Dilue Rose Runs for Her Life

The Runaway Scrape

Then began the horrors of the “Runaway Scrape."

Dilue Rose Harris

When news of the Alamo’s fall reached the towns and farms east of San Antonio fear settled over the land. When news of the massacre at Goliad reached those same towns and farms panic settled in the hearts of Texans. The estimated 25,000 Anglos—Texians, as they called themselves—set out in a mass exodus eastward, in what became known as the Runaway Scrape.

Texians in and around San Patricio, Refugio, and San Antonio had been abandoning their homes as early as January 14, 1836, when Mexican troops were reported along the Rio Grande. But it wasn’t until March 11 that the Runaway Scrape began in earnest, when Sam Houston arrived at Gonzales, was told of the Mexican victory at the Alamo, and he ordered a general retreat to the Colorado River. Couriers from Gonzales fanned out across Texas spreading the word of what took place in San Antonio, prompting Texians to flee. On March 17, the ad interim government of the newly formed and fledgling Republic of Texas deserted Washington-on-the-Brazos. By April 1 Richmond and settlements along the Brazos River were evacuated. Town and homes were torched, robbing the advancing Mexican army of sustenance or plunder. Throngs of people—their families, their livestock, and their belongings—hightailed it east to the Sabine River and the safety of Louisiana. Or they skedaddled southeast to Galveston Island where they might find transportation to New Orleans.

Roads were choked with refugees, making them nearly impassible. But it wasn’t only the number of people that made travel difficult, a cold rain that seemed to fall insistently muddied the few roads that existed, gumming up wagon wheels, hooves, and boots. Hunger and diseases spread through the fugitives, killing many. They were buried where they fell.

Accounts of hardship and heartache have filled journals and letters, and family histories, like the one told by Dilue Rose. At the time of the Runaway Scrape she was an eleven-year-old girl living on Oyster Creek, in Brazoria County. Her father, Pleasant Rose, kept a diary. That and her own recollections of fleeing cross-country make up the following description of what her family endured to escape the Mexican army.

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The news that Santa Anna was marching on San Antonio was confirmed. . . . The people of San Patricio and other western settlements were fleeing for their lives. Every family in the neighborhood was preparing to go to the United States. Wagons and other vehicles were scarce. Mr. Stafford, with the help of small boys and negroes, began gathering cattle. All the large boys had gone to the army.

[. . .]

On the 12th of March came the news of the fall of the Alamo. . . . Then began the horrors of the “Runaway Scrape.” 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. Brother drove the oxen, and my two little sisters rode in the sleigh. We were going ten miles to where we could be transferred to Mr. Bundick’s cart. Father was helping with the cattle, but he joined us after dark and brought a horse and saddle for brother. He sent him to help Mr. Stafford with the cattle. He was to go a different road with them and ford the San Jacinto [River]. Mother and I then rode father’s horse.

[. . .]

It was ten o’clock at night when we got to Mrs. Roark’s. We shifted our things into the cart of Mr. Bundick, who was waiting for us, and tried to rest till morning. Sister and I had been weeping all day about Colonel Travis. When we started from home we got the little books he had given us and would have taken them with us, but mother said it was best to leave them.

Early the next morning we were on the move, mother with her four children in the cart, and [Mr.] Bundick and his wife and negro woman on horseback. . . .

We camped the first night near Harrisburg. . . . Next day we crossed Vince’s Bridge and arrived at the San Jacinto in the night. There were fully five thousand people at the ferry. The planters from Brazoria and Columbia with their slaves were crossing. We waited three days before we crossed. Our party consisted of five white families: father’s, Mr. Dyer’s, Mr. Bell’s, Mr. Neal’s, and Mr. Bundick’s. Father and Mr. Bundick were the only white men in the party, the others being in the army. There were twenty or thirty negroes from Stafford’s planation. They had a large wagon with five yoke of oxen, and horses, and mules, and they were in charge of an old negro man called Uncle Ned. Altogether, black and white, there were about fifty of us. Every one was trying to cross first, and it was almost a riot.

We got over the third day, and after traveling a few miles came to a big prairie. It was about twelve miles farther to the next timber and water, and some of our party wanted to camp; but others said that the Trinity River was rising, and if we delayed we might not get across. So we hurried on.

When we got about half across the prairie Uncle Ned’s wagon bogged. The negro men driving the carts tried to go around the big wagon one at a time until four carts were fast in the mud. Mother was the only white woman that rode in a cart; the others travelled on horseback. Mrs. Bell’s four children, Mrs. Dyer’s three, and mother’s four rode in the carts. All that were on horseback had gone on to the timber to let their horses feed and get water. They supposed their families would get there by dark. The negro men put all the oxen to the wagon, but could not move it; so they had to stay there until morning without wood or water. Mother gathered the white children in our cart. They behaved very well and went to sleep, except one little boy, Eli Dyer, who kicked and cried for Uncle Ned [who] came and carried him to the wagon. He slept that night in Uncle Ned’s arms.

Mother with all the negro women and children walked six miles to the timber and found our friends in trouble. Father and Mr. Bundick had gone to the river and helped with the ferry boat, but late in the evening the boat grounded on the east bank of the Trinity and didn’t get back until morning. While they were gone the horses strayed off and they had to find them before they could go to the wagons. Those that travelled on horseback were supplied with provisions by other campers. We that stayed in the prairie had to eat cold cornbread and cold boiled beef. The wagons and carts didn’t get to the timber till night. They had to be unloaded and pulled out. . . .

