The Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record, Volume 21, Number 1, November 1985 Page: 53
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HENRY MILLARD, FORGOTTEN TEXIAN
Yet many problems remained unsolved, the most pressing of which was
that the Mexican army was still at large in Texas. While Houston recovered
from wounds he had received at San Jacinto, General Thomas J. Rusk reluc-
tantly took command of the ragged, hardheaded mob of men who made
up the Texian army. They wanted Santa Anna hanged, and as the summer
wore on, their mood worsened.
Millard shared their sentiments. In June he wrote Pulsifer from the
army camp near Victoria that the army had suffered because of the "bad
policy pursued by the commander-in-chief in the first place, and the want
of honesty and good conduct of the governing powers. Both the corrupt
councils of last spring & the proceedings of the present cabinet."45 "The
corrupt councils" probably referred to the sessions in which, on May 14,
Acting President David Burnet and the Texas government had negotiated
treaties with Santa Anna for his release, also a sore spot with the troops.
Millard's anger at Houston proved to be temporary; his hatred of Burnet
did not.
In an effort to placate the army, Burnet sent Mirabeau B. Lamar to
relieve General Rusk. He arrived at Velasco in July and was met by Millard,
a Rusk supporter, and another officer, who told him politely but firmly
that the army refused to accept him as commander.46 Rusk retained com-
mand, but only after a plot by some of the army officers to arrest him and
bring him to trial failed.
On August 2, from "Head quarters Colletta [Coleto]," Millard wrote
Huling, "I have just returned from Velasco where I have been in company
with Col. Wheelock on a mission from the army to the Government - whom
I found Imbecile Inactive and Incapable of performing the high duties
assigned to them....I left them fully employed in devising ways and means
of perpetuating their power," he remarked in disgust, "that and specula-
tion being their only employment for the last 2 months."47
Millard failed to mention to Huling that, true to his precipitate nature,
he had been guilty of much more at Velasco than mere complaint. Sup-
posedly acting by authority of the army, he had, while at Velasco, tried
45Henry Millard to Joseph Pulsifer, June 12, 1836.
46A. K. Christian, "Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XXIII
(July 1919-April 1920), 164.
47Henry Millard to Thomas B. Huling, August 2, 1836, Papers of Thomas B. Huling, Barker
Texas History Center.Nov. 1985]
53
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Texas Gulf Historical Society. The Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record, Volume 21, Number 1, November 1985, periodical, November 1985; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1433656/m1/55/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Gulf Historical Society.