Stories of Later American History Part 22

A few weeks after the tragedy of the Alamo, Santa Anna's army ma.s.sacred a force of five hundred Texans at Goliad. The outlook for the Texan cause was now dark enough. But Sam Houston, who commanded something like seven hundred Texans, would not give up. He retreated eastward for some two hundred and fifty miles. But when he learned that Santa Anna had broken up his army into three divisions and was approaching with only about one thousand six hundred men Houston halted his troops and waited for them to come up. On their approach he stood ready for attack in a well-chosen spot near the San Jacinto River, where he defeated Santa Anna and took him prisoner.

The Texans now organized a separate government, and in the following autumn elected Houston as the first President of the Republic of Texas. He did all he could to bring about the annexation of Texas to the United States and at last succeeded, for Texas entered our Union in 1845. It was to be expected that the people of Mexico would not like this. They were very angry, and the outcome was the Mexican War which lasted nearly two years.

In 1846 Texas sent Houston to the United States Senate, where he served his State for fourteen years. When the Civil War broke out he was governor of Texas and, although his State seceded, Houston remained firm for the Union. On his refusal to resign, he was forced to give up his office. He died in 1863.

JOHN C. FReMONT THE PATHFINDER

Still another man who acted as agent in this transfer of land from Mexico was John C. Fremont. He helped in securing California.

He was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1813. His father died when he was a young child, and his mother went to Charleston, South Carolina, to live, and there gave her son a good education. After graduating from Charleston College he was employed by the government as a.s.sistant engineer in making surveys for a railroad between Charleston and Cincinnati, and also in exploring the mountain pa.s.ses between North Carolina and Tennessee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: John C. Fremont]

He enjoyed this work so much that he was eager to explore the regions of the far western part of our country, which were still largely unknown.

Accordingly, he made several expeditions beyond the Rocky Mountains, three of which are of special importance in our story.

His first expedition was made in 1842, when he was sent out by the War Department to explore the Rocky Mountains, especially the South Pa.s.s, which is in the State of Wyoming. He made his way up the Kansas River, crossed over to the Platte, which he ascended, and then pushed on to the South Pa.s.s. Four months after starting he had explored this pa.s.s and, with four of his men, had gone up to the top of Fremont's Peak, where he unfurled to the breeze the beautiful stars and stripes.

The excellent report he made of the expedition was examined with much interest by men of science in our own country and in foreign lands.

In this and also in his second expedition Fremont received much help from a follower, Kit Carson. Kit Carson was one of the famous scouts and hunters of the West, who felt smothered by the civilization of a town or city, and loved the free, roaming life of the woodsman.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fremont's Expedition Crossing the Rocky Mountains.]

Before joining Fremont, Kit Carson had travelled over nearly all of the Rocky Mountain country. Up to 1834 he was a trapper, and had wandered back and forth among the mountains until they had become very familiar to him.

During the next eight years, in which he served as hunter for Bent's Fort, on the Arkansas River, he learned to know the great plains. He was, therefore, very useful to Fremont as a guide.

He was also well acquainted with many Indian tribes. He knew their customs, he understood their methods of warfare, and was well liked by the Indians themselves. He spoke their chief languages as well as he did his mother tongue.

After returning from his first expedition, Fremont made up his mind to explore the region between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific. He succeeded in getting orders from the government to do this, and set out on his second expedition in May, 1843, with thirty-nine men, Kit Carson again acting as guide.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kit Carson.]

The party left the little town of Kansas City in May and, in September, after travelling for one thousand seven hundred miles, they reached a vast expanse of water which excited great interest. It was much larger than the whole State of Delaware, and its waters were salt. It was, therefore, given the name of Great Salt Lake.

Pa.s.sing on, Fremont reached the upper branch of the Columbia River. Then pus.h.i.+ng forward down the valley of this river, he went as far as Fort Vancouver, near its mouth. Having reached the coast, he remained only a few days and then set out on his return (November 10).

His plan was to make his way around the Great Basin, a vast, deep valley lying east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. But it was not long before heavy snow on the mountains forced him to go down into this basin. He soon found that he was in a wild desert region in the depths of winter, facing death from cold and starvation. The situation was desperate.

Fremont judged that they were about as far south as San Francis...o...b..y. If this was true, he knew that the distance to that place was only about seventy miles. But to reach San Francis...o...b..y it was necessary to cross the mountains, and the Indians refused to act as guides, telling him that men could not possibly cross the steep, rugged heights in winter. This did not stop Fremont. He said: "We'll go, guides or no guides!" And go they did.

It was a terrible journey. Sometimes they came to places where the snow was one hundred feet deep or more. But they pushed forward for nearly six weeks. Finally, after suffering from intense cold and from lack of food, they made their way down the western side of the mountains, men and horses alike being in such a starved condition that they were almost walking skeletons.

At last they reached Sutter's Fort, now the city of Sacramento, where they enjoyed the hospitality of Captain Sutter. After remaining there for a short time, Fremont recrossed the mountains, five hundred miles farther south, and continued to Utah Lake, which is twenty-eight miles south of Great Salt Lake. He had travelled entirely around the Great Basin.

