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Sam Houston
Oak
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Mike Cox |
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They call it
Sam Houston's oak.
The ancient tree shades a wide area just east of Peach Creek, 8.5
miles from Gonzales.
In the vicinity of the tree on March 14, 1836, Sam Houston and several
hundred Texas citizen-soldiers spent one of the worst nights of their
lives, albeit a very short night.
The day before, Houston had dispatched from Gonzales
three of his best scouts, Erastus "Deaf" Smith, Henry Karnes and Robert
Handy, on a dangerous mission. They had orders to ride to Bexar to
learn how Col. William B. Travis and the other defenders of the Alamo
were doing. With Smith in charge, the scouts made it only 20 miles
west of town before they rode up on Susannah
Dickinson, her infant daughter Angelina and Joe, Travis' slave.
Dickinson passed on the grim news that her husband and all the others
had died early on the morning of March 6, their mission fortress overwhelmed
by soldiers under Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Karnes raced back
to Gonzales to report
to Houston while Smith and Handy stayed behind to escort the survivors.
The
word Karnes carried threw Gonzales
into a panic. Twenty-five of Houston's soldiers deserted, an enraged
Houston ordering their arrest. Houston's next order, made shortly
after Smith and the survivors arrived about 11 p.m., was to torch
the town and retreat.
Houston said that women and children should leave immediately, assuring
the townspeople that his troops would serve as a rear guard to protect
them from the advancing Mexican army.
Led by Houston, 374 citizen-soldiers marched eastward all night, crossing
Peach Creek at Bartholomew D. McClure's plantation. In the pre-dawn
darkness, the general called a stop for breakfast and rest.
To the west the Texans could still see the orange glow of the burning
town. Soon they started new fires, and began boiling coffee and cooking
breakfast.
"While we were sipping our unsweetened coffee," private James Kuykendall
later wrote, "two or three loud explosions in quick succession were
heard in the direction of Gonzales." The soldiers grimly assumed the
booms came from Mexican field pieces, but Sidney Sherman had another
theory: Houston had said something about leaving poisoned liquor behind
in the hope of killing some unsuspecting Mexican soldiers. They were
hearing the barrels of booze blowing up in the fire, he suggested.
Their bellies full, even the strong coffee did not prevent most of
the men from sinking into an exhausted sleep.
Meanwhile, stragglers continued to arrive from the burned town - men,
women and children on foot, in oxcarts or on makeshift, horse-drawn
sleds to more easily traverse the mud left by recent rains.
"It was a sad thing to see the women and children plodding their way
across the prairie," later wrote David Kokernot, one of the volunteer
soldiers. "No tongue can express the sufferings those fleeing families
were called upon to endure."
A gray granite historical marker placed nearby in 1936 says the oak
that was there when all this happened briefly served as the "headquarters"
of Houston's army. While that is technically true, Houston did not
linger. Two hours after arriving, the weary general, longer days ahead
of him, commanded the soldiers to fall in and continue their eastward
march.
At least he had more men than he had arrived with. A volunteer company
organized in San Felipe by Capt. John Bird had been camped at the
creek and readily joined Houston's army. Now the general had an addition
90 men.
The
owner of the land along Peace Creek, McClure, had settled there in
1831 with his 19-year-old bride, Sarah. They lived in a cabin and
made a living off the land and by providing food to travelers. The
McClures fled with the rest of Gonzales County's residents, but returned
after the revolution.
When McClure died in 1841, Sarah kept the place. "A braver or grander-hearted
woman never trod the soil of Texas," historian John Henry Brown later
observed.
Two years after being widowed, Sarah married Charles Braches, a merchant.
Not far from the huge oak where Houston and his soldiers had napped,
Braches built a two-story Greek Revival plantation-style house for
his new wife.
Sarah outlived her second husband, staying in the house until her
own death in 1894. A century later, the old house still stood, but
it was vacant and endangered.
The old house is still owned by descendants of the Braches family.
In 1995, the house was restored -- a gift to the Braches family and
to posterity from an adjacent property owner.
© Mike Cox -
"Texas Tales"
March 12 , 2004 column
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