ALS, three pages, on two lightly-lined adjoining sheets, 8 x 9.5, January 27, 1859. Letter to David Burnet. In full: “I have to apologize for not replying earlier to your letter of the 27th on the subject of the Labadie Slanders published in the Texas Almanac 1859. About the time yours reached me I received another on the same subject from Doctor Francis Moore, written in a frank and spirit friendly offering himself as a mediator in behalf of Messr. Richardson, publishers of said Almanac to which I replied in like spirit. I delayed writing to you until I should hear from the Doctor but up to the present time I have received no answer.
When first the Labadie slanderous lies in his apocryphal narrative of the Texas campaign came under my notice. I intended to have written to you in relation thereto, but I heard that the Angel of Death had crossed the threshold of your house, and had borne away your most cherished and dearest earthly solace. I had known in early life and at a subsequent period, the saintly object of your affections. Your bereavement consequent harrowing affliction called forth my deepest sympathy.
We are both old men and near the verge of the Grave, both of our paths tending hitherwards have been wearily and troublous. (Mine particularly so) but to the chastening hand of a divine Providence I have bowed in submission and in the late evening of my life have looked forward with humility to passing the short period assigned me in a state of gratitude amidst my children, grandchildren, now clustering around me and in the respect of my friend and fellow citizens and when the Angel of Death removes me likewise to leave as an inheritance name of good report to posterity. Imbued with such feelings. You sir needs think with what abhorrence I regard the attempt of this man Labadie and his associates (for I have reason to believe it to be a conspiracy of a Jew who use this Labadie as their tool) to asperse my character and in preconceived villainy and deliberate malice to do me injury for I must solemnly declare that all that Labadie and his fellow conspirators have charged me with in said narrative, is infamously false and untrue in all and every particular and without any foundation.
Whatsoever and further I say that the narrative of the man of veracity! (Labadie) as far as I have any knowledge of the Campaign is purely false and made up a fabricated lies, concocted by the Author's and his associates for vile purposes best known to themselves and on examining the premises and becoming acquainted with the facts, every true minded man will arrive at the same conclusion. In looking over Labadie’s narrative, I can detect and recognize the cowardly spirit that acted secretly in Cabals against the authority of the Com in chief of the Army whilst he was conducting successfully the campaign against the enemy but their machinations are overruled and held in check by him. After the Com-in-chief left the Army temporarily in consequence of the wound he received in the Battle again mutinous spirits busied themselves in spreading the most atrocious reports of mismanagement and gross misconduct of the then Executive and said & did everything they could to bring the Existing Government into contempt and derision with the Army and people and went so far as traitorously to attempt the arrest of the President of the Republic under the infamous pretense of high crimes and misdemeanors. In which attempt they were likewise foiled and the Republic saved from them and anarchy to all of which and other matters of import the concocters of the narrative are oblivious.
Again after the lapse of nearly a quarter-century malignant spirits like venomous reptiles revive from their dormant states to exude their poison and taint the atmosphere with their pestiferous exhalations and humble as I am they single me out as their victim and mark me as object to be covered with their filthy slime and not content with the injury they have so ruthlessly inflicted they evince a disposition to commit additional crime to accomplish if they can their nefarious designs ‘but they bite a file.’
Trusting to my own innocence conscious of having discharged my many and onerous duties to the Republic truly and faithfully governed by no ‘sinister influence from without.’ I have appealed the laws of the land for redress against my calumniators and libelous slanderers and every high-minded honorable man will approve the course that I have adopted a vindication of myself and to expose a conspiracy not only against myself but also as an attempt to foist a narrative of fabricated lies upon the people of Texas as matter for history.
As to Messr. Richardson they sent an agent here (a gentlemen of the name Preston) who in their name and behalf entered into an arrangement which he faithfully observed by them was to be a final settlement of the question between them and myself. Since the return of their agent they have in part repudiated their own agreement and as yet the matter is unsettled states.
You say that this matter has already subjected them to loss of time and expenditures of money. It has also sir cost me great loss of time and expenditure and the end is not yet. Slander is a costly as well as guilty indulgence.
Those who have conspired together to slander me doubtless thought that by the remoteness of distance. My inability and humble position that they could do so, with impunity, but in this they will find themselves greatly mistaken and whatever of evil betides it is entirely of their own seeking, they have wantonly assailed me and with malice intended, Seek to do me injury. I am but acting in my own self-defense and in the maintenance of my own good name and will in all confidence leave the issue to God and my country.” Reverse of the second page has been docketed in Burnet’s hand, “Col. John Forbes, Nacoge, Jany 1859.”
Intersecting folds, one through a single letter of signature, mild toning to first page heaviest along a central vertical strip, a couple small pencil notations, and light wrinkling, otherwise fine condition.
The significance of this letter from Nacogdoches Mayor John Forbes to David Burnet, the first president of the Republic of Texas, revolves around unsubstantiated claims about his actions during the Battle of San Jacinto.
Dr. Nicholas Labadie (1802-1867), a physician and army surgeon during the Texas Revolution, re-publicized the rumor of an “apocryphal narrative of the Texas campaign” of Forbes killing an unarmed woman prisoner. In 1858, the Texas Almanac for 1859 published his first-person account bearing witness to Forbes’ alleged atrocities. Additionally, Labadie asserted Forbes murdered several additional Mexican women, took prisoners without justification, and stole a gold snuffbox from a dead Mexican officer. Forbes considered these claims to be a “conspiracy not only against myself but also as an attempt to foist a narrative of fabricated lies upon the people of Texas as matter for history.”
Forbes immediately filed a $25,000 slander suit in district court. While he would eventually be vindicated, he nonetheless resorted to shopworn stereotypes of the time by alleging in his defense, “I have reason to believe it to be a conspiracy of a Jew who use this Labadie as their tool.” Stereotypes notwithstanding, after nine years, in 1867, Forbes was exonerated for a second and final time. Tired and debt-ridden, Dr. Labadie eventually dropped all charges and testified that his allegations about the commissary general were "hearsay." The court cleared Forbes once again, charged him $78.97 in court costs, and fined Labadie $141.07. The affair of the murdered dead woman at San Jacinto once again vanished from the public’s eye. The Robert Davis Collection. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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