Chapter TwoPresident Houston's Conduct in the Campaign. His Newspaper War with President Santa Anna. His Treatment of the United States Volunteers. President Houston's second administration, after the foregoing catalogue as its precursor, commenced with his old siren song of peace, peace by begging, peace by negotiation. To some he would say, with a mock gravity of face and tone which would better suit a father confessor, "In thirty days you shall have peace;" that he was "fixing the thing." This mockery was of short duration. In rapid succession followed Santa Anna's letter of ridicule of "Mr. Samuel Houston" and the "rebel adventurers;" then General Arista's proclamation to the people of Texas; then General Vascus's capture and plunder of San Antonio.1 How were these insults and outrages answered by President Houston? Was it in the manly language of the cannon? To the shame of our country, we are bound to answer No! How then? In the columns of a village newspaper our president belched forth his gall [23] and thunder upon the head of the tyrant of Mexico, whom he, Houston, "has so greatly served while in Texas."* In this newspaper war was our President victor to the extent of several columns over and above the length of his competitor, and after luxuriating under the gilded domes of the Montezumas, he insults a nation with whom we were at peace by "unfurling the single star upon the Isthmus of Darien."2
In this tournament of the goose-quill between the Presidents of Mexico and Texas, the partisan friends of the latter had but little time to chuckle over his victory. Santa Anna was not disposed to await the execution of his empty threat. He sends General Vascus into San Antonio, plunders that place of immense booty, and carries off our peaceable citizens. Was this outrage answered by the national ordnance which the people had placed in the hands of their President-general-in-chief? No! It was answered in the numerous war-speeches with which he lulled and cajoled the citizens of Houston and Galveston. These cities, ever devoted in their duty to their country, felt that enthusiastic patriotism which pervaded all portions of Texas. They called upon their President to avenge their country's wrongs. He says, in a public speech, "You shall have war, and war to the knife. I say it - Sam Houston says it - and no man can ever say [24] these lips ever uttered falsehood." In the speech alluded to, on the 21st of April, at the Tremont House in Galveston, he says, "Before July you shall have war." He authorizes the enlistment of several hundred gallant young men in the United States, and, upon their arrival on our shores, he sends them to summer it upon the Nueces, unprovided with food or the necessary equipments of an army, * See Santa Anna's letter to General Hamilton, and Houston's answer. |