My statement was under the guise of being a member of the Texan Army serving under Gen. Houston. Then I would be bound under oath to pursue the enemy.
An oath? I’d be surprised to learn that there was an oath.
The three-day Texas independence convention is over, the siege of the Alamo is underway. Houston travels to Gonzales where he finds about 300 people, mostly Americans, waiting.
At this point Houston is facing the same problem that every other Texas commander faced, that being your men have not sworn allegiance to anyone or anything. If they don’t agree with what you order they’re not gonna do it.
Houston is forced to resort to the usual stratagem, you draw a line in the sand with your sword and you take a vote. You can’t order them to do anything but you can get them to keep their word, and if they participate in a vote it is understood they gave their word that they would comply with the outcome of that vote.
The Alamo falls and shortly afterwards the Texas Army at Goliad is captured ( no oath for them either). That’s it boys, the war’s over we lost, nobody could predict at that point that Santa Ana would be stupid enough to kick the war back to life by shooting everybody.
Nothing to do but run, so for the next month Houston is zigzagging across east Texas falling back all the time because if he goes in a straight line he’s afraid he’s going to get caught. .
Up until this time very few of the 30,000 Americans actually living in Texas had taken any part in the war. You have a very divided populace; not all of them want independence, if you own property in Texas you own that property under Mexican law.There is no way in 1836 that Texas is ever going to be allowed into the union because of the slavery issue. OTOH If you become a Republic every Johnny-come-lately is going to want the right to vote.
Note that the Independance Convention was held in diametric opposition to the Texas Consultation of 1835, very much opposed to Independence, this 1835 Government being the government that sent both Travis and Bowie to the Alamo.
Houston, ever the opportunist in his drive to be either Govenor or President, abruptly switched sides immediately prior to the Alamo siege.
Easter Sunday Santa Anna has all 340+ prisoners in Goliad shot. Immediately this makes it a matter of life and death for about 30,000 Texans who are scrambling to get their families out of the state away from Santa and his armies.
Everybody not scrambling to get their relatives out-of-the-way runs to join Sam Houston’s army because he’s the only game in town. In two weeks the Texian army grows from 300 men to 1500 men. Just two weeks after that Houston, oath or no oath, has lost half his army. Fully half is Army has left because of their intense dislike for Houston.
Houston had wanted to run northeast the way northeast to Nacogdoches, where President Jackson, his mentor, had an American army waiting. That didn’t happen because Houston’s army, then down to about 800 souls, refused to retreat anymore from a Mexican army, so Houston against his better judgement, is forced to follow his army South.
In his defense, it’s not certain that anybody could have done better with the fractious material he had to work with. Also at San Jacinto Houston would do two things that were absolutely critical to the outcome of the battle.
To slow down communications between Santa Ana and the rest of his approaching army Houston had that bridge burned. The second thing Houston did was to preserve Santa Anna‘s life after his capture.
If his men had been allowed to execute Santa Ana as they wanted nothing at all would have stopped the approach of the rest of the Mexican army, Houstons force would most likely have been defeated and scattered and we would have no pretext for declaring that we had engaged in a treaty with Mexico.
