WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1859
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determined to fall back, and did so, and on falling back received an accession of three companies that had been ordered from the mouth of the Brazos. He heard no word of the artillery, for none had reached there, nor did it ever start for the army, and it was years before he knew that his orders had been coun- termanded, and his aide-de-camp withdrawn from him. He wishes to cast no reflection upon the dead. I shall not enter into that, but the general's orders were not executed; they were countermanded ; 0 and the opportunity of obtaining artillery was cut off from him. He marched, and took position on the Brazos, with as much expedition as was consistent with his situation; but at San Felipe he found a spirit of dissatisfaction in the troops. The Government had removed east. It had left Washington and gone to Harrisburg, and the apprehension of the settlers had been awakened and increased rather than decreased. The spirits of the men were bowed down. Hope seemed to have departed, and with the little band alone remained anything like a con- sciousness of strength. At San Felipe objection was made to marching up the Brazos. It was said that settlements were down below, and persons in- terested were there. Oxen could not be found for the march, in the morning, of a certain company. The general directed that they should follow as soon as oxen were collected. He marched up the Brazos, and, crossing Mill Creek, encamped there. An express was sent to him, asking his permission for that com- pany to go down the Brazos to Fort Bend, and to remain there. Knowing that it arose from a spirit of sedition, he granted that permission, and they marched down. On the Brazos, the effi- cient force under his command amounted to five hundred and twenty. He remained there from the last of March until the 13th of April. On his arrival at the Brazos he found that the rains had been excessive. He had also no opportunity of operating against the enemy. They marched to San Felipe, within eighteen miles of him, and would have been liable to surprise at any time, had it not been for the high waters of the Brazos, which prevented him from marching upon them by surprise. Thus, he was pent up. The portion of the Brazos in which he was became an island. The water had not been for years so high. On arriving at the Brazos, he found that the Yellow Stone, a very respectable steamboat, had gone up the river for the purpose of transporting cotton. She was seized by order of the general, to enable him, if necessary, to pass the Brazos at any moment, and was detained with a guard on board. She
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