From Utah Lake he hastened across the country to Was.h.i.+ngton, with the account of his journey and of the discoveries he had made.

In 1845 Captain Fremont--for he had now been promoted to the rank of captain by the government--started out on his third expedition, with the purpose of exploring the Great Basin and then proceeding to the coast of what is now California and upward to Oregon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fremont's Western Explorations.]

Having explored the basin, he was on his way to Oregon, when he learned that the Mexicans were plotting to kill all the Americans in the valley of the Sacramento River. He therefore turned back to northern California, and with a force made up in part of American settlers gathered from the country round about, he took possession of that region, marched as fast as possible to Monterey, and captured that place also. Within about two months he had conquered practically all of California for the United States.

Fremont then made his home in California. On the 4th of the following July he was elected governor of the territory by the settlers then living there. Eleven years later the Republican party of the United States nominated him for President, but failed to elect him. He died in 1890. He has well been called "the Pathfinder."

Fremont's conquest of California was, in effect, a part of the Mexican War, which began in 1846. After nearly two years of fighting a treaty of peace was signed, by which Mexico ceded to the United States not only California but also much of the vast region now included in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.

This region, which is called the Mexican Cession, contained five hundred and forty-five thousand seven hundred and eighty-three square miles, while Texas included five hundred and seventy-six thousand one hundred and thirty-three square miles. These two areas together were, like Louisiana, much larger than the whole of the United States at the end of the Revolution. With the addition of Louisiana in 1803, of Florida in 1819, of Texas in 1845, and of this region in 1848, the United States had enormously increased her territory.

THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD

On the same day on which the treaty of peace was signed with Mexico (February 2, 1848), gold was discovered in California.

Captain Sutter, a Swiss pioneer living near the site of the present city of Sacramento--at Sutter's Fort, where Fremont stopped on his second expedition--was having a water-power sawmill built up the river at some distance from his home. One day one of the workmen, while walking along the mill-race, discovered some bright yellow particles, the largest of which were about the size of grains of wheat. On testing them, Captain Sutter found that they were gold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sutter's Mill.]

He tried to keep the discovery a secret, but it was impossible to prevent the news from spreading. "_Gold! Gold! Gold!_" seemed to ring through the air. From all the neighboring country men started in a mad rush for the gold-fields. Houses were left half built, fields half ploughed. "To the diggings!" was the watchword. From the mountains to the coast, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, settlements were abandoned. Even vessels that came into the harbor of San Francisco were deserted by their crews, sailors and captains alike being wild in their desire to dig for gold.

Within four months of the first discovery four thousand men were living in the neighborhood of Sacramento. The sudden coming together of so many people made it difficult to get supplies, and they rose in value. Tools of many kinds sold for large prices. Pickaxes, crowbars, and spades cost from ten dollars to fifty dollars apiece. Bowls, trays, dishes, and even warming-pans were eagerly sought, because they could be used in was.h.i.+ng gold.

It was late in the year before people in the East learned of the discovery, for news still travelled slowly. But when it arrived, men of every cla.s.s--farmers, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, and even ministers--started West.

The journey might be made in three ways. One was by sailing-vessels around Cape Horn. This route took from five to seven months. Another way was to sail from some Eastern port to the Isthmus of Panama, and crossing this, to take s.h.i.+p to San Francisco. The third route was overland, from what is now St. Joseph, Missouri, and required three or four months. This could not be taken until spring, and some who were unwilling to wait started at once by the water-routes.

Men were so eager to go that often several joined together to buy an outfit of oxen, mules, wagons, and provisions. They made the journey in covered wagons called "prairie-schooners," while their goods followed in peddlers' carts. It often happened that out on the plains they missed their way, for there was no travelled road, and a compa.s.s was as necessary as if they had been on the ocean.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Placer-Mining in the days of the California Gold Rush.]

Journeying thus by day, and camping by night, they suffered many hards.h.i.+ps while on the way. Disease laid hold of them. Four thousand died from cholera during the first year, and many more for lack of suitable food. In some cases they had to kill and eat their mules, and at times they lived on rattlesnakes. The scattered bones of men and beasts marked the trail; for in the frantic desire to reach the diggings the wayfarers would not always stop to bury their dead.

When the gold region was reached, tents, wigwams, bark huts, and brush arbors served as shelter. The men did their own cooking, was.h.i.+ng, and mending, and food soared to famine prices. A woman or a child was a rare sight in all that eager throng, for men in their haste had left their families behind.

It was a time of great excitement. Perhaps you have a grandparent who can tell you something of those stirring days. The gold craze of '49 is a never-to-be-forgotten event in our history. As the search for nuggets and gold-dust became less fruitful, many of the men turned homeward, some enriched and some--alas!--having lost all they possessed.

SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

1. What kind of boy was Houston? What kind of man? What did he do for Texas?

2. Tell about David Crockett's heroism at the Alamo.

3. When reading about Fremont's explorations look up on the map every one of them. What do you think of him?

4. Who was Kit Carson, and how did he help Fremont?