Story Of Twin Sisters

Story Of Twin Sisters

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использует защитную технологию, которая является устаревшей и уязвимой для атаки. Злоумышленник может легко выявить информацию, которая, как вы думали, находится в безопасности.

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Texas State Historical Association (TSHA)

https://www.tshaonline.org

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/twin-sisters

Revised by:

David Pomeroy ,

James Woodrick ,

and

Kirk Clark

Twin Sisters . The Twin Sisters were two iron cannons that were used by Sam Houston ’s forces at the battle of San Jacinto . The original pair, manufactured in Cincinnati, have since been confused with other pairs of cannons, and various sources have described the Twin Sisters as four-pounders and six-pounders—a feature that has been the subject of debate between researchers. The artillery pieces’ path through history in the decades after the Texas Revolution is nebulous and continues to fuel discussion among scholars and history buffs.
By October 1835 the Texans faced an ever growing threat from Mexican forces to tighten their control over Texas. Due to the warlike atmosphere, committees of safety were assigned, and Stephen F. Austin , after returning from the long detention in Mexico, was named commander of the Texas forces. With Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos ’s army arrival in September and the subsequent battle of Gonzales occurring on October 2, news of the conflict spread throughout Texas and led to further war preparations. William Francis “Picayune” Smith, a Brazos River trader located in the Tenoxtitlan area of Burleson County, was enlisted as an agent in a “secret service” for the Texas cause. The mission was to raise funding for the forging and supply of two iron field pieces from the “Friends of Texas” supporters in Cincinnati, Ohio. Departing in mid-October from Coles Settlement in Washington County, Smith arrived in Cincinnati just prior to November 11. The Cincinnati Republican on November 11 announced his arrival and the proposal for a meeting at the courthouse on November 12. Smith made his case for the cause of Texas and appealed to the citizens of Cincinnati to aid him in “raising funds to purchase a pair of field pieces to take to Texas….”
Local attorney Edward Woodruff immediately established committees by wards of the city. Key citizens and city leaders involved included William Corry, Pulaski Smith, David T. Disney, Robert T. Lytle, Nicholas Clopper, Henry Tatem, Benjamin Chase, Dr. Daniel Drake, and Israel Ludlow. Cincinnati was also the home of David Burnet ’s older brothers, Mayor Isaac Burnet and Judge Jacob Burnet, who arranged use of the courthouse for the meetings that were held on November 12 and 17. Lytle on November 17 offered multiple resolutions, and all resolutions were unanimously adopted, including the following key resolution regarding the cannons:
Resolved, That we approve of and recommend to the citizen[s] of this meeting a plan by which the citizens of Texas shall be supplied through their agent, Mr. Smith, by our contributions, with such an amount of HOLLOW WARE as he may deem sufficient, to contain other provisions by which they shall be filled according to his judgment and sound discretion.
In a handwritten letter, the son of Thomas Stansbury, a Cincinnati merchant, confirmed that the cannons were forged and mounted by the Tatem brothers (Willis and Henry) at the Phoenix Foundry . Stansbury played a key role in negotiating shipment of the cannons after much delay.
At the fifty-year anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto, the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette collected the “memories” of the cannons’ origin. The committee of citizens had ordered “two four-pounders cast and delivered as soon as it was possible to furnish them” for an agreed price of $600. The committee consulted Miles Greenwood as to what kind of shot would be provided, and Greenwood, at his foundry, then cast six barrels of eight ounce iron balls (grape shot) and presented them as his donation. The guns were sent to fire engine manufacturers Benjamin Chase and Jeffrey Seymour for boring of the barrels and then returned to the Tatem brothers.
Committee members David T. Disney, William Curry, and Robert T. Lytle called upon Francis Cassat (also spelled Cassatt and Cassett), a well-known blacksmith and carriage maker, to make carriages for the two guns, and the carriages, “rough but substantial,” were on hand on December 30, 1835. The carriages were painted “a bright red,” and the wheels “a stroke of blue.” The six barrels of grape had already been shipped to the Tatem foundry, and the cannons were then mounted by Cassat and the Tatem brothers. Two heavy carts were used to haul the two gun carriages to the wharf on the river for shipment.
