Five Years in Texas E-Book

Thomas North

• Herausgeber: Thomas North
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

To conceive the idea, and execute the purpose of making a book, is, to a modest man, not a little monstrous; and yet, modest or immodest, monstrous or not, the author makes his best bow to the reader, and holds himself subject to criticism for not making it better. But many are running to and fro in the earth, and knowledge is being increased; for the runners, are they not making books for the million? And having run somewhat with the runners ourself, we might as well tell our story of travel too. The story is not of sailing round the world with Captain Cook, or any other Sea King. Nor is it one of Orient—of Oriental climes or times, or of its discords or chimes, but it is one that pertains to stirring events, in stirring times, in the most stirring of all stirring climes—America, our own sweet land of liberty.

Leseprobe

Five Years in Texas

By

Thomas North

Table of Contents

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I. HON. MARTIN P. SWEET—INTERVIEW WITH, AND EULOGIUM.

CHAPTER II. THE TRIP TO GALVESTON.

CHAPTER III. SOCIAL TYPES.

CHAPTER IV. Voyage Down the Mississippi—Poem on "Varieties' Theater."

CHAPTER V. NEW ORLEANS AND GALVESTON.

CHAPTER VI. EFFECT OF CLIMATE ON TASTES AND APPETITES.

CHAPTER VII. TEXAS OATH OF OFFICE

CHAPTER VIII. THE DOCTOR'S PRIZE-RING ILLUSTRATION.

CHAPTER IX. BABEL OF TONGUES.—SAM HOUSTON.

CHAPTER X. SAM HOUSTON'S SPEECH.

CHAPTER XI. ARGUMENTS ON SECESSION IN OUTLINE.

CHAPTER XII. TEXAS NEVER INVADED.

CHAPTER XIII. NICARAGUA SMITH.

CHAPTER XIV. THE CAPTURED LETTER.—MRS. E.'s EXILE.

CHAPTER XV. LAWLESSNESS AND CRIME.

CHAPTER XVI. THE TWO DAYS' MEETING.

CHAPTER XVII. THE CONSCRIPT LAW AND HOW THE WRITER BEAT IT.

CHAPTER XVIII. A PLOT AGAINST THE WRITER'S LIFE—MORE ABOUT TEXAS.

CHAPTER XIX. LEE'S SURRENDER.—EFFECT UPON TEXAS SOLDIERS.—WRITER'S RETURN TO TEXAS.

CHAPTER XX. GOV. HAMILTON—THE THIRTY NEROS—THE OLD GERMAN AND HIS WIFE—THE FIGHT WITH INDIANS—A NATIVE TEXAN'S OPINION OF GERMANS.

CHAPTER XXI. NORTHERN TEXAS.

OLD LETTERS.

PREFACE.

To conceive the idea, and execute the purpose of making a book, is, to a modest man, not a little monstrous; and yet, modest or immodest, monstrous or not, the author makes his best bow to the reader, and holds himself subject to criticism for not making it better. But many are running to and fro in the earth, and knowledge is being increased; for the runners, are they not making books for the million? And having run somewhat with the runners ourself, we might as well tell our story of travel too. The story is not of sailing round the world with Captain Cook, or any other Sea King. Nor is it one of Orient—of Oriental climes or times, or of its discords or chimes, but it is one that pertains to stirring events, in stirring times, in the most stirring of all stirring climes—America, our own sweet land of liberty.

The Author, in justice to himself, will state that in preparing this book for publication, he has been sore pressed for time to bring it out with that degree of merit, literary and otherwise, that he would have it possess.

The Eulogium on Hon. Martin P. Sweet, which we offer as our prelude, is at once an act of friendship and pleasure, as well as of justice, to one of such brilliant mental endowments and genial qualities of heart, and we believe our readers will so regard it. Besides, while some may not fully appreciate the relevancy of the Eulogy to the residue of the book, yet, for himself, the Author sees and feels a species of mystical connection between Mr. S. and himself in all his travels and experiences in Texas and Mexico. And so much the more because of his earnest prophetic endeavor to dissuade him from going there.

With this brief preface, we submit this volume to the public eye, hoping to please and interest, promising that we will do better next time, if we ever publish another book.

CHAPTER I.HON. MARTIN P. SWEET—INTERVIEW WITH, AND EULOGIUM.

In the month of November, 1860, shortly after the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States, Hon. Martin P. Sweet came into the Circuit Clerk's Office of Stephenson County, Illinois, where the writer was acting as deputy to the regular Clerk—Mr. L. W. Guiteau—and addressing himself to us, said:

"Mr. N., are you busy?"

"Not very," we replied.

