WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1857
461
to assume the responsibility of advising him not to make the attack (as General Sherman says they did in Council) because it was safer to share the responsibility with the General in not fighting, than to encounter the hazards of battle? The General attacked the enemy as all his antecedents show! In an order on the 3rd of April, while he was at Washington, the Commander-in-Chief uses this expression in relation to the enemy: "We can whip them three to one if we will attack them." The Commander-in-Chief was the only one of the officers who had ever witnessed an array of hostile armies, or been in a gen- eral battle; and it is not probable that he would surrender his opinion to those on whom no responsibility rested. If victo- rious, the victory would take the name of the place; if it were defeat, it would bear the name of the General, but not that of his subalterns! The battle was fought at the right time and at the right place, for had he met and vanquished the enemy at any point on his retreat, the victory would have been indecisive. As it was, by destroying the bridge over which both armies had marched to San Jacinto, and the only means by which either army could retreat, he prevented the escape of the Mexicans when van- quished, and terminated the campaign. The Commander-in-Chief has always been anxious that every brave man, who was in the battle, should share its glory, and he now rejoices in the prosperity of the Country which he has so long and so faithfully served! When concluding my letter, a newspaper was handed to me, containing another assault by Ex-President Anson Jones. I ought to feel distinguished by the notice of so many illustrious personages-three Ex-Presidents!!! It is perhaps the first time in the recorded annals of the world, where three Ex-Presidents have been known to descend from their high position to attack a quiet citizen. I will not notice them further, as I have resolved to waste no more time galvanizing de/1.mct politicians, whether they are Ex-Presidents, or Ex-Generals. Thine truly, Sam Houston. 1 Civilian and Galveston Garette, August 25, 1857. Several other papers make reference to this letter, and adversely comment on it. Ono editor stated that it had been planned by Houston and Hamilton Stuart in the early spring of 1867 in• Washington City. It is true that Stuart did visit Houston at Washington. See Houston to Mrs. Houston, March 1, 1857, in this volume.
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