Death, Exile, or Imprisonment: Punishment and the Texas Revolution

This broadside, dated April 18, 1836, publicized a decree detailing new punishments for rebel Texans.

The above broadside publicized a decree issued on April 14, 1836, by the Mexican General Congress and José Justo Corro, ad-interim President, and put into effect by Secretary of War and Navy José María Tornel y Mendívil (1789-1853). The Library’s copy is an imprint dated April 18; unbeknown to those involved, the Battle of San Jacinto would take place three days later. The broadside was issued by José Gomez de la Cortina (1799-1860), a respected politician and man of letters in nineteenth-century Mexico who at the time was Governor of the Federal District.

The April 14 proclamation stated that

those taken prisoners in the war of Texas to the date of publication of this decree who have incurred the sentence of capital punishment in accordance with the law, will be absolved from the same even though they have been captured with arms in hand.

By this same decree, rebel Texans who surrendered within fifteen days would receive a reduced sentence of perpetual banishment from the Republic of Mexico or a ten-year prison sentence “at an interior post to be designated by the Government to be no less than sixty leagues distant from the coast and frontier areas.”

Some Texans remained “exempt from this indulgence” and subject to execution, including

the principal motivators of the revolution, those who compose the so called General Council of Texas, those who acted as interloping Governor and Vice-Governor, those apprehended in command of any land or maritime armed force, and those who might have committed cold blooded murder.

Many of the precise details involved in carrying out the decree were left to Antonio López de Santa Anna, the “Most Excellent President and Commander-in-Chief of the Army.”

The edict repealed a previous decree Tornel authored with the approval of the General Congress, which was alarmed at the large number of U.S. volunteers immigrating to assist Texian colonists revolting against the Mexican government. Passed in December 1835, the Tornel Decree ordered any non-Mexican citizen captured under arms on Mexican soil to be treated as a pirate and punished accordingly. While many officers in the Mexican Army disagreed with the Decree, Santa Anna insisted that it be precisely followed. He therefore used it to order the execution of Texian prisoners at the Alamo and Goliad, defending his actions by writing, “Law decrees and it is not the magistrate’s responsibility to examine it, but to apply it.” Who, he asked General José de Urrea, “gives me powers to override what the National Government has ordered in such categorical terms, pardoning delinquents of the caliber of these foreigners?” The Tornel Decree first appeared in U.S. and Texan newspapers in February and March 1836, meaning that many of the men who died under its enforcement before its repeal in April 1836 were ignorant of its existence.

References and Further Reading

An English-language translation of the April 14, 1836 decree can be found in The Papers of the Texas Revolution, 1835-1836, volume 5.

For additional information about the Mexican government in the 1830s and the key officials involved, see The Central Republic in Mexico, 1835-1846: Hombres de Bien in the Age of Santa Anna by Michael P. Costeloe; Santa Anna of Mexico by Will Fowler; and the encyclopedia The United States and Mexico at War: Nineteenth-Century Expansionism and Conflict edited by Donald S. Frazier.

For more information about the context of the Texas Revolution, see also Sacrificed at the Alamo: Tragedy and Triumph in the Texas Revolution by Richard Bruce Winders; Crisis in the Southwest: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle over Texas by Richard Bruce Winders; and Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution by Stephen L. Hardin.

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“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.

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“My Dear Wife”: Abishai Dickson’s Last Letter Home on His Way to Texas

One of the treasures in the library’s archival collections is an 1835 letter written by Abishai Dickson to his wife. Like Alamo defender Daniel William Cloud, Dickson wrote his letter in late December 1835 while in Louisiana on his way to Texas to join the struggle for independence.

Dickson was a member of the Alabama Red Rovers, a unit organized by Jack Shackelford and named for the red uniforms of its members. Joining James Fannin‘s regiment in Texas and participating in several engagements of the Texas Revolution, the Red Rovers surrendered to the Mexican army with the rest of Fannin’s force following the Battle of Coleto. Dickson, along with more than 300 others, was executed in the Goliad Massacre on March 27, 1836.

The first page of Abishai Dickson's letter to his wife.

The second page.

A transcription of the letter is included below. Please note that original punctuation and spelling has been maintained and remains uncorrected.

