A Veteran Looks back at the War on Terror

Normally, of course, this blog is devoted to my historical research, but today, September 11, 2021, I have to step back and reflect on the history of which I was a part

 

September 11 has a great deal of meaning to me. It is a powerful, emotional day of both national – and personal tragedy. It has, however, been a date in which I recalled the triumphs, the overcoming, the good that came out of such a horrible thing. For the last few years, this has been a solace amidst the sorrow, a salve to the suffering.

We all know where we were on that beautiful, crisp morning. For myself, I was preparing for work. I was the Deputy Press Secretary for U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, based in his Dallas, Texas office. I was still at breakfast when I saw the second plane hit the towers. I rushed into office and we gathered around the TV. Then came news from the Pentagon, and we realized the scope of the attacks. We evacuated the Senator’s office, of course, but somebody needed to man the phones and the fax machines and send out the press releases. And that someone was me. So I sat alone, all day, watching the footage, writing and editing press releases as my boss, Larry, dictated from locked-down Washington. I remember it like it was yesterday. Senator Gramm, who had just announced his retirement the week before, set the tone. His quote used a noun like a verb: “We Will War on Them.”

With the release sent out, I finally could pause. The news was no longer fresh, and I turned towards my big picture window with a panoramic view of the Dallas skyline. There was no noise. The streets, eerily empty. I stared out that window, looking for answers to the question, but my eyes kept drifting back to my own reflection in the glass. Who was I? More to the point, who was I meant to be? At the time, I was a 29-year-old single, young, urban professional – selfish, materialistic, and with inflated notions of my own importance as an up-and-coming political mover and shaker, filled to overflowing with ambition nearly tripping over itself.

I was a passionate student of history, in awe of the greatest generation, proud of the cold warriors who stood the wall when I was a mere child. But all that seemed over and superfluous. The world was at peace, the wall did not need to be manned. Then came the horror of that day, which shook and tore at my soul just as it did yours, and every American and even the souls of people throughout the world, some of whom didn’t even like our country. But it rent my ego apart, and exposed the lie that was my life: I was living for me, and people had died because someone wasn’t there. I’m not even sure I knew where there was, but there was a there, and the right someone in the right place, standing at the guardhouse on the wall against barbarism, could have done something, anything to stop it. And it occurred to me that the someone might be me.

Not me alone, of course, my ego was never that great. But lots of mes. A whole generation of them who needed to stand up just like Americans had done on December 8, 1941. This was our Pearl Harbor, and though we didn’t need 8 million men in arms, we needed someone.

At the time, the Army cutoff was 30 years old, or so I was told, and I was two months shy of that age. But after two years of searching, I found the right way to serve. The U.S. Navy was taking people up to 35, through what was called the Direct Commission Officer program. You join in the reserves, meaning you could keep your civilian career, you just sacrifice your private life: one weekend a month, two weeks a year, and then once you’re trained, you’re deployable. What’s more, the key need in the War on Terror was intelligence officers. The details they could train, but the skills they needed – research, writing, analysis – these were the sort of things I had been doing in my civilian career, which had started in journalism before winding its way into public policy.

Sworn in at Texas State Capitol, 2004

So in 2004, I raised my hand at the Speaker’s dais in the Texas House of Representatives – where I worked by that time – and became an ensign in the United States Navy. I was so focused on getting in and doing my part to serve that I never even read the fine print. I was committing to 8 years. I saw that and said, well, yeah, I can do that. That was 17 years ago. I’m still in.

I spent the first few years getting my clearances and learning all I could about intelligence. Basically if you want to know what Navy intel is, it’s what the two civilians are doing in Hunt for Red October and Top Gun, only it’s really Navy personnel doing it most of the time. But of course, in the War on Terror, the enemy doesn’t really have much of a navy, so I was told from the beginning that I was an interchangeable unit; I would be trained in joint intelligence and when the time came up, I would be loaned out to the army.

Of course, it got real when I had to deploy, and knowing that my time was coming, I chose to call my own shot. I didn’t want to go to some extraneous theater – even though there really is no such thing in such a conflict – but I wanted to go where the action was. So in 2007, I volunteered to deploy to Iraq. After two weeks of training, including very basic combat training (which consisted of Army guys showing us how to not get killed so that we Navy folks would not be a burden on our army counterparts), I deployed, first to Camp Virginia, Kuwait, arriving in the blistering month of August. I pulled my utterly wrinkled uniform out of my bag on that first day, and outside, where the temperature was pushing 130, my uniform was pressed within five minutes – by the ambient air. Further training, including additional rifle instruction, and I was ready to depart, via Ali Al Saleem Air Force Base, to Baghdad. Only at the last minute did I check the date: I was flying into Baghdad on September 11, 2007.

