Chapter Fifteen

IMPRISONMENT IN THE CASTLE OF PEROTE

Three Days' Grace before Ironed. The Castle. Its Strength. President Houston. Orazabo. Cofre de Perote. Castle. Its Situation. Climate. Description. Bexar Prisoners. Mexican Culprits. Theft. Rape. Murder. The Prisoner who killed a Priest for kissing his Wife. Prisons of the Mier Men. Their Treatment. Ironed. Mode of breaking off the Chains. Tricking the Officers. Santa Anna and the Blacksmith. "Can't come it, Judge!" Rations. Ass's Milk. Our Mess. Cooking. Best Way to make Coffee. Ordered to Work. Remonstrance to Minister of War. To the Governor. To the United States Minister. Release of Judges Jones, Hutchinson, and Maverick. Treason of Robinson: our Denunciation of. Anniversary of the 21st of April. Sentiments, Songs, Tecolote, and Old Guts.

There is a mockery in many things in Mexico, and now there was a mock mercy by way of three days' grace extended to us before our chains were riveted. During these three days we had the privilege of walking about in certain parts of the castle in the daytime, estimating its capacity, military strength, &c. We made in our minds many estimates, and, after all, came to the conclusion that, though this was one of the strongest places in the world before the improvement of the combustible shot, and though it reflected great credit upon the military genius of the last century, yet if Captain Stockton or John C. Stevens1 were to be placed upon a certain mountain elevation about two miles distant, with a few "peace-makers" pouring into it their death-dealing fulminators, these fellows would [237] run out of this place as soon as hot water would drive rats from their holes. However, public expectation requires a more particular description of a place so celebrated in the history of the Mexican Revolution, and still more so from its being the prison-house of the best spirits of our country, where, through the cold neglect and vindictive hatred of their own president, they were permitted to dwindle out a miserable existence in chains and slavery, in rags and hunger.

Upon the north of this fortification, in the bottom of the great ditch which surrounds the castle, lie the mortal remains of many of the best men of our country, cut off in the prime of life, through their country's ingratitude and neglect. No! let me not do their country injustice; that country, when we speak of her citizens, has always been ready, willing, and able to supply their wants as well as to avenge their wrongs; but this generous spirit has been too fatally repressed by the injurious influence of the executive chief, reducing their country to beggary. Forbearing as are the people of Texas under the wrongs and usurpations of that executive, they yet possess the moral elements, as well as