The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 5, July 1901 - April, 1902 Page: 6

6 [Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
within a given space, they could scarcely have crowded more into a
paragraph of the same length. The statement referred to was not
published in 1860, nor by a Mr. Rose. The man who declined "to
enter the ranks" (that is, to cross the line) did not wait till that
night to make his escape. That statement did not mention a
ditch. And Mexican soldiers had, more than once, "approached
within rifle-shot" of the fort, and nearer than that. Rose was the
author of that statement, which he made orally, but not its writer
or publisher; moreover, it was not written till 1871, and it was
first published in Richardson's Texas Almanac for 1873.
But Mr. Thrall is responsible for only the first three errors,
to wit: those relative to the date and publisher of the statement
and the time of the man's escape. These are comparatively unim-
portant.
The last three errors are between brackets, showing that, without
authority from Mr. Thrall, they are interpolated by the publisher
or printer. They are the assertion that Rose's statement "is
incredible"; the allusion to a ditch; and the assumption that "no
Mexican had then approached within rifle-shot." It is fortunate
for Mr. Thrall that the authors of these eccentricities relieved him
of the responsibility for them, by inserting them between brackets.
Mr. Thrall himself, in effect, gave full credit to Rose's state-
ment, as is evidenced by a passage in his biography of Col.
James Bowie, the facts of which he could have obtained from no
other source than Rose's statement, as first published by me. In
it he says:
"During the siege, when Travis demanded that all who were
willing to die with him defending the place should rally under a
flag by his side, every man but one promptly took his place, and
Bowie, who was sick in bed, had his cot carried to the designated
spot."1
But even here is an instance of our historian's too great reliance
upon his memory, though the mistake is in a mere want of pre-
cision. Travis requested all his comrades who would stay with him
and die fighting not to "rally under a flag by his side," but to step
across a line which he had drawn with his sword.
It may be thought that, under such excitement as Rose must

'Thrall's History of Texas, p. 506.