A number of the other cooler heads agreed with Dick. To Ernest his words sounded very sensible.
Captain Robert Calder and a small party were sent by the general to bear the news of the victory and the capture of Santa Anna to President Burnet and cabinet, at Galveston Island. They left by skiff, to descend the bayou and the bay.
Jim laughed.
“I know why the captain’s so willing to row a boat,” he said. “He’s got a girl down on the island, and he’s honing to see her.”
Leo also set out on a borrowed horse. The refugees who had fled east were already returning; they could be seen collecting at Lynchburg and crossing the San Jacinto by Lynch’s ferry. Leo had learned that his mother and family were among them; so no wonder that away he went, in haste.
The army stayed in camp on the bayou. At night the wolves could be heard howling on the battle-field. More prisoners were brought in by the ranging scouts, who smoked them out by setting fire to the prairie. On April 24, the second day after the capture of Santa Anna, General Cos was found wandering in the bottoms along the Brazos River. When he was turned over to the guard at the camp, he sank down, paralyzed with fear, and covered himself head and all with a blanket—which trembled so, that, as Sion declared, “the leaves of the trees rustled”!
The refugees visited the battle-field and the camp, and there were cheers renewed and many reunions. Leo brought his sister in to see Santa Anna. He introduced the three boys to her. All the refugees of the Runaway Scrape were on their way home again, and the ferry at Lynchburg was busy day and night.
Although General Houston was unable to move, he took good care that nobody harmed Santa Anna—or General Cos, either, who had broken his word of honor, given at Bejar last December, that he would not again oppose the cause of liberty in Texas.
May 1 President Burnet and some of the cabinet arrived at camp, on the steamboat Yellowstone. The Yellowstone showed that she, too, had been in the war. Her single smokestack was riddled with bullet-holes, and her wood-work was gashed and splintered. After she had ferried the army across the Brazos at Groce’s, she had taken a load of refugees down the Brazos to the gulf. The Mexicans had bombarded her from the banks, and had tried to catch her by casting reatas [ropes] at her; but she got through, and here she was, again.
The first thing done was to distribute the spoils of battle so that the soldiers might be paid a little money. The captured property was sold, here and there, for $18,184.87. Three thousand dollars of this was voted to the Texas navy. The handsome saddle of Santa Anna was presented to General Houston by unanimous voice. So was General Almonte’s superb black horse—the prize of Henry Karnes. The general at first refused to accept the horse, and insisted that it be sold along with the other property; but the army sent it back to him.