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chapter 13 Aftermath of the War: Tragedy and Humor Peace in Texas after the battle of San Jacinto was not a certainty. As the huge Mexican army retreated during the hot summer under orders from the captured Santa Anna, Gen. Thomas Jefferson Rusk, who later became secretary of war for the republic, followed the troops to Victoria. There was concern that they might decide to ignore their orders, then turn and fight. To the disgust of José Enrique de la Peña, the Mexican army did not turn back and fight but made a disorderly retreat, frantically discarding supplies and ammunition along the way.1 The Texans, of course, were not at all sure the war was over until the soldiers were out of Texas, and they followed the Mexican army’s retreat from a distance. Also, to guard against a new invasion from Mexico by sea, they set up Camp Lavaca near Garcitas Creek (the site of La Salle’s ill-fated fort) and another camp at Dimitt’s Landing, where the Lavaca and Navidad rivers join. George Sutherland was elected captain of a company and sent to Victoria. Samuel Rogers, who was in Major Sutherland’s company, gave a heartrending account of this moment. Rather than dwelling on their fear of the Mexican army’s return, his narrative focuses on the tragic aftermath of the war, his family’s suffering, and his witnessing of the dying: Yes, we were at home again, but only for a few days. The report that a Mexican army was again about to invade the country caused General Rusk, then our commander at Victoria to issue the order that our families should be taken east of the Colorado River immediately and the men to join the army. Well, if there ever was a time that caused me to almost wish that I had never been born it was then. Had nothing for my family to eat—not even bread. You that may read this having never been in that condition can but poorly imagine my feelings. We organized a company and elected Major George Sutherland our captain, and presented ourselves to General Rusk for duty, and reader, what do you think was our duty? Went to Victoria to nurse the sick and bury the dead, which we did by putting from six to ten nearly every morning wrapped in their blankets a few inches below the surface of the ground. The mortality was greatest among 112 chapter 13 the volunteers from the United States, unacclimated as they were with nothing to nourish them, death soon did its work. The government was so poor that our rations were every morning a pint of half rotten beans. . . . There was so much sickness and death that had the army stayed there the entire summer of ’36 there would have half of the men died. The army moved from Victoria to Colett west of the Guadalupe River where the health of the army was much better. . . . The next place our company was assigned to was where Port Lavaca now stands. . . . There were some twenty-five or thirty patients there, some four or five died the night after we got there. They weremostlyyoungormiddleagedmen.Idonotrememberofseeingagrey-headed man among them but what mostly impressed me was the language of the dying. Some were praying, some cursing, some talking to a loved absent wife or child and one requested his wife to give him a drink of water; her name was Martha, but she was not there. Do you think I did wrong in taking the place of a loved wife and giving him a drink of water, or do you think that was evidence of my extreme weakness that I should weep like a child when he handed back the cup and said, “Thank you, dear.” 2 The company that George Sutherland organized in April 1836 to protect the Texas coast from invasion by the Mexican army included his wife’s brother and his sister’s husband, William Menefee (age 45), and many of his young nephews, including 1st Lt. James G. White (sister’s son, age 26), F. M. White (sister’s son, 25), James Dever (wife’s sister’s son, 23), Ben White (sister’s son, 19), D. N. White (sister’s son, 19), George Menefee (sister’s son and wife’s brother’s son, 22), Samuel Rogers (sister’s daughter’s husband, 26), Thomas Read (26), and many others.3 Stationed at Camp Independence near Port Lavaca...

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