Gone to Texas (10 page)

In 1822, Mexico staged a revolution against her Spanish overlords. Austin needed every ounce of his tact and patience to persuade the Mexicans to adopt a colonization law. A few years later the Mexican policy toward colonization was liberalized, and by 1830, over twenty land grants had been made to empresarios like Austin. Speculators spread the word about Texas, and on the day that President Jackson met with Christopher Groves in the White House, there were sixteen thousand Americans in Texas, four times the number of Mexicans.

One of these empresarios, Haden Edwards, along with his brother Benjamin, almost ruined everything. The Mexicans had provided Edwards with three hundred thousand acres in east Texas, near the village of Nacogdoches, on which he settled with eight hundred families. Trouble was, there were already a number of Anglo squatters and Mexican settlers already on the land.

It was a subject that came up during Christopher's ride with Jackson the next day. The President was clad in a fine suit of cobalt blue broadcloth. He wore a white, broad-brimmed planter's hat. He seemed a much younger man in the saddle, tall and well-seated and all grace and suppleness. As they rode down the dusty length of Pennsylvania Avenue, Jackson asked Christopher what he knew of Texas, and when Christopher
mentioned having heard of the Republic of Fredonia, Old Hickory's eyes lit up.

"There's what I'm talking about!" exclaimed the President with exuberance. "Americans won't live under a foreign thumb for long. Not in their nature."

"Sir?"

"The Republic of Fredonia. A glimpse of the future of Texas, my boy."

"It seemed to me a rather hopeless, quixotic scheme, when I heard of it," confessed Christopher.

Haden Edwards had threatened to confiscate the property of all the early settlers if they could not show proper title to the land they were occupying. When he proceeded to carry out his threat, the Mexican government revoked his empresario contract and ordered him out of the country. The Edwards brothers rode into Nacogdoches with thirty armed men, flying a red-and-white banner bearing the motto "Independence, Liberty and Justice." They seized the old stone fort and proclaimed the formation of the Republic of Fredonia. Six weeks later, Mexican troops marched against the rebels. Not a shot was fired. The Edwards brothers and their followers fled across the Sabine into the United States.

"It was the wrong place and the wrong time," said Jackson. "But the day will come when there won't be just thirty men, or even three hundred, but thousands, taking up arms to fight for freedom."

"But, as I recall, Mr. President, Stephen Austin sent a hundred of his colonists to help the Mexicans put down the Fredonian rebellion."

"Austin." Jackson growled the name. "The man's a traitor. He is actually serious about remaining a Mexican citizen. But what can you expect? His father preferred to live as a Spanish citizen in Missouri, back before the Louisiana Purchase. That's why the Spaniards chose him to establish the first colony in Texas."

"But Austin gave his word to the Mexican authorities."

Jackson scowled and rode on in silence for a few minutes. He was a man whose word was his bond, and Christopher's riposte had pierced his defenses.

Everyone recognized the President, and Jackson was constantly touching the brim of his hat to those who passed, be it in carriages, on horseback, or afoot. Tiring of this exercise in cordiality, Old Hickory abruptly reined his high-stepping Tennessee hunter off the avenue and plunged recklessly down a trail between scrub-covered hillocks. Christopher followed, and soon found himself on the banks of the Tiber River. This broad, turgid tributary of the Potomac was hemmed in by marsh, where cranes and herons were splotches of brilliant color among the brown and yellow reeds. To their left, near the headwaters of the brief Tiber, stood the capitol in all its splendor on a preeminent hill.

"Is that what you would do, Christopher?" asked Jackson, gazing out across the scrub and swamp. "If you went to Texas and became a Mexian citizen, would you fight your fellow Americans, men who sought only to govern themselves rather than live by the rules of elegant dons in Mexico City?"

"No, sir. I don't think I could fight against Americans."

"No. I didn't think you could. And yet I sometimes worry that one day Americans may shed the blood of other Americans over this matter of slavery."

"The abolitionists won't like the idea of annexing Texas."

"Hang the abolitionists." Jackson flashed a belated grin. "I don't mean that literally, of course. Have to make that clear, my reputation being what it is. Most sensible folks ignore them. But I doubt they'll just go away. Son, we've got to get Texas into the Union before
this storm that's gathering over slavery strikes us with hurricane force."

