Dilue Rose and The Runaway Scrape

by Celia Yeary

GIRL IN SUNBONNET-WINSLOW HOMER-1878

Dilue Rose was only ten years old when she and her family were caught up in the terrible exodus called The Runaway Scrape. They'd moved to Texas only two years before and had barely settled in near Harrisburg when word came that Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and his Mexican army were gathering on the Rio Grande River. The war between Texas and Mexico had begun.

The residents around San Patricio, Refugio, and San Antonio began to move east in large groups as early as January.

In March, Sam Houston arrived in Gonzales and learned of the fall of the Alamo. He decided on retreat to the Colorado River and ordered all inhabitants to leave everything and accompany him. People from all over Texas began to move toward Louisiana and Galveston Island to escape the Mexican Army. This began the Runaway Scrape on a very large scale.

Like all others, Dilue Rose's parents, Dr. Pleasant Rose and wife Margaret, were ill-prepared for the long trek east. In their state of panic, they left food on the table, a fire in the fireplace, stock to be tended, and chickens left to roam.

No one made proper preparations to survive on the run. They used any means of transportation available, or none at all, meaning many walked, including women and children. Babies and toddlers were carried which made the flight even more difficult.

As a young girl, Dilue followed her family as all other children did in a desperate attempt to get to Louisiana or Galveston Island.

DILUE ROSE HARRIS

As an elderly woman, Dilue used her father's journal along with her childhood memories of the horrors of The Runaway Scrape to write memoirs of those days. Those pages were used to write her story in various publications, including a book titled Texas Tears and Texas Sunshine-Voices of Frontier Women.

Dilue writes:

"We left home at sunset, hauling clothes, bedding, and provisions on the sleigh with one yoke of oxen. Mother and I were walking, she with an infant in her arms, while Father rode their one horse. Brother drove the oxen and my two little sisters rode in the sleigh.

When we got to the San Jacinto River, there were five thousand people waiting for the Lynchburg Ferry. We waited three days before crossing.

Our hardships began there. The river was rising and there were struggles to see who should cross first.

Measles, sore eyes, whooping cough, and every other disease known to man broke out. We got on the ferry first because of my little sick sister. The horror of crossing Trinity was difficult to describe. Once on the ferry, the flood waters broke over the banks above. It took eight men to get us to safety." 

By April 1 the prairie was a scene of chaos and desolation and death.  The spring rains fell in sheets, making every river crossing a terrifying ordeal. Women floundered waist-deep in mud, babies in their arms.  Some families gave up running and simply cowered where they were, in the tall prairie grass and bottomland canebrakes. Many refugees sickened and died along the trail. Children were abandoned. Thieves stole horses, claiming they were for Houston's Texian Army.

After weeks of intolerable conditions, a young man rode toward their camp, shouting, "Turn back! Turn back! Houston's army has whipped the Mexicans, and it's safe now. Go home! Turn back!"

They soon learned that the return trip was just as horrendous as the running away.

 

SANTA ANNA ON LEFT IN RED CAPE. SAM HOUSTON LYING ON GROUND, WOUNDED

Dilue writes:

"We crossed the San Jacinto River and stayed late into the night on the San Jacinto battlefield. A soldier asked my mother to go with him to see Santa Anna as a captive and the Mexican prisoners, but she would not go, saying she was not dressed to go visiting. Instead, I got permission to ride there with him.

Earlier, I had lost my bonnet in the raging river, and Mother made me wear a tablecloth tied over my head.  But I wouldn't wear the tablecloth again since I would be seeing some of the young men.

I was on the battlefield of San Jacinto on April 26, 1836. Two days later I turned eleven years old.

We left the battlefield late in the evening. We had to pass among the dead Mexicans, and once Father had to stop and pull one out of the road so we would not run over the body.

The prairie was very boggy, it was getting dark, and now there were thirty families with us. We were glad to leave the battlefield, for it was a gruesome sight. We camped that night on the prairie, and could hear the wolves howl and bark as they devoured the dead."

The family arrived home after many days of grueling travel. When they arrived, they found the house ransacked, dishes broken, furniture tossed about and broken, the floor torn up, and hogs running around in the house. They had practically nothing, and so the starting over began.

"Father had hidden some of our better things in a big chest so that no one could find them. We had left in our better clothes. Now our better clothing was in that chest, and among them was my old sunbonnet. I was prouder of that sunbonnet than anything, for I was sorely tired of wearing that tablecloth."

--Dilue Rose was born in 1825 in St. Louis, Missouri on April 28.

--After the Texas Revolution, her family moved to the area of Bray's Bayou five miles outside Houston.

--There, Dilue attended school.

--At age 13, she married Ira A. Harris who served with the Texas Rangers.

--They had nine children.

--Ira died in 1869 at age 53.

--Dilue died in 1914 at age 89.

NOTE: One of Dilue's little sisters died during The Runaway Scrape. If you recall reading my post of a couple of months ago titled, "Mary and a Horse Named Tormentor," she also was in the Runaway Scrape with her husband and babies. One of her babies died during the exodus, as well.

Celia Yeary

Romance...and a little bit of Texas

Sources:

The Handbook of Texas On-Line: State Historical Association

Texas Tears and Texas Sunshine: Voices of Frontier Women

Reminiscences of Dilue Rose Harris

Mike Kearby's "Texas"

Wikimedia Commons.

