Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1850-05-17

......-sss.a.as.ss.s.sss..
Indians. Such qualities always insure
popularity in new forest settlements; and
lie was popular to a proverb.
II would consume too much time to
narato how it happened that the old
Mexican incurred the suspicion and ha
tired of Santa Anna, who transmitted an
order for his arrest and punishment
Ferdinand, the nephew Of Col. Pedras,
commanding at Nacogdochcs, was IS
patched with fifty men to make tie cap
'ture. The young officer found his victim
seated at the supper table, beside the
hearth of his home, attended by his only
daughter---that sylph Of the raven ring
lets and queen of the starry eyes. whose
chastity, intelligence and surprising beau
ty was the tleme of wonder to i'll lehol-
dcrs.
The father was loaded with chains, in
spite of the shlieks, tears, and cntreaties
of his beloved Julia, that adored and
adoring daughter. But although Ferdi-
nand Pedras possessed a soul not to be
moved by the sorrow of the dcspairing
child, he had libertinc's heart, to take
fire at the vision of her matchless beauty.
He proposed to free the father if the
daughter would consent to sacrifice her
innocence and honor She rejected the
Infamous proposition with IL blow in the
face, when the armed ruflian swore hor-
rblc oath to execute his will upon both
and then x *
The daughter was ruined, and the faith
er carried away in chains to the p,iscn at
Nacogdoches. When Julia awoko from
the swoon of her awful dream, he was
gone; and with the consciousness of her
loss and shame, the entire nature of the
woman seemed to undergo a terrible
change
With dark eyes, fearless, CLASSY, fixed
as those of Il corpse, yet flashing a dou-
bic portion of luminous fire, she mounted
a horse and hurried away wildly around
the country. She Halted at every house
no matter whether Mexican or American
and rehearsed in tones Of thrilling horror
her fathers wrongs and her own III
tmid modesty, all weakness, had vanish.
ed from her tongue, utterly consumed By
the schorching thirst for vengeance
She painted, in passions rc-languag",
and with awful minutcncss, the facts of
the damning deed; she barred her virgin
bosom, and showed the Iivid marks of
the ravisher's fingers among the mazes of
those azure veins, along the surface of
that eXpanse of snow, now so polluted
and soilcd but before pure MS the CLEAN
of angels wings.
And still, wherever the beautiful ruin
wandered, dcafening yell of wrath and
vengeance rose up against the tyrants.
The people of both races and Of all cla5-
ses flew to arms, appointing Il general rcn
devious for the 25th of June at the resi-
dence of the absent and imprisoned Juan
Costa. Let the reader conceive that
gathering.
1t was there debated by the people as
sembled as TO the mode ofattack and
who should be their leader; but nothing
could be agreed on, and the whole assem-
blage bid fair to break up in confusion,
when tall and powerfully built stran-
ger, who had just reached Texas from the
States came forward, and addressed the
multitude as follows:
4 am stranger, but am also man,
and owe my life, soul, body health hap
pincss-all-all to woman-my moth
er! And if ever turn deaf ear to the
prayers asking my aid against villain,
may both my mother and my God curse
me! / go for ere, and--should you all
stay behind-alone, to fight Col. Pedras,
and his armed ravishers of your wives and
daughters!
The speech was received with three
tremendous cheers, and then ageneral
shout, that seemed to shake the solid
earth; altered tie first peal of the revo-
luton: We will go. Death to the ty-
rants! Freedom for Texas, and the
giant shall be our leaderp
And then, for the first time, in the
land of the live oak, n name destined to
become an echo 10 the pulsation of all
hearts-the name of Thomas j. Rusk.
The nextday he led bis raw troops tc
the attack of Nocogdoches, and stormcd
every position, against immense odds, af.
ter an assault of four hours, the carnage
being dreadful on both Sides and fortu.
nately, among tire slain was the atrocious
Ferdinand Pedras.
Such was the debut of Rusk in Texas