The Men Who War the Star: The Story of the Texas Rangers (10 page)

With the state now at war, the convention that opened in San Felipe on October 11 established itself as the Permanent Council to organize a government and give some legitimacy to the citizens who were gathering to form an army. There was also the matter of frontier defense while the army faced Mexico, and on October 17, Daniel Parker of Nacogdoches moved that his brother Silas, Garrison Greenwood, and D. B. Fryer be authorized to form companies of “rangers whose business shall be to range and guard the frontiers. . . .”

The motion, as approved, designated Silas Parker, Greenwood, and Fryer as superintendents. The companies would elect the officers who would hold immediate command. The duties of the superintendents included enlisting and organizing the companies, overseeing their operations, and arranging their provisions, obligating public funds for the purpose. They were specifically enjoined “not to interfere with friendly tribes of Indians on our borders.” The companies would elect their own officers. Each Ranger—from this point the term can reasonably be capitalized—was to provide his own horse, arms, ammunition, and equipment, and would receive $1.25 a day. The government would indemnify any losses of personal gear. Greenwood’s company would muster at Houston, while Parker and Fryer would assemble “at the Ouaco [Waco] village on the Brazos” where the city of Waco now stands.
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The parsimonious pay initially may have been an expediency for a provisional government that was barely organized and had no treasury or means of revenue. However, it would become standard practice. Not until the oil boom of the early twentieth century did the government of Texas have financial resources appropriate to its responsibilities. Throughout the nineteenth century, the government had to carefully nurse its limited monies, and chronic underfunding would become the bane of the Ranger Service.
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Over the next few weeks, the concept was refined. A military ordinance was approved, creating a regular army of 1,120 men enlisted for two years under command of a major general. As part of the overall defense establishment, the ordinance stated:

There shall be a corps of rangers under the command of a major, to consist of one hundred and fifty men, to be divided into three or more detachments, and which shall compose a battalion under the commander-in-chief, when in the field.
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Rangers were enlisted for one year rather than the two required of soldiers, and if discharged prior to the end of their enlistments, they were to hold themselves available in case they were needed. A separate article created a state militia, so that the line between Rangers and militia was now clearly defined, although both served under the jurisdiction of the military.

More refinements were made until finally, on November 28, the council elected officers. Robert McAlpin Williamson, a tough, self-reliant jurist known as “Three-Legged Willie” because he reinforced a polio-wasted right leg with a wooden peg, was named major of the proposed corps of Rangers. Company captains were Isaac W. Burton, William H. Arrington, and John J. Tumlinson. Various lieutenants were also elected. Despite Williamson’s title as corps major, the real authority rested with the company captains; the corps itself was considered in service only when all three companies were assembled as a single unit.
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MOST HISTORIES OF
the War of Independence center around the conflict with Mexico. In reality, it was a two-front war, not only against the Mexicans in the south and east, but against the Plains Indian tribes in the north and west. The fighting on the frontier was especially serious because it now involved the Comanches. Although initially indifferent to the Americans, they had begun growing restless when white expansion pushed other tribes into their hunting grounds. Then the whites themselves moved onto the edge of the Plains. Between these two groups, the buffalo herds on which the Comanches depended began to dwindle, and they retaliated.
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Trouble erupted in the spring of 1835, when a band of warriors raided one of the Colorado settlements, killed a wagoner, and stole some horses. A company hastily formed by pioneer Indian fighter Edward Burleson started in pursuit. On the trail, they encountered the friendly Caddo chief Canoma, who, traveling under a safe conduct, had managed to find the raiders and recover the horses and was en route back to the settlement. Without bothering to inquire, Burleson’s men killed Canoma and his son, alienating the Caddos. Soon after, Indian depredations prompted some Brazos settlers to raid a Keechi village on the Trinity River, killing several people, destroying the village, and capturing horses, disrupting the fragile truce between the Indians and the Brazos whites.
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Then, in July 1835, a company of men under Capt. Robert M. Coleman attacked a Tawakoni village in what is now Limestone County, east of Waco. Though surprised, the Indians outnumbered the whites, forcing them to retreat to Parker’s Fort, seat of the Parker clan, some forty miles east of Waco. Coleman sent for help and was reinforced by three companies under Col. John H. Moore. The Indians retreated. Moore’s Rangers combed the countryside as far as the present site of Dallas before returning home.
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These various skirmishes, insignificant on their own, would have far-reaching repercussions, not only with the local tribes but with the powerful Comanches of the Plains.

For all its efforts to bring this fighting to an end, the Permanent Council itself aggravated the situation by giving command of one of the new official Ranger companies to Capt. John Tumlinson. Like Burleson with his ad hoc rangers, Tumlinson was unlikely to inquire about an Indian’s intentions before killing him. Neither he nor his brothers ever forgot the murder of their father, and “the Fighting Tumlinsons,” as the clan would be known, nursed a lifelong hatred of Indians.
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Because they were moving into Comanche country, Tumlinson’s Rangers could expect all the justification they needed for starting a fight. The sixty-man company probably organized in late 1835, because by early January 1836 it was ready for duty. The Rangers were assigned to rendezvous at Hornsby’s Station on the Colorado, collect equipment, and ride to the headwaters of Brushy Creek, about thirty miles northwest of the site of modern Austin. There they were to build and garrison a blockhouse.

