Dac Crossley's Western Blog

Texas Declares Independence from Mexico

My mother, Eugenia Baird Crossley, would launch into one of her dramatic orations on March 2, the day that Texas declared its independence. The convention of 1836 was in session at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Delegates from all quarters of Texas debated their future – what to do about the despot Santa Anna, who had suspended Mexico’s constitution and become its military dictator – El Presidente. Mother made it more of a show than it probably was. On March 1, George C. Childress was appointed chairman of a committee to draw up a declaration of independence. The next day, March 2, Childress presented the declaration to the Convention.

George probably had that document prepared when he arrived. Despite the dramatic debates (thanks, Mom), declaring for independence was a foregone conclusion.

Sam Houston bought the drinks, as was his habit. After all, March 2 was his birthday, too. He took only a minor role in the Convention itself. He would be appointed general of the (nonexistent) Army of Texas and become Texas’s foremost statesman.

The historian Marquis James proposed that Houston’s real objective was to wrest Texas from Mexico and lay it at the feet of his hero, President Andrew Jackson. Indeed, old Sam was always loyal to the US. In 1860 he refused to take the oath of secession, and was removed from his office of Governor of Texas. Two years later, he died quietly.

Some of my troubled friends back in Texas are muttering about another secession, this time from the United States. Where would they find another Sam Houston?

Dac Crossley
March 2, 2013. Happy Birthday, Sam.

“I hold that the man is in the right who is most closely in league with the future.” – Henrik Ibsen.

Building the Ranch

Ed Lasater had quite a problem. He owed Grandma King $ 200,000. And in 1899 the King Ranch was rapidly acquiring land. Grandma would rather have Ed’s land than his money.

In the Great Drought Year of 1893 ranchers large and small lost most of their cattle. Ed Lasater was one of them. He ran cattle on a large scale and suffered a huge loss. But Ed had something most didn’t -- credit; obtained through his father’s mercantile business. Ed bought land from distressed ranchers, latino and anglo alike.

He needed real money to pay off Grandma King. Lasater persuaded the English brokerage firm, Francis Smith, to invest in his ranch. He expanded it to 360,000 acres in south Texas. He convinced the Southern Pacific railroad to build a line down from San Antonio to his ranch. Lasiter built what was said to be the largest dairy herd in the world. He attracted settlers by offering them subdivided ranchland by the railroad. Lasater’s headquarters became the little town of Falfurrias.

When I was a boy living in Kingsville (home of the King Ranch), Falfurrias was only some 40 miles away but you couldn’t get there. Not by auto. Not until the State of Texas built what we called the “new highway.” I remember the first sight of Falfurrias’s citrus groves and date palms.

The name “Falfurrias” itself is obscure. Perhaps a Lipan word meaning “desert flower?” Or does it refer to an old shepherd who lived there? Falfurrias was the final home of a famous curandero, Don Pedro de Jaramillo, a beloved faith healer. I used him as a model for the healer Don Pedro in Escape from the Alamo.

I’m grateful to David Montejano’s history, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1896. And of course, the Handbook of Texas Online. Always.

Dac Crossley
February 22, 2013.
Happy Birthday, George W.

“Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” – Washington.

The Woman in Blue

Near Albuquerque, New Mexico, on a hot July day in 1629, a group of Jumano Indians presented themselves at the convent of Isleta. They came in search of religious instruction. The Indians already had fundamental grasp of Christianity. Who had taught them? The Lady in Blue, they said.

María Coronel took her vows in a Franciscan order in Spain and assumed the name of María de Jesús de Agreda. She donned an outer cloak of coarse blue over her traditional brown habit. María had a large number of out-of-body experiences in which she visited a distant land. Franciscan authorities thought she was describing New Mexico and west Texas. She said she appeared to the natives, told them of Christianity, and ordered them to seek religious instruction.

Later, on an expedition to west Texas, Fray Juan de Salas met a tribe of Indians who told him of the Woman in Blue. She had spoken to them of an upcoming visit by missionaries. They asked Fray Juan for baptism and religious instruction.

Fray Alonso de Benavides traveled from Mexico to Spain to visit María in Agreda. She acknowledged that she was the Lady in Blue. She described the Indians and the southwest environs she had seen. Maria said her last visit was in 1631, but the Lady in Blue reappeared as late as 1690. Rumors of a Lady in Blue surfaced in 1840 in the Sabine river valley, during a malaria outbreak. And again in World War II. Read more about Maria de Jesús de Agreda in The Handbook of Texas Online.

I am a scientist. Each and every day I marvel at the things I do not understand, at phenomena for which I have no explanation.

Dac Crossley
July 2, 2013
Happy birthday to Bob G. Look for the Groundhog’s shadow.

