“This Glorious Achievement”: Thomas J. Rusk’s Account of the Battle of San Jacinto

 

Even though Fiesta is a merry and lively celebration, its underlying purpose is the commemoration of a far more solemn event, the Battle of San Jacinto. There, on April 21, 1836, Sam Houston’s Texas army defeated General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s Mexican force, thus achieving victory in the Revolution and the right for Texas to be an independent republic.

A portrait of Thomas Jefferson Rusk. (SC96.281)

The Gail Borden papers at the DRT Library contain Thomas Jefferson Rusk’s official report on the Battle of San Jacinto. A signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, Rusk served as the Secretary of War for President David G. Burnet’s interim government. Perhaps best known as the inventor of condensed milk, Gail Borden was an important figure in early Texas and one of the founders of the Telegraph and Texas Register newspaper. A note included with Rusk’s report (shown at the end of this entry) states that it was given to Borden so that he could publish it, presumably in the Telegraph.

 

A portrait of Gail Borden. (SC95.83)

 

A participant at the Battle of San Jacinto, Rusk provided an eyewitness account that is considered to be a fairly accurate retelling of what happened immediately preceding and during the fight. He does, however, seem to whitewash one of the more appalling components of the battle. “There was a general Cry which ran from one end of the ranks to the other, ‘Remember the Alamo’ ‘Remember La Bahia,’” Rusk wrote. “These words electrified all, onwards was the cry, the unerring aim and resistless energy of the Texian army could not be withstood.” Writing about the same fervor in Texian Iliad, historian Stephen L. Hardin states:

The actual battle lasted no more than eighteen minutes, but the slaughter continued much longer. Determined to avenge the loss of those killed at the Alamo and Goliad, the bloodthirsty rebels committed atrocities at least as beastly as those the Mexicans has committed (213).

Other first-person accounts of the Battle of San Jacinto provide specific examples of these atrocities, and Hardin quotes some of them in his work.

The first page of Rusk's report to President David G. Burnet describing the Battle of San Jacinto, dated April 22, 1836.

 

Additionally, Rusk’s account provides a relatively simplistic explanation for the Texans’ victory:

Never in the anals [sic] of war was the interposition of Divine Providence signally displayed…Our unparallelled [sic] triumph is attributable, not to superior force but to the valor of our [men] and the sanctity of our cause…these brave men achieved a victory as glorious as any on the records of history, and the happy consequences will be felt in Texas by forty generations to come. It has saved the country from the yoke of bondage.

While not denying the valiant efforts of the Texan soldiers, Hardin offers a more complex picture of the battle and its significance. “Several factors had produced rebel victory at San Jacinto,” he asserts. First, “the troops that Santa Anna brought to Buffalo Bayou were hungry, demoralized, and far from provisions. They appeared, furthermore, to have lost all confidence in their commander.” Additionally, Hardin describes a series of significant mistakes committed by Santa Anna. In addition to “separating his detachment for the fruitless drive on Harrisburg,” he had also “moved his army off the prairies where his superior cavalry enjoyed an advantage and had ventured into wooded marshlands where the Texian riflemen could employ the terrain to advantage.” General Houston was able to take advantage of these circumstances, but, argues Hardin, “San Jacinto was not so much a battle that Houston won, but rather one that Santa Anna squandered” (217). Moreover, Hardin reminds us that, despite Rusk’s decisive description of the victory, forces under Mexican Generals Vicente Filisola and Jose de Urrea remained undefeated, at large, and a significant threat to the Texas army (216).

This note by Gail Borden, enclosed with the Rusk report, identifies the document and states "I wish my son John to keep this as long as I have. It was handed me on or about the 10th May 1836 for publication."

 

References:

Stephen L. Hardin, Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution

Stephen L. Moore, Eighteen Minutes: The Battle of San Jacinto and the Texas Independence Campaign

Richard Bruce Winders, Crisis in the Southwest: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle Over Texas

For Further Reading:

Multiple copies of Rusk’s report were made at the time of the Battle of San Jacinto and, while addressed to President Burnet, they were used to spread the word of the Texans’ victory. Another copy of the report housed at the Texas State Archives has been digitized and transcribed in its entirety and is available online. The content of this document is nearly identical with that of the copy held by the DRT Library, although a few scattered words and the pagination are different.

You can compare Rusk’s account of the battle with Sam Houston’s official report, dated three days later. This document has also been scanned, transcribed, and made available online by the Texas State Archives.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

Recap of the Texas History Forum, “Rangers and Rogues”

From left to right, Leslie Stapleton, DRT Library director; Dr. Paul Spellman, speaker; Connie Impelman, DRT Library Committee Chairman; Dr. Stephen L. Hardin, speaker; Mike Cox, speaker.

This past Saturday, the DRT Library held its twenty-second Texas History Forum. Entitled “Rangers and Rogues,” the program featured three speakers who explored Texans who enforced the law and those who broke it.

Mike Cox speaking about the history of the Texas Rangers.

