The Lost Gettysburg Address (15 page)

One man did know something, however, and he finally cracked.
The Frenchman Esau, made nervous by Ludlum’s discovery of his
treachery, could keep his secret no longer. He was disappointed in
having lost the opportunity to claim a reward for Anderson’s
recapture, as he had planned. He told his wife the story. She told one of
her friends, and soon Ludlum’s role in the conspiracy became public
knowledge. Esau was frightened. He went to Anderson’s friend W. A.
Bennett to ask for advice. Bennett said he was sorry that he could
help neither Esau nor Ludlum, as he was concerned about his own
neck. Esau then simply disappeared. Ludlum fled to the mountains
but remained there only a short time. She still did not feel safe, so she
eventually made her way to the Rio Grande.

Meanwhile, the time had come for Anderson and Houzeau to part
ways, as the authorities would surely come looking for a known
abolitionist. When they discovered that he was a lodger at Ludlum’s
house, things would really heat up for him. Anderson found it difficult
to express his gratitude for the risks that the Belgian had taken in
freeing him. Houzeau merely folded his hands and said, “God bless
you.” He listened to the sounds of the hoof beats in the mud dissipate
as Anderson’s horse trotted away.

The following morning, the filthy escapee decided to wash himself
in the stream near his encampment. As he splashed the water on his
face, Anderson noticed that the water had turned black. Feeling foolish
for having washed off the most effective part of his disguise, he
shrugged his shoulders and mounted his horse. He had just started
riding when three Texas rancheros came into his view, driving a
herd of cattle. Anderson attempted to detour around them, but was
soon face to face with one of the men. A man named Travis recognized
him at once, and greeted him with a shout. “How are you,
Mr. Anderson?” the cowboy inquired warmly. Anderson replied by
drawing his pistol and exclaiming, “Gentlemen, I will not be taken
alive.” The men responded saying that they had no intention of
interfering with Anderson’s journey. They warned him, however, that
Confederate pickets were closely guarding the crossing at Laredo, so
he may want to try another route. That information may have saved
Anderson’s life. He changed his plans and headed for Eagle Pass.

Union men had established safe houses along various routes of
escape from San Antonio, much like the Underground Railroad stations
that slaves used to avoid capture. Anderson used a password to gain
admittance to several of these houses before he left the bounds of
civilization. They fitted him with fresh horses every ten miles or so. After
dining with Charles Hood at Atascosa, fourteen miles west of San
Antonio, Anderson spent a night with William Reuter near Castroville.

Just after noon one day, a traveler came to San Antonio from the
west and was immediately brought to the Menger House for questioning.
Had he come across any detachments in pursuit of a fugitive?
The man replied that he had not. Confederate authorities pressed him.
Had he met any strangers on the road? “Oh yes,” the man replied,
“toward the end of the day a stranger near the fork of the Medina
told me to warn the locals that their chickens had been sold.” When
he passed this message on to the local farmers, they seemed utterly
confused. When asked to describe the man who had made this puzzling
statement, the traveler described Anderson. The coded message
was designed to reassure his friends that he was safe.

Four days after his escape, Anderson was riding a fine black horse
when he met another east-bound traveler. Clay Willis encountered
Anderson on the road west of Castroville. They were strangers to each
other. Anderson told the young man that his name was “Wilson” and
that he was riding to Brownsville to negotiate a large contract with
the Confederate government. Anderson asked Willis not to disclose
the details of their meeting until a few days after the youth’s arrival in
San Antonio, as he did not want competition for the contract. When
Willis arrived home and finally recounted the story, Anderson had
been gone more than ten days.
⁷