The cannons were finally shipped down the Mississippi on the steamboat Splendid to New Orleans. William Bryan , an agent of the Republic of Texas in New Orleans, took official possession of the guns on March 16, 1836. From New Orleans the guns were placed on the schooner Pennsylvania and taken to Brazoria. According to family tradition, the cannons were named "Twin Sisters" at Brazoria for the twin daughters of Dr. Charles Rice who by coincidence were on board the Pennsylvania when it arrived in Texas and were asked to make a speech presenting the cannons to Texas. One of the sisters, Elizabeth Rice Stapp, in a letter written to Alex Dienst in 1905, credited her father’s friend Lewis Allan for the naming of the cannons. However, the first known use of the name was in a letter from President David G. Burnet to the Texas Committee in Cincinnati on July 22, 1836.
After several unsuccessful attempts to get the cannons to the Texas army under Sam Houston, which was retreating toward the Sabine before the forces of Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna , the Twins finally reached the army at their camp on the Brazos at Bernardo Plantation on April 11, 1836. They were sent from Brazoria to Galveston on the Pennsylvania , then to the mainland aboard the schooner Flash , and to Harrisburg on the sloop Ohio , where they were hauled by B. W. Breeding's oxen to Bernardo. An artillery "corps" was immediately formed to service the guns, the only artillery with the Texas army, and placed under the command of Lt. Col. James Clinton Neill .
San Jacinto veteran John M. Wade , later recorded his personal observation of the guns’ arrival, and his narrative was printed in the February 28, 1878, edition of the Galveston Daily News :
When the pieces were unboxed we found them to contain a pair of iron medium six-pounders, caissons, ramrods, etc. complete. Col. John A. Wharton , who was adjutant general of the army, informed Col. Neil [ sic ], in the presence of the artillerists, that they were a present from the ladies of Cincinnati, Ohio….
Only nine days later the Twin Sisters saw their first action when the firing of the guns was the first shot heard from the Texas army when the Mexicans approached on April 20 near where Buffalo Bayou emptied into the San Jacinto River. In this fight Neill was wounded, and command of the guns passed to George Washington Hockley . The next day, April 21, 1836, saw the battle of San Jacinto and the securing of fame for the Twin Sisters. That afternoon near the banks of Buffalo Bayou, the Texas army struck at Santa Anna's unsuspecting troops. The Twins were probably near the center of the Texans' line of battle and ten yards in advance of the infantry. Their first shots were fired at a distance of 200 yards, and their fire was credited with helping to throw the Mexican force into confusion and significantly aiding the infantry attack. During this battle the Twins fired handfuls of homemade grape shot, as this was the only ammunition the Texans had for the guns.
John M. Wade, in his 1878 published account, described the grape shot used:
Arrived at Harrisburg, we found the place reduced to ashes; but finding some old tin and debris at a mill, which had been burnt down, we improvised grape and canister shot by filling ten cases with screw nuts and other small pieces of iron, and by cutting bar lead into pieces about three-fourths of an inch in length and sewing them into small bags of bedticking. On the 20th of April...the first shot was fired from the Twin Sisters, loaded with our home-made grape.
Though their most prominent moment in history (San Jacinto) was behind them, after 1836 the Twin Sisters were recorded in several accounts during the next twenty-five years. The Telegraph and Texas Register (of Houston) of August 18, 1838, noted that the “‘two pieces of hollow ware’ styled the ‘twin sisters of San Jacinto’ were brought into this city on Monday last” and were “still in excellent condition.” In 1840 the Twins were moved, along with other military stores, to Austin, where on April 21, 1841, they were fired in celebration of the fifth anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto. When Sam Houston was inaugurated for the second time as president of the Republic of Texas that year, the Twins were fired as Houston kissed the Bible after he took the oath of office.