A C-17, far roomier than the C-130

It was a dangerous time to be in Iraq. The military newspaper, the Stars and Stripes had just reported that the casualties and attack levels in Iraq had reached their highest level ever. We loaded up on a C-130, packed so close that the rail-thin African-American female Air Force officer across from me had her knees interlaced with my own. She looked properly terrified, and I gave her smiles of encouragement, but could say nothing, because it’s a C-130 and they are louder than being inside the engine of a NASCAR racer. Anyway, we came in at night, and as we approached Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), the C-130 plane spiraled in with a corkscrew pattern. I can’t recall if it was that flight, or another one later on, but on one of them I saw through the small porthole window as a streak of light – which I later found out was an RPG rocket – stabbed across the sky in some insurgent’s futile attempt to target our aircraft by sound in the darkness.

We arrived sometime after midnight and I spent a miserable night sleeping on gravel next to all my gear, the next day hitching a ride across the large, sprawling Camp Victory – about the size of a U.S. city – to a transient camp, where I would stay until I got my permanent housing. Exhausted from the flight, from the gravel, and from the brutal heat and sand, I climbed into my rack about 4 pm and went to sleep. What happened next I will quote from my Iraq blog:

A rocket attack on Camp Victory, Baghdad

I’d been up for over 24 hours, so after checking in at work, I had the day off to relax. I went back to my tent, unpacked my gear, and lay down to take a nap.

Boom!

I perked up my ears.

Whoooshhh!

A sound, very clearly of some large object flying through the sky, from my left to my right, as I sat in my tent.

BOOM!

I sat up. At about that moment, the loudspeakers outside cried, “Incoming!” I had no fear. I had heard the object clearly, and it had passed completely over me – perhaps a little bit far off. A few minutes later, the all-clear sounded. I went back to sleep.

 From my training, I knew that insurgents shot off mortars and other objects at our large base every few days, and that they were poorly aimed, and almost never hit anything substantial. Later that day, I talked to an Army Captain. The object I had heard was indeed a rocket of some sort, and it had landed near the center of the base. The first sound was the launching, then I heard it's trajectory, and then finally, it's impact.

 It was a 240 mm rocket – the largest ever fired by insurgents in Iraq – and it had gone right over my tent. The explosion, I later learned, killed two, neither Americans, but allies. It was the insurgents sending a message on September 11.

The next day I was told when and where to report, and thus made my way to the Al Faw Palace, on Camp Victory, adjacent to the airport. It was an old palace of Saddam Hussein, which among other things, featured a throne that had been presented to the dictator by Yassir Arafat. This was the administrative heart of the whole war in Iraq, and I was assigned to the Joint Operations Center there.

Al Faw Palace, Baghdad

Over the last few months, I had been steeling myself for all sorts of dangers, and had walled myself away from the outside world to focus on this new reality. But now, on September 11, I was once again blindsided from a completely unexpected direction. Arriving at my work, instead of being put to work immediately, I was told to report to the Command Sergeant Major, who received me with a very sober look. He handed over a paper. At the top of it was the symbol of the International Red Cross. It read, “Your father is sick…actually dying.”

Indeed, he had already died before I even read the letter. And thus September 11 assumed a new meaning that for me, virtually eclipsed the already-horrible one it had for everyone else. Returning home on emergency leave for the funeral, I took a while to reacclimate once I returned to Iraq. But I settled in and began my own mission. It had to go on and it needed me.

The stark world of the deployed:
My home in Baghdad, known as "Dodge City."

Most of what I did was at a classified level, but I can explain it in simple terms: As the Intelligence Battle Watch Captain, I analyzed insurgent tactics, techniques and procedures, wrote daily summaries of their activity, provided analysis projects on demand and spot analysis for the JOC commander. In one case I recall, a helicopter hit a power line and made a hard landing and the crew needed to be evacuated and the aircraft recovered. I did a route analysis of all the IED and EFP (explosively-formed penetrator) hits on convoys for the past few weeks, mapped a path with the least likelihood of ambush, and made my recommendation. The colonel took my map, didn’t even bat an eye, and gave the green light. I sweated every minute though, because more than a dozen men had their life on the line because I made my best guess. The QRF (Quick Reaction Force) and the recovery team got out, got the crew and the bird, and got out without a single attack.