"Yes, sir."

Jackson gave him a long, speculative look. "The fight is coming. The Mexicans are alarmed by the influx of Americans into the province of Texas. I am told by reliable sources that the Bustamente government intends to end American immigration and build a number of forts near the colonies. These forts will be garrisoned by convict soldiers who are to remain as settlers after their enlistments are up. Worse, the Mexican government refuses to give Texas its just representation in their national assembly. Fact is, Bustamente is flaunting the Mexican Constitution of 1824, and our leatherstockings, who are accustomed to exercising their God-given rights, are becoming restless.

"Yes, Christopher, the fight is coming. But those farmers and backwoodsmen are going to need leadership, if they're to have any chance against the Mexican Army. Brave young men, like you, must be in place. If your father were alive I would ask him to go, and there is no doubt in my mind that he would. Will you?"

"I will think about it, sir," promised Christopher. Seeing disappointment cross Jackson's face, he added, "If I had only myself to consider I would go without hesitation. But I have my mother to think about. I'm all she has. I could not go so far away unless she permitted it."

Jackson abruptly dropped the subject. "Come, we must go back. Unfortunately, I have my duties to perform this afternoon. Will you stay another day? We are having a levee tomorrow, and I think you would enjoy it. Are your accommodations satisfactory?"

"Satisfactory?" Christopher almost laughed. The question was absurd. He had been assigned to the Yellow Room, the guest quarters on the second floor of the White House, above the north entrance. The room, done
up in yellow silk, sported handsome mahogony furniture, as well as a dressing area with a washstand and a mahogany close stool. "It is more than satisfactory, Mr. President."

Jackson grinned. "Quite a step up from the West Point barracks, eh? The work on the portico will not disturb you, I hope."

Christopher assured him it would not. Construction on the north portico, an improvement which the Committee on Public Buildings had been considering for years, had commenced a month after Jackson's inauguration. At present, workers were erecting a parapet wall with an iron railing between the foremost four columns.

They rode back to the White House, leaving their horses at the new stables, which had been built to house the President's fine thoroughbreds. Beyond the southeast gate, the stable was rather elegant itself, made of stucco-covered bricks with stone trimming on the windows, a porch with six round, graceful columns of plastered bricks, and a hayloft above the stalls. It also contained a tackroom, feed room, and accommodations for two coaches as well as quarters for the grooms and coachmen.

The President excused himself and repaired to his offices to conduct the country's business, leaving Christopher at loose ends. He roamed the grounds to have a closer look at all the work that was being done. A reservoir was being excavated near the mansion. When finished it would resemble a large pond edged with brick, and fed by water from a spring near Franklin Square, which the committee intended to purchase. The water would be piped to the reservoir in "trunks," wooden pipes made of hollowed-out logs. This would provide the President's house with running water, a convenience enjoyed by the clientele of most hotels, but which was not yet available to the Chief Executive of the United States.

Christopher met the engineer in charge of the job, a man named Robert Leckie, who was eager to share his vision. Stone pedestals would be laid in the reservoir where the pipes surfaced. The water would emerge in fountains. Here, too, were iron pumps, trimmed with brass and sheltered by ornamented wooden pump houses resembling church steeples. Pipes running from the pump houses to the mansion would be laid underground, and fitted with hand pumps which would produce sufficient pressure to carry the water to the second story. Inside the mansion, the pipes would be capped with brass cocks. Leckie informed Christopher of President Jackson's intention to install a bathing room in the east wing, which would include facilities for a shower bath and a hot bath, the latter made possible by the building of coal fires beneath large copper boilers. Christopher was impressed. Hot baths to be had by simply turning a spigot! What would they think of next?

He spent a good part of the late morning in the White House gardens. Jackson had called upon Jemmy Maher, who he had appointed Washington's public gardener, to improve the appearance of the grounds. A hardworking—and harder-drinking—Irishman who hated the British with a passion, Maher had much in common with Old Hickory, and they got along famously. Christopher counted over fifty laborers hard at work, some hacking at the earth with picks and hoes, others grading with rakes, still others pushing draymen's carts and wheelbarrows hither and yon, and all of it producing a choking pall of dust which, combined with the May heat, made working conditions less than ideal. Maher's men were transforming the north driveway into a wide horseshoe, bordered with paved footpaths. The circular road was being leveled and graded. Maher had purchased trees and shrubbery from Bloodgood & Company of New York, the nation's most prestigious nursery. Among the many trees Maher had ordered were sugar and silver leaf
maples, sycamores of both the European and American varieties, lindens, oaks, and horse chestnuts, the latter highly prized for their white, wisterialike blossoms. Jackson wanted the grounds heavily planted with trees, with the exception of the two-acre flower garden. It was here that Christopher finally found blessed relief from all the dust and hubbub.

