(Excerpt from The Adventures and Recollections of General ...)
Excerpt from The Adventures and Recollections of General Walter P. Lane, a San Jacinto Veteran: Containing Sketches of the Texian, Mexican, and Late Wars. With Several Indian Fights Thrown In These recollections -might be styled semi-historical, for while the writer does not assume to write history, there is much of history in the little volume, but narrated in a man ner to give it a charm superior to dry history, and it is therefore, adapted to the entertainment of those minds which have neither the inclination nor time to read What a large number consider dull reading. This little book, while unpretending, is not only not te dions, but diverting, and will, we are confident, be received by the reading public with pleasure and gratification. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Walter Paye Lane was born in County Cork, Ireland. Some four years after his birth, his parents, William and Olivia Lane, determined to emigrate to America. In 1821 they landed at Baltimore and found their way to Fairview, Guernsey County, Ohio.
At the age of eighteen, Lane made a visit to an elder brother who was in business in Louisville, Kentucky. There he met the Texas commissioners, Austin and Archer, and was soon on his way to Texas, armed with a letter of introduction to Houston. So poor that he traveled part of the way on foot, he arrived in time to join the little army at Groce's ferry and to participate in the memorable campaign of San Jacinto. From this time, an almost insatiable desire for adventure was the mainspring of his career.
After a short visit to his home, he was again in Texas, where he joined the crew of the privateer Thomas Toby, which, with seven guns and one hundred men, made rich prizes of Mexican vessels in the waters of the Gulf. When the Thomas Toby ended her voyages as a wreck in the shoals of Galveston Bay, he was reduced to making his living, for one winter, as a teacher of forty children in a typical neighborhood school. His attempt to take up land on the frontier in Robertson County, Texas, was checked by the Indians, who killed almost all the party of about twenty-four. He was badly wounded and barely escaped with his life.
In the comparatively quiet days that followed, he was for two years a clerk in a village store, relieving the monotony of life by joining the army to expel the Cherokees from their homes in north-eastern Texas.
At the outbreak of the Mexican War, he organized a company of Texas rangers, which saw much active service in the campaigns of Taylor in northern Mexico, gained distinction in September 1846 at the capture of Monterey, and was sent on a number of hazardous scouting expeditions, one of which led two hundred miles into the heart of the enemy country. On this occasion, he showed his romantic spirit by going out of his way to gather with pious zeal the bones of the seventeen Mier prisoners who had been shot and buried at Salado three years before. The bodies were sent back for burial in Texas.
According to his own account, in his attitude toward the Mexicans he was ruthless and careless of property; on one occasion he defied an order for his arrest delivered in person by his commanding general; but he was so brave and efficient as a scout that he made himself indispensable, and his lapses from military discipline were soon forgotten and forgiven. After the discovery of gold in California, he alternated between the life of a miner and a merchant, making and losing more than one small fortune in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Peru.
At the beginning of the Civil War, he had been living for three years in Marshall, Texas. He promptly enlisted and was at once elected lieutenant-colonel of the 3rd Texas Cavalry. His command saw hard fighting at Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, Corinth, where he gained the special praise of Beauregard, and in the closing campaigns against Banks in Louisiana. Before the end of the war, he had become a brigadier-general.
He retired to take up again the life of a merchant in Marshall, where he remained a bachelor and made his spacious house a home for numerous nephews and nieces. As the years passed, the old soldier became the symbol of the heroic age in Texas history, and when he died he had long been the idol of the Daughters of the Confederacy and of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.
Lane was distinguished for fighting with honors at the Battle of Monterey during his service in the Mexican-American War. During the Civil War he participated in the battles of Wilson's Creek, Missouri, Chustenahlah, Pea Ridge and both the Siege of Corinth and Second Battle of Corinth. After the War, Lane helped to establish the Texas Veterans Association.
(Excerpt from The Adventures and Recollections of General ...)
