The raven : a biography of Sam Houston by James Marquis 1891-1955

Author:James, Marquis, 1891-1955
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Houston, Sam, 1793-1863, Houston, Sam, 1793-1863
Publisher: New York : Chelsea House
Published: 1983-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

new rifles. This upsetting intelligence was from Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph C. Neill, a Houston man left behind with eighty sick and wounded whom Grant had stripped of medicines.

The Commander-in-Chief wrote Governor Smith an excited letter. "No language can express the anguish of my soul. Oh, save our poor country! . . . What will the world think of the authorities of Texas ?" Nothing remained but for Houston to buckle on his sword and pursue the miscreant who had stolen the army. "Within thirty hours I shall set out ... I pray that a confidential dispatch may meet me at Goliad. ... I do not fear,—I will do my duty !" 14

On the night of January 14, 1836, Houston overtook Grant at Goliad. Styling himself "Acting Commander-in-Chief" Grant had gleaned Goliad of horses and provisions and his men were in high feather. Houston did not press the point of his authority, believing he would be in a better position to do so at Refugio Mission on the seacoast, whither Grant was bound. There Houston expected to meet a large concentration of loyal troops under Fannin and to find a supply depot.

The situation at Goliad would have been fraught with less anxiety had not Houston received from Neill the grave tidings that Texas was invaded. The Mexicans were on the march to attack Bexar. Houston had not reckoned on an invasion before another two months. Neither he nor any one else had credited Santa Anna with ability to move an army in the dead of winter over the storm-swept desert that lay between Saltillo and Bexar. Texan leaders one and all had been too busily spying on one another to inform themselves of the enemy's movements.

Houston acted resolutely. Bowie was at Goliad. He had missed Houston's order to anticipate Grant with a gesture toward Matamoras, so that detail of the Houston-Smith counter-strategy had miscarried also. Houston started a handful of men to Bexar under Bowie with instructions to "demolish . . . the fortifications . . . remove all the canon . . . blow up the Alamo and abandon the place. I would myself have

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