Fort Bend County, Texas - Chapter 19, 1904

This distinguished gentleman, soldier and statesman, whose remains lie in the cemetery at Richmond, Fort Bend County, was born in Louisville, Georgia, August the 16th, 1798, and sprang from an old and respected French Hugenot family. When very young he showed such unmistakable signs of ability that he was chosen private secretary to Governor Troupe, of Georgia. In 1828 he was editor of a States-right paper and a candidate for Congress. The nominating convention, however, imposed some conditions to which he was not willing to submit, and he was defeated. In 1835 he came to Texas and made a formal declaration of his intention to become a citizen, and in a public speech in the town of Washington advocated the declaration of Texas independence. In consequence of the closing of the land offices he could not obtain an order for his headright and so returned temporarily to Georgia so as to complete his arrangements for a final removal to Texas. When he heard of the invasion of the country by Santa Anna he hurried back, landing at Velasco, at the mouth of the Brazos, not far from the time of the Goliad massacre. Many of Fannin's men were Georgians and belonged to families Lamar knew personally, and in a letter he wrote of them :

'^Never did the broad light of day look upon a fouler murder; never were a better or braver people sacrificed to a tyrant's ferocity. The most of them were youthful heroes. I believe that our sole reliance should be upon our swords, and not upon the faith of Santa Anna. If the armies now on the retreat shall dare a counter march there will not be in the next battle a Mexican left to tell the tale of their defeat (how near the prediction came to pass at San Jacinto) ; and if another expedition should be gotten up against us in the fall, or in the spring, there will come into our country such a cavalcade of heroes as will make their chivalry skip. The very first army that turns its face to the east will awaken a war which will move onward and onward over the broad prairies of the west, knowing no termination, until it reaches the walls of Mexico, where we will plant the standard of the single star and send forth our decrees in the voice of our artillery."

Lamar was anxious to join the army of General Houston, who was retreating from the west, but, finding no conveyance at Velasco for the interior, he finally started up the Brazos on foot, passing the spot where Richmond is now, and where he was to lay down his body when his eventful life was over. He finally reached the Texas army in their camp at '^Groce^s Retreat" and enlisted as a private soldier, and went on with the army to San Jacinto. In the cavalry fight of the 20th Lamar saved the life of young Walter P. Lane, afterwards distinguished in the Mexican war of 1846, and Civil War of 1861 as General Walter P. Lane. On the occasion at San Jacinto Lane^s horse was killed, and fell so suddenly that the young soldier was thrown to the ground with such violence on his head that he lay stunned. A Mexican lancer seeing his condition rushed upon him, and was in the act of transfixing Lane with his lance, when Lamar, rushing to the rescue, shot him dead from his horse with a pistol and ran over another Mexican cavalryman, knocking him and his horse both to the earth, and then dismounting, assisted young Lane to the Texans^ camp.

Sherman on the left wing, Hockley to the right of Burleson, Millard on the right of the artillery, and the cavalry under Lamar, whose gallant conduct the day before had won him this command, on the right. The battle has often been described, and wdll only say that w^hile the infantry were engaging the left and center of the enemy and driving them from their camp Lamar, at the head of the cavalry, was driving, routing and slaughtering the Mexican cavali-y and riding down disordered squads of infantry. After this battle Lamar came into prominence as a military man and a statesman. General Houston's wound having disabled him for active service, Thomas J. Rusk, Secretary of War, was placed in command of the army and Lamar succeeded him in the war office, appointed to that position by President David G. Burnett.

On the 14th of May, 1836, a treaty was concluded with Santa Anna (then a prisoner in the hands of the Texans), part of which stipulated that he would give orders that, in the shortest time the Mexican troops (the other divisions not in the battle) should leave Texas, and that Santa Anna should be returned to Mexico immediately.

