Being that we are now in the high holy days of the Texas Revolution, the Texas Quote of the Day is in regards to the infamous Runaway Scrape: "We had been several days without any news from the army, and did not know but that our men had been massacred [at the Alamo]. News was carried at that time by a man or boy going from one neighborhood to another. We had heard that the Convention had passed a declaration of independence, and elected David G. Burnet president, and Sam Houston commander-in-chief of the army. On the 12th of March came the news of the fall of the Alamo.
A courier brought a dispatch from General Houston for the people to leave. Colonel Travis and the men under his command had been slaughtered, the Texas army was retreating, and President Burnet’s cabinet had gone to Harrisburg. 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. Mother and I then rode father’s horse. We met Mrs. M — . She was driving her oxen home. We had sent her word in the morning. She begged mother to go back and help her, but father said not. He told the lady to drive the oxen home, put them in the cow pen, turn out the cows and calves, and get her children ready, and he would send assistance. We went on to Mrs. Roark’s, and met five families ready to leave. Two of Mr. Shipman’s sons arrived that night. They were mere boys, and had come to help their parents.
They didn’t go on home; father knew that Mr. Shipman’s family had gone that morning, so he sent them back for Mrs. M — ‘s. 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. He had been in bad health for some time and had just got home from visiting his mother, who lived in Louisiana. He brought with him two slaves, the woman already mentioned and a man who was driving the cart; and, as Mr. Bundick had no children, we were as comfortable as could have been expected.
We had to leave the sleigh. Sister and I had grieved all the day before about Colonel Travis, and had a big cry when our brother left us. We were afraid Mrs. M — would be left at home. We had a fresh outburst of grief when the sleigh was abandoned, but had the satisfaction of seeing Mrs. M — and her children. Mr. Cotie would not go to the army. He hauled five families in the big blue wagon with his six yoke of oxen, besides negroes, provisions, bedding, and all the plunder the others could not carry." ----- Dilue Rose Harris
“The Reminiscences of Mrs. Dilue Harris," in The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, January 1901. Shown here: Dilue Rose Harris, courtesy the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic site.