Dac Crossley's Western Blog

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.