"If you can spare the time I would be glad of an interview with you at my office."

Laying aside the pen we went with him, and after being seated together in his private room adjoining the main office, he remarked:

"Mr. N., I understand you are thinking of going to Texas."

"I am not only thinking of it, Mr. S., but the purpose is already fixed to go."

"I regret to hear it," he said.

"Why so, Mr. S.?"

For a few moments he was silent, his eye scanning the figures of the beautiful carpet upon the floor; then calmly raising his face and fixing his full eyes, that looked nigh unto bursting, upon us—such was their intense earnestness, indicating the struggle of soul within, the play of emotions, honest and transparent; and holding the gaze upon us, while as yet no word from his eloquent lips had broken or changed the potent spell thereof—suddenly those eyes suffused with tears incontinent, the requisite power of speech had come, and he replied fervently:

"You ask why I regret to hear it; I will tell you why. We are friends, and have been friends for many a long year, and that, too, on terms of more than ordinary meaning, and sacred beyond the degrees of worldly friendship. The tie that hath bound us, you know, has been that of a deep and ardent Christian faith, which, though seeming to part asunder at times under the severe strain of mutual fault and criticism, producing the while outward non-affiliation, yet the substratum of unity is there, and its brotherly elasticity is too great to be snapped in twain. And however far apart the forces of the world may swing us, on the pendulum of time, still the return movement is certain and sure."

Thus spake a friend. And then, laying his hand upon his heart, he proceeded to say:

"Mr. N., I have loved you"—and pressing his heart said—"I have loved you here. It was years agone we learned to love each other as brother-friends, in earnest truth. You are still in my heart, and I believe I am in yours. You know my motto—'once in grace, always in grace'—once in friendship, always in friendship—once in love, always in love. We would not change it if we could, and could not if we would. I have never turned you out of my heart, never can, and never shall. My heart knows and bows to no destroying vicissitudes. Our friendship has no mere worldly cast, breathing the common atmosphere of self-interest, and putting on the offensive airs of self-righteousness; nay, it endures while witnessing the death-struggles of all such moral and social littleness in ourselves and in others.

"And now," continued he, "from these considerations, permit me to state further why I regret your contemplated move. My regard for the personal welfare of yourself and yours is too warm and deep, not to regret seeing you float to the Southern extreme of American society at the present juncture of our National affairs.

"The loud blast of secession is already heard in the South, and I am impressed that the Southern sisterhood of States will unite in a desperate effort to dissolve this Union and destroy the General Government. And that no renewal of compromise effort can save the tremendous shock of war, between the North and South, that portends in the political heavens. And I now feel bound to say to you, though in confidence, what for wise political reasons I have not dared to utter to any political friend, that I more than fear—I believe—this Government is going to ruin! Presaging wrath is borne on every breeze, and tells of the coming woe!

"To me, this is no chimera of an overwrought imagination, but the serious, sober tone of destiny that comes thundering along the pathway of nations, and having shattered many nations, and buried them in the dust of the sepulchral past, no better fate may await ours. God save us! If that be possible; but it seems otherwise to me.

"And, friend N., if the half of my forebodings shall prove historic verity not far in the future, which side the division line do you wish to be found? To ask the question, I know is to answer it. You and I both hail from adjoining counties in the old Empire State as our fatherland, and are now citizens of the Empire State of the great Northwest. The one gave us birth, and nursed us to the years of early manhood. The other is our adopted State, where we have reached the strength and vigor of intellectual manhood. There we knew and enjoyed the blessings of freedom—freedom of opinion and of speech. Here the same, and not one degree north or south of the same latitude."

Here our brilliant friend drew a picture of suffering, in prospect for ourself and family, so vivid as to rival St. Paul's descriptive list of his own sufferings, by land and by sea, among false brethren, among Greeks and barbarians, in bonds and imprisonment, which awaited him in his journeyings from city to city.

