Evaluate William B. Travis as a cavalry officer.

January 1999
Date: January 12, 1999
From: Robert L. Durham

On 27 October 1835, Travis was authorized a cavalry company and General Austin assigned Travis to act as advance guard for the army as they marched toward Concepción . Bowie's and Fannin's detachments had left for Concepcion a day earlier to find a bivouac. When Travis came in sight of the Mexicans fleeing after being defeated in the Battle of Concepción , he immediately ordered his men to attack. He did this without thought of fulfilling his primary duty, which was to provide information to General Austin.

Travis was next sent out in an unsuccessful search for a Mexican horse herd. When he returned, he resigned his commission and his company was placed under the command of another. When his company was sent out on a scouting expedition west of Bexar, Travis accompanied them as a private soldier. Travis left the company with a detachment of volunteers and they captured, on November 10, a herd of over three hundred horses and mules.

Recognized as captain again by Austin, Travis spent the rest of the time during the siege of Bexar on scouts, guarding the roads, and burning the grass to keep it from being used by the Mexican forces.

There was not much use for cavalry during the battle of Bexar, or while shut up in the Alamo compound during the siege and battle. Except for his initial command, when his youthful enthusiasm led him to attack without passing word to General Austin or receiving permission, he acquitted himself acceptably as a cavalry officer but did nothing to distinguish himself.

Prior to the arrival of the Mexicans on the outskirts of San Antonio, Travis should have had cavalry scouts patrolling the approaches to Bexar. Instead, the garrison was almost surprised by the Mexican advance guard.

The Texian army had some good mounted scouts but Colonel José Urrea was the best cavalry commander on either side during the Texas Revolution.

Date:January 18, 1999
From: W.L. McKeehan
 

Fate and the course of the Mexican Federalist War that led to independence of Texas never allowed Travis's skills as a cavalry officer in the field to be tested.  His first cavalry command given by order of Gen. Austin was essentially a scouting and reconnaissance unit.  According to Moses Austin Bryan (Austin's nephew at the Battle of Bexar), Travis and his men in Nov 1835 at Bexar were equal to the best of the "eyes and ears" of the Texian Army, Deaf Smith and his men.  Bryan said  "...one or the other was always out.  No one was more efficient in this line of service than Travis."

Travis's performance as a cavalry officer in his next opportunity of record in which he received a field promotion of Captain by Gen. Austin can best be summed up by his own actions and words on 6 Nov 1835:

"Head Quarters, Novr. 6th 1835 To The Commander in Chief of The Army of Texas Sir- Believing that I can not be longer useful to the army without complaints being made, I herewith tender to your Excellency my resignation as Capt. of Cavalry W. B. Travis."

Following his lifetime erratic and impulsive style, Travis' made a comeback as a "volunteer" under Capt. Briscoe by capturing the horses that he had failed to find previously which had precipitated his resignation.

Before 5 Dec when Bexar was successfully stormed and Gen. Cos had capitulated, Travis had abandoned the cause and drifted back to his law practice in San Felipe.  On 7 Dec he was offered commission as First Major of Texian Artillery under Fannin (Col. of the Artillery), but declined while pressing the Provisional Government for establishment of a Cavalry Battalion commanded by a Lt. Colonel.  The battalion was established and he was appointed Lt. Colonel Commander.  The 26-year-old attorney from Anahuac and San Felipe was now Lt. Col. Commander of the entire Texian Cavalry with a three month service record described above.

Although excited by a potential role of the cavalry in the proposed offensive action against the Centralistas at Matamoros, fate determined that Col. Travis would be pre-occupied with the difficulties of recruitment in the current environment.  Depressed by failure to hit recruitment targets, he drifted over to Bexar to his destiny to be immortalized as commander of a completely defensive position with no formal element of cavalry except the faithful scouts, couriers and foragers.

Travis' appeal to the Provisional Government for a Cavalry Battalion was eloquent and on target:

"----for I consider that such a Battalion as I have indicated, is indispensable to the services of Texas during the present struggle. Do you wish to get information of the movements of a distant enemy? It must be done by cavalry - Do you wish to escort expresses? Guard Baggage while on the road? Charge a defeated  & retreating enemy? Cut off supplies of the enemy? Harrass an invading army by hanging upon his rear, or forming ambuscades in his front? Do you wish to carry the war into the enemie's country as has been indicated: Do you wish to take him by surprise, or perform any other movement requiring celerity & promptness? All these things must be done by cavalry - and cavalry alone."

Ironically, Travis' appeal was a description of Centralist Gen. Urrea's division precisely, his points proven by their disastrous consequence on the Texian forces at Agua Dulce, San Refugio and Goliad.

Anglo-Texian leaders beginning with Stephen F. Austin were slow to supplement the superior marksmanship and infantry qualities of the frontiersman from the United States of the North with the cavalry skills, honed to perfection on the frontera since the early 18th century, of native Tejano rancheros and vaqueros (examples like Tlascalan Compania Volante San Carlos de Parras, the Guardia Victoriana, the San Fernando Rangers, Cordova's Nacogdochenos and the Bexar squadrons of Juan Seguin and Salvador Flores).   This tradition did mature in the days of the Republic and beyond, primarily in the form of the Texas Rangers, appropriately described by James W. Nichols in his journal referring to a training session for rangers near Seguin in Capt. Jack Hay's company in 1843:

We put up a post about the size of a common man, then put up another about 40 yards farther on. We would ran our horses full speed and discharge our rifles at the first post, draw our pistles and fire at the second. At first thare was some wild shooting but we had not practised two months until thare was not many men that would not put his balls in the center of the posts. Then we drew a ring about the size of a mans head and soon every man could put both his balls in the circul. We would practics this awhile, then try rideing like the Comanche Indians. After practisng for three or four months we became so purfect that we would ran our horses half or full speede and pick up a hat, a coat, a blanket, or rope, or even a silver dollar, stand up in the saddle, throw ourselves on the side of our horses with only a foot and a hand to be seen, and shoot our pistols under the horses neck, rise up and reverse, etc.