1 PETER ELLIS BEAN. . .

AND THE FIRST SHOTS FIRED "Strange as some tale of the Arabian Nights is the story of the adventures of Peter Ellis Bean..." Mrs. Anna J. Hardwicke Pennybacker, A History of Texas for Schools , rev. ed.(1903) "Bean was a member of that honored group of Bad Men which included James Wilkinson, Aaron Burr, Philip Nolan, and Jean Lafite. The men were connected in one way or another..." Richard Drinnon, White Savage: The Case of John Dunn Hunter (1972) The Watauga Association of East Tennessee was, almost certainly, the first independent American commonwealth on the continent. Symbolically--perhaps romantically--it was an embryonic Republic of Texas, as well. One of its founders, William Bean, Sr., was the first permanent white settler in Tennessee. And his grandson, Peter Ellis Bean, briefly led the first American invasion of Texas. He was but a teenage when he commanded a doomed company of adventurers...in the first Anglo-Spanish exchange of gunfire in 1801. The memoirs of Peter Ellis Bean have been translated into French--yet in Tennessee, his turbulent Texas career has gone unheralded. His grandfather, William Bean, Sr., had been a captain in the Pennsylvania militia (and in 1747 was commissioned to survey a frontier road in Pennsylvania). One of his hunting comrades was Daniel Boone, who launched the American drive westward, at least in the popular imagination. By scouting Kentucky in 1769, he became the prototype Western hero--and the inspiration for Fennimore Cooper's novels. Boone left his name carved on a tree in East Tennessee in 1760. Bean and Boone probably hunted together where Boone Creek emptied into the

Watauga River. In 1768 Bean entered Tennessee, rearing a cabin near the site of the tree with Boone's name on it. Next year he brought his family. His son Russell Bean, born in 1769, was the first white baby born in Tennessee. Ironically, his grandson Peter Ellis Bean, died in 1846, just months after the Mexican War began--the war that led to Texas statehood, and further U.S. expansion to the Pacific-- A war fomented by a president from Tennessee, James K. Polk. The dynamic Beans were famous riflemen. William Bean was a captain of militia (future Tennessee statesmen John Sevier and James Robertson served under him), and he fought at the bloody, decisive Battle of King's Mountain. In the company of Thomas Hardeman (patriarch of a famous westering clan; see chapter marauder and Loyalist, Colonel Grimes. Bean's son William, Jr., was born in Virginia--and came to Watauga in 1778. He married in 1782, the year of his father's death. And while his wife's name is unknown, that of her son, born on June 8, 1783, enjoys faint remembrance in Texas history: Peter Ellis Bean. Other Beans lived in Knoxville--where horse thieves were whipped, cropped, branded, and pilloried, and Sunday was one hell of a good day for gambling and getting drunk! In 1793 the Knoxville Gazette announced that George Bean was offering gun-smithing at his blacksmith shop. James and Baxter Bean would stamp their names onto gold bands attached to their musket barrels--collectors today prize Bean rifles over those of their competitors. The clan's chief gunsmith was legendary Russell Bean, "first white child born in Tennessee," whose marital "problems" (he cut off the ears of his wife's baby because he figured he wasn't the father), physical courage, and later respectability anticipate, somewhat, the life of his nephew, Peter Ellis Bean. During Spain's blockade of New Orleans, he managed to sneak through a cargo of ), Captain William Bean killed an alleged

frontier produce. In one showdown, he defied a warrant for his arrest...till Judge Andrew Jackson (the only one with the nerve) served it personally. Peter Ellis Bean grew up at Bean's Station on the Holston River. An "Ellis Peter Bean"

served in the militia; since Bean was fifteen at the time, it was probably him.* All told, fifteen Beans served in the ranks of Tennessee soldiers. Such frontier family upbringing doubtless imbued young Bean with a pining for adventure. He was trained as a boot maker but at age seventeen asked to leave home for Natchez. His father said no...then relented. Bean was no doubt lured by the flamboyant example of his western trader uncle, Russell Bean. With friend John Wood, he tried to float a boatload of whiskey and flour down to Natchez. They passed Indian villages...finally, three hundred miles below Muscle Shoals, they capsized and lost their merchandise. With five dollars in his pocket, John Wood went home. Bean pressed on toward Natchez, where he had relatives. The port of Natchez had been ceded by Spain to the U.S. There began the 500-mile Natchez Trace, which ran all the way up to Nashville. Trace travelers risked being killed by Indians or murderous bandits like the maniacal Harpes--but those who survived could celebrate at the King's Tavern in Natchez. Natchez-Under- the-Hill (the original town) was a cluster of rude wood buildings, laced by muddy streets where river rats and other toughs could settle their disputes decisively, with, knives. The nearby Mississippi absorbed the bodies of the losers. Exciting Natchez was a marketplace for New England slave-sellers (and Southern slavestealers!); it was a resort for brawling flatboat men, who were easily diverted by octoroon prostitutes; it was a haven for river bandits, some of whom massacred passengers for their money, sinking their boats; and it was a paradise for gamblers and purveyors of stolen goods.