One of the privates in the company, Noah Smithwick, left a memoir that has become a classic account of Texas’s early years. Smithwick came to Texas in 1827, when he was about twenty, “with all my worldly possessions, consisting of a few dollars in money, a change of clothes, and a gun, of course, to seek my fortune.”
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He lived for a while in DeWitt’s Colony before settling in San Felipe, where he established himself as a blacksmith. He was part of the force that captured San Antonio and, erroneously believing the fighting with Mexico was over, joined Tumlinson’s company to see more action. This probably saved his life, because it kept him away from the Alamo.
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A FORMER MISSION
secularized and converted to a military post by the Spaniards, the Alamo was garrisoned by regular troops and volunteers commanded by Lt. Col. William Barrett Travis.
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On February 23, 1836, a vanguard of Mexican dragoons under Gen. Joaqúin Ramírez y Sesma arrived in San Antonio. Later that day, Santa Anna himself rode into the city with the main Mexican force and invested the fort. Faced with the prospect of a long siege, Travis penned a hasty note to the nearest help, seventy miles away in Gonzales.

The enemy in large force is in sight. We want men and provisions. Send them to us. We have 150 men and are determined to defend the Alamo to the last. Give us assistance.

W. B. Travis, Lieut.-Col. Commanding

P.S. Send an express to San Felipe with the news night and day.

Travis
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The note was given to Dr. John Sutherland and Capt. John W. Smith, who arrived in Gonzales the following day. Among those who saw it was Major Williamson of the recently authorized Ranger Corps, who wrote a letter advising the provisional government:

By express from San Antonio under date of 23rd inst. I have received information that 2,000 Mexicans under command of [Ramírez y] Sesma have arrived in Bexar [San Antonio] and have taken possession of the Public Square, compelling the American troops (150 in number) to confine themselves to the Alamo. The American troops are determined to defend the place to the last and have called upon their fellow-citizens for help.

Yr. obt. servt.,

R. M. Williamson,

Comd’g the Rangers.
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Williamson’s title was impressive but empty. The three companies were scattered, and until they assembled as a unit, he had no authority.

The same was not true, however, of the Gonzales Ranging Company of Mounted Volunteers, recently organized by the citizens under command of Lt. George Kimball. Because they were a strictly voluntary force with no sanction other than the support of the local community, they did not fall under Williamson’s jurisdiction. In common with so many other ad hoc Ranger companies of the period, “they were voluntary combinations of freemen held together by the cohesive power [of] patriotism,” according to nineteenth-century Ranger and historian John Henry Brown. The company was composed of only twenty-two men, and initially no one had expected a fight anytime soon. Nevertheless, Travis’s call spurred them to action and they prepared to ride to San Antonio.
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Travis, meanwhile, had written a second letter, which, until recent years, could be recited by virtually every schoolchild in Texas.

Comandancy of the Alamo—.

Bexar, Feby. 24th 1836—

To the People of Texas & all Americans
in the
world—

Fellow citizens & compatriots—

I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna—I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man—The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken—I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls—
I shall never surrender or retreat. Then,
I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch—The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country.

Victory or death

William Barret Travis

Lt. Col. comdt.

P.S. The Lord is on our side—When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn—We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels & got into the walls 20 or 30 head of beeves—

Travis
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The letter was given to Capt. Albert Martin of Gonzales, who reached his hometown late in the afternoon of the next day. Travis’s new plea added a sense of urgency, and several more volunteered for the Gonzales Rangers, including Martin himself, who intended to go back and rejoin the garrison. At 2
P.M.
on February 27, the company assembled and, led by Kimball and Martin, rode out toward San Antonio. Because Mexicans blocking the road ahead might force them to cut across open country, Captain Smith served as their guide. An experienced frontiersman and old San Antonio hand, he knew the country better than anyone. Picking up more men on the way, the company had risen to thirty-two men by sunset February 29 as it neared the Alamo.

In the distance, they saw the shadowy form of a horseman, who politely inquired if they wanted him to guide them through the Mexican lines into the fort. They accepted, but as they fell in behind the man, Smith was uneasy. The rider kept too far ahead, and his English was simply too precise. It was a trap. Someone suggested killing the man, but before they could shoot, the rider spurred off into the darkness.

Listening now for the sound of men and equipment on either side of their column, the Gonzales Rangers edged through the Mexican army toward the Alamo. As they neared, a rifle sounded from the walls, and the bullet grazed the foot of a Gonzales man, who responded with a loud string of Anglo-Saxon epithets. The shooting stopped, the gate swung open, and at 3
A.M.
on March 1, the Gonzales Rangers entered the Alamo.
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The appearance of these reinforcements caught the attention of the Mexicans. Gen. Vicente Filisola, Santa Anna’s second-in-command, who preferred to think of the rebels as newly arrived American adventurers rather than “colonists or inhabitants of Texas,” grudgingly acknowledged that the Gonzales contingent was local. Santa Anna preferred to ignore them.
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The Gonzales Ranging Company raised the garrison to approximately 186, but it was not enough to resist Santa Anna’s divisions. At dawn on March 6, Mexican troops overwhelmed the Alamo, killing all the defenders, including the Ranger volunteers.

IN THE WILDERNESS
more than a hundred miles to the northwest, Tumlinson’s Rangers were unaware of events in San Antonio. Leaving the city well before the arrival of the Mexicans, they had arrived at their rendezvous at Hornsby’s Station and were just settling down to supper when “a young white woman, an entire stranger, her clothes hanging in shreds about her torn and bleeding body, dragged herself into camp and sank exhausted on the ground,” according to young Noah Smithwick.
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It took time to get a coherent statement from her, but at length the Rangers learned she was Sarah Hibbons. She had been traveling with her husband, brother, and two small children when they were attacked by Comanches. The two men were killed and the wagon was plundered. She was tied to one of the wagon mules and her three-year-old son to another. The younger child, however, irritated the Indians with its crying, and they silenced it by smashing its head against a tree.