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When Santa Anna put himself at the head of the liberal party in Mexico, the Texians gladly raised his banner; but they soon discovered that the change was to prove of little advantage to them.
Novarro, senior and junior, Mexican gentlemen, who, liberal in their ideas and frank in their natures, had been induced by the false representations of the Texians not to quit the country after its independence of Mexico; and, as they were men of high rank, by so doing they not only forfeited their rights as citizens of Mexico, but also incurred the hatred and animosity of that government.
Suffice it to say, that I was a gentleman preacher, with plenty of money, and that the Texians, president, generals, and all, condescended to eat my dinners, though they would not hear my sermons; even the women looked softly upon me, for I had two trunks, linen in plenty, and I had taken the precaution in Louisiana of getting rid of my shin-plasters for hard specie.
This is a great mistake, but it has arisen from the false reports and unfounded aspersions of the Texians, as to the result of many of their engagements. One great cause of the Mexican army having occasionally met with defeat, is that the Mexicans, who are of the oldest and best Castile blood, retain the pride of the Spanish race to an absurd degree.
As well as the Apaches and the Comanches, the Wakoes are always on horseback; they are much taller and possess more bodily strength than either of these two nations, whom they also surpass in ingenuity. A few years ago, three hundred Texians, under the command of General Smith, met an equal party of the Wakoes hunting to the east of the Cross Timbers.
Where was the boasted superiority of the Texians over the Indian race? or were these individuals around us of that class of beings who, not daring to reside within the jurisdiction of the law, were obliged to lead a borderer's life, exposed to all the horrors of Indian warfare and famine?
The commanding officers soon ascertained who were the two men that had been billeted at the old woman's, and found them surrounded by a group of Texians, making themselves merry with the stolen liquor. Seeing that they were discovered, to save his life, Golpin's companion immediately peached, and related the whole of the transaction. Of course the assassin was executed.
In spite of their disadvantages, the Texians repulsed the Comanches with considerable loss, till the morning, when the men were literally tired with killing and the prairie was covered with the corpses of two thousand savages; the Texians themselves having lost but thirty or forty men, and these people of little consequence, being emigrants recently arrived from the States.
The rations were still scanty, and given but at long intervals; and the starving Texians continued their system of barter, urged to it by the pangs of hunger, and by the Mexican soldiers, who told them that they were to be shot in a day or two, and might as well part with whatever they had left, in order to render their last hours more endurable.
They found the Texian militia encamped before the town, which, as well as its adjacent fort of the Alamo, was held by the Mexicans, the Texians were besieging it in the best manner their imperfect means and small numbers would permit. An amusing account is given by Mr Ehrenberg of the camp and proceedings of the besieging force:
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