The garden was accentuated with numerous rose trellises, as well as a tunnel arbor and an orangery. The latter sported tall glass windows. It had been constructed using the shell of an old fireproof vault from the Treasury, which had been discarded after the war. Gravel walks intersected meticulously groomed stands of camelias and laurestina, and beds of hyacinth, narcissus, and tulips.

Christopher found a remote and quiet spot for his refuge, an iron bench in the welcome shade of a stately old elm, and here he sat for quite some time, thinking about Texas. He was intrigued by the idea of seeing with his own eyes this strange new land he had heard so much about. And if President Jackson was right about the destiny of Texas, then truly a young man could find all the adventure his valiant heart desired. Returning to Kentucky to live at Elm Tree had never been a very appealing prospect for him. Now it seemed even less so, when compared to Texas. In Texas he could find a new beginning, where a man's past mattered not.

He was disturbed in his ruminations by a short, round-bellied man who emerged quite unexpectedly from the arbor, carrying shears in one gloved hand and a freshly cut bouquet of roses in the other. He was clad in old, soiled dungarees and a somewhat frayed and disreputable tweed jacket. A straw hat with a hole in the brim shaded his eyes. Christopher assumed he was one of the gardeners, and ignored him. But the man came straight for him, and as he drew closer, Christopher realized that
he looked vaguely familiar. His features were sharp and foxlike in a round face framed by a luxuriant set of side-whiskers.

"Might you be the young Christopher Groves I have heard so much about?" asked the man pleasantly, his mellow voice perfectly modulated, his diction precise.

Christopher stood up quickly. "Yes, sir, I am."

The man fumbled with trying to hold the roses and shears in one hand, then gave up the attempt and placed them on the bench Christopher had just vacated. Peeling off one of the heavy leather gauntlets, he extended a small, soft, white hand.

"I am very pleased to meet you at last, sir."

Christopher gripped the hand firmly and shook it. "You have me at a disadvantage, I'm afraid."

The man's eyes twinkled with merriment. "Martin Van Buren, at your service."

"Mr. Secretary!" Christopher was mortified. "I . . . I didn't recognize you!"

Van Buren chuckled good-naturedly. "And how could you, lad? I am not my usual picture of sartorial perfection, now am I? The President is kind enough to permit me to putter about in this splendid garden of his. Horticulture is a passion of mine. He, on the other hand, prefers trees to flowers. By his order they are transforming these grounds into a veritable jungle. Ah, well. There is nothing done that cannot be undone. That's my motto. Or one of them, anyway. I am fond of mottoes. My goal is to have one for every occasion. So tell me, are they treating you well?"

"Like royalty, sir."

"Good, good. I suppose the President has been trying his best to talk you into going to Texas."

"Why, yes, as a matter of fact he has been."

Van Buren nodded. "It has become something of an obsession with him. A knotty issue, Texas."

Christopher found himself completely at ease with this
man, the wily politician they called the Fox of Kinder-hook. Van Buren was an extremely ambitious man, but so disarming in his amiable charm that few could dislike him for it. That was the key to his uncanny ability to manipulate others into doing his will. His cherubic features and warm, genuine smile disguised a man of extraordinary intelligence and cunning.

Van Buren was a New Yorker, an "Old Republican" and longtime foe of DeWitt Clinton. A master at political organization, he had proved instrumental in Jackson's triumph at the polls in the Northeast. He believed in small government and free trade, and so was strongly opposed to the "American System" of internal improvements and high tariffs which defined the politics of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. For this reason he had allied himself—at first reluctantly—with Old Hickory. They were a most unlikely pair, the rough-hewn backwoods planter and military hero, and the smooth-tongued, urbane gentleman from the East, the warrior and the scholar, the one preferring to settle quarrels with pistols and swords, the other with words.