February, 1861. |
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| Ben. McCulloch. |
February 16, 1861. |
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The excuse for Twiggs was readily found.
Ben. McCulloch, the famous Texan Ranger, was stationed at Seguin, not far off. The Commissioners employed him to prepare and lead a sufficient military force to capture the National troops in San Antonio.
He received directions to that effect on the 9th,
and he at once pushed forward toward the city with almost a thousand men. He was joined, near the town, by two hundred Knights of the Golden Circle, who went out well armed and equipped, each having forty rounds of ammunition.
At two o'clock on Sunday morning, the 16th, two hundred mounted men, led by McCulloch, rushed into the city, breaking the slumbers of the inhabitants with unearthly yells.
These
were soon followed by about five hundred more.
They took possession of the Main Plaza, a large vacant square in the center of the city, and placed guards over the Arsenal, the park of artillery, and the Government buildings.
A traitor in the Quartermaster's Department, named Edgar, had, at the first dash into the city, taken possession of the Alamo.1
General Twiggs and Colonel Nichols met McCulloch in the Main Plaza, where terms of surrender were soon agreed to; and there, at noon,
was fully consummated the treasonable act which Twiggs had commenced by negotiation so early as the 7th.2 He surrendered all the National forces in Texas, numbering about two thousand five hundred, and composed of thirty-seven companies.
Fifteen companies of infantry and five of artillery were on the line of the Rio Grande, and the other seventeen were in the interior.
With the troops Twiggs surrendered public stores and munitions of war, valued, at their cost, at one million two hundred thousand dollars.3 Beside these, he surrendered all the forts, arsenals, and other military posts within the limits of his command, including Fort Davis, in the great cañon of the Lympia Mountains, on the San Antonio and San Diego mail-route, five hundred miles from the former city.
It was then the Headquarters of the Eighth Regiment of Infantry, and, because of its situation in the midst of the country of the plundering Mescularo Apaches, and in the path of the marauding Comanches into Mexico, it was a post of great importance.
1 Galveston News, February 22, 1861. Sketch of Secession Times in Texas: by J. P. Newcomb, editor of the Alamo Empress, page 11. Texas, and its Late Military Occupation and Evacuation: by an Officer of the Army.
2 On that day, Twiggs issued an order to his troops, informing them that the “Secession Act had passed the Convention” of the State, to take effect on the 2d day of March; but that he could not say what disposition would be made of the troops. He promised to remain with them until something was done, and make them as comfortable as possible. He seems to have made up his mind, as soon as the Secession Ordinance was passed, to betray his troops and the public property into the hands of the public enemy.
3 “ Their value in Texas is much greater, and worth to the State at least a million and a half of dollars.” --San Antonio Herald, February 23.
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