In 1842 Secretary of War George W. Hockley ordered the Twin Sisters, along with two brass cannons, and the ammunition for all four guns, which remained at Austin to be relocated to San Felipe. He noted, “The carriages and train for these pieces will require some repairs, which could not be completed at Austin for want of means….” The Twins were placed on the summit of President's Hill in Austin to defend the river crossing against an attack by Mexican troops that occupied San Antonio. A July 1843 invoice associated with the Houston Arsenal and the Ordnances Department of the Republic of Texas has led some researchers to conclude that the Twin Sisters were sent to the Houston Arsenal for repairs. The invoice of repair items and costs included painting the gun carriages and, amongst other line items, “to fabricate two 4 pdr. Tompions” and “to fabricate” the “repairs of guns & wood parts of the Twin Sisters, their appointment complete.” Other researchers have asserted that the guns noted as the “Twin Sisters” were actually another pair known as the Cayuga Twins (recently dug up from the mud of Fort Travis) that were refurbished. However, there appears to be consensus that the original Twins were inventoried in Austin later in 1843. Reports of the Twin Sisters being sent to Baton Rouge after Texas was annexed to the United States in 1845 were incorrect.
In the Houston Daily Post of August 22, 1909, noted Judge W. P. Hamblen, one of the longest practicing attorneys in the city of Houston, responded to a series of articles on the Twin Sisters and provided his knowledge and the rarest of actual descriptions of the cannon barrels forged in Cincinnati:
As to the “Twin Sisters,” this is all I know. In 1850, if I remember rightly, on the block of ground where the court house of Galveston now stands the two cannon called the “Twin Sisters” stood. I have understood that they were at Austin; they never were in Houston except one time. They were iron cannon, not of the present pattern sloping from the breech to the muzzle, but large beyond the trunnion and suddenly becoming small to the muzzle. On the side was a plaque, I believe of brass, but I am not so sure of that, upon which was the inscription stated by Dr. [S. O.] Young “presented by the ladies of Cincinnati, Ohio, to the republic of Texas.”
Some researchers have since charged that Hamblen misremembered Young’s statement. S. O. Young, in his book True Stories of Old Houston and Houstonians , recalled that the twin guns on the market square in Houston (not Galveston) were “brass pieces” not iron, with an engraved inscription (not a plaque).
Newspaper reports stated that the Twin Sisters fired a salute at a celebration for the first passenger train on the newly-constructed Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway at Thomas Point on April 21, 1853. Some historians have since speculated that the cannons were two pieces known as the Chambers guns (or Louisiana Twins) that were being delivered to San Antonio in 1853.
With the passage of time, the fate of the Cincinnati Twin Sisters and their use became more difficult to track and has continued to be the subject of much debate and ongoing study. Several divergent views have emerged regarding the Twin Sisters and their role, if any, during the Civil War .
Even before Texas called the Secession Convention , men were beginning to think about preparing for war. Ben McCulloch , recalling his service with the Twin Sisters at San Jacinto and believing that the guns had been sent to Louisiana, thought that these guns should once again be on Texas soil. He wrote to Governor Houston informing him that he thought the Twins were located in Louisiana and should be returned to Texas. Houston agreed and wrote to the United States secretary of war asking for the return of the Twins. Before action could be taken on this matter, however, Texas had seceded from the Union. The Texas Secession Convention appointed a commission to ask Louisiana for the return of the Twin Sisters, but inquiries showed that the cannons had been sold to a foundry in Baton Rouge as scrap iron some years before. Instead of being the Twin Sisters, the cannons sent to Louisiana were two iron six-pounders acquired by Thomas Jefferson Chambers for Texas in 1836. George Williamson, commissioner for Louisiana to the state of Texas, discovered that one of the guns was still at the foundry, although in poor condition, and that the other had been bought by a private citizen in Iberville Parish. Having found the cannons, Williamson asked the Louisiana legislature to purchase and repair them before presenting them to the state of Texas. The Louisianans passed an appropriation of $700 to "procure the guns, mount the same in a handsome manner," and forward them to Texas.
