fatalities, who became the hero-martyr of the Battle of Mier. El Diario del Gobierno, March 31, 1843.
17. In the days that followed, six more Texans would die of their wounds, bringing the total number of Texan deaths in the Battle of Mier to sixteen.
18. Green's estimate of the Mexican troop strength is wide of the mark. Ampudia left Matamoros with four hundred men under his command and on December 23 joined forces with Antonio Canales and his three hundred militia troops (defensores). With the addition of a sapper brigade and presidiale companies that had been hastily organized in the towns along the river, the combined Mexican force probably numbered somewhat less than one thousand men. Haynes, Soldiers of Misfortune, 68.
19. Green is presumably referring to General Ampudia's report of the battle, in which the Mexican leader noted that "the gutters of Mier flowed with the blood of the valiant Mexicans defending the most exposed line." Ampudia to Tornel, December 26, 1842, El Siglo Diez y Nueve, January 7, 1843.
20. Mexican casualty reports, not surprisingly, differ widely from Green's claims. According to Antonio Canales, forty Mexican troops were killed and sixty wounded in the fighting; Ampudia gave the Mexican casualties as thirty-three dead, sixty-five wounded. Canales to Tornel, December 26, 1842, ibid., January 7, 1843; "Estado que manifesto los muertos y heridos que ha tenido espresando, en la accion dada a los tejanos el dia anterior," ibid., March 1, 1843.
21. Green's assessment of the contest was shared by many Texans, but valor and martial prowess did not always add up to success on the battlefield, and the fact remains that the expedition ended ignominiously for the Texans at Mier. Insubordination and a lack of self-discipline had frustrated the campaign from the outset. As William Fisher noted ruefully, "We were utterly defeated, not by the enemy, but by ourselves." Telegraph and Texas Register, August 2, 1843.
Chapter Nine ~ Notes
1. Neither Green nor Fisher reproached Sinnickson for bearing the white flag, although by all accounts the doctor does not appear to have been cut out for soldiering. According to Fisher, Sinnickson "was morally and physically irresponsible - deaf as a stone wall - a cripple - by education and inclination a civilian." In the Texas Revolution, Sinnickson's service record had also been less than distinguished. Green himself had placed the doctor under arrest in 1836 "for neglect of duty and disobedience of orders." Shortly thereafter, Sinnickson resigned his post, citing reasons of ill health and an "inability to endure the fatigues of marching (when deprived of a horse through misfortune)." Northern Standard, January 14, 1846; Green to Sinnickson, August 14, 1836, Green Papers; Sinnickson to Green, September 7, 1836, ibid.
2. In fact, General Ampudia appears to have sought to provide for the Texas prisoners the best treatment that circumstances would allow, asking the women of Mier to extend to the Texan wounded the same compassion as to the Mexican soldiers injured in the battle. Haynes, Soldiers of Misfortune 78.
5. Nueva Reinosa.
4. A league was 2.63 miles.
5. Tom was a light-skinned quadroon who had been Sam Houston's office-boy in Texas. Esau was described by another Mier prisoner as "a black fellow who would grace a cotton field most suitably." Both men were close friends of General Ampudia. Houston did not dispute the fact that the two men had been his former slaves. McCutchan, Mier Expedition Diary, 67-68; "Speech on
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