Lone Star Nation by H.W. Brands

Author:H.W. Brands
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781400096343
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2005-02-08T05:00:00+00:00

The irregulars before San Antonio seemed bent on confirming every bad thing Houston said about militias. They defied Stephen Austin until the moment he gave up the command. Austin repeatedly tried to organize an assault on the town, but neither orders nor pleas availed. “I have at various times submitted the question of storming the fortifications to a council of officers,” Austin wrote James Perry, “and they have uniformly decided against it. Yesterday I was in hopes the Army was prepared to do it, and I issued a positive order to storm at daylight this morning; but on trial I found it impossible to get half the men willing for the measure, and it was abandoned from necessity.” Austin’s frustration, as much as his poor health, made him happy to turn the problem of the army over to Houston. “I have done the best I could. This army has always been composed of discordant elements, and is without proper organization. The volunteer system will not do for such a service.”

Although Houston agreed with Austin that the volunteer system would never do, he agreed with the militia that an assault on San Antonio was unwise. In fact, he went further, arguing that if an assault didn’t make sense, neither did a siege. In the Creek campaign with Jackson in Tennessee, Houston had seen militia melt away when there was no active fighting to be done, and he now concluded that it would be better to withdraw in good order from San Antonio than to have the army disintegrate.

Yet having reached this conclusion, he appreciated that such influence as he could exert on the volunteers at Béxar would be by persuasion only. No more than Austin could he enforce obedience. Consequently he wrote to James Fannin, asking the captain to reconsider the siege, especially as it was less than complete. “Would it not be best to raise a nominal siege—fall back to La Bahía and Gonzales, leaving a sufficient force for the protection of the frontier (which, by the bye, will not be invaded), furlough the balance of the army to comfortable homes, and when the artillery is in readiness, march to the combat with sufficient force and at once reduce San Antonio?” Artillery, Houston judged, was the key to driving the Mexicans from their fortified position at the Alamo and in the town. He had sent an agent to New Orleans to acquire cannon, but they wouldn’t arrive for weeks or months. Till then, the army should husband its resources. “Remember one maxim: it is better to do well late, than never! The army without means ought never to have passed the Guadalupe without the proper munitions of war to reduce San Antonio. Therefore the error cannot be in falling back to an eligible position.”

Talk of retreat, however reasonable, inevitably struck some of the Texans as defeatist. The conspiracy-minded had previously sensed a plot by Houston to take over the army. Two settlers from the DeWitt colony warned the provisional council

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.