The impact site of a rocket that hit a little close to home
My trailer is behind me. October 2008

There were some tough days, some good days and a lot of mundane days. We got rocket attacks on our base fairly frequently in the latter part of 2007. Most of the time I was in the chow hall – the enemy loved to attack during mealtime in hopes of scoring a big hit – or in my trailer. In the latter, I started off by donning my full body armor as soon as the alerts sounded. Then after a while, I’d simply pull my vest off the floor and lay it over me and go back to sleep. Eventually, I’d just sleep through the attacks. Frequently, they’d come in volleys, and they’d bracket me to all four cardinal directions. One time they actually did hit my trailer, or to be more precise, the concrete barrier outside it. The rocket, exploding, sent shrapnel through my trailer, but fortunately I was not there. Five minutes before, I had left it to go to breakfast, because I was a little hungrier that day than normal.

With the boss, General David Petraeus

We had great success while I was in Iraq. It was the time of the Sunni Awakening, when the good guys finally stood up and started fighting against Al Qaeda, which was also being called the “Islamic State” by that time. Attacks fell precipitously, from 180 a day to 15 by the time I left in June 2008. Two years later, the country was almost peaceful. But I knew at the time it was a false lull. If we pulled out the troops, I knew from experience, IS would come back. And so they did, and a lot more lives were lost because we pulled out too early.

On Saddam Hussein's throne, Baghdad

Back in the U.S. I resumed my civilian job and went back to being a reservist. And eventually, I even got to be a Navy officer for a change. Switching over to the Pacific, I did eight exercises alongside the Republic of Korea forces, practicing defense of that nation. I did additional exercises in Australia, the Philippines and Japan over the next few years.

Finally, in 2017, I knew my time was up and I had to go back and resume my watch on the wall. It was harder now. I had a family – a wife and a child – who I loved dearly, and from whom parting was indeed a sweet sorrow. Indeed, I had to skip out from my very clingy five-year-old son on his birthday, sneaking out of the room while he was pre-occupied, to avoid a meltdown. That bothered me and still does to this day.

This time my destination was Afghanistan. This was where the War on Terror began, but of course, it was a different war now. Literally. The Taliban of 2001 was utterly defeated, and had basically been consigned to exile in Pakistan. But they regrouped, founded new funding (including deciding that Opium, which is offensive to true Islam, was actually OK if it allowed them to buy weapons), and had returned in full force. Still, while I served in that country from 2017-18, we kept them at bay. Sure, they would take a district center here and there, but the Afghans would take it back in a few weeks, and fundamentally neither side gained ground. It was a stalemate. A stalemate that could have endured indefinitely with an American presence.

Afghanistan, 2018

Once again, I served in an analytical capacity, this time doing strategic-level work. I can’t recount too many examples, but one that stuck with me and was widely reported in the papers was the attack on a major hotel in Kabul. I was sitting in an office with the colonel and a two-star general when we noticed something odd in a video feed. We watched the attack happen live, and saw the horrible fate of many innocent civilians. Another time, there was a suicide bombing right outside our base. I knew something was up instantly, because there had been an attack in the same spot two weeks before. That usually means it’s a test, and the second one is likely a bait attack. I watched the live footage of the event – which was about 100 yards from me, on the other side of a wall. Then I saw the camera pan to a crowd that had gathered. It zoomed in on them and I instantly recognized them as journalists. Having been one myself, I knew that gaggle instantly. All the journalists had gathered on a street corner at a sufficient distance from the attack, and were setting up for their live feeds. I instantly knew what the bait had been for. It was not for us, but for them. Sure enough, a few seconds later, with the camera still right on them, the crowd of journalists erupted in a ball of flame and smoke. A terrorist had ridden up on a bicycle with explosives stashed inside its frame and set it off. As the smoke cleared, I saw the carnage, and the last moments of some of the Afghan journalists as they tried to crawl away, some with only one working arm. Finally they simply stopped crawling.

