Chapter 13
Banished from Texas
LOUIS “MOSES” ROSE WAS BACK IN NACOGDOCHES a few months after the fall of the Alamo.
On the one hundred mile ride from the Zubers’ home, Rose thought not so much of the past but of his future. Before the Alamo, he had been an inconsequential figure in Nacogdoches: invited to a few events; courted mostly when needed for a battle, then barely noticed afterwards.
Now his life would be different. He had become the Moses Rose who had fought alongside Bowie, Crockett and Travis. The Frenchman expected a great welcome when he arrived home. And he was correct . . . at first.
Many residents cried with joy at the sight of him, like the Zubers, as if he were a ghost. “Is that you, Rose?”, one said. “Thank God you were spared,” another wept. “We thought you died at the Alamo with the others.”
Tell us what happened, the faces in Nacogdoches – his bosses, his drinking buddies, his neighbors – implored the Frenchman.
Until Rose arrived, the fall of the Alamo was a tragedy without a face. Volunteers, a few well known, had given their lives in defeat to buy time so there could be a great victory elsewhere. By the time Rose finished his story, the Alamo had become baptized in the “fire of battle and the blood of heroes.” From the funeral pyre “rose the spirit of sacrifice, freed from the flesh to embolden the hearts of the Texans at San Jacinto.” Now it was understood that the Alamo had been a great victory, one continuous triumph that led to another a month later!
The reaction of the Nacogdoches residents was biblical: the Travis Line – only described moments before – was already venerated; Alamo blood sanctified Texas land; the defenders were crucified; Bowie, Crockett and Travis became the Trinity – the Mexicans were asleep when the battle began as punishment from the gods.
The Alamo now had a story and a face. Rose had created a legend . . . but in that legend he was Judas, abandoning Christ and his disciples in their darkest hour. The ultimate irony, Rose was despised for having forsaken the heroes of the legend he had created.
A friendly few, usually the town leaders, would politely ask: “Mose, why didn’t you stay there in the Alamo with the others?” To which he would answer: “By God, I wasn’t ready to die.” But most wouldn’t even talk to Rose who they considered at best a coward, at worst a traitor who deserved to be killed.
Of course, Rose explained that Travis had given everyone the alternative of escape and that he was following the tradition of his native France. But – and Rose would never understand – he had violated a sacred tradition of his new homeland: to fight to the death . . . and could never be forgiven.
Choosing to survive would have satisfied Napoléon but not the citizens of Nacogdoches, to whom he became “Luesa” Rose (the feminine form of Louis), as recorded in the official minutes by the County clerk when Rose testified on June 26, 1837 as a court witness. This stab at his lack of courage permeated even the official County records.
The Revolutionary government had promised land to all those who fought for Texas – but they needed proof of the heroes whose bodies were burned to ashes at the Alamo. Rose himself was denied any land, but, without bitterness, he provided evidence for the families of those he was accused of betraying. Rose made many appearances before the Board of Land Commissioners of Nacogdoches County: Yes, that one “died with Travis in the Alamo,” another he “saw [a] few days before the fall of the Alamo,” a third, he “knew him four years, suppose him killed in the Alamo,” still another, he knew “was in Alamo when taken.”
Rose, the pariah, was also now unemployable, so he decided to go into business for himself. He opened a meat market across from an old Mexican bull pen. But even in commerce he was taunted.
“I’m not happy with my meat, Rose,” one customer complained. “The only thing tough around here is my meat.” Bystanders would laugh, mockingly. Rose ignored such slanders till he could stand it no longer. After another of many such “complaints,” Rose became enraged and turned to get a loaded shotgun hanging on his wall. The customer ran, vaulted the high fence around the bull pen and disappeared before Rose could fire. Rose said: “Oh well, he has gone. I will let him go.”
The jibes ceased for a while but then began again. The next time, Rose seized his Bowie knife, lying on his cutting block, and drew it across a customer’s stomach, cutting through his clothing but barely drawing blood from his body. “If you come in here complaining again,” he warned, “I’ll cut you half in two.”
The ante was raised on April 10, 1838 – two years, one month and four days after the fall of the Alamo – when Francesco Garcia attempted to murder Rose. According to Rose’s testimony at the trial of the unsuccessful assassin, as excerpted in the court minutes:
“ A man at Thorn’s yard . . . ran after me . . . presented a pistol. I threw down my axe, took hold of the pistol . . . [He] let go of the pistol and took up my [Bowie] knife . . . he rushed upon me with the knife. I then snapped pistol at him. He went to cutting me with the knife and I shot the pistol at him. He wounded me in the back. After I shot him, he caught hold of me and threw me down . . . . I wounded him with the knife. When he came to me he said, ’Stop! I want to kill you.”’