The music of waterfront Natchez was a cacophony of squawking parrots, cheap tinny pianos, and human voices often lewd and intoxicated. *In his early life, he styled himself Ellis P. Bean, but around 1826 began using Peter Ellis Beanthe form we have retained throughout. Such confusion is one more reason his story is not better known (brilliant biographer Bennett Lay prefers the earlier form), Yes, Natchez was the ideal recruiting source for the mysterious Philip Nolan. This cavalier border character had eloped with Fannie Lintot, of highborn Natchez blood (planteraristocrats lived up on the bluff). And his profession--which offended his father-in-law thrilled Tennessee teenager Peter Ellis Bean. Irish born Nolan was a mustanger...roping and selling wild horses between Natchez and San Antonio since 1791 (or perhaps back to 1785). Bean had been at an uncle's, convalescing from an illness--probably malaria, contracted from the adjacent swamps. Maybe Nolan met him there. Certainly Bean jumped at the chance (perhaps right out of the sick bed) to earn $1.25 a day, plus meals and free ammunition. Employees were, however, supposed to supply their own carbine and pistol (maybe Bean's Uncle helped him out). Nolan himself had a fancy, double-barreled shotgun, and he brought along cotton to plug the ears of his horses, lest they stampede in time of gunshots. Nolan also carried two carbines, four. pistols, and a saber--weapons supposedly for hunting, or to repulse thieves with. Nolan's crew probably didn't know that this was his first trip so heavily armed. Two other East Tennesseans were along--Thomas House and his brother John, from Jefferson County (where the French Broad river joined the Holston). The party crossed the Mississippi on November 1, 1800. Oddly, Nolan was often off busily measuring distances and drawing maps...rather strange, for a mere horse-trader. Of Nolan's few men who survived

another ten years, none of them would ever perceive much of the vaster picture. Peter Ellis Bean, the Houses and the rest, were unwitting pawns on the great American chessboard of Manifest Destiny (i.e., the God-blessed right to seize land from Indians, British, Spanish, or anyone else who stood in the path of inexorable expansionism). Nolan wrote secretly to a friend: "...keep the secret...they all think I am going to run mustangs...I have good men with me, and I will never be caught...As soon as you read this letter, burn it." Ah, but the letter was intercepted! Spanish troops were sent out--but they did nothing, so formidable did the Americans appear. Nolan shifted his route. But his luck and his time were petering out. Just who was this mustanger-employer of Peter Ellis Bean, anyway? Philip Nolan had been an immigrant child from Ireland, raised in the homes of kindly James Wilkinson in Maryland and Kentucky.* In the Revolutionary War, the talented Wilkinson (talented at, conspiracy) had studied subversion under Benedict Arnold. Then he tried it himself, attempting to topple generals George Washington, George Rogers Clark, and Anthony Wayne. He was a dancing master, conducting minuets while neglecting his military duties. Indeed, Wilkinson's whole career was a treacherous pirouette, as he waltzed in and out of infinite intrigues. After the war, he left the army in disgrace over incompetence; financial chaos (his own bookkeeper committed suicide) caused him to re-enlist. An accomplished back-stabber and boot-licker, Wilkinson slithered up through the ranks of the peacetime army, till attrition and demoniac good luck rewarded him with no less than the office of commanding general of the U.S. Army. And now Wilkinson was moving his knight, Philip Nolan, ahead on the secret

chessboard...toward infiltration of Texas. Earlier, he had tried to coax Kentucky and Tennessee under Spanish control--the grateful dons routinely sent him sacks of Spanish dollars hidden in barrels of flour. On August 22, 1787, Wilkinson had "transferred his allegiance, from the United states to his Catholic

*The protagonist of Edward Everett Hale's classic The Man Without ~ Country (1865) is named Philip Nolan. Hale bungled the history badly, and was so embarrassed that he wrote Philip Nolan's Friends (1877), which mentions Bean, by way of correction.