These are the sort of things I saw far too often during my deployments. There was the woman in Iraq whose head, arms and legs were severed, her naked body left as a warning to her village. The blood flowed out and even her breasts collapsed inward on themselves. The most shocking though was when IS recruited two young girls with Down’s Syndrome to be suicide bombers. The girls probably didn’t know what they were doing. They were probably told to carry this backpack into the square, stand by the post, and wait for someone to meet them. Who knows the story. But the terrorists sent these two helpless, poor girls out there with backpacks full of explosives and ball bearings – the weapon of choice for the carnage they cause once released at several hundred miles per hour – and from some safe distance, the terrorists pressed a button and vaporized the two girls, alongside a dozen other innocent Iraqis. They weren’t completely destroyed, of course. Their heads survived, and one of them landed right upright, as if she was not dead, but buried in sand as part of a game. I saw the picture and instantly knew she was Downs Syndrome. I had it in my report before the forensics came in. I knew the look. I see that face, even today, in my dreams.

With my team, Iraq, 2008

Severed heads were not uncommon at suicide bombings. Especially when vests were used. They’d blow up the middle section of the bomber and frequently the head would pop right off. In one case, the head of a young man landed upright and was still there moments later when a local TV reporter arrived on the scene. The head was alive still, and the man (minus vocal cords) was mouthing some words and looking around, the eyes tracking the reporter as he circled the head. It only lasted a few seconds, then they stopped.

Why do I recount these stories? I guess to get them off my chest. There are far more that I could remember. Some I’ve tried to suppress. I guess the point I want to make is that while we’ve been sitting at home watching Dancing With the Stars, this is the world outside there. Real, raw, flies-on-the-eyeballs. It’s what evil looks like in the flesh, and it’s not a figment of our imaginations. September 11 has been happening all over the world, every day, in miniature, and still does to this day. This is what the War on Terror means, and why I fought it. This is an evil that you don’t see in America precisely because we have people standing on the walls. We have been standing on the walls – and some folks a LOT longer than myself – for 20 years now, and those walls will not suddenly grow peaceful with the watch pulled in.

US Embassy, Kabul Afghanistan

This is what angers me about what has come to pass in recent weeks. We simply decided we were tired of it all and pulled back. We were keeping the lid on the insurgency in Afghanistan with a footprint (when I was there) of 10,000 American and 10,000 NATO troops. That’s peanuts. To put it in perspective, after the January 6 riot, the Biden administration flooded Washington with 25,000 troops. Thus we had twice as many Americans guarding mostly-empty congressional buildings than we had standing the wall on the War on Terror. And even then we decided to pull them back.

Maddingly so, the way we did it made collapse of our allies a foregone conclusion. We never even gave the Afghan Army the chance to train to fight without the ubiquitous American airpower. They simply had a phone line they could call for air support one day, and the next they called and got nothing. Afghanistan has a “fighting season.” It’s the summer. It’s a time when the enemy presses the Afghan National Army hard, throws all their chips in, and for the past 18 years, they’ve been defeated with significant losses, then they vanish for the winter to rebuild and try again next year. Yet the present administration chose to pull out of Afghanistan in the middle of the fighting season. That’s like pitching a softball to Babe Ruth. We pulled out of Bagram Air Force Base so fast, the Afghan contingent at the base didn’t even know how to turn the power back on.

The way Afghanistan ended is morally bankrupt. It’s as if we pulled up to the gates of Dachau, opened them, passed out some food for a time, then decided, nah, it’s not worth it, and gave it back to the SS while the prisoners looked at us in horror. The abandonment of our allies to certain death in such a callous manner is unprecedented in U.S. history. It’s the single most morally compromised act of a United States president since the Trail of Tears.

I suppose I should end on a hopeful note. I wish I could. I wish I could say that 20 years on, we put 9/11 in the rearview mirror and consigned the world of large-scale terror to the Ashheep of History. But I can’t. We have done nothing of the sort. We have in fact revived it. We have not even gone back to September 10, 2001, because on that date, there was a real live rebel movement in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban (which doesn’t exist now), and America had allies around the world who believed – who could believe – in our word of honor, and were ready and willing to fight alongside us. Who will believe our word today?

