Steven Butler's Genealogy Website: Butler Beginnings, Part Three

The Butler Family: Beginnings
PART THREE

By Steven R. Butler

As Alfred Butler grew to manhood in North Carolina or Alabama, events which would eventually have a great influence on his life were transpiring many hundreds of miles to the west in a place called Texas. Named after a Native American tribe called "Tejas," a word which in their language meant "friend," Texas was a vast land which for more than three centuries was only a portion of an even larger North American empire claimed by Spain. In 1821, it became part of the Republic of Mexico, following the overthrow of Spanish colonial rule. A year later, the first Anglo-American families, led by "empresario" Stephen F. Austin, began to settle in Texas with permission from the new government. Other land-hungry Americans followed. For most, the opportunity to acquire large tracts of land at low prices overrode any misgivings they may have had concerning the requirement that they become Mexican citizens and take up the Roman Catholic faith. In 1824, the same year in which Alfred Butler was probably born, those misgivings were further assuaged when the new settlers learned that Mexico had adopted a liberal constitution modeled largely after that of the United States.

Regardless, most Anglo-American immigrants probably never really thought of themselves as anything but American and a feeling appears to have prevailed among them that it was only a matter of time before Texas would become American territory. They were encouraged in this belief by the knowledge that the U.S. government, over the years, had continued to press Mexico in regard to possible purchase of Texas.

However, in the end, it was not the U.S. government but the settlers themselves, aided by civilian adventurers from the United States, who wrested Texas away from Mexico. In 1835, in reaction to President Santa Anna's repudiation of the 1824 Mexican Constitution, the Anglo-Texians rose up in arms against him. Emboldened by early military successes at Gonzales and San Antonio de Bexar in late 1835, the Texians declared independence at the little town of Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 2, 1836.

But shortly afterwards, the tide seemed to turn. The Texian garrison at the Alamo, an old Spanish mission near San Antonio de Bexar, commanded by Colonel William Barret Travis, had been under siege by Mexican troops since February 23rd. Vastly outnumbered, the defenders of the Alamo were all killed when the fortress fell on Sunday, March 6th. Among the dead were the legendary frontiersman James Bowie and the eccentric ex-Congressman from Tennessee, David Crockett.

On March 27th - Palm Sunday, following the tragedy at the Alamo, the Texians at Goliad, under command of Colonel James W. Fannin, were cruelly and unexpectedly executed by Mexican troops, after surrendering in the belief their lives would be spared. News of these two disasters resulted in a mass exodus of Texian settlers back in the direction of the United States. It was called by some the "Runaway Scrape." His detractors even accused General Sam Houston, former governor of Tennessee and protegé of President Andrew Jackson, of joining in the "scrape" - as he led his rag-tag Texas army ever closer to the Texas-Louisiana border. But Houston finally proved his critics wrong when, on April 21, 1836, at a place called San Jacinto, the Texian leader and his men soundly defeated Santa Anna's forces and captured the dictator himself. As a result, the independence of Texas from Mexico was won.

During the Texas Revolution of 1835 - 1836 there were about a dozen Anglo-Americans bearing the surname Butler who participated. One of these was a man named George D. Butler, counted among the 187 or so defenders of the Alamo. Like all the other Anglo-Americans in that doomed fortress, he died at the hands of the Mexican army on Sunday morning, March 6, 1836. Very little is known about him, except that he was probably a young man, was probably single, and that he came to Texas from Missouri - which may not have been his native state.

Two Alabama residents, Moses Butler and Bennett Butler, enlisted as privates in separate volunteer companies from that state and came to Texas during its revolution, both serving under command of Colonel Fannin at Goliad. After Fannin's troops were defeated at the Battle of Coleto Creek and taken captive, most were executed by the Mexicans on Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836. Moses Butler was one of those that died that day and his name is included among the list of martyrs engraved on the Goliad monument at Presidio La Bahia. Bennett Butler, serving in Captain P. S. Wyatt's company of Huntsville, Alabama volunteers, was luckier. On that fateful Sunday, the Mexicans had divided their prisoners into three columns and began to march them away from the presidio under the pretext of taking them to the coast to board ships bound for the United States. At a short distance from Goliad the prisoners were halted and without warning, the Mexican soldiers starting firing into the ranks of the Americans. Most were killed in this manner but Bennett Butler and a few others managed to get away in the smoke and confusion.

It is possible that the Bennett Butler who was at Goliad in 1836 may have been the same man who was married on March 10, 1838 to Miss Mary Criddle in Greene County, Alabama and that he may have been a kinsman of Alfred Butler. It might also be that this Bennett Butler is the same man, a native of North Carolina, who was enumerated, along with a wife named Mary and four young daughters, in the 1850 federal census for Chickasaw County, Mississippi.

Although many people, both in Texas and in the United States, hoped that the former Mexican province would be immediately annexed, this was not to be. Northern congressmen were reluctant to vote in favor of admitting another slave state to the Union and so for nearly ten years Texas functioned as an independent republic, the legitimacy of its government recognized by the United States, France and Great Britain. Recognition by Mexico, however, was not forthcoming - nor would it be. The Mexican Congress had repudiated the Treaty of Velasco which Santa Anna had signed in 1836, a treaty which would have granted Mexican recognition of the independence of Texas and established its southern boundary at the Rio Grande. Instead, Mexico viewed Texas as a province in revolt and made several abortive attempts to retake it during the late 1830s and early 1840s. Mexico also warned the U.S. that annexation of Texas would be considered tantamount to a declaration of war.

Alfred Butler was about twelve years old at the time of the Texas Revolution. About the time he reached maturity in 1845, the government of the Republic of Texas had accepted an offer of annexation by the United States, setting into motion events which were to have a profound effect both on his own life and on the history of the United States.

With Mexico threatening war, General Zachary Taylor, under orders from President James K. Polk, brought an "Army of Occupation" into Texas immediately after the offer of annexation had been ratified by the Texas Congress on July 4, 1845. Taylor's men first camped near present-day Corpus Christi, where they remained for several months. The following spring, after attempts to negotiate peacefully with Mexico had failed, Taylor was ordered to move his troops south to the Rio Grande, or Rio Bravo del Norte as the Mexicans called it. There, on the north bank of the river, opposite the Mexican city of Matamoros, he built earthworks which were given the name "Fort Texas" (later changed to Fort Brown). Mexican forces in Matamoros responded with threats, reminding the Americans that Mexico had always considered the southern boundary of Texas to be the Nueces River, about 160 miles north, and demanding their withdrawal.

Less than a month later, on April 25, 1846, a scouting party of sixty-three U.S. dragoons were ambushed by Mexican forces on the north side of the Rio Grande. Eleven Americans were killed and the rest captured. General Taylor wasted no time in reporting the incident to President Polk, writing: "Hostilities may now be considered as commenced."

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