The Twin Sisters

Some years ago, when I was heavily into the Texan War of Independence, I came across the story of the Twin Sisters - a pair of cannon that was donated by Cincinnati to the Texian cause. Further research had led me to discover that within Burnet Woods - a City of Cincinnati park - was the Lone Star Pavilion, a structure built to memorialize Cincinnati's involvement in the conflict. Of course I had to visit the site, and was thoroughly impressed and disappointed. Impressed that such a structure existed, with its five pointed star roof and pair of replica cannon barrels, and disappointed in how the city "maintained" the site, it being trashy, in need of cleaning and painting, and instead of being a place for memory or modern events, a location in which drug needles and the detritus of the homeless that used the pavilion as a place to sleep. 

I reached out to the city and offered to help with a cleanup and a plan to revitalize the area with native flowers. After meeting with a park official, the same one I had met prior in my capacity as a section supervisor for the Buckeye Trail, I knew this was not going to move forward as my previous experience was less than positive (a lack of response and truly a bureaucratic mindset).

I was going through some folders on the hard drive to clean up items no longer of use or interest when I came across the following I had worked on in relation to getting the Lone Star Pavilion back to a respectful state. It was a document sourced from hmdb.org, but expanded with some additional details. Perhaps you might find it of interest as to why Cincinnati donated guns to the Texian cause, and a bit about the history of those guns.

On November 17, 1835, after Texas agent Francis Smith convinced the people of Cincinnati, Ohio, to aid the cause of the Texas Revolution, Ohioans began raising funds to procure two cannons and their attendant equipment for Texas.[1] Since the United States was taking an official stance of neutrality toward the rebellion in Texas, the citizens of Cincinnati referred to their cannon as "hollow ware." Two iron six pounders were manufactured at the foundry of Hawkins and Tatum in Cincinnati and then shipped down the Mississippi to New Orleans. William Bryan, an agent of the Republic of Texas in New Orleans, took official possession of the guns on March 16, 1836. From New Orleans the guns were placed on the schooner Pennsylvania and taken to Brazoria. According to family tradition, the cannons received the name "Twin Sisters" at Brazoria from the twin daughters of Dr. Charles Rice who by coincidence were on board the Pennsylvania when it arrived in Texas and were asked to make a speech presenting the cannons to Texas.[2]  However, the first known use of the name was in a letter from President David G. Burnet to the Texas Committee in Cincinnati on July 22, 1836.[3]

After several unsuccessful attempts to get cannons to the Texas army under Sam Houston, which was retreating toward the Sabine before the forces of General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Twins finally reached the army at their camp on the Brazos at Bernardo Plantation on April 11, 1836. They were sent from Brazoria to Galveston on the Pennsylvania, then to the mainland aboard the schooner Flash, and to Harrisburg on the Ohio, where they were hauled by B. W. Breeding's oxen to Bernardo. A thirty-man artillery "corps" was immediately formed to service the guns, the only artillery with the Texas army, and placed under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Clinton Neill. Only nine days later the Twin Sisters saw their first action during a skirmish between the armies of Houston and Santa Anna on April 20^th. In this fight Neill was wounded, and command of the guns passed to George W. Hockley. The next day, April 21, 1836, saw the battle of San Jacinto and the securing of fame for the Twin Sisters. That afternoon near the banks of Buffalo Bayou the Texas army struck Santa Anna's unsuspecting troops. The Twins were probably near the center of the Texans' line of battle and ten yards in advance of the infantry. Their first shots were fired at a distance of 200 yards, and their fire was credited with helping to throw the Mexican force into confusion and significantly aiding the infantry attack. During this battle the Twins fired handfuls of musket balls, broken glass, and horseshoes, as this was the only ammunition the Texans had for the guns.[4] Among the crews serving the guns were several men who later made prominent names for themselves in Texas history, including Private Benjamin McCulloch, the future Confederate general who endeavored to bring the Twins back from oblivion in 1860.[5] In 1840 the Twins were moved, along with other military stores, to Austin, where on April 21, 1841, they were fired in celebration of the fifth anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto. When Sam Houston was inaugurated as president of the republic that year, the Twins were fired as Houston kissed the Bible after taking the oath of office.

