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- Artwork courtesy Adm. Bruce Marshall
"If the Texas Navy had
not been able to keep the crucial
supply lines to New Orleans and America open,
the Texas revolution would have failed."
Commodore Charles
Edward Hawkins
(Fleet
Commander, March 1836 - 11 February 1837)
Charles
E. Hawkins was one of those swashbucklers who brought color and
adventure to the navies of the Western Hemisphere to rival any of those
of the Old World. Born in New York in 1802, Hawkins left a life on
land at age 16, when he joined the U.S. Navy as a midshipman. He
served on board the fabled frigates Constitution, Constellation
and Guerriere. After serving along the Atlantic coast, he
was transferred to the U.S. West Indies squadron which was commanded by
another of the U.S. Navy’s bright stars, Commodore David Porter.
Commodore Porter, a hero of the War of 1812, was court-martialed in
1825, and resigned to join the Mexican Navy, where he had been offered
command of the fleet. Porter began recruiting naval officers to
serve Mexico, and one he took with him was the young Midshipman Hawkins.
Taking a furlough from the naval
service, Hawkins resigned his commission and joined the Mexican Navy.
As a Mexican commander, Charles Hawkins spent several adventurous years
raiding Spanish shipping in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly around
Cuba. He sailed the Gulf in his five-gun brig Hermon, and
used the abandoned U.S. naval base at Key West as his center of
operations. He was arrested by U.S. authorities for violating the
Neutrality Act of 1819, but he was released on bail and quickly sailed
back to Veracruz for further orders. Soon, however, fortune turned
against him. Mexico’s naval funds began to dry up, and a wave of
distrust of American officers caused Hawkins to resign his commission
and move to Texas, where he became a civilian riverboat captain.
As dissent
turned into revolution, Hawkins joined General José Antonio Mexia, who
was planning an invasion of the Mexican mainland at the port city of
Tampico. During the invasion, Hawkins, now a major, served as
Mexia’s aide, and took part in the attack on the city. The
attack failed, however, and Hawkins escaped certain death by hitching a
ride on a passing ship bound for Brazoria. From there, he
journeyed to San Felipe, where he met General Sam Houston and offered
his services as a navy captain to the revolutionary government.
Houston recommended Hawkins to Governor Henry Smith, who in turn
recommended him to Texas’s agents in New Orleans, Stephen F. Austin,
Branch T. Archer, and William H. Wharton. The agents hired Hawkins
on the spot, and put him in charge of acquiring and fitting out the
eight-gun schooner Independence, formerly the U.S. revenue cutter Ingham. Hawkins greatly distressed the cash-strapped Texas
agents with his extravagant expenses, but he fitted the schooner out as
his flagship and was soon prowling the Gulf for Mexican shipping as a
captain without a commission, which he did not receive until March 12,
1836. At the time of his appointment, President Burnet considered
Hawkins to be the senior captain of the squadron, so he was referred to
for the rest of his life as Commodore of the Texas Navy.
As Santa
Anna’s army marched relentlessly from Mexico to the Alamo, Goliad, San
Felipe and Harrisburg, Hawkins maintained his base of operations at
Matagorda, then removed it to Galveston as the Mexican army closed in.
He oversaw the naval defense of Galveston until the Texas victory at San
Jacinto on April 21, 1836, then removed his fleet to New Orleans for
repairs and recruiting. A strict disciplinarian, Hawkins was known
to put ship captains in irons as quickly as a lowly sailor, and one
evening in May 1836, while sailing aboard the warship Brutus, he
leveled a cannon and fired it at the Invincible, thinking it
might be a Mexican warship lurking in the darkness. He tried to
sack Captain William Hurd of the Brutus, but Hurd’s crew
refused to allow any replacement officers on board, and Hurd remained
one of Hawkins’ enemies in the service.
After the
revolution, Hawkins slowed down his activity, preferring to stay close
to port in New Orleans while waiting for the impoverished government to
scrape up enough money to pay his men and provision his ships.
President Burnet ordered Hawkins to blockade the Mexican port of
Matamoros, on the Rio Grande, but the Invincible and Brutus
sailed to New York without orders, remaining there until the following
spring. The Independence was therefore outnumbered by the
newly rebuilt Mexican fleet, and Hawkins was reluctant to leave his safe
berth at the mouth of the Mississippi. His flagship wintered in
the Crescent City while Hawkins took up residence at a boarding house on
Canal Street. In early 1837, Hawkins caught smallpox, and he died
on February 11. Commodore Hawkins was buried with full military
honors, leaving command of the fleet to Captain George Wheelwright.
For further
reading, see The Texas Navy in Forgotten Battles and Shirtsleeve
Diplomacy, by Jim Dan Hill, and “Charles E. Hawkins: Sailor of Three
Republics,” in Gulf Coast Historical Review, volume 5 (Spring 1990),
beginning on page 93, by Professor James H. Denham. Also, review the
Texas Bibliography at this web site. The
New Handbook of Texas
Prepared by Admiral Johnathan W. Jordan
Copyright © 2000-2003
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