Chapter 13
Epilogue
THE HEROES OF THE TEXAS REVOLUTION were amply rewarded – except one.
General Sam Houston was twice elected President of the Republic of Texas and was soon presiding over a Constitution that resembled that of the United States – except that it explicitly recognized slavery. After a decade of resistance by U.S. anti-slavery forces to prevent Texas statehood, the Republic became the 28th state of the United States in 1846 – “the only American state that won its independence by fighting a foreign power alone.”
Westward expansion by the U.S. – hastened by San Jacinto – culminated in war also in 1846 against Mexico, which ended with additional land above the Rio Grande, including California and New Mexico. America became a continental nation as it expanded to the Pacific Ocean.
Once a state, Texas elected Houston as a U.S. Senator and then Governor of the State of Texas. The first capital of Texas was the new City of Houston, located near the site of his historic victory at San Jacinto. (Houston’s political career ended when he opposed secession from the Union on the eve of the Civil War.)
Stephen Austin, the “Father of Texas,” became Secretary of State for the new Republic but died of pneumonia in its first year. The City of Austin, not far from his original colony, houses the permanent capital of Texas today. It is situated in Travis County.
The soldiers of Texas were rewarded also. Those who fought for the Texas Revolution received grants of land in the new Republic – all except one, that is.
Bowie and Crockett were already heroic figures before they came to the Alamo. Now they became national folk heroes, mythical men in the history of their nation. Cities and counties were named for them, in Texas and elsewhere: Crockett, Texas became the county seat of Houston County; Bowie County was established in Northeastern Texas where most settlers entered via Nacogdoches.
Crockett’s son, John, was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1841 where he finished his father’s work, to provide low cost land for the poor. Travis’ son, Charles (who Travis promised “If the country should be saved, I may make for him a splendid fortune”) was elected to the Texas state legislature at the age of 22 – his father’s age when he arrived in Texas.
William Barret Travis had been an unknown, but his line-in-the-sand ensured him the immortality he had craved. He became America’s Ivanhoe and Sir William Wallace.
And the one who gave Travis his immortality? Only he went unrewarded: no land for his service to Texas, shunned and banished by his Republic, nothing named for him (except “Castoff Creek”); nothing to symbolize his sacrifices for Texas’ independence – except a Texas Yucca cactus placed on his grave in Aaron Ferguson’s family cemetery, to represent both Texas and the cause of Rose’s illness and pain.
Rose’s epitaph was composed by a beloved Texas historian, J. Frank Dobie, when he wrote about the Travis Line – Texas’ greatest glory, known only because of Rose:
“It is a line that nor all the piety nor wit of research will ever blot out. It is a Grand Canyon cut into the bedrock of human emotions and heroical impulses. It may be expurgated from histories, but it can no more be expunged from popular imagination than the damned spots on Lady MacBeth’s hands . . . Nobody forgets the line. It is drawn too deep and straight.”
— The End —