[From J. Marvin Hunter's Frontier Times Magazine - October, 1936]

IT IS to be regretted that this we know this band of gallant men, consisting of officers, soldiers, ex-governors, and congressmen, were men of year when all Texas is supposed to be turned historically minded and the reading world is under a perfect avalanche of hither-to unknown and undiscovered history concerning Texas, that so much attention has been given to events of trivial importance of early Texas, while some very interesting Texas history of intervening date seems forgotten or entirely neglected.

I have reference to a period of time best known to Southern people as the period of the War Between the States, and which northern historians call the Civil War and the succession of events which followed these years of unpleasantness. It was from Texas' southern frontiers that an exodus began, following this war, the story of which has never been fully told, which is a story of romance and adventure intermixed with pathos. With the exception of the products of a few feature writers, insufficiently informed, and an occasional number on an historical society program, the subject has been lightly touched upon in literature.

When Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston had surrendered their armies in the spring of 1865, and the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, had been captured "wreck and ruin, desolation and starvation covered the Southland from Virginia to Texas." When fortunes in slaves were gone and Confederate currency was no longer of value, when all the Southland was laid in waste and ruin, Texas frontiers furnished a gateway for a group of gallant but discouraged men to embark upon a self-imposed exile, the story of which deserves more attention than historians have accorded it.

Whether fear of further punishment from a victorious enemy, despair over home conditions or adventure alone, prompted them, it, is hard to say, but highest standing in the land and had previously been America 's most prominent citizens in politics, in war, and in social life. Men of heroism and integrity composed the party which singly and in groups crossed over Texas borders in 1865 to try their fortunes in the armies of Maximillian in Mexico in preference to the endurance of what they considered intolerable conditions at home.

In all cases of which we have record time and reflection brought forth wiser decisions, and in retrospection, conditions were not so intolerable to them as they had thought, and in a very short time they came home to become important cogs in the wheel of reconstruction. The names of many of these men are numbered among Texas' most valuable citizens and builders.

Of the few outstanding, authentic accounts of this neglected chapter of Texas Confederate history, the best is given in a small volume called "From Texas to Mexico, or The Court of Maximillian in 1865," which was the Texas Book Club book for 1933. This book is the memoirs of Judge Alexander Watkins Terrell of Austin, written shortly before his death in 1912. The introduction is written by Fannie Ratchford of the Wrenn Library of the University of Texas.

Judge Terrell was one of these self imposed exiles. The last official act of Governor Murrah, perhaps, was to place the great seal of Texas on a letter to Maximillian for Terrell. Murrah himself was one of the party, but being already a sick man he died shortly after crossing over into Mexico. These memoirs read like a fairy story, though filled with accounts of hardships and privation . Among the personnel of the party one finds such names as Generals Sterling Price, Hardeman, Magruder, Bee, Clark, Preston, and many others, besides many ex-governors of Southern states, ex-Confederate congressmen, and ministers to foreign lands.

One gets a glimpse of a foreign court at which American citizens play prominent parts, in Judge Terrell's accounts of his experiences and those of others of these exiles—Generals Hardeman, and Bee and Major Cadmus had been among the stormers of the Bishop's Palace and with Scott in the capture of Monterey in the war of 1846. Judge Terrell quotes General Magruder as "remarking on the irony of fate that sent into exile in Mexico in 1865, Southern officers who had aided in its conquest in 1846, under general officers, everyone of whom was a Southern man." He draws a picture of some fifty Confederate officers in exile celebrating the Fourth of July in Monterey, drinking toasts to the Lost Cause; to Lee, to Jackson and to the Sovereignty of the States.

He tells of Magruder's story of the grandeur of a banquet served at the Aztec Club in Mexico, of which this ex-Confederate general was the first president, and its members in 1847. When the United States Army occupied Mexico City after the conquest of Mexico, Lee, Johnston, Rosencrans, McClellan, Grant, Quitman, and other United States officers belonged to this club.

Judge Terrell says that "his return to his own country was caused by a careful study of the Mexican people; a knowledge of how Maximillian obtained power and the unfortunate use that he had made of it, and a vanished hope that a conflict with France over the Monroe Doctrine 'would 'vitalize and resurrect the Confederacy." By whatever cause, his return was Texas' good fortune as a long life of usefulness and devotion to his state proved.

Strange must have been the memories of these exiles of 1865 of the events of 1847, when they recalled them in these surroundings. Charming indeed, is this story, fascinating its setting, and valuable its historical significance to lovers of history. It is to be hoped that Texas researchers will bring forth other interesting facts concerning this interesting, but neglected, part of American history.

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RECALLS OLD MACKENZIE TRAIL

H. B. Martin, an Amarillo, Texas, printer, recalls that bleaching bones of fifteen hundred horses—killed by the Mackenzie expedition to keep the Indians from using them—still marked the old Mackenzie trail when he went to the Plains in 1886. "The trail had weathered the storms of only about twelve years then," he relates, "and the Mackenzie expedition was still fresh in the memory of many men then living." Martin learned much about Colonel Mackenzie's expedition from A. D. Tucker, first sheriff of Haskell county, who now lives at Pecos. "The horses were shot down in Tule Canyon. Later the early settlers conceived the idea of hauling the bones to the nearest railroad point to be sold for manufacture of fertilizer. I saw almost an acre of them, along with cattle and buffalo bones, awaiting shipment from Albany!" The horses slain were captured from the Indians by Mackenzie's forces, and not being able to herd such a drove, the entire lot were shot down to keep them from again falling into the possession of the Indians. This occurred in September, 1874. It is estimated that there were between 1500 and 2200 of the Indian ponies. The Indians were whipped into subjection by Mackenzie and those not killed were captured and for a time some of them were kept at Fort Concho. This notable expedition is fully described in Captain R. G. Carter's book, "On the Border With Mackenzie," published in 1935.

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In the election for Governor of Texas in 1845, soon after annexation, J. Pinckney Henderson received only 7,853 votes, and his rival, J. B. Miller, received 1,673 votes, a total of 9,526 . Texas' voting population has greatly increased in the last 90 years, more than 1,000,000 votes being cast.