The April 1, 1861, edition of the Baton Rouge Gazette detailed the preparations for what should be called the Louisiana Twin Sisters:
Having brought them together, they were sent to Tunnard’s for the proper mounting and repairing. A look at them will convince anyone that the job could not have fallen into better hands. The carriages are substantially painted and trimmed off to perfection with the necessary chains, rings, and bolts. The guns have been carefully cleaned and lacquered, and now look as though they could again take part in another San Jacinto.…They are neatly inscribed on a brass plate by the repairer, and in a smaller plate appears the name of “W.F. Tunnard, Baton Rouge.”
The Galveston Daily News of April 9 reported: “The Steamship Rusk brought over to-day the two pieces of field artillery, six pounders, known as the ‘Twin Sisters’.…They somehow or other found their way back from Louisiana, where they have been considered as old iron.” The Civilian and Gazette out of Galveston on April 11, 1861, reported, “‘The Twin Sisters’...had a worthy ovation yesterday. They were marched through the principal streets, followed by the volunteer companies and a large crowd of citizens….”
Former Lt. Col. S. T. Fountaine was chief of artillery and ordnance of the District of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona in 1863. In a letter written in Galveston and dated February 23, 1911, he noted that he was satisfied that the two guns at that date were not inventoried. He also remembered seeing these guns in Galveston some time before the evacuation [October 1862]—the carriages were almost worthless. He did not remember that they were ever fired.
Judge William P. Hamblen included the following content from his August 22, 1909, posting:
In 1862 or 1863; at any rate, it was at the time that the Federals captured the city of Galveston [October 1862], the Galveston, Houston and Henderson railroad entering Houston traversed McKinney avenue and the depot was between San Jacinto and Caroline streets. At the time of the said capture as many of the cannon as could be removed were brought by railway to Houston. I remember some large Colombias and Mortars and field pieces, among them being the two iron cannon called the “Twin Sisters”; they were the identical ones I had seen before and the plaque on them was the same. They remained on the square [in Houston] until Galveston was re-captured on the 1st of January, 1863; this is my impression. Since then I have never heard of those two cannon, nor what became of them.
Some historians have asserted that Hamblen’s account appears to corroborate Fountaine’s. and that Hamblen then confirmed that these were the same Twin Sisters that resided in Galveston in 1850, hence the Cincinnati Twin Sisters. Others have argued that Hamblen actually saw the twin cannons known as the Louisiana Twins and that Fountaine saw the Cayuga Twins.
With the re-occupation of the Rio Grande in full effect by Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks , the imminent threat was that the Union Army would sweep up from the Rio Grande and attack San Antonio and then Austin. The situation in San Antonio was desperate. On November 16, 1863, Lt. Col. A. G. Dickinson, in a communication to Capt. Edmund P. Turner, informed General Magruder that there as an expectation of receiving batteries, “there not being one single piece of artillery, heavy or light, at this post.” Dickinson, on November 30, wrote to Maj. Sidney T. Fountaine in Houston of the general dire condition, with some glimmer of hope of obtaining at least some sort of light artillery, hence some light howitzers, and possibly the Twin Sisters. “The Twin Sisters, I am informed, are at or in a camp in the vicinity of Austin. They are in a deplorable condition, and I am fearful could not be used.”
Lt. Charles I. Evans, of Capt. H. H. Christmas’s Light Battery , provided a complete account of the “Twin Sisters” cannons in fall 1863 through late summer 1864, their movements from Austin to San Antonio, including their subsequent marching of the full company with the Twins to Millican, then by rail to Houston, and their final destination of Camp Lubbock at Houston. Colonel Fountaine was requested by Evans to assess the cannons while at Camp Lubbock, Fountaine’s response was that “they were almost entirely worthless in modern warfare,” then gave Evans “two other guns in place of them.” Evans returned to San Antonio in August 1864 and left the Twin Sisters and caissons originating from Austin on
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