New Orleans 29th Decr 1835

My Dear Wife

We arrived here yesterday morning and having a good oppertunity of writing by Mr Sevier who goes up shortly: – We had a tedious time coming down. the Capt of the Steam Boat was sulkey & unaccomodating — but we had to bare with him — We are all still on board his boat and will remain until the vesel is ready to start — which will be day after to morrow — We have just heard from Texas the Americans have whiped the Spaniards and taken St Antonio & killed Genl. Coss & at this time there is not an armed Spaniard in Texas — The first 2 or 3 days after I started I was very sick Dr Shackleford gave me some medicine which operated very well Since that time I have fattened every day and I have now a better apetite than I have had for the last 12 months, the doctor is & has been like a Father to me ever since I started, the company agrees very well Francis has been quite sick for the last few days but is mending — I have met with several of my acquaintances here Mr Roper – Sevier – Gist. Cooper. B. McKernan & several others I have nothing more to write you at this time – I will write you again when I land in Texas – I am in hopes that we will all return Soon – I want you to write as soon as you get this and direct your letter to me at this place to the care of K & Roper who will take it out and send it me as also all letters that I may write they will forward them to you — Kiss all the dear children for me & tell Puss to kiss you 10 times for Pa — My Dear my lips have not been wet with spirits of any description since I left you & I do hope they never will again — & I think this trip will not only wean me entirely from it but will give me a new constitution

I have some hopes yet of making a little fortune I feell more anxious than I ever did — dont fail to write and direct your as I have written it below — Give my love to all

I am Dear Wife your

Affectionate Husband

Abishai Dickson

We sail this morning on board of an armed schooner

Mr. Abishai Dickson

Care of Kirkman & Roper

New Orleans

According to genealogical materials in the library’s Dickson family papers, Abishai Mercer Dickson was born on January 19, 1803 at or near Reynoldsburg, Tennessee. He and his family – his father Michael Dickson (1777-1859), mother Sene Williams Dickson,  and eleven siblings – were the first Anglo-American settlers in Tuscumbia, Alabama, a town in the northwestern part of the state near its borders with Mississippi and Tennessee.

Abishai Dickson married Ann Margaret Lucas (1809-1862) in 1825 in Franklin County, Alabama. The couple had four children: Louisa McIntosh (1826-1898), Eliza Josephine (1829-1843), Richard Hoge (1831-1931), and Ellen Edwards (1834-1840). In the twentieth century, descendants recorded Richard Hoge Dickson’s recollections, which he documented in 1911 at the age of eighty years old:

The first thing I can recall was riding in my Father’s lap down the Cumberland Mountains, going from Russellville to Tuscumbia, Alabama, where we lived. I must have been about fours years of age. I well remember when my Father joined the Red Rovers, under Dr. Shackelford, and started for Texas, to aid her in getting her independence. They were all dressed in red suits and were called Red Rovers. When Mother made Father’s suit I recollect how she cried. When they started to Texas they were all dressed in their red uniforms and passed close by the house where he bid us all Goodbye. It was a crying time for us all. My mother took her children and went to Grandpa Lucas’s to live, till Father came back – but he never came. One morning I was awakened by my mother crying over me in my bed, and calling me her ‘orphan boy.’ She told me my Father was killed.

Ironically, it was in death that Abishai Dickson found the “little fortune” he sought in Texas, as his widow received a 640-acre donation land grant due to his execution at Goliad. Ann Margaret later married John Sutherland, who claimed to have been at the Alamo garrison before its fall.

For Further Reading:

The  San Jacinto Monument and Museum near Houston, Texas, has several items relating to Abishai Dickson and his family. The site’s Herzstein Library has a collection of archival materials relating to the Dickson family; a finding aid, or guide to the collection, is available online. The museum also has a portrait of Abishai Dickson, which can be viewed on its website.

The Sons of DeWitt Colony Texas provide detailed information about the Goliad Massacre, which is published on the website of Texas A & M University. Included is an account of the event written by Jack Shackelford, who was spared due to his skills as a doctor.

The John W. Lilly Family Papers at the DRT Library also contain archival materials relating to the Dickson family; an online finding aid to the collection is available.

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General Cós’s Warning to Texans, July 1835

In his decree dated July 5, 1835, Mexican general Martín Perfecto de Cós warned Texans that disruptive activities against the government will result in war.

Martin Perfecto de Cos's declaration of July 5, 1835.

Cós issued his announcement shortly after a confrontation in Anuahuac over the collection of custom duties; if he was aware of these events, the document may have been a direct answer to the Texans’ actions there, specifically when he refers to “some bad citizens” who had “attempt[ed] to disturb the public order and peace.”

