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Lone Star Nation
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Austin and his brother successfully operated a lead mine in Virginia, borrowing heavily to finance the venture. A bank downturn left him holding worthless bank notes, starting his push to the Western borders to do business. He ends up over five hundred miles from the United States border at San Antonio de Béxar, the capital of Texas. He negotiates with a hostile Spanish governor for a land deal in the state, if he brings American immigrants inside. Moses's son, Stephen F. Austin, ends up leading a group of settlers to Texas on the promise of his dying father's last wish. Thus begins the balanced, informative account of one of America's best epics.
"The land was enough to excite any man's lust, and perhaps emotions more deadly," writes Brands. The author tells the complete background of the states original settlers, how the Spanish and the French ended up there, and how Spain's grip on the region quickly loosed in the early 1800s.
By 1835 native Tejanos and Comanches were outnumbered 10 to 1 by an onrush of American settlers, then around 30,000. The rebellion was a triumph in many cases simply because of poor organization, illustrating why the far-flung empires of France and Spain were on the decline.
Brands teaches history at the University of Texas at Austin. His book takes to opportunity to correct many misconceptions and myths, often relying on historical accounts, and corroborating evidence. Viewers of Hollywood's The Alamo will probably notice a number of them. The writer also takes the modern approach to discussing the Texas founders, warts and all. He recounts an often told story of how Sam Houston was an alleged drunk.
Houston's venture into the Arkansas Territory took him to the illegal practice of selling whiskey, gin and other spirits to the local indians. When arrested, his case to the court was that the nine barrels of booze were for his own consumption. Houston got off the hook, but the tale evolved from that about his personal alcohol consumption. Depite what really happened, these are certainly not the untarnished stories told about America's colonial founding fathers.
Brands vividly paints a despotic portait of General Santa Anna, the completely unlikable "Napoleon of the West." San Houston, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett appear interesting and heroic, while exposed by the author whole and unvarnished.
In just over 500 pages, Brands calmly describes how this historic contest plays out. Everyone knows the ending, and many of the events. But it is always good to read through a full telling of this dramatic story.
From Lone Star Nation by H.W. Brands
For obvious reasons, the strategies of opposing generals in war tend to be inverse images of each other. Thus it was with Santa Anna and Houston. Where the Texan leader wished to avoid battle, to give space and get time, Santa Anna aimed to provoke battle, to save space and steal time. Any general in Santa Anna's position would have adopted the same strategy, for Houston's armywould only get stronger the nearer it got to the heavily settled regions of Texasm and the closer it drew to the United States.
Yet Santa Anna had special reason for wanting to end the Texas war quickly. As important as Texas was to the Texans, it was only a small part of Mexico, and perhaps less important then its size suggested. However apt or inaccurate Santa Anna's identification with Napoleon may have been, the Mexican president-general shared a signal liability with the French emporer-general: neither could leave his capital for long without worrying that enemies were conspiring against him, and hence neither could afford a distant campaign.
From the moment Santa Anna set out for Texas in December, 1835, he reckoned how he might bring the war against the rebels to a rapid close. A patient man, or merely a general who wasn't also president, could have taken time to consolidate his victories over the Texans, to secure the lines of communication, and to drive Houston and his untrained troops across the Sabine and out of Texas. But Santa Anna couldn't stand to let an underling wear the laurels that would come to a general who preserved the integrity of Mexico. The hero of Tampico must be the hero of Texas.
In some respects the war was going too well. As the Mexican forces marched east, the only sign that a rebellion even existed was the ruin in which the rebels left the countryside. Like the Russian army that had opposed Napoleon, the Texas army burned the towns from which they retreated, the fields through which it marched, and the supplies it couldn't carry. It was a harsh policy, but it had the desired effect, rendering an occupation of Texas by Santa Anna's army difficult and unattractive.
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