Sam Houston was the first and third of many presidents of the Texas Republic, and the key player in the Archives War. In his first term serving as president of the Texas Republic, he entertained the idea of moving the archives to Houston, and, most likely, he would have moved them in his first term, had it not been for Mirabeau B. Lamar, who replaced Sam Houston as president in 1839. Lamar moved to the newly chosen capitol, Austin, and had Congress meeting there in log buildings. He also had forty wagons move the Texas archives from Houston to Austin, their new home (The Archives War 1).
In 1841, Sam Houston replaced Mirabeau Lamar as president, thus beginning his second and last term in office. He started to become more and more negative about the city of Austin, often calling it things like, “the most unfortunate site on earth for a seat of government”. In addition, he refused to move to Austin, in official residence, and instead took lodging at a boarding house owned and managed solely by Mrs. Angelina Eberly, a fiery tempered, middle-aged woman (The Archives War 1-2).
March the next year, 1842; President Sam Houston saw his chance to move Texas's capitol back to Houston. A division of the Mexican army under General Rafael Vasquez invaded San Antonio, demanding the surrender of the town. The startled Texans, not prepared for this, had no choice but to withdraw (Hazlewood). Moreover, soon thereafter, the Mexican army invaded Goliad and Victoria, further proving the imminent threat the Mexicans posed to Texas.
Soon after that, President Sam Houston called an emergency session of congress. The city of Houston was named meeting place, as per choice of President Sam Houston.
When residents of Austin heard of this, based on his past behavior, they feared that President Sam Houston's intention was to move Texas's capitol to Houston. They formed a vigilante committee of Austin citizens that warned President Sam Houston and the committee that if they tried to take the Texas Archives from Austin, his efforts would be met with considerable armed resistance.
Regardless of the numerous warnings and threats he received, President Sam Houston called the Seventh Congress into session at “Washington-on-the-Brazos” (Hazlewood) to decide what to do with the Archives.
It was March 20, 1842, when President Sam Houston first decided to order the removal of the Texas Archives; he sent a letter to William O'Brian ordering their confiscation. The letter read, “…he [Col. Hockley] may remain until I can learn more of our situation. No express [letter] has been received from any of the forces nor does the Executive know what is to be depended upon. Rumours [rumors] are arriving daily, but no authentic facts … Let the archives be brought here [Houston] immediately…” (Houston to William 1-2).
However, this first attempt was not successful. When his men arrived at Austin in an attempt to carry out President Sam Houston's decree, numerous citizens of Austin showed their contempt for President Sam Houston and the whole mess of the Archives Wars; they shaved the tails and manes of his men's horses.
However, President Sam Houston was a persistent man. He tried again. In the December of that same year, 1842, it was officially announced by President Sam Houston, of course, that Austin was no longer the capitol of Texas, his argument being that Austin was defenseless against Mexican attack. So, as Houston was, apparently, better guarded and a more appropriate place for the seat of government, in President Sam Houston's view, Houston would now be the capitol.
Now President Sam Houston had officially declared that he had a “good reason” to move the Texas Archives, and, because of that “good reason”, he was less likely to be opposed and more likely to be successful (in his thinking, at least) in his pursuit to shift the Texas Archives.
So, in late December 1842, President Sam Houston sent Colonel Thomas Smith and Captain Eli Chandler to Austin with commands to remove the Texas Archives and bring them immediately to Houston.
Smith, Chandler, and their men arrived at Austin early in the morning of the twenty-ninth of December. Immediately, they drove their carts to the place where the Texas Archives were kept, the Land Office building. They had just begun to load the Archives, when a cannon fired.
The very same person with whom President Sam Houston had previously taken up board had, ironically, fired the cannon. Mrs. Angelina Eberly was the person responsible for touching off the cannon.
Mrs. Angelina Eberly, when lighting the cannon, most likely did not think that she would have had such an enormous impact on Texas's history. But she did. She was often described as a fiery tempered woman who often did things on impulse. She had a very tragic history, with numerous members of her family dying at early ages. Despite all this though, she remained very stable, with a very successful business: her boarding house, the Eberly House. Many of whom stayed there were the leading Republican men of affairs and other individuals of importance, including President Sam Houston, whom the likes of has been mentioned earlier. Milton James, an eye witness to the stealing of the Texas Archives said that Mrs. Angelina Eberly's “tables had been depleted by the turn of affairs”, and, he implied, the thing to do seemed to her to report to Congress Avenue and fire the six pound cannon that resided there and was always kept loaded, ever since the days of the Lamar Indian wars (Kemp 3-4).