When the court set his assailant free, Rose realized that not even his own government would protect him. Rose had been unofficially banished on pain of death; the end of the war against the Mexicans was the beginning of a local war against him. Always there was the inevitable question, but no answer would ever satisfy a Texan – so, he who had retreated alongside the great Napoléon, left Nacogdoches . . . and Texas . . . forever.
IT WAS A SAD DAY for the old Frenchman approaching his 60th birthday, as he gathered his few belongings, climbed on his horse and quietly slipped out of town. He rode 50 miles to cross the international border that once separated the United States from Spain, then Mexico, and now was to separate Rose from the Republic of Texas, which he helped create . . . and then cast him off.
With little savings, he would soon need work. So, from the border, he rode an additional 75 miles to Nachitoches, Louisiana – the end of the line from Nacogdoches in the old days when Rose delivered the mail and guarded the wagon trains for Frost Thorn. Remembering folks who were kind to him there five years earlier, he hoped one of them would offer him work. But after six grueling days on horseback, those he had known were dead or had moved on; none knew Rose and none wanted to hire a lonely old man, an illiterate who spoke broken English, and who limped in obvious, great pain.
One day, this experienced horseman fell from his horse. For some time he had been unable to stand or walk for any period of time. Now he couldn’t even remain stable in his saddle. Near Logansport, still in Louisiana but just a few miles from the Texas border, Rose found himself a doctor. He explained to Rose that the unremoved thorns had caused chronic infections, some thorns were in the bone and there were also thorns deep in the knee joint. That was why he was having trouble using his legs to direct his horse, and why he couldn’t remain stable on his horse. “Rigors,” the doctor called it and rest was critical.
Did Rose know anyone around here? the doctor asked. “Yes,” Rose said, “I knew ole Ferguson from when I travelled back and forth with the mail and the wagons.”
The doctor drove Rose in his buggy to the home of Aaron Ferguson, a prominent citizen, small plantation owner and operator of a freight line – a man you went to when you had a problem or needed something. Ferguson remembered and welcomed Rose and offered him a job to begin when he regained his health. His duties, similar to his past work for Frost Thorn, would be overseeing wagons of cotton and produce from Logansport to Nachitoches. Rose was also offered lodging in Ferguson’s own house – without charge until he got well, then as room and board as part of his pay.
Rose gratefully accepted and moved into Ferguson’s three-room, log house: a master bedroom for Ferguson and his wife, an adjoining living room with a fireplace where his children stayed, and a guest room to the rear, connected to Ferguson’s bedroom by a double fireplace. This room was offered to Rose. Adjacent to Rose’s room was a partially enclosed porch which looked on to a free standing kitchen, connected by a covered little walkway. At the front of the house was a fenced-in yard and a porch the width of the house; to its left, a small log cabin for the cook, to the right a fine Chinaberry tree.
Rose recovered his strength and his spirits. Soon he was escorting the wagons back and forth. One evening, assuming Ferguson knew the worst of it (there were no secrets in a small Southern town), Rose told Ferguson his life story from Napoléon to the Alamo to Nacogdoches to Logansport; Ferguson listened without comment. In Louisiana, a man’s life was his own business if he behaved as a gentleman. Nor were the Logansport residents all that concerned about the Alamo – some even resented the almost-war with Mexico ’cause of the wild Texans. One generously said: “Well, Rose had more military experience than all the others and he just decided to fight more at a later time.” Another forthrightly called his move “good judgment!” But all were impressed that their “Man from Alamo” had known the likes of Travis and Bowie . . . and especially Davy Crockett . . . and to have fought under the Emperor Napoléon was enough to distinguish this man from all of his fellows.
Even though he had left Texas forever, Rose’s tormentors from Nacogdoches would occasionally pass through Logansport heading east and would chide the Frenchman’s new neighbors about “that ole castoff living next to you.” His neighbors scarcely listened, but, from then on, the label of “castoff” stuck, and Castor Creek, which flowed next to where Rose now lived, became known as “Castoff Creek.” (Generations later, villagers thought that had always been its name.)
