Green, J. of the Texian Expedition Against Mier (tjg

ability of a campaign into Mexico so late in the year, and it seems probable that any new orders to Somervell would have followed in a similar vein. Haynes, Soldiers of Misfortune, 51-52, 57; George Lord, "George Lord, Mier Prisoner," Frontier Times 15:535.

16. Not surprisingly, the anti-Houston press heaped censure upon the president's commander when it learned of the aborted expedition to the Rio Grande. The Telegraph and Texas Register editorialized, "So far as the honor and credit of the Republic is concerned, he might better have merely marched his army up the first hill west of Bexar, and then marched down again, and then disbanded his troops and gone home....He certainly would have done less injury to the country, and have gained more glory, than he has acquired by the marching all the way to Guerrero and back again without capturing a single prisoner of note, or fighting one battle." Telegraph and Texas Register, January 18, 1843.

Chapter Seven ~ Notes

1. A native of Virginia, William S. Fisher had settled in Gonzales in 1834. During the Revolution he participated in the battles of Gonzales, San Antonio, and San Jacinto. After 1836 he served briefly as interim secretary of war, and fought against the Comanches in the Council House Fight in 1840. In that same year, federalists in Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo Leon declared their independence from Mexico, establishing the Republic of the Rio Grande. Fisher was recruited by Antonio Canales to lead Texas mercenaries into northern Mexico to fight against the centralist government. On the eve of the Somervell Expedition, he entertained hopes of leading a filibuster expedition into the Rio Grande valley. Dixon and Kemp, Heroes of San Jacinto, 253; Haynes, Soldiers of Misfortune, 45.

2. Green is referring to the Militia Law of 1841. See note 7, Chapter VI.

3. Green was neither elected nor appointed to the rank of second-in-command of the filibuster enterprise that would soon become known as the Mier Expedition. He appears to have assumed that post upon being ordered by Fisher to take charge of the task of ferrying some of the men downriver. Green's presumptiveness was not well received by some of the men, who took to calling him "the Commodore." McCutchan, Mier Expedition Diary, 34-36.

4. George W. Bonnell, for whom Mount Bonnell, near Austin, is named, had served as commissioner of Indian affairs in the first Houston administration. After moving to Austin he became the editor of the Texas Sentinel, later serving as a member of the Santa Fé Expedition. Webb, Handbook of Texas 1:186-187.

5. A physician, Richard Fox Brenham had been appointed by Mirabeau Lamar to serve as a commissioner of the Santa Fé Expedition in 1841. Webb, Handbook of Texas 1:213.

6. The British flag taken by the Texans later created a diplomatic incident and the temporary rupturing of relations between Mexico and Great Britain. Following the Battle of Mier, the flag was discovered by Ampudia's troops among the baggage of the captured Texans and sent back to Mexico City as a trophy of war. Nine months later, British chargé d'affaires Percy Doyle noticed the flag on display during a reception at the National Palace and demanded it be removed. When the Mexican government failed to do so, he suspended his diplomatic functions. Haynes, Soldiers of Misfortune, 170.

7. The alcalde of Mier was Francisco Pérez.

8. Jesse Yocum was accidentally shot by John C. C. Hill, aged fifteen, when Hill's gun discharged as the two youths were climbing a bullrush fence on their way back to camp. Ibid., 67.

9. Cuban-born Pedro Ampudia had served as an artillery officer in the 1836 Texas campaign