273
WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1851
but afterwards revived. Some made their escape, notwithstand- ing bullets like hail pursued them, and they brought the mournful intelligence. The army amounted only to 650 men from 1364. Here were 700 men, gallant spirits, lost unnecessarily. The old provisional government had exhorted disobedience to the com- mander-in-chief, and ordered the defence of the Alamo, thirty-six miles from all settlements, without resources, in a Mexican population, without a week's provisions, and without munitions of war. That fatal council had ordered them not to surrender, that they might raise up a man that would put down one that they hated, because he loved his country more than he did them. All the reinforcements that he had to hope for he received im- mediately on his arrival in Gonzales. Texas had met in con- vention on the second of March, had 1·eorganized, made a declara- tion of independence, and was 1·eady to form a constitution. The news of the investment of the Alamo came; they re-elected, almost unanimously, their commander-in-chief; he lost but one vote out of sixty. He hesitated, and said, "I am afraid it is too late to save T'exas." On the sixth of March, this being the second, the Alamo fell, and the commander-in-chief started to Gonzales, where it was said troops were gathered. He met fugitives on the way, flying for their lives towards the Sabine. "Why, there were six men accompanying one woman, alleging that they were going to guard her!" With three men he traversed the distance of more than 90 miles; but he could not rally the fugitives, such was the shock that ensued on the destruction of the Alamo. It would seem as if Heaven had upheld that man, for all men were flying; women and children, frantic, with tattered garments, left their tables with food upon them untouched and untasted-leav- ing everything to the mercy of the enemy-life and safety were all they cared for. When men set such a bad example to women and children, we cannot expect them to stand it. When he arrived at Gonzales, 374 men were all that were there, and they were half fed, half clad, and half armed-nothing but the inner man was perfect. The heart was right, the arms sinewy, and purposes fixed-coupled with death or chained to victory. A retreat was indispensable; they commenced it, and after retreat- ing 100 miles, then came the intelligence of Fanning's massacre; that added frenzy to panic; yet they were kept together; whether by the influence of one man; by the moral influence that he wielded with his ·officers-or whether it was his personal in- fluence-it was so; there was the philosophy of the fact. After
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