Soon after it became known that the secessionists had carried the State at the election, the commanders of the various United States posts commenced surrendering to the State troops. I was present at the capitulation of Camp Colorado at the request of a number of Union men, who desired to obtain accurate information regarding the nature of the proceeding. The insurgent forces were under the command of Henry M'Culloch, who, knowing that I had seen service, pledged me a captain's commission, if I would join the "Confederate" army; and had I done so, I have every reason to believe he would have made his promise good; but I refused his offer firmly.

After I had witnessed the capitulation, I returned to Waco. The Ordinance of Secession had been passed and referred to the people, and the whole State was in a blaze of excitement. Arbitrary arrests, broils, murder, and hanging were the order of the day; and under the pressure large numbers of the Union men were giving way, and the secessionists were receiving daily accessions to their strength. The people were either deceived into secession, lied into it, or driven into it.

Every species of deception was practiced that the ingenuity of crafty politicians or a licentious press could invent. The motives of the Northern people were misrepresented, and Union men, both North and South, outrageously belied. One week the secession orators would herald to excited audiences that independence could be consummated without any war at all; simply by every man voting a secession ticket and showing to the North that the South was thoroughly united; they would proclaim that the North was utterly demoralized and powerless to coerce the seceding States into obedience; nay, that so divided by contending factions were the people of that section, that they were not even capable of preserving their own integrity; that even the Northern States could not maintain a union among themselves, much less impose one upon the seceding States.

The next week the cry would be changed, and the Northern States would be represented as thoroughly united, and more unjust and defiant than ever they were before; that there were no people in the North that sympathized with the South, or who were willing to see that section get justice and equal rights. That every man in the free States was a practical abolitionist, and nothing would satisfy their rapacity but the immediate and unconditional surrender of slavery; and even that might not avail; and that it was more than likely a concession on that subject would invite aggression on another. Southern men were appealed to in the most impassioned language not to submit to these demands or compromise, but to rouse themselves to view matters of State in their true light, and to prepare for a contest that was inevitable. Every proposition of the North was treated with disdain; even the President was hung in effigy, and treated with every indignity, simply because he was a Northern man, and was elected by free State votes, when they well knew that he would be bound by the same oath to maintain the Constitution that had bound all the Presidents of Southern birth. The sentiments of known Union men were willfully misrepresented, and, thus distorted, heralded to the people, in order to infuriate them against individuals who professed loyal sentiments. For instance, General Houston would make a speech in Galveston, and take the most sincere and unqualified Union ground, and forthwith the fiends of secession would dispatch garbled extracts of it to every paper in the State that advocated secession, which, in turn, would give it, with the comments of its unprincipled editors, to the excited public. Sometimes they would manufacture and publish speeches for Houston and other patriots which they never delivered; and these were scattered broadcast to the mob, representing them as being at length thoroughly convinced that secession was the only means by which the Southern people could maintain their liberties and their institutions.

If he made a Union speech in Austin or Waco, denouncing the secession leaders, and charging them with seeking to overthrow the last vestige of personal liberty and constitutional government, and avowing the most vindictive hostility to all men professing secession principles, and professing undying devotion to the Union, at all hazards, no sooner would the words fall from his lips, than his discourse would be garbled to suit the cause of secession, and scattered all through the country. On one occasion, I remember, after forged speeches had been published over and over, and attributed to Houston, his friends in Waco wrote a letter and requested him to come out and deliver another address, and contradict them, but the old patriot answered despondingly that it was useless; he had tried it, and as fast as he contradicted one lie, they would publish another, and he would prefer to keep silent. But why enlarge upon facts patent to the world? Secession was born in sin and cradled in iniquity, and no man who is not lost to every feeling of patriotism, nay, who does not wear within himself the heart of a fiend, will presume to defend it.