A week later, a farmer brought a horse into town. Anderson had
exchanged the horse on the far side of the Nueces River. Now it stood
in the center of Alamo Plaza with a sign around its neck. Local
authorities were offering a one-hundred-dollar reward to anyone who
could identify its owner. No one claimed the bounty. Since this
particular horse was branded, it did not take long to find the man who
had sold it to Anderson’s friends. A Polish man admitted he sold the
horse in question for cash to some unknown gentleman several weeks
past and had thought nothing more of it. By refusing to identify
Houzeau as the purchaser, this man probably saved the astronomer’s
life. San Antonio authorities were not satisfied, however. They took
the horse and walked him around the square, then up and down the
entire length of Main Street. During the parade, the town herald
proclaimed that it was the duty of every good citizen to come forward
and identify the animal. No one did. Anderson’s trail had grown
cold by this time, but Confederate officials still had reason to hope.
William Bayard had ridden out of town on November 1 with soldiers
and spies hot on his trail. Perhaps he would lead them to Anderson.
⁸

The most difficult part of Anderson’s journey was just beginning.
Leaving the planned safe houses of friends in neighboring ranches
and towns, he now faced an environment that was mostly empty, hostile
desert. Contemporary maps detailed the military route to Eagle
Pass. It lay 117 miles from Castroville. If he traveled too close to the
road, Anderson risked discovery and recapture. Losing sight of the
way promised almost certain death from Indian or animal attack or
dehydration. Standing on a small rise and looking west, Anderson
could see nothing but a featureless plain that extended beyond the
horizon. He rode his horse through the west Texas chaparral, stopping
every eight to ten miles to water the animal at a river or stream.
He first passed Quihi, a town with a small lake that was a frequent
target of Comanche raiders. After crossing Hondo Creek, the route
turned to the southwest. Anderson forded the Seco and Frio Rivers
and came to a fork in the road just past the Lenora River. Here he
exercised special care, since to his west was a busy thoroughfare that
led to Fort Clark, forty miles away. Anderson took the left fork and
continued riding to the southwest.

Near a stream crossing, Anderson’s horse began to wear out. The
last thing he wanted to do was to shoot the animal and continue on
foot. An exchange of horses at this part of the trip would be dangerous,
both for him and for his friends back in Castroville. Having few
options, he decided to call at a small, isolated house for rest and
supper. A wild-eyed young woman met the refugee with a familiar greeting.
“Oh yase, I know ye,” said Anderson’s host. He was surprised
and nervous until he realized that the poor woman had mistaken him
for a local preacher. While his host was cooking the dinner, Anderson
relaxed on the floor and soon fell sound asleep.

When he woke, Anderson heard a young man’s voice discussing
him. The man seemed suspicious, even after Anderson had introduced
himself as “John Wilson,” a man on important Confederate
government business. Officials were well aware of the recent Indian
depredations in this region, Anderson explained. His mission was
to gather troops to defend this road against future raids. If he could
exchange his pony for a fresh mount, the government would be most
obliged. The young man directed him to a ranch down the road where
Anderson repeated his fib. They did not believe him at first, but after
“Wilson” repeatedly emphasized the urgency of the situation, they
finally agreed and sent him on his way with a new steed.

Anderson rode on: ten miles to the Nueces River, another ten to
Turkey Creek. At one point he noticed that a rough-looking fellow
had been following him closely for several miles. Anderson moved off
the trail and camped with several other tough characters who were
acting less suspiciously. Another night he camped by himself, or so
he thought. In the middle of the night he woke suddenly to see two
glowing eyes staring at him from the edge of a thicket. After some
time the jaguar moved on. Anderson was grateful that the cat was not
as hungry as he was.

Anderson traveled the last thirty-four miles from the Chaco River
to the Rio Grande through the bleakest landscape of the entire trek,
with only two water holes on the way. As the border with Mexico
came into view, Anderson must have been astonished at how little
real trouble he had run into on his long exodus. Once he had crossed
the river, he fell to his knees in his best thespian manner and kissed
the ground, crying “Liberty!” Some Mexican soldiers observed this
odd behavior and escorted him directly to their commander. Mexican
general
Jeronimo Trevino spoke to Anderson for a time in Spanish
and then switched to English as they rode to his headquarters. “God
bless you!” the general exclaimed when they arrived. He gave the
refugee a warm handshake. Anderson did not know it at the time, but
Trevino had been expecting him. He refused to allow Anderson to go
to Matamoros as he had wished but insisted that the escapee travel
259 miles to Monterrey instead. Trevino suspected that if Anderson
proceeded to Matamoros, he would be recaptured by Confederate
agents.