7 Majesty of Spain. Spain was thrilled, of course, when their paid spy became head of the shaky U.S. Army. Wilkinson held lavish parties, to woo friends and pump information (for resale to his various clients), always setting his own big example in the food and drink department.* Phillip Nolan was. his personal spy. Vice-president Jefferson corresponded with Nolan-and was certainly curious about more than the price of wild horseflesh. Like the .Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) today, the early U.S. government liked to receive candid from businessmen abroad. Nolan drew the first map of Texas. Usually he carried a Louisiana passport that the Spanish governor of Texas wouldn't honor---so far, he had bluffed his way through. Now the Louisiana governor was refusing him as well. Nolan, Bean, and the rest were filibusters, deriving probably from the Dutch vrijbuiter or "freebooter." To Latin American governments, piracy was a crime that could be committed on land--especially by hotheaded gringos from the Southern states. As someone said of the filibusters generally..."Liberty was their aim, and the sword was their passport." What exactly Nolan was plotting, no one knows. Wilkinson knew, and maybe Jefferson. The Spanish only knew he had to be stopped, lest more Americans swarm into Texas. Wilkinson might have even tipped off his secret Spanish employers, to silence Nolan and conceal his own involvement. (With Wilkinson the wilder the theory, the more believable!) Some of Nolan's men wisely went home. He threatened any future deserters with hanging. They reached the Brazos and corralled around 300 head of mustangs. Hundreds of Indians visited, whom they befriended. *Two of his Indian chief guests died from overeating--and to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase, Wilkinson charged the taxpayer for 600 gallons of wine, 40 gallons of hard liquor, 258 bottles of ale, and 11,356 cigars.

Near modern-day Waco, Nolan and his men built corrals for their mustangs as well as a blockhouse. Nolan Creek is still a landmark today. Then at daybreak, March 22, 1801, the Spanish attacked. Thus were fired the first shots between Mexico and a party of armed Americans. A musket ball to the head struck Philip Nolan dead. At this historic moment, Peter Ellis Bean took command, fulfilling his Watauga heritage by leading the first Anglo invasion of Texas! He could see that the Spanish had mounted an artillery piece on a swivel, affixed to a saddle on a mule--all set to rake the Americans with grapeshot. Bean's glory moment of Texas command lasted not very long. They had to either capture that damned gun--impossible!--or retreat. Down into the ravine, Bean ordered his men. Here they were surrounded...and forced to surrender. They were tied together by their captors, two by two. For a few weeks they were imprisoned in the Old Stone Fort at Nacogdoches...another eerily prophetic event. The fort would serve a later revolt in 1825 involving Bean in an unexpected role (see Chapter ). And here Tennesseans and Kentuckians would sign up for

free land (and a chance to fight for it) in 1836. Now, in 1801, the dignified Spanish, with their flair for the ceremonial, neatly cut off Nolan's ears and proudly sent them to the governor of Texas. They feared Nolan wanted to become "king of Texas." As Theodore Roosevelt summed up the Nolan-Bean incursion: "The menace of such buccaneering movements kept the Spaniards alive to the imminent danger of the general American attack which they heralded." For the next few years Bean and the others languished in a Chihuahua prison, below Santa Fe.* Several died. Whether unwitting spies, or involuntary soldiers of fortune, they

9 *By contrast, Jefferson hurled American warships into the Mediterranean to attack the Barbary pirates who were kidnapping American sailors and trying to shake down the U.S. government for ransom money. As in the case of missing Vietnam veterans, presidential concern for American lives overseas is politically as well as patriotically motivated. were mere expendables to General Wilkinson--like today's "private" covert action contractors, disowned by their governments when caught (e.g., the Bay of Pigs personnel in 1961). The author of the Declaration of Independence had earlier been in touch with Nolan, so must have known he worked for Wilkinson. Yet he kept a straight face and claimed he had never heard of Nolan's men, when informed by Spain. To hell with their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness! "What can a poor prisoner expect, when the leading men of his country fail to see justice done him?," Bean wrote later. "As Mr. Jefferson did not know us, and had no expectation of being benefited by us, it was less trouble to say, 'Hang them'!" In this instance, the Sage of Monticello was the Hypocrite of Pennsylvania Avenue.* But prisoner Peter Ellis Bean could not be broken. Asked by a priest to confess his sins, he said it would take several days to tally them all. At one point, he was paroled within the city of Chihuahua, where he worked as a hat maker. He tried to escape--was caught--then thrust back in prison. With fellow Tennessean Thomas House, he plotted various break-outs that never happened. House even retrieved part of Nolan's diary, and sent pages of it by mail to a fellow prisoner in another city. In 1807, Major Zebulon Pike arrived in Chihuahua. He had been sent by Wilkinson but the Spanish locked him up, briefly. (Maybe Pike had been forewarned that he might be jailed; maybe Wilkinson told the Spanish Pike was coming, out of loyalty to his espionage contract. Anyway, Wilkinson was too busy fulfilling his obligations to the Aaron Burr conspiracy to care.) In vain, Pike tried to free Philip Nolan's surviving men. Reported the Natchez Herald (August 18, 1807): Ellis Bean, of Granger [Grainger] County, state of Tennessee...being detected in

