EDITOR’S NOTE: The story of Deaf Smith is told by his great-great-great-great-grandson Christopher Hull. He is a member of the Ephraim Daggett Chapter of The Sons of the Republic of Texas in Fort Worth. Chris has served his chapter in every office including president, and currently serves as historian and secretary. Chris is affectionally known as Hat Doc around Fort Worth hospitals.
As soon as we disabled the bridge over Vince’s Bayou, to block any retreat, we had to sneak back to our troops just in time to join the attack on Santa Anna and his camp! My horse and I jumped the barriers as I yelled, “Give ‘em hell, boys!! Fight for your lives ‘cause the bridge is down”!!
Yes, I was with Gen. Sam Houston at the San Jacinto Battlefield April 21, 1836, when the Texas Army won independence from Mexico. I also was the Ranger that found Gen. Martin Cos trying to evade capture after the battle. I pulled him on Old Whip, the stallion that Santa Anna had stolen from the Vince farm. Funny that he had a bounty for me because of my role in his defeat at San Antonio de Bexar and now here he was my prisoner!
Just a little about me and my family. My Ma and Pa were both from Haddam, Connecticut and I was the fourth of nine children. I was probably born in Dutchess County, New York on the way west as Connecticut was getting crowded. We went on to Natchez, Mississippi, arriving when I was 11 years old. I had lost most of my hearing by then to something, maybe measles or mumps, not sure. I had learned to read books and also read lips real well.
My Pa was a tobacco farmer in Natchez while it was still West Spain. I worked the farm but loved to wander and hunt in the wilderness. In 1817, I came to Spanish Nacogdoches but went back home to see after my brother’s death and will. Finally, in 1821, I left for Mexican Tejas, by traveling down the Mississippi River to enter at Matagorda Bay with a herd of mule cattle.
I needed help to move my cattle up to San Antonio. I met a boy at the docks, Roberto, who was going to San Antonio to see his aunt, Maria Guadalupe Ruiz Duran. He was willing to assist me in driving the cattle there. We created strange looks as we traveled for these were the first cattle in Tejas without horns compared to the common longhorns there at the time.
Arriving in San Antonio de Bexar, I met Roberto’s widowed aunt, beautiful as she was, and fell immediately in love! We married at Mission Espada the next year, 1822, when a priest was available. We had four children to add to the three she had with her deceased husband who was killed by Indians in 1816. I had to learn Spanish by mostly reading lips with Guadalupe in between hunting and exploring the country. She was a great teacher, wife and mother.
In 1825, I was busy helping Green DeWitt set up the town of Gonzales, hunting with Hendrick Arnold, working my cattle and having a family. I could breathe better in Tejas than in Natchez with my tuberculosis. Things in Tejas and Coahuila were becoming politically difficult when in October of 1835, Santa Anna demanded his canon back from Gonzalez. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back as then Gen. Cos came and took over San Antonio using the Alamo de Valero as his command post. The Texian and Tejano Army laid siege to push Cos out during which Hendrick and I arrived.
The leader of the Texan Army, Stephen F. Austin, asked us to join the fight but I declined as my family was there in the town of Bexar. However, when I tried to go into town, the Mexican Cavalry attempted to capture me on order of Gen. Cos. The lieutenant in charge grabbed at my horse’s reins and swung his sword at me knocking off my hat! Furiously, I pulled away and raced to the Texas Camp and told Gen. Austin I would join him as “those Mexicans had acted very rascally with me!!”
I served as scout to take back San Antonio from the Mexicans with Ben Milam and was wounded in the leg. I recovered enough to move my family east to Brazoria with the Runaway Scrape and then joined the scouts again at the Alamo. On 15 February 1836 Col. W. B. Travis ask me to deliver a letter to Gov. Henry Smith. Completing that assignment and ultimately meeting Susannah Dickenson, I learned of the fall of the Alamo.
I headed east to join Gen. Sam Houston’s army. It was near Harrisburg that I captured a Mexican courier who detailed the movement and strength of Santa Anna. This helped Gen. Houston at San Jacinto in deciding when to strike.
After the surrender of Santa Anna, Houston asked me and my Rangers to deliver the letter and news to Gen. Filisola. We met Col. Morehouse with Pvt. James N. Fisk as we ushered the Mexican army out of Texas. Our rifles were fired over the remains of our comrades at Goliad and ashes at the Alamo in San Antonio. I felt very strongly about the Alamo and its place in the history of Texas! Gen. Houston so much appreciated my service that he had a portrait painted of me after the victory.
As a Captain in the Texas Rangers, I led a group to Laredo to push the Mexican Army back across the Rio Grande in 1837 and then retired. Back in Brazoria, I was working with Randall Jones selling and surveying land as the tuberculosis finally was more than I could stand. I died of that debilitating disease Nov. 30, 1837, at the age of 50 years.
I asked to be buried so I could leave this world the same way I came in. I was born breech, so I wanted to go out feet first and asked to be buried vertical, upside down! I am buried in Richmond, probably in the intersection of Sixth and Houston Streets. Good luck finding me there.
WHO ARE THE SONS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS? The Sons of the Republic of Texas consists of members who are direct lineal descendants of those who settled the Republic of Texas from 1836 to Feb. 19, 1846. Our purpose is to perpetuate the memory and spirit of the men and women who won Texas’ independence. They set the course for Texas to become a nation and eventually the 28th state. LEGACY COMES TO LIFE personifies our ancestors with true stories about real people who changed the course of history! For membership information please visit our website; srttexas.org or email; old300.srt@gmai.com.