The Black Jacks

Uncle Yancey was singing off-key in his gruff voice—according to Mary it was an old homecoming song that, oddly enough, her husband always sang when he was going off to fight:

"Home ag'in, home ag'in!

Now we'll all drink ol' Te

Ol' Zip Coon, Turkey in the Straw,

I'd ruther go to hell than go to war!"

Chapter Five

Austin, the new capital city of the Republic of Texas, had originally been known as Waterloo. Ringed by wooded hills on the north bank of the broad Colorado River, the site had been selected on land which had been part of the Spanish grant given Stephen F. Austin for his colony, and everyone agreed it was only fitting that the capital be named in honor of the late lamented "Father of Texas." In fact, that was the only name everybody could agree on. In the spring of 1839, the town site was surveyed and construction of public buildings commenced. Three hundred lots were sold at auction that summer. The government arrived in October. In less than a year's time, Austin could boast of a population nearing one thousand souls. As one observer wrote, "The city of Austin, like Aladdin's Palace, seemed to have arisen in a night."

The street nearest the river and ru

On either side of Congress, similarly unprepossessing frame shacks housed the republic's Departments of State, Navy, Treasury, and War, the offices of the adjutant general and quartermaster general. A much grander structure than these was the private residence which President Lamar had built on San Jacinto Street, two blocks east of Congress and three hundred yards southeast of the capitol building. He could afford such a place, since his first budget provided $10,000 for his own salary, a credible increase over the paltry $1,000 a year allocated to Sam Houston during his term in office.

Austin sat on the very rim of the frontier, terribly exposed to Indian and Mexican depredation. Hostiles were known to prowl the outskirts. No man who valued his scalp dared venture beyond the city limits without his gun. But Lamar believed that the establishment of the capital one hundred and fifty miles inland would attract settlers away from the crowded coastal region. Besides, he could not abide conducting affairs of state in the former capital, which had been named in honor of his political nemesis, Sam Houston, that "preposterous Vulgarian."

In the spring of 1840, Austin could boast of nine stores, nine taverns, six gambling dens, eighty homes, and six i

Austin's most classically minded boosters pointed out that, like Rome, the republic's new capital stood upon seven hills overlooking a sparkling river. Far better, believed President Lamar and his backers, than that sinkhole of sin and dissipation on the banks of Buffalo Bayou, where the previous chief magistrate of Texas had incompetently carried out his duties as head of state. How appropriate that the town of Houston, with its horse racing, brothels, and forty-seven—count them!—saloons, should be named after the Big Drunk himself, the most profligate Texan of them all. Austin, on the other hand, was a shining city upon a hill, destined to become the center of a great Texas empire stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to—if Lamar had his way—the shores of the Pacific.

Grandiose schemes preoccupied Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, and on the day that Jonah Singletary came to call, accompanied by the republic's brash and bellicose war secretary, Albert Sidney Johnston, and Texas Ranger Captain Eli Wingate, the president was, as usual, dreaming such dreams.

While one less familiar with the president's habits than the newspaperman, the war secretary, and the Indian fighter might have expected to find Lamar at the capitol building, they went instead to his private residence, confident that they would find him, as indeed they did, ensconced behind his massively impressive French desk, surrounded by his equally impressive collection of books. Lamar had taken it upon himself to become the patron of the arts in the republic. He dreamed of a splendid university perched upon one of the Austin hills; he had been largely responsible for the naming of Congress Street, Austin's primary east-west artery, which might have seemed off, or perhaps even presumptuous, to those who were aware of no institution within five hundred miles of the Colorado River which merited being called a college. Lamar was a master violinist, and poet of no small talent. But there was enough of the realist in him to know that the republic's first priority was to make the frontier safe. Culture would come later.

The president stood and greeted his three visitors, then beckoned them to chairs arrayed around the handsome desk. He remained standing, hands clasped behind his back, and fastened his piercing gaze upon the secretary of war.

"Have you any word of the Comanches, General?"

"Our scouts report that Yellow Hand's bunch has been seen near the headwaters of the San Saba River."

Lamar frowned. "Is that all? Nothing more?"

Johnston shook his head. A graduate of West Point, he had given up a promising military career in the service of the United States upon the untimely death of his young wife and had joined the Texas army as a private. But a man with Johnston's training was not likely to remain at such a lowly rank for very long. Sam Houston had appointed him commander in chief of the army two years ago, replacing Felix Huston, a fiery Mississippi swashbuckler who, in a startling if characteristic display of hubris, had thought to march his troops into Mexico, promising them the wealth of Montezuma as loot, and without the permission of the president. Huston had not surrendered his command with good grace; in fact, he had severely wounded Johnston in a duel.

Though Johnston owed his promotion to Houston, Lamar knew that the man was no supporter of "The Raven"—the Cherokee name by which Houston was widely known. Johnston had parted with Houston on the subject of the Indian problem. He stoutly opposed Houston's scheme to negotiate a boundary between Texas and the Comanche nation. In Johnston's opinion, that would be giving up a very large portion of the republic to a bunch of savages. Besides, the settlers would never honor such a naive treaty. Lamar was of a like mind.