In 1842 the Twins were placed on the summit of President's Hill in Austin to defend the river crossing against an attack by Mexican troops that occupied San Antonio. They were inventoried in Austin in 1843, where they remained for another twenty years; reports of them being sent to Baton Rouge after Texas was annexed to the United States in 1845 were incorrect. Then came the election of Abraham Lincoln and the secession crisis. Even before Texas called the Secession Convention, men were beginning to think about preparing for war. McCulloch, recalling his service with the Twin Sisters at San Jacinto, thought that these guns should once again be on Texas soil. He wrote to Governor Houston informing him that he thought the Twins were located in Louisiana and should be returned to Texas. Houston agreed and wrote to the United States secretary of war asking for the return of the Twins. Before action could be taken on this matter, however, Texas had seceded from the Union. The Texas Secession Convention appointed a commission to ask Louisiana for the return of the Twin Sisters, but inquiries showed that the cannons had been sold to a foundry in Baton Rouge as scrap iron some years before. Instead of being the Twin Sisters, the cannons sent to Louisiana were two iron six pounders acquired by Thomas Jefferson Chambers for Texas in 1836. George Williamson, commissioner for Louisiana to the state of Texas, discovered that one of the Twins was still at the foundry, although in poor condition, and that the other had been bought by a private citizen in Iberville Parish. Having found the cannons, Williamson asked the Louisiana legislature to purchase and repair them before presenting them to the state of Texas. The Louisianans passed an appropriation of $700 to "procure the guns, mount the same in a handsome manner," and forward them to Texas. The guns arrived on April 20, 1861, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the original firing of the Twins at San Jacinto.

The next report of the Twins was on November 30, 1863, when Major Alexander G. Dickinson, commander of the Confederate post at San Antonio, reported that they were in the rebel arsenal at Austin, although in very poor condition. On February 8, 1864, Lieutenant Walter W. Blow wrote to Colonel John S. “Rip” Ford, who was preparing an expedition to recapture the Rio Grande from invading federal troops, that he was preparing to send the Twins to San Antonio so that they could accompany Ford's command. Blow's February 1864 report is the last official and certain mention of the Twin Sisters. Ford took six cannons to Brownsville, including two 6-pounders that were likely the Twins.  They were present at the last battle of the Civil War at Palmito Ranch and abandoned in Fort Brown after Ford learned of Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. The Twins were probably shipped back east by the Union Army and melted for scrap iron. There are various stories as to their fate at the end of the war. One of the most intriguing is that a group of Confederates led by Henry North Graves buried the guns to prevent their removal by Union forces in August 1865 in Harrisburg. The guns Graves buried were two 4-pounders unloaded from the schooner Cayuga on Galveston Island in 1836, acquired by the Galveston Artillery Company in 1843, and mistakenly believed to be the Twins. The two Chambers guns brought back from Louisiana in 1861 were erroneously reported as the Twins by M. A. Sweetman, who saw them in Houston's Market Square on July 30, 1865, and identified them by the brass carriage plaques installed in Louisiana. The guns were shipped east, where one of the carriage plaques was found in New York.  The plaque was sent to Governor Pat Neff in 1924 and placed in the Mayborn Museum at Baylor University.

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[1] Why Cincinnatians aided Texas is debated. Among the theories include:

·          Robert Todd Lytle led a fund raising initiative for the cannons because he believed "that as American citizens, we can do no less than encourage the Spirit of Freedom, wherever or by whatever people it might be displayed".

·          David T. Disney, whose brother Richard Disney was executed in the Goliad Massacre, purportedly worked with Robert Todd Lylte on fund raising.

·          Andrew M. Clopper, who served in the Texian Army, is the son of Nicholas Clopper, a land speculator in Cincinnati who owned Morgan's Point, purportedly worked with Robert Todd Lylte on fund raising.

·          Thomas F. Corry, an emigrant from Cincinnati who served in the Texian Army, may have been related to the "William Corry" of whom President Burnet addressed in his letter of thanks on July 22, 1836.

·          Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternity of American Revolutionary War officers dedicated to promoting freedom. Approximately 59 veterans of the American Revolutionary War are buried in Texas and at least 4 are known to have also fought in the Texas Revolution: Benjamin W. Anderson, Alexander Hodge, Antonio Gil Y'Barbo. The fourth, Stephen Williams, also fought in the War of 1812.

·          Cincinnati was also the home of David Burnet’s older brothers, Mayor Isaac Burnet and Judge Jacob Burnet, who arranged use of the courthouse for the meetings that were held on November 12 and 17.

