unteers from their crazy walls, but at each time with far less vigor than the first, and with as little success, but with much less loss in their own ranks.

Night now coming on, the Mexicans after posting sentinels around the Mission, to prevent the escape of the besieged, retired to their camp, distant only five or six hundred yards. The Texians, finding their ammunition nearly exhausted, (which with all their care in husbanding it, would not have held out through the last assault, had it been as vigorous as the first,) determined to retreat during the night. This they effected unnoticed, or at least, unmolested, by the enemy. Not a man of the hundred vol. unteers had been killed in these repeated assaults; three only had been severely wounded;—these were from among the little band of brothers, who had so gallantly defended the outpost during the long day's strife, and the most daring of the band.* The acknowledged Mexican loss was four hundred men killed and wounded.

Santa Anna in his wretched apology for his cold blooded butchery of prisoners, in violation of the express terms of their capitulation, among other things, introduces this terrible slaughter of his men at Mission Refugio. An apology indeed!-One hundred Texians, attacked by a thousand Mexicans, defended themselves with a gallantry unsurpassed among the records of heroic deeds which mankind have preserved with the greatest care; and this is to excuse the butchery of unarmed prisoners! The apology is precious only as it is an unwilling tribute to the memory of brave men, from the hand of their assassin.

Having been spared the painful detail of the horrid massacre at Goliad, by transferring to our pages an account drawn up by one who had a fearful interest in the scene, we forbear further

These men were left in the church. Their companions being unprovided with means of taking them along. "We parted with tears and sobs," says our informant, who was one of the band, and who wept and sobbed again, before he had finished the tale. "When night came on, and the enemy had retired, they began to feel that hunger and thirst which a long day's work, without food or drink, could not fail to create. They had provided themselves with a tierce of water in the morning from a spring some four hundred yards distant, but this had been tapped and drawn off by the Mexican bullets on the first assault. The poor wounded boys now begged as a last favor of their companions, to fill their gourds with water before leaving them. The Mexicans had posted a strong guard at the spring, but the appeal of their stricken brothers was not to be resisted, and they marched in a body, determined to reach the fountain or perish in the attempt. After exchanging a volley the Mexicans left them in possession of the spring; each then filled his gourd and returned unhurt to their companions. Four of the Mexican guard had fallen at the spring-they brought also the blankets of the foes they had slain, and in these they wrapped their dying comrades, and bid them farewell for. ever."

comment. The deed is sufficiently characterised by a simple

record of the facts.

In dismissing the subject, however, we will introduce one other witness to speak for us, who also bore a part in the tragic scene, different indeed from the last. He was an instrument of the assassin, (and as it would appear from his language, an unwilling instrument,) in consummating the foul deed. We extract the following from a letter written by a Mexican officer after the

massacre:

"This day, Palm Sunday, March 27, has been to me a day of most heartfelt sorrow. At six in the morning, the execution of four hundred and twelve American prisoners was commenced, and continued till eight, when the last of the number was shot. At eleven commenced the operation of burning their bodies. But what an awful scene did the field present, when the prisoners were executed, and fell dead in heaps! and what spectator could view it without horror! They were all young, the oldest not more than thirty, and of fine florid complexions. When the unfortunate youths were brought to the place of death, their lamentations and the appeals which they uttered to heaven, in their own language, with extended arms, kneeling or prostrate on the earth, were such as might have caused the very stones to cry out in compassion."

།

CHAPTER XI.

Reception of the intelligence of Santa Anna's invasion, at the seat of the Texian government—Gen. Houston's appeal to the citizens-he appoints a rendezvous at Gonzales-proceeds there by a forced march-is informed of the fall of the Alamo-retreats upon the Colorado-learns Fannin's surrender-retreats to the Brazos-Mexicans advance to San Felipe-General Houston learns the force of the interior division-decides to give them battle-leaves his position upon the Brazos-arrives near Harrisburg-capture of the Mexican courier-deaf Smith-movement of Santa Anna to Harrisburg and New Washington— the hostile armies meet-affair of the 20th-number and charac ter of the opposing forces-their position described-official account of the battle of San Jacinto.