Mike Cox, an author and former spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety, got things underway by presenting ten arguments about the history of the Texas Rangers, taken in part from his most recent book, The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900 (2008). For example, Mr. Cox noted that “in something of an irony, since Rangers sometimes were pitted against Mexicans, part of their tradition traces to Spanish Colonial law enforcement in Texas” (14). He also asserted that, even though “men riding in the name of frontier protection or law and order” killed some innocent people, some historians’ portrayal of Rangers as “racist practitioners of genocide, gun-toting tools of a greedy, land-grabbing Anglo establishment…is not accurate and certainly not fair” (15). Forum attendees also enjoyed Mr. Cox’s stories about his grandfather, a Fort Worth newspaper man who encountered interesting characters throughout his career. Among these were some famous old-time Texas Rangers:  John R. Hughes, for example, enjoyed many a Sunday supper at the home of Mr. Cox’s grandparents.

Dr. Paul Spellman reading an oral history from his book, Spindletop Boom Days.

Dr. Paul Spellman, a professor of history at Wharton County Junior College, focused on his work Spindletop Boom Days (2001), which contains reminiscences of east Texas oil pioneers. Collected in the 1950s to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the 1901 discovery of the Spindletop oilfield, these oral histories document the development of the state’s oil industry from the turn of the century to 1950. (The written manuscripts now form the Texas Pioneers of Oil Collection, the Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin.) Dr. Spellman read some of the accounts included in the book, specifically stories of mayhem and lawlessness as well as stories of rangers trying to impose law and order. For example, Dr. Spellman quoted Plummer Barfield, who recalled that he would “go out in the event of an accident and haul the wounded, the crippled or the dead to the livery stable – it became an undertaker’s parlor in those days.” One wintry night, a group of men stopped Barfield as he was bringing a body to the livery and ordered him to pick up the bodies of a woman, her baby, and two men. Eventually, Barfield “found out what happened”:

The woman and the baby had been sick and were in the tent, and some rattlebrained drunks had seen the lamp in the tent and had shot at it. They killed the woman and her baby, shot right through the baby’s head and the woman’s breast. Then the roughnecks and the rigrunners nearby caught the two drunks and hung ’em from a sweet gum tree!…Five bodies. One night.

Dr. Stephen L. Hardin regaling the audience with the less than pleasant elements of life in early Houston.

Finally, Dr. Stephen L. Hardin, a professor of history at The Victoria College in Victoria, Texas, gave the final presentation of the day, focusing on his recent work Texian Macabre: The Melancholy Tale of a Hanging in Early Houston (2007). The book tells the story of David James Jones, a hero of the Texas Revolution who, along with John Christopher Columbus Quick, was hung for killing a man. They were among a group of young American men who had volunteered for the Texian army and had been indefinitely furloughed by President Sam Houston. While some of these former soldiers returned to the United States, many went to Houston, at that time the capital of Texas, where they were unemployed, bored, and broke. Respectable Houston residents called these troublesome men “rowdy loafers.” Dr. Hardin urged attendees to remember these men, who, like their more well-known compatriots at the Alamo or Goliad, made sacrifices for Texas. Throughout his talk, Dr. Hardin entertained the audience with quotes from eyewitness accounts of Houston that – with their vivid descriptions of mud, mosquitoes, and rats – confirmed its reputation in the 1830s as “an unpleasant place” and “the most miserable place in the world.”

Thank you to all of our speakers, who presented fascinating information about the history of “Rangers and Rogues” in Texas!

“To Dissolve the Union Between the State of Texas and the…United States of America”

In February 1861, Texans put themselves on a path of separating from the United States and aligning their state with the Confederacy.

A broadside publicizing the February 1 ordinance declaring that Texas "is a sovereign State and that her citizens and people are absolved from all allegiance to the United States or the Government thereof."

While Texas shared many characteristics of other Southern states, historian Dale Baum writes in The Shattering of Texas Unionism that “the Lone Star State…was also distinctive [as] only Southern state with an international boundary, an extensive western frontier, and a sizable population of Mexicans and Germans” (1).

Additionally, asserts Ralph A. Wooster in the Handbook of Texas Online, “while most Texans had a strong attachment to the Union that they worked so hard to join in 1845, they expressed increasing concern over the attacks upon Southern institutions by Northern political leaders.” Specifically, even though “only one Texas family in four owned slaves, most Texans opposed any interference with the institution of slavery, which they believed necessary for the continued growth of the state.”

"Here I take my stand!" Governor Sam Houston declared soon after Lincoln's election. "So long as the Constitution is maintained by 'Federal authority' and Texas is not made the victim of 'Federal wrong,' I am for the Union as it is."

The Confederate States of America, writes James M. McPherson in Battle Cry of Freedom, “organized itself, drafted a constitution, and set up shop in Montgomery, Alabama, within three months of Lincoln’s election.” (By comparison, the second Continental Congress “deliberated fourteen months before declaring American independence in 1776,” and two additional years were needed to write the Constitution and create a new government.) The South “moved so swiftly” because “secession proceeded on a state-by-state basis rather than by collective action” (234). Indeed, following Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860, six states in the Deep South left the Union: South Carolina on December 20; Mississippi on January 9, Florida on January 10, Alabama on January 11, Georgia on January 19, and Louisiana on January 26.