But despite of frauds, despite of lying and forging, the Germans in the vicinity of San Antonio, and the settlers in the northern section of the State remained true to the Union; and as the secessionists had determined to secure uniformity, force was resorted to, and bayonets supplanted arguments and deception. The first attempt was upon the Germans, and the headquarters of the southwestern military district was removed to San Antonio, and ten or twelve thousand desperadoes were sent thither to overawe all who remained loyal to the old government; and this process was found to succeed admirably; for in the presence of such a force, unarmed, unorganized citizens are usually constrained to keep silence. The houses of all the settlers were searched, and when arms were found, they were confiscated; and a most perfect military despotism was thus established over a disarmed populace.

Next, it was important to the insurgents that the people of northern Texas should be subjugated; and the work was intrusted to the notorious Ben. McCulloch, who made his headquarters at Dallas, and had at his command some fifteen hundred men; and this force was soon increased by the arrival of reinforcements, to ten thousand; and having used his army in coercing Union citizens into secession, till he was satisfied, he marched it to Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Outside of the districts patrolled by the armies, the work of converting Unionists by force was adopted by irresponsible bodies of citizens. Vigilance committees were organized in every town and village, and their motto was: "No mercy to traitors," meaning those who were true to their country and the old flag. In Waco, one of these committees waited upon several old and esteemed citizens, giving them their choice, either to cease their opposition to the rebellion, or leave the country. They publicly proclaimed their determination to hang every "Lincolnite" in the country who refused, to use their classic language, to "dry up," at their bidding; and their threats were by no means idle ones.

One night they visited a hotel, and seized one of the guests—a young man from New York, named Wilkinson—and in the dead hours of the night took him to the court-house, and there tried him before a self-constituted committee; and he only escaped hanging by three votes, although there were no charges against him other than that he had asked a man to go with him to New York, and had demanded of certain merchants that they should secure the firm, in whose interest he was then acting, certain debts that they had contracted.

Soon afterward, they arrested Dr. Larnard, son of Major Larnard, paymaster in the United States' army. He was widely known as a worthy citizen of McClennan county, and highly respected. The crime with which he was charged, was that of allowing his negroes to give a party to the negroes belonging to some of his neighbors; and his sentence was, that he should not be allowed to go beyond the limits of the county for a year; and he was admonished that if he did so, the fact would be discovered, and he would instantly be hung.

The despotism of the secessionists had now become so intolerable, that Union men were everywhere fleeing from the State, as the only means of saving their lives. Not desiring to leave yet, but at the same time anxious to avoid trouble, I shouldered my gun and mounted my horse, and started for a hunt on the Pecan bayou and Jim Ned creek. While on my way, I stopped at Cora, a little town in Comanche county, on the day that the ordinance of secession was submitted to the people, which was on the 23d of February, 1861; and while hitching my horse, an officer came out and proclaimed the polls opened; and immediately the parties who had been standing around, and numbering from eight to ten, went up and cast their ballots—all going for secession. They were all armed, and at first I supposed they were rangers but I was mistaken. I walked into the court-house, and when the men to whom I have referred, had finished casting their ballots, the clerk turned around and addressed me:

"Do you want to vote, young man?"

I answered in the affirmative.

"How do you want to vote?" he next inquired.

"Against secession," I promptly responded.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

"In Waco."

"Then, why didn't you vote there?"

Without giving me time to answer, one of the armed men came up and addressed me with,

"You was afraid to vote there, was you?"

"If I was afraid to vote there, I am not afraid to vote here," I said, imitating his tone and manner as much as possible.

"How is it that you want to vote here?" asked the clerk.

"Because I am a ranger, and by law have a right to vote anywhere at a State election," I answered.

When they found I was in the frontier service, there was no further parley, and my vote was taken, and my name registered. But when I started for my horse, I was followed by the armed crowd; and as I mounted they seemed inclined to enter into a conversation. But knowing that any further parley with them would only result in a collision or a dishonorable retreat, I put spurs to my horse, and left. As I was going out of the town I heard a voice shout: "O yes! O yes! the polls of the election are now closed." The law required that they should be kept open from 6 A. M. to 6 P. M.; but these had not been kept open more than forty minutes—perhaps not that long.