General Lamar was opposed to the release of Santa Anna, and was even of the opinion that he should be executed, as many other Texans at that time were. In a communication to President Burnett and his cabinet, he says :

^^Santa Anna has placed himself without the pale of civilized warfare. His conduct does not permit me to view him in any other light. A chieftain battling for what he conceives to be the rights of his country, however mistaken in his views, may be privileged to make hot and vigorous war upon his foe; but when in violation of all the principles of civilized conflict, he avows and acts upon the revolting policy of extermination and rapine, slaying the surrendering, and plundering whom he slays, he forfeits the commiseration of mankind, by sinking the character of the hero into that of the abhorred murderer. The President of Mexico has pursued such a war upon the citizens of this Republic. He has caused to be published to the world a decree denouncing as pirates, beyond the reach of his clemency, all who shall be found rallying around the standard of our independence. In accordance with this decree he has turned over to the sword the bravest and best of our friends and fellow citizens, after they have grounded their arms under the most solemn pledge that their lives should be spared. He has fired our dwellings, laid bare our luxuriant fields, excited servile and insurrectionary war, violated plighted faith, and inhumanly ordered the cold-blooded butchery of prisoners who had been betrayed into capitulation by heartless professions. I humbly conceive that the proclamation of such principles, and the perpetration of such crimes, place the offender out of the pale of negotiation, and demand at our hands other treatment than that is due to a mere prisoner of war. Instinct condemns him as a murderer, and reason justifies the verdict. Nor should the ends of justice be averted because of the exalted station of the criminal, nor be made to give way to the suggestions of interest or any cold considerations of policy. He who sacrifices human life at the shrine of ambition is a murderer, and deserves the punishment and infamy of one ; the higher the offender the greater the reason for its infliction. I am, therefore, of the opinion that our prisoner. General Santa Anna, has forfeited his life by the highest of all crimes, and is not a suitable object for the exercise of our pardoning prerogatives."

Finding that these views were not in accord with the President and majority of the cabinet, he urged as the next best course the detention of Santa Anna until a treaty of peace could be concluded with Mexico, and in another communication says : still feel that strict justice requires - ^that it is sustained by reason and will receive the sanction of the present generation, as well as the approving voice of posterity. If the cabinet could concur with me in this view of the subject and march boldly up to what I conceive to be the line of right, it would be a bright page in the history of this infant nation. It would read well in the future annals of the present period that the best act of this young Republic was to teach the Caligula of the age that in the administration of public justice the vengeance of the law falls alike impartially on the prince and the peasant. It is time that such a lesson should be taught the despots of the earth ; they have too long enjoyed an exemption from the common punishment of crime. Enthroned in power, they banquet on the life of man, and then purchase security by the dispensation of favors. We have it in our power now to give an impulse to a salutory change in this order of things. We are sitting in judgment upon the life of a stupendous villain, who, like all others of his race, hopes to escape the blow of merited vengeance by the strong ap* peals which his exalted station enables him to make to the weak or selfish principles of nature. Shall he be permitted to realize his hopes or not? Shall our resentment be propitiated by promises, or shall we move sternly onward, regardless of favor or affection, to the infliction of a righteous punishment? Let the same punishment be awarded him which we would feel bound in honor and conscience to inflict on a subaltern, charged and convicted of a like offense. This is all that justice requires. If he has committed no act which would bring condemnation on a private individual, then let him be protected ; but if he has perpetrated crimes w'hich a man in humble life would have to expiate upon the scaffold, then why shield him from the just operations of a law to which another is held amenable? The exalted criminal finds security in negotiations, whilst the subaltern offender is given over to the sword of the executioner. Surely no consideration of interest, or policy, can atone for such a violation of principle. View the matter in every possible light, and Santa Anna is still a murderer.

^'It will be useless to talk to a soldier of San Jacinto about national independence, and national domain, so long as the bones of his murdered brethren are bleaching on the prairies unavenged. Treble the blessings proposed to be gained by this negotiation will be considered as poor and valueless when weighed against the proud and high resentment which the soldiers feel for wrongs received. In the day of battle the animating cry was ^^Alamo,'^ and why? Because it was known that the slaughterer of the Alamo was then on the field; it was him they sought. It was not against the poor and degraded instruments of his tyranny that they warred; they fell, it is true, before our avenging strokes like grass before the reaper^s sickle.

^^The great difficulty in dealing with our prisoner as his crimes deserve, arises from the fact that education will not permit us to strip him of his ill-gotten honors and view him in the light of a private individual.^'

General Sam Houston was elected the first President of the new Republic after the battle of San Jacinto, and General Lamar was elected Vice President.