Rose grew very fond of the Ferguson family, especially Ferguson’s daughter, who, though she married and lived on the Texas side of the border, saw Rose many times when she would return to visit her father. She recalled Rose’s troubles due to the cactus thorns in his legs from his flight from the Alamo. She visited Rose when, in his late 60’s, he became bedridden from the chronic sores. The old soldier could no longer earn his keep but Ferguson permitted him to stay on anyhow.
One day Rose asked Ferguson if he might move from the family home to the Potato House – a small wooden shed with a dirt floor where potatoes were stored. The potatoes were covered with dirt and straw to protect them against freezing, and a roof prevented rain from washing away the protective covering. By spring of each year, the potatoes had been eaten, new ones planted and the shed almost empty.
It was in the spring that Rose had begun to feel particularly unwell. He was accustomed to the rigors coming and going, with fever and chills, but now for the first time he had pains in his chest, then his left arm and leg became weak and numb. The fever and chills increased. Rose knew it was his time to die.
Ferguson honored Rose’s request to leave their home – so that he might be alone with his thoughts at the end. Rose hobbled to the Potato House, one mile east of the Ferguson home, where he piled some straw to make his bed.
Approaching death, Rose took stock of his assets: one Bowie knife, a gift from Col. James Bowie; one silver coin, minted 1813 with a replica of Napoléon and the inscription: “NAPOLEONE IMPERATORE E RE” (Napoléon Emperor and King); the shotgun he had almost fired at the customer complaining of the “tough” meat; and the clothes on his back.
As night fell, he placed the coin and the knife on a wisp of straw where, from the light of the moon sneaking through the cracks in the roof, he could gaze at his possessions.
A feverish Rose stared and stared at the coin until the Emperor himself rose from his image and appeared in the Potato House. Napoléon urged Rose to follow him:
Though you are naked and badly fed, rich provinces and great towns will be in your power, and in them you will find honor, glory, wealth. Will you be wanting in courage and steadfastness?
NO, shouted Rose, though there was no sound anyone could have heard in the Potato House.
“Excellent!” cheered the great Napoléon. “I shall in person direct you. I shall keep out of range so long as you [are victorious] but if victory for a moment is uncertain, you shall see your Emperor in the front ranks.”
“Thank you, Emperor,” Rose replied, as Napoléon let loose his black horses, his mounted grenadiers passing Rose like a streak of lightening.
Then Rose began to shiver. He was again back in Moscow, marching through the ice and snow. He spied Napoléon seated on his horse, his left arm inside his jacket, watching his army in retreat. Some of Rose’s fellow soldiers shouted oaths and curses at their Emperor who appeared unmoved – but Rose could sense his despair. Next, Rose was in France in December of 1840. The remains of Napoléon Bonaparte were returned from his grave in St. Helena to Paris for a grand funeral procession up the Champs Elysees. How proud Rose was to watch and cheer his Emperor restored to his deserved place in history.
Rose took the coin with the face of Napoléon and held it tight in his left hand. With his right hand he picked up his Bowie knife. Sadly he remembered his friend on his death bed at the Alamo, having just crossed the Travis Line and rebuking him: “You seem not to be willing to die with us, Rose!”
Torment overcame him. Bowie had never forgiven Rose for leaving the duelist to die without him. Rose again fled the Alamo, this time back to the days when Bowie fought his famous “Sandbar duel.” He envisioned Bowie shot, knifed, yet still able to thrust a blade up into the heart of his nemesis; he pictured Bowie wrestling an old bull alligator, slaying it by plunging his blade into a vulnerable spot in its belly; and then he remembered Bowie delivering his own eulogy at the Consultation:
that he had ever neglected his own affairs to serve his country in an hour of danger, had betrayed no man, deceived no man, wronged no man, and had never had a difficulty in the country, unless to protect the weak from the strong and evil-intentioned.
Now the French and Texan commanders stood together in the Potato House: Napoléon dressed in his famous green jacket; Bowie in buckskin. Rose lay on his bed of straw, watching them.
“Come!” both said to the soldier who had fought loyally for each of them. Rose was invited to shake off his pain and despondency and join his leaders. “Escape!” said the majestic Napoléon. “Thank you, Emperor,” said Rose.
“Yes, escape my friend,” said Bowie with forgiveness. “You’ve earned your rest.” Rose radiated happiness, grateful for his absolution.
For the last time, Louis “Moses” Rose obeyed the orders of his commanders . . . and died – unmarried, without family, forgotten, “with not even a bounty or donation warrant from the Republic of Texas for his services.”
As Rose departed this world, his Bowie knife fell onto the straw, the coin dropped onto the dirt floor where it remained buried for 120 years.