“Miracles are propitious accidents, the natural causes of which are too complicated to be readily understood.” – George Santayana.

Santa Anna's Other Mistress

It's part of the myth - the Mexican General Santa Anna was bedding Emily West just before the Battle of San Jacinto, and thus was distracted when he should have been alert. So says the legend of the "yellow rose of Texas."

But Santa Anna had already taken a mistress.

Earlier, during the siege of the Alamo, Santa Anna’s eyes fell on one Melchora Barrera. A beautiful young señorita, Melchora was the daughter of a Mexican army officer, living with her mother in San Antonio. Santa Anna saw her at a dance and determined that she should become his mistress.

Melchora’s mother thought otherwise. Señora Barrera, a good Catholic, insisted that her daughter could be given only in marriage performed in the church.

General Santa Anna searched among his troops and located an Irishman who was a former actor. Dressed in a cassock, the trooper pretended to be a priest and performed a church ceremony wedding Melchora to Santa Anna. Mother was satisfied. Santa Anna was delighted.

Santa Anna took his Melhorita with him when he marched north toward his destiny at San Jacino. But the weather turned bad, cold and rainy, so he sent his bride back to San Antonio.

Eventually, the girl and her child rode to Mexico City in the carriage of the infamous Mexican General Juan Almonte, to join her husband who already had a wife.

Or so Almonte’s journal suggests. Personally, I like the other ending of the story. Did the Irish trooper regret his role in the farce, return to San Antonio, and wed Melchora himself?

As they say – thereby hangs a tale.

Dac Crossley
January 26, 2013

“All that makes earlier times seem simpler is our ignorance of their complexities. – Thomas Sowell.

Missing the Snow

We don’t get much snow here in Athens, Georgia. About every other year we see “significant” snowfall. That’s all I need. I moved to Athens from Knoxville 45 years ago. I haven’t had to lie on my back in the snow to put on tire chains since that move.

Plenty of snow, of course, when I was in Kansas. And in the Texas Panhandle, in Lubbock. Then during my time in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and in Knoxville, snow days were a major pain. I Don’t miss snow, not a bit. No playing in snow when I was a child in Kingsville, Texas. We had no snow.

Not quite true. When I was growing up in Kingsville, it snowed a bit in 1931 and again in 1942. Enough to make some soggy snowballs. Mother insisted that an eleven-year sunspot cycle was responsible. Was she right? Did it snow again in south Texas in 1953? In 1964? Those years, I was in Kansas and then in Knoxville. It sure snowed there! But in Kingsville? Do any of my old friends remember? Was Mom right (again)? Does it snow every eleven years?

Snow is kinda pretty, if you don’t gotta go outside.

Dac Crossley
January 17, 2013

“The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.” – Winston Churchill

The Anniversary of Spindletop

Anthony Lucas nearly gave up. He believed that the underground salt domes along the Gulf Coast could be sources of petroleum. Contemporary geologists disagreed with him.

When Pattillo Higgins of Beaumont advertised for a drilling company to work on his property south of Beaumont, Texas, Lucas volunteered. His equipment wasn’t adequate, however, and the work was halted. Lucas convinced the Galey brothers of Pittsburgh to finance the project, which they did by demanding controlling interests. Higgins was cut out altogether.

January 10, 1901, Spindletop came in with a bang. Roughnecks fled as six tons of four-inch drilling pipe shot out of the ground. Mud followed, then gas, then a stream of oil 100 feet high. The multi-billion Texas oil industry was born.

I recall my grandmother pointing out the lights of the derricks at night, far off in the distance above Corpus Christi and Robstown. The derricks soon marched south onto the King Ranch. During the 1940’s, oil was a boon to those little towns of south Texas. A similar upsurge is occurring today as modern techniques make drilling profitable again.

The first Texas economy was based on cotton, up to the time of the Civil War. Cattle became the driving force in the latter 19th Century. Petroleum in the 20th Century. What will the 21th Century bring to Texas? A financial empire? Or a return to the geologic wealth of the Lone Star State?

Who is the Anthony Lucas of today?

Dac Crossley
January 10, 2013

“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races, one after another.” – Walter Elliott.

Robert E. Lee Returns to Texas

In 1859, Juan Cortina, the “Robin Hood of the Rio Grande,” declared war on Brownsville, Texas. Spurred by the brutal treatment his Mexican friends experienced at the hands of anglo lawmen, Cortina and his band shot up the little city and then began raiding up and down the Rio. Cries of alarm reached Texas Governor Sam Houston. Army patrols had been withdrawn from the Rio Grande Valley to fight Comanches in the hill country. Houston wired Washington for help.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, 2nd United States Cavalry, was sent to Texas in response to Houston’s plea. Winfield Scott had dubbed Lee as “America’s very best soldier.” He’d recently squashed the troubles at Harper’s Ferry. The Border needed a firm hand to quell the uprising that threatened to escalate into a full-fledged war. Gentle, white-haired Robert Lee was the obvious choice.

