BY NORMAN ROZEFF
Ben Milam has been termed by some “The forgotten hero of the Texas revolution.” He was a soldier, colonizer, and an entrepreneur. Milam was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, on October 20, 1788, the fifth of six children. As was common at the period, he had little or no formal education. He served a few months at the close of the War of 1812, through which he had served with distinction in a voluntary company from Virginia before returning home.
Six years later the adventurous 30-year-old was to be found trading with Comanche Indians along the Colorado River in Texas. Having learned of the profitable trading among the Indians of the upper Red River, he laid in a supply of goods and went into that country to trade for horses, pelts, etc. This was in the fall of 1817, and while trading and living with the Indians, he met David G. Burnet, afterwards first president of the Republic of Texas. Burnet was living with the Indians in an attempt to overcome the threat of tuberculosis, how well he succeeded is disclosed by the fact that he died at the age of 82.
These two pioneers lived together and slept on the same blanket while with the savages. They formed a close friendship of mutual esteem, which never waned till death parted them. In 1819, Milam was in New Orleans where he encountered José Félix Trespalacios and James Long, who were laying plans to free Mexico and Texas from Spanish rule. Following their embarkation to Veracruz, they did not fare well and were soon imprisoned. Long, the husband of Jane Long, had also been captured and was subsequently killed by a prison guard. In events of high political intrigue, Milam, convinced that the killing was plotted by Trespalacios, then planned, with the help of several of his friends, to kill Trespalacios. The plot was discovered, however, and Milam and his friends were imprisoned in Mexico City. It was through the influence of the U. S. minister that they were all eventually released.
The Handbook of Texas Online relates his further adventures: “By the spring of 1824 Milam returned to Mexico, which now had adopted the Constitution of 1824 and had a republican form of government.
Milam became a Mexican citizen under the new constitutional government on 1824 June 24, and was commissioned as a colonel in the Mexican army. Sometime after 1826, Milam was engaged to Annie McKinney. After returning from a trip to England in 1829, however, Milam found that McKinney had married another. He never married.
In Mexico City he met Arthur G. Wavell, an Englishman who had become a general in the Mexican army. Trespalacios, now prominent in the new government also, made overtures to Milam to renew their friendship, and Milam accepted.
In 1825–26 he became Wavell’s partner in a silver mine in Nuevo León; the two also obtained empresario grants in Texas. Wavell managed the mining in Mexico and leased the most productive mine to an English company, which by 1828 was unable to fulfill the terms of their contract.
In 1829 Milam sought to organize a new mining company in partnership with David G. Burnet, but they were unable to raise the necessary capital.”
Impediments confronted Milam and his partners in the years to follow. In April 1830 the Mexican Congress passed a law prohibiting further immigration of United States citizens into Texas. This stifled efforts to fulfill the required number of settlers for his Red River Colony, whose contract was set to expire in 1832. It was, however, during this period that Milam accomplished a major transportation feat on the Red River. He cleared debris from the river’s upper reaches. This allowed the steamboat Alps, that he had purchased to pass through a channel that previously had only been passable by canoes and small flat-bottomed boats.
In 1835 Milam traveled to the capital of Coahuila and Texas and convinced the governor to send a land commissioner to Texas to provide the settlers with land titles. This sentence alone does little to portray the travails and extent that confronted Milam as he rode on horseback the distance of 700 miles to the Capitol, Monclova, carrying a little parched meal and some dried beef, depending principally on his rifle to carry him through the Indian-infested country. The only settlement this stout-hearted pioneer passed through on his trip was the town of Bexar (San Antonio), passing that place about the 10th of March.
Soon after Governor Viesca agreed to help Milam with the land titles, however, both learned that Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had overthrown the national government and become dictator. They fled as Santa Anna was on the way to Texas with an army. They were captured and imprisoned in Monterrey. Milam escaped and headed for the Texas border which he reached in October 1835. He then accidentally encountered a military force embarked on a mission for Texas independence.
Milam joined them and they captured Goliad on October 10. Milam was to write “I assisted Texas to gain her independence. I have endured heat and cold, hunger and thirst; I have borne losses and suffered persecutions; I have been a tenant of every prison between this and Mexico. But the events of this night have compensated me for all my losses and all my sufferings.”
The party then marched to join the main army to capture San Antonio. The militia’s leaders changed their minds and opted to go into winter quarters rather than to capture San Antonio. Milam was convinced that putting off the final assault on San Antonio would be a disaster for the cause of independence. He sought and was granted permission to address the soldiers with a call for volunteers. It was then he made his famous impassioned plea, “Who will go with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?” Three hundred volunteered, and the attack which began at dawn on December 5, ended on December 9 with the surrender of Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos and the Mexican army of 1100 men.
The Mexican Army lost more than 400 killed, deserted, or wounded in the ensuing battle. Texan losses were only 20 to 30 killed. Milam did not live to witness this victory, for he was shot in the head and killed instantly by a sniper on December 7. He was buried in the courtyard of the Veramendi house belonging then to Jim Bowie through his marriage to Ursula de Veramendi.
In 1897 the Daughters of the Republic of Texas erected a monument at Milam’s gravesite in Milam Park, San Antonio. The marker was moved in 1976, and the location of the grave was forgotten until 1993, when a burial was unearthed that archaeologists think is probably Milam’s.
Milam has been honored to have Milam County named for him and numerous schools in Texas bear his name.
