and well, to allay their fears that he had perished in the Alamo.
On one occasion, while riding along a country road near Tuscaloosa, he met, also on horseback, a lovely blue-eyed blonde young woman in a green muslin dress, Mary Ann Adams. This chance meeting soon ripened into friendship and love. Mr. Maverick's relatives and friends celebrated his safe return with gay plantation parties and it was not long before Mary and Samuel Augustus became engaged and planned their wedding. They were married at her mother's home near Tuscaloosa on August 4, 1836. Mary was eighteen, Samuel Augustus thirty-three. ["After Mr. Maverick's death, in putting his effect to rights, she found a small piece of the green muslin dress she had worn that first day he saw her, and he had kept all those years unknown to her." Mrs. Albert Maverick, quoted by Frederick C. Chabot, Maverick Notes, 1835, p. 30.]
In the thirty-four years of their married life Mary Maverick shared her husband's interests, his anxieties, and his loyalties. His devotion to Texas and San Antonio became her own. Long years after his death, in 1889, she wrote an account of the fall of the Alamo, asking that it be saved for her young grandson George Maverick as an example of his grandmother's writing at the age of seventy-one—"The writing is poor enough to be ashamed of, nevertheless let all do better at that age who can." Despite her modesty, my grandmother's account brings vividly to life that heroic struggle of the spring of 1836, a few months before the young Mary Adams married Samuel A. Maverick.
FALL OF THE ALAMO
[By Mary A. Maverick; compiled from History of Texas by Henderson Yoakum and oral testimony.]
Genl. Santa Anna, "The Napoleon of the West" & Victor over all who in Mexico opposed his design of abrogating the constitution of 1824, arrived before the walls of the Alamo, breathing death & destruction to the traitors in Texas. With him came Genls. Filisola, Sesma, Gaona, Tolsa, Woll, Andrade, & perjured Cos (who had surrendered his forces to Burleson's Texan army after 5 days & nights continuous fighting, on 10 Dec '35—giving his parole for his command, & himself, not again to fight Texas; & thereupon all being allowed to depart for Mexico, with arms for defence against Indians). Santa Anna on 23rd Feb 1836 demanded instant & unconditional surrender of the men in the Alamo. Col Travis commanding answered with a shot, & immediately a blood red flag was hoisted on the church of Bexar, & firing on the fort began. Wm. B. Travis, Col commanding, had 30 men—sent by Gov Smith of provisional Govt. as garrison, & had secured about 113 vounteers; with these upon approach of the enemy he retired into the Fort, having previously in anticipation done what he could to strengthen the walls & provide means for defence. On 24th Col Travis sent an Express East appealing for aid, he wrote:
Commandency of the Alamo
Bexar, Feb. 24th /36.
Bexar, Feb. 24th /36.
Fellow citizens & compatriots:
I am beseiged by a thousand or more Mexicans under Santa Anna, I have sustained a continued bombardment for twenty four hours, and have not lost a man. The enemy have demanded a surrender or retreat. Then I call you in the name of liberty, of patriotism, and of everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all despatch. The enemy are receiving reinforcements daily, and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. Though this call may be negelected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honour, and that of his country. Victory or death!
Wm. Barrett Travis
Lieutenant Colonel commanding
Lieutenant Colonel commanding
P.S. The Lord is on our side, when the enemy appeared in sight, we had not three bus. of corn. We have since found, in deserted houses, eighty or ninety bushels, and got into the walls twenty or thirty beeves. W B T
Feb. 25th Mexicans reinforced by Matamoras batalion de Cazadores attempt to erect a battery South of the Alamo, repulsed by Texas sharpshooters, Mex. reinforced by batallion of Ximenes. P.M. & During the night, the 2 batallions erect the battery. Travis sallied out 7 burnt the wooden & straw thatched jacales in vicinity. Feb. 26th more reinforcements for Santa Anna, and a battery erected North East & nearer the fort; Texans sallied out for wood & waters, & burned some houses 800 yds. off, amid incessant firing by the enemy. 27th Mex. attempted to erect a bridge across the river just N. of present Commerce St. bridge, 30 of the men were shot dead by the Texans, and the attempt abandoned. Feb. 28th Mex. erected a battery at the old mill N.W. of the Fort March 1st 32 gallant men from Gonzales were safely conducted into the Alamo by John W. Smith—who himself went back to try to get other help. Bombardment continued.
March 1st Texans short of ammunition and fired but seldom, but this day they struck the house occupied by Santa Anna with a 12 lb. shot. March 3rd Mexicans erected a battery on the North of Fort, 7 within musket shot, and they cut off the water supply of the Alamo by turning off the acqueduct, incessant bombardment continued. The Texans answered as their means & strength allowed.
March 3rd in early morning J.B. Bonham of So. Ca., who had been sent express to Fannin, returned & safely entered the Fort. This day 3rd, Travis made his last appeal in a letter addressed to Pres. of the Convention—in it he said—"The blood-red banner waves over the church in Bexar, and in the camp of the enemy in token of vengeance against rebels." He also addressed an affecting note to a friend in Washington Co. "Take care of my little boy.If the country should be saved, I may make him a splendid fortune; but if the country should be lost, and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country." On 3rd at night the Texans made a sally, and had a skirmish with the Mexican advance. The enemy continued the fire on the 4th, but a few shots were returned from the fort. On this afternoon, March 4th Santa Anna called a council of war. Cos & Castrillon wanted to wait the assault 'til after the arrival of 2 twelve pounders, on 7th, Ramires, Sesma, & Almonte were against waiting. Santa Anna, without a public decision, determined upon an assault, & made his preparations.
March 3rd Travis in a letter to Jesse Grimes Esqr writes "I am still here, and well to do, and in fine spirits. With one hundred & forty five men I have held this place ten days against a force variously estimated from 1500 to 6000; and I shall continue to hold it till I get relief from my countrymen, or I will perish in it's defence. We have had a shower of bombs and cannon-balls continually falling among us the whole time, the Texans on the contrary were worn down by incessant watching & labor within the walls, & they had only standing pools of mud & water to drink! & suffered all torments of thirst.
On Sunday Morning 6th of March a little after midnight the Alamo was surrounded by the entire Mexican army. The infantry with scaling ladders were placed next the wall, the cavalry just back of them, with orders to cut down any Mexican soldier attempting escape. At daylight the general charge was sounded, the ladders placed against the walls, & the soldiers mounting were received & driven back by tremendous firing of rifles & artillery. A second charge sounded, a second attempt made to mount the walls, & nobly repulsed with heavy loss to the enemy. An awful pause. A third assault was made with more fatal success, the enemy reached the top of the ladders, wavered & fell, but their places were filled by hundreds pressing onward behind them, on each ladder. At length, wounded—cut down—exhausted, the Texans did not retreat; but ceased to keep back the Mexicans, and the fort was soon filled by them. The living Texans fell back with face to the foe, into the old Church, and an adjoining long building, where behind the walls, & with bags of sand closing the openings, they contiued to do battle 'til all were cut down. Travis fell near N.W. wall, Crockett near S.E., each with piles of slain around them.
The desperate defence made by the few wounded who fired from their pallets & others behind the doors barred by sand-bags, made the Mexicans order up a captured cannon & fire twice into this hospital—thus quelling almost the last resistance. But Jas Bowie was in an upper-room, sick of typhoid—they found him, butchered him in bed, & mutilated his body—(altho a Mexican officer who had formerly received great kindness from him begged for his life). Before the assault the Texans had agreed that the survivor should fire a large quantity of damaged powder, & thus blow up the fort, destroying all. Maj. Evans, master of ordinance, undertook this as a discharge of his last duty to his country, but before & upon the point of firing it, he was shot dead. One would suppose that admiration for such unparalleled heroism would have saved these few!
Thus fell the Alamo & all its heroic defeders. The world has witnessed among men no greater moral sublimity! The survivors were Mrs. Dickinson (wife of Lt. Dickinson who fell) & her babe, Mrs. Dr.Alexi Allsbury (whose husband was sent express by Col. Travis) her child Alajo Perez and her sister (now Mrs. Contu), 2 negro servants of Bowie, & 2 Mexican women of Bexar.
Many Mexicans of Bexar were friendly to the Americans but afraid of Santa Anna, they were quiet. 30 Mexicans but afraid of Santa Anna, they were quiet. 30 Mexican men went into the fort at first, those all left except 3, who were killed on 6th fighting with the Texans.
At Santa Anna's command the bodies of the dead heroes were hauled out East S.E.—& burned in a field. (Ground now between Blum & Crockett Sts. or between Crockett & Houston. This present writer visited the site with Dr. and Mrs. Allsbury in Fall of 1838)
The bones were gathered and reverently buried by the first Americans here after San Jacito—but the place of burial they made has never been found, tho' long searched for.
Mrs. Allsbury went into the Fort with Bowie to care for his comfort, he being in feeble health, & having had to resign commad to Col. Travis. Mrs. Allsbury told me that the women & children (i.e. her son 8 yrs. & her sister 13, & Mrs. Dickenson & babe) fled to Col. Bowie's room when the soldiers entered the old Church; this room was upstairs. She saw the Mex. soldiers enter, bayonet Bowie, then while he still lived, carry him upon their bayonets into the Plaza below.—Then a Mexican cavalry officer dashed in amongst the butchers, with drawn sword! Lashing them right & left & forced them to desist. I am sorry I have forgotten this officers name. It should be recorded. Mrs. A. herself and children was taken care of by Sergt Perez of the Mex. army who was a brother of her first husband. Mrs. A. died here in 1887.
Santa Anna sent an express to Mexico: "Victory is ours! The war is over, and Texas at our feet."
Col James Bowie had married, in 1830 probably, a daughter of Govr Juan Verimendi—Dona Carmelita—who was a lovely character, who with 2 infants died of Cholera in 1833 in Monclova, where she had accompanied her parents who attended the session of States Govt for Coahuila y Texas. Mrs. Alex Allsbury was a niece & adopted daughter of Verimendi & therefore sister to Bowie's wife.
Description of The Council House Fight
A Day of Horrors. Tuesday, 19th of March, 1840, "dia de San Jose" sixty-five Comanches came into town to make a treaty of peace. They brought with them, and reluctantly gave up, Matilda Lockhart, whom they had captured with her younger sister in December 1838, after killing two other children of her family. The Indian chiefs and men met in council at the Court House, with our city and military authorities. The calaboose or jail then occupied the corner formed by the east line of Main Plaza and the north line of Calabosa (now Market) Street, and the Court House was north of and adjoining the hall. The Court House yard, back of the Court House, was what is now the city market on Market Street. The Court House and jail were of stone, one story, flat roofed, and floored with dirt. Captain Tom Howard's Company was at first in the Court House yard, where the Indian women and boys came and remained during the pow-wow. The young Indians amused themselves shooting arrows at pieces of money put up by some of the Americans; and Mrs. Higginbotham and myself amused ourselves looking through the picket fence at them. This was the third time these Indians had come for a talk, pretending to seek peace, and trying to get ransom money for their American and Mexican captives. Their proposition now was that they should be paid a great price for Matilda Lockhart, and a Mexican they had just given up, and that traders be sent with paint, powder, flannel, blankets and such other articles as they should name, to ransom the other captives. This course had once before been asked and carried out, but the smallpox breaking out, the Indians killed the traders and kept the goods---believing the traders had made the smallpox to kill them. Now the Americans, mindful of the treachery of the Comanches, answered them as follows:
"We will according to a former agreement, keep four or five of your chiefs, whilst the others of your people go to your nation and bring all the captives, and then we will pay all you ask for them. Meanwhile, these chiefs we hold we will treat as brothers and 'not one hair of their heads shall be injured.' This we have determined, and, if you try to fight, our soldiers will shoot you down."
This being interpreted, the Comanches instantly, with one accord raised a terrific war-whoop, drew their arrows, and commenced firing with deadly effect, at the same time making efforts to break out of the council hall. The order "fire" was given by Captain Howard, and the soldiers fired into the midst of the crowd, the first volley killing several Indians and two of our own people. All soon rushed out into the public square, the civilians to procure arms, the Indians to flee, and the soldiers in pursuit. The Indians generally made for the river-they ran up Soledad, east on Commerce Street and for the bend, now known as Bowen's, southeast, below the square. Citizens and soldiers pursued and overtook them at all points, shot some swimming in the river, had desperate fights in the streets and hand to hand encounters after firearms had been exhausted. Some Indians took refuge in stone houses and fastened the doors. Not one of the sixty-five Indians escaped-thirty-three were killed and thirty-two were taken prisoners. Six Americans and one Mexican were killed and ten Americans wounded. Our killed were Julian Hood, the sheriff, Judge Thompson, advocate from South Carolina, G. W. Cayce from the Brazos, one officer and two soldiers whose names I did not learn, nor that of the Mexican. The wounded were Lieutenant Thompson, brother of the Judge, Captain Tom Howard, Captain Mat Caldwell, citizen volunteer from Gonzales, Judge Robinson, Mr. Morgan, deputy sheriff, Mr. Higginbotham and two soldiers. Others were slightly wounded.
When the deafening war whoop sounded in the Court room, it was so loud, so shrill and so inexpressibly horrible and suddenly raised, that we women looking through the fence at the women's and boy's marksmanship for a moment could not comprehend its purport. The Indians however knew the first note and instantly shot their arrows into the bodies of Judge Thompson and the other gentleman near by, instantly killing Judge Thompson. We fled into Mrs. Higginbotham's house and I, across the street to my Commerce Street door. Two Indians ran past me on the street and one reached my door as I got in. He turned to raise his hand to push it just as I beat down the heavy bar; then he ran on. I ran in the north room and saw my husband and brother Andrew sitting calmly at a table inspecting some plats of surveys-they had heard nothing. I soon gave them the alarm, and hurried on to look for my boys. Mr. Maverick and Andrew seized their arms, always ready, Mr. Maverick rushed into the street, and Andrew into the back yard where I was shouting at the top of my voice "Here are Indians!" "Here are Indians" Three Indians had gotten in through the gate on Soledad street and were making direct for the river! One had paused near Jinny Anderson, our cook, who stood bravely in front of the children, mine and hers, with a great rock lifted in both hands above her head, and I heard her cry out to the Indian "If you don't go 'way from here I'll mash your head with this rock!" The Indian seemed regretful that he hadn't time to dispatch Jinny and her brood, but his time was short, and pausing but a moment, he dashed down the bank into the river and struck out for the opposite shore. As the Indian hurried down the bank and into the river Andrew shot and killed him, and shot another as he gained and rose on the opposite bank, then he ran off up Soledad street looking for more Indians. I housed my little ones, and then looked out of the Soledad Street door. Near by was stretched an Indian, wounded and dying. A large man, journey-apprentice to Mr. Higginbotham, came up just then and aimed a pistol at the Indian's head. I called out: "Oh, don't, he is dying," and the big American laughed and said: "To please you, I won't, but it would put him out of his misery." Then I saw two others lying dead near by.
Captain Lysander Wells, about this time, passed by riding north on Soledad Street. He was elegantly dressed and mounted on a gaily caparisoned Mexican horse with silver mounted saddle and bridle-which outfit he had secured to take back to his native state, on a visit to his mother. As he reached the Verimendi House, an Indian who had escaped detection, sprang up behind him, clasped Wells' arms in his and tried to catch hold of the bridle reins. Wells was fearless and active. They struggled for some time, bent back and forward, swayed from side to side, till at last Wells held the Indian's wrists with his left hand, drew his pistol from the holster, partly turned, and fired into the Indian's body-a moment more and the Indian rolled off and dropped dead to the ground. Wells then put spurs to his horse which had stood almost still during the struggle, dashed up the street and did good service in the pursuit. I had become so fascinated by this struggle that I had gone into the street almost breathless, and wholly unconscious of where I was, till recalled by the voice of Lieutenant Chavallier who said: "Are you crazy? Go in or you will be killed." I went in but without feeling any fear, though the street was almost deserted and my husband and brother both gone in the fight. I then looked out on Commerce street and saw four or five dead Indians. I was just twenty-two then, and was endowed with a fair share of curiosity. Not till dark did all our men get back, and I was grateful to God, indeed, to see my husband and brother back alive and not wounded.
Captain Mat Caldwell, or "Old Paint," as he was familiarly called, our guest from Gonzales, was an old and famous Indian fighter. He had gone from our house to the Council Hall unarmed. But when the fight began, he wrenched a gun from an Indian and killed him with it, and beat another to death with the butt end of the gun. He was shot through the right leg, wounded as he thought by the first volley of the soldiers. After breaking the gun, he then fought with rocks, with his back to the Court House wall. Young G. W. Cayce had called on us that morning, bringing an introductory letter from his father to Mr. Maverick, and placing some papers in his charge. He was a very pleasant and handsome young man and it was reported, came to marry Gertrudes Navarro, Mrs. Dr. Alsbury's sister. He left our house when I did, I going to Mrs. Higginbotham's and he to the Council Hall. He stood in the front door of the Court House, was shot and instantly killed at the beginning of the fight, and fell by the side of Captain Caldwell. The brother of this young man afterwards told me he had left home with premonition of his death being very near. Captain Caldwell was assisted back to our house and Dr. Weideman came and cut off his boot and found the bullet had gone entirely through the leg, and lodged in the boot, where it was discovered. The wound, though not dangerous, was very painful, but the doughty Captain recovered rapidly and in a few days walked about with the aid of a stick.
After the captain had been cared for, I ran across to Mrs. Higginbotham's. Mr. Higginbotham, who was as peaceful as a Quaker to all appearances, had been in the fight and had received a slight wound. They could not go into their back yard, because two Indians had taken refuge in their kitchen, and refused to come out or surrender as prisoners when the interpreter had summoned them. A number of young men took counsel together that night, and agreed upon a plan. Anton Lockmar and another got on the roof, and, about two hours after midnight dropped a candlewick ball soaked in turpentine, and blazing, through a hole in the roof upon one Indian's head and so hurt him and frightened them both that they opened the door and rushed out to their death. An axe split open the head of one of the Indians before he was well out of the door, and the other was killed before he had gone many steps thus the last of the sixty-five were taken. The Indian women dressed and fought like the men, and could not be told apart. As I have said thirty-three were killed and thirty-two taken prisoners. Many of them were repeatedly summoned to surrender, but numbers refused and were killed. All had a chance to surrender, and every one who offered or agreed to give up was taken prisoner and protected.
What a day of horrors! And the night was as bad which followed. Lieutenant Thompson, who had been shot through the lungs, was taken to Madam Santita's house, on Soledad Street, just opposite us, and that night he vomited blood and cried and groaned all night. I shall never forget his gasping for breath and his agonizing cries. Dr. Weideman sat by and watched him, or only left to see the other sufferers, nearby; no one thought he would live till day, but he did, and got to be well and strong again, and in a few weeks walked out. The captive Indians were all put in the calaboose for a few days and while they were there our forces entered into a twelve days truce with them---the captives acting for their Nation. And, in accordance with the stipulations of the treaty, one of the captives, an Indian woman, widow of a chief, was released on the 20th, the day after the fight. She was given a horse and provisions and sent to her Nation to tell her people of the fight and its result. She was charged to tell them, in accordance with the truce, to bring in all their captives, known to be fifteen Americans and several Mexicans, and exchange them for the thirty-two Indians held. She seemed eager to effect this, and promised. to do her best. She said she would travel day and night, and could go and return within five days. The other prisoners thought she could in five days return with the captives from the tribe. The Americans said "very well we give twelve days truce and if you do not get back by Thursday night of the 28th, these prisoners shall be killed, for we will know you have killed our captive friends and relatives."
In April, as I shall mention again, we were informed by a boy, named B. L. Webster, that when the squaw reached her tribe and told of the disaster, all the Comanches howled, and cut themselves with knives, and killed horses, for several days. And they took all the American captives, thirteen in number, and roasted and butchered them to death with horrible cruelties; that he and a little girl named Putman, five years old, had been spared because they had previously been adopted into the tribe. Our people did not, however, retaliate upon the captives in our hands. The captive Indians were all put into the calaboose, corner Market Street and the public square and adjoining the courthouse, where all the people in San Antonio went to see them. The Indians expected to be killed, and they did not understand nor trust the kindness which was shown them and the great pity manifested toward them. They were first removed to San Jose Mission, where a company of soldiers was stationed, and afterwards taken to Camp "Cook," named after W. G. Cook, at the head of the river, and strictly guarded for a time. But afterwards the strictness was relaxed, and they gradually all, except a few, who were exchanged, escaped and returned to their tribe. They were kindly treated and two or three of them were taken into families as domestics, and were taught some little, but they too, at last, silently stole away to their ancient freedom.
Mary A. Maverick, 1896
A Day of Horrors. Tuesday, 19th of March, 1840, "dia de San Jose" sixty-five Comanches came into town to make a treaty of peace. They brought with them, and reluctantly gave up, Matilda Lockhart, whom they had captured with her younger sister in December 1838, after killing two other children of her family. The Indian chiefs and men met in council at the Court House, with our city and military authorities. The calaboose or jail then occupied the corner formed by the east line of Main Plaza and the north line of Calabosa (now Market) Street, and the Court House was north of and adjoining the hall. The Court House yard, back of the Court House, was what is now the city market on Market Street. The Court House and jail were of stone, one story, flat roofed, and floored with dirt. Captain Tom Howard's Company was at first in the Court House yard, where the Indian women and boys came and remained during the pow-wow. The young Indians amused themselves shooting arrows at pieces of money put up by some of the Americans; and Mrs. Higginbotham and myself amused ourselves looking through the picket fence at them. This was the third time these Indians had come for a talk, pretending to seek peace, and trying to get ransom money for their American and Mexican captives. Their proposition now was that they should be paid a great price for Matilda Lockhart, and a Mexican they had just given up, and that traders be sent with paint, powder, flannel, blankets and such other articles as they should name, to ransom the other captives. This course had once before been asked and carried out, but the smallpox breaking out, the Indians killed the traders and kept the goods---believing the traders had made the smallpox to kill them. Now the Americans, mindful of the treachery of the Comanches, answered them as follows:
"We will according to a former agreement, keep four or five of your chiefs, whilst the others of your people go to your nation and bring all the captives, and then we will pay all you ask for them. Meanwhile, these chiefs we hold we will treat as brothers and 'not one hair of their heads shall be injured.' This we have determined, and, if you try to fight, our soldiers will shoot you down."
This being interpreted, the Comanches instantly, with one accord raised a terrific war-whoop, drew their arrows, and commenced firing with deadly effect, at the same time making efforts to break out of the council hall. The order "fire" was given by Captain Howard, and the soldiers fired into the midst of the crowd, the first volley killing several Indians and two of our own people. All soon rushed out into the public square, the civilians to procure arms, the Indians to flee, and the soldiers in pursuit. The Indians generally made for the river-they ran up Soledad, east on Commerce Street and for the bend, now known as Bowen's, southeast, below the square. Citizens and soldiers pursued and overtook them at all points, shot some swimming in the river, had desperate fights in the streets and hand to hand encounters after firearms had been exhausted. Some Indians took refuge in stone houses and fastened the doors. Not one of the sixty-five Indians escaped-thirty-three were killed and thirty-two were taken prisoners. Six Americans and one Mexican were killed and ten Americans wounded. Our killed were Julian Hood, the sheriff, Judge Thompson, advocate from South Carolina, G. W. Cayce from the Brazos, one officer and two soldiers whose names I did not learn, nor that of the Mexican. The wounded were Lieutenant Thompson, brother of the Judge, Captain Tom Howard, Captain Mat Caldwell, citizen volunteer from Gonzales, Judge Robinson, Mr. Morgan, deputy sheriff, Mr. Higginbotham and two soldiers. Others were slightly wounded.
When the deafening war whoop sounded in the Court room, it was so loud, so shrill and so inexpressibly horrible and suddenly raised, that we women looking through the fence at the women's and boy's marksmanship for a moment could not comprehend its purport. The Indians however knew the first note and instantly shot their arrows into the bodies of Judge Thompson and the other gentleman near by, instantly killing Judge Thompson. We fled into Mrs. Higginbotham's house and I, across the street to my Commerce Street door. Two Indians ran past me on the street and one reached my door as I got in. He turned to raise his hand to push it just as I beat down the heavy bar; then he ran on. I ran in the north room and saw my husband and brother Andrew sitting calmly at a table inspecting some plats of surveys-they had heard nothing. I soon gave them the alarm, and hurried on to look for my boys. Mr. Maverick and Andrew seized their arms, always ready, Mr. Maverick rushed into the street, and Andrew into the back yard where I was shouting at the top of my voice "Here are Indians!" "Here are Indians" Three Indians had gotten in through the gate on Soledad street and were making direct for the river! One had paused near Jinny Anderson, our cook, who stood bravely in front of the children, mine and hers, with a great rock lifted in both hands above her head, and I heard her cry out to the Indian "If you don't go 'way from here I'll mash your head with this rock!" The Indian seemed regretful that he hadn't time to dispatch Jinny and her brood, but his time was short, and pausing but a moment, he dashed down the bank into the river and struck out for the opposite shore. As the Indian hurried down the bank and into the river Andrew shot and killed him, and shot another as he gained and rose on the opposite bank, then he ran off up Soledad street looking for more Indians. I housed my little ones, and then looked out of the Soledad Street door. Near by was stretched an Indian, wounded and dying. A large man, journey-apprentice to Mr. Higginbotham, came up just then and aimed a pistol at the Indian's head. I called out: "Oh, don't, he is dying," and the big American laughed and said: "To please you, I won't, but it would put him out of his misery." Then I saw two others lying dead near by.
Captain Lysander Wells, about this time, passed by riding north on Soledad Street. He was elegantly dressed and mounted on a gaily caparisoned Mexican horse with silver mounted saddle and bridle-which outfit he had secured to take back to his native state, on a visit to his mother. As he reached the Verimendi House, an Indian who had escaped detection, sprang up behind him, clasped Wells' arms in his and tried to catch hold of the bridle reins. Wells was fearless and active. They struggled for some time, bent back and forward, swayed from side to side, till at last Wells held the Indian's wrists with his left hand, drew his pistol from the holster, partly turned, and fired into the Indian's body-a moment more and the Indian rolled off and dropped dead to the ground. Wells then put spurs to his horse which had stood almost still during the struggle, dashed up the street and did good service in the pursuit. I had become so fascinated by this struggle that I had gone into the street almost breathless, and wholly unconscious of where I was, till recalled by the voice of Lieutenant Chavallier who said: "Are you crazy? Go in or you will be killed." I went in but without feeling any fear, though the street was almost deserted and my husband and brother both gone in the fight. I then looked out on Commerce street and saw four or five dead Indians. I was just twenty-two then, and was endowed with a fair share of curiosity. Not till dark did all our men get back, and I was grateful to God, indeed, to see my husband and brother back alive and not wounded.
Captain Mat Caldwell, or "Old Paint," as he was familiarly called, our guest from Gonzales, was an old and famous Indian fighter. He had gone from our house to the Council Hall unarmed. But when the fight began, he wrenched a gun from an Indian and killed him with it, and beat another to death with the butt end of the gun. He was shot through the right leg, wounded as he thought by the first volley of the soldiers. After breaking the gun, he then fought with rocks, with his back to the Court House wall. Young G. W. Cayce had called on us that morning, bringing an introductory letter from his father to Mr. Maverick, and placing some papers in his charge. He was a very pleasant and handsome young man and it was reported, came to marry Gertrudes Navarro, Mrs. Dr. Alsbury's sister. He left our house when I did, I going to Mrs. Higginbotham's and he to the Council Hall. He stood in the front door of the Court House, was shot and instantly killed at the beginning of the fight, and fell by the side of Captain Caldwell. The brother of this young man afterwards told me he had left home with premonition of his death being very near. Captain Caldwell was assisted back to our house and Dr. Weideman came and cut off his boot and found the bullet had gone entirely through the leg, and lodged in the boot, where it was discovered. The wound, though not dangerous, was very painful, but the doughty Captain recovered rapidly and in a few days walked about with the aid of a stick.
After the captain had been cared for, I ran across to Mrs. Higginbotham's. Mr. Higginbotham, who was as peaceful as a Quaker to all appearances, had been in the fight and had received a slight wound. They could not go into their back yard, because two Indians had taken refuge in their kitchen, and refused to come out or surrender as prisoners when the interpreter had summoned them. A number of young men took counsel together that night, and agreed upon a plan. Anton Lockmar and another got on the roof, and, about two hours after midnight dropped a candlewick ball soaked in turpentine, and blazing, through a hole in the roof upon one Indian's head and so hurt him and frightened them both that they opened the door and rushed out to their death. An axe split open the head of one of the Indians before he was well out of the door, and the other was killed before he had gone many steps thus the last of the sixty-five were taken. The Indian women dressed and fought like the men, and could not be told apart. As I have said thirty-three were killed and thirty-two taken prisoners. Many of them were repeatedly summoned to surrender, but numbers refused and were killed. All had a chance to surrender, and every one who offered or agreed to give up was taken prisoner and protected.
What a day of horrors! And the night was as bad which followed. Lieutenant Thompson, who had been shot through the lungs, was taken to Madam Santita's house, on Soledad Street, just opposite us, and that night he vomited blood and cried and groaned all night. I shall never forget his gasping for breath and his agonizing cries. Dr. Weideman sat by and watched him, or only left to see the other sufferers, nearby; no one thought he would live till day, but he did, and got to be well and strong again, and in a few weeks walked out. The captive Indians were all put in the calaboose for a few days and while they were there our forces entered into a twelve days truce with them---the captives acting for their Nation. And, in accordance with the stipulations of the treaty, one of the captives, an Indian woman, widow of a chief, was released on the 20th, the day after the fight. She was given a horse and provisions and sent to her Nation to tell her people of the fight and its result. She was charged to tell them, in accordance with the truce, to bring in all their captives, known to be fifteen Americans and several Mexicans, and exchange them for the thirty-two Indians held. She seemed eager to effect this, and promised. to do her best. She said she would travel day and night, and could go and return within five days. The other prisoners thought she could in five days return with the captives from the tribe. The Americans said "very well we give twelve days truce and if you do not get back by Thursday night of the 28th, these prisoners shall be killed, for we will know you have killed our captive friends and relatives."
In April, as I shall mention again, we were informed by a boy, named B. L. Webster, that when the squaw reached her tribe and told of the disaster, all the Comanches howled, and cut themselves with knives, and killed horses, for several days. And they took all the American captives, thirteen in number, and roasted and butchered them to death with horrible cruelties; that he and a little girl named Putman, five years old, had been spared because they had previously been adopted into the tribe. Our people did not, however, retaliate upon the captives in our hands. The captive Indians were all put into the calaboose, corner Market Street and the public square and adjoining the courthouse, where all the people in San Antonio went to see them. The Indians expected to be killed, and they did not understand nor trust the kindness which was shown them and the great pity manifested toward them. They were first removed to San Jose Mission, where a company of soldiers was stationed, and afterwards taken to Camp "Cook," named after W. G. Cook, at the head of the river, and strictly guarded for a time. But afterwards the strictness was relaxed, and they gradually all, except a few, who were exchanged, escaped and returned to their tribe. They were kindly treated and two or three of them were taken into families as domestics, and were taught some little, but they too, at last, silently stole away to their ancient freedom.
Mary A. Maverick, 1896
Comanche Indians
[MEMOIRS 1838] The experiences of my first years in Texas led me to think the Comanches were an active and vigorous tribe of Indians. At that time they were about the only Indians who infested the country in the vicinity of San Antonio, and I must mention here some of their deeds which held our attention at the time.
June 29th, 1838, thirty-eight Comanches came into the edge of town and killed two Mexicans and stole one boy—on the 30th they killed a German and a Mexican. July 1st, the flag of Texas waves on the Plaza in front of the Court House, and a company of volunteers are assembling for pursuit of the Indians. Later, our company of volunteers fell in with a considerable party of Comanches, attacked them, killed two and wounded many others—but the wounded were carried off by the others, all of whom beat a hasty retreat. Our people captured all their horses and provisions.
The Mexicans of Mexico have not forgotten us. About this time, a party of Mexicans, 200 strong under Agaton, learning that valuable goods had been landed at Capano, and were being carted by friendly Mexicans to the San Antonio merchants, crossed the Rio Grande at Matamoras, captured the train and compelled the cartmen to haul the goods to the Nueces river where the cartmen were dismissed. Of the two Americans who were with the train when it was captured, one was killed and the other was wounded, but escaped.
During July 1838, many rumors from the west came to the effect that an army of centralists was marching to capture Bexar—also that the Comanche Nation had entered into a treaty of alliance with the Mexicans and would act with them for our extermination. But in a day or two, it was ascertained that Aristo had pursued the "President of the Republic of the Rio Grande," General Vidauria, who having defeated in battle had fled to Texas for refuge. Aristo turned back at the Nueces.
SAMUEL A. MAVERICK TO MIGUEL ARCINIEGA
To Dn, Miguel Arciniega
Captain of Company
Sir
Having advised with the aldermen this day, it is deemed advisable and proper to inform you that measures have been taken on this side of the River to put our city in a state of defence against Indians and robbers. And by the same authority and by the power in me vested as presidt of the Council I have to request you as Captain to take instant measures for organizing the District of La Villita & Alamo. The council expect of you to notify every man, in your district, to be in readiness at your call; and also that you make out a list of their names, and that six or more persons (in your discretion) be called out each night to act as a guard at the principal passways, in the mode which shall appear best in your good judgment, in which the Council place the most unlimited confidence. The object of the guard by night is to stop & arrest every person who may appear to be a spy or a robber. In this we beg you to be very particular.
Very Respectfully &c
Saml A Maverick
Presdt de Consejo
As soon as Capt. Ross arrives here with his force, we hope it will be unnecessary to continue this vigilance, but at present it is very necessary.
SAMUEL A. MAVERICK AND OTHERS TO MAJOR THOMAS G. WESTERN
To Major Western
Dear Sir
Understanding that you intend to leave our town tomorrow for the Seat of government, the undersigned beg you as an officer of the government to represent to His Excy. the President and the Sec'y. of War, the very perilous situation in which you find our city. Besides the every day mischief of having some citizen killed, we are now threatened by a combination of Indian and Mexican Robbers. And we have been and still are without any protection whatever. As fathers of families we beg you to make such a statement in our behalf as may lead the government to notice our condition and to carry out the acts in our favour passed by the last Congress.
Very respectfully,
Yr. Obt. Servt's,
Maverick
Taylor
Alsbury
Navarro
Jaques
Higginbotham
Elliott
Rouis [for Ruiz]
MAJOR THOMAS G. WESTERN TO SAMUEL A. MAVERICK
Samuel A. Maverick, Esq.,
San Antonio,
Dear Sir—
In compliance with the request of yourself and fellow citizens and my promise to do all for your relief in my power and which the exigencies of your situation demand, I have lain before His Excellency, the President, the Secretary of War and others officers of Government, the exposed and deplorable state of your frontier and your city in particular, and the result of my expositions and efforts are that Major Ross with his detachment of about seventy men, well mounted and well armed, has been ordered to include your section of country in his circuit of ranging and to afford you all the protection in his power. The President has also written individually to John H. Moore on the Colorado to raise two hundred men to range out your way. No force can for the present be made stationary at your place, although this will be attended to as soon as recruits may be had from the U. States.
I write this in consummate haste as the gentleman who takes this is on horse awaiting. Our friend I. P. Borden is at my elbow and sends his best respects to you and his thanks for the documents which you remitted to him by me.
With the assurances of my esteem and regard for yourself and all our friends, I, Sir, remain,
Yours obediently,
Thomas G. Western
I have written in detail by mail.
HUGH ARBUCKLE TO SAMUEL A. MAVERICK
Mr. Maverick
Dear Sir
the bearer of this a widow and her mother a widdow Citizens of mission San John now living in Bexar Received from Gen. S. F. Austin one paper for Six Fanegas of corn pressed for his troops they also recd. Subsiquently two other papers, acknowledgements for two fat cows pressed and killed for Government troops Officers Names unknown to them, as they have no learning, all of which papers as they say amounted as follows; that of Austin Six Fanegas of corn at $3.=$18. those of other officers Two fatt cows at $30=$60. in all $78.
All of the above papers Wm. Gillmore has abstracted from them in manner as follows; he would come to there house frequently with a bottle of liquor of which they are very fond, and cause them to drink till they were intoxicated telling them that he was there friend and a great one as witness his gifts of liquor such as no other person gave to them, the last knight he came to there house he brought a bottle of rum and after they had drank very heartily he told the bearer to go with him to the house of Col. Seguin to sign a power of atty. authorising Seguin to have her papers audited and bring her money from Austin but instead of going to Seguin's he took her to the house of N. J. Diviney and there gott her to Sign various papers all of which unknown to her Diviney telling her they were to be given to Seguin but instead thereof Gillmore has Subsiquently offered there papers for sale at one or more Stores in town saying that they were his and that he would sell them very cheap for any thing
Upon hearing that he has offered there papers for sale they have become greatly alarmed and talk of taking Gillmore before the Alcaldy I advised them not to go to the Alcaldy but to refer the matter to you knowing that if you could not get the truth out of him or get him to return the papers to them that no Alcaldy in Bexar need try I have rote this at the request of the widdows knowing that if you can you will assist them in obtaining there papers again with much respect I Remain your obt. servt.
Hugh Arbuckle
[MEMOIRS 1839] But I have promised to speak of the Indians. In the stable we built on our home lot, Mr. Maverick kept a fine blooded horse, fastened by a heavy padlocked chain to a mesquite-picket. The door of the stable was securely locked also, for every precaution was necessary to prevent his being stolen. This was the "War Horse." Mr. Maverick was a member of the Volunteer Company of "Minute Men" commanded by the celebrated Jack Hays—who is now an honored citizen of California. [John Coffee Hays or "Jack" Hays was born January 28, 1817, at Little Cedar Lick, Wilson County, Tennessee, close to the "Hermitage," which was originally a part of the Hays property.
His father and grandfather distinguished themselves in Creek wars under Jackson. Hays left home at the age of fifteen to survey land in Mississippi. At the age of nineteen he joined the Texan Army at Brazos River just after the San Jacinto battle. Besides leading the "Minute Men' in San Antonio he commanded in numerous battles against Mexico, and was commissioned by the Texas Congress, in 1840, first Captain of the Texas Rangers. He distinguished himself repeatedly in the Mexican War and later crossed the plains to California in '49 where he filled courageously many positions of public trust. He died in Piedmont, California, April 28, 1883. John Hays Hammond was a nephew.
Some buildings and the original fence of Hays' San Antonio home still stand at the northwest corner of Presa and Nueva Streets.] Each Volunteer kept a good home, saddle, bridle and arms, and a supply of coffee, salt, sugar, and other provisions ready at any time to start on fifteen minutes warning, in pursuit of marauding Indians. At a certain signal given by the Cathedral bell, the men were off, in buckskin clothes and blankets responding promptly to the call. They were organized to follow the Indians to their mountain fastnesses and destroy their villages, if they failed to kill the Indians.
Jack Hays came from Tennessee to Texas just after the battle of San Jacinto and when he came to San Antonio he was nineteen years of age, at which time he was appointed a deputy surveyor. The surveying parties frequently had "brushes" with the Indians, and it was on these occasions that Hays displayed such rare military skill and daring, that very soon by consent of all, he was looked upon as the leader and his orders were obeyed and he himself loved by all. In a fight he was utterly fearless and invincible. [The German scientist Dr. Ferdinand Roemer gives this picture of Hays' personal appearance: "I was astonished to find the outward appearance of the man seemingly so little in keeping with his mode of living, and the traits ascribed to him. Instead of a wild material robust figure I saw a young, slender-built man before me, whose soft beardless face did not betray his martial occupation and inclination any more than did the black frock coat, in which he was dressed. Only in his flashing eyes could a keen observer see traces of his hidden energy." Roemer, Texas, p. 131.]
There were many remarkable young men in San Antonio at that time who were attracted by the climate, by the novelty, or by the all-absorbing spirit of land speculation. They volunteered from almost every state of the Union to come and fight in the short but bloody struggle of '35 and '36 for the freedom of Texas. Many came too late, i.e., after San Jacinto, but were drawn to the west by the wildness and danger and daring of the frontier life. They were a noble and gallant set of "boys" as they styled each other and soon the Indians grew less aggressive, and finally Hays' band drove them farther out west, and made them suffer so much after each of their raids that they talked of wanting peace, and thus it went on for several years.
On June 10, 1839, a party of Americans under Hays and a company of Mexicans under Captain Juan N. Seguin set off in pursuit of the Comanches, who just then were very bold, and were constantly killing and scalping and robbing in every direction. The Indians fled and were chased into the Canyon de Uvalde, where our men found and destroyed their villages, newly deserted. They saw numbers of Indians all the time in the distance, amongst rocks and hills, but scattered and hiding or fleeing from danger. They had been away from San Antonio ten days, when Captain Seguin returned reporting the woods full of Indians and predicting that our men would surely be killed. Mr. Maverick was with Hays, and after five more terribly anxious days, I was gladdened by his return. Our men had killed only a few savages and returned with some Indian ponies, dreadfully ragged, dirty and hungry.
SAMUEL A. MAVERICK TO MARY A. MAVERICK
Beloved Wife,
Mr. Jacques & I have Settled our accounts & I owe him nothing: He owes $ 511 83/100 on E & J Andrews draft having paid $ 150.
I left 5 papers with Mr Smith to be recorded—I don't owe Mr Smith any thing except postage on several letter & $5 was advanced on that (see a/c in the Pigion Hole, left side, below) I don't owe any body else one cent:—But the Dr. & I have not settled entirely & I may owe him something:—
As to the old Store at Cassiano's, last summer nothing was made in as much as Wm L Adams & I did not quite get out the money we first put in: & the goods remaining would not do more than pay a note of near $600 due to Capt. [blank] for bringing Wm's groceries out. This note (with the proper deduction for corn lost), must be paid by us, that is, you or me: Wm is not to pay it
ever thine
S. A. Maverick
[Endorsed by Mary A. Maverick: Written some hours previous to setting off on a campaign against the Comanche Indians June 10th, 39, and found by me next day in my trunk—Mary.]
[MEMOIRS 1839-1841] At the close of the Fall Term of the Court in 1839 or 1840, a number of gentlemen who had attended from a distance, wished to ride out to the west of town and see the country before they returned home. A party was made up of ten Americans and about as many Mexicans. They were well mounted and armed and rode out about three o'clock in the afternoon. After sunset, Mr. Campbell, "Talking Campbell," one of the party, returned alone and reported the Indians had got between the party and town, cut off retreat, and killed all but himself, who rode a very fine horse and had fled at once; he advised the others, he said, to cut their way back because the Indians greatly outnumbered our party. Campbell was hotly pursued by the Indians, and he made a detour to the south, where his horse out-distanced the pursuers finally, and he came into town with the dreadful news. Next morning, early, a strong party left town with carts, and by noon returned with eighteen bodies. They were taken to the Court House and laid out. They had been found naked, hacked with tomahawks and partly eaten by wolves. The following day, the nine Americans were buried in one large grave west of the San Pedro, outside of the Catholic burying ground, and very near its S.W. corner, the nine Mexicans were buried inside the Catholic cemetery. It was believed some Indians had been killed too, but as they always carried off their dead, their loss was never ascertained.
In the spring of 1840, my brothers William and Andrew Adams leased land of J. A. de la Garza, at the mission of San Francisco de la Espada, and put in a crop. But the Indians were so bad, and corn so dear, selling then at two or three dollars per bushel, and their plow animals were so constantly stolen, that they broke up in the fall, and moved to San Marcos, and bought land of a Mr. Mathews, where they made fine crops for two years.
A DAY OF HORROS
On Tuesday, 19th of March, 1840, "dia de San José," sixty-five Comanches came into town to make a treaty of peace. They brought with them, and reluctantly gave up, Matilda Lockhart, whom they had captured with her younger sister in December 1838, after killing two other children of her family. The Indian chiefs and men met in council at the Court House, with our city and military authorities. The calaboose or jail then occupied the corner formed by the east line of Main Plaza and the north line of Calabosa (now Market Street), and the Court House was north of and adjoining the jail. The Court House yard, back of the Court House, was what is now the city market on Market Street. The Court House and jail were of stone, one story, flat-roofed, and floored with dirt. Captain Tom Howard's Company was at first in the Court House yard, where the Indian women and boys came and remained during the pow-wow. The young Indians amused themselves shooting arrows at pieces of money put up by some of the Americans; and Mrs. Higginbotham and myself amused ourselves looking through the picket fence at them.
