The old general walked off to his tent, and the crowd betook themselves to their fires, murmuring and discontented, and put their rifles in order. But in an hour and a half, the Texian army left their camp on the Colorado. Sam Houston had prevailed, and the next evening he and his men reached San Felipe, and, without pausing there, marched up the river. On the 30th March the first squadron of the enemy showed itself near San Felipe. The inhabitants abandoned their well-stored shops and houses, set fire to them with their own hands, and fled across the river. The Mexicans entered the town, and their rage was boundless when, instead of a rich booty, they found heaps of ashes. Houston had now vanished, and his foes could nowhere trace him, till he suddenly, and of his own accord, reappeared upon the scene, and fell on them like a thunderbolt, amply refuting the false and base charge brought against him by his enemies, that he had retreated through cowardice. But to this day, it is a riddle to me how he managed to reduce to obedience the unruly spirits he commanded, and to induce them to retreat across the Brazos to Buffalo Bayou. Of one thing I am certain—only Sam Houston could have done it; no other man in the republic.
Mr Ehrenberg escaped from all his perils in time to share the rejoicings of the Texians at the final evacuation of the country by the Mexican army. And certainly they had cause for exultation, not only at being rid of their cruel and semi-barbarous oppressors, but in the persevering gallantry they had displayed throughout the whole campaign, during which many errors were committed and many lives uselessly sacrificed, but of which the close was nevertheless so glorious to those engaged in it. Unskilled in military tactics, without discipline or resources, the stubborn courage of a handful of American backwoodsmen proved an overmatch for Santa Anna and his hosts, and the fairest and freshest leaf of the Mexican cactus was rent from the parent stem, never to be reunited.[I]
FOOTNOTES:
[G] Fahrten und Schicksale eines Deutschen in Texas. Von H. Ehrenberg. Leipzig: 1845.
[H] The founder of the American colonies in Texas, and father of Stephen F. Austin.
[I] The arms of Mexico are a cactus, with as many leaves as there are states of the republic.
THE MOTHER AND HER DEAD CHILD.
With ceaseless sorrow, uncontroll'd,
The mother mourn'd her lot;
She wept, and would not be consoled,
Because her child was not.
She gazed upon its nursery floor,
But there it did not play;
The toys it loved, the clothes it wore,
All void and vacant lay.