10 an intrigue with the daughter of an officer, and refusing to marry her, was in confinement at Jeronimie [San Jeronimo], a few leagues distant, in good health. The other Tennessean, Thomas House, was still alive--barely--but his brother John had escaped years before. After a languid, manana-style procrastination that lasted most of a decade, the King of Spain finally decided to deal with the captives. How about a token execution, to send those gringo imperialists a lesson? So on November 9, 1807, the surviving filibusters in Chihuahua were blindfolded. It was vital that the ritual be aesthetic, yet dramatic. They were forced to kneel, and throw dice from a crystal tumbler onto a drum head: low man out. Bean tossed an unpromising five...but another fellow threw a four. This luckless gambler hastily converted to Catholicism, then was quickly haloed with a hangman's noose. Bean and his remaining compatriots were transferred to Acapulco on the Pacific--and locked in a dungeon inside a hilltop fortress, overlooking the white-topped surf. A Spanish woman wanted to help him escape (her motive can be guessed), but Bean didn't react quickly enough. He spent the next three years regretting it. More than once he tried to escape; for awhile, he was held in irons. At one point, a mulatto was chained to him, with instructions to flog him. Bean got the whip away from his punisher, and reversed the arrangement. For other companionship at Acapulco, Bean enjoyed the camaraderie of a white lizard which he trained. In 1810 revolution exploded. If prisoners would vow to fight for Spain, they were released. Glibly Bean swore allegiance...then swung over to the rebels. Next, he crassly rejoined the royalists...as a ruse, to recruit more deserters and seize artillery. After a short fight they captured an arsenal--Bean's decisive coup was a momentary turning point in Mexico's war with Spain. Bean even established a gunpowder mill at Chilpancingo, personally mixing the powder (and upholding his family's ballistic tradition). Bean became a captain, and was ushered close

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into Acapulco as a hero. Magnanimously he spared his former jailers and tormenters. But after years of fighting, the insurgents began losing momentum. Bean headed north for help--and at Barataria Bay near New Orleans, conferred with the famous smugglers and pirates, Jean and Pierre Laffite. But General Andrew Jackson. recruited them first, if somewhat reluctantly, swapping them pardons for their services at the Battle of New Orleans. Bean remembered Jackson from Tennessee, so asked him to place him in charge of some artillery. Jackson complied. Alongside Bean in the action was Jose Gutierrez, leader of the Mexican rebels. After talking with Gutierrez's collaborator (and sometime rival), Don Jose Toledo, Bean began running guns to the rebels. But by 1816 he decided that his adventures were over. It was time to write his memoirs. So in very bad English he did so, comparing himself to Baron Trenck, whose prison-escape recollections Bean's resemble (maybe a later editor inserted this analogy). His autobiography also parallels, in part, Casanovas account of his escape from a Venice prison. Then in 1817 he married a Spanish girl, Anna Gorthas. Newly-wedded bliss was not to be theirs, however. Royalists were hot on Bean's trail. So he left Anna with an uncle near Jalapas. And the story of their parting, if true, sounds torn from a romance novel. Anna pressed a silk handkerchief upon her hero...a black mantilla (lace scarf). These talismans of love would never lose their potency in the heart of Peter Ellis Bean. Bean went to White County, Tennessee, in 1818--to visit his older half-brother, William Shaw. Enter one of the most forlorn names in Texas history, the future Candace Bean. Candace Midkiff was born near Nashville on December 12, 1800. Swashbuckling Bean enchanted her, so they married. No doubt her new husband neglected to mention the existence of his Mexican wife. They moved to Arkansas, and had a child, Isaac, in 1821. That year or the next, Bean

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traveled between Memphis and Columbia, Tennessee. He was in the company of Sterling C. Robertson, and told him how--being unable to get back to wife Anna in Mexico--he had married Candace, instead. (Or, should we say, in addition.) Candace's father died in 1823, a blessing in a sense, since he was spared the public revelations of his son-in-law's bigamy. As for Sterling C. Robertson, he would end up in Texas (see Chapter ). Maybe he was

already thinking about Texas, and talking about it, when he traveled with Bean. In January of 1823, the veteran of the first invasion of Texas, Peter Ellis Bean, reentered Texas. This time with his wife, Candace. Or at least, the woman who believed she was his wife. Ahead of Bean lay a couple more Texas revolutions...and an extra wife who, needless to say, had not forgotten.