TEXAS SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Contemporary chronicles of what happened next do not specifically mention Eberly’s role in the affair. Manyof the accounts written forty years or more later, such as George H. Gray’s, include facts that are not corroboratedby other sources. 47 As a result, sorting through the different accounts is somewhat like sorting out tangled paperclips.The text under Eberly’s Congress Avenuestatue, which is most likely based on Louis WirtzKemp’s account, states that on that morning, Eberlyheard men lifting heavy loads and wooden boxesscraping against the sides of three oxcarts. 48 Over twoblocks away, she saw two Texas Rangers and eighteenother men (in other accounts, up to thirty men)carrying out President Sam Houston’s order to seizeand transfer the records to Washington on the Brazos. 49In the oft-told legend, Eberly hastened towardsan arsenal near Bullock’s Hotel where a howitzer, orsmall cannon that propels a charge upward at a steeptrajectory, was kept for possible defense of the city incase of invasion. It is implied that she herself actedunilaterally in bringing out and firing the cannonwhich roused the rest of the citizens of Austin.An 1841, 6-pounder smoothbore howitzer. With a weightof 1,784 pounds, it was the workhorse of the Mexican War.National Park Service, Wikipedia, public domain.Unfortunately, that version ignores eyewitness accounts that attest that three men, including Dr. JohnRobertson, unsuccessfully challenged Smith and Chandler’s group. Eberly then urged the Austin men to action,saying, “What is that cannon for?” The men, including Eberly’s son Alexander, helped bring out the howitzer ontoCongress Avenue, positioned it, and loaded it with a six-pound canister of grapeshot. Mrs. Eberly ran back intoBullock’s Hotel and brought out a firebrand. 50A.E. Skinner’s article in the Austin History Center compares data on Eberly from primary and secondary sources,clearly demonstrating that there was no solid contemporaneous proof that Angelina fired the cannon. One accountwritten many years after the fact actually credited Captain Mark Lewis with that honor. 51 Additionally, Peg Leg Ward’sbiographer, David C. Humphrey, offers an alternative narrative in which “Angelina Eberly was definitely a participantin the drama, but she was not its featured player.” A man, often identified as Dr. Robertson, noticed the wagons beingloaded and went to the Bullock Hotel, where he roused other people to action, possibly including Angelina Eberly. 52What exists in greater number are several late nineteenth and early twentieth century accounts, purportedly47Skinner, “Mrs. Eberly,” 2.48Hazlewood, “Archive War”; Frank Brown, Annals of Travis County and the City of Austin (Austin: MS. multi-volume, 1892–1913);File Chronological, 1842, Sections 7 and 9, Austin Hist. Ctr.; Louis Wirtz Kemp, “Mrs. Angelina B. Eberly,” Sw. Hist. Quart. XXXVI,no. 3 (Jan. 1933), 198, citing Dudley G. Wooten, A complete history of Texas for schools, colleges, and general use (Dallas: Tex. Hist.Co., 1899), https://books.google.com/books?id=eS9bRAAACAAJ&dq=a+complete+history+of+texas+for+schools&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAWoVChMI0Mr-xf6XxwIVRVc-Ch2PCwE7.49Kerr, Seat of Empire, 174-98, 184.50Humphrey, Peg Leg, 86-88; Kerr, Seat of Empire, 184, 261-62, n. 31, citing William Walsh, Austin Statesman, April 13, 1924; Brown,Annals, Ch. 9.51Skinner, “Mrs. Eberly,” referencing Bancroft, History, 353.52Humphrey, Peg Leg, 87.46