The McArdle Notebooks > Dawn at the Alamo
Reuben M. Potter to McArdle, January 30, 1881
Page 4 of 5
doing so. I invented the mode of conceal-
ing the papers and selected the guide,
a Mexican who had done something in
that line before; but I was overruled
in regard to what kind of news ought to
be sent. Teal & Karnes & all their friends
except myself, were completely humbugged
by the same kind of Mexican Bragadocio
which wrought so effectively in 1842, and it
was resolved to raise the shepherd boy & cry of
wolf. Their controlling friend on that occasion
was a friend of mine with whom I often dif-
fered in opinion, Mr. Wm Howell, a Philadel-
phian. He bore the expenses : The whip handle
was badly stuffed, & the courier sent off. Teal wrote
a letter to Genr Rusk, and Howell another, worded
more like an order than the suggestion of a subordin-
ate, or the advice of an unknown friend.
"You must work head work as well
as fight," said Teal to his general. "You must
blow up San Antonio and Goliad." — "Shoot
Santa Ana & his officers," said Howell. I listen-
ed to the wise commands with disgust, which
would have been greater had I then known
that any content of that whip handle would
some day be attributed to my authorship —
as I am told it has been — that shriek of
alarm caused a panic which drove many settlers
from the frontier.
The courier, near San Patricio, fell in with
some Texian Scouts who accused him of being
a spy. He requested them to take him to their
General; but they refused, and searched his equip-
ments in every place but the right one to find
letters. They still asserted that they knew he had
papers about him & threatened to hang him
up unless he should disclose them; and
to save his neck he finally had to betray
the whip handle. Thus the dispatches
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Reuben M. Potter to McArdle, January 30, 1881, The McArdle Notebooks, Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.