“I wish I had more to give you,” she told them in Spanish. “You have done so much. I could never repay you all that I owe you.”
Jamie was so weak he could scarcely speak. For the fevers, more than his wounds, had nearly killed him. Egg picked him up in his arms and carried him to the wagon — the bed had been filled with straw — and gently placed the man on the softness.
“Now we go home,” the huge Cherokee said.
Forty-seven
Far to the east, between a bayou and the San Jacinto River, Houston was preparing to launch the battle that would finish Santa Anna’s reign of terror in Texas.
The battle cry of the Texans was, “Remember the Alamo, Remember Goliad.”
Houston’s men had blood in their eyes and slaughter on their minds. And that is exactly what it would turn out to be for the Mexican troops.
On the 20th of April, Houston’s men and the Mexican troops exchanged a few rifle shots and that was about all. The Mexican army was well-dressed in their colorful uniforms. Houston’s men were dressed mostly in rags, for their clothing had taken a beating during the long days and nights of marching. Their clothing was tattered, but their spirits were high.
Santa Anna viewed the newly formed army of Texans with contempt. His scouts had told him they were filthy, all dressed in rags, had no food, and the mounts of their small cavalry unit were scrawny and looked as though they had not been fed in days.
“We shall send them fleeing for their lives with the first charge,” Santa Anna was told.
“Very well,” Santa Anna said. “In the morning we shall finish with this distasteful business and then make ready to go home.”
They were going to go home, all right. To their maker.
On the afternoon of the 20th of April, Houston knew he could contain his men no longer. To do so would light the spark of insurrection, for his men were ready for a fight and his commanders had told him their men were, by God, going to fight, whether Houston liked it or not.
The thinly timbered field of San Jacinto was all that separated Houston’s army from Santa Anna’s army. At about three o’clock that afternoon, Houston gave the orders: Move out. But do it silently. The Army of Texas moved out, silently as ghosts, flitting through the timber, advancing to the open field where the Mexicans were camped. The cannon were being pulled along by men to cut down on the noise horses might make.
Santa Anna was asleep in his tent.
About two hundred and fifty yards from the huge encampment of Mexican soldiers, many of them resting, Houston shouted, “Remember the Alamo. Remember Goliad!”
Houston’s small battery of cannon roared, shattering the tranquility of the balmy afternoon.
Many of the men had lost friends at the Alamo and at Goliad. They screamed out the names of the dead and opened fire with their rifles.
The Mexican Army was caught flat-footed. Why Santa Anna’s guards had not detected the advancing Texas army remains a mystery. But they did not. Many of the Texans had moved into a position only a few yards from the sprawling Mexican army and the afternoon turned into a slaughter. Houston’s fifers were tootling and the drummers were pounding as the startled and frightened Mexican army sprang to their feet and grabbed rifles. Santa Anna’s cavalry, the dragoons, ran for their horses, which were not saddled. Houston’s cavalry galloped into the Mexican camp, their sabers flashing in the afternoon sun. Within seconds, the sharpened steel was dripping with blood, and blood splattered the clothing of Houston’s cavalrymen and their mounts. The Texan cavalry rode down many of the panicked Mexican soldiers, the hooves of their mounts smashing the life from the soldiers.
Santa Anna was in the saddle, waving his sombrero, attempting to rally his men. “Fight them, goddamn you!” he shouted, his voice just audible over the howling din of battle and the cries of badly wounded men.
But his men were in panic. They looked for their leaders and could not find them. The advancing line of Texans was about three quarters of a mile long and coming at a run. It must have seemed to the Mexican soldiers to be an endless line of soldiers. It was not; it was a very thin line but Santa Anna’s troops did not know this. It was not the Mexican policy for the officers to share much intelligence with line troops.
The Mexican soldiers went into total panic and confusion. They began running in all directions and Houston’s men chopped them down. The battle turned into a slaughter.
Houston had his horse shot out from under him. He swung into the saddle of a riderless Mexican horse and had that animal shot out from under him. On foot, he was felled by a musket ball to his left leg, knocking him to the ground, the bullet breaking his leg. He crawled into the saddle of yet another horse and rallying some men, led a charge, waving his sword. Houston leaped his horse into the fray. Swinging his sword, he beheaded a Mexican colonel and turned in the saddle just in time to see a Mexican general riddled with bullets from the rifles of the Texans.
“Let them surrender!” Houston shouted. “They’re trying to surrender, boys!”
But the Texans were having none of that. The blood-splattered walls of the Alamo and the terrible slaughter at Goliad were too fresh in their minds. The Texans went after Santa Anna’s men with a vengeance. They gave no quarter as they ripped and shot and slashed their way through the Mexican lines.
Santa Anna and many of his senior staff officers managed to escape in all the confusion. As one sergeant in the Texas Army put it, “They took off like their asses was on fire!”
The actual battle lasted just over fifteen minutes. But the blood lust was hot in the veins of the Texans, and they more than got their revenge for the slaughter at the Alamo and at Goliad. To say the men under Houston’s command went berserk would be putting it mildly. They were bent on killing and nobody was going to stop them.
About eight hundred Mexican troops were killed that late afternoon, and over six hundred finally taken prisoner when the blood lust had cooled and the men began to take stock of what they had done.
Houston, in great pain, lay on blankets and took reports from his commanders. He had lost eight men and had nineteen wounded.
“Santa Anna?” Houston questioned.
“Gone.”
“Not far,” Houston said. “Order patrols out and tell them to look for a man dressed like a peasant or a common soldier. He’s an arrogant bastard, but he isn’t a fool.”
Santa Anna was no fool, but he had a lousy sense of direction. He got lost and wandered around in the night like a goose. Not only that, but he lost his horse and was on foot. Instead of heading for his own army, located about forty miles away, on the Brazos, he turned and walked straight back toward the killing fields of San Jacinto. That night, a patrol picked him up and by daylight, he was standing in front of Sam Houston. Santa Anna was one scared man, but still full of bluster.
“I demand to be treated as befitting a man of my rank,” he said.
Houston told him, quite bluntly, where he could put his demands.
Nobody had ever suggested that to Santa Anna, but it sure got Santa Anna’s attention real quick. He stood trembling with fear and indignation.
Houston added, “You’re damn lucky I don’t have you shot on the spot.”
Santa Anna was sure now that he was a dead man.
But Houston spared General Santa Anna, feeling that the man was much more valuable to him alive than dead. He made Santa Anna write out a letter, acknowledging Texas’s independence from Mexico, and also had him put in writing that from that moment on an armistice between Texas and Mexico was declared.
Houston’s men didn’t like it; they wanted to hang Santa Anna right then and there, but Houston was firm on the matter: Santa Anna would be spared.