In a larger context, however, Cós’s words were a response to tensions that had been rising in Texas and elsewhere across Mexico for several years as a result of the country’s tumultuous political circumstances. Texans sought the repeal of the Law of April 6, 1830, and other measures enacted to regulate the importation of slaves, strengthen the presence of the Mexican military in Texas, and establish customs houses that would collect taxes and stop illegal trade with the United States. Texans also wanted their state to be detached from Coahuila; with the two states joined together as Coahuila y Tejas, the capital was located in Saltillo, 400 miles south of San Antonio.

Cos's broadside was printed in Spanish on one side and English on the other.

More broadly, Mexicans across the country were angered when Antonio López de Santa Anna, elected president of Mexico as a liberal in 1833, later stated that Mexico was not ready for democracy and emerged as an autocratic Centralist. He discarded the Federalist Constitution of 1824 and was granted extra powers while a new centralist constitution was being written. The new document transformed states into departments whose governors were appointed from Mexico City and reduced the size of each state’s militia in order to curtail resistance to the redistribution of power. Rebellion against Santa Anna’s centralism broke out in the states of Zacatecas and Yucatan; Texans eventually revolted, as well, ultimately demanding full independence from Mexico.

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Newspaper Accounts of the Battle of the Alamo

Last Friday, March 6, marked the 173rd anniversary of the final assault on the Alamo garrison. In 1836, those living in Texas and beyond learned about this event (and the general course of the Texas Revolution) through published newspaper accounts. The information contained in these articles was gathered from named and unnamed sources such as Almaron Dickinson’s wife, Susanna; William Barret Travis’s slave, Joe; Ben, the servant to the Mexican officer Colonel Almonte; and Andres Barsena and Anselmo Bergara, Tejanos who based their statements on testimony given by Antonio Pérez, who was in San Antonio on March 6.

The second page of the Telegraph and Texas Register from March 24, 1836. The article about the Alamo begins on the right-hand column under the heading "More Particulars Respecting the Fall of the Alamo."

The DRT Library’s newspaper collection includes papers published in the spring of 1836 containing “news from Texas.” While the majority of these materials were published in American cities, also included is a photocopy of the Telegraph and Texas Register published in San Felipe, Texas, on March 24, 1836. According to Todd Hansen, editor of The Alamo Reader, this document “is probably the most influential single account of the fall of the Alamo by virtue of being the first in print, its access to authoritative sources, and its near universal dissemination” (551). Indeed, argues Hansen, this account “would be the picture of the fall for Texans (and the United States) and the starting point for all later secondhand accounts” (565).

According to Todd Hansen, the casualty list included in the Telegraph and Texas Register account is "particularly valuable" because it was "based on the most authoritative sources known in Washington-on-the-Brazos" at the time (565).

Another important newspaper account of the fall of the Alamo in the library’s collections can be found in the Diario del Gobierno de la Republica Mexicana published on March 21, 1836. The draft of a 1968 press release announcing the library’s acquisition of the document states that it is “a rare copy of a Mexican newspaper containing the earliest known official announcement of the fall of the Alamo.”

Front page of the Diario del Gobierno de la Republica Mexicana from March 21, 1836.

As the official newspaper of the Mexican government, the Diario celebrated the bravery and success of Mexican officers and soldiers in achieving what is described as a complete and brilliant victory. “Long Live the Mexican Republic!” proclaimed the headline of this article, “Long live General Santa Anna and the brave army, victors of the Fort of the Alamo in Texas!”

The report on the fall of the Alamo appears on the fourth page of the March 24th Diario.

A supplement to this edition of the newspaper contained additional details about the Alamo, specifically General Santa Anna’s report about the battle, his March 5th General Order outlining the plan for the assault, and a March 3rd letter from General Urrea to Santa Anna describing the former’s victory over James Grant’s men at San Patricio. The article also includes a Spanish translation of Robert McAlpin Williamson’s March 1st letter to Travis. Taken from Travis’s body or his quarters, the letter concludes with Williamson’s impassioned statement, “For God’s sake hold out until we can assist you.” The Diario supplement may be the first printing of the text of the letter; since the original manuscript of this letter has never been found, the publication is significant for revealing its existence.

First page of the "Suplemento al Diario del Gobierno de la Republica Mexicana" for March 24, 1836.