At the Trinity River men from the army began to join their families. Here our hardships began. The river was rising and there was a struggle to see who should cross first. Measles, sore eyes, whooping cough, and every other disease that man, woman, or child is heir to broke out among us. Our party now consisted of the five white families . . . and Mrs. Adam Stafford’s negroes. . . . The horrors of crossing the Trinity are beyond my power to describe. One of my little sisters was very sick, and the ferryman said that those families that had sick children should cross first. When our party got to the boat the water broke over the banks above where we were and ran around us. We were several hours surrounded by water. Our family was the last to get to the boat. We left more than five hundred people on the west bank. Drift wood covered the water as far as we could see. The sick child was in convulsions. It required eight men to manage the boat.

When we landed, the lowlands were under water, and everybody was rushing for the prairie. Father had a good horse, and Mrs. Dyer let mother have her horse and saddle. Father carried the sick child, and sister and I rode behind mother. She carried father’s gun and the little babe. All we carried with us were what clothes we were wearing at the time. The night was very dark. We crossed a bridge that was under water. As soon as we crossed, a man with a cart and oxen drove on the bridge, and it broke down, drowning the oxen. That prevented the people from crossing, as the bridge was over a slough that looked like a river.

Father and mother hurried on, and we got to the prairie and found a great many families camped there. A Mrs. Foster invited mother to her camp, and furnished us with supper, a bed, and dry clothes.

The other families stayed all night in the bottom without fire or anything to eat, and the water up in the carts. The men drove the horses and oxen to the prairies, and the women, sick children, and negroes were left in the bottom. . . .

It was impossible for the men to return to their families. They spent the night making a raft by torch light. . . . It was a night of terror. Father and the men worked some distance from the camp cutting down timber to make the raft. It had to be put together in the water. We were in great anxiety about the people that were left in the bottom; we didn’t know but they would be drowned, or killed by panthers, alligators, or bears.

As soon as it was daylight the men went to the relief of their families and found them cold, wet, and hungry. . . . It was very dangerous crossing the slough. The men would bring one woman and her children on the raft out of deep water, and men on horseback would meet them. It took all day to get the party out to the prairies. The men had to carry cooked provision for them.

The second day they brought out the bedding and clothes Everything was soaked with water. They had to take the wagon and carts apart. The Stafford wagon was the last one brought out. Uncle Ned stayed in the wagon until everything was landed on the prairie. It took four days to get everything out of the water.

The man whose oxen were drowned sold his cart to father for ten dollars. He said that he had seen enough of Mexico and would go back to old Ireland.

It had been five days since we crossed the Trinity, and we had heard no news from the army. . . . My little sister that had been sick died and was buried in the cemetery at [the town of] Liberty. After resting a few days our party continued their journey, but we remained in the town. Mother was not able to travel; she had nursed an infant and the sick child until she was compelled to rest.

A few days after our friends had gone a man crossed the Trinity in a skiff bringing bad news. The Mexican army had crossed the Brazos and was between the Texas army and Harrisburg. Fannin and his men were massacred. President Burnet and his cabinet had left Harrisburg and gone to Washington on the way and were going to Galveston Island. The people at Liberty had left. . . .

We had been at Liberty three weeks. A Mr. Martin let father use his house. There were two families camped near. One Thursday evening all of a sudden we heard a sound like distant thunder. When it was repeated father said it was cannon, and that the Texans and Mexicans were fighting. He had been through the war of of 1812, and knew it was a battle. The cannonading lasted only a few minutes, and father said that the Texans must have been defeated, or the cannon would not have ceased firing so quickly. We left Liberty in half an hour. The reports of the cannon were so distant that father was under the impression that the fighting was near the Trinity. The river was ten miles wide at Liberty.

We travelled nearly all night, sister and I on horseback and mother in the cart. Father and two yoke of oxen now. One yoke belonged to Adam Stafford and had strayed and father found them. The extra yoke was a great help as the roads were very boggy. We rested a few hours to let the stock feed. We were as wretched as we could be; for we had been five weeks from home, and there was not much prospect of our ever returning. We had not heard a word from brother or the other boys that were driving the cattle. Mother was sick, and we had buried our dear little sister at Liberty.

We continued our journey through mud and water and when we camped in the evening fifty or sixty young men came by who were going to join General Houston. . . . They went a short distance from us and camped. Then we heard some one calling in the direction of Liberty. We could see a man on horseback waving his hat; and, as we knew there was no one left at Liberty, we thought the Mexican army had crossed the Trinity. The young men came with their guns, and when the rider got near enough for us to understand what he said, it was “Turn back! The Texas army has whipped the Mexican army and the Mexican army are prisoners. No danger! No danger! Turn back!”

Dilue Rose Harris. Date unknown. Courtesy the Houston Chronicle.

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Source and Note:

Dilue Rose married Ira A. Harris in 1839. Her account of the Runaway Scrape was first published in 1899, when she was seventy-four, in the Quarterly of Texas State Historical Association and the Eagle Lake Headlight. I’ve taken her story from J. Frank Dobie, The Flavor of Texas (Dallas: Dealey and Lowe, 1936), 94, 95–102.

Dilue Rose and her family returned to their home on the banks of Oyster Creek. Their homestead had been sacked by the Mexican army looking for foodstuffs. Hogs were running free, books, medicines, and other possessions were scattered in the yard. In her narrative, she said, “All the large boys had gone to the army.” Dobie notes in The Flavor of Texas (pages 93–94):

When the Texas Revolution began, there were perhaps 25,000 English-speaking souls in Texas. How many of the men of this number were ever at one time enlisted in the Texas armies is not known. The number constantly fluctuated; the muster rolls are incomplete. One thing is certain: a majority of the army men were not Texas settlers; a majority of them were young men who had come to Texas—“to fight for their rights.” Only about a dozen men claiming Texas as home were, for instance, in the Goliad Massacre of over 350 men. Probably about one-fifth of the “heroes of San Jacinto” were at the time bona fide residents of Texas.

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