458
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1857
on the field. I can name no other, and him I know to be one." This, I suppose, will come under Mr. Lamar's general proviso for his maladministration, while President of Texas: "an error of the head and not of the· heart." He further states, that I thought that he wished to supplant me. He is mistaken; I was fearful of no man supplanting me! When Mr. Lamar was ap- ·pointed by the Cabinet (without law) a Major General in the army, over the heads of decent men, I was confined with my wound, not as he says in the United States, but in Nacogdoches. I certainly made no complaint that I recollect, for with the news of his appointment, that of his rejection by the ar11iy as their commander, also came. If the statement was incorrect, the history of the times will correct the error. Mr. Lamar was informed that the army would not receive him as General. After some negotiations it was agreed that there should be a vote of the army upon his acceptance or rejection. The vote was taken and out of eighteen hundred, or two thousand men, Mr. Lamar received not exceeding one hundred and sixteen votes. Thus was unGeneraled the veritable "hero of San Jacinto." General Houston had ample revenge for the moclest presumption of Mr. Lamar, if he desired any. I will, to illustrate further the char- acter of this witness, relate the incident which occurred at a barbecue on Cedar Creek, in Washington County, Texas, on the 4th of July, 1843. After an oration delivered by Mr. Nimrod Chappell, Mr. Lamar, in the presence of the American Charge d'Affaires, arose, and in the course of his speech, after assuring the audience of the good intentions by which he had been actu- ated in his administration of the Government while he was President, he asserted that if "he had committed any errors, they were errors of the head and not of the heart." To this no one demurred, and he proceeded to say, "GOD MADE ME A HERO AND A PATRIOT, AND MAN CAN'T MAKE ME LESS." No one dared to con- tradict the assertion of Mr. Lamar, and so it remains to this day. Now, who can doubt his right to judge of any man's valor? or to say that he knows any man "to be a coward?" Such men who sit in judgment upon themselves, should be permitted to sit in judgment upon others, although they may have borne upon their breasts honorable scars for upward of forty years. I will now give a true and faithful statement of facts which no man will even attempt to deny, explaining the "order of Halt." When the right wing of the enemy had fled, the breastworks of the enemy taken, as well as the enemy's artillery taken by our
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