The summons of the Texian committee of New Orleans to their
fellow-citizens was enthusiastically responded to. At the appointed
hour, the immense Arcade Coffeehouse was thronged to the roof, speeches
in favour of Texian liberty were made and applauded to the echo; and two
lists were opened--one for subscriptions, the other for the names of
those who were willing to lend the aid of their arms to their oppressed
fellow-countrymen. Before the meeting separated, ten thousand dollars
were subscribed, and on the following afternoon, the steamer Washita
ascended the Mississippi with the first company of volunteers. These had
ransacked the tailors' shops for grey clothing, such being the colour
best suited to the prairie, and thence they received the name of "The
Greys;" their arms were rifles, pistols, and the far-famed bowie-knife.
The day after their departure, a second company of Greys set sail, but
went round by sea to the Texian coast; and the third instalment of these
ready volunteers was the company of Tampico Blues, who took ship for the
port of Tampico. The three companies consisted of Americans, English,
French, and several Germans. Six of the latter nation were to be found
in the ranks of the Greys; and one of them, a Prussian, of the name of
Ehrenberg, who appears to have been for some time an inhabitant of the
United States, and to be well acquainted with the country, its people,
their language and peculiarities, survived, in one instance by a seeming
miracle, the many desperate fights and bloody massacres that occurred
during the short but severe conflict for Texian independence, in which
nearly the whole of his comrades were slain. He has recently published
an account of the campaign; and his narrative, highly characteristic and
circumstantial, derives a peculiar interest from his details of the
defeats suffered by the Texians, before they could succeed in shaking
off the Mexican yoke. Of their victories, and especially of the crowning
one at San Jacinto, various accounts have already appeared; but the
history of their reverses, although not less interesting, is far less
known; for the simple reason, that the Mexicans gave no quarter to those
whom they styled rebels, and that the defeat of a body of Texians was
almost invariably followed by its extermination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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