 

[2] One of the sisters writes about the origin of the name:

To the Editor of The Post, Carranchua Bay, Jackson County, Texas, August 24  - Some time ago you said in your paper that you would like to know where the Twin Sisters were and how they received their names. I being an old veteran’s daughter and wife, can tell you. They were named for myself and twin sister, Elizabeth and Eleanor Rice, daughter of Dr. Charles W. Rice, who joined the army as surgeon in 1836 and came to Texas in defense of her liberty. And I am the wife of H.S. Stapp, an old Texan, who came to Texas in the year 1833 and served his country in every crisis. He stood guard at 16, belonged to the Rangers in 1845 and was a true patriot for his country, an honest man.

Well, I must crave your mercy and go back again to 1836 and tell why the Twin Sisters were name after my twin sister and myself. In the beginning of the year 1836 the Medical College of Ohio met at Cincinnati to take a course of lectures under Professors Crop, Eberley, Buster, Black and other great lights in medical science. They were settling a point; the Northern physician asserted that a Southern physician could not practice in the North and the Southern physician assorted that the Northerners could not practice South, as the climate was so different that what would cure in one section would kill in the other. And they settled it by meeting in Cincinnati and taking a course of lectures. My father, Dr. Charles W. Rice, went North in the beginning of the year to take a course also. Among my father's friends was a gentleman by the name of Lewis Allan, who lived with my father, a refined, true Christian gentleman, and my father loved him, as their characters assimilated. In the latter part of 1836, Mr. Lewis Allan was made a captain, and the ladies of Cincinnati bought the cannon and presented it to the company, and Colonel Lewis Allan, my father's old friend named the cannon after myself and twin sister.

Captain Allan went to Mexico with his company in, I think, the latter part of 1836, was a brave man and was made Colonel, and when he returned to New Orleans the ladies presented him with a sword and gave him a public dinner. God help him, I say, wherever he is is the prayer of this old veteran Texas lady.

The old, old cannon did its duty well and lies disabled and worn out at Galveston. They did their duty well, but useless now as the writer of these old-time reminiscences.

Now, my friend, The Post, put these old time [intelligible] happened, not quite 8, but old enough to remember.

Very respectfully,

Elizabeth M. Stapp.

 

[3] Executive Department, Republic of Texas, Velasco, July 23, 1836.

To Daniel M. Drake, M. D.; William Corry, Esq.; Pulaski Smith, Esq.; Nathan Leamans, Esq., and W. Chase, Esq.

 

Gentlemen: Two beautiful pieces of "hollow-ware," lately presented to us, through your agency, by the citizens of Cincinnati, as a free-will offering to the cause of human liberty, were received very opportunely, and have become conspicuous in our struggle for independence. Their first effective operations were in the memorable field of San Jacinto, where they contributed greatly to the achievement of a victory not often paralleled in the annals, of war. I doubt not their voices will again be heard, and their power be felt in the great and interesting cause to which they were dedicated by your liberality, and in the advancement of which we are so arduously engaged.

To you, gentlemen, and to the citizens of Cincinnati, who have manifested so generous a sympathy in our cause, I beg leave to tender the warmest thanks of a people who are contending for their liberties and their lives, against a numerous nation of semi-savages, whose cruelty is equalled only by their want of spirit and military prowess.

Should our enemy have the temerity to renew his attempt to subjugate our delightful country, the voices of the TWIN SISTERS of Cincinnati, will yet send their reverberations beyond the Rio Grande, and carry unusual terror into many a Mexican hamlet. Texas has no desire to extend her conquests beyond her own natural and appropriate limits, but if the war must be prosecuted against us, after abundant evidence of its futility has been exhibited to the enemy and the world, other land than our own must sustain a portion of its ravages.

Permit me, gentlemen, to tender to you, and to your fellow-citizens who have rendered Texas much efficient aid, assurances if my profound esteem.

Your ob,'t serv.'t,

DAVID G. BURNET

 

[4] John M. Wade, in his 1878 published account, described the grape shot used:

Arrived at Harrisburg, we found the place reduced to ashes; but finding some old tin and debris at a mill, which had been burnt down, we improvised grape and canister shot by filling ten cases with screw nuts and other small pieces of iron, and by cutting bar lead into pieces about three-fourths of an inch in length and sewing them into small bags of bedticking. On the 20th of April...the first shot was fired from the Twin Sisters, loaded with our home-made grape.

 

[5] McCulloch would be killed at Pea Ridge, Arkansas on March 7, 1862.