Albany Patriot,
Georgia
May 16, 1861
[From our Occasional Correspondent]
Military for the War—The Cow Boys—New York Cheap Cash Store—Sam Houston in Danger—Texas Crops, &c., &c.
Bastrop, Texas, April 30th, 1861.
Editor Patriot: We are now in the midst of a revolution, and our citizens are leaving every day, in companies of twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred for the frontier and the gulf. On last Saturday there were four companies made up in Bastrop—three American and one German. They are to organize next Saturday and leave for the seat of war immediately. In Lavaca county, all the county have gone to the war. One company, called the “Cow Boys,” the best horsemen in Texas, who have been raised in the saddle and herding cattle, have gone. I would like to see them and some of the Northern men come in contact. The Texas boys, with their rifles and six-shooters and their long cow whips, that will split a cow’s hide fifteen inches every lick. What fun the cow boys will have after emptying their fire-arms and charge on the enemy and commence whipping them. They can cut a man in two or three licks, and often can kill at the first lick. Oh, how they will make the Yankees hop, and then when they try to make their escape, to see the cow boys drag them down with the lasso. Won’t they have fun?
Gen. Sam Houston has been accused of being appointed by Lincoln to take command of the army that he will send to this State. Houston denies the charge, and says he never saw nor never had any correspondence, either directly or indirectly with Lincoln in his life. I do not know what they will do with him.
Last Saturday was a day of great excitement in Bastrop. One of the merchants, by name Burch, had on his sign “New York Cheap Store.” I was standing on the side walk opposite, looking on, when I saw a ladder raised and placed against the house under the sign, and then a man mounted and with a bucket of red paint, put out the words New York. Some of the crowd halloed out, “blow the house up.” Others said, “take the d___d abolitionist out to Middleton Hill, and hang him on the same tree that the mob hanged Tom Middleton two years ago on. I gave you an account of the affair at the time.
The crops are as fine as ever they were of this season of the year, and rain in abundance, and a good prospect for a continuance of the same blessing.
EMMET.