This was the third time these Indians had come for a talk, pretending to seek peace, and trying to get ransom money for their American and Mexican captives. Their proposition now was that they should be paid a great price for Matilda Lockhart, and a Mexican they had just given up, and that traders be sent with paint, powder, flannel, blankets and such other articles as they should name, to ransom the other captives. This course had once before been asked and carried out, but the smallpox breaking out, the Indians killed the traders and kept the goods, believing the traders had made the smallpox to kill the. Now the Americans, mindful of the treachery of the Comanches, answered them as follows: "We will, according to a former agreement, keep four or five of your chiefs, whilst the other of your people go to your nation and bring all the captives, and then we will pay all you ask for them. Meanwhile, these chiefs we hold we will treat as brothers and 'not one hair of their heads shall be injured.' This we have determined, and, if you try to fight, our soldiers will shoot you down."
This being interpreted, the Comanches instantly, with one accord raised a terrific war-whoop, drew their arrows, and commenced firing with deadly effect—at the same time making efforts to break out of the council hall. The order "fire" was given by Captain Howard, and the soldiers fired into the midst of the crowd, the first volley killing several Indians and two of our own people. All soon rushed out into the public square, the civilians to procure arms, the Indians to flee, and the soldiers in pursuit. The Indians generally made for the river--they ran up Soledad, east on Commerce Street and for the bend, now known as Bowen's, southeast, below the square. Citizens and soldiers pursued and overtook them at all points, shot some swimming in the river, had desperate fights in the streets—and hand to hand encounters after fire-arms had been exhausted. Some Indians took refuge in stone houses and fastened the doors. Not one of the sixty-five Indians escaped—-thirty-three were killed and thirty-two were taken prisoners. Six Americans and one Mexican were killed and ten Americans wounded. Our killed were Julian Hood,the sheriff, Judge Thompson, advocate from South Carolina, G. W. Cayce from the Brazos, one officer and two soldiers whose names I did not learn, nor that of the Mexican. The wounded were Lieutenant Thompson, brother of the Judge, Captain Tom Howard, Captain Mat Caldwell, citizen volunteer from Gonzales, Judge Robinson, Mr. Morgan, deputy sheriff, Mr. Higginbotham and two soldiers. Others were slightly wounded.
When the deafening war-whoop sounded in the Court room, it was so loud, so shrill and so inexpressibly horrible and suddenly raised, that we women looking through the fence at the women's and boys' marksmanship for a moment could not comprehend its purport. The Indians however knew the first note and instantly shot their arrows into the bodies of Judge Thompson and the other gentleman near by, instantly killing Judge Thompson. We fled into Mrs. Higginbotham's house, and I, across the street to my Commerce Street door. Two Indians ran past me on the street and one reached my door as I got in. He turned to raise his hand to push it just as I beat down the heavy bar; then he ran on. I ran in the north room and saw my husband and brother Andrew sitting calmly at a table inspecting some plats of surveys—they had heard nothing. I soon gave them the alarm, and hurried on to look for my boys. Mr. Maverick and Andrew seized their arms, always ready—Mr. Maverick rushed into the street, and Andrew into the back yard where I was shouting at the top of my voice "Here are Indians! Here are Indians!" Three Indians had gotten in through the gate on Soledad Street and were making direct for the river! One had paused near Jinny Anderson, our cook, who stood bravely in front of the children, mine and hers, with a great rock lifted in both hands above her head, and I heard her cry out to the Indian "If you don't go 'way from here I'll mash your head with this rock!" The Indian seemed regretful that he hadn't time to dispatch Jinny and her brood, but his time was short, and pausing but a moment, he dashed down the bank into the river, and struck out for the opposite shore. As the Indian hurried down the bank and into the river Andrew shot and killed him, and shot another as he gained and rose on the opposite bank—then he ran off up Soledad street looking for more Indians.
I housed my little ones, and then looked out of the Soledad Street door. Near by was stretched an Indian, wounded and dying. A large man, journey-apprentice to Mr. Higginbotham, came up just then and aimed a pistol at the Indian's head. I called out: "Oh, don't he is dying," and the big American laughed and said: "To please you, I won't, but it would put him out of his misery." Then I saw two others lying dead near by.
Captain Lysander Wells, about this time, passed by riding north on Soledad Street. He was elegantly dressed and mounted on a gaily caparisoned Mexican horse with silver mounted saddle and bridle—which outfit he had secured to take back to his native state, on a visit to his mother. As he reached the Verimendi House, an Indian who had escaped detection, sprang up behind him, clasped Wells' arms in his and tried to catch hold of the bridle reins. Wells was fearless and active. They struggled for some time, bent back and forward, swayed from side to side, till at last Wells held the Indian's wrists with his left hand, drew his pistol from the holster, partly turned, and fired into the Indian's body—a moment more and the Indian rolled off and dropped dead to the ground. Wells then put spurs to his horse which had stood almost still during the struggle, dashed up the street and did good service in the pursuit. I had become so fascinated by this struggle that I had gone into the street almost breathless, and wholly unconscious of where I was, till recalled by the voice of Lieutenant Chevallier who said: "Are you crazy? Go in or you will be killed." I went in but without feeling any fear, though the street was almost deserted and my husband and brother both gone in the fight. I then looked out on Commerce Street and saw four or five dead Indians. I was just twenty-two then, and was endowed with a fair share of curiosity.
Not till dark did all our men get back, and I was grateful to God, indeed, to see my husband and brother back alive and not wounded.
Captain Mat Caldwell, or "Old Paint" as he was familiarly called, our guest from Gonzales, was an old and famous Indian fighter. He had gone from our house to the Council Hall unarmed. But when the fight began, he wrenched a gun from an Indian and killed him with it, and beat another to death with the butt end of the gun. He was shot through the right leg, wounded as he thought by the first volley of the soldiers. After breaking the gun, he then fought with rocks, with his back to the Court House wall.
Young G. W. Cayce had called on us that morning, bringing an introductory letter form his father to Mr. Maverick, and placing some papers in his charge. He was a very pleasant and handsome young man and, it was reported, came to marry Gertrude Navarro, Mrs. Dr. Allsbury's sister. He left our house when I did, I going to Mrs. Higginbotham's and he to the Council Hall. He stood in the front door of the Court House, was shot and instantly killed at the beginning of the fight, and fell by the side of Captain Caldwell. The brother of this young man afterwards told me he had left home with a premonition of his death being very near. Captain Caldwell was assisted back to our house and Dr. Weideman came and cut off his boot and found the bullet had gone entirely through the leg, and lodged in the boot, where it was discovered. The wound, though not dangerous, was very painful, but the doughty Captain recovered rapidly and in a few days walked about with the aid of a stick.
After the captain had been cared for, I ran across to Mrs. Higginbotham's. Mr. Higginbotham, who was as peaceful as a Quaker to all appearances, had been in the fight and had received a light wound. They could not go into their back yard, because two Indians had taken refuge in their kitchen, and refused to come out or surrender as prisoners when the interpreter had summoned them. A number of young men took counsel together that night, and agreed upon a plan. Anton Lockmar and another got on the roof, and about two hours after midnight dropped a candlewick ball soaked in turpentine, and blazing, through a hole in the roof upon one Indian's head and so hurt him and frightened them both that they opened the door and rushed out—to their death. An axe split open the head of one of the Indians before he was well out of the door, and the other was killed before he had gone many steps—thus the last of the sixty-five were taken. The Indian women dressed and fought like the men, and could not be told apart. As I have said thirty-three were killed and thirty-two taken prisoners. Many of them were repeatedly summoned to surrender, but numbers refused and were killed. All had a chance to surrender, and every one who offered or agreed to give up was taken prisoner and protected.
What a day of horrors! And the night was as bad which followed.
Liieutenant Thompson, who had been shot through the lungs, was taken to Madam Santita's house, on Soledad treet, just opposite us, and that night he vomited blood and cried and groaned all night—I shall never forget his gasping for breath and his agonizing cries. Dr. Weideman sat by and watched him, or only left to see the other sufferers, nearby; no one thought he would live till day, but he did, and got to be well and strong again, and in a few weeks walked out.
The captive Indians were all put in the calaboose for a few day and while they were there our forces entered into a twelve days truce with them—the captives acting for their Nation. And, in accordance with the stipulation of the treaty, one of the captives, an Indian woman, widow of a chief, was released on the 20th, the day after the fight. She was given a horse and provisions and sent to her Nation to tell her people of the fight and its result. She was charged to tell them, in accordance with the truce, to bring in all their captives, known to be fifteen Americans and several Mexicans, and exchange them for the thirty-two Indian held. She seemed eager to effect this, and promised to do her best. She said she would travel day and night, and could go and return within five days. The other prisoners thought she could in five days return with the captives from the tribe. The Americans said, "Very well we give twelve days truce and if you do not get back by Thursday night of the 28th, these prioners shall be killed, for we will know you have killed our captive friends and relatives."
In April, as I shall mention again, we were informed by a boy, named B. L. Webster, that when the squaw reached her tribe and told of the disaster, all the Comanches howled, and cut themselves with knives, and killed horses, for several days. And they took all the American captives, thirteen in number, and roasted and butchered them to death with horrible cruelties; that he and a little girl named Putnam, five years old, had been spared because they had previously been adopted into the tribe.
Our people did not, however, retaliate upon the captives in our hands. The captive Indians were all put into the calaboose, corner Market Street and the public square, and adjoining the courthouse, where all the people in San Antonio went to see them. The Indians expected to be killed, and they did not understand nor trust the kindness which was shown them and the great pity manifested toward them. They were first removed to San José Mission, where a company of soldiers was stationed, and afterwards taken to Camp "Cook," named after W. G. Cook, at the head of the river, and strictly guarded for a time. But afterwards the strictness was relaxed and they gradually all, except a few, who were exchanged, escaped and returned to their tribe. They were kindly treated and two or three of them were taken into families as domestics, and were taught some little, but they too, at last, silently stole away to their ancient freedom.
DOCTOR WEIDEMAN
Late in the afternoon of the Indian fight, of the 19th, I visited Mr. Higginbotham's, as I have before stated. While I was there, Dr. Weideman came up to her grated front window, and placed a severed Indian head upon the sill. The good doctor bowed courteously and saying, "With your permission, Madam," disappeared. Soon after he returned with another bloody head, when he explained to us that he had viewed all the dead Indians, and elected these two heads, male and female, for the skulls, and also had selected two entire bodies, male and female, to preserve as specimen skeletons. He said: "I have been long exceedingly anxious to secure such specimens—and now, ladies, I must hurry and get a cart to take them to my house," and off he hurried all begrimed with dirt and blood (having been with his good horse one of the foremost in pursuit). Now he was exulting for the cause of science in his "magnificent specimens," and before it was quite dark he came with his cart and its frightful load, took his two heads and disappeared. His house was the Old Chaves place, on the side of Acequia Street (now Main Avenue) north of Main Plaza.
Dr. Weideman, a Russian, was a very learned man of perhaps thirty-five years of age, was a surgeon and M.D., spoke many living tongues and had travelled very extensively. In former year, he had buried a lovely young wife and son, and becoming restless, had sought and secured employment under the Russian Government. In fact the Emperor of Russia had sent him to Texas to find and report anything and everything, vegetable and animal grown in Texas—and he had selected a worthy man, for Dr. Weideman was a devotee to science. He grew enthusiastic over our Western Texas and her climate, and constantly accompanied the "Minute Men" on their expeditions and numerous surveying parties.
Dr. Weideman took the Indian heads and bodies to his home as I have mentioned, and put them into a large soap boilder on the bank of the "acequia," or ditch, which ran in front of his premises. During the night of the 20th he emptied the boiler, containing water and flesh from the bones, into the ditch. Now this ditch furnished the drinking water generally for the town. The river and the San Pedro Creek, it was understood, were for bathing and washing purposes, but a city ordinance prohibited, with heavy fines, the throwing of any dirt or filth into the ditch—for it was highly necessary and proper to keep the drinking water pure.
On the 21st, it dawned upon the dwellers upon the banks of the ditch that the doctor had defiled their drinking water. There arose a great hue and cry and all the people crowded to the mayor's office—the men talked in loud and excited tones, the women shrieked and cried—they rolled up their eyes in horror, they vomited, and some of them were so frightened that they suffered miscarriage. Many thought they were poisoned and must die. Dr. Weideman was arrested and brought to trial, he was overwhelmed with abuse, he was called "diabolo," "demonio," "sin cerguenza," etc., etc. He took it quite calmly, told the poor creatures they would not be hurt—that the Indian poison had all run off with the water long before day—paid his fine and went away laughing.
The doctor had a Mexican servant who had been pretty good, and lived with him two years—but José would steal, and one day he stole the doctor's watch, a valuable timepiece. Dr. Weideman, after inquiring and waiting several weeks in vain, determined to have his watch, if he had to use magic to get it! He had several Mexican menservants, for he kept horses, wild animals, snakes and birds and also cultivated a fine garden—with wild flowers, etc., but he satisfied himself that José was the thief. He invited several gentlemen to come to his house a certain evening about full of the moon, and he told his servants that he would summon the spirits to point out the thief. When the appointed time came, he caused a fire to be built on the flat dirt roof of his house, over which he placed a pot filled with liquids. Hither he brought his company and the servants. He was dressed in a curious robe or gown covered with weird figures, and a tall wonderful cap rested on his head. In his hand he held a twisted stick with which he stirred the liquid in the pot, uttering the while words in an unknown tongue. He was very solemn and occasionally he would turn around slowly and gaze upward into space. Finally he told all present that he would put out the fire, and cool the liquid, and then each person in turn should dip his hand in, and the thief's hand would turn black. Each one advanced in order and submitted his hand to the test, and after each experiment the doctor would stir and mutter and turn around again. José waited until the very last, he came up quite unwillingly, and when he withdrew his hand from the pot it was black. José was terribly frightened, he fell upon his knees and acknowledged the theft then and there and begged for mercy. The Doctor got his watch back and did not discharge José, who never after stole again.
The Mexicans when they saw the doctor on the streets would cross themselves, and avoid him—they said he was leagued with the devil; he claimed that the spirits of the Indians, whose bodies he had dissected, were under his enchantment and that he could make them tell him anything. He set his skeleton Indians up in his garden, in his summer house, and dared anybody to steal on his premises. It is needless to say, everything he had was sacred from theft.
Dr. Weideman was very good to the sick and wounded. He would not take pay for his services, and saved many lives by his skill and attention. He was universally respected and liked by Americans. In 1843 or '44 he was drowned in attempting to cross Peach Creek, near Gonzales when the water was very high—his horse and himself and one other man were carried down by the rapid current and drowned, whilst the others of the party barely escaped.
During the summer of the year, 1840, Colonel Henry Karnes upon returning from Houston when yellow fever was prevailing there, was taken down with yellow fever. The colonel and Dr. Weideman were great friends, and the Doctor hardly left his room till he was out of danger. Karnes thought though his business required him in Houston, and contrary to the doctor's advice he started back before he was strong enough. He travelled in a light wagon, took a relapse after the first day and came back to his friends. But his case was now hopeless and he died from his great imprudence, and the good doctor put on the deepest mourning for his friend. Colonel Karnes was a short, thick-set man with bright red hair. While he was uneducated, he was modest, generous and devoted to his friends. He was brave and untiring and a terror to the Indians. They called him "Capitan Colorado" (Red Captain) and spoke of him as "Muy Wapo" (very brave). Four or five years before he died, he was taken prisoner by the Comanches, and the squaws so greatly admired his hair of "fire" that they felt it and washed it to see if it would fade; and, when they found the color held fast, they would not be satisfied until each had a lock.
Several incidents occurred soon after the fight of the 19th, which, together with other incidents much later, I will narrate. On March 28th between two hundred and fifty and three hundred Comanches under a dashing young chief, Ismanica, came close to the edge of the town where the main body halted and chief Isimanica with another warrior rode daringly into the public square, and circled around it, then rode some distance down Commerce Street and back, shouting all the while, offering fight and heaping abuse and insults upon the Americans. Isimanica was in full war paint, and almost naked. He stopped longest at Black's saloon, at the northeast corner of the square; he shouted defiance, he rose in his stirrups, shook his clenched fist, raved, and foamed at the mouth. The citizens, through an interpreter, told him the soldiers were all down the river at Mission San José and if he went there Colonel Fisher would give him fight enough.
Isimanica took his braves to San José [Mission San José (St. Joseph) or Second Mission, named also for the Governor of the province of Texas at the time "de Aguayo" was founded in 1720 and completed about 1730 the same year Mission Concepcion was begun. San José is said by many to be the most beautiful of all the missions in this country though it has been badly neglected and the wonderful carvings broken and defaced by relic hunters. "The south window of the Baptistry is considered by good judges the finest gem of architectural ornamentation existing in America today." William Corner, San Antonio de Bexar, p. 17.] and with fearless daring bantered the soldiers for a fight. Colonel Fisher was lying on a sick-bed and Captain Redd, the next in rank, was in command. He said to the chief: "We have made a twelve day truce with your people in order to exchange prisoners. My country's honor is pledged, as well as my own, to keep the truce, and I will not break it. Remain here three days or return in three days and the truce will be over. We burn to fight you." Isimanica called him liar, coward and other opprobrious names, and hung around for some time, but at last the Indians left and did not return. Captain Redd remained calm and unmoved, but his men could with the greatest difficulty be restrained, and in fact some of them were ordered into the Mission church and the door guarded.
When Captain Lysander Wells a non-commissioned officer, who was in town, heard of it, he wrote Captain Redd an insulting letter in which he called him a "dastardly coward," and alluded to a certain "petticoat government" under which he intimated the Captain was restrained. This allusion had reference to a young woman who, dressed in boy's apparel had followed Redd from Georgia and was now living with him. This letter of Wells' was signed, much to their shame, by several others in San Antonio. About this time Colonel Fisher removed his entire force of three companies to the Alamo in San Antonio; Redd challenged Wells to mortal combat, and one morning at six o'clock they met where the Ursuline Convent now stands. Redd said: "I aim for your heart" and Wells answered: "And I for your brains." They fired. Redd sprang high into the air and fell dead with a bullet in his brain. Wells was shot near the heart, but lived two weeks, in great torture, begging every one near him to dispatch him or furnish him a pistol that he might kill himself and end his agony; Dr. Weideman nursed him tenderly. In Captain Redd's pocket was found a marriage license and certificate showing that he was wedded to the girl (before mentioned)—also letters to members of his own and her families, speaking of her in the tenderest manner, and asking them to protect and provide for her. She was heartbroken and went to his funeral in black, and soon returned to her family.
These men were both brave and tried soldiers! What a sad ending to their young and promising lives, and that, too, when cruel and relentless savages daily committed atrocities about us.
Matilda Lockhart who came in as I have mentioned, on March 19th, had been about two years in captivity. When she was captured, two of her family were slain and she and her little sister were taken prisoners. At that time she was thirteen and her sister not three years of age. They were taken off to the tribe. Just before her release, she came along with the Indian party, as a herder, driving a herd of extra ponies for the Indians. The Indians thus could exchange their horses from time to time for fresher ones.
She was in a frightful condition, poor girl when at last she returned to civilization. Her head, arms and face were full of bruises, and sores, and her nose actually burnt off to the bone—all the fleshy end gone, and a great scab formed on the end of the bone. Both nostrils were wide open and denuded of flesh. She told a piteous tale of how they would wake her from sleep by sticking a chunk of fire to her flesh, especially to her nose, and how they would shout and laugh like fiends when she cried. Her body had many scars from fire many of which she showed us. Ah it was sickening to behold, and made one's blood boil for vengeance.
Matilda was now fifteen years old, and though glad to be free from her detested tyrants, she was very sad and broken-hearted. She said she felt utterly degraded, and could never hold her head up again—that she would be glad to get back home again, where she would hide away and never permit herself to be seen. How terrible to contemplate! Yet her case was by no means solitary. She told of fifteen other American captives, her little sister and Booker Webster. After a few days, Matilda's brother came and took her home.
She called out in good English, however, and said she had escaped from Indian captivity. She was taken into John W. Smith's house, and we American ladies soon gathered there to see her and attend her wants. She said she was very tired and hungry and appeared much exhausted. After listening to a part of her story, Mrs. Smith gave her some food, which she and her little one ate in a famished manner. Five of us ladies, Mr. Jacques, Mrs. Elliott, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Higginbotham and myself, agreed to unite in caring for the unhappy fugitive. We got her some clothing, and, having prepared a bath, we helped her to undress and found her skin yet fair and white beneath the buckskin. We bathed and clothed her and left her to sleep and rest.
The stench of the poor woman's clothes was so dreadful, while we were undressing her, that Mrs. Jacques fainted away, and Mrs. Smith told me to get a bottle of cologne on her mantel in the adjoining room. I picked up the only bottle there, and hastily sprinkled the contents on Mrs. Jacques' face, which caused her to revive instantly, and she screamed: "stop, stop, that is pepper vinegar!" And so it was indeed, and had gotten into one of her eyes, whereupon Mrs. Jacques was accused
of "playing 'possum" and we had a great laugh. Mrs. Webster remained a week with Mrs. Smith, a week with Mrs. Jacques and two weeks with me. She was treated with great kindness by every one, and money and clothes given her. Her story was as follows:
She came from Virginia to Texas early in 1838 with her husband, who she claimed was a relative of Daniel Webster. They built a house northwest of Austin, and in August of that year her husband was removing her and her four children to this wild home—they had also in the party two negroes and one white man. One evening they camped on Brushy Creek, not far north of Austin, when a large party of Comanches suddenly attacked them. Their three men fought bravely but were overpowered and killed. Mrs. Webster's infant was taken from her arms, and its brains dashed out on a tree and her second child was killed. She and her eldest boy of ten years, Booker Webster were tied upon horses and she held her child of two years so tightly and plead for it so piteously that the Indians left it with her. They were taken by rapid marches to the mountains where they stripped Booker and shaved his head. He was attacked with brain fever, and an old squaw, who had just lost a son of his age, adopted him and nursed him very tenderly. The Indian allowed Mr. Webster to keep her little girl, but prohibited her from talking with her son. They made her cook, and stake out ponies, and they beat her very badly.
She had been nineteen months in captivity when she seized a favorable opportunity to escape. It was one night after a long day's march when, having learned the general direction of San Antonio, she quietly and noiselessly slipped out of camp with her child in her arms and bent her steps toward Bexar. She spent twelve terrible days on the road without meeting a human being—sustaining herself all this while on berries, small fish which she caught in the streams, and bones left at Indian camps, which she followed, hiding and sleeping in the day and travelling at night by moon and starlight. She several times gave up to die, but gathering courage and determination, she would trudge on. The early morning of the 26th she lay down despairing on a hillside in a fog, not able to drag one foot after the other. When the sun shone out, looking to the east she saw a "golden cross shining in the sky"! Then she knew her prayers had been answered and that cross surmounted the Cathedral of San Fernando in San Antonio. She said he felt her weariness melt away and she grew strong and hopeful and again took up the march with a thankful heart. She was about thirty-two years old.
April 3rd. Two Indians, a chief and a squaw, the man with his bow strung and arrows in his hand, came into the public square and, remaining mounted, called out to the Americans that about twenty warriors were holding all the Americans and Mexican captives three miles from town, and that they were prepared to make the exchange proposed or agreed upon in the twelve days' truce. The Americans sent scouts, who reported the Indians to be numerous and the captives few. Two companies of soldiers and nine captive Indians were ordered up from San José. The Americans declined to go with the chief to the Indian camp, but they gave him bread, peloncillos and a beef and agreed to talk "mañana" (tomorrow).
On the 4th, the chief returned and asked the Americans to take out two captives and exchange for two, and the answer was: "Bring two captives to the edge of town and we will meet you." They came with a little American girl, Putnam's child, and a Mexican boy, and received two Indians. The Americans being desirous of securing all the captives, not knowing they were murdered, asked why they did not bring American captives, and the Indians answered they had only one more with them, and if they gave him up they wished to choose an Indian in exchange. The boy proved to be B. L. Webster, "Booker," the son of Mrs. Webster mentioned above, and they brought a Mexican boy with him and said these were all they had with them. The chief selected in exchange for Webster a squaw whose arm had been broken in the fight of the 19th. When asked why he chose her, he answered she was the widow of a great chief who had been killed in the fight, and he wanted her for his squaw, because she owned "muchas mules," "muchas mules." The squaw did not seem to relish this and so the Americans would not let him take her, but selected another woman, and a child, and threw in a blind Indian. The chief was not pleased, but departed with what he could get.
Thus we got back two Americans and five Mexican captives. Booker Webster's head was shaved and he was painted in Indian style. One of the Mexicans ran away some time afterwards and returned to the Indians. The girl, Putman, was five years old, and cried to go back to the Comanche mother who had adopted her, probably in her second year. She could not speak or understand English, and had many bruises and her nose was burnt partly off. The boy, Booker, then told us, and we learned for the first time, how the Comanches had murdered the captives in their hands when they received the message borne to them by the squaw.
The Indians used the Spanish language a great deal, but they never tried to acquire any knowledge of the English tongue. This summer, 1840, the Indians were constantly stealing and murdering. Travel was especially unsafe, except when the company was large, and even then it was advisable to travel by night and camp by day, always keeping a sharp lookout.
Early in August, a band of about three hundred warriors suddenly appeared in the neighborhood of Victoria, having escaped detection on their route down the country. On the 6th, they appeared there in force. Circling around Victoria, they passed onto Linnville, a small town on Lavaca. Linnville was a very small town in which was located a Custom House and a few stores. When the Indians charged into town, most of the citizens took refuge on the boats anchored near, and thus escaped. Some were not quick enough, and were cut off and killed, and two ladies and a boy were taken prisoners. The Indians found large quantities of goods stored at Linnville, which they loaded upon pack animals, and even upon their riding horses. They spent the whole day there, and burnt all the houses and everything they could not carry off.
Meanwhile, runners had been sent out of Victoria to warn the settlers, and for the purpose of summoning volunteers to intercept the Indians' return to the mountains. The call was responded to from every valley and settlement. From the Colorado to the Guadalupe and beyond, volunteers gathered, under McColloch, Lynn, Caldwell, Ed Burleson, Moore and others. Scouts who followed close upon their trail told of whole bolts of ribbon, muslin and calico streaming to the air from the saddles of the savages. On Plum Creek, a branch of the San Marcos, August 18th, they were at last surrounded, retreat cut off and they were forced to fight. The Texas forces, under General Felix Houston, had been gathering for one grand blow. The combat was remarkable for the terrible slaughter of the Indians. The battle ground extended over a distance of fifteen miles, for it was a running fight. None of the Texans were killed, and the Indians were so completely crushed by this defeat that they never dared to raid into that section again.
When they found they would lose the fight, the Indians lanced and shot arrows into their captives, who were tied to trees, and left them for dead, but Mrs. Watts recovered and returned to her friends. The capture of Mrs. Watts illustrates how vitally important a few moments of time may become. Mr. Watts had married this lady only a few weeks before the Comanches burned Linnville, and had presented her with an elegant gold watch and chain. After starting to run for the boats, Mrs. Watts thought she would secure her watch first, ran back into the house, and got it, accompanied by her husband. Having secured the trinket, they attempted to reach the boats, but some mounted Indians had cut them off. Watts was tomahawked, and his wife taken captive. She afterwards married again, to a Mr. Staunton, I am told, and died at Lavaca in 1878.
Now, why have I mentioned this raid? Well you shall hear. On April 21st, Mr. Maverick had left for New Orleans and returned in June by the way of Houston. He had only got home a week before this, and had intended to come by Lavaca, but was detained. He however, shipped by way of Linnville, goods, stores and a supply of clothing material for two years ahead, and unfortunately for us the goods were stored in Linnville when the Indians sacked the place. Mr. Maverick had purchased a supply of whiskey and brandy to be used on surveying expeditions—it being the custom for those having surveying done to furnish the liquor. He had purchased for me a silver soup ladle, twelve table and twelve tea spoons; the spoons we had travelled out with were only plated ware. He had also a number of law books with the other things. These law books were the only things we ever heard from, and what he heard was this: they were strung to the Indians' saddles by strings run through the volumes, and used for making cigarettes.
I shall not mention the thousand and one incidents which happened in connection with the Comanches in and about San Antonio from 1838 until 1842, when we became refugees. They made life very unsafe on the frontier and during the period mentioned they were always within dangerous proximity to us and always doing some of their devilment.
However I will mention one or two more incidents before I bid them adieu. On May 27, thirty or forty Comanches came close to town, and being early discovered, they were hotly pursued by the "Minute Men." They fled to the nearest timber on the Medina, where, darkness overtaking them, they speared all their horses and took to the bottom on foot. In the morning the dead horses were found but the Indians had escaped.
The Indians were always lurking around in small bodies, hiding close to town, waiting for an opportunity to strike without danger to themselves. We were compelled to learn this through many murders and robberies. They would suddenly appear from the river bottom, from behind a clump of trees, from a gully, and sometimes from the tall grass. It seemed they were always on the watch everywhere, but only acted at the most favorable moments.
In the Spring of 1841, Mrs. Elliott and I set out up the river to gather dewberries. They grew in great abundance where the Ursuline Convent now stands. Mr. Elliot sent his two clerks, Peter Gallagher and John Conran, Mrs. Elliott's brother, along, they being well armed. We with my son Sam and Billy Elliott and the two nurses Rachael and Julia took our buckets and started up directly after dinner. We found a great abundance of ripe luscious berries, ate all we wanted, filled our buckets, had a first-rate time and started home all right. We met just after we left the bend of the river a Mexican cartman going out to hobble his oxen on the fine grass we had just passed over. We had gone only a few hundred feet further, after passing the Mexican, when we heard all around us the sudden cry of "Indios," "Indios." Soon the alarm bell called to arms and we ran quickly home. The cartman we passed proved to be the victim—he was killed and scalped by the Comanches, who had been hiding close to us in the river timber when we were gathering the berries and having our good time just before. Our two armed guards on the watch had saved our lives. The Indians both escaped in the dark and we were grateful for the foresight of Mr. Elliott, and we learned a lesson never forgotten, for our foolhardy venturing.
[MEMOIRS 1838] The experiences of my first years in Texas led me to think the Comanches were an active and vigorous tribe of Indians. At that time they were about the only Indians who infested the country in the vicinity of San Antonio, and I must mention here some of their deeds which held our attention at the time.
June 29th, 1838, thirty-eight Comanches came into the edge of town and killed two Mexicans and stole one boy—on the 30th they killed a German and a Mexican. July 1st, the flag of Texas waves on the Plaza in front of the Court House, and a company of volunteers are assembling for pursuit of the Indians. Later, our company of volunteers fell in with a considerable party of Comanches, attacked them, killed two and wounded many others—but the wounded were carried off by the others, all of whom beat a hasty retreat. Our people captured all their horses and provisions.
The Mexicans of Mexico have not forgotten us. About this time, a party of Mexicans, 200 strong under Agaton, learning that valuable goods had been landed at Capano, and were being carted by friendly Mexicans to the San Antonio merchants, crossed the Rio Grande at Matamoras, captured the train and compelled the cartmen to haul the goods to the Nueces river where the cartmen were dismissed. Of the two Americans who were with the train when it was captured, one was killed and the other was wounded, but escaped.
During July 1838, many rumors from the west came to the effect that an army of centralists was marching to capture Bexar—also that the Comanche Nation had entered into a treaty of alliance with the Mexicans and would act with them for our extermination. But in a day or two, it was ascertained that Aristo had pursued the "President of the Republic of the Rio Grande," General Vidauria, who having defeated in battle had fled to Texas for refuge. Aristo turned back at the Nueces.
SAMUEL A. MAVERICK TO MIGUEL ARCINIEGA
City of San Antonio
20th August 1839
20th August 1839
To Dn, Miguel Arciniega
Captain of Company
Sir
Having advised with the aldermen this day, it is deemed advisable and proper to inform you that measures have been taken on this side of the River to put our city in a state of defence against Indians and robbers. And by the same authority and by the power in me vested as presidt of the Council I have to request you as Captain to take instant measures for organizing the District of La Villita & Alamo. The council expect of you to notify every man, in your district, to be in readiness at your call; and also that you make out a list of their names, and that six or more persons (in your discretion) be called out each night to act as a guard at the principal passways, in the mode which shall appear best in your good judgment, in which the Council place the most unlimited confidence. The object of the guard by night is to stop & arrest every person who may appear to be a spy or a robber. In this we beg you to be very particular.
Saml A Maverick
Presdt de Consejo
As soon as Capt. Ross arrives here with his force, we hope it will be unnecessary to continue this vigilance, but at present it is very necessary.
SAMUEL A. MAVERICK AND OTHERS TO MAJOR THOMAS G. WESTERN
San Antonio, Aug [1839]
To Major Western
Dear Sir
Understanding that you intend to leave our town tomorrow for the Seat of government, the undersigned beg you as an officer of the government to represent to His Excy. the President and the Sec'y. of War, the very perilous situation in which you find our city. Besides the every day mischief of having some citizen killed, we are now threatened by a combination of Indian and Mexican Robbers. And we have been and still are without any protection whatever. As fathers of families we beg you to make such a statement in our behalf as may lead the government to notice our condition and to carry out the acts in our favour passed by the last Congress.
Yr. Obt. Servt's,
Maverick
Taylor
Alsbury
Navarro
Jaques
Higginbotham
Elliott
Rouis [for Ruiz]
MAJOR THOMAS G. WESTERN TO SAMUEL A. MAVERICK
City of Houston
September 2, 1839.
September 2, 1839.
Samuel A. Maverick, Esq.,
San Antonio,
Dear Sir—
In compliance with the request of yourself and fellow citizens and my promise to do all for your relief in my power and which the exigencies of your situation demand, I have lain before His Excellency, the President, the Secretary of War and others officers of Government, the exposed and deplorable state of your frontier and your city in particular, and the result of my expositions and efforts are that Major Ross with his detachment of about seventy men, well mounted and well armed, has been ordered to include your section of country in his circuit of ranging and to afford you all the protection in his power. The President has also written individually to John H. Moore on the Colorado to raise two hundred men to range out your way. No force can for the present be made stationary at your place, although this will be attended to as soon as recruits may be had from the U. States.
I write this in consummate haste as the gentleman who takes this is on horse awaiting. Our friend I. P. Borden is at my elbow and sends his best respects to you and his thanks for the documents which you remitted to him by me.
With the assurances of my esteem and regard for yourself and all our friends, I, Sir, remain,
Thomas G. Western
I have written in detail by mail.
HUGH ARBUCKLE TO SAMUEL A. MAVERICK
San Antonio Nov—1839
Mr. Maverick
Dear Sir
the bearer of this a widow and her mother a widdow Citizens of mission San John now living in Bexar Received from Gen. S. F. Austin one paper for Six Fanegas of corn pressed for his troops they also recd. Subsiquently two other papers, acknowledgements for two fat cows pressed and killed for Government troops Officers Names unknown to them, as they have no learning, all of which papers as they say amounted as follows; that of Austin Six Fanegas of corn at $3.=$18. those of other officers Two fatt cows at $30=$60. in all $78.
All of the above papers Wm. Gillmore has abstracted from them in manner as follows; he would come to there house frequently with a bottle of liquor of which they are very fond, and cause them to drink till they were intoxicated telling them that he was there friend and a great one as witness his gifts of liquor such as no other person gave to them, the last knight he came to there house he brought a bottle of rum and after they had drank very heartily he told the bearer to go with him to the house of Col. Seguin to sign a power of atty. authorising Seguin to have her papers audited and bring her money from Austin but instead of going to Seguin's he took her to the house of N. J. Diviney and there gott her to Sign various papers all of which unknown to her Diviney telling her they were to be given to Seguin but instead thereof Gillmore has Subsiquently offered there papers for sale at one or more Stores in town saying that they were his and that he would sell them very cheap for any thing
Upon hearing that he has offered there papers for sale they have become greatly alarmed and talk of taking Gillmore before the Alcaldy I advised them not to go to the Alcaldy but to refer the matter to you knowing that if you could not get the truth out of him or get him to return the papers to them that no Alcaldy in Bexar need try I have rote this at the request of the widdows knowing that if you can you will assist them in obtaining there papers again with much respect I Remain your obt. servt.
[MEMOIRS 1839] But I have promised to speak of the Indians. In the stable we built on our home lot, Mr. Maverick kept a fine blooded horse, fastened by a heavy padlocked chain to a mesquite-picket. The door of the stable was securely locked also, for every precaution was necessary to prevent his being stolen. This was the "War Horse." Mr. Maverick was a member of the Volunteer Company of "Minute Men" commanded by the celebrated Jack Hays—who is now an honored citizen of California. [John Coffee Hays or "Jack" Hays was born January 28, 1817, at Little Cedar Lick, Wilson County, Tennessee, close to the "Hermitage," which was originally a part of the Hays property.
His father and grandfather distinguished themselves in Creek wars under Jackson. Hays left home at the age of fifteen to survey land in Mississippi. At the age of nineteen he joined the Texan Army at Brazos River just after the San Jacinto battle. Besides leading the "Minute Men' in San Antonio he commanded in numerous battles against Mexico, and was commissioned by the Texas Congress, in 1840, first Captain of the Texas Rangers. He distinguished himself repeatedly in the Mexican War and later crossed the plains to California in '49 where he filled courageously many positions of public trust. He died in Piedmont, California, April 28, 1883. John Hays Hammond was a nephew.
Some buildings and the original fence of Hays' San Antonio home still stand at the northwest corner of Presa and Nueva Streets.] Each Volunteer kept a good home, saddle, bridle and arms, and a supply of coffee, salt, sugar, and other provisions ready at any time to start on fifteen minutes warning, in pursuit of marauding Indians. At a certain signal given by the Cathedral bell, the men were off, in buckskin clothes and blankets responding promptly to the call. They were organized to follow the Indians to their mountain fastnesses and destroy their villages, if they failed to kill the Indians.
Jack Hays came from Tennessee to Texas just after the battle of San Jacinto and when he came to San Antonio he was nineteen years of age, at which time he was appointed a deputy surveyor. The surveying parties frequently had "brushes" with the Indians, and it was on these occasions that Hays displayed such rare military skill and daring, that very soon by consent of all, he was looked upon as the leader and his orders were obeyed and he himself loved by all. In a fight he was utterly fearless and invincible. [The German scientist Dr. Ferdinand Roemer gives this picture of Hays' personal appearance: "I was astonished to find the outward appearance of the man seemingly so little in keeping with his mode of living, and the traits ascribed to him. Instead of a wild material robust figure I saw a young, slender-built man before me, whose soft beardless face did not betray his martial occupation and inclination any more than did the black frock coat, in which he was dressed. Only in his flashing eyes could a keen observer see traces of his hidden energy." Roemer, Texas, p. 131.]
There were many remarkable young men in San Antonio at that time who were attracted by the climate, by the novelty, or by the all-absorbing spirit of land speculation. They volunteered from almost every state of the Union to come and fight in the short but bloody struggle of '35 and '36 for the freedom of Texas. Many came too late, i.e., after San Jacinto, but were drawn to the west by the wildness and danger and daring of the frontier life. They were a noble and gallant set of "boys" as they styled each other and soon the Indians grew less aggressive, and finally Hays' band drove them farther out west, and made them suffer so much after each of their raids that they talked of wanting peace, and thus it went on for several years.
On June 10, 1839, a party of Americans under Hays and a company of Mexicans under Captain Juan N. Seguin set off in pursuit of the Comanches, who just then were very bold, and were constantly killing and scalping and robbing in every direction. The Indians fled and were chased into the Canyon de Uvalde, where our men found and destroyed their villages, newly deserted. They saw numbers of Indians all the time in the distance, amongst rocks and hills, but scattered and hiding or fleeing from danger. They had been away from San Antonio ten days, when Captain Seguin returned reporting the woods full of Indians and predicting that our men would surely be killed. Mr. Maverick was with Hays, and after five more terribly anxious days, I was gladdened by his return. Our men had killed only a few savages and returned with some Indian ponies, dreadfully ragged, dirty and hungry.
SAMUEL A. MAVERICK TO MARY A. MAVERICK
June 39
Beloved Wife,
Mr. Jacques & I have Settled our accounts & I owe him nothing: He owes $ 511 83/100 on E & J Andrews draft having paid $ 150.
I left 5 papers with Mr Smith to be recorded—I don't owe Mr Smith any thing except postage on several letter & $5 was advanced on that (see a/c in the Pigion Hole, left side, below) I don't owe any body else one cent:—But the Dr. & I have not settled entirely & I may owe him something:—
As to the old Store at Cassiano's, last summer nothing was made in as much as Wm L Adams & I did not quite get out the money we first put in: & the goods remaining would not do more than pay a note of near $600 due to Capt. [blank] for bringing Wm's groceries out. This note (with the proper deduction for corn lost), must be paid by us, that is, you or me: Wm is not to pay it
S. A. Maverick
[Endorsed by Mary A. Maverick: Written some hours previous to setting off on a campaign against the Comanche Indians June 10th, 39, and found by me next day in my trunk—Mary.]
[MEMOIRS 1839-1841] At the close of the Fall Term of the Court in 1839 or 1840, a number of gentlemen who had attended from a distance, wished to ride out to the west of town and see the country before they returned home. A party was made up of ten Americans and about as many Mexicans. They were well mounted and armed and rode out about three o'clock in the afternoon. After sunset, Mr. Campbell, "Talking Campbell," one of the party, returned alone and reported the Indians had got between the party and town, cut off retreat, and killed all but himself, who rode a very fine horse and had fled at once; he advised the others, he said, to cut their way back because the Indians greatly outnumbered our party. Campbell was hotly pursued by the Indians, and he made a detour to the south, where his horse out-distanced the pursuers finally, and he came into town with the dreadful news. Next morning, early, a strong party left town with carts, and by noon returned with eighteen bodies. They were taken to the Court House and laid out. They had been found naked, hacked with tomahawks and partly eaten by wolves. The following day, the nine Americans were buried in one large grave west of the San Pedro, outside of the Catholic burying ground, and very near its S.W. corner, the nine Mexicans were buried inside the Catholic cemetery. It was believed some Indians had been killed too, but as they always carried off their dead, their loss was never ascertained.
In the spring of 1840, my brothers William and Andrew Adams leased land of J. A. de la Garza, at the mission of San Francisco de la Espada, and put in a crop. But the Indians were so bad, and corn so dear, selling then at two or three dollars per bushel, and their plow animals were so constantly stolen, that they broke up in the fall, and moved to San Marcos, and bought land of a Mr. Mathews, where they made fine crops for two years.
A DAY OF HORROS
On Tuesday, 19th of March, 1840, "dia de San José," sixty-five Comanches came into town to make a treaty of peace. They brought with them, and reluctantly gave up, Matilda Lockhart, whom they had captured with her younger sister in December 1838, after killing two other children of her family. The Indian chiefs and men met in council at the Court House, with our city and military authorities. The calaboose or jail then occupied the corner formed by the east line of Main Plaza and the north line of Calabosa (now Market Street), and the Court House was north of and adjoining the jail. The Court House yard, back of the Court House, was what is now the city market on Market Street. The Court House and jail were of stone, one story, flat-roofed, and floored with dirt. Captain Tom Howard's Company was at first in the Court House yard, where the Indian women and boys came and remained during the pow-wow. The young Indians amused themselves shooting arrows at pieces of money put up by some of the Americans; and Mrs. Higginbotham and myself amused ourselves looking through the picket fence at them.
This was the third time these Indians had come for a talk, pretending to seek peace, and trying to get ransom money for their American and Mexican captives. Their proposition now was that they should be paid a great price for Matilda Lockhart, and a Mexican they had just given up, and that traders be sent with paint, powder, flannel, blankets and such other articles as they should name, to ransom the other captives. This course had once before been asked and carried out, but the smallpox breaking out, the Indians killed the traders and kept the goods, believing the traders had made the smallpox to kill the. Now the Americans, mindful of the treachery of the Comanches, answered them as follows: "We will, according to a former agreement, keep four or five of your chiefs, whilst the other of your people go to your nation and bring all the captives, and then we will pay all you ask for them. Meanwhile, these chiefs we hold we will treat as brothers and 'not one hair of their heads shall be injured.' This we have determined, and, if you try to fight, our soldiers will shoot you down."