Like other primary sources describing the siege and battle of the Alamo, newspaper accounts contain some confusing, problematic, and contradictory statements that researchers are still exploring, analyzing, and debating. For example, the report published in the Diario del Gobierno de la Republica Mexicana claimed that more than 600 Texans were killed, an estimation three times the actual number. Additionally, while only seventy deaths are attributed to the Mexican force, actual losses are estimated to be up to 600 soldiers.

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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!

Telegraph and Texas Register, Early Texas Newspaper

The top of the first page of the Telegraph and Texas Register from January 6, 1837. Much of the paper on that date was dedicated to reprinting an act "organizing the inferior Courts," the first part of which is seen here.

The DRT Library has an extensive collection of newspapers dating from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While this collection contains some papers published in cities around the United States and even Mexico, the majority were printed in Texas towns and cities. Included in this collection are some of the earliest newspapers available in the state.

According to Marilyn McAdams Sibley in her work Lone Stars and State Gazettes (1983), in the nearly fifty years between the first attempt to print a newspaper in Texas in 1813 and the Civil War, “more than four hundred newspapers appeared.” Notably, argues Sibley, while “in style and format those papers represented an extension of the Anglo-American frontier press,” they also “peculiarly reflected the course of history in Texas” (3).

Several short-lived newspapers were printing prior to 1830, but it was not until the eve of the Texas Revolution that Texans established sustainable enterprises for publishing. First was the Texas Gazette, which was published between 1829 and 1832; according to the Handbook of Texas, it was the “first enduring Texas newspaper” and the “earliest Texas newspaper of which more than one issue is now extant.” Second, the Telegraph and Texas Register, first printed in October 1835, was “the first newspaper in Texas to achieve a degree of permanence.”

 

Detail of page three of the Telegraph and Texas Register from January 11, 1837.

The DRT Library has almost one hundred volumes of the Telegraph and Texas Register dating from October 1835 to April 1838. Initially, the newspaper was published by Gail Borden, Jr., Thomas H. Borden, and Joseph Baker; by the spring of 1837, ownership passed to Francis Moore, Jr., and Jacob W. Cruger. Originally printed approximately once each week and measuring 19.5 inches tall by 12.5 inches wide, each volume was four pages in length (two pages front and back) and each page contained three columns of text.

Primarily, the newspaper covered activities of the government of the Republic of Texas by printing acts and laws, proclamations, election information, government reports, and minutes from legislative sessions. For example, the March 12, 1836 edition reprinted William Barret Travis’s famous letter written nine days previously at the Alamo in which he described the dire situation at the old mission, requested reinforcements and other supplies, and ended with the defiant declaration “Victory or Death!!”. Likewise, the Telegraph printed the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 12 and the Constitution on August 2. In addition to informing readers of governmental matters, the newspaper also included stories reprinted from American newspapers; descriptions of towns written to attract new residents; and letters, editorials, or other pieces submitted by readers. Finally, the Telegraph also contained notices or advertisements about a variety of subjects such as recent births, marriages, and deaths; goods and services available; land available for purchase or rent; lost items; and arrivals of steamboats.

 

Detail of page four of the Telegraph and Texas Register from January 11, 1837.

According to Sibley, this relative lack of local news was characteristic of Texas newspapers at this time. Editors considered much local news to be “unprintable” for several reasons. First, “most of the papers appeared weekly in towns of a few hundred population.” In towns of that size, newspaper editors had little need to print “sensational local news and important news from afar” because this information had already “circulated by word of mouth before the newspaper appeared.” Moreover, “prudence dictated that [an editor] handle local items with care. By merely noticing certain events, he could antagonize advertisers and subscribers or possibly involve himself in personal vendettas not his own” (7). As a result of these circumstances, argues Sibley, the average newspaper editor “seldom went in search of [news], and instead waited in his office for acceptable news to come to him.” Editors received news for their publications from several sources, including letters that were “sometimes addressed to him and sometimes [written] to local citizens who shared their news with him. Travelers from distant points stopped at the press office to inform him of happenings at their point of departure or along their route.” Most importantly, however, “fellow editors in other towns sent him exchange papers, from which he clipped enough items to fill his pages” (7-8).

For further reading about the history of the Telegraph and Texas Register and other early Texas newspapers, please see:

Imagining Texas: Pre-Revolutionary Texas Newspapers, 1829-1836 by Carol Lea Clark

Lone Stars and State Gazettes: Texas Newspapers before the Civil War by Marilyn McAdams Sibley

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