The last few weeks have left me – and every veteran I know – with a seething, boiling internal rage and discord. But we know what we did. We know what the sacrifices were, and whether or not they were all worth it, or whether or not we made mistakes here and mistakes there, we did stand the wall, and that is worth it. Because the wall needs to be stood. As George Orwell famously said, “We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” Those are the men – and women – on the wall, and though our leaders may have grown coward, we are still here, and we are still standing. We will continue to stand, continue to serve. And we will be needed. If you thought the forever war was bad, just wait and see what comes next. I guarantee you it will not be pretty. When the worst comes, there will be recriminations enough. Some justified, some not. It doesn’t matter. When the call goes out, the wall must be manned again, wherever it is.

James Aalan Bernsen

September 11, 2021

The Men on the Wall

  

Ebenezer Allen and Texas Annexation

Allen H. Mesch

© Allen H. Mesch Used with Permission.

After the defeat of the Mexican Army in 1836, the newly established Republic of Texas hoped the United States would recognize Texas independence and quickly add Texas to the Union. Most of the Republic’s citizens considered themselves to be Americans and believed the “United States was waiting to embrace them with open arms.” In September 1836, Texas voted overwhelmingly in favor of entering the Union. However, Texas President Sam Houston believed the admission faced many obstacles. Despite the support for annexation, Houston thought it was premature to consider admittance when the United States and President Andrew Jackson refused to acknowledge the country's existence. The two governments were unable to negotiate an agreement for the next nine years.

Houston (1841-1844) was re-elected to the presidency after Mirabeau Lamar’s term (1838-1847). Houston chose Anson Jones as his secretary of state. Houston and Jones worked to obtain an annexation offer from the United States and recognition of Texas’ independence from Mexico. They wanted to receive both proposals simultaneously which would allow the Texas government to decide which alternative to accept. However, by the fall of 1844, the annexation of Texas appeared to be dead.

In November 1844, President Houston selected Clarksville attorney Ebenezer Allen to fill the opening created when Houston appointed Attorney General George Whitfield Terrell[1] as chargé d'affaires to Europe.[2] Allen and his family came to Texas from Maine in 1840. In September 1844, Texans elected Dr. Anson Jones (1844-1846) president. Jones’ election created a temporary vacancy in Houston’s cabinet and in December 1844 Houston asked Allen to serve additionally as secretary of state ad interim.[3]

After Dr. Jones’s election, he consulted with friends and other politicians to select officers for his cabinet. For the position of Attorney General, Jones selected a lawyer from Red River County - Ebenezer Allen.

Several years later, President Jones described his prior knowledge of Mr. Allen. Jones wrote, “... when I called him to that station I was almost a stranger to him personally, having never seen him but once or twice, and knew nothing of his opinions on this [annexation] or scarcely any other subject. I approved him because he had the character of possessing great ability and honesty.”[4]

 After Jones organized his cabinet, France and England demanded Texas send “highly appreciated” Secretary of State Ashbel Smith to represent the Republic of Texas at their courts. Jones knew he would need a person who was comparable to Smith, with “the utmost firmness and caution,” to successfully manage affairs in Smith’s absence. Jones’ cabinet recommended Ebenezer Allen to replace Smith. Allen was regarded as “a man of excellent sense, high character, and of the best disposition in this matter.”[5] In addition to his position as attorney general, Allen was “charged with the duties of secretary of state ad interim.”[6]

While Jones was non-committal about annexation, Secretary Allen was strongly in favor of independence. Two months before his appointment, he wrote to William Kennedy, the British consul at Galveston, about his position:

 You are well aware of the fact that I have from the beginning been decidedly opposed to the Annexation of Texas to the United States. It is my first object to defeat, if possible, the consummation of this most obnoxious measure, so decidedly hostile, as I conceive it to be, and fraught with such evil consequences to the ultimate prosperity and high destiny of this Country. If I am successful in the accomplishment of this great result, I shall consider it the proudest period of my life.[7]

U.S. President John Tyler reopened annexation talks. Tyler appointed Andrew Jackson Donelson[8] to represent the United States in the Republic of Texas.[9] In December 1844, chargé d'affaires Donelson was worried about annexation. The actions by the U.S. government had shifted Texas public opinion from annexation to independence and favorable commercial terms with the English.[10]

 During the U.S. Congressional debates, Secretary Allen warned Donelson that Texas officials and citizens would be disappointed with a “vague” treaty lacking a “definite, tangible, and eligible process” to achieve annexation. The Republic “would feel compelled to consider their connexion [sic] with the measure dissolved.”[11]

The U.S. Congress finally agreed to ratify a joint resolution to annex Texas. The new American President James Polk sent chargé d'affaires Donelson to Texas to persuade Texas to accept the joint resolution “without qualifications.”[12]

On March 31, 1845, Donelson presented the United States proposal to the Jones administration. President Jones received him cordially and listened carefully to his remarks. Jones preferred to hold a public election on annexation. If the voters approved annexation, Jones would call a convention to make the changes necessary for Texas’ admission to the Union. Jones said, “the gravity of the subject required him not to act in haste: and that, although he had a decided opinion, he would dwell awhile on it, until he was aided by the advice of his cabinet.”