This being interpreted, the Comanches instantly, with one accord raised a terrific war-whoop, drew their arrows, and commenced firing with deadly effect—at the same time making efforts to break out of the council hall. The order "fire" was given by Captain Howard, and the soldiers fired into the midst of the crowd, the first volley killing several Indians and two of our own people. All soon rushed out into the public square, the civilians to procure arms, the Indians to flee, and the soldiers in pursuit. The Indians generally made for the river--they ran up Soledad, east on Commerce Street and for the bend, now known as Bowen's, southeast, below the square. Citizens and soldiers pursued and overtook them at all points, shot some swimming in the river, had desperate fights in the streets—and hand to hand encounters after fire-arms had been exhausted. Some Indians took refuge in stone houses and fastened the doors. Not one of the sixty-five Indians escaped—-thirty-three were killed and thirty-two were taken prisoners. Six Americans and one Mexican were killed and ten Americans wounded. Our killed were Julian Hood,the sheriff, Judge Thompson, advocate from South Carolina, G. W. Cayce from the Brazos, one officer and two soldiers whose names I did not learn, nor that of the Mexican. The wounded were Lieutenant Thompson, brother of the Judge, Captain Tom Howard, Captain Mat Caldwell, citizen volunteer from Gonzales, Judge Robinson, Mr. Morgan, deputy sheriff, Mr. Higginbotham and two soldiers. Others were slightly wounded.
When the deafening war-whoop sounded in the Court room, it was so loud, so shrill and so inexpressibly horrible and suddenly raised, that we women looking through the fence at the women's and boys' marksmanship for a moment could not comprehend its purport. The Indians however knew the first note and instantly shot their arrows into the bodies of Judge Thompson and the other gentleman near by, instantly killing Judge Thompson. We fled into Mrs. Higginbotham's house, and I, across the street to my Commerce Street door. Two Indians ran past me on the street and one reached my door as I got in. He turned to raise his hand to push it just as I beat down the heavy bar; then he ran on. I ran in the north room and saw my husband and brother Andrew sitting calmly at a table inspecting some plats of surveys—they had heard nothing. I soon gave them the alarm, and hurried on to look for my boys. Mr. Maverick and Andrew seized their arms, always ready—Mr. Maverick rushed into the street, and Andrew into the back yard where I was shouting at the top of my voice "Here are Indians! Here are Indians!" Three Indians had gotten in through the gate on Soledad Street and were making direct for the river! One had paused near Jinny Anderson, our cook, who stood bravely in front of the children, mine and hers, with a great rock lifted in both hands above her head, and I heard her cry out to the Indian "If you don't go 'way from here I'll mash your head with this rock!" The Indian seemed regretful that he hadn't time to dispatch Jinny and her brood, but his time was short, and pausing but a moment, he dashed down the bank into the river, and struck out for the opposite shore. As the Indian hurried down the bank and into the river Andrew shot and killed him, and shot another as he gained and rose on the opposite bank—then he ran off up Soledad street looking for more Indians.
I housed my little ones, and then looked out of the Soledad Street door. Near by was stretched an Indian, wounded and dying. A large man, journey-apprentice to Mr. Higginbotham, came up just then and aimed a pistol at the Indian's head. I called out: "Oh, don't he is dying," and the big American laughed and said: "To please you, I won't, but it would put him out of his misery." Then I saw two others lying dead near by.
Captain Lysander Wells, about this time, passed by riding north on Soledad Street. He was elegantly dressed and mounted on a gaily caparisoned Mexican horse with silver mounted saddle and bridle—which outfit he had secured to take back to his native state, on a visit to his mother. As he reached the Verimendi House, an Indian who had escaped detection, sprang up behind him, clasped Wells' arms in his and tried to catch hold of the bridle reins. Wells was fearless and active. They struggled for some time, bent back and forward, swayed from side to side, till at last Wells held the Indian's wrists with his left hand, drew his pistol from the holster, partly turned, and fired into the Indian's body—a moment more and the Indian rolled off and dropped dead to the ground. Wells then put spurs to his horse which had stood almost still during the struggle, dashed up the street and did good service in the pursuit. I had become so fascinated by this struggle that I had gone into the street almost breathless, and wholly unconscious of where I was, till recalled by the voice of Lieutenant Chevallier who said: "Are you crazy? Go in or you will be killed." I went in but without feeling any fear, though the street was almost deserted and my husband and brother both gone in the fight. I then looked out on Commerce Street and saw four or five dead Indians. I was just twenty-two then, and was endowed with a fair share of curiosity.
Not till dark did all our men get back, and I was grateful to God, indeed, to see my husband and brother back alive and not wounded.
Captain Mat Caldwell, or "Old Paint" as he was familiarly called, our guest from Gonzales, was an old and famous Indian fighter. He had gone from our house to the Council Hall unarmed. But when the fight began, he wrenched a gun from an Indian and killed him with it, and beat another to death with the butt end of the gun. He was shot through the right leg, wounded as he thought by the first volley of the soldiers. After breaking the gun, he then fought with rocks, with his back to the Court House wall.
Young G. W. Cayce had called on us that morning, bringing an introductory letter form his father to Mr. Maverick, and placing some papers in his charge. He was a very pleasant and handsome young man and, it was reported, came to marry Gertrude Navarro, Mrs. Dr. Allsbury's sister. He left our house when I did, I going to Mrs. Higginbotham's and he to the Council Hall. He stood in the front door of the Court House, was shot and instantly killed at the beginning of the fight, and fell by the side of Captain Caldwell. The brother of this young man afterwards told me he had left home with a premonition of his death being very near. Captain Caldwell was assisted back to our house and Dr. Weideman came and cut off his boot and found the bullet had gone entirely through the leg, and lodged in the boot, where it was discovered. The wound, though not dangerous, was very painful, but the doughty Captain recovered rapidly and in a few days walked about with the aid of a stick.
After the captain had been cared for, I ran across to Mrs. Higginbotham's. Mr. Higginbotham, who was as peaceful as a Quaker to all appearances, had been in the fight and had received a light wound. They could not go into their back yard, because two Indians had taken refuge in their kitchen, and refused to come out or surrender as prisoners when the interpreter had summoned them. A number of young men took counsel together that night, and agreed upon a plan. Anton Lockmar and another got on the roof, and about two hours after midnight dropped a candlewick ball soaked in turpentine, and blazing, through a hole in the roof upon one Indian's head and so hurt him and frightened them both that they opened the door and rushed out—to their death. An axe split open the head of one of the Indians before he was well out of the door, and the other was killed before he had gone many steps—thus the last of the sixty-five were taken. The Indian women dressed and fought like the men, and could not be told apart. As I have said thirty-three were killed and thirty-two taken prisoners. Many of them were repeatedly summoned to surrender, but numbers refused and were killed. All had a chance to surrender, and every one who offered or agreed to give up was taken prisoner and protected.
What a day of horrors! And the night was as bad which followed.
Liieutenant Thompson, who had been shot through the lungs, was taken to Madam Santita's house, on Soledad treet, just opposite us, and that night he vomited blood and cried and groaned all night—I shall never forget his gasping for breath and his agonizing cries. Dr. Weideman sat by and watched him, or only left to see the other sufferers, nearby; no one thought he would live till day, but he did, and got to be well and strong again, and in a few weeks walked out.
The captive Indians were all put in the calaboose for a few day and while they were there our forces entered into a twelve days truce with them—the captives acting for their Nation. And, in accordance with the stipulation of the treaty, one of the captives, an Indian woman, widow of a chief, was released on the 20th, the day after the fight. She was given a horse and provisions and sent to her Nation to tell her people of the fight and its result. She was charged to tell them, in accordance with the truce, to bring in all their captives, known to be fifteen Americans and several Mexicans, and exchange them for the thirty-two Indian held. She seemed eager to effect this, and promised to do her best. She said she would travel day and night, and could go and return within five days. The other prisoners thought she could in five days return with the captives from the tribe. The Americans said, "Very well we give twelve days truce and if you do not get back by Thursday night of the 28th, these prioners shall be killed, for we will know you have killed our captive friends and relatives."
In April, as I shall mention again, we were informed by a boy, named B. L. Webster, that when the squaw reached her tribe and told of the disaster, all the Comanches howled, and cut themselves with knives, and killed horses, for several days. And they took all the American captives, thirteen in number, and roasted and butchered them to death with horrible cruelties; that he and a little girl named Putnam, five years old, had been spared because they had previously been adopted into the tribe.
Our people did not, however, retaliate upon the captives in our hands. The captive Indians were all put into the calaboose, corner Market Street and the public square, and adjoining the courthouse, where all the people in San Antonio went to see them. The Indians expected to be killed, and they did not understand nor trust the kindness which was shown them and the great pity manifested toward them. They were first removed to San José Mission, where a company of soldiers was stationed, and afterwards taken to Camp "Cook," named after W. G. Cook, at the head of the river, and strictly guarded for a time. But afterwards the strictness was relaxed and they gradually all, except a few, who were exchanged, escaped and returned to their tribe. They were kindly treated and two or three of them were taken into families as domestics, and were taught some little, but they too, at last, silently stole away to their ancient freedom.
DOCTOR WEIDEMAN
Late in the afternoon of the Indian fight, of the 19th, I visited Mr. Higginbotham's, as I have before stated. While I was there, Dr. Weideman came up to her grated front window, and placed a severed Indian head upon the sill. The good doctor bowed courteously and saying, "With your permission, Madam," disappeared. Soon after he returned with another bloody head, when he explained to us that he had viewed all the dead Indians, and elected these two heads, male and female, for the skulls, and also had selected two entire bodies, male and female, to preserve as specimen skeletons. He said: "I have been long exceedingly anxious to secure such specimens—and now, ladies, I must hurry and get a cart to take them to my house," and off he hurried all begrimed with dirt and blood (having been with his good horse one of the foremost in pursuit). Now he was exulting for the cause of science in his "magnificent specimens," and before it was quite dark he came with his cart and its frightful load, took his two heads and disappeared. His house was the Old Chaves place, on the side of Acequia Street (now Main Avenue) north of Main Plaza.
Dr. Weideman, a Russian, was a very learned man of perhaps thirty-five years of age, was a surgeon and M.D., spoke many living tongues and had travelled very extensively. In former year, he had buried a lovely young wife and son, and becoming restless, had sought and secured employment under the Russian Government. In fact the Emperor of Russia had sent him to Texas to find and report anything and everything, vegetable and animal grown in Texas—and he had selected a worthy man, for Dr. Weideman was a devotee to science. He grew enthusiastic over our Western Texas and her climate, and constantly accompanied the "Minute Men" on their expeditions and numerous surveying parties.
Dr. Weideman took the Indian heads and bodies to his home as I have mentioned, and put them into a large soap boilder on the bank of the "acequia," or ditch, which ran in front of his premises. During the night of the 20th he emptied the boiler, containing water and flesh from the bones, into the ditch. Now this ditch furnished the drinking water generally for the town. The river and the San Pedro Creek, it was understood, were for bathing and washing purposes, but a city ordinance prohibited, with heavy fines, the throwing of any dirt or filth into the ditch—for it was highly necessary and proper to keep the drinking water pure.
On the 21st, it dawned upon the dwellers upon the banks of the ditch that the doctor had defiled their drinking water. There arose a great hue and cry and all the people crowded to the mayor's office—the men talked in loud and excited tones, the women shrieked and cried—they rolled up their eyes in horror, they vomited, and some of them were so frightened that they suffered miscarriage. Many thought they were poisoned and must die. Dr. Weideman was arrested and brought to trial, he was overwhelmed with abuse, he was called "diabolo," "demonio," "sin cerguenza," etc., etc. He took it quite calmly, told the poor creatures they would not be hurt—that the Indian poison had all run off with the water long before day—paid his fine and went away laughing.
The doctor had a Mexican servant who had been pretty good, and lived with him two years—but José would steal, and one day he stole the doctor's watch, a valuable timepiece. Dr. Weideman, after inquiring and waiting several weeks in vain, determined to have his watch, if he had to use magic to get it! He had several Mexican menservants, for he kept horses, wild animals, snakes and birds and also cultivated a fine garden—with wild flowers, etc., but he satisfied himself that José was the thief. He invited several gentlemen to come to his house a certain evening about full of the moon, and he told his servants that he would summon the spirits to point out the thief. When the appointed time came, he caused a fire to be built on the flat dirt roof of his house, over which he placed a pot filled with liquids. Hither he brought his company and the servants. He was dressed in a curious robe or gown covered with weird figures, and a tall wonderful cap rested on his head. In his hand he held a twisted stick with which he stirred the liquid in the pot, uttering the while words in an unknown tongue. He was very solemn and occasionally he would turn around slowly and gaze upward into space. Finally he told all present that he would put out the fire, and cool the liquid, and then each person in turn should dip his hand in, and the thief's hand would turn black. Each one advanced in order and submitted his hand to the test, and after each experiment the doctor would stir and mutter and turn around again. José waited until the very last, he came up quite unwillingly, and when he withdrew his hand from the pot it was black. José was terribly frightened, he fell upon his knees and acknowledged the theft then and there and begged for mercy. The Doctor got his watch back and did not discharge José, who never after stole again.
The Mexicans when they saw the doctor on the streets would cross themselves, and avoid him—they said he was leagued with the devil; he claimed that the spirits of the Indians, whose bodies he had dissected, were under his enchantment and that he could make them tell him anything. He set his skeleton Indians up in his garden, in his summer house, and dared anybody to steal on his premises. It is needless to say, everything he had was sacred from theft.
Dr. Weideman was very good to the sick and wounded. He would not take pay for his services, and saved many lives by his skill and attention. He was universally respected and liked by Americans. In 1843 or '44 he was drowned in attempting to cross Peach Creek, near Gonzales when the water was very high—his horse and himself and one other man were carried down by the rapid current and drowned, whilst the others of the party barely escaped.
During the summer of the year, 1840, Colonel Henry Karnes upon returning from Houston when yellow fever was prevailing there, was taken down with yellow fever. The colonel and Dr. Weideman were great friends, and the Doctor hardly left his room till he was out of danger. Karnes thought though his business required him in Houston, and contrary to the doctor's advice he started back before he was strong enough. He travelled in a light wagon, took a relapse after the first day and came back to his friends. But his case was now hopeless and he died from his great imprudence, and the good doctor put on the deepest mourning for his friend. Colonel Karnes was a short, thick-set man with bright red hair. While he was uneducated, he was modest, generous and devoted to his friends. He was brave and untiring and a terror to the Indians. They called him "Capitan Colorado" (Red Captain) and spoke of him as "Muy Wapo" (very brave). Four or five years before he died, he was taken prisoner by the Comanches, and the squaws so greatly admired his hair of "fire" that they felt it and washed it to see if it would fade; and, when they found the color held fast, they would not be satisfied until each had a lock.
Several incidents occurred soon after the fight of the 19th, which, together with other incidents much later, I will narrate. On March 28th between two hundred and fifty and three hundred Comanches under a dashing young chief, Ismanica, came close to the edge of the town where the main body halted and chief Isimanica with another warrior rode daringly into the public square, and circled around it, then rode some distance down Commerce Street and back, shouting all the while, offering fight and heaping abuse and insults upon the Americans. Isimanica was in full war paint, and almost naked. He stopped longest at Black's saloon, at the northeast corner of the square; he shouted defiance, he rose in his stirrups, shook his clenched fist, raved, and foamed at the mouth. The citizens, through an interpreter, told him the soldiers were all down the river at Mission San José and if he went there Colonel Fisher would give him fight enough.
Isimanica took his braves to San José [Mission San José (St. Joseph) or Second Mission, named also for the Governor of the province of Texas at the time "de Aguayo" was founded in 1720 and completed about 1730 the same year Mission Concepcion was begun. San José is said by many to be the most beautiful of all the missions in this country though it has been badly neglected and the wonderful carvings broken and defaced by relic hunters. "The south window of the Baptistry is considered by good judges the finest gem of architectural ornamentation existing in America today." William Corner, San Antonio de Bexar, p. 17.] and with fearless daring bantered the soldiers for a fight. Colonel Fisher was lying on a sick-bed and Captain Redd, the next in rank, was in command. He said to the chief: "We have made a twelve day truce with your people in order to exchange prisoners. My country's honor is pledged, as well as my own, to keep the truce, and I will not break it. Remain here three days or return in three days and the truce will be over. We burn to fight you." Isimanica called him liar, coward and other opprobrious names, and hung around for some time, but at last the Indians left and did not return. Captain Redd remained calm and unmoved, but his men could with the greatest difficulty be restrained, and in fact some of them were ordered into the Mission church and the door guarded.
When Captain Lysander Wells a non-commissioned officer, who was in town, heard of it, he wrote Captain Redd an insulting letter in which he called him a "dastardly coward," and alluded to a certain "petticoat government" under which he intimated the Captain was restrained. This allusion had reference to a young woman who, dressed in boy's apparel had followed Redd from Georgia and was now living with him. This letter of Wells' was signed, much to their shame, by several others in San Antonio. About this time Colonel Fisher removed his entire force of three companies to the Alamo in San Antonio; Redd challenged Wells to mortal combat, and one morning at six o'clock they met where the Ursuline Convent now stands. Redd said: "I aim for your heart" and Wells answered: "And I for your brains." They fired. Redd sprang high into the air and fell dead with a bullet in his brain. Wells was shot near the heart, but lived two weeks, in great torture, begging every one near him to dispatch him or furnish him a pistol that he might kill himself and end his agony; Dr. Weideman nursed him tenderly. In Captain Redd's pocket was found a marriage license and certificate showing that he was wedded to the girl (before mentioned)—also letters to members of his own and her families, speaking of her in the tenderest manner, and asking them to protect and provide for her. She was heartbroken and went to his funeral in black, and soon returned to her family.
These men were both brave and tried soldiers! What a sad ending to their young and promising lives, and that, too, when cruel and relentless savages daily committed atrocities about us.
Matilda Lockhart who came in as I have mentioned, on March 19th, had been about two years in captivity. When she was captured, two of her family were slain and she and her little sister were taken prisoners. At that time she was thirteen and her sister not three years of age. They were taken off to the tribe. Just before her release, she came along with the Indian party, as a herder, driving a herd of extra ponies for the Indians. The Indians thus could exchange their horses from time to time for fresher ones.
She was in a frightful condition, poor girl when at last she returned to civilization. Her head, arms and face were full of bruises, and sores, and her nose actually burnt off to the bone—all the fleshy end gone, and a great scab formed on the end of the bone. Both nostrils were wide open and denuded of flesh. She told a piteous tale of how they would wake her from sleep by sticking a chunk of fire to her flesh, especially to her nose, and how they would shout and laugh like fiends when she cried. Her body had many scars from fire many of which she showed us. Ah it was sickening to behold, and made one's blood boil for vengeance.
Matilda was now fifteen years old, and though glad to be free from her detested tyrants, she was very sad and broken-hearted. She said she felt utterly degraded, and could never hold her head up again—that she would be glad to get back home again, where she would hide away and never permit herself to be seen. How terrible to contemplate! Yet her case was by no means solitary. She told of fifteen other American captives, her little sister and Booker Webster. After a few days, Matilda's brother came and took her home.
She called out in good English, however, and said she had escaped from Indian captivity. She was taken into John W. Smith's house, and we American ladies soon gathered there to see her and attend her wants. She said she was very tired and hungry and appeared much exhausted. After listening to a part of her story, Mrs. Smith gave her some food, which she and her little one ate in a famished manner. Five of us ladies, Mr. Jacques, Mrs. Elliott, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Higginbotham and myself, agreed to unite in caring for the unhappy fugitive. We got her some clothing, and, having prepared a bath, we helped her to undress and found her skin yet fair and white beneath the buckskin. We bathed and clothed her and left her to sleep and rest.
The stench of the poor woman's clothes was so dreadful, while we were undressing her, that Mrs. Jacques fainted away, and Mrs. Smith told me to get a bottle of cologne on her mantel in the adjoining room. I picked up the only bottle there, and hastily sprinkled the contents on Mrs. Jacques' face, which caused her to revive instantly, and she screamed: "stop, stop, that is pepper vinegar!" And so it was indeed, and had gotten into one of her eyes, whereupon Mrs. Jacques was accused
of "playing 'possum" and we had a great laugh. Mrs. Webster remained a week with Mrs. Smith, a week with Mrs. Jacques and two weeks with me. She was treated with great kindness by every one, and money and clothes given her. Her story was as follows:
She came from Virginia to Texas early in 1838 with her husband, who she claimed was a relative of Daniel Webster. They built a house northwest of Austin, and in August of that year her husband was removing her and her four children to this wild home—they had also in the party two negroes and one white man. One evening they camped on Brushy Creek, not far north of Austin, when a large party of Comanches suddenly attacked them. Their three men fought bravely but were overpowered and killed. Mrs. Webster's infant was taken from her arms, and its brains dashed out on a tree and her second child was killed. She and her eldest boy of ten years, Booker Webster were tied upon horses and she held her child of two years so tightly and plead for it so piteously that the Indians left it with her. They were taken by rapid marches to the mountains where they stripped Booker and shaved his head. He was attacked with brain fever, and an old squaw, who had just lost a son of his age, adopted him and nursed him very tenderly. The Indian allowed Mr. Webster to keep her little girl, but prohibited her from talking with her son. They made her cook, and stake out ponies, and they beat her very badly.
She had been nineteen months in captivity when she seized a favorable opportunity to escape. It was one night after a long day's march when, having learned the general direction of San Antonio, she quietly and noiselessly slipped out of camp with her child in her arms and bent her steps toward Bexar. She spent twelve terrible days on the road without meeting a human being—sustaining herself all this while on berries, small fish which she caught in the streams, and bones left at Indian camps, which she followed, hiding and sleeping in the day and travelling at night by moon and starlight. She several times gave up to die, but gathering courage and determination, she would trudge on. The early morning of the 26th she lay down despairing on a hillside in a fog, not able to drag one foot after the other. When the sun shone out, looking to the east she saw a "golden cross shining in the sky"! Then she knew her prayers had been answered and that cross surmounted the Cathedral of San Fernando in San Antonio. She said he felt her weariness melt away and she grew strong and hopeful and again took up the march with a thankful heart. She was about thirty-two years old.
April 3rd. Two Indians, a chief and a squaw, the man with his bow strung and arrows in his hand, came into the public square and, remaining mounted, called out to the Americans that about twenty warriors were holding all the Americans and Mexican captives three miles from town, and that they were prepared to make the exchange proposed or agreed upon in the twelve days' truce. The Americans sent scouts, who reported the Indians to be numerous and the captives few. Two companies of soldiers and nine captive Indians were ordered up from San José. The Americans declined to go with the chief to the Indian camp, but they gave him bread, peloncillos and a beef and agreed to talk "mañana" (tomorrow).
On the 4th, the chief returned and asked the Americans to take out two captives and exchange for two, and the answer was: "Bring two captives to the edge of town and we will meet you." They came with a little American girl, Putnam's child, and a Mexican boy, and received two Indians. The Americans being desirous of securing all the captives, not knowing they were murdered, asked why they did not bring American captives, and the Indians answered they had only one more with them, and if they gave him up they wished to choose an Indian in exchange. The boy proved to be B. L. Webster, "Booker," the son of Mrs. Webster mentioned above, and they brought a Mexican boy with him and said these were all they had with them. The chief selected in exchange for Webster a squaw whose arm had been broken in the fight of the 19th. When asked why he chose her, he answered she was the widow of a great chief who had been killed in the fight, and he wanted her for his squaw, because she owned "muchas mules," "muchas mules." The squaw did not seem to relish this and so the Americans would not let him take her, but selected another woman, and a child, and threw in a blind Indian. The chief was not pleased, but departed with what he could get.
Thus we got back two Americans and five Mexican captives. Booker Webster's head was shaved and he was painted in Indian style. One of the Mexicans ran away some time afterwards and returned to the Indians. The girl, Putman, was five years old, and cried to go back to the Comanche mother who had adopted her, probably in her second year. She could not speak or understand English, and had many bruises and her nose was burnt partly off. The boy, Booker, then told us, and we learned for the first time, how the Comanches had murdered the captives in their hands when they received the message borne to them by the squaw.
The Indians used the Spanish language a great deal, but they never tried to acquire any knowledge of the English tongue. This summer, 1840, the Indians were constantly stealing and murdering. Travel was especially unsafe, except when the company was large, and even then it was advisable to travel by night and camp by day, always keeping a sharp lookout.
Early in August, a band of about three hundred warriors suddenly appeared in the neighborhood of Victoria, having escaped detection on their route down the country. On the 6th, they appeared there in force. Circling around Victoria, they passed onto Linnville, a small town on Lavaca. Linnville was a very small town in which was located a Custom House and a few stores. When the Indians charged into town, most of the citizens took refuge on the boats anchored near, and thus escaped. Some were not quick enough, and were cut off and killed, and two ladies and a boy were taken prisoners. The Indians found large quantities of goods stored at Linnville, which they loaded upon pack animals, and even upon their riding horses. They spent the whole day there, and burnt all the houses and everything they could not carry off.
Meanwhile, runners had been sent out of Victoria to warn the settlers, and for the purpose of summoning volunteers to intercept the Indians' return to the mountains. The call was responded to from every valley and settlement. From the Colorado to the Guadalupe and beyond, volunteers gathered, under McColloch, Lynn, Caldwell, Ed Burleson, Moore and others. Scouts who followed close upon their trail told of whole bolts of ribbon, muslin and calico streaming to the air from the saddles of the savages. On Plum Creek, a branch of the San Marcos, August 18th, they were at last surrounded, retreat cut off and they were forced to fight. The Texas forces, under General Felix Houston, had been gathering for one grand blow. The combat was remarkable for the terrible slaughter of the Indians. The battle ground extended over a distance of fifteen miles, for it was a running fight. None of the Texans were killed, and the Indians were so completely crushed by this defeat that they never dared to raid into that section again.
When they found they would lose the fight, the Indians lanced and shot arrows into their captives, who were tied to trees, and left them for dead, but Mrs. Watts recovered and returned to her friends. The capture of Mrs. Watts illustrates how vitally important a few moments of time may become. Mr. Watts had married this lady only a few weeks before the Comanches burned Linnville, and had presented her with an elegant gold watch and chain. After starting to run for the boats, Mrs. Watts thought she would secure her watch first, ran back into the house, and got it, accompanied by her husband. Having secured the trinket, they attempted to reach the boats, but some mounted Indians had cut them off. Watts was tomahawked, and his wife taken captive. She afterwards married again, to a Mr. Staunton, I am told, and died at Lavaca in 1878.
Now, why have I mentioned this raid? Well you shall hear. On April 21st, Mr. Maverick had left for New Orleans and returned in June by the way of Houston. He had only got home a week before this, and had intended to come by Lavaca, but was detained. He however, shipped by way of Linnville, goods, stores and a supply of clothing material for two years ahead, and unfortunately for us the goods were stored in Linnville when the Indians sacked the place. Mr. Maverick had purchased a supply of whiskey and brandy to be used on surveying expeditions—it being the custom for those having surveying done to furnish the liquor. He had purchased for me a silver soup ladle, twelve table and twelve tea spoons; the spoons we had travelled out with were only plated ware. He had also a number of law books with the other things. These law books were the only things we ever heard from, and what he heard was this: they were strung to the Indians' saddles by strings run through the volumes, and used for making cigarettes.
I shall not mention the thousand and one incidents which happened in connection with the Comanches in and about San Antonio from 1838 until 1842, when we became refugees. They made life very unsafe on the frontier and during the period mentioned they were always within dangerous proximity to us and always doing some of their devilment.
However I will mention one or two more incidents before I bid them adieu. On May 27, thirty or forty Comanches came close to town, and being early discovered, they were hotly pursued by the "Minute Men." They fled to the nearest timber on the Medina, where, darkness overtaking them, they speared all their horses and took to the bottom on foot. In the morning the dead horses were found but the Indians had escaped.
The Indians were always lurking around in small bodies, hiding close to town, waiting for an opportunity to strike without danger to themselves. We were compelled to learn this through many murders and robberies. They would suddenly appear from the river bottom, from behind a clump of trees, from a gully, and sometimes from the tall grass. It seemed they were always on the watch everywhere, but only acted at the most favorable moments.
In the Spring of 1841, Mrs. Elliott and I set out up the river to gather dewberries. They grew in great abundance where the Ursuline Convent now stands. Mr. Elliot sent his two clerks, Peter Gallagher and John Conran, Mrs. Elliott's brother, along, they being well armed. We with my son Sam and Billy Elliott and the two nurses Rachael and Julia took our buckets and started up directly after dinner. We found a great abundance of ripe luscious berries, ate all we wanted, filled our buckets, had a first-rate time and started home all right. We met just after we left the bend of the river a Mexican cartman going out to hobble his oxen on the fine grass we had just passed over. We had gone only a few hundred feet further, after passing the Mexican, when we heard all around us the sudden cry of "Indios," "Indios." Soon the alarm bell called to arms and we ran quickly home. The cartman we passed proved to be the victim—he was killed and scalped by the Comanches, who had been hiding close to us in the river timber when we were gathering the berries and having our good time just before. Our two armed guards on the watch had saved our lives. The Indians both escaped in the dark and we were grateful for the foresight of Mr. Elliott, and we learned a lesson never forgotten, for our foolhardy venturing.
Perote: Prisoner's Journal
[MEMOIRS 1842] On September 11th, Sunday morning, at day-break, General Adrian Woll with a large force of Mexicans consisting of cavalry and artillery to the number of thirteen hundred suddenly appeared before San Antonio, and captured the place. It was a complete surprise. The court was in session at the time, and, including the members of the bar and Judge of the district Court, fifty-three Americans were captured, one of whom was Mr. Maverick.
Before the little band surrendered, they showed a bold and vigorous front, even in the face of such fearful odds. They fortified themselves in the Maverick residence at the corner of Commerce and Soledad Streets—some of them mounted upon the roof, when Mr. John Twohig received a wound from which he has never entirely recovered. When the Mexican troops entered Main Plaza, the Texans fired upon them briskly, killing two and wounding twenty-six, six of whom died of their wounds.
General Woll beat a parley, and after he had shown the Texans they could not escape him and had promised to treat them as honorable prisoners of war and used some other plausible talk with them, the Texans held a consultation among themselves, when a majority voted to surrender. After they surrendered, they were kept in the Maverick residence, where they were closely guarded until the 15th.
[The late Mrs. Eager, daughter of Wilson J. Riddle, told me the following particulars of her father's experience in the capture of San Antonio in 1842, which she had been told by her mother. The Riddles, who were English, had sought refuge in Gonzales during the "Runaway." There a friendly priest informed them that a large force would soon attack San Antonio. Wilson Riddle determined to go and help the Americans, and his brother John accompanied him, saying "I cannot let my brother go without me."
They arrived in San Antonio at the moment Woll and the Americans surrounded at the Maverick home. Riddle explained to the Mexican officer, "We are not soldiers, we came to confer with the Americans." Colonel Carasco answered, "Well, there are your guns stacked against the wall—and you are not wearing that powder horn to drink milk out of!" Whereupon he arrested the brothers and they were taken with the other prisoners to Perote. They eventually secured their freedom through the English Minister to Mexico.
Herbert Gambrell, in his recent biography of Anson Jones, gives the following account of that fated session of the court:]
At San Antonio de Bexar, the Honorable Anderson Hutchinson wrote in his diary: "Monday Sept 5, 1842 Opened the District Court of Bexar No invasion expected." There had been a rumor that Santa Anna was sending 1,500, maybe 3,000, men to San Antonio; but the worst anybody expected was a party of marauders. The case before the court was that of Shields Booker vs. the City of San Antonio. Dr. Booker, formerly of Brazoria and Dr. Jones's assistant surgeon at San Jacinto, was suing for a fifty-pesos fee that Major Juan N. Seguin had promised him. His attorney was Samuel A. Maverick, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and congressman-elect. The testimony, which was in Spanish, ran on and on.
"The whole day of the 10th...passed...strengthening the general belief that the rumor was either a hoax or the character of the force advancing misrepresented [said Congressman William E. (Fiery) Jones of Gonzales, who was in San Antonio that day].
"At day light on the morning of the 11th Sept. we were aroused from our slumbers by the firing of a piece of cannon almost in the edge of town, succeeded immediately by the sound of martial music & the tramp of a body of men—A dense fog obscured them from actual observation until they had advanced into the public square when they were immediately fired upon by our party, who amounted to about fifty in number—the fire was soon returned by the Mexicans...This lasted a few minutes when the fog disappearing discovered to us that we were surrounded on all sides by bodies of regular troops...."
The uniformed Mexicans disarmed the defenders of San Antonio and put them under guard, then marched into the courthouse. Judge Hutchinson, the whole personnel of his court, every lawyer in town except one, two congressmen-elect, and a former lieutenant governor were taken prisoners; and the case of Booker vs. the City of San Antonio was never finished.
[MEMOIRS 1842-1843] Mrs. Elliott was in San Antonio when my husband was captured, and she was allowed to visit the prisoners once or twice before they were taken off to Mexico. Mr. Maverick found an opportunity to hand Mrs. Elliott twenty gold doubloons for me. No one can imagine how dreadful this news was to me, especially when I learned that our poor prisoners were marched off on foot for Mexico on the 15th. At this time my poor little Lewis was dangerously ill with fever then prevalent in the neighborhood. Griffin came hurriedly back from San Antonio with the dreadful news of the capture of his master, to whom he was much attached. I called him to me, and talked to him about going out to San Antonio to pass himself for a "runaway," follow to Mexico, and do anything he could to free or even aid Mr. Maverick, and he could have his freedom. He answered that to do anything for his master would delight him, and he had been wanting to ask me to let him go—"as for my freedom" he added, "I do not want any more than I have, master has always treated me more like a brother than a slave," and he choked up unable to say more. He took a gun, a good mule, some money, and made ready and started within a few hours—happy to think he might do something to help his master.
15th, Juan Seguin killed Dr. Smithers, McDonald and McRhea at the Sulphur Springs on the Cibolo. 17th, 163 men under Mat Caldwell are on the Cibolo going west. 18th, Caldwell moved with 225 men to the Salado.
THE BATTLE OF THE SALADO
On the morning of the 19th Caldwell selected his battle ground on the left bank of the Salado about six miles from San Antonio and a mile below the Austin crossing of that creek. His choice fell upon a ravine in which he concealed his men and from the banks of which they were to battle with the enemy. Early in the morning he sent Hays with 50 men to draw the Mexicans out of San Antonio. Hays maneuvered successfully—he feigned flight and was hotly pursued to the Salado by 20 Mexican cavalry. Here the cavalry halted and awaited the arrival of the main body consisting of 1000 infantry (dismounted men) and a battery of two guns.
My brothers William and Andrew were both with Caldwell and they afterwards told me the particulars of the battle. The Mexicans charged in style. The Texans held their fire until they "could see the whites of the eyes" of their foes—then each "picked his man and laid him low," and the Mexicans were repulsed with considerable slaughter. They returned to the charge again and again, but were repulsed each time with great loss. The battle lasted from eleven o'clock a.m. until five in the afternoon, when the Mexicans were completely routed and immediately fell back on San Antonio. General Woll reported his loss at 135 killed, but our people claimed this to be only a third of the Mexican loss. Amongst the Mexicans slain were Agaton and Cordova, two famous leaders of marauding parties. Not a Texan was killed and only ten were wounded. My brothers told me it was a pleasure to our boys to shoot down those Mexicans, "for they had broken up all our homes and taken many of our brave comrades into cruel captivity."
On the morning of the battle, the Texans had butchered some beef-cattle, but before they could get their breakfast the order was given to fall in. But after the fight commenced, and they found it was such an easy-going affair, the Texans after each charge was repulsed, and before the Mexicans slowly reformed and advanced again, would descend into the ravine and take a lunch of broiled meat and hot coffee. They joked and sang and were very gay, and they wanted nothing better than to have the Mexicans come up and be shot—it seemed like child's play! They themselves were quite secure behind the banks of the ravine and the cannon balls passed above and over them.
THE DAWSON MASSACRE
During the day of the battle of the Salado, Captain Dawson with his company of fifty-nine men from Fayette County, seeking a junction with the main Texan force under Caldwell, met a bloody and cruel fate. They fell in with Woll's army and were surrounded by eight hundred Mexican troops when within one mile of Caldwell! Our faithful Griffin was with Dawson's company. They fought so desperately that the Mexicans brought their two cannon to bear upon them, when Dawson, seeing there was no hope of escape, raised the "white flag." This was fired upon, and the Mexican cavalry, disregarding the surrender, charged upon the gallant remnant and cut them down on every side. It was then that Dawson was slain. Colonel Carasco interfered at this moment and fifteen Texans were taken prisoners—three or four of whom afterwards died of their wounds. Thirty-three had been slain and the rest escaped.
Mr. Miller escaped on a fine horse before the white flag was raised. My uncle, Mr. John Bradley, was one of the prisoners. Ten of them, including Mr. Bradley, were marched off to Mexico, and finally joined the fifty-three who had started on the 13th.
Our poor Griffin was with Dawson and was slain. He would go into the fight with them and, though offered quarter several times, refused because he was thinking of his master, now a prisoner, and too of his young masters, William and Andrew, now possibly slain; the desire for vengeance seized his brave and trusty soul, and he wanted to kill every Mexican he could. He was a man of powerful frame, and he possessed the courage of the African lion. And this faithful and devoted African performed prodigies that day. When his ammunition became useless because of the proximity of the enemy, he fought with the butt-end of his gun, and when the gun was broken he wrenched a limb from a mesquite tree and did battle with that until death closed his career. He received more than one mortal wound before he ceased fighting.
The Mexican Colonel Carasco himself afterwards told Mr. Maverick that he had witnessed the feats performed by "that valiant black man," and he pronounced Griffin the bravest man he had ever seen. Mr. Maverick grieved over his untimely death, and more than once did he say in his energetic manner: "We owe Griffin a monument!"
September 20th. The Mexican citizens of San Antonio who espoused the Mexican cause, with a guard of four hundred soldiers, left San Antonio for Mexico, taking with them five hundred head of cattle and much plunder.
September 21st. General Woll with his remaining forces evacuated San Antonio, and retired in good order towards the Rio Grande. Colonel Caldwell with six hundred and fifty men pursued them, and at night came upon their camp on the Medina. At daylight the next morning the Texans found the enemy had retreated during the night—they gave chase, and caught up with them early in the afternoon. Caldwell ("Old Paint") commanded the first division, Morehead the second, and John H. Moore the third or reserve. J. H. Moore was the ranking officer, but Caldwell immediately took active command, and prepared for the battle. He commanded Hays with twenty picked men to make a diversion on the enemy's left. Hays, with his usual dash and gallantry, entered vigorously into the spirit of the hour. He charged boldly into the ranks of the enemy and immediately captured the artillery. The Mexicans threw their women and children into the space between the captured artillery and their main army.
Then came a dreadful pause. A disgraceful scene was being enacted in the Texan army. J. H. Moore claimed his right as ranking officer to conduct the battle. Caldwell's men refused to be commanded by anyone other than the hero of the Salado. Morehead's men demanded that Morehead should command. After some delay Caldwell awoke to the importance of action and announced that he would follow Moore or any other man, and take all his men into the fight with him. But the contention had lasted too long; the important moment had come and had fled forever. Hays' small band had captured the artillery, and the enemy was already casting timorous glances toward the rear—a charge by the Texans would have scattered them to the winds. As it was, Hays was in a perilous position—the enemy had time to recover from the first shock—they charged upon Hays in force and drove him from the field! Hays fell back out of range and witnessed Woll's army successfully retire from the field and resume the march westward. Hays' gallant spirit was wounded by this unaccountable and ignominious scene and his feelings found utterance in tears—yes, tears of shame and rage. The Texan army at last came forward, but it was too late, the enemy had escaped. The Texans were so disgusted and mortified that all discipline was lost and they returned in angry and humiliated squads to San Antonio. Hays had five wounded in his brilliant encounter, one of whom, Judge Lucky, died. The Mexicans abandoned their extra baggage and fled precipitately across the Rio Grande.
The blame of the failure was cast principally upon Colonel Caldwell, and he felt so humiliated and outraged that he became restive under the heavy burden, and from a condition of excellent health he sank into despondency and died of chagrin two or three months later. But his memory remained fresh and revered. He had been a noted Indian fighter, as I have mentioned before, and he had been an officer in the unfortunate Santa Fé expedition, and had suffered imprisonment. He had a great and good reputation throughout west Texas.
I now return to Mr. Maverick, and other prisoners captured on September 11th, in San Antonio during the Term of the Court.
On March 30th, 1843, Mr. Maverick, W. E. Jones and Judge Anderson Hutchinson were finally released in the City of Mexico by Santa Anna. Our obligations to General Waddy Thompson can never be forgotten. General Thompson was a native of South Carolina, and a connection by marriage of Mr. Maverick's. He was the United States Minister to Mexico. After securing the release of Mr. Maverick, Jones and Hutchinson, he nobly exerted his influence to secure the release of all the other helpless and friendless prisoners, and he did not cease his efforts until he had succeeded in getting them all —all survivors—liberated.
On April 2nd, 1843, Mr. Maverick, once more free, left the City of Mexico, and on May 4th, he dismounted at our cabin on the Colorado, having been absent from his family eight and a half months, and a prisoner seven months.
Mr. Maverick's only sorrow was that he had left so many friends and comrades in prison, and he felt almost ashamed when he met any of their families and friends, who all, of course, came to see him—to tell them of his own good luck and of the continued ill luck of the other captives.
June 16th, 1843, Santa Anna, as a special favor to General Waddy Thompson, signed the release for the balance of the Perote prisoners, but the order for release was so slowly carried into execution that it was more than two months before Mr. Bradley reached his family.
[The second of Samuel A. Maverick's journals begins with the capture of San Antonio by General Woll in September 1842, and details the prisoners' march to Mexico and their imprisonment at Perote. Maverick was released on March 22, 1843, and the journal ends with his arrival at Virginia Point on April 28. Less than a week later he was reunited with his family on the Colorado, on May 4, 1843. The journal is here printed from the copy made in 1879 by Edwin H. Terrell, whose notes are in brackets.]
Prisoner's Journal
SEPTEMBER 1842-APRIL 1843
San Antonio, 11th Sep't 1842.
Fifty-six taken prisoners of war at Maverick's Corner by Gen'l Woll with Eighteen hundred troops, stipulating that our lives and property should be safe and all of us treated as gentlemen. (W. E. Jones and S. A. Maverick Commissioners). Four released.
MEM: Protection left by San Antonio prisoners for the citizens of Bexar, Sep't 11th 1842.
To the American Officers and Citizens:
To the undersigned, Americans, prisoners in the hands of the Mexican Army at this place, feel it to be a duty to recommend to all Americans, who may come here after our departure, to treat the Mexican population residing in this place with lenience and kindness. Up to the time of the unfortunate occurrence by which we were made made prisoners nothing transpired to prejudice them in our estimation, and since our captivity they have been untiring in their kindness, supplying us in the most liberal manner with everything which could conduce in the least degree to our comfort.
We do hope, therefore, should this place again fall into the hands of Americans, that for our sake the Mexican population here will not be in any way disturbed or injured either in person or property.
(Signed)
William E. Jones; H.A. Alsbury; A. Hutchinson; Chancey Johnson (Captain selected by prisoners); David J. Davis; S.L. Norvall; S.A. Maverick; S. Booker; John Lee; F.S. Gray; Sam'l Stone; J.C. Morgan; John Dalrymple; Trueman B. Beck; L. Colquhoun; Jas. L. Trueheart; John Twohig; D. Morgan; James W. Robinson; W.J. Riddle; J.R. Cunningham; C.W. Peterson; George Van Ness; D.C. Ogden; Joseph McClelland (liberated); Isaac Allen; James H. Brown; John Young; Simeon Glenn; Riley Jackson; Edward Brown; Francis Mackag; John Trapnall; J.S. Johnson (liberated); R.S. Neighbors; M.L.B. Rapier; George Voss; George P. Schaffer; John Lehmann; William Bugg; S.L. Nobles; John Riddle; Geo. C. Hatch; N. Herbert; Augustus Ellery; A.J. Leslie; Jos. A. Crews; John Smith; A. Fitzgerald; B. Callahan (liberated)
[NOTE: The other prisoners not in the foregoing list were: W.H. O'Phelan Andrew Neill, Thos Hancock, John Forrester, & Antonio Menchaca (liberated).]