In that description the writer saw himself served with a notice from the "Ticket of Leave Man," to quit the country in a given number of days, or hours, and in default thereof to abide the consequences—such as a free passage at sea, bound to a plank, or headed up in a barrel, companion and food for friendly sharks, or other monsters of the dark blue deep; or left, by the mob infuriate, "Looking up a black jack," as the chilling parlance of the country expresses it. And he saw the secret assassins in the forest nightshade, or in some dark and unfrequented nook, plotting against his life—saw the dagger gleaming in the dark, heard the death-dealing cartridge chambered in the revolver or derringer, the trial click of the hammer, and the adjustment of the cap. And then saw them emerge from their dark hiding place, and take position near the pathway of the unsuspecting passer-by, to shoot or strike him down, just when he thinks no danger nigh. But failing here, because their victim reaches home by a course not in their plans, he saw the human bloodhounds lurking and skulking about his house, at the midnight hour, seeking quiet entrance to his chamber of rest. They enter, and there find the doomed one at rest with the loved ones, in the unconscious bliss of sleep, while the moonlight shimmers from the light breeze-waving trees, through the open lattice, in fantastic shapes of light and shade, upon the chamber wall, just o'er their pillowed heads, so soft and so silvery. The steel is in the assassin's uplifted hand. Witnessing angels are moved at the fearful sight, and cry out—"Stay thy hand! and hurt not the man!" but lo, 'tis not the hand of an Abraham that holds the deadly knife on high, but of the cruel assassin, whose soul communes not with angels of good, but is in league with angels of evil, who in cooler mood might relent the fiendish order to strike—if that were possible with evil demons—but being now at the mighty on-rush, like lightning the fatal blow descends; the warm blood flows, a life ebbs away, and the cowardly wretches retreat under cover of night, followed by the wails of the widowed wife and her helpless children, bereft in a moment of husband and father!

Thus did Mr. S. picture things on the Southern sky, in vividness of eloquent speech, which the writer rarely ever heard equaled—not more than half a dozen times in his life, at most. His soul caught the true image, and his language made it seem to one present and real.

As compared with other men he excelled in most of the qualities that constitute a successful public speaker, or private conversationalist. But comparing him with himself, it is difficult to determine in which he was the more excellent. His nature was spontaneous to an exceeding degree in every capacity and relation of life. The absorbing and evolving power of his intuitions was so remarkable that a book, heavy or light in tone of thought, was mastered by him as a mere breakfast spell. Memory was ever a faithful sentinel at his mental door, and every fresh thought passing its threshold was imprisoned there for life. In the more rigid sense of the schools he was never, perhaps, a systematic student; which might be urged by some as a fault, and the conclusion is logical on general principles. But he was a student, nevertheless, after nature's own style. He was nature's own genius, and could not be confined to the plots and plans of books—not even the books of the law. His soul was too thirsty to be slaked with legal waters. It looked up to the mountains for irrigation from the gospel waters of the Spirit. Once on a time a young chip of the law challenged him on his inattention to the books, to whom he replied: "There are two classes of lawyers: those who make the books, or furnish the material for them, and are lawyers without them, and those who study the books to be lawyers at all."

As a jury advocate, as a platform speaker, as a popular orator on political and other occasions, it is conceded by those who knew him best, professionally and otherwise, that he never had his superior, and few if any equals in the whole Northwest. Nature had endowed him with a voice of surpassing compass and richness for oratorical purposes, and had breathed into his great soul a spontaneity of warm impulse and thought, to back and animate it, so that, whether he spoke in tenor or baritone, or deep basso, one always heard a soul-voice from the speaker.

His whole character, from top to bottom, was stratified with moral simplicity and a broad catholicity of temperament, which, under the guidance of his comprehensive intellect, brought him into rapport with truth wherever found. He thought, and felt, and spoke, in veins of enthusiasm, and hence was rather impatient of conservative restraint. He always entered his appearance against injustice and wrong, in radical pioneer style, with a directness of purpose that would see the beginning of the end at once. He never impressed one with the idea, in his public efforts before courts, or juries, or popular audiences, that he sought to produce sensational effects; nay, he was always too full of his subject for that—so full that some, in envy, or jealousy, or ignorance, might write him down a wild enthusiast, and at times a fanatic, because he believed the lions in the way, where most men feared to travel, could be slain and put aside; but we shall not so write him, for we know him better, and have a better chart of his character. From long personal intimacy with him we understand with what generous prodigality nature lavished upon him powers sui generis, and beyond those of most men, and above appreciation by the green-eyed few. If he were not perfect, as the religious legalist counts perfection, and had any marked faults, as all great men are said to have, the intelligent reader will not fail to appreciate the point when we say that peculiar faults, either secret or overt, seem quite inseparable from the characters of geniuses; and more, these very faults serve as foils of contrast to set off to greater advantage and glory their superior excellences, while teaching us not to fall down and worship them as gods, for they are but men in common with other men.

Mr. S. stood aloof the major portion of his life from the technical distinctions and peculiar customs of the religious sects, and the more strenuous and imposing they were the less real fellowship from him. He thought he saw in the tone of creeds, old or new, as managed by human fallibility, the old "Yoke of bondage"—the imposition of tyranny—the reproduction of the old spirit of Judaism, in a display of "the commandments of men." And yet, in default of the grander development of the coming kingdom—the one organic headship of Christ, and the one all-pervading, and all-comprehending unity, under that headship—he recognized the preliminary usefulness of the sects, in keeping mankind beating the bush for religious truth, and making endeavors toward pure living. Hence his motto was: "The seed of the true church is scattered among all the sects, and will be gathered into one in the fullness of time."