Dr. Jones commented on his position in a memorandum written on February 19, 1850: “A party in the country have accused me of being opposed to annexation, basing the charge upon the assumed fact that the members of my Cabinet, and the other officers of the Government were opposed to it, and reflected my sentiments.” He believed Ebenezer Allen was the only cabinet member who “preferred independence over annexation.” Despite his opinion, Jones thought Allen was “perfectly ready and willing to do all” in his power to carry “out the will of the people.”[13]

While the Jones administration considered how to proceed with the U.S. proposal, the president learned about the “successful progress of the preliminary treaty with Mexico.”[14]

Donelson pressured Jones to accept the joint agreement. He sent unsolicited “suggestions” via Allen to President Jones on the approval process. Although the chargé d'affaires later apologized for interfering in the process, the chargé d'affaires continued trying to manipulate the Republic's decisions.

The public thought the Jones administration was too cautious and too slow in response to the American government. Public support for annexation grew and the animosity of Jones increased. He was burned in effigy, and threats were made to overthrow his government.[15] Texans favored the terms offered by the United States and demanded quick action by Congress or a convention of elected representatives to ratify the U.S. joint resolution and form a state government. Secretary Allen advised Jones on the state’s political situation and recommended calling a convention:

    There can be no doubt that a convention, framed upon a plan recommended by the Executive, would be as legal, satisfactory, and efficient as one formed upon a plan proposed by Congress.

    If you think the measure a safe one, and not premature, I should be glad to see your proclamation issued recommending a convention to be assembled at as early a day as practicable, and presenting a basis whereby to regulate the election of deligates [sic].[16]

Allen urged “most forcibly” that “the call of a convention, to be assembled under the advisory proclamation of the Executive, would not only neutralize and render harmless all the elements of [the] opposition, and defeat the machinations of your enemies, but would even place you in such a position that they themselves, however loath, would be bound to sustain you, and to support your course and administration.”[17] Jones did not need Allen’s warnings because the president was aware of “the storm” and felt “its blasts all around me.”[18] On May 8, 1845, President Jones instructed Allen to issue a proclamation in which Jones recommended that the citizens of Texas elect delegates for a convention to take “prompt and decisive action” on the United States Annexation proposal.[19]

The representatives to the convention met on July 4, 1845, to consider the U.S. Congress joint annexation resolution. By a vote of fifty-five to one, the delegates approved the offer of annexation. Next, the convention prepared the Constitution of 1845 for the new state.[20] Jones informed Polk “that the Deputies of the People of Texas” at their Convention accepted the United States government’s proposal for annexing “Texas to the American Union.”[21]

Jones ordered the Texas Congress to meet on June 16, 1845. He asked congress to choose between annexation or independence. Congress rejected the treaty with Mexico, approved the joint resolution of annexation, and passed motions censuring Jones.[22]

Allen sent Donelson a copy of the joint resolution adopted by both houses of the Texas Congress on June 21 and approved by the President on June 23.

Declaring the consent of the existing government of this Republic to the terms of the proposition for annexation… the people of this country have thus evinced by most decided manifestations their strong but natural preference for the advantages of voluntary incorporation into the American union, and their strong attachment to the free institutions of that great and glorious Republic.[23]

Texas voters ratified the new state constitution in October 1845. The U. S. Congress accepted the document on December 29, 1845, which became the date of Texas's legal entry into the Union.[24]

 

This article is based on Ebenezer Allen – Statesman, Entrepreneur, and Spy by Allen Mesch. Mr. Mesch is available for virtual book signings, podcasts, and presentations. You can order the book at Mercari (check for latest price), Amazon Books (book), and Amazon (Kindle E-book).