In his March 16 broadside "to the people of Texas," governor Houston protested the actions of the secession convention. Its members removed him from office that same day.

These events caused the move towards secession in Texas to gain momentum. When Texas governor Sam Houston refused to call the legislature into special session, secessionist leaders formed a special convention and, on February 1, 1861, approved a secession ordinance by a vote of 166 to 8. Texas voters approved the ordinance by a better than three to one majority (46,153 votes to 14,747 votes) on February 23. The following month, the convention formally joined the Confederate States of America. Texas was the seventh state to secede, and the last to secede before Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4 and the firing on Fort Sumter on April 12-13.

References and Further Reading

The Shattering of Texas Unionism: Politics in the Lone Star State During the Civil War Era by Dale Baum.

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson.

Journal of the Secession Convention of Texas, 1861 edited by Ernest William Winkler; also available online here through the University of Texas at Austin.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

Currency during the Texas Republic

The Republic of Texas used several different forms of currency during its existence. The library has a substantial collection of currencies of the Republic, as well as Confederate and U.S. currency.

The most commonly used money during the Republic period was what was issued by the Republic. On June 12, 1837 the Republic, under President Sam Houston, passed an act allowed the issue of $500,000 of promissory notes.

 

The star note was issued by an act on June 12, 1837 under President Sam Houston.

According to the Handbook of Texas Online, these notes “bore 10% interest, and were payable twelve months from date.” These notes were called “Star Money” because of the small star on the face of the note.

 

 

$2 change note

In December of 1837 the Republic authorized $10,000 of “change notes” (notes in smaller denominations). These notes had no interest and were able to be redeemed for notes with larger denominations.

 

President Mirabeau Lamar issued a new type of money, called “red backs.”

$5 Redback

This money came in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $100, and $500. Change notes also existed. When first introduced, Red Backs had a value of 37 ½ cents to the U.S. dollar. Eventually, the value went to two cents.

 

$20 Redback

$50 Redback

The back side of a Redback

The Republic was plagued with money troubles for its entire existence. Though rich in land and national resources, the Republic had to import most manufactured goods. This dependence on imports depleted the Republic’s gold and silver supply, since all imported goods had to be paid in these materials. The Republic was also greatly affected by the United States’ bank panic of 1837, which had lasting effects until around 1845. The Republic was in great need of the United State’s economic assistance that came with annexation in 1845.

For more detailed information on the history of currency in the Republic from the Handbook of Texas Online, click here.

Click here for a full citation of documents and images included in this entry.

 

Guest Register from San Antonio’s Most Haunted Hotel

In the spirit of Halloween, we thought we would discuss something in our collection from a historic landmark that some claim is one of the most haunted places in San Antonio – a guest register from the Menger Hotel.

The Menger, located across Crockett Street from the library, is one of Texas’s oldest hotels. Since its 1859 opening, it has developed a long and illustrious history. Notable guests include former presidents such as Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower; military greats like Sam Houston and Robert E. Lee; and literary figures such as Oscar Wilde and O. Henry. Teddy Roosevelt even recruited some of his Rough Riders at the Menger’s bar.

However, the hotel also has a reputation for being one of the most haunted locales in the city. The most famous of the Menger’s ghosts is Sallie White, a former maid who was murdered by her husband in 1876. Some guests and employees have seen Sallie’s ghost on the second floor in the original section of the hotel. She performs her old duties, like cleaning rooms and making beds. People who have seen her say that she wears a long skirt with a white apron and a bandana on her head.

Other famous Menger ghosts are the ladies in blue. One of these apparitions has appeared in a room on the second floor where employees claim to hear strange noises and see lights go on and off by themselves. According to Docia Schultz Williams in her book The History and Mystery of the Menger Hotel, maids prefer to clean this room in pairs. This is because one day, a maid, while cleaning the room, felt that someone else was there with her. When she turned around, she saw a lady in long blue dress. The woman had blonde hair and looked as though she was from the 1930s or 1940s. Other employees have seen the lady strolling on the patio. The other lady in blue has been in seen in the lobby. She is middle-aged and wears a blue dress with red stars. She also wears a beret and shoes similar to those worn by the Women’s Army Corps in World War II. She is usually seen knitting or reading the newspaper.

Many other ghost stories like this exist for the Menger. For more, try these sources:

• The History and Mystery of the Menger Hotel by Docia Schultz Williams

• My Most Intriguing Investigations of True Ghost Encounters by Dr. L.E. Patterson

• “Ghost Sightings” page on the Menger’s website

The guest register that the library has spans from February 15, 1874-December 26, 1874. Below are some sample pages. Perhaps some of the Menger’s ghosts have written their names on this register. Happy Halloween!

A page from the register featuring guest signatures, their place of residence, which room they stayed in, and the time that they arrived.

This is one of many pages of advertisements in the Menger guest register. These pages are interspersed among those with guest signatures.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.