Nacogdoches, 23d April, 1837. 

To GENERAL M. B. LAMAR. 

Dear Sir,

As you intend writing some account of the War with Mexico, I know that you will do the brave Col. Fannin and his men that justice which, so far, has not been done. Santa Anna and General Urea have both published to the world base and palpable slanders upon their memory, which, so far as I have seen, have not yet been repelled properly. It is not my purpose now to advert to any of the proofs which exist that Urea formed a Treaty with Col. Fannin, by which he was to receive for himself and all his men the usual treatment of prisoners of war. I only intend to refer to the statements made by General Santa Anna, immediately after he was brought into our camp a prisoner. During the first conversation which he held after being brought in, he alluded to Colonel Fannin and his men. No one had asked him about the matter, up to the time he commenced the conversation himself. What was first said, I do not distinctly recollect; but as soon as he commenced talking on that subject, I gave strict attention to what he said. He did not pretend to deny the existence of the Treaty; but denied that he had given a positive order to have them shot. He said that the Law of Mexico required, that all who were taken with arms in their hands should be shot; that General Urea was an officer of the Government, and could enter into no contract in violation of the Laws; and was going on with a course of reasoning, to show the correctness of his position, when I interrupted him, and told him Urea had made a Treaty stipulating to extend to Fannin and his men the usual treatment of prisoners of war; that that agreement alone had induced them to surrender, and that to shoot them in violation of that treaty afterwards, whatever might be the laws of Mexico, was murder of the blackest character; and that if he regarded the preservation of his own life, it would perhaps be well for him to offer no palliation to a crime which would blacken the character of all the officers concerned in it, and would attach disgrace to the Mexican Nation as long as its history should continue to be recorded. I hope, Sir, that you have been able to collect all the facts relative to that affair; and that, in your proposed history, ample justice will be done to the memory of those brave martyrs to our cause, many of whom came from the same state with ourselves.

With great respect, yours, THOMAS J. RUSK.