Houston v1

WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1836

333

No language can express my anguish of soul. Oh, save our poor country!-send supplies to the wounded, the sick, the naked, and the hungry, for God's sake! What will the world think of the authorities of Texas? Prompt, decided, and honest indepen- dence, is all that can save them, and redeem our country. I do not fear- I will do my duty. Sam Houston, Commander-in-Chief. To Governor Smith. [Addressed)] : To Governor Henry Smith, San Felipe, Texas. [ Endorsed] : Sam Houstons Letter, January 6, 1836. 1 Govenio1· and Council Papers, Texas State Library. H. Yoakum, His- to1·y of Texas, II [Appendix], 457-458. Alfred M. Williams, Sam Houston and the Wai· of lndc7>cnclence in Texas, 128. zJames C. Neill immigrated to Texas from Alabama in February, 1831. He was married and brought with him a wife, two sons, and a daughter (Spanish Archives, General Land Office of Texas). When the Texas revo- lution was brewing, he entered the Texas militia (September 28, 1835), was given a place as captain of artillery, but was soon advanced in rank. At the "Storming of Bexar," December 5-10, 1835, he commanded a com- pany of artillery; and it was his company that made the feint against the fortress of the Alamo during that siege that is somtimes called "the first Lattle of the Alamo." On December 21, 1835, Houston, the recently appointed commander-in-chief of the Texas forces, ordered Neill to take command of the town of San Antonio, and of the entire district of Bexar (Yoakum, II, 49). After Johnson and Grant had carried off the majority of the troops from that region, December 31, 1835, on the disastrous Mata- moras expedition, Colonel Neill was left to hold Bexar with only eighty soldiers (Neill to Henry Smith, January 14, 1835, Army Papers, Texas State Library). On January 17, 1836, Houston sent James Bowie and thirty men with orders to Neill to destroy the fortifications at Bexar, and to retreat with the artillery to Gonzales. Obedience to this order, however, was left to the discretion of Neill and other officers at Bexar. Neill soon replied that he had no teams with which to remove the artillery, there- fore he did not obey the order. On February 14, he obtained a furlough in order to attend his sick family, and left the Alamo in command of Lieutenant Colonel William Barret T!·avis. At the Battle of San Jacinto we find Neill again in command of the artillery. He was slightly wounded in the skirmish of April 20, so on the following day, in the real battle of San Jacinto, the artillery was under the command of George W. Hockley. Subsequently Neill led an expedition against the Indians on the upper Trinity in 1842; and in 1844 he was one of the commissioners sent to treat with the Indians. He died at his home on Spring Creek in 1845. See Homer Thrall, A P.icto,·icil History of Texas, 596. Dixon and Kemp, The He,·oes of San Jacinto, 73. 3 Reference to Santa Anna and his dictatorship. •The battles of Gonzales and Bexar. GThe Matamoras expedition led by James Grant and Francis Johnson, in defiance of the commander-in-chief of the army, and of the Governor of the Provisional Government of Texas.