that all the Santa Fé prisoners with them should be so likewise treated." Thus General Woll captured judge, jury, clerks, lawyers, and citizens, while in the peaceable pursuit of their daily avocations. The loss of the Texians was not one killed or wounded, and the only damage done by the Mexicans was killing a chicken rooster near the position of our men.

General Woll pledged his word and honour as an officer, a gentleman,and a Frenchman, for the faithful observance of these promises, and it affords me pleasure to record the fact that he exerted himself in carrying them out. His conduct in the case of Captain Fitzgerald, Van Ness, and Hancock,2 Santa Fé prisoners, when they were left at San Fernandez, by order of the government, to be shot, was highly praiseworthy. He wrote to the government, if the order was persisted in, that it must also accept his resignation in the army, and thus these men were saved.

But to return to General Woll at San Antonio. He delayed his stay in that city until the 16th, by which time Colonel Matthew Caldwell3 (Old Paint) had assembled two hundred and ten men in the Salado bottom, about six miles east of the city, in a well-selected position. Colonel Caldwell then despatched Captain Hays, with his mounted company, to the city, to draw out the [31] enemy. He approached near to the Alamo, when the enemy's cavalry, several hundred, advanced upon him. As directed, he fell back upon Caldwell's position, where the Texians lay in eager expectation to receive the enemy. They were not long kept in suspense. General Woll, with the vanity peculiar to his adopted country, said "he would go in person and drive the Texian wolves from the bushes." He accordingly marched with nearly his whole force, including a large number of the resident Mexicans of Bexar, and attacked Caldwell's position. He used every persuasion to make his men charge the Texians, but to no purpose. The Texian rifle, when directed by steady nerves, as in this case, was awfully destructive. In the attack upon the Texians, the Mexicans had sixty killed and many more wounded, while of the Texians there were only one killed and nine wounded: the one killed being a man by the name of Jet, living near San Antonio, and who was remarkable for his cool daring both in Indian and Mexican fighting.

General Woll, sorely disappointed in driving the "Texian wolves from the bush," was about retreating, when he was informed that a company of Texians were advancing upon his rear, some two miles distant. This company proved to be the gallant and lamented Captain Dawson and his company of fifty-three men, mostly from Fayette county, who had determined upon succouring Caldwell; and it proved a favourable opportunity for General Woll [32] to withdraw from Caldwell without the appearance of flight; consequently, he retreated to some distance, and despatched a large portion of his force to attack Dawson.

Dawson selected his position in a musquet thicket favourable for his rifleshooting, and where he could have whipped a much superior force of Mexicans