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[1] George Whitfield Terrell (?−1846) was district attorney of San Augustine County in 1840 and he later served as district judge. In December 1841 he was made attorney general of the Republic by Sam Houston. From 1842 to 1844 Terrell was Indian commissioner and negotiated the Indian treaty at Bird's Fort on September 29, 1843. He was appointed chargé d'affaires to France, Great Britain, and Spain in December 1844 and continued in that capacity under President Anson Jones. Upon his return to Texas in 1845 Terrell was again made Indian commissioner. He was an opponent of annexation. He died on May 13, 1846. Handbook of Texas Online, Melvin B. Jaschke, "Terrell, George Whitfield," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fte22.

[2] Moore, Francis, Jr. Telegraph and Texas Register (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 9, No. 47, Ed. 1, Wednesday, November 20, 1844, newspaper, November 20, 1844; Houston, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth78075/m1/1/?q=George+Terrell), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.

[3] Texas National Register. (Washington, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 2, Ed. 1, Saturday, December 14, 1844, newspaper, December 14, 1844; Washington, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth80096/), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.

[4] Anson Jones, Republic of Texas, 74.

[5] Annie Middleton, "Donelson's Mission to Texas in Behalf of Annexation." The Southwestern Historical Quarterly 24, no. 4 (1921): 270. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30234808.

[6] Ebenezer Allen Letter to Charles Elliott, Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1911), Volume II, Part II, 1169.

[7] Middleton, 258. 87

[8] Andrew Jackson Donelson (1799-1871 was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 25, 1799. He attended Cumberland College, Nashville, and graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1820. He spent two years as aide-de-camp to his uncle, Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson, before resigning his commission in order to study law. In 1829 President Jackson appointed Donelson his private secretary. Donelson remained in Washington in that capacity until the end of his uncle's second term on March 4, 1837. In 1844 President John Tyler appointed Donelson chargé d'affaires of the United States to the Republic of Texas. His duties were to present American propositions to President Anson Jones and to further the cause of annexation. Donelson performed both tasks with skill and diplomacy. In March 1845, Congress passed a joint resolution admitting Texas to the Union, provided that the state adopts a republican form of government before July 1846. He was subsequently minister to Prussia and in 1852 a candidate for the vice presidency of the United States. He died at Memphis, Tennessee, on June 26, 1871. Hugo Ellis, “Donelson, Andrew Jackson,” Handbook of Texas Online, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/donelson-andrew-jackson.Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

[9] President Tyler appointed Andrew Jackson Donelson in March 1845. Handbook of Texas Online, Joseph Milton Nance, "Republic of Texas," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mzr02.

[10] Middleton, 255-256.

[11] Jones, Memoranda, Republic of Texas, 505.

[12] Middleton, 266.

[13] Jones, Memoranda, Republic of Texas, 74.

[14] Jones, Memoranda, Republic of Texas, 453.

[15] Handbook of Texas Online, Herbert Gambrell, "Jones, Anson," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fjo42.

[16] Jones, Memoranda, Republic of Texas, 458.

[17] Jones, Memoranda, Republic of Texas, 459-461.

[18] Jones, Memoranda, Republic of Texas, 459-461.

[19] Hard Road to Texas, Texas Annexation 1836-1845, “Part 5: The Final Showdown,” National Register Extra - -- Extra, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, https://www.tsl.texas.gov/exhibits/annexation/part5/anson_jones_may8_1845_proclamation.html.

[20] Handbook of Texas Online, Ralph W. Steen, "Convention of 1845," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mjc13.

[21] “Jones to Polk,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1908 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1911), Vol. II, Part II, 386-387.

[22] Handbook of Texas Online, C. T. Neu, "Annexation," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mga02.

[23] Ebenezer Allen Letter to Andrew Jackson Donelson, June 23, 1845. Hard Road to Texas Annexation, United States Diplomatic Correspondence, Texas Secretary of State records, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, https://www.tsl.texas.gov/exhibits/annexation/part5/eben_allen_june23_1845_1.html (page 1) and https://www.tsl.texas.gov/exhibits/annexation/part5/eben_allen_june23_1845_2.html. (page 2)

[24] Handbook of Texas Online, C. T. Neu, "Annexation,", http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/mga02.

Travis' Letter and the Ghosts of 1813

Today marks the 185th anniversary of William Barret Travis' letter from the Alamo. Of course, any excuse to reprint it is a good one. Here it is:

Commandancy of the Alamo — Bejar, Fby 24th 1836 —

To the People of Texas & all Americans in the world —

Fellow citizens & compatriots

I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna — I have sustained a continual Bombardment & connade for 24 hours & have not lost a man — The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all despatch — The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am deter mined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country.

