That day cannon shots were heard, from down the river. A battle! The Mexicans were trying to cross at San Felipe. Now the camp was in a fever, indeed. Would Captain Baker and the Redlanders hold the crossing? The three boys listened with anxious hearts, for Sion was there in the fight.
The firing continued for two days, on and off. Then it ceased. Colonel Alex. Somervell came in with the report that the Mexican advance guard had retired without crossing. But there was considerable talk about making Colonel Sidney Sherman the commander-in-chief. However, in the morning notices, signed by General Houston, were stuck up with wooden pegs on the trees, saying that any man who attempted to organize volunteers from the army would be “court-martialed and shot.” This stopped much of the talk.
More recruits joined from East Texas. Among them was one especially nice-looking man, with the high-sounding name of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar. He was from a famous Georgia family; had been a newspaper editor, and could write poetry. He had walked almost all the way up from Velasco to join the Texan army as a private. The men agreed that he would not remain a private long.
Colonel Rusk, the secretary of war, was reported to have been sent by the government on purpose to urge General Houston to fight. And a tart dispatch was received from the president.
SIR: The enemy are laughing you to scorn. You must fight them. You must retreat no further. The country expects you to fight. The salvation of the country depends on your doing so.
The general appeared to pay no attention to this interference, as if he were bent upon pursuing his own plans. But it was rumored that one column of the Mexican army had crossed the Brazos, at last, and was heading eastward. This might be so, for on the morning of April 12 orders were issued to break camp and prepare to leave. All that day and half of the next day the steamboat Yellowstone and a ferry flat-boat were busy carrying the 523 men, the wagons and the horses and oxen, from the west bank to the east bank.
Affairs looked brighter. At Groce’s, on the east bank, the two cannon from Cincinnati were found waiting. They were iron six-pounders and had been presented by the citizens of Cincinnati to the Republic of Texas. It seemed good to Ernest to see something that had been in Cincinnati. He rather believed that his mother had looked upon these cannon. He wondered if she had guessed that they were coming straight to him――and why she had not thought to put a note in them!