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Texas
has 254 counties and 1,208 incorporated
cities, but none are named for Henry Millard – a virtually forgotten
hero of the Texas War for Independence.
The best the state has managed to do in remembrance of this early-day
fighting Texan is attach his name to the 13th hole at Battleground
Golf Course in Deer
Park. Well, there is an official state historical marker about
him placed in 1991 outside the Beaumont
public library in the city he founded.
Part of Millard’s obscurity is easy enough to understand. When Texans
think of the battle
of San Jacinto, the first name that comes to mind is Sam
Houston.
Oh yes, we recall, Houston defeated Gen.
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna on April 21, 1836 and assured Texas’
independence from Mexico. True enough, but the two men didn’t go
“mano a mano” in a duel. Each had hundreds of “seconds” backing
them up in that decisive contest of arms.
Houston relied on a small staff of senior officers commanding some
700 to 900 men, depending on which source you want to believe. The
Mexican force had more officers and more rank and file soldiers.
On the Texas side, while Houston
held overall command, he turned to five men as his field commanders.
Of those five, four are relatively well known even to casual students
of Texas history: Cols. Edward Burleson, George Washington Hockley,
Mirabeau
B. Lamar, and Sidney Sherman.
Burleson, who led the First Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, later
became vice president of the Republic
of Texas and had both a county
and city
named in his honor. Hockley, commander of artillery (including the
famous Twin Sisters) got a county
named after him. Lamar, who led a corps of cavalry that afternoon,
became the Republic’s second president. He also got a county,
a town and
a university bearing his distinctive surname. Finally, Sherman,
commanding the Second Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, got a town,
a county and
a college named in his honor.
Alas, no one bothered to recognize the final member of Houston’s
battlefield leadership team, Lt. Col. Henry Millard.
No
one has yet found his date of birth, but Millard is believed to
have been born around 1796 in Stillwater, NY. A distant relative
of President Millard Fillmore and novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Millard came to Texas in 1835 after having spent time in Missouri,
Mississippi and Louisiana. He and a partner bought land along a
bluff on the Neches River and laid out a town site he called Beaumont,
his late wife’s maiden name.
Millard quickly became active in separatist politics, and in late
1835 or early 1836 received a commission as lieutenant colonel in
the Texian army.
At San
Jacinto, he led two companies of regular infantry, 92 men in
all. Along with Burleson’s regiment, Millard and his soldiers overwhelmed
the Mexican breastworks and captured their cannon.
“The artillery under…Col. Geo. W. Hockley…was placed on the right
of the first Regiment; and four [sic] companies of Infantry under
the command of Lieut. Col. Henry Millard, sustained the artillery
upon the right,” Houston wrote.
Neither Millard nor any of his men suffered injuries that day, but
one account has Millard’s horse having been shot from under him.
Houston, who lost two horses, rode near Millard’s men when he suffered
an ankle wound that plagued him for the rest of his life. Later,
in appreciation of Millard’s service, the general presented the
colonel with two pistols that had belonged to Santa Anna.
If Millard ever wrote an account of his role in the battle, it is
not known today.
A few months after the battle, however, Millard made the newspapers
by participating in an Army plot to arrest interim President David
G. Burnet. The effort did not succeed, and Burnet booted Millard
out of the Army.
While that incident could explain Millard’s lack of recognition,
he went on to hold public office in the new county of Jefferson
as well as in Beaumont.
Later, after moving to Galveston,
he served as a militia colonel.
Just as his birthday is unknown, so is there confusion as to Millard’s
date of death. He died at around 48 on either Aug. 28 or 29, 1844,
in Galveston.
He’s buried in the Episcopal Cemetery there.
One
hundred and forty-one years later, in 1985, Judith Walker Linsley
and Ellen Walker Rienstra revived his memory somewhat with an article
called “Henry Millard, Forgotten Texian,” published in the Gulf
Historical and Biographical Record. They also wrote the entry for
Millard in the Handbook of Texas Online.
Four days after the battle, still smarting from his wound, Houston
sent his after-action report to President Burnet. While remembered
for a high level of self-confidence bordering on arrogance, Houston
said the right thing about his officers and men in his report:
“For the Commanding General to attempt discrimination as to the
conduct of those who commanded in the action, or those who were
commanded would be impossible. Our success…is conclusive proof of
their daring intrepidity and valor; every officer and man proved
himself worthy of the cause in which he battled, while the triumph
received a luster from the humanity which characterized their conduct,
after victory, and richly entitles them to the admiration and gratitude
of their General.”
Houston was grateful for his officers and men, but the people of
Texas failed to accord lasting recognition to Henry Millard. Well,
except for that 13th hole in Harris
County.
© Mike Cox
"Texas Tales" April
17, 2008 column
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