HAVING brought the bloody drama, which was acted on the western frontier at the beginning of the campaign, to its closing scene, we turn back a few days to the time that notice of the arrival of the invading army at San Antonio first reached Washington. This was on the morning of the second day of March, and previous to this, no certain intelligence that a Mexican had crossed the Rio Bravo, with hostile intentions, had reached that place. It was probably a part of the plan of the campaign with Santa Anna to surprise the Texians, and in this he had fully succeeded. The news that San Antonio was already besieged by two thousand men, came accompanied with all the circumstances of the advance of the invading army in two divisions, and that Santa Anna was either at San Antonio, or on his way there to direct in person the military operations of the campaign. There was nothing kept back. All the astounding facts came at once, with many exaggerations, rendering them still more fearful and appalling. It was reported that the strength of both divisions could not be less than fifteen thousand men; that the garrison at San Antonio had already been overcome and put to the sword, and that the enemy were on the march for the Colorado.

It will be recollected that the Texian convention, clothed with full powers to declare independence, and form a constitution, were then in session at Washington. And it was at this dark hour, in face of the impending storm which threatened to lay their country

in utter desolation, that the delegates of the people of Texas adopted a declaration of independence, and put their names to the instrument.

General Houston, the commander-in-chief of the Texian ar. my was also at Washington, on the receipt of the foregoing intelligence. From the day of his appointment, he had made unsparing efforts to furnish the means of equipping and subsisting a small army upon the frontier, and for this purpose, every available resource of the country had been put in requisition; but these were few indeed, and his progress had been slow and discouraging.

The savages upon the frontier, probably excited by the emmis. saries of Santa Anna, had, during the winter, assumed a hostile attitude, and the commander-in-chief found it necessary to engage personally, in various measures of menace and pacification, to relieve the frontier citizens from apprehensions from that quarter, that they might be ready to take the field against the Mexicans when occasion should demand it!

To embody the citizens, and march with them to the western frontier, when the whole resources of the country were scarcely sufficient for the transportation of a supply of provisions, necessary for their subsistence for a single month, was not to be thought of. There was no other feasible course but to await the event and call them out on the first alarm. That alarm had now come, but the call had come a distance of nearly two hundred miles, crossing rivers and traversing a country without roads or bridg es, and over the deep soil of Texas, in the rainy month of March. Its progress had unavoidably been slow, and so must be the response, in spite of human effort.

The commander-in-chief having appointed Gonzales, as a place of general rendezvous, immediately despatched couriers to all the principal settlements with the following order.

Re

"War is raging on the frontiers. Bejar is besieged by two thousand of the enemy under the command of Gen. Siesma. inforcements are on their march to unite with the besieging army. By the last report, our force in Bejar was only one hundred and fifty men strong. The citizens of Texas must rally to the aid of our army or it will perish. Let the citizens of the East march to the combat. The enemy must be driven from our soil, or desolation will accompany their march upon us. INDEPENDENCE IS DECLARED, it must be maintained. Immediate action, united VOL. I.

29*

with valor, alone can achieve the great work. The services of all are forthwith required in the field.

SAM. HOUSTON, Commander-in-chief of the army.

"P. S. It is rumored that the enemy are on their march to Gonzales, and that they have entered the colonies. The fate of Bejar is unknown. The country must and shall be defended. The patriots of Texas are appealed to in behalf of their bleeding country.

S. H."

After sending out this brief but" stirring" appeal, Houston proceeded to muster all the force that could be collected in the neighboring settlements, and commenced a forced march for Gonzales, his place of rendezvous.

Meantime, the same alarming intelligence that reached Washington on the morning of the second, had previously spread through most of the settlements west of the Brazos. That a panic to some extent was the consequence, we have before intimated. Indeed, in view of all the circumstances, the absence of it might be deemed incredible. Men who might perhaps have acted bravely, where personal safety alone was concerned, became cowards in contemplating the indefinable dangers to which their families might be exposed in their absence. Many therefore ceeded to remove their families before the enemy, instead of manfully facing the enemy and driving him back from their families. There are men however, who cannot be reached by a panic, and in no country is the proportion greater than in Texas. This class

pro

of men hastened from all quarters to the frontiers, and on the 7th of March, when Houston reached Gonzales, he found himself at the head of about five hundred men. On the 8th a Mexican brought in a report of the fall of the Alamo, and the fate of the garrison.

A company, consisting of most of the men able to bear arms in and about Gonzales, had but a few days before marched to the relief of the garrison. They had bravely broken through the lines of the besieging army and reached the fort in safety, but to become early victims to numbers too overwhelming to be resisted. Tidings of their fate now first reached their relatives. "No human pen (says our correspondent, one of the aids of Gen. Houston,) can describe the scene that these sad tidings produced in the little town of Gonzales. Not less than twenty women, with young and helpless children, were made widows. Fathers had lost sons, brother had lost brother. In short, there was not a family,