CHAPTER I.
Boundary of Texas defined by Almonté—Description of Texas—Rivers of Texas—Army of observation—General Taylor—Army of occupation—How formed—Difficulty of landing in Texas—Aransas bay—Army lands at St. Joseph's island—Kinney's rancho—Corpus Christi—State of the army during the winter—Sufferings of the troops—Alarms of war—General Gaines's views—Necessity of ample preparation—Our first aggressive war.
The scene of our observation is now about to change from the cabinet to the field. The theatre of war properly attracts our attention, and the spot of earth which was the chief cause of dispute between Mexico and the United States, and where our armies assembled, justly demands our first notice.
Texas, until she attained the rank of an independent State, seems to have been almost an unknown country even to the Mexicans. This was natural for a people who are not essentially agriculturists, but pass their lives as herdsmen, miners, or merchants, and whose central government is far removed from its outposts.
In the year 1834, General Almonté was deputed by the Mexican authorities to visit this northern province, and prepare a statistical report upon its extent and character. According to this valuable document, Texas proper lies between 28° and 35° of north latitude, and 17° and 25° of longitude, west from Washington. It is bounded on the north by the territory of Arkansas; east by Louisiana; south by the Gulf of Mexico and State of Tamaulipas; and west by Coahuila, Chihuahua, and New Mexico. Almonté was informed, by the State government of Coahuila and Texas, that instead of the Rio de las Nueces forming the boundary between Coahuila and Texas, as the map denoted, the true limit commenced at the embouchure of the Rio Aransaso which it followed to its source, whence it continued by a direct line until it reached the junction of the Medina with the San Antonio, and thence proceeded along the eastern bank of the Medina to its source, terminating, finally, on the borders of Chihuahua. The territory comprised within these limits is estimated at near two hundred thousand square miles—a surface almost as extensive as that of France.[70] But, since Texas receded from the Mexican central government, these confines have been changed. By an act of her congress, in December, 1836, the boundary was declared to begin at the mouth of the Rio Grande, and thence to run up the principal stream of the said river to its source; thence due north to the 42° of latitude, and thence, along the boundary as defined in the treaty between the United States and Spain, to the beginning.[71]
The great body of the territory of Mexico is rich in upland vallies, extensive plains, noble mountains, fertile soil, beautiful groves, and rich mines, but it is almost entirely deprived of rivers, whilst Texas is singularly favored in this respect. On the east, the Gulf of Mexico affords her an extensive sea coast indented by the mouths of the Sabine river and lake, the Rio Naches, the Rio Trinidad, the Rio San Jacinto, Galveston bay, the Rio Brazos, Matagorda bay, the Rio Colorado, the Rios San Antonio and Guadalupe, Aransaso bay and the Rio Grande, besides numerous smaller streams that drain her soil and almost cover it with an interlacing network of water.
Texas presents to the traveller three distinct natural regions. Along the shores of the gulf from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, a flat country extends from thirty to one hundred miles in the interior, widening, towards its centre on the Colorado, and gradually diminishing towards the Nueces. The sandy wastes and lagunes of the coast give place, at some distance in the interior, to a rich alluvial country, diversified by skirts of timber, insulated groves, and open prairies. A large portion of this part of Texas is described as being singularly free from those large collections of stagnant water, which, combined with a burning sun and prolific vegetation, create malaria in our southern States.
Westward of this level skirt, begins the rolling region. The land gradually swells in gentle undulations, "covered with fertile prairies and valuable woodlands, enriched with springs and rivulets." Farther westward still, these beautiful hills tower up into the steeps of the Sierra Madre, that great chain of gigantic mountains, which, broken at the junction of the Rio Grande with the Puerco, takes thence a north-easterly course, and enters Texas near the source of the Nueces. These elevations are of the third and fourth magnitude, and abound with forests of pine, oak, cedar, and an extraordinary variety of shrubbery. Wide vallies of alluvial soil, commonly susceptible of irrigation from copious streams in the highlands, wind through the recesses of these mountains and afford a delightful region for the purposes of agriculture. The table lands beyond these ranges have been but little explored, and still less is known of the northern region extending to the 42° of north latitude, as well as of that portion lying between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. But such, in brief, is Texas from the gulf to the mountains;—a country adapted alike to the planter, the grazier and the farmer, while it offers to commerce a wide extent of sea coast whose harbors may be made perfectly secure by the skill of modern science.[72]