“Is that the road to Harrisburg?” demanded the officers.
“Yes, sir,” answered Mr. Roberts; and he pointed. “This right-hand road will carry you down to Harrisburg as straight as a compass.”
“To the right, boys! To the right!” shouted the officers, galloping away.
As the word passed, a great cheer arose. The head of the column promptly turned into the south, on the right-hand trail. The music struck up blithely. The general sat his horse, watching, with a little smile on his haggard face.
And down the Harrisburg road briskly marched the column, to find Santa Anna, now fifty miles in the lead.
Harrisburg was only about twenty miles inland from Galveston Bay of the coast. So Santa Anna had marched clear across Texas, with General Houston at first before him, and now behind him. On the bay shore east of Harrisburg was the town of New Washington; and a few miles north of New Washington was Lynch’s Ferry and Lynchburg, of the San Jacinto River――just above where the river, flowing southward, widens into San Jacinto Bay in the upper part of Galveston Bay.
From the west, Buffalo Bayou (near whose mouth is to-day located the city of Houston) joined the San Jacinto River at Lynch’s Ferry. Somewhere to the south of the angle formed by the Bayou, and the San Jacinto River and bay, were the Santa Anna army. They could not go much further east, that was certain. They would go north, for East Texas. Urrea was taking care of the south.
To-day’s march from McCurley’s ranch was a hard one. The prairie road was soft with bogs and with mud from the rain, and everybody was in a hurry. The “Twin Sisters,” as the Cincinnati cannon had been christened, were dragged with long ropes――a score of volunteers lending their hands. The cannon wheels and the wheels of the wagons sank deeply into the mushy sod. The general frequently dismounted and helped push and pull. There were so many sloughs and creeks, also, that it took until dark to go twelve miles, and even then camp was made on wet ground at the edge of a sluggish creek.
Buffalo Bayou, curving into the south as it reached back from the San Jacinto, sent out many branches; and Jim and Ernest and all were well fagged out when, before noon of April 18, the third day from McCurley’s and the forking of the trails, the toiling army at last reached the main channel of the bayou, almost opposite Harrisburg.
