Thread: SAM HOUSTON
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Old 12-15-2013, 02:08 PM
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Old TexMex Old TexMex is offline
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I have to say, devils advocate has been my position in this discussion, and I have benefitted from the outcome of General Sam Houstons leadership, good, bad or indifferent. Therefore I have to say all I say with respect for the man and the State.
No disrespect is meant in these speculations, to anyone living or dead.

Sam Houston stated the following:

"In the course of two days [at Gonzales] I received the lamentable information that Colonel Travis and his noble compatriots had succumbed to overwhelming numbers and had been brutally slaughtered. I immediately sent a courier to Colonel Fannin ordering him to destroy all his artillery that he could not remove and retreat to Victoria . . . Deaf Smith having returned from a scout reported the enemy advancing. I then determined to retreat and get as near to Andrew Jackson and the old flag as I could."
This tends to corroborate the statements of contemporaries who maintained that Gen. Houstons
intentions were to retreat to the protection of the U.S. Army across the Sabine, if indeed, he was speaking the truth at the time of this speech in 1845, in Houston, Texas.

Some might say,"if you retreat far enough, the enemy supply lines will break down." This is true, if one is willing to make sacrifices.
The Mexican forces under Urrea and (I forget the other),returned to Mexico and continued to make war in Texas until the U.S. Marines and Army occupied Mexico City in 1848.

EDIT: the "whichaway tree" is at the crossroads at the now nonexistent settlement New Kentucky, (8 miles west of Tomball)where the road from Washington on the Brazos forked, one road to the east and the Sabine, one to the south, and Harrisburg and San Jacinto.
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Halfway and one more step

Last edited by Old TexMex; 12-15-2013 at 02:27 PM. Reason: New kentucky note
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