You know I am not easily depressed, but since we parted at the convention I have found the darkest hours of my past life! My excitement has been so great that for forty-eight hours I have not eaten an ounce, nor have I slept. I was in a constant apprehension of a rout; a constant panic existed in the lines, yet I managed so well, or such was my good luck, that not a gun was fired in or near the camp, or on the march (except to kill beef) from the Guadalupe to the Colorado.
It was a poor compliment to me [he said] to suppose that I would not advise the convention of any necessity which might arise for their removal.
I had to advise troops and persons of my falling back, and had to send one guard thirty miles for a poor blind widow (and six children) whose husband had been killed in the Alamo. The families now are all on this side of the Guadalupe. These things pained me infinitely, and with the responsibility of my command, weighed upon me to an agonizing extent.
In a few days [he added] my force will be highly respectable. I am writing in the open air. I have no tent, and am not looking out for the luxuries of life. Do devise some plan to send back the rascals who have gone from the army and service of the country with guns. Oh, why did the cabinet leave Washington? We must act now, and with great promptness. The country must be saved. This morning I hear of men from the mouth of the river—they are on the march—you will hear from us.
The general wrote most of his dispatches at night, when he sat and whittled a stick (he was a great whittler) while dictating, or while thinking what to write.
But reinforcements were on the way; and word came that Colonel Rusk, the secretary of war, had stationed a guard over the ferry across the Brazos at Washington, with orders to stop all men going eastward with arms.
General Houston was not saying much, but the belief was that a battle would be fought on the 27th: for by this time Fannin or the reinforcements would have arrived—particularly the cannon for which Major Austin had been sent. He had promised to report in twelve days, sure. Fight! That was what the army wanted to do: fight! By the way Sion stormed about, one would have thought that he would do all the fighting alone.
Then, in the evening of March 25, a new commotion swept the camp. Jim, and Ernest, and Sion, sitting together, heard the shouts and saw the running; and together they scampered for the centre of the disturbance. A man had been brought in, by the corporal of the guard, and had been immediately assailed by questions.
“Fannin! Fannin’s been whipped!” were the cries. “He and all his men killed or captured! Refugio taken, too. All the lower Guadalupe wiped out—a lot of the prisoners tied to oak trees and shot!”
By the time that the three boys breathlessly arrived, the messenger, who was a Mexican countryman named Peter Kerr, was being hustled along by the corporal. But he had answered enough questions so that his story was clear.