The Yellow Stone of Texas history shows up ready for duty on April 2, 1836, when Texas commander Sam Houston directed the ship be taken over for use by the Texas army, which was in some figurative deep water of its own. Mexican general Santa Anna's army had taken the Alamo and was pillaging and plundering his way across Texas. In Santa Anna's wake, Houston and his volunteers were in the midst of either a strategic withdrawal or a full-fledged retreat, depending on your perspective.
Settlers, desperate to stay one step ahead of the Mexican troops, didn't bother to pick up stakes when they left their homes. The prevailing wisdom had it that all prisoners would be killed, with the fate of Texians at the Alamo and Goliad serving as examples.
Early settler Noah Smithwick described the situation after the Alamo fell: "The desolation of the country through which we passed beggars description. Houses were standing open, the beds unmade, the breakfast things still on the table, pans of milk moulding (sic) in the dairies
"And, as if the arch fiend had broken loose, there were men -- or devils, rather -- bent on plunder, galloping up behind the fugitives, telling them the Mexicans were just behind, causing the hapless victims to abandon what few valuables they had tried to save."
Houston's army came to the west bank of the Brazos River on March 31, 1836. It had been raining for four days as the Texas volunteers slogged toward an uncertain destination. The Brazos was flooded.
The Mexican army was massing farther down the Brazos, planning to ferry across the swollen river at Thompson's Ferry in boats suitable to the purpose, and then move on to Harrisburg, the Republic's current seat of government.
Houston decided to move down the Brazos as quickly as possible and try to catch Santa Anna by surprise at some point, but he needed to cross the Brazos. Told that the Yellow Stone was at Jared Groce's plantation, loading cotton, Houston ordered the boat to ferry the soldiers, animals and equipment to the other side and offered land and unspecified payments to the crew for wages and damages.
Captain John E. Ross stacked cotton bales around the boat's boilers and pilothouse to protect them from Mexican snipers, just in case Santa Anna showed up. Ross ferried the Texas army across the river on April 12 without incident. Houston then discharged Ross and the Yellow Stone from further obligation and went on his merry way to San Jacinto.
The Yellow Stone moved on down the river, running a gauntlet of Mexican fire along the way. One frustrated Mexican soldier even tried to lasso the ship's smokestack since that was the only part of the ship not protected by the strategically-placed cotton bales.
The boat arrived in Galveston, joining with President Burnet and his staff in that city, until news of the army's victory at San Jacinto reached the coast. The Yellow Stone was pressed into service to haul Burnet and the other officials back to the San Jacinto battleground, at the request of Secretary of War Thomas Rusk.
At Buffalo Bayou, President Burnet reportedly refused to let Houston board the ship for New Orleans, where he was to get medical treatment for a wound he suffered at San Jacinto -- Burnet couldn't stand Sam Houston. Ross wouldn't budge until Houston was allowed aboard. Thus, the Yellow Stone carried Sam Houston and President Burnet, along with Santa Anna himself and 47 Mexican officers and soldiers, each following the river to separate destinies.
The Republic recognized the Yellow Stone for its contribution to the victory at San Jacinto and asked it to perform other services, including the solemn duty of transporting Stephen F. Austin's body to his burial site on the Brazos.
Its owners billed the Texas Navy for towing one of its decrepit old warship,s but there is no record as to whether or not that bill or any others connected with the Yellow Stone's services was ever paid.
Sam Houston always referred to the Yellow Stone as the ship that "enabled me to save Texas." What is believed to be its bell is on display at the Alamo, but the boat's eventual fate is unknown. It has become a ghost ship of Texas history.
