University of Texas Austin - Cactus Yearbook (Austin, TX)

Page 29 text:

: ri

Page 28 text:

Tower Clock THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT

Page 30 text:

HERE is nothing official about Peter Ellis Bean ' s Memoir. He had nobody to convert; no superiors to impress with his virtues and abilities; no axe to grind. He wrote because he loved life, including him- self, and had a story to tell. He did not know B from Bull ' s foot about spelling and gram- mar; but he had vitality, imagination, lust for living. His life story was first published, after having been polished and otherwise doc- tored, in Yoakum ' s History of Texas (1855). The original document would be priceless now. Peter Ellis Bean was the Casanova of Texas. He came here, about 1800, on a mus- tanging adventure with Philip Nolan, was captured by the Spaniards, drew a white bean, was taken prisoner to Mexico, became a patriot in the war against Spain, finally got back to Texas and settled down in Nacog- doches. He had a wife in Tennessee, another in Mexico, and one or two in Texas, all at the same time, though his Memoir omits mention of them. What it is strong on is the way the Mexican senoritas and widows were attracted to him while he was prisoner; also his extraordinary escapes from prisons, and the white lizard that became his pet in the dungeon at flcapulco. Bean ' s Memoir is the first in a series of remarkable adventure narratives written by Texans on their experiences as prisoners in Mexico. They are unique in the chronicles of America, vigorous, plain, full of fire and blood. They include Thomas Jefferson Green ' s Journal of the Mier Expedition, which re- lates the dramatic story of the drawing of the black beans at Salado, and George W. Ken- dall ' s Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Ex- pedition. No fictionist of America has been able to invent situations more absorbing than are contained in these personal narratives. IV 7 .