Public Domain Photos

The Runaway Scrape

By Anna Kathryn Lanier

At the beginning of 1836, General Santa Anna and his Mexican troops of 4,000 men and artillery crossed the Rio Grande River. As news of this invasion spread from San Patricio, Refugio and San Antonio, panic also increased and families fled. When the Alamo fell on March 6, 1836, full-fledged terror set in. Sam Houston, commander of the Texas Army, was in Gonzalez at the time. Thirty-two of the town’s men were killed at the Alamo, so everyone was related to or knew of someone who died.  Expecting Santa Anna to continue his march across Texas, Houston ordered the evacuation of and the burning of the Gonzalez to prevent the Mexican army any provisions. Thus began the largest exodus to take place in the United States as thousands of Texans made their way east toward the Louisiana border (and the United States).

People packed and left so fast that it is said one household left a dinner of fried chicken, coffee and a fresh pitcher of milk on the table. Families quickly hauled clothes, bedding, provisions onto sleighs, wagons, handcarts and often, their backs.  Recently widowed women gathered up children and babes in arms and made for safety in America. The travel, however, was anything but swift and sure.

Recent and continuing rains made the wagon trails boggy and muddy.  People slogged along in the sucking muck. Rivers were raging waters that made each crossing a horrifying event.  Horse thieves, claiming to be with Army, would steal the animals. Indian war parties struck families that fled, as well as those who stayed behind, kidnapping women and children.

Conrad Juergans and his very pregnant wife Mary stayed behind, thinking Santa Anna’s army would pass north of them, which they did. Shortly afterward, though, a party of Indian braves attacked the cabin.  Conrad was injured, but managed to escape to the woods.  Mary and her two young sons, however were taken captive and forced to trek toward the Red River valley.  Three months later, Mary appeared at a trading post within Indian Territory. Her family arrived and paid the $300 bounty for her release.  She had given birth to a daughter while in captivity (am not sure if she had her daughter with her or not). The fate of her two sons is unknown.

One excellent source of the Runaway Scrape was documented by Dr. Pleasant W. Rose, who lived with his family near Stafford Point.  In 1900, his daughter, Dilue Rose Harris published an account of the Runaway Scrape in the Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association. While recalling her own memories as an eleven-year-old at the time of the Scrape, Dilue relied heavily on her father’s journal, which by 1900 had been lost for some time, but that she had read it multiple times before its disappeared.  The events of the Rose family were typical of other fleeing families.

Dilue recalled that the family quickly put belongings into a sleigh and traveled eastward with several other local families. The family’s hardship began at the Trinity River. Though the family made it across the treacherous river, the last trip made by the ferry boat, it swamped badly, leaving them stranded for several hours in the middle of the river. Finally they were rescued, but their river ordeal was only one of many faced by the evacuees.

W.G. Dewees recalled another river crossing. “There were about seventy-five wagons in the company and on arriving at the river we found no way to cross; the river was up to the top of the banks and there was no ferry.” Eventually, two large pine trees were cut down “so their length might be sufficient to reach across the river…that we might place the wagons on them and pull them across…with a rope.”

At Cedar Bayou, Emily Bryan Perry took charge of a situation when the cart of a woman and two small girls became stuck in the middle of the stream, efficiently blocking everyone else’s progress.  Emily handed off her new born baby, climbed down from her wagon and waded out to the woman. She spoke softly but firmly to the woman, encouraging her to try again.  “Up Buck!  Up Ball! Do your duty!” the woman yelled as she cracked the whip over the oxen’s head. The oxen strained hard, and managed to pull the cart free.

Dilue Rose reported seeing “children falling from the wagons which still kept on leaving the children behind, till another wagon came along and picked them up. Mothers in this manner have been separated from their children for days, and some for weeks, as the wagons would often take a different course.” William Fairfax Gary relayed seeing a family that had found a small, unattended infant. The family now had the care of the child, which they and others took turns carrying.

After a very difficult trip in mud and muck, the Roses finally arrived in Liberty. It was there that Dilue’s little sister died. The rigors of the escape proved hard, illnesses ran rampant through the groups heading toward Louisiana, and infants, small children and the elderly were particularly vulnerable. Many families lost a loved one to such diseases as cholera.

The Roses stayed in Liberty for several weeks and one day heard what they thought was distant thunder. Instead, it was the sound of cannon fire.  Sam Houston and his troops had caught up with Santa Anna and his troops. The Battle of San Jacinto could be heard thirty-five miles away. On April 21, 1836, in less than fifteen minutes, Sam Houston overtook the Mexican Army and forced their surrender.  Texas had won the war.

When word of the defeat of Santa Anna’s army reached the evacuees, they made their way back homes.  Some were burned to the ground, others had been ransacked, while others were found to be as they’d been left. The Roses returned home to find the hogs running wild. Her father’s bookcase had been toppled and his medical books and supplies scattered on the ground, the hogs sleeping on them. Emily Perry’s plantation near Peach Point didn’t fare any better. Although the house was not robbed, it was in disarray. “The hens had taken possession of beds, closet, bureaus,” Emily’s cousin wrote.   On the upside, there was an abundant supply of eggs.

In Women and the Texas Revolution, edited by Mary L Scheer, it says “The Runaway Scrape occurred in several stages. It began as an evacuation, starting South of San Antonio in February before it spread eastward to Gonzalez and Victoria early in the following month, culminating in civilian flight from the Colorado and Brazos valleys in mid- to late March.” (pp 159). Thousands, mostly women and children joined the flight away from the Mexican Army. It was an event that would define their life and the memories outlasted most of the hardships.

Works cited:

In Women and the Texas Revolution, edited by Mary L Scheer ISBN 978-57441-469-1

Texas Monthly - http://www.texasmonthly.com/content/texas-primer-runaway-scrape

Anna Kathryn Lanier
Romance Author, A GIFT BEYOND ALL MEASURE

http://aklanier.com/

Never let your memories be greater than your dreams. ~Doug Ivester