— Victory or Death

William Barret Travis Lt. Col. comdt.

 Travis' letter, and indeed the entire Alamo stand, on its face is full of bravery and bravado, but many have often wondered to what degree it was bravery or simple bombast. Did Travis really know what was facing him? Did he perhaps think that there was still hope that he could hold out and win? Historians and laymen alike have analyed and debated this. But in trying to understand Travis' stand, a huge bit of context has been universally lacking: Texas had been here before.

Twenty three years before, a ragtag army of Americans and Tejanos had gathered at the Alamo upon the news of an enemy approaching from the south promising to crush them without quarter. How they acted and how their own battle turned out held key lessons for Travis - lessons he undoubtedly knew.

First, let me step back, because most of my readers will know none of this.

In the 1812-13 revolution - frequently referred to as the Gutierrez-Magee Filibuster - a band of American volunteers crossed the border to make common cause with Tejanos in their rebellion against Spain, defeating the royalists decisively at the Seige of La Bahia and the Battle of Rosillo before declaring the independence of Texas (as a Mexican state) and passing Texas' first constitution in April 1813. The mixed Anglo-Tejano army then defeated a first Spanish counter-attack against San Antonio at the Battle of Alazán in June 1813, but were crushed by a second one at the Battle of Medina in August of that year. In that battle, the republicans were routed, pursued mercilessly, and shown no quarter. Among the officers in the Spanish force that dealt in such blood and mayhem was a young officer, Lt. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

Of course, most Texans and Americans today know almost none of this earlier revolution. But that is not true of Travis' generation. The settlers who came to Texas under Stephen F. Austin and other empresarios knew about the first revolution very well. That's because many of them were veterans.

My research has uncovered 18 verifiable survivors of the 1812-13 revolution who settled in Texas, and there were undoubtedly many more. Travis undoubtedly interacted with them and had ample opportunities to learn their stories. Some were prominent citizens of the Texas colony and later republic, like James Gaines and Warren D.C. Hall. Republican Veteran Aylett Buckner was one of the Texans killed in the 1832 Battle of Velasco, and Travis almost certainly knew him well.

But the closest connection Travis had to the 1813 war was his next-door neighbor.

Travis came to Texas in 1831 and settled in San Felipe de Austin. Though he traveled across Texas as a young lawyer, this was his principle residence for the next five years. San Felipe was a small town, and everyone knew everyone else. Travis set up his law office in a small house next door to the office of one Goodwin Brown Cotton.

 

 

Display at the San Felipe de Austin 
State Historical Site. Cotton is on the Left.

Cotton himself was a veteran of the first revolution. The young man from Louisiana had come to Texas with the Cuban rebel José Álvarez de Toledo, and helped him wrest control of the rebellion from its initial commander, José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara.  He likely worked as an apprentice to a printer from Philadelphia, Aaron Mower, who set the type for the first paper in Texas history, the Gaceta de Tejas.

Cotton likely served in the Battle of Medina himself and fled with the rest of the republicans following the defeat. He returned to Texas in 1829 and reprised Mower's newspaper, simply changing the name to English: The Texas Gazette. This he published in a small house adjacent to Travis' law office.

The Texas Gazette

Through veterans like Cotton and others, William Barret Travis would have heard all the horror stories of Medina and its aftermath. It was the bloodiest battle in Texas history. Possibly as many as 1,000 rebels were killed on the battlefield and others were hunted all the way back to Louisiana. In the brutal conquest of San Antonio that followed Medina, between 1/4 and 1/3 of the population of Texas was killed or exiled.

So, when one reads Travis' bold words, it is important to note that these are the words of a man who knew without a doubt what was in store for him. Though he hoped for relief and a long seige - the Republicans of 1812-13 had held up at the Presidio La Bahia for four months - he knew it was a long shot, and he knew what Santa Anna, who had been with the Spanish Army in its brutal conquest 23 years earlier, was capable of.

Victory or death, therefore, meant exactly that. It was no bombast.

The marker for Cotton's Print Shop at San Felipe.
(The spelling is incorrect. Cotton is correct)

Markers at the San Felipe State Historic Site, 
showing respective locations of Cotton's Print Shop
(left) and Travis' legal office (right).