Trevino gave Anderson a military escort for the long trek to
Monterrey. They arrived at the home of Governor Santiago Vidaurri
on Friday, November 1. Anderson had traveled more than four
hundred miles in just eleven days. He was exhausted. He had a huge
boil on his back side that would prevent him from riding again for
a while. It took another eleven days for him to regain his strength.
He finally set out in a guarded carriage with the governor’s daughter,
who was on her way to get married in Tampico. He still had a long
journey ahead.

O
N SUNDAY, NOVEMBER
3,
Kitty wrote in her diary:
“Escaped! And has he gone safe out of the hands of his
enemies? Thank God!” It had taken twelve days for the news of
her father’s arrival in Monterrey to reach them in Brownsville, Texas.
William G. Kingsbury urged the family to move to Matamoros for
their own safety, but Colonel John S. Ford begged them to stay in
Texas “for his sake.” He suggested they go to the mouth of the Brazos
River and await a steamer there. But
Eliza suspected that the kindness
of Ford, Francis W. Latham, Lieutenant Arthur K. Leigh, and other
rebels was more than merely the civility of gentlemen. They were
being used by the Confederates as bait for Anderson’s recapture.
¹

The ladies packed on Monday. On Tuesday afternoon, they
donned their bonnets and took a carriage down to the river. Rooms
in Matamoros were hard to come by. While Eliza and her
daughters
sipped tea at Mrs. Sanforth Kidder’s boardinghouse, Kingsbury
scurried about town to find them suitable accommodations. He
convinced Thomas Gilligan to let them stay in the home of his partner,
William Malone, who had gone to Mexico City to be married. At
first glance, their new lodgings were as close to Cincinnati as they
imagined Mexico could be. Malone’s mansion was the finest home
in town. Since the war had shut down trade through Texas ports,
Mexican officials had worked with Malone and other expatriates to
smuggle European goods overland into Texas. They were making a
killing. Malone’s rooms were furnished with luxurious modern
furniture and tastefully decorated. The sitting room boasted an
extensive library and rare engravings. A balcony opened from this room
to a fine view of the grassy, tree-lined plaza where bands entertained
several times a week. Eliza hired an ex-slave from Mobile to serve
them and settled in comfort to await her husband’s arrival.

Two days before his departure from Monterrey, Anderson penned
a letter to his wife, not knowing where she was or if she would ever
receive the letter. He planned to catch a steamer sometime between
November 28 and 30 if his funds held out; otherwise, he might be
forced to embark on a slower but more economical sailing vessel from
Vera Cruz. If his family was still in Matamoros or Brownsville, they
might join him at Tampico and leave together. In any case, Anderson
urged Eliza to get away as soon as possible and not to “trust Texas
nor the Southern Confederacy at all.” Eliza heeded his advice. Just
as Anderson set out from Monterey with the governor’s entourage,
Matamoros erupted in revolution. Eliza and the girls looked out from
their balcony at a scene that reminded Kitty of
Les Misérables
. The
Criolinas had barricaded several key streets and were expecting the
arrival of their enemies, the Rojos, any day. A battle might take place
on the very plaza in front of their house.
²

When a messenger came to the door announcing that the rival
troops were nearing town, Eliza had a decision to make. Would it
be safer to flee back into the arms of their Confederate “friends”
in Brownsville, or stay and risk God-knew-what in the midst of an
impending battle? Eliza decided to stay put. Most women and children
were crossing the river as quickly as they could. Carts rattled
all day on the cobblestone streets, piled high with the furniture of
wealthy Americans anxious to save their possessions from plunder.
Three days passed in such excitement, but no invasion came. Finally,
on Thursday, a bugle from one of the church towers sounded the
alarm. Mexican women ran through the streets shouting in Spanish,
“Los Rojos vienen!” (“The Rojos are coming!”). Officers on
horseback galloped across the plaza, barking orders. This continued for
an hour or so. Eventually the excitement died down and the soldiers
returned to the shade of the Customs House for a siesta. It was yet
another false alarm.