Lee set up headquarters in the old Alamo chapel, where he reviewed reports of Cortina’s actions. By now, Cortina had retreated to Mexico but continued raiding across the river. He was reported to be in Eagle Pass, Texas. Lee mounted up and rode to meet him there, but the rumors were false. Lee rode down the Rio Grande to Brownsville, noting the deserted farms and ranchos along the way. In Brownsville, and across the river in Matamoros, Lee’s presence calmed the citizenry. Cortina, now styling himself “General,” retreated far down into Mexico. But he wasn't done with Texas.

In December 1860, Lee was relieved of command of the Texas Department. He returned to the 2nd Cavalry, then stationed at Fort Mason in the Texas hill country. Two months later, Texas seceded from the Union. Lee left Fort Mason by horse-drawn ambulance. In San Antonio he discovered that U.S. soldiers were prisoners of war. Doffing his uniform, he made a dash for the coast and found his way to New Orleans. By March 1, Lee was home in Arlington.

Then….

Dac Crossley
January 8, 2013

“No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.” – Willa Cather.

What Child Is This?

Here in Athens, Georgia, an eclectic group of musicians gathers at the Globe Bar each Sunday afternoon, for three hours of Irish music. This past Sunday the gaiety gave way for a reflective moment, and a beautifully rendered “What Child is This?” Reminding us of the slaughter of the innocents in Connecticut.

And we ask, cannot our elected find the courage to do the unpopular? Take some measures to rein in our society of violence, so well represented here in the South?

I hear again the call to locate, to somehow quarantine those souls who have fallen into the insanity that leads to such savagery. But – aren’t they us? Who among us has not at times felt lost, or betrayed, or unable to cope with the mores demanded of us? The conspiracy of circumstances that build upon each other?

Can we not call out – “You are not alone?” Every child is precious, and thus so is the man or woman the child has become. Especially in this season, let’s remember the greatest exhortation:

“Love one another.”

Dac Crossley
December 18, 2012

“The price of doing the same thing is far higher than the price of change.” – Bill Clinton.

The End of the War

Confederate General Jo Shelby arrayed his tattered troopers on the north bank of the Rio Grande, below the dusty border town of Eagle Pass, Texas. Four Colonels from Shelby’s Brigade stood in the river’s shallow waters, preparing to fold the Brigade’s battle flag.

“Hold.” General Shelby dismounted and carefully waded into the stream. He removed the curing black ostrich plume from his slouch hat, and solemnly placed it into the flag’s folds.

Troopers saluted as the Stars-and-Bars flag was ceremoniously buried in the muddy waters of the Rio Grande. The four-year battle called the Civil War thus ended. Across the river loomed the Mexican village of Piedras Negras. Another struggle awaited Shelby’s Brigade.

That vibrant scene calls out to me – for another south Texas novel. Law collapsed there, at the end of the War. Brigands and bandits of all stripes roamed the brushland from the Rio Grande to San Antonio and on to the Louisiana border. What an opportunity for a tale of strong men and women, creating a country amid outlaws and Indians, storms and thorns, under the law of the gun.

Stay tuned.

Dac Crossley
December 14, 2012

“Never second-guess inspiration.” – Flannery O’Connor.

Another Book for the Special Shelf.

Gods, Graves and Scholars is a popularized account of archaeological discoveries about ancient worlds. First published in 1951, it’s been revised and updated several times. I’m adding it to my shelf of special books because, when I first read the book, it made me regret that I wasn’t an archaeologist.

Remember the special bookshelf? It holds books that I’m sure I will read again and again, books that made me sit up and think. Such as Paul de Kruif’s Microbe Hunters or Tim Flannery’s The Eternal Frontier or Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked. I add one or two books a year to the shelf.

Gods, Graves and Scholars by C. W. Ceram was the brainchild of a German newspaperman, Kurt W. Marek (he made an anagram of his name for his pseudonym). Did his newspaper background make his writing so readable? Even though it’s translated from German? It still fascinates.

I thought of the book while reading a novel by fellow writer and genuine archaeologist, William Doonan. A college professor, he’s been on field excavations in Peru. Doonan’s novel about unearthing the past sent me back to Ceram’s volume, once again.

What have you added to your special shelf this year?

Oh, yes, don’t forget to google William Doonan or his recent novel, American Caliphate. Mystery, murder and archaeology. What more could you want?

Dac Crossley
November 28,2012

“All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us.” – T. K. Whipple.