WRITINGS OF SAM HoUSTON, 1854
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to strip women; to commit every outrage appalling to humanity, and infamous to a soldier. His cry was, "Rake them down, boys; rake them down." That was the conduct of the author of this book; and it can be corroborated by gentlemen of high character who were present. The general commanding ordered the articles to be brought forthwith upon the complaint of the alcalde, and he had the pilfered articles piled in immense heaps, and he sur- rendered them to the alcalde, to restore them to their owners. Why, sir, this man has even robbed them of their children's tiny dresses. 3 That is the man whose volume has been placed in your library, and I find indorsed upon its back, "Library of Congress"! Was that all he did? No, sir. But I will now show you some further instances of the malignity of this creature. The occur- rence to which I have just referred is shadowed forth in his volume, and justified. I have alluded to his dastardly cowardice, his utter want of chivalry, of humanity, and of manly kind- ness, when he could forget the condition of feeble children and affrighted women. Ah, sir, he could carry terror and dismay to children and to women; but was there manhood in that? Was it not dastardly? He was a man of most puissant cowardice. In this book, speaking in justification of the outrages committed on the people of Loredo, he says that, if the general had provided them with everything they wanted, who could believe for a mo- ment that Texians would not have paid him? Here are his words: "To lay aside these reasons, did not the Texians have a clear right by the lex talionis of war, not only to do so, but to lay every Mexican town upon the border in ashes? Did not the burn- ing of our towns in 1836, and the subsequent plunder of Refugio and San Antonio, give them this right? It clearly did! But a false magnanimity which shielded Santa Anna at San Jacinto, seemed to possess General Sommerville, as it doubtless did his Mexican advisers; and a greater interest was manifested by them for the 'poor Mexicans,' which was sung morning, noon and night, throughout the camp, than for our own men." Thus it will be seen that he Justifies this outrage upon our own citizens, and he assumes to place them in the attitude of foreign- ers because they had yielded to the Mexicans upon the same principle that they yielded to his robberies. When the Mexicans made their forays into Texas, these people were unable to resist them, and because they made terms with the Mexicans, he calls it lex talionis of war for the Texians, their protectors civilly and politically, to rob them again. This is the first extract from his book to which I desire to call the attention of the Senate, but,
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