From this standpoint he could never regard the distinctive features or claims of any existing sect as paramount to those of another, or as promising to transcend all others, absorbing them into a visible, vital oneness, in the final outcome of the conflict between modern sects. But believing, as a matter of the deepest faith with him, and the most unquestionably certain teaching of Christ, and what appeared to most people Utopian, that the true church on earth was intended by its divine Founder to be like its counterpart in heaven—a vital, visible, organic unity—he could not, at any time in his life, long yield himself to sectarian embraces. Here is the true explanation of the ins and outs that he practiced in this direction. When he went in he was esteemed just converted. When he went out, backslidden and lost—so reckoned the sectarian treadmill brother in his case, who failed to penetrate below the surface of his character, and did not see him as he was, and where he was.

The truth is, the writer never knew a man in whose subjective life the religious element was more potential. It was a profound inspiration, and the mainspring of his whole life-movements. And even when some of those movements became irregular and tangled from fractures or weakness in subordinate machinery, the mainspring was there, performing its functions, and kept him in motion. In every speech he ever made, at the bar, on the stump, or elsewhere, this inspiration was in his soul, came up to his lips, and gave them their greatest power.

The most elegant and moving strains of eloquence he ever uttered came from this wellspring of the divine within him. It breathed in every breath, it toned every word, it warmed every impulse, it was the muse of every sentiment, it was the "fourfold chord" of his friendship; it was the tidal wave of his soul, hurling the shore rocks of biting sarcasm and scathing invective against evil and wrong. At such times his very lips seemed formed by nature for this kind of work, and woe betide the luckless man against whom he employed them. This divine passion gave him "cloven tongues of fire," and made him on occasion a pentecost of eloquence.

Congress was the ambition and disappointed hope of his life. So with Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, in regard to the Presidency of the United States. They were said to be too great for the position, which, of course, was intended as a high political compliment, meritoriously given to offset their disappointment. The compliment belongs with equal propriety to the subject of our sketch in his life-long aspirations for Congressional honors.

With his peculiar talents he doubtless would have shone more in the popular branch of the National Legislature than in the Senate. He was, by nature and education, the people's representative. But as a politician, in his own interest and for his own ends, he was a failure. There were plenty of men, with half his talent, that could and did beat him to death at the wheel of political fortune. Yet he was a king among his peers, though never crowned, but a king "for a' that."

He was the Whig candidate for Congress in 1844; and to show his popularity, though a Whig, and his party, on a strict party vote, in the minority by several hundred votes in the Congressional District, yet he swept it, and entered Nauvoo with a majority of between four and five hundred votes. But there the vote was solid against him. Joe Smith had a revelation the day before that the Mormons must vote for the Democratic candidate. And so he was beaten by the Mormons, who belonged to no party, but were up for bargain and for sale. Mr. S. would not soil his honor by making a bid for their vote.

He was candidate again, in 1850, against the Hon. Thompson Campbell. Again he carried the district, entering Jo Daviess, his competitor's own county, with a majority of between three and four hundred votes. But the local feeling there for the home candidate overcame the majority, and defeated him again. When it is remembered what partisan odds he had to overcome in these two contests, amounting to a diversion of a thousand or more Democratic votes, and would have been triumphantly elected in the one case but for the treachery of the Mormons, and in the next but for the local feeling in his competitor's home county, preferring a home candidate, with the wholesale bid of Campbell for the abolition vote in certain localities, touching the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; we say, taking these things into the account, they exhibit the immense power and popularity of Mr. S.

Was he too honest for a politician? Aye, that was it. He reposed too much confidence in the professions of political friends. They took advantage of confidences ingenuously imparted, and slew him at the gate of triumphal entry. And some did it who had eaten bread from his professional hands. Such is life in this world of strife. Once when the election returns revealed their perfidious betrayal of him he cried out with a voice that could be heard from far: "Three cheers for Judas Iscariot! hurrah! hurrah!! hurrah!!!"

He was a life-long Whig and Republican, and did much heavy work for his party, but official recompense never came—a marked example of the proverbial ingratitude of political parties. Others entered into his labors and took his reward.

After months of severe suffering with malignant erysipelas, he paid the debt that all must pay, which balanced the books for this world, except that the balance sheet, if left unstruck by the hand and seal of the death-king, would show him a heavy creditor of his country. He died during the December term of the Stephenson County Circuit Court, A. D. 1864, his Honor, Benj. R. Sheldon, presiding.

The Hon. Thos. J. Turner, a contemporary of the deceased at the bar, arose in Court and said:

"It is difficult for me to find words to express what we all feel on this solemn occasion. Hon. Martin P. Sweet is dead. We shall not again hear from his lips the burning eloquence that in times past has thrilled the court and the bar, as he held up to view the enormities of crimes which he had been called upon to prosecute; or the melting pathos with which he captivated the sympathies of jury and people, while defending those he regarded innocent. Few men ever possessed that magnetic power which chains an audience in a greater degree than did our departed friend.

"It is not alone at the bar that he has left his impress as a leading mind. In the arena of politics, and in the sacred desk, he was alike conspicuous. Logical in argument, terrible in invective, and quick in repartee, he carried the judgments of the jury or an audience. Or failing here his quick sympathies and deep pathos led them along against the convictions of judgment. Such was Martin P. Sweet as an orator and advocate. A self-made man, he surmounted difficulties which would discourage and defeat others, and reached a position at the bar second to none, and established a reputation as an orator of which any man among us might well feel proud.

"But it is not as a public or professional man alone that we mourn him to-day. Mr. Sweet immigrated to Winnebago County, in this State, in the year 1838, where, with his own hands and the help of his wife, he erected a comfortable log-house, and there entered upon that chimerical course of life which, at some time or other, in the life of almost every lawyer has held out the promise of ease, self-culture and intellectual enjoyment—the life of a farmer. But he soon found that the fields would not yield a harvest without incessant toil, and that calves and pigs did not spring indigenous from the soil. And in 1840 he left his farm and removed to Freeport, where he remained, with the exception of two or three years he was in the ministry, until his death.

"On opening an office in Freeport he soon secured a remunerative practice, and took a first rank at the bar throughout the circuit. His services were sought after wherever important cases were to be tried, or legal ability was required. Among the traits of character that endeared Mr. Sweet to the members of the profession were his urbane manners, his nice sense of professional honor, and his kind and courteous bearing toward those who were opposed to him. In these respects he has done much to elevate the standard of professional ethics.

"In private life he was generous and urbane, and had many friends, with few if any enemies. In his death the bar has lost one of its brightest ornaments, the city a good citizen and zealous friend, and the County and State an able defender of their rights. For all these we mourn him. There is still another circle that mourns him with a deeper grief—the charmed circle of home. The sorrow which reigns there is too sacred to be spoken of in this place. With closed eyes and silent lips, all that was mortal of our friend sleeps just where he desired his last sleep should be, beneath the green sods of this beautiful prairie land, which in life he loved so well; while his spirit, we trust, has entered upon higher and holier joys, and more sublime pursuits than this earth affords.

"Let us, my brethren of the bar, while our eyes are suffused with tears, and our hearts bowed with sorrow over his grave, resolve to emulate his virtues, to follow his example, and avoid and forget his faults—if he had any—so that when our work on earth is done, and when our names maybe mentioned, as the name of our departed friend is mentioned to-day, with bated breath and choked utterance, it may be said of us: 'Our work is finished, it is well done.'"

In response to Mr. Turner's eulogy the Judge said, in substance, that "during the sixteen years he had been on the circuit bench he had known Mr. Sweet as a member of the bar, and as an effective speaker and legal orator he had no superior, and at times he was the leading genius, outstripping all others in his judicial circuit. That it was probable we should never look upon or hear his like again. The thrilling tones of that voice, so powerful, so charming and so eloquent, have died away forever to the natural ear, but still we hear the echoes in the chambers of the soul. And hereafter, when we think of Mr. Sweet, it will be in connection with some great effort we have heard him make in by-gone years, and the sensations we felt then will again rush over the soul. Thus will he speak back to us from the world of the departed. And to-day, while sitting here on this accustomed bench, I seem to hear his utterances over again, as we all do, but they are more solemn and impressive because now they have the momentum of eternity added to that of time. May we emulate his virtues and be prepared when our change comes."

During the delivery of the eulogy the Judge appeared more deeply moved than he had ever been known to be before, on any occasion, and the members of the bar fully sympathized. It was a rare occasion for the play of solemn emotions, and for a grand uprising of the soul toward God.

We offer no apology to the reader for prefacing our book with the foregoing eulogistic sketch of our departed friend, and it is presumed none is necessary. We are certain of it with the friends of Mr. Sweet, who knew him best. And if he had enemies that last till now, political or otherwise, to such we make our bow in passing, and say, requiescat in pace!