The Constitution of the Republic provided that the first President elected by the people should hold his office for two years and be ineligible to a re-election during the next term, while succeeding Presidents should hold their office for three years and be alike ineligible. As, under this provision, Houston's term would expire on the second Monday in December, 1838, the people had become interested in the selection of his successor. M. B. Lamar and Peter W. Grayson were the candidates brought out by their respective friends and supported with considerable zeal. The

Texas newspapers in that year abounded in charges and denials - the same freedom and abuse of political discussion to be seen in the press of the United States. Before the election came off, which was held on the 3rd of September, Colonel Grayson put an end to his life at Bean's Station, in Tennessee. General Lamar was elected President with but little opposition, and David G. Burnett was chosen Vice-President. On the 9th of December, 1838, the ceremony of the inauguration of President Lamar occurred in front of the capitol, and in the presence of an immense concourse of people. After some remarks by President Houston, General Lamar delivered his inaugural address, part of which is here given :

^The character of my administration may be anticipated in the domestic nature of our government and the peaceful habits of the people looking upon agriculture, commerce and the useful arts, as the true basis of all material strength and glory. It will be my leading policy to awaken into vigorous activity the wealth, talent and enterprise, of the country, and at the same time to lay the foundation of those higher institutions for moral and mental culture, without w^hich no government or democratic principle can prosper, nor the people long preserve their liberties."

''I have never been able myself to perceive the policy of the desired connection, or discover in it any advantage, either civil, political or commercial, which could possibly result to Texas. But, on the contrary, a long train of consequences, of the most appalling character and magnitude, have never failed to present themselves whenever I have entertained the subject, and forced upon my mind the unwelcome condition that the step, once taken, would present a lasting regret, and ultimately prove as disas-

''It was received with general approbation. It was pleasing to notice the remarkable degree of confidence and esteem that was everywhere manifested toward President Lamar. He is almost unanimously regarded as the pride and ornament of his country ; and from his administration the most fortunate results are expected.^'

"First : The defense of the country, and especially that of the frontier, which was crying aloud for protection against the merciless savages.

'^Second : The obtaining of the recognition of our independence by the principal maritime powers of Europe, and of establishing with them the best commercial relations.

"Third: The purification of the different departments of government, and of establishing a rigid responsibility among public officers of every grade and class.

"These ends were not only carried out effectually by Lamar, to the honor of himself and glory of the nation, but the blessings that flowed from them were immediately felt by the peace and safety that reigned at home, as well as by the character and importance which the country acquired abroad.

"It will be remembered that he came into office when the nation had neither credit nor money. Yet he had the frontier to protect, the seat of government to remove (the present caipital had just been laid off and named for Stephen F. Austin) on the extreme borders, to erect all necessary public buildings, to support the government, pay our foreign ministers, provide for the army, keep the navy on the Gulf, extensive mail routes to establish, and to meet a multiplicity of demands growing out of unforseen contingencies, incidental to the condition of the country; and yet, he contrived to achieve all these ends, without exceeding in a single instance to the amount of one cent, the annual appropriation made by Congress for the support of the government, including even the expense of the Santa Fe expedition, the surveying of the University lands, and other heavy disbursements which he was compelled to assume the responsibility of making. It may be safely asserted that no Chief Magistrate ever effected so much with so little expense to the nation he ruled, and that he should have accomplished so much in so short a period, and secured so many blessings, with such limited resources, must ever be a matter of surprise, and cannot fail to place General Lamar among the wisest statesmen and the purest patriots of the age.'^

At the commencement of the Mexican war of 1846 General Lamar was appointed Division Inspector, under General Henderson. At the battle of Monterey he displayed his usual conspicuous gallantry, as he ever did where battles were fought and he had an opportunity of getting into it.

In 1847 he was Post Commander at Laredo, where he effectually held the Indians in check. On his return from that post he was elected to the Legislature.

In 1851 General Lamar married his second wife. Miss Maffit, daughter of Rev. John N. MaMt, and sister of Commodore Maffit of the Confederate Navy. Soon after this marriage he settled at Richmond, Fort Bend County, and lived a quiet life among the people with whom he had come to make his home, and who honored and respected him for his virtues and the integrity of character. He was only once more in public life, and that was for a short time, as United States Minister to the Argentine Confederation. He died at his home in Richmond on the 19th of December, 1859, aged 61 years, four months and two days, and his remains now rest in the Richmond cemetery among other noted men and women who made Fort Bend County their home. A granite monument was erected over the grave of General Lamar, the shaft of which was blown down in the great storm of 1900, and still lays prone upon the ground. The wife of Lamar also lies by his side.