With only a few hours notice the remainder of 52 were marched out on 15th Sept. under strong guard of about one hundred & fifty cavalry and infantry. We camped at Alazan near town; say 4 miles.
16TH We heard the firing of a grand salute in Bexar by Woll for the celebration of the Independence of Mexico. Marched near to ford of Presidio on Medina and up to Woll's crossing. Camped on west bank. This day 34 [miles].
17TH J.R. Cunningham too weak to ride and is put into the carts with the wounded mexicans. Cap't Posas refuses to let any of [us] stay with him. We go to camp on E. bank of the Seco.
18TH We part with Cunningham for last time. Go to the west bank of the Rio Frio.
19TH Monday. We cross pretty Leona and the Nueces and camp on the head of the Laguna of Espantosa, seven miles west of the Nueces (raining).
20TH We pass Chaperosa, a good location and fine grass, on Woll's road eighteen or twenty miles west of the Nueces. Camp on west side of small creek among prickly pears. Rain this night again.
SEPT. 21ST Saw a mustang chase by the officers. Great killing of snakes today as for two or three days. A soldier bit in this way: Dn Maye (a young officer) offered the soldier a bit to take hold of the snake's head. The soldier stepped on his tail and was boldly walking up, when the snake, too quick for that, bit him through a hole in his old shoe. They carried him to the river; he got better in a few days. Dr Booker cut open the wound and put salt in etc. We camped on the Cueva Cr. 30 miles.
22ND (Or 8th day) Cross the Rio Grande in two canoes. Horses made to swim; three or four drowned. Men astonishing swimmers. River here at the upper crossing at the lone pecan (on E. side) is about 350 yards wide. Kinto's ranch in sight above. Camped in sheep fold. 10 miles.
23D To Presidio Rio Grande—six miles—water plentiful, but (gordo) salt and unfit for drinking. Sheep and cattle around. Old mission E. of town. Town old. The population villainous. Good labors N.W. of it and on almost all the way to San Fernando. Quartel—an old house on one side of the Square built by some La Garza in 1776. Population say 1000.
SEPT. 27TH Passed through a rich irrigable prairie all the way to Nava, before reaching which we saw thousands of acres of corn without fence. Soldiers say the land is public. Same kind of land as at Las Moras. To Nava—kind, hospitable people—26 miles.
SEPT. 28TH All the way a splendid, irrigable plain; just after leaving Nava and before ascending the highest plain it is all a live oak thicket—very rich. To San Fernando de Agua Verde—12 miles. Population 5 or 6000. This is the headquarters of Gen'l Reyes. Here a woman in the crowd asked us: "Quantos chevatos hay, carajos?" [How many buck-goats are there, damn you?] Here we are all—52—kept strictly watched, in one uncomfortable room. Sentinel inside the door and all around bawling every ten minutes. Weather and room hot. Fine sugar cane. Madam Marina Rodrigues y Taylor very kind to me, Hutchinson, Robinson, Neal and the other two of our mess, sending victuals three times every day. Her coffe-pot broken in our service. Also Arnold # Capt. Aligundo Vonlack. On 28th grand illumination. On the 4th of Octr. remaining ten men (Bradley, Barclay & Co.) of Capt. Dawson's company of 53 (39 killed, 3 wounded & 1 escaped, Dawson killed—18th Sept.), on 4th they arrived and are imprisoned in another house. We were not allowed to see the town only on square and on cart ride to river. Fine river. Mrs. Taylor fed and packed us down with bread, biscuit and quince leather and gave Robinson a horse. Kind, good woman. [Mr. M., after his return home from prison, sent a fine set of China to Madame Taylor in remembrance of her kindness. E.H.T.]
OCT. 7TH (8 days sojourn here). Van Ness, Fitzgerald and Hancock taken away and put [in] to the guard house. We are marched out. I have the little, black (tender footed) horse given by Col. Carrasco for mine. [Mr. Maverick started on his own fine horse. R.M.G.] Here in the Plaza we are joined by the other ten who were taken 5 miles east of [the] Salado, making our total 58 men. [Van Ness, Fitzgerald & Hancock were old Santa Fe prisoners and were left behind to be shot. Fitzgerald was killed in the attack on the guard at the Salado. Van Ness & Hancock were brought to Perote with Mier men. E.H.T.] This day pass Morelos, where the brave federal, Zapata, (in their last struggle and defeat) was killed. Saw the doors of the house he was in, pierced by hundreds of ounce balls. Arista was at head of the Centrals, Zapata's head [was] carried to Guerrero and stuck up. Fine valley all the way to San Juan de Eñas—15 miles. At San Juan the biggest and best sugar cane we ever saw. Fine big corn, rich land and large pecans. Plenty of water and large acequias. Good water. Saw old Solomon and several runaway negro men and women. Here I saw old Jose Aroche. This is the richest place we saw in all Mexico—But it needs population. Cattle, herds etc.
OCT. 8TH For several miles a rich valley, with pecans and mesquite, to the San Juan river. Good water. Here we rise the first hills, poor stony ground. Here Santa Rosa is almost in sight on our right. Camp at a rocky branch among lime stone. Here we burn bear grass stalks for fire-wood. Kill two beeves. 22 miles.
9TH Fine mountain scenery, but the country is poor. White marly soil to the top. No water. Hard travel to the Sabinas at a rancho where we camp in the cow dung a foot thick. Delicious water & milk. 35 miles.
10TH Cross over Sabinas; drown three horses. Camp on west side. One mile. Sabinas the finest water I ever drank. This river has rich pearls below. Some cypress, stunted trees and tolerable pasture.
11TH Travel in pretty plain with fine view of the mountains of Candela &c. going E. of south towards Candela and its high, remarkable mesa and the grand profile of the mountains of Candela. Saw great droves of sheep, but not much cattle and no horses. Indians traverse this region. Go to the old hacienda of Alamos; put into a large room. Here bought tortillas and kid. Saw palms royal, like the Carolina palmetto, some forty feet high—This day about 25 miles.
OCT. 12TH Cross a fine river (Alamo) near the hacienda. Travel this day S.W. to what was a splendid Hacienda of Encinas. It is now an agricultural and shepherd village of 200 souls, and, they say, 50,000 sheep. Fine irrigable stream. Good corn. Capt. Juan Rodrigues here (as at former times) drove our men from the water, saying "the hour is not far off: go on." This property mortgaged by the widow for $41,000. It has some 50 leagues and good water facilities. Noble spring. Posas says worth 150,000 dollars. He said one league with water is worth 5000 or more unimproved in any settled part of the country. 21 miles. This Hacienda is in the chain of mountains that run from Santa Rosa to Candela. The profile of the Candela mountains is so striking, for beauty, variety and high sublimity I cannot forget it. This we saw yesterday.
OCT. 13TH Pass another ledge of mountains and enter the valley of the river of Monclova and cross the Salado and shortly reach the splendid sheep ranch of Las Hermanas [The Sisters], from the name of two hills close by. They said there were 250,000 sheep at this ranch. Some two or three hundred peons and dependents. It was built within the last ten years by Melchior Sanches. It is in the form of two contiguous squares, and presents a solid wall on all sides 16 to 18 ft. high. This wall is houses, mostly, on the inside. Squares 100 or more yards square. Entrance by one large gate into each square. We [are] put into a granary. This ranch with three or four others equally large are on a tract of land reaching from Saltillo to Santa Rosa, now owned by the sons Jacob. This day 18 miles.
14TH Soon pass the warm spring. Cross the Agua Sola from our right coming from Buena Ventura and San Vicente. Pass by the old ranch of Zapeda. Camp at Las Juntas. 18 miles. Here tuckalote [turkeys] hooted and crowed.
15TH To Monclova (first Puebla). Visits—Gardens—Waterpower—Don Victor Blanco and his son, Don Miguel, son-in-law of Don Ramon Musquis, and the Doctor—Don Ramon Musquis. Plantain—Acuacate-wheat-Burros-Cotton factory and growth of cotton, worth here $4 a 100 for seed cotton. Black Allen. Liberal in politics and friendly to Americans. 15 miles.
16TH In Monclova.
17TH Hacienda of Castenia—8 miles—where a soldier who was once my hireling at Espada remarked they needed a man of my punctuality and enterprise. Fine water and power.
18TH To Bajan; near which on our right we were shown the pass and road where Hidalgo was taken. We camped here in a cow-pen near some water holes. This hacienda broken up by the Indians two years ago. 23 miles.
19TH Tank of San Felipe—30 miles. No end to this mountain on our left. Comanches. Retreat of Jordan with 100 men by here.
20TH Ranch of Anelo (or of Tuckapu). Warm tank hauje. Singular creek and white salt plains.
21ST Ranch of Mesias or of the robbers on Piscaria. Pass the mouth of the river of Parras. Stable there in a granary. Hailstorm. Force of the Piscaria river when up as now. Today saw remarkable mountain top above clouds sometime. This a rendezvous of Boneto and other robbers. 15 miles.
22ND Capellanella (village of the Bishop's church), 21 miles.
OCT. 23D Saltillo (Maguey). 10 miles. Dr. Knight a gentleman. Hewitson. Rogers. Rogues of soldiers. Indian town near. 27,000 [population].
NOV. 7TH Left Saltillo—Buena Vista—8 miles. Part of Jordan's battle ground. 100 vs. 700 regulars and other hundreds. Fine retreat. Our ascent into another step of the mountains.
NOV. 8TH Agua Nueva. Dimmit and his companions escape, etc. Scarcity of wood etc. 12 miles.
9TH Hacienda of Encarnacion. Pass two tanks and quantity of sheep and enter into the side of the Saline valley. Well; work for cattle. Wheat straw for horses (gorda aguna) 26 miles.
10TH Poor ranch of San Salvador, where we slept cold on bloody rocks where a beef had been killed and burned. The palma orpeta or palmetto royal. 20 miles.
NOV. 11TH Fine Hall and Mazon of Salado. Wagon load of wool. The Comanches (1839) did worse here than at San Salvador, where they put the women in a house and burned them. 23 miles. This morning pass a well where is the corner of three or four states, viz: [Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi]
12TH The poor ranch of Las Animas, where we saw the Bulliken pole and cleaned behind the house for our dormitory. 16 miles. Prairie dogs this day and the two following.
NOV. 13TH Vinegas, where we waited and exchanged the Saltillo Infantry for that of San Luis Potosi. Mines, refining work and silver. Blankets—spring—bath—no wood only pita. Tunas, oranges, etc. This near the Rial de calore and other silver mines. 14 miles.
15TH To Cedral. Old silver works; other works in operation. 5000 population. 10 miles.
16TH Matahuala. 8000. Fruit. Gift by a woman of $1.00 to fifteen of our men. 18 miles.
17TH To the Presas, where two gentlemen play and sing on guitar aided by two ladies. I baked some noble bread here. Here out of the Saline valley. 20 miles.
18TH Laguna Seca. Over mountain and by an old deserted village and rancho. 25 miles. Stable and soap house and chickaroni house for quarters. Liberal priest gave us a double hand-full of [blank].
19TH Vinado. Population 6000. Cold time. Paved yard—bursted stones. Well in the middle of Mazon yard with horizontal wheel.
20TH To Las Bocas. 30 miles. This day passed by Hacienda and City Hediendo. People at church. 4000.
21ST Pinasca, 15 miles. Owned by the Conde de Mora. Wall six feet or more thick. Fine place.
NOV. 22ND To San Luis Potosi (30,000) 15 miles. On entering we move the streets up and down.
NOV. 25TH To Las Pilas. Old mine—fine garden—grape vines—nopal—cigaritos—10 miles. Tall willow. Irrigation of gardens, etc.
26TH Jarral. A great estate of the Marquis [de Jarral] mills all over the fields. Granaries. Palace.
27TH Cubo. Property of Marq. of Jarral. 21 miles.
28TH Hidalgo Dolores. Passed this day the Museum [for Mission?] Church of [blank] Olive trees—vines—Ciprisa tree. Great old church of Hidalgo. This an old Indian town. 26 miles. Fine, painted mazon and well with jar. Ciprisa trees. Old priest Hidalgo was of this town. Urata.
29TH San Miguel Grande. 27 miles. Population twenty or thirty thousand. Saddle cloths and blankets. List made for shoes but no shoes. Fruit and dried mutton. Came up the hill. Organo & Nopal. [cacti. R.M.G.]
NOV. 30TH Santa Rosa. Horizontal well wheel. Riddle secures the road. We are in lime house—green wood—Calaboza [jail. R.M.G.] full.
DEC. 1ST City of Queretaro. 10 miles. Rich valley this day. Churches. Paved road out of repair. We are put into the extensive old convent of Santa Cruz (where we leave Norvall). Great aqueduct.
3D Hacienda of Colorado—10 miles—Treading out wheat. Saturday night when the Indians are paid off in corn and money at $2 per month, peck of corn and a patch of ground. Extensive fields. Rain water & creek irrigation.
4TH San Juan del Rio. Old bridge. Circus. Chocolate.
5TH Arroyo Sarco. Mazon. 300 flower pots. Stages on the Vera Cruz route. 30 miles.
6TH Tula—at the lower end of the great desagua; said to be older than Mexico. Catholic Church dated 1534 (begun then). This day we passed a splendid mill, water carried some miles near road—raceway a fine, high and long piece of masonry. Fine fields irrigated. House with ladies on piazza. Fine paintings on the wall in the piazza. This day passed the village and the high gap in the mountains of Chapulalpa. This is the highest ground between Rio Grande and the City of Mexico. Pretty red hills with oak growth and some pine. Thick forests. Villages at foot of mountains and tank. White tunas, Indians and pulque everywhere. At Tula dined with Don Eduardo Rodrigues with Col. Gregorio Gonzales, Col. Duran, priest & Co. "Ijos ó de la familia de Don Pableto Léon, pobres pero sin honor, malcriados y sin Estimacion." ["Sons or of the family of Don Pableto Léon, poor but without honor, ill-bred and without estimation."]
Prison full of deserters; those brought by us from San Luis Potosi left here. Overflows bad and hot house. 32 miles.
10TH Left Tula. Go to Agua Huetoca, over gulleys, naked hills, rich valleys. No wood. Lime kiln burnt with bundles of twigs and straw. Tunas. 20 miles.
12TH Cuantitlan—by Zimpango de la Laguna. A picture of a place over beyond a lake. Also Tepozotlan and numerous churches and huts and prickly pears. Fine valley of land. This the lowest of the lagunas of the valley of Mexico. Cross the great laguna. 10 miles.
13TH San Christoval Ecatepec. Old palace of the Viceroys. Great bridge and prison. Pulque and maguey farms. Indians. In sight of the volcano of Popocatapetl and that of San Martin covered with snow. Splendid but cold. Ecatepec is 12 miles from the City of Mexico.
DEC. 14TH San Juan Tihuacan — By numerous churches over a high ridge in sight of a lake back in the alley of Mexico. Neill's escape. 15 miles. Over mountains and by maguey farms. Saw the City of Mexico in the distance.
15TH Chalpulalpan (village). Singular way of shaking hands by the Indians. Smuggler boy with his cigars. "Viva—" on the wall. 20 miles.
16TH San Martin (City) on the great Mexico and Vera Cruz road. Rich valley close to Ecatepetl and the others (Macho & Hembre). This is about 55 miles (21 lgs.) to Mexico. Here saw mules yoked to a cart three abreast. Put up stairs in a quartel. Fruit —oranges. Zapotes etc. This day crossed ridges and came down into the fine valley of San Martin and at the very foot of Macho & Hembre with Malinche on the other side, all in snow. This day 30 or more miles.
17TH Puebla, 25 miles. Splendid plain or valley all way. Cross fine bridge over Rio Prieto and observe the water oozing in a thousand little springs out of the sides of the many ditches in all the fields. Ploughing here and putting in barley and wheat. The road a shaded avenue with running water in the ditch on either hand. (So it was the day we came to San Christobal.) Here in view of four volcanoes covered with snow. They reap and plant the same day. At Pueblo saw some interesting foreigners, and a poor boy (peon) who had been attached to a Sante Fe prisoner, Mr. [blank], followed me all about as I was marketing with three others for the Company, showing us bakeries, meat shops etc. When we parted I was handing him two clackos when he was too quick for me and before I was aware he forced two clackos into my hand and ran off with a tear and a laugh, protesting that he loved the poor Americans and repeating the name of [blank] [Santa Fé prisoner]. The adobe temple of Malinche and two forts.
19TH At 10 o'clock, through a great crowd, we marched out under command of a shabby captain and the red-eyed Lieutenant (Mexia's executioner.) The brave old Englishman went out a mile or two cursing our guard and walking in our ranks, giving cigars, etc. At last the officers tried to get rid of him. He drew his pistol and rushed upon them, telling them of Waterloo etc., and offering to fight them all; "I can whip six of you, carajos! etc." "Negroes imprisoning white men!!"
How different this from the great plenipotentiary, Mr. Packenham, who was at Puebla on his way up from Vera Cruz, getting off the officers (Englishmen) from the steamers, Guadaloupe and Montezuma.
This day reached the village of [blank] where we were not permitted to get out of the door to cook and we were quartered in a long, old, damp room which appeared to be used as a privy. Here was the place poor Gen'l Mexia was shot by order of Santa Anna. The executioner was the brute lieutenant with red, bulldog eyes who was now accompanying us. God! What a perfect villain!! He refused our poor walkers to let them drink at the road-side, saying, We'll get to the end of our journey soon.
AT PEROTE
Governor of the Castle: Gen'l Jose Duran
Mayor de Plaza: Ysidro Pombo
Captains: Bonilla, Pineda, Angel de Campo and "Old Guts," or Diaz Guzman.
Lieutenants: Garcia, Mora, Castro, Jicatinca and old Dejalor Ventura.
Arrived at the castle of Perote on 22nd Dec. [1842]. Some put into the room No. 9, and the herd in No. 10. All chained, two and two.
DEC. 31ST Lieut. Hartstene, of U.S.Navy, visited us. He sent us from Vera Cruz $50.00.
JANY 1843 Put to work. [Mr. Maverick refused to work, and was imprisoned in a dungeon for some time with scarcely anything to eat and threatened with death. He was afterwards released from the dungeon and made a sort of overseer over the other prisoners at work. E.H.T.]
FEB. 2ND 1843 Southall [Purser U.S.N.] and Sam Norvall [leave] for U.S.
FEB. 8 Flag staff 80 ft. long broke in three pieces and fell into the water hole in the moat, with the buzzard roost.
15TH Letter to Mary, S.M. and Mr. Dobbin
MCH. 16TH Letter from Mary of 7th Jan.
18TH Letter from Gen'l Thompson of 16th.
19TH Chains taken off by order—walk.
20TH Letter to J. G. Aiken—ordering [him] to send $350 to Dr. R.W. Weir and the overplus to me care of Dobbin No. 16 N. St. N.O. by or before 20th proximo.
Rena Maverick Green
Samuel Maverick, Texan
[MEMOIRS 1842] On September 11th, Sunday morning, at day-break, General Adrian Woll with a large force of Mexicans consisting of cavalry and artillery to the number of thirteen hundred suddenly appeared before San Antonio, and captured the place. It was a complete surprise. The court was in session at the time, and, including the members of the bar and Judge of the district Court, fifty-three Americans were captured, one of whom was Mr. Maverick.
Before the little band surrendered, they showed a bold and vigorous front, even in the face of such fearful odds. They fortified themselves in the Maverick residence at the corner of Commerce and Soledad Streets—some of them mounted upon the roof, when Mr. John Twohig received a wound from which he has never entirely recovered. When the Mexican troops entered Main Plaza, the Texans fired upon them briskly, killing two and wounding twenty-six, six of whom died of their wounds.
General Woll beat a parley, and after he had shown the Texans they could not escape him and had promised to treat them as honorable prisoners of war and used some other plausible talk with them, the Texans held a consultation among themselves, when a majority voted to surrender. After they surrendered, they were kept in the Maverick residence, where they were closely guarded until the 15th.
[The late Mrs. Eager, daughter of Wilson J. Riddle, told me the following particulars of her father's experience in the capture of San Antonio in 1842, which she had been told by her mother. The Riddles, who were English, had sought refuge in Gonzales during the "Runaway." There a friendly priest informed them that a large force would soon attack San Antonio. Wilson Riddle determined to go and help the Americans, and his brother John accompanied him, saying "I cannot let my brother go without me."
They arrived in San Antonio at the moment Woll and the Americans surrounded at the Maverick home. Riddle explained to the Mexican officer, "We are not soldiers, we came to confer with the Americans." Colonel Carasco answered, "Well, there are your guns stacked against the wall—and you are not wearing that powder horn to drink milk out of!" Whereupon he arrested the brothers and they were taken with the other prisoners to Perote. They eventually secured their freedom through the English Minister to Mexico.
Herbert Gambrell, in his recent biography of Anson Jones, gives the following account of that fated session of the court:]
At San Antonio de Bexar, the Honorable Anderson Hutchinson wrote in his diary: "Monday Sept 5, 1842 Opened the District Court of Bexar No invasion expected." There had been a rumor that Santa Anna was sending 1,500, maybe 3,000, men to San Antonio; but the worst anybody expected was a party of marauders. The case before the court was that of Shields Booker vs. the City of San Antonio. Dr. Booker, formerly of Brazoria and Dr. Jones's assistant surgeon at San Jacinto, was suing for a fifty-pesos fee that Major Juan N. Seguin had promised him. His attorney was Samuel A. Maverick, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and congressman-elect. The testimony, which was in Spanish, ran on and on.
"The whole day of the 10th...passed...strengthening the general belief that the rumor was either a hoax or the character of the force advancing misrepresented [said Congressman William E. (Fiery) Jones of Gonzales, who was in San Antonio that day].
"At day light on the morning of the 11th Sept. we were aroused from our slumbers by the firing of a piece of cannon almost in the edge of town, succeeded immediately by the sound of martial music & the tramp of a body of men—A dense fog obscured them from actual observation until they had advanced into the public square when they were immediately fired upon by our party, who amounted to about fifty in number—the fire was soon returned by the Mexicans...This lasted a few minutes when the fog disappearing discovered to us that we were surrounded on all sides by bodies of regular troops...."
The uniformed Mexicans disarmed the defenders of San Antonio and put them under guard, then marched into the courthouse. Judge Hutchinson, the whole personnel of his court, every lawyer in town except one, two congressmen-elect, and a former lieutenant governor were taken prisoners; and the case of Booker vs. the City of San Antonio was never finished.
[MEMOIRS 1842-1843] Mrs. Elliott was in San Antonio when my husband was captured, and she was allowed to visit the prisoners once or twice before they were taken off to Mexico. Mr. Maverick found an opportunity to hand Mrs. Elliott twenty gold doubloons for me. No one can imagine how dreadful this news was to me, especially when I learned that our poor prisoners were marched off on foot for Mexico on the 15th. At this time my poor little Lewis was dangerously ill with fever then prevalent in the neighborhood. Griffin came hurriedly back from San Antonio with the dreadful news of the capture of his master, to whom he was much attached. I called him to me, and talked to him about going out to San Antonio to pass himself for a "runaway," follow to Mexico, and do anything he could to free or even aid Mr. Maverick, and he could have his freedom. He answered that to do anything for his master would delight him, and he had been wanting to ask me to let him go—"as for my freedom" he added, "I do not want any more than I have, master has always treated me more like a brother than a slave," and he choked up unable to say more. He took a gun, a good mule, some money, and made ready and started within a few hours—happy to think he might do something to help his master.
15th, Juan Seguin killed Dr. Smithers, McDonald and McRhea at the Sulphur Springs on the Cibolo. 17th, 163 men under Mat Caldwell are on the Cibolo going west. 18th, Caldwell moved with 225 men to the Salado.
THE BATTLE OF THE SALADO
On the morning of the 19th Caldwell selected his battle ground on the left bank of the Salado about six miles from San Antonio and a mile below the Austin crossing of that creek. His choice fell upon a ravine in which he concealed his men and from the banks of which they were to battle with the enemy. Early in the morning he sent Hays with 50 men to draw the Mexicans out of San Antonio. Hays maneuvered successfully—he feigned flight and was hotly pursued to the Salado by 20 Mexican cavalry. Here the cavalry halted and awaited the arrival of the main body consisting of 1000 infantry (dismounted men) and a battery of two guns.
My brothers William and Andrew were both with Caldwell and they afterwards told me the particulars of the battle. The Mexicans charged in style. The Texans held their fire until they "could see the whites of the eyes" of their foes—then each "picked his man and laid him low," and the Mexicans were repulsed with considerable slaughter. They returned to the charge again and again, but were repulsed each time with great loss. The battle lasted from eleven o'clock a.m. until five in the afternoon, when the Mexicans were completely routed and immediately fell back on San Antonio. General Woll reported his loss at 135 killed, but our people claimed this to be only a third of the Mexican loss. Amongst the Mexicans slain were Agaton and Cordova, two famous leaders of marauding parties. Not a Texan was killed and only ten were wounded. My brothers told me it was a pleasure to our boys to shoot down those Mexicans, "for they had broken up all our homes and taken many of our brave comrades into cruel captivity."
On the morning of the battle, the Texans had butchered some beef-cattle, but before they could get their breakfast the order was given to fall in. But after the fight commenced, and they found it was such an easy-going affair, the Texans after each charge was repulsed, and before the Mexicans slowly reformed and advanced again, would descend into the ravine and take a lunch of broiled meat and hot coffee. They joked and sang and were very gay, and they wanted nothing better than to have the Mexicans come up and be shot—it seemed like child's play! They themselves were quite secure behind the banks of the ravine and the cannon balls passed above and over them.
THE DAWSON MASSACRE
During the day of the battle of the Salado, Captain Dawson with his company of fifty-nine men from Fayette County, seeking a junction with the main Texan force under Caldwell, met a bloody and cruel fate. They fell in with Woll's army and were surrounded by eight hundred Mexican troops when within one mile of Caldwell! Our faithful Griffin was with Dawson's company. They fought so desperately that the Mexicans brought their two cannon to bear upon them, when Dawson, seeing there was no hope of escape, raised the "white flag." This was fired upon, and the Mexican cavalry, disregarding the surrender, charged upon the gallant remnant and cut them down on every side. It was then that Dawson was slain. Colonel Carasco interfered at this moment and fifteen Texans were taken prisoners—three or four of whom afterwards died of their wounds. Thirty-three had been slain and the rest escaped.
Mr. Miller escaped on a fine horse before the white flag was raised. My uncle, Mr. John Bradley, was one of the prisoners. Ten of them, including Mr. Bradley, were marched off to Mexico, and finally joined the fifty-three who had started on the 13th.
Our poor Griffin was with Dawson and was slain. He would go into the fight with them and, though offered quarter several times, refused because he was thinking of his master, now a prisoner, and too of his young masters, William and Andrew, now possibly slain; the desire for vengeance seized his brave and trusty soul, and he wanted to kill every Mexican he could. He was a man of powerful frame, and he possessed the courage of the African lion. And this faithful and devoted African performed prodigies that day. When his ammunition became useless because of the proximity of the enemy, he fought with the butt-end of his gun, and when the gun was broken he wrenched a limb from a mesquite tree and did battle with that until death closed his career. He received more than one mortal wound before he ceased fighting.
The Mexican Colonel Carasco himself afterwards told Mr. Maverick that he had witnessed the feats performed by "that valiant black man," and he pronounced Griffin the bravest man he had ever seen. Mr. Maverick grieved over his untimely death, and more than once did he say in his energetic manner: "We owe Griffin a monument!"
September 20th. The Mexican citizens of San Antonio who espoused the Mexican cause, with a guard of four hundred soldiers, left San Antonio for Mexico, taking with them five hundred head of cattle and much plunder.
September 21st. General Woll with his remaining forces evacuated San Antonio, and retired in good order towards the Rio Grande. Colonel Caldwell with six hundred and fifty men pursued them, and at night came upon their camp on the Medina. At daylight the next morning the Texans found the enemy had retreated during the night—they gave chase, and caught up with them early in the afternoon. Caldwell ("Old Paint") commanded the first division, Morehead the second, and John H. Moore the third or reserve. J. H. Moore was the ranking officer, but Caldwell immediately took active command, and prepared for the battle. He commanded Hays with twenty picked men to make a diversion on the enemy's left. Hays, with his usual dash and gallantry, entered vigorously into the spirit of the hour. He charged boldly into the ranks of the enemy and immediately captured the artillery. The Mexicans threw their women and children into the space between the captured artillery and their main army.
Then came a dreadful pause. A disgraceful scene was being enacted in the Texan army. J. H. Moore claimed his right as ranking officer to conduct the battle. Caldwell's men refused to be commanded by anyone other than the hero of the Salado. Morehead's men demanded that Morehead should command. After some delay Caldwell awoke to the importance of action and announced that he would follow Moore or any other man, and take all his men into the fight with him. But the contention had lasted too long; the important moment had come and had fled forever. Hays' small band had captured the artillery, and the enemy was already casting timorous glances toward the rear—a charge by the Texans would have scattered them to the winds. As it was, Hays was in a perilous position—the enemy had time to recover from the first shock—they charged upon Hays in force and drove him from the field! Hays fell back out of range and witnessed Woll's army successfully retire from the field and resume the march westward. Hays' gallant spirit was wounded by this unaccountable and ignominious scene and his feelings found utterance in tears—yes, tears of shame and rage. The Texan army at last came forward, but it was too late, the enemy had escaped. The Texans were so disgusted and mortified that all discipline was lost and they returned in angry and humiliated squads to San Antonio. Hays had five wounded in his brilliant encounter, one of whom, Judge Lucky, died. The Mexicans abandoned their extra baggage and fled precipitately across the Rio Grande.
The blame of the failure was cast principally upon Colonel Caldwell, and he felt so humiliated and outraged that he became restive under the heavy burden, and from a condition of excellent health he sank into despondency and died of chagrin two or three months later. But his memory remained fresh and revered. He had been a noted Indian fighter, as I have mentioned before, and he had been an officer in the unfortunate Santa Fé expedition, and had suffered imprisonment. He had a great and good reputation throughout west Texas.
I now return to Mr. Maverick, and other prisoners captured on September 11th, in San Antonio during the Term of the Court.
On March 30th, 1843, Mr. Maverick, W. E. Jones and Judge Anderson Hutchinson were finally released in the City of Mexico by Santa Anna. Our obligations to General Waddy Thompson can never be forgotten. General Thompson was a native of South Carolina, and a connection by marriage of Mr. Maverick's. He was the United States Minister to Mexico. After securing the release of Mr. Maverick, Jones and Hutchinson, he nobly exerted his influence to secure the release of all the other helpless and friendless prisoners, and he did not cease his efforts until he had succeeded in getting them all —all survivors—liberated.
On April 2nd, 1843, Mr. Maverick, once more free, left the City of Mexico, and on May 4th, he dismounted at our cabin on the Colorado, having been absent from his family eight and a half months, and a prisoner seven months.
Mr. Maverick's only sorrow was that he had left so many friends and comrades in prison, and he felt almost ashamed when he met any of their families and friends, who all, of course, came to see him—to tell them of his own good luck and of the continued ill luck of the other captives.
June 16th, 1843, Santa Anna, as a special favor to General Waddy Thompson, signed the release for the balance of the Perote prisoners, but the order for release was so slowly carried into execution that it was more than two months before Mr. Bradley reached his family.
[The second of Samuel A. Maverick's journals begins with the capture of San Antonio by General Woll in September 1842, and details the prisoners' march to Mexico and their imprisonment at Perote. Maverick was released on March 22, 1843, and the journal ends with his arrival at Virginia Point on April 28. Less than a week later he was reunited with his family on the Colorado, on May 4, 1843. The journal is here printed from the copy made in 1879 by Edwin H. Terrell, whose notes are in brackets.]
Prisoner's Journal
SEPTEMBER 1842-APRIL 1843
San Antonio, 11th Sep't 1842.
Fifty-six taken prisoners of war at Maverick's Corner by Gen'l Woll with Eighteen hundred troops, stipulating that our lives and property should be safe and all of us treated as gentlemen. (W. E. Jones and S. A. Maverick Commissioners). Four released.
MEM: Protection left by San Antonio prisoners for the citizens of Bexar, Sep't 11th 1842.
San Antonio, 11th Sep't 1842
To the American Officers and Citizens:
To the undersigned, Americans, prisoners in the hands of the Mexican Army at this place, feel it to be a duty to recommend to all Americans, who may come here after our departure, to treat the Mexican population residing in this place with lenience and kindness. Up to the time of the unfortunate occurrence by which we were made made prisoners nothing transpired to prejudice them in our estimation, and since our captivity they have been untiring in their kindness, supplying us in the most liberal manner with everything which could conduce in the least degree to our comfort.
We do hope, therefore, should this place again fall into the hands of Americans, that for our sake the Mexican population here will not be in any way disturbed or injured either in person or property.
(Signed)
William E. Jones; H.A. Alsbury; A. Hutchinson; Chancey Johnson (Captain selected by prisoners); David J. Davis; S.L. Norvall; S.A. Maverick; S. Booker; John Lee; F.S. Gray; Sam'l Stone; J.C. Morgan; John Dalrymple; Trueman B. Beck; L. Colquhoun; Jas. L. Trueheart; John Twohig; D. Morgan; James W. Robinson; W.J. Riddle; J.R. Cunningham; C.W. Peterson; George Van Ness; D.C. Ogden; Joseph McClelland (liberated); Isaac Allen; James H. Brown; John Young; Simeon Glenn; Riley Jackson; Edward Brown; Francis Mackag; John Trapnall; J.S. Johnson (liberated); R.S. Neighbors; M.L.B. Rapier; George Voss; George P. Schaffer; John Lehmann; William Bugg; S.L. Nobles; John Riddle; Geo. C. Hatch; N. Herbert; Augustus Ellery; A.J. Leslie; Jos. A. Crews; John Smith; A. Fitzgerald; B. Callahan (liberated)
[NOTE: The other prisoners not in the foregoing list were: W.H. O'Phelan Andrew Neill, Thos Hancock, John Forrester, & Antonio Menchaca (liberated).]
With only a few hours notice the remainder of 52 were marched out on 15th Sept. under strong guard of about one hundred & fifty cavalry and infantry. We camped at Alazan near town; say 4 miles.
16TH We heard the firing of a grand salute in Bexar by Woll for the celebration of the Independence of Mexico. Marched near to ford of Presidio on Medina and up to Woll's crossing. Camped on west bank. This day 34 [miles].
17TH J.R. Cunningham too weak to ride and is put into the carts with the wounded mexicans. Cap't Posas refuses to let any of [us] stay with him. We go to camp on E. bank of the Seco.
18TH We part with Cunningham for last time. Go to the west bank of the Rio Frio.
19TH Monday. We cross pretty Leona and the Nueces and camp on the head of the Laguna of Espantosa, seven miles west of the Nueces (raining).
20TH We pass Chaperosa, a good location and fine grass, on Woll's road eighteen or twenty miles west of the Nueces. Camp on west side of small creek among prickly pears. Rain this night again.
SEPT. 21ST Saw a mustang chase by the officers. Great killing of snakes today as for two or three days. A soldier bit in this way: Dn Maye (a young officer) offered the soldier a bit to take hold of the snake's head. The soldier stepped on his tail and was boldly walking up, when the snake, too quick for that, bit him through a hole in his old shoe. They carried him to the river; he got better in a few days. Dr Booker cut open the wound and put salt in etc. We camped on the Cueva Cr. 30 miles.
22ND (Or 8th day) Cross the Rio Grande in two canoes. Horses made to swim; three or four drowned. Men astonishing swimmers. River here at the upper crossing at the lone pecan (on E. side) is about 350 yards wide. Kinto's ranch in sight above. Camped in sheep fold. 10 miles.
23D To Presidio Rio Grande—six miles—water plentiful, but (gordo) salt and unfit for drinking. Sheep and cattle around. Old mission E. of town. Town old. The population villainous. Good labors N.W. of it and on almost all the way to San Fernando. Quartel—an old house on one side of the Square built by some La Garza in 1776. Population say 1000.
SEPT. 27TH Passed through a rich irrigable prairie all the way to Nava, before reaching which we saw thousands of acres of corn without fence. Soldiers say the land is public. Same kind of land as at Las Moras. To Nava—kind, hospitable people—26 miles.
SEPT. 28TH All the way a splendid, irrigable plain; just after leaving Nava and before ascending the highest plain it is all a live oak thicket—very rich. To San Fernando de Agua Verde—12 miles. Population 5 or 6000. This is the headquarters of Gen'l Reyes. Here a woman in the crowd asked us: "Quantos chevatos hay, carajos?" [How many buck-goats are there, damn you?] Here we are all—52—kept strictly watched, in one uncomfortable room. Sentinel inside the door and all around bawling every ten minutes. Weather and room hot. Fine sugar cane. Madam Marina Rodrigues y Taylor very kind to me, Hutchinson, Robinson, Neal and the other two of our mess, sending victuals three times every day. Her coffe-pot broken in our service. Also Arnold # Capt. Aligundo Vonlack. On 28th grand illumination. On the 4th of Octr. remaining ten men (Bradley, Barclay & Co.) of Capt. Dawson's company of 53 (39 killed, 3 wounded & 1 escaped, Dawson killed—18th Sept.), on 4th they arrived and are imprisoned in another house. We were not allowed to see the town only on square and on cart ride to river. Fine river. Mrs. Taylor fed and packed us down with bread, biscuit and quince leather and gave Robinson a horse. Kind, good woman. [Mr. M., after his return home from prison, sent a fine set of China to Madame Taylor in remembrance of her kindness. E.H.T.]
OCT. 7TH (8 days sojourn here). Van Ness, Fitzgerald and Hancock taken away and put [in] to the guard house. We are marched out. I have the little, black (tender footed) horse given by Col. Carrasco for mine. [Mr. Maverick started on his own fine horse. R.M.G.] Here in the Plaza we are joined by the other ten who were taken 5 miles east of [the] Salado, making our total 58 men. [Van Ness, Fitzgerald & Hancock were old Santa Fe prisoners and were left behind to be shot. Fitzgerald was killed in the attack on the guard at the Salado. Van Ness & Hancock were brought to Perote with Mier men. E.H.T.] This day pass Morelos, where the brave federal, Zapata, (in their last struggle and defeat) was killed. Saw the doors of the house he was in, pierced by hundreds of ounce balls. Arista was at head of the Centrals, Zapata's head [was] carried to Guerrero and stuck up. Fine valley all the way to San Juan de Eñas—15 miles. At San Juan the biggest and best sugar cane we ever saw. Fine big corn, rich land and large pecans. Plenty of water and large acequias. Good water. Saw old Solomon and several runaway negro men and women. Here I saw old Jose Aroche. This is the richest place we saw in all Mexico—But it needs population. Cattle, herds etc.
OCT. 8TH For several miles a rich valley, with pecans and mesquite, to the San Juan river. Good water. Here we rise the first hills, poor stony ground. Here Santa Rosa is almost in sight on our right. Camp at a rocky branch among lime stone. Here we burn bear grass stalks for fire-wood. Kill two beeves. 22 miles.
9TH Fine mountain scenery, but the country is poor. White marly soil to the top. No water. Hard travel to the Sabinas at a rancho where we camp in the cow dung a foot thick. Delicious water & milk. 35 miles.
10TH Cross over Sabinas; drown three horses. Camp on west side. One mile. Sabinas the finest water I ever drank. This river has rich pearls below. Some cypress, stunted trees and tolerable pasture.
11TH Travel in pretty plain with fine view of the mountains of Candela &c. going E. of south towards Candela and its high, remarkable mesa and the grand profile of the mountains of Candela. Saw great droves of sheep, but not much cattle and no horses. Indians traverse this region. Go to the old hacienda of Alamos; put into a large room. Here bought tortillas and kid. Saw palms royal, like the Carolina palmetto, some forty feet high—This day about 25 miles.
OCT. 12TH Cross a fine river (Alamo) near the hacienda. Travel this day S.W. to what was a splendid Hacienda of Encinas. It is now an agricultural and shepherd village of 200 souls, and, they say, 50,000 sheep. Fine irrigable stream. Good corn. Capt. Juan Rodrigues here (as at former times) drove our men from the water, saying "the hour is not far off: go on." This property mortgaged by the widow for $41,000. It has some 50 leagues and good water facilities. Noble spring. Posas says worth 150,000 dollars. He said one league with water is worth 5000 or more unimproved in any settled part of the country. 21 miles. This Hacienda is in the chain of mountains that run from Santa Rosa to Candela. The profile of the Candela mountains is so striking, for beauty, variety and high sublimity I cannot forget it. This we saw yesterday.
OCT. 13TH Pass another ledge of mountains and enter the valley of the river of Monclova and cross the Salado and shortly reach the splendid sheep ranch of Las Hermanas [The Sisters], from the name of two hills close by. They said there were 250,000 sheep at this ranch. Some two or three hundred peons and dependents. It was built within the last ten years by Melchior Sanches. It is in the form of two contiguous squares, and presents a solid wall on all sides 16 to 18 ft. high. This wall is houses, mostly, on the inside. Squares 100 or more yards square. Entrance by one large gate into each square. We [are] put into a granary. This ranch with three or four others equally large are on a tract of land reaching from Saltillo to Santa Rosa, now owned by the sons Jacob. This day 18 miles.
14TH Soon pass the warm spring. Cross the Agua Sola from our right coming from Buena Ventura and San Vicente. Pass by the old ranch of Zapeda. Camp at Las Juntas. 18 miles. Here tuckalote [turkeys] hooted and crowed.
15TH To Monclova (first Puebla). Visits—Gardens—Waterpower—Don Victor Blanco and his son, Don Miguel, son-in-law of Don Ramon Musquis, and the Doctor—Don Ramon Musquis. Plantain—Acuacate-wheat-Burros-Cotton factory and growth of cotton, worth here $4 a 100 for seed cotton. Black Allen. Liberal in politics and friendly to Americans. 15 miles.
16TH In Monclova.
17TH Hacienda of Castenia—8 miles—where a soldier who was once my hireling at Espada remarked they needed a man of my punctuality and enterprise. Fine water and power.
18TH To Bajan; near which on our right we were shown the pass and road where Hidalgo was taken. We camped here in a cow-pen near some water holes. This hacienda broken up by the Indians two years ago. 23 miles.
19TH Tank of San Felipe—30 miles. No end to this mountain on our left. Comanches. Retreat of Jordan with 100 men by here.
20TH Ranch of Anelo (or of Tuckapu). Warm tank hauje. Singular creek and white salt plains.
21ST Ranch of Mesias or of the robbers on Piscaria. Pass the mouth of the river of Parras. Stable there in a granary. Hailstorm. Force of the Piscaria river when up as now. Today saw remarkable mountain top above clouds sometime. This a rendezvous of Boneto and other robbers. 15 miles.
22ND Capellanella (village of the Bishop's church), 21 miles.
OCT. 23D Saltillo (Maguey). 10 miles. Dr. Knight a gentleman. Hewitson. Rogers. Rogues of soldiers. Indian town near. 27,000 [population].
NOV. 7TH Left Saltillo—Buena Vista—8 miles. Part of Jordan's battle ground. 100 vs. 700 regulars and other hundreds. Fine retreat. Our ascent into another step of the mountains.
NOV. 8TH Agua Nueva. Dimmit and his companions escape, etc. Scarcity of wood etc. 12 miles.
9TH Hacienda of Encarnacion. Pass two tanks and quantity of sheep and enter into the side of the Saline valley. Well; work for cattle. Wheat straw for horses (gorda aguna) 26 miles.
10TH Poor ranch of San Salvador, where we slept cold on bloody rocks where a beef had been killed and burned. The palma orpeta or palmetto royal. 20 miles.
NOV. 11TH Fine Hall and Mazon of Salado. Wagon load of wool. The Comanches (1839) did worse here than at San Salvador, where they put the women in a house and burned them. 23 miles. This morning pass a well where is the corner of three or four states, viz: [Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi]
12TH The poor ranch of Las Animas, where we saw the Bulliken pole and cleaned behind the house for our dormitory. 16 miles. Prairie dogs this day and the two following.
NOV. 13TH Vinegas, where we waited and exchanged the Saltillo Infantry for that of San Luis Potosi. Mines, refining work and silver. Blankets—spring—bath—no wood only pita. Tunas, oranges, etc. This near the Rial de calore and other silver mines. 14 miles.
15TH To Cedral. Old silver works; other works in operation. 5000 population. 10 miles.
16TH Matahuala. 8000. Fruit. Gift by a woman of $1.00 to fifteen of our men. 18 miles.
17TH To the Presas, where two gentlemen play and sing on guitar aided by two ladies. I baked some noble bread here. Here out of the Saline valley. 20 miles.
18TH Laguna Seca. Over mountain and by an old deserted village and rancho. 25 miles. Stable and soap house and chickaroni house for quarters. Liberal priest gave us a double hand-full of [blank].
19TH Vinado. Population 6000. Cold time. Paved yard—bursted stones. Well in the middle of Mazon yard with horizontal wheel.
20TH To Las Bocas. 30 miles. This day passed by Hacienda and City Hediendo. People at church. 4000.
21ST Pinasca, 15 miles. Owned by the Conde de Mora. Wall six feet or more thick. Fine place.
NOV. 22ND To San Luis Potosi (30,000) 15 miles. On entering we move the streets up and down.
NOV. 25TH To Las Pilas. Old mine—fine garden—grape vines—nopal—cigaritos—10 miles. Tall willow. Irrigation of gardens, etc.
26TH Jarral. A great estate of the Marquis [de Jarral] mills all over the fields. Granaries. Palace.
27TH Cubo. Property of Marq. of Jarral. 21 miles.
28TH Hidalgo Dolores. Passed this day the Museum [for Mission?] Church of [blank] Olive trees—vines—Ciprisa tree. Great old church of Hidalgo. This an old Indian town. 26 miles. Fine, painted mazon and well with jar. Ciprisa trees. Old priest Hidalgo was of this town. Urata.
29TH San Miguel Grande. 27 miles. Population twenty or thirty thousand. Saddle cloths and blankets. List made for shoes but no shoes. Fruit and dried mutton. Came up the hill. Organo & Nopal. [cacti. R.M.G.]
NOV. 30TH Santa Rosa. Horizontal well wheel. Riddle secures the road. We are in lime house—green wood—Calaboza [jail. R.M.G.] full.
DEC. 1ST City of Queretaro. 10 miles. Rich valley this day. Churches. Paved road out of repair. We are put into the extensive old convent of Santa Cruz (where we leave Norvall). Great aqueduct.
3D Hacienda of Colorado—10 miles—Treading out wheat. Saturday night when the Indians are paid off in corn and money at $2 per month, peck of corn and a patch of ground. Extensive fields. Rain water & creek irrigation.
4TH San Juan del Rio. Old bridge. Circus. Chocolate.
5TH Arroyo Sarco. Mazon. 300 flower pots. Stages on the Vera Cruz route. 30 miles.
6TH Tula—at the lower end of the great desagua; said to be older than Mexico. Catholic Church dated 1534 (begun then). This day we passed a splendid mill, water carried some miles near road—raceway a fine, high and long piece of masonry. Fine fields irrigated. House with ladies on piazza. Fine paintings on the wall in the piazza. This day passed the village and the high gap in the mountains of Chapulalpa. This is the highest ground between Rio Grande and the City of Mexico. Pretty red hills with oak growth and some pine. Thick forests. Villages at foot of mountains and tank. White tunas, Indians and pulque everywhere. At Tula dined with Don Eduardo Rodrigues with Col. Gregorio Gonzales, Col. Duran, priest & Co. "Ijos ó de la familia de Don Pableto Léon, pobres pero sin honor, malcriados y sin Estimacion." ["Sons or of the family of Don Pableto Léon, poor but without honor, ill-bred and without estimation."]
Prison full of deserters; those brought by us from San Luis Potosi left here. Overflows bad and hot house. 32 miles.
10TH Left Tula. Go to Agua Huetoca, over gulleys, naked hills, rich valleys. No wood. Lime kiln burnt with bundles of twigs and straw. Tunas. 20 miles.
12TH Cuantitlan—by Zimpango de la Laguna. A picture of a place over beyond a lake. Also Tepozotlan and numerous churches and huts and prickly pears. Fine valley of land. This the lowest of the lagunas of the valley of Mexico. Cross the great laguna. 10 miles.
13TH San Christoval Ecatepec. Old palace of the Viceroys. Great bridge and prison. Pulque and maguey farms. Indians. In sight of the volcano of Popocatapetl and that of San Martin covered with snow. Splendid but cold. Ecatepec is 12 miles from the City of Mexico.
DEC. 14TH San Juan Tihuacan — By numerous churches over a high ridge in sight of a lake back in the alley of Mexico. Neill's escape. 15 miles. Over mountains and by maguey farms. Saw the City of Mexico in the distance.
15TH Chalpulalpan (village). Singular way of shaking hands by the Indians. Smuggler boy with his cigars. "Viva—" on the wall. 20 miles.
16TH San Martin (City) on the great Mexico and Vera Cruz road. Rich valley close to Ecatepetl and the others (Macho & Hembre). This is about 55 miles (21 lgs.) to Mexico. Here saw mules yoked to a cart three abreast. Put up stairs in a quartel. Fruit —oranges. Zapotes etc. This day crossed ridges and came down into the fine valley of San Martin and at the very foot of Macho & Hembre with Malinche on the other side, all in snow. This day 30 or more miles.
17TH Puebla, 25 miles. Splendid plain or valley all way. Cross fine bridge over Rio Prieto and observe the water oozing in a thousand little springs out of the sides of the many ditches in all the fields. Ploughing here and putting in barley and wheat. The road a shaded avenue with running water in the ditch on either hand. (So it was the day we came to San Christobal.) Here in view of four volcanoes covered with snow. They reap and plant the same day. At Pueblo saw some interesting foreigners, and a poor boy (peon) who had been attached to a Sante Fe prisoner, Mr. [blank], followed me all about as I was marketing with three others for the Company, showing us bakeries, meat shops etc. When we parted I was handing him two clackos when he was too quick for me and before I was aware he forced two clackos into my hand and ran off with a tear and a laugh, protesting that he loved the poor Americans and repeating the name of [blank] [Santa Fé prisoner]. The adobe temple of Malinche and two forts.
19TH At 10 o'clock, through a great crowd, we marched out under command of a shabby captain and the red-eyed Lieutenant (Mexia's executioner.) The brave old Englishman went out a mile or two cursing our guard and walking in our ranks, giving cigars, etc. At last the officers tried to get rid of him. He drew his pistol and rushed upon them, telling them of Waterloo etc., and offering to fight them all; "I can whip six of you, carajos! etc." "Negroes imprisoning white men!!"
How different this from the great plenipotentiary, Mr. Packenham, who was at Puebla on his way up from Vera Cruz, getting off the officers (Englishmen) from the steamers, Guadaloupe and Montezuma.
This day reached the village of [blank] where we were not permitted to get out of the door to cook and we were quartered in a long, old, damp room which appeared to be used as a privy. Here was the place poor Gen'l Mexia was shot by order of Santa Anna. The executioner was the brute lieutenant with red, bulldog eyes who was now accompanying us. God! What a perfect villain!! He refused our poor walkers to let them drink at the road-side, saying, We'll get to the end of our journey soon.
AT PEROTE
Governor of the Castle: Gen'l Jose Duran
Mayor de Plaza: Ysidro Pombo
Captains: Bonilla, Pineda, Angel de Campo and "Old Guts," or Diaz Guzman.
Lieutenants: Garcia, Mora, Castro, Jicatinca and old Dejalor Ventura.
Arrived at the castle of Perote on 22nd Dec. [1842]. Some put into the room No. 9, and the herd in No. 10. All chained, two and two.
DEC. 31ST Lieut. Hartstene, of U.S.Navy, visited us. He sent us from Vera Cruz $50.00.
JANY 1843 Put to work. [Mr. Maverick refused to work, and was imprisoned in a dungeon for some time with scarcely anything to eat and threatened with death. He was afterwards released from the dungeon and made a sort of overseer over the other prisoners at work. E.H.T.]
FEB. 2ND 1843 Southall [Purser U.S.N.] and Sam Norvall [leave] for U.S.
FEB. 8 Flag staff 80 ft. long broke in three pieces and fell into the water hole in the moat, with the buzzard roost.
15TH Letter to Mary, S.M. and Mr. Dobbin
MCH. 16TH Letter from Mary of 7th Jan.
18TH Letter from Gen'l Thompson of 16th.
19TH Chains taken off by order—walk.
20TH Letter to J. G. Aiken—ordering [him] to send $350 to Dr. R.W. Weir and the overplus to me care of Dobbin No. 16 N. St. N.O. by or before 20th proximo.
Rena Maverick Green
Samuel Maverick, Texan
Maverick - Man and Legend
Maverick spent three bitter months marching toward captivity in a Mexican prison; he was a soldier and explorer, a lawyer, and a legislator-but he is remembered by the public for the most trivial aspect of his amazing career.
The Texans moved slowly into the heart of San Antonio, and as they battered, hacked, and pried holes through thick adobe and stone walls with logs, knives and crowbars, Mexican snipers fired from the tops of the houses and kept up a cannonade from the Alamo Plaza.
The young lawyer from South Carolina who was guiding the three hundred Volunteers may have wondered how he got involved in this. He had arrived here just three months ago.
If Samuel Augustus Maverick was amazed to find himself so soon in the midst of the quarrel between Texas and Mexico, he would have been absolutely astonished to know that his name would become a widely-used word in the English language, and that legendary overtones would color his true story.
When Maverick arrived in San Antonio in September, 1835, he rented a room from John W. Smith and began to get acquainted with the small town. As he looked and listened, he became aware of increasing tensions between American colonists and the Mexican government.
This same month the new President of Mexico, General Santa Anna, had sent his brother-in-law General Cos with one-thousand well-trained troops to take control of San Antonio. They entered the town with little opposition and immediately made preparations for military rule. General Cos became suspicious of the activities of both Maverick and Smith, and put them under guard in the Smith house.
In the meantime, seven-hundred American colonists gathered under Stephen Austin and marched toward San Antonio, winning several skirmishes with the Mexicans on the way. Late in October they camped north of town on the San Antonio River to wait for more men and heavier weapons before making the final attack. Austin went to the United States for help, leaving Colonel Burleson to train the men.
Although Maverick and Smith chafed at their confinement, they used the time well by observing the preparations being made by the Mexicans. They noted which streets were barricaded, and which houses were fortified; they found where the cannon had been set up and where trees and underbrush had been cut down to eliminate potential hiding places. They kept in touch with the Americans at the edge of town through notes carried by a Mexican lad whom they trusted, and late in November, General Cos released them, after securing their promise that they would return to the United States.
On the way, Maverick and Smith stopped at the American colonists' camp; there they found dissension and discouragement. The men were impatient at the delay. Many had signed up for only two months; their farms and families needed them and they began to drift away until only about four hundred were left. Colonel Burleson was ready to give up the siege but many of the men protested. Smith and Maverick encouraged them to attack, promising to act as guides.
While the arguments continued, an experienced frontier fighter, Colonel Benjamin Milam, stepped forward and shouted, "Who will go with Old Ben Milam?" Three hundred men volunteered to follow the forty-four year old fighter.
Guided by Maverick and Smith they slipped into town in the early dawn of December 5, 1835, and captured several houses before the Mexicans were aware of what was happening.
From then on, progress was slow and tiring for the liberating force. They avoided the snipers by making a passageway through the houses by the laborious process of knocking holes in the walls, some of which were four feet thick, so they could crawl from house to house.
On the third day, just one block from the Main Plaza, brave Colonel Milam was hit by a sniper located in a cypress tree along the river. He is said to have died in Samuel Maverick's arms. When the Texans reached the Plaza the next day, the Mexicans surrendered, having had enough of this enemy who progressed, seemingly, like a mole through the earth. On December 9, Maverick had the satisfaction of watching General Cos sign the articles of capitulation. He was allowed to withdraw across the Rio Grande on the promise that he would not attack Texas again.
For the young South Carolinean, the battle was his baptism of fire which burned the love of Texas right into his heart from then on, Maverick never ceased being a Texan.
Although Samuel Augustus Maverick was a South Carolina gentleman, he was destined to lead a life of action and adventure in the West. His father, Samuel, a wealthy business man and land owner, was said to have been the first American to ship cotton from Charleston to England.
Samuel Augustus was born in 1803 at Mont Pelier, the family plantation just outside Pendleton. In 1825 he graduated from Yale University, studied law in Virginia and, upon his return home, set up a law practice. He had a strong inclination toward politics, a motivating force throughout his life.
There was dissatisfaction in South Carolina. In order to help pay for the War of 1812, the Federal government passed laws assessing high tariffs on goods from England. As the rates continued to be increased, some South Carolineans talked of nullifying the Federal laws; others suggested withdrawing from the Union. However there were leading men, including the Mavericks, who were against such drastic measures, and engaged in heated debates to disseminate their more moderate views.
One time while the elder Mr. Maverick was making a speech, someone called out a disparaging remark. The fearless Samuel Augustus challenged the heckler to a duel; the challenge was accepted and Samuel wounded him, then showed his compassionate nature by caring for him in the Maverick home.
After this experience the relentless young lawyer became convinced that his political beliefs were too divergent from those predominating in the state. He decided to travel.
After visiting a sister in Alabama, he traveled to New Orleans on business. As he strolled the streets and wharves of the interesting old town he heard much talk about Texas, in the Republic of Mexico. Mexico had gained her independence from Spain in 1821 and at once opened her northern provinces to Americans. Everyone, it seemed, was going to Texas—or at least, they talked of it.
To young Maverick the appeal of the new country was strong. Not only was he seeking adventure, but he was an intelligent man looking for business investment opportunities. He made up his mind to try Texas, returned home and disposed of his law practice. Selling most of his possessions, he was ready to set out for Texas.
He arrived in San Antonio de Bexar on September 8, 1835, with $36,000 in gold and a determination to follow the advice of his father: "Buy as much land as you can—it will inevitably increase in value."
He came as a man of wealth, contrary to later stories, humorous but untrue, that he landed with no assets other than a branding iron and an ability to see unbranded cattle at a far distance.
There was a charm about San Antonio, then as now. The San Antonio River wound like a twisted ribbon through the small town adobe houses and massive Spanish missions. Cypress and cottonwood trees lined its banks; tropical figs and pomegranates flourished; wild grape vines hanging profusively from the trees were to provide jelly for Maverick's table in later years. It was all vastly different from the plantations of South Carolina but it must have appealed irresistibly to Maverick, for it was the place he called home for the rest of his life.
Although Americans had been eager to come to Texas, they soon became disenchanted. They expected the same civil rights they had enjoyed in the United States. They resented being denied such basic civil liberties as religious freedom, and trial by jury. They wanted greater control of their own affairs. Soon meetings were held, rebellion brewed and the slogan, "Liberty and Texas," spread across the land. It was to put down this burgeoning rebellion that Mexico's president, General Santa Anna, dispatched General Cos to San Antonio.
Santa Anna was furious when he learned of the defeat of Cos and vowed to march through Texas and even on to Washington, leading the army himself.
The Texas Volunteers, feeling certain that Mexican troops would return to San Antonio, prepared to fight. Headed by William Travis, another lawyer from South Carolina, and James Bowie, a famous frontiersman and fighter, they prepared to make a stand at Alamo. This structure had been built to serve as a mission, and its great flaw as a defensive buttress lay in that it was poorly suited to being a fortress, since its thick walls were low enough to be scaled. Samuel Maverick probably would have joined the historically doomed group in the Alamo had not fate intervened.
A convention was called for March 1, 1836, to decide what course Texans were to take. Maverick, having proved his courage under fire, was one of the three delegates elected to represent San Antonio. This was the beginning of his many years of public service to Texas. As they were about to leave for Washington-on-the-Brazos, the rains came. And how it rained—it simply poured!
Maverick and companions left immediately on horseback and they had a merry time of it. The horses slipped, strained and struggled in the mud. Often they had to wait for flooded streams to subside, and frequently they were cold and wet. It was a slow exhausting trip. And as they pushed along, through the storm events were taking place in San Antonio that Texans—and the world—would never forget!
Early in the morning of February 23, a lookout spotted Mexican troops outside the town. The Texas Volunteers converged on the Alamo from wherever they were billeted in town, rounding up thirty cattle and one-hundred bushels of corn on the way. In the mission were about two hundred men, armed with rifles, pistols, hunting knives and tomahawks. They refused Santa Anna's demand for unconditional surrender—and the eternally memorable struggle began.
The Alamo was bombarded for thirteen days, and the world knows what ensued. Travis sent out appeals for help which mostly went unheeded. His last letter was written on March 3, to the delegates at Washington-on-the-Brazos who were too far away to assist. On the morning of March 6, the Mexicans, armed with scaling ladders, axes, crow-bars and guns, swarmed through and over the walls. The command "No quarter given!" was taken with seriousness. In thirty minutes of actual fighting it was over. The memory of the defenders' gallantry in the face of death will forever continue to engender both grief and pride wherever in the world men yearn for independence and admire courage.
It was a raw day at Washington-on-the-Brazos. A norther blew in and the half-finished blacksmith shop where the convention was held was not adequate to keep out the cold. The delegates declared the independence of Texas from Mexico on March 2; Maverick signed "from Bexar," which is the name he used at that time when designating San Antonio. They went to work at once to write a constitution for the new republic.
As they were hard at work on March 6, a letter from Travis was delivered by John W. Smith, Maverick's good friend from whom he had rented a room six months before What fateful events had come to pass in that half-year! Travis, in his letter, appealed urgently for aid and closed it with the words "God and Texas—Victory or Death!"
The brave men at the Alamo died without knowing that Texas had declared her independence and the delegates, continuing their work, did not know the Alamo had fallen, its interior strewn with the mutilated bodies of its heroic defenders.
Maverick's legal training was of great value in the chore of drawing up the constitution. His ability to think clearly, his resolute conviction that Texas should be free from the bonds of Mexican rule, made him an invaluable delegate. By March 17 the Republic of Texas had both a constitution and governing officers.
Samuel Augustus Maverick always felt that he had not been elected to the consitutional convention, he too, would have perished with the heroes of the Alamo. He seemed to have an obsession about this, and in 1850, at great effort, he acquired a portion of the Alamo mission land as a site for his new home.
In joining with the Texans in their fight for greater civil liberties, Samuel was continuing the pattern set by his ancestors. In 1624 a Samuel Maverick, with his bride, sailed from England to America as a representative of the Plymouth Company, to explore the country for a suitable location, and start an Episcopal settlement. He settled at the mouth of the Mystic River near present-day Boston, where he built a fortified house to be safer from the Indians. He was impressed with the new country, writing to England that the "land also is exceedinge good." He acquired land in both Massachusetts and Maine.
From his fortified house Maverick watched the ships of the Puritans sail by on their way to Salem. He dispensed hospitality to any who came and was said to live like a king. Although he was helpful to the Puritans on their arrival there was trouble between them later on because of differences in religious beliefs.
The straight-laced Puritans, determined to make Congregationalists of everyone, disapproved of Maverick's free and easy way of living. He, in turn, called them "Saints" and moved to nearby Noddle's Island to get away from all that sanctity.
In 1646 he was one of the signers of a petition to the General Court of Massachusetts asking for full civil rights, and permission to maintain an Episcopalian church and a minister of their own. Other Samuel Mavericks of succeeding generations were to follow him in the fight for individual rights and liberty.
The young Samuel A. Maverick who was a descendant of his illustrious forebears, had been away from home a year when he returned to visit relatives. No doubt he had much to relate concerning his adventures in the fabulous Texas. While visiting in Alabama with his sister, he met eighteen-year old Mary Ann Adams. After a four-month courtship, they married in August, 1836.
The pull was irresistible, so in December 1837, he started for Texas again, this time with a menage: a young wife and infant son, Samuel; his fifteen-year-old brother-in-law, Robert Adams; six negro servants with four small children.
For three years the Mavericks lived in a three-room house situated on land sloping down to the beautiful San Antonio River just off the Main Plaza, where Maverick had once held the dying Milam in his arms.
Samuel opened a law office and was shortly elected mayor, a mark of recognition he was to receive more than once. He had taken seriously his father's admonition to buy land, and spent considerable time on this business. Mary was absorbed with homemaking and caring for their growing family, but never too busy to write in her diary, which has proved an invaluable source of information to historians.
It was during these years that Maverick met Jack Hays, and association which was to lead later on to an exciting and near-disastrous adventure.
Hays was a young Tennessean who, after serving in the Texas Volunteers, came to San Antonio in 1838 with a letter of recommendation as a surveyor. Maverick employed him and went with him on numerous surveying trips.
San Antonio was one of the last outposts of civilization in Texas. Since it was in territory claimed by the Indians, there was constant trouble, and surveying was dangerous business. Hays had many such encounters and word got around that he was quite an Indian fighter which didn't hurt his popularity.
In 1840 Jack Hays was selected to command a company of mounted volunteers called Texas Rangers, who were to defend the lonely frontier settlements from Indian and Mexican attacks. Maverick became one of the Rangers and as such, frequently went on skirmishes against the Comanches.
1842 was a bad year for San Antonio and for the Maverick family. Even though Texas had declared herself a Republic independent of Mexico, the Mexicans did not give up. In March, General Vasquez captured the town but was driven back; that summer there were rumors of another invasion. Samuel Maverick and most of the other men took their families to adjacent towns in what was called "The Runaway of '42" until conditions were more settled. The Mavericks, with their slaves, settled in a temporary home at La Grange on the Colorado River, about one hundred miles east of San Antonio.
The regular fall session of the District Court at San Antonio was called in September. Maverick had a case to try: a Dr. Booker was suing the city for a small amount of money. Had the doctor known what fate held in store for him, he would have been glad to concede the case. Maverick journeyed to San Antonio from La Grange in early September; he was not to see his family until eight months later.
Early that month, Jack Hays found that he was unable to get any gunpowder for his men in town, which was unusual, so he sent two men, one of whom was Big Foot Wallace, to Austin, seventy-five miles away, for more powder. Also, he was uneasy because he had observed the Mexican residents acting strangely; he concluded something was afoot and ordered some of his Ranger to reconnoiter toward the Mexican border. At the Medina River, about twenty miles out, the men spied General Woll and his Mexican troops.
When this report was received in town a mass meeting was held. A company of 175 men was organized and told that if trouble came, they were to gather at the Maverick house on Main Plaza.
Before dawn of the next day, September 11, 1842, the Mexican forces entered San Antonio for the second time in six months. In a heavy fog they were inside the Military Plaza almost before the Texans were aware of them, with Mexican flags flying and their buglers playing the stirring Andalusian dance song, "Las Cachucha." The Texans gathered at the Maverick house, which became the major target for the Mexican guns.
Soon an emissary from the Mexican forces approached with a white flag. He informed the Texans that General Woll had two thousand troops, which was only a forerunner of a much larger army which was on the way. The town, the emissary told them, was surrounded with Mexicans and Indians, and he suggested they surrender in thirty minutes.
The Texans, feeling there was no choice, elected Samuel Maverick and three others to act as commissioners to treat with the Mexicans. They agreed to surrender as prisoners of war with the provision that their lives were to be spared and their property kept safe.
Included among the fifty-five prisoners was the entire District Court: judge, jury, lawyers and clients, including Dr. Booker.
In September 21, General Woll and his army left with the fifty-five prisoners and as much plunder as was practical. He commandeered all the carts and wagons he could find and filled them with wounded Mexicans and Texans. He pushed so hard to reach the border before the Texas forces caught up, that for eight days there was no time to stop and treat their wounds. Some died.
Perote Prison was their destination. For three months they marched, making twenty to thirty miles a day through hot, dry barren land—and over freezing mountain passes. At times the supply of water ran low and there never seemed to be enough food. Shoes wore out and the clothing worn on a hot September afternoon in San Antonio was inadequate for the cold in the mountains. The many acts of cruelty by Mexican officers and soldiers were hardly balanced by the occasional kindnesses shown by Mexican citizens in small villages, who supplied clothing for a few.
Between Puebla and Jalapa on the eastern slope of the Sierra Madres, in an area of extinct volcanoes, is the town of Perote. Its eighteenth-century fortress, built by the Spaniards, has sixty-foot high walls of dark lava rock, which gives it a forbidding appearance. The fortress is surrounded by a very wide moat enclosing a total area of 26 acres.
The view from the prison across the valley and beyond to the perpetually snowcapped Orizabe delights visitors today, but the suffering prisoners hardly enjoyed the scenery.
The Christmas season was approaching when Maverick and his fellow prisoners marched through the fortress gate in the midst of a fierce norther, but there was no warmth, no comfort, no celebrating at Perote Prison.
From six at night until nine the next morning they were herded like cattle into a long, narrow corridor, with no light except that which entered through a loop-hole measuring four inches by twelve.
It was cold in Perote, at an elevation of 7,800 feet. One prisoner wrote in June, 1843, that it was "colder at this time than in Texas in December" and men suffered from the lack of warm clothes. They slept on icy floors with inadequate blankets, fought with lice which infested the place, and devised means of passing away the time. In March, 1843, they were joined by other Texans who were given adjacent cells; the two groups suffered and joked together.
The Mexican government allowed twenty-five cents a day for food for each prisoner, most of which went into the pocket of the comisario who furnished the rations. The meals, which generally consisted of poor bread, scorched cornmeal coffee and a stew of stringy beef seasoned with onion and chile, were badly cooked and far from adequate to sustain the prisoners for the hard work they were forced to do.
After carrying out the filth of the prison in handbarrows each morning, they were sent one and one-half miles away, under guard, to carry stone to repair prison fortifications. Maverick refused to work unless the rations were increased and he was placed, for a while, in a dungeon on an even more meager diet.
Throughout their imprisonment some of the prisoners showed their ingenuity and a sense of humor. Although the high, thick walls seemed impregnable, some Texans escaped through a hole they made. After this, the remaining victims were chained in pairs with heavy log chains, the weight of which made an added burden on their weakened physiques.
Finding a stone and six-pound cannon ball in the prison, they covered the stone with a blanket, placed a chain link between the stone and another layer of blanket to deaden the sound and hammered away with the cannon ball, turning the link frequently until it was broken. This freed them of their "jewelry" during the night; in the daytime they so carried the chains that the guards never suspected they were broken. When this trick was eventually discovered, the guards were more cruel and watchful.
In March Mr. Maverick's client Dr. Booker, was killed when a Mexican soldier, too drunk to take good aim, shot him instead of the uniformed fellow Mexican he was trying to kill.
When Maverick's father in South Carolina learned of his son's imprisonment, he started working for his release. The Maverick family was related by marriage to the United States Minister to Mexico, General Waddy Thompson, also from South Carolina. He was able to secure Maverick's release if he would swear that he was for the re-annexation of Texas by Mexico. Maverick's grandson, Maury, later wrote that Maverick refused, saying, "However galling are the claims of slavery, I regard a lie as dishonorable. To say that I would lay down the arms of my country would be a lie."
There was certainly great excitement among the San Antonio prisoners when, in late March, Maverick, Judge Hutchinson and Will Jones had their chains removed and were sent to Mexico City. One of them wrote, "We wate there (sic) return with great anxiety—expect to be liberated on their return which will be some 11 days," but they were to be disappointed.
In Mexico City, Maverick and two companions, dirty and ragged, were paraded for fifteen minutes before the Palace before they were released. After General Thompson took them to his house, they cleaned up and did several days of sightseeing before they left for Vera Cruz where they were to return to Texas by boat. They stopped at Perote on the way to say goodbye to fellow prisoners and to take letters to mail after they reached Texas. Maverick felt guilty at leaving the others in Perote; they were finally released in June, 1843, due to the diligent efforts of General Thompson.
It was May when Maverick reached La Grange again, carrying his "jewelry" with him as a souvenir. To add to his delight at being home was the two-month old baby girl, Augusta, their second daughter, born during his absence, and the knowledge that the citizens of San Antonio had elected him to be a Senator of the Republic of Texas. So, in December of that year, he was again in Washington-on-the-Brazos, attending to Texas affairs.
That summer Maverick acquired a 385,000-acre ranch on Matagorda Peninsula, a long finger of land laying parallel to the mainland of Texas, which led to the event which made his name a commonly used word in the English language.
Various stories have been told as to the origin of the word: that Mr. Maverick was too tender-hearted to wield the hot branding iron; that he used his iron indiscriminately and thus built up a cattle empire dishonestly; that since all the other ranchers branded cattle, he wouldn't use a brand and everyone would know the unbranded ones were Maverick's. Even today, many are surprised at the true story.
Mr. Maverick had a client on the neighboring Matagorda Island who owed him $1,200. Being unable to raise the cash, he offered Maverick 400 head of longhorn cattle instead. Maverick accepted them, probably without enthusiasm. Legends that he owned more cattle than anyone else in Texas are not true; he was more interested in land than cattle and this was his only experience in cattle ownership.
He sent his slave, Jack Armstrong [Jinny Anderson's son, as I understand], across to the Island to care for the cattle and Jack's mother, Jinny, to care for Jack—he needed looking after. Maverick secured a branding iron with the initials MK and told Jack to mark all the increase in the herd. Maverick himself was too busy with personal and governmental affairs to give further thought to the cattle.
In those days Texas was an open range. Cattle were free to wander and any unbranded calves caught away from their mothers were fair game for whoever found them. Jack Armstrong neglected his duties and didn't use the branding iron, and storms which came in from the Gulf of Mexico washed up sand bars so that the cattle could walk across to the mainland.
When cowboys found unbranded cattle they said, "They must be Maverick's" and so the word found its way into the English language as meaning "an unbranded animal."
The word seemed to catch on, and it spread rapidly. In 1848 gold was discovered in California and the rush began. Men from the East came to Texas by ship and cut across the land to the Pacific. As they passed through the state they became acquainted with the word "maverick" and carried it along. In San Francisco, some of these Gold Rushers sailed on fast clipper ships to another gold rush—in Australia—and the word went with them. In time it came to mean a non-conformist, and individualist.
To go back a bit, shortly after Maverick received the cattle, in lieu of $1,200 from his neighbor, the family left Matagorda Peninsula to return to their old home in San Antonio. The battle of the day of General Woll's invasion and the plundering which followed had made a shambles of it, but they were happy to be back on the Main Plaza and the San Antonio River.
It was seven years before Maverick decided to move the cattle to the land he owned in Conquista, nearer San Antonio. Jack Armstrong was still in charge and the cattle continued to roam unbranded until their owner sold them, in 1856, to a nearby rancher for six dollars a head. The herd still numbered 400, since the unbranded calves had been appropriated, according to western custom, by other ranchers throughout the nine years of his ownership, due to Jack's disinclination to brand the new-born calves.
This is the truth of cattle ownership—vastly different from the legend which grew taller and taller each time it was told around the campfires.
For ten years the Republic of Texas proudly flew the flag with a single star, but there was continuous discussion as to the advantages of uniting with the United States. Maverick was a member of the convention which met in Austin in July, 1845, to approve the annexation of Texas and again he helped write a constitution for Texas as the 28th state in the Union, thereafter known as the Lone Star State.
During these years he was buying more and more land. He hired surveyors and went along whenever possible. One surveyor declared that Maverick checked on every step. While on one such trip in 1848, his daughter Agatha, seven years old, took sick suddenly and died. Since there was no way to reach Maverick, he did not know of her death until his return three weeks later. The shock was considerable and he brooded over it, feeling guilty that he had not been home at such a critical time.
That summer a group of business men in San Antonio raised $800 to establish a wagon road to El Paso. They knew that the American traders who came from Missouri to Santa Fe continued down the Rio Grande to El Paso, and from there south to the town of Chihuahua, were doing very well financially. A good wagon route between the coast of Texas—through San Antonio—and on to Chihuahua via El Paso should be an economically profitable venture since it would be a shorter land route.
These San Antonians were aware that this would be no tea party. They would travel over unexplored country for six-hundred miles, across an area frequented by Apache and Comanche Indians who took unkindly to invasion of their hunting grounds. An outstanding man was called for to lead this expedition and Jack Hays was chosen. Hays was aware of Maverick's depression and, knowing how he loved the outdoor life, urged him to join the group. So much happened on this trip that Maverick had no time to brood on his sorrow for long.
Late in August, 1848, the explorers set out, thirty-five citizens of San Antonio, an equal number of Texas Rangers, with a Delaware Indian and a Mexican to act as guides and interpreters.
Following a westerly direction, they crossed the Pecos River near present-day Del Rio. All went well up to this point. There was ample game and the Indians gave no trouble, but they were finding water difficult to obtain. Maverick wrote in his diary that on September 26, they reached the Pecos "in great thirst."
West of the Pecos the story was different. It was a wild and rugged country, a wilderness where none of them had ever been. The guide, Lorenzo, became confused and led them southwest toward the Big Bend of the Rio Grande. There followed twenty days of severe privation.
Maverick made succinct entries in his diary. When no water was available they chewed on leather to stimulate the salivary glands enough to moisten their mouths. The food supply had run out when they encountered four old buffalo bulls; they evidently were lost also, since the great herds of buffalo were always seen east of the Pecos. The bulls furnished tough but welcome chewing for a few days, but by the first of October the explorers were reduced to "eating mustang meat" (wild horse).
A few days later they dined on panther, then bear grass from which they made a soup. They rejoiced when they came to a canyon where there were "fine tunas," the edible fruit of a prickly pear cactus. Finally, two months later, on October 10, they had to kill one of their mules for breakfast which was "very poor and tough."
Not all could stand the pressures of that trip. Maverick wrote "Dr. Wham crazy," and a few days later related that the Doctor had ridden off in a fury into the night. They sent back men to search for him but were unable to find him in the wild country.
They now were in the high Chisos mountains in the heart of the Big Bend of the Rio Grande, noted for their ruggedness and vivid colors. Some friendly Indians took them to a branch of the Great Comanche War Trail, whitened with the bones of many animals. It was used by Indians on their annual raids on farmers and ranchers who lived in an area four-hundred miles wide in the states of Durango and Chihuahua, Mexico, and as far north as the Llano Estacado (Staked Plains) in Texas.
They followed this trail across the Rio Grande into Mexico. On October 17, they killed another mule for food, and leaving the trail, continued along the river to the northwest. Two days later the thin and weary men straggled into the Mexican village of San Carlos. They hurriedly apologized for trespassing on Mexican territory, before feasting on bread and milk. Here they rested a few days.
Although relations between Texas and Mexico had been touchy for years, Americans usually found the Mexican people compassionate and helpful.
Continuing up the river, they reached Presidio del Norte, (present-day Ojinaga), which must have looked familiar to Maverick, for it was here he had crossed the Rio Grande in a canoe as a prisoner of the Mexicans only six years before. The explorers crossed back into the United States and camped at Fort Leaton for sixteen days. While feasting on barbecue, tortillas, and coffee, they debated their next step.
Colonel Hays hated to give up on any mission, but he knew that too many members of this party were not equal to the task of continuing, so the decision was made to return to San Antonio—mission unaccomplished!
It was now November and getting cold; the men had only summer clothes. With a supply of pinole (parched, ground corn) and thirty days rations of meat, they followed the northern branch of the Commanche War Trail toward settlements in Texas. They were back in San Antonio in time for Christmas, after more than three months wandering and hardship. Not a man was lost; even "Dr. Wham" was found later and returned home!
Although they had not reached El Paso, they had learned that the country of the lower Pecos was to be avoided and a more northerly route preferred. Their records and experiences were used by the United States War Department, which sent explorers the following spring to find a route between San Antonio and El Paso. They were just in time, too: already hordes of impatient men were arriving in Texas, hunting a short cut to California and gold by way of El Paso. Within the next several years, thousands of Forty-niners were to travel the wagon road for which Maverick helped make the initial exploration. He came this way himself, a few years later to buy land in the El Paso area.
Mr. Maverick lived for twenty-two years after the Chihuahua expedition, seemingly with a finger in every Texas "pie." The legend that he was the largest landowner in the world probably was not true, (so his grandson, Maury, wrote,) but he owned land all the way from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico and some of the Gulf islands. Also, as far west as the Mexican border. He had interests in mining, salt lakes, railroads, ranches and city property. In fact, so vast and varied were his holdings that General William Tecumseh Sherman wrote in later years that he "seems to have been the owner of everything not actively in the possession of somebody else."
Maverick did not permit his business interests to interfere with his love of public affairs. For thirty years he participated in public life at city, country, state and national levels.
He was a quiet, scholarly man, yet fearless and tough physically so that he could endure a lot of physical privation. He died in 1870 at the age of 67.
Although Texas had given him much, he had reciprocated with time and energy as well as possessions for the town and state he loved. He lived under four flags of Texas: Mexico, Republic of Texas, United States and the Confederacy. For all his achievements, it is ironic that he is best known as the man whose cattle roamed unbranded—"mavericks."
Who can deny, in truth, that the real story of his life is more exciting than the legends!
Opal Waymire Beaty
True West
July, 1967
The Texans moved slowly into the heart of San Antonio, and as they battered, hacked, and pried holes through thick adobe and stone walls with logs, knives and crowbars, Mexican snipers fired from the tops of the houses and kept up a cannonade from the Alamo Plaza.
The young lawyer from South Carolina who was guiding the three hundred Volunteers may have wondered how he got involved in this. He had arrived here just three months ago.
If Samuel Augustus Maverick was amazed to find himself so soon in the midst of the quarrel between Texas and Mexico, he would have been absolutely astonished to know that his name would become a widely-used word in the English language, and that legendary overtones would color his true story.
When Maverick arrived in San Antonio in September, 1835, he rented a room from John W. Smith and began to get acquainted with the small town. As he looked and listened, he became aware of increasing tensions between American colonists and the Mexican government.
This same month the new President of Mexico, General Santa Anna, had sent his brother-in-law General Cos with one-thousand well-trained troops to take control of San Antonio. They entered the town with little opposition and immediately made preparations for military rule. General Cos became suspicious of the activities of both Maverick and Smith, and put them under guard in the Smith house.
In the meantime, seven-hundred American colonists gathered under Stephen Austin and marched toward San Antonio, winning several skirmishes with the Mexicans on the way. Late in October they camped north of town on the San Antonio River to wait for more men and heavier weapons before making the final attack. Austin went to the United States for help, leaving Colonel Burleson to train the men.
Although Maverick and Smith chafed at their confinement, they used the time well by observing the preparations being made by the Mexicans. They noted which streets were barricaded, and which houses were fortified; they found where the cannon had been set up and where trees and underbrush had been cut down to eliminate potential hiding places. They kept in touch with the Americans at the edge of town through notes carried by a Mexican lad whom they trusted, and late in November, General Cos released them, after securing their promise that they would return to the United States.
On the way, Maverick and Smith stopped at the American colonists' camp; there they found dissension and discouragement. The men were impatient at the delay. Many had signed up for only two months; their farms and families needed them and they began to drift away until only about four hundred were left. Colonel Burleson was ready to give up the siege but many of the men protested. Smith and Maverick encouraged them to attack, promising to act as guides.
While the arguments continued, an experienced frontier fighter, Colonel Benjamin Milam, stepped forward and shouted, "Who will go with Old Ben Milam?" Three hundred men volunteered to follow the forty-four year old fighter.
Guided by Maverick and Smith they slipped into town in the early dawn of December 5, 1835, and captured several houses before the Mexicans were aware of what was happening.
From then on, progress was slow and tiring for the liberating force. They avoided the snipers by making a passageway through the houses by the laborious process of knocking holes in the walls, some of which were four feet thick, so they could crawl from house to house.
On the third day, just one block from the Main Plaza, brave Colonel Milam was hit by a sniper located in a cypress tree along the river. He is said to have died in Samuel Maverick's arms. When the Texans reached the Plaza the next day, the Mexicans surrendered, having had enough of this enemy who progressed, seemingly, like a mole through the earth. On December 9, Maverick had the satisfaction of watching General Cos sign the articles of capitulation. He was allowed to withdraw across the Rio Grande on the promise that he would not attack Texas again.
For the young South Carolinean, the battle was his baptism of fire which burned the love of Texas right into his heart from then on, Maverick never ceased being a Texan.
Although Samuel Augustus Maverick was a South Carolina gentleman, he was destined to lead a life of action and adventure in the West. His father, Samuel, a wealthy business man and land owner, was said to have been the first American to ship cotton from Charleston to England.
Samuel Augustus was born in 1803 at Mont Pelier, the family plantation just outside Pendleton. In 1825 he graduated from Yale University, studied law in Virginia and, upon his return home, set up a law practice. He had a strong inclination toward politics, a motivating force throughout his life.
There was dissatisfaction in South Carolina. In order to help pay for the War of 1812, the Federal government passed laws assessing high tariffs on goods from England. As the rates continued to be increased, some South Carolineans talked of nullifying the Federal laws; others suggested withdrawing from the Union. However there were leading men, including the Mavericks, who were against such drastic measures, and engaged in heated debates to disseminate their more moderate views.
One time while the elder Mr. Maverick was making a speech, someone called out a disparaging remark. The fearless Samuel Augustus challenged the heckler to a duel; the challenge was accepted and Samuel wounded him, then showed his compassionate nature by caring for him in the Maverick home.
After this experience the relentless young lawyer became convinced that his political beliefs were too divergent from those predominating in the state. He decided to travel.
After visiting a sister in Alabama, he traveled to New Orleans on business. As he strolled the streets and wharves of the interesting old town he heard much talk about Texas, in the Republic of Mexico. Mexico had gained her independence from Spain in 1821 and at once opened her northern provinces to Americans. Everyone, it seemed, was going to Texas—or at least, they talked of it.
To young Maverick the appeal of the new country was strong. Not only was he seeking adventure, but he was an intelligent man looking for business investment opportunities. He made up his mind to try Texas, returned home and disposed of his law practice. Selling most of his possessions, he was ready to set out for Texas.
He arrived in San Antonio de Bexar on September 8, 1835, with $36,000 in gold and a determination to follow the advice of his father: "Buy as much land as you can—it will inevitably increase in value."
He came as a man of wealth, contrary to later stories, humorous but untrue, that he landed with no assets other than a branding iron and an ability to see unbranded cattle at a far distance.
There was a charm about San Antonio, then as now. The San Antonio River wound like a twisted ribbon through the small town adobe houses and massive Spanish missions. Cypress and cottonwood trees lined its banks; tropical figs and pomegranates flourished; wild grape vines hanging profusively from the trees were to provide jelly for Maverick's table in later years. It was all vastly different from the plantations of South Carolina but it must have appealed irresistibly to Maverick, for it was the place he called home for the rest of his life.
Although Americans had been eager to come to Texas, they soon became disenchanted. They expected the same civil rights they had enjoyed in the United States. They resented being denied such basic civil liberties as religious freedom, and trial by jury. They wanted greater control of their own affairs. Soon meetings were held, rebellion brewed and the slogan, "Liberty and Texas," spread across the land. It was to put down this burgeoning rebellion that Mexico's president, General Santa Anna, dispatched General Cos to San Antonio.
Santa Anna was furious when he learned of the defeat of Cos and vowed to march through Texas and even on to Washington, leading the army himself.
The Texas Volunteers, feeling certain that Mexican troops would return to San Antonio, prepared to fight. Headed by William Travis, another lawyer from South Carolina, and James Bowie, a famous frontiersman and fighter, they prepared to make a stand at Alamo. This structure had been built to serve as a mission, and its great flaw as a defensive buttress lay in that it was poorly suited to being a fortress, since its thick walls were low enough to be scaled. Samuel Maverick probably would have joined the historically doomed group in the Alamo had not fate intervened.
A convention was called for March 1, 1836, to decide what course Texans were to take. Maverick, having proved his courage under fire, was one of the three delegates elected to represent San Antonio. This was the beginning of his many years of public service to Texas. As they were about to leave for Washington-on-the-Brazos, the rains came. And how it rained—it simply poured!
Maverick and companions left immediately on horseback and they had a merry time of it. The horses slipped, strained and struggled in the mud. Often they had to wait for flooded streams to subside, and frequently they were cold and wet. It was a slow exhausting trip. And as they pushed along, through the storm events were taking place in San Antonio that Texans—and the world—would never forget!
Early in the morning of February 23, a lookout spotted Mexican troops outside the town. The Texas Volunteers converged on the Alamo from wherever they were billeted in town, rounding up thirty cattle and one-hundred bushels of corn on the way. In the mission were about two hundred men, armed with rifles, pistols, hunting knives and tomahawks. They refused Santa Anna's demand for unconditional surrender—and the eternally memorable struggle began.
The Alamo was bombarded for thirteen days, and the world knows what ensued. Travis sent out appeals for help which mostly went unheeded. His last letter was written on March 3, to the delegates at Washington-on-the-Brazos who were too far away to assist. On the morning of March 6, the Mexicans, armed with scaling ladders, axes, crow-bars and guns, swarmed through and over the walls. The command "No quarter given!" was taken with seriousness. In thirty minutes of actual fighting it was over. The memory of the defenders' gallantry in the face of death will forever continue to engender both grief and pride wherever in the world men yearn for independence and admire courage.
It was a raw day at Washington-on-the-Brazos. A norther blew in and the half-finished blacksmith shop where the convention was held was not adequate to keep out the cold. The delegates declared the independence of Texas from Mexico on March 2; Maverick signed "from Bexar," which is the name he used at that time when designating San Antonio. They went to work at once to write a constitution for the new republic.
As they were hard at work on March 6, a letter from Travis was delivered by John W. Smith, Maverick's good friend from whom he had rented a room six months before What fateful events had come to pass in that half-year! Travis, in his letter, appealed urgently for aid and closed it with the words "God and Texas—Victory or Death!"
The brave men at the Alamo died without knowing that Texas had declared her independence and the delegates, continuing their work, did not know the Alamo had fallen, its interior strewn with the mutilated bodies of its heroic defenders.
Maverick's legal training was of great value in the chore of drawing up the constitution. His ability to think clearly, his resolute conviction that Texas should be free from the bonds of Mexican rule, made him an invaluable delegate. By March 17 the Republic of Texas had both a constitution and governing officers.
Samuel Augustus Maverick always felt that he had not been elected to the consitutional convention, he too, would have perished with the heroes of the Alamo. He seemed to have an obsession about this, and in 1850, at great effort, he acquired a portion of the Alamo mission land as a site for his new home.
In joining with the Texans in their fight for greater civil liberties, Samuel was continuing the pattern set by his ancestors. In 1624 a Samuel Maverick, with his bride, sailed from England to America as a representative of the Plymouth Company, to explore the country for a suitable location, and start an Episcopal settlement. He settled at the mouth of the Mystic River near present-day Boston, where he built a fortified house to be safer from the Indians. He was impressed with the new country, writing to England that the "land also is exceedinge good." He acquired land in both Massachusetts and Maine.
From his fortified house Maverick watched the ships of the Puritans sail by on their way to Salem. He dispensed hospitality to any who came and was said to live like a king. Although he was helpful to the Puritans on their arrival there was trouble between them later on because of differences in religious beliefs.
The straight-laced Puritans, determined to make Congregationalists of everyone, disapproved of Maverick's free and easy way of living. He, in turn, called them "Saints" and moved to nearby Noddle's Island to get away from all that sanctity.
In 1646 he was one of the signers of a petition to the General Court of Massachusetts asking for full civil rights, and permission to maintain an Episcopalian church and a minister of their own. Other Samuel Mavericks of succeeding generations were to follow him in the fight for individual rights and liberty.
The young Samuel A. Maverick who was a descendant of his illustrious forebears, had been away from home a year when he returned to visit relatives. No doubt he had much to relate concerning his adventures in the fabulous Texas. While visiting in Alabama with his sister, he met eighteen-year old Mary Ann Adams. After a four-month courtship, they married in August, 1836.
The pull was irresistible, so in December 1837, he started for Texas again, this time with a menage: a young wife and infant son, Samuel; his fifteen-year-old brother-in-law, Robert Adams; six negro servants with four small children.
For three years the Mavericks lived in a three-room house situated on land sloping down to the beautiful San Antonio River just off the Main Plaza, where Maverick had once held the dying Milam in his arms.
Samuel opened a law office and was shortly elected mayor, a mark of recognition he was to receive more than once. He had taken seriously his father's admonition to buy land, and spent considerable time on this business. Mary was absorbed with homemaking and caring for their growing family, but never too busy to write in her diary, which has proved an invaluable source of information to historians.
It was during these years that Maverick met Jack Hays, and association which was to lead later on to an exciting and near-disastrous adventure.
Hays was a young Tennessean who, after serving in the Texas Volunteers, came to San Antonio in 1838 with a letter of recommendation as a surveyor. Maverick employed him and went with him on numerous surveying trips.
San Antonio was one of the last outposts of civilization in Texas. Since it was in territory claimed by the Indians, there was constant trouble, and surveying was dangerous business. Hays had many such encounters and word got around that he was quite an Indian fighter which didn't hurt his popularity.
In 1840 Jack Hays was selected to command a company of mounted volunteers called Texas Rangers, who were to defend the lonely frontier settlements from Indian and Mexican attacks. Maverick became one of the Rangers and as such, frequently went on skirmishes against the Comanches.
1842 was a bad year for San Antonio and for the Maverick family. Even though Texas had declared herself a Republic independent of Mexico, the Mexicans did not give up. In March, General Vasquez captured the town but was driven back; that summer there were rumors of another invasion. Samuel Maverick and most of the other men took their families to adjacent towns in what was called "The Runaway of '42" until conditions were more settled. The Mavericks, with their slaves, settled in a temporary home at La Grange on the Colorado River, about one hundred miles east of San Antonio.
The regular fall session of the District Court at San Antonio was called in September. Maverick had a case to try: a Dr. Booker was suing the city for a small amount of money. Had the doctor known what fate held in store for him, he would have been glad to concede the case. Maverick journeyed to San Antonio from La Grange in early September; he was not to see his family until eight months later.
Early that month, Jack Hays found that he was unable to get any gunpowder for his men in town, which was unusual, so he sent two men, one of whom was Big Foot Wallace, to Austin, seventy-five miles away, for more powder. Also, he was uneasy because he had observed the Mexican residents acting strangely; he concluded something was afoot and ordered some of his Ranger to reconnoiter toward the Mexican border. At the Medina River, about twenty miles out, the men spied General Woll and his Mexican troops.
When this report was received in town a mass meeting was held. A company of 175 men was organized and told that if trouble came, they were to gather at the Maverick house on Main Plaza.
Before dawn of the next day, September 11, 1842, the Mexican forces entered San Antonio for the second time in six months. In a heavy fog they were inside the Military Plaza almost before the Texans were aware of them, with Mexican flags flying and their buglers playing the stirring Andalusian dance song, "Las Cachucha." The Texans gathered at the Maverick house, which became the major target for the Mexican guns.
Soon an emissary from the Mexican forces approached with a white flag. He informed the Texans that General Woll had two thousand troops, which was only a forerunner of a much larger army which was on the way. The town, the emissary told them, was surrounded with Mexicans and Indians, and he suggested they surrender in thirty minutes.
The Texans, feeling there was no choice, elected Samuel Maverick and three others to act as commissioners to treat with the Mexicans. They agreed to surrender as prisoners of war with the provision that their lives were to be spared and their property kept safe.
Included among the fifty-five prisoners was the entire District Court: judge, jury, lawyers and clients, including Dr. Booker.
In September 21, General Woll and his army left with the fifty-five prisoners and as much plunder as was practical. He commandeered all the carts and wagons he could find and filled them with wounded Mexicans and Texans. He pushed so hard to reach the border before the Texas forces caught up, that for eight days there was no time to stop and treat their wounds. Some died.
Perote Prison was their destination. For three months they marched, making twenty to thirty miles a day through hot, dry barren land—and over freezing mountain passes. At times the supply of water ran low and there never seemed to be enough food. Shoes wore out and the clothing worn on a hot September afternoon in San Antonio was inadequate for the cold in the mountains. The many acts of cruelty by Mexican officers and soldiers were hardly balanced by the occasional kindnesses shown by Mexican citizens in small villages, who supplied clothing for a few.
Between Puebla and Jalapa on the eastern slope of the Sierra Madres, in an area of extinct volcanoes, is the town of Perote. Its eighteenth-century fortress, built by the Spaniards, has sixty-foot high walls of dark lava rock, which gives it a forbidding appearance. The fortress is surrounded by a very wide moat enclosing a total area of 26 acres.
The view from the prison across the valley and beyond to the perpetually snowcapped Orizabe delights visitors today, but the suffering prisoners hardly enjoyed the scenery.
The Christmas season was approaching when Maverick and his fellow prisoners marched through the fortress gate in the midst of a fierce norther, but there was no warmth, no comfort, no celebrating at Perote Prison.
From six at night until nine the next morning they were herded like cattle into a long, narrow corridor, with no light except that which entered through a loop-hole measuring four inches by twelve.
It was cold in Perote, at an elevation of 7,800 feet. One prisoner wrote in June, 1843, that it was "colder at this time than in Texas in December" and men suffered from the lack of warm clothes. They slept on icy floors with inadequate blankets, fought with lice which infested the place, and devised means of passing away the time. In March, 1843, they were joined by other Texans who were given adjacent cells; the two groups suffered and joked together.
The Mexican government allowed twenty-five cents a day for food for each prisoner, most of which went into the pocket of the comisario who furnished the rations. The meals, which generally consisted of poor bread, scorched cornmeal coffee and a stew of stringy beef seasoned with onion and chile, were badly cooked and far from adequate to sustain the prisoners for the hard work they were forced to do.
After carrying out the filth of the prison in handbarrows each morning, they were sent one and one-half miles away, under guard, to carry stone to repair prison fortifications. Maverick refused to work unless the rations were increased and he was placed, for a while, in a dungeon on an even more meager diet.
Throughout their imprisonment some of the prisoners showed their ingenuity and a sense of humor. Although the high, thick walls seemed impregnable, some Texans escaped through a hole they made. After this, the remaining victims were chained in pairs with heavy log chains, the weight of which made an added burden on their weakened physiques.
Finding a stone and six-pound cannon ball in the prison, they covered the stone with a blanket, placed a chain link between the stone and another layer of blanket to deaden the sound and hammered away with the cannon ball, turning the link frequently until it was broken. This freed them of their "jewelry" during the night; in the daytime they so carried the chains that the guards never suspected they were broken. When this trick was eventually discovered, the guards were more cruel and watchful.
In March Mr. Maverick's client Dr. Booker, was killed when a Mexican soldier, too drunk to take good aim, shot him instead of the uniformed fellow Mexican he was trying to kill.
When Maverick's father in South Carolina learned of his son's imprisonment, he started working for his release. The Maverick family was related by marriage to the United States Minister to Mexico, General Waddy Thompson, also from South Carolina. He was able to secure Maverick's release if he would swear that he was for the re-annexation of Texas by Mexico. Maverick's grandson, Maury, later wrote that Maverick refused, saying, "However galling are the claims of slavery, I regard a lie as dishonorable. To say that I would lay down the arms of my country would be a lie."
There was certainly great excitement among the San Antonio prisoners when, in late March, Maverick, Judge Hutchinson and Will Jones had their chains removed and were sent to Mexico City. One of them wrote, "We wate there (sic) return with great anxiety—expect to be liberated on their return which will be some 11 days," but they were to be disappointed.
In Mexico City, Maverick and two companions, dirty and ragged, were paraded for fifteen minutes before the Palace before they were released. After General Thompson took them to his house, they cleaned up and did several days of sightseeing before they left for Vera Cruz where they were to return to Texas by boat. They stopped at Perote on the way to say goodbye to fellow prisoners and to take letters to mail after they reached Texas. Maverick felt guilty at leaving the others in Perote; they were finally released in June, 1843, due to the diligent efforts of General Thompson.
It was May when Maverick reached La Grange again, carrying his "jewelry" with him as a souvenir. To add to his delight at being home was the two-month old baby girl, Augusta, their second daughter, born during his absence, and the knowledge that the citizens of San Antonio had elected him to be a Senator of the Republic of Texas. So, in December of that year, he was again in Washington-on-the-Brazos, attending to Texas affairs.
That summer Maverick acquired a 385,000-acre ranch on Matagorda Peninsula, a long finger of land laying parallel to the mainland of Texas, which led to the event which made his name a commonly used word in the English language.
Various stories have been told as to the origin of the word: that Mr. Maverick was too tender-hearted to wield the hot branding iron; that he used his iron indiscriminately and thus built up a cattle empire dishonestly; that since all the other ranchers branded cattle, he wouldn't use a brand and everyone would know the unbranded ones were Maverick's. Even today, many are surprised at the true story.
Mr. Maverick had a client on the neighboring Matagorda Island who owed him $1,200. Being unable to raise the cash, he offered Maverick 400 head of longhorn cattle instead. Maverick accepted them, probably without enthusiasm. Legends that he owned more cattle than anyone else in Texas are not true; he was more interested in land than cattle and this was his only experience in cattle ownership.
He sent his slave, Jack Armstrong [Jinny Anderson's son, as I understand], across to the Island to care for the cattle and Jack's mother, Jinny, to care for Jack—he needed looking after. Maverick secured a branding iron with the initials MK and told Jack to mark all the increase in the herd. Maverick himself was too busy with personal and governmental affairs to give further thought to the cattle.
In those days Texas was an open range. Cattle were free to wander and any unbranded calves caught away from their mothers were fair game for whoever found them. Jack Armstrong neglected his duties and didn't use the branding iron, and storms which came in from the Gulf of Mexico washed up sand bars so that the cattle could walk across to the mainland.
When cowboys found unbranded cattle they said, "They must be Maverick's" and so the word found its way into the English language as meaning "an unbranded animal."
The word seemed to catch on, and it spread rapidly. In 1848 gold was discovered in California and the rush began. Men from the East came to Texas by ship and cut across the land to the Pacific. As they passed through the state they became acquainted with the word "maverick" and carried it along. In San Francisco, some of these Gold Rushers sailed on fast clipper ships to another gold rush—in Australia—and the word went with them. In time it came to mean a non-conformist, and individualist.
To go back a bit, shortly after Maverick received the cattle, in lieu of $1,200 from his neighbor, the family left Matagorda Peninsula to return to their old home in San Antonio. The battle of the day of General Woll's invasion and the plundering which followed had made a shambles of it, but they were happy to be back on the Main Plaza and the San Antonio River.
It was seven years before Maverick decided to move the cattle to the land he owned in Conquista, nearer San Antonio. Jack Armstrong was still in charge and the cattle continued to roam unbranded until their owner sold them, in 1856, to a nearby rancher for six dollars a head. The herd still numbered 400, since the unbranded calves had been appropriated, according to western custom, by other ranchers throughout the nine years of his ownership, due to Jack's disinclination to brand the new-born calves.
This is the truth of cattle ownership—vastly different from the legend which grew taller and taller each time it was told around the campfires.
For ten years the Republic of Texas proudly flew the flag with a single star, but there was continuous discussion as to the advantages of uniting with the United States. Maverick was a member of the convention which met in Austin in July, 1845, to approve the annexation of Texas and again he helped write a constitution for Texas as the 28th state in the Union, thereafter known as the Lone Star State.
During these years he was buying more and more land. He hired surveyors and went along whenever possible. One surveyor declared that Maverick checked on every step. While on one such trip in 1848, his daughter Agatha, seven years old, took sick suddenly and died. Since there was no way to reach Maverick, he did not know of her death until his return three weeks later. The shock was considerable and he brooded over it, feeling guilty that he had not been home at such a critical time.
That summer a group of business men in San Antonio raised $800 to establish a wagon road to El Paso. They knew that the American traders who came from Missouri to Santa Fe continued down the Rio Grande to El Paso, and from there south to the town of Chihuahua, were doing very well financially. A good wagon route between the coast of Texas—through San Antonio—and on to Chihuahua via El Paso should be an economically profitable venture since it would be a shorter land route.
These San Antonians were aware that this would be no tea party. They would travel over unexplored country for six-hundred miles, across an area frequented by Apache and Comanche Indians who took unkindly to invasion of their hunting grounds. An outstanding man was called for to lead this expedition and Jack Hays was chosen. Hays was aware of Maverick's depression and, knowing how he loved the outdoor life, urged him to join the group. So much happened on this trip that Maverick had no time to brood on his sorrow for long.
Late in August, 1848, the explorers set out, thirty-five citizens of San Antonio, an equal number of Texas Rangers, with a Delaware Indian and a Mexican to act as guides and interpreters.
Following a westerly direction, they crossed the Pecos River near present-day Del Rio. All went well up to this point. There was ample game and the Indians gave no trouble, but they were finding water difficult to obtain. Maverick wrote in his diary that on September 26, they reached the Pecos "in great thirst."
West of the Pecos the story was different. It was a wild and rugged country, a wilderness where none of them had ever been. The guide, Lorenzo, became confused and led them southwest toward the Big Bend of the Rio Grande. There followed twenty days of severe privation.
Maverick made succinct entries in his diary. When no water was available they chewed on leather to stimulate the salivary glands enough to moisten their mouths. The food supply had run out when they encountered four old buffalo bulls; they evidently were lost also, since the great herds of buffalo were always seen east of the Pecos. The bulls furnished tough but welcome chewing for a few days, but by the first of October the explorers were reduced to "eating mustang meat" (wild horse).
A few days later they dined on panther, then bear grass from which they made a soup. They rejoiced when they came to a canyon where there were "fine tunas," the edible fruit of a prickly pear cactus. Finally, two months later, on October 10, they had to kill one of their mules for breakfast which was "very poor and tough."
Not all could stand the pressures of that trip. Maverick wrote "Dr. Wham crazy," and a few days later related that the Doctor had ridden off in a fury into the night. They sent back men to search for him but were unable to find him in the wild country.
They now were in the high Chisos mountains in the heart of the Big Bend of the Rio Grande, noted for their ruggedness and vivid colors. Some friendly Indians took them to a branch of the Great Comanche War Trail, whitened with the bones of many animals. It was used by Indians on their annual raids on farmers and ranchers who lived in an area four-hundred miles wide in the states of Durango and Chihuahua, Mexico, and as far north as the Llano Estacado (Staked Plains) in Texas.
They followed this trail across the Rio Grande into Mexico. On October 17, they killed another mule for food, and leaving the trail, continued along the river to the northwest. Two days later the thin and weary men straggled into the Mexican village of San Carlos. They hurriedly apologized for trespassing on Mexican territory, before feasting on bread and milk. Here they rested a few days.
Although relations between Texas and Mexico had been touchy for years, Americans usually found the Mexican people compassionate and helpful.
Continuing up the river, they reached Presidio del Norte, (present-day Ojinaga), which must have looked familiar to Maverick, for it was here he had crossed the Rio Grande in a canoe as a prisoner of the Mexicans only six years before. The explorers crossed back into the United States and camped at Fort Leaton for sixteen days. While feasting on barbecue, tortillas, and coffee, they debated their next step.
Colonel Hays hated to give up on any mission, but he knew that too many members of this party were not equal to the task of continuing, so the decision was made to return to San Antonio—mission unaccomplished!
It was now November and getting cold; the men had only summer clothes. With a supply of pinole (parched, ground corn) and thirty days rations of meat, they followed the northern branch of the Commanche War Trail toward settlements in Texas. They were back in San Antonio in time for Christmas, after more than three months wandering and hardship. Not a man was lost; even "Dr. Wham" was found later and returned home!
Although they had not reached El Paso, they had learned that the country of the lower Pecos was to be avoided and a more northerly route preferred. Their records and experiences were used by the United States War Department, which sent explorers the following spring to find a route between San Antonio and El Paso. They were just in time, too: already hordes of impatient men were arriving in Texas, hunting a short cut to California and gold by way of El Paso. Within the next several years, thousands of Forty-niners were to travel the wagon road for which Maverick helped make the initial exploration. He came this way himself, a few years later to buy land in the El Paso area.
Mr. Maverick lived for twenty-two years after the Chihuahua expedition, seemingly with a finger in every Texas "pie." The legend that he was the largest landowner in the world probably was not true, (so his grandson, Maury, wrote,) but he owned land all the way from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico and some of the Gulf islands. Also, as far west as the Mexican border. He had interests in mining, salt lakes, railroads, ranches and city property. In fact, so vast and varied were his holdings that General William Tecumseh Sherman wrote in later years that he "seems to have been the owner of everything not actively in the possession of somebody else."
Maverick did not permit his business interests to interfere with his love of public affairs. For thirty years he participated in public life at city, country, state and national levels.
He was a quiet, scholarly man, yet fearless and tough physically so that he could endure a lot of physical privation. He died in 1870 at the age of 67.
Although Texas had given him much, he had reciprocated with time and energy as well as possessions for the town and state he loved. He lived under four flags of Texas: Mexico, Republic of Texas, United States and the Confederacy. For all his achievements, it is ironic that he is best known as the man whose cattle roamed unbranded—"mavericks."
Who can deny, in truth, that the real story of his life is more exciting than the legends!
Opal Waymire Beaty
True West
July, 1967
Samuel A. Maverick
Introduction
In a Frontier Society, where intellectual and educational attainments were ever rare, one with such qualities as Samuel Maverick became the indispensable man. Lawyer, businessman, landholder, and for decades a public servant in various levels of government, his accomplishments would be recognized by any generation; but his particular combination of courageousness and restlessness marked him as a natural leader for San Antonio in its years of turbulence.
Although among the first in the tradition of Texas boosters, he favored the annexation of Texas by the United States rather than continuance as an independent republic, and he favored union rather than secession prior to 1860.
Maverick became one of the great empire builders of Texas and a wealthy man. His dedication to San Antonio resulted in many personal sacrifices—the loss of personal property when the enemy invaded, gifts of money to needy persons, and always the contribution of his time and energy to the town, the Republic, and later the state of Texas.
That Samuel Maverick took a day-to-day matter-of-fact attitude in his approach to numerous hardships on the Texas frontier should suggest to the young reader in the twentieth century a valid and common sense approach to his own daily problems in a turbulent world. Indeed, this is the thesis of the authors, Kathryn and Irwin Sexton.
Mrs. Sexton had been unable to locate an appropriate book on Samuel Maverick when her young son developed an interest in this progenitor of many distinguished San Antonians. She reported her chagrin to her husband, who suggested that she begin the task of preparing such a book herself.
There resulted, as a joint enterprise, this account of a man who, in war and in economic depression, kept faith in the future of the town to which he returned from diverse adventures which were as dangerous as they are exciting for the present-day reader. Mr. and Mrs. Sexton have not ignored the contributions of Maverick's wife Mary, a pioneer gentlewoman whose spirit equaled that of her husband, and whose Memoirs provided the springboard for this biography for young people.
James W. Laurie, President
Trinity University
November, 1963
The Young Lawyer
Samuel A. Maverick, famous Texan, lived during his boyhood on a peaceful plantation in South Carolina. If he played Indians and soldiers as American boys have always done, he probably did not dream that he would one day live under the continual threat of Indians on the warpath. Nor would he have thought it possible that someday he would be shooting at Mexican soldiers from the rooftop of his own home. While studying law as a young man, he could not see ahead to the day he would help write the constitution for the Republic of Texas; and the peaceful years he spent at Yale University were in surroundings far different than those he was to find later in a Mexican prison.
Samuel A. Maverick's life might not have been as exciting, dangerous and adventurous, if he had not heard about Texas at a time when he was wondering what he should do with his life. He had intended to be a lawyer. In fact, after graduating from Yale, he had set up a law practice in Pendleton, South Carolina, in 1829. He wanted to go into politics, too. However, at this time many South Carolinians were urging that their state secede from the United States. They were aroused by the tariff laws which they felt were very unfair to the South. Both Samuel A. Maverick and his father, Samuel Maverick, were against this drastic move. Tempers were high, and Samuel and his father were active in the fight to keep South Carolina in the Union. They wrote letters to newspapers, debated at public meetings and worked hard to change public opinion. At one meeting, the elder Maverick was making a speech in answer to John C. Calhoun's arguments for secession. A young man in the audience called out slurring remarks about the speaker. Samuel, or Sam as he was called, was so angered by those taunts directed at his father that he challenged the young man to a duel. He wounded the man, and then took him into his home to care for him. Like many another young man, Sam was quick to fight; but would have followed a duel in which they were victorious by caring for their opponent. His readiness to fight for what he believed to be right would lead him to strange places before his life was over.
That duel was a turning point in young Maverick's life. He realized then that as long as he was so opposed to the politics of the times he had little hope of being successful in public life. He withdrew from politics, from the practice of law, and from the state of South Carolina! At his father's suggestion he moved to Alabama to manage the estates of his widowed sister, Elizabeth Weyman.
Samuel A. Maverick came from a fairly well-to-do family. His father had taken an active part in the business life of Charleston, South Carolina. He is said to have been the first one to ship American cotton to England. He had retired to a quiet plantation, Montpelier, in Pendleton, South Carolina, because the climate was a more healthful one for his children. He owned much land, some of which he had signed over to his children, Samuel Augustus (born July 23, 1803), Elizabeth (born 1807), Lydia (born 1814). He found happiness in his quiet plantation life and became well known as a horticulturist. No doubt he was relieved to turn over some of the management of his and his daughter's affairs to his son. His wife, born Elizabeth Anderson of Virginia, had died when Samuel Augustus was fifteen years old.
Although very little is known of Sam's early life, it is apparent from reading the letters between him and his father that there was much affection between them. Samuel Maverick continued to give advice to his son long after he left home, but love and pride shine through his letters.
The management of Elizabeth's estates did not hold Samuel A. Maverick's interest for long. Restlessly he toured the North and visited his married sister, Lydia Van Wyck. He went to New Orleans on a business trip. In this busy port town everyone was talking about Texas which at the time belonged to Mexico, and had only been opened up to American settlers since 1820. Like many other restless young men of that time, he decided he must see the fabulous place for himself. This proved to be more than a decision to take a trip, for the pattern of his life was to be changed completely. Texas captured his imagination and fired his ambition. Texas truly became his home—he fought for it, worked for it and loved it.
The Texan
Maverick was excited by Texas, but it was the little town of San Antonio which completely won him to this new land. San Antonio was the only town of any size in the length and breadth of Texas. Velasco, on the coast, was the first Texas town he visited and there were only eight or ten families living there. The country was sparsely settled with a few isolated farms between the small settlements. While travelling he came down with malaria, and friends suggested he go to San Antonio, which had a more healthful climate.
The atmosphere and beauty of the little Spanish-Mexican town immediately charmed Maverick when he arrived in San Antonio on September 8, 1835. Although the population was under three thousand at the time, the town had a varied and colorful history. It was originally founded by the Spanish in 1718 as a fort (Presidio de Bexar), and a mission (San Antonio de Valero). The Spanish felt it was an excellent place for a settlement because of the plentiful water supplied by the San Pedro Springs and the San Antonio River. A group of colonists from the Canary Islands had also been sent to this site, and they named their settlement San Fernando de Bexar. Frequently it was called just Bexar or Bejar. Maverick usually referred to it as Bejar in his journals.
It is not surprising that San Antonio had the charm of a foreign city to Maverick, because the Spanish and Mexican influences were very apparent. He admired the charming manners of the Mexicans and their gaiety. He liked the way the adobe and stone buildings were built around open plazas. He was interested in the less prosperous homes, quaint log houses built of mesquite posts with roofs of straw or tule (a kind of rush).
No doubt, too, Maverick enjoyed the beauty of the cypresses which bordered the San Antonio River, and the quiet charm of the missions. The missions had been established by the Franciscan Fathers to teach the Indians Christianity and Spanish ways of farming. By 1800 the Franciscans had given up their mission work, but the mission churches were still used as churches. The best known was the one established as Mission San Antonio de Valero, the original name which was all but forgotten. The Mexican cavalry stationed on the mission grounds in the early 1800's was called El Alamo from the name of the town where it was recruited, San Jose Santiago del Alamo de Parras. Mission San Antonio de Valero was soon called the Alamo. It was to play an important part in Maverick's life, and in the history of San Antonio and of Texas.
Samuel A. Maverick, of course, quickly learned of the part San Antonio had played in the Mexican revolt from Spain. In the hands of first the Mexican army, then the Spanish army, it had been the scene of much fighting the discord. The revolution was drawn out from 1811 to 1821, when Mexico finally won its independence. The year before, 1820, Mexico had finally given permission to Moses Austin to settle Americans in Texas. He died shortly after that and his son, Stephen F. Austin, took over his work.
San Antonio, which had been nearly deserted at times during the Mexican Revolution, was beginning to grow and prosper when Samuel A. Maverick arrived there at the age of thirty-two. Although conditions forced him to travel far from there at times and to live away from it for many years, San Antonio was truly his home town. He contributed much to its growth and development.
It had taken Maverick from April 22 to September 8 to reach San Antonio. This was not only because of the slowness of travel by horseback, boat or wagon, but also because he stopped often along the way. He visited, he studied the land and he did business. He bought a parcel of land near Cox's Point, the first of many he was to buy in Texas. From everyone he heard about the Texan quarrels with Mexican rule.
Mexico had won its independence from Spain, but now Maverick realized another revolution was brewing. Many of the Mexican laws were as oppressive to the Mexicans living in Texas as to the Americans. Mexico's capital was far away, and it was hard to transact government business. Texans did not like the immigration laws which had been passed in the 1830's to keep American settlers from coming to Texas in too great numbers. They wanted the more liberal Mexican Constitution of 1824 and not the harsher regime of Dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. There was an ever-growing number of people who were saying that the only way to bring about a more just government and the re-establishment of the 1824 constitution was to take up arms and fight.
The Revolutionaries
Like many other Americans who had come to Texas out of curiosity or to find success in business ventures, Maverick soon found himself caught up in the turbulence of the times. These Americans, now Texans, were used to a democratic and representative type of government, and they were willing to fight for what they believed to be their rights.
Even if Maverick had not been an ardent believer in the Texan cause, his imprisonment by the brutal Mexicans would have made him one. Although he recorded the event in his journals factually and not emotionally, it must have shocked Maverick to find himself a captive of the Mexicans just a few short weeks after his arrival in San Antonio. He was rooming with John W. Smith when Generals Martin Perfecto de Cos and Domingo de Ugartechea marched into San Antonio. They put both Maverick and Smith under guard in Smith's house. The two generals had been ordered to San Antonio by Dictator Santa Anna. If he thought they could put out the spark of rebellion, he found he was mistaken. The militant Texans were now more than ever determined to fight.
In order to recapture San Antonio, Texan forces gathered at Mission Concepcion just outside of San Antonio. They could scarcely be called forces, this Texas army. They were volunteers, poorly organized, but eager to fight. Their commander, Stephen F. Austin, however, decided to wait for more men before attacking.
The fact that Austin was willing to lead troops against Mexico was in itself a sign that conditions in Texas had become deplorable. For years he had been a loyal citizen of Mexico. He had carefully obeyed all its laws when he was given permission to settle Americans in Texas. Then he had been imprisoned for months in Mexico because of his colonization activities. After that experience he saw the hopelessness of Texas' remaining a part of Mexico. He had previously been very much against the Texas "war party," but now he answered "yes" when asked to command the troops. He was not a military man by nature or training.
When the Texas Congress asked Austin to seek help for the revolutionists in the United States, he gave up his command to General Edward Burleson. Burleson, like Austin, waited. The Americans within San Antonio were waiting, too. Although under guard, Maverick had kept in touch with the Texas troops by sending notes back and forth with a dependable Mexican boy.
In his journal Maverick wrote how impatient he was at the situation. He could see the Mexicans fortifying the town. Cannons were being mounted at the Alamo. The streets were being well guarded. Underbrush, trees, fences—anything that could be a lurking place for Texan spies and soldiers—were being cut down. It would have been much easier to retake San Antonio with two hundred men, he wrote on November 3, 1835, than it was going to be with the fifteen hundred men Austin and Burleson were hoping would join them.
The Texan army had waited about six weeks, but they might have waited even longer if General Cos had not released Smith and Maverick. Their release was based on Smith's promise that they would soon go back to the United States, but soon proved to be not soon enough for the Mexicans! Maybe Maverick and Smith intended to keep their promise, but first they wanted to visit their friends in the Texas camp.
Once in camp, Maverick urged the already restless men to act, and volunteered to lead them into the town. After he talked, there was much discussion. First a decision was made by the officers to attack, and then the order was cancelled. He was dejected and angry at the delay and so were many of the men. Finally, Colonel Benjamin R. Milam is said to have stepped forward and asked, "Who will go with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?" Over two hundred men volunteered. At that time there were about seven hundred men in camp. Maverick estimated that over two thousand men had been there through the waiting period, but had drifted away when no action had been taken.
Just before daylight on December 5, 1835, led by Milam and Frank W. Johnson and guided by Maverick and Smith, the Texans stole into San Antonio. Maverick knew the town well, although he had only been there a short time. He knew the strength of the Mexican forces and the fortifications they had made. He even had a plan of attack. No one can be sure what the plan was, but he mentioned in his journal that he had suggested one to Austin.
Four days the battle raged. House to house they fought, and room to room. They advanced by inches as they broke through the stone walls which were usually four to five feet thick. The Americans seemed to know which houses were strategic points. Was this perhaps the plan Maverick had suggested to Austin? Some people think it might have been.
Milam was killed on the third day as he entered the Veramendi House. (A daughter of the Veramendis was married to the famous Jim Bowie.) Maverick caught Milam in his arms as he fell. So greatly did the Texans admire and depend on Milam that they tried to keep news of his death from as many of the men as possible. The doors of the Veramendi House were later placed in the Alamo. This relic of one of the battles in the Texan fight for freedom is fittingly displayed in the Alamo, "Shrine of Texas Liberty."
Although Milam was dead, General Burleson by that time had joined his men and assumed leadership of the attack. On the fifth day of fighting, Cos was captured. Maverick was a witness to the articles of capitulation signed by General Cos. The ancient adobe house in which the surrender was signed is known as the Cos House. It still stands today in La Villita, or Little Town, in San Antonio, and is visited yearly by thousands of tourists. A grandson of Maverick, Maury Maverick, was responsible for preserving this historic area.
The Texans could not possibly take care of over one thousand prisoners. Cos and his men were allowed to return to their own country after promising they would not fight against the re-establishment of the constitution of 1824. The Texans need not have bothered insisting on this promise. It wasn't kept.
Maverick Escapes Death
With San Antonio once again secure, most of the Texans left. Some joined General Sam Houston, now commanding the army of Texas, who was stationed near Goliad. Houston knew his army was too small and too ill-prepared to defend Texas against another Mexican attack which he was certain would come up too soon. He needed arms, men and time. He did not want to split up his forces by sending more men to the Alamo. Nor did he want the Mexicans to seize the cannon there for their own use or use the Alamo as a fort. For these reasons he gave orders to move the cannon to Gonzales and to destroy the Alamo. But the orders were never carried out. Colonel James Bowie delivered Houston's message to Colonel William B. Travis. Travis, the Alamo commander, did not obey these orders, but pleaded for more men. It was his firm belief that Santa Anna could be stopped at San Antonio, the first important settlement in Texas north of the Rio Grande River and Mexico. Even if they were defeated, he reasoned that the Mexicans would be delayed long enough for Houston to muster and train more men. Bowie agreed with him and stayed on at the Alamo.
Texas had so recently been opened up to Americans that everyone, it seemed, was a newcomer. Reputations were quickly established. Maverick had already proved his loyalty to the Texan cause and his qualities of leadership in the battle to retake San Antonio from General Cos. The men of San Antonio recognized in the slender young lawyer qualities of courage and intelligence, and they elected him in February, 1836, to represent them in the convention. This convention had been called to decide if Texas were to remain an independent state, faithful to the Mexican government under the constitution of 1824, or if it were to declare itself a free and sovereign nation.
Sam Maverick might well have been among his new friends who died as heroes in the battle of the Alamo. It was not lack of courage or a desire to avoid fighting which took him from the tragic scene. Travelling on horseback was a slow process and the convention in Washington-on-the-Brazos, one hundred and fifty miles away, had been called for March 1. Maverick had already started for the convention when the Mexican troops were sighted.
The Texans had heard that the Mexican army, commanded by Santa Anna himself, was on the move; but they did not realize how quickly it was approaching. The lookout sighted Mexican troops on February 23, 1836. Quickly the little band of one hundred and eighty-three men fortified themselves behind the walls of the Alamo and the siege began.
The valiant band of Texans—under the leadership of Travis, the famous Jim Bowie and the legendary Davy Crockett—withstood the siege of over twenty-four hundred Mexicans for thirteen days. On the morning of March 6, the Mexicans finally made an all-out attack on the weary men. Every man in the Alamo was killed. Only a few Mexican women, a slave boy, an American woman, Mrs. Almeron Dickinson, and her baby escaped death.
The men of the Alamo died for the freedom of Texas and set an example of bravery for the whole world, but in those days of slow communication they perished unaware that the Declaration of Independence had been signed on March 2. They did not know that their delegates had declared: "Our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended; and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free Sovereign and independent republic...." Because of floods, Maverick and two other delegates from San Antonio, Jose Antonio Navarro and Francisco Ruiz, had not reached Washington-on-the-Brazos until March 3. They were permitted to sign their names to the historic document, however. Maverick was the only one to sign with the name of his town, and he added after his signature "from Bejar."
Maverick stayed on at the convention as the delegates went about the difficult task of drawing up a constitution for the new nation of Texas. It was patterned after the Constitution of the United States and those of several of the states. It was said of Maverick by a fellow delegate, William Menefee, that he conducted himself as a statesman and a diplomat. His legal training and his wise political judgment contributed much to the convention. He was not a man to make a show of his knowledge and learning; but, as Menefee pointed out, it could be seen in all that he did and said. Another signer, Stephen W. Blount, wrote that when Maverick believed he was right, his strong will made him a determined man. And he was determined that Texas should be free of Mexico.
Texas had a constitution and governing officers by March 17, 1836, when the convention ended, but Santa Anna had not yet been defeated. It was not until April 21 at San Jacinto that General Sam Houston and his men defeated the Mexican forces in a surprise attack.
A Pioneer Bride
After the battle of San Jacinto, Maverick journeyed back to the United States to visit his family. By that time the tragic and heroic story of the Alamo had been heard by all America. Great was the joy of his family when they saw him.
Because of a handkerchief dropped on a muddy road, Maverick did not return to Texas as quickly as he had planned! While visiting his sister in Alabama, he rode out one day on horseback. Passing on the other side of a mudhole was a pretty young woman who dropped her handkerchief. Sam dismounted and picked it up for Mary Anne Adams. After this meeting he courted her for four months. They were married in August, 1836. Those who thought Maverick a reserved man would have been surprised at the keepsake Mary found among her husband's things after his death. Even she had not known that he kept a piece of the green muslin dress she was wearing the day they met.
Samuel's glowing accounts of life in Texas and San Antonio made his tall blonde bride anxious to see her new home. She must have had some doubts too, after hearing stories of the Cos attack, the Comanche Indian raids and the battle of the Alamo. Travel was slow and full of hardships and inconveniences. Eighteen-year-old Mary worried at the great distance that lay between Texas and her home, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Over a year passed while they visited their families and Maverick transacted his business.
When they did start out for Texas it took them two months, from December 7, 1837, to February 4, 1838, to get there. In the party were their infant son, Sam, who had been born in October. Mary Anne's fifteen-year-old brother, Robert, six Negro servants and four of their children. They made quite a procession with their large carriage, a wagon, three saddle horses and a filly. In the wagon were the tent, their supplies, bedding—and the children. It was a long, hard journey. They stopped frequently to rest or to do the washing. Sometimes they had to wait for muddy roads to dry, and one swamp fourteen miles wide took four days to cross.
Mary must have often wondered, "When will we ever get to San Antonio?" Even when they arrived in Texas, she had to wait four months to see the picturesque town she was to call home. Samuel left her in Spring Hill on the Navidad River while he went on to see if San Antonio was safe. There was always the threat of invading Mexican troops, because Mexico continued to claim Texas and disregarded her independence. In addition, the Comanche Indians were unfriendly and made frequent raids on the town.
Maverick wrote back to Spring Hill frequently and apologized for his long delay. One of the reasons he had gone to San Antonio was to buy some land there. He was having a difficult time, he told her. There were legal technicalities complicating land purchases. He complained also that land speculators were causing all sorts of problems. He missed her greatly, he assured her again and again, but their financial future depended on his staying. The letters of Sam to Mary were often a combination of love and business!
In June when Maverick finally came to get her, all the stories Mary had heard about unfriendly Indians must have come vividly to her mind. One day as they were breaking up camp to continue on their way to San Antonio, a band of Tonkawa Indians rode up. They were coming back victorious from a battle with the Comanches. They were dressed in war paint, armed, and were displaying two scalps. These frightening men asked Mary to let them see her little "papoose," the baby Sam. She was frightened, but had the courage to say no when they wanted her to hand the baby out of the carriage to them. This was the first test of the bravery she was to show many times during the years to come. She did not show her fear. She held her baby up so the Indians might see, but she also kept her pistol and knife in sight so they would know she was prepared to defend him. All this time she kept urging Griffin, the servant, to hurry. It is easy to see why! Maverick showed his usual courage, too, and kept right on working with his men to get their equipment and possessions loaded as quickly as possible. As they left the camp site Mary's hopes that the Indians would go in the other direction were not fulfilled. The Indians accompanied them most of the night. Toward morning they left, and the rest of the journey passed without any incidents.
Texans have a reputation for boasting of their state, and Maverick was no exception. Mary's brother, Williams Adams, was so excited by Sam's stories that he had gone on to San Antonio ahead of them. His being there made Mary's arrival seem less strange.
William did not make a success of the store he owned and soon left San Antonio, though he returned later.
To have Mexicans as her only friends was an unusual experience for Mary. She wondered why other Americans didn't come to San Antonio, because they were settling in other parts of Texas. Maverick suggested that the thought of possible Indian and Mexican attacks was one reason. It was a real frontier town, she wrote home to her mother. There were still marks of bullets and cannon balls on the walls of many of the buildings.
When the Maverick family first arrived in town, they lived in a house directly across from the site of what is now the Bexar County Courthouse, but moved from there into another house. In 1839 they moved into their own home, where their second son, Lewis, was born. The main house had three rooms, and the kitchen and servants' quarters were separate. It was quite an establishment with a picket fence around the garden and grounds going down to the river. A fitting establishment, though, for the mayor of the town. In 1839, Samuel Maverick's leadership was once again recognized and he was elected mayor. San Antonio had been incorporated in January, 1837, with an area of thirty-six square miles.
Samuel Maverick, it has been said, never sought public office, nor ever electioneered for it; but from 1836 to 1867 he continually held some public office for his town and for his state. He was a scrupulously honest man, a man of learning, and had a statesman's wise and objective attitude. Undoubtedly his law training helped him carry out his public duties, but it was his staunch and upright character that made him a leader, and it was his love for San Antonio and Texas which made him accept these public duties.
The Council House Massacre
Perhaps if Maverick had lived today, he would have conducted his land transactions in an office and made decisions based on surveyors' and engineers' reports. Perhaps not, though, for Maverick greatly enjoyed the surveying camp. He was keenly interested in buying up land and was frequently away from home on survey trips. These excursions were a combination of hard work and fun for him. They were also very dangerous, because away from town there was always the threat of Indians. One time in 1839 when he left with a survey party, Mary made him promise that he would be back by a certain day. He kept his promise and returned with one or two others of the party. The night after they left camp, all but one of the group they left behind were killed by Indians.
Business frequently took Maverick to Alabama and South Carolina. The trips were long, and must have seemed even longer to Mary, left alone with the children, than they did to him. Although mail service was slow and irregular, he wrote often. The letters reveal him as a loving and good husband who worried about his family. He was concerned for them and deplored the business which took him away. Sam's father frequently wrote his son that health and life were more important than money. Maverick, a man of many interests and much energy, did not heed his father's advice and continued to travel on business. He usually shopped for his wife on these trips as supplies were scarce. Mary's shopping lists included everything from silver spoons and tea kettles to lard and pins, clothing and medicines. Maverick was generous to his family. His bounteous gifts to the city of San Antonio also amply testify to his generosity.
On the day of the Council House Massacre, Mary must have been especially glad that her husband was not away on one of his trips. March 19, 1840, was the date of that bloody and infamous fight. For some time past, the Comanche Indians had been very troublesome. In their raids on weak settlements, they had captured many white people. On this warm spring day the Indians had come into San Antonio supposedly to make a peace treaty. They met at the Council House, the courthouse of that time which stood near the site of the present Bexar County Courthouse. While discussing terms, the Indians suddenly drew their arrows and commenced firing. Everyone ran out into the public square. Soldiers were shooting. Civilians were running to get arms. Indians were trying to escape to the river.
Mary frantically looked for the boys. They were in the yard, and so was an Indian! The maid, Ginny, stood there with a rock in her hand to defend her own children and the two Maverick boys. The Indian hesitated, then ran on to the river. A bullet from Andrew's gun killed him as he jumped into the river. By this time there was much hand-to-hand fighting. Mary, watching one fight, got so excited that she ran out of the house. One of the officers ordered her to get back. She explains in her memoirs that she was young at the time, just twenty-two years old, and was curious.
Maverick had made a wise choice for a wife, for she met danger fearlessly and suffered loneliness and hardship without complaint. Thirty-three Indians were killed the day of the Council House Massacre and thirty-three were taken prisoner. Six Americans were killed and one Mexican; ten Americans were wounded. The Indians had been given opportunities to surrender, but did not.
Despite the constant threat of Indians, more Anglo-Americans were moving into San Antonio; and Mary had many good times with her women friends, both Mexican and American. They had picnics and bathing parties. They felt safer because Jack Hays and his "boys" were guarding the town. From 1838 to 1848 Maverick was one of Hays' "minutemen" and often went on Indian skirmishes and other expeditions.
Jack Hays had come to Texas from Tennessee as a surveyor when he was only nineteen years old. He had soon earned a reputation for courage and skill at Indian fighting. When he was only twenty-three, the Texas congress commissioned him as the first captain of the Texas Rangers. The Rangers were created to defend the isolated frontiers to the south and west and they became famous under his command. The slim, dark-complexioned young man was quiet and courteous and well liked, but to the Indians he was a man to be feared.
Maverick Goes to Prison
The year 1841 brought a welcome peace to the Mavericks and San Antonio, but it did not last long. In 1842 the people of the little town suffered one of their worst years. In February Captain Hays heard that Mexican troops had crossed over the Rio Grande. Most of the ladies and children left quickly. They took what possessions they had room for in their wagons and carriages. The Mavericks left their house in the care of two gentlemen who were to live in it. Mary entrusted her valuables to a neighbor. Little did they thinnk that she would not reclaim them for five years.
The group of refugees was still near Seguin, about thirty-five miles away, when they heard that San Antonio had fallen to General Rafael Vasquez. The women were all extremely upset until they heard that their husbands were all right and that Hays had recaptured the town within three days.
Maverick quickly joined his family after the victory and settled them in Gonzales. Their journey was a difficult one. Rains slowed their progress. They stayed at various homes along the way—once they slept in a corn crib. One night as they slept on the floor it was not only Mary's damp clothing that kept her awake, but the sound of the hogs under the floor! Maverick left them again to return to San Antonio. He rejoined them in April saying that their home had been robbed. It had been stripped of everything in it, including a walnut mantlepiece built into the wall.
The Mavericks decided they would move temporarily to a place near La Grange on the Colorado River, because San Antonio was under the constant threat of another Mexican attack. Sam did not stay long, however, because he had to make an extended business trip to the United States. When he returned, he brought Mary's sister, Elizabeth, to stay with them, much to Mary's delight.
Court was in session in San Antonio so Maverick returned for it and to perform his duties as city treasurer. Mary mourned his leaving her, their two sons and their baby daughter Agatha, who had been born in 1841. Perhaps his blue-eyed Mary had a presentiment of events to come; perhaps it was only her experience of the past few years which made her so reluctant to have him go. He admitted afterwards in a letter that she had almost persuaded him to stay.
By the end of the summer Mary had good reason to wish she had persuaded him to remain. The Mexicans under General Adrian Woll made a surprise attack on San Antonio on September 11, 1842, with thirteen hundred men. Court was in session that day, with Samuel Maverick representing Dr. Shields Booker. The doctor was suing the city for fifty pesos, which, he said, had been promised him by the mayor, Juan Seguin. Judge Anderson Hutchinson was presiding over the court and all members of the San Antonio Bar were present.
When the Texans realized that the town was being attacked, they quickly fortified themselves in the Maverick home. Some of them shot at Mexican troops from the roof. They knew they were outnumbered and were ill-prepared in every way to wage a battle. Grave indeed was their plight; and, as they discussed it, they realized that to surrender was their only choice. They surrendered. Fifty-two men were taken prisoner, including Dr. Booker, whose case was before the court. The case was never completed.
The prisoners were kept in San Antonio for four days; then General Woll ordered them to the Perote Prison deep in Mexico. The trip was arduous, but they were allowed horses; in fact, Maverick started the long trek on his own horse. The alert Maverick kept his journal during this time. It was filled with details about the beauty of the land and the kind of crops and the irrigation. He commented on the towns, and noted the number of miles they travelled each day. Many another man would have been too discouraged about the future—and his present difficulties—to take an interest in such things.
Maverick's slave, Griffin, had hurried to La Grange to tell Mary the sad news. They decided that he should follow his beloved master into Mexico. With gun, mule and money he set out. He never reached the prisoners. En route he became engaged in a terrible battle east of San Antonio, which was later called the Dawson Massacre. The Mavericks all mourned deeply when they heard that he had been killed after fighting very courageously. The Texans finally succeeded in forcing General Woll to evacuate San Antonio. The Mexican Army retreated into Mexico.
Life in prison was a trying experience for the men of San Antonio. They were forced to do backbreaking work. Their guards were cruel. The captain of the prison maintained a store, and sold to the prisoner the supplies that should have been issued to them. Soon they had no money to buy anything. Those who could pay for it had been given a little better headquarters, but Maverick scorned such an arrangement. He believed that all of them were there for the same reason and that they should stay together sharing a common fate.
At first Maverick refused to work because the food, and the small quantities of it, did not give the prisoners strength enough to haul sand and load bricks. He was put in a dungeon for his rebellion and was kept in solitary confinement on meager rations. He was finally released and ordered to act as a supervisor of the others. The thin broth, the moldy bread and the almost inedible meat were scarcely nourishing enough to live on. Yet his letters home were written to cheer his beloved wife, and he assured her these rations were keeping him at a good weight. She was not to despair, he told her. She should look after herself and go riding with her sister so that she would stay healthy and happy.
Maverick who escaped death at the Alamo, and who missed by a few hours being massacred by Indians, was once again fortunate. He was related by marriage to General Waddy Thompson, the United States minister to Mexico. It is typical of the kind of man Maverick was that he did not ask Thompson to work for his release. His father and others asked for him, however. General Thompson went to Santa Anna, himself, to ask for the release of Maverick, W. E. Jones and Judge Hutchinson. He also tried to get the others released. In his memoirs General Thompson wrote that he asked Maverick if he would announce that he was for the re-annexation of Texas by Mexico. If he would Thompson was sure he would be released.
True to his beliefs and ideals, Maverick's answer was a firm no. Another prisoner, James W. Robinson, did not share Maverick's attitude. The former lieutenant governor of Texas was released to discuss with President Sam Houston the terms that Santa Anna was willing to settle for—peace for Texas if it would recognize Mexican sovereignty.
While in prison Maverick wrote an extremely forceful letter to the Mexican secretary of state. Jose Maria Bocanegra, in which he declared himself to be Bocanegra's public enemy! He described exactly what the men had to eat; why they had to have more and better food; described the cruelty of the guards and the dishonesty of the man in charge of the prison; and detailed the reasons why he felt their imprisonment was a mistake, illegal and dishonorable. He asked General Thompson to deliver this letter, but the man to whom it was written never read it. Thompson was certain such a letter would only harm Maverick's chances for release!
Life in prison was made even harder for Maverick because he did not hear from his family for six months, although he kept writing to them. The lack of information about affairs in Texas also worried him, for he heard many conflicting rumors. He wrote to Mary that as long as he had no facts to keep his mind busy, he had much time for reflecting and for remembering only happy times.
Maverick immediately wrote to Mary when he was told that after seven months in prison he, Jones and Hutchinson were to be released. He told her that he would stop in New Orleans and she should write a letter there listing the supplies she needed and he would buy them. On the brink of a freedom he had almost despaired of getting, he remembered to ask her the size of his children's shoes so that he could buy them some. Truly he was a family man as well as an acute businessman and respected political leader.
Maverick, Jones and Hutchinson had to report to Mexico City after their release, but by May 4, 1843, were finally home once more with their families. Mary, of course, was delighted to see him, but shuddered at his chain which he gave her as a souvenir. He was elated to see his second daughter, Augusta, who was born in March, 1843. His joy was mixed with sorrow for the friends left behind in prison. It was almost with a feeling of shame, he said, that he lived as a free man while they were suffering the hardships of prison life. One of his fellow prisoners wrote that conditions were even worse after the three of them had been released. However, General Thompson was still working for them. He was successful and two month later, on June 16, 1843, the others from San Antonio were set free.
Chihuahua Expedition
On his return from Perote, Maverick bought a ranch on the Matagorda Peninsula. He was not at home long with his family. Although still a prisoner at the time of elections, he had been elected a senator. He was also serving as alderman for San Antonio, an office he held from 1841 through 1844. In December, 1843 he was in Washington-on-the-Brazos, serving in what was to be the last session of the last congress of the Republic of Texas. After it adjourned, he went to South Carolina on business. He did spend some time at home that year, but even at home he narrowly escaped death. While sailing on the Gulf, his boat was caught in a sudden squall. He and his friends were nearly drowned when the boat capsized. Luckily it happened near the shore and they were rescued.
Maverick ardently believed in Texas and urged his friends to buy land and settle there. Occasionally he became very annoyed at the ill-informed questions his friends and acquaintances in the United States would ask. He worked hard for the new republic as a legislator, but felt that Texas would be far better off as a part of the United States rather than an independent country. He was convinced that annexation of Texas by the United States would be to the benefit of both countries. Some Texan leaders shared his beliefs. Still another group, however, fought annexation. Finally those who wanted annexation were successful, and Texas became the twenty-eighth state in the Union on December 29, 1945. For ten years Texas had flown the Lone Star flag as an independent country.
Although the Mavericks had lived away from San Antonio since General Woll's attack and had bought a ranch on the Peninsula, San Antonio was their real home. Maverick was constantly there as he became more and more involved in San Antonio's business life.
Mary had her first ride in a stagecoach when they finally moved back to San Antonio in October 1847. She took their two-year-old son, George, their daughter, Agatha, and Lizzie, her sister, with her. Maverick took the rest of the family, the servants and the provisions in a wagon. After a five-year absence Mary was surprised to see so many new residents. People seemed to be arriving daily. With Texas a part of the United States, Mexico had finally stopped her attempts to reclaim it. Indian attacks were not as much of a threat, for a great many Indians had been removed to reservations. A peaceful San Antonio attracted people and the population which numbered eight hundred in 1846 jumped to over three thousand by 1850.
The Mavericks were happy to be back in their old home which now had dirt floors because the cement had worn off. Their son, William or "Willie," was born there December 1847. Sorrow soon entered into it, however, when Agatha, the oldest of their daughters, died at the age of seven. Maverick was out on a surveying party locating some headrights. She had not been taken ill until after he had left. They had no way to let him know that she had been sick, or that she had died. He was on his way back into town almost three weeks later when someone along the road told him of her death. The shock of hearing the news in this way and his terrible grief at her death made him a changed man. He was silent. He was sad. He blamed himself for being away when she died. He took no interest in anything.
Mary and his many friends were very worried about him. Jack Hay's, now a colonel, suggested to Mary that she urge Maverick to go with him on a proposed expedition to El Paso. Mary was reluctant. She didn't want him to leave his family again. She did not think he was well enough to undertake such a difficult trip. Hays reminded her that her husband had always enjoyed life in the open. He felt that going on this expedition whose purpose was to open up a better and shorter trading route through the wilds of El Paso would help Maverick overcome his grief. Mary was finally persuaded. At her urging Maverick went along with the famous Chihuahua Expedition. El Paso was the Texas border town across from Chihuahua's principal commercial town, El Paso Del Norte (later named Juarez).
It was a severe trip for the fifty men and their fifteen Delaware Indian guides. When the party lost its way, Maverick partly forgot his grief in his efforts to keep alive. They were forced to eat strange things in order to survive—grass soup, roots, berries, mule meat and polecats. They chewed leather and the tops of their boots to keep their mouths moist when there was no water.
Maverick made only brief entries in his journal on this expedition. He noted the number of miles they travelled and their route. Thirst was the word he used most frequently! Their lack of water was almost worse than the lack of food. The mustang meat wasn't very good, he reported. One of the men in their party went insane because of the terrible conditions. When he wandered off from camp, they took the time to search for him but they did not succeed in finding him.
The half-starved men might have died had it not been for the friendly Indians they met, who guided them on to El Paso. The return journey was much easier, although they had one skirmish with unfriendly Indians. The dangers and the hardships of those three and a half months helped Maverick. He was more like his old self when he returned, but he never seemed to get over his grief for Agatha entirely. He had helped Texas once more, too, because the party had opened up a better trading route to El Paso and Chihuahua, Mexico.
Maverick and Another War
Terror came to San Antonio when the dreaded cholera swept the town in 1849. Over six hundred people died during the six weeks the epidemic lasted. Death came to nearly every family including the Mavericks, whose daughter Augusta died.
For some time Maverick had wanted his home on the ground of the Alamo or near them. The place—where his friends had met the fate that so easily could have been his—had a fascination for him. Now he was even more determined because he felt that living on the higher ground there would be more healthful for his family.
There was considerable disagreement about the ownership of the Alamo. The army claimed it and so did the city. Because it had been used as a fort for so many years, the fact that it had originally been a mission had been forgotten. Maverick, a man of great determination and a man of action, set out to prove to the authorities that the Alamo was a part of the Mission San Antonio de Valero. He finally convinced them. The church leased the Alamo and grounds then until the state of Texas bought it in 1883. At Maverick's request F. Giraud surveyed the site in 1849. Historians still accept his map, which shows the boundary as the inner line of buildings around the wall.
Maverick built his new home on the northwest corner within the old walls of the mission, but outside the boundary line as set by Giraud. Until they moved into the new house, the Mavericks lived in an old Mexican house on the grounds where a son, John Hay, was born. He only lived a few months.
When their new home was finished in 1850, it had two stories, two rooms up, two down, built of stone and of good size. There a daughter, Mary, was born in 1851. Travis Park, in the downtown section of San Antonio, was part of their orchard. San Antonio at that time had a population of thirty-five hundred.
Maverick had been a member of the last congress of the Republic of Texas, and in 1851 he was elected to the fourth legislature of the state of Texas as a member of the house of representatives. He served again in the fifth session. In addition to his public duties, he was active in business and was still practicing law as he had since he first took out a law license in San Antonio in 1838. Truly, he was a busy man; but he always had time for his family, too. They enjoyed driving in the country in the horse and buggy he had bought for them. The children were going to school and attending dancing class. Mary, as women have ever done, was busy raising money for the church by helping to give suppers.
Although Samuel Maverick helped make the early history of Texas and was one of the state's outstanding political and business leaders, when people hear the name Maverick, they often think first of the word "maverick." Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary gives two meanings: (1) "An unbranded animal, esp. a motherless calf, formerly customarily claimed by the one first branding it. (2) Colloq. A refractory or recalcitrant individual who bolts his party or group and initiates an independent course." How did this man—whose business interests were not primarily those of a rancher, (although he owned a ranch), whose manner was well reserved and who brought to politics a seasoned, well-balanced and wise mind—happen to have his name used either for unbranded cows or recalcitrant persons? It's an interesting story.
In 1847 Maverick accepted four hundred head of cattle in payment of a twelve-hundred-dollar debt. He kept them on his ranch on the Matagorda Peninsula. When they moved back to San Antonio, he left the ranch and the cattle in charge of his slave, Jack. Jack, it seems, was careless about his work and let the cattle stray.
In 1854 Maverick had the cattle moved to Conquista Ranch which he had established on the bank of the San Antonio River about fifty miles below San Antonio. He probably had the cattle branded at the time they were transferred. Branding was necessary to establish ownership when cattle ranges were not fenced and unbranded cattle could be claimed by anyone. The cattle were wild, and they strayed because Jack continued to neglect his work.
Jack's laziness caused trouble when Maverick sold the cattle to A. Toutant Beuregard some two years later in 1856. Part of the contract was that Beauregard was to round up all the cattle. It was a difficult roundup. Whenever an unbranded yearling was found, they assumed it was Maverick's, or, as they began to say, "a maverick." They branded all of these. Cowboys carried the story in their travels and the term "maverick" was soon used by cowboys all over the United States for any unbranded cattle.
Eventually the word "maverick" was extended to include human strays, that is, people who do not conform, who stray away from the "brand" of an established group or a traditional way of thinking.
The years from 1854 to the outbreak of the Civil War were more peaceful ones. San Antonio was growing and prospering, with a population of eight thousand in 1860. Maverick, always a leader in the financial progress of his city, became a director of the S.A. And M. G. Railroad.
Samuel and Mary Maverick were busy, but often lonesome for their two oldest sons, Sam and Lewis. Sam was in college in Scotland, and Lewis was in a Vermont college. There were still children at home. Two were babies, Albert, born in 1854, and Elizabeth, in 1857. Personal tragedy came once again when Elizabeth died at the age of two.
Another tragedy—nation-wide—was in the making too. Maverick was very much concerned with the political strife in those years before the Civil War. He served as a senator in the state legislature from 1855 through 1858 and in the House of Representatives during the eight session, which met in 1859. Texas was Southern in its attitude toward slavery, for it had been settled primarily by people from the Southern states. Many of its leaders were planters who were chiefly pro-slavery. It was their belief that the South—and Texas—must leave the United States.
Texas had its group of ardent Union men, too, but they were in the minority. On January 28, 1861, when the legislature met in extraordinary session, it passed a resolution 152 to 6 "that the State of Texas should separately secede from the Federal Union." In February the people of Texas voted for it overwhelmingly, 46,129 to 14,679. Secession went officially into effect in March, 1861, just twenty-five years after Texas independence from Mexico had been declared at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Texas joined with the other Southern states in the Confederate States of America. The Confederate flag was the sixth to fly over Texas succeeding the flags of France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas and the United States.
Maverick was a member of the ninth legislature which had voted on secession. Remembering that as a young man he had given up a political life in South Carolina because of the controversy about secession, one would have thought his vote would have been recorded as no. He voted yes. Why? Had his views so radically changed? Was he going along with what he considered would be a majority? Knowing Samuel Maverick to be a man of integrity, the answer to the last question must be a firm no. But in many ways his views had changed. It has been said that the Union guaranteed and protected the sovereignty of the states which made up the Union, and protected the rights of citizens. Once he decided that this sovereignty and these rights were not being maintained in the Union, then he was in favor of secession. It was still a difficult decision for him as it was for so many other men during those perilous times. He did what he thought was right, but it caused him pain.
In February of 1861, Maverick was appointed to the Committee on Public Safety which demanded the surrender of the Union army and all garrisons in Texas, including, of course, those at San Antonio. To their great credit the committee managed this difficult task without bloodshed. It was a peaceful withdrawal, and Texas was spared the destruction which befell other Southern states. Four sons of the Mavericks, George, Sam, Lewis and Willie, saw service in the Civil War. The letters exchanged between them and their parents during this difficult time reveal a wonderful feeling of affection. The Mavericks were a family who enjoyed each other.
In 1862 Maverick once again served as mayor of San Antonio. In 1863 he became the chief justice of Bexar County. For thirty-two years he served in many public capacities.
On September 2, 1870, Samuel A. Maverick died, having given bountifully of his time and energies to his home town and to his state.
The Maverick Heritage
Maverick was called one of the "empire builders of Texas" and at his death was said to be one of the largest landholders in the United States. Although he was a successful businessman, he did not work solely for personal benefit. He gave of his money and possessions to the city he loved and its citizens. Some gifts he gave anonymously, but others are known. At his death he left land for the Alamo Literary Society, of which he was a charter member. In 1858 he had donated four city blocks to St. Mark's Episcopal Church for a building. He also gave to this church a 526-pound bell cast from a cannon buried on the Alamo grounds. He asserted this was one buried by the revolutionists in 1831 and not one used in the famous battle of the Alamo. To the city he gave his orchard, now Travis Park. He gave other gifts of land to benefit his city and to encourage business. He gave large gifts to charity, too. Texas honored his contributions to the state by naming a county for him.
The name Maverick is one not forgotten for Samuel Maverick's children also did much for his city and country. Sam was a prominent businessman, as was Albert. William also served as alderman and one of his sons was a member of the U. S. Diplomatic Service. George promoted the cause of railroads before he left San Antonio to practice law in St. Louis, Missouri. George's daughter, Rena Green, prominent in San Antonio's life, was the editor of Mary Maverick's memoirs which tell us so much about Maverick. His daughter Mary married Edwin H. Terrell, United States ambassador to Belgium. Albert, who was active in building activities in the business center of town, was also an ardent conservationist. His son Maury, Samuel A. Maverick's grandson, was a prominent Texas political figure. He served in the United States Congress and as mayor of San Antonio. He was interested in preserving old San Antonio and was responsible for the law which made San Jose Mission a national historic site in 1935. When mayor, he obtained authority from the federal government in 1939 to restore La Villita, the old town. Maury Maverick, Jr., Maury's son, is well known in political and business circles in Texas.
The Mavericks are a splendid example of a fine American family. They have lived up to the reputation Samuel Maverick established. Like him, they have worked for their city,, state and country in public and in private life. Samuel Maverick, a just man, a man of integrity, a man of honor, has lived on in them.
Kathyryn and Irwin Sexton
Introduction
In a Frontier Society, where intellectual and educational attainments were ever rare, one with such qualities as Samuel Maverick became the indispensable man. Lawyer, businessman, landholder, and for decades a public servant in various levels of government, his accomplishments would be recognized by any generation; but his particular combination of courageousness and restlessness marked him as a natural leader for San Antonio in its years of turbulence.
Although among the first in the tradition of Texas boosters, he favored the annexation of Texas by the United States rather than continuance as an independent republic, and he favored union rather than secession prior to 1860.
Maverick became one of the great empire builders of Texas and a wealthy man. His dedication to San Antonio resulted in many personal sacrifices—the loss of personal property when the enemy invaded, gifts of money to needy persons, and always the contribution of his time and energy to the town, the Republic, and later the state of Texas.
That Samuel Maverick took a day-to-day matter-of-fact attitude in his approach to numerous hardships on the Texas frontier should suggest to the young reader in the twentieth century a valid and common sense approach to his own daily problems in a turbulent world. Indeed, this is the thesis of the authors, Kathryn and Irwin Sexton.
Mrs. Sexton had been unable to locate an appropriate book on Samuel Maverick when her young son developed an interest in this progenitor of many distinguished San Antonians. She reported her chagrin to her husband, who suggested that she begin the task of preparing such a book herself.
There resulted, as a joint enterprise, this account of a man who, in war and in economic depression, kept faith in the future of the town to which he returned from diverse adventures which were as dangerous as they are exciting for the present-day reader. Mr. and Mrs. Sexton have not ignored the contributions of Maverick's wife Mary, a pioneer gentlewoman whose spirit equaled that of her husband, and whose Memoirs provided the springboard for this biography for young people.
James W. Laurie, President
Trinity University
November, 1963
The Young Lawyer
Samuel A. Maverick, famous Texan, lived during his boyhood on a peaceful plantation in South Carolina. If he played Indians and soldiers as American boys have always done, he probably did not dream that he would one day live under the continual threat of Indians on the warpath. Nor would he have thought it possible that someday he would be shooting at Mexican soldiers from the rooftop of his own home. While studying law as a young man, he could not see ahead to the day he would help write the constitution for the Republic of Texas; and the peaceful years he spent at Yale University were in surroundings far different than those he was to find later in a Mexican prison.
Samuel A. Maverick's life might not have been as exciting, dangerous and adventurous, if he had not heard about Texas at a time when he was wondering what he should do with his life. He had intended to be a lawyer. In fact, after graduating from Yale, he had set up a law practice in Pendleton, South Carolina, in 1829. He wanted to go into politics, too. However, at this time many South Carolinians were urging that their state secede from the United States. They were aroused by the tariff laws which they felt were very unfair to the South. Both Samuel A. Maverick and his father, Samuel Maverick, were against this drastic move. Tempers were high, and Samuel and his father were active in the fight to keep South Carolina in the Union. They wrote letters to newspapers, debated at public meetings and worked hard to change public opinion. At one meeting, the elder Maverick was making a speech in answer to John C. Calhoun's arguments for secession. A young man in the audience called out slurring remarks about the speaker. Samuel, or Sam as he was called, was so angered by those taunts directed at his father that he challenged the young man to a duel. He wounded the man, and then took him into his home to care for him. Like many another young man, Sam was quick to fight; but would have followed a duel in which they were victorious by caring for their opponent. His readiness to fight for what he believed to be right would lead him to strange places before his life was over.
That duel was a turning point in young Maverick's life. He realized then that as long as he was so opposed to the politics of the times he had little hope of being successful in public life. He withdrew from politics, from the practice of law, and from the state of South Carolina! At his father's suggestion he moved to Alabama to manage the estates of his widowed sister, Elizabeth Weyman.
Samuel A. Maverick came from a fairly well-to-do family. His father had taken an active part in the business life of Charleston, South Carolina. He is said to have been the first one to ship American cotton to England. He had retired to a quiet plantation, Montpelier, in Pendleton, South Carolina, because the climate was a more healthful one for his children. He owned much land, some of which he had signed over to his children, Samuel Augustus (born July 23, 1803), Elizabeth (born 1807), Lydia (born 1814). He found happiness in his quiet plantation life and became well known as a horticulturist. No doubt he was relieved to turn over some of the management of his and his daughter's affairs to his son. His wife, born Elizabeth Anderson of Virginia, had died when Samuel Augustus was fifteen years old.
Although very little is known of Sam's early life, it is apparent from reading the letters between him and his father that there was much affection between them. Samuel Maverick continued to give advice to his son long after he left home, but love and pride shine through his letters.
The management of Elizabeth's estates did not hold Samuel A. Maverick's interest for long. Restlessly he toured the North and visited his married sister, Lydia Van Wyck. He went to New Orleans on a business trip. In this busy port town everyone was talking about Texas which at the time belonged to Mexico, and had only been opened up to American settlers since 1820. Like many other restless young men of that time, he decided he must see the fabulous place for himself. This proved to be more than a decision to take a trip, for the pattern of his life was to be changed completely. Texas captured his imagination and fired his ambition. Texas truly became his home—he fought for it, worked for it and loved it.
The Texan
Maverick was excited by Texas, but it was the little town of San Antonio which completely won him to this new land. San Antonio was the only town of any size in the length and breadth of Texas. Velasco, on the coast, was the first Texas town he visited and there were only eight or ten families living there. The country was sparsely settled with a few isolated farms between the small settlements. While travelling he came down with malaria, and friends suggested he go to San Antonio, which had a more healthful climate.
The atmosphere and beauty of the little Spanish-Mexican town immediately charmed Maverick when he arrived in San Antonio on September 8, 1835. Although the population was under three thousand at the time, the town had a varied and colorful history. It was originally founded by the Spanish in 1718 as a fort (Presidio de Bexar), and a mission (San Antonio de Valero). The Spanish felt it was an excellent place for a settlement because of the plentiful water supplied by the San Pedro Springs and the San Antonio River. A group of colonists from the Canary Islands had also been sent to this site, and they named their settlement San Fernando de Bexar. Frequently it was called just Bexar or Bejar. Maverick usually referred to it as Bejar in his journals.
It is not surprising that San Antonio had the charm of a foreign city to Maverick, because the Spanish and Mexican influences were very apparent. He admired the charming manners of the Mexicans and their gaiety. He liked the way the adobe and stone buildings were built around open plazas. He was interested in the less prosperous homes, quaint log houses built of mesquite posts with roofs of straw or tule (a kind of rush).
No doubt, too, Maverick enjoyed the beauty of the cypresses which bordered the San Antonio River, and the quiet charm of the missions. The missions had been established by the Franciscan Fathers to teach the Indians Christianity and Spanish ways of farming. By 1800 the Franciscans had given up their mission work, but the mission churches were still used as churches. The best known was the one established as Mission San Antonio de Valero, the original name which was all but forgotten. The Mexican cavalry stationed on the mission grounds in the early 1800's was called El Alamo from the name of the town where it was recruited, San Jose Santiago del Alamo de Parras. Mission San Antonio de Valero was soon called the Alamo. It was to play an important part in Maverick's life, and in the history of San Antonio and of Texas.
Samuel A. Maverick, of course, quickly learned of the part San Antonio had played in the Mexican revolt from Spain. In the hands of first the Mexican army, then the Spanish army, it had been the scene of much fighting the discord. The revolution was drawn out from 1811 to 1821, when Mexico finally won its independence. The year before, 1820, Mexico had finally given permission to Moses Austin to settle Americans in Texas. He died shortly after that and his son, Stephen F. Austin, took over his work.
San Antonio, which had been nearly deserted at times during the Mexican Revolution, was beginning to grow and prosper when Samuel A. Maverick arrived there at the age of thirty-two. Although conditions forced him to travel far from there at times and to live away from it for many years, San Antonio was truly his home town. He contributed much to its growth and development.
It had taken Maverick from April 22 to September 8 to reach San Antonio. This was not only because of the slowness of travel by horseback, boat or wagon, but also because he stopped often along the way. He visited, he studied the land and he did business. He bought a parcel of land near Cox's Point, the first of many he was to buy in Texas. From everyone he heard about the Texan quarrels with Mexican rule.
Mexico had won its independence from Spain, but now Maverick realized another revolution was brewing. Many of the Mexican laws were as oppressive to the Mexicans living in Texas as to the Americans. Mexico's capital was far away, and it was hard to transact government business. Texans did not like the immigration laws which had been passed in the 1830's to keep American settlers from coming to Texas in too great numbers. They wanted the more liberal Mexican Constitution of 1824 and not the harsher regime of Dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. There was an ever-growing number of people who were saying that the only way to bring about a more just government and the re-establishment of the 1824 constitution was to take up arms and fight.
The Revolutionaries
Like many other Americans who had come to Texas out of curiosity or to find success in business ventures, Maverick soon found himself caught up in the turbulence of the times. These Americans, now Texans, were used to a democratic and representative type of government, and they were willing to fight for what they believed to be their rights.
Even if Maverick had not been an ardent believer in the Texan cause, his imprisonment by the brutal Mexicans would have made him one. Although he recorded the event in his journals factually and not emotionally, it must have shocked Maverick to find himself a captive of the Mexicans just a few short weeks after his arrival in San Antonio. He was rooming with John W. Smith when Generals Martin Perfecto de Cos and Domingo de Ugartechea marched into San Antonio. They put both Maverick and Smith under guard in Smith's house. The two generals had been ordered to San Antonio by Dictator Santa Anna. If he thought they could put out the spark of rebellion, he found he was mistaken. The militant Texans were now more than ever determined to fight.
In order to recapture San Antonio, Texan forces gathered at Mission Concepcion just outside of San Antonio. They could scarcely be called forces, this Texas army. They were volunteers, poorly organized, but eager to fight. Their commander, Stephen F. Austin, however, decided to wait for more men before attacking.
The fact that Austin was willing to lead troops against Mexico was in itself a sign that conditions in Texas had become deplorable. For years he had been a loyal citizen of Mexico. He had carefully obeyed all its laws when he was given permission to settle Americans in Texas. Then he had been imprisoned for months in Mexico because of his colonization activities. After that experience he saw the hopelessness of Texas' remaining a part of Mexico. He had previously been very much against the Texas "war party," but now he answered "yes" when asked to command the troops. He was not a military man by nature or training.
When the Texas Congress asked Austin to seek help for the revolutionists in the United States, he gave up his command to General Edward Burleson. Burleson, like Austin, waited. The Americans within San Antonio were waiting, too. Although under guard, Maverick had kept in touch with the Texas troops by sending notes back and forth with a dependable Mexican boy.
In his journal Maverick wrote how impatient he was at the situation. He could see the Mexicans fortifying the town. Cannons were being mounted at the Alamo. The streets were being well guarded. Underbrush, trees, fences—anything that could be a lurking place for Texan spies and soldiers—were being cut down. It would have been much easier to retake San Antonio with two hundred men, he wrote on November 3, 1835, than it was going to be with the fifteen hundred men Austin and Burleson were hoping would join them.
The Texan army had waited about six weeks, but they might have waited even longer if General Cos had not released Smith and Maverick. Their release was based on Smith's promise that they would soon go back to the United States, but soon proved to be not soon enough for the Mexicans! Maybe Maverick and Smith intended to keep their promise, but first they wanted to visit their friends in the Texas camp.
Once in camp, Maverick urged the already restless men to act, and volunteered to lead them into the town. After he talked, there was much discussion. First a decision was made by the officers to attack, and then the order was cancelled. He was dejected and angry at the delay and so were many of the men. Finally, Colonel Benjamin R. Milam is said to have stepped forward and asked, "Who will go with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?" Over two hundred men volunteered. At that time there were about seven hundred men in camp. Maverick estimated that over two thousand men had been there through the waiting period, but had drifted away when no action had been taken.
Just before daylight on December 5, 1835, led by Milam and Frank W. Johnson and guided by Maverick and Smith, the Texans stole into San Antonio. Maverick knew the town well, although he had only been there a short time. He knew the strength of the Mexican forces and the fortifications they had made. He even had a plan of attack. No one can be sure what the plan was, but he mentioned in his journal that he had suggested one to Austin.
Four days the battle raged. House to house they fought, and room to room. They advanced by inches as they broke through the stone walls which were usually four to five feet thick. The Americans seemed to know which houses were strategic points. Was this perhaps the plan Maverick had suggested to Austin? Some people think it might have been.
Milam was killed on the third day as he entered the Veramendi House. (A daughter of the Veramendis was married to the famous Jim Bowie.) Maverick caught Milam in his arms as he fell. So greatly did the Texans admire and depend on Milam that they tried to keep news of his death from as many of the men as possible. The doors of the Veramendi House were later placed in the Alamo. This relic of one of the battles in the Texan fight for freedom is fittingly displayed in the Alamo, "Shrine of Texas Liberty."
Although Milam was dead, General Burleson by that time had joined his men and assumed leadership of the attack. On the fifth day of fighting, Cos was captured. Maverick was a witness to the articles of capitulation signed by General Cos. The ancient adobe house in which the surrender was signed is known as the Cos House. It still stands today in La Villita, or Little Town, in San Antonio, and is visited yearly by thousands of tourists. A grandson of Maverick, Maury Maverick, was responsible for preserving this historic area.
The Texans could not possibly take care of over one thousand prisoners. Cos and his men were allowed to return to their own country after promising they would not fight against the re-establishment of the constitution of 1824. The Texans need not have bothered insisting on this promise. It wasn't kept.
Maverick Escapes Death
With San Antonio once again secure, most of the Texans left. Some joined General Sam Houston, now commanding the army of Texas, who was stationed near Goliad. Houston knew his army was too small and too ill-prepared to defend Texas against another Mexican attack which he was certain would come up too soon. He needed arms, men and time. He did not want to split up his forces by sending more men to the Alamo. Nor did he want the Mexicans to seize the cannon there for their own use or use the Alamo as a fort. For these reasons he gave orders to move the cannon to Gonzales and to destroy the Alamo. But the orders were never carried out. Colonel James Bowie delivered Houston's message to Colonel William B. Travis. Travis, the Alamo commander, did not obey these orders, but pleaded for more men. It was his firm belief that Santa Anna could be stopped at San Antonio, the first important settlement in Texas north of the Rio Grande River and Mexico. Even if they were defeated, he reasoned that the Mexicans would be delayed long enough for Houston to muster and train more men. Bowie agreed with him and stayed on at the Alamo.
Texas had so recently been opened up to Americans that everyone, it seemed, was a newcomer. Reputations were quickly established. Maverick had already proved his loyalty to the Texan cause and his qualities of leadership in the battle to retake San Antonio from General Cos. The men of San Antonio recognized in the slender young lawyer qualities of courage and intelligence, and they elected him in February, 1836, to represent them in the convention. This convention had been called to decide if Texas were to remain an independent state, faithful to the Mexican government under the constitution of 1824, or if it were to declare itself a free and sovereign nation.
Sam Maverick might well have been among his new friends who died as heroes in the battle of the Alamo. It was not lack of courage or a desire to avoid fighting which took him from the tragic scene. Travelling on horseback was a slow process and the convention in Washington-on-the-Brazos, one hundred and fifty miles away, had been called for March 1. Maverick had already started for the convention when the Mexican troops were sighted.
The Texans had heard that the Mexican army, commanded by Santa Anna himself, was on the move; but they did not realize how quickly it was approaching. The lookout sighted Mexican troops on February 23, 1836. Quickly the little band of one hundred and eighty-three men fortified themselves behind the walls of the Alamo and the siege began.
The valiant band of Texans—under the leadership of Travis, the famous Jim Bowie and the legendary Davy Crockett—withstood the siege of over twenty-four hundred Mexicans for thirteen days. On the morning of March 6, the Mexicans finally made an all-out attack on the weary men. Every man in the Alamo was killed. Only a few Mexican women, a slave boy, an American woman, Mrs. Almeron Dickinson, and her baby escaped death.
The men of the Alamo died for the freedom of Texas and set an example of bravery for the whole world, but in those days of slow communication they perished unaware that the Declaration of Independence had been signed on March 2. They did not know that their delegates had declared: "Our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended; and that the people of Texas do now constitute a free Sovereign and independent republic...." Because of floods, Maverick and two other delegates from San Antonio, Jose Antonio Navarro and Francisco Ruiz, had not reached Washington-on-the-Brazos until March 3. They were permitted to sign their names to the historic document, however. Maverick was the only one to sign with the name of his town, and he added after his signature "from Bejar."
Maverick stayed on at the convention as the delegates went about the difficult task of drawing up a constitution for the new nation of Texas. It was patterned after the Constitution of the United States and those of several of the states. It was said of Maverick by a fellow delegate, William Menefee, that he conducted himself as a statesman and a diplomat. His legal training and his wise political judgment contributed much to the convention. He was not a man to make a show of his knowledge and learning; but, as Menefee pointed out, it could be seen in all that he did and said. Another signer, Stephen W. Blount, wrote that when Maverick believed he was right, his strong will made him a determined man. And he was determined that Texas should be free of Mexico.
Texas had a constitution and governing officers by March 17, 1836, when the convention ended, but Santa Anna had not yet been defeated. It was not until April 21 at San Jacinto that General Sam Houston and his men defeated the Mexican forces in a surprise attack.
A Pioneer Bride
After the battle of San Jacinto, Maverick journeyed back to the United States to visit his family. By that time the tragic and heroic story of the Alamo had been heard by all America. Great was the joy of his family when they saw him.
Because of a handkerchief dropped on a muddy road, Maverick did not return to Texas as quickly as he had planned! While visiting his sister in Alabama, he rode out one day on horseback. Passing on the other side of a mudhole was a pretty young woman who dropped her handkerchief. Sam dismounted and picked it up for Mary Anne Adams. After this meeting he courted her for four months. They were married in August, 1836. Those who thought Maverick a reserved man would have been surprised at the keepsake Mary found among her husband's things after his death. Even she had not known that he kept a piece of the green muslin dress she was wearing the day they met.
Samuel's glowing accounts of life in Texas and San Antonio made his tall blonde bride anxious to see her new home. She must have had some doubts too, after hearing stories of the Cos attack, the Comanche Indian raids and the battle of the Alamo. Travel was slow and full of hardships and inconveniences. Eighteen-year-old Mary worried at the great distance that lay between Texas and her home, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Over a year passed while they visited their families and Maverick transacted his business.
When they did start out for Texas it took them two months, from December 7, 1837, to February 4, 1838, to get there. In the party were their infant son, Sam, who had been born in October. Mary Anne's fifteen-year-old brother, Robert, six Negro servants and four of their children. They made quite a procession with their large carriage, a wagon, three saddle horses and a filly. In the wagon were the tent, their supplies, bedding—and the children. It was a long, hard journey. They stopped frequently to rest or to do the washing. Sometimes they had to wait for muddy roads to dry, and one swamp fourteen miles wide took four days to cross.
Mary must have often wondered, "When will we ever get to San Antonio?" Even when they arrived in Texas, she had to wait four months to see the picturesque town she was to call home. Samuel left her in Spring Hill on the Navidad River while he went on to see if San Antonio was safe. There was always the threat of invading Mexican troops, because Mexico continued to claim Texas and disregarded her independence. In addition, the Comanche Indians were unfriendly and made frequent raids on the town.
Maverick wrote back to Spring Hill frequently and apologized for his long delay. One of the reasons he had gone to San Antonio was to buy some land there. He was having a difficult time, he told her. There were legal technicalities complicating land purchases. He complained also that land speculators were causing all sorts of problems. He missed her greatly, he assured her again and again, but their financial future depended on his staying. The letters of Sam to Mary were often a combination of love and business!
In June when Maverick finally came to get her, all the stories Mary had heard about unfriendly Indians must have come vividly to her mind. One day as they were breaking up camp to continue on their way to San Antonio, a band of Tonkawa Indians rode up. They were coming back victorious from a battle with the Comanches. They were dressed in war paint, armed, and were displaying two scalps. These frightening men asked Mary to let them see her little "papoose," the baby Sam. She was frightened, but had the courage to say no when they wanted her to hand the baby out of the carriage to them. This was the first test of the bravery she was to show many times during the years to come. She did not show her fear. She held her baby up so the Indians might see, but she also kept her pistol and knife in sight so they would know she was prepared to defend him. All this time she kept urging Griffin, the servant, to hurry. It is easy to see why! Maverick showed his usual courage, too, and kept right on working with his men to get their equipment and possessions loaded as quickly as possible. As they left the camp site Mary's hopes that the Indians would go in the other direction were not fulfilled. The Indians accompanied them most of the night. Toward morning they left, and the rest of the journey passed without any incidents.
Texans have a reputation for boasting of their state, and Maverick was no exception. Mary's brother, Williams Adams, was so excited by Sam's stories that he had gone on to San Antonio ahead of them. His being there made Mary's arrival seem less strange.
William did not make a success of the store he owned and soon left San Antonio, though he returned later.
To have Mexicans as her only friends was an unusual experience for Mary. She wondered why other Americans didn't come to San Antonio, because they were settling in other parts of Texas. Maverick suggested that the thought of possible Indian and Mexican attacks was one reason. It was a real frontier town, she wrote home to her mother. There were still marks of bullets and cannon balls on the walls of many of the buildings.
When the Maverick family first arrived in town, they lived in a house directly across from the site of what is now the Bexar County Courthouse, but moved from there into another house. In 1839 they moved into their own home, where their second son, Lewis, was born. The main house had three rooms, and the kitchen and servants' quarters were separate. It was quite an establishment with a picket fence around the garden and grounds going down to the river. A fitting establishment, though, for the mayor of the town. In 1839, Samuel Maverick's leadership was once again recognized and he was elected mayor. San Antonio had been incorporated in January, 1837, with an area of thirty-six square miles.
Samuel Maverick, it has been said, never sought public office, nor ever electioneered for it; but from 1836 to 1867 he continually held some public office for his town and for his state. He was a scrupulously honest man, a man of learning, and had a statesman's wise and objective attitude. Undoubtedly his law training helped him carry out his public duties, but it was his staunch and upright character that made him a leader, and it was his love for San Antonio and Texas which made him accept these public duties.
The Council House Massacre
Perhaps if Maverick had lived today, he would have conducted his land transactions in an office and made decisions based on surveyors' and engineers' reports. Perhaps not, though, for Maverick greatly enjoyed the surveying camp. He was keenly interested in buying up land and was frequently away from home on survey trips. These excursions were a combination of hard work and fun for him. They were also very dangerous, because away from town there was always the threat of Indians. One time in 1839 when he left with a survey party, Mary made him promise that he would be back by a certain day. He kept his promise and returned with one or two others of the party. The night after they left camp, all but one of the group they left behind were killed by Indians.
Business frequently took Maverick to Alabama and South Carolina. The trips were long, and must have seemed even longer to Mary, left alone with the children, than they did to him. Although mail service was slow and irregular, he wrote often. The letters reveal him as a loving and good husband who worried about his family. He was concerned for them and deplored the business which took him away. Sam's father frequently wrote his son that health and life were more important than money. Maverick, a man of many interests and much energy, did not heed his father's advice and continued to travel on business. He usually shopped for his wife on these trips as supplies were scarce. Mary's shopping lists included everything from silver spoons and tea kettles to lard and pins, clothing and medicines. Maverick was generous to his family. His bounteous gifts to the city of San Antonio also amply testify to his generosity.
On the day of the Council House Massacre, Mary must have been especially glad that her husband was not away on one of his trips. March 19, 1840, was the date of that bloody and infamous fight. For some time past, the Comanche Indians had been very troublesome. In their raids on weak settlements, they had captured many white people. On this warm spring day the Indians had come into San Antonio supposedly to make a peace treaty. They met at the Council House, the courthouse of that time which stood near the site of the present Bexar County Courthouse. While discussing terms, the Indians suddenly drew their arrows and commenced firing. Everyone ran out into the public square. Soldiers were shooting. Civilians were running to get arms. Indians were trying to escape to the river.
Mary frantically looked for the boys. They were in the yard, and so was an Indian! The maid, Ginny, stood there with a rock in her hand to defend her own children and the two Maverick boys. The Indian hesitated, then ran on to the river. A bullet from Andrew's gun killed him as he jumped into the river. By this time there was much hand-to-hand fighting. Mary, watching one fight, got so excited that she ran out of the house. One of the officers ordered her to get back. She explains in her memoirs that she was young at the time, just twenty-two years old, and was curious.
Maverick had made a wise choice for a wife, for she met danger fearlessly and suffered loneliness and hardship without complaint. Thirty-three Indians were killed the day of the Council House Massacre and thirty-three were taken prisoner. Six Americans were killed and one Mexican; ten Americans were wounded. The Indians had been given opportunities to surrender, but did not.
Despite the constant threat of Indians, more Anglo-Americans were moving into San Antonio; and Mary had many good times with her women friends, both Mexican and American. They had picnics and bathing parties. They felt safer because Jack Hays and his "boys" were guarding the town. From 1838 to 1848 Maverick was one of Hays' "minutemen" and often went on Indian skirmishes and other expeditions.
Jack Hays had come to Texas from Tennessee as a surveyor when he was only nineteen years old. He had soon earned a reputation for courage and skill at Indian fighting. When he was only twenty-three, the Texas congress commissioned him as the first captain of the Texas Rangers. The Rangers were created to defend the isolated frontiers to the south and west and they became famous under his command. The slim, dark-complexioned young man was quiet and courteous and well liked, but to the Indians he was a man to be feared.
Maverick Goes to Prison
The year 1841 brought a welcome peace to the Mavericks and San Antonio, but it did not last long. In 1842 the people of the little town suffered one of their worst years. In February Captain Hays heard that Mexican troops had crossed over the Rio Grande. Most of the ladies and children left quickly. They took what possessions they had room for in their wagons and carriages. The Mavericks left their house in the care of two gentlemen who were to live in it. Mary entrusted her valuables to a neighbor. Little did they thinnk that she would not reclaim them for five years.
The group of refugees was still near Seguin, about thirty-five miles away, when they heard that San Antonio had fallen to General Rafael Vasquez. The women were all extremely upset until they heard that their husbands were all right and that Hays had recaptured the town within three days.
Maverick quickly joined his family after the victory and settled them in Gonzales. Their journey was a difficult one. Rains slowed their progress. They stayed at various homes along the way—once they slept in a corn crib. One night as they slept on the floor it was not only Mary's damp clothing that kept her awake, but the sound of the hogs under the floor! Maverick left them again to return to San Antonio. He rejoined them in April saying that their home had been robbed. It had been stripped of everything in it, including a walnut mantlepiece built into the wall.
The Mavericks decided they would move temporarily to a place near La Grange on the Colorado River, because San Antonio was under the constant threat of another Mexican attack. Sam did not stay long, however, because he had to make an extended business trip to the United States. When he returned, he brought Mary's sister, Elizabeth, to stay with them, much to Mary's delight.
Court was in session in San Antonio so Maverick returned for it and to perform his duties as city treasurer. Mary mourned his leaving her, their two sons and their baby daughter Agatha, who had been born in 1841. Perhaps his blue-eyed Mary had a presentiment of events to come; perhaps it was only her experience of the past few years which made her so reluctant to have him go. He admitted afterwards in a letter that she had almost persuaded him to stay.
By the end of the summer Mary had good reason to wish she had persuaded him to remain. The Mexicans under General Adrian Woll made a surprise attack on San Antonio on September 11, 1842, with thirteen hundred men. Court was in session that day, with Samuel Maverick representing Dr. Shields Booker. The doctor was suing the city for fifty pesos, which, he said, had been promised him by the mayor, Juan Seguin. Judge Anderson Hutchinson was presiding over the court and all members of the San Antonio Bar were present.
When the Texans realized that the town was being attacked, they quickly fortified themselves in the Maverick home. Some of them shot at Mexican troops from the roof. They knew they were outnumbered and were ill-prepared in every way to wage a battle. Grave indeed was their plight; and, as they discussed it, they realized that to surrender was their only choice. They surrendered. Fifty-two men were taken prisoner, including Dr. Booker, whose case was before the court. The case was never completed.
The prisoners were kept in San Antonio for four days; then General Woll ordered them to the Perote Prison deep in Mexico. The trip was arduous, but they were allowed horses; in fact, Maverick started the long trek on his own horse. The alert Maverick kept his journal during this time. It was filled with details about the beauty of the land and the kind of crops and the irrigation. He commented on the towns, and noted the number of miles they travelled each day. Many another man would have been too discouraged about the future—and his present difficulties—to take an interest in such things.
Maverick's slave, Griffin, had hurried to La Grange to tell Mary the sad news. They decided that he should follow his beloved master into Mexico. With gun, mule and money he set out. He never reached the prisoners. En route he became engaged in a terrible battle east of San Antonio, which was later called the Dawson Massacre. The Mavericks all mourned deeply when they heard that he had been killed after fighting very courageously. The Texans finally succeeded in forcing General Woll to evacuate San Antonio. The Mexican Army retreated into Mexico.
Life in prison was a trying experience for the men of San Antonio. They were forced to do backbreaking work. Their guards were cruel. The captain of the prison maintained a store, and sold to the prisoner the supplies that should have been issued to them. Soon they had no money to buy anything. Those who could pay for it had been given a little better headquarters, but Maverick scorned such an arrangement. He believed that all of them were there for the same reason and that they should stay together sharing a common fate.
At first Maverick refused to work because the food, and the small quantities of it, did not give the prisoners strength enough to haul sand and load bricks. He was put in a dungeon for his rebellion and was kept in solitary confinement on meager rations. He was finally released and ordered to act as a supervisor of the others. The thin broth, the moldy bread and the almost inedible meat were scarcely nourishing enough to live on. Yet his letters home were written to cheer his beloved wife, and he assured her these rations were keeping him at a good weight. She was not to despair, he told her. She should look after herself and go riding with her sister so that she would stay healthy and happy.
Maverick who escaped death at the Alamo, and who missed by a few hours being massacred by Indians, was once again fortunate. He was related by marriage to General Waddy Thompson, the United States minister to Mexico. It is typical of the kind of man Maverick was that he did not ask Thompson to work for his release. His father and others asked for him, however. General Thompson went to Santa Anna, himself, to ask for the release of Maverick, W. E. Jones and Judge Hutchinson. He also tried to get the others released. In his memoirs General Thompson wrote that he asked Maverick if he would announce that he was for the re-annexation of Texas by Mexico. If he would Thompson was sure he would be released.
True to his beliefs and ideals, Maverick's answer was a firm no. Another prisoner, James W. Robinson, did not share Maverick's attitude. The former lieutenant governor of Texas was released to discuss with President Sam Houston the terms that Santa Anna was willing to settle for—peace for Texas if it would recognize Mexican sovereignty.
While in prison Maverick wrote an extremely forceful letter to the Mexican secretary of state. Jose Maria Bocanegra, in which he declared himself to be Bocanegra's public enemy! He described exactly what the men had to eat; why they had to have more and better food; described the cruelty of the guards and the dishonesty of the man in charge of the prison; and detailed the reasons why he felt their imprisonment was a mistake, illegal and dishonorable. He asked General Thompson to deliver this letter, but the man to whom it was written never read it. Thompson was certain such a letter would only harm Maverick's chances for release!
Life in prison was made even harder for Maverick because he did not hear from his family for six months, although he kept writing to them. The lack of information about affairs in Texas also worried him, for he heard many conflicting rumors. He wrote to Mary that as long as he had no facts to keep his mind busy, he had much time for reflecting and for remembering only happy times.
Maverick immediately wrote to Mary when he was told that after seven months in prison he, Jones and Hutchinson were to be released. He told her that he would stop in New Orleans and she should write a letter there listing the supplies she needed and he would buy them. On the brink of a freedom he had almost despaired of getting, he remembered to ask her the size of his children's shoes so that he could buy them some. Truly he was a family man as well as an acute businessman and respected political leader.
Maverick, Jones and Hutchinson had to report to Mexico City after their release, but by May 4, 1843, were finally home once more with their families. Mary, of course, was delighted to see him, but shuddered at his chain which he gave her as a souvenir. He was elated to see his second daughter, Augusta, who was born in March, 1843. His joy was mixed with sorrow for the friends left behind in prison. It was almost with a feeling of shame, he said, that he lived as a free man while they were suffering the hardships of prison life. One of his fellow prisoners wrote that conditions were even worse after the three of them had been released. However, General Thompson was still working for them. He was successful and two month later, on June 16, 1843, the others from San Antonio were set free.
Chihuahua Expedition
On his return from Perote, Maverick bought a ranch on the Matagorda Peninsula. He was not at home long with his family. Although still a prisoner at the time of elections, he had been elected a senator. He was also serving as alderman for San Antonio, an office he held from 1841 through 1844. In December, 1843 he was in Washington-on-the-Brazos, serving in what was to be the last session of the last congress of the Republic of Texas. After it adjourned, he went to South Carolina on business. He did spend some time at home that year, but even at home he narrowly escaped death. While sailing on the Gulf, his boat was caught in a sudden squall. He and his friends were nearly drowned when the boat capsized. Luckily it happened near the shore and they were rescued.
Maverick ardently believed in Texas and urged his friends to buy land and settle there. Occasionally he became very annoyed at the ill-informed questions his friends and acquaintances in the United States would ask. He worked hard for the new republic as a legislator, but felt that Texas would be far better off as a part of the United States rather than an independent country. He was convinced that annexation of Texas by the United States would be to the benefit of both countries. Some Texan leaders shared his beliefs. Still another group, however, fought annexation. Finally those who wanted annexation were successful, and Texas became the twenty-eighth state in the Union on December 29, 1945. For ten years Texas had flown the Lone Star flag as an independent country.
Although the Mavericks had lived away from San Antonio since General Woll's attack and had bought a ranch on the Peninsula, San Antonio was their real home. Maverick was constantly there as he became more and more involved in San Antonio's business life.
Mary had her first ride in a stagecoach when they finally moved back to San Antonio in October 1847. She took their two-year-old son, George, their daughter, Agatha, and Lizzie, her sister, with her. Maverick took the rest of the family, the servants and the provisions in a wagon. After a five-year absence Mary was surprised to see so many new residents. People seemed to be arriving daily. With Texas a part of the United States, Mexico had finally stopped her attempts to reclaim it. Indian attacks were not as much of a threat, for a great many Indians had been removed to reservations. A peaceful San Antonio attracted people and the population which numbered eight hundred in 1846 jumped to over three thousand by 1850.
The Mavericks were happy to be back in their old home which now had dirt floors because the cement had worn off. Their son, William or "Willie," was born there December 1847. Sorrow soon entered into it, however, when Agatha, the oldest of their daughters, died at the age of seven. Maverick was out on a surveying party locating some headrights. She had not been taken ill until after he had left. They had no way to let him know that she had been sick, or that she had died. He was on his way back into town almost three weeks later when someone along the road told him of her death. The shock of hearing the news in this way and his terrible grief at her death made him a changed man. He was silent. He was sad. He blamed himself for being away when she died. He took no interest in anything.
Mary and his many friends were very worried about him. Jack Hay's, now a colonel, suggested to Mary that she urge Maverick to go with him on a proposed expedition to El Paso. Mary was reluctant. She didn't want him to leave his family again. She did not think he was well enough to undertake such a difficult trip. Hays reminded her that her husband had always enjoyed life in the open. He felt that going on this expedition whose purpose was to open up a better and shorter trading route through the wilds of El Paso would help Maverick overcome his grief. Mary was finally persuaded. At her urging Maverick went along with the famous Chihuahua Expedition. El Paso was the Texas border town across from Chihuahua's principal commercial town, El Paso Del Norte (later named Juarez).
It was a severe trip for the fifty men and their fifteen Delaware Indian guides. When the party lost its way, Maverick partly forgot his grief in his efforts to keep alive. They were forced to eat strange things in order to survive—grass soup, roots, berries, mule meat and polecats. They chewed leather and the tops of their boots to keep their mouths moist when there was no water.
Maverick made only brief entries in his journal on this expedition. He noted the number of miles they travelled and their route. Thirst was the word he used most frequently! Their lack of water was almost worse than the lack of food. The mustang meat wasn't very good, he reported. One of the men in their party went insane because of the terrible conditions. When he wandered off from camp, they took the time to search for him but they did not succeed in finding him.
The half-starved men might have died had it not been for the friendly Indians they met, who guided them on to El Paso. The return journey was much easier, although they had one skirmish with unfriendly Indians. The dangers and the hardships of those three and a half months helped Maverick. He was more like his old self when he returned, but he never seemed to get over his grief for Agatha entirely. He had helped Texas once more, too, because the party had opened up a better trading route to El Paso and Chihuahua, Mexico.
Maverick and Another War
Terror came to San Antonio when the dreaded cholera swept the town in 1849. Over six hundred people died during the six weeks the epidemic lasted. Death came to nearly every family including the Mavericks, whose daughter Augusta died.
For some time Maverick had wanted his home on the ground of the Alamo or near them. The place—where his friends had met the fate that so easily could have been his—had a fascination for him. Now he was even more determined because he felt that living on the higher ground there would be more healthful for his family.
There was considerable disagreement about the ownership of the Alamo. The army claimed it and so did the city. Because it had been used as a fort for so many years, the fact that it had originally been a mission had been forgotten. Maverick, a man of great determination and a man of action, set out to prove to the authorities that the Alamo was a part of the Mission San Antonio de Valero. He finally convinced them. The church leased the Alamo and grounds then until the state of Texas bought it in 1883. At Maverick's request F. Giraud surveyed the site in 1849. Historians still accept his map, which shows the boundary as the inner line of buildings around the wall.
Maverick built his new home on the northwest corner within the old walls of the mission, but outside the boundary line as set by Giraud. Until they moved into the new house, the Mavericks lived in an old Mexican house on the grounds where a son, John Hay, was born. He only lived a few months.
When their new home was finished in 1850, it had two stories, two rooms up, two down, built of stone and of good size. There a daughter, Mary, was born in 1851. Travis Park, in the downtown section of San Antonio, was part of their orchard. San Antonio at that time had a population of thirty-five hundred.
Maverick had been a member of the last congress of the Republic of Texas, and in 1851 he was elected to the fourth legislature of the state of Texas as a member of the house of representatives. He served again in the fifth session. In addition to his public duties, he was active in business and was still practicing law as he had since he first took out a law license in San Antonio in 1838. Truly, he was a busy man; but he always had time for his family, too. They enjoyed driving in the country in the horse and buggy he had bought for them. The children were going to school and attending dancing class. Mary, as women have ever done, was busy raising money for the church by helping to give suppers.
Although Samuel Maverick helped make the early history of Texas and was one of the state's outstanding political and business leaders, when people hear the name Maverick, they often think first of the word "maverick." Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary gives two meanings: (1) "An unbranded animal, esp. a motherless calf, formerly customarily claimed by the one first branding it. (2) Colloq. A refractory or recalcitrant individual who bolts his party or group and initiates an independent course." How did this man—whose business interests were not primarily those of a rancher, (although he owned a ranch), whose manner was well reserved and who brought to politics a seasoned, well-balanced and wise mind—happen to have his name used either for unbranded cows or recalcitrant persons? It's an interesting story.
In 1847 Maverick accepted four hundred head of cattle in payment of a twelve-hundred-dollar debt. He kept them on his ranch on the Matagorda Peninsula. When they moved back to San Antonio, he left the ranch and the cattle in charge of his slave, Jack. Jack, it seems, was careless about his work and let the cattle stray.
In 1854 Maverick had the cattle moved to Conquista Ranch which he had established on the bank of the San Antonio River about fifty miles below San Antonio. He probably had the cattle branded at the time they were transferred. Branding was necessary to establish ownership when cattle ranges were not fenced and unbranded cattle could be claimed by anyone. The cattle were wild, and they strayed because Jack continued to neglect his work.
Jack's laziness caused trouble when Maverick sold the cattle to A. Toutant Beuregard some two years later in 1856. Part of the contract was that Beauregard was to round up all the cattle. It was a difficult roundup. Whenever an unbranded yearling was found, they assumed it was Maverick's, or, as they began to say, "a maverick." They branded all of these. Cowboys carried the story in their travels and the term "maverick" was soon used by cowboys all over the United States for any unbranded cattle.
Eventually the word "maverick" was extended to include human strays, that is, people who do not conform, who stray away from the "brand" of an established group or a traditional way of thinking.
The years from 1854 to the outbreak of the Civil War were more peaceful ones. San Antonio was growing and prospering, with a population of eight thousand in 1860. Maverick, always a leader in the financial progress of his city, became a director of the S.A. And M. G. Railroad.
Samuel and Mary Maverick were busy, but often lonesome for their two oldest sons, Sam and Lewis. Sam was in college in Scotland, and Lewis was in a Vermont college. There were still children at home. Two were babies, Albert, born in 1854, and Elizabeth, in 1857. Personal tragedy came once again when Elizabeth died at the age of two.
Another tragedy—nation-wide—was in the making too. Maverick was very much concerned with the political strife in those years before the Civil War. He served as a senator in the state legislature from 1855 through 1858 and in the House of Representatives during the eight session, which met in 1859. Texas was Southern in its attitude toward slavery, for it had been settled primarily by people from the Southern states. Many of its leaders were planters who were chiefly pro-slavery. It was their belief that the South—and Texas—must leave the United States.
Texas had its group of ardent Union men, too, but they were in the minority. On January 28, 1861, when the legislature met in extraordinary session, it passed a resolution 152 to 6 "that the State of Texas should separately secede from the Federal Union." In February the people of Texas voted for it overwhelmingly, 46,129 to 14,679. Secession went officially into effect in March, 1861, just twenty-five years after Texas independence from Mexico had been declared at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Texas joined with the other Southern states in the Confederate States of America. The Confederate flag was the sixth to fly over Texas succeeding the flags of France, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas and the United States.
Maverick was a member of the ninth legislature which had voted on secession. Remembering that as a young man he had given up a political life in South Carolina because of the controversy about secession, one would have thought his vote would have been recorded as no. He voted yes. Why? Had his views so radically changed? Was he going along with what he considered would be a majority? Knowing Samuel Maverick to be a man of integrity, the answer to the last question must be a firm no. But in many ways his views had changed. It has been said that the Union guaranteed and protected the sovereignty of the states which made up the Union, and protected the rights of citizens. Once he decided that this sovereignty and these rights were not being maintained in the Union, then he was in favor of secession. It was still a difficult decision for him as it was for so many other men during those perilous times. He did what he thought was right, but it caused him pain.
In February of 1861, Maverick was appointed to the Committee on Public Safety which demanded the surrender of the Union army and all garrisons in Texas, including, of course, those at San Antonio. To their great credit the committee managed this difficult task without bloodshed. It was a peaceful withdrawal, and Texas was spared the destruction which befell other Southern states. Four sons of the Mavericks, George, Sam, Lewis and Willie, saw service in the Civil War. The letters exchanged between them and their parents during this difficult time reveal a wonderful feeling of affection. The Mavericks were a family who enjoyed each other.
In 1862 Maverick once again served as mayor of San Antonio. In 1863 he became the chief justice of Bexar County. For thirty-two years he served in many public capacities.
On September 2, 1870, Samuel A. Maverick died, having given bountifully of his time and energies to his home town and to his state.
The Maverick Heritage
Maverick was called one of the "empire builders of Texas" and at his death was said to be one of the largest landholders in the United States. Although he was a successful businessman, he did not work solely for personal benefit. He gave of his money and possessions to the city he loved and its citizens. Some gifts he gave anonymously, but others are known. At his death he left land for the Alamo Literary Society, of which he was a charter member. In 1858 he had donated four city blocks to St. Mark's Episcopal Church for a building. He also gave to this church a 526-pound bell cast from a cannon buried on the Alamo grounds. He asserted this was one buried by the revolutionists in 1831 and not one used in the famous battle of the Alamo. To the city he gave his orchard, now Travis Park. He gave other gifts of land to benefit his city and to encourage business. He gave large gifts to charity, too. Texas honored his contributions to the state by naming a county for him.
The name Maverick is one not forgotten for Samuel Maverick's children also did much for his city and country. Sam was a prominent businessman, as was Albert. William also served as alderman and one of his sons was a member of the U. S. Diplomatic Service. George promoted the cause of railroads before he left San Antonio to practice law in St. Louis, Missouri. George's daughter, Rena Green, prominent in San Antonio's life, was the editor of Mary Maverick's memoirs which tell us so much about Maverick. His daughter Mary married Edwin H. Terrell, United States ambassador to Belgium. Albert, who was active in building activities in the business center of town, was also an ardent conservationist. His son Maury, Samuel A. Maverick's grandson, was a prominent Texas political figure. He served in the United States Congress and as mayor of San Antonio. He was interested in preserving old San Antonio and was responsible for the law which made San Jose Mission a national historic site in 1935. When mayor, he obtained authority from the federal government in 1939 to restore La Villita, the old town. Maury Maverick, Jr., Maury's son, is well known in political and business circles in Texas.
The Mavericks are a splendid example of a fine American family. They have lived up to the reputation Samuel Maverick established. Like him, they have worked for their city,, state and country in public and in private life. Samuel Maverick, a just man, a man of integrity, a man of honor, has lived on in them.
Kathyryn and Irwin Sexton
Long Ropes and Running Irons
On the open range, ownership of a calf was determined by the brand on the cow. But if the calf escaped the roundup and grew big enough to leave its mother without a brand, or if it were orphaned by causes natural or unnatural, there was no way of proving who owned it, and this simple natural fact led to more trouble and strife than any other one cause in the history of the West.
The orphan was called a maverick. There are numerous legends as to the origin of the name, but all agree that it was derived from that of the well-known Texas family, and that somewhere, at some time, there was a man named Maverick who neglected to brand his increase. Hence a rider happening upon a slick-sided cow or bull would say , "That's one of Maverick's," or simply "That's a Maverick." One version has it that this wily character deliberately refrained from branding and then said, "Anything without a brand is mine." The real story is told by J. Frank Dobie in The Longhorns and again by Robert H. Fletcher in Free Grass to Fences. A South Carolinian named Samuel A. Maverick had come to Texas and was practicing law in San Antonio some years before the Civil War. In 1845 he accepted 400 head of mixed cattle in lieu of cash on a note. Fletcher's account continues:
The cattle were on long, narrow Matagorda Island four miles off the Texas coast. They were in charge of an irresponsible Negro family who seemingly came with the cattle as part of the deal. . . . The Negroes were not very conscientious herders and few calves were branded.
During the Mexican war Maverick was up to his ears in business and political affairs. He paid slight attention to his island bovines and due to defections by restless members of the herd (who had waded ashore at low tide) they still tallied four hundred after he had owned them for eight years.
In 1853 he had them moved from the island to the mainland where they mingled with the herds of full-time stockgrowers who kept their calves branded and who were forever on the lookout for slicks. When they found one, it was a twenty-to-one shot that it was a Maverick critter, which didn't deter them from slapping their own iron on the beast. And so unbranded cattle became known as Mavericks.
In 1856 Sam Maverick sold his herd. . . . They were the only cattle he ever owned.
Sam Maverick was a Yale graduate, and thus an eastern institution of learning became connected, albeit remotely, with one of the most controversial aspects of life in the Wild West.
Wyoming law defined mavericks as "all neat cattle, regardless of age, found running at large in this territory without a mother, and upon which there is no brand." Whose were they? Popular opinion had a ready answer: the unidentified animal belonged to the first man who dropped his loop on it. A "wide loop." A "long rope." The two terms meant the same thing. They meant trouble and loss for the owners of large herds.
Along with the long rope went the running iron. Respectable cow outfits imprinted their monogram on bovine hides with heavy stamp irons, but a slender rod with a curved tip would do just as well, in expert hands, to inscribe or burn over any brand. There were times and places where the mere carrying of a running iron on a man's saddle was considered prima facie evidence of guilt.
In most respects the honesty of the West was proverbial. Doors were never locked. Word-of-mouth agreements were accepted on transactions involving tens of thousands of dollars. But the West had an elastic conscience when it came to stock mattters—it stretched like a piece of wet rawhide. Worse yet was the unsanctified sense of humor which made lawbreaking, which ought to have been a serious matter, a subject of infinite deadpan jesting on the part of everybody except the victim—unless the thief got caught, and then the joke was on him.
A whole family of yarns grew up around the assumption, which contained more truth than poetry, that no cow outfit on the roundup or on the trail ever willingly killed one of its own animals for meat. For instance there was the one about the Texas cowman who rode up to a neighbor's camp at dinner time, and was invited in with typical plains hospitality.
"Come in, come right into camp, John, and have some dinner," urged the host. "I'll give you something to eat you never ate before in your life."
"What's that?" the visitor asked, falling into the trap.
"A piece of your own beef."
The folklore rang countless changes on the theme, in vintage jests which grew warm with repetition. There was the one about the widow-woman who told her boys, when they brought in meat for the table, to be sure not to take an animal bearing their own brand, for she would as lief eat one of her little children as one of her own beeves. There were not-so-sly allusions to the cowman who was so extraordinarily honest, or who was so extraordinarily tough, that he could eat a steak from one of his own animals without feeling queasy; conversely, there was the cowman who unknowingly ate a bait of his own beef and it made him deathly sick.
Another classic was the yarn about the dishonest foreman, which proceeded from the tongue-in-cheek assumption that the foreman of any large outfit was inevitably dishonest and stole from his employer, who had of course stolen in his turn from somebody else; hence arose this chestnut about the foreman whose employer's brand was a simple letter I. In time the foreman became ambitious and decided to start a herd for himself; he chose for his brand an IC. As years went by he too became rich and respectable, and his foreman, becoming ambitious in turn, started a herd which he branded ICU. Finally, we come to the third foreman. Following in the footsteps of the others, who branded ICU2. Pretty feeble, no doubt, but it remained good for a laugh after countless repetitions over coffee and beans in the cook tent.
An easy way of stealing, before the era of tight brand-registration laws, was for a newcomer to move in on a range and start a brand which was like that of a wealthy neighbor except for the addition of a few lines. There are countless instances of brand conversion; a CY, for example, was readily changeable to an OX.
It was a sagebrush axiom that all it took to start a cow outfit was a running iron and nerve enough to use it. To this day the barroom cynic in any cow-country town, always ready to enlighten the newcomer, is sure to offer half-seriously, half in jest: "Why, don't you know how old So-and-So got his start?"—naming the ancestor of the largest cattle owner in the area. "He got it with a long rope and a running iron." The remark has been made about every cattleman of any prominence from the Rio Grande to the Canadian line, and is so hoary with ancient usage that it is taken without offense. Since it is a well-known psychological principle that humor is generally a denial of some inner discomfort, the discerning will see in this enormous folklore of jests about stealing, the symptoms of guilt.
There were rustlers and rustlers. Their methods varied and so did their community status. The distinctions among the various kinds of rustling were like the difference between professional prostitution and an occasional fling.
Branding a maverick, in the minds of the generality, was a crime without moral turpitude, if a crime at all—like violating the prohibition law or cheating on an expense account. No amount of legislation ever wholly changed this attitude, though a few jail sentences helped. Even under the law it was rated a misdemeanor, not a felony.
But it was one thing to slap your iron on a maverick when you happened on him in the course of a day's riding; this was a temptation few could resist, and men of the sternest anti-rustling persuasion have been heard to admit with the third highball: "Hell, I've done it myself." It was another thing to scour the country deep into another man's range looking for slicks on the pretext that you were merely out hunting strays, and to keep this up day after day. The more you made a business of mavericking the the closer you came to the fine line that separated the mavericker from something worse. "'Mavericking,'" Frank Dobie has said, "graduated into a soft synonym for stealing."
When the natural supply of mavericks was not great enough to satisfy the ambitious mavericker, especially in view of the competition, the next step was to forestall nature by placing your brand on a big calf that was going to become a maverick in a few weeks. You took the chance that nobody would ride by and notice it in the meanwhile; indeed, you took a second chance, for the big calf, displaced by a younger sibling, would continue to hang around its mother for some time hoping to get another suck, and this was a dead giveaway. But what the hell. The country was big, riders were few, and if a stock detective hired by the Association did happen to come along, the likelihood was he would not know who owned your unregistered brand, called a maverick—and suppose he did; you could take care of yourself.
The third step was to make mavericks by separating calves from their mothers until they were weaned. Granville Stuart in My Forty Years on the Frontier, mentions the case of the fortunate ranchman whose cows always gave birth to twins and triplets, while his neighbors' cows hung enviously around his corral lamenting their own childless state. But as rustling went this was pretty crude stuff—settler stuff. Experts would pen the calves in some lonely corral in the foothills, then run the cows a long way off and hold them there until the calves were eating grass. This writer remarked to an old-timer that it must have taken a pretty good cowboy to run a cow off from her calf. "There were good cowboys," he said.
If the rustler stopped there he remained semi-respectable, at least in his own estimation, and he might even have a certain Robin Hood dash. He was well above the line which divided the good bad man from the skunk. But others descended to such methods as slitting the calf's tongue so it couldn't suck, or killing the cow in order to make an orphan of the calf. During Johnson County's time of trouble, calves bearing a rustler's fresh brand were found still hanging about the dead body of the mother cow. Nothing dashing about that.
Finally the rustler might come to burning over other men's brands with a running iron, or "blotching" them so badly they could not be read. He was now a full-fledged thief. Facilis descensus Averno.
Between the practices described in the last two paragraphs and the milder forms of stealing, the elastic conscience stiffened and became uneasy. A man who "made no bones" in later years about having branded any number of mavericks in his day would swear on a stack of Bibles that he had never altered a brand in his life. As for the other kinds of dirty business, we may quote the utterance of a likeable reprobate who was well known in Powder River country.
"I'm a thief and I've been a thief all my life," he declared with disarming frankness, "but there's one place I draw the line; I will not kill a cow to get the calf."
Butchering a steer on the range, burying the hide and taking the meat home to eat was a cheap form of stealing, fit only for thieving Indians and threadbare settlers. It was disapproved more on social than on moral grounds. Another two-bit operation was to separate a calf from the cow, take it home and let the woman and children raise it by hand. This was called "finding a motherless calf."
There was considerable sympathy for the man so poor he had to steal in order to feed his family, even when that man happened to be an Indian. Charlie Russell painted a picture called "Caught in the Act," in which two bundled-up cowboys in the dead of winter have come upon a pair of Indians skinning a beef in the snow. One of the Indians points to his open mouth in the sign for hunger, and the uncertain attitude of the cowboys tell more plainly than words how they are torn between loyalty to their outfit and pity for the half-starved red men.
But the business of butchering beef on the range soon developed into a commercial enterprise, with the local meat market for an outlet. In western Nebraska in the eighties a member of a grand jury considering the case of a settler charged with killing a beef wanted to know whether he had killed it to eat or to sell!
To sum up the code, the man least condemned for rustling was the man who stole in order to build up a herd of his own and get a start, after which he would turn respectable. Most condemned was the thief so low he would cut the rope tying some settler's old bony milch cow to the tailgate of his wagon and steal the cow.
Finally, let us not overlook the curious double meaning which attached to the word rustler. A rustler was a thief. But he was also a man of energy, a hustler who rose early and rode far in order to get ahead in the world. A money-raising committee would be referred to as "the rustling committee." Newspapers called themselves The Bonanza Rustler or The Big Horn County Rustler. When a young boy won a prize for bringing in the largest number of subscribers to a local paper, the item was captioned, "A GOOD RUSTLER." An animal which sustained itself on the range under adverse conditions was a good rustler too, and a man arriving home late with a guest would ask his wife to "go rustle us up something to eat."
Moral confusion, or merely semantic?
But a horse thief was something else entirely. When you said horse thief, you had better smile.
Helena Huntington Smith
Frontier Times
February, 1967
On the open range, ownership of a calf was determined by the brand on the cow. But if the calf escaped the roundup and grew big enough to leave its mother without a brand, or if it were orphaned by causes natural or unnatural, there was no way of proving who owned it, and this simple natural fact led to more trouble and strife than any other one cause in the history of the West.
The orphan was called a maverick. There are numerous legends as to the origin of the name, but all agree that it was derived from that of the well-known Texas family, and that somewhere, at some time, there was a man named Maverick who neglected to brand his increase. Hence a rider happening upon a slick-sided cow or bull would say , "That's one of Maverick's," or simply "That's a Maverick." One version has it that this wily character deliberately refrained from branding and then said, "Anything without a brand is mine." The real story is told by J. Frank Dobie in The Longhorns and again by Robert H. Fletcher in Free Grass to Fences. A South Carolinian named Samuel A. Maverick had come to Texas and was practicing law in San Antonio some years before the Civil War. In 1845 he accepted 400 head of mixed cattle in lieu of cash on a note. Fletcher's account continues:
The cattle were on long, narrow Matagorda Island four miles off the Texas coast. They were in charge of an irresponsible Negro family who seemingly came with the cattle as part of the deal. . . . The Negroes were not very conscientious herders and few calves were branded.
During the Mexican war Maverick was up to his ears in business and political affairs. He paid slight attention to his island bovines and due to defections by restless members of the herd (who had waded ashore at low tide) they still tallied four hundred after he had owned them for eight years.
In 1853 he had them moved from the island to the mainland where they mingled with the herds of full-time stockgrowers who kept their calves branded and who were forever on the lookout for slicks. When they found one, it was a twenty-to-one shot that it was a Maverick critter, which didn't deter them from slapping their own iron on the beast. And so unbranded cattle became known as Mavericks.
In 1856 Sam Maverick sold his herd. . . . They were the only cattle he ever owned.
Sam Maverick was a Yale graduate, and thus an eastern institution of learning became connected, albeit remotely, with one of the most controversial aspects of life in the Wild West.
Wyoming law defined mavericks as "all neat cattle, regardless of age, found running at large in this territory without a mother, and upon which there is no brand." Whose were they? Popular opinion had a ready answer: the unidentified animal belonged to the first man who dropped his loop on it. A "wide loop." A "long rope." The two terms meant the same thing. They meant trouble and loss for the owners of large herds.
Along with the long rope went the running iron. Respectable cow outfits imprinted their monogram on bovine hides with heavy stamp irons, but a slender rod with a curved tip would do just as well, in expert hands, to inscribe or burn over any brand. There were times and places where the mere carrying of a running iron on a man's saddle was considered prima facie evidence of guilt.
In most respects the honesty of the West was proverbial. Doors were never locked. Word-of-mouth agreements were accepted on transactions involving tens of thousands of dollars. But the West had an elastic conscience when it came to stock mattters—it stretched like a piece of wet rawhide. Worse yet was the unsanctified sense of humor which made lawbreaking, which ought to have been a serious matter, a subject of infinite deadpan jesting on the part of everybody except the victim—unless the thief got caught, and then the joke was on him.
A whole family of yarns grew up around the assumption, which contained more truth than poetry, that no cow outfit on the roundup or on the trail ever willingly killed one of its own animals for meat. For instance there was the one about the Texas cowman who rode up to a neighbor's camp at dinner time, and was invited in with typical plains hospitality.
"Come in, come right into camp, John, and have some dinner," urged the host. "I'll give you something to eat you never ate before in your life."
"What's that?" the visitor asked, falling into the trap.
"A piece of your own beef."
The folklore rang countless changes on the theme, in vintage jests which grew warm with repetition. There was the one about the widow-woman who told her boys, when they brought in meat for the table, to be sure not to take an animal bearing their own brand, for she would as lief eat one of her little children as one of her own beeves. There were not-so-sly allusions to the cowman who was so extraordinarily honest, or who was so extraordinarily tough, that he could eat a steak from one of his own animals without feeling queasy; conversely, there was the cowman who unknowingly ate a bait of his own beef and it made him deathly sick.
Another classic was the yarn about the dishonest foreman, which proceeded from the tongue-in-cheek assumption that the foreman of any large outfit was inevitably dishonest and stole from his employer, who had of course stolen in his turn from somebody else; hence arose this chestnut about the foreman whose employer's brand was a simple letter I. In time the foreman became ambitious and decided to start a herd for himself; he chose for his brand an IC. As years went by he too became rich and respectable, and his foreman, becoming ambitious in turn, started a herd which he branded ICU. Finally, we come to the third foreman. Following in the footsteps of the others, who branded ICU2. Pretty feeble, no doubt, but it remained good for a laugh after countless repetitions over coffee and beans in the cook tent.
An easy way of stealing, before the era of tight brand-registration laws, was for a newcomer to move in on a range and start a brand which was like that of a wealthy neighbor except for the addition of a few lines. There are countless instances of brand conversion; a CY, for example, was readily changeable to an OX.
It was a sagebrush axiom that all it took to start a cow outfit was a running iron and nerve enough to use it. To this day the barroom cynic in any cow-country town, always ready to enlighten the newcomer, is sure to offer half-seriously, half in jest: "Why, don't you know how old So-and-So got his start?"—naming the ancestor of the largest cattle owner in the area. "He got it with a long rope and a running iron." The remark has been made about every cattleman of any prominence from the Rio Grande to the Canadian line, and is so hoary with ancient usage that it is taken without offense. Since it is a well-known psychological principle that humor is generally a denial of some inner discomfort, the discerning will see in this enormous folklore of jests about stealing, the symptoms of guilt.
There were rustlers and rustlers. Their methods varied and so did their community status. The distinctions among the various kinds of rustling were like the difference between professional prostitution and an occasional fling.
Branding a maverick, in the minds of the generality, was a crime without moral turpitude, if a crime at all—like violating the prohibition law or cheating on an expense account. No amount of legislation ever wholly changed this attitude, though a few jail sentences helped. Even under the law it was rated a misdemeanor, not a felony.
But it was one thing to slap your iron on a maverick when you happened on him in the course of a day's riding; this was a temptation few could resist, and men of the sternest anti-rustling persuasion have been heard to admit with the third highball: "Hell, I've done it myself." It was another thing to scour the country deep into another man's range looking for slicks on the pretext that you were merely out hunting strays, and to keep this up day after day. The more you made a business of mavericking the the closer you came to the fine line that separated the mavericker from something worse. "'Mavericking,'" Frank Dobie has said, "graduated into a soft synonym for stealing."
When the natural supply of mavericks was not great enough to satisfy the ambitious mavericker, especially in view of the competition, the next step was to forestall nature by placing your brand on a big calf that was going to become a maverick in a few weeks. You took the chance that nobody would ride by and notice it in the meanwhile; indeed, you took a second chance, for the big calf, displaced by a younger sibling, would continue to hang around its mother for some time hoping to get another suck, and this was a dead giveaway. But what the hell. The country was big, riders were few, and if a stock detective hired by the Association did happen to come along, the likelihood was he would not know who owned your unregistered brand, called a maverick—and suppose he did; you could take care of yourself.
The third step was to make mavericks by separating calves from their mothers until they were weaned. Granville Stuart in My Forty Years on the Frontier, mentions the case of the fortunate ranchman whose cows always gave birth to twins and triplets, while his neighbors' cows hung enviously around his corral lamenting their own childless state. But as rustling went this was pretty crude stuff—settler stuff. Experts would pen the calves in some lonely corral in the foothills, then run the cows a long way off and hold them there until the calves were eating grass. This writer remarked to an old-timer that it must have taken a pretty good cowboy to run a cow off from her calf. "There were good cowboys," he said.
If the rustler stopped there he remained semi-respectable, at least in his own estimation, and he might even have a certain Robin Hood dash. He was well above the line which divided the good bad man from the skunk. But others descended to such methods as slitting the calf's tongue so it couldn't suck, or killing the cow in order to make an orphan of the calf. During Johnson County's time of trouble, calves bearing a rustler's fresh brand were found still hanging about the dead body of the mother cow. Nothing dashing about that.
Finally the rustler might come to burning over other men's brands with a running iron, or "blotching" them so badly they could not be read. He was now a full-fledged thief. Facilis descensus Averno.
Between the practices described in the last two paragraphs and the milder forms of stealing, the elastic conscience stiffened and became uneasy. A man who "made no bones" in later years about having branded any number of mavericks in his day would swear on a stack of Bibles that he had never altered a brand in his life. As for the other kinds of dirty business, we may quote the utterance of a likeable reprobate who was well known in Powder River country.
"I'm a thief and I've been a thief all my life," he declared with disarming frankness, "but there's one place I draw the line; I will not kill a cow to get the calf."
Butchering a steer on the range, burying the hide and taking the meat home to eat was a cheap form of stealing, fit only for thieving Indians and threadbare settlers. It was disapproved more on social than on moral grounds. Another two-bit operation was to separate a calf from the cow, take it home and let the woman and children raise it by hand. This was called "finding a motherless calf."
There was considerable sympathy for the man so poor he had to steal in order to feed his family, even when that man happened to be an Indian. Charlie Russell painted a picture called "Caught in the Act," in which two bundled-up cowboys in the dead of winter have come upon a pair of Indians skinning a beef in the snow. One of the Indians points to his open mouth in the sign for hunger, and the uncertain attitude of the cowboys tell more plainly than words how they are torn between loyalty to their outfit and pity for the half-starved red men.
But the business of butchering beef on the range soon developed into a commercial enterprise, with the local meat market for an outlet. In western Nebraska in the eighties a member of a grand jury considering the case of a settler charged with killing a beef wanted to know whether he had killed it to eat or to sell!
To sum up the code, the man least condemned for rustling was the man who stole in order to build up a herd of his own and get a start, after which he would turn respectable. Most condemned was the thief so low he would cut the rope tying some settler's old bony milch cow to the tailgate of his wagon and steal the cow.
Finally, let us not overlook the curious double meaning which attached to the word rustler. A rustler was a thief. But he was also a man of energy, a hustler who rose early and rode far in order to get ahead in the world. A money-raising committee would be referred to as "the rustling committee." Newspapers called themselves The Bonanza Rustler or The Big Horn County Rustler. When a young boy won a prize for bringing in the largest number of subscribers to a local paper, the item was captioned, "A GOOD RUSTLER." An animal which sustained itself on the range under adverse conditions was a good rustler too, and a man arriving home late with a guest would ask his wife to "go rustle us up something to eat."
Moral confusion, or merely semantic?
But a horse thief was something else entirely. When you said horse thief, you had better smile.
Helena Huntington Smith
Frontier Times
February, 1967
