We visited San Antonio, and on reaching New Braunfels, thirty miles from there, a fine German town of five or six thousand inhabitants, we found at the hotel a man just in from the bush, where he had been met, robbed, stripped, and tied to a tree, and there left to perish by hunger and thirst, or to be the prey of bears, wolves, and panthers from the mountains near by. Judging from the cast-off clothing they left behind, the robbers appeared to be deserters from the Federal camps at San Antonio. Fortunately some passer-by heard his cries of distress, and went and released the man from his perilous situation. The robbers had taken from him a gold watch, $175 in gold, and a good suit of clothes in exchange for some rags of blue, with which the victim in part covered himself so as to get into town. In their haste the robbers left in the clothing an old silver watch, which, with the clothing, we took and turned over to the General in command at San Antonio. He kindly thanked us for the interest we had taken in the matter, and said that information had been lodged that two cavalry-men were missing from camp, and presumed these were the parties; and said he should send out a detachment, and if possible capture them. We subsequently learned they were not captured. You might as well look for a needle in a haymow as to hunt for deserters in the forests, chaparral, and mountains of Texas.
We returned to Austin the sick guest of the Rev. Mr. Whipple, three weeks in the fellowship of the sufferings of the ancient Job.
CHAPTER XX.
GOV. HAMILTON—THE THIRTY NEROS—THE OLD
GERMAN AND HIS WIFE—THE FIGHT WITH INDIANS—A
NATIVE TEXAN'S OPINION OF GERMANS.
Before we left Austin Governor Hamilton sent out a strong detachment to the adjoining county on the north, and had arrested sixteen members of the vigilance committee, whose whole number was thirty, and whose business had been during the war to hunt up and kill Union men. The sixteen were brought to Austin and lodged in prison to await trial. Eight of them turned States' evidence, and testified that the thirty had killed, in their own county, exactly their own number. They showed the officers where fourteen of the victims were buried, in one place.
We were invited to dine one day with a friend at the house of their legal counsel. From him we gathered the facts. He said that he considered their defense desperate to the last degree; but he was bound by his professional oath and honor to see that they had a just and impartial trial.
One of the victims of the fiendish malice of these thirty Neros was an old, white-haired German, eighty years of age, who was suspected of Union proclivities. They went to the house where the old German and his aged wife were living together alone, in peace and quiet, and made the pretext to the old lady that they wanted her husband as an important witness in some case, which partly quieted her fears. They placed the old man in the saddle, and ordered him to ride in front. As he was passing out the gate of the front yard, the villains shot the old man in the back, and he fell to the earth dead! The old lady standing in her door-way saw it all, gave one long, wild scream, and fell forward to the ground! The wretches